I'm waiting still, and still I ponder, As I have pondered all the morning, Out on the blue _Giudecca_ yonder, Under the arches, listless, yawning Full-mouthed against precocious summer That's sprung this quick surprise upon us, And found us out, the sly new-comer, Tweed-coated, winter-hosed, astonished-- I ponder, knowing all the time The answer, ponder for the pleasure Of fitting fancy into rhyme And matching music with the weather, What lacks when sea and sky conspire With form as thin but more romantic Than that which some of us admire At Covent Garden,--Transatlantic Cousins still call it monumental, But we know better--sentimental People divine a riddle basking Under its marble,--never mind them, Be sure they'll come, their tales behind them, Safe home to Chelsea. Still I'm asking: "What's lacking yet?" The Spring's awake, Each palace curtsies to her neighbour, Each gondolier's a handsome rake, Each mouth-organ a dulcet tabor; What can I want when Venice plays And Time's a song, and Fate's a dancer, And Life drifts gaily down her ways, What's lacking, Madame? Can you answer? _TO_ A.V.S. WITH A BOOK Books are the quiet monitors of mind, They prompt its motions, shape its ways, they find A road through mazes to the higher ground, Whence to explore the sky-bound marches. Round About us lie the open downs. Our days Still ask a guide and goad. Wherefore always We meditate wise thoughts and passionate lays; Wherefore I send a book. Books are the mind's last symbol. They express Its visions and its subtleties--a dress Material for the immaterial things That soar to immortality on wings Of words, and live, by magic of the pen, Where dead minds live, upon the lips of men And deep in hearts that stir. Wherefore do I, Drawing a little near, prophetically, Send you a book. Books are the heart's memorial. They shall measure, In after days, our undiscovered treasure,-- Thrilling self-knowledge, half-divined untold Yearnings, and tongueless agonies, shall unfold Or half unfold to half-illumined eyes. The cypress shadows creeping gnomonwise Still stretch their purple fingers down the hill That hangs above Fiesole; and still Your English fireside glows. Do you most dear-- Sometimes just guessed at, sometimes very near-- Yet always dear and fairest friend, do you Recall the sunlight and the firelight too? Recall the pregnant hours, the gay delights, The pain, the tears maybe, the ravished heights, The golden moments my cold lines commend, The days, in memory or which I send A book? Dec. 1909. MYSELF TO MYSELF It was the thrush's song I heard To-day, in March. And you who came At life through books, whom poets stirred To love of beauty, who the name Of art revered and fancy knew From earliest days,--why, how should you Guess at my feelings when among The elms I heard the thrush's song?