Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). A Victorian Anthology, 1837–1895. 1895.

Philip Bourke Marston 1850–87

A Greeting

RISE up, my song! stretch forth thy wings and fly

With no delaying, over shore and deep!

Be with my lady when she wakes from sleep;

Touch her with kisses softly on each eye;

And say, before she puts her dreaming by:

“Within the palaces of slumber keep

One little niche wherein sometimes to weep

For one who vainly toils till he shall die!”

Yet say again, a sweeter thing than this:

“His life is wasted by his love for thee.”

Then, looking o’er the fields of memory,

She ’ll find perchance, o’ergrown with grief and bliss,

Some flower of recollection, pale and fair,

That she, through pity, for a day may wear.