Hecate's Due
You who are dead,
Do you know
They've dug up half the irises
That used to grow
Here in the quadrangle a year ago?
Those left are mere
Points of blue
That can't make sky of earth, as once
They used to do,
Didn't they? Buried flowers . . . Proserpin's due.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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Hecate's Due
You who are dead,
Do you know
They've dug up half the irises
That used to grow
Here in the quadrangle a year ago?
Those left are mere
Points of blue
That can't make sky of earth, as once
They used to do,
Didn't they? Buried flowers . . . Proserpin's due.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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In this little school
In this little school
Life goes so sweetly,
Day on azure day
Is lost completely.
No one thinks too much,
Or worries greatly.
In a pleasant shade
We dream sedately.
There's no struggle here
Or conflict showing;
Only the sweet pain
Of young limbs growing.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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When day is over
When day is over
I climb up the stair,
Take off my dark dress,
Pull down my hair,
Open my window
And look at the stars.
Then my heart breaks through
These prison bars
Of space and darkness
And finds what is true,
Up past the stars where
I'm one with you.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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Little Ships
The little ships are dearer than the great ships
For they sail in strange places,
They lean nearer the green waters.
One may count by wavelets how the year slips
From their decks; and hear the Sea-King's daughters
Laughing at their play whene'er the boat dips.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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The Melbourne Cup
I like the riders
Clad in rose and blue;
Their colours glitter
And their horses too.
Swift go the riders
On incarnate speed.
My thought can scarcely
Follow where they lead.
Delicate, strong, long
Lines of colour flow,
And all the people
Tremble as they go.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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O sweet and fair! These words are mine to use
O sweet and fair! These words are mine to use.
O sweet and fair! A year ago I'ld choose
Some better words of praise
Than sweet and fair.
O sweet and fair, and weak, and most untrue!
O sweet and fair! I still may speak of you
After my year of pain
As sweet and fair.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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I'd like to spend long hours at home
I'd like to spend long hours at home
With a small child to bother me.
I'd take her out to see the shops
And fuss about my husband's tea.
Instead of this I spend my days
In noisy schoolrooms, harsh and bare.
Unloved am I, since people give
Too many children to my care.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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Whenever I think of you, you are alone
Whenever I think of you, you are alone,
Shut by yourself between
Great walls of stone.
There is a stool, I think, and a table there,
And a mat underneath your feet;
And the rest is bare.
I cannot stop remembering this, my own,
Seventeen hours of the day
You are alone.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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He had served eighty masters. They'd have said
He had served eighty masters. They'd have said
He 'worked for these employers' to earn bread.
And they, if they had heard him, would have sneered
To brand him inefficient whom they feared.
For to know eighty masters is to know
What sort of thing men who are masters grow.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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