Envy is blind; not Love, whose eyes
   Are purged and clear
Through gazing on the perfect skies
   Of thine, my dear.

 Music for the dying

FROM THE FRENCH OF SULLY PRUDHOMME

Ye who will help me in my dying pain,
   Speak not a word:  let all your voices cease. 
Let me but hear some soft harmonious strain,
   And I shall die at peace.

Music entrances, soothes, and grants relief
   From all below by which we are opprest;
I pray you, speak no word unto my grief,
   But lull it into rest.

Tired am I of all words, and tired of aught
   That may some falsehood from the ear conceal,
Desiring rather sounds which ask no thought,
   Which I need only feel: 

 A melody in whose delicious streams
   The soul may sink, and pass without a breath
From fevered fancies into quiet dreams,
   From dreaming into death.

 Farewell to A Singer

ON HER MARRIAGE

As those who hear a sweet bird sing,
   And love each song it sings the best,
Grieve when they see it taking wing
   And flying to another nest: 

We, who have heard your voice so oft,
   And loved it more than we can tell,
Our hearts grow sad, our voices soft,
   Our eyes grow dim, to say farewell.

It is not kind to leave us thus;
   Yet we forgive you and combine,
Although you now bring grief to us,
   To wish you joy, for auld lang syne.

 The city of golf

Would you like to see a city given over,
   Soul and body, to a tyrannising game? 
If you would, there’s little need to be a rover,
   For St. Andrews is the abject city’s name.

It is surely quite superfluous to mention,
   To a person who has been here half an hour,
That Golf is what engrosses the attention
   Of the people, with an all-absorbing power.

Rich and poor alike are smitten with the fever;
   Their business and religion is to play;
And a man is scarcely deemed a true believer,
   Unless he goes at least a round a day.

 The city boasts an old and learned college,
   Where you’d think the leading industry was Greek;
Even there the favoured instruments of knowledge
   Are a driver and a putter and a cleek.

All the natives and the residents are patrons
   Of this royal, ancient, irritating sport;
All the old men, all the young men, maids and matrons—­
   The universal populace, in short.

In the morning, when the feeble light grows stronger,
   You may see the players going out in shoals;
And when night forbids their playing any longer,
   They tell you how they did the different holes

Golf, golf, golf—­is all the story! 
   In despair my overburdened spirit sinks,
Till I wish that every golfer was in glory,
   And I pray the sea may overflow the links.