Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

John Addington Symonds (1840–1893)

In the Inn at Berchtesgaden

CHILD with the gentle tired eyes

And pallid cheek and faint wan smile,

I love your courteous shy replies

And soft persuasive ways, the while

On day-long tedious service bent

You bear our whims and discontent.

For hard it is to please alway

The hundred guests who come and go,

To see fresh faces every day,

And hear the same unchanging flow

Of hasty words that wants express

And idle wishes numberless.

I marvel not your lips are wan,

And soft and languid every limb,

And faint as dawn the blush upon

Those cheeks so delicate and dim;

For like a flower that pines away,

You fade for light and air and play.

I would that I could bear you hence

Afar to field, or hill, or wood,

To watch new life in every sense

Expand with free and pulsing blood,

To see your eyes with pleasure glow,

And hear your laughter fresh and low.

That cannot be: but day by day

Life brings you nothing new or bright:

The bloom of boyhood dies away;

And youth, unsunned by youth’s delight,

Yields place to manhood tame and drear—

Blank year succeeding to blank year.