Arthur Symons Poems

You were a child, and liked me, yesterday.
To-day you are a woman, and perhaps
Those softer eyes betoken the sweet lapse
Of liking into loving: who shall say?
...

The long September evening dies
In mist along the fields and lanes;
Only a few faint stars surprise
The lingering twilight as it wanes.
...

The little stones chuckle against the fields:
'We are so small: God will not think of us;
We are so old already, we have seen
So many generations blunt their ploughs,
...

Behind the door, beyond the light,
Who is it waits there in the night?
When he has entered he will stand,
Imposing with his silent hand
...

The grey-green stretch of sandy grass,
Indefinitely desolate;
A sea of lead, a sky of slate;
Already autumn in the air, alas!
...

But to have lain upon the grass
One perfect day, one perfect hour,
Beholding all things mortal pass
Into the quiet of green grass;
...

There are some hours when I seem so indifferent; all things fade
To an indifferent greyness, like that grey of the sky;
...

Water and marble and that silentness
Which is not broken by a wheel or hoof;
A city like a water-lily, less
...

Why is it I remember yet
You, of all women one has met
In random wayfare, as one meets
The chance romances of the streets,
...

Only to live, only to be
In Venice, is enough for me.
To be a beggar, and to lie
At home beneath the equal sky,
...