“In feasts we sat at silken boards,
    Endraped with silver gossameres,
  And ’round me sat my bearded lords,
    And maidens served whose sires were peers.

  “And coldly runs the salt, salt tide;
    I loved too well and she was fair,
  And here in bondage dire I bide,
    Who never thought to know despair.

  “I hate the stone, I fear the water;
    I dread the grey, the moaning sea;
  I pray thee bid thy lady daughter
    To fetch some wine to me.

  “For coldly, coldly, runs the tide;
    And all the foam is salt and strong;
  And here, athirst and cramped, I bide,
    And I have waited, waited long.”

Literary Monthly, 1910.

OUT OF THE HARBOR

STANTON BUDINGTON LEEDS ex-’08

  Across the breadth of many memoried years
    I catch a whiff of strong, salt air
      Light-hearted blowing of the gentle wind,
        And all the swaying of the sad and silent sea;
        On high a golden star, bright, peerless, free,
      In endless space confined,—­
  And light as laughter ’gainst my cheek, star-lit with tears,
    A wavy lock of sweet brown hair.

  The star wove silver webs across the ways
    Carved by the wind, a half-breathed sigh,
      That spoke in ripples.  “O Heart’s Delight,”
        I cried, “The skiff comes for me now across the water.” 
        And, as I bent to kiss her, Love’s fair daughter,
      She barely breathed, “Good-night,”
  And some musician blended Chopin with her phrase: 
    “Good-bye, Love’s youth, Youth’s love, good-bye.”

Literary Monthly, 1907.

SUCCESS

STANTON BUDINGTON LEEDS ex-’08

  The deep, dark clouds are yonder massed,
    And rain has drenched fields drear and dun,
  But o’er the farthest hills at last
    I see the sun!

Literary Monthly, 1905.

ON THE “CHANT D’AMOUR” OF BURNE-JONES

ROGER SHERMAN LOOMIS ’09

  Mysterious damozel in white,
  White like the swans that glide upon the pool below,
  Who art thou that with fingers light
  Playest upon those ivory keys such music low?

  O winged youth in dreamful thought,
  With eyelids weighed with utter sweetness, who art thou,
  With garments by the breezes caught,
  Whose hands with drowsy motion ply the bellows now?

  The youth and damsel answer not. 
  But thou, O listening knight-at-arms, thou mayest tell
  Who are these minstrels mild, and what
  The strains that here outside this quiet city swell.

  The youth with languid moving wrist
  In puissance may with any of the gods compare;
  No marvel thou must stay and list,
  For ’tis the Song of Love breathes on the evening air.