ENGLISH POEMS By Richard Le Gallienne London: John Lane at The Bodley Head in Vigo Street. Boston: Copland & Day 69 Cornhill. A.D. 1895. _First Edition September 1892 Second Edition October 1892 Third Edition January 1894 Fourth Edition Revised April 1895_ To Sissie Le Gallienne EPISTLE DEDICATORY _Dear Sister: Hear the conclusion of the whole matter. You dream like mad, you love like tinder, you aspire like a star-struck moth--for what? That you may hive little lyrics, and sell to a publisher for thirty pieces of silver. Hard by us here is a 'bee-farm.' It always reminds me of a publisher's. The bee has loved a thousand flowers, through a hundred afternoons, he has filled little sacred cells with the gold of his stolen kisses--for what? That the whole should be wrenched away and sold at so much 'the comb'--as though it were a hair-comb. 'Mummy is become merchandise ... and Pharaoh is sold for balsams.' Can we ever forget those old mornings when we rose with the lark, and, while the earliest sunlight slanted through the sleeping house, stole to the little bookclad study to read--Heaven bless us!--you, perhaps, Mary Wollstonecraft, and I, Livy, in a Froben folio of 1531!! Will you accept these old verses in memory of those old mornings? Ah, then came in the sweet o' the year. Yours now as then_, R. Le G. May 14th, 1892. CONTENTS _Epistle Dedicatory, To the Reader_, I. PAOLO AND FRANCESCA, II. YOUNG LOVE-- i. Preludes, ii. Prelude--'I make this rhyme,' iii. 'But, Song, arise thee on a greater wing,' iv. Once, v. The Two Daffodils, vi. 'Why did she marry him?' vii. The Lamp and the Star, viii. Orbits, ix. Never--Ever, x. Love's Poor, xi. Comfort of Dante, xii. A Lost Hour, xiii. Met once more, xiv. A June Lily, xv. Regret xvi. Love Afar xvii. Canst thou be true across so many miles? _Postscript_ III. COR CORDIUM-- To my Wife, Mildred The Destined Maid: a Prayer With some old Love Verses In a copy of Mr. Swinburne's _Tristram_ Comfort at Parting Happy Letter Primrose and Violet 'Juliet and her Romeo,' In her Diary Two Parables A Love Letter In the Night The Constant Lover The Wonder-Child IV. MISCELLANEOUS-- The House of Venus Satiety What of the Darkness? Ad Cimmerios Old Love Letters Death in a London Lodging Time Flies So soon Tired Autumn A Frost Fancy The World is Wide Saint Charles! Good-Night Beatrice A Child's Evensong An Epitaph on a Goldfish Beauty Accurst To a Dead Friend Sunset in the City The City in Moonlight V. OF POETS AND POETRY-- Inscriptions The Décadent to his Soul To a Poet The Passionate Reader to his Poet Matthew Arnold 'Tennyson' at the Farm 'The Desk's Dry Wood,' A Library in a Garden On the Morals of Poets Faery Gold All Sung Corydon's Farewell to his Pipe ENGLISH POEMS TO THE READER