“If I were dead, you’d some time say, Poor Child!” The dear lips quiver’d as they spake, And the tears break From eyes, which, not to grieve me, brightly smiled. Poor Child, poor Child! I seem to hear your laugh, your talk, your song. It is not true that Love will do no wrong. Poor Child! And did you think, when you so cried and smiled, How I, in lonely nights, should lie awake, And of those words your full avengers make? Poor Child, poor Child! And now, unless it be That sweet amends thrice told are come to thee, O God, have Thou no mercy upon me! Poor Child! DEPARTURE BY COVENTRY PATMORE It was not like your great and gracious ways! Do you, that have nought other to lament, Never, my Love, repent Of how, that July afternoon, You went, With sudden, unintelligible phrase, And frightened eye, Upon your journey of so many days Without a single kiss, or a good-bye? I knew, indeed, that you were parting soon; And so we sate, within the low sun’s rays, You whispering to me, for your voice was weak, Your harrowing praise. Well, it was well To hear you such things speak, And I could tell What made your eyes a growing gloom of love, As a warm South-wind sombres a March grove. And it was like your great and gracious ways To turn your talk on daily things, my Dear, Lifting the luminous, pathetic lash To let the laughter flash, Whilst I drew near, Because you spoke so low that I could scarcely hear. But all at once to leave me at the last, More at the wonder than the loss aghast, With huddled, unintelligible phrase, And frighten’d eye, And go your journey of all days With not one kiss, or a good-bye, And the only loveless look the look with which you passed; ’Twas all unlike your great and gracious ways. REGINA CŒLI BY COVENTRY PATMORE Say, did his sisters wonder what could Joseph see In a mild, silent little Maid like thee? And was it awful, in that narrow house, With God for Babe and Spouse? Nay, like thy simple, female sort, each one Apt to find Him in Husband and in Son, Nothing to thee came strange in this. Thy wonder was but wondrous bliss: Wondrous, for, though True Virgin lives not but does know, (Howbeit none ever yet confess’d,) That God lies really in her breast, Of thine He made His special nest! And so All mothers worship little feet, And kiss the very ground they’ve trod; But, ah, thy little Baby sweet Who was indeed thy God! IDEAL BY P. H. PEARSE (Translated from the Irish by Thomas MacDonagh) Naked I saw thee, O beauty of beauty! And I blinded my eyes For fear I should flinch. I heard thy music, O sweetness of sweetness! And I shut my ears For fear I should fail.