R,CHARD MONCKTON MILNES was born in the year - OUDL Home

108 John DrinkwaterThe skies seem'd true above thee,The rose true on the tree;The bird seem'd true the summer through,But all proved false to me.World! is there one good thing in you,Life, love, or death—or what?Since lips that sang, I love thee,Have said, I love thee not?I think the sun's kiss will scarce fallInto one flower's gold cup;I think the bird will miss me,And give the summer up.O sweet place! desolate in tallWild grass, have you forgotHow her lips loved to kiss me,Now that they kiss me not.Be false or fair above me,Come back with any face,Summer!—do I care what you do?You cannot change one place—The grass, the leaves, the earth, the dew,The grave I make the spot—Here, where she used to love me,Here, where she loves me not.James Thomson's City of Dreadful Night was first published,in a journal, in 1874. Thomson was a poet of veryuncertain attainment. His shorter lyrical pieces areseldom if ever better than second-rate. It is not that theyare weak imitations of other men's work, but that theycome from an insufficient impulse. Many admirablepoets have suffered from misfortune, ill-health, and evendefects of habit and character, and have yet managed toreserve for their poetry some energy uncontaminated bythese influences. Thomson was less just to himself, andwrote much of his verse when his hold upon experiencewas infirm. The consequence is a certain triviality ofspirit, which leaves his lyrics for the most part povertystrickenand tame. And yet that there was in him, how-