Selected Poems (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: A BALLAD OF AN ARTIST'S WIFE ' Sweet wife, this heavy-hearted age Is nought to us; we two shall look To Art, and fill a perfect page In Life's ill-written doomsday book.' He wrought in colour; blood and brain Gave fire and might; and beauty grew And flowered with every magic stain His passion on the canvas threw. They shunned the world and worldly ways: He laboured with a constant will; But few would look, and none would praise, Because of something lacking still. After a time her days with sighs And tears o'erflowed; for blighting need Bedimmed the lustre of her eyes, And there were little mouths to feed. ' My bride shall ne'er be common-place, He thought, and glanced; and glanced again: At length he looked her in the face; And lo, a woman old and plain! About this time the world's heart failed? The lusty heart no fear could rend; In every land wild voices wailed, And prophets prophesied the end. To-morrow or to-day,' he thought, May be Eternity; and I Have neither felt nor fashioned aught That makes me unconcerned to die. ' With care and counting of the cost My life a sterile waste has grown, Wherein my better dreams are lost Like chaff in the Sahara sown. I must escape this living tomb! My life shall yet be rich and free, And on the very stroke of Doom My soul at last begin to be. Wife, children, duty, household fires For victims of the good and true! For me my infinite desires, Freedom and things untried and new! I would encounter all the press Of thought and feeling life can show, The sweet embrace, the aching stress Of every earthly joy and woe;4 And from the world's impending wreck And out of pain and pleasure weave Beauty undreamt of, to bedeck The Festival of Doomsday Eve.' He...