Odds and Ends.

I lounge in the doorway and languish in vain While Tom, Dick and Harry are dancing with Jane

MY spirit rises to the music’s beat; There is a leaden fiend lurks in my feet! To move unto your motion, Love, were sweet. Somewhere, I think, some other where, not here, In other ages, on another sphere, I danced with you, and you with me, my dear. In perfect motion did our bodies sway, To perfect music that was heard alway; Woe’s me, that am so dull of foot to-day! To move unto your motion, Love, were sweet; My spirit rises to the music’s beat— But, ah, the leaden demon in my feet!

O SWAY, and swing, and sway, And swing, and sway, and swing! Ah me, what bliss like unto this, Can days and daylight bring? A rose beneath your feet Has fallen from my head; Its odour rises sweet, All crushed it lies, and dead. O Love is like a rose, Fair-hued, of fragrant breath; A tender flow’r that lives an hour, And is most sweet in death. O swing, and sway, and swing, And rise, and sink, and fall! There is no bliss like unto this, This is the best of all.

WITH fruit and flowers the board is deckt, The wine and laughter flow; I’ll not complain—could one expect So dull a world to know? You look across the fruit and flowers, My glance your glances find.— It is our secret, only ours, Since all the world is blind.

ERE all the world had grown so drear, When I was young and you were here, ’Mid summer roses in summer weather, What pleasant times we’ve had together! We were not Phyllis, simple-sweet, And Corydon; we did not meet By brook or meadow, but among A Philistine and flippant throng Which much we scorned; (less rigorous It had no scorn at all for us!) How many an eve of sweet July, Heedless of Mrs. Grundy’s eye, We’ve scaled the stairway’s topmost height, And sat there talking half the night; And, gazing on the crowd below, Thanked Fate and Heaven that made us so;— To hold the pure delights of brain Above light loves and sweet champagne. For, you and I, we did eschew The egoistic “I” and “you;” And all our observations ran On Art and Letters, Life and Man. Proudly we sat, we two, on high, Throned in our Objectivity; Scarce friends, not lovers (each avers), But sexless, safe Philosophers. * * * * * * Dear Friend, you must not deem me light If, as I lie and muse to-night, I give a smile and not a sigh To thoughts of our Philosophy.

WHAT wonder that I should be dreaming Out here in the garden to-day? The light through the leaves is streaming,— Paulina cries, “Play!” The birds to each other are calling, The freshly-cut grasses smell sweet; To Teddy’s dismay, comes falling The ball at my feet. “Your stroke should be over, not under!” “But that’s such a difficult way!” The place is a springtide wonder Of lilac and may; Of lilac, and may, and laburnum, Of blossom,—We’er losing the set! “Those volleys of Jenny’s,—return them; “Stand close to the net!” * * * * * * You are so fond of the Maytime, My friend, far away; Small wonder that I should be dreaming Of you in the garden to-day.

THE mountains in fantastic lines Sweep, blue-white, to the sky, which shines Blue as blue gems; athwart the pines The lake gleams blue. We three were here, three years gone by; Our Poet, with fine-frenzied eye, You, steeped in learned lore, and I, A poet too. Our Poet brought us books and flowers, He read us Faust; he talked for hours Philosophy (sad Schopenhauer’s), Beneath the trees: And do you mind that sunny day, When he, as on the sward he lay, Told of Lassalle who bore away The false Louise? Thrice-favoured bard! to him alone That green and snug retreat was shown, Where to the vulgar herd unknown, Our pens we plied. (For, in those distant days, it seems, We cherished sundry idle dreams, And with our flowing foolscap reams The Fates defied.) And after, when the day was gone, And the hushed, silver night came on, He showed us where the glow-worm shone;— We stooped to see. There, too, by yonder moon we swore Platonic friendship o’er and o’er; No folk, we deemed, had been before So wise and free. * * * * * * * And do I sigh or smile to-day? Dead love or dead ambition, say, Which mourn we most? Not much we weigh Platonic friends. On you the sun is shining free; Our Poet sleeps in Italy, Beneath an alien sod; on me The cloud descends.