Collected English Verse — Robert Bridges. b. 1844, d. 1930 (Part 2 of 4)

I have given thee, beauty enough is t
hine, As thou, aslant with trim tackle and shrouding,
  From the proud nostril curve of a prow’s line
In the offing scatterest foam, thy white sails crowding.

844    Pater Filio

SENSE with keenest edge unusàd,
  Yet unsteel’d by scathing fire;
Lovely feet as yet unbruisàd
  On the ways of dark desire;
Sweetest hope that lookest smil
ing O’er the wilderness defiling!

Why such beauty, to be blighted
  By the swarm of foul destruction?
Why such innocence delighted,
  When sin stalks to thy seduction?
All the litanies e’er chaunted
Shall not keep thy faith undaunted.

I have pray’d the sainted Morning
  To unclasp her hands to hold thee;
From resignful Eve’s adorning
  Stol’n a robe of peace to enfold thee;
With all charms of man’s contriving
Arm’d thee for thy lonely striving.

Me too once unthinking Nature,
  —Whence Love’s timeless mockery took me,—
Fashion’d so divine a creature,
  Yea, and like a beast forsook me.
I forgave, but tell the measure
Of her crime in thee, my treasure.

845    Winter Nightfall

THE day begins to droop,—
  Its course is done:
But nothing tells the place
  Of the setting sun.

The hazy darkness deepens,
  And up the lane
You may hear, but cannot see,
  The homing wain.

An engine pants and hums
  In the farm hard by:
Its lowering smoke is lost
  In the lowering sky.

The soaking branches drip,
  And all night through
The dropping will not cease
  In the avenue.

A tall man there in the house
  Must keep his chair:
He knows he will never again
  Breathe the spring air:

His heart is worn with work;
  He is giddy and sick
If he rise to go as far
  As the nearest rick:

He thinks of his morn of life,
  His hale, strong years;
And braves as he may the night
  Of darkness and tears.

846    When Death to Either shall come

WHEN Death to either shall come,—
  I pray it be first to me,—
Be happy as ever at home,
  If so, as I wish, it be.

Possess thy heart, my own;
  And sing to the child on thy knee,
Or read to thyself alone
  The songs that I made for thee.

847    The Linnet

I HEARD a linnet courting
  His lady in the spring:
His mates were idly sporting,
  Nor stayed to hear him sing
    His song of love.—
I fear my speech distorting
    His tender love.

The phrases of his pleading
  Were full of young delight;
And she that gave him heeding
  Interpreted aright
    His gay, sweet notes,-
- So sadly marred in the reading,—
    His tender notes.

And when he ceased, the hearer
  Awaited the refrain,
Till swiftly perching nearer
  He sang his song again,
    His pretty song:—
Would that my verse spake clearer
    His tender song!