Give me to clasp this earth with feeding roots like thine,
  To mount yon heaven with such star-aspiring head,
Fill full with sap and buds this shrunken life of mine,
  And from my boughs oh! might such stalwart sons be shed.

With loving cheek pressed close against thy horny breast,
  I hear the roar of sap mounting within thy veins;
Tingling with buds, thy great hands open towards the west,
  To catch the sweetheart winds that bring the sister rains.

O winds that blow from out the fruitful mouth of God,
  O rains that softly fall from His all-loving eyes,
You that bring buds to trees and daisies to the sod—­
  O God’s best Angel of the Spring, in me arise.

A BALLAD OF LONDON

(To H. W. MASSINSHAM)

Ah, London!  London! our delight,
Great flower that opens but at night,
Great City of the Midnight Sun,
Whose day begins when day is done.

Lamp after lamp against the sky
Opens a sudden beaming eye,
Leaping alight on either hand,
The iron lilies of the Strand.

Like dragonflies, the hansoms hover,
With jewelled eyes, to catch the lover;
The streets are full of lights and loves,
Soft gowns, and flutter of soiled doves.

The human moths about the light
Dash and cling close in dazed delight,
And burn and laugh, the world and wife,
For this is London, this is life!

Upon thy petals butterflies,
But at thy root, some say, there lies
A world of weeping trodden things,
Poor worms that have not eyes or wings.

From out corruption of their woe
Springs this bright flower that charms us so,
Men die and rot deep out of sight
To keep this jungle-flower bright.

Paris and London, World-Flowers twain
Wherewith the World-Tree blooms again,
Since Time hath gathered Babylon,
And withered Rome still withers on.

Sidon and Tyre were such as ye,
How bright they shone upon the Tree! 
But Time hath gathered, both are gone,
And no man sails to Babylon.

Ah, London!  London! our delight,
For thee, too, the eternal night,
And Circe Paris hath no charm
To stay Time’s unrelenting arm.

Time and his moths shall eat up all. 
Your chiming towers proud and tall
He shall most utterly abase,
And set a desert in their place.

PARIS DAY BY DAY:  A FAMILIAR EPISTLE

(To Mrs. Henry Harland[1])

Paris, half Angel, half Grisette,
I would that I were with thee yet,
Where the long boulevard at even
Stretches its starry lamps to heaven,
And whispers from a thousand trees
Vague hints of the Hesperides.

Once more, once more, my heart, to sit
With Aline’s smile and Harry’s wit,
To sit and sip the cloudy green,
With dreamy hints of speech between;