THE CAROL OF THE POOR CHILDREN

We are the poor children, come out to see the sights
On this day of all days, on this night of nights;
The stars in merry parties are dancing in the sky,
A fine star, a new star, is shining on high!

We are the poor children, our lips are frosty blue,
We cannot sing our carol as well as rich folk do;
Our bellies are so empty we have no singing voice,
But this night of all nights good children must rejoice.
We do rejoice, we do rejoice, as hard as we can try,
A fine star, a new star is shining in the sky!

And while we sing our carol, we think of the delight

The happy kings and shepherds make in Bethlehem to-night.

Are we naked, mother, and are we starving-poor

Oh, see what gifts the kings have brought outside the stable door; Are we cold, mother, the ass will give his hay

To make the manger warm and keep the cruel winds away

We are the poor children, but not so poor who sing

Our carol with our voiceless hearts to greet the new-born King, On this night of all nights, when in the frosty sky

A new star, a kind star is shining on high!

ANY LOVER, ANY LASS

Why are her eyes so bright, so bright,
Why do her lips control
The kisses of a summer night,

When I would love her soul?

God set her brave eyes wide apart
And painted them with fire,
They stir the ashes of my heart
To embers of desire.

Her lips so tenderly are wrought
In so divine a shape,

That I am servant to my thought
And can nowise escape.

Her body is a flower, her hair
About her neck doth play;
I find her colours everywhere,
They are the pride of day.

Her little hands are soft, and when
I see her fingers move

I know in very truth that men
Have died for less than love.

Ah, dear, live, lovely thing! my eyes
Have sought her like a prayer;
It is my better self that cries
"Would she were not so fair!"

Would I might forfeit ecstasy
And find a calmer place,
Where I might undesirous see
Her too desiréd face.

Nor feel her eyes so bright, so bright,
Nor hear her lips unroll

Dream after dream the lifelong night,
When I would love her soul.

AUTUMNAL

Across the scented garden of my dreams
Where roses grew, Time passes like a thief,
Among my trees his silver sickle gleams,
The grass is stained with many a ruddy leaf;
And on cold winds the petals float away
That were the pride of June and her array.

The bare boughs weave a net upon the sky
To catch Love's wings and his fair body bruise;
There are no flowers in the rosary—

No song-birds in the mournful avenues;
Though on the sodden air not lightly breaks
The elegy of Youth, whom love forsakes.

Ah, Time! one flower of all my garden spare,
One rose of all the roses, that in this
I may possess my love's perfumèd hair

And all the crimson secrets of her kiss.
Grant me one rose that I may drink its wine,
And from her lips win the last anodyne.

For I have learnt too many things to live,
And I have loved too many things to die;
But all my barren acres I would give
For one red blossom of eternity,
To animate the darkness and delight
The spaces and the silences of night.

But dreams are tender flowers that in their birth
Are very near to death, and I shall reap,
Who planted wonder, unavailing earth,

Harsh thorns and miserable husks of sleep.
I have had dreams, but have not conquered Time,
And love shall vanish like an empty rhyme.

PAGAN EPITAPH

Servant of the eternal Must

I lie here, here let me lie,
In the ashes and the dust,

Dreaming, dreaming pleasantly.
When I lived I sought no wings,

Schemed no heaven, planned no hell,

But, content with little things,

Made an earth, and it was well.

Song and laughter, food and wine,
Roses, roses red and white,

And a star or two to shine

On my dewy world at night.
Lord, what more could I desire?
With my little heart of clay

I have lit no eternal fire

To burn my dreams on Judgment Day!

Well I loved, but they who knew
What my laughing heart could be,
What my singing lips could do,
Lie a-dreaming here with me.

I can feel their finger-tips

Stroke the darkness from my face, And the music of their lips Fills my pleasant resting-place In the ashes and the dust, Where I wonder as I lie, Servant of the eternal Must,

Dreaming, dreaming pleasantly.

MARY COLERIDGE

[MARY ELIZABETH COLERIDGE was born in London, September 23, 1861. Her grandfather was the son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's elder brother James. Her first novel, The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus (1893), mystified most readers, though it attracted the notice of Stevenson. The King with Two Faces (1897) was far more successful. It was followed by a few other novels and a book of essays. Mary Coleridge published no poetry under her own name. Her first book of verse, Fancy's Following, "by Anodos," was printed by Mr. Daniel at his private press at Oxford in 1896; and Fancy's Guerdon, mostly reprinted from this, was published the next year in Elkin Mathews's Shilling Garland. A volume of collected poems was edited after her death by Henry Newbolt. She died in London, unmarried, on August 25, 1907. Her friend Edith Sichel published a collection of her stories and essays in 1910, with a short memoir.]

No one was ever less of a professional poet than Mary Coleridge. She was writing verse for twenty-five years, but the greater part of her poems were never printed in her lifetime, and she refused to publish under her own name. Yet assuredly her place is secure among the lyric poets of England. Perhaps just because they were produced with so little thought of the public, her poems have a fresh directness and intimacy which few lyrists attain so perfectly. They were the spontaneous overflow of her spirit; and that spirit was one of rare gift and charm. The most obviously striking characteristic of Mary Coleridge's nature was the combination of unusual depth with unusual vivacity. She was quick to be moved, but it was not only the surface which was stirred, it was her whole being. She was as gay as she was serious; but the gaiety was not a mere disguise to the seriousness, the imaginative humour from which it sprang was a fundamental part of her nature and gave it the strength of elasticity. The bright effervescence of her intellect did not prevent her from being as enthusiastic as she was warm-hearted. She was not less tender than high-spirited. And though her mind was nothing if not adventurous, at the core of her being was an exquisite humility.