RANSOM, John CROWE


Piazza Piece

– I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying

To make you hear. Your ears are soft and small

And listen to an old man not at all,

They want the young men's whispering and sighing.

But see the roses on your trellis dying

And hear the spectral singing of the moon;

For I must have my lovely lady soon,

I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying.

– I am a lady young in beauty waiting

Until my truelove comes, and then we kiss.

But what grey man among the vines is this

Whose words are dry and faint as in a dream?

Back from my trellis, Sir, before I scream !

I am a lady young in beauty waiting.

By the Riverside

A great green spread of meadow land,

(Must rest his weight on an ample base),

A secret water moving on,

A clean blue air for his breathing-space,

A pair of willows bending down

In double witness to his grace,

And on the rock his sinner sprawls

And looks the Strong One face to face.

The sinner's mocking tongue is dry,

Wonder is on that mighty jeerer,

He loves, and he never loved before,

He wants the glowing sky no nearer,

He likes the willows to be two,

He would not have the water clearer,

He thinks that God is perfect once:

Heaven, rejoice! a new God-fearer.

And now each quiet thing awakes

And dances madly, wavers, dips;

These are God's motions on the air,

His Pulse for the sinner's finger-tips,

His arrows shot across the blue,

His love-words dropping from his lips,

And who ever heard such whisperings,

Who ever saw such fellowships?

Emily Hardcastle, Spinster

We shall come tomorrow morning, who were not to have her love,

We shall bring no face of envy but a gift of praise and lilies

To the stately ceremonial we are not the heroes of.

Let the sisters now attend her, who are red-eyed, who are wroth;

They were younger, she was finer, for they wearied of the waiting

And they married them to merchants, being unbelievers both.

I was dapper when I dangled in my pepper-and-salt;

We were only local beauties, and we beautifully trusted

If the proud one had to tarry, one would have her by default.

But right across the threshold has her grizzled Baron come;

Let them robe her, Bride and Princess, who’ll go down a leafy archway

And seal her to the Stranger for his castle in the gloom.

Blue Girls

Twirling your blue skirts, travelling the sward

Under the towers of your seminary,

Go listen to your teachers old and contrary

Without believing a word.

Tie the white fillets then about your hair

And think no more of what will come to pass

Than bluebirds that go walking on the grass

And chattering on the air.

Practice your beauty, blue girls, before it fail;

And I will cry with my loud lips and publish

Beauty which all our power shall never establish,

It is so frail.

For I could tell you a story which is true;

I know a woman with a terrible tongue,

Blear eyes fallen from blue,

All her perfections tarnished -- yet it is not long

Since she was lovelier than any of you.