Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,—
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?
Minnie and Winnie
Slept in a shell.
Sleep, little ladies!
And they slept well.
Pink was the shell within,
Silver without;
Sounds of the great sea
Wander’d about.
Sleep, little ladies!
Wake not soon!
Echo on echo
Dies to the moon.
Two bright stars
Peep’d into the shell.
“What are you dreaming of?
Who can tell?”
Started a green linnet
Out of the croft;
Wake, little ladies,
The sun is aloft!
If sunset clouds could grow on trees
It would but match the may in flower;
And skies be underneath the seas
No topsyturvier than a shower.
If mountains rose on wings to wander
They were no wilder than a cloud;
Yet all my praise is mean as slander,
Mean as these mean words spoken aloud.
And never more than now I know
That man’s first heaven is far behind;
Unless the blazing seraph’s bloq
Has left him in the garden blind.
Witness, O Sun that blinds our eyes,
Unthinkable and unthankable King,
That though all other wonder dies
I wonder not at wondering.
O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
Missing so much and so much?
O fat white woman whom nobody loves,
Why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
When the grass is soft as the breast of doves
And hsivering sweet to the touch?
O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,
Missing so much and so much?
Frances Cornwell was the daughter of Charles Darwin. I am posting her heavy-handed poem only for the fun of sharing G. K. Chesterton’s devastating rejoinder.
Why do you rush through the field in trains,
Guessing so much and so much?
Why do you flash through the flowery meads,
Fat-headed poet that nobody reads;
And why do you know such a frightful lot
About people in gloves as such?
And how the devil can you be sure,
Guessing so much and so much,
How do you know but what someone who loves
Always to see me in nice white gloves
At the end of the field you are rushing by,
Is waiting for his Old Dutch?
Had you noticed Cornwell’s snobbish hypocrisy?
He drew a circle that shut me out—
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout,
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!
The fairies have never a penny to spend,
They haven’t a thing put by,
But theirs is the dower of bird and of flower
And theirs are the earth and sky.
And though you should live in a palace of gold
Or sleep in a dried-up ditch,
You could never be poor as the fairies are,
And never as rich.
Since ever and ever the world began
They have danced like a ribbon of flame,
They have sung their song through the centuries long
And yet it is never the same.
And though you be foolish and though you be wise,
With hair of silver or gold,
You could never be young as the fairies are,
And never as old.
Now another day is breaking,
Sleep was sweet and so is waking.
Dear lord, I promised you last night
Never again to sulk or fight.
Such vows are easier to keep
When a child is sound asleep.
Today, O Lord, for your dear sake,
I’ll try to keep them when awake.
Ever, ever
Stir and shiver
The reeds and rushes
By the river:
Ever, ever,
As if in dream,
The lone moon’s silver
Sleeks the stream.
What old sorrow,
What lost love,
Moon, reeds, rushes,
Dream you of?
‘Why?’ was published in Bells and Grass, a 1941 collection of Walter de la Mare’s poems for children.
With this round glass
I can make magic talk—
A myriad shell show
In a scrap of chalk;
Of but an inch of moss
A forest—flowers and trees;
A drop of water
Like a hive of bees.
I lie in wait and watch
How the deft spider jets
The woven web-silk
From his spinnerets;
What tigerish claws he has!
And oh, the silly flies
That stumble into his snare—
With all those eyes!
Not even the tiniest thing
By this my magic glass
Will make more marvelous
And itself surpass.
Yes, and with lenses like it,
Eyeing the moon,
‘Twoud seem you’d walk there
In an afternoon!
‘Magnifying Glass’ was published in Bells and Grass, a 1941 collection of Walter de la Mare’s poems for children.
Look at the stars! look, look up at the skies!
O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air!
The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there!
Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves’-eyes!
The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies!
Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare!
Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare!
Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.
Buy then! bid then!—What?—Prayer, patience, alms, vows.
Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs!
Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows!
These are indeed the barn, withindoors house
The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse
Christ home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows.
An abele is a white poplar.