MOODS

Oh that a Song would sing itself to me
  Out of the heart of Nature, or the heart
  Of man, the child of Nature, not of Art,
  Fresh as the morning, salt as the salt sea,
With just enough of bitterness to be
  A medicine to this sluggish mood, and start
  The life-blood in my veins, and so impart
  Healing and help in this dull lethargy! 
Alas! not always doth the breath of song
  Breathe on us.  It is like the wind that bloweth
  At its own will, not ours, nor tarries long;
We hear the sound thereof, but no man knoweth
  From whence it comes, so sudden and swift and strong,
  Nor whither in its wayward course it goeth.

WOODSTOCK PARK

Here in a little rustic hermitage
  Alfred the Saxon King, Alfred the Great,
  Postponed the cares of king-craft to translate
  The Consolations of the Roman sage. 
Here Geoffrey Chaucer in his ripe old age
  Wrote the unrivalled Tales, which soon or late
  The venturous hand that strives to imitate
  Vanquished must fall on the unfinished page. 
Two kings were they, who ruled by right divine,
  And both supreme; one in the realm of Truth,
  One in the realm of Fiction and of Song. 
What prince hereditary of their line,
  Uprising in the strength and flush of youth,
  Their glory shall inherit and prolong?

THE FOUR PRINCESSES AT WILNA

A PHOTOGRAPH

Sweet faces, that from pictured casements lean
  As from a castle window, looking down
  On some gay pageant passing through a town,
  Yourselves the fairest figures in the scene;
With what a gentle grace, with what serene
  Unconsciousness ye wear the triple crown
  Of youth and beauty and the fair renown
  Of a great name, that ne’er hath tarnished been! 
From your soft eyes, so innocent and sweet,
  Four spirits, sweet and innocent as they,
  Gaze on the world below, the sky above;
Hark! there is some one singing in the street;
  “Faith, Hope, and Love! these three,” he seems to say;
  “These three; and greatest of the three is Love.”

HOLIDAYS

The holiest of all holidays are those
  Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;
  The secret anniversaries of the heart,
  When the full river of feeling overflows;—­
The happy days unclouded to their close;
  The sudden joys that out of darkness start
  As flames from ashes; swift desires that dart
  Like swallows singing down each wind that blows! 
White as the gleam of a receding sail,
  White as a cloud that floats and fades in air,
  White as the whitest lily on a stream,
These tender memories are;—­a Fairy Tale
  Of some enchanted land we know not where,
  But lovely as a landscape in a dream.