Eutopia

THERE is a garden where lilies

And roses are side by side;

And all day between them in silence

The silken butterflies glide.

I may not enter the garden,

Though I know the road thereto;

And morn by morn to the gateway

I see the children go.

They bring back light on their faces;

But they cannot bring back to me

What the lilies say to the roses,

Or the songs of the butterflies be.

Francis Turner Palgrave

Past and Present

AS I hear the breath of the mother

To the breath of the child at her feet

Answer in even whispers,

When night falls heavy and sweet,

Sleep puts out silent fingers,

And leads me back to the roar

Of the dead salt sea that vomits

Wrecks of the past ashore.

I see the lost Love in beauty

Go gliding over the main:

I feel the ancient sweetness,

The worm and the wormwood again.

Earth all one tomb lies round me,

Domed with an iron sky:

And God Himself in His power,

God cannot save me! I cry.

With the cry I wake;--and around me

The mother and child at her feet

Breathe peace in even whispers;

And the night falls heavy and sweet.

Francis Turner Palgrave

The Ancient and Modern Muses

THE monument outlasting bronze

Was promised well by bards of old;

The lucid outline of their lay

Its sweet precision keeps for aye,

Fixed in the ductile language-gold.

But we who work with smaller skill,

And less refined material mold,

--This close conglomerate English speech,

Bequest of many tribes, that each

Brought here and wrought at from of old,

Residuum rough, eked out by rhyme,

Barbarian ornament uncouth,--

Our hope is less to last through Art

Than deeper searching of the heart,

Than broader range of uttered truth.

One keen-cut group, one deed or aim

Athenian Sophocles could show,

And rest content:--But Shakespeare's stage

Must hold the glass to every age,--

A thousand forms and passions glow

Upon the world-wide canvas. So

With larger scope our art we ply;

And if the crown be harder won,

Diviner rays around it run,

With strains of fuller harmony.

Francis Turner Palgrave

Midnight at Geneva

THE azure lake is argent now

Beneath the pale moonshine:

I seek a sign of hope in heaven:

Fair Polestar! thou are mine.

A thousand other beacons blaze;

I follow thee alone

Beyond the shadowy Jura range,

The Jura, and the Rhone;

Beyond the purpling vineyards trim

Of sunny Clos Vougeot;

Beyond where Seine's brown waves beneath

The Norman orchards go;

Till, where the silver waters wash

The white-walled northern isle,

My heart outruns these laggart limbs

To the long-sighed-for smile.

Francis Turner Palgrave

The Golden Land

O SWEET September in the valley

Carved through the green hills, sheer and straight,

Where the tall trees crowd round and sally

Down the slope sides, with stately gait

And sylvan dance: and in the hollow

Silver voices ripple and cry

Follow, O follow!

Follow, O follow!--and we follow

Where the white cottages star the slope,

And the white smoke winds o'er the hollow,

And the blythe air is quick with hope;

Till the Sun whispers, O remember!

You have but thirty days to run,

O sweet September!

--O sweet September, where the valley

Leans out wider and sunny and full,

And the red cliffs dip their feet and dally

With the green billows, green and cool;

And the green billows archly smiling,

Kiss and cling to them, kiss and leave them,

Bright and beguiling:--

Bright and beguiling, as She who glances

Along the shore and the meadows along,

And sings for heart's delight, and dances

Crowned with apples, and ruddy, and strong:--

Can we see thee, and not remember

Thy sun-brown cheek and hair sun-golden,

O sweet September?

Francis Turner Palgrave

A Song of Spring and Autumn

IN the season of white wild roses

We two went hand in hand:

But now in the ruddy autumn

Together already we stand.

O pale pearl-necklace that wandered

O'er the white-thorn's tangled head!

The white-thorn is turned to russet,

The pearls to purple and red!

On the topmost orchard branches

It then was crimson and snow,

Where now the gold-red apples

Burn on the turf below.

And between the trees the children

In and out run hand in hand;

And, with smiles that answer their smiling,

We two together stand.

Francis Turner Palgrave