None dare
Hope for a part in thy despair.
THE LADY POVERTY
The Lady Poverty was fair:
But she has lost her looks of late,
With change of times and change of air.
Ah slattern, she neglects her hair,
Her gown, her shoes. She keeps no state
As once when her pure feet were bare.
Or--almost worse, if worse can be -
She scolds in parlours; dusts and trims,
Watches and counts. Oh, is this she
Whom Francis met, whose step was free,
Who with Obedience carolled hymns,
In Umbria walked with Chastity?
Where is her ladyhood? Not here,
Not among modern kinds of men;
But in the stony fields, where clear
Through the thin trees the skies appear;
In delicate spare soil and fen,
And slender landscape and austere.
THE FOLD
BEHOLD,
The time is now! Bring back, bring back
Thy flocks of fancies, wild of whim.
Oh lead them from the mountain-track -
Thy frolic thoughts untold.
Oh bring them in--the fields grow dim -
And let me be the fold.
Behold,
The time is now! Call in, O call
Thy posturing kisses gone astray
For scattered sweets. Gather them all
To shelter from the cold.
Throng them together, close and gay,
And let me be the fold!
CRADLE-SONG AT TWILIGHT
The child not yet is lulled to rest.
Too young a nurse, the slender Night
So laxly holds him to her breast
That throbs with flight.
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