And I were king of pain.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

ADIEUX À MARIE STUART

I

QUEEN, for whose house my fathers fought,

With hopes that rose and fell,

Red star of boyhood's fiery thought,

Farewell.

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They gave their lives, and I, my queen,

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Have given you of my life,

Seeing your brave star burn high between

Men's strife.

The strife that lightened round their spears

Long since fell still so long

Hardly may hope to last in years

My song.

But still through strife of time and thought

Your light on me too fell:

Queen, in whose name we sang or fought,

Farewell.

II

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There beats no heart on either border
Wherethrough the north blasts blow
But keeps your memory as a warder

His beacon-fire aglow.

Long since it fired with love and wonder
Mine, for whose April age

Blithe midsummer made banquet under

The shade of Hermitage.

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Soft sang the burn's blithe notes, that gather 25

Strength to ring true:

And air and trees and sun and heather

Love hangs like light about your name

As music round the shell:

No heart can take of you a tame

Farewell.

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Yet, when your very face was seen,

Ill gifts were yours for giving:

Love gat strange guerdons of my queen
When living.

O diamond heart unflawed and clear,
The whole world's crowning jewel!
Was ever heart so deadly dear

So cruel?

Yet none for you of all that bled
Grudged once one drop that fell:
Not one to life reluctant said
Farewell.

VI

Forgive them all their praise, who blot
Your fame with praise of you:
Then love may say, and falter not
Adieu.

Yet some you hardly would forgive
Who did you much less wrong

Once but resentment should not live
Too long.

They never saw your lip's bright bow,

Your swordbright eyes,

The bluest of heavenly things below

The skies.

Clear eyes that love's self finds most like

A swordblade's blue,

A swordblade's ever keen to strike,

Adieu.

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90

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VII

Though all things breathe or sound of fight

That yet make up your spell,
To bid you were to bid the light
Farewell.

Farewell the song says only, being
A star whose race is run:
Farewell the soul says never, seeing
The sun.

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Yet, wellnigh as with flash of tears,

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The song must say but so

That took your praise up twenty years

Ago.

More bright than stars or moons that vary,
Sun kindling heaven and hell,

Here, after all these years, Queen Mary,

Farewell.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

110

WANDERING WILLIE

HOME no more home to me, whither must I wander?
Hunger my driver, I go where I must.

Cold blows the winter wind over hill and heather;
Thick drives the rain, and my roof is in the dust.
Loved of wise men was the shade of my roof-tree,

The true word of welcome was spoken in the door
Dear days of old, with the faces in the firelight,
Kind folks of old, you come again no more.

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Home was home then, my dear, full of kindly faces, Home was home then, my dear, happy for the child. 10

Fire and the windows bright glittered on the moorland;
Song, tuneful song, built a palace in the wild.
Now, when day dawns on the brow of the moorland,
Lone stands the house, and the chimney-stone is cold.
Lone let it stand, now the friends are all departed,
The kind hearts, the true hearts, that loved the
place of old.

Spring shall come, come again, calling up the moor-fowl, Spring shall bring the sun and rain, bring the bees

and flowers;

Red shall the heather bloom over hill and valley,

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Soft flow the stream through the even-flowing hours; 20 Fair the day shine as it shone on my childhood

Fair shine the day on the house with open door; Birds come and cry there and twitter in the chimney But I go forever and come again no more.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

REQUIEM

UNDER the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sca,
And the hunter home from the hill.

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.

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