A Shadow Boat Naught she knows of sorrow, All her thoughts are white. Long time since I lost her, Now the darkness keeps her; I am dull and pain-worn, Oh, children, if you meet her, Send back my other Me! Grace Denio Litchfield [1849 A SHADOW BOAT UNDER my keel another boat Sails as I sail, floats as I float; Silent and dim and mystic still, It steals through that weird nether-world, The foam before its prow is curled, Vainly I peer, and fain would see Yet half I dread, lest I with ruth Some ghost of my dead past divine, Some gracious shape of my lost youth, 1 Whose deathless eyes once fixed on mine 419 A LAD THAT IS GONE Sing me a song of a lad that is gone; Mull was astern, Rum on the port, Sing me a song of a lad that is gone; Give me again all that was there, Sing me a song of a lad that is gone; Billow and breeze, islands and seas, All that was good, all that was fair, Robert Louis Stevenson [1850-1894] CARCASSONNE * "I'm growing old, I've sixty years; *For the original of this poem see page 3594. Carcassonne I see full well that here below Bliss unalloyed there is for none; "You see the city from the hill, Had but the vintage plenteous grown- "They tell me every day is there Not more or less than Sunday gay; In shining robes and garments fair The people walk upon their way. One gazes there on castle walls As grand as those of Babylon, A bishop and two generals! What joy to dwell in Carcassonne! "The vicar's right: he says that we Are ever wayward, weak, and blind; He tells us in his homily Ambition ruins all mankind; Yet could I there two days have spent, While still the autumn sweetly shone, Ah, me! I might have died content "Thy pardon, Father, I beseech, My wife, our little boy, Aignan, Have travelled even to Narbonne; My grandchild has séen Perpignan; And I have not seen Carcassonne!" 421 So crooned, one day, close by Limoux, We left, next morning, his abode, But (Heaven forgive him!) half-way on The old man died upon the road. He never gazed on Carcassonne. Translated by John R. Thompson from the French of Gustave Nadaud [1820- ? ] CHILDHOOD OLD Sorrow I shall meet again, And Joy, perchance-but never, never, And yet I would not call thee back, Dear Childhood, lest the sight of me, Thine old companion, on the rack THE WASTREL ONCE, when I was little, as the summer night was falling, Among the purple upland fields I lost my barefoot way; The road to home was hidden fast, and frightful shadows, crawling Along the sky-line, swallowed up the last kind light of day; And then I seemed to hear you In the twilight, and be near you; Seemed to hear your dear voice calling- Flung my tired arms around you, And rested on the mother-breast, returned, tired out from play. Troia Fuit 423 Down the years from those years, though I trod strange paths unheeding, Though I chased the jack-o'-lanterns of so many mad dened years, Though I never looked behind me, where the home-lights were receding, Though I never looked enough ahead to ken the Inn of Still I knew your heart was near me, I should run to you the faster And be sure that I was dearer for your sacrifice of tears. Now on life's last Summertime the long last dusk is falling, And I, who trod one way so long, can tread no other way Until at death's dim crossroads I watch, hesitant, the crawling Night-passages that maze me with the ultimate dismay. Then when Death and Doubt shall blind me Even then-I know you'll find me: I shall hear you, Mother, calling Hear you calling-calling-calling: I shall fight and follow-find you Though the grave-clothes swathe and bind you, And I know your love will answer: "Here's my laddie home from play!" Reginald Wright Kauffman [1877 TROIA FUIT THE world was wide when I was young, |