Muriel Stuart

Here in a quiet and dusty room they lie,
Faded as crumbled stone or shifting sand,
Forlorn as ashes, shrivelled, scentless, dry -
Meadows and gardens running through my hand.
...

'I thought you loved me.' 'No, it was only fun.'
'When we stood there, closer than all?' 'Well, the harvest moon
Was shining and queer in your hair, and it turned my head.'
'That made you?' 'Yes.' 'Just the moon and the light it made
...

Unaware of its terror,
And but half aware
Of the world's beauty near her-
Of sunlight on the stones,
...

There shall be a song for both of us that day
Though fools say you have long outlived your songs,
And when, perhaps, because your hair is grey,
...

TAKE as you will, slake, solace, and possess
While Youth, with laughter, scatters tears that fall
Sudden and shaken sometimes at your call;
Pledge me in passion and in gentleness,--
...

WHEN, on an empty night in later years
Thou ponderest over sorrowful sweet things,
While troubling with cold hands the muted strings
Of Memory's lute now silent in thine ears,
...

BELOW, the street was hoarse with cries,
With groan of carts and scuffling feet,
With laughter worse than blasphemies,
Was choked with dust and blind with heat,
...

Dawn has flashed up the startled skies,
Night has gone out beneath the hill
Many sweet times; before our eyes
Dawn makes and unmakes about us still
...

CHANGE shall accustom me in after years
To kingdom's builded on life's overthrow;
Onward with other poets I shall go,
Unpraised of thee. though praised of all my peers,
...

THE hand of carnival was at my door,
I listened to its knocking, and sped down:
Faith was forgotten, Duty led no more:
I heard a wonton revelry in the town;
...

ASK not my pardon! For if one hath need
Once to forgive the god that he hath raised,
No further creed
Can that god give; but 'neath the soul who praised
...

1.
I am one of the wind's stories,
I am a fancy of the rain,-
A memory of the high noon's glories,
...

IN days of ancient history
Who were you? Tell me if you know.
Between your kisses answer me
To-night, Chicot.
...

Do you remember, Leda?

There are those who love, to whom Love brings
Great gladness: such things have not I.
...

When to your virgin heart, unstirred, ungiven,
Upon the quiet mountainside untrod,
...

FAREWELL is said! Yea, but I cannot take
All that my Greeting gave.
In you hath Hope her doom and Joy her grave;
Still you go crowned with old imaginings,
...

I will not have roses in my room again,
Nor listen to sonnets of Michael Angelo
To-night nor any night, nor fret my brain
...

Chained to the years by the measureless wrong of man,
Here I hang, here I suffer, here I cry,
...

Men wondered why I loved you, and none guessed
How sweet your slow, divine stupidity,
Your look of earth, your sense of drowsy rest,
...

I am growing old: I have kept youth too long,
But I dare not let them know it now.
I have done the heart of youth a grievous wrong,
...