Alice MacDonald Fleming

“ My mother cries "Come, girl, spin off thy distaff."
I watch to see him passing;
The night has grown so dark
I shall not see him coming,
Bur I shall hear his footstep,
That crushes down the flowers
That crushes down my heart.
He will not see me waiting,
He will not hear me sobbing,
I listen in the dark.
The night comes fast, I hear the oxen chewing,
The stars are very white and very little,
My mother cries "Come, girl, spin off thy distaff." ”

“ Is all their power past?
Think of the songs that might have been
Had not death come too fast!
Why is my hand less skilled
Than wood and wire be?
Cannot one floating song be willed
To breathe its tune to me? ”

“ The rosy Lie came home to sleep,
⁠And still is near me:
She has no beauty now to keep,
⁠She does not fear me.
The rosy Lie has devil's claws,
⁠A tail and pointed horn:
But since I once have broken laws
⁠She makes my life forlorn. ”

“ Young Never-Grow-Old, with your heart of gold,
⁠And the dear boy's face upon you,
It's hard to tell, though we know it well,
⁠That the grass is growing upon you;
But the trials of earth are a tale that's told,
⁠And your pain is over, Never- Grow-Old. ”

“ I have a garden where little grows,
But I gave to Our Lady my only rose,
And I hung in the Shrine, though my heart denied,
The Cross my Dearest held when he died.
My room is dreary, at fall of night,
But the lamp that was mine burns clear on the height! ”

“ Let me go my way,
I guess the kindly words your heart would say,
And thank you; but my secret's mine to keep.
One can wear smiles like jewels, clasp them fast,
Find pride and pleasure in their glittering. ”

“ Pain to the heart. Spin off thy distaff quickly,
While I sit alone at my distaff, I hear the voices of children,
⁠The voices of the children who are passing;
I hear their laughter too, and the sound of their feet,
⁠The little feet that run into other cottages ”

“ And on the altar at her head,
⁠All passion-pure and pale,
Abrim with sacred wine rose-red,
⁠He saw the Holy Grail!
God grant this little legend wings
⁠To all who love to roam:
The Holiest and the Dearest things
⁠May still be found at home. ”

“ I sell the glorious fancies of my dreams,
My hope, my faith, the love I won and gave,
And dull bare life, wherein no glory gleams,
Is all that I have now the power to save:
A weary toiler at ignoble themes. ”

“ The beasts feared man, but they loved their God,
And bent glad heads to the earth He trod,
"Wailings swept over the glassy sea,
The cry of God's beasts came up to Me,
"Truly I know that your stripes be sore —
Have ye forgotten the stripes I bore?
"Yet it is written, ''Twixt birth and death
The whole of Creation travaileth.'
"These men do evil unwittingly. ”

“ Love's Derelict am I, Love's Derelict,
Wrecked by his hand, by him flung to disaster;
Drifting alone, through merciless edict,
Alone, cast out, forgotten of my master.
Strong prows of purpose pity as ye pass
Love's Derelict, Love's Derelict, alas! ”

“ They left the kirkyard in the shade of the steeple,
⁠And the graveyard is now on the dark Gallows Hill!
The hill once dishonoured is now their "God's Acre,"
⁠The people have followed their minister there,
And roses and white thorn breathe praise to their Maker
⁠Where once stood the gallows, all grimly and bare. ”

“ My feasting-time is over, and I see
The world receding. Friendship, love, and art,
The singing-women, flowers, revelry,
Have vanished I lie naked, set apart
This is the death-stone. What remains for me? ”

“ When He Left Simla
His Thoughts
I DID not know when first we met,
⁠That parting would be half so bitter,
That Time brings love, and then regret
I did not know,—when first we met.
I wonder will she soon forget. ”

“ And a pure white gleaming Pall.
A white Pall for the Woman,
And a gold Crown for the Queen,
And a Coffin for the Human,
⁠To hide the fleshly screen.
So simple! This is all,
Our great Queen's Funeral. ”

“ And even as I wondered
At the following, haunting shadow,
(That was cast by nothing living, the shadow of a shade.)
I saw it was a woman's,
The shadow of a woman,
Of the woman who is dead,
And then I understood. ”

“ To-day, I dreamt of you, my Sweet:
I sped to you on eager feet,
Forgotten pain, forgiven wrong,
Since Love was lord, enthroned and strong!
What woke me from that dear deceit?
Tonk! Tonk! Tonk! Tonk! ”

“ The wind’s voice is chanting an anthem,
The roof is the infinite sky.
Now life bas grown glad for the living,
We see them, we gain them at length,
Our help, and our shelter, health-giving,
The hills in their strength! ”

“ Oh, it was Love had come to me.
"Once I had sworn that Love was true,
Wings were fluttered, and Fancy flew.
"Only by this can a maiden say
If Love or Fancy has passed her way.
"Fancy is fickle, and will not stay,
Love will last for ever and aye. ”

“ Where Giotto's Tower stands erect and strong,
The Duomo's slender throat and silver tongue,
Built, when men's faith shone out without dis-disguise:
More sure of right, more confident of wrong
Than in our twentieth century subtleties. ”

“ See the dreams come flying,
Circle where your body lies,
Like a south wind sighing.
Dream, and dream, and sweetly sleep,
Dreams are free from sinning:
Dream, Ah! better dream than weep,
Dream of better winning. ”

“ A thin green ooze exudes and drips
Over the sea-shells gaping lips,
And through all speech the grey gull’s cry
Comes, like a strident misery.
Who enter there stand side by side,
There is no room for hate or pride. ”

“ I know not how.
All flowers do not die in Winter's frost,
Some few live bravely till the Spring shall come:
Pale Christmas rose and faint chrysanthemum
Survive, sometimes, the highest snowdrift tost. ”

“ Where Hugli flows,
Where Hugli flows, our English eyes are weary
Our hearts are sometimes very far away.
Needs must, that exile should be long and dreary
How slow the hours, how lagging long the day,
Where Hugli flows.
Yet, years hence, when the steamer’s screw shall beat
The homeward track, for us without return,
Our bitter bread, by custom almost sweet,
We shall look back, perhaps through tears that burn,
Where Hugli flows. ”

“ No pleasant boughs are stirred:
No gentle sun, no quiet snow,
No English bee or bird.
The suns of springtime scorch the stone,
In summer, storm and rave
The winds that herald the cyclone,
The rains that lash the grave. ”

“ The Power of Time
TIMES power is infinite: there was a day
When I, in wild abasement, wept and prayed,
Petitioning that it might pass away
This grief, which now I bear most undismayed.
The very stones where once I bleeding strayed
Now fit themselves to my accustomed feet. ”

“ Like fiends, like apes,
Followed the little Sin.
⁠No longer thin,
⁠No longer lonely,
He rules me only.
I am the thrall of Sin.
He wrecks my home.
⁠All, all against my will
⁠He rules me still.
When will my Angel come? ”

“ I DREAMT last night of Eden—
⁠The Eden early made:
Where saints await their guerdon
⁠Till all on earth shall fade.
The lambkin and the lion
⁠Lay couched in happy sleep,
And all the songs of Zion
⁠Were echoing true and deep. ”

“ I'VE a box of my own, for myself, and no one has the key,
It is filled with the trifles that matter, and thoughts without end;
With the loves I have lost, and the joys that were taken from me,
And there, in a pile, are the letters I never shall send. ”

“ But their bunting is all changed,
⁠For the flags are half mast high:
See, the Ship of Death goes by,
Bearing one who was our Queen.
Listen! Portsmouth bells are telling,
Now the great Queen leaves her dwelling.
⁠Toll! Toll! The Queen! The Queen! ”

“ The sound floats to me from below
⁠Of laughing voices in the street.
They care no more to clothe or eat,
⁠They take no heed when tempests blow,
Safe from all sorrow, all deceit,
⁠These are the Dead of Long Ago! ”

“ Were you his murderer, or was it I?
I do not care to ask, there is no need.
Since gone is gone, and dead is dead indeed,
What use to wrangle of the how and why?
I take all blame, I take it. Draw not nigh! ”

“ Slow goes the day,
'Tis here he was, an’ I am here,
An’ he is gone away.
Violets at the brookside, I smell them when I pass,
But where’s the boy that picked them as we laughed along the grass?
“No bluer than your two eyes.” How soon do eyes grow dim? ”

“ He did not bend the branches of the hazel,
⁠Lest they should bar her way.
I watched, and told myself, "This maiden truly
⁠Is one he does not love."
"My sister of the cross, why look'st thou pale?" ”

“ Squirrels for pensioners,
Monkeys are bold marauders
Making raids on my borders !
Nature is so much nearer
Than ever she seemed before.
Nature is so much dearer
Than when one looks through a door. ”

“ There sits a blessed memory on a throne,
There my life centres."
Christina Rossetti.
AH happy soul, since Life cannot estrange
One blessed memory,
In your calm haven, safe from chance and change,
I pray you pity me! ”

“ Always supposing that you keep the rules:
These be a decalogue, and many fools
The world terms "sonneteers" disdain them quite,
Scorn to chime octave or scan sestet right.
Poor unskilled workmen, gibing at their tools! ”

“ But for the once, and for the twice,
⁠She would na' trust her een,
And she maun test wi' some device
⁠The what this thing may mean,
A crimson kerchief round her head,
⁠A staff for walking lame,
If it be summons to the dead,
⁠The fetch maun hae the same. ”