I marked thee, sorrow’s votary, When in the noon of day Young vandals stormed thy sacred tree And bore thine all away; The notes of grief that rent thy breast touched kindred chords in mine, For memories of other days, though slumbering still confine In mine own heart The bitter smart Of sorrow such as thine. I hear thee now, sweet votary, Beside thy ruined nest, Lift up thy flood of melody Against the crimsoned west, Forgetful of all else in this, thy one sweet joyous strain. I thank thee for this ecstasy of my remembered pain; Thou liftest up My sorrow’s cup To sweeten it again. THE POET BY T. A. DALY The truest poet is not one Whose golden fancies fuse and run To moulded phrases, crusted o’er With flashing gems of metaphor; Whose art, responsive to his will, Makes voluble the thoughts that fill The cultured windings of his brain, Yet takes no soundings of the pain, The joy, the yearnings of the heart Untrammeled by the bonds of art, O! poet truer far than he Is such a one as you may be, When in the quiet night you keep Mute vigil on the marge of sleep. If then, with beating heart, you mark God’s nearer presence in the dark, And musing on the wondrous ways Of Him who numbers all your days, Pay tribute to Him with your tears For joys, for sorrows, hopes and fears Which he has blessed and given to you, You are the poet, great and true. For there are songs within the heart Whose perfect melody no art Can teach the tongue of man to phrase. These are the songs His poets raise, When in the night they keep Mute vigil on the marge of sleep. OCTOBER BY T. A. DALY Come, forsake your city street! Come to God’s own fields and meet October. Not the lean, unkempt and brown Counterfeit that haunts the town, Pointing, like a thing of gloom, At dead summer in her tomb; Reading in each fallen leaf Nothing but regret and grief. Come out, where, beneath the blue, You may frolic with the true October. Call his name and mark the sound, Opulent and full and round: “October.” Come, and gather from his hand Lavish largesse of the land; Read in his prophetic eyes, Clear as skies of paradise, Not of summer days that died, But of summer fructified! Hear, O soul, his message sweet. Come to God’s own fields and meet October. SORROW BY AUBREY DE VERE