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i,c't'.i,v:! V-., '^r.--. California rersity of outherii Regional Library Facility ^"^W^ LIBRARY '=^J'VFRSITY OF CALIFORNiM RIVERSIDE Ex Libris ISAAC FOOT POEMS ''j^U^i^^ /kAAA^c^-^/^^^n-. THE POEMS OF ROSAMUND (b^ii) MARRIOTT WATSON ^// LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMXII VJS All WILLIAM BBF.NDON AND SON, LTD. PHINTl^RS, PLYMOUTH TO H. B. & R. B. MARRIOTT WATSON INTRODUCTION ROSAMUND MARRIOTT WATSON passed from this earthly life on the Twenty-ninth of December, 191 1. She had prepared, for issue in the spring of this year, a volume of new poems, which was already in the publisher's hands. But that mortal change in her life seemed to demand and urge a larger, a completer appeal on behalf of her genius. It became desirable to put on record determinately, perhaps definitively, the full body of her poetical work. This volume, then, comprises all in that kind which she would deem worthy of preservation. And yet I am not sure that this is exactly true ; for the first section of this book consists of the contents of a very early volume, " Tares," published anonymously when the writer was only a girl ; and I do not think that she herself set a high value on this. I have, how- ever, included it here, partly because it seems fit to inaugurate the corpus of her poetical work with these juvenilia, and partly also out of respect for the judgment of many literary friends who have esteemed these poems so greatly as to wish them retained in the collected edition. vii viii Introduction The arrangement of the book is chronological ; that is to say, the different sections are printed here in sequence, as they appeared in the original volumes, and under their several titles. In all they cover a period of nearly thirty years. Outside the anonymous volume the first work emerged to the public under the auspices of Mr. Andrew Lang, at " The Sign of the Ship," in Longmans Magazine. This was her earliest welcome, at least in this country. But very soon the knowledge and appreciation of her work extended, and she was an honoured guest in many magazines and journals, both here and in America, principally the National Observer, under Mr. W. E. Henley's editorship, Macmillan^s, Harper s, Scribner's, and The Athenaum. The first-fruits in book-form of this poetic work was " A Bird-Bride," published in 1 889. There followed " A Summer Night" (1891), " Ves- pertilia" (1895), and "After Sunset" (1904). " Marpessa" has never before been reprinted from the pages of the magazine in which it appeared in 1 889. The last section, " The Lamp and the Lute," is that which was to have been published separately this spring, and appears as arranged by the author. She had prefixed to this the dedication which I have transferred to the front of the collected poems, know- ing that this would be, and indeed is, her desire. Some poems in this part were included in " The Heart of a Garden" (1906), and are here reprinted Introduction ix by the kind permission of Messrs. Alexander Moring, Ltd. It is not for me to proffer here my opinion of my wife's poems, if only for the reason that I should be considered to approach the witness-box with pre- possessions. My faith in their beauty and their immortal quality is ardent. And having said so much I stand aside, content to leave them to the judgment of her contemporaries, and, as I hope and surely believe, to the appreciation of posterity. H. B. Marriott Watson. Shere, May ^iA, 191 2. A 2 CONTENTS Tares PAGE Herbstlied Xll Contents The Bird-Bride {cont.) page Contents xin The Bird-Bride {cont.) jagb XIV Contents A Summer Night (conf.) pagb ^ Contents XV Vespertilia {cont.) page XVI Contents After Sunset p^ige '0 Contents XVII After Sunset {com.) XVlll Contents The Lamp and the Lute (cont.) page Contents XIX The Lamp and the Lute {cont.) PAGE Autumn's Lute The Lost Leader 331 The Master-Singer 331 Memento Mori 332 Nunc Dimittis 332 Shadows 333 Rhodanthe ; on Herself, Grown Old 333 HodiernjE Rosas 333 The Cage 334 The Flower and the Leaf 334 The Promised Land 334 POEMS B ! — — ! TARES HERBSTLIED PAREWELL, my love, I love so well My sweetheart, lost as soon as won ! Sweet summer idyll, scarce begun Farewell ! Good-bye brown fields, and wind-swept skies, With mellow sunset all aglow : Unto the bitter north I go Good-bye Ah me, dear heart, Auf Wiederseh'n ! Surely one day we'll meet again ; And lest our hope relinquished be, This watchword give Mnemosyne " « Auf Wiederseh'n ! — ; —— Eheu Fugaces EHEU FUGACES! T IGHT and soft they flutter down, ^^ Faded gauds from Autumn's crown Still they fall With a slow, pathetic grace, Touching now my hands, my face ; Now—the wall. " Ohne Hast und ohne Rast," Chill and grey the years have passed, Ay de mi ! By this old red orchard wall One fair face I still recall Almost see ! Ah, that still September day ! Bravely seemed the world and gay To us then. Then, we stood together here ; Now, the leaves fall, brown and sere, Once again. Worn and weary, old and grey. Altered seems the world to-day Mine the blame ; For I see with time-dimmed eyes. Though the kind autumnal skies Smile the same. Pure as winsome, fair as true Hard the fate that lost me you Oh, my dear ! Still I see you leaning there, With the dead leaves on your hair. Far, yet near. ! ! Eheu Fugaces I My Neaera— vainly sought What to you has fortune brought Since we met ? Love or hatred, dole or glee ? But her only gift to me Is—regret — ; A Triptych A TRIPTYCH T INGERING, sad and slow, "^ When the winter sun is low And the great clouds westward roll, Calls the sea's voice to my soul ; With a strange insistence cries, Till old faces round me rise. And I taste the salt free wind. And the spell of the Undefined. When the languorous days are long Comes to me a tender song, Making soft moan in mine ear Then the whisper of leaves I hear And Philomel's yearning strain Through the warm dusk wails again ; For the dim woods call to me In sweet hushed melody. But the third voice speaks gay and loud, For it calls me back to the crowd And the city's Circe-charm ; There breathes no brooding calm. But the waters of Lethe flow, Drowning the long ago. And I lose in the roar of the street Sounds of retreating feet. — Eidothe ? EIDOTHE? TN very deed and truth did our souls once meet? *• If your eyes lied not, yes ; but I may not kno\v, Never may hold the surety that it was so, But the thought alone is sweet. Bitterly sweet ; for the knowledge would come too late. Do I dream now, or was blind in the bygone time Blind, and passed by without knowing our season's prime ? Ah, woefully blind is Fate ! Child, was it more with us then than the oft-told tale (Old as all summers past, even as this one, new) ? More than the butterfly life the evening slew, Yet pure from the serpent's trail ? Perchance, who knows ? —yet I think that our souls knew best, I think in this wise spoke, Just for a moment, ; — " I have sought you long, and now " Here the spell broke. Shall we ever hear the rest ? is Ah, well-a-day 1 for our brief day dead. Bright with light laughter, and sun, and tinkling mirth. Chance and the world's cult stifled the spirit-birth. Though one hour our souls were one. Nirvana NIRVANA SLEEP will He give His beloved ? Not dreams, but the precious guerdon of deepest rest ? Aye, surely ! Look on the grave-closed eyes, And cold hands folded on tranquil breast. Will not the All-Great be just, and forgive ? For He knows (though we make no prayer nor cry) How our lone souls ached when our pale star waned, How we watch the promiseless sky. Life hereafter ? Ah no ! we have lived enough. Life eternal ? Pray God it may not be so. Have we not suffered and striven, loved and endured. Run through the whole wide gamut of passion and woe ? • •.••••• hope. Strangest illusion ! sprung from a fevered habit of Wild enthusiast's dream of blatant perfection at best. Give us darkness for anguished eyes, stillness for weary feet. unrest. Silence, and sleep ; but no heaven of glittering, loud No more the lifelong labour of smoothing the stone-strewn way ; No more the shuddering outlook athwart the sterile plain. Where every step we take, every word we say, Each warm, living hand that we cling to, is but a fence against pain. And nothing may perish, but lives again ? Where ? Out of thought, out of sight ? And where is your cresset's flame that the rough wind slew last night ? Old Pauline OLD PAULINE CO your boys are going to Paris \ That's how I lost my ^ own. Lonely ? Ah yes, but I know it, the old are always alone. You remember my boys, Euphrasie ? No ? Was it before your day ? Each, when his turn came, kissed me, and cried ; but they went away. How 1 longed for them, always, vainly ' and thought of them, early and late ; I would start and look round in the pasture if any one clicked the gate.

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