Arthur Thomas Quiller-couch Year Poems
- 1. The Root
Deep, Love, yea, very deep.
And in the dark exiled,
I have no sense of light but still to creep
And know the breast, but not the eyes. Thy child
... - 2. The Vigil Of Venus
The Pervigilium Veneris--of unknown authorship, but clearly belonging to the late literature of the Roman Empire--has survived in two MSS., both preserved at Paris in the Bibliothë"que Nationale.
Of these two MSS. the better written may be assigned (at earliest) to the close of the seventh century; the other (again at earliest) to the close of the ninth. Both are corrupt; the work of two illiterate copyists who--strange to say--were both smatterers enough to betray their little knowledge by converting Pervigilium into Per Virgilium (scilicet, "by Virgil"): thus helping us to follow the process of thought by which the Middle Ages turned Virgil into a wizard. Here and there the texts become quite silly, separately or in consent; and just where they agree in the most surprising way--i.e. in the arrangement of the lines--the conjectural emendator is invited to do his worst by a note at the head of the older Codex, "Sunt vero versus xxii"--"There are rightly twenty-two lines."
... - 3. The White Moth
If a leaf rustled, she would start:
And yet she died, a year ago.
How had so frail a thing the heart
To journey where she trembled so?
... - 4. Anecdote For Fathers
Designed to show that the practice of lying is not confined to children.
By the late W. W. (of H.M. Inland Revenue Service).
... - 5. Lady Jane
Sapphics.
Down the green hill-side fro' the castle window
... - 6. The Regent - A Drama In One Act
DRAMATIS PERSONAE
CARL'ANTONIO, Duke of Adria
... - 7. Solvitur Acris Hiemps
My Juggins, see: the pasture green,
Obeying Nature's kindly law,
Renews its mantle; there has been
A thaw.
...