Sometimes when I am free I seek the quay Soon after break of day, And find a newly harboured boat, And ask if you are still afloat Near home or far away.

p. 29I ask if you are well, And they can tell My heart is set on you: And then they call me just a fool, A baby in the world’s hard school To give you love so true.

p. 29

You promised me silk gowns From Lowland towns, And rings of twisted gold; And, best of all, your picture bound With stones to hem its beauty round That I might kiss and hold.

My love is not the flower Of one short hour; You were my childhood’s pride; Your image is my dream by night, By day if ever put to flight It comes back like the tide.

The swan upon the lake When robbers take Her young, is left to moan; None tends her wounds or heeds her cry, She wails her loss and waits to die:  Like her I cry alone.

p. 30XVII NEAR HAARLEM

p. 30

XVII

Triumphantly it soars, that full-domed sky, Of lucent turquoise fading into pearl; And here the happy birds their brown wings furl By waters that lisp seaward dreamily.

Triumphantly

Beyond these plains of silver and of green, Amid the floating vapours of the town The vast grey church uplifts its belfry crown, A chiselled shrine through incense dimly seen.

The burdened barges trust the smiling flood, Calm wraps the distance of reclining dunes, The tower rings peace in soft alternate tones.

And who that hears the bells’ low luting tunes, Now thinks of Haarlem’s siege and starving moans, Or how these brooks once bubbled with brave blood?

p. 31XVIII THE TOMB OF ST. AUGUSTINE AT PAVIA

p. 31

XVIII

Beneath the low barbaric Lombard apse It rises like a ridge of Alpine snow, And wry-wheeled ages with uneasy lapse Creak past its majesty, and go.

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