The South Seas

Mutability

Clouds

Sonnet (Suggested by some of the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research

A Memory (From a sonnet-sequence)

One Day

Waikiki

Hauntings

He Wonders Whether to Praise or to Blame Her

Doubts

There's Wisdom in Women

Fafaia

Heaven

The Great Lover

Retrospect

Tiare Tahiti

 

He Wonders Whether to Praise or to Blame Her

I have peace to weigh your worth, now all is over,
   But if to praise or blame you, cannot say.
For, who decries the loved, decries the lover;
   Yet what man lauds the thing he's thrown away?

Be you, in truth, this dull, slight, cloudy naught,
   The more fool I, so great a fool to adore;
But if you're that high goddess once I thought,
   The more your godhead is, I lose the more.

Dear fool, pity the fool who thought you clever!
   Dear wisdom, do not mock the fool that missed you!
Most fair, -- the blind has lost your face for ever!
   Most foul, -- how could I see you while I kissed you?

So . . . the poor love of fools and blind I've proved you,
For, foul or lovely, 'twas a fool that loved you.

1913.