Today | News | Books | Recipes Adventure | Science Fiction | Ghost stories | Poetry | Children | History VersesThe Project Gutenberg eBook of Verses This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: Verses Author: Violet Jacob Release date: March 4, 2026 [eBook #78110] Language: English Original publication: London: William Heinemann, 1905 Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78110 Credits: Mairi, Shawn Carraher and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK VERSES *** VERSES =THE GARDEN OF KAMA=; and other Love Lyrics from India. Arranged in Verse by +Laurence Hope+. Square 8vo, 5_s._ net. =STARS OF THE DESERT.= By +Laurence Hope+. Square 8vo, price 5_s._ net. _Uniform with the above (shortly)_ =LAST POEMS.= By +Laurence Hope+. +London+: WILLIAM HEINEMANN. VERSES BY VIOLET JACOB (MRS. ARTHUR JACOB) AUTHOR OF 'THE SHEEP-STEALERS,' 'THE INTERLOPER' LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1905 _All rights reserved._ TO THE IDEAL CRITIC I have to thank the Editors of the _Westminster Gazette_, _The English Illustrated Magazine_, and _Country Life_ for permission to reprint some of the following poems.--V. J. CONTENTS PAGE To H. M. C. 1 Half-way 2 White Magic 4 Serenade 5 The Shadow 6 The Mill-house 8 'I sleep but my Heart waketh' 13 An Immortelle 14 The Two Queens 15 The Lost Track 16 At a Brookside 18 Revenant 18 To Aurelia, with a Pearl Necklace 19 Beyond the Walls 20 'Come on, come up, ye rovers' 22 An Echo 24 A Young Moon 26 The Soul 27 The Ballad of Hakon 29 Ignis Fatuus 33 The Little Nightjar 34 Possession 36 Airlie Kirk 38 The Flute player 39 In Lower Egypt 42 Winter and Spring 44 A Tryst 45 The Call 47 Time and Space 49 A Translation 50 Glamour 52 Lenore in the Oliveyards 54 New Year's Eve 55 Three Poems for Children-- I. The Lilacs 57 II. Dreams 58 III. The Snow Witch 61 The Valley of the Kings 62 The Lowland Ploughman 65 Late February 67 From a Train-window 68 Poems of India-- I. In a Mango-tope 70 II. Night in the Plains 73 III. The Resting-place 75 IV. Evening in the Opium Fields 77 V. 'God is great' 78 VI. A Mahommedan Graveyard 81 VII. Cherry-Blossom at Dagshai 83 VIII. 'With Military Honours' 85 IX. The Distant Temple 87 TO H. M. C. A silence falls on us to-day, Our lips are closed, we do not speak, But, in each other's eyes we seek And find the thing that each would say. So deep it lies, a rock set fast, Washed hard by life, by love, by tears, Beneath the floods of time and years Built up and rooted in the past. And sometimes, when the tide is low, A voice comes up the Northern sea; Across the sands to you and me It calls from lands left long ago. By marshes lying dim and wide, Through wet, grey sea-fogs, creeping on, Back from that youth for ever gone It comes to us across the tide. How shall we speak? What words can say The thing for which no words are known, That calls to us from places lone Through past, through present, through to-day? ❦ HALF-WAY The world is not the dream of living gold We dreamed when we were young; Then, all the glory that the west could hold Burned, fold on fold, A molten veil across its portals flung Behind whose shade the years lay sleeping still, Like tales untold; But now, beyond the beeches bare and chill, Beyond the woods set far upon the hill, The clouds are cold. And life is not the journey that we planned As we set out with morn; We said, 'We will rest here and view the land, Or take our stand Upon these hills and see the ripening corn, Or step aside along the mere to mark The wild-fowl band;' But now, we know we must tread swift and stark, If we would cross the desert ere the dark Creeps on the sand. And death is not the dim and distant shade So far against the sky; The half-seen trap for others waiting laid, While we, arrayed In pride and plume of youth, go sweeping by. We thought to meet him with a spirit braced By conquests made; But now, we know, when half the road is traced, Our hope is but to reach him undisgraced And unafraid. ❦ WHITE MAGIC I saw the moon come out and stand last night Above the plains of cloud, Like a lone chief, who, at his tented door, Looks down upon the forest's silent floor From a far battlement upon the height, And drops his mantle proud Into the swimming vapours of the light. O watcher on the planet-woven steep Whose shining feet are set Above the haunted glamour of the skies! Draw me, a slave, with thy compelling eyes, While the slow hours in soundless circle creep, Out through the world, while yet The world's heart heaves beneath the veil of sleep. O pale-faced chief! The earth and heaven are still And thou and I awake; I come, with outstretched arms and spirit bound, Forth through the scattered graves where, lying sound, The dead are sown by field and fold and hill And mist-entangled brake; O pale chief! Draw me up into the height, Into the swimming light. ❦ SERENADE O roses, clustering on the sunny wall In fragrant groups of white and red together, Bend down, bend down your branches, one and all, Beneath the fair June sky and glowing weather; And say to her, I send her A message tender. And thou, convolvulus, upon the gate, With pale white bells and trails of light leaves swinging, Tell her my love for her is strong as fate, For ever true and like thy tendrils clinging; And kiss her, soft and shy, As she goes by. O jessamine, in wreaths of scented stars Across the balconies and stonework meeting, Climb up and enter at her window-bars And bear among your buds my loving greeting; Then whisper, sweet and slow, 'He waits below.' ❦ THE SHADOW What soul has swept your branches, cypress-tree, That you should point so high; That you, whose root among the graves may be, Look ever to the sky? Dark warden of the long-untended tomb Seen o'er some mouldering wall, Or set where fountained gardens are abloom And roses blush and fall. Scarcely the wind is voiceful as it sways Your column, dusk, austere; Scarcely the evening breeze that round you plays Brings music to the ear. Your earth-bound foot mortality retains Imprisoned in the sod, Your earth-freed spirit to that ether strains Which is the breath of God. The light o'er southern vineyards dying down Smiles on the landscape still, And lays the lengthening shadow of your crown On many a Tuscan hill. And, nearer home, where memory's deathless sun Enwraps some tear-sown mound, Your sha |