Song

With the tale of their arms complete:

They march for war and they march for peace,

For the lust of gold and fame's increase,

For victories sadder than defeat

They raise the dust on the highway.

All the armies of earth defied,

Love dwells in little paths aside.

All day long on the highway

Rushes an eager band,

With straining eyes for a worthless prize

That slips from the grasp like sand.

And men leave blood where their feet have stood

And bow them down unto brass and wood

Idols fashioned by their own hand—

Blind in the dust of the highway.

Power and gold and fame denied,

Love laughs glad in the paths aside.

Louise Driscoll [18

SONG

TAKE it, love!

"Twill soon be over,

With the thickening of the clover,

With the calling of the plover,

Take it, take it, lover.

Take it, boy!

The blossom's falling,

And the farewell cuckoo's calling,

While the sun and showers are one,

Take your love out in the sun.

Take it, girl!

And fear no after,

Take your fill of all this laughter,

Laugh or not, the tears will fall,
Take the laughter first of all.

Richard Le Gallienne [1866

495

"NEVER GIVE ALL THE HEART"

NEVER give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women, if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play,
And who can play it well enough

If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.

William Butler Yeats [1865

SONG

I CAME to the door of the House of Love

And knocked as the starry night went by; And my true love cried "Who knocks?" and I said "It is I."

And Love looked down from a lattice above

Where the roses were dry as the lips of the dead: "There is not room in the House of Love

For you both," he said.

I plucked a leaf from the porch and crept
Away through a desert of scoffs and scorns
To a lonely place where I prayed and wept
And wove me a crown of thorns.

I came once more to the House of Love

And knocked, ah, softly and wistfully,

And my true love cried "Who knocks?" and I said "None now but thee."

Song

And the great doors opened wide apart

And a voice rang out from a glory of light, "Make room, make room for a faithful heart In the House of Love, to-night."

Alfred Noyes [1880

497

IN PRAISE OF HER

FIRST SONG

From "Astrophel and Stella "

DOUBT you to whom my Muse these notes intendeth,
Which now my breast, o'ercharged, to music lendeth?
To you! to you! all song of praise is due;
Only in you my song begins and endeth.

Who hath the eyes which marry state with pleasure?
Who keeps the key of Nature's chiefest treasure?
To you! to you! all song of praise is due;
Only for you the heaven forgat all measure.

Who hath the lips where wit in fairness reigneth?
Who womankind at once both decks and staineth?
To you! to you! all song of praise is due;
Only by you Cupid his crown maintaineth.

Who hath the feet, whose step all sweetness planteth?
Who else, for whom Fame worthy trumpets wanteth?
To you! to you! all song of praise is due;
Only to you her sceptre Venus granteth.

Who hath the breast, whose milk doth passions nourish? Whose grace is such, that when it chides doth cherish?

To you! to you! all song of praise is due;

Only through you the tree of life doth flourish.

Who hath the hand, which without stroke subdueth?

Who long-dead beauty with increase reneweth?

To you! to you! all song of praise is due; Only at you all envy hopeless rueth.

Silvia

Who hath the hair, which loosest fastest tieth?
Who makes a man live then glad when he dieth?
To you! to you! all song of praise is due;
Only of you the flatterer never lieth.

Who hath the voice, which soul from senses sunders?
Whose force but yours the bolts of beauty thunders?
To you! to you! all song of praise is due;
Only with you not miracles are wonders.

499

Doubt you to whom my Muse these notes intendeth,
Which now my breast, o'ercharged, to music lendeth?
To you! to you! all song of praise is due;
Only in you my song begins and endeth.

Philip Sidney [1554-1586]

SILVIA

From "The Two Gentlemen of Verona"

WHO is Silvia? What is she?

That all our swains commend her?

Holy, fair, and wise is she;

The heaven such grace did lend her,
That she might admirèd be.

Is she kind as she is fair?

For beauty lives with kindness:
Love doth to her eyes repair,

To help him of his blindness;
And, being helped, inhabits there.

Then to Silvia let us sing,
That Silvia is excelling;
She excels each mortal thing
Upon the dull earth dwelling:
To her let us garlands bring.

William Shakespeare [1564-1616]

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