<html xmlns:tei="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0"><body><h1 align="" class="head">To a Lady in the Reading-Room of the British Museum</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">WHAT are you doing there mid the dust,</p><p class="line">You that are made of the sunlight and dew,</p><p class="line">What are you doing?</p><p class="line">Reading? Reviewing?</p><p class="line">Wearing out eyes of impossible blue,</p><p class="line">Wasting a heart that the world should be wooing,</p><p class="line">Wasting a heart that is tender and true.</p><p class="line">What are you doing?</p><p class="line">Reading? Reviewing?</p><p class="line">Japanese? Volpauk? Hebrew? Hindoo?</p></div><h1 align="" class="head">ii</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">What do you seek in that catacomb there,</p><p class="line">Lined with a million of folios dead?</p><p class="line">What are you finding</p><p class="line">Hid in the binding,</p><p class="line">You with the lips of geranium red?</p><p class="line">What are you harvesting? What are you grinding?</p><p class="line">What are you trying to put in your head?</p><p class="line">What are you finding</p><p class="line">Hid in the binding?</p><p class="line">Were it not better to frivol instead?</p></div><h1 align="" class="head">iii</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">What are you studying? Science? Theology?</p><p class="line">Botany? History? Cookery? Art?</p><p class="line">Have you been choosing</p><p class="line">Something amusing,</p><p class="line">Fin de siècle, and piquant, and smart?</p><p class="line">Are you a sermon or sonnet perusing?</p><p class="line">Feed you your mind, or your soul, or your heart?</p><p class="line">Have you been choosing</p><p class="line">Something amusing?</p><p class="line">Is it Corelli? Is it Descartes?</p></div><h1 align="" class="head">iv</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Are you the Goddess Pallas Athena,</p><p class="line">Goddess of Wisdom, stately and wise?</p><p class="line">Have you, I wonder,</p><p class="line">Lightning and thunder</p><p class="line">Stored in your bosom and hid in your eyes?</p><p class="line">Out of the brow of great Zeus cleft asunder,</p><p class="line">Did you one morning with shouting arise?</p><p class="line">Have you, I wonder,</p><p class="line">Lightning and thunder</p><p class="line">Brought from the arsenal vault of the skies?</p></div><h1 align="" class="head">v</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Fair necromancer, with your warm beauty</p><p class="line">You can awaken the dead and the dumb;</p><p class="line">Fair necromancer,</p><p class="line">Soldier and dancer</p><p class="line">Step to your heart like the beat of a drum;</p><p class="line">Emperor, prophet, singer, romancer</p><p class="line">Talk till the dome and the galleries hum;</p><p class="line">Fair necromancer,</p><p class="line">Singer and dancer,</p><p class="line">Poet and priest, at your beckoning come.</p></div><h1 align="" class="head">vi</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">By your warm wonder bewitched, and awakened,</p><p class="line">All the dead hearts of the universe leap;</p><p class="line">Lo, with a holloa,</p><p class="line">Pan and Apollo</p><p class="line">Come from Time's oubliette dusky and deep;</p><p class="line">Odin, and Thor, and Eurydice follow;</p><p class="line">Out of a cupboard the leprechaun peep;</p><p class="line">Lo, with a holloa,</p><p class="line">Pan and Apollo,</p><p class="line">Odin, and Isis, arise from their sleep!</p></div><h1 align="" class="head">vii</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Dozens of passionate amorous poets</p><p class="line">Dance to your heart on the dusty old shelves!</p><p class="line">Out of the pages,</p><p class="line">Brown with the ages,</p><p class="line">March mighty warriors gripping their helves,</p><p class="line">Teachers, and preachers, and singers, and sages,</p><p class="line">Commonplace people the same as ourselves.</p><p class="line">Out of the pages,</p><p class="line">Brown with the ages,</p><p class="line">Flutter forth also the fairies and elves.</p></div><h1 align="" class="head">viii</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Come all the dreams of the beautiful dreamers,</p><p class="line">All the fair dreams that their dreamers outlast,</p><p class="line">All the romances,</p><p class="line">All the fair fancies,</p><p class="line">Fairy-tale visions, and hopes of the past.</p><p class="line">There on the desk Queen Titania dances,</p><p class="line">Ariel, Oberon come from the Vast.</p><p class="line">All the romances,</p><p class="line">All the fair fancies,</p><p class="line">All at your feet, like a garland are cast.</p></div><h1 align="" class="head">ix</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">O but they love you, prophet and poet,</p><p class="line">Warrior, patriarch, fairy, and king,</p><p class="line">Hero and hewer,</p><p class="line">Dreamer and doer,</p><p class="line">Come to your beauty, as flowers to the spring;</p><p class="line">Every wise heart of the past is your wooer,</p><p class="line">Suppliant round you they clamour and sing.</p><p class="line">Hero and hewer,</p><p class="line">Dreamer and doer,</p><p class="line">Each to your beauty his homage would bring.</p></div><h1 align="" class="head">x</h1><div class="stanza"><p class="line">Lady, fair Lady, haply some morning,</p><p class="line">As you bend over some wonderful scroll,</p><p class="line">You will discover</p><p class="line">Lips of a lover</p><p class="line">Singing a ditty, and craving a dole</p><p class="line">Haply some morning Cupid will hover,</p><p class="line">Stringing his bow and demanding his toll,</p><p class="line">You will discover</p><p class="line">A beautiful lover</p><p class="line">Kissing your lips and besieging your soul.</p></div></body></html> · Great War