Part 4 (1/2)

A JANUARY MORNING

How strangely shone the crescent of the moon In the grey twilight dawning o'er the sea; A star, that seemed of stars a memory, (As faint as lilies on a sultry noon) Ebbed in the chilly waxing of the morn; The sea was rest in motion; hardly stirred Its waves upon the beach; there was no bird To break its undersong of silence born.

The misty shadows lay upon the trees, Whose colour was but echo of the tone That earth and sky were wrapped in, harmonies Of wedded hue were visible alone, --And over all a breath of memory blown, Of other dawnings upon other seas.

FEBRUARY

Can there be aught to touch the sleeping dead To consciousness; can love still call to love Across that dark abyss; can feeling move Dead heart and brain, that once with blood were fed, To stir and quicken in their narrow bed, For that which yet is living? We believe Such force has love, that it may still retrieve Its heart's Eurydice among the dead.

I shall awake, then, shall awake my soul-- Not when full summer beautifies the earth, But with the first sweet stirring of the sap, Ere yet the fields are green or leaves unroll: I shall but sleep awhile in Nature's lap, To be reborn with February's rebirth.

TO APRIL

I

'Tis not alone the loveliness of spring That makes spring lovely; there's a sense behind Of wonders, deeper than the eye can find In daffodils, or swallows on the wing; A subtler pleasure than the sense can bind When on the dusty roads the rain-drops sing As March turns April, and the hours bring Songs to deaf ears, and beauty to the blind.

April is secret nature's treasure room, Which she unlocks to us who love her well In magic moments; then indeed we see The wonder of all spring-times, from the gloom Of world-beginnings, long ere Adam fell-- And all the beauty of all springs to be.

TO APRIL

II

There will be other days as fair as these Which I shall never see; for other eyes The lyric loveliness of cherry trees Shall bloom milk-white against the windy skies And I not praise them; where upon the stream The faery tracery of willows lies I shall not see the sunlight's flying gleam, Nor watch the swallows sudden dip and rise.

Most mutable the forms of beauty are, Yet Beauty most eternal and unchanged, Perfect for us, and for posterity Still perfect; yearly is the pageant ranged.

And dare we wish that our poor dust should mar The wonder of such immortality?

TO DANIEL MANIN

If that most n.o.ble soul, which, here on earth, Was known as Manin, yet have consciousness Of what is, and what is not, being not less Than here he was, in courage and in worth, Seeing the world whereon we sweat and strive; Shall he not know his Italy, and bless, And in his own heart praise the steadfastness That held him to his purpose when alive?

Shall he not have reward for all his pain, Who, dying with his incompleted aim, Saw failure only, and the bitter toll Of loved ones lost, and lost, it seemed, in vain?

Must not that heart still keep his country's name, Though o'er him all death's waters heave and roll?

TO THE LEADERS OF BOTH PARTIES

January 1910

”A people's voice, we are a people yet.”