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diff --git a/old/pmwld10h.htm b/old/pmwld10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..45f62bf --- /dev/null +++ b/old/pmwld10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4339 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Poems</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Poems, by Oscar Wilde</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems, by Oscar Wilde +(#16 in our series by Oscar Wilde) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Poems + +Author: Oscar Wilde + +Release Date: October, 1997 [EBook #1057] +[This file was first posted on September 24, 1997] +[Most recently updated: August 8, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: US-ASCII +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h1>POEMS BY OSCAR WILDE</h1> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Hélas!</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>To drift with every passion till my soul<br />Is a stringed lute +on which all winds can play,<br />Is it for this that I have given away<br />Mine +ancient wisdom, and austere control?<br />Methinks my life is a twice-written +scroll<br />Scrawled over on some boyish holiday<br />With idle songs +for pipe and virelay,<br />Which do but mar the secret of the whole.<br />Surely +there was a time I might have trod<br />The sunlit heights, and from +life’s dissonance<br />Struck one clear chord to reach the ears +of God:<br />Is that time dead? lo! with a little rod<br />I did but +touch the honey of romance—<br />And must I lose a soul’s +inheritance?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Sonnet To Liberty</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Not that I love thy children, whose dull eyes<br />See nothing save +their own unlovely woe,<br />Whose minds know nothing, nothing care +to know,—<br />But that the roar of thy Democracies,<br />Thy +reigns of Terror, thy great Anarchies,<br />Mirror my wildest passions +like the sea<br />And give my rage a brother—! Liberty!<br />For +this sake only do thy dissonant cries<br />Delight my discreet soul, +else might all kings<br />By bloody knout or treacherous cannonades<br />Rob +nations of their rights inviolate<br />And I remain unmoved—and +yet, and yet,<br />These Christs that die upon the barricades,<br />God +knows it I am with them, in some things.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Ave Imperatrix</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Set in this stormy Northern sea,<br />Queen of these restless fields +of tide,<br />England! what shall men say of thee,<br />Before whose +feet the worlds divide?</p> +<p>The earth, a brittle globe of glass,<br />Lies in the hollow of thy +hand,<br />And through its heart of crystal pass,<br />Like shadows +through a twilight land,</p> +<p>The spears of crimson-suited war,<br />The long white-crested waves +of fight,<br />And all the deadly fires which are<br />The torches of +the lords of Night.</p> +<p>The yellow leopards, strained and lean,<br />The treacherous Russian +knows so well,<br />With gaping blackened jaws are seen<br />Leap through +the hail of screaming shell.</p> +<p>The strong sea-lion of England’s wars<br />Hath left his sapphire +cave of sea,<br />To battle with the storm that mars<br />The stars +of England’s chivalry.</p> +<p>The brazen-throated clarion blows<br />Across the Pathan’s +reedy fen,<br />And the high steeps of Indian snows<br />Shake to the +tread of armèd men.</p> +<p>And many an Afghan chief, who lies<br />Beneath his cool pomegranate-trees,<br />Clutches +his sword in fierce surmise<br />When on the mountain-side he sees</p> +<p>The fleet-foot Marri scout, who comes<br />To tell how he hath heard +afar<br />The measured roll of English drums<br />Beat at the gates +of Kandahar.</p> +<p>For southern wind and east wind meet<br />Where, girt and crowned +by sword and fire,<br />England with bare and bloody feet<br />Climbs +the steep road of wide empire.</p> +<p>O lonely Himalayan height,<br />Grey pillar of the Indian sky,<br />Where +saw’st thou last in clanging flight<br />Our wingèd dogs +of Victory?</p> +<p>The almond-groves of Samarcand,<br />Bokhara, where red lilies blow,<br />And +Oxus, by whose yellow sand<br />The grave white-turbaned merchants go:</p> +<p>And on from thence to Ispahan,<br />The gilded garden of the sun,<br />Whence +the long dusty caravan<br />Brings cedar wood and vermilion;</p> +<p>And that dread city of Cabool<br />Set at the mountain’s scarpèd +feet,<br />Whose marble tanks are ever full<br />With water for the +noonday heat:</p> +<p>Where through the narrow straight Bazaar<br />A little maid Circassian<br />Is +led, a present from the Czar<br />Unto some old and bearded khan,—</p> +<p>Here have our wild war-eagles flown,<br />And flapped wide wings +in fiery fight;<br />But the sad dove, that sits alone<br />In England—she +hath no delight.</p> +<p>In vain the laughing girl will lean<br />To greet her love with love-lit +eyes:<br />Down in some treacherous black ravine,<br />Clutching his +flag, the dead boy lies.</p> +<p>And many a moon and sun will see<br />The lingering wistful children +wait<br />To climb upon their father’s knee;<br />And in each +house made desolate</p> +<p>Pale women who have lost their lord<br />Will kiss the relics of +the slain—<br />Some tarnished epaulette—some sword—<br />Poor +toys to soothe such anguished pain.</p> +<p>For not in quiet English fields<br />Are these, our brothers, lain +to rest,<br />Where we might deck their broken shields<br />With all +the flowers the dead love best.</p> +<p>For some are by the Delhi walls,<br />And many in the Afghan land,<br />And +many where the Ganges falls<br />Through seven mouths of shifting sand.</p> +<p>And some in Russian waters lie,<br />And others in the seas which +are<br />The portals to the East, or by<br />The wind-swept heights +of Trafalgar.</p> +<p>O wandering graves! O restless sleep!<br />O silence of the +sunless day!<br />O still ravine! O stormy deep!<br />Give up +your prey! Give up your prey!</p> +<p>And thou whose wounds are never healed,<br />Whose weary race is +never won,<br />O Cromwell’s England! must thou yield<br />For +every inch of ground a son?</p> +<p>Go! crown with thorns thy gold-crowned head,<br />Change thy glad +song to song of pain;<br />Wind and wild wave have got thy dead,<br />And +will not yield them back again.</p> +<p>Wave and wild wind and foreign shore<br />Possess the flower of English +land—<br />Lips that thy lips shall kiss no more,<br />Hands that +shall never clasp thy hand.</p> +<p>What profit now that we have bound<br />The whole round world with +nets of gold,<br />If hidden in our heart is found<br />The care that +groweth never old?</p> +<p>What profit that our galleys ride,<br />Pine-forest-like, on every +main?<br />Ruin and wreck are at our side,<br />Grim warders of the +House of Pain.</p> +<p>Where are the brave, the strong, the fleet?<br />Where is our English +chivalry?<br />Wild grasses are their burial-sheet,<br />And sobbing +waves their threnody.</p> +<p>O loved ones lying far away,<br />What word of love can dead lips +send!<br />O wasted dust! O senseless clay!<br />Is this the end! +is this the end!</p> +<p>Peace, peace! we wrong the noble dead<br />To vex their solemn slumber +so;<br />Though childless, and with thorn-crowned head,<br />Up the +steep road must England go,</p> +<p>Yet when this fiery web is spun,<br />Her watchmen shall descry from +far<br />The young Republic like a sun<br />Rise from these crimson +seas of war.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: To Milton</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Milton! I think thy spirit hath passed away<br />From these +white cliffs and high-embattled towers;<br />This gorgeous fiery-coloured +world of ours<br />Seems fallen into ashes dull and grey,<br />And the +age changed unto a mimic play<br />Wherein we waste our else too-crowded +hours:<br />For all our pomp and pageantry and powers<br />We are but +fit to delve the common clay,<br />Seeing this little isle on which +we stand,<br />This England, this sea-lion of the sea,<br />By ignorant +demagogues is held in fee,<br />Who love her not: Dear God! is this +the land<br />Which bare a triple empire in her hand<br />When Cromwell +spake the word Democracy!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Louis Napoleon</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Eagle of Austerlitz! where were thy wings<br />When far away upon +a barbarous strand,<br />In fight unequal, by an obscure hand,<br />Fell +the last scion of thy brood of Kings!</p> +<p>Poor boy! thou shalt not flaunt thy cloak of red,<br />Or ride in +state through Paris in the van<br />Of thy returning legions, but instead<br />Thy +mother France, free and republican,</p> +<p>Shall on thy dead and crownless forehead place<br />The better laurels +of a soldier’s crown,<br />That not dishonoured should thy soul +go down<br />To tell the mighty Sire of thy race</p> +<p>That France hath kissed the mouth of Liberty,<br />And found it sweeter +than his honied bees,<br />And that the giant wave Democracy<br />Breaks +on the shores where Kings lay couched at ease.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: On The Massacre Of The Christians In Bulgaria</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Christ, dost Thou live indeed? or are Thy bones<br />Still straitened +in their rock-hewn sepulchre?<br />And was Thy Rising only dreamed by +her<br />Whose love of Thee for all her sin atones?<br />For here the +air is horrid with men’s groans,<br />The priests who call upon +Thy name are slain,<br />Dost Thou not hear the bitter wail of pain<br />From +those whose children lie upon the stones?<br />Come down, O Son of God! +incestuous gloom<br />Curtains the land, and through the starless night<br />Over +Thy Cross a Crescent moon I see!<br />If Thou in very truth didst burst +the tomb<br />Come down, O Son of Man! and show Thy might<br />Lest +Mahomet be crowned instead of Thee!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Quantum Mutata</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>There was a time in Europe long ago<br />When no man died for freedom +anywhere,<br />But England’s lion leaping from its lair<br />Laid +hands on the oppressor! it was so<br />While England could a great Republic +show.<br />Witness the men of Piedmont, chiefest care<br />Of Cromwell, +when with impotent despair<br />The Pontiff in his painted portico<br />Trembled +before our stern ambassadors.<br />How comes it then that from such +high estate<br />We have thus fallen, save that Luxury<br />With barren +merchandise piles up the gate<br />Where noble thoughts and deeds should +enter by:<br />Else might we still be Milton’s heritors.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Libertatis Sacra Fames</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Albeit nurtured in democracy,<br />And liking best that state republican<br />Where +every man is Kinglike and no man<br />Is crowned above his fellows, +yet I see,<br />Spite of this modern fret for Liberty,<br />Better the +rule of One, whom all obey,<br />Than to let clamorous demagogues betray<br />Our +freedom with the kiss of anarchy.<br />Wherefore I love them not whose +hands profane<br />Plant the red flag upon the piled-up street<br />For +no right cause, beneath whose ignorant reign<br />Arts, Culture, Reverence, +Honour, all things fade,<br />Save Treason and the dagger of her trade,<br />Or +Murder with his silent bloody feet.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Theoretikos</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>This mighty empire hath but feet of clay:<br />Of all its ancient +chivalry and might<br />Our little island is forsaken quite:<br />Some +enemy hath stolen its crown of bay,<br />And from its hills that voice +hath passed away<br />Which spake of Freedom: O come out of it,<br />Come +out of it, my Soul, thou art not fit<br />For this vile traffic-house, +where day by day<br />Wisdom and reverence are sold at mart,<br />And +the rude people rage with ignorant cries<br />Against an heritage of +centuries.<br />It mars my calm: wherefore in dreams of Art<br />And +loftiest culture I would stand apart,<br />Neither for God, nor for +his enemies.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: The Garden Of Eros</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>It is full summer now, the heart of June;<br />Not yet the sunburnt +reapers are astir<br />Upon the upland meadow where too soon<br />Rich +autumn time, the season’s usurer,<br />Will lend his hoarded gold +to all the trees,<br />And see his treasure scattered by the wild and +spendthrift breeze.</p> +<p>Too soon indeed! yet here the daffodil,<br />That love-child of the +Spring, has lingered on<br />To vex the rose with jealousy, and still<br />The +harebell spreads her azure pavilion,<br />And like a strayed and wandering +reveller<br />Abandoned of its brothers, whom long since June’s +messenger</p> +<p>The missel-thrush has frighted from the glade,<br />One pale narcissus +loiters fearfully<br />Close to a shadowy nook, where half afraid<br />Of +their own loveliness some violets lie<br />That will not look the gold +sun in the face<br />For fear of too much splendour,—ah! methinks +it is a place</p> +<p>Which should be trodden by Persephone<br />When wearied of the flowerless +fields of Dis!<br />Or danced on by the lads of Arcady!<br />The hidden +secret of eternal bliss<br />Known to the Grecian here a man might find,<br />Ah! +you and I may find it now if Love and Sleep be kind.</p> +<p>There are the flowers which mourning Herakles<br />Strewed on the +tomb of Hylas, columbine,<br />Its white doves all a-flutter where the +breeze<br />Kissed them too harshly, the small celandine,<br />That +yellow-kirtled chorister of eve,<br />And lilac lady’s-smock,—but +let them bloom alone, and leave</p> +<p>Yon spirèd hollyhock red-crocketed<br />To sway its silent +chimes, else must the bee,<br />Its little bellringer, go seek instead<br />Some +other pleasaunce; the anemone<br />That weeps at daybreak, like a silly +girl<br />Before her love, and hardly lets the butterflies unfurl</p> +<p>Their painted wings beside it,—bid it pine<br />In pale virginity; +the winter snow<br />Will suit it better than those lips of thine<br />Whose +fires would but scorch it, rather go<br />And pluck that amorous flower +which blooms alone,<br />Fed by the pander wind with dust of kisses +not its own.</p> +<p>The trumpet-mouths of red convolvulus<br />So dear to maidens, creamy +meadow-sweet<br />Whiter than Juno’s throat and odorous<br />As +all Arabia, hyacinths the feet<br />Of Huntress Dian would be loth to +mar<br />For any dappled fawn,—pluck these, and those fond flowers +which are</p> +<p>Fairer than what Queen Venus trod upon<br />Beneath the pines of +Ida, eucharis,<br />That morning star which does not dread the sun,<br />And +budding marjoram which but to kiss<br />Would sweeten Cytheraea’s +lips and make<br />Adonis jealous,—these for thy head,—and +for thy girdle take</p> +<p>Yon curving spray of purple clematis<br />Whose gorgeous dye outflames +the Tyrian King,<br />And foxgloves with their nodding chalices,<br />But +that one narciss which the startled Spring<br />Let from her kirtle +fall when first she heard<br />In her own woods the wild tempestuous +song of summer’s bird,</p> +<p>Ah! leave it for a subtle memory<br />Of those sweet tremulous days +of rain and sun,<br />When April laughed between her tears to see<br />The +early primrose with shy footsteps run<br />From the gnarled oak-tree +roots till all the wold,<br />Spite of its brown and trampled leaves, +grew bright with shimmering gold.</p> +<p>Nay, pluck it too, it is not half so sweet<br />As thou thyself, +my soul’s idolatry!<br />And when thou art a-wearied at thy feet<br />Shall +oxlips weave their brightest tapestry,<br />For thee the woodbine shall +forget its pride<br />And veil its tangled whorls, and thou shalt walk +on daisies pied.</p> +<p>And I will cut a reed by yonder spring<br />And make the wood-gods +jealous, and old Pan<br />Wonder what young intruder dares to sing<br />In +these still haunts, where never foot of man<br />Should tread at evening, +lest he chance to spy<br />The marble limbs of Artemis and all her company.</p> +<p>And I will tell thee why the jacinth wears<br />Such dread embroidery +of dolorous moan,<br />And why the hapless nightingale forbears<br />To +sing her song at noon, but weeps alone<br />When the fleet swallow sleeps, +and rich men feast,<br />And why the laurel trembles when she sees the +lightening east.</p> +<p>And I will sing how sad Proserpina<br />Unto a grave and gloomy Lord +was wed,<br />And lure the silver-breasted Helena<br />Back from the +lotus meadows of the dead,<br />So shalt thou see that awful loveliness<br />For +which two mighty Hosts met fearfully in war’s abyss!</p> +<p>And then I’ll pipe to thee that Grecian tale<br />How Cynthia +loves the lad Endymion,<br />And hidden in a grey and misty veil<br />Hies +to the cliffs of Latmos once the Sun<br />Leaps from his ocean bed in +fruitless chase<br />Of those pale flying feet which fade away in his +embrace.</p> +<p>And if my flute can breathe sweet melody,<br />We may behold Her +face who long ago<br />Dwelt among men by the AEgean sea,<br />And whose +sad house with pillaged portico<br />And friezeless wall and columns +toppled down<br />Looms o’er the ruins of that fair and violet +cinctured town.</p> +<p>Spirit of Beauty! tarry still awhile,<br />They are not dead, thine +ancient votaries;<br />Some few there are to whom thy radiant smile<br />Is +better than a thousand victories,<br />Though all the nobly slain of +Waterloo<br />Rise up in wrath against them! tarry still, there are +a few</p> +<p>Who for thy sake would give their manlihood<br />And consecrate their +being; I at least<br />Have done so, made thy lips my daily food,<br />And +in thy temples found a goodlier feast<br />Than this starved age can +give me, spite of all<br />Its new-found creeds so sceptical and so +dogmatical.</p> +<p>Here not Cephissos, not Ilissos flows,<br />The woods of white Colonos +are not here,<br />On our bleak hills the olive never blows,<br />No +simple priest conducts his lowing steer<br />Up the steep marble way, +nor through the town<br />Do laughing maidens bear to thee the crocus-flowered +gown.</p> +<p>Yet tarry! for the boy who loved thee best,<br />Whose very name +should be a memory<br />To make thee linger, sleeps in silent rest<br />Beneath +the Roman walls, and melody<br />Still mourns her sweetest lyre; none +can play<br />The lute of Adonais: with his lips Song passed away.</p> +<p>Nay, when Keats died the Muses still had left<br />One silver voice +to sing his threnody,<br />But ah! too soon of it we were bereft<br />When +on that riven night and stormy sea<br />Panthea claimed her singer as +her own,<br />And slew the mouth that praised her; since which time +we walk alone,</p> +<p>Save for that fiery heart, that morning star<br />Of re-arisen England, +whose clear eye<br />Saw from our tottering throne and waste of war<br />The +grand Greek limbs of young Democracy<br />Rise mightily like Hesperus +and bring<br />The great Republic! him at least thy love hath taught +to sing,</p> +<p>And he hath been with thee at Thessaly,<br />And seen white Atalanta +fleet of foot<br />In passionless and fierce virginity<br />Hunting +the tuskèd boar, his honied lute<br />Hath pierced the cavern +of the hollow hill,<br />And Venus laughs to know one knee will bow +before her still.</p> +<p>And he hath kissed the lips of Proserpine,<br />And sung the Galilaean’s +requiem,<br />That wounded forehead dashed with blood and wine<br />He +hath discrowned, the Ancient Gods in him<br />Have found their last, +most ardent worshipper,<br />And the new Sign grows grey and dim before +its conqueror.</p> +<p>Spirit of Beauty! tarry with us still,<br />It is not quenched the +torch of poesy,<br />The star that shook above the Eastern hill<br />Holds +unassailed its argent armoury<br />From all the gathering gloom and +fretful fight—<br />O tarry with us still! for through the long +and common night,</p> +<p>Morris, our sweet and simple Chaucer’s child,<br />Dear heritor +of Spenser’s tuneful reed,<br />With soft and sylvan pipe has +oft beguiled<br />The weary soul of man in troublous need,<br />And +from the far and flowerless fields of ice<br />Has brought fair flowers +to make an earthly paradise.</p> +<p>We know them all, Gudrun the strong men’s bride,<br />Aslaug +and Olafson we know them all,<br />How giant Grettir fought and Sigurd +died,<br />And what enchantment held the king in thrall<br />When lonely +Brynhild wrestled with the powers<br />That war against all passion, +ah! how oft through summer hours,</p> +<p>Long listless summer hours when the noon<br />Being enamoured of +a damask rose<br />Forgets to journey westward, till the moon<br />The +pale usurper of its tribute grows<br />From a thin sickle to a silver +shield<br />And chides its loitering car—how oft, in some cool +grassy field</p> +<p>Far from the cricket-ground and noisy eight,<br />At Bagley, where +the rustling bluebells come<br />Almost before the blackbird finds a +mate<br />And overstay the swallow, and the hum<br />Of many murmuring +bees flits through the leaves,<br />Have I lain poring on the dreamy +tales his fancy weaves,</p> +<p>And through their unreal woes and mimic pain<br />Wept for myself, +and so was purified,<br />And in their simple mirth grew glad again;<br />For +as I sailed upon that pictured tide<br />The strength and splendour +of the storm was mine<br />Without the storm’s red ruin, for the +singer is divine;</p> +<p>The little laugh of water falling down<br />Is not so musical, the +clammy gold<br />Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town<br />Has less +of sweetness in it, and the old<br />Half-withered reeds that waved +in Arcady<br />Touched by his lips break forth again to fresher harmony.</p> +<p>Spirit of Beauty, tarry yet awhile!<br />Although the cheating merchants +of the mart<br />With iron roads profane our lovely isle,<br />And break +on whirling wheels the limbs of Art,<br />Ay! though the crowded factories +beget<br />The blindworm Ignorance that slays the soul, O tarry yet!</p> +<p>For One at least there is,—He bears his name<br />From Dante +and the seraph Gabriel,—<br />Whose double laurels burn with deathless +flame<br />To light thine altar; He too loves thee well,<br />Who saw +old Merlin lured in Vivien’s snare,<br />And the white feet of +angels coming down the golden stair,</p> +<p>Loves thee so well, that all the World for him<br />A gorgeous-coloured +vestiture must wear,<br />And Sorrow take a purple diadem,<br />Or else +be no more Sorrow, and Despair<br />Gild its own thorns, and Pain, like +Adon, be<br />Even in anguish beautiful;—such is the empery</p> +<p>Which Painters hold, and such the heritage<br />This gentle solemn +Spirit doth possess,<br />Being a better mirror of his age<br />In all +his pity, love, and weariness,<br />Than those who can but copy common +things,<br />And leave the Soul unpainted with its mighty questionings.</p> +<p>But they are few, and all romance has flown,<br />And men can prophesy +about the sun,<br />And lecture on his arrows—how, alone,<br />Through +a waste void the soulless atoms run,<br />How from each tree its weeping +nymph has fled,<br />And that no more ’mid English reeds a Naiad +shows her head.</p> +<p>Methinks these new Actaeons boast too soon<br />That they have spied +on beauty; what if we<br />Have analysed the rainbow, robbed the moon<br />Of +her most ancient, chastest mystery,<br />Shall I, the last Endymion, +lose all hope<br />Because rude eyes peer at my mistress through a telescope!</p> +<p>What profit if this scientific age<br />Burst through our gates with +all its retinue<br />Of modern miracles! Can it assuage<br />One +lover’s breaking heart? what can it do<br />To make one life more +beautiful, one day<br />More godlike in its period? but now the Age +of Clay</p> +<p>Returns in horrid cycle, and the earth<br />Hath borne again a noisy +progeny<br />Of ignorant Titans, whose ungodly birth<br />Hurls them +against the august hierarchy<br />Which sat upon Olympus; to the Dust<br />They +have appealed, and to that barren arbiter they must</p> +<p>Repair for judgment; let them, if they can,<br />From Natural Warfare +and insensate Chance,<br />Create the new Ideal rule for man!<br />Methinks +that was not my inheritance;<br />For I was nurtured otherwise, my soul<br />Passes +from higher heights of life to a more supreme goal.</p> +<p>Lo! while we spake the earth did turn away<br />Her visage from the +God, and Hecate’s boat<br />Rose silver-laden, till the jealous +day<br />Blew all its torches out: I did not note<br />The waning hours, +to young Endymions<br />Time’s palsied fingers count in vain his +rosary of suns!</p> +<p>Mark how the yellow iris wearily<br />Leans back its throat, as though +it would be kissed<br />By its false chamberer, the dragon-fly,<br />Who, +like a blue vein on a girl’s white wrist,<br />Sleeps on that +snowy primrose of the night,<br />Which ’gins to flush with crimson +shame, and die beneath the light.</p> +<p>Come let us go, against the pallid shield<br />Of the wan sky the +almond blossoms gleam,<br />The corncrake nested in the unmown field<br />Answers +its mate, across the misty stream<br />On fitful wing the startled curlews +fly,<br />And in his sedgy bed the lark, for joy that Day is nigh,</p> +<p>Scatters the pearlèd dew from off the grass,<br />In tremulous +ecstasy to greet the sun,<br />Who soon in gilded panoply will pass<br />Forth +from yon orange-curtained pavilion<br />Hung in the burning east: see, +the red rim<br />O’ertops the expectant hills! it is the God! +for love of him</p> +<p>Already the shrill lark is out of sight,<br />Flooding with waves +of song this silent dell,—<br />Ah! there is something more in +that bird’s flight<br />Than could be tested in a crucible!—<br />But +the air freshens, let us go, why soon<br />The woodmen will be here; +how we have lived this night of June!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Requiescat</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Tread lightly, she is near<br />Under the snow,<br />Speak gently, +she can hear<br />The daisies grow.</p> +<p>All her bright golden hair<br />Tarnished with rust,<br />She that +was young and fair<br />Fallen to dust.</p> +<p>Lily-like, white as snow,<br />She hardly knew<br />She was a woman, +so<br />Sweetly she grew.</p> +<p>Coffin-board, heavy stone,<br />Lie on her breast,<br />I vex my +heart alone,<br />She is at rest.</p> +<p>Peace, Peace, she cannot hear<br />Lyre or sonnet,<br />All my life’s +buried here,<br />Heap earth upon it.</p> +<p>AVIGNON</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Sonnet On Approaching Italy</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I reached the Alps: the soul within me burned,<br />Italia, my Italia, +at thy name:<br />And when from out the mountain’s heart I came<br />And +saw the land for which my life had yearned,<br />I laughed as one who +some great prize had earned:<br />And musing on the marvel of thy fame<br />I +watched the day, till marked with wounds of flame<br />The turquoise +sky to burnished gold was turned.<br />The pine-trees waved as waves +a woman’s hair,<br />And in the orchards every twining spray<br />Was +breaking into flakes of blossoming foam:<br />But when I knew that far +away at Rome<br />In evil bonds a second Peter lay,<br />I wept to see +the land so very fair.</p> +<p>TURIN.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: San Miniato</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>See, I have climbed the mountain side<br />Up to this holy house +of God,<br />Where once that Angel-Painter trod<br />Who saw the heavens +opened wide,</p> +<p>And throned upon the crescent moon<br />The Virginal white Queen +of Grace,—<br />Mary! could I but see thy face<br />Death could +not come at all too soon.</p> +<p>O crowned by God with thorns and pain!<br />Mother of Christ! +O mystic wife!<br />My heart is weary of this life<br />And over-sad +to sing again.</p> +<p>O crowned by God with love and flame!<br />O crowned by Christ the +Holy One!<br />O listen ere the searching sun<br />Show to the world +my sin and shame.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Ave Maria Gratia Plena</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Was this His coming! I had hoped to see<br />A scene of wondrous +glory, as was told<br />Of some great God who in a rain of gold<br />Broke +open bars and fell on Danae:<br />Or a dread vision as when Semele<br />Sickening +for love and unappeased desire<br />Prayed to see God’s clear +body, and the fire<br />Caught her brown limbs and slew her utterly:<br />With +such glad dreams I sought this holy place,<br />And now with wondering +eyes and heart I stand<br />Before this supreme mystery of Love:<br />Some +kneeling girl with passionless pale face,<br />An angel with a lily +in his hand,<br />And over both the white wings of a Dove.</p> +<p>FLORENCE.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Italia</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Italia! thou art fallen, though with sheen<br />Of battle-spears +thy clamorous armies stride<br />From the north Alps to the Sicilian +tide!<br />Ay! fallen, though the nations hail thee Queen<br />Because +rich gold in every town is seen,<br />And on thy sapphire-lake in tossing +pride<br />Of wind-filled vans thy myriad galleys ride<br />Beneath +one flag of red and white and green.<br />O Fair and Strong! O +Strong and Fair in vain!<br />Look southward where Rome’s desecrated +town<br />Lies mourning for her God-anointed King!<br />Look heaven-ward! +shall God allow this thing?<br />Nay! but some flame-girt Raphael shall +come down,<br />And smite the Spoiler with the sword of pain.</p> +<p>VENICE.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Holy Week At Genoa</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I wandered through Scoglietto’s far retreat,<br />The oranges +on each o’erhanging spray<br />Burned as bright lamps of gold +to shame the day;<br />Some startled bird with fluttering wings and +fleet<br />Made snow of all the blossoms; at my feet<br />Like silver +moons the pale narcissi lay:<br />And the curved waves that streaked +the great green bay<br />Laughed i’ the sun, and life seemed very +sweet.<br />Outside the young boy-priest passed singing clear,<br />‘Jesus +the son of Mary has been slain,<br />O come and fill His sepulchre with +flowers.’<br />Ah, God! Ah, God! those dear Hellenic hours<br />Had +drowned all memory of Thy bitter pain,<br />The Cross, the Crown, the +Soldiers and the Spear.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Rome Unvisited</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The corn has turned from grey to red,<br />Since first my spirit +wandered forth<br />From the drear cities of the north,<br />And to +Italia’s mountains fled.</p> +<p>And here I set my face towards home,<br />For all my pilgrimage is +done,<br />Although, methinks, yon blood-red sun<br />Marshals the way +to Holy Rome.</p> +<p>O Blessed Lady, who dost hold<br />Upon the seven hills thy reign!<br />O +Mother without blot or stain,<br />Crowned with bright crowns of triple +gold!</p> +<p>O Roma, Roma, at thy feet<br />I lay this barren gift of song!<br />For, +ah! the way is steep and long<br />That leads unto thy sacred street.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>II.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And yet what joy it were for me<br />To turn my feet unto the south,<br />And +journeying towards the Tiber mouth<br />To kneel again at Fiesole!</p> +<p>And wandering through the tangled pines<br />That break the gold +of Arno’s stream,<br />To see the purple mist and gleam<br />Of +morning on the Apennines</p> +<p>By many a vineyard-hidden home,<br />Orchard and olive-garden grey,<br />Till +from the drear Campagna’s way<br />The seven hills bear up the +dome!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>III.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>A pilgrim from the northern seas—<br />What joy for me to seek +alone<br />The wondrous temple and the throne<br />Of him who holds +the awful keys!</p> +<p>When, bright with purple and with gold<br />Come priest and holy +cardinal,<br />And borne above the heads of all<br />The gentle Shepherd +of the Fold.</p> +<p>O joy to see before I die<br />The only God-anointed king,<br />And +hear the silver trumpets ring<br />A triumph as he passes by!</p> +<p>Or at the brazen-pillared shrine<br />Holds high the mystic sacrifice,<br />And +shows his God to human eyes<br />Beneath the veil of bread and wine.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>IV.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>For lo, what changes time can bring!<br />The cycles of revolving +years<br />May free my heart from all its fears,<br />And teach my lips +a song to sing.</p> +<p>Before yon field of trembling gold<br />Is garnered into dusty sheaves,<br />Or +ere the autumn’s scarlet leaves<br />Flutter as birds adown the +wold,</p> +<p>I may have run the glorious race,<br />And caught the torch while +yet aflame,<br />And called upon the holy name<br />Of Him who now doth +hide His face.</p> +<p>ARONA.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Urbs Sacra Aeterna</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Rome! what a scroll of History thine has been;<br />In the first +days thy sword republican<br />Ruled the whole world for many an age’s +span:<br />Then of the peoples wert thou royal Queen,<br />Till in thy +streets the bearded Goth was seen;<br />And now upon thy walls the breezes +fan<br />(Ah, city crowned by God, discrowned by man!)<br />The hated +flag of red and white and green.<br />When was thy glory! when in search +for power<br />Thine eagles flew to greet the double sun,<br />And the +wild nations shuddered at thy rod?<br />Nay, but thy glory tarried for +this hour,<br />When pilgrims kneel before the Holy One,<br />The prisoned +shepherd of the Church of God.</p> +<p>MONTRE MARIO.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Sonnet On Hearing The Dies Irae Sung In The Sistine Chapel</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Nay, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring,<br />Sad olive-groves, +or silver-breasted dove,<br />Teach me more clearly of Thy life and +love<br />Than terrors of red flame and thundering.<br />The hillside +vines dear memories of Thee bring:<br />A bird at evening flying to +its nest<br />Tells me of One who had no place of rest:<br />I think +it is of Thee the sparrows sing.<br />Come rather on some autumn afternoon,<br />When +red and brown are burnished on the leaves,<br />And the fields echo +to the gleaner’s song,<br />Come when the splendid fulness of +the moon<br />Looks down upon the rows of golden sheaves,<br />And reap +Thy harvest: we have waited long.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Easter Day</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The silver trumpets rang across the Dome:<br />The people knelt upon +the ground with awe:<br />And borne upon the necks of men I saw,<br />Like +some great God, the Holy Lord of Rome.<br />Priest-like, he wore a robe +more white than foam,<br />And, king-like, swathed himself in royal +red,<br />Three crowns of gold rose high upon his head:<br />In splendour +and in light the Pope passed home.<br />My heart stole back across wide +wastes of years<br />To One who wandered by a lonely sea,<br />And sought +in vain for any place of rest:<br />‘Foxes have holes, and every +bird its nest.<br />I, only I, must wander wearily,<br />And bruise +my feet, and drink wine salt with tears.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: E Tenebris</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand,<br />For I am drowning +in a stormier sea<br />Than Simon on Thy lake of Galilee:<br />The wine +of life is spilt upon the sand,<br />My heart is as some famine-murdered +land<br />Whence all good things have perished utterly,<br />And well +I know my soul in Hell must lie<br />If I this night before God’s +throne should stand.<br />‘He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the +chase,<br />Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name<br />From +morn to noon on Carmel’s smitten height.’<br />Nay, peace, +I shall behold, before the night,<br />The feet of brass, the robe more +white than flame,<br />The wounded hands, the weary human face.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Vita Nuova</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I stood by the unvintageable sea<br />Till the wet waves drenched +face and hair with spray;<br />The long red fires of the dying day<br />Burned +in the west; the wind piped drearily;<br />And to the land the clamorous +gulls did flee:<br />‘Alas!’ I cried, ‘my life is +full of pain,<br />And who can garner fruit or golden grain<br />From +these waste fields which travail ceaselessly!’<br />My nets gaped +wide with many a break and flaw,<br />Nathless I threw them as my final +cast<br />Into the sea, and waited for the end.<br />When lo! a sudden +glory! and I saw<br />From the black waters of my tortured past<br />The +argent splendour of white limbs ascend!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Madonna Mia</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>A lily-girl, not made for this world’s pain,<br />With brown, +soft hair close braided by her ears,<br />And longing eyes half veiled +by slumberous tears<br />Like bluest water seen through mists of rain:<br />Pale +cheeks whereon no love hath left its stain,<br />Red underlip drawn +in for fear of love,<br />And white throat, whiter than the silvered +dove,<br />Through whose wan marble creeps one purple vein.<br />Yet, +though my lips shall praise her without cease,<br />Even to kiss her +feet I am not bold,<br />Being o’ershadowed by the wings of awe,<br />Like +Dante, when he stood with Beatrice<br />Beneath the flaming Lion’s +breast, and saw<br />The seventh Crystal, and the Stair of Gold.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: The New Helen</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Where hast thou been since round the walls of Troy<br />The sons +of God fought in that great emprise?<br />Why dost thou walk our common +earth again?<br />Hast thou forgotten that impassioned boy,<br />His +purple galley and his Tyrian men<br />And treacherous Aphrodite’s +mocking eyes?<br />For surely it was thou, who, like a star<br />Hung +in the silver silence of the night,<br />Didst lure the Old World’s +chivalry and might<br />Into the clamorous crimson waves of war!</p> +<p>Or didst thou rule the fire-laden moon?<br />In amorous Sidon was +thy temple built<br />Over the light and laughter of the sea<br />Where, +behind lattice scarlet-wrought and gilt,<br />Some brown-limbed girl +did weave thee tapestry,<br />All through the waste and wearied hours +of noon;<br />Till her wan cheek with flame of passion burned,<br />And +she rose up the sea-washed lips to kiss<br />Of some glad Cyprian sailor, +safe returned<br />From Calpé and the cliffs of Herakles!</p> +<p>No! thou art Helen, and none other one!<br />It was for thee that +young Sarpedôn died,<br />And Memnôn’s manhood was +untimely spent;<br />It was for thee gold-crested Hector tried<br />With +Thetis’ child that evil race to run,<br />In the last year of +thy beleaguerment;<br />Ay! even now the glory of thy fame<br />Burns +in those fields of trampled asphodel,<br />Where the high lords whom +Ilion knew so well<br />Clash ghostly shields, and call upon thy name.</p> +<p>Where hast thou been? in that enchanted land<br />Whose slumbering +vales forlorn Calypso knew,<br />Where never mower rose at break of +day<br />But all unswathed the trammelling grasses grew,<br />And the +sad shepherd saw the tall corn stand<br />Till summer’s red had +changed to withered grey?<br />Didst thou lie there by some Lethaean +stream<br />Deep brooding on thine ancient memory,<br />The crash of +broken spears, the fiery gleam<br />From shivered helm, the Grecian +battle-cry?</p> +<p>Nay, thou wert hidden in that hollow hill<br />With one who is forgotten +utterly,<br />That discrowned Queen men call the Erycine;<br />Hidden +away that never mightst thou see<br />The face of Her, before whose +mouldering shrine<br />To-day at Rome the silent nations kneel;<br />Who +gat from Love no joyous gladdening,<br />But only Love’s intolerable +pain,<br />Only a sword to pierce her heart in twain,<br />Only the +bitterness of child-bearing.</p> +<p>The lotus-leaves which heal the wounds of Death<br />Lie in thy hand; +O, be thou kind to me,<br />While yet I know the summer of my days;<br />For +hardly can my tremulous lips draw breath<br />To fill the silver trumpet +with thy praise,<br />So bowed am I before thy mystery;<br />So bowed +and broken on Love’s terrible wheel,<br />That I have lost all +hope and heart to sing,<br />Yet care I not what ruin time may bring<br />If +in thy temple thou wilt let me kneel.</p> +<p>Alas, alas, thou wilt not tarry here,<br />But, like that bird, the +servant of the sun,<br />Who flies before the north wind and the night,<br />So +wilt thou fly our evil land and drear,<br />Back to the tower of thine +old delight,<br />And the red lips of young Euphorion;<br />Nor shall +I ever see thy face again,<br />But in this poisonous garden-close must +stay,<br />Crowning my brows with the thorn-crown of pain,<br />Till +all my loveless life shall pass away.</p> +<p>O Helen! Helen! Helen! yet a while,<br />Yet for a little while, +O, tarry here,<br />Till the dawn cometh and the shadows flee!<br />For +in the gladsome sunlight of thy smile<br />Of heaven or hell I have +no thought or fear,<br />Seeing I know no other god but thee:<br />No +other god save him, before whose feet<br />In nets of gold the tired +planets move,<br />The incarnate spirit of spiritual love<br />Who in +thy body holds his joyous seat.</p> +<p>Thou wert not born as common women are!<br />But, girt with silver +splendour of the foam,<br />Didst from the depths of sapphire seas arise!<br />And +at thy coming some immortal star,<br />Bearded with flame, blazed in +the Eastern skies,<br />And waked the shepherds on thine island-home.<br />Thou +shalt not die: no asps of Egypt creep<br />Close at thy heels to taint +the delicate air;<br />No sullen-blooming poppies stain thy hair,<br />Those +scarlet heralds of eternal sleep.</p> +<p>Lily of love, pure and inviolate!<br />Tower of ivory! red rose of +fire!<br />Thou hast come down our darkness to illume:<br />For we, +close-caught in the wide nets of Fate,<br />Wearied with waiting for +the World’s Desire,<br />Aimlessly wandered in the House of gloom,<br />Aimlessly +sought some slumberous anodyne<br />For wasted lives, for lingering +wretchedness,<br />Till we beheld thy re-arisen shrine,<br />And the +white glory of thy loveliness.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: The Burden Of Itys</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>This English Thames is holier far than Rome,<br />Those harebells +like a sudden flush of sea<br />Breaking across the woodland, with the +foam<br />Of meadow-sweet and white anemone<br />To fleck their blue +waves,—God is likelier there<br />Than hidden in that crystal-hearted +star the pale monks bear!</p> +<p>Those violet-gleaming butterflies that take<br />Yon creamy lily +for their pavilion<br />Are monsignores, and where the rushes shake<br />A +lazy pike lies basking in the sun,<br />His eyes half shut,—he +is some mitred old<br />Bishop in <i>partibus</i>! look at those gaudy +scales all green and gold.</p> +<p>The wind the restless prisoner of the trees<br />Does well for Palaestrina, +one would say<br />The mighty master’s hands were on the keys<br />Of +the Maria organ, which they play<br />When early on some sapphire Easter +morn<br />In a high litter red as blood or sin the Pope is borne</p> +<p>From his dark House out to the Balcony<br />Above the bronze gates +and the crowded square,<br />Whose very fountains seem for ecstasy<br />To +toss their silver lances in the air,<br />And stretching out weak hands +to East and West<br />In vain sends peace to peaceless lands, to restless +nations rest.</p> +<p>Is not yon lingering orange after-glow<br />That stays to vex the +moon more fair than all<br />Rome’s lordliest pageants! strange, +a year ago<br />I knelt before some crimson Cardinal<br />Who bare the +Host across the Esquiline,<br />And now—those common poppies in +the wheat seem twice as fine.</p> +<p>The blue-green beanfields yonder, tremulous<br />With the last shower, +sweeter perfume bring<br />Through this cool evening than the odorous<br />Flame-jewelled +censers the young deacons swing,<br />When the grey priest unlocks the +curtained shrine,<br />And makes God’s body from the common fruit +of corn and vine.</p> +<p>Poor Fra Giovanni bawling at the mass<br />Were out of tune now, +for a small brown bird<br />Sings overhead, and through the long cool +grass<br />I see that throbbing throat which once I heard<br />On starlit +hills of flower-starred Arcady,<br />Once where the white and crescent +sand of Salamis meets sea.</p> +<p>Sweet is the swallow twittering on the eaves<br />At daybreak, when +the mower whets his scythe,<br />And stock-doves murmur, and the milkmaid +leaves<br />Her little lonely bed, and carols blithe<br />To see the +heavy-lowing cattle wait<br />Stretching their huge and dripping mouths +across the farmyard gate.</p> +<p>And sweet the hops upon the Kentish leas,<br />And sweet the wind +that lifts the new-mown hay,<br />And sweet the fretful swarms of grumbling +bees<br />That round and round the linden blossoms play;<br />And sweet +the heifer breathing in the stall,<br />And the green bursting figs +that hang upon the red-brick wall,</p> +<p>And sweet to hear the cuckoo mock the spring<br />While the last +violet loiters by the well,<br />And sweet to hear the shepherd Daphnis +sing<br />The song of Linus through a sunny dell<br />Of warm Arcadia +where the corn is gold<br />And the slight lithe-limbed reapers dance +about the wattled fold.</p> +<p>And sweet with young Lycoris to recline<br />In some Illyrian valley +far away,<br />Where canopied on herbs amaracine<br />We too might waste +the summer-trancèd day<br />Matching our reeds in sportive rivalry,<br />While +far beneath us frets the troubled purple of the sea.</p> +<p>But sweeter far if silver-sandalled foot<br />Of some long-hidden +God should ever tread<br />The Nuneham meadows, if with reeded flute<br />Pressed +to his lips some Faun might raise his head<br />By the green water-flags, +ah! sweet indeed<br />To see the heavenly herdsman call his white-fleeced +flock to feed.</p> +<p>Then sing to me thou tuneful chorister,<br />Though what thou sing’st +be thine own requiem!<br />Tell me thy tale thou hapless chronicler<br />Of +thine own tragedies! do not contemn<br />These unfamiliar haunts, this +English field,<br />For many a lovely coronal our northern isle can +yield</p> +<p>Which Grecian meadows know not, many a rose<br />Which all day long +in vales AEolian<br />A lad might seek in vain for over-grows<br />Our +hedges like a wanton courtesan<br />Unthrifty of its beauty; lilies +too<br />Ilissos never mirrored star our streams, and cockles blue</p> +<p>Dot the green wheat which, though they are the signs<br />For swallows +going south, would never spread<br />Their azure tents between the Attic +vines;<br />Even that little weed of ragged red,<br />Which bids the +robin pipe, in Arcady<br />Would be a trespasser, and many an unsung +elegy</p> +<p>Sleeps in the reeds that fringe our winding Thames<br />Which to +awake were sweeter ravishment<br />Than ever Syrinx wept for; diadems<br />Of +brown bee-studded orchids which were meant<br />For Cytheraea’s +brows are hidden here<br />Unknown to Cytheraea, and by yonder pasturing +steer</p> +<p>There is a tiny yellow daffodil,<br />The butterfly can see it from +afar,<br />Although one summer evening’s dew could fill<br />Its +little cup twice over ere the star<br />Had called the lazy shepherd +to his fold<br />And be no prodigal; each leaf is flecked with spotted +gold</p> +<p>As if Jove’s gorgeous leman Danae<br />Hot from his gilded +arms had stooped to kiss<br />The trembling petals, or young Mercury<br />Low-flying +to the dusky ford of Dis<br />Had with one feather of his pinions<br />Just +brushed them! the slight stem which bears the burden of its suns</p> +<p>Is hardly thicker than the gossamer,<br />Or poor Arachne’s +silver tapestry,—<br />Men say it bloomed upon the sepulchre<br />Of +One I sometime worshipped, but to me<br />It seems to bring diviner +memories<br />Of faun-loved Heliconian glades and blue nymph-haunted +seas,</p> +<p>Of an untrodden vale at Tempe where<br />On the clear river’s +marge Narcissus lies,<br />The tangle of the forest in his hair,<br />The +silence of the woodland in his eyes,<br />Wooing that drifting imagery +which is<br />No sooner kissed than broken; memories of Salmacis</p> +<p>Who is not boy nor girl and yet is both,<br />Fed by two fires and +unsatisfied<br />Through their excess, each passion being loth<br />For +love’s own sake to leave the other’s side<br />Yet killing +love by staying; memories<br />Of Oreads peeping through the leaves +of silent moonlit trees,</p> +<p>Of lonely Ariadne on the wharf<br />At Naxos, when she saw the treacherous +crew<br />Far out at sea, and waved her crimson scarf<br />And called +false Theseus back again nor knew<br />That Dionysos on an amber pard<br />Was +close behind her; memories of what Maeonia’s bard</p> +<p>With sightless eyes beheld, the wall of Troy,<br />Queen Helen lying +in the ivory room,<br />And at her side an amorous red-lipped boy<br />Trimming +with dainty hand his helmet’s plume,<br />And far away the moil, +the shout, the groan,<br />As Hector shielded off the spear and Ajax +hurled the stone;</p> +<p>Of wingèd Perseus with his flawless sword<br />Cleaving the +snaky tresses of the witch,<br />And all those tales imperishably stored<br />In +little Grecian urns, freightage more rich<br />Than any gaudy galleon +of Spain<br />Bare from the Indies ever! these at least bring back again,</p> +<p>For well I know they are not dead at all,<br />The ancient Gods of +Grecian poesy:<br />They are asleep, and when they hear thee call<br />Will +wake and think ’t is very Thessaly,<br />This Thames the Daulian +waters, this cool glade<br />The yellow-irised mead where once young +Itys laughed and played.</p> +<p>If it was thou dear jasmine-cradled bird<br />Who from the leafy +stillness of thy throne<br />Sang to the wondrous boy, until he heard<br />The +horn of Atalanta faintly blown<br />Across the Cumnor hills, and wandering<br />Through +Bagley wood at evening found the Attic poets’ spring,—</p> +<p>Ah! tiny sober-suited advocate<br />That pleadest for the moon against +the day!<br />If thou didst make the shepherd seek his mate<br />On +that sweet questing, when Proserpina<br />Forgot it was not Sicily and +leant<br />Across the mossy Sandford stile in ravished wonderment,—</p> +<p>Light-winged and bright-eyed miracle of the wood!<br />If ever thou +didst soothe with melody<br />One of that little clan, that brotherhood<br />Which +loved the morning-star of Tuscany<br />More than the perfect sun of +Raphael<br />And is immortal, sing to me! for I too love thee well.</p> +<p>Sing on! sing on! let the dull world grow young,<br />Let elemental +things take form again,<br />And the old shapes of Beauty walk among<br />The +simple garths and open crofts, as when<br />The son of Leto bare the +willow rod,<br />And the soft sheep and shaggy goats followed the boyish +God.</p> +<p>Sing on! sing on! and Bacchus will be here<br />Astride upon his +gorgeous Indian throne,<br />And over whimpering tigers shake the spear<br />With +yellow ivy crowned and gummy cone,<br />While at his side the wanton +Bassarid<br />Will throw the lion by the mane and catch the mountain +kid!</p> +<p>Sing on! and I will wear the leopard skin,<br />And steal the moonèd +wings of Ashtaroth,<br />Upon whose icy chariot we could win<br />Cithaeron +in an hour ere the froth<br />Has over-brimmed the wine-vat or the Faun<br />Ceased +from the treading! ay, before the flickering lamp of dawn</p> +<p>Has scared the hooting owlet to its nest,<br />And warned the bat +to close its filmy vans,<br />Some Maenad girl with vine-leaves on her +breast<br />Will filch their beech-nuts from the sleeping Pans<br />So +softly that the little nested thrush<br />Will never wake, and then +with shrilly laugh and leap will rush</p> +<p>Down the green valley where the fallen dew<br />Lies thick beneath +the elm and count her store,<br />Till the brown Satyrs in a jolly crew<br />Trample +the loosestrife down along the shore,<br />And where their hornèd +master sits in state<br />Bring strawberries and bloomy plums upon a +wicker crate!</p> +<p>Sing on! and soon with passion-wearied face<br />Through the cool +leaves Apollo’s lad will come,<br />The Tyrian prince his bristled +boar will chase<br />Adown the chestnut-copses all a-bloom,<br />And +ivory-limbed, grey-eyed, with look of pride,<br />After yon velvet-coated +deer the virgin maid will ride.</p> +<p>Sing on! and I the dying boy will see<br />Stain with his purple +blood the waxen bell<br />That overweighs the jacinth, and to me<br />The +wretched Cyprian her woe will tell,<br />And I will kiss her mouth and +streaming eyes,<br />And lead her to the myrtle-hidden grove where Adon +lies!</p> +<p>Cry out aloud on Itys! memory<br />That foster-brother of remorse +and pain<br />Drops poison in mine ear,—O to be free,<br />To +burn one’s old ships! and to launch again<br />Into the white-plumed +battle of the waves<br />And fight old Proteus for the spoil of coral-flowered +caves!</p> +<p>O for Medea with her poppied spell!<br />O for the secret of the +Colchian shrine!<br />O for one leaf of that pale asphodel<br />Which +binds the tired brows of Proserpine,<br />And sheds such wondrous dews +at eve that she<br />Dreams of the fields of Enna, by the far Sicilian +sea,</p> +<p>Where oft the golden-girdled bee she chased<br />From lily to lily +on the level mead,<br />Ere yet her sombre Lord had bid her taste<br />The +deadly fruit of that pomegranate seed,<br />Ere the black steeds had +harried her away<br />Down to the faint and flowerless land, the sick +and sunless day.</p> +<p>O for one midnight and as paramour<br />The Venus of the little Melian +farm!<br />O that some antique statue for one hour<br />Might wake to +passion, and that I could charm<br />The Dawn at Florence from its dumb +despair,<br />Mix with those mighty limbs and make that giant breast +my lair!</p> +<p>Sing on! sing on! I would be drunk with life,<br />Drunk with +the trampled vintage of my youth,<br />I would forget the wearying wasted +strife,<br />The riven veil, the Gorgon eyes of Truth,<br />The prayerless +vigil and the cry for prayer,<br />The barren gifts, the lifted arms, +the dull insensate air!</p> +<p>Sing on! sing on! O feathered Niobe,<br />Thou canst make sorrow +beautiful, and steal<br />From joy its sweetest music, not as we<br />Who +by dead voiceless silence strive to heal<br />Our too untented wounds, +and do but keep<br />Pain barricadoed in our hearts, and murder pillowed +sleep.</p> +<p>Sing louder yet, why must I still behold<br />The wan white face +of that deserted Christ,<br />Whose bleeding hands my hands did once +enfold,<br />Whose smitten lips my lips so oft have kissed,<br />And +now in mute and marble misery<br />Sits in his lone dishonoured House +and weeps, perchance for me?</p> +<p>O Memory cast down thy wreathèd shell!<br />Break thy hoarse +lute O sad Melpomene!<br />O Sorrow, Sorrow keep thy cloistered cell<br />Nor +dim with tears this limpid Castaly!<br />Cease, Philomel, thou dost +the forest wrong<br />To vex its sylvan quiet with such wild impassioned +song!</p> +<p>Cease, cease, or if ’t is anguish to be dumb<br />Take from +the pastoral thrush her simpler air,<br />Whose jocund carelessness +doth more become<br />This English woodland than thy keen despair,<br />Ah! +cease and let the north wind bear thy lay<br />Back to the rocky hills +of Thrace, the stormy Daulian bay.</p> +<p>A moment more, the startled leaves had stirred,<br />Endymion would +have passed across the mead<br />Moonstruck with love, and this still +Thames had heard<br />Pan plash and paddle groping for some reed<br />To +lure from her blue cave that Naiad maid<br />Who for such piping listens +half in joy and half afraid.</p> +<p>A moment more, the waking dove had cooed,<br />The silver daughter +of the silver sea<br />With the fond gyves of clinging hands had wooed<br />Her +wanton from the chase, and Dryope<br />Had thrust aside the branches +of her oak<br />To see the lusty gold-haired lad rein in his snorting +yoke.</p> +<p>A moment more, the trees had stooped to kiss<br />Pale Daphne just +awakening from the swoon<br />Of tremulous laurels, lonely Salmacis<br />Had +bared his barren beauty to the moon,<br />And through the vale with +sad voluptuous smile<br />Antinous had wandered, the red lotus of the +Nile</p> +<p>Down leaning from his black and clustering hair,<br />To shade those +slumberous eyelids’ caverned bliss,<br />Or else on yonder grassy +slope with bare<br />High-tuniced limbs unravished Artemis<br />Had +bade her hounds give tongue, and roused the deer<br />From his green +ambuscade with shrill halloo and pricking spear.</p> +<p>Lie still, lie still, O passionate heart, lie still!<br />O Melancholy, +fold thy raven wing!<br />O sobbing Dryad, from thy hollow hill<br />Come +not with such despondent answering!<br />No more thou wingèd +Marsyas complain,<br />Apollo loveth not to hear such troubled songs +of pain!</p> +<p>It was a dream, the glade is tenantless,<br />No soft Ionian laughter +moves the air,<br />The Thames creeps on in sluggish leadenness,<br />And +from the copse left desolate and bare<br />Fled is young Bacchus with +his revelry,<br />Yet still from Nuneham wood there comes that thrilling +melody</p> +<p>So sad, that one might think a human heart<br />Brake in each separate +note, a quality<br />Which music sometimes has, being the Art<br />Which +is most nigh to tears and memory;<br />Poor mourning Philomel, what +dost thou fear?<br />Thy sister doth not haunt these fields, Pandion +is not here,</p> +<p>Here is no cruel Lord with murderous blade,<br />No woven web of +bloody heraldries,<br />But mossy dells for roving comrades made,<br />Warm +valleys where the tired student lies<br />With half-shut book, and many +a winding walk<br />Where rustic lovers stray at eve in happy simple +talk.</p> +<p>The harmless rabbit gambols with its young<br />Across the trampled +towing-path, where late<br />A troop of laughing boys in jostling throng<br />Cheered +with their noisy cries the racing eight;<br />The gossamer, with ravelled +silver threads,<br />Works at its little loom, and from the dusky red-eaved +sheds</p> +<p>Of the lone Farm a flickering light shines out<br />Where the swinked +shepherd drives his bleating flock<br />Back to their wattled sheep-cotes, +a faint shout<br />Comes from some Oxford boat at Sandford lock,<br />And +starts the moor-hen from the sedgy rill,<br />And the dim lengthening +shadows flit like swallows up the hill.</p> +<p>The heron passes homeward to the mere,<br />The blue mist creeps +among the shivering trees,<br />Gold world by world the silent stars +appear,<br />And like a blossom blown before the breeze<br />A white +moon drifts across the shimmering sky,<br />Mute arbitress of all thy +sad, thy rapturous threnody.</p> +<p>She does not heed thee, wherefore should she heed,<br />She knows +Endymion is not far away;<br />’Tis I, ’tis I, whose soul +is as the reed<br />Which has no message of its own to play,<br />So +pipes another’s bidding, it is I,<br />Drifting with every wind +on the wide sea of misery.</p> +<p>Ah! the brown bird has ceased: one exquisite trill<br />About the +sombre woodland seems to cling<br />Dying in music, else the air is +still,<br />So still that one might hear the bat’s small wing<br />Wander +and wheel above the pines, or tell<br />Each tiny dew-drop dripping +from the bluebell’s brimming cell.</p> +<p>And far away across the lengthening wold,<br />Across the willowy +flats and thickets brown,<br />Magdalen’s tall tower tipped with +tremulous gold<br />Marks the long High Street of the little town,<br />And +warns me to return; I must not wait,<br />Hark ! ’t is the curfew +booming from the bell at Christ Church gate.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Impression Du Matin</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The Thames nocturne of blue and gold<br />Changed to a Harmony in +grey:<br />A barge with ochre-coloured hay<br />Dropt from the wharf: +and chill and cold</p> +<p>The yellow fog came creeping down<br />The bridges, till the houses’ +walls<br />Seemed changed to shadows and St. Paul’s<br />Loomed +like a bubble o’er the town.</p> +<p>Then suddenly arose the clang<br />Of waking life; the streets were +stirred<br />With country waggons: and a bird<br />Flew to the glistening +roofs and sang.</p> +<p>But one pale woman all alone,<br />The daylight kissing her wan hair,<br />Loitered +beneath the gas lamps’ flare,<br />With lips of flame and heart +of stone.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Magdalen Walks</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The little white clouds are racing over the sky,<br />And the fields +are strewn with the gold of the flower of March,<br />The daffodil breaks +under foot, and the tasselled larch<br />Sways and swings as the thrush +goes hurrying by.</p> +<p>A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning breeze,<br />The +odour of deep wet grass, and of brown new-furrowed earth,<br />The birds +are singing for joy of the Spring’s glad birth,<br />Hopping from +branch to branch on the rocking trees.</p> +<p>And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring,<br />And +the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing briar,<br />And the crocus-bed +is a quivering moon of fire<br />Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst +ring.</p> +<p>And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some tale of love<br />Till +it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green,<br />And the +gloom of the wych-elm’s hollow is lit with the iris sheen<br />Of +the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of a dove.</p> +<p>See! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow there,<br />Breaking +the gossamer threads and the nets of dew,<br />And flashing adown the +river, a flame of blue!<br />The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and +wounds the air.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Athanasia</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>To that gaunt House of Art which lacks for naught<br />Of all the +great things men have saved from Time,<br />The withered body of a girl +was brought<br />Dead ere the world’s glad youth had touched its +prime,<br />And seen by lonely Arabs lying hid<br />In the dim womb +of some black pyramid.</p> +<p>But when they had unloosed the linen band<br />Which swathed the +Egyptian’s body,—lo! was found<br />Closed in the wasted +hollow of her hand<br />A little seed, which sown in English ground<br />Did +wondrous snow of starry blossoms bear<br />And spread rich odours through +our spring-tide air.</p> +<p>With such strange arts this flower did allure<br />That all forgotten +was the asphodel,<br />And the brown bee, the lily’s paramour,<br />Forsook +the cup where he was wont to dwell,<br />For not a thing of earth it +seemed to be,<br />But stolen from some heavenly Arcady.</p> +<p>In vain the sad narcissus, wan and white<br />At its own beauty, +hung across the stream,<br />The purple dragon-fly had no delight<br />With +its gold dust to make his wings a-gleam,<br />Ah! no delight the jasmine-bloom +to kiss,<br />Or brush the rain-pearls from the eucharis.</p> +<p>For love of it the passionate nightingale<br />Forgot the hills of +Thrace, the cruel king,<br />And the pale dove no longer cared to sail<br />Through +the wet woods at time of blossoming,<br />But round this flower of Egypt +sought to float,<br />With silvered wing and amethystine throat.</p> +<p>While the hot sun blazed in his tower of blue<br />A cooling wind +crept from the land of snows,<br />And the warm south with tender tears +of dew<br />Drenched its white leaves when Hesperos up-rose<br />Amid +those sea-green meadows of the sky<br />On which the scarlet bars of +sunset lie.</p> +<p>But when o’er wastes of lily-haunted field<br />The tired birds +had stayed their amorous tune,<br />And broad and glittering like an +argent shield<br />High in the sapphire heavens hung the moon,<br />Did +no strange dream or evil memory make<br />Each tremulous petal of its +blossoms shake?</p> +<p>Ah no! to this bright flower a thousand years<br />Seemed but the +lingering of a summer’s day,<br />It never knew the tide of cankering +fears<br />Which turn a boy’s gold hair to withered grey,<br />The +dread desire of death it never knew,<br />Or how all folk that they +were born must rue.</p> +<p>For we to death with pipe and dancing go,<br />Nor would we pass +the ivory gate again,<br />As some sad river wearied of its flow<br />Through +the dull plains, the haunts of common men,<br />Leaps lover-like into +the terrible sea!<br />And counts it gain to die so gloriously.</p> +<p>We mar our lordly strength in barren strife<br />With the world’s +legions led by clamorous care,<br />It never feels decay but gathers +life<br />From the pure sunlight and the supreme air,<br />We live beneath +Time’s wasting sovereignty,<br />It is the child of all eternity.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Serenade (For Music)</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The western wind is blowing fair<br />Across the dark AEgean sea,<br />And +at the secret marble stair<br />My Tyrian galley waits for thee.<br />Come +down! the purple sail is spread,<br />The watchman sleeps within the +town,<br />O leave thy lily-flowered bed,<br />O Lady mine come down, +come down!</p> +<p>She will not come, I know her well,<br />Of lover’s vows she +hath no care,<br />And little good a man can tell<br />Of one so cruel +and so fair.<br />True love is but a woman’s toy,<br />They never +know the lover’s pain,<br />And I who loved as loves a boy<br />Must +love in vain, must love in vain.</p> +<p>O noble pilot, tell me true,<br />Is that the sheen of golden hair?<br />Or +is it but the tangled dew<br />That binds the passion-flowers there?<br />Good +sailor come and tell me now<br />Is that my Lady’s lily hand?<br />Or +is it but the gleaming prow,<br />Or is it but the silver sand?</p> +<p>No! no! ’tis not the tangled dew,<br />’Tis not the silver-fretted +sand,<br />It is my own dear Lady true<br />With golden hair and lily +hand!<br />O noble pilot, steer for Troy,<br />Good sailor, ply the +labouring oar,<br />This is the Queen of life and joy<br />Whom we must +bear from Grecian shore!</p> +<p>The waning sky grows faint and blue,<br />It wants an hour still +of day,<br />Aboard! aboard! my gallant crew,<br />O Lady mine, away! +away!<br />O noble pilot, steer for Troy,<br />Good sailor, ply the +labouring oar,<br />O loved as only loves a boy!<br />O loved for ever +evermore!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Endymion (For Music)</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The apple trees are hung with gold,<br />And birds are loud in Arcady,<br />The +sheep lie bleating in the fold,<br />The wild goat runs across the wold,<br />But +yesterday his love he told,<br />I know he will come back to me.<br />O +rising moon! O Lady moon!<br />Be you my lover’s sentinel,<br />You +cannot choose but know him well,<br />For he is shod with purple shoon,<br />You +cannot choose but know my love,<br />For he a shepherd’s crook +doth bear,<br />And he is soft as any dove,<br />And brown and curly +is his hair.</p> +<p>The turtle now has ceased to call<br />Upon her crimson-footed groom,<br />The +grey wolf prowls about the stall,<br />The lily’s singing seneschal<br />Sleeps +in the lily-bell, and all<br />The violet hills are lost in gloom.<br />O +risen moon! O holy moon!<br />Stand on the top of Helice,<br />And +if my own true love you see,<br />Ah! if you see the purple shoon,<br />The +hazel crook, the lad’s brown hair,<br />The goat-skin wrapped +about his arm,<br />Tell him that I am waiting where<br />The rushlight +glimmers in the Farm.</p> +<p>The falling dew is cold and chill,<br />And no bird sings in Arcady,<br />The +little fauns have left the hill,<br />Even the tired daffodil<br />Has +closed its gilded doors, and still<br />My lover comes not back to me.<br />False +moon! False moon! O waning moon!<br />Where is my own true +lover gone,<br />Where are the lips vermilion,<br />The shepherd’s +crook, the purple shoon?<br />Why spread that silver pavilion,<br />Why +wear that veil of drifting mist?<br />Ah! thou hast young Endymion,<br />Thou +hast the lips that should be kissed!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: La Bella Donna Della Mia Mente</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>My limbs are wasted with a flame,<br />My feet are sore with travelling,<br />For, +calling on my Lady’s name,<br />My lips have now forgot to sing.</p> +<p>O Linnet in the wild-rose brake<br />Strain for my Love thy melody,<br />O +Lark sing louder for love’s sake,<br />My gentle Lady passeth +by.</p> +<p>She is too fair for any man<br />To see or hold his heart’s +delight,<br />Fairer than Queen or courtesan<br />Or moonlit water in +the night.</p> +<p>Her hair is bound with myrtle leaves,<br />(Green leaves upon her +golden hair!)<br />Green grasses through the yellow sheaves<br />Of +autumn corn are not more fair.</p> +<p>Her little lips, more made to kiss<br />Than to cry bitterly for +pain,<br />Are tremulous as brook-water is,<br />Or roses after evening +rain.</p> +<p>Her neck is like white melilote<br />Flushing for pleasure of the +sun,<br />The throbbing of the linnet’s throat<br />Is not so +sweet to look upon.</p> +<p>As a pomegranate, cut in twain,<br />White-seeded, is her crimson +mouth,<br />Her cheeks are as the fading stain<br />Where the peach +reddens to the south.</p> +<p>O twining hands! O delicate<br />White body made for love and +pain!<br />O House of love! O desolate<br />Pale flower beaten +by the rain!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Chanson</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>A ring of gold and a milk-white dove<br />Are goodly gifts for thee,<br />And +a hempen rope for your own love<br />To hang upon a tree.</p> +<p>For you a House of Ivory,<br />(Roses are white in the rose-bower)!<br />A +narrow bed for me to lie,<br />(White, O white, is the hemlock flower)!</p> +<p>Myrtle and jessamine for you,<br />(O the red rose is fair to see)!<br />For +me the cypress and the rue,<br />(Finest of all is rosemary)!</p> +<p>For you three lovers of your hand,<br />(Green grass where a man +lies dead)!<br />For me three paces on the sand,<br />(Plant lilies +at my head)!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Charmides</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>He was a Grecian lad, who coming home<br />With pulpy figs and wine +from Sicily<br />Stood at his galley’s prow, and let the foam<br />Blow +through his crisp brown curls unconsciously,<br />And holding wave and +wind in boy’s despite<br />Peered from his dripping seat across +the wet and stormy night.</p> +<p>Till with the dawn he saw a burnished spear<br />Like a thin thread +of gold against the sky,<br />And hoisted sail, and strained the creaking +gear,<br />And bade the pilot head her lustily<br />Against the nor’west +gale, and all day long<br />Held on his way, and marked the rowers’ +time with measured song.</p> +<p>And when the faint Corinthian hills were red<br />Dropped anchor +in a little sandy bay,<br />And with fresh boughs of olive crowned his +head,<br />And brushed from cheek and throat the hoary spray,<br />And +washed his limbs with oil, and from the hold<br />Brought out his linen +tunic and his sandals brazen-soled,</p> +<p>And a rich robe stained with the fishers’ juice<br />Which +of some swarthy trader he had bought<br />Upon the sunny quay at Syracuse,<br />And +was with Tyrian broideries inwrought,<br />And by the questioning merchants +made his way<br />Up through the soft and silver woods, and when the +labouring day</p> +<p>Had spun its tangled web of crimson cloud,<br />Clomb the high hill, +and with swift silent feet<br />Crept to the fane unnoticed by the crowd<br />Of +busy priests, and from some dark retreat<br />Watched the young swains +his frolic playmates bring<br />The firstling of their little flock, +and the shy shepherd fling</p> +<p>The crackling salt upon the flame, or hang<br />His studded crook +against the temple wall<br />To Her who keeps away the ravenous fang<br />Of +the base wolf from homestead and from stall;<br />And then the clear-voiced +maidens ’gan to sing,<br />And to the altar each man brought some +goodly offering,</p> +<p>A beechen cup brimming with milky foam,<br />A fair cloth wrought +with cunning imagery<br />Of hounds in chase, a waxen honey-comb<br />Dripping +with oozy gold which scarce the bee<br />Had ceased from building, a +black skin of oil<br />Meet for the wrestlers, a great boar the fierce +and white-tusked spoil</p> +<p>Stolen from Artemis that jealous maid<br />To please Athena, and +the dappled hide<br />Of a tall stag who in some mountain glade<br />Had +met the shaft; and then the herald cried,<br />And from the pillared +precinct one by one<br />Went the glad Greeks well pleased that they +their simple vows had done.</p> +<p>And the old priest put out the waning fires<br />Save that one lamp +whose restless ruby glowed<br />For ever in the cell, and the shrill +lyres<br />Came fainter on the wind, as down the road<br />In joyous +dance these country folk did pass,<br />And with stout hands the warder +closed the gates of polished brass.</p> +<p>Long time he lay and hardly dared to breathe,<br />And heard the +cadenced drip of spilt-out wine,<br />And the rose-petals falling from +the wreath<br />As the night breezes wandered through the shrine,<br />And +seemed to be in some entrancèd swoon<br />Till through the open +roof above the full and brimming moon</p> +<p>Flooded with sheeny waves the marble floor,<br />When from his nook +up leapt the venturous lad,<br />And flinging wide the cedar-carven +door<br />Beheld an awful image saffron-clad<br />And armed for battle! +the gaunt Griffin glared<br />From the huge helm, and the long lance +of wreck and ruin flared</p> +<p>Like a red rod of flame, stony and steeled<br />The Gorgon’s +head its leaden eyeballs rolled,<br />And writhed its snaky horrors +through the shield,<br />And gaped aghast with bloodless lips and cold<br />In +passion impotent, while with blind gaze<br />The blinking owl between +the feet hooted in shrill amaze.</p> +<p>The lonely fisher as he trimmed his lamp<br />Far out at sea off +Sunium, or cast<br />The net for tunnies, heard a brazen tramp<br />Of +horses smite the waves, and a wild blast<br />Divide the folded curtains +of the night,<br />And knelt upon the little poop, and prayed in holy +fright.</p> +<p>And guilty lovers in their venery<br />Forgat a little while their +stolen sweets,<br />Deeming they heard dread Dian’s bitter cry;<br />And +the grim watchmen on their lofty seats<br />Ran to their shields in +haste precipitate,<br />Or strained black-bearded throats across the +dusky parapet.</p> +<p>For round the temple rolled the clang of arms,<br />And the twelve +Gods leapt up in marble fear,<br />And the air quaked with dissonant +alarums<br />Till huge Poseidon shook his mighty spear,<br />And on +the frieze the prancing horses neighed,<br />And the low tread of hurrying +feet rang from the cavalcade.</p> +<p>Ready for death with parted lips he stood,<br />And well content +at such a price to see<br />That calm wide brow, that terrible maidenhood,<br />The +marvel of that pitiless chastity,<br />Ah! well content indeed, for +never wight<br />Since Troy’s young shepherd prince had seen so +wonderful a sight.</p> +<p>Ready for death he stood, but lo! the air<br />Grew silent, and the +horses ceased to neigh,<br />And off his brow he tossed the clustering +hair,<br />And from his limbs he throw the cloak away;<br />For whom +would not such love make desperate?<br />And nigher came, and touched +her throat, and with hands violate</p> +<p>Undid the cuirass, and the crocus gown,<br />And bared the breasts +of polished ivory,<br />Till from the waist the peplos falling down<br />Left +visible the secret mystery<br />Which to no lover will Athena show,<br />The +grand cool flanks, the crescent thighs, the bossy hills of snow.</p> +<p>Those who have never known a lover’s sin<br />Let them not +read my ditty, it will be<br />To their dull ears so musicless and thin<br />That +they will have no joy of it, but ye<br />To whose wan cheeks now creeps +the lingering smile,<br />Ye who have learned who Eros is,—O listen +yet awhile.</p> +<p>A little space he let his greedy eyes<br />Rest on the burnished +image, till mere sight<br />Half swooned for surfeit of such luxuries,<br />And +then his lips in hungering delight<br />Fed on her lips, and round the +towered neck<br />He flung his arms, nor cared at all his passion’s +will to check.</p> +<p>Never I ween did lover hold such tryst,<br />For all night long he +murmured honeyed word,<br />And saw her sweet unravished limbs, and +kissed<br />Her pale and argent body undisturbed,<br />And paddled with +the polished throat, and pressed<br />His hot and beating heart upon +her chill and icy breast.</p> +<p>It was as if Numidian javelins<br />Pierced through and through his +wild and whirling brain,<br />And his nerves thrilled like throbbing +violins<br />In exquisite pulsation, and the pain<br />Was such sweet +anguish that he never drew<br />His lips from hers till overhead the +lark of warning flew.</p> +<p>They who have never seen the daylight peer<br />Into a darkened room, +and drawn the curtain,<br />And with dull eyes and wearied from some +dear<br />And worshipped body risen, they for certain<br />Will never +know of what I try to sing,<br />How long the last kiss was, how fond +and late his lingering.</p> +<p>The moon was girdled with a crystal rim,<br />The sign which shipmen +say is ominous<br />Of wrath in heaven, the wan stars were dim,<br />And +the low lightening east was tremulous<br />With the faint fluttering +wings of flying dawn,<br />Ere from the silent sombre shrine his lover +had withdrawn.</p> +<p>Down the steep rock with hurried feet and fast<br />Clomb the brave +lad, and reached the cave of Pan,<br />And heard the goat-foot snoring +as he passed,<br />And leapt upon a grassy knoll and ran<br />Like a +young fawn unto an olive wood<br />Which in a shady valley by the well-built +city stood;</p> +<p>And sought a little stream, which well he knew,<br />For oftentimes +with boyish careless shout<br />The green and crested grebe he would +pursue,<br />Or snare in woven net the silver trout,<br />And down amid +the startled reeds he lay<br />Panting in breathless sweet affright, +and waited for the day.</p> +<p>On the green bank he lay, and let one hand<br />Dip in the cool dark +eddies listlessly,<br />And soon the breath of morning came and fanned<br />His +hot flushed cheeks, or lifted wantonly<br />The tangled curls from off +his forehead, while<br />He on the running water gazed with strange +and secret smile.</p> +<p>And soon the shepherd in rough woollen cloak<br />With his long crook +undid the wattled cotes,<br />And from the stack a thin blue wreath +of smoke<br />Curled through the air across the ripening oats,<br />And +on the hill the yellow house-dog bayed<br />As through the crisp and +rustling fern the heavy cattle strayed.</p> +<p>And when the light-foot mower went afield<br />Across the meadows +laced with threaded dew,<br />And the sheep bleated on the misty weald,<br />And +from its nest the waking corncrake flew,<br />Some woodmen saw him lying +by the stream<br />And marvelled much that any lad so beautiful could +seem,</p> +<p>Nor deemed him born of mortals, and one said,<br />‘It is young +Hylas, that false runaway<br />Who with a Naiad now would make his bed<br />Forgetting +Herakles,’ but others, ‘Nay,<br />It is Narcissus, his own +paramour,<br />Those are the fond and crimson lips no woman can allure.’</p> +<p>And when they nearer came a third one cried,<br />‘It is young +Dionysos who has hid<br />His spear and fawnskin by the river side<br />Weary +of hunting with the Bassarid,<br />And wise indeed were we away to fly:<br />They +live not long who on the gods immortal come to spy.’</p> +<p>So turned they back, and feared to look behind,<br />And told the +timid swain how they had seen<br />Amid the reeds some woodland god +reclined,<br />And no man dared to cross the open green,<br />And on +that day no olive-tree was slain,<br />Nor rushes cut, but all deserted +was the fair domain,</p> +<p>Save when the neat-herd’s lad, his empty pail<br />Well slung +upon his back, with leap and bound<br />Raced on the other side, and +stopped to hail,<br />Hoping that he some comrade new had found,<br />And +gat no answer, and then half afraid<br />Passed on his simple way, or +down the still and silent glade</p> +<p>A little girl ran laughing from the farm,<br />Not thinking of love’s +secret mysteries,<br />And when she saw the white and gleaming arm<br />And +all his manlihood, with longing eyes<br />Whose passion mocked her sweet +virginity<br />Watched him awhile, and then stole back sadly and wearily.</p> +<p>Far off he heard the city’s hum and noise,<br />And now and +then the shriller laughter where<br />The passionate purity of brown-limbed +boys<br />Wrestled or raced in the clear healthful air,<br />And now +and then a little tinkling bell<br />As the shorn wether led the sheep +down to the mossy well.</p> +<p>Through the grey willows danced the fretful gnat,<br />The grasshopper +chirped idly from the tree,<br />In sleek and oily coat the water-rat<br />Breasting +the little ripples manfully<br />Made for the wild-duck’s nest, +from bough to bough<br />Hopped the shy finch, and the huge tortoise +crept across the slough.</p> +<p>On the faint wind floated the silky seeds<br />As the bright scythe +swept through the waving grass,<br />The ouzel-cock splashed circles +in the reeds<br />And flecked with silver whorls the forest’s +glass,<br />Which scarce had caught again its imagery<br />Ere from +its bed the dusky tench leapt at the dragon-fly.</p> +<p>But little care had he for any thing<br />Though up and down the +beech the squirrel played,<br />And from the copse the linnet ’gan +to sing<br />To its brown mate its sweetest serenade;<br />Ah! little +care indeed, for he had seen<br />The breasts of Pallas and the naked +wonder of the Queen.</p> +<p>But when the herdsman called his straggling goats<br />With whistling +pipe across the rocky road,<br />And the shard-beetle with its trumpet-notes<br />Boomed +through the darkening woods, and seemed to bode<br />Of coming storm, +and the belated crane<br />Passed homeward like a shadow, and the dull +big drops of rain</p> +<p>Fell on the pattering fig-leaves, up he rose,<br />And from the gloomy +forest went his way<br />Past sombre homestead and wet orchard-close,<br />And +came at last unto a little quay,<br />And called his mates aboard, and +took his seat<br />On the high poop, and pushed from land, and loosed +the dripping sheet,</p> +<p>And steered across the bay, and when nine suns<br />Passed down the +long and laddered way of gold,<br />And nine pale moons had breathed +their orisons<br />To the chaste stars their confessors, or told<br />Their +dearest secret to the downy moth<br />That will not fly at noonday, +through the foam and surging froth</p> +<p>Came a great owl with yellow sulphurous eyes<br />And lit upon the +ship, whose timbers creaked<br />As though the lading of three argosies<br />Were +in the hold, and flapped its wings and shrieked,<br />And darkness straightway +stole across the deep,<br />Sheathed was Orion’s sword, dread +Mars himself fled down the steep,</p> +<p>And the moon hid behind a tawny mask<br />Of drifting cloud, and +from the ocean’s marge<br />Rose the red plume, the huge and hornèd +casque,<br />The seven-cubit spear, the brazen targe!<br />And clad +in bright and burnished panoply<br />Athena strode across the stretch +of sick and shivering sea!</p> +<p>To the dull sailors’ sight her loosened looks<br />Seemed like +the jagged storm-rack, and her feet<br />Only the spume that floats +on hidden rocks,<br />And, marking how the rising waters beat<br />Against +the rolling ship, the pilot cried<br />To the young helmsman at the +stern to luff to windward side</p> +<p>But he, the overbold adulterer,<br />A dear profaner of great mysteries,<br />An +ardent amorous idolater,<br />When he beheld those grand relentless +eyes<br />Laughed loud for joy, and crying out ‘I come’<br />Leapt +from the lofty poop into the chill and churning foam.</p> +<p>Then fell from the high heaven one bright star,<br />One dancer left +the circling galaxy,<br />And back to Athens on her clattering car<br />In +all the pride of venged divinity<br />Pale Pallas swept with shrill +and steely clank,<br />And a few gurgling bubbles rose where her boy +lover sank.</p> +<p>And the mast shuddered as the gaunt owl flew<br />With mocking hoots +after the wrathful Queen,<br />And the old pilot bade the trembling +crew<br />Hoist the big sail, and told how he had seen<br />Close to +the stern a dim and giant form,<br />And like a dipping swallow the +stout ship dashed through the storm.</p> +<p>And no man dared to speak of Charmides<br />Deeming that he some +evil thing had wrought,<br />And when they reached the strait Symplegades<br />They +beached their galley on the shore, and sought<br />The toll-gate of +the city hastily,<br />And in the market showed their brown and pictured +pottery.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>II.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>But some good Triton-god had ruth, and bare<br />The boy’s +drowned body back to Grecian land,<br />And mermaids combed his dank +and dripping hair<br />And smoothed his brow, and loosed his clenching +hand;<br />Some brought sweet spices from far Araby,<br />And others +bade the halcyon sing her softest lullaby.</p> +<p>And when he neared his old Athenian home,<br />A mighty billow rose +up suddenly<br />Upon whose oily back the clotted foam<br />Lay diapered +in some strange fantasy,<br />And clasping him unto its glassy breast<br />Swept +landward, like a white-maned steed upon a venturous quest!</p> +<p>Now where Colonos leans unto the sea<br />There lies a long and level +stretch of lawn;<br />The rabbit knows it, and the mountain bee<br />For +it deserts Hymettus, and the Faun<br />Is not afraid, for never through +the day<br />Comes a cry ruder than the shout of shepherd lads at play.</p> +<p>But often from the thorny labyrinth<br />And tangled branches of +the circling wood<br />The stealthy hunter sees young Hyacinth<br />Hurling +the polished disk, and draws his hood<br />Over his guilty gaze, and +creeps away,<br />Nor dares to wind his horn, or—else at the first +break of day</p> +<p>The Dryads come and throw the leathern ball<br />Along the reedy +shore, and circumvent<br />Some goat-eared Pan to be their seneschal<br />For +fear of bold Poseidon’s ravishment,<br />And loose their girdles, +with shy timorous eyes,<br />Lest from the surf his azure arms and purple +beard should rise.</p> +<p>On this side and on that a rocky cave,<br />Hung with the yellow-belled +laburnum, stands<br />Smooth is the beach, save where some ebbing wave<br />Leaves +its faint outline etched upon the sands,<br />As though it feared to +be too soon forgot<br />By the green rush, its playfellow,—and +yet, it is a spot</p> +<p>So small, that the inconstant butterfly<br />Could steal the hoarded +money from each flower<br />Ere it was noon, and still not satisfy<br />Its +over-greedy love,—within an hour<br />A sailor boy, were he but +rude enow<br />To land and pluck a garland for his galley’s painted +prow,</p> +<p>Would almost leave the little meadow bare,<br />For it knows nothing +of great pageantry,<br />Only a few narcissi here and there<br />Stand +separate in sweet austerity,<br />Dotting the unmown grass with silver +stars,<br />And here and there a daffodil waves tiny scimitars.</p> +<p>Hither the billow brought him, and was glad<br />Of such dear servitude, +and where the land<br />Was virgin of all waters laid the lad<br />Upon +the golden margent of the strand,<br />And like a lingering lover oft +returned<br />To kiss those pallid limbs which once with intense fire +burned,</p> +<p>Ere the wet seas had quenched that holocaust,<br />That self-fed +flame, that passionate lustihead,<br />Ere grisly death with chill and +nipping frost<br />Had withered up those lilies white and red<br />Which, +while the boy would through the forest range,<br />Answered each other +in a sweet antiphonal counter-change.</p> +<p>And when at dawn the wood-nymphs, hand-in-hand,<br />Threaded the +bosky dell, their satyr spied<br />The boy’s pale body stretched +upon the sand,<br />And feared Poseidon’s treachery, and cried,<br />And +like bright sunbeams flitting through a glade<br />Each startled Dryad +sought some safe and leafy ambuscade.</p> +<p>Save one white girl, who deemed it would not be<br />So dread a thing +to feel a sea-god’s arms<br />Crushing her breasts in amorous +tyranny,<br />And longed to listen to those subtle charms<br />Insidious +lovers weave when they would win<br />Some fencèd fortress, and +stole back again, nor thought it sin</p> +<p>To yield her treasure unto one so fair,<br />And lay beside him, +thirsty with love’s drouth,<br />Called him soft names, played +with his tangled hair,<br />And with hot lips made havoc of his mouth<br />Afraid +he might not wake, and then afraid<br />Lest he might wake too soon, +fled back, and then, fond renegade,</p> +<p>Returned to fresh assault, and all day long<br />Sat at his side, +and laughed at her new toy,<br />And held his hand, and sang her sweetest +song,<br />Then frowned to see how froward was the boy<br />Who would +not with her maidenhood entwine,<br />Nor knew that three days since +his eyes had looked on Proserpine;</p> +<p>Nor knew what sacrilege his lips had done,<br />But said, ‘He +will awake, I know him well,<br />He will awake at evening when the +sun<br />Hangs his red shield on Corinth’s citadel;<br />This +sleep is but a cruel treachery<br />To make me love him more, and in +some cavern of the sea</p> +<p>Deeper than ever falls the fisher’s line<br />Already a huge +Triton blows his horn,<br />And weaves a garland from the crystalline<br />And +drifting ocean-tendrils to adorn<br />The emerald pillars of our bridal +bed,<br />For sphered in foaming silver, and with coral crownèd +head,</p> +<p>We two will sit upon a throne of pearl,<br />And a blue wave will +be our canopy,<br />And at our feet the water-snakes will curl<br />In +all their amethystine panoply<br />Of diamonded mail, and we will mark<br />The +mullets swimming by the mast of some storm-foundered bark,</p> +<p>Vermilion-finned with eyes of bossy gold<br />Like flakes of crimson +light, and the great deep<br />His glassy-portaled chamber will unfold,<br />And +we will see the painted dolphins sleep<br />Cradled by murmuring halcyons +on the rocks<br />Where Proteus in quaint suit of green pastures his +monstrous flocks.</p> +<p>And tremulous opal-hued anemones<br />Will wave their purple fringes +where we tread<br />Upon the mirrored floor, and argosies<br />Of fishes +flecked with tawny scales will thread<br />The drifting cordage of the +shattered wreck,<br />And honey-coloured amber beads our twining limbs +will deck.’</p> +<p>But when that baffled Lord of War the Sun<br />With gaudy pennon +flying passed away<br />Into his brazen House, and one by one<br />The +little yellow stars began to stray<br />Across the field of heaven, +ah! then indeed<br />She feared his lips upon her lips would never care +to feed,</p> +<p>And cried, ‘Awake, already the pale moon<br />Washes the trees +with silver, and the wave<br />Creeps grey and chilly up this sandy +dune,<br />The croaking frogs are out, and from the cave<br />The nightjar +shrieks, the fluttering bats repass,<br />And the brown stoat with hollow +flanks creeps through the dusky grass.</p> +<p>Nay, though thou art a god, be not so coy,<br />For in yon stream +there is a little reed<br />That often whispers how a lovely boy<br />Lay +with her once upon a grassy mead,<br />Who when his cruel pleasure he +had done<br />Spread wings of rustling gold and soared aloft into the +sun.</p> +<p>Be not so coy, the laurel trembles still<br />With great Apollo’s +kisses, and the fir<br />Whose clustering sisters fringe the seaward +hill<br />Hath many a tale of that bold ravisher<br />Whom men call +Boreas, and I have seen<br />The mocking eyes of Hermes through the +poplar’s silvery sheen.</p> +<p>Even the jealous Naiads call me fair,<br />And every morn a young +and ruddy swain<br />Woos me with apples and with locks of hair,<br />And +seeks to soothe my virginal disdain<br />By all the gifts the gentle +wood-nymphs love;<br />But yesterday he brought to me an iris-plumaged +dove</p> +<p>With little crimson feet, which with its store<br />Of seven spotted +eggs the cruel lad<br />Had stolen from the lofty sycamore<br />At daybreak, +when her amorous comrade had<br />Flown off in search of berried juniper<br />Which +most they love; the fretful wasp, that earliest vintager</p> +<p>Of the blue grapes, hath not persistency<br />So constant as this +simple shepherd-boy<br />For my poor lips, his joyous purity<br />And +laughing sunny eyes might well decoy<br />A Dryad from her oath to Artemis;<br />For +very beautiful is he, his mouth was made to kiss;</p> +<p>His argent forehead, like a rising moon<br />Over the dusky hills +of meeting brows,<br />Is crescent shaped, the hot and Tyrian noon<br />Leads +from the myrtle-grove no goodlier spouse<br />For Cytheraea, the first +silky down<br />Fringes his blushing cheeks, and his young limbs are +strong and brown;</p> +<p>And he is rich, and fat and fleecy herds<br />Of bleating sheep upon +his meadows lie,<br />And many an earthen bowl of yellow curds<br />Is +in his homestead for the thievish fly<br />To swim and drown in, the +pink clover mead<br />Keeps its sweet store for him, and he can pipe +on oaten reed.</p> +<p>And yet I love him not; it was for thee<br />I kept my love; I knew +that thou would’st come<br />To rid me of this pallid chastity,<br />Thou +fairest flower of the flowerless foam<br />Of all the wide AEgean, brightest +star<br />Of ocean’s azure heavens where the mirrored planets +are!</p> +<p>I knew that thou would’st come, for when at first<br />The +dry wood burgeoned, and the sap of spring<br />Swelled in my green and +tender bark or burst<br />To myriad multitudinous blossoming<br />Which +mocked the midnight with its mimic moons<br />That did not dread the +dawn, and first the thrushes’ rapturous tunes</p> +<p>Startled the squirrel from its granary,<br />And cuckoo flowers fringed +the narrow lane,<br />Through my young leaves a sensuous ecstasy<br />Crept +like new wine, and every mossy vein<br />Throbbed with the fitful pulse +of amorous blood,<br />And the wild winds of passion shook my slim stem’s +maidenhood.</p> +<p>The trooping fawns at evening came and laid<br />Their cool black +noses on my lowest boughs,<br />And on my topmost branch the blackbird +made<br />A little nest of grasses for his spouse,<br />And now and +then a twittering wren would light<br />On a thin twig which hardly +bare the weight of such delight.</p> +<p>I was the Attic shepherd’s trysting place,<br />Beneath my +shadow Amaryllis lay,<br />And round my trunk would laughing Daphnis +chase<br />The timorous girl, till tired out with play<br />She felt +his hot breath stir her tangled hair,<br />And turned, and looked, and +fled no more from such delightful snare.</p> +<p>Then come away unto my ambuscade<br />Where clustering woodbine weaves +a canopy<br />For amorous pleasaunce, and the rustling shade<br />Of +Paphian myrtles seems to sanctify<br />The dearest rites of love; there +in the cool<br />And green recesses of its farthest depth there is pool,</p> +<p>The ouzel’s haunt, the wild bee’s pasturage,<br />For +round its rim great creamy lilies float<br />Through their flat leaves +in verdant anchorage,<br />Each cup a white-sailed golden-laden boat<br />Steered +by a dragon-fly,—be not afraid<br />To leave this wan and wave-kissed +shore, surely the place was made</p> +<p>For lovers such as we; the Cyprian Queen,<br />One arm around her +boyish paramour,<br />Strays often there at eve, and I have seen<br />The +moon strip off her misty vestiture<br />For young Endymion’s eyes; +be not afraid,<br />The panther feet of Dian never tread that secret +glade.</p> +<p>Nay if thou will’st, back to the beating brine,<br />Back to +the boisterous billow let us go,<br />And walk all day beneath the hyaline<br />Huge +vault of Neptune’s watery portico,<br />And watch the purple monsters +of the deep<br />Sport in ungainly play, and from his lair keen Xiphias +leap.</p> +<p>For if my mistress find me lying here<br />She will not ruth or gentle +pity show,<br />But lay her boar-spear down, and with austere<br />Relentless +fingers string the cornel bow,<br />And draw the feathered notch against +her breast,<br />And loose the archèd cord; aye, even now upon +the quest</p> +<p>I hear her hurrying feet,—awake, awake,<br />Thou laggard in +love’s battle! once at least<br />Let me drink deep of passion’s +wine, and slake<br />My parchèd being with the nectarous feast<br />Which +even gods affect! O come, Love, come,<br />Still we have time +to reach the cavern of thine azure home.’</p> +<p>Scarce had she spoken when the shuddering trees<br />Shook, and the +leaves divided, and the air<br />Grew conscious of a god, and the grey +seas<br />Crawled backward, and a long and dismal blare<br />Blew from +some tasselled horn, a sleuth-hound bayed,<br />And like a flame a barbèd +reed flew whizzing down the glade.</p> +<p>And where the little flowers of her breast<br />Just brake into their +milky blossoming,<br />This murderous paramour, this unbidden guest,<br />Pierced +and struck deep in horrid chambering,<br />And ploughed a bloody furrow +with its dart,<br />And dug a long red road, and cleft with wingèd +death her heart.</p> +<p>Sobbing her life out with a bitter cry<br />On the boy’s body +fell the Dryad maid,<br />Sobbing for incomplete virginity,<br />And +raptures unenjoyed, and pleasures dead,<br />And all the pain of things +unsatisfied,<br />And the bright drops of crimson youth crept down her +throbbing side.</p> +<p>Ah! pitiful it was to hear her moan,<br />And very pitiful to see +her die<br />Ere she had yielded up her sweets, or known<br />The joy +of passion, that dread mystery<br />Which not to know is not to live +at all,<br />And yet to know is to be held in death’s most deadly +thrall.</p> +<p>But as it hapt the Queen of Cythere,<br />Who with Adonis all night +long had lain<br />Within some shepherd’s hut in Arcady,<br />On +team of silver doves and gilded wain<br />Was journeying Paphos-ward, +high up afar<br />From mortal ken between the mountains and the morning +star,</p> +<p>And when low down she spied the hapless pair,<br />And heard the +Oread’s faint despairing cry,<br />Whose cadence seemed to play +upon the air<br />As though it were a viol, hastily<br />She bade her +pigeons fold each straining plume,<br />And dropt to earth, and reached +the strand, and saw their dolorous doom.</p> +<p>For as a gardener turning back his head<br />To catch the last notes +of the linnet, mows<br />With careless scythe too near some flower bed,<br />And +cuts the thorny pillar of the rose,<br />And with the flower’s +loosened loneliness<br />Strews the brown mould; or as some shepherd +lad in wantonness</p> +<p>Driving his little flock along the mead<br />Treads down two daffodils, +which side by aide<br />Have lured the lady-bird with yellow brede<br />And +made the gaudy moth forget its pride,<br />Treads down their brimming +golden chalices<br />Under light feet which were not made for such rude +ravages;</p> +<p>Or as a schoolboy tired of his book<br />Flings himself down upon +the reedy grass<br />And plucks two water-lilies from the brook,<br />And +for a time forgets the hour glass,<br />Then wearies of their sweets, +and goes his way,<br />And lets the hot sun kill them, even go these +lovers lay.</p> +<p>And Venus cried, ‘It is dread Artemis<br />Whose bitter hand +hath wrought this cruelty,<br />Or else that mightier maid whose care +it is<br />To guard her strong and stainless majesty<br />Upon the hill +Athenian,—alas!<br />That they who loved so well unloved into +Death’s house should pass.’</p> +<p>So with soft hands she laid the boy and girl<br />In the great golden +waggon tenderly<br />(Her white throat whiter than a moony pearl<br />Just +threaded with a blue vein’s tapestry<br />Had not yet ceased to +throb, and still her breast<br />Swayed like a wind-stirred lily in +ambiguous unrest)</p> +<p>And then each pigeon spread its milky van,<br />The bright car soared +into the dawning sky,<br />And like a cloud the aerial caravan<br />Passed +over the AEgean silently,<br />Till the faint air was troubled with +the song<br />From the wan mouths that call on bleeding Thammuz all +night long.</p> +<p>But when the doves had reached their wonted goal<br />Where the wide +stair of orbèd marble dips<br />Its snows into the sea, her fluttering +soul<br />Just shook the trembling petals of her lips<br />And passed +into the void, and Venus knew<br />That one fair maid the less would +walk amid her retinue,</p> +<p>And bade her servants carve a cedar chest<br />With all the wonder +of this history,<br />Within whose scented womb their limbs should rest<br />Where +olive-trees make tender the blue sky<br />On the low hills of Paphos, +and the Faun<br />Pipes in the noonday, and the nightingale sings on +till dawn.</p> +<p>Nor failed they to obey her hest, and ere<br />The morning bee had +stung the daffodil<br />With tiny fretful spear, or from its lair<br />The +waking stag had leapt across the rill<br />And roused the ouzel, or +the lizard crept<br />Athwart the sunny rock, beneath the grass their +bodies slept.</p> +<p>And when day brake, within that silver shrine<br />Fed by the flames +of cressets tremulous,<br />Queen Venus knelt and prayed to Proserpine<br />That +she whose beauty made Death amorous<br />Should beg a guerdon from her +pallid Lord,<br />And let Desire pass across dread Charon’s icy +ford.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>III</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>In melancholy moonless Acheron,<br />Farm for the goodly earth and +joyous day<br />Where no spring ever buds, nor ripening sun<br />Weighs +down the apple trees, nor flowery May<br />Chequers with chestnut blooms +the grassy floor,<br />Where thrushes never sing, and piping linnets +mate no more,</p> +<p>There by a dim and dark Lethaean well<br />Young Charmides was lying; +wearily<br />He plucked the blossoms from the asphodel,<br />And with +its little rifled treasury<br />Strewed the dull waters of the dusky +stream,<br />And watched the white stars founder, and the land was like +a dream,</p> +<p>When as he gazed into the watery glass<br />And through his brown +hair’s curly tangles scanned<br />His own wan face, a shadow seemed +to pass<br />Across the mirror, and a little hand<br />Stole into his, +and warm lips timidly<br />Brushed his pale cheeks, and breathed their +secret forth into a sigh.</p> +<p>Then turned he round his weary eyes and saw,<br />And ever nigher +still their faces came,<br />And nigher ever did their young mouths +draw<br />Until they seemed one perfect rose of flame,<br />And longing +arms around her neck he cast,<br />And felt her throbbing bosom, and +his breath came hot and fast,</p> +<p>And all his hoarded sweets were hers to kiss,<br />And all her maidenhood +was his to slay,<br />And limb to limb in long and rapturous bliss<br />Their +passion waxed and waned,—O why essay<br />To pipe again of love, +too venturous reed!<br />Enough, enough that Eros laughed upon that +flowerless mead.</p> +<p>Too venturous poesy, O why essay<br />To pipe again of passion! fold +thy wings<br />O’er daring Icarus and bid thy lay<br />Sleep hidden +in the lyre’s silent strings<br />Till thou hast found the old +Castalian rill,<br />Or from the Lesbian waters plucked drowned Sappho’s +golden quid!</p> +<p>Enough, enough that he whose life had been<br />A fiery pulse of +sin, a splendid shame,<br />Could in the loveless land of Hades glean<br />One +scorching harvest from those fields of flame<br />Where passion walks +with naked unshod feet<br />And is not wounded,—ah! enough that +once their lips could meet</p> +<p>In that wild throb when all existences<br />Seemed narrowed to one +single ecstasy<br />Which dies through its own sweetness and the stress<br />Of +too much pleasure, ere Persephone<br />Had bade them serve her by the +ebon throne<br />Of the pale God who in the fields of Enna loosed her +zone.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Les Silhouettes</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The sea is flecked with bars of grey,<br />The dull dead wind is +out of tune,<br />And like a withered leaf the moon<br />Is blown across +the stormy bay.</p> +<p>Etched clear upon the pallid sand<br />Lies the black boat: a sailor +boy<br />Clambers aboard in careless joy<br />With laughing face and +gleaming hand.</p> +<p>And overhead the curlews cry,<br />Where through the dusky upland +grass<br />The young brown-throated reapers pass,<br />Like silhouettes +against the sky.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: La Fuite De La Lune</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>To outer senses there is peace,<br />A dreamy peace on either hand<br />Deep +silence in the shadowy land,<br />Deep silence where the shadows cease.</p> +<p>Save for a cry that echoes shrill<br />From some lone bird disconsolate;<br />A +corncrake calling to its mate;<br />The answer from the misty hill.</p> +<p>And suddenly the moon withdraws<br />Her sickle from the lightening +skies,<br />And to her sombre cavern flies,<br />Wrapped in a veil of +yellow gauze.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: The Grave Of Keats</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Rid of the world’s injustice, and his pain,<br />He rests at +last beneath God’s veil of blue:<br />Taken from life when life +and love were new<br />The youngest of the martyrs here is lain,<br />Fair +as Sebastian, and as early slain.<br />No cypress shades his grave, +no funeral yew,<br />But gentle violets weeping with the dew<br />Weave +on his bones an ever-blossoming chain.<br />O proudest heart that broke +for misery!<br />O sweetest lips since those of Mitylene!<br />O poet-painter +of our English Land!<br />Thy name was writ in water—it shall +stand:<br />And tears like mine will keep thy memory green,<br />As +Isabella did her Basil-tree.</p> +<p>ROME.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Theocritus—A Villanelle</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>O singer of Persephone!<br />In the dim meadows desolate<br />Dost +thou remember Sicily?</p> +<p>Still through the ivy flits the bee<br />Where Amaryllis lies in +state;<br />O Singer of Persephone!</p> +<p>Simaetha calls on Hecate<br />And hears the wild dogs at the gate;<br />Dost +thou remember Sicily?</p> +<p>Still by the light and laughing sea<br />Poor Polypheme bemoans his +fate;<br />O Singer of Persephone!</p> +<p>And still in boyish rivalry<br />Young Daphnis challenges his mate;<br />Dost +thou remember Sicily?</p> +<p>Slim Lacon keeps a goat for thee,<br />For thee the jocund shepherds +wait;<br />O Singer of Persephone!<br />Dost thou remember Sicily?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: In The Gold Room—A Harmony</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Her ivory hands on the ivory keys<br />Strayed in a fitful fantasy,<br />Like +the silver gleam when the poplar trees<br />Rustle their pale-leaves +listlessly,<br />Or the drifting foam of a restless sea<br />When the +waves show their teeth in the flying breeze.</p> +<p>Her gold hair fell on the wall of gold<br />Like the delicate gossamer +tangles spun<br />On the burnished disk of the marigold,<br />Or the +sunflower turning to meet the sun<br />When the gloom of the dark blue +night is done,<br />And the spear of the lily is aureoled.</p> +<p>And her sweet red lips on these lips of mine<br />Burned like the +ruby fire set<br />In the swinging lamp of a crimson shrine,<br />Or +the bleeding wounds of the pomegranate,<br />Or the heart of the lotus +drenched and wet<br />With the spilt-out blood of the rose-red wine.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Ballade De Marguerite (Normande)</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I am weary of lying within the chase<br />When the knights are meeting +in market-place.</p> +<p>Nay, go not thou to the red-roofed town<br />Lest the hoofs of the +war-horse tread thee down.</p> +<p>But I would not go where the Squires ride,<br />I would only walk +by my Lady’s side.</p> +<p>Alack! and alack! thou art overbold,<br />A Forester’s son +may not eat off gold.</p> +<p>Will she love me the less that my Father is seen<br />Each Martinmas +day in a doublet green?</p> +<p>Perchance she is sewing at tapestrie,<br />Spindle and loom are not +meet for thee.</p> +<p>Ah, if she is working the arras bright<br />I might ravel the threads +by the fire-light.</p> +<p>Perchance she is hunting of the deer,<br />How could you follow o’er +hill and mere?</p> +<p>Ah, if she is riding with the court,<br />I might run beside her +and wind the morte.</p> +<p>Perchance she is kneeling in St. Denys,<br />(On her soul may our +Lady have gramercy!)</p> +<p>Ah, if she is praying in lone chapelle,<br />I might swing the censer +and ring the bell.</p> +<p>Come in, my son, for you look sae pale,<br />The father shall fill +thee a stoup of ale.</p> +<p>But who are these knights in bright array?<br />Is it a pageant the +rich folks play?</p> +<p>’T is the King of England from over sea,<br />Who has come +unto visit our fair countrie.</p> +<p>But why does the curfew toll sae low?<br />And why do the mourners +walk a-row?</p> +<p>O ’t is Hugh of Amiens my sister’s son<br />Who is lying +stark, for his day is done.</p> +<p>Nay, nay, for I see white lilies clear,<br />It is no strong man +who lies on the bier.</p> +<p>O ’t is old Dame Jeannette that kept the hall,<br />I knew +she would die at the autumn fall.</p> +<p>Dame Jeannette had not that gold-brown hair,<br />Old Jeannette was +not a maiden fair.</p> +<p>O ’t is none of our kith and none of our kin,<br />(Her soul +may our Lady assoil from sin!)</p> +<p>But I hear the boy’s voice chaunting sweet,<br />‘Elle +est morte, la Marguerite.’</p> +<p>Come in, my son, and lie on the bed,<br />And let the dead folk bury +their dead.</p> +<p>O mother, you know I loved her true:<br />O mother, hath one grave +room for two?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: The Dole Of The King’s Daughter (Breton)</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Seven stars in the still water,<br />And seven in the sky;<br />Seven +sins on the King’s daughter,<br />Deep in her soul to lie.</p> +<p>Red roses are at her feet,<br />(Roses are red in her red-gold hair)<br />And +O where her bosom and girdle meet<br />Red roses are hidden there.</p> +<p>Fair is the knight who lieth slain<br />Amid the rush and reed,<br />See +the lean fishes that are fain<br />Upon dead men to feed.</p> +<p>Sweet is the page that lieth there,<br />(Cloth of gold is goodly +prey,)<br />See the black ravens in the air,<br />Black, O black as +the night are they.</p> +<p>What do they there so stark and dead?<br />(There is blood upon her +hand)<br />Why are the lilies flecked with red?<br />(There is blood +on the river sand.)</p> +<p>There are two that ride from the south and east,<br />And two from +the north and west,<br />For the black raven a goodly feast,<br />For +the King’s daughter rest.</p> +<p>There is one man who loves her true,<br />(Red, O red, is the stain +of gore!)<br />He hath duggen a grave by the darksome yew,<br />(One +grave will do for four.)</p> +<p>No moon in the still heaven,<br />In the black water none,<br />The +sins on her soul are seven,<br />The sin upon his is one.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Amor Intellectualis</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Oft have we trod the vales of Castaly<br />And heard sweet notes +of sylvan music blown<br />From antique reeds to common folk unknown:<br />And +often launched our bark upon that sea<br />Which the nine Muses hold +in empery,<br />And ploughed free furrows through the wave and foam,<br />Nor +spread reluctant sail for more safe home<br />Till we had freighted +well our argosy.<br />Of which despoilèd treasures these remain,<br />Sordello’s +passion, and the honeyed line<br />Of young Endymion, lordly Tamburlaine<br />Driving +his pampered jades, and more than these,<br />The seven-fold vision +of the Florentine,<br />And grave-browed Milton’s solemn harmonies.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Santa Decca</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The Gods are dead: no longer do we bring<br />To grey-eyed Pallas +crowns of olive-leaves!<br />Demeter’s child no more hath tithe +of sheaves,<br />And in the noon the careless shepherds sing,<br />For +Pan is dead, and all the wantoning<br />By secret glade and devious +haunt is o’er:<br />Young Hylas seeks the water-springs no more;<br />Great +Pan is dead, and Mary’s son is King.</p> +<p>And yet—perchance in this sea-trancèd isle,<br />Chewing +the bitter fruit of memory,<br />Some God lies hidden in the asphodel.<br />Ah +Love! if such there be, then it were well<br />For us to fly his anger: +nay, but see,<br />The leaves are stirring: let us watch awhile.</p> +<p>CORFU.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: A Vision</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Two crownèd Kings, and One that stood alone<br />With no green +weight of laurels round his head,<br />But with sad eyes as one uncomforted,<br />And +wearied with man’s never-ceasing moan<br />For sins no bleating +victim can atone,<br />And sweet long lips with tears and kisses fed.<br />Girt +was he in a garment black and red,<br />And at his feet I marked a broken +stone<br />Which sent up lilies, dove-like, to his knees.<br />Now at +their sight, my heart being lit with flame,<br />I cried to Beatricé, +‘Who are these?’<br />And she made answer, knowing well +each name,<br />‘AEschylos first, the second Sophokles,<br />And +last (wide stream of tears!) Euripides.’</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Impression De Voyage</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky<br />Burned like a heated +opal through the air;<br />We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair<br />For +the blue lands that to the eastward lie.<br />From the steep prow I +marked with quickening eye<br />Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek,<br />Ithaca’s +cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak,<br />And all the flower-strewn hills +of Arcady.<br />The flapping of the sail against the mast,<br />The +ripple of the water on the side,<br />The ripple of girls’ laughter +at the stern,<br />The only sounds:- when ’gan the West to burn,<br />And +a red sun upon the seas to ride,<br />I stood upon the soil of Greece +at last!</p> +<p>KATAKOLO.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: The Grave Of Shelley</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Like burnt-out torches by a sick man’s bed<br />Gaunt cypress-trees +stand round the sun-bleached stone;<br />Here doth the little night-owl +make her throne,<br />And the slight lizard show his jewelled head.<br />And, +where the chaliced poppies flame to red,<br />In the still chamber of +yon pyramid<br />Surely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid,<br />Grim +warder of this pleasaunce of the dead.</p> +<p>Ah! sweet indeed to rest within the womb<br />Of Earth, great mother +of eternal sleep,<br />But sweeter far for thee a restless tomb<br />In +the blue cavern of an echoing deep,<br />Or where the tall ships founder +in the gloom<br />Against the rocks of some wave-shattered steep.</p> +<p>ROME.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: By The Arno</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The oleander on the wall<br />Grows crimson in the dawning light,<br />Though +the grey shadows of the night<br />Lie yet on Florence like a pall.</p> +<p>The dew is bright upon the hill,<br />And bright the blossoms overhead,<br />But +ah! the grasshoppers have fled,<br />The little Attic song is still.</p> +<p>Only the leaves are gently stirred<br />By the soft breathing of +the gale,<br />And in the almond-scented vale<br />The lonely nightingale +is heard.</p> +<p>The day will make thee silent soon,<br />O nightingale sing on for +love!<br />While yet upon the shadowy grove<br />Splinter the arrows +of the moon.</p> +<p>Before across the silent lawn<br />In sea-green vest the morning +steals,<br />And to love’s frightened eyes reveals<br />The long +white fingers of the dawn</p> +<p>Fast climbing up the eastern sky<br />To grasp and slay the shuddering +night,<br />All careless of my heart’s delight,<br />Or if the +nightingale should die.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Fabien Dei Franchi</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>(To my Friend Henry Irving)</p> +<p>The silent room, the heavy creeping shade,<br />The dead that travel +fast, the opening door,<br />The murdered brother rising through the +floor,<br />The ghost’s white fingers on thy shoulders laid,<br />And +then the lonely duel in the glade,<br />The broken swords, the stifled +scream, the gore,<br />Thy grand revengeful eyes when all is o’er,—<br />These +things are well enough,—but thou wert made<br />For more august +creation! frenzied Lear<br />Should at thy bidding wander on the heath<br />With +the shrill fool to mock him, Romeo<br />For thee should lure his love, +and desperate fear<br />Pluck Richard’s recreant dagger from its +sheath—<br />Thou trumpet set for Shakespeare’s lips to +blow!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Phèdre</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>(To Sarah Bernhardt)</p> +<p>How vain and dull this common world must seem<br />To such a One +as thou, who should’st have talked<br />At Florence with Mirandola, +or walked<br />Through the cool olives of the Academe:<br />Thou should’st +have gathered reeds from a green stream<br />For Goat-foot Pan’s +shrill piping, and have played<br />With the white girls in that Phaeacian +glade<br />Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream.</p> +<p>Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clay<br />Held thy wan dust, and +thou hast come again<br />Back to this common world so dull and vain,<br />For +thou wert weary of the sunless day,<br />The heavy fields of scentless +asphodel,<br />The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Portia</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>(To Ellen Terry)</p> +<p>I marvel not Bassanio was so bold<br />To peril all he had upon the +lead,<br />Or that proud Aragon bent low his head<br />Or that Morocco’s +fiery heart grew cold:<br />For in that gorgeous dress of beaten gold<br />Which +is more golden than the golden sun<br />No woman Veronesé looked +upon<br />Was half so fair as thou whom I behold.<br />Yet fairer when +with wisdom as your shield<br />The sober-suited lawyer’s gown +you donned,<br />And would not let the laws of Venice yield<br />Antonio’s +heart to that accursèd Jew—<br />O Portia! take my heart: +it is thy due:<br />I think I will not quarrel with the Bond.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Queen Henrietta Maria</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>(To Ellen Terry)</p> +<p>In the lone tent, waiting for victory,<br />She stands with eyes +marred by the mists of pain,<br />Like some wan lily overdrenched with +rain:<br />The clamorous clang of arms, the ensanguined sky,<br />War’s +ruin, and the wreck of chivalry<br />To her proud soul no common fear +can bring:<br />Bravely she tarrieth for her Lord the King,<br />Her +soul a-flame with passionate ecstasy.<br />O Hair of Gold! O Crimson +Lips! O Face<br />Made for the luring and the love of man!<br />With +thee I do forget the toil and stress,<br />The loveless road that knows +no resting place,<br />Time’s straitened pulse, the soul’s +dread weariness,<br />My freedom, and my life republican!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Camma</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>(To Ellen Terry)</p> +<p>As one who poring on a Grecian urn<br />Scans the fair shapes some +Attic hand hath made,<br />God with slim goddess, goodly man with maid,<br />And +for their beauty’s sake is loth to turn<br />And face the obvious +day, must I not yearn<br />For many a secret moon of indolent bliss,<br />When +in midmost shrine of Artemis<br />I see thee standing, antique-limbed, +and stern?</p> +<p>And yet—methinks I’d rather see thee play<br />That serpent +of old Nile, whose witchery<br />Made Emperors drunken,—come, +great Egypt, shake<br />Our stage with all thy mimic pageants! +Nay,<br />I am grown sick of unreal passions, make<br />The world thine +Actium, me thine Anthony!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Panthea</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Nay, let us walk from fire unto fire,<br />From passionate pain to +deadlier delight,—<br />I am too young to live without desire,<br />Too +young art thou to waste this summer night<br />Asking those idle questions +which of old<br />Man sought of seer and oracle, and no reply was told.</p> +<p>For, sweet, to feel is better than to know,<br />And wisdom is a +childless heritage,<br />One pulse of passion—youth’s first +fiery glow,—<br />Are worth the hoarded proverbs of the sage:<br />Vex +not thy soul with dead philosophy,<br />Have we not lips to kiss with, +hearts to love and eyes to see!</p> +<p>Dost thou not hear the murmuring nightingale,<br />Like water bubbling +from a silver jar,<br />So soft she sings the envious moon is pale,<br />That +high in heaven she is hung so far<br />She cannot hear that love-enraptured +tune,—<br />Mark how she wreathes each horn with mist, yon late +and labouring moon.</p> +<p>White lilies, in whose cups the gold bees dream,<br />The fallen +snow of petals where the breeze<br />Scatters the chestnut blossom, +or the gleam<br />Of boyish limbs in water,—are not these<br />Enough +for thee, dost thou desire more?<br />Alas! the Gods will give nought +else from their eternal store.</p> +<p>For our high Gods have sick and wearied grown<br />Of all our endless +sins, our vain endeavour<br />For wasted days of youth to make atone<br />By +pain or prayer or priest, and never, never,<br />Hearken they now to +either good or ill,<br />But send their rain upon the just and the unjust +at will.</p> +<p>They sit at ease, our Gods they sit at ease,<br />Strewing with leaves +of rose their scented wine,<br />They sleep, they sleep, beneath the +rocking trees<br />Where asphodel and yellow lotus twine,<br />Mourning +the old glad days before they knew<br />What evil things the heart of +man could dream, and dreaming do.</p> +<p>And far beneath the brazen floor they see<br />Like swarming flies +the crowd of little men,<br />The bustle of small lives, then wearily<br />Back +to their lotus-haunts they turn again<br />Kissing each others’ +mouths, and mix more deep<br />The poppy-seeded draught which brings +soft purple-lidded sleep.</p> +<p>There all day long the golden-vestured sun,<br />Their torch-bearer, +stands with his torch ablaze,<br />And, when the gaudy web of noon is +spun<br />By its twelve maidens, through the crimson haze<br />Fresh +from Endymion’s arms comes forth the moon,<br />And the immortal +Gods in toils of mortal passions swoon.</p> +<p>There walks Queen Juno through some dewy mead,<br />Her grand white +feet flecked with the saffron dust<br />Of wind-stirred lilies, while +young Ganymede<br />Leaps in the hot and amber-foaming must,<br />His +curls all tossed, as when the eagle bare<br />The frightened boy from +Ida through the blue Ionian air.</p> +<p>There in the green heart of some garden close<br />Queen Venus with +the shepherd at her side,<br />Her warm soft body like the briar rose<br />Which +would be white yet blushes at its pride,<br />Laughs low for love, till +jealous Salmacis<br />Peers through the myrtle-leaves and sighs for +pain of lonely bliss.</p> +<p>There never does that dreary north-wind blow<br />Which leaves our +English forests bleak and bare,<br />Nor ever falls the swift white-feathered +snow,<br />Nor ever doth the red-toothed lightning dare<br />To wake +them in the silver-fretted night<br />When we lie weeping for some sweet +sad sin, some dead delight.</p> +<p>Alas! they know the far Lethaean spring,<br />The violet-hidden waters +well they know,<br />Where one whose feet with tired wandering<br />Are +faint and broken may take heart and go,<br />And from those dark depths +cool and crystalline<br />Drink, and draw balm, and sleep for sleepless +souls, and anodyne.</p> +<p>But we oppress our natures, God or Fate<br />Is our enemy, we starve +and feed<br />On vain repentance—O we are born too late!<br />What +balm for us in bruisèd poppy seed<br />Who crowd into one finite +pulse of time<br />The joy of infinite love and the fierce pain of infinite +crime.</p> +<p>O we are wearied of this sense of guilt,<br />Wearied of pleasure’s +paramour despair,<br />Wearied of every temple we have built,<br />Wearied +of every right, unanswered prayer,<br />For man is weak; God sleeps: +and heaven is high:<br />One fiery-coloured moment: one great love; +and lo! we die.</p> +<p>Ah! but no ferry-man with labouring pole<br />Nears his black shallop +to the flowerless strand,<br />No little coin of bronze can bring the +soul<br />Over Death’s river to the sunless land,<br />Victim +and wine and vow are all in vain,<br />The tomb is sealed; the soldiers +watch; the dead rise not again.</p> +<p>We are resolved into the supreme air,<br />We are made one with what +we touch and see,<br />With our heart’s blood each crimson sun +is fair,<br />With our young lives each spring-impassioned tree<br />Flames +into green, the wildest beasts that range<br />The moor our kinsmen +are, all life is one, and all is change.</p> +<p>With beat of systole and of diastole<br />One grand great life throbs +through earth’s giant heart,<br />And mighty waves of single Being +roll<br />From nerveless germ to man, for we are part<br />Of every +rock and bird and beast and hill,<br />One with the things that prey +on us, and one with what we kill.</p> +<p>From lower cells of waking life we pass<br />To full perfection; +thus the world grows old:<br />We who are godlike now were once a mass<br />Of +quivering purple flecked with bars of gold,<br />Unsentient or of joy +or misery,<br />And tossed in terrible tangles of some wild and wind-swept +sea.</p> +<p>This hot hard flame with which our bodies burn<br />Will make some +meadow blaze with daffodil,<br />Ay! and those argent breasts of thine +will turn<br />To water-lilies; the brown fields men till<br />Will +be more fruitful for our love to-night,<br />Nothing is lost in nature, +all things live in Death’s despite.</p> +<p>The boy’s first kiss, the hyacinth’s first bell,<br />The +man’s last passion, and the last red spear<br />That from the +lily leaps, the asphodel<br />Which will not let its blossoms blow for +fear<br />Of too much beauty, and the timid shame<br />Of the young +bridegroom at his lover’s eyes,—these with the same</p> +<p>One sacrament are consecrate, the earth<br />Not we alone hath passions +hymeneal,<br />The yellow buttercups that shake for mirth<br />At daybreak +know a pleasure not less real<br />Than we do, when in some fresh-blossoming +wood,<br />We draw the spring into our hearts, and feel that life is +good.</p> +<p>So when men bury us beneath the yew<br />Thy crimson-stainèd +mouth a rose will be,<br />And thy soft eyes lush bluebells dimmed with +dew,<br />And when the white narcissus wantonly<br />Kisses the wind +its playmate some faint joy<br />Will thrill our dust, and we will be +again fond maid and boy.</p> +<p>And thus without life’s conscious torturing pain<br />In some +sweet flower we will feel the sun,<br />And from the linnet’s +throat will sing again,<br />And as two gorgeous-mailèd snakes +will run<br />Over our graves, or as two tigers creep<br />Through the +hot jungle where the yellow-eyed huge lions sleep</p> +<p>And give them battle! How my heart leaps up<br />To think of +that grand living after death<br />In beast and bird and flower, when +this cup,<br />Being filled too full of spirit, bursts for breath,<br />And +with the pale leaves of some autumn day<br />The soul earth’s +earliest conqueror becomes earth’s last great prey.</p> +<p>O think of it! We shall inform ourselves<br />Into all sensuous +life, the goat-foot Faun,<br />The Centaur, or the merry bright-eyed +Elves<br />That leave their dancing rings to spite the dawn<br />Upon +the meadows, shall not be more near<br />Than you and I to nature’s +mysteries, for we shall hear</p> +<p>The thrush’s heart beat, and the daisies grow,<br />And the +wan snowdrop sighing for the sun<br />On sunless days in winter, we +shall know<br />By whom the silver gossamer is spun,<br />Who paints +the diapered fritillaries,<br />On what wide wings from shivering pine +to pine the eagle flies.</p> +<p>Ay! had we never loved at all, who knows<br />If yonder daffodil +had lured the bee<br />Into its gilded womb, or any rose<br />Had hung +with crimson lamps its little tree!<br />Methinks no leaf would ever +bud in spring,<br />But for the lovers’ lips that kiss, the poets’ +lips that sing.</p> +<p>Is the light vanished from our golden sun,<br />Or is this daedal-fashioned +earth less fair,<br />That we are nature’s heritors, and one<br />With +every pulse of life that beats the air?<br />Rather new suns across +the sky shall pass,<br />New splendour come unto the flower, new glory +to the grass.</p> +<p>And we two lovers shall not sit afar,<br />Critics of nature, but +the joyous sea<br />Shall be our raiment, and the bearded star<br />Shoot +arrows at our pleasure! We shall be<br />Part of the mighty universal +whole,<br />And through all aeons mix and mingle with the Kosmic Soul!</p> +<p>We shall be notes in that great Symphony<br />Whose cadence circles +through the rhythmic spheres,<br />And all the live World’s throbbing +heart shall be<br />One with our heart; the stealthy creeping years<br />Have +lost their terrors now, we shall not die,<br />The Universe itself shall +be our Immortality.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Impression—Le Réveillon</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The sky is laced with fitful red,<br />The circling mists and shadows +flee,<br />The dawn is rising from the sea,<br />Like a white lady from +her bed.</p> +<p>And jagged brazen arrows fall<br />Athwart the feathers of the night,<br />And +a long wave of yellow light<br />Breaks silently on tower and hall,</p> +<p>And spreading wide across the wold<br />Wakes into flight some fluttering +bird,<br />And all the chestnut tops are stirred,<br />And all the branches +streaked with gold.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: At Verona</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>How steep the stairs within Kings’ houses are<br />For exile-wearied +feet as mine to tread,<br />And O how salt and bitter is the bread<br />Which +falls from this Hound’s table,—better far<br />That I had +died in the red ways of war,<br />Or that the gate of Florence bare +my head,<br />Than to live thus, by all things comraded<br />Which seek +the essence of my soul to mar.</p> +<p>‘Curse God and die: what better hope than this?<br />He hath +forgotten thee in all the bliss<br />Of his gold city, and eternal day’—<br />Nay +peace: behind my prison’s blinded bars<br />I do possess what +none can take away<br />My love, and all the glory of the stars.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Apologia</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Is it thy will that I should wax and wane,<br />Barter my cloth of +gold for hodden grey,<br />And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain<br />Whose +brightest threads are each a wasted day?</p> +<p>Is it thy will—Love that I love so well—<br />That my +Soul’s House should be a tortured spot<br />Wherein, like evil +paramours, must dwell<br />The quenchless flame, the worm that dieth +not?</p> +<p>Nay, if it be thy will I shall endure,<br />And sell ambition at +the common mart,<br />And let dull failure be my vestiture,<br />And +sorrow dig its grave within my heart.</p> +<p>Perchance it may be better so—at least<br />I have not made +my heart a heart of stone,<br />Nor starved my boyhood of its goodly +feast,<br />Nor walked where Beauty is a thing unknown.</p> +<p>Many a man hath done so; sought to fence<br />In straitened bonds +the soul that should be free,<br />Trodden the dusty road of common +sense,<br />While all the forest sang of liberty,</p> +<p>Not marking how the spotted hawk in flight<br />Passed on wide pinion +through the lofty air,<br />To where some steep untrodden mountain height<br />Caught +the last tresses of the Sun God’s hair.</p> +<p>Or how the little flower he trod upon,<br />The daisy, that white-feathered +shield of gold,<br />Followed with wistful eyes the wandering sun<br />Content +if once its leaves were aureoled.</p> +<p>But surely it is something to have been<br />The best belovèd +for a little while,<br />To have walked hand in hand with Love, and +seen<br />His purple wings flit once across thy smile.</p> +<p>Ay! though the gorgèd asp of passion feed<br />On my boy’s +heart, yet have I burst the bars,<br />Stood face to face with Beauty, +known indeed<br />The Love which moves the Sun and all the stars!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Quia Multum Amavi</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Dear Heart, I think the young impassioned priest<br />When first +he takes from out the hidden shrine<br />His God imprisoned in the Eucharist,<br />And +eats the bread, and drinks the dreadful wine,</p> +<p>Feels not such awful wonder as I felt<br />When first my smitten +eyes beat full on thee,<br />And all night long before thy feet I knelt<br />Till +thou wert wearied of Idolatry.</p> +<p>Ah! hadst thou liked me less and loved me more,<br />Through all +those summer days of joy and rain,<br />I had not now been sorrow’s +heritor,<br />Or stood a lackey in the House of Pain.</p> +<p>Yet, though remorse, youth’s white-faced seneschal,<br />Tread +on my heels with all his retinue,<br />I am most glad I loved thee—think +of all<br />The suns that go to make one speedwell blue!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Silentium Amoris</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>As often-times the too resplendent sun<br />Hurries the pallid and +reluctant moon<br />Back to her sombre cave, ere she hath won<br />A +single ballad from the nightingale,<br />So doth thy Beauty make my +lips to fail,<br />And all my sweetest singing out of tune.</p> +<p>And as at dawn across the level mead<br />On wings impetuous some +wind will come,<br />And with its too harsh kisses break the reed<br />Which +was its only instrument of song,<br />So my too stormy passions work +me wrong,<br />And for excess of Love my Love is dumb.</p> +<p>But surely unto Thee mine eyes did show<br />Why I am silent, and +my lute unstrung;<br />Else it were better we should part, and go,<br />Thou +to some lips of sweeter melody,<br />And I to nurse the barren memory<br />Of +unkissed kisses, and songs never sung.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Her Voice</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The wild bee reels from bough to bough<br />With his furry coat and +his gauzy wing,<br />Now in a lily-cup, and now<br />Setting a jacinth +bell a-swing,<br />In his wandering;<br />Sit closer love: it was here +I trow<br />I made that vow,</p> +<p>Swore that two lives should be like one<br />As long as the sea-gull +loved the sea,<br />As long as the sunflower sought the sun,—<br />It +shall be, I said, for eternity<br />’Twixt you and me!<br />Dear +friend, those times are over and done;<br />Love’s web is spun.</p> +<p>Look upward where the poplar trees<br />Sway and sway in the summer +air,<br />Here in the valley never a breeze<br />Scatters the thistledown, +but there<br />Great winds blow fair<br />From the mighty murmuring +mystical seas,<br />And the wave-lashed leas.</p> +<p>Look upward where the white gull screams,<br />What does it see that +we do not see?<br />Is that a star? or the lamp that gleams<br />On +some outward voyaging argosy,—<br />Ah! can it be<br />We have +lived our lives in a land of dreams!<br />How sad it seems.</p> +<p>Sweet, there is nothing left to say<br />But this, that love is never +lost,<br />Keen winter stabs the breasts of May<br />Whose crimson roses +burst his frost,<br />Ships tempest-tossed<br />Will find a harbour +in some bay,<br />And so we may.</p> +<p>And there is nothing left to do<br />But to kiss once again, and +part,<br />Nay, there is nothing we should rue,<br />I have my beauty,—you +your Art,<br />Nay, do not start,<br />One world was not enough for +two<br />Like me and you.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: My Voice</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Within this restless, hurried, modern world<br />We took our hearts’ +full pleasure—You and I,<br />And now the white sails of our ship +are furled,<br />And spent the lading of our argosy.</p> +<p>Wherefore my cheeks before their time are wan,<br />For very weeping +is my gladness fled,<br />Sorrow has paled my young mouth’s vermilion,<br />And +Ruin draws the curtains of my bed.</p> +<p>But all this crowded life has been to thee<br />No more than lyre, +or lute, or subtle spell<br />Of viols, or the music of the sea<br />That +sleeps, a mimic echo, in the shell.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Taedium Vitae</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>To stab my youth with desperate knives, to wear<br />This paltry +age’s gaudy livery,<br />To let each base hand filch my treasury,<br />To +mesh my soul within a woman’s hair,<br />And be mere Fortune’s +lackeyed groom,—I swear<br />I love it not! these things are less +to me<br />Than the thin foam that frets upon the sea,<br />Less than +the thistledown of summer air<br />Which hath no seed: better to stand +aloof<br />Far from these slanderous fools who mock my life<br />Knowing +me not, better the lowliest roof<br />Fit for the meanest hind to sojourn +in,<br />Than to go back to that hoarse cave of strife<br />Where my +white soul first kissed the mouth of sin.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Humanitad</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>It is full winter now: the trees are bare,<br />Save where the cattle +huddle from the cold<br />Beneath the pine, for it doth never wear<br />The +autumn’s gaudy livery whose gold<br />Her jealous brother pilfers, +but is true<br />To the green doublet; bitter is the wind, as though +it blew</p> +<p>From Saturn’s cave; a few thin wisps of hay<br />Lie on the +sharp black hedges, where the wain<br />Dragged the sweet pillage of +a summer’s day<br />From the low meadows up the narrow lane;<br />Upon +the half-thawed snow the bleating sheep<br />Press close against the +hurdles, and the shivering house-dogs creep</p> +<p>From the shut stable to the frozen stream<br />And back again disconsolate, +and miss<br />The bawling shepherds and the noisy team;<br />And overhead +in circling listlessness<br />The cawing rooks whirl round the frosted +stack,<br />Or crowd the dripping boughs; and in the fen the ice-pools +crack</p> +<p>Where the gaunt bittern stalks among the reeds<br />And flaps his +wings, and stretches back his neck,<br />And hoots to see the moon; +across the meads<br />Limps the poor frightened hare, a little speck;<br />And +a stray seamew with its fretful cry<br />Flits like a sudden drift of +snow against the dull grey sky.</p> +<p>Full winter: and the lusty goodman brings<br />His load of faggots +from the chilly byre,<br />And stamps his feet upon the hearth, and +flings<br />The sappy billets on the waning fire,<br />And laughs to +see the sudden lightening scare<br />His children at their play, and +yet,—the spring is in the air;</p> +<p>Already the slim crocus stirs the snow,<br />And soon yon blanchèd +fields will bloom again<br />With nodding cowslips for some lad to mow,<br />For +with the first warm kisses of the rain<br />The winter’s icy sorrow +breaks to tears,<br />And the brown thrushes mate, and with bright eyes +the rabbit peers</p> +<p>From the dark warren where the fir-cones lie,<br />And treads one +snowdrop under foot, and runs<br />Over the mossy knoll, and blackbirds +fly<br />Across our path at evening, and the suns<br />Stay longer with +us; ah! how good to see<br />Grass-girdled spring in all her joy of +laughing greenery</p> +<p>Dance through the hedges till the early rose,<br />(That sweet repentance +of the thorny briar!)<br />Burst from its sheathèd emerald and +disclose<br />The little quivering disk of golden fire<br />Which the +bees know so well, for with it come<br />Pale boy’s-love, sops-in-wine, +and daffadillies all in bloom.</p> +<p>Then up and down the field the sower goes,<br />While close behind +the laughing younker scares<br />With shrilly whoop the black and thievish +crows,<br />And then the chestnut-tree its glory wears,<br />And on +the grass the creamy blossom falls<br />In odorous excess, and faint +half-whispered madrigals</p> +<p>Steal from the bluebells’ nodding carillons<br />Each breezy +morn, and then white jessamine,<br />That star of its own heaven, snap-dragons<br />With +lolling crimson tongues, and eglantine<br />In dusty velvets clad usurp +the bed<br />And woodland empery, and when the lingering rose hath shed</p> +<p>Red leaf by leaf its folded panoply,<br />And pansies closed their +purple-lidded eyes,<br />Chrysanthemums from gilded argosy<br />Unload +their gaudy scentless merchandise,<br />And violets getting overbold +withdraw<br />From their shy nooks, and scarlet berries dot the leafless +haw.</p> +<p>O happy field! and O thrice happy tree!<br />Soon will your queen +in daisy-flowered smock<br />And crown of flower-de-luce trip down the +lea,<br />Soon will the lazy shepherds drive their flock<br />Back to +the pasture by the pool, and soon<br />Through the green leaves will +float the hum of murmuring bees at noon.</p> +<p>Soon will the glade be bright with bellamour,<br />The flower which +wantons love, and those sweet nuns<br />Vale-lilies in their snowy vestiture<br />Will +tell their beaded pearls, and carnations<br />With mitred dusky leaves +will scent the wind,<br />And straggling traveller’s-joy each +hedge with yellow stars will bind.</p> +<p>Dear bride of Nature and most bounteous spring,<br />That canst give +increase to the sweet-breath’d kine,<br />And to the kid its little +horns, and bring<br />The soft and silky blossoms to the vine,<br />Where +is that old nepenthe which of yore<br />Man got from poppy root and +glossy-berried mandragore!</p> +<p>There was a time when any common bird<br />Could make me sing in +unison, a time<br />When all the strings of boyish life were stirred<br />To +quick response or more melodious rhyme<br />By every forest idyll;—do +I change?<br />Or rather doth some evil thing through thy fair pleasaunce +range?</p> +<p>Nay, nay, thou art the same: ’tis I who seek<br />To vex with +sighs thy simple solitude,<br />And because fruitless tears bedew my +cheek<br />Would have thee weep with me in brotherhood;<br />Fool! shall +each wronged and restless spirit dare<br />To taint such wine with the +salt poison of own despair!</p> +<p>Thou art the same: ’tis I whose wretched soul<br />Takes discontent +to be its paramour,<br />And gives its kingdom to the rude control<br />Of +what should be its servitor,—for sure<br />Wisdom is somewhere, +though the stormy sea<br />Contain it not, and the huge deep answer +‘’Tis not in me.’</p> +<p>To burn with one clear flame, to stand erect<br />In natural honour, +not to bend the knee<br />In profitless prostrations whose effect<br />Is +by itself condemned, what alchemy<br />Can teach me this? what herb +Medea brewed<br />Will bring the unexultant peace of essence not subdued?</p> +<p>The minor chord which ends the harmony,<br />And for its answering +brother waits in vain<br />Sobbing for incompleted melody,<br />Dies +a swan’s death; but I the heir of pain,<br />A silent Memnon with +blank lidless eyes,<br />Wait for the light and music of those suns +which never rise.</p> +<p>The quenched-out torch, the lonely cypress-gloom,<br />The little +dust stored in the narrow urn,<br />The gentle ΧΑΙΡΕ +of the Attic tomb,—<br />Were not these better far than to return<br />To +my old fitful restless malady,<br />Or spend my days within the voiceless +cave of misery?</p> +<p>Nay! for perchance that poppy-crownèd god<br />Is like the +watcher by a sick man’s bed<br />Who talks of sleep but gives +it not; his rod<br />Hath lost its virtue, and, when all is said,<br />Death +is too rude, too obvious a key<br />To solve one single secret in a +life’s philosophy.</p> +<p>And Love! that noble madness, whose august<br />And inextinguishable +might can slay<br />The soul with honeyed drugs,—alas! I must<br />From +such sweet ruin play the runaway,<br />Although too constant memory +never can<br />Forget the archèd splendour of those brows Olympian</p> +<p>Which for a little season made my youth<br />So soft a swoon of exquisite +indolence<br />That all the chiding of more prudent Truth<br />Seemed +the thin voice of jealousy,—O hence<br />Thou huntress deadlier +than Artemis!<br />Go seek some other quarry! for of thy too perilous +bliss.</p> +<p>My lips have drunk enough,—no more, no more,—<br />Though +Love himself should turn his gilded prow<br />Back to the troubled waters +of this shore<br />Where I am wrecked and stranded, even now<br />The +chariot wheels of passion sweep too near,<br />Hence! Hence! +I pass unto a life more barren, more austere.</p> +<p>More barren—ay, those arms will never lean<br />Down through +the trellised vines and draw my soul<br />In sweet reluctance through +the tangled green;<br />Some other head must wear that aureole,<br />For +I am hers who loves not any man<br />Whose white and stainless bosom +bears the sign Gorgonian.</p> +<p>Let Venus go and chuck her dainty page,<br />And kiss his mouth, +and toss his curly hair,<br />With net and spear and hunting equipage<br />Let +young Adonis to his tryst repair,<br />But me her fond and subtle-fashioned +spell<br />Delights no more, though I could win her dearest citadel.</p> +<p>Ay, though I were that laughing shepherd boy<br />Who from Mount +Ida saw the little cloud<br />Pass over Tenedos and lofty Troy<br />And +knew the coming of the Queen, and bowed<br />In wonder at her feet, +not for the sake<br />Of a new Helen would I bid her hand the apple +take.</p> +<p>Then rise supreme Athena argent-limbed!<br />And, if my lips be musicless, +inspire<br />At least my life: was not thy glory hymned<br />By One +who gave to thee his sword and lyre<br />Like AEschylos at well-fought +Marathon,<br />And died to show that Milton’s England still could +bear a son!</p> +<p>And yet I cannot tread the Portico<br />And live without desire, +fear and pain,<br />Or nurture that wise calm which long ago<br />The +grave Athenian master taught to men,<br />Self-poised, self-centred, +and self-comforted,<br />To watch the world’s vain phantasies +go by with unbowed head.</p> +<p>Alas! that serene brow, those eloquent lips,<br />Those eyes that +mirrored all eternity,<br />Rest in their own Colonos, an eclipse<br />Hath +come on Wisdom, and Mnemosyne<br />Is childless; in the night which +she had made<br />For lofty secure flight Athena’s owl itself +hath strayed.</p> +<p>Nor much with Science do I care to climb,<br />Although by strange +and subtle witchery<br />She drew the moon from heaven: the Muse Time<br />Unrolls +her gorgeous-coloured tapestry<br />To no less eager eyes; often indeed<br />In +the great epic of Polymnia’s scroll I love to read</p> +<p>How Asia sent her myriad hosts to war<br />Against a little town, +and panoplied<br />In gilded mail with jewelled scimitar,<br />White-shielded, +purple-crested, rode the Mede<br />Between the waving poplars and the +sea<br />Which men call Artemisium, till he saw Thermopylae</p> +<p>Its steep ravine spanned by a narrow wall,<br />And on the nearer +side a little brood<br />Of careless lions holding festival!<br />And +stood amazèd at such hardihood,<br />And pitched his tent upon +the reedy shore,<br />And stayed two days to wonder, and then crept +at midnight o’er</p> +<p>Some unfrequented height, and coming down<br />The autumn forests +treacherously slew<br />What Sparta held most dear and was the crown<br />Of +far Eurotas, and passed on, nor knew<br />How God had staked an evil +net for him<br />In the small bay at Salamis,—and yet, the page +grows dim,</p> +<p>Its cadenced Greek delights me not, I feel<br />With such a goodly +time too out of tune<br />To love it much: for like the Dial’s +wheel<br />That from its blinded darkness strikes the noon<br />Yet +never sees the sun, so do my eyes<br />Restlessly follow that which +from my cheated vision flies.</p> +<p>O for one grand unselfish simple life<br />To teach us what is Wisdom! +speak ye hills<br />Of lone Helvellyn, for this note of strife<br />Shunned +your untroubled crags and crystal rills,<br />Where is that Spirit which +living blamelessly<br />Yet dared to kiss the smitten mouth of his own +century!</p> +<p>Speak ye Rydalian laurels! where is he<br />Whose gentle head ye +sheltered, that pure soul<br />Whose gracious days of uncrowned majesty<br />Through +lowliest conduct touched the lofty goal<br />Where love and duty mingle! +Him at least<br />The most high Laws were glad of, he had sat at Wisdom’s +feast;</p> +<p>But we are Learning’s changelings, know by rote<br />The clarion +watchword of each Grecian school<br />And follow none, the flawless +sword which smote<br />The pagan Hydra is an effete tool<br />Which +we ourselves have blunted, what man now<br />Shall scale the august +ancient heights and to old Reverence bow?</p> +<p>One such indeed I saw, but, Ichabod!<br />Gone is that last dear +son of Italy,<br />Who being man died for the sake of God,<br />And +whose unrisen bones sleep peacefully,<br />O guard him, guard him well, +my Giotto’s tower,<br />Thou marble lily of the lily town! let +not the lour</p> +<p>Of the rude tempest vex his slumber, or<br />The Arno with its tawny +troubled gold<br />O’er-leap its marge, no mightier conqueror<br />Clomb +the high Capitol in the days of old<br />When Rome was indeed Rome, +for Liberty<br />Walked like a bride beside him, at which sight pale +Mystery</p> +<p>Fled shrieking to her farthest sombrest cell<br />With an old man +who grabbled rusty keys,<br />Fled shuddering, for that immemorial knell<br />With +which oblivion buries dynasties<br />Swept like a wounded eagle on the +blast,<br />As to the holy heart of Rome the great triumvir passed.</p> +<p>He knew the holiest heart and heights of Rome,<br />He drave the +base wolf from the lion’s lair,<br />And now lies dead by that +empyreal dome<br />Which overtops Valdarno hung in air<br />By Brunelleschi—O +Melpomene<br />Breathe through thy melancholy pipe thy sweetest threnody!</p> +<p>Breathe through the tragic stops such melodies<br />That Joy’s +self may grow jealous, and the Nine<br />Forget awhile their discreet +emperies,<br />Mourning for him who on Rome’s lordliest shrine<br />Lit +for men’s lives the light of Marathon,<br />And bare to sun-forgotten +fields the fire of the sun!</p> +<p>O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto’s tower!<br />Let some +young Florentine each eventide<br />Bring coronals of that enchanted +flower<br />Which the dim woods of Vallombrosa hide,<br />And deck the +marble tomb wherein he lies<br />Whose soul is as some mighty orb unseen +of mortal eyes;</p> +<p>Some mighty orb whose cycled wanderings,<br />Being tempest-driven +to the farthest rim<br />Where Chaos meets Creation and the wings<br />Of +the eternal chanting Cherubim<br />Are pavilioned on Nothing, passed +away<br />Into a moonless void,—and yet, though he is dust and +clay,</p> +<p>He is not dead, the immemorial Fates<br />Forbid it, and the closing +shears refrain.<br />Lift up your heads ye everlasting gates!<br />Ye +argent clarions, sound a loftier strain<br />For the vile thing he hated +lurks within<br />Its sombre house, alone with God and memories of sin.</p> +<p>Still what avails it that she sought her cave<br />That murderous +mother of red harlotries?<br />At Munich on the marble architrave<br />The +Grecian boys die smiling, but the seas<br />Which wash AEgina fret in +loneliness<br />Not mirroring their beauty; so our lives grow colourless</p> +<p>For lack of our ideals, if one star<br />Flame torch-like in the +heavens the unjust<br />Swift daylight kills it, and no trump of war<br />Can +wake to passionate voice the silent dust<br />Which was Mazzini once! +rich Niobe<br />For all her stony sorrows hath her sons; but Italy,</p> +<p>What Easter Day shall make her children rise,<br />Who were not Gods +yet suffered? what sure feet<br />Shall find their grave-clothes folded? +what clear eyes<br />Shall see them bodily? O it were meet<br />To +roll the stone from off the sepulchre<br />And kiss the bleeding roses +of their wounds, in love of her,</p> +<p>Our Italy! our mother visible!<br />Most blessed among nations and +most sad,<br />For whose dear sake the young Calabrian fell<br />That +day at Aspromonte and was glad<br />That in an age when God was bought +and sold<br />One man could die for Liberty! but we, burnt out and cold,</p> +<p>See Honour smitten on the cheek and gyves<br />Bind the sweet feet +of Mercy: Poverty<br />Creeps through our sunless lanes and with sharp +knives<br />Cuts the warm throats of children stealthily,<br />And no +word said:- O we are wretched men<br />Unworthy of our great inheritance! +where is the pen</p> +<p>Of austere Milton? where the mighty sword<br />Which slew its master +righteously? the years<br />Have lost their ancient leader, and no word<br />Breaks +from the voiceless tripod on our ears:<br />While as a ruined mother +in some spasm<br />Bears a base child and loathes it, so our best enthusiasm</p> +<p>Genders unlawful children, Anarchy<br />Freedom’s own Judas, +the vile prodigal<br />Licence who steals the gold of Liberty<br />And +yet has nothing, Ignorance the real<br />One Fraticide since Cain, Envy +the asp<br />That stings itself to anguish, Avarice whose palsied grasp</p> +<p>Is in its extent stiffened, moneyed Greed<br />For whose dull appetite +men waste away<br />Amid the whirr of wheels and are the seed<br />Of +things which slay their sower, these each day<br />Sees rife in England, +and the gentle feet<br />Of Beauty tread no more the stones of each +unlovely street.</p> +<p>What even Cromwell spared is desecrated<br />By weed and worm, left +to the stormy play<br />Of wind and beating snow, or renovated<br />By +more destructful hands: Time’s worst decay<br />Will wreathe its +ruins with some loveliness,<br />But these new Vandals can but make +a rain-proof barrenness.</p> +<p>Where is that Art which bade the Angels sing<br />Through Lincoln’s +lofty choir, till the air<br />Seems from such marble harmonies to ring<br />With +sweeter song than common lips can dare<br />To draw from actual reed? +ah! where is now<br />The cunning hand which made the flowering hawthorn +branches bow</p> +<p>For Southwell’s arch, and carved the House of One<br />Who +loved the lilies of the field with all<br />Our dearest English flowers? +the same sun<br />Rises for us: the seasons natural<br />Weave the same +tapestry of green and grey:<br />The unchanged hills are with us: but +that Spirit hath passed away.</p> +<p>And yet perchance it may be better so,<br />For Tyranny is an incestuous +Queen,<br />Murder her brother is her bedfellow,<br />And the Plague +chambers with her: in obscene<br />And bloody paths her treacherous +feet are set;<br />Better the empty desert and a soul inviolate!</p> +<p>For gentle brotherhood, the harmony<br />Of living in the healthful +air, the swift<br />Clean beauty of strong limbs when men are free<br />And +women chaste, these are the things which lift<br />Our souls up more +than even Agnolo’s<br />Gaunt blinded Sibyl poring o’er +the scroll of human woes,</p> +<p>Or Titian’s little maiden on the stair<br />White as her own +sweet lily and as tall,<br />Or Mona Lisa smiling through her hair,—<br />Ah! +somehow life is bigger after all<br />Than any painted angel, could +we see<br />The God that is within us! The old Greek serenity</p> +<p>Which curbs the passion of that level line<br />Of marble youths, +who with untroubled eyes<br />And chastened limbs ride round Athena’s +shrine<br />And mirror her divine economies,<br />And balanced symmetry +of what in man<br />Would else wage ceaseless warfare,—this at +least within the span</p> +<p>Between our mother’s kisses and the grave<br />Might so inform +our lives, that we could win<br />Such mighty empires that from her +cave<br />Temptation would grow hoarse, and pallid Sin<br />Would walk +ashamed of his adulteries,<br />And Passion creep from out the House +of Lust with startled eyes.</p> +<p>To make the body and the spirit one<br />With all right things, till +no thing live in vain<br />From morn to noon, but in sweet unison<br />With +every pulse of flesh and throb of brain<br />The soul in flawless essence +high enthroned,<br />Against all outer vain attack invincibly bastioned,</p> +<p>Mark with serene impartiality<br />The strife of things, and yet +be comforted,<br />Knowing that by the chain causality<br />All separate +existences are wed<br />Into one supreme whole, whose utterance<br />Is +joy, or holier praise! ah! surely this were governance</p> +<p>Of Life in most august omnipresence,<br />Through which the rational +intellect would find<br />In passion its expression, and mere sense,<br />Ignoble +else, lend fire to the mind,<br />And being joined with it in harmony<br />More +mystical than that which binds the stars planetary,</p> +<p>Strike from their several tones one octave chord<br />Whose cadence +being measureless would fly<br />Through all the circling spheres, then +to its Lord<br />Return refreshed with its new empery<br />And more +exultant power,—this indeed<br />Could we but reach it were to +find the last, the perfect creed.</p> +<p>Ah! it was easy when the world was young<br />To keep one’s +life free and inviolate,<br />From our sad lips another song is rung,<br />By +our own hands our heads are desecrate,<br />Wanderers in drear exile, +and dispossessed<br />Of what should be our own, we can but feed on +wild unrest.</p> +<p>Somehow the grace, the bloom of things has flown,<br />And of all +men we are most wretched who<br />Must live each other’s lives +and not our own<br />For very pity’s sake and then undo<br />All +that we lived for—it was otherwise<br />When soul and body seemed +to blend in mystic symphonies.</p> +<p>But we have left those gentle haunts to pass<br />With weary feet +to the new Calvary,<br />Where we behold, as one who in a glass<br />Sees +his own face, self-slain Humanity,<br />And in the dumb reproach of +that sad gaze<br />Learn what an awful phantom the red hand of man can +raise.</p> +<p>O smitten mouth! O forehead crowned with thorn!<br />O chalice +of all common miseries!<br />Thou for our sakes that loved thee not +hast borne<br />An agony of endless centuries,<br />And we were vain +and ignorant nor knew<br />That when we stabbed thy heart it was our +own real hearts we slew.</p> +<p>Being ourselves the sowers and the seeds,<br />The night that covers +and the lights that fade,<br />The spear that pierces and the side that +bleeds,<br />The lips betraying and the life betrayed;<br />The deep +hath calm: the moon hath rest: but we<br />Lords of the natural world +are yet our own dread enemy.</p> +<p>Is this the end of all that primal force<br />Which, in its changes +being still the same,<br />From eyeless Chaos cleft its upward course,<br />Through +ravenous seas and whirling rocks and flame,<br />Till the suns met in +heaven and began<br />Their cycles, and the morning stars sang, and +the Word was Man!</p> +<p>Nay, nay, we are but crucified, and though<br />The bloody sweat +falls from our brows like rain<br />Loosen the nails—we shall +come down I know,<br />Staunch the red wounds—we shall be whole +again,<br />No need have we of hyssop-laden rod,<br />That which is +purely human, that is godlike, that is God.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: ΓΛΥΚΥΠΙΚΡΟΣ +ΕΡΩΣ</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Sweet, I blame you not, for mine the fault<br />was, had I not been +made of common clay<br />I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed<br />yet, +seen the fuller air, the larger day.</p> +<p>From the wildness of my wasted passion I had<br />struck a better, +clearer song,<br />Lit some lighter light of freer freedom, battled<br />with +some Hydra-headed wrong.</p> +<p>Had my lips been smitten into music by the<br />kisses that but made +them bleed,<br />You had walked with Bice and the angels on<br />that +verdant and enamelled mead.</p> +<p>I had trod the road which Dante treading saw<br />the suns of seven +circles shine,<br />Ay! perchance had seen the heavens opening,<br />as +they opened to the Florentine.</p> +<p>And the mighty nations would have crowned<br />me, who am crownless +now and without name,<br />And some orient dawn had found me kneeling<br />on +the threshold of the House of Fame.</p> +<p>I had sat within that marble circle where the<br />oldest bard is +as the young,<br />And the pipe is ever dropping honey, and the<br />lyre’s +strings are ever strung.</p> +<p>Keats had lifted up his hymeneal curls from out<br />the poppy-seeded +wine,<br />With ambrosial mouth had kissed my forehead,<br />clasped +the hand of noble love in mine.</p> +<p>And at springtide, when the apple-blossoms brush<br />the burnished +bosom of the dove,<br />Two young lovers lying in an orchard would<br />have +read the story of our love.</p> +<p>Would have read the legend of my passion,<br />known the bitter secret +of my heart,<br />Kissed as we have kissed, but never parted as<br />we +two are fated now to part.</p> +<p>For the crimson flower of our life is eaten by<br />the cankerworm +of truth,<br />And no hand can gather up the fallen withered<br />petals +of the rose of youth.</p> +<p>Yet I am not sorry that I loved you—ah! what<br />else had +I a boy to do,—<br />For the hungry teeth of time devour, and +the<br />silent-footed years pursue.</p> +<p>Rudderless, we drift athwart a tempest, and<br />when once the storm +of youth is past,<br />Without lyre, without lute or chorus, Death<br />the +silent pilot comes at last.</p> +<p>And within the grave there is no pleasure, for<br />the blindworm +battens on the root,<br />And Desire shudders into ashes, and the tree +of<br />Passion bears no fruit.</p> +<p>Ah! what else had I to do but love you, God’s<br />own mother +was less dear to me,<br />And less dear the Cytheraean rising like an<br />argent +lily from the sea.</p> +<p>I have made my choice, have lived my poems,<br />and, though youth +is gone in wasted days,<br />I have found the lover’s crown of +myrtle better<br />than the poet’s crown of bays.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: From Spring Days To Winter (For Music)</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>In the glad springtime when leaves were green,<br />O merrily the +throstle sings!<br />I sought, amid the tangled sheen,<br />Love whom +mine eyes had never seen,<br />O the glad dove has golden wings!</p> +<p>Between the blossoms red and white,<br />O merrily the throstle sings!<br />My +love first came into my sight,<br />O perfect vision of delight,<br />O +the glad dove has golden wings!</p> +<p>The yellow apples glowed like fire,<br />O merrily the throstle sings!<br />O +Love too great for lip or lyre,<br />Blown rose of love and of desire,<br />O +the glad dove has golden wings!</p> +<p>But now with snow the tree is grey,<br />Ah, sadly now the throstle +sings!<br />My love is dead: ah! well-a-day,<br />See at her silent +feet I lay<br />A dove with broken wings!<br />Ah, Love! ah, Love! that +thou wert slain—<br />Fond Dove, fond Dove return again!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Tristitiæ</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Αιλινον, αιλινον +ειπε, το δ’ ευ +νικατω</p> +<p>O well for him who lives at ease<br />With garnered gold in wide +domain,<br />Nor heeds the splashing of the rain,<br />The crashing +down of forest trees.</p> +<p>O well for him who ne’er hath known<br />The travail of the +hungry years,<br />A father grey with grief and tears,<br />A mother +weeping all alone.</p> +<p>But well for him whose foot hath trod<br />The weary road of toil +and strife,<br />Yet from the sorrows of his life.<br />Builds ladders +to be nearer God.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: The True Knowledge</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>. . . αναyκαιως δ’ +εχει<br />Βιον θεριζειν +ωστε καρπιμον +σταχυν,<br />και τον +yεν ειναι τον δε +yη.</p> +<p>Thou knowest all; I seek in vain<br />What lands to till or sow with +seed—<br />The land is black with briar and weed,<br />Nor cares +for falling tears or rain.</p> +<p>Thou knowest all; I sit and wait<br />With blinded eyes and hands +that fail,<br />Till the last lifting of the veil<br />And the first +opening of the gate.</p> +<p>Thou knowest all; I cannot see.<br />I trust I shall not live in +vain,<br />I know that we shall meet again<br />In some divine eternity.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Le Jardin</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The lily’s withered chalice falls<br />Around its rod of dusty +gold,<br />And from the beech-trees on the wold<br />The last wood-pigeon +coos and calls.</p> +<p>The gaudy leonine sunflower<br />Hangs black and barren on its stalk,<br />And +down the windy garden walk<br />The dead leaves scatter,—hour +by hour.</p> +<p>Pale privet-petals white as milk<br />Are blown into a snowy mass:<br />The +roses lie upon the grass<br />Like little shreds of crimson silk.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: La Mer</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>A white mist drifts across the shrouds,<br />A wild moon in this +wintry sky<br />Gleams like an angry lion’s eye<br />Out of a +mane of tawny clouds.</p> +<p>The muffled steersman at the wheel<br />Is but a shadow in the gloom;—<br />And +in the throbbing engine-room<br />Leap the long rods of polished steel.</p> +<p>The shattered storm has left its trace<br />Upon this huge and heaving +dome,<br />For the thin threads of yellow foam<br />Float on the waves +like ravelled lace.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Under The Balcony</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>O beautiful star with the crimson mouth!<br />O moon with the brows +of gold!<br />Rise up, rise up, from the odorous south!<br />And light +for my love her way,<br />Lest her little feet should stray<br />On +the windy hill and the wold!<br />O beautiful star with the crimson +mouth!<br />O moon with the brows of gold!</p> +<p>O ship that shakes on the desolate sea!<br />O ship with the wet, +white sail!<br />Put in, put in, to the port to me!<br />For my love +and I would go<br />To the land where the daffodils blow<br />In the +heart of a violet dale!<br />O ship that shakes on the desolate sea!<br />O +ship with the wet, white sail!</p> +<p>O rapturous bird with the low, sweet note!<br />O bird that sits +on the spray!<br />Sing on, sing on, from your soft brown throat!<br />And +my love in her little bed<br />Will listen, and lift her head<br />From +the pillow, and come my way!<br />O rapturous bird with the low, sweet +note!<br />O bird that sits on the spray!</p> +<p>O blossom that hangs in the tremulous air!<br />O blossom with lips +of snow!<br />Come down, come down, for my love to wear!<br />You will +die on her head in a crown,<br />You will die in a fold of her gown,<br />To +her little light heart you will go!<br />O blossom that hangs in the +tremulous air!<br />O blossom with lips of snow!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: The Harlot’s House</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>We caught the tread of dancing feet,<br />We loitered down the moonlit +street,<br />And stopped beneath the harlot’s house.</p> +<p>Inside, above the din and fray,<br />We heard the loud musicians +play<br />The ‘Treues Liebes Herz’ of Strauss.</p> +<p>Like strange mechanical grotesques,<br />Making fantastic arabesques,<br />The +shadows raced across the blind.</p> +<p>We watched the ghostly dancers spin<br />To sound of horn and violin,<br />Like +black leaves wheeling in the wind.</p> +<p>Like wire-pulled automatons,<br />Slim silhouetted skeletons<br />Went +sidling through the slow quadrille,</p> +<p>Then took each other by the hand,<br />And danced a stately saraband;<br />Their +laughter echoed thin and shrill.</p> +<p>Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed<br />A phantom lover to her +breast,<br />Sometimes they seemed to try to sing.</p> +<p>Sometimes a horrible marionette<br />Came out, and smoked its cigarette<br />Upon +the steps like a live thing.</p> +<p>Then, turning to my love, I said,<br />‘The dead are dancing +with the dead,<br />The dust is whirling with the dust.’</p> +<p>But she—she heard the violin,<br />And left my side, and entered +in:<br />Love passed into the house of lust.</p> +<p>Then suddenly the tune went false,<br />The dancers wearied of the +waltz,<br />The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl.</p> +<p>And down the long and silent street,<br />The dawn, with silver-sandalled +feet,<br />Crept like a frightened girl.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Le Jardin Des Tuileries</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>This winter air is keen and cold,<br />And keen and cold this winter +sun,<br />But round my chair the children run<br />Like little things +of dancing gold.</p> +<p>Sometimes about the painted kiosk<br />The mimic soldiers strut and +stride,<br />Sometimes the blue-eyed brigands hide<br />In the bleak +tangles of the bosk.</p> +<p>And sometimes, while the old nurse cons<br />Her book, they steal +across the square,<br />And launch their paper navies where<br />Huge +Triton writhes in greenish bronze.</p> +<p>And now in mimic flight they flee,<br />And now they rush, a boisterous +band—<br />And, tiny hand on tiny hand,<br />Climb up the black +and leafless tree.</p> +<p>Ah! cruel tree! if I were you,<br />And children climbed me, for +their sake<br />Though it be winter I would break<br />Into spring blossoms +white and blue!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: On The Sale By Auction Of Keats’ Love Letters</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>These are the letters which Endymion wrote<br />To one he loved in +secret, and apart.<br />And now the brawlers of the auction mart<br />Bargain +and bid for each poor blotted note,<br />Ay! for each separate pulse +of passion quote<br />The merchant’s price. I think they +love not art<br />Who break the crystal of a poet’s heart<br />That +small and sickly eyes may glare and gloat.</p> +<p>Is it not said that many years ago,<br />In a far Eastern town, some +soldiers ran<br />With torches through the midnight, and began<br />To +wrangle for mean raiment, and to throw<br />Dice for the garments of +a wretched man,<br />Not knowing the God’s wonder, or His woe?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: The New Remorse</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The sin was mine; I did not understand.<br />So now is music prisoned +in her cave,<br />Save where some ebbing desultory wave<br />Frets with +its restless whirls this meagre strand.<br />And in the withered hollow +of this land<br />Hath Summer dug herself so deep a grave,<br />That +hardly can the leaden willow crave<br />One silver blossom from keen +Winter’s hand.</p> +<p>But who is this who cometh by the shore?<br />(Nay, love, look up +and wonder!) Who is this<br />Who cometh in dyed garments from +the South?<br />It is thy new-found Lord, and he shall kiss<br />The +yet unravished roses of thy mouth,<br />And I shall weep and worship, +as before.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Le Panneau</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Under the rose-tree’s dancing shade<br />There stands a little +ivory girl,<br />Pulling the leaves of pink and pearl<br />With pale +green nails of polished jade.</p> +<p>The red leaves fall upon the mould,<br />The white leaves flutter, +one by one,<br />Down to a blue bowl where the sun,<br />Like a great +dragon, writhes in gold.</p> +<p>The white leaves float upon the air,<br />The red leaves flutter +idly down,<br />Some fall upon her yellow gown,<br />And some upon her +raven hair.</p> +<p>She takes an amber lute and sings,<br />And as she sings a silver +crane<br />Begins his scarlet neck to strain,<br />And flap his burnished +metal wings.</p> +<p>She takes a lute of amber bright,<br />And from the thicket where +he lies<br />Her lover, with his almond eyes,<br />Watches her movements +in delight.</p> +<p>And now she gives a cry of fear,<br />And tiny tears begin to start:<br />A +thorn has wounded with its dart<br />The pink-veined sea-shell of her +ear.</p> +<p>And now she laughs a merry note:<br />There has fallen a petal of +the rose<br />Just where the yellow satin shows<br />The blue-veined +flower of her throat.</p> +<p>With pale green nails of polished jade,<br />Pulling the leaves of +pink and pearl,<br />There stands a little ivory girl<br />Under the +rose-tree’s dancing shade.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Les Ballons</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Against these turbid turquoise skies<br />The light and luminous +balloons<br />Dip and drift like satin moons,<br />Drift like silken +butterflies;</p> +<p>Reel with every windy gust,<br />Rise and reel like dancing girls,<br />Float +like strange transparent pearls,<br />Fall and float like silver dust.</p> +<p>Now to the low leaves they cling,<br />Each with coy fantastic pose,<br />Each +a petal of a rose<br />Straining at a gossamer string.</p> +<p>Then to the tall trees they climb,<br />Like thin globes of amethyst,<br />Wandering +opals keeping tryst<br />With the rubies of the lime.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Canzonet</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I have no store<br />Of gryphon-guarded gold;<br />Now, as before,<br />Bare +is the shepherd’s fold.<br />Rubies nor pearls<br />Have I to +gem thy throat;<br />Yet woodland girls<br />Have loved the shepherd’s +note.</p> +<p>Then pluck a reed<br />And bid me sing to thee,<br />For I would +feed<br />Thine ears with melody,<br />Who art more fair<br />Than fairest +fleur-de-lys,<br />More sweet and rare<br />Than sweetest ambergris.</p> +<p>What dost thou fear?<br />Young Hyacinth is slain,<br />Pan is not +here,<br />And will not come again.<br />No hornèd Faun<br />Treads +down the yellow leas,<br />No God at dawn<br />Steals through the olive +trees.</p> +<p>Hylas is dead,<br />Nor will he e’er divine<br />Those little +red<br />Rose-petalled lips of thine.<br />On the high hill<br />No +ivory dryads play,<br />Silver and still<br />Sinks the sad autumn day.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Symphony In Yellow</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>An omnibus across the bridge<br />Crawls like a yellow butterfly,<br />And, +here and there, a passer-by<br />Shows like a little restless midge.</p> +<p>Big barges full of yellow hay<br />Are moored against the shadowy +wharf,<br />And, like a yellow silken scarf,<br />The thick fog hangs +along the quay.</p> +<p>The yellow leaves begin to fade<br />And flutter from the Temple +elms,<br />And at my feet the pale green Thames<br />Lies like a rod +of rippled jade.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: In The Forest</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Out of the mid-wood’s twilight<br />Into the meadow’s +dawn,<br />Ivory limbed and brown-eyed,<br />Flashes my Faun!</p> +<p>He skips through the copses singing,<br />And his shadow dances along,<br />And +I know not which I should follow,<br />Shadow or song!</p> +<p>O Hunter, snare me his shadow!<br />O Nightingale, catch me his strain!<br />Else +moonstruck with music and madness<br />I track him in vain!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: To My Wife—With A Copy Of My Poems</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I can write no stately proem<br />As a prelude to my lay;<br />From +a poet to a poem<br />I would dare to say.</p> +<p>For if of these fallen petals<br />One to you seem fair,<br />Love +will waft it till it settles<br />On your hair.</p> +<p>And when wind and winter harden<br />All the loveless land,<br />It +will whisper of the garden,<br />You will understand.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: With A Copy Of ‘A House Of Pomegranates’</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>Go, little book,<br />To him who, on a lute with horns of pearl,<br />Sang +of the white feet of the Golden Girl:<br />And bid him look<br />Into +thy pages: it may hap that he<br />May find that golden maidens dance +through thee.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Roses And Rue</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>(To L. L.)</p> +<p>Could we dig up this long-buried treasure,<br />Were it worth the +pleasure,<br />We never could learn love’s song,<br />We are parted +too long.</p> +<p>Could the passionate past that is fled<br />Call back its dead,<br />Could +we live it all over again,<br />Were it worth the pain!</p> +<p>I remember we used to meet<br />By an ivied seat,<br />And you warbled +each pretty word<br />With the air of a bird;</p> +<p>And your voice had a quaver in it,<br />Just like a linnet,<br />And +shook, as the blackbird’s throat<br />With its last big note;</p> +<p>And your eyes, they were green and grey<br />Like an April day,<br />But +lit into amethyst<br />When I stooped and kissed;</p> +<p>And your mouth, it would never smile<br />For a long, long while,<br />Then +it rippled all over with laughter<br />Five minutes after.</p> +<p>You were always afraid of a shower,<br />Just like a flower:<br />I +remember you started and ran<br />When the rain began.</p> +<p>I remember I never could catch you,<br />For no one could match you,<br />You +had wonderful, luminous, fleet,<br />Little wings to your feet.</p> +<p>I remember your hair—did I tie it?<br />For it always ran riot—<br />Like +a tangled sunbeam of gold:<br />These things are old.</p> +<p>I remember so well the room,<br />And the lilac bloom<br />That beat +at the dripping pane<br />In the warm June rain;</p> +<p>And the colour of your gown,<br />It was amber-brown,<br />And two +yellow satin bows<br />From your shoulders rose.</p> +<p>And the handkerchief of French lace<br />Which you held to your face—<br />Had +a small tear left a stain?<br />Or was it the rain?</p> +<p>On your hand as it waved adieu<br />There were veins of blue;<br />In +your voice as it said good-bye<br />Was a petulant cry,</p> +<p>‘You have only wasted your life.’<br />(Ah, that was +the knife!)<br />When I rushed through the garden gate<br />It was all +too late.</p> +<p>Could we live it over again,<br />Were it worth the pain,<br />Could +the passionate past that is fled<br />Call back its dead!</p> +<p>Well, if my heart must break,<br />Dear love, for your sake,<br />It +will break in music, I know,<br />Poets’ hearts break so.</p> +<p>But strange that I was not told<br />That the brain can hold<br />In +a tiny ivory cell<br />God’s heaven and hell.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Désespoir</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>The seasons send their ruin as they go,<br />For in the spring the +narciss shows its head<br />Nor withers till the rose has flamed to +red,<br />And in the autumn purple violets blow,<br />And the slim crocus +stirs the winter snow;<br />Wherefore yon leafless trees will bloom +again<br />And this grey land grow green with summer rain<br />And send +up cowslips for some boy to mow.</p> +<p>But what of life whose bitter hungry sea<br />Flows at our heels, +and gloom of sunless night<br />Covers the days which never more return?<br />Ambition, +love and all the thoughts that burn<br />We lose too soon, and only +find delight<br />In withered husks of some dead memory.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Pan—Double Villanelle</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>I</p> +<p>O goat-foot God of Arcady!<br />This modern world is grey and old,<br />And +what remains to us of thee?</p> +<p>No more the shepherd lads in glee<br />Throw apples at thy wattled +fold,<br />O goat-foot God of Arcady!</p> +<p>Nor through the laurels can one see<br />Thy soft brown limbs, thy +beard of gold,<br />And what remains to us of thee?</p> +<p>And dull and dead our Thames would be,<br />For here the winds are +chill and cold,<br />O goat-foot God of Arcady!</p> +<p>Then keep the tomb of Helice,<br />Thine olive-woods, thy vine-clad +wold,<br />And what remains to us of thee?</p> +<p>Though many an unsung elegy<br />Sleeps in the reeds our rivers hold,<br />O +goat-foot God of Arcady!<br />Ah, what remains to us of thee?</p> +<p>II</p> +<p>Ah, leave the hills of Arcady,<br />Thy satyrs and their wanton play,<br />This +modern world hath need of thee.</p> +<p>No nymph or Faun indeed have we,<br />For Faun and nymph are old +and grey,<br />Ah, leave the hills of Arcady!</p> +<p>This is the land where liberty<br />Lit grave-browed Milton on his +way,<br />This modern world hath need of thee!</p> +<p>A land of ancient chivalry<br />Where gentle Sidney saw the day,<br />Ah, +leave the hills of Arcady!</p> +<p>This fierce sea-lion of the sea,<br />This England lacks some stronger +lay,<br />This modern world hath need of thee!</p> +<p>Then blow some trumpet loud and free,<br />And give thine oaten pipe +away,<br />Ah, leave the hills of Arcady!<br />This modern world hath +need of thee!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: The Sphinx</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>(To Marcel Schwob in friendship and in admiration)</p> +<p>In a dim corner of my room for longer than<br />my fancy thinks<br />A +beautiful and silent Sphinx has watched me<br />through the shifting +gloom.</p> +<p>Inviolate and immobile she does not rise she<br />does not stir<br />For +silver moons are naught to her and naught<br />to her the suns that +reel.</p> +<p>Red follows grey across the air, the waves of<br />moonlight ebb +and flow<br />But with the Dawn she does not go and in the<br />night-time +she is there.</p> +<p>Dawn follows Dawn and Nights grow old and<br />all the while this +curious cat<br />Lies couching on the Chinese mat with eyes of<br />satin +rimmed with gold.</p> +<p>Upon the mat she lies and leers and on the<br />tawny throat of her<br />Flutters +the soft and silky fur or ripples to her<br />pointed ears.</p> +<p>Come forth, my lovely seneschal! so somnolent,<br />so statuesque!<br />Come +forth you exquisite grotesque! half woman<br />and half animal!</p> +<p>Come forth my lovely languorous Sphinx! and<br />put your head upon +my knee!<br />And let me stroke your throat and see your<br />body spotted +like the Lynx!</p> +<p>And let me touch those curving claws of yellow<br />ivory and grasp<br />The +tail that like a monstrous Asp coils round<br />your heavy velvet paws!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>A thousand weary centuries are thine<br />while I have hardly seen<br />Some +twenty summers cast their green for<br />Autumn’s gaudy liveries.</p> +<p>But you can read the Hieroglyphs on the<br />great sandstone obelisks,<br />And +you have talked with Basilisks, and you<br />have looked on Hippogriffs.</p> +<p>O tell me, were you standing by when Isis to<br />Osiris knelt?<br />And +did you watch the Egyptian melt her union<br />for Antony</p> +<p>And drink the jewel-drunken wine and bend<br />her head in mimic +awe<br />To see the huge proconsul draw the salted tunny<br />from the +brine?</p> +<p>And did you mark the Cyprian kiss white Adon<br />on his catafalque?<br />And +did you follow Amenalk, the God of<br />Heliopolis?</p> +<p>And did you talk with Thoth, and did you hear<br />the moon-horned +Io weep?<br />And know the painted kings who sleep beneath<br />the +wedge-shaped Pyramid?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Lift up your large black satin eyes which are<br />like cushions +where one sinks!<br />Fawn at my feet, fantastic Sphinx! and sing me<br />all +your memories!</p> +<p>Sing to me of the Jewish maid who wandered<br />with the Holy Child,<br />And +how you led them through the wild, and<br />how they slept beneath your +shade.</p> +<p>Sing to me of that odorous green eve when<br />crouching by the marge<br />You +heard from Adrian’s gilded barge the<br />laughter of Antinous</p> +<p>And lapped the stream and fed your drouth and<br />watched with hot +and hungry stare<br />The ivory body of that rare young slave with<br />his +pomegranate mouth!</p> +<p>Sing to me of the Labyrinth in which the twi-<br />formed bull was +stalled!<br />Sing to me of the night you crawled across the<br />temple’s +granite plinth</p> +<p>When through the purple corridors the screaming<br />scarlet Ibis +flew<br />In terror, and a horrid dew dripped from the<br />moaning +Mandragores,</p> +<p>And the great torpid crocodile within the tank<br />shed slimy tears,<br />And +tare the jewels from his ears and staggered<br />back into the Nile,</p> +<p>And the priests cursed you with shrill psalms as<br />in your claws +you seized their snake<br />And crept away with it to slake your passion +by<br />the shuddering palms.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Who were your lovers? who were they<br />who wrestled for you in +the dust?<br />Which was the vessel of your Lust? What<br />Leman +had you, every day?</p> +<p>Did giant Lizards come and crouch before you<br />on the reedy banks?<br />Did +Gryphons with great metal flanks leap on<br />you in your trampled couch?</p> +<p>Did monstrous hippopotami come sidling toward<br />you in the mist?<br />Did +gilt-scaled dragons writhe and twist with<br />passion as you passed +them by?</p> +<p>And from the brick-built Lycian tomb what<br />horrible Chimera came<br />With +fearful heads and fearful flame to breed<br />new wonders from your +womb?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Or had you shameful secret quests and did<br />you harry to your +home<br />Some Nereid coiled in amber foam with curious<br />rock crystal +breasts?</p> +<p>Or did you treading through the froth call to<br />the brown Sidonian<br />For +tidings of Leviathan, Leviathan or<br />Behemoth?</p> +<p>Or did you when the sun was set climb up the<br />cactus-covered +slope<br />To meet your swarthy Ethiop whose body was<br />of polished +jet?</p> +<p>Or did you while the earthen skiffs dropped<br />down the grey Nilotic +flats<br />At twilight and the flickering bats flew round<br />the temple’s +triple glyphs</p> +<p>Steal to the border of the bar and swim across<br />the silent lake<br />And +slink into the vault and make the Pyramid<br />your lúpanar</p> +<p>Till from each black sarcophagus rose up the<br />painted swathèd +dead?<br />Or did you lure unto your bed the ivory-horned<br />Tragelaphos?</p> +<p>Or did you love the god of flies who plagued<br />the Hebrews and +was splashed<br />With wine unto the waist? or Pasht, who had<br />green +beryls for her eyes?</p> +<p>Or that young god, the Tyrian, who was more<br />amorous than the +dove<br />Of Ashtaroth? or did you love the god of the<br />Assyrian</p> +<p>Whose wings, like strange transparent talc, rose<br />high above +his hawk-faced head,<br />Painted with silver and with red and ribbed +with<br />rods of Oreichalch?</p> +<p>Or did huge Apis from his car leap down and<br />lay before your +feet<br />Big blossoms of the honey-sweet and honey-<br />coloured nenuphar?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>How subtle-secret is your smile! Did you<br />love none then? +Nay, I know<br />Great Ammon was your bedfellow! He lay with<br />you +beside the Nile!</p> +<p>The river-horses in the slime trumpeted when<br />they saw him come<br />Odorous +with Syrian galbanum and smeared with<br />spikenard and with thyme.</p> +<p>He came along the river bank like some tall<br />galley argent-sailed,<br />He +strode across the waters, mailed in beauty,<br />and the waters sank.</p> +<p>He strode across the desert sand: he reached<br />the valley where +you lay:<br />He waited till the dawn of day: then touched<br />your +black breasts with his hand.</p> +<p>You kissed his mouth with mouths of flame:<br />you made the hornèd +god your own:<br />You stood behind him on his throne: you called<br />him +by his secret name.</p> +<p>You whispered monstrous oracles into the<br />caverns of his ears:<br />With +blood of goats and blood of steers you<br />taught him monstrous miracles.</p> +<p>White Ammon was your bedfellow! Your<br />chamber was the steaming +Nile!<br />And with your curved archaic smile you watched<br />his passion +come and go.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>With Syrian oils his brows were bright:<br />and wide-spread as a +tent at noon<br />His marble limbs made pale the moon and lent<br />the +day a larger light.</p> +<p>His long hair was nine cubits’ span and coloured<br />like +that yellow gem<br />Which hidden in their garment’s hem the<br />merchants +bring from Kurdistan.</p> +<p>His face was as the must that lies upon a vat of<br />new-made wine:<br />The +seas could not insapphirine the perfect azure<br />of his eyes.</p> +<p>His thick soft throat was white as milk and<br />threaded with thin +veins of blue:<br />And curious pearls like frozen dew were<br />broidered +on his flowing silk.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>On pearl and porphyry pedestalled he was<br />too bright to look +upon:<br />For on his ivory breast there shone the wondrous<br />ocean-emerald,</p> +<p>That mystic moonlit jewel which some diver of<br />the Colchian caves<br />Had +found beneath the blackening waves and<br />carried to the Colchian +witch.</p> +<p>Before his gilded galiot ran naked vine-wreathed<br />corybants,<br />And +lines of swaying elephants knelt down to<br />draw his chariot,</p> +<p>And lines of swarthy Nubians bare up his litter<br />as he rode<br />Down +the great granite-paven road between the<br />nodding peacock-fans.</p> +<p>The merchants brought him steatite from Sidon<br />in their painted +ships:<br />The meanest cup that touched his lips was<br />fashioned +from a chrysolite.</p> +<p>The merchants brought him cedar chests of rich<br />apparel bound +with cords:<br />His train was borne by Memphian lords: young<br />kings +were glad to be his guests.</p> +<p>Ten hundred shaven priests did bow to Ammon’s<br />altar day +and night,<br />Ten hundred lamps did wave their light through<br />Ammon’s +carven house—and now</p> +<p>Foul snake and speckled adder with their young<br />ones crawl from +stone to stone<br />For ruined is the house and prone the great<br />rose-marble +monolith!</p> +<p>Wild ass or trotting jackal comes and couches<br />in the mouldering +gates:<br />Wild satyrs call unto their mates across the<br />fallen +fluted drums.</p> +<p>And on the summit of the pile the blue-faced<br />ape of Horus sits<br />And +gibbers while the fig-tree splits the pillars<br />of the peristyle</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The god is scattered here and there: deep<br />hidden in the windy +sand<br />I saw his giant granite hand still clenched in<br />impotent +despair.</p> +<p>And many a wandering caravan of stately<br />negroes silken-shawled,<br />Crossing +the desert, halts appalled before the<br />neck that none can span.</p> +<p>And many a bearded Bedouin draws back his<br />yellow-striped burnous<br />To +gaze upon the Titan thews of him who was<br />thy paladin.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Go, seek his fragments on the moor and<br />wash them in the evening +dew,<br />And from their pieces make anew thy mutilated<br />paramour!</p> +<p>Go, seek them where they lie alone and from<br />their broken pieces +make<br />Thy bruisèd bedfellow! And wake mad passions<br />in +the senseless stone!</p> +<p>Charm his dull ear with Syrian hymns! he loved<br />your body! oh, +be kind,<br />Pour spikenard on his hair, and wind soft rolls<br />of +linen round his limbs!</p> +<p>Wind round his head the figured coins! stain<br />with red fruits +those pallid lips!<br />Weave purple for his shrunken hips! and purple<br />for +his barren loins!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Away to Egypt! Have no fear. Only one<br />God has ever +died.<br />Only one God has let His side be wounded by a<br />soldier’s +spear.</p> +<p>But these, thy lovers, are not dead. Still by the<br />hundred-cubit +gate<br />Dog-faced Anubis sits in state with lotus-lilies<br />for +thy head.</p> +<p>Still from his chair of porphyry gaunt Memnon<br />strains his lidless +eyes<br />Across the empty land, and cries each yellow<br />morning +unto thee.</p> +<p>And Nilus with his broken horn lies in his black<br />and oozy bed<br />And +till thy coming will not spread his waters on<br />the withering corn.</p> +<p>Your lovers are not dead, I know. They will<br />rise up and +hear your voice<br />And clash their cymbals and rejoice and run to<br />kiss +your mouth! And so,</p> +<p>Set wings upon your argosies! Set horses to<br />your ebon +car!<br />Back to your Nile! Or if you are grown sick of<br />dead +divinities</p> +<p>Follow some roving lion’s spoor across the copper-<br />coloured +plain,<br />Reach out and hale him by the mane and bid<br />him be your +paramour!</p> +<p>Couch by his side upon the grass and set your<br />white teeth in +his throat<br />And when you hear his dying note lash your<br />long +flanks of polished brass</p> +<p>And take a tiger for your mate, whose amber<br />sides are flecked +with black,<br />And ride upon his gilded back in triumph<br />through +the Theban gate,</p> +<p>And toy with him in amorous jests, and when<br />he turns, and snarls, +and gnaws,<br />O smite him with your jasper claws! and bruise<br />him +with your agate breasts!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Why are you tarrying? Get hence! I<br />weary of your +sullen ways,<br />I weary of your steadfast gaze, your somnolent<br />magnificence.</p> +<p>Your horrible and heavy breath makes the light<br />flicker in the +lamp,<br />And on my brow I feel the damp and dreadful<br />dews of +night and death.</p> +<p>Your eyes are like fantastic moons that shiver<br />in some stagnant +lake,<br />Your tongue is like a scarlet snake that dances<br />to fantastic +tunes,</p> +<p>Your pulse makes poisonous melodies, and your<br />black throat is +like the hole<br />Left by some torch or burning coal on Saracenic<br />tapestries.</p> +<p>Away! The sulphur-coloured stars are hurrying<br />through +the Western gate!<br />Away! Or it may be too late to climb their +silent<br />silver cars!</p> +<p>See, the dawn shivers round the grey gilt-dialled<br />towers, and +the rain<br />Streams down each diamonded pane and blurs<br />with tears +the wannish day.</p> +<p>What snake-tressed fury fresh from Hell, with<br />uncouth gestures +and unclean,<br />Stole from the poppy-drowsy queen and led you<br />to +a student’s cell?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>What songless tongueless ghost of sin crept<br />through the curtains +of the night,<br />And saw my taper burning bright, and knocked,<br />and +bade you enter in?</p> +<p>Are there not others more accursed, whiter with<br />leprosies than +I?<br />Are Abana and Pharphar dry that you come here<br />to slake +your thirst?</p> +<p>Get hence, you loathsome mystery! Hideous<br />animal, get +hence!<br />You wake in me each bestial sense, you make me<br />what +I would not be.</p> +<p>You make my creed a barren sham, you wake<br />foul dreams of sensual +life,<br />And Atys with his blood-stained knife were<br />better than +the thing I am.</p> +<p>False Sphinx! False Sphinx! By reedy Styx<br />old Charon, +leaning on his oar,<br />Waits for my coin. Go thou before, and +leave<br />me to my crucifix,</p> +<p>Whose pallid burden, sick with pain, watches<br />the world with +wearied eyes,<br />And weeps for every soul that dies, and weeps<br />for +every soul in vain.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: The Ballad Of Reading Gaol</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>(In memoriam<br />C. T. W.<br />Sometime trooper of the Royal Horse +Guards<br />obiit H.M. prison, Reading, Berkshire<br />July 7, 1896)</p> +<p>I</p> +<p>He did not wear his scarlet coat,<br />For blood and wine are red,<br />And +blood and wine were on his hands<br />When they found him with the dead,<br />The +poor dead woman whom he loved,<br />And murdered in her bed.</p> +<p>He walked amongst the Trial Men<br />In a suit of shabby grey;<br />A +cricket cap was on his head,<br />And his step seemed light and gay;<br />But +I never saw a man who looked<br />So wistfully at the day.</p> +<p>I never saw a man who looked<br />With such a wistful eye<br />Upon +that little tent of blue<br />Which prisoners call the sky,<br />And +at every drifting cloud that went<br />With sails of silver by.</p> +<p>I walked, with other souls in pain,<br />Within another ring,<br />And +was wondering if the man had done<br />A great or little thing,<br />When +a voice behind me whispered low,<br />‘<i>That fellow’s +got to swing</i>.’</p> +<p>Dear Christ! the very prison walls<br />Suddenly seemed to reel,<br />And +the sky above my head became<br />Like a casque of scorching steel;<br />And, +though I was a soul in pain,<br />My pain I could not feel.</p> +<p>I only knew what hunted thought<br />Quickened his step, and why<br />He +looked upon the garish day<br />With such a wistful eye;<br />The man +had killed the thing he loved,<br />And so he had to die.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Yet each man kills the thing he loves,<br />By each let this be heard,<br />Some +do it with a bitter look,<br />Some with a flattering word,<br />The +coward does it with a kiss,<br />The brave man with a sword!</p> +<p>Some kill their love when they are young,<br />And some when they +are old;<br />Some strangle with the hands of Lust,<br />Some with the +hands of Gold:<br />The kindest use a knife, because<br />The dead so +soon grow cold.</p> +<p>Some love too little, some too long,<br />Some sell, and others buy;<br />Some +do the deed with many tears,<br />And some without a sigh:<br />For +each man kills the thing he loves,<br />Yet each man does not die.</p> +<p>He does not die a death of shame<br />On a day of dark disgrace,<br />Nor +have a noose about his neck,<br />Nor a cloth upon his face,<br />Nor +drop feet foremost through the floor<br />Into an empty space.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>He does not sit with silent men<br />Who watch him night and day;<br />Who +watch him when he tries to weep,<br />And when he tries to pray;<br />Who +watch him lest himself should rob<br />The prison of its prey.</p> +<p>He does not wake at dawn to see<br />Dread figures throng his room,<br />The +shivering Chaplain robed in white,<br />The Sheriff stern with gloom,<br />And +the Governor all in shiny black,<br />With the yellow face of Doom.</p> +<p>He does not rise in piteous haste<br />To put on convict-clothes,<br />While +some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats,<br />and notes<br />Each new and +nerve-twitched pose,<br />Fingering a watch whose little ticks<br />Are +like horrible hammer-blows.</p> +<p>He does not know that sickening thirst<br />That sands one’s +throat, before<br />The hangman with his gardener’s gloves<br />Slips +through the padded door,<br />And binds one with three leathern thongs,<br />That +the throat may thirst no more.</p> +<p>He does not bend his head to hear<br />The Burial Office read,<br />Nor, +while the terror of his soul<br />Tells him he is not dead,<br />Cross +his own coffin, as he moves<br />Into the hideous shed.</p> +<p>He does not stare upon the air<br />Through a little roof of glass:<br />He +does not pray with lips of clay<br />For his agony to pass;<br />Nor +feel upon his shuddering cheek<br />The kiss of Caiaphas.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>II</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard,<br />In the suit of shabby +grey:<br />His cricket cap was on his head,<br />And his step seemed +light and gay,<br />But I never saw a man who looked<br />So wistfully +at the day.</p> +<p>I never saw a man who looked<br />With such a wistful eye<br />Upon +that little tent of blue<br />Which prisoners call the sky,<br />And +at every wandering cloud that trailed<br />Its ravelled fleeces by.</p> +<p>He did not wring his hands, as do<br />Those witless men who dare<br />To +try to rear the changeling Hope<br />In the cave of black Despair:<br />He +only looked upon the sun,<br />And drank the morning air.</p> +<p>He did not wring his hands nor weep,<br />Nor did he peek or pine,<br />But +he drank the air as though it held<br />Some healthful anodyne;<br />With +open mouth he drank the sun<br />As though it had been wine!</p> +<p>And I and all the souls in pain,<br />Who tramped the other ring,<br />Forgot +if we ourselves had done<br />A great or little thing,<br />And watched +with gaze of dull amaze<br />The man who had to swing.</p> +<p>And strange it was to see him pass<br />With a step so light and +gay,<br />And strange it was to see him look<br />So wistfully at the +day,<br />And strange it was to think that he<br />Had such a debt to +pay.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>For oak and elm have pleasant leaves<br />That in the springtime +shoot:<br />But grim to see is the gallows-tree,<br />With its adder-bitten +root,<br />And, green or dry, a man must die<br />Before it bears its +fruit!</p> +<p>The loftiest place is that seat of grace<br />For which all worldlings +try:<br />But who would stand in hempen band<br />Upon a scaffold high,<br />And +through a murderer’s collar take<br />His last look at the sky?</p> +<p>It is sweet to dance to violins<br />When Love and Life are fair:<br />To +dance to flutes, to dance to lutes<br />Is delicate and rare:<br />But +it is not sweet with nimble feet<br />To dance upon the air!</p> +<p>So with curious eyes and sick surmise<br />We watched him day by +day,<br />And wondered if each one of us<br />Would end the self-same +way,<br />For none can tell to what red Hell<br />His sightless soul +may stray.</p> +<p>At last the dead man walked no more<br />Amongst the Trial Men,<br />And +I knew that he was standing up<br />In the black dock’s dreadful +pen,<br />And that never would I see his face<br />In God’s sweet +world again.</p> +<p>Like two doomed ships that pass in storm<br />We had crossed each +other’s way:<br />But we made no sign, we said no word,<br />We +had no word to say;<br />For we did not meet in the holy night,<br />But +in the shameful day.</p> +<p>A prison wall was round us both,<br />Two outcast men we were:<br />The +world had thrust us from its heart,<br />And God from out His care:<br />And +the iron gin that waits for Sin<br />Had caught us in its snare.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>III</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>In Debtors’ Yard the stones are hard,<br />And the dripping +wall is high,<br />So it was there he took the air<br />Beneath the +leaden sky,<br />And by each side a Warder walked,<br />For fear the +man might die.</p> +<p>Or else he sat with those who watched<br />His anguish night and +day;<br />Who watched him when he rose to weep,<br />And when he crouched +to pray;<br />Who watched him lest himself should rob<br />Their scaffold +of its prey.</p> +<p>The Governor was strong upon<br />The Regulations Act:<br />The Doctor +said that Death was but<br />A scientific fact:<br />And twice a day +the Chaplain called,<br />And left a little tract.</p> +<p>And twice a day he smoked his pipe,<br />And drank his quart of beer:<br />His +soul was resolute, and held<br />No hiding-place for fear;<br />He often +said that he was glad<br />The hangman’s hands were near.</p> +<p>But why he said so strange a thing<br />No Warder dared to ask:<br />For +he to whom a watcher’s doom<br />Is given as his task,<br />Must +set a lock upon his lips,<br />And make his face a mask.</p> +<p>Or else he might be moved, and try<br />To comfort or console:<br />And +what should Human Pity do<br />Pent up in Murderers’ Hole?<br />What +word of grace in such a place<br />Could help a brother’s soul?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>With slouch and swing around the ring<br />We trod the Fools’ +Parade!<br />We did not care: we knew we were<br />The Devil’s +Own Brigade:<br />And shaven head and feet of lead<br />Make a merry +masquerade.</p> +<p>We tore the tarry rope to shreds<br />With blunt and bleeding nails;<br />We +rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,<br />And cleaned the shining +rails:<br />And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,<br />And clattered +with the pails.</p> +<p>We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,<br />We turned the dusty +drill:<br />We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,<br />And sweated +on the mill:<br />But in the heart of every man<br />Terror was lying +still.</p> +<p>So still it lay that every day<br />Crawled like a weed-clogged wave:<br />And +we forgot the bitter lot<br />That waits for fool and knave,<br />Till +once, as we tramped in from work,<br />We passed an open grave.</p> +<p>With yawning mouth the yellow hole<br />Gaped for a living thing;<br />The +very mud cried out for blood<br />To the thirsty asphalte ring:<br />And +we knew that ere one dawn grew fair<br />Some prisoner had to swing.</p> +<p>Right in we went, with soul intent<br />On Death and Dread and Doom:<br />The +hangman, with his little bag,<br />Went shuffling through the gloom:<br />And +each man trembled as he crept<br />Into his numbered tomb.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>That night the empty corridors<br />Were full of forms of Fear,<br />And +up and down the iron town<br />Stole feet we could not hear,<br />And +through the bars that hide the stars<br />White faces seemed to peer.</p> +<p>He lay as one who lies and dreams<br />In a pleasant meadow-land,<br />The +watchers watched him as he slept,<br />And could not understand<br />How +one could sleep so sweet a sleep<br />With a hangman close at hand.</p> +<p>But there is no sleep when men must weep<br />Who never yet have +wept:<br />So we—the fool, the fraud, the knave—<br />That +endless vigil kept,<br />And through each brain on hands of pain<br />Another’s +terror crept.</p> +<p>Alas! it is a fearful thing<br />To feel another’s guilt!<br />For, +right within, the sword of Sin<br />Pierced to its poisoned hilt,<br />And +as molten lead were the tears we shed<br />For the blood we had not +spilt.</p> +<p>The Warders with their shoes of felt<br />Crept by each padlocked +door,<br />And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,<br />Grey figures on +the floor,<br />And wondered why men knelt to pray<br />Who never prayed +before.</p> +<p>All through the night we knelt and prayed,<br />Mad mourners of a +corse!<br />The troubled plumes of midnight were<br />The plumes upon +a hearse:<br />And bitter wine upon a sponge<br />Was the savour of +Remorse.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The grey cock crew, the red cock crew,<br />But never came the day:<br />And +crooked shapes of Terror crouched,<br />In the corners where we lay:<br />And +each evil sprite that walks by night<br />Before us seemed to play.</p> +<p>They glided past, they glided fast,<br />Like travellers through +a mist:<br />They mocked the moon in a rigadoon<br />Of delicate turn +and twist,<br />And with formal pace and loathsome grace<br />The phantoms +kept their tryst.</p> +<p>With mop and mow, we saw them go,<br />Slim shadows hand in hand:<br />About, +about, in ghostly rout<br />They trod a saraband:<br />And the damned +grotesques made arabesques,<br />Like the wind upon the sand!</p> +<p>With the pirouettes of marionettes,<br />They tripped on pointed +tread:<br />But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,<br />As their +grisly masque they led,<br />And loud they sang, and long they sang,<br />For +they sang to wake the dead.</p> +<p>‘Oho!’ they cried, ‘The world is wide,<br />But +fettered limbs go lame!<br />And once, or twice, to throw the dice<br />Is +a gentlemanly game,<br />But he does not win who plays with Sin<br />In +the secret House of Shame.’</p> +<p>No things of air these antics were,<br />That frolicked with such +glee:<br />To men whose lives were held in gyves,<br />And whose feet +might not go free,<br />Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things,<br />Most +terrible to see.</p> +<p>Around, around, they waltzed and wound;<br />Some wheeled in smirking +pairs;<br />With the mincing step of a demirep<br />Some sidled up the +stairs:<br />And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer,<br />Each helped +us at our prayers.</p> +<p>The morning wind began to moan,<br />But still the night went on:<br />Through +its giant loom the web of gloom<br />Crept till each thread was spun:<br />And, +as we prayed, we grew afraid<br />Of the Justice of the Sun.</p> +<p>The moaning wind went wandering round<br />The weeping prison-wall:<br />Till +like a wheel of turning steel<br />We felt the minutes crawl:<br />O +moaning wind! what had we done<br />To have such a seneschal?</p> +<p>At last I saw the shadowed bars,<br />Like a lattice wrought in lead,<br />Move +right across the whitewashed wall<br />That faced my three-plank bed,<br />And +I knew that somewhere in the world<br />God’s dreadful dawn was +red.</p> +<p>At six o’clock we cleaned our cells,<br />At seven all was +still,<br />But the sough and swing of a mighty wing<br />The prison +seemed to fill,<br />For the Lord of Death with icy breath<br />Had +entered in to kill.</p> +<p>He did not pass in purple pomp,<br />Nor ride a moon-white steed.<br />Three +yards of cord and a sliding board<br />Are all the gallows’ need:<br />So +with rope of shame the Herald came<br />To do the secret deed.</p> +<p>We were as men who through a fen<br />Of filthy darkness grope:<br />We +did not dare to breathe a prayer,<br />Or to give our anguish scope:<br />Something +was dead in each of us,<br />And what was dead was Hope.</p> +<p>For Man’s grim Justice goes its way,<br />And will not swerve +aside:<br />It slays the weak, it slays the strong,<br />It has a deadly +stride:<br />With iron heel it slays the strong,<br />The monstrous +parricide!</p> +<p>We waited for the stroke of eight:<br />Each tongue was thick with +thirst:<br />For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate<br />That +makes a man accursed,<br />And Fate will use a running noose<br />For +the best man and the worst.</p> +<p>We had no other thing to do,<br />Save to wait for the sign to come:<br />So, +like things of stone in a valley lone,<br />Quiet we sat and dumb:<br />But +each man’s heart beat thick and quick,<br />Like a madman on a +drum!</p> +<p>With sudden shock the prison-clock<br />Smote on the shivering air,<br />And +from all the gaol rose up a wail<br />Of impotent despair,<br />Like +the sound that frightened marshes hear<br />From some leper in his lair.</p> +<p>And as one sees most fearful things<br />In the crystal of a dream,<br />We +saw the greasy hempen rope<br />Hooked to the blackened beam,<br />And +heard the prayer the hangman’s snare<br />Strangled into a scream.</p> +<p>And all the woe that moved him so<br />That he gave that bitter cry,<br />And +the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,<br />None knew so well as I:<br />For +he who lives more lives than one<br />More deaths than one must die.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>IV</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>There is no chapel on the day<br />On which they hang a man:<br />The +Chaplain’s heart is far too sick,<br />Or his face is far too +wan,<br />Or there is that written in his eyes<br />Which none should +look upon.</p> +<p>So they kept us close till nigh on noon,<br />And then they rang +the bell,<br />And the Warders with their jingling keys<br />Opened +each listening cell,<br />And down the iron stair we tramped,<br />Each +from his separate Hell.</p> +<p>Out into God’s sweet air we went,<br />But not in wonted way,<br />For +this man’s face was white with fear,<br />And that man’s +face was grey,<br />And I never saw sad men who looked<br />So wistfully +at the day.</p> +<p>I never saw sad men who looked<br />With such a wistful eye<br />Upon +that little tent of blue<br />We prisoners called the sky,<br />And +at every careless cloud that passed<br />In happy freedom by.</p> +<p>But there were those amongst us all<br />Who walked with downcast +head,<br />And knew that, had each got his due,<br />They should have +died instead:<br />He had but killed a thing that lived,<br />Whilst +they had killed the dead.</p> +<p>For he who sins a second time<br />Wakes a dead soul to pain,<br />And +draws it from its spotted shroud,<br />And makes it bleed again,<br />And +makes it bleed great gouts of blood,<br />And makes it bleed in vain!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb<br />With crooked arrows starred,<br />Silently +we went round and round<br />The slippery asphalte yard;<br />Silently +we went round and round,<br />And no man spoke a word.</p> +<p>Silently we went round and round,<br />And through each hollow mind<br />The +Memory of dreadful things<br />Rushed like a dreadful wind,<br />And +Horror stalked before each man,<br />And Terror crept behind.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The Warders strutted up and down,<br />And kept their herd of brutes,<br />Their +uniforms were spick and span,<br />And they wore their Sunday suits,<br />But +we knew the work they had been at,<br />By the quicklime on their boots.</p> +<p>For where a grave had opened wide,<br />There was no grave at all:<br />Only +a stretch of mud and sand<br />By the hideous prison-wall,<br />And +a little heap of burning lime,<br />That the man should have his pall.</p> +<p>For he has a pall, this wretched man,<br />Such as few men can claim:<br />Deep +down below a prison-yard,<br />Naked for greater shame,<br />He lies, +with fetters on each foot,<br />Wrapt in a sheet of flame!</p> +<p>And all the while the burning lime<br />Eats flesh and bone away,<br />It +eats the brittle bone by night,<br />And the soft flesh by day,<br />It +eats the flesh and bone by turns,<br />But it eats the heart alway.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>For three long years they will not sow<br />Or root or seedling there:<br />For +three long years the unblessed spot<br />Will sterile be and bare,<br />And +look upon the wondering sky<br />With unreproachful stare.</p> +<p>They think a murderer’s heart would taint<br />Each simple +seed they sow.<br />It is not true! God’s kindly earth<br />Is +kindlier than men know,<br />And the red rose would but blow more red,<br />The +white rose whiter blow.</p> +<p>Out of his mouth a red, red rose!<br />Out of his heart a white!<br />For +who can say by what strange way,<br />Christ brings His will to light,<br />Since +the barren staff the pilgrim bore<br />Bloomed in the great Pope’s +sight?</p> +<p>But neither milk-white rose nor red<br />May bloom in prison-air;<br />The +shard, the pebble, and the flint,<br />Are what they give us there:<br />For +flowers have been known to heal<br />A common man’s despair.</p> +<p>So never will wine-red rose or white,<br />Petal by petal, fall<br />On +that stretch of mud and sand that lies<br />By the hideous prison-wall,<br />To +tell the men who tramp the yard<br />That God’s Son died for all.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Yet though the hideous prison-wall<br />Still hems him round and +round,<br />And a spirit may not walk by night<br />That is with fetters +bound,<br />And a spirit may but weep that lies<br />In such unholy +ground,</p> +<p>He is at peace—this wretched man—<br />At peace, or will +be soon:<br />There is no thing to make him mad,<br />Nor does Terror +walk at noon,<br />For the lampless Earth in which he lies<br />Has +neither Sun nor Moon.</p> +<p>They hanged him as a beast is hanged:<br />They did not even toll<br />A +requiem that might have brought<br />Rest to his startled soul,<br />But +hurriedly they took him out,<br />And hid him in a hole.</p> +<p>They stripped him of his canvas clothes,<br />And gave him to the +flies:<br />They mocked the swollen purple throat,<br />And the stark +and staring eyes:<br />And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud<br />In +which their convict lies.</p> +<p>The Chaplain would not kneel to pray<br />By his dishonoured grave:<br />Nor +mark it with that blessed Cross<br />That Christ for sinners gave,<br />Because +the man was one of those<br />Whom Christ came down to save.</p> +<p>Yet all is well; he has but passed<br />To Life’s appointed +bourne:<br />And alien tears will fill for him<br />Pity’s long-broken +urn,<br />For his mourners will be outcast men,<br />And outcasts always +mourn</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>V</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I know not whether Laws be right,<br />Or whether Laws be wrong;<br />All +that we know who lie in gaol<br />Is that the wall is strong;<br />And +that each day is like a year,<br />A year whose days are long.</p> +<p>But this I know, that every Law<br />That men have made for Man,<br />Since +first Man took his brother’s life,<br />And the sad world began,<br />But +straws the wheat and saves the chaff<br />With a most evil fan.</p> +<p>This too I know—and wise it were<br />If each could know the +same—<br />That every prison that men build<br />Is built with +bricks of shame,<br />And bound with bars lest Christ should see<br />How +men their brothers maim.</p> +<p>With bars they blur the gracious moon,<br />And blind the goodly +sun:<br />And they do well to hide their Hell,<br />For in it things +are done<br />That Son of God nor son of Man<br />Ever should look upon!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The vilest deeds like poison weeds,<br />Bloom well in prison-air;<br />It +is only what is good in Man<br />That wastes and withers there:<br />Pale +Anguish keeps the heavy gate,<br />And the Warder is Despair.</p> +<p>For they starve the little frightened child<br />Till it weeps both +night and day:<br />And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool,<br />And +gibe the old and grey,<br />And some grow mad, and all grow bad,<br />And +none a word may say.</p> +<p>Each narrow cell in which we dwell<br />Is a foul and dark latrine,<br />And +the fetid breath of living Death<br />Chokes up each grated screen,<br />And +all, but Lust, is turned to dust<br />In Humanity’s machine.</p> +<p>The brackish water that we drink<br />Creeps with a loathsome slime,<br />And +the bitter bread they weigh in scales<br />Is full of chalk and lime,<br />And +Sleep will not lie down, but walks<br />Wild-eyed, and cries to Time.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>But though lean Hunger and green Thirst<br />Like asp with adder +fight,<br />We have little care of prison fare,<br />For what chills +and kills outright<br />Is that every stone one lifts by day<br />Becomes +one’s heart by night.</p> +<p>With midnight always in one’s heart,<br />And twilight in one’s +cell,<br />We turn the crank, or tear the rope,<br />Each in his separate +Hell,<br />And the silence is more awful far<br />Than the sound of +a brazen bell.</p> +<p>And never a human voice comes near<br />To speak a gentle word:<br />And +the eye that watches through the door<br />Is pitiless and hard:<br />And +by all forgot, we rot and rot,<br />With soul and body marred.</p> +<p>And thus we rust Life’s iron chain<br />Degraded and alone:<br />And +some men curse, and some men weep,<br />And some men make no moan:<br />But +God’s eternal Laws are kind<br />And break the heart of stone.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And every human heart that breaks,<br />In prison-cell or yard,<br />Is +as that broken box that gave<br />Its treasure to the Lord,<br />And +filled the unclean leper’s house<br />With the scent of costliest +nard.</p> +<p>Ah! happy they whose hearts can break<br />And peace of pardon win!<br />How +else may man make straight his plan<br />And cleanse his soul from Sin?<br />How +else but through a broken heart<br />May Lord Christ enter in?</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>And he of the swollen purple throat,<br />And the stark and staring +eyes,<br />Waits for the holy hands that took<br />The Thief to Paradise;<br />And +a broken and a contrite heart<br />The Lord will not despise.</p> +<p>The man in red who reads the Law<br />Gave him three weeks of life,<br />Three +little weeks in which to heal<br />His soul of his soul’s strife,<br />And +cleanse from every blot of blood<br />The hand that held the knife.</p> +<p>And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand,<br />The hand that +held the steel:<br />For only blood can wipe out blood,<br />And only +tears can heal:<br />And the crimson stain that was of Cain<br />Became +Christ’s snow-white seal.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>VI</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>In Reading gaol by Reading town<br />There is a pit of shame,<br />And +in it lies a wretched man<br />Eaten by teeth of flame,<br />In a burning +winding-sheet he lies,<br />And his grave has got no name.</p> +<p>And there, till Christ call forth the dead,<br />In silence let him +lie:<br />No need to waste the foolish tear,<br />Or heave the windy +sigh:<br />The man had killed the thing he loved,<br />And so he had +to die.</p> +<p>And all men kill the thing they love,<br />By all let this be heard,<br />Some +do it with a bitter look,<br />Some with a flattering word,<br />The +coward does it with a kiss,<br />The brave man with a sword!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<h2>Poem: Ravenna</h2> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div> +<p>(Newdigate prize poem recited in the Sheldonian Theatre Oxford June +26th, 1878.</p> +<p>To my friend George Fleming author of ‘The Nile Novel’ +and ‘Mirage’)</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>I.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>A year ago I breathed the Italian air,—<br />And yet, methinks +this northern Spring is fair,-<br />These fields made golden with the +flower of March,<br />The throstle singing on the feathered larch,<br />The +cawing rooks, the wood-doves fluttering by,<br />The little clouds that +race across the sky;<br />And fair the violet’s gentle drooping +head,<br />The primrose, pale for love uncomforted,<br />The rose that +burgeons on the climbing briar,<br />The crocus-bed, (that seems a moon +of fire<br />Round-girdled with a purple marriage-ring);<br />And all +the flowers of our English Spring,<br />Fond snowdrops, and the bright-starred +daffodil.<br />Up starts the lark beside the murmuring mill,<br />And +breaks the gossamer-threads of early dew;<br />And down the river, like +a flame of blue,<br />Keen as an arrow flies the water-king,<br />While +the brown linnets in the greenwood sing.<br />A year ago!—it seems +a little time<br />Since last I saw that lordly southern clime,<br />Where +flower and fruit to purple radiance blow,<br />And like bright lamps +the fabled apples glow.<br />Full Spring it was—and by rich flowering +vines,<br />Dark olive-groves and noble forest-pines,<br />I rode at +will; the moist glad air was sweet,<br />The white road rang beneath +my horse’s feet,<br />And musing on Ravenna’s ancient name,<br />I +watched the day till, marked with wounds of flame,<br />The turquoise +sky to burnished gold was turned.</p> +<p>O how my heart with boyish passion burned,<br />When far away across +the sedge and mere<br />I saw that Holy City rising clear,<br />Crowned +with her crown of towers!—On and on<br />I galloped, racing with +the setting sun,<br />And ere the crimson after-glow was passed,<br />I +stood within Ravenna’s walls at last!</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>II.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>How strangely still! no sound of life or joy<br />Startles the air; +no laughing shepherd-boy<br />Pipes on his reed, nor ever through the +day<br />Comes the glad sound of children at their play:<br />O sad, +and sweet, and silent! surely here<br />A man might dwell apart from +troublous fear,<br />Watching the tide of seasons as they flow<br />From +amorous Spring to Winter’s rain and snow,<br />And have no thought +of sorrow;—here, indeed,<br />Are Lethe’s waters, and that +fatal weed<br />Which makes a man forget his fatherland.</p> +<p>Ay! amid lotus-meadows dost thou stand,<br />Like Proserpine, with +poppy-laden head,<br />Guarding the holy ashes of the dead.<br />For +though thy brood of warrior sons hath ceased,<br />Thy noble dead are +with thee!—they at least<br />Are faithful to thine honour:- guard +them well,<br />O childless city! for a mighty spell,<br />To wake men’s +hearts to dreams of things sublime,<br />Are the lone tombs where rest +the Great of Time.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>III.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Yon lonely pillar, rising on the plain,<br />Marks where the bravest +knight of France was slain,—<br />The Prince of chivalry, the +Lord of war,<br />Gaston de Foix: for some untimely star<br />Led him +against thy city, and he fell,<br />As falls some forest-lion fighting +well.<br />Taken from life while life and love were new,<br />He lies +beneath God’s seamless veil of blue;<br />Tall lance-like reeds +wave sadly o’er his head,<br />And oleanders bloom to deeper red,<br />Where +his bright youth flowed crimson on the ground.</p> +<p>Look farther north unto that broken mound,—<br />There, prisoned +now within a lordly tomb<br />Raised by a daughter’s hand, in +lonely gloom,<br />Huge-limbed Theodoric, the Gothic king,<br />Sleeps +after all his weary conquering.<br />Time hath not spared his ruin,—wind +and rain<br />Have broken down his stronghold; and again<br />We see +that Death is mighty lord of all,<br />And king and clown to ashen dust +must fall</p> +<p>Mighty indeed <i>their</i> glory! yet to me<br />Barbaric king, or +knight of chivalry,<br />Or the great queen herself, were poor and vain,<br />Beside +the grave where Dante rests from pain.<br />His gilded shrine lies open +to the air;<br />And cunning sculptor’s hands have carven there<br />The +calm white brow, as calm as earliest morn,<br />The eyes that flashed +with passionate love and scorn,<br />The lips that sang of Heaven and +of Hell,<br />The almond-face which Giotto drew so well,<br />The weary +face of Dante;—to this day,<br />Here in his place of resting, +far away<br />From Arno’s yellow waters, rushing down<br />Through +the wide bridges of that fairy town,<br />Where the tall tower of Giotto +seems to rise<br />A marble lily under sapphire skies!</p> +<p>Alas! my Dante! thou hast known the pain<br />Of meaner lives,—the +exile’s galling chain,<br />How steep the stairs within kings’ +houses are,<br />And all the petty miseries which mar<br />Man’s +nobler nature with the sense of wrong.<br />Yet this dull world is grateful +for thy song;<br />Our nations do thee homage,—even she,<br />That +cruel queen of vine-clad Tuscany,<br />Who bound with crown of thorns +thy living brow,<br />Hath decked thine empty tomb with laurels now,<br />And +begs in vain the ashes of her son.</p> +<p>O mightiest exile! all thy grief is done:<br />Thy soul walks now +beside thy Beatrice;<br />Ravenna guards thine ashes: sleep in peace.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>IV.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>How lone this palace is; how grey the walls!<br />No minstrel now +wakes echoes in these halls.<br />The broken chain lies rusting on the +door,<br />And noisome weeds have split the marble floor:<br />Here +lurks the snake, and here the lizards run<br />By the stone lions blinking +in the sun.<br />Byron dwelt here in love and revelry<br />For two long +years—a second Anthony,<br />Who of the world another Actium made!<br />Yet +suffered not his royal soul to fade,<br />Or lyre to break, or lance +to grow less keen,<br />’Neath any wiles of an Egyptian queen.<br />For +from the East there came a mighty cry,<br />And Greece stood up to fight +for Liberty,<br />And called him from Ravenna: never knight<br />Rode +forth more nobly to wild scenes of fight!<br />None fell more bravely +on ensanguined field,<br />Borne like a Spartan back upon his shield!<br />O +Hellas! Hellas! in thine hour of pride,<br />Thy day of might, +remember him who died<br />To wrest from off thy limbs the trammelling +chain:<br />O Salamis! O lone Plataean plain!<br />O tossing waves +of wild Euboean sea!<br />O wind-swept heights of lone Thermopylae!<br />He +loved you well—ay, not alone in word,<br />Who freely gave to +thee his lyre and sword,<br />Like AEschylos at well-fought Marathon:</p> +<p>And England, too, shall glory in her son,<br />Her warrior-poet, +first in song and fight.<br />No longer now shall Slander’s venomed +spite<br />Crawl like a snake across his perfect name,<br />Or mar the +lordly scutcheon of his fame.</p> +<p>For as the olive-garland of the race,<br />Which lights with joy +each eager runner’s face,<br />As the red cross which saveth men +in war,<br />As a flame-bearded beacon seen from far<br />By mariners +upon a storm-tossed sea,—<br />Such was his love for Greece and +Liberty!</p> +<p>Byron, thy crowns are ever fresh and green:<br />Red leaves of rose +from Sapphic Mitylene<br />Shall bind thy brows; the myrtle blooms for +thee,<br />In hidden glades by lonely Castaly;<br />The laurels wait +thy coming: all are thine,<br />And round thy head one perfect wreath +will twine.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>V.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>The pine-tops rocked before the evening breeze<br />With the hoarse +murmur of the wintry seas,<br />And the tall stems were streaked with +amber bright;—<br />I wandered through the wood in wild delight,<br />Some +startled bird, with fluttering wings and fleet,<br />Made snow of all +the blossoms; at my feet,<br />Like silver crowns, the pale narcissi +lay,<br />And small birds sang on every twining spray.<br />O waving +trees, O forest liberty!<br />Within your haunts at least a man is free,<br />And +half forgets the weary world of strife:<br />The blood flows hotter, +and a sense of life<br />Wakes i’ the quickening veins, while +once again<br />The woods are filled with gods we fancied slain.<br />Long +time I watched, and surely hoped to see<br />Some goat-foot Pan make +merry minstrelsy<br />Amid the reeds! some startled Dryad-maid<br />In +girlish flight! or lurking in the glade,<br />The soft brown limbs, +the wanton treacherous face<br />Of woodland god! Queen Dian in the +chase,<br />White-limbed and terrible, with look of pride,<br />And +leash of boar-hounds leaping at her side!<br />Or Hylas mirrored in +the perfect stream.</p> +<p>O idle heart! O fond Hellenic dream!<br />Ere long, with melancholy +rise and swell,<br />The evening chimes, the convent’s vesper +bell,<br />Struck on mine ears amid the amorous flowers.<br />Alas! +alas! these sweet and honied hours<br />Had whelmed my heart like some +encroaching sea,<br />And drowned all thoughts of black Gethsemane.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>VI.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>O lone Ravenna! many a tale is told<br />Of thy great glories in +the days of old:<br />Two thousand years have passed since thou didst +see<br />Caesar ride forth to royal victory.<br />Mighty thy name when +Rome’s lean eagles flew<br />From Britain’s isles to far +Euphrates blue;<br />And of the peoples thou wast noble queen,<br />Till +in thy streets the Goth and Hun were seen.<br />Discrowned by man, deserted +by the sea,<br />Thou sleepest, rocked in lonely misery!<br />No longer +now upon thy swelling tide,<br />Pine-forest-like, thy myriad galleys +ride!<br />For where the brass-beaked ships were wont to float,<br />The +weary shepherd pipes his mournful note;<br />And the white sheep are +free to come and go<br />Where Adria’s purple waters used to flow.</p> +<p>O fair! O sad! O Queen uncomforted!<br />In ruined loveliness +thou liest dead,<br />Alone of all thy sisters; for at last<br />Italia’s +royal warrior hath passed<br />Rome’s lordliest entrance, and +hath worn his crown<br />In the high temples of the Eternal Town!<br />The +Palatine hath welcomed back her king,<br />And with his name the seven +mountains ring!</p> +<p>And Naples hath outlived her dream of pain,<br />And mocks her tyrant! +Venice lives again,<br />New risen from the waters! and the cry<br />Of +Light and Truth, of Love and Liberty,<br />Is heard in lordly Genoa, +and where<br />The marble spires of Milan wound the air,<br />Rings +from the Alps to the Sicilian shore,<br />And Dante’s dream is +now a dream no more.</p> +<p>But thou, Ravenna, better loved than all,<br />Thy ruined palaces +are but a pall<br />That hides thy fallen greatness! and thy name<br />Burns +like a grey and flickering candle-flame<br />Beneath the noonday splendour +of the sun<br />Of new Italia! for the night is done,<br />The night +of dark oppression, and the day<br />Hath dawned in passionate splendour: +far away<br />The Austrian hounds are hunted from the land,<br />Beyond +those ice-crowned citadels which stand<br />Girdling the plain of royal +Lombardy,<br />From the far West unto the Eastern sea.</p> +<p>I know, indeed, that sons of thine have died<br />In Lissa’s +waters, by the mountain-side<br />Of Aspromonte, on Novara’s plain,—<br />Nor +have thy children died for thee in vain:<br />And yet, methinks, thou +hast not drunk this wine<br />From grapes new-crushed of Liberty divine,<br />Thou +hast not followed that immortal Star<br />Which leads the people forth +to deeds of war.<br />Weary of life, thou liest in silent sleep,<br />As +one who marks the lengthening shadows creep,<br />Careless of all the +hurrying hours that run,<br />Mourning some day of glory, for the sun<br />Of +Freedom hath not shewn to thee his face,<br />And thou hast caught no +flambeau in the race.</p> +<p>Yet wake not from thy slumbers,—rest thee well,<br />Amidst +thy fields of amber asphodel,<br />Thy lily-sprinkled meadows,—rest +thee there,<br />To mock all human greatness: who would dare<br />To +vent the paltry sorrows of his life<br />Before thy ruins, or to praise +the strife<br />Of kings’ ambition, and the barren pride<br />Of +warring nations! wert not thou the Bride<br />Of the wild Lord of Adria’s +stormy sea!<br />The Queen of double Empires! and to thee<br />Were +not the nations given as thy prey!<br />And now—thy gates lie +open night and day,<br />The grass grows green on every tower and hall,<br />The +ghastly fig hath cleft thy bastioned wall;<br />And where thy mailèd +warriors stood at rest<br />The midnight owl hath made her secret nest.<br />O +fallen! fallen! from thy high estate,<br />O city trammelled in the +toils of Fate,<br />Doth nought remain of all thy glorious days,<br />But +a dull shield, a crown of withered bays!</p> +<p>Yet who beneath this night of wars and fears,<br />From tranquil +tower can watch the coming years;<br />Who can foretell what joys the +day shall bring,<br />Or why before the dawn the linnets sing?<br />Thou, +even thou, mayst wake, as wakes the rose<br />To crimson splendour from +its grave of snows;<br />As the rich corn-fields rise to red and gold<br />From +these brown lands, now stiff with Winter’s cold;<br />As from +the storm-rack comes a perfect star!</p> +<p>O much-loved city! I have wandered far<br />From the wave-circled +islands of my home;<br />Have seen the gloomy mystery of the Dome<br />Rise +slowly from the drear Campagna’s way,<br />Clothed in the royal +purple of the day:<br />I from the city of the violet crown<br />Have +watched the sun by Corinth’s hill go down,<br />And marked the +‘myriad laughter’ of the sea<br />From starlit hills of +flower-starred Arcady;<br />Yet back to thee returns my perfect love,<br />As +to its forest-nest the evening dove.</p> +<p>O poet’s city! one who scarce has seen<br />Some twenty summers +cast their doublets green<br />For Autumn’s livery, would seek +in vain<br />To wake his lyre to sing a louder strain,<br />Or tell +thy days of glory;—poor indeed<br />Is the low murmur of the shepherd’s +reed,<br />Where the loud clarion’s blast should shake the sky,<br />And +flame across the heavens! and to try<br />Such lofty themes were folly: +yet I know<br />That never felt my heart a nobler glow<br />Than when +I woke the silence of thy street<br />With clamorous trampling of my +horse’s feet,<br />And saw the city which now I try to sing,<br />After +long days of weary travelling.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>VII.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div> +<p>Adieu, Ravenna! but a year ago,<br />I stood and watched the crimson +sunset glow<br />From the lone chapel on thy marshy plain:<br />The +sky was as a shield that caught the stain<br />Of blood and battle from +the dying sun,<br />And in the west the circling clouds had spun<br />A +royal robe, which some great God might wear,<br />While into ocean-seas +of purple air<br />Sank the gold galley of the Lord of Light.</p> +<p>Yet here the gentle stillness of the night<br />Brings back the swelling +tide of memory,<br />And wakes again my passionate love for thee:<br />Now +is the Spring of Love, yet soon will come<br />On meadow and tree the +Summer’s lordly bloom;<br />And soon the grass with brighter flowers +will blow,<br />And send up lilies for some boy to mow.<br />Then before +long the Summer’s conqueror,<br />Rich Autumn-time, the season’s +usurer,<br />Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,<br />And see +it scattered by the spendthrift breeze;<br />And after that the Winter +cold and drear.<br />So runs the perfect cycle of the year.<br />And +so from youth to manhood do we go,<br />And fall to weary days and locks +of snow.<br />Love only knows no winter; never dies:<br />Nor cares +for frowning storms or leaden skies<br />And mine for thee shall never +pass away,<br />Though my weak lips may falter in my lay.</p> +<p>Adieu! Adieu! yon silent evening star,<br />The night’s +ambassador, doth gleam afar,<br />And bid the shepherd bring his flocks +to fold.<br />Perchance before our inland seas of gold<br />Are garnered +by the reapers into sheaves,<br />Perchance before I see the Autumn +leaves,<br />I may behold thy city; and lay down<br />Low at thy feet +the poet’s laurel crown.</p> +<p>Adieu! Adieu! yon silver lamp, the moon,<br />Which turns our +midnight into perfect noon,<br />Doth surely light thy towers, guarding +well<br />Where Dante sleeps, where Byron loved to dwell.</p> +<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div> +<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, POEMS ***</p> +<pre> + +******This file should be named pmwld10h.htm or pmwld10h.zip****** +Corrected EDITIONS of our EBooks get a new NUMBER, pmwld11h.htm +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, pmwld10ah.htm + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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