Alfred Austin

TE little hands
Pink little feet
Dimpled all over,    Sweet, sweet, sweet
What dost thou wail for

Long ere the Muse the strenuous chords had swept,
And the first lay as yet in silence slept,
A Time there was which since has stirred the lyre To notes of wail and accents warm with fire;
Moved the soft Mantuan to his silvery strain,

From tangled brake and trellised bower Bring every bud that blows,
But never will you find the flower To match an English rose
It blooms with more than city grace,
Though rustic and apart;

HE
AB, the bullace, and the sloe, They burgeon in the Spring; And, when the west wind melts the snow, The redstarts build and sing
But Death’s at work in rind and root, And loves the green buds best; And when the pairing music’s mute, He...

RE’S to him that grows it, Drink, lads, drink
That lays it in and mows it, Clink, jugs, clink
To him that mows and makes it, That scatters it and shakes it, That turns, and teds, and rakes it, Clink, jugs, clink
Now here ’s to him t...

Tell me your race, your name,
O Lady limned as dead, yet as when living fair
That within this faded frame An unfading beauty wear
Were you ever known to fame,

ND We lead the blind by voice and hand, And not by light they cannot see;
We are not framed to understand The How and Why of such as He;
But natured only to rejoice At every sound or sign of hope,
And, guided by the still small voic...

Now bury with the dead years conflicts dead And with fresh days let all begin anew
Why longer amid shrivelled leaf—drifts tread,
When buds are swelling, flower—sheaths peeping through
Seen through the vista of the vanished years,

Now let no passing—bell be tolled,
Wail now no dirge of gloom;
Nor around purple pall unfold The trappings of the tomb
Dead

Exile or Caesar
Death hath solved thy doubt,
And made thee certain of thy changeless fate;
And thou no more hast wearily to wait,

With shimmer of steel and blare of brass,
And Switzers marching with martial stride,
And cavaliers trampling brown the grass,
Came bow—legged Charles through the Apennine pass,

UL, heart, and body, we thus singly name,
Are not in love divisible and distinct,
But each with each inseparably link'd
One is not honour, and the other shame,