Alfred Austin poems

Alfred Austin(30 May 1835 - 2 June 1913 / Headingley)

A November Note

- by Alfred Austin 102

Why, throstle, do you sing
In this November haze?
Singing for what? for whom?
Deem you that it is Spring,
Or that your lonely lays
Will stave off Winter's gloom?

Then did the bird reply:
''I sing because I know
That Spring will surely come:
That is the reason why,
Though menaced by the snow,
Even now I am not dumb.

''But few are they that hear,
And fewer still that feel,
The meaning of my song,
Until the note be clear,
Re-echoed be the peal,
Early, and late, and long.

''But you have heard and owned
The sound of my refrain,
Yet tentative and low.
Thus, poet, be intoned
Your own foreshadowing strain,
Trusting that some will know:

''That some will know and say,
When greetings of the Spring
Wake Winter from its bed,
This is the self-same lay
We overheard him sing
When dead hearts deemed him dead.''

A Last Request

- by Alfred Austin 93

Let not the roses lie
Too thickly tangled round my tomb,
Lest fleecy clouds that skim the summer sky,
Flinging their faint soft shadows, pass it by,
And know not over whom.

And let not footsteps come
Too frequent round that nook of rest;
Should I-who knoweth?-not be deaf, though dumb,
Bird's idle pipe, or bee's laborious hum,
Would suit me, listening, best.

And, pray you, do not hew
Words to provoke a smile or sneer;
But only carve-at least if they be true-
These simple words, or some such, and as few,
''He whom we loved lies here.''

And if you only could
Find out some quite sequestered slope
That, girt behind with undeciduous wood,
In front o'erlooks the ocean-then I should
Die with a calmer hope.

And if you will but so
This last request of mine fulfil,
I rest your debtor for the final throw
And if I can but help you where I go,
Be sure, fond friends, I will.