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diff --git a/1057-0.txt b/1057-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..78896c5 --- /dev/null +++ b/1057-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6941 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Poems, by Oscar Wilde, Edited by Robert Ross + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Poems + with the Ballad of Reading Gaol + + +Author: Oscar Wilde + +Editor: Robert Ross + +Release Date: March 31, 2013 [eBook #1057] +[This file was first posted on September 24, 1997] +[Last updated: July 2, 2014] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS*** + + +Transcribed from the 1913 Methuen & Co. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + POEMS + BY + OSCAR WILDE + + + WITH THE BALLAD OF + READING GAOL + + * * * * * + + METHUEN & CO. LTD. + 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. + LONDON + + _Twelfth Edition_ + +_First Published_— + _Ravenna_ _1878_ + _Poems_ _1881_ + ,, _Fifth Edition_ _1882_ + _The Sphinx_ _1894_ + _The Ballad of Reading Gaol_ _1898_ +_First Issued by Methuen and Co._ (_Limited _March 1908_ +Editions on Handmade Paper and Japanese Vellum_) +_Seventh Edition_ (_F’cap. 8vo_). _September 1909_ +_Eighth Edition_ ( ,, ,, ) _November 1909_ +_Ninth Edition_ ( ,, ,, ) _December 1909_ +_Tenth Edition_ ( ,, ,, ) _November 1910_ +_Eleventh Edition_ ( ,, ,, ) _December 1911_ +_Twelfth Edition_ ( ,, ,, ) _April 1913_ + + + +NOTE + + +_This collection of Wilde’s Poems contains the volume of_ 1881 _in its +entirety_, ‘_The Sphinx_’, ‘_The Ballad of Reading Gaol_,’ _and_ +‘_Ravenna_.’ _Of the Uncollected Poems published in the Uniform Edition +of_ 1908, _a few_, _including the Translations from the Greek and the +Polish_, _are omitted_. _Two new poems_, ‘_Désespoir_’ _and_ ‘_Pan_,’_ +which I have recently discovered in manuscript_, _are now printed for the +first time_. _Particulars as to the original publication of each poem +will be found in_ ‘_A Bibliography of the Poems of Oscar Wilde_,’ _by +Stuart Mason_, _London_ 1907. + + _ROBERT ROSS_. + + + + +CONTENTS + +POEMS (1881): PAGE + Hélas! 3 + ELEUTHERIA: + Sonnet To Liberty 7 + Ave Imperatrix 8 + To Milton 14 + Louis Napoleon 15 + Sonnet on the Massacre of the Christians in 16 + Bulgaria + Quantum Mutata 17 + Libertatis Sacra Fames 18 + Theoretikos 19 + THE GARDEN OF EROS 21 + ROSA MYSTICA: + Requiescat 39 + Sonnet on approaching Italy 40 + San Miniato 41 + Ave Maria Gratia Plena 42 + Italia 43 + Sonnet written in Holy Week at Genoa 44 + Rome Unvisited 45 + Urbs Sacra Æterna 49 + Sonnet on hearing the Dies Iræ sung in the Sistine 50 + Chapel + Easter Day 51 + E Tenebris 52 + Vita Nuova 53 + Madonna Mia 54 + The New Helen 55 + THE BURDEN OF ITYS 61 + WIND FLOWERS: + Impression du Matin 83 + Magdalen Walks 84 + Athanasia 86 + Serenade 89 + Endymion 91 + La Bella Donna della mia Mente 93 + Chanson 95 + CHARMIDES 97 + FLOWERS OF GOLD: + Impressions: I. Les Silhouettes 135 + II. La Fuite de la Lune 136 + The Grave of Keats 137 + Theocritus: A Villanelle 138 + In the Gold Room: A Harmony 139 + Ballade de Marguerite 140 + The Dole of the King’s Daughter 143 + Amor Intellectualis 145 + Santa Decca 146 + A Vision 147 + Impression de Voyage 148 + The Grave of Shelley 149 + By the Arno 150 + IMPRESSIONS DE THÉÀTRE: + Fabien dei Franchi 155 + Phèdre 156 + Sonnets written at the Lyceum Theatre + I. Portia 157 + II. Queen Henrietta Maria 158 + III. Camma 159 + PANTHEA 161 + THE FOURTH MOVEMENT: + Impression: Le Réveillon 175 + At Verona 176 + Apologia 177 + Quia Multum Amavi 179 + Silentium Amoris 180 + Her Voice 181 + My Voice 183 + Tædium Vitæ 184 + HUMANITAD 185 + FLOWER OF LOVE: + ΓΛΥΚΥΠΙΚΡΟΣ ΕΡΩΣ 211 +UNCOLLECTED POEMS (1876–1893): + From Spring Days to Winter 217 + Tristitiæ 219 + The True Knowledge 220 + Impressions: I. Le Jardin 221 + II. La Mer 222 + Under the Balcony 223 + The Harlot’s House 225 + Le Jardin des Tuileries 227 + On the Sale by Auction of Keats’ Love Letters 228 + The New Remorse 229 + Fantasisies Décoratives: I. Le Panneau 230 + II. Les Ballons 232 + Canzonet 233 + Symphony in Yellow 235 + In the Forest 236 + To my Wife: With a Copy of my Poems 237 + With a Copy of ‘A House of Pomegranates’ 238 + Roses and Rue 239 + Désespoir 242 + Pan: Double Villanelle 243 +THE SPHINX (1894) 245 +THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL (1898) 269 +RAVENNA (1878) 305 + + + + +POEMS + + +HÉLAS! + + + TO _drift with every passion till my soul_ + _Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play_, + _Is it for this that I have given away_ + _Mine ancient wisdom, and austere control_? + _Methinks my life is a twice-written scroll_ + _Scrawled over on some boyish holiday_ + _With idle songs for pipe and virelay_, + _Which do but mar the secret of the whole_. + _Surely there was a time I might have trod_ + _The sunlit heights, and from life’s dissonance_ + _Struck one clear chord to reach the ears of God_: + _Is that time dead_? _lo_! _with a little rod_ + _I did but touch the honey of romance_— + _And must I lose a soul’s inheritance_? + + + +ELEUTHERIA + + +SONNET TO LIBERTY + + + NOT that I love thy children, whose dull eyes + See nothing save their own unlovely woe, + Whose minds know nothing, nothing care to know,— + But that the roar of thy Democracies, + Thy reigns of Terror, thy great Anarchies, + Mirror my wildest passions like the sea + And give my rage a brother—! Liberty! + For this sake only do thy dissonant cries + Delight my discreet soul, else might all kings + By bloody knout or treacherous cannonades + Rob nations of their rights inviolate + And I remain unmoved—and yet, and yet, + These Christs that die upon the barricades, + God knows it I am with them, in some things. + + +AVE IMPERATRIX + + + SET in this stormy Northern sea, + Queen of these restless fields of tide, + England! what shall men say of thee, + Before whose feet the worlds divide? + + The earth, a brittle globe of glass, + Lies in the hollow of thy hand, + And through its heart of crystal pass, + Like shadows through a twilight land, + + The spears of crimson-suited war, + The long white-crested waves of fight, + And all the deadly fires which are + The torches of the lords of Night. + + The yellow leopards, strained and lean, + The treacherous Russian knows so well, + With gaping blackened jaws are seen + Leap through the hail of screaming shell. + + The strong sea-lion of England’s wars + Hath left his sapphire cave of sea, + To battle with the storm that mars + The stars of England’s chivalry. + + The brazen-throated clarion blows + Across the Pathan’s reedy fen, + And the high steeps of Indian snows + Shake to the tread of armèd men. + + And many an Afghan chief, who lies + Beneath his cool pomegranate-trees, + Clutches his sword in fierce surmise + When on the mountain-side he sees + + The fleet-foot Marri scout, who comes + To tell how he hath heard afar + The measured roll of English drums + Beat at the gates of Kandahar. + + For southern wind and east wind meet + Where, girt and crowned by sword and fire, + England with bare and bloody feet + Climbs the steep road of wide empire. + + O lonely Himalayan height, + Grey pillar of the Indian sky, + Where saw’st thou last in clanging flight + Our wingèd dogs of Victory? + + The almond-groves of Samarcand, + Bokhara, where red lilies blow, + And Oxus, by whose yellow sand + The grave white-turbaned merchants go: + + And on from thence to Ispahan, + The gilded garden of the sun, + Whence the long dusty caravan + Brings cedar wood and vermilion; + + And that dread city of Cabool + Set at the mountain’s scarpèd feet, + Whose marble tanks are ever full + With water for the noonday heat: + + Where through the narrow straight Bazaar + A little maid Circassian + Is led, a present from the Czar + Unto some old and bearded khan,— + + Here have our wild war-eagles flown, + And flapped wide wings in fiery fight; + But the sad dove, that sits alone + In England—she hath no delight. + + In vain the laughing girl will lean + To greet her love with love-lit eyes: + Down in some treacherous black ravine, + Clutching his flag, the dead boy lies. + + And many a moon and sun will see + The lingering wistful children wait + To climb upon their father’s knee; + And in each house made desolate + + Pale women who have lost their lord + Will kiss the relics of the slain— + Some tarnished epaulette—some sword— + Poor toys to soothe such anguished pain. + + For not in quiet English fields + Are these, our brothers, lain to rest, + Where we might deck their broken shields + With all the flowers the dead love best. + + For some are by the Delhi walls, + And many in the Afghan land, + And many where the Ganges falls + Through seven mouths of shifting sand. + + And some in Russian waters lie, + And others in the seas which are + The portals to the East, or by + The wind-swept heights of Trafalgar. + + O wandering graves! O restless sleep! + O silence of the sunless day! + O still ravine! O stormy deep! + Give up your prey! Give up your prey! + + And thou whose wounds are never healed, + Whose weary race is never won, + O Cromwell’s England! must thou yield + For every inch of ground a son? + + Go! crown with thorns thy gold-crowned head, + Change thy glad song to song of pain; + Wind and wild wave have got thy dead, + And will not yield them back again. + + Wave and wild wind and foreign shore + Possess the flower of English land— + Lips that thy lips shall kiss no more, + Hands that shall never clasp thy hand. + + What profit now that we have bound + The whole round world with nets of gold, + If hidden in our heart is found + The care that groweth never old? + + What profit that our galleys ride, + Pine-forest-like, on every main? + Ruin and wreck are at our side, + Grim warders of the House of Pain. + + Where are the brave, the strong, the fleet? + Where is our English chivalry? + Wild grasses are their burial-sheet, + And sobbing waves their threnody. + + O loved ones lying far away, + What word of love can dead lips send! + O wasted dust! O senseless clay! + Is this the end! is this the end! + + Peace, peace! we wrong the noble dead + To vex their solemn slumber so; + Though childless, and with thorn-crowned head, + Up the steep road must England go, + + Yet when this fiery web is spun, + Her watchmen shall descry from far + The young Republic like a sun + Rise from these crimson seas of war. + + +TO MILTON + + + MILTON! I think thy spirit hath passed away + From these white cliffs and high-embattled towers; + This gorgeous fiery-coloured world of ours + Seems fallen into ashes dull and grey, + And the age changed unto a mimic play + Wherein we waste our else too-crowded hours: + For all our pomp and pageantry and powers + We are but fit to delve the common clay, + Seeing this little isle on which we stand, + This England, this sea-lion of the sea, + By ignorant demagogues is held in fee, + Who love her not: Dear God! is this the land + Which bare a triple empire in her hand + When Cromwell spake the word Democracy! + + +LOUIS NAPOLEON + + + EAGLE of Austerlitz! where were thy wings + When far away upon a barbarous strand, + In fight unequal, by an obscure hand, + Fell the last scion of thy brood of Kings! + + Poor boy! thou shalt not flaunt thy cloak of red, + Or ride in state through Paris in the van + Of thy returning legions, but instead + Thy mother France, free and republican, + + Shall on thy dead and crownless forehead place + The better laurels of a soldier’s crown, + That not dishonoured should thy soul go down + To tell the mighty Sire of thy race + + That France hath kissed the mouth of Liberty, + And found it sweeter than his honied bees, + And that the giant wave Democracy + Breaks on the shores where Kings lay couched at ease. + + +SONNET + + + ON THE MASSACRE OF THE CHRISTIANS IN BULGARIA + + CHRIST, dost Thou live indeed? or are Thy bones + Still straitened in their rock-hewn sepulchre? + And was Thy Rising only dreamed by her + Whose love of Thee for all her sin atones? + For here the air is horrid with men’s groans, + The priests who call upon Thy name are slain, + Dost Thou not hear the bitter wail of pain + From those whose children lie upon the stones? + Come down, O Son of God! incestuous gloom + Curtains the land, and through the starless night + Over Thy Cross a Crescent moon I see! + If Thou in very truth didst burst the tomb + Come down, O Son of Man! and show Thy might + Lest Mahomet be crowned instead of Thee! + + +QUANTUM MUTATA + + + THERE was a time in Europe long ago + When no man died for freedom anywhere, + But England’s lion leaping from its lair + Laid hands on the oppressor! it was so + While England could a great Republic show. + Witness the men of Piedmont, chiefest care + Of Cromwell, when with impotent despair + The Pontiff in his painted portico + Trembled before our stern ambassadors. + How comes it then that from such high estate + We have thus fallen, save that Luxury + With barren merchandise piles up the gate + Where noble thoughts and deeds should enter by: + Else might we still be Milton’s heritors. + + +LIBERTATIS SACRA FAMES + + + ALBEIT nurtured in democracy, + And liking best that state republican + Where every man is Kinglike and no man + Is crowned above his fellows, yet I see, + Spite of this modern fret for Liberty, + Better the rule of One, whom all obey, + Than to let clamorous demagogues betray + Our freedom with the kiss of anarchy. + Wherefore I love them not whose hands profane + Plant the red flag upon the piled-up street + For no right cause, beneath whose ignorant reign + Arts, Culture, Reverence, Honour, all things fade, + Save Treason and the dagger of her trade, + Or Murder with his silent bloody feet. + + +THEORETIKOS + + + THIS mighty empire hath but feet of clay: + Of all its ancient chivalry and might + Our little island is forsaken quite: + Some enemy hath stolen its crown of bay, + And from its hills that voice hath passed away + Which spake of Freedom: O come out of it, + Come out of it, my Soul, thou art not fit + For this vile traffic-house, where day by day + Wisdom and reverence are sold at mart, + And the rude people rage with ignorant cries + Against an heritage of centuries. + It mars my calm: wherefore in dreams of Art + And loftiest culture I would stand apart, + Neither for God, nor for his enemies. + + + +THE GARDEN OF EROS + + + IT is full summer now, the heart of June; + Not yet the sunburnt reapers are astir + Upon the upland meadow where too soon + Rich autumn time, the season’s usurer, + Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees, + And see his treasure scattered by the wild and spendthrift breeze. + + Too soon indeed! yet here the daffodil, + That love-child of the Spring, has lingered on + To vex the rose with jealousy, and still + The harebell spreads her azure pavilion, + And like a strayed and wandering reveller + Abandoned of its brothers, whom long since June’s messenger + + The missel-thrush has frighted from the glade, + One pale narcissus loiters fearfully + Close to a shadowy nook, where half afraid + Of their own loveliness some violets lie + That will not look the gold sun in the face + For fear of too much splendour,—ah! methinks it is a place + + Which should be trodden by Persephone + When wearied of the flowerless fields of Dis! + Or danced on by the lads of Arcady! + The hidden secret of eternal bliss + Known to the Grecian here a man might find, + Ah! you and I may find it now if Love and Sleep be kind. + + There are the flowers which mourning Herakles + Strewed on the tomb of Hylas, columbine, + Its white doves all a-flutter where the breeze + Kissed them too harshly, the small celandine, + That yellow-kirtled chorister of eve, + And lilac lady’s-smock,—but let them bloom alone, and leave + + Yon spirèd hollyhock red-crocketed + To sway its silent chimes, else must the bee, + Its little bellringer, go seek instead + Some other pleasaunce; the anemone + That weeps at daybreak, like a silly girl + Before her love, and hardly lets the butterflies unfurl + + Their painted wings beside it,—bid it pine + In pale virginity; the winter snow + Will suit it better than those lips of thine + Whose fires would but scorch it, rather go + And pluck that amorous flower which blooms alone, + Fed by the pander wind with dust of kisses not its own. + + The trumpet-mouths of red convolvulus + So dear to maidens, creamy meadow-sweet + Whiter than Juno’s throat and odorous + As all Arabia, hyacinths the feet + Of Huntress Dian would be loth to mar + For any dappled fawn,—pluck these, and those fond flowers which are + + Fairer than what Queen Venus trod upon + Beneath the pines of Ida, eucharis, + That morning star which does not dread the sun, + And budding marjoram which but to kiss + Would sweeten Cytheræa’s lips and make + Adonis jealous,—these for thy head,—and for thy girdle take + + Yon curving spray of purple clematis + Whose gorgeous dye outflames the Tyrian King, + And foxgloves with their nodding chalices, + But that one narciss which the startled Spring + Let from her kirtle fall when first she heard + In her own woods the wild tempestuous song of summer’s bird, + + Ah! leave it for a subtle memory + Of those sweet tremulous days of rain and sun, + When April laughed between her tears to see + The early primrose with shy footsteps run + From the gnarled oak-tree roots till all the wold, + Spite of its brown and trampled leaves, grew bright with shimmering + gold. + + Nay, pluck it too, it is not half so sweet + As thou thyself, my soul’s idolatry! + And when thou art a-wearied at thy feet + Shall oxlips weave their brightest tapestry, + For thee the woodbine shall forget its pride + And veil its tangled whorls, and thou shalt walk on daisies pied. + + And I will cut a reed by yonder spring + And make the wood-gods jealous, and old Pan + Wonder what young intruder dares to sing + In these still haunts, where never foot of man + Should tread at evening, lest he chance to spy + The marble limbs of Artemis and all her company. + + And I will tell thee why the jacinth wears + Such dread embroidery of dolorous moan, + And why the hapless nightingale forbears + To sing her song at noon, but weeps alone + When the fleet swallow sleeps, and rich men feast, + And why the laurel trembles when she sees the lightening east. + + And I will sing how sad Proserpina + Unto a grave and gloomy Lord was wed, + And lure the silver-breasted Helena + Back from the lotus meadows of the dead, + So shalt thou see that awful loveliness + For which two mighty Hosts met fearfully in war’s abyss! + + And then I’ll pipe to thee that Grecian tale + How Cynthia loves the lad Endymion, + And hidden in a grey and misty veil + Hies to the cliffs of Latmos once the Sun + Leaps from his ocean bed in fruitless chase + Of those pale flying feet which fade away in his embrace. + + And if my flute can breathe sweet melody, + We may behold Her face who long ago + Dwelt among men by the Ægean sea, + And whose sad house with pillaged portico + And friezeless wall and columns toppled down + Looms o’er the ruins of that fair and violet cinctured town. + + Spirit of Beauty! tarry still awhile, + They are not dead, thine ancient votaries; + Some few there are to whom thy radiant smile + Is better than a thousand victories, + Though all the nobly slain of Waterloo + Rise up in wrath against them! tarry still, there are a few + + Who for thy sake would give their manlihood + And consecrate their being; I at least + Have done so, made thy lips my daily food, + And in thy temples found a goodlier feast + Than this starved age can give me, spite of all + Its new-found creeds so sceptical and so dogmatical. + + Here not Cephissos, not Ilissos flows, + The woods of white Colonos are not here, + On our bleak hills the olive never blows, + No simple priest conducts his lowing steer + Up the steep marble way, nor through the town + Do laughing maidens bear to thee the crocus-flowered gown. + + Yet tarry! for the boy who loved thee best, + Whose very name should be a memory + To make thee linger, sleeps in silent rest + Beneath the Roman walls, and melody + Still mourns her sweetest lyre; none can play + The lute of Adonais: with his lips Song passed away. + + Nay, when Keats died the Muses still had left + One silver voice to sing his threnody, + But ah! too soon of it we were bereft + When on that riven night and stormy sea + Panthea claimed her singer as her own, + And slew the mouth that praised her; since which time we walk alone, + + Save for that fiery heart, that morning star + Of re-arisen England, whose clear eye + Saw from our tottering throne and waste of war + The grand Greek limbs of young Democracy + Rise mightily like Hesperus and bring + The great Republic! him at least thy love hath taught to sing, + + And he hath been with thee at Thessaly, + And seen white Atalanta fleet of foot + In passionless and fierce virginity + Hunting the tuskèd boar, his honied lute + Hath pierced the cavern of the hollow hill, + And Venus laughs to know one knee will bow before her still. + + And he hath kissed the lips of Proserpine, + And sung the Galilæan’s requiem, + That wounded forehead dashed with blood and wine + He hath discrowned, the Ancient Gods in him + Have found their last, most ardent worshipper, + And the new Sign grows grey and dim before its conqueror. + + Spirit of Beauty! tarry with us still, + It is not quenched the torch of poesy, + The star that shook above the Eastern hill + Holds unassailed its argent armoury + From all the gathering gloom and fretful fight— + O tarry with us still! for through the long and common night, + + Morris, our sweet and simple Chaucer’s child, + Dear heritor of Spenser’s tuneful reed, + With soft and sylvan pipe has oft beguiled + The weary soul of man in troublous need, + And from the far and flowerless fields of ice + Has brought fair flowers to make an earthly paradise. + + We know them all, Gudrun the strong men’s bride, + Aslaug and Olafson we know them all, + How giant Grettir fought and Sigurd died, + And what enchantment held the king in thrall + When lonely Brynhild wrestled with the powers + That war against all passion, ah! how oft through summer hours, + + Long listless summer hours when the noon + Being enamoured of a damask rose + Forgets to journey westward, till the moon + The pale usurper of its tribute grows + From a thin sickle to a silver shield + And chides its loitering car—how oft, in some cool grassy field + + Far from the cricket-ground and noisy eight, + At Bagley, where the rustling bluebells come + Almost before the blackbird finds a mate + And overstay the swallow, and the hum + Of many murmuring bees flits through the leaves, + Have I lain poring on the dreamy tales his fancy weaves, + + And through their unreal woes and mimic pain + Wept for myself, and so was purified, + And in their simple mirth grew glad again; + For as I sailed upon that pictured tide + The strength and splendour of the storm was mine + Without the storm’s red ruin, for the singer is divine; + + The little laugh of water falling down + Is not so musical, the clammy gold + Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town + Has less of sweetness in it, and the old + Half-withered reeds that waved in Arcady + Touched by his lips break forth again to fresher harmony. + + Spirit of Beauty, tarry yet awhile! + Although the cheating merchants of the mart + With iron roads profane our lovely isle, + And break on whirling wheels the limbs of Art, + Ay! though the crowded factories beget + The blindworm Ignorance that slays the soul, O tarry yet! + + For One at least there is,—He bears his name + From Dante and the seraph Gabriel,— + Whose double laurels burn with deathless flame + To light thine altar; He too loves thee well, + Who saw old Merlin lured in Vivien’s snare, + And the white feet of angels coming down the golden stair, + + Loves thee so well, that all the World for him + A gorgeous-coloured vestiture must wear, + And Sorrow take a purple diadem, + Or else be no more Sorrow, and Despair + Gild its own thorns, and Pain, like Adon, be + Even in anguish beautiful;—such is the empery + + Which Painters hold, and such the heritage + This gentle solemn Spirit doth possess, + Being a better mirror of his age + In all his pity, love, and weariness, + Than those who can but copy common things, + And leave the Soul unpainted with its mighty questionings. + + But they are few, and all romance has flown, + And men can prophesy about the sun, + And lecture on his arrows—how, alone, + Through a waste void the soulless atoms run, + How from each tree its weeping nymph has fled, + And that no more ’mid English reeds a Naiad shows her head. + + Methinks these new Actæons boast too soon + That they have spied on beauty; what if we + Have analysed the rainbow, robbed the moon + Of her most ancient, chastest mystery, + Shall I, the last Endymion, lose all hope + Because rude eyes peer at my mistress through a telescope! + + What profit if this scientific age + Burst through our gates with all its retinue + Of modern miracles! Can it assuage + One lover’s breaking heart? what can it do + To make one life more beautiful, one day + More godlike in its period? but now the Age of Clay + + Returns in horrid cycle, and the earth + Hath borne again a noisy progeny + Of ignorant Titans, whose ungodly birth + Hurls them against the august hierarchy + Which sat upon Olympus; to the Dust + They have appealed, and to that barren arbiter they must + + Repair for judgment; let them, if they can, + From Natural Warfare and insensate Chance, + Create the new Ideal rule for man! + Methinks that was not my inheritance; + For I was nurtured otherwise, my soul + Passes from higher heights of life to a more supreme goal. + + Lo! while we spake the earth did turn away + Her visage from the God, and Hecate’s boat + Rose silver-laden, till the jealous day + Blew all its torches out: I did not note + The waning hours, to young Endymions + Time’s palsied fingers count in vain his rosary of suns! + + Mark how the yellow iris wearily + Leans back its throat, as though it would be kissed + By its false chamberer, the dragon-fly, + Who, like a blue vein on a girl’s white wrist, + Sleeps on that snowy primrose of the night, + Which ’gins to flush with crimson shame, and die beneath the light. + + Come let us go, against the pallid shield + Of the wan sky the almond blossoms gleam, + The corncrake nested in the unmown field + Answers its mate, across the misty stream + On fitful wing the startled curlews fly, + And in his sedgy bed the lark, for joy that Day is nigh, + + Scatters the pearlèd dew from off the grass, + In tremulous ecstasy to greet the sun, + Who soon in gilded panoply will pass + Forth from yon orange-curtained pavilion + Hung in the burning east: see, the red rim + O’ertops the expectant hills! it is the God! for love of him + + Already the shrill lark is out of sight, + Flooding with waves of song this silent dell,— + Ah! there is something more in that bird’s flight + Than could be tested in a crucible!— + But the air freshens, let us go, why soon + The woodmen will be here; how we have lived this night of June! + + + +ROSA MYSTICA + + +REQUIESCAT + + + TREAD lightly, she is near + Under the snow, + Speak gently, she can hear + The daisies grow. + + All her bright golden hair + Tarnished with rust, + She that was young and fair + Fallen to dust. + + Lily-like, white as snow, + She hardly knew + She was a woman, so + Sweetly she grew. + + Coffin-board, heavy stone, + Lie on her breast, + I vex my heart alone, + She is at rest. + + Peace, Peace, she cannot hear + Lyre or sonnet, + All my life’s buried here, + Heap earth upon it. + +AVIGNON. + + +SONNET ON APPROACHING ITALY + + + I REACHED the Alps: the soul within me burned, + Italia, my Italia, at thy name: + And when from out the mountain’s heart I came + And saw the land for which my life had yearned, + I laughed as one who some great prize had earned: + And musing on the marvel of thy fame + I watched the day, till marked with wounds of flame + The turquoise sky to burnished gold was turned. + The pine-trees waved as waves a woman’s hair, + And in the orchards every twining spray + Was breaking into flakes of blossoming foam: + But when I knew that far away at Rome + In evil bonds a second Peter lay, + I wept to see the land so very fair. + +TURIN. + + +SAN MINIATO + + + SEE, I have climbed the mountain side + Up to this holy house of God, + Where once that Angel-Painter trod + Who saw the heavens opened wide, + + And throned upon the crescent moon + The Virginal white Queen of Grace,— + Mary! could I but see thy face + Death could not come at all too soon. + + O crowned by God with thorns and pain! + Mother of Christ! O mystic wife! + My heart is weary of this life + And over-sad to sing again. + + O crowned by God with love and flame! + O crowned by Christ the Holy One! + O listen ere the searching sun + Show to the world my sin and shame. + + +AVE MARIA GRATIA PLENA + + + WAS this His coming! I had hoped to see + A scene of wondrous glory, as was told + Of some great God who in a rain of gold + Broke open bars and fell on Danae: + Or a dread vision as when Semele + Sickening for love and unappeased desire + Prayed to see God’s clear body, and the fire + Caught her brown limbs and slew her utterly: + With such glad dreams I sought this holy place, + And now with wondering eyes and heart I stand + Before this supreme mystery of Love: + Some kneeling girl with passionless pale face, + An angel with a lily in his hand, + And over both the white wings of a Dove. + +FLORENCE. + + +ITALIA + + + ITALIA! thou art fallen, though with sheen + Of battle-spears thy clamorous armies stride + From the north Alps to the Sicilian tide! + Ay! fallen, though the nations hail thee Queen + Because rich gold in every town is seen, + And on thy sapphire-lake in tossing pride + Of wind-filled vans thy myriad galleys ride + Beneath one flag of red and white and green. + O Fair and Strong! O Strong and Fair in vain! + Look southward where Rome’s desecrated town + Lies mourning for her God-anointed King! + Look heaven-ward! shall God allow this thing? + Nay! but some flame-girt Raphael shall come down, + And smite the Spoiler with the sword of pain. + +VENICE. + + +SONNET + + + WRITTEN IN HOLY WEEK AT GENOA + + I WANDERED through Scoglietto’s far retreat, + The oranges on each o’erhanging spray + Burned as bright lamps of gold to shame the day; + Some startled bird with fluttering wings and fleet + Made snow of all the blossoms; at my feet + Like silver moons the pale narcissi lay: + And the curved waves that streaked the great green bay + Laughed i’ the sun, and life seemed very sweet. + Outside the young boy-priest passed singing clear, + ‘Jesus the son of Mary has been slain, + O come and fill His sepulchre with flowers.’ + Ah, God! Ah, God! those dear Hellenic hours + Had drowned all memory of Thy bitter pain, + The Cross, the Crown, the Soldiers and the Spear. + + +ROME UNVISITED + + + I. + + THE corn has turned from grey to red, + Since first my spirit wandered forth + From the drear cities of the north, + And to Italia’s mountains fled. + + And here I set my face towards home, + For all my pilgrimage is done, + Although, methinks, yon blood-red sun + Marshals the way to Holy Rome. + + O Blessed Lady, who dost hold + Upon the seven hills thy reign! + O Mother without blot or stain, + Crowned with bright crowns of triple gold! + + O Roma, Roma, at thy feet + I lay this barren gift of song! + For, ah! the way is steep and long + That leads unto thy sacred street. + + II. + + AND yet what joy it were for me + To turn my feet unto the south, + And journeying towards the Tiber mouth + To kneel again at Fiesole! + + And wandering through the tangled pines + That break the gold of Arno’s stream, + To see the purple mist and gleam + Of morning on the Apennines + + By many a vineyard-hidden home, + Orchard and olive-garden grey, + Till from the drear Campagna’s way + The seven hills bear up the dome! + + III. + + A PILGRIM from the northern seas— + What joy for me to seek alone + The wondrous temple and the throne + Of him who holds the awful keys! + + When, bright with purple and with gold + Come priest and holy cardinal, + And borne above the heads of all + The gentle Shepherd of the Fold. + + O joy to see before I die + The only God-anointed king, + And hear the silver trumpets ring + A triumph as he passes by! + + Or at the brazen-pillared shrine + Holds high the mystic sacrifice, + And shows his God to human eyes + Beneath the veil of bread and wine. + + IV. + + FOR lo, what changes time can bring! + The cycles of revolving years + May free my heart from all its fears, + And teach my lips a song to sing. + + Before yon field of trembling gold + Is garnered into dusty sheaves, + Or ere the autumn’s scarlet leaves + Flutter as birds adown the wold, + + I may have run the glorious race, + And caught the torch while yet aflame, + And called upon the holy name + Of Him who now doth hide His face. + +ARONA. + + +URBS SACRA ÆTERNA + + + ROME! what a scroll of History thine has been; + In the first days thy sword republican + Ruled the whole world for many an age’s span: + Then of the peoples wert thou royal Queen, + Till in thy streets the bearded Goth was seen; + And now upon thy walls the breezes fan + (Ah, city crowned by God, discrowned by man!) + The hated flag of red and white and green. + When was thy glory! when in search for power + Thine eagles flew to greet the double sun, + And the wild nations shuddered at thy rod? + Nay, but thy glory tarried for this hour, + When pilgrims kneel before the Holy One, + The prisoned shepherd of the Church of God. + +MONTRE MARIO. + + +SONNET + + + ON HEARING THE DIES IRÆ SUNG IN THE SISTINE CHAPEL + + NAY, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring, + Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove, + Teach me more clearly of Thy life and love + Than terrors of red flame and thundering. + The hillside vines dear memories of Thee bring: + A bird at evening flying to its nest + Tells me of One who had no place of rest: + I think it is of Thee the sparrows sing. + Come rather on some autumn afternoon, + When red and brown are burnished on the leaves, + And the fields echo to the gleaner’s song, + Come when the splendid fulness of the moon + Looks down upon the rows of golden sheaves, + And reap Thy harvest: we have waited long. + + +EASTER DAY + + + THE silver trumpets rang across the Dome: + The people knelt upon the ground with awe: + And borne upon the necks of men I saw, + Like some great God, the Holy Lord of Rome. + Priest-like, he wore a robe more white than foam, + And, king-like, swathed himself in royal red, + Three crowns of gold rose high upon his head: + In splendour and in light the Pope passed home. + My heart stole back across wide wastes of years + To One who wandered by a lonely sea, + And sought in vain for any place of rest: + ‘Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest. + I, only I, must wander wearily, + And bruise my feet, and drink wine salt with tears.’ + + +E TENEBRIS + + + COME down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand, + For I am drowning in a stormier sea + Than Simon on Thy lake of Galilee: + The wine of life is spilt upon the sand, + My heart is as some famine-murdered land + Whence all good things have perished utterly, + And well I know my soul in Hell must lie + If I this night before God’s throne should stand. + ‘He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase, + Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name + From morn to noon on Carmel’s smitten height.’ + Nay, peace, I shall behold, before the night, + The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame, + The wounded hands, the weary human face. + + +VITA NUOVA + + + I STOOD by the unvintageable sea + Till the wet waves drenched face and hair with spray; + The long red fires of the dying day + Burned in the west; the wind piped drearily; + And to the land the clamorous gulls did flee: + ‘Alas!’ I cried, ‘my life is full of pain, + And who can garner fruit or golden grain + From these waste fields which travail ceaselessly!’ + My nets gaped wide with many a break and flaw, + Nathless I threw them as my final cast + Into the sea, and waited for the end. + When lo! a sudden glory! and I saw + From the black waters of my tortured past + The argent splendour of white limbs ascend! + + +MADONNA MIA + + + A LILY-GIRL, not made for this world’s pain, + With brown, soft hair close braided by her ears, + And longing eyes half veiled by slumberous tears + Like bluest water seen through mists of rain: + Pale cheeks whereon no love hath left its stain, + Red underlip drawn in for fear of love, + And white throat, whiter than the silvered dove, + Through whose wan marble creeps one purple vein. + Yet, though my lips shall praise her without cease, + Even to kiss her feet I am not bold, + Being o’ershadowed by the wings of awe, + Like Dante, when he stood with Beatrice + Beneath the flaming Lion’s breast, and saw + The seventh Crystal, and the Stair of Gold. + + +THE NEW HELEN + + + WHERE hast thou been since round the walls of Troy + The sons of God fought in that great emprise? + Why dost thou walk our common earth again? + Hast thou forgotten that impassioned boy, + His purple galley and his Tyrian men + And treacherous Aphrodite’s mocking eyes? + For surely it was thou, who, like a star + Hung in the silver silence of the night, + Didst lure the Old World’s chivalry and might + Into the clamorous crimson waves of war! + + Or didst thou rule the fire-laden moon? + In amorous Sidon was thy temple built + Over the light and laughter of the sea + Where, behind lattice scarlet-wrought and gilt, + Some brown-limbed girl did weave thee tapestry, + All through the waste and wearied hours of noon; + Till her wan cheek with flame of passion burned, + And she rose up the sea-washed lips to kiss + Of some glad Cyprian sailor, safe returned + From Calpé and the cliffs of Herakles! + + No! thou art Helen, and none other one! + It was for thee that young Sarpedôn died, + And Memnôn’s manhood was untimely spent; + It was for thee gold-crested Hector tried + With Thetis’ child that evil race to run, + In the last year of thy beleaguerment; + Ay! even now the glory of thy fame + Burns in those fields of trampled asphodel, + Where the high lords whom Ilion knew so well + Clash ghostly shields, and call upon thy name. + + Where hast thou been? in that enchanted land + Whose slumbering vales forlorn Calypso knew, + Where never mower rose at break of day + But all unswathed the trammelling grasses grew, + And the sad shepherd saw the tall corn stand + Till summer’s red had changed to withered grey? + Didst thou lie there by some Lethæan stream + Deep brooding on thine ancient memory, + The crash of broken spears, the fiery gleam + From shivered helm, the Grecian battle-cry? + + Nay, thou wert hidden in that hollow hill + With one who is forgotten utterly, + That discrowned Queen men call the Erycine; + Hidden away that never mightst thou see + The face of Her, before whose mouldering shrine + To-day at Rome the silent nations kneel; + Who gat from Love no joyous gladdening, + But only Love’s intolerable pain, + Only a sword to pierce her heart in twain, + Only the bitterness of child-bearing. + + The lotus-leaves which heal the wounds of Death + Lie in thy hand; O, be thou kind to me, + While yet I know the summer of my days; + For hardly can my tremulous lips draw breath + To fill the silver trumpet with thy praise, + So bowed am I before thy mystery; + So bowed and broken on Love’s terrible wheel, + That I have lost all hope and heart to sing, + Yet care I not what ruin time may bring + If in thy temple thou wilt let me kneel. + + Alas, alas, thou wilt not tarry here, + But, like that bird, the servant of the sun, + Who flies before the north wind and the night, + So wilt thou fly our evil land and drear, + Back to the tower of thine old delight, + And the red lips of young Euphorion; + Nor shall I ever see thy face again, + But in this poisonous garden-close must stay, + Crowning my brows with the thorn-crown of pain, + Till all my loveless life shall pass away. + + O Helen! Helen! Helen! yet a while, + Yet for a little while, O, tarry here, + Till the dawn cometh and the shadows flee! + For in the gladsome sunlight of thy smile + Of heaven or hell I have no thought or fear, + Seeing I know no other god but thee: + No other god save him, before whose feet + In nets of gold the tired planets move, + The incarnate spirit of spiritual love + Who in thy body holds his joyous seat. + + Thou wert not born as common women are! + But, girt with silver splendour of the foam, + Didst from the depths of sapphire seas arise! + And at thy coming some immortal star, + Bearded with flame, blazed in the Eastern skies, + And waked the shepherds on thine island-home. + Thou shalt not die: no asps of Egypt creep + Close at thy heels to taint the delicate air; + No sullen-blooming poppies stain thy hair, + Those scarlet heralds of eternal sleep. + + Lily of love, pure and inviolate! + Tower of ivory! red rose of fire! + Thou hast come down our darkness to illume: + For we, close-caught in the wide nets of Fate, + Wearied with waiting for the World’s Desire, + Aimlessly wandered in the House of gloom, + Aimlessly sought some slumberous anodyne + For wasted lives, for lingering wretchedness, + Till we beheld thy re-arisen shrine, + And the white glory of thy loveliness. + + + +THE BURDEN OF ITYS + + + THIS English Thames is holier far than Rome, + Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea + Breaking across the woodland, with the foam + Of meadow-sweet and white anemone + To fleck their blue waves,—God is likelier there + Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear! + + Those violet-gleaming butterflies that take + Yon creamy lily for their pavilion + Are monsignores, and where the rushes shake + A lazy pike lies basking in the sun, + His eyes half shut,—he is some mitred old + Bishop in _partibus_! look at those gaudy scales all green and gold. + + The wind the restless prisoner of the trees + Does well for Palæstrina, one would say + The mighty master’s hands were on the keys + Of the Maria organ, which they play + When early on some sapphire Easter morn + In a high litter red as blood or sin the Pope is borne + + From his dark House out to the Balcony + Above the bronze gates and the crowded square, + Whose very fountains seem for ecstasy + To toss their silver lances in the air, + And stretching out weak hands to East and West + In vain sends peace to peaceless lands, to restless nations rest. + + Is not yon lingering orange after-glow + That stays to vex the moon more fair than all + Rome’s lordliest pageants! strange, a year ago + I knelt before some crimson Cardinal + Who bare the Host across the Esquiline, + And now—those common poppies in the wheat seem twice as fine. + + The blue-green beanfields yonder, tremulous + With the last shower, sweeter perfume bring + Through this cool evening than the odorous + Flame-jewelled censers the young deacons swing, + When the grey priest unlocks the curtained shrine, + And makes God’s body from the common fruit of corn and vine. + + Poor Fra Giovanni bawling at the mass + Were out of tune now, for a small brown bird + Sings overhead, and through the long cool grass + I see that throbbing throat which once I heard + On starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady, + Once where the white and crescent sand of Salamis meets sea. + + Sweet is the swallow twittering on the eaves + At daybreak, when the mower whets his scythe, + And stock-doves murmur, and the milkmaid leaves + Her little lonely bed, and carols blithe + To see the heavy-lowing cattle wait + Stretching their huge and dripping mouths across the farmyard gate. + + And sweet the hops upon the Kentish leas, + And sweet the wind that lifts the new-mown hay, + And sweet the fretful swarms of grumbling bees + That round and round the linden blossoms play; + And sweet the heifer breathing in the stall, + And the green bursting figs that hang upon the red-brick wall, + + And sweet to hear the cuckoo mock the spring + While the last violet loiters by the well, + And sweet to hear the shepherd Daphnis sing + The song of Linus through a sunny dell + Of warm Arcadia where the corn is gold + And the slight lithe-limbed reapers dance about the wattled fold. + + And sweet with young Lycoris to recline + In some Illyrian valley far away, + Where canopied on herbs amaracine + We too might waste the summer-trancèd day + Matching our reeds in sportive rivalry, + While far beneath us frets the troubled purple of the sea. + + But sweeter far if silver-sandalled foot + Of some long-hidden God should ever tread + The Nuneham meadows, if with reeded flute + Pressed to his lips some Faun might raise his head + By the green water-flags, ah! sweet indeed + To see the heavenly herdsman call his white-fleeced flock to feed. + + Then sing to me thou tuneful chorister, + Though what thou sing’st be thine own requiem! + Tell me thy tale thou hapless chronicler + Of thine own tragedies! do not contemn + These unfamiliar haunts, this English field, + For many a lovely coronal our northern isle can yield + + Which Grecian meadows know not, many a rose + Which all day long in vales Æolian + A lad might seek in vain for over-grows + Our hedges like a wanton courtesan + Unthrifty of its beauty; lilies too + Ilissos never mirrored star our streams, and cockles blue + + Dot the green wheat which, though they are the signs + For swallows going south, would never spread + Their azure tents between the Attic vines; + Even that little weed of ragged red, + Which bids the robin pipe, in Arcady + Would be a trespasser, and many an unsung elegy + + Sleeps in the reeds that fringe our winding Thames + Which to awake were sweeter ravishment + Than ever Syrinx wept for; diadems + Of brown bee-studded orchids which were meant + For Cytheræa’s brows are hidden here + Unknown to Cytheræa, and by yonder pasturing steer + + There is a tiny yellow daffodil, + The butterfly can see it from afar, + Although one summer evening’s dew could fill + Its little cup twice over ere the star + Had called the lazy shepherd to his fold + And be no prodigal; each leaf is flecked with spotted gold + + As if Jove’s gorgeous leman Danae + Hot from his gilded arms had stooped to kiss + The trembling petals, or young Mercury + Low-flying to the dusky ford of Dis + Had with one feather of his pinions + Just brushed them! the slight stem which bears the burden of its suns + + Is hardly thicker than the gossamer, + Or poor Arachne’s silver tapestry,— + Men say it bloomed upon the sepulchre + Of One I sometime worshipped, but to me + It seems to bring diviner memories + Of faun-loved Heliconian glades and blue nymph-haunted seas, + + Of an untrodden vale at Tempe where + On the clear river’s marge Narcissus lies, + The tangle of the forest in his hair, + The silence of the woodland in his eyes, + Wooing that drifting imagery which is + No sooner kissed than broken; memories of Salmacis + + Who is not boy nor girl and yet is both, + Fed by two fires and unsatisfied + Through their excess, each passion being loth + For love’s own sake to leave the other’s side + Yet killing love by staying; memories + Of Oreads peeping through the leaves of silent moonlit trees, + + Of lonely Ariadne on the wharf + At Naxos, when she saw the treacherous crew + Far out at sea, and waved her crimson scarf + And called false Theseus back again nor knew + That Dionysos on an amber pard + Was close behind her; memories of what Mæonia’s bard + + With sightless eyes beheld, the wall of Troy, + Queen Helen lying in the ivory room, + And at her side an amorous red-lipped boy + Trimming with dainty hand his helmet’s plume, + And far away the moil, the shout, the groan, + As Hector shielded off the spear and Ajax hurled the stone; + + Of wingèd Perseus with his flawless sword + Cleaving the snaky tresses of the witch, + And all those tales imperishably stored + In little Grecian urns, freightage more rich + Than any gaudy galleon of Spain + Bare from the Indies ever! these at least bring back again, + + For well I know they are not dead at all, + The ancient Gods of Grecian poesy: + They are asleep, and when they hear thee call + Will wake and think ’t is very Thessaly, + This Thames the Daulian waters, this cool glade + The yellow-irised mead where once young Itys laughed and played. + + If it was thou dear jasmine-cradled bird + Who from the leafy stillness of thy throne + Sang to the wondrous boy, until he heard + The horn of Atalanta faintly blown + Across the Cumnor hills, and wandering + Through Bagley wood at evening found the Attic poets’ spring,— + + Ah! tiny sober-suited advocate + That pleadest for the moon against the day! + If thou didst make the shepherd seek his mate + On that sweet questing, when Proserpina + Forgot it was not Sicily and leant + Across the mossy Sandford stile in ravished wonderment,— + + Light-winged and bright-eyed miracle of the wood! + If ever thou didst soothe with melody + One of that little clan, that brotherhood + Which loved the morning-star of Tuscany + More than the perfect sun of Raphael + And is immortal, sing to me! for I too love thee well. + + Sing on! sing on! let the dull world grow young, + Let elemental things take form again, + And the old shapes of Beauty walk among + The simple garths and open crofts, as when + The son of Leto bare the willow rod, + And the soft sheep and shaggy goats followed the boyish God. + + Sing on! sing on! and Bacchus will be here + Astride upon his gorgeous Indian throne, + And over whimpering tigers shake the spear + With yellow ivy crowned and gummy cone, + While at his side the wanton Bassarid + Will throw the lion by the mane and catch the mountain kid! + + Sing on! and I will wear the leopard skin, + And steal the moonèd wings of Ashtaroth, + Upon whose icy chariot we could win + Cithæron in an hour ere the froth + Has over-brimmed the wine-vat or the Faun + Ceased from the treading! ay, before the flickering lamp of dawn + + Has scared the hooting owlet to its nest, + And warned the bat to close its filmy vans, + Some Mænad girl with vine-leaves on her breast + Will filch their beech-nuts from the sleeping Pans + So softly that the little nested thrush + Will never wake, and then with shrilly laugh and leap will rush + + Down the green valley where the fallen dew + Lies thick beneath the elm and count her store, + Till the brown Satyrs in a jolly crew + Trample the loosestrife down along the shore, + And where their hornèd master sits in state + Bring strawberries and bloomy plums upon a wicker crate! + + Sing on! and soon with passion-wearied face + Through the cool leaves Apollo’s lad will come, + The Tyrian prince his bristled boar will chase + Adown the chestnut-copses all a-bloom, + And ivory-limbed, grey-eyed, with look of pride, + After yon velvet-coated deer the virgin maid will ride. + + Sing on! and I the dying boy will see + Stain with his purple blood the waxen bell + That overweighs the jacinth, and to me + The wretched Cyprian her woe will tell, + And I will kiss her mouth and streaming eyes, + And lead her to the myrtle-hidden grove where Adon lies! + + Cry out aloud on Itys! memory + That foster-brother of remorse and pain + Drops poison in mine ear,—O to be free, + To burn one’s old ships! and to launch again + Into the white-plumed battle of the waves + And fight old Proteus for the spoil of coral-flowered caves! + + O for Medea with her poppied spell! + O for the secret of the Colchian shrine! + O for one leaf of that pale asphodel + Which binds the tired brows of Proserpine, + And sheds such wondrous dews at eve that she + Dreams of the fields of Enna, by the far Sicilian sea, + + Where oft the golden-girdled bee she chased + From lily to lily on the level mead, + Ere yet her sombre Lord had bid her taste + The deadly fruit of that pomegranate seed, + Ere the black steeds had harried her away + Down to the faint and flowerless land, the sick and sunless day. + + O for one midnight and as paramour + The Venus of the little Melian farm! + O that some antique statue for one hour + Might wake to passion, and that I could charm + The Dawn at Florence from its dumb despair, + Mix with those mighty limbs and make that giant breast my lair! + + Sing on! sing on! I would be drunk with life, + Drunk with the trampled vintage of my youth, + I would forget the wearying wasted strife, + The riven veil, the Gorgon eyes of Truth, + The prayerless vigil and the cry for prayer, + The barren gifts, the lifted arms, the dull insensate air! + + Sing on! sing on! O feathered Niobe, + Thou canst make sorrow beautiful, and steal + From joy its sweetest music, not as we + Who by dead voiceless silence strive to heal + Our too untented wounds, and do but keep + Pain barricadoed in our hearts, and murder pillowed sleep. + + Sing louder yet, why must I still behold + The wan white face of that deserted Christ, + Whose bleeding hands my hands did once enfold, + Whose smitten lips my lips so oft have kissed, + And now in mute and marble misery + Sits in his lone dishonoured House and weeps, perchance for me? + + O Memory cast down thy wreathèd shell! + Break thy hoarse lute O sad Melpomene! + O Sorrow, Sorrow keep thy cloistered cell + Nor dim with tears this limpid Castaly! + Cease, Philomel, thou dost the forest wrong + To vex its sylvan quiet with such wild impassioned song! + + Cease, cease, or if ’t is anguish to be dumb + Take from the pastoral thrush her simpler air, + Whose jocund carelessness doth more become + This English woodland than thy keen despair, + Ah! cease and let the north wind bear thy lay + Back to the rocky hills of Thrace, the stormy Daulian bay. + + A moment more, the startled leaves had stirred, + Endymion would have passed across the mead + Moonstruck with love, and this still Thames had heard + Pan plash and paddle groping for some reed + To lure from her blue cave that Naiad maid + Who for such piping listens half in joy and half afraid. + + A moment more, the waking dove had cooed, + The silver daughter of the silver sea + With the fond gyves of clinging hands had wooed + Her wanton from the chase, and Dryope + Had thrust aside the branches of her oak + To see the lusty gold-haired lad rein in his snorting yoke. + + A moment more, the trees had stooped to kiss + Pale Daphne just awakening from the swoon + Of tremulous laurels, lonely Salmacis + Had bared his barren beauty to the moon, + And through the vale with sad voluptuous smile + Antinous had wandered, the red lotus of the Nile + + Down leaning from his black and clustering hair, + To shade those slumberous eyelids’ caverned bliss, + Or else on yonder grassy slope with bare + High-tuniced limbs unravished Artemis + Had bade her hounds give tongue, and roused the deer + From his green ambuscade with shrill halloo and pricking spear. + + Lie still, lie still, O passionate heart, lie still! + O Melancholy, fold thy raven wing! + O sobbing Dryad, from thy hollow hill + Come not with such despondent answering! + No more thou wingèd Marsyas complain, + Apollo loveth not to hear such troubled songs of pain! + + It was a dream, the glade is tenantless, + No soft Ionian laughter moves the air, + The Thames creeps on in sluggish leadenness, + And from the copse left desolate and bare + Fled is young Bacchus with his revelry, + Yet still from Nuneham wood there comes that thrilling melody + + So sad, that one might think a human heart + Brake in each separate note, a quality + Which music sometimes has, being the Art + Which is most nigh to tears and memory; + Poor mourning Philomel, what dost thou fear? + Thy sister doth not haunt these fields, Pandion is not here, + + Here is no cruel Lord with murderous blade, + No woven web of bloody heraldries, + But mossy dells for roving comrades made, + Warm valleys where the tired student lies + With half-shut book, and many a winding walk + Where rustic lovers stray at eve in happy simple talk. + + The harmless rabbit gambols with its young + Across the trampled towing-path, where late + A troop of laughing boys in jostling throng + Cheered with their noisy cries the racing eight; + The gossamer, with ravelled silver threads, + Works at its little loom, and from the dusky red-eaved sheds + + Of the lone Farm a flickering light shines out + Where the swinked shepherd drives his bleating flock + Back to their wattled sheep-cotes, a faint shout + Comes from some Oxford boat at Sandford lock, + And starts the moor-hen from the sedgy rill, + And the dim lengthening shadows flit like swallows up the hill. + + The heron passes homeward to the mere, + The blue mist creeps among the shivering trees, + Gold world by world the silent stars appear, + And like a blossom blown before the breeze + A white moon drifts across the shimmering sky, + Mute arbitress of all thy sad, thy rapturous threnody. + + She does not heed thee, wherefore should she heed, + She knows Endymion is not far away; + ’Tis I, ’tis I, whose soul is as the reed + Which has no message of its own to play, + So pipes another’s bidding, it is I, + Drifting with every wind on the wide sea of misery. + + Ah! the brown bird has ceased: one exquisite trill + About the sombre woodland seems to cling + Dying in music, else the air is still, + So still that one might hear the bat’s small wing + Wander and wheel above the pines, or tell + Each tiny dew-drop dripping from the bluebell’s brimming cell. + + And far away across the lengthening wold, + Across the willowy flats and thickets brown, + Magdalen’s tall tower tipped with tremulous gold + Marks the long High Street of the little town, + And warns me to return; I must not wait, + Hark! ’t is the curfew booming from the bell at Christ Church gate. + + + +WIND FLOWERS + + +IMPRESSION DU MATIN + + + THE Thames nocturne of blue and gold + Changed to a Harmony in grey: + A barge with ochre-coloured hay + Dropt from the wharf: and chill and cold + + The yellow fog came creeping down + The bridges, till the houses’ walls + Seemed changed to shadows and St. Paul’s + Loomed like a bubble o’er the town. + + Then suddenly arose the clang + Of waking life; the streets were stirred + With country waggons: and a bird + Flew to the glistening roofs and sang. + + But one pale woman all alone, + The daylight kissing her wan hair, + Loitered beneath the gas lamps’ flare, + With lips of flame and heart of stone. + + +MAGDALEN WALKS + + + THE little white clouds are racing over the sky, + And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of March, + The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larch + Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by. + + A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning breeze, + The odour of deep wet grass, and of brown new-furrowed earth, + The birds are singing for joy of the Spring’s glad birth, + Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees. + + And all the woods are alive with the murmur and sound of Spring, + And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing briar, + And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire + Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring. + + And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some tale of love + Till it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green, + And the gloom of the wych-elm’s hollow is lit with the iris sheen + Of the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of a dove. + + See! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow there, + Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of dew, + And flashing adown the river, a flame of blue! + The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air. + + +ATHANASIA + + + TO that gaunt House of Art which lacks for naught + Of all the great things men have saved from Time, + The withered body of a girl was brought + Dead ere the world’s glad youth had touched its prime, + And seen by lonely Arabs lying hid + In the dim womb of some black pyramid. + + But when they had unloosed the linen band + Which swathed the Egyptian’s body,—lo! was found + Closed in the wasted hollow of her hand + A little seed, which sown in English ground + Did wondrous snow of starry blossoms bear + And spread rich odours through our spring-tide air. + + With such strange arts this flower did allure + That all forgotten was the asphodel, + And the brown bee, the lily’s paramour, + Forsook the cup where he was wont to dwell, + For not a thing of earth it seemed to be, + But stolen from some heavenly Arcady. + + In vain the sad narcissus, wan and white + At its own beauty, hung across the stream, + The purple dragon-fly had no delight + With its gold dust to make his wings a-gleam, + Ah! no delight the jasmine-bloom to kiss, + Or brush the rain-pearls from the eucharis. + + For love of it the passionate nightingale + Forgot the hills of Thrace, the cruel king, + And the pale dove no longer cared to sail + Through the wet woods at time of blossoming, + But round this flower of Egypt sought to float, + With silvered wing and amethystine throat. + + While the hot sun blazed in his tower of blue + A cooling wind crept from the land of snows, + And the warm south with tender tears of dew + Drenched its white leaves when Hesperos up-rose + Amid those sea-green meadows of the sky + On which the scarlet bars of sunset lie. + + But when o’er wastes of lily-haunted field + The tired birds had stayed their amorous tune, + And broad and glittering like an argent shield + High in the sapphire heavens hung the moon, + Did no strange dream or evil memory make + Each tremulous petal of its blossoms shake? + + Ah no! to this bright flower a thousand years + Seemed but the lingering of a summer’s day, + It never knew the tide of cankering fears + Which turn a boy’s gold hair to withered grey, + The dread desire of death it never knew, + Or how all folk that they were born must rue. + + For we to death with pipe and dancing go, + Nor would we pass the ivory gate again, + As some sad river wearied of its flow + Through the dull plains, the haunts of common men, + Leaps lover-like into the terrible sea! + And counts it gain to die so gloriously. + + We mar our lordly strength in barren strife + With the world’s legions led by clamorous care, + It never feels decay but gathers life + From the pure sunlight and the supreme air, + We live beneath Time’s wasting sovereignty, + It is the child of all eternity. + + +SERENADE + + + (FOR MUSIC) + + THE western wind is blowing fair + Across the dark Ægean sea, + And at the secret marble stair + My Tyrian galley waits for thee. + Come down! the purple sail is spread, + The watchman sleeps within the town, + O leave thy lily-flowered bed, + O Lady mine come down, come down! + + She will not come, I know her well, + Of lover’s vows she hath no care, + And little good a man can tell + Of one so cruel and so fair. + True love is but a woman’s toy, + They never know the lover’s pain, + And I who loved as loves a boy + Must love in vain, must love in vain. + + O noble pilot, tell me true, + Is that the sheen of golden hair? + Or is it but the tangled dew + That binds the passion-flowers there? + Good sailor come and tell me now + Is that my Lady’s lily hand? + Or is it but the gleaming prow, + Or is it but the silver sand? + + No! no! ’tis not the tangled dew, + ’Tis not the silver-fretted sand, + It is my own dear Lady true + With golden hair and lily hand! + O noble pilot, steer for Troy, + Good sailor, ply the labouring oar, + This is the Queen of life and joy + Whom we must bear from Grecian shore! + + The waning sky grows faint and blue, + It wants an hour still of day, + Aboard! aboard! my gallant crew, + O Lady mine, away! away! + O noble pilot, steer for Troy, + Good sailor, ply the labouring oar, + O loved as only loves a boy! + O loved for ever evermore! + + +ENDYMION + + + (FOR MUSIC) + + THE apple trees are hung with gold, + And birds are loud in Arcady, + The sheep lie bleating in the fold, + The wild goat runs across the wold, + But yesterday his love he told, + I know he will come back to me. + O rising moon! O Lady moon! + Be you my lover’s sentinel, + You cannot choose but know him well, + For he is shod with purple shoon, + You cannot choose but know my love, + For he a shepherd’s crook doth bear, + And he is soft as any dove, + And brown and curly is his hair. + + The turtle now has ceased to call + Upon her crimson-footed groom, + The grey wolf prowls about the stall, + The lily’s singing seneschal + Sleeps in the lily-bell, and all + The violet hills are lost in gloom. + O risen moon! O holy moon! + Stand on the top of Helice, + And if my own true love you see, + Ah! if you see the purple shoon, + The hazel crook, the lad’s brown hair, + The goat-skin wrapped about his arm, + Tell him that I am waiting where + The rushlight glimmers in the Farm. + + The falling dew is cold and chill, + And no bird sings in Arcady, + The little fauns have left the hill, + Even the tired daffodil + Has closed its gilded doors, and still + My lover comes not back to me. + False moon! False moon! O waning moon! + Where is my own true lover gone, + Where are the lips vermilion, + The shepherd’s crook, the purple shoon? + Why spread that silver pavilion, + Why wear that veil of drifting mist? + Ah! thou hast young Endymion, + Thou hast the lips that should be kissed! + + +LA BELLA DONNA DELLA MIA MENTE + + + MY limbs are wasted with a flame, + My feet are sore with travelling, + For, calling on my Lady’s name, + My lips have now forgot to sing. + + O Linnet in the wild-rose brake + Strain for my Love thy melody, + O Lark sing louder for love’s sake, + My gentle Lady passeth by. + + She is too fair for any man + To see or hold his heart’s delight, + Fairer than Queen or courtesan + Or moonlit water in the night. + + Her hair is bound with myrtle leaves, + (Green leaves upon her golden hair!) + Green grasses through the yellow sheaves + Of autumn corn are not more fair. + + Her little lips, more made to kiss + Than to cry bitterly for pain, + Are tremulous as brook-water is, + Or roses after evening rain. + + Her neck is like white melilote + Flushing for pleasure of the sun, + The throbbing of the linnet’s throat + Is not so sweet to look upon. + + As a pomegranate, cut in twain, + White-seeded, is her crimson mouth, + Her cheeks are as the fading stain + Where the peach reddens to the south. + + O twining hands! O delicate + White body made for love and pain! + O House of love! O desolate + Pale flower beaten by the rain! + + +CHANSON + + + A RING of gold and a milk-white dove + Are goodly gifts for thee, + And a hempen rope for your own love + To hang upon a tree. + + For you a House of Ivory, + (Roses are white in the rose-bower)! + A narrow bed for me to lie, + (White, O white, is the hemlock flower)! + + Myrtle and jessamine for you, + (O the red rose is fair to see)! + For me the cypress and the rue, + (Finest of all is rosemary)! + + For you three lovers of your hand, + (Green grass where a man lies dead)! + For me three paces on the sand, + (Plant lilies at my head)! + + + +CHARMIDES + + + I. + + HE was a Grecian lad, who coming home + With pulpy figs and wine from Sicily + Stood at his galley’s prow, and let the foam + Blow through his crisp brown curls unconsciously, + And holding wave and wind in boy’s despite + Peered from his dripping seat across the wet and stormy night. + + Till with the dawn he saw a burnished spear + Like a thin thread of gold against the sky, + And hoisted sail, and strained the creaking gear, + And bade the pilot head her lustily + Against the nor’west gale, and all day long + Held on his way, and marked the rowers’ time with measured song. + + And when the faint Corinthian hills were red + Dropped anchor in a little sandy bay, + And with fresh boughs of olive crowned his head, + And brushed from cheek and throat the hoary spray, + And washed his limbs with oil, and from the hold + Brought out his linen tunic and his sandals brazen-soled, + + And a rich robe stained with the fishers’ juice + Which of some swarthy trader he had bought + Upon the sunny quay at Syracuse, + And was with Tyrian broideries inwrought, + And by the questioning merchants made his way + Up through the soft and silver woods, and when the labouring day + + Had spun its tangled web of crimson cloud, + Clomb the high hill, and with swift silent feet + Crept to the fane unnoticed by the crowd + Of busy priests, and from some dark retreat + Watched the young swains his frolic playmates bring + The firstling of their little flock, and the shy shepherd fling + + The crackling salt upon the flame, or hang + His studded crook against the temple wall + To Her who keeps away the ravenous fang + Of the base wolf from homestead and from stall; + And then the clear-voiced maidens ’gan to sing, + And to the altar each man brought some goodly offering, + + A beechen cup brimming with milky foam, + A fair cloth wrought with cunning imagery + Of hounds in chase, a waxen honey-comb + Dripping with oozy gold which scarce the bee + Had ceased from building, a black skin of oil + Meet for the wrestlers, a great boar the fierce and white-tusked spoil + + Stolen from Artemis that jealous maid + To please Athena, and the dappled hide + Of a tall stag who in some mountain glade + Had met the shaft; and then the herald cried, + And from the pillared precinct one by one + Went the glad Greeks well pleased that they their simple vows had + done. + + And the old priest put out the waning fires + Save that one lamp whose restless ruby glowed + For ever in the cell, and the shrill lyres + Came fainter on the wind, as down the road + In joyous dance these country folk did pass, + And with stout hands the warder closed the gates of polished brass. + + Long time he lay and hardly dared to breathe, + And heard the cadenced drip of spilt-out wine, + And the rose-petals falling from the wreath + As the night breezes wandered through the shrine, + And seemed to be in some entrancèd swoon + Till through the open roof above the full and brimming moon + + Flooded with sheeny waves the marble floor, + When from his nook up leapt the venturous lad, + And flinging wide the cedar-carven door + Beheld an awful image saffron-clad + And armed for battle! the gaunt Griffin glared + From the huge helm, and the long lance of wreck and ruin flared + + Like a red rod of flame, stony and steeled + The Gorgon’s head its leaden eyeballs rolled, + And writhed its snaky horrors through the shield, + And gaped aghast with bloodless lips and cold + In passion impotent, while with blind gaze + The blinking owl between the feet hooted in shrill amaze. + + The lonely fisher as he trimmed his lamp + Far out at sea off Sunium, or cast + The net for tunnies, heard a brazen tramp + Of horses smite the waves, and a wild blast + Divide the folded curtains of the night, + And knelt upon the little poop, and prayed in holy fright. + + And guilty lovers in their venery + Forgat a little while their stolen sweets, + Deeming they heard dread Dian’s bitter cry; + And the grim watchmen on their lofty seats + Ran to their shields in haste precipitate, + Or strained black-bearded throats across the dusky parapet. + + For round the temple rolled the clang of arms, + And the twelve Gods leapt up in marble fear, + And the air quaked with dissonant alarums + Till huge Poseidon shook his mighty spear, + And on the frieze the prancing horses neighed, + And the low tread of hurrying feet rang from the cavalcade. + + Ready for death with parted lips he stood, + And well content at such a price to see + That calm wide brow, that terrible maidenhood, + The marvel of that pitiless chastity, + Ah! well content indeed, for never wight + Since Troy’s young shepherd prince had seen so wonderful a sight. + + Ready for death he stood, but lo! the air + Grew silent, and the horses ceased to neigh, + And off his brow he tossed the clustering hair, + And from his limbs he throw the cloak away; + For whom would not such love make desperate? + And nigher came, and touched her throat, and with hands violate + + Undid the cuirass, and the crocus gown, + And bared the breasts of polished ivory, + Till from the waist the peplos falling down + Left visible the secret mystery + Which to no lover will Athena show, + The grand cool flanks, the crescent thighs, the bossy hills of snow. + + Those who have never known a lover’s sin + Let them not read my ditty, it will be + To their dull ears so musicless and thin + That they will have no joy of it, but ye + To whose wan cheeks now creeps the lingering smile, + Ye who have learned who Eros is,—O listen yet awhile. + + A little space he let his greedy eyes + Rest on the burnished image, till mere sight + Half swooned for surfeit of such luxuries, + And then his lips in hungering delight + Fed on her lips, and round the towered neck + He flung his arms, nor cared at all his passion’s will to check. + + Never I ween did lover hold such tryst, + For all night long he murmured honeyed word, + And saw her sweet unravished limbs, and kissed + Her pale and argent body undisturbed, + And paddled with the polished throat, and pressed + His hot and beating heart upon her chill and icy breast. + + It was as if Numidian javelins + Pierced through and through his wild and whirling brain, + And his nerves thrilled like throbbing violins + In exquisite pulsation, and the pain + Was such sweet anguish that he never drew + His lips from hers till overhead the lark of warning flew. + + They who have never seen the daylight peer + Into a darkened room, and drawn the curtain, + And with dull eyes and wearied from some dear + And worshipped body risen, they for certain + Will never know of what I try to sing, + How long the last kiss was, how fond and late his lingering. + + The moon was girdled with a crystal rim, + The sign which shipmen say is ominous + Of wrath in heaven, the wan stars were dim, + And the low lightening east was tremulous + With the faint fluttering wings of flying dawn, + Ere from the silent sombre shrine his lover had withdrawn. + + Down the steep rock with hurried feet and fast + Clomb the brave lad, and reached the cave of Pan, + And heard the goat-foot snoring as he passed, + And leapt upon a grassy knoll and ran + Like a young fawn unto an olive wood + Which in a shady valley by the well-built city stood; + + And sought a little stream, which well he knew, + For oftentimes with boyish careless shout + The green and crested grebe he would pursue, + Or snare in woven net the silver trout, + And down amid the startled reeds he lay + Panting in breathless sweet affright, and waited for the day. + + On the green bank he lay, and let one hand + Dip in the cool dark eddies listlessly, + And soon the breath of morning came and fanned + His hot flushed cheeks, or lifted wantonly + The tangled curls from off his forehead, while + He on the running water gazed with strange and secret smile. + + And soon the shepherd in rough woollen cloak + With his long crook undid the wattled cotes, + And from the stack a thin blue wreath of smoke + Curled through the air across the ripening oats, + And on the hill the yellow house-dog bayed + As through the crisp and rustling fern the heavy cattle strayed. + + And when the light-foot mower went afield + Across the meadows laced with threaded dew, + And the sheep bleated on the misty weald, + And from its nest the waking corncrake flew, + Some woodmen saw him lying by the stream + And marvelled much that any lad so beautiful could seem, + + Nor deemed him born of mortals, and one said, + ‘It is young Hylas, that false runaway + Who with a Naiad now would make his bed + Forgetting Herakles,’ but others, ‘Nay, + It is Narcissus, his own paramour, + Those are the fond and crimson lips no woman can allure.’ + + And when they nearer came a third one cried, + ‘It is young Dionysos who has hid + His spear and fawnskin by the river side + Weary of hunting with the Bassarid, + And wise indeed were we away to fly: + They live not long who on the gods immortal come to spy.’ + + So turned they back, and feared to look behind, + And told the timid swain how they had seen + Amid the reeds some woodland god reclined, + And no man dared to cross the open green, + And on that day no olive-tree was slain, + Nor rushes cut, but all deserted was the fair domain, + + Save when the neat-herd’s lad, his empty pail + Well slung upon his back, with leap and bound + Raced on the other side, and stopped to hail, + Hoping that he some comrade new had found, + And gat no answer, and then half afraid + Passed on his simple way, or down the still and silent glade + + A little girl ran laughing from the farm, + Not thinking of love’s secret mysteries, + And when she saw the white and gleaming arm + And all his manlihood, with longing eyes + Whose passion mocked her sweet virginity + Watched him awhile, and then stole back sadly and wearily. + + Far off he heard the city’s hum and noise, + And now and then the shriller laughter where + The passionate purity of brown-limbed boys + Wrestled or raced in the clear healthful air, + And now and then a little tinkling bell + As the shorn wether led the sheep down to the mossy well. + + Through the grey willows danced the fretful gnat, + The grasshopper chirped idly from the tree, + In sleek and oily coat the water-rat + Breasting the little ripples manfully + Made for the wild-duck’s nest, from bough to bough + Hopped the shy finch, and the huge tortoise crept across the slough. + + On the faint wind floated the silky seeds + As the bright scythe swept through the waving grass, + The ouzel-cock splashed circles in the reeds + And flecked with silver whorls the forest’s glass, + Which scarce had caught again its imagery + Ere from its bed the dusky tench leapt at the dragon-fly. + + But little care had he for any thing + Though up and down the beech the squirrel played, + And from the copse the linnet ’gan to sing + To its brown mate its sweetest serenade; + Ah! little care indeed, for he had seen + The breasts of Pallas and the naked wonder of the Queen. + + But when the herdsman called his straggling goats + With whistling pipe across the rocky road, + And the shard-beetle with its trumpet-notes + Boomed through the darkening woods, and seemed to bode + Of coming storm, and the belated crane + Passed homeward like a shadow, and the dull big drops of rain + + Fell on the pattering fig-leaves, up he rose, + And from the gloomy forest went his way + Past sombre homestead and wet orchard-close, + And came at last unto a little quay, + And called his mates aboard, and took his seat + On the high poop, and pushed from land, and loosed the dripping sheet, + + And steered across the bay, and when nine suns + Passed down the long and laddered way of gold, + And nine pale moons had breathed their orisons + To the chaste stars their confessors, or told + Their dearest secret to the downy moth + That will not fly at noonday, through the foam and surging froth + + Came a great owl with yellow sulphurous eyes + And lit upon the ship, whose timbers creaked + As though the lading of three argosies + Were in the hold, and flapped its wings and shrieked, + And darkness straightway stole across the deep, + Sheathed was Orion’s sword, dread Mars himself fled down the steep, + + And the moon hid behind a tawny mask + Of drifting cloud, and from the ocean’s marge + Rose the red plume, the huge and hornèd casque, + The seven-cubit spear, the brazen targe! + And clad in bright and burnished panoply + Athena strode across the stretch of sick and shivering sea! + + To the dull sailors’ sight her loosened looks + Seemed like the jagged storm-rack, and her feet + Only the spume that floats on hidden rocks, + And, marking how the rising waters beat + Against the rolling ship, the pilot cried + To the young helmsman at the stern to luff to windward side + + But he, the overbold adulterer, + A dear profaner of great mysteries, + An ardent amorous idolater, + When he beheld those grand relentless eyes + Laughed loud for joy, and crying out ‘I come’ + Leapt from the lofty poop into the chill and churning foam. + + Then fell from the high heaven one bright star, + One dancer left the circling galaxy, + And back to Athens on her clattering car + In all the pride of venged divinity + Pale Pallas swept with shrill and steely clank, + And a few gurgling bubbles rose where her boy lover sank. + + And the mast shuddered as the gaunt owl flew + With mocking hoots after the wrathful Queen, + And the old pilot bade the trembling crew + Hoist the big sail, and told how he had seen + Close to the stern a dim and giant form, + And like a dipping swallow the stout ship dashed through the storm. + + And no man dared to speak of Charmides + Deeming that he some evil thing had wrought, + And when they reached the strait Symplegades + They beached their galley on the shore, and sought + The toll-gate of the city hastily, + And in the market showed their brown and pictured pottery. + + II. + + BUT some good Triton-god had ruth, and bare + The boy’s drowned body back to Grecian land, + And mermaids combed his dank and dripping hair + And smoothed his brow, and loosed his clenching hand; + Some brought sweet spices from far Araby, + And others bade the halcyon sing her softest lullaby. + + And when he neared his old Athenian home, + A mighty billow rose up suddenly + Upon whose oily back the clotted foam + Lay diapered in some strange fantasy, + And clasping him unto its glassy breast + Swept landward, like a white-maned steed upon a venturous quest! + + Now where Colonos leans unto the sea + There lies a long and level stretch of lawn; + The rabbit knows it, and the mountain bee + For it deserts Hymettus, and the Faun + Is not afraid, for never through the day + Comes a cry ruder than the shout of shepherd lads at play. + + But often from the thorny labyrinth + And tangled branches of the circling wood + The stealthy hunter sees young Hyacinth + Hurling the polished disk, and draws his hood + Over his guilty gaze, and creeps away, + Nor dares to wind his horn, or—else at the first break of day + + The Dryads come and throw the leathern ball + Along the reedy shore, and circumvent + Some goat-eared Pan to be their seneschal + For fear of bold Poseidon’s ravishment, + And loose their girdles, with shy timorous eyes, + Lest from the surf his azure arms and purple beard should rise. + + On this side and on that a rocky cave, + Hung with the yellow-belled laburnum, stands + Smooth is the beach, save where some ebbing wave + Leaves its faint outline etched upon the sands, + As though it feared to be too soon forgot + By the green rush, its playfellow,—and yet, it is a spot + + So small, that the inconstant butterfly + Could steal the hoarded money from each flower + Ere it was noon, and still not satisfy + Its over-greedy love,—within an hour + A sailor boy, were he but rude enow + To land and pluck a garland for his galley’s painted prow, + + Would almost leave the little meadow bare, + For it knows nothing of great pageantry, + Only a few narcissi here and there + Stand separate in sweet austerity, + Dotting the unmown grass with silver stars, + And here and there a daffodil waves tiny scimitars. + + Hither the billow brought him, and was glad + Of such dear servitude, and where the land + Was virgin of all waters laid the lad + Upon the golden margent of the strand, + And like a lingering lover oft returned + To kiss those pallid limbs which once with intense fire burned, + + Ere the wet seas had quenched that holocaust, + That self-fed flame, that passionate lustihead, + Ere grisly death with chill and nipping frost + Had withered up those lilies white and red + Which, while the boy would through the forest range, + Answered each other in a sweet antiphonal counter-change. + + And when at dawn the wood-nymphs, hand-in-hand, + Threaded the bosky dell, their satyr spied + The boy’s pale body stretched upon the sand, + And feared Poseidon’s treachery, and cried, + And like bright sunbeams flitting through a glade + Each startled Dryad sought some safe and leafy ambuscade. + + Save one white girl, who deemed it would not be + So dread a thing to feel a sea-god’s arms + Crushing her breasts in amorous tyranny, + And longed to listen to those subtle charms + Insidious lovers weave when they would win + Some fencèd fortress, and stole back again, nor thought it sin + + To yield her treasure unto one so fair, + And lay beside him, thirsty with love’s drouth, + Called him soft names, played with his tangled hair, + And with hot lips made havoc of his mouth + Afraid he might not wake, and then afraid + Lest he might wake too soon, fled back, and then, fond renegade, + + Returned to fresh assault, and all day long + Sat at his side, and laughed at her new toy, + And held his hand, and sang her sweetest song, + Then frowned to see how froward was the boy + Who would not with her maidenhood entwine, + Nor knew that three days since his eyes had looked on Proserpine; + + Nor knew what sacrilege his lips had done, + But said, ‘He will awake, I know him well, + He will awake at evening when the sun + Hangs his red shield on Corinth’s citadel; + This sleep is but a cruel treachery + To make me love him more, and in some cavern of the sea + + Deeper than ever falls the fisher’s line + Already a huge Triton blows his horn, + And weaves a garland from the crystalline + And drifting ocean-tendrils to adorn + The emerald pillars of our bridal bed, + For sphered in foaming silver, and with coral crownèd head, + + We two will sit upon a throne of pearl, + And a blue wave will be our canopy, + And at our feet the water-snakes will curl + In all their amethystine panoply + Of diamonded mail, and we will mark + The mullets swimming by the mast of some storm-foundered bark, + + Vermilion-finned with eyes of bossy gold + Like flakes of crimson light, and the great deep + His glassy-portaled chamber will unfold, + And we will see the painted dolphins sleep + Cradled by murmuring halcyons on the rocks + Where Proteus in quaint suit of green pastures his monstrous flocks. + + And tremulous opal-hued anemones + Will wave their purple fringes where we tread + Upon the mirrored floor, and argosies + Of fishes flecked with tawny scales will thread + The drifting cordage of the shattered wreck, + And honey-coloured amber beads our twining limbs will deck.’ + + But when that baffled Lord of War the Sun + With gaudy pennon flying passed away + Into his brazen House, and one by one + The little yellow stars began to stray + Across the field of heaven, ah! then indeed + She feared his lips upon her lips would never care to feed, + + And cried, ‘Awake, already the pale moon + Washes the trees with silver, and the wave + Creeps grey and chilly up this sandy dune, + The croaking frogs are out, and from the cave + The nightjar shrieks, the fluttering bats repass, + And the brown stoat with hollow flanks creeps through the dusky grass. + + Nay, though thou art a god, be not so coy, + For in yon stream there is a little reed + That often whispers how a lovely boy + Lay with her once upon a grassy mead, + Who when his cruel pleasure he had done + Spread wings of rustling gold and soared aloft into the sun. + + Be not so coy, the laurel trembles still + With great Apollo’s kisses, and the fir + Whose clustering sisters fringe the seaward hill + Hath many a tale of that bold ravisher + Whom men call Boreas, and I have seen + The mocking eyes of Hermes through the poplar’s silvery sheen. + + Even the jealous Naiads call me fair, + And every morn a young and ruddy swain + Woos me with apples and with locks of hair, + And seeks to soothe my virginal disdain + By all the gifts the gentle wood-nymphs love; + But yesterday he brought to me an iris-plumaged dove + + With little crimson feet, which with its store + Of seven spotted eggs the cruel lad + Had stolen from the lofty sycamore + At daybreak, when her amorous comrade had + Flown off in search of berried juniper + Which most they love; the fretful wasp, that earliest vintager + + Of the blue grapes, hath not persistency + So constant as this simple shepherd-boy + For my poor lips, his joyous purity + And laughing sunny eyes might well decoy + A Dryad from her oath to Artemis; + For very beautiful is he, his mouth was made to kiss; + + His argent forehead, like a rising moon + Over the dusky hills of meeting brows, + Is crescent shaped, the hot and Tyrian noon + Leads from the myrtle-grove no goodlier spouse + For Cytheræa, the first silky down + Fringes his blushing cheeks, and his young limbs are strong and brown; + + And he is rich, and fat and fleecy herds + Of bleating sheep upon his meadows lie, + And many an earthen bowl of yellow curds + Is in his homestead for the thievish fly + To swim and drown in, the pink clover mead + Keeps its sweet store for him, and he can pipe on oaten reed. + + And yet I love him not; it was for thee + I kept my love; I knew that thou would’st come + To rid me of this pallid chastity, + Thou fairest flower of the flowerless foam + Of all the wide Ægean, brightest star + Of ocean’s azure heavens where the mirrored planets are! + + I knew that thou would’st come, for when at first + The dry wood burgeoned, and the sap of spring + Swelled in my green and tender bark or burst + To myriad multitudinous blossoming + Which mocked the midnight with its mimic moons + That did not dread the dawn, and first the thrushes’ rapturous tunes + + Startled the squirrel from its granary, + And cuckoo flowers fringed the narrow lane, + Through my young leaves a sensuous ecstasy + Crept like new wine, and every mossy vein + Throbbed with the fitful pulse of amorous blood, + And the wild winds of passion shook my slim stem’s maidenhood. + + The trooping fawns at evening came and laid + Their cool black noses on my lowest boughs, + And on my topmost branch the blackbird made + A little nest of grasses for his spouse, + And now and then a twittering wren would light + On a thin twig which hardly bare the weight of such delight. + + I was the Attic shepherd’s trysting place, + Beneath my shadow Amaryllis lay, + And round my trunk would laughing Daphnis chase + The timorous girl, till tired out with play + She felt his hot breath stir her tangled hair, + And turned, and looked, and fled no more from such delightful snare. + + Then come away unto my ambuscade + Where clustering woodbine weaves a canopy + For amorous pleasaunce, and the rustling shade + Of Paphian myrtles seems to sanctify + The dearest rites of love; there in the cool + And green recesses of its farthest depth there is pool, + + The ouzel’s haunt, the wild bee’s pasturage, + For round its rim great creamy lilies float + Through their flat leaves in verdant anchorage, + Each cup a white-sailed golden-laden boat + Steered by a dragon-fly,—be not afraid + To leave this wan and wave-kissed shore, surely the place was made + + For lovers such as we; the Cyprian Queen, + One arm around her boyish paramour, + Strays often there at eve, and I have seen + The moon strip off her misty vestiture + For young Endymion’s eyes; be not afraid, + The panther feet of Dian never tread that secret glade. + + Nay if thou will’st, back to the beating brine, + Back to the boisterous billow let us go, + And walk all day beneath the hyaline + Huge vault of Neptune’s watery portico, + And watch the purple monsters of the deep + Sport in ungainly play, and from his lair keen Xiphias leap. + + For if my mistress find me lying here + She will not ruth or gentle pity show, + But lay her boar-spear down, and with austere + Relentless fingers string the cornel bow, + And draw the feathered notch against her breast, + And loose the archèd cord; aye, even now upon the quest + + I hear her hurrying feet,—awake, awake, + Thou laggard in love’s battle! once at least + Let me drink deep of passion’s wine, and slake + My parchèd being with the nectarous feast + Which even gods affect! O come, Love, come, + Still we have time to reach the cavern of thine azure home.’ + + Scarce had she spoken when the shuddering trees + Shook, and the leaves divided, and the air + Grew conscious of a god, and the grey seas + Crawled backward, and a long and dismal blare + Blew from some tasselled horn, a sleuth-hound bayed, + And like a flame a barbèd reed flew whizzing down the glade. + + And where the little flowers of her breast + Just brake into their milky blossoming, + This murderous paramour, this unbidden guest, + Pierced and struck deep in horrid chambering, + And ploughed a bloody furrow with its dart, + And dug a long red road, and cleft with wingèd death her heart. + + Sobbing her life out with a bitter cry + On the boy’s body fell the Dryad maid, + Sobbing for incomplete virginity, + And raptures unenjoyed, and pleasures dead, + And all the pain of things unsatisfied, + And the bright drops of crimson youth crept down her throbbing side. + + Ah! pitiful it was to hear her moan, + And very pitiful to see her die + Ere she had yielded up her sweets, or known + The joy of passion, that dread mystery + Which not to know is not to live at all, + And yet to know is to be held in death’s most deadly thrall. + + But as it hapt the Queen of Cythere, + Who with Adonis all night long had lain + Within some shepherd’s hut in Arcady, + On team of silver doves and gilded wain + Was journeying Paphos-ward, high up afar + From mortal ken between the mountains and the morning star, + + And when low down she spied the hapless pair, + And heard the Oread’s faint despairing cry, + Whose cadence seemed to play upon the air + As though it were a viol, hastily + She bade her pigeons fold each straining plume, + And dropt to earth, and reached the strand, and saw their dolorous + doom. + + For as a gardener turning back his head + To catch the last notes of the linnet, mows + With careless scythe too near some flower bed, + And cuts the thorny pillar of the rose, + And with the flower’s loosened loneliness + Strews the brown mould; or as some shepherd lad in wantonness + + Driving his little flock along the mead + Treads down two daffodils, which side by aide + Have lured the lady-bird with yellow brede + And made the gaudy moth forget its pride, + Treads down their brimming golden chalices + Under light feet which were not made for such rude ravages; + + Or as a schoolboy tired of his book + Flings himself down upon the reedy grass + And plucks two water-lilies from the brook, + And for a time forgets the hour glass, + Then wearies of their sweets, and goes his way, + And lets the hot sun kill them, even go these lovers lay. + + And Venus cried, ‘It is dread Artemis + Whose bitter hand hath wrought this cruelty, + Or else that mightier maid whose care it is + To guard her strong and stainless majesty + Upon the hill Athenian,—alas! + That they who loved so well unloved into Death’s house should pass.’ + + So with soft hands she laid the boy and girl + In the great golden waggon tenderly + (Her white throat whiter than a moony pearl + Just threaded with a blue vein’s tapestry + Had not yet ceased to throb, and still her breast + Swayed like a wind-stirred lily in ambiguous unrest) + + And then each pigeon spread its milky van, + The bright car soared into the dawning sky, + And like a cloud the aerial caravan + Passed over the Ægean silently, + Till the faint air was troubled with the song + From the wan mouths that call on bleeding Thammuz all night long. + + But when the doves had reached their wonted goal + Where the wide stair of orbèd marble dips + Its snows into the sea, her fluttering soul + Just shook the trembling petals of her lips + And passed into the void, and Venus knew + That one fair maid the less would walk amid her retinue, + + And bade her servants carve a cedar chest + With all the wonder of this history, + Within whose scented womb their limbs should rest + Where olive-trees make tender the blue sky + On the low hills of Paphos, and the Faun + Pipes in the noonday, and the nightingale sings on till dawn. + + Nor failed they to obey her hest, and ere + The morning bee had stung the daffodil + With tiny fretful spear, or from its lair + The waking stag had leapt across the rill + And roused the ouzel, or the lizard crept + Athwart the sunny rock, beneath the grass their bodies slept. + + And when day brake, within that silver shrine + Fed by the flames of cressets tremulous, + Queen Venus knelt and prayed to Proserpine + That she whose beauty made Death amorous + Should beg a guerdon from her pallid Lord, + And let Desire pass across dread Charon’s icy ford. + + III + + IN melancholy moonless Acheron, + Farm for the goodly earth and joyous day + Where no spring ever buds, nor ripening sun + Weighs down the apple trees, nor flowery May + Chequers with chestnut blooms the grassy floor, + Where thrushes never sing, and piping linnets mate no more, + + There by a dim and dark Lethæan well + Young Charmides was lying; wearily + He plucked the blossoms from the asphodel, + And with its little rifled treasury + Strewed the dull waters of the dusky stream, + And watched the white stars founder, and the land was like a dream, + + When as he gazed into the watery glass + And through his brown hair’s curly tangles scanned + His own wan face, a shadow seemed to pass + Across the mirror, and a little hand + Stole into his, and warm lips timidly + Brushed his pale cheeks, and breathed their secret forth into a sigh. + + Then turned he round his weary eyes and saw, + And ever nigher still their faces came, + And nigher ever did their young mouths draw + Until they seemed one perfect rose of flame, + And longing arms around her neck he cast, + And felt her throbbing bosom, and his breath came hot and fast, + + And all his hoarded sweets were hers to kiss, + And all her maidenhood was his to slay, + And limb to limb in long and rapturous bliss + Their passion waxed and waned,—O why essay + To pipe again of love, too venturous reed! + Enough, enough that Eros laughed upon that flowerless mead. + + Too venturous poesy, O why essay + To pipe again of passion! fold thy wings + O’er daring Icarus and bid thy lay + Sleep hidden in the lyre’s silent strings + Till thou hast found the old Castalian rill, + Or from the Lesbian waters plucked drowned Sappho’s golden quid! + + Enough, enough that he whose life had been + A fiery pulse of sin, a splendid shame, + Could in the loveless land of Hades glean + One scorching harvest from those fields of flame + Where passion walks with naked unshod feet + And is not wounded,—ah! enough that once their lips could meet + + In that wild throb when all existences + Seemed narrowed to one single ecstasy + Which dies through its own sweetness and the stress + Of too much pleasure, ere Persephone + Had bade them serve her by the ebon throne + Of the pale God who in the fields of Enna loosed her zone. + + + +FLOWERS OF GOLD + + +IMPRESSIONS + +I +LES SILHOUETTES + + + THE sea is flecked with bars of grey, + The dull dead wind is out of tune, + And like a withered leaf the moon + Is blown across the stormy bay. + + Etched clear upon the pallid sand + Lies the black boat: a sailor boy + Clambers aboard in careless joy + With laughing face and gleaming hand. + + And overhead the curlews cry, + Where through the dusky upland grass + The young brown-throated reapers pass, + Like silhouettes against the sky. + + +II +LA FUITE DE LA LUNE + + + TO outer senses there is peace, + A dreamy peace on either hand + Deep silence in the shadowy land, + Deep silence where the shadows cease. + + Save for a cry that echoes shrill + From some lone bird disconsolate; + A corncrake calling to its mate; + The answer from the misty hill. + + And suddenly the moon withdraws + Her sickle from the lightening skies, + And to her sombre cavern flies, + Wrapped in a veil of yellow gauze. + + +THE GRAVE OF KEATS + + + RID of the world’s injustice, and his pain, + He rests at last beneath God’s veil of blue: + Taken from life when life and love were new + The youngest of the martyrs here is lain, + Fair as Sebastian, and as early slain. + No cypress shades his grave, no funeral yew, + But gentle violets weeping with the dew + Weave on his bones an ever-blossoming chain. + O proudest heart that broke for misery! + O sweetest lips since those of Mitylene! + O poet-painter of our English Land! + Thy name was writ in water—it shall stand: + And tears like mine will keep thy memory green, + As Isabella did her Basil-tree. + +ROME. + + +THEOCRITUS + + + A VILLANELLE + + O SINGER of Persephone! + In the dim meadows desolate + Dost thou remember Sicily? + + Still through the ivy flits the bee + Where Amaryllis lies in state; + O Singer of Persephone! + + Simætha calls on Hecate + And hears the wild dogs at the gate; + Dost thou remember Sicily? + + Still by the light and laughing sea + Poor Polypheme bemoans his fate; + O Singer of Persephone! + + And still in boyish rivalry + Young Daphnis challenges his mate; + Dost thou remember Sicily? + + Slim Lacon keeps a goat for thee, + For thee the jocund shepherds wait; + O Singer of Persephone! + Dost thou remember Sicily? + + +IN THE GOLD ROOM + + + A HARMONY + + HER ivory hands on the ivory keys + Strayed in a fitful fantasy, + Like the silver gleam when the poplar trees + Rustle their pale-leaves listlessly, + Or the drifting foam of a restless sea + When the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze. + + Her gold hair fell on the wall of gold + Like the delicate gossamer tangles spun + On the burnished disk of the marigold, + Or the sunflower turning to meet the sun + When the gloom of the dark blue night is done, + And the spear of the lily is aureoled. + + And her sweet red lips on these lips of mine + Burned like the ruby fire set + In the swinging lamp of a crimson shrine, + Or the bleeding wounds of the pomegranate, + Or the heart of the lotus drenched and wet + With the spilt-out blood of the rose-red wine. + + +BALLADE DE MARGUERITE + + + (NORMANDE) + + I AM weary of lying within the chase + When the knights are meeting in market-place. + + Nay, go not thou to the red-roofed town + Lest the hoofs of the war-horse tread thee down. + + But I would not go where the Squires ride, + I would only walk by my Lady’s side. + + Alack! and alack! thou art overbold, + A Forester’s son may not eat off gold. + + Will she love me the less that my Father is seen + Each Martinmas day in a doublet green? + + Perchance she is sewing at tapestrie, + Spindle and loom are not meet for thee. + + Ah, if she is working the arras bright + I might ravel the threads by the fire-light. + + Perchance she is hunting of the deer, + How could you follow o’er hill and mere? + + Ah, if she is riding with the court, + I might run beside her and wind the morte. + + Perchance she is kneeling in St. Denys, + (On her soul may our Lady have gramercy!) + + Ah, if she is praying in lone chapelle, + I might swing the censer and ring the bell. + + Come in, my son, for you look sae pale, + The father shall fill thee a stoup of ale. + + But who are these knights in bright array? + Is it a pageant the rich folks play? + + ’T is the King of England from over sea, + Who has come unto visit our fair countrie. + + But why does the curfew toll sae low? + And why do the mourners walk a-row? + + O ’t is Hugh of Amiens my sister’s son + Who is lying stark, for his day is done. + + Nay, nay, for I see white lilies clear, + It is no strong man who lies on the bier. + + O ’t is old Dame Jeannette that kept the hall, + I knew she would die at the autumn fall. + + Dame Jeannette had not that gold-brown hair, + Old Jeannette was not a maiden fair. + + O ’t is none of our kith and none of our kin, + (Her soul may our Lady assoil from sin!) + + But I hear the boy’s voice chaunting sweet, + ‘Elle est morte, la Marguerite.’ + + Come in, my son, and lie on the bed, + And let the dead folk bury their dead. + + O mother, you know I loved her true: + O mother, hath one grave room for two? + + +THE DOLE OF THE KING’S DAUGHTER + + + (BRETON) + + SEVEN stars in the still water, + And seven in the sky; + Seven sins on the King’s daughter, + Deep in her soul to lie. + + Red roses are at her feet, + (Roses are red in her red-gold hair) + And O where her bosom and girdle meet + Red roses are hidden there. + + Fair is the knight who lieth slain + Amid the rush and reed, + See the lean fishes that are fain + Upon dead men to feed. + + Sweet is the page that lieth there, + (Cloth of gold is goodly prey,) + See the black ravens in the air, + Black, O black as the night are they. + + What do they there so stark and dead? + (There is blood upon her hand) + Why are the lilies flecked with red? + (There is blood on the river sand.) + + There are two that ride from the south and east, + And two from the north and west, + For the black raven a goodly feast, + For the King’s daughter rest. + + There is one man who loves her true, + (Red, O red, is the stain of gore!) + He hath duggen a grave by the darksome yew, + (One grave will do for four.) + + No moon in the still heaven, + In the black water none, + The sins on her soul are seven, + The sin upon his is one. + + +AMOR INTELLECTUALIS + + + OFT have we trod the vales of Castaly + And heard sweet notes of sylvan music blown + From antique reeds to common folk unknown: + And often launched our bark upon that sea + Which the nine Muses hold in empery, + And ploughed free furrows through the wave and foam, + Nor spread reluctant sail for more safe home + Till we had freighted well our argosy. + Of which despoilèd treasures these remain, + Sordello’s passion, and the honeyed line + Of young Endymion, lordly Tamburlaine + Driving his pampered jades, and more than these, + The seven-fold vision of the Florentine, + And grave-browed Milton’s solemn harmonies. + + +SANTA DECCA + + + THE Gods are dead: no longer do we bring + To grey-eyed Pallas crowns of olive-leaves! + Demeter’s child no more hath tithe of sheaves, + And in the noon the careless shepherds sing, + For Pan is dead, and all the wantoning + By secret glade and devious haunt is o’er: + Young Hylas seeks the water-springs no more; + Great Pan is dead, and Mary’s son is King. + + And yet—perchance in this sea-trancèd isle, + Chewing the bitter fruit of memory, + Some God lies hidden in the asphodel. + Ah Love! if such there be, then it were well + For us to fly his anger: nay, but see, + The leaves are stirring: let us watch awhile. + +CORFU. + + +A VISION + + + TWO crownèd Kings, and One that stood alone + With no green weight of laurels round his head, + But with sad eyes as one uncomforted, + And wearied with man’s never-ceasing moan + For sins no bleating victim can atone, + And sweet long lips with tears and kisses fed. + Girt was he in a garment black and red, + And at his feet I marked a broken stone + Which sent up lilies, dove-like, to his knees. + Now at their sight, my heart being lit with flame, + I cried to Beatricé, ‘Who are these?’ + And she made answer, knowing well each name, + ‘Æschylos first, the second Sophokles, + And last (wide stream of tears!) Euripides.’ + + +IMPRESSION DE VOYAGE + + + THE sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky + Burned like a heated opal through the air; + We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair + For the blue lands that to the eastward lie. + From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye + Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek, + Ithaca’s cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak, + And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady. + The flapping of the sail against the mast, + The ripple of the water on the side, + The ripple of girls’ laughter at the stern, + The only sounds:—when ’gan the West to burn, + And a red sun upon the seas to ride, + I stood upon the soil of Greece at last! + +KATAKOLO. + + +THE GRAVE OF SHELLEY + + + LIKE burnt-out torches by a sick man’s bed + Gaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone; + Here doth the little night-owl make her throne, + And the slight lizard show his jewelled head. + And, where the chaliced poppies flame to red, + In the still chamber of yon pyramid + Surely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid, + Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead. + + Ah! sweet indeed to rest within the womb + Of Earth, great mother of eternal sleep, + But sweeter far for thee a restless tomb + In the blue cavern of an echoing deep, + Or where the tall ships founder in the gloom + Against the rocks of some wave-shattered steep. + +ROME. + + +BY THE ARNO + + + THE oleander on the wall + Grows crimson in the dawning light, + Though the grey shadows of the night + Lie yet on Florence like a pall. + + The dew is bright upon the hill, + And bright the blossoms overhead, + But ah! the grasshoppers have fled, + The little Attic song is still. + + Only the leaves are gently stirred + By the soft breathing of the gale, + And in the almond-scented vale + The lonely nightingale is heard. + + The day will make thee silent soon, + O nightingale sing on for love! + While yet upon the shadowy grove + Splinter the arrows of the moon. + + Before across the silent lawn + In sea-green vest the morning steals, + And to love’s frightened eyes reveals + The long white fingers of the dawn + + Fast climbing up the eastern sky + To grasp and slay the shuddering night, + All careless of my heart’s delight, + Or if the nightingale should die. + + + +IMPRESSIONS DE THÉÂTRE + + +FABIEN DEI FRANCHI + + + TO MY FRIEND HENRY IRVING + + THE silent room, the heavy creeping shade, + The dead that travel fast, the opening door, + The murdered brother rising through the floor, + The ghost’s white fingers on thy shoulders laid, + And then the lonely duel in the glade, + The broken swords, the stifled scream, the gore, + Thy grand revengeful eyes when all is o’er,— + These things are well enough,—but thou wert made + For more august creation! frenzied Lear + Should at thy bidding wander on the heath + With the shrill fool to mock him, Romeo + For thee should lure his love, and desperate fear + Pluck Richard’s recreant dagger from its sheath— + Thou trumpet set for Shakespeare’s lips to blow! + + +PHÈDRE + + + TO SARAH BERNHARDT + + HOW vain and dull this common world must seem + To such a One as thou, who should’st have talked + At Florence with Mirandola, or walked + Through the cool olives of the Academe: + Thou should’st have gathered reeds from a green stream + For Goat-foot Pan’s shrill piping, and have played + With the white girls in that Phæacian glade + Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream. + + Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clay + Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again + Back to this common world so dull and vain, + For thou wert weary of the sunless day, + The heavy fields of scentless asphodel, + The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell. + + +WRITTEN AT THE LYCEUM THEATRE + +I +PORTIA + + + TO ELLEN TERRY + + I MARVEL not Bassanio was so bold + To peril all he had upon the lead, + Or that proud Aragon bent low his head + Or that Morocco’s fiery heart grew cold: + For in that gorgeous dress of beaten gold + Which is more golden than the golden sun + No woman Veronesé looked upon + Was half so fair as thou whom I behold. + Yet fairer when with wisdom as your shield + The sober-suited lawyer’s gown you donned, + And would not let the laws of Venice yield + Antonio’s heart to that accursèd Jew— + O Portia! take my heart: it is thy due: + I think I will not quarrel with the Bond. + + +II +QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA + + + TO ELLEN TERRY + + IN the lone tent, waiting for victory, + She stands with eyes marred by the mists of pain, + Like some wan lily overdrenched with rain: + The clamorous clang of arms, the ensanguined sky, + War’s ruin, and the wreck of chivalry + To her proud soul no common fear can bring: + Bravely she tarrieth for her Lord the King, + Her soul a-flame with passionate ecstasy. + O Hair of Gold! O Crimson Lips! O Face + Made for the luring and the love of man! + With thee I do forget the toil and stress, + The loveless road that knows no resting place, + Time’s straitened pulse, the soul’s dread weariness, + My freedom, and my life republican! + + +III +CAMMA + + + TO ELLEN TERRY + + AS one who poring on a Grecian urn + Scans the fair shapes some Attic hand hath made, + God with slim goddess, goodly man with maid, + And for their beauty’s sake is loth to turn + And face the obvious day, must I not yearn + For many a secret moon of indolent bliss, + When in midmost shrine of Artemis + I see thee standing, antique-limbed, and stern? + + And yet—methinks I’d rather see thee play + That serpent of old Nile, whose witchery + Made Emperors drunken,—come, great Egypt, shake + Our stage with all thy mimic pageants! Nay, + I am grown sick of unreal passions, make + The world thine Actium, me thine Anthony! + + + +PANTHEA + + + NAY, let us walk from fire unto fire, + From passionate pain to deadlier delight,— + I am too young to live without desire, + Too young art thou to waste this summer night + Asking those idle questions which of old + Man sought of seer and oracle, and no reply was told. + + For, sweet, to feel is better than to know, + And wisdom is a childless heritage, + One pulse of passion—youth’s first fiery glow,— + Are worth the hoarded proverbs of the sage: + Vex not thy soul with dead philosophy, + Have we not lips to kiss with, hearts to love and eyes to see! + + Dost thou not hear the murmuring nightingale, + Like water bubbling from a silver jar, + So soft she sings the envious moon is pale, + That high in heaven she is hung so far + She cannot hear that love-enraptured tune,— + Mark how she wreathes each horn with mist, yon late and labouring + moon. + + White lilies, in whose cups the gold bees dream, + The fallen snow of petals where the breeze + Scatters the chestnut blossom, or the gleam + Of boyish limbs in water,—are not these + Enough for thee, dost thou desire more? + Alas! the Gods will give nought else from their eternal store. + + For our high Gods have sick and wearied grown + Of all our endless sins, our vain endeavour + For wasted days of youth to make atone + By pain or prayer or priest, and never, never, + Hearken they now to either good or ill, + But send their rain upon the just and the unjust at will. + + They sit at ease, our Gods they sit at ease, + Strewing with leaves of rose their scented wine, + They sleep, they sleep, beneath the rocking trees + Where asphodel and yellow lotus twine, + Mourning the old glad days before they knew + What evil things the heart of man could dream, and dreaming do. + + And far beneath the brazen floor they see + Like swarming flies the crowd of little men, + The bustle of small lives, then wearily + Back to their lotus-haunts they turn again + Kissing each others’ mouths, and mix more deep + The poppy-seeded draught which brings soft purple-lidded sleep. + + There all day long the golden-vestured sun, + Their torch-bearer, stands with his torch ablaze, + And, when the gaudy web of noon is spun + By its twelve maidens, through the crimson haze + Fresh from Endymion’s arms comes forth the moon, + And the immortal Gods in toils of mortal passions swoon. + + There walks Queen Juno through some dewy mead, + Her grand white feet flecked with the saffron dust + Of wind-stirred lilies, while young Ganymede + Leaps in the hot and amber-foaming must, + His curls all tossed, as when the eagle bare + The frightened boy from Ida through the blue Ionian air. + + There in the green heart of some garden close + Queen Venus with the shepherd at her side, + Her warm soft body like the briar rose + Which would be white yet blushes at its pride, + Laughs low for love, till jealous Salmacis + Peers through the myrtle-leaves and sighs for pain of lonely bliss. + + There never does that dreary north-wind blow + Which leaves our English forests bleak and bare, + Nor ever falls the swift white-feathered snow, + Nor ever doth the red-toothed lightning dare + To wake them in the silver-fretted night + When we lie weeping for some sweet sad sin, some dead delight. + + Alas! they know the far Lethæan spring, + The violet-hidden waters well they know, + Where one whose feet with tired wandering + Are faint and broken may take heart and go, + And from those dark depths cool and crystalline + Drink, and draw balm, and sleep for sleepless souls, and anodyne. + + But we oppress our natures, God or Fate + Is our enemy, we starve and feed + On vain repentance—O we are born too late! + What balm for us in bruisèd poppy seed + Who crowd into one finite pulse of time + The joy of infinite love and the fierce pain of infinite crime. + + O we are wearied of this sense of guilt, + Wearied of pleasure’s paramour despair, + Wearied of every temple we have built, + Wearied of every right, unanswered prayer, + For man is weak; God sleeps: and heaven is high: + One fiery-coloured moment: one great love; and lo! we die. + + Ah! but no ferry-man with labouring pole + Nears his black shallop to the flowerless strand, + No little coin of bronze can bring the soul + Over Death’s river to the sunless land, + Victim and wine and vow are all in vain, + The tomb is sealed; the soldiers watch; the dead rise not again. + + We are resolved into the supreme air, + We are made one with what we touch and see, + With our heart’s blood each crimson sun is fair, + With our young lives each spring-impassioned tree + Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range + The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change. + + With beat of systole and of diastole + One grand great life throbs through earth’s giant heart, + And mighty waves of single Being roll + From nerveless germ to man, for we are part + Of every rock and bird and beast and hill, + One with the things that prey on us, and one with what we kill. + + From lower cells of waking life we pass + To full perfection; thus the world grows old: + We who are godlike now were once a mass + Of quivering purple flecked with bars of gold, + Unsentient or of joy or misery, + And tossed in terrible tangles of some wild and wind-swept sea. + + This hot hard flame with which our bodies burn + Will make some meadow blaze with daffodil, + Ay! and those argent breasts of thine will turn + To water-lilies; the brown fields men till + Will be more fruitful for our love to-night, + Nothing is lost in nature, all things live in Death’s despite. + + The boy’s first kiss, the hyacinth’s first bell, + The man’s last passion, and the last red spear + That from the lily leaps, the asphodel + Which will not let its blossoms blow for fear + Of too much beauty, and the timid shame + Of the young bridegroom at his lover’s eyes,—these with the same + + One sacrament are consecrate, the earth + Not we alone hath passions hymeneal, + The yellow buttercups that shake for mirth + At daybreak know a pleasure not less real + Than we do, when in some fresh-blossoming wood, + We draw the spring into our hearts, and feel that life is good. + + So when men bury us beneath the yew + Thy crimson-stainèd mouth a rose will be, + And thy soft eyes lush bluebells dimmed with dew, + And when the white narcissus wantonly + Kisses the wind its playmate some faint joy + Will thrill our dust, and we will be again fond maid and boy. + + And thus without life’s conscious torturing pain + In some sweet flower we will feel the sun, + And from the linnet’s throat will sing again, + And as two gorgeous-mailèd snakes will run + Over our graves, or as two tigers creep + Through the hot jungle where the yellow-eyed huge lions sleep + + And give them battle! How my heart leaps up + To think of that grand living after death + In beast and bird and flower, when this cup, + Being filled too full of spirit, bursts for breath, + And with the pale leaves of some autumn day + The soul earth’s earliest conqueror becomes earth’s last great prey. + + O think of it! We shall inform ourselves + Into all sensuous life, the goat-foot Faun, + The Centaur, or the merry bright-eyed Elves + That leave their dancing rings to spite the dawn + Upon the meadows, shall not be more near + Than you and I to nature’s mysteries, for we shall hear + + The thrush’s heart beat, and the daisies grow, + And the wan snowdrop sighing for the sun + On sunless days in winter, we shall know + By whom the silver gossamer is spun, + Who paints the diapered fritillaries, + On what wide wings from shivering pine to pine the eagle flies. + + Ay! had we never loved at all, who knows + If yonder daffodil had lured the bee + Into its gilded womb, or any rose + Had hung with crimson lamps its little tree! + Methinks no leaf would ever bud in spring, + But for the lovers’ lips that kiss, the poets’ lips that sing. + + Is the light vanished from our golden sun, + Or is this dædal-fashioned earth less fair, + That we are nature’s heritors, and one + With every pulse of life that beats the air? + Rather new suns across the sky shall pass, + New splendour come unto the flower, new glory to the grass. + + And we two lovers shall not sit afar, + Critics of nature, but the joyous sea + Shall be our raiment, and the bearded star + Shoot arrows at our pleasure! We shall be + Part of the mighty universal whole, + And through all æons mix and mingle with the Kosmic Soul! + + We shall be notes in that great Symphony + Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres, + And all the live World’s throbbing heart shall be + One with our heart; the stealthy creeping years + Have lost their terrors now, we shall not die, + The Universe itself shall be our Immortality. + + + +THE FOURTH MOVEMENT + + +IMPRESSION + + + LE RÉVEILLON + + THE sky is laced with fitful red, + The circling mists and shadows flee, + The dawn is rising from the sea, + Like a white lady from her bed. + + And jagged brazen arrows fall + Athwart the feathers of the night, + And a long wave of yellow light + Breaks silently on tower and hall, + + And spreading wide across the wold + Wakes into flight some fluttering bird, + And all the chestnut tops are stirred, + And all the branches streaked with gold. + + +AT VERONA + + + HOW steep the stairs within Kings’ houses are + For exile-wearied feet as mine to tread, + And O how salt and bitter is the bread + Which falls from this Hound’s table,—better far + That I had died in the red ways of war, + Or that the gate of Florence bare my head, + Than to live thus, by all things comraded + Which seek the essence of my soul to mar. + + ‘Curse God and die: what better hope than this? + He hath forgotten thee in all the bliss + Of his gold city, and eternal day’— + Nay peace: behind my prison’s blinded bars + I do possess what none can take away + My love, and all the glory of the stars. + + +APOLOGIA + + + IS it thy will that I should wax and wane, + Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey, + And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain + Whose brightest threads are each a wasted day? + + Is it thy will—Love that I love so well— + That my Soul’s House should be a tortured spot + Wherein, like evil paramours, must dwell + The quenchless flame, the worm that dieth not? + + Nay, if it be thy will I shall endure, + And sell ambition at the common mart, + And let dull failure be my vestiture, + And sorrow dig its grave within my heart. + + Perchance it may be better so—at least + I have not made my heart a heart of stone, + Nor starved my boyhood of its goodly feast, + Nor walked where Beauty is a thing unknown. + + Many a man hath done so; sought to fence + In straitened bonds the soul that should be free, + Trodden the dusty road of common sense, + While all the forest sang of liberty, + + Not marking how the spotted hawk in flight + Passed on wide pinion through the lofty air, + To where some steep untrodden mountain height + Caught the last tresses of the Sun God’s hair. + + Or how the little flower he trod upon, + The daisy, that white-feathered shield of gold, + Followed with wistful eyes the wandering sun + Content if once its leaves were aureoled. + + But surely it is something to have been + The best belovèd for a little while, + To have walked hand in hand with Love, and seen + His purple wings flit once across thy smile. + + Ay! though the gorgèd asp of passion feed + On my boy’s heart, yet have I burst the bars, + Stood face to face with Beauty, known indeed + The Love which moves the Sun and all the stars! + + +QUIA MULTUM AMAVI + + + DEAR Heart, I think the young impassioned priest + When first he takes from out the hidden shrine + His God imprisoned in the Eucharist, + And eats the bread, and drinks the dreadful wine, + + Feels not such awful wonder as I felt + When first my smitten eyes beat full on thee, + And all night long before thy feet I knelt + Till thou wert wearied of Idolatry. + + Ah! hadst thou liked me less and loved me more, + Through all those summer days of joy and rain, + I had not now been sorrow’s heritor, + Or stood a lackey in the House of Pain. + + Yet, though remorse, youth’s white-faced seneschal, + Tread on my heels with all his retinue, + I am most glad I loved thee—think of all + The suns that go to make one speedwell blue! + + +SILENTIUM AMORIS + + + AS often-times the too resplendent sun + Hurries the pallid and reluctant moon + Back to her sombre cave, ere she hath won + A single ballad from the nightingale, + So doth thy Beauty make my lips to fail, + And all my sweetest singing out of tune. + + And as at dawn across the level mead + On wings impetuous some wind will come, + And with its too harsh kisses break the reed + Which was its only instrument of song, + So my too stormy passions work me wrong, + And for excess of Love my Love is dumb. + + But surely unto Thee mine eyes did show + Why I am silent, and my lute unstrung; + Else it were better we should part, and go, + Thou to some lips of sweeter melody, + And I to nurse the barren memory + Of unkissed kisses, and songs never sung. + + +HER VOICE + + + THE wild bee reels from bough to bough + With his furry coat and his gauzy wing, + Now in a lily-cup, and now + Setting a jacinth bell a-swing, + In his wandering; + Sit closer love: it was here I trow + I made that vow, + + Swore that two lives should be like one + As long as the sea-gull loved the sea, + As long as the sunflower sought the sun,— + It shall be, I said, for eternity + ’Twixt you and me! + Dear friend, those times are over and done; + Love’s web is spun. + + Look upward where the poplar trees + Sway and sway in the summer air, + Here in the valley never a breeze + Scatters the thistledown, but there + Great winds blow fair + From the mighty murmuring mystical seas, + And the wave-lashed leas. + + Look upward where the white gull screams, + What does it see that we do not see? + Is that a star? or the lamp that gleams + On some outward voyaging argosy,— + Ah! can it be + We have lived our lives in a land of dreams! + How sad it seems. + + Sweet, there is nothing left to say + But this, that love is never lost, + Keen winter stabs the breasts of May + Whose crimson roses burst his frost, + Ships tempest-tossed + Will find a harbour in some bay, + And so we may. + + And there is nothing left to do + But to kiss once again, and part, + Nay, there is nothing we should rue, + I have my beauty,—you your Art, + Nay, do not start, + One world was not enough for two + Like me and you. + + +MY VOICE + + + WITHIN this restless, hurried, modern world + We took our hearts’ full pleasure—You and I, + And now the white sails of our ship are furled, + And spent the lading of our argosy. + + Wherefore my cheeks before their time are wan, + For very weeping is my gladness fled, + Sorrow has paled my young mouth’s vermilion, + And Ruin draws the curtains of my bed. + + But all this crowded life has been to thee + No more than lyre, or lute, or subtle spell + Of viols, or the music of the sea + That sleeps, a mimic echo, in the shell. + + +TÆDIUM VITÆ + + + TO stab my youth with desperate knives, to wear + This paltry age’s gaudy livery, + To let each base hand filch my treasury, + To mesh my soul within a woman’s hair, + And be mere Fortune’s lackeyed groom,—I swear + I love it not! these things are less to me + Than the thin foam that frets upon the sea, + Less than the thistledown of summer air + Which hath no seed: better to stand aloof + Far from these slanderous fools who mock my life + Knowing me not, better the lowliest roof + Fit for the meanest hind to sojourn in, + Than to go back to that hoarse cave of strife + Where my white soul first kissed the mouth of sin. + + + +HUMANITAD + + + IT is full winter now: the trees are bare, + Save where the cattle huddle from the cold + Beneath the pine, for it doth never wear + The autumn’s gaudy livery whose gold + Her jealous brother pilfers, but is true + To the green doublet; bitter is the wind, as though it blew + + From Saturn’s cave; a few thin wisps of hay + Lie on the sharp black hedges, where the wain + Dragged the sweet pillage of a summer’s day + From the low meadows up the narrow lane; + Upon the half-thawed snow the bleating sheep + Press close against the hurdles, and the shivering house-dogs creep + + From the shut stable to the frozen stream + And back again disconsolate, and miss + The bawling shepherds and the noisy team; + And overhead in circling listlessness + The cawing rooks whirl round the frosted stack, + Or crowd the dripping boughs; and in the fen the ice-pools crack + + Where the gaunt bittern stalks among the reeds + And flaps his wings, and stretches back his neck, + And hoots to see the moon; across the meads + Limps the poor frightened hare, a little speck; + And a stray seamew with its fretful cry + Flits like a sudden drift of snow against the dull grey sky. + + Full winter: and the lusty goodman brings + His load of faggots from the chilly byre, + And stamps his feet upon the hearth, and flings + The sappy billets on the waning fire, + And laughs to see the sudden lightening scare + His children at their play, and yet,—the spring is in the air; + + Already the slim crocus stirs the snow, + And soon yon blanchèd fields will bloom again + With nodding cowslips for some lad to mow, + For with the first warm kisses of the rain + The winter’s icy sorrow breaks to tears, + And the brown thrushes mate, and with bright eyes the rabbit peers + + From the dark warren where the fir-cones lie, + And treads one snowdrop under foot, and runs + Over the mossy knoll, and blackbirds fly + Across our path at evening, and the suns + Stay longer with us; ah! how good to see + Grass-girdled spring in all her joy of laughing greenery + + Dance through the hedges till the early rose, + (That sweet repentance of the thorny briar!) + Burst from its sheathèd emerald and disclose + The little quivering disk of golden fire + Which the bees know so well, for with it come + Pale boy’s-love, sops-in-wine, and daffadillies all in bloom. + + Then up and down the field the sower goes, + While close behind the laughing younker scares + With shrilly whoop the black and thievish crows, + And then the chestnut-tree its glory wears, + And on the grass the creamy blossom falls + In odorous excess, and faint half-whispered madrigals + + Steal from the bluebells’ nodding carillons + Each breezy morn, and then white jessamine, + That star of its own heaven, snap-dragons + With lolling crimson tongues, and eglantine + In dusty velvets clad usurp the bed + And woodland empery, and when the lingering rose hath shed + + Red leaf by leaf its folded panoply, + And pansies closed their purple-lidded eyes, + Chrysanthemums from gilded argosy + Unload their gaudy scentless merchandise, + And violets getting overbold withdraw + From their shy nooks, and scarlet berries dot the leafless haw. + + O happy field! and O thrice happy tree! + Soon will your queen in daisy-flowered smock + And crown of flower-de-luce trip down the lea, + Soon will the lazy shepherds drive their flock + Back to the pasture by the pool, and soon + Through the green leaves will float the hum of murmuring bees at noon. + + Soon will the glade be bright with bellamour, + The flower which wantons love, and those sweet nuns + Vale-lilies in their snowy vestiture + Will tell their beaded pearls, and carnations + With mitred dusky leaves will scent the wind, + And straggling traveller’s-joy each hedge with yellow stars will bind. + + Dear bride of Nature and most bounteous spring, + That canst give increase to the sweet-breath’d kine, + And to the kid its little horns, and bring + The soft and silky blossoms to the vine, + Where is that old nepenthe which of yore + Man got from poppy root and glossy-berried mandragore! + + There was a time when any common bird + Could make me sing in unison, a time + When all the strings of boyish life were stirred + To quick response or more melodious rhyme + By every forest idyll;—do I change? + Or rather doth some evil thing through thy fair pleasaunce range? + + Nay, nay, thou art the same: ’tis I who seek + To vex with sighs thy simple solitude, + And because fruitless tears bedew my cheek + Would have thee weep with me in brotherhood; + Fool! shall each wronged and restless spirit dare + To taint such wine with the salt poison of own despair! + + Thou art the same: ’tis I whose wretched soul + Takes discontent to be its paramour, + And gives its kingdom to the rude control + Of what should be its servitor,—for sure + Wisdom is somewhere, though the stormy sea + Contain it not, and the huge deep answer ‘’Tis not in me.’ + + To burn with one clear flame, to stand erect + In natural honour, not to bend the knee + In profitless prostrations whose effect + Is by itself condemned, what alchemy + Can teach me this? what herb Medea brewed + Will bring the unexultant peace of essence not subdued? + + The minor chord which ends the harmony, + And for its answering brother waits in vain + Sobbing for incompleted melody, + Dies a swan’s death; but I the heir of pain, + A silent Memnon with blank lidless eyes, + Wait for the light and music of those suns which never rise. + + The quenched-out torch, the lonely cypress-gloom, + The little dust stored in the narrow urn, + The gentle ΧΑΙΡΕ of the Attic tomb,— + Were not these better far than to return + To my old fitful restless malady, + Or spend my days within the voiceless cave of misery? + + Nay! for perchance that poppy-crownèd god + Is like the watcher by a sick man’s bed + Who talks of sleep but gives it not; his rod + Hath lost its virtue, and, when all is said, + Death is too rude, too obvious a key + To solve one single secret in a life’s philosophy. + + And Love! that noble madness, whose august + And inextinguishable might can slay + The soul with honeyed drugs,—alas! I must + From such sweet ruin play the runaway, + Although too constant memory never can + Forget the archèd splendour of those brows Olympian + + Which for a little season made my youth + So soft a swoon of exquisite indolence + That all the chiding of more prudent Truth + Seemed the thin voice of jealousy,—O hence + Thou huntress deadlier than Artemis! + Go seek some other quarry! for of thy too perilous bliss. + + My lips have drunk enough,—no more, no more,— + Though Love himself should turn his gilded prow + Back to the troubled waters of this shore + Where I am wrecked and stranded, even now + The chariot wheels of passion sweep too near, + Hence! Hence! I pass unto a life more barren, more austere. + + More barren—ay, those arms will never lean + Down through the trellised vines and draw my soul + In sweet reluctance through the tangled green; + Some other head must wear that aureole, + For I am hers who loves not any man + Whose white and stainless bosom bears the sign Gorgonian. + + Let Venus go and chuck her dainty page, + And kiss his mouth, and toss his curly hair, + With net and spear and hunting equipage + Let young Adonis to his tryst repair, + But me her fond and subtle-fashioned spell + Delights no more, though I could win her dearest citadel. + + Ay, though I were that laughing shepherd boy + Who from Mount Ida saw the little cloud + Pass over Tenedos and lofty Troy + And knew the coming of the Queen, and bowed + In wonder at her feet, not for the sake + Of a new Helen would I bid her hand the apple take. + + Then rise supreme Athena argent-limbed! + And, if my lips be musicless, inspire + At least my life: was not thy glory hymned + By One who gave to thee his sword and lyre + Like Æschylos at well-fought Marathon, + And died to show that Milton’s England still could bear a son! + + And yet I cannot tread the Portico + And live without desire, fear and pain, + Or nurture that wise calm which long ago + The grave Athenian master taught to men, + Self-poised, self-centred, and self-comforted, + To watch the world’s vain phantasies go by with unbowed head. + + Alas! that serene brow, those eloquent lips, + Those eyes that mirrored all eternity, + Rest in their own Colonos, an eclipse + Hath come on Wisdom, and Mnemosyne + Is childless; in the night which she had made + For lofty secure flight Athena’s owl itself hath strayed. + + Nor much with Science do I care to climb, + Although by strange and subtle witchery + She drew the moon from heaven: the Muse Time + Unrolls her gorgeous-coloured tapestry + To no less eager eyes; often indeed + In the great epic of Polymnia’s scroll I love to read + + How Asia sent her myriad hosts to war + Against a little town, and panoplied + In gilded mail with jewelled scimitar, + White-shielded, purple-crested, rode the Mede + Between the waving poplars and the sea + Which men call Artemisium, till he saw Thermopylæ + + Its steep ravine spanned by a narrow wall, + And on the nearer side a little brood + Of careless lions holding festival! + And stood amazèd at such hardihood, + And pitched his tent upon the reedy shore, + And stayed two days to wonder, and then crept at midnight o’er + + Some unfrequented height, and coming down + The autumn forests treacherously slew + What Sparta held most dear and was the crown + Of far Eurotas, and passed on, nor knew + How God had staked an evil net for him + In the small bay at Salamis,—and yet, the page grows dim, + + Its cadenced Greek delights me not, I feel + With such a goodly time too out of tune + To love it much: for like the Dial’s wheel + That from its blinded darkness strikes the noon + Yet never sees the sun, so do my eyes + Restlessly follow that which from my cheated vision flies. + + O for one grand unselfish simple life + To teach us what is Wisdom! speak ye hills + Of lone Helvellyn, for this note of strife + Shunned your untroubled crags and crystal rills, + Where is that Spirit which living blamelessly + Yet dared to kiss the smitten mouth of his own century! + + Speak ye Rydalian laurels! where is he + Whose gentle head ye sheltered, that pure soul + Whose gracious days of uncrowned majesty + Through lowliest conduct touched the lofty goal + Where love and duty mingle! Him at least + The most high Laws were glad of, he had sat at Wisdom’s feast; + + But we are Learning’s changelings, know by rote + The clarion watchword of each Grecian school + And follow none, the flawless sword which smote + The pagan Hydra is an effete tool + Which we ourselves have blunted, what man now + Shall scale the august ancient heights and to old Reverence bow? + + One such indeed I saw, but, Ichabod! + Gone is that last dear son of Italy, + Who being man died for the sake of God, + And whose unrisen bones sleep peacefully, + O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto’s tower, + Thou marble lily of the lily town! let not the lour + + Of the rude tempest vex his slumber, or + The Arno with its tawny troubled gold + O’er-leap its marge, no mightier conqueror + Clomb the high Capitol in the days of old + When Rome was indeed Rome, for Liberty + Walked like a bride beside him, at which sight pale Mystery + + Fled shrieking to her farthest sombrest cell + With an old man who grabbled rusty keys, + Fled shuddering, for that immemorial knell + With which oblivion buries dynasties + Swept like a wounded eagle on the blast, + As to the holy heart of Rome the great triumvir passed. + + He knew the holiest heart and heights of Rome, + He drave the base wolf from the lion’s lair, + And now lies dead by that empyreal dome + Which overtops Valdarno hung in air + By Brunelleschi—O Melpomene + Breathe through thy melancholy pipe thy sweetest threnody! + + Breathe through the tragic stops such melodies + That Joy’s self may grow jealous, and the Nine + Forget awhile their discreet emperies, + Mourning for him who on Rome’s lordliest shrine + Lit for men’s lives the light of Marathon, + And bare to sun-forgotten fields the fire of the sun! + + O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto’s tower! + Let some young Florentine each eventide + Bring coronals of that enchanted flower + Which the dim woods of Vallombrosa hide, + And deck the marble tomb wherein he lies + Whose soul is as some mighty orb unseen of mortal eyes; + + Some mighty orb whose cycled wanderings, + Being tempest-driven to the farthest rim + Where Chaos meets Creation and the wings + Of the eternal chanting Cherubim + Are pavilioned on Nothing, passed away + Into a moonless void,—and yet, though he is dust and clay, + + He is not dead, the immemorial Fates + Forbid it, and the closing shears refrain. + Lift up your heads ye everlasting gates! + Ye argent clarions, sound a loftier strain + For the vile thing he hated lurks within + Its sombre house, alone with God and memories of sin. + + Still what avails it that she sought her cave + That murderous mother of red harlotries? + At Munich on the marble architrave + The Grecian boys die smiling, but the seas + Which wash Ægina fret in loneliness + Not mirroring their beauty; so our lives grow colourless + + For lack of our ideals, if one star + Flame torch-like in the heavens the unjust + Swift daylight kills it, and no trump of war + Can wake to passionate voice the silent dust + Which was Mazzini once! rich Niobe + For all her stony sorrows hath her sons; but Italy, + + What Easter Day shall make her children rise, + Who were not Gods yet suffered? what sure feet + Shall find their grave-clothes folded? what clear eyes + Shall see them bodily? O it were meet + To roll the stone from off the sepulchre + And kiss the bleeding roses of their wounds, in love of her, + + Our Italy! our mother visible! + Most blessed among nations and most sad, + For whose dear sake the young Calabrian fell + That day at Aspromonte and was glad + That in an age when God was bought and sold + One man could die for Liberty! but we, burnt out and cold, + + See Honour smitten on the cheek and gyves + Bind the sweet feet of Mercy: Poverty + Creeps through our sunless lanes and with sharp knives + Cuts the warm throats of children stealthily, + And no word said:—O we are wretched men + Unworthy of our great inheritance! where is the pen + + Of austere Milton? where the mighty sword + Which slew its master righteously? the years + Have lost their ancient leader, and no word + Breaks from the voiceless tripod on our ears: + While as a ruined mother in some spasm + Bears a base child and loathes it, so our best enthusiasm + + Genders unlawful children, Anarchy + Freedom’s own Judas, the vile prodigal + Licence who steals the gold of Liberty + And yet has nothing, Ignorance the real + One Fraticide since Cain, Envy the asp + That stings itself to anguish, Avarice whose palsied grasp + + Is in its extent stiffened, moneyed Greed + For whose dull appetite men waste away + Amid the whirr of wheels and are the seed + Of things which slay their sower, these each day + Sees rife in England, and the gentle feet + Of Beauty tread no more the stones of each unlovely street. + + What even Cromwell spared is desecrated + By weed and worm, left to the stormy play + Of wind and beating snow, or renovated + By more destructful hands: Time’s worst decay + Will wreathe its ruins with some loveliness, + But these new Vandals can but make a rain-proof barrenness. + + Where is that Art which bade the Angels sing + Through Lincoln’s lofty choir, till the air + Seems from such marble harmonies to ring + With sweeter song than common lips can dare + To draw from actual reed? ah! where is now + The cunning hand which made the flowering hawthorn branches bow + + For Southwell’s arch, and carved the House of One + Who loved the lilies of the field with all + Our dearest English flowers? the same sun + Rises for us: the seasons natural + Weave the same tapestry of green and grey: + The unchanged hills are with us: but that Spirit hath passed away. + + And yet perchance it may be better so, + For Tyranny is an incestuous Queen, + Murder her brother is her bedfellow, + And the Plague chambers with her: in obscene + And bloody paths her treacherous feet are set; + Better the empty desert and a soul inviolate! + + For gentle brotherhood, the harmony + Of living in the healthful air, the swift + Clean beauty of strong limbs when men are free + And women chaste, these are the things which lift + Our souls up more than even Agnolo’s + Gaunt blinded Sibyl poring o’er the scroll of human woes, + + Or Titian’s little maiden on the stair + White as her own sweet lily and as tall, + Or Mona Lisa smiling through her hair,— + Ah! somehow life is bigger after all + Than any painted angel, could we see + The God that is within us! The old Greek serenity + + Which curbs the passion of that level line + Of marble youths, who with untroubled eyes + And chastened limbs ride round Athena’s shrine + And mirror her divine economies, + And balanced symmetry of what in man + Would else wage ceaseless warfare,—this at least within the span + + Between our mother’s kisses and the grave + Might so inform our lives, that we could win + Such mighty empires that from her cave + Temptation would grow hoarse, and pallid Sin + Would walk ashamed of his adulteries, + And Passion creep from out the House of Lust with startled eyes. + + To make the body and the spirit one + With all right things, till no thing live in vain + From morn to noon, but in sweet unison + With every pulse of flesh and throb of brain + The soul in flawless essence high enthroned, + Against all outer vain attack invincibly bastioned, + + Mark with serene impartiality + The strife of things, and yet be comforted, + Knowing that by the chain causality + All separate existences are wed + Into one supreme whole, whose utterance + Is joy, or holier praise! ah! surely this were governance + + Of Life in most august omnipresence, + Through which the rational intellect would find + In passion its expression, and mere sense, + Ignoble else, lend fire to the mind, + And being joined with it in harmony + More mystical than that which binds the stars planetary, + + Strike from their several tones one octave chord + Whose cadence being measureless would fly + Through all the circling spheres, then to its Lord + Return refreshed with its new empery + And more exultant power,—this indeed + Could we but reach it were to find the last, the perfect creed. + + Ah! it was easy when the world was young + To keep one’s life free and inviolate, + From our sad lips another song is rung, + By our own hands our heads are desecrate, + Wanderers in drear exile, and dispossessed + Of what should be our own, we can but feed on wild unrest. + + Somehow the grace, the bloom of things has flown, + And of all men we are most wretched who + Must live each other’s lives and not our own + For very pity’s sake and then undo + All that we lived for—it was otherwise + When soul and body seemed to blend in mystic symphonies. + + But we have left those gentle haunts to pass + With weary feet to the new Calvary, + Where we behold, as one who in a glass + Sees his own face, self-slain Humanity, + And in the dumb reproach of that sad gaze + Learn what an awful phantom the red hand of man can raise. + + O smitten mouth! O forehead crowned with thorn! + O chalice of all common miseries! + Thou for our sakes that loved thee not hast borne + An agony of endless centuries, + And we were vain and ignorant nor knew + That when we stabbed thy heart it was our own real hearts we slew. + + Being ourselves the sowers and the seeds, + The night that covers and the lights that fade, + The spear that pierces and the side that bleeds, + The lips betraying and the life betrayed; + The deep hath calm: the moon hath rest: but we + Lords of the natural world are yet our own dread enemy. + + Is this the end of all that primal force + Which, in its changes being still the same, + From eyeless Chaos cleft its upward course, + Through ravenous seas and whirling rocks and flame, + Till the suns met in heaven and began + Their cycles, and the morning stars sang, and the Word was Man! + + Nay, nay, we are but crucified, and though + The bloody sweat falls from our brows like rain + Loosen the nails—we shall come down I know, + Staunch the red wounds—we shall be whole again, + No need have we of hyssop-laden rod, + That which is purely human, that is godlike, that is God. + + + +FLOWER OF LOVE + + +ΓΛΥΚΥΠΙΚΡΟΣ ΕΡΩΣ + + + SWEET, I blame you not, for mine the fault + was, had I not been made of common clay + I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed + yet, seen the fuller air, the larger day. + + From the wildness of my wasted passion I had + struck a better, clearer song, + Lit some lighter light of freer freedom, battled + with some Hydra-headed wrong. + + Had my lips been smitten into music by the + kisses that but made them bleed, + You had walked with Bice and the angels on + that verdant and enamelled mead. + + I had trod the road which Dante treading saw + the suns of seven circles shine, + Ay! perchance had seen the heavens opening, + as they opened to the Florentine. + + And the mighty nations would have crowned + me, who am crownless now and without name, + And some orient dawn had found me kneeling + on the threshold of the House of Fame. + + I had sat within that marble circle where the + oldest bard is as the young, + And the pipe is ever dropping honey, and the + lyre’s strings are ever strung. + + Keats had lifted up his hymeneal curls from out + the poppy-seeded wine, + With ambrosial mouth had kissed my forehead, + clasped the hand of noble love in mine. + + And at springtide, when the apple-blossoms brush + the burnished bosom of the dove, + Two young lovers lying in an orchard would + have read the story of our love. + + Would have read the legend of my passion, + known the bitter secret of my heart, + Kissed as we have kissed, but never parted as + we two are fated now to part. + + For the crimson flower of our life is eaten by + the cankerworm of truth, + And no hand can gather up the fallen withered + petals of the rose of youth. + + Yet I am not sorry that I loved you—ah! what + else had I a boy to do,— + For the hungry teeth of time devour, and the + silent-footed years pursue. + + Rudderless, we drift athwart a tempest, and + when once the storm of youth is past, + Without lyre, without lute or chorus, Death + the silent pilot comes at last. + + And within the grave there is no pleasure, for + the blindworm battens on the root, + And Desire shudders into ashes, and the tree of + Passion bears no fruit. + + Ah! what else had I to do but love you, God’s + own mother was less dear to me, + And less dear the Cytheræan rising like an + argent lily from the sea. + + I have made my choice, have lived my poems, + and, though youth is gone in wasted days, + I have found the lover’s crown of myrtle better + than the poet’s crown of bays. + + + + +UNCOLLECTED POEMS + + +FROM SPRING DAYS TO WINTER + + + (FOR MUSIC) + + IN the glad springtime when leaves were green, + O merrily the throstle sings! + I sought, amid the tangled sheen, + Love whom mine eyes had never seen, + O the glad dove has golden wings! + + Between the blossoms red and white, + O merrily the throstle sings! + My love first came into my sight, + O perfect vision of delight, + O the glad dove has golden wings! + + The yellow apples glowed like fire, + O merrily the throstle sings! + O Love too great for lip or lyre, + Blown rose of love and of desire, + O the glad dove has golden wings! + + But now with snow the tree is grey, + Ah, sadly now the throstle sings! + My love is dead: ah! well-a-day, + See at her silent feet I lay + A dove with broken wings! + Ah, Love! ah, Love! that thou wert slain— + Fond Dove, fond Dove return again! + + + +TRISTITÆ + + + _Αἴλινον_, _αἴλινον εἰπέ_, _τὸ δ’ εὖ νικάτω_ + + O WELL for him who lives at ease + With garnered gold in wide domain, + Nor heeds the splashing of the rain, + The crashing down of forest trees. + + O well for him who ne’er hath known + The travail of the hungry years, + A father grey with grief and tears, + A mother weeping all alone. + + But well for him whose foot hath trod + The weary road of toil and strife, + Yet from the sorrows of his life. + Builds ladders to be nearer God. + + + +THE TRUE KNOWLEDGE + + + . . . _ἀναyκαίως δ’ ἔχει_ + _Βίον θερίζειν ὥστε κάρπιμον στάχυν_, + _καὶ τὸν yὲν εἶναι τὸν δὲ yή_. + + THOU knowest all; I seek in vain + What lands to till or sow with seed— + The land is black with briar and weed, + Nor cares for falling tears or rain. + + Thou knowest all; I sit and wait + With blinded eyes and hands that fail, + Till the last lifting of the veil + And the first opening of the gate. + + Thou knowest all; I cannot see. + I trust I shall not live in vain, + I know that we shall meet again + In some divine eternity. + + + +IMPRESSIONS + + +I +LE JARDIN + + + THE lily’s withered chalice falls + Around its rod of dusty gold, + And from the beech-trees on the wold + The last wood-pigeon coos and calls. + + The gaudy leonine sunflower + Hangs black and barren on its stalk, + And down the windy garden walk + The dead leaves scatter,—hour by hour. + + Pale privet-petals white as milk + Are blown into a snowy mass: + The roses lie upon the grass + Like little shreds of crimson silk. + + +II +LA MER + + + A WHITE mist drifts across the shrouds, + A wild moon in this wintry sky + Gleams like an angry lion’s eye + Out of a mane of tawny clouds. + + The muffled steersman at the wheel + Is but a shadow in the gloom;— + And in the throbbing engine-room + Leap the long rods of polished steel. + + The shattered storm has left its trace + Upon this huge and heaving dome, + For the thin threads of yellow foam + Float on the waves like ravelled lace. + + + +UNDER THE BALCONY + + + O BEAUTIFUL star with the crimson mouth! + O moon with the brows of gold! + Rise up, rise up, from the odorous south! + And light for my love her way, + Lest her little feet should stray + On the windy hill and the wold! + O beautiful star with the crimson mouth! + O moon with the brows of gold! + + O ship that shakes on the desolate sea! + O ship with the wet, white sail! + Put in, put in, to the port to me! + For my love and I would go + To the land where the daffodils blow + In the heart of a violet dale! + O ship that shakes on the desolate sea! + O ship with the wet, white sail! + + O rapturous bird with the low, sweet note! + O bird that sits on the spray! + Sing on, sing on, from your soft brown throat! + And my love in her little bed + Will listen, and lift her head + From the pillow, and come my way! + O rapturous bird with the low, sweet note! + O bird that sits on the spray! + + O blossom that hangs in the tremulous air! + O blossom with lips of snow! + Come down, come down, for my love to wear! + You will die on her head in a crown, + You will die in a fold of her gown, + To her little light heart you will go! + O blossom that hangs in the tremulous air! + O blossom with lips of snow! + + + +THE HARLOT’S HOUSE + + + WE caught the tread of dancing feet, + We loitered down the moonlit street, + And stopped beneath the harlot’s house. + + Inside, above the din and fray, + We heard the loud musicians play + The ‘Treues Liebes Herz’ of Strauss. + + Like strange mechanical grotesques, + Making fantastic arabesques, + The shadows raced across the blind. + + We watched the ghostly dancers spin + To sound of horn and violin, + Like black leaves wheeling in the wind. + + Like wire-pulled automatons, + Slim silhouetted skeletons + Went sidling through the slow quadrille, + + Then took each other by the hand, + And danced a stately saraband; + Their laughter echoed thin and shrill. + + Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed + A phantom lover to her breast, + Sometimes they seemed to try to sing. + + Sometimes a horrible marionette + Came out, and smoked its cigarette + Upon the steps like a live thing. + + Then, turning to my love, I said, + ‘The dead are dancing with the dead, + The dust is whirling with the dust.’ + + But she—she heard the violin, + And left my side, and entered in: + Love passed into the house of lust. + + Then suddenly the tune went false, + The dancers wearied of the waltz, + The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl. + + And down the long and silent street, + The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet, + Crept like a frightened girl. + + + +LE JARDIN DES TUILERIES + + + THIS winter air is keen and cold, + And keen and cold this winter sun, + But round my chair the children run + Like little things of dancing gold. + + Sometimes about the painted kiosk + The mimic soldiers strut and stride, + Sometimes the blue-eyed brigands hide + In the bleak tangles of the bosk. + + And sometimes, while the old nurse cons + Her book, they steal across the square, + And launch their paper navies where + Huge Triton writhes in greenish bronze. + + And now in mimic flight they flee, + And now they rush, a boisterous band— + And, tiny hand on tiny hand, + Climb up the black and leafless tree. + + Ah! cruel tree! if I were you, + And children climbed me, for their sake + Though it be winter I would break + Into spring blossoms white and blue! + + + +ON THE SALE BY AUCTION OF KEATS’ LOVE LETTERS + + + THESE are the letters which Endymion wrote + To one he loved in secret, and apart. + And now the brawlers of the auction mart + Bargain and bid for each poor blotted note, + Ay! for each separate pulse of passion quote + The merchant’s price. I think they love not art + Who break the crystal of a poet’s heart + That small and sickly eyes may glare and gloat. + + Is it not said that many years ago, + In a far Eastern town, some soldiers ran + With torches through the midnight, and began + To wrangle for mean raiment, and to throw + Dice for the garments of a wretched man, + Not knowing the God’s wonder, or His woe? + + + +THE NEW REMORSE + + + THE sin was mine; I did not understand. + So now is music prisoned in her cave, + Save where some ebbing desultory wave + Frets with its restless whirls this meagre strand. + And in the withered hollow of this land + Hath Summer dug herself so deep a grave, + That hardly can the leaden willow crave + One silver blossom from keen Winter’s hand. + + But who is this who cometh by the shore? + (Nay, love, look up and wonder!) Who is this + Who cometh in dyed garments from the South? + It is thy new-found Lord, and he shall kiss + The yet unravished roses of thy mouth, + And I shall weep and worship, as before. + + + +FANTAISIES DÉCORATIVES + + +I +LE PANNEAU + + + UNDER the rose-tree’s dancing shade + There stands a little ivory girl, + Pulling the leaves of pink and pearl + With pale green nails of polished jade. + + The red leaves fall upon the mould, + The white leaves flutter, one by one, + Down to a blue bowl where the sun, + Like a great dragon, writhes in gold. + + The white leaves float upon the air, + The red leaves flutter idly down, + Some fall upon her yellow gown, + And some upon her raven hair. + + She takes an amber lute and sings, + And as she sings a silver crane + Begins his scarlet neck to strain, + And flap his burnished metal wings. + + She takes a lute of amber bright, + And from the thicket where he lies + Her lover, with his almond eyes, + Watches her movements in delight. + + And now she gives a cry of fear, + And tiny tears begin to start: + A thorn has wounded with its dart + The pink-veined sea-shell of her ear. + + And now she laughs a merry note: + There has fallen a petal of the rose + Just where the yellow satin shows + The blue-veined flower of her throat. + + With pale green nails of polished jade, + Pulling the leaves of pink and pearl, + There stands a little ivory girl + Under the rose-tree’s dancing shade. + + +II +LES BALLONS + + + AGAINST these turbid turquoise skies + The light and luminous balloons + Dip and drift like satin moons, + Drift like silken butterflies; + + Reel with every windy gust, + Rise and reel like dancing girls, + Float like strange transparent pearls, + Fall and float like silver dust. + + Now to the low leaves they cling, + Each with coy fantastic pose, + Each a petal of a rose + Straining at a gossamer string. + + Then to the tall trees they climb, + Like thin globes of amethyst, + Wandering opals keeping tryst + With the rubies of the lime. + + + +CANZONET + + + I HAVE no store + Of gryphon-guarded gold; + Now, as before, + Bare is the shepherd’s fold. + Rubies nor pearls + Have I to gem thy throat; + Yet woodland girls + Have loved the shepherd’s note. + + Then pluck a reed + And bid me sing to thee, + For I would feed + Thine ears with melody, + Who art more fair + Than fairest fleur-de-lys, + More sweet and rare + Than sweetest ambergris. + + What dost thou fear? + Young Hyacinth is slain, + Pan is not here, + And will not come again. + No hornèd Faun + Treads down the yellow leas, + No God at dawn + Steals through the olive trees. + + Hylas is dead, + Nor will he e’er divine + Those little red + Rose-petalled lips of thine. + On the high hill + No ivory dryads play, + Silver and still + Sinks the sad autumn day. + + + +SYMPHONY IN YELLOW + + + AN omnibus across the bridge + Crawls like a yellow butterfly, + And, here and there, a passer-by + Shows like a little restless midge. + + Big barges full of yellow hay + Are moored against the shadowy wharf, + And, like a yellow silken scarf, + The thick fog hangs along the quay. + + The yellow leaves begin to fade + And flutter from the Temple elms, + And at my feet the pale green Thames + Lies like a rod of rippled jade. + + + +IN THE FOREST + + + OUT of the mid-wood’s twilight + Into the meadow’s dawn, + Ivory limbed and brown-eyed, + Flashes my Faun! + + He skips through the copses singing, + And his shadow dances along, + And I know not which I should follow, + Shadow or song! + + O Hunter, snare me his shadow! + O Nightingale, catch me his strain! + Else moonstruck with music and madness + I track him in vain! + + + +TO MY WIFE + + + WITH A COPY OF MY POEMS + + I CAN write no stately proem + As a prelude to my lay; + From a poet to a poem + I would dare to say. + + For if of these fallen petals + One to you seem fair, + Love will waft it till it settles + On your hair. + + And when wind and winter harden + All the loveless land, + It will whisper of the garden, + You will understand. + + + +WITH A COPY OF ‘A HOUSE OF POMEGRANATES’ + + + GO, little book, + To him who, on a lute with horns of pearl, + Sang of the white feet of the Golden Girl: + And bid him look + Into thy pages: it may hap that he + May find that golden maidens dance through thee. + + + +ROSES AND RUE + + + (To L. L.) + + COULD we dig up this long-buried treasure, + Were it worth the pleasure, + We never could learn love’s song, + We are parted too long. + + Could the passionate past that is fled + Call back its dead, + Could we live it all over again, + Were it worth the pain! + + I remember we used to meet + By an ivied seat, + And you warbled each pretty word + With the air of a bird; + + And your voice had a quaver in it, + Just like a linnet, + And shook, as the blackbird’s throat + With its last big note; + + And your eyes, they were green and grey + Like an April day, + But lit into amethyst + When I stooped and kissed; + + And your mouth, it would never smile + For a long, long while, + Then it rippled all over with laughter + Five minutes after. + + You were always afraid of a shower, + Just like a flower: + I remember you started and ran + When the rain began. + + I remember I never could catch you, + For no one could match you, + You had wonderful, luminous, fleet, + Little wings to your feet. + + I remember your hair—did I tie it? + For it always ran riot— + Like a tangled sunbeam of gold: + These things are old. + + I remember so well the room, + And the lilac bloom + That beat at the dripping pane + In the warm June rain; + + And the colour of your gown, + It was amber-brown, + And two yellow satin bows + From your shoulders rose. + + And the handkerchief of French lace + Which you held to your face— + Had a small tear left a stain? + Or was it the rain? + + On your hand as it waved adieu + There were veins of blue; + In your voice as it said good-bye + Was a petulant cry, + + ‘You have only wasted your life.’ + (Ah, that was the knife!) + When I rushed through the garden gate + It was all too late. + + Could we live it over again, + Were it worth the pain, + Could the passionate past that is fled + Call back its dead! + + Well, if my heart must break, + Dear love, for your sake, + It will break in music, I know, + Poets’ hearts break so. + + But strange that I was not told + That the brain can hold + In a tiny ivory cell + God’s heaven and hell. + + + +DÉSESPOIR + + + THE seasons send their ruin as they go, + For in the spring the narciss shows its head + Nor withers till the rose has flamed to red, + And in the autumn purple violets blow, + And the slim crocus stirs the winter snow; + Wherefore yon leafless trees will bloom again + And this grey land grow green with summer rain + And send up cowslips for some boy to mow. + + But what of life whose bitter hungry sea + Flows at our heels, and gloom of sunless night + Covers the days which never more return? + Ambition, love and all the thoughts that burn + We lose too soon, and only find delight + In withered husks of some dead memory. + + + +PAN + + + DOUBLE VILLANELLE + + I + + O goat-foot God of Arcady! + This modern world is grey and old, + And what remains to us of thee? + + No more the shepherd lads in glee + Throw apples at thy wattled fold, + O goat-foot God of Arcady! + + Nor through the laurels can one see + Thy soft brown limbs, thy beard of gold, + And what remains to us of thee? + + And dull and dead our Thames would be, + For here the winds are chill and cold, + O goat-foot God of Arcady! + + Then keep the tomb of Helice, + Thine olive-woods, thy vine-clad wold, + And what remains to us of thee? + + Though many an unsung elegy + Sleeps in the reeds our rivers hold, + O goat-foot God of Arcady! + Ah, what remains to us of thee? + + II + + Ah, leave the hills of Arcady, + Thy satyrs and their wanton play, + This modern world hath need of thee. + + No nymph or Faun indeed have we, + For Faun and nymph are old and grey, + Ah, leave the hills of Arcady! + + This is the land where liberty + Lit grave-browed Milton on his way, + This modern world hath need of thee! + + A land of ancient chivalry + Where gentle Sidney saw the day, + Ah, leave the hills of Arcady! + + This fierce sea-lion of the sea, + This England lacks some stronger lay, + This modern world hath need of thee! + + Then blow some trumpet loud and free, + And give thine oaten pipe away, + Ah, leave the hills of Arcady! + This modern world hath need of thee! + + + + +THE SPHINX + + + TO + MARCEL SCHWOB + IN FRIENDSHIP + AND + IN ADMIRATION + + + +THE SPHINX + + + IN a dim corner of my room for longer than my fancy thinks + A beautiful and silent Sphinx has watched me through the shifting + gloom. + + Inviolate and immobile she does not rise she does not stir + For silver moons are naught to her and naught to her the suns that + reel. + + Red follows grey across the air, the waves of moonlight ebb and flow + But with the Dawn she does not go and in the night-time she is there. + + Dawn follows Dawn and Nights grow old and all the while this curious + cat + Lies couching on the Chinese mat with eyes of satin rimmed with gold. + + Upon the mat she lies and leers and on the tawny throat of her + Flutters the soft and silky fur or ripples to her pointed ears. + + Come forth, my lovely seneschal! so somnolent, so statuesque! + Come forth you exquisite grotesque! half woman and half animal! + + Come forth my lovely languorous Sphinx! and put your head upon my + knee! + And let me stroke your throat and see your body spotted like the Lynx! + + And let me touch those curving claws of yellow ivory and grasp + The tail that like a monstrous Asp coils round your heavy velvet paws! + + * * * * * + + A THOUSAND weary centuries are thine while I have hardly seen + Some twenty summers cast their green for Autumn’s gaudy liveries. + + But you can read the Hieroglyphs on the great sandstone obelisks, + And you have talked with Basilisks, and you have looked on + Hippogriffs. + + O tell me, were you standing by when Isis to Osiris knelt? + And did you watch the Egyptian melt her union for Antony + + And drink the jewel-drunken wine and bend her head in mimic awe + To see the huge proconsul draw the salted tunny from the brine? + + And did you mark the Cyprian kiss white Adon on his catafalque? + And did you follow Amenalk, the God of Heliopolis? + + And did you talk with Thoth, and did you hear the moon-horned Io weep? + And know the painted kings who sleep beneath the wedge-shaped Pyramid? + + * * * * * + + LIFT up your large black satin eyes which are like cushions where one + sinks! + Fawn at my feet, fantastic Sphinx! and sing me all your memories! + + Sing to me of the Jewish maid who wandered with the Holy Child, + And how you led them through the wild, and how they slept beneath your + shade. + + Sing to me of that odorous green eve when crouching by the marge + You heard from Adrian’s gilded barge the laughter of Antinous + + And lapped the stream and fed your drouth and watched with hot and + hungry stare + The ivory body of that rare young slave with his pomegranate mouth! + + Sing to me of the Labyrinth in which the twi-formed bull was stalled! + Sing to me of the night you crawled across the temple’s granite plinth + + When through the purple corridors the screaming scarlet Ibis flew + In terror, and a horrid dew dripped from the moaning Mandragores, + + And the great torpid crocodile within the tank shed slimy tears, + And tare the jewels from his ears and staggered back into the Nile, + + And the priests cursed you with shrill psalms as in your claws you + seized their snake + And crept away with it to slake your passion by the shuddering palms. + + * * * * * + + WHO were your lovers? who were they who wrestled for you in the dust? + Which was the vessel of your Lust? What Leman had you, every day? + + Did giant Lizards come and crouch before you on the reedy banks? + Did Gryphons with great metal flanks leap on you in your trampled + couch? + + Did monstrous hippopotami come sidling toward you in the mist? + Did gilt-scaled dragons writhe and twist with passion as you passed + them by? + + And from the brick-built Lycian tomb what horrible Chimera came + With fearful heads and fearful flame to breed new wonders from your + womb? + + * * * * * + + OR had you shameful secret quests and did you harry to your home + Some Nereid coiled in amber foam with curious rock crystal breasts? + + Or did you treading through the froth call to the brown Sidonian + For tidings of Leviathan, Leviathan or Behemoth? + + Or did you when the sun was set climb up the cactus-covered slope + To meet your swarthy Ethiop whose body was of polished jet? + + Or did you while the earthen skiffs dropped down the grey Nilotic + flats + At twilight and the flickering bats flew round the temple’s triple + glyphs + + Steal to the border of the bar and swim across the silent lake + And slink into the vault and make the Pyramid your lúpanar + + Till from each black sarcophagus rose up the painted swathèd dead? + Or did you lure unto your bed the ivory-horned Tragelaphos? + + Or did you love the god of flies who plagued the Hebrews and was + splashed + With wine unto the waist? or Pasht, who had green beryls for her eyes? + + Or that young god, the Tyrian, who was more amorous than the dove + Of Ashtaroth? or did you love the god of the Assyrian + + Whose wings, like strange transparent talc, rose high above his + hawk-faced head, + Painted with silver and with red and ribbed with rods of Oreichalch? + + Or did huge Apis from his car leap down and lay before your feet + Big blossoms of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured nenuphar? + + * * * * * + + HOW subtle-secret is your smile! Did you love none then? Nay, I know + Great Ammon was your bedfellow! He lay with you beside the Nile! + + The river-horses in the slime trumpeted when they saw him come + Odorous with Syrian galbanum and smeared with spikenard and with + thyme. + + He came along the river bank like some tall galley argent-sailed, + He strode across the waters, mailed in beauty, and the waters sank. + + He strode across the desert sand: he reached the valley where you lay: + He waited till the dawn of day: then touched your black breasts with + his hand. + + You kissed his mouth with mouths of flame: you made the hornèd god + your own: + You stood behind him on his throne: you called him by his secret name. + + You whispered monstrous oracles into the caverns of his ears: + With blood of goats and blood of steers you taught him monstrous + miracles. + + White Ammon was your bedfellow! Your chamber was the steaming Nile! + And with your curved archaic smile you watched his passion come and + go. + + * * * * * + + WITH Syrian oils his brows were bright: and wide-spread as a tent at + noon + His marble limbs made pale the moon and lent the day a larger light. + + His long hair was nine cubits’ span and coloured like that yellow gem + Which hidden in their garment’s hem the merchants bring from + Kurdistan. + + His face was as the must that lies upon a vat of new-made wine: + The seas could not insapphirine the perfect azure of his eyes. + + His thick soft throat was white as milk and threaded with thin veins + of blue: + And curious pearls like frozen dew were broidered on his flowing silk. + + * * * * * + + ON pearl and porphyry pedestalled he was too bright to look upon: + For on his ivory breast there shone the wondrous ocean-emerald, + + That mystic moonlit jewel which some diver of the Colchian caves + Had found beneath the blackening waves and carried to the Colchian + witch. + + Before his gilded galiot ran naked vine-wreathed corybants, + And lines of swaying elephants knelt down to draw his chariot, + + And lines of swarthy Nubians bare up his litter as he rode + Down the great granite-paven road between the nodding peacock-fans. + + The merchants brought him steatite from Sidon in their painted ships: + The meanest cup that touched his lips was fashioned from a chrysolite. + + The merchants brought him cedar chests of rich apparel bound with + cords: + His train was borne by Memphian lords: young kings were glad to be his + guests. + + Ten hundred shaven priests did bow to Ammon’s altar day and night, + Ten hundred lamps did wave their light through Ammon’s carven + house—and now + + Foul snake and speckled adder with their young ones crawl from stone + to stone + For ruined is the house and prone the great rose-marble monolith! + + Wild ass or trotting jackal comes and couches in the mouldering gates: + Wild satyrs call unto their mates across the fallen fluted drums. + + And on the summit of the pile the blue-faced ape of Horus sits + And gibbers while the fig-tree splits the pillars of the peristyle + + * * * * * + + THE god is scattered here and there: deep hidden in the windy sand + I saw his giant granite hand still clenched in impotent despair. + + And many a wandering caravan of stately negroes silken-shawled, + Crossing the desert, halts appalled before the neck that none can + span. + + And many a bearded Bedouin draws back his yellow-striped burnous + To gaze upon the Titan thews of him who was thy paladin. + + * * * * * + + GO, seek his fragments on the moor and wash them in the evening dew, + And from their pieces make anew thy mutilated paramour! + + Go, seek them where they lie alone and from their broken pieces make + Thy bruisèd bedfellow! And wake mad passions in the senseless stone! + + Charm his dull ear with Syrian hymns! he loved your body! oh, be kind, + Pour spikenard on his hair, and wind soft rolls of linen round his + limbs! + + Wind round his head the figured coins! stain with red fruits those + pallid lips! + Weave purple for his shrunken hips! and purple for his barren loins! + + * * * * * + + AWAY to Egypt! Have no fear. Only one God has ever died. + Only one God has let His side be wounded by a soldier’s spear. + + But these, thy lovers, are not dead. Still by the hundred-cubit gate + Dog-faced Anubis sits in state with lotus-lilies for thy head. + + Still from his chair of porphyry gaunt Memnon strains his lidless eyes + Across the empty land, and cries each yellow morning unto thee. + + And Nilus with his broken horn lies in his black and oozy bed + And till thy coming will not spread his waters on the withering corn. + + Your lovers are not dead, I know. They will rise up and hear your + voice + And clash their cymbals and rejoice and run to kiss your mouth! And + so, + + Set wings upon your argosies! Set horses to your ebon car! + Back to your Nile! Or if you are grown sick of dead divinities + + Follow some roving lion’s spoor across the copper-coloured plain, + Reach out and hale him by the mane and bid him be your paramour! + + Couch by his side upon the grass and set your white teeth in his + throat + And when you hear his dying note lash your long flanks of polished + brass + + And take a tiger for your mate, whose amber sides are flecked with + black, + And ride upon his gilded back in triumph through the Theban gate, + + And toy with him in amorous jests, and when he turns, and snarls, and + gnaws, + O smite him with your jasper claws! and bruise him with your agate + breasts! + + * * * * * + + WHY are you tarrying? Get hence! I weary of your sullen ways, + I weary of your steadfast gaze, your somnolent magnificence. + + Your horrible and heavy breath makes the light flicker in the lamp, + And on my brow I feel the damp and dreadful dews of night and death. + + Your eyes are like fantastic moons that shiver in some stagnant lake, + Your tongue is like a scarlet snake that dances to fantastic tunes, + + Your pulse makes poisonous melodies, and your black throat is like the + hole + Left by some torch or burning coal on Saracenic tapestries. + + Away! The sulphur-coloured stars are hurrying through the Western + gate! + Away! Or it may be too late to climb their silent silver cars! + + See, the dawn shivers round the grey gilt-dialled towers, and the rain + Streams down each diamonded pane and blurs with tears the wannish day. + + What snake-tressed fury fresh from Hell, with uncouth gestures and + unclean, + Stole from the poppy-drowsy queen and led you to a student’s cell? + + * * * * * + + WHAT songless tongueless ghost of sin crept through the curtains of + the night, + And saw my taper burning bright, and knocked, and bade you enter in? + + Are there not others more accursed, whiter with leprosies than I? + Are Abana and Pharphar dry that you come here to slake your thirst? + + Get hence, you loathsome mystery! Hideous animal, get hence! + You wake in me each bestial sense, you make me what I would not be. + + You make my creed a barren sham, you wake foul dreams of sensual life, + And Atys with his blood-stained knife were better than the thing I am. + + False Sphinx! False Sphinx! By reedy Styx old Charon, leaning on his + oar, + Waits for my coin. Go thou before, and leave me to my crucifix, + + Whose pallid burden, sick with pain, watches the world with wearied + eyes, + And weeps for every soul that dies, and weeps for every soul in vain. + + + + +THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL + + + IN MEMORIAM + C. T. W. + SOMETIME TROOPER OF THE ROYAL HORSE GUARDS + OBIIT H.M. PRISON, READING, BERKSHIRE + JULY 7, 1896 + + + +THE BALLAD OF READING GAOL + + + I + + HE did not wear his scarlet coat, + For blood and wine are red, + And blood and wine were on his hands + When they found him with the dead, + The poor dead woman whom he loved, + And murdered in her bed. + + He walked amongst the Trial Men + In a suit of shabby grey; + A cricket cap was on his head, + And his step seemed light and gay; + But I never saw a man who looked + So wistfully at the day. + + I never saw a man who looked + With such a wistful eye + Upon that little tent of blue + Which prisoners call the sky, + And at every drifting cloud that went + With sails of silver by. + + I walked, with other souls in pain, + Within another ring, + And was wondering if the man had done + A great or little thing, + When a voice behind me whispered low, + ‘_That fellow’s got to swing_.’ + + Dear Christ! the very prison walls + Suddenly seemed to reel, + And the sky above my head became + Like a casque of scorching steel; + And, though I was a soul in pain, + My pain I could not feel. + + I only knew what hunted thought + Quickened his step, and why + He looked upon the garish day + With such a wistful eye; + The man had killed the thing he loved, + And so he had to die. + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + Yet each man kills the thing he loves, + By each let this be heard, + Some do it with a bitter look, + Some with a flattering word, + The coward does it with a kiss, + The brave man with a sword! + + Some kill their love when they are young, + And some when they are old; + Some strangle with the hands of Lust, + Some with the hands of Gold: + The kindest use a knife, because + The dead so soon grow cold. + + Some love too little, some too long, + Some sell, and others buy; + Some do the deed with many tears, + And some without a sigh: + For each man kills the thing he loves, + Yet each man does not die. + + He does not die a death of shame + On a day of dark disgrace, + Nor have a noose about his neck, + Nor a cloth upon his face, + Nor drop feet foremost through the floor + Into an empty space. + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + He does not sit with silent men + Who watch him night and day; + Who watch him when he tries to weep, + And when he tries to pray; + Who watch him lest himself should rob + The prison of its prey. + + He does not wake at dawn to see + Dread figures throng his room, + The shivering Chaplain robed in white, + The Sheriff stern with gloom, + And the Governor all in shiny black, + With the yellow face of Doom. + + He does not rise in piteous haste + To put on convict-clothes, + While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes + Each new and nerve-twitched pose, + Fingering a watch whose little ticks + Are like horrible hammer-blows. + + He does not know that sickening thirst + That sands one’s throat, before + The hangman with his gardener’s gloves + Slips through the padded door, + And binds one with three leathern thongs, + That the throat may thirst no more. + + He does not bend his head to hear + The Burial Office read, + Nor, while the terror of his soul + Tells him he is not dead, + Cross his own coffin, as he moves + Into the hideous shed. + + He does not stare upon the air + Through a little roof of glass: + He does not pray with lips of clay + For his agony to pass; + Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek + The kiss of Caiaphas. + + II + + SIX weeks our guardsman walked the yard, + In the suit of shabby grey: + His cricket cap was on his head, + And his step seemed light and gay, + But I never saw a man who looked + So wistfully at the day. + + I never saw a man who looked + With such a wistful eye + Upon that little tent of blue + Which prisoners call the sky, + And at every wandering cloud that trailed + Its ravelled fleeces by. + + He did not wring his hands, as do + Those witless men who dare + To try to rear the changeling Hope + In the cave of black Despair: + He only looked upon the sun, + And drank the morning air. + + He did not wring his hands nor weep, + Nor did he peek or pine, + But he drank the air as though it held + Some healthful anodyne; + With open mouth he drank the sun + As though it had been wine! + + And I and all the souls in pain, + Who tramped the other ring, + Forgot if we ourselves had done + A great or little thing, + And watched with gaze of dull amaze + The man who had to swing. + + And strange it was to see him pass + With a step so light and gay, + And strange it was to see him look + So wistfully at the day, + And strange it was to think that he + Had such a debt to pay. + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + For oak and elm have pleasant leaves + That in the springtime shoot: + But grim to see is the gallows-tree, + With its adder-bitten root, + And, green or dry, a man must die + Before it bears its fruit! + + The loftiest place is that seat of grace + For which all worldlings try: + But who would stand in hempen band + Upon a scaffold high, + And through a murderer’s collar take + His last look at the sky? + + It is sweet to dance to violins + When Love and Life are fair: + To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes + Is delicate and rare: + But it is not sweet with nimble feet + To dance upon the air! + + So with curious eyes and sick surmise + We watched him day by day, + And wondered if each one of us + Would end the self-same way, + For none can tell to what red Hell + His sightless soul may stray. + + At last the dead man walked no more + Amongst the Trial Men, + And I knew that he was standing up + In the black dock’s dreadful pen, + And that never would I see his face + In God’s sweet world again. + + Like two doomed ships that pass in storm + We had crossed each other’s way: + But we made no sign, we said no word, + We had no word to say; + For we did not meet in the holy night, + But in the shameful day. + + A prison wall was round us both, + Two outcast men we were: + The world had thrust us from its heart, + And God from out His care: + And the iron gin that waits for Sin + Had caught us in its snare. + + III + + IN Debtors’ Yard the stones are hard, + And the dripping wall is high, + So it was there he took the air + Beneath the leaden sky, + And by each side a Warder walked, + For fear the man might die. + + Or else he sat with those who watched + His anguish night and day; + Who watched him when he rose to weep, + And when he crouched to pray; + Who watched him lest himself should rob + Their scaffold of its prey. + + The Governor was strong upon + The Regulations Act: + The Doctor said that Death was but + A scientific fact: + And twice a day the Chaplain called, + And left a little tract. + + And twice a day he smoked his pipe, + And drank his quart of beer: + His soul was resolute, and held + No hiding-place for fear; + He often said that he was glad + The hangman’s hands were near. + + But why he said so strange a thing + No Warder dared to ask: + For he to whom a watcher’s doom + Is given as his task, + Must set a lock upon his lips, + And make his face a mask. + + Or else he might be moved, and try + To comfort or console: + And what should Human Pity do + Pent up in Murderers’ Hole? + What word of grace in such a place + Could help a brother’s soul? + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + With slouch and swing around the ring + We trod the Fools’ Parade! + We did not care: we knew we were + The Devil’s Own Brigade: + And shaven head and feet of lead + Make a merry masquerade. + + We tore the tarry rope to shreds + With blunt and bleeding nails; + We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors, + And cleaned the shining rails: + And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank, + And clattered with the pails. + + We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones, + We turned the dusty drill: + We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns, + And sweated on the mill: + But in the heart of every man + Terror was lying still. + + So still it lay that every day + Crawled like a weed-clogged wave: + And we forgot the bitter lot + That waits for fool and knave, + Till once, as we tramped in from work, + We passed an open grave. + + With yawning mouth the yellow hole + Gaped for a living thing; + The very mud cried out for blood + To the thirsty asphalte ring: + And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair + Some prisoner had to swing. + + Right in we went, with soul intent + On Death and Dread and Doom: + The hangman, with his little bag, + Went shuffling through the gloom: + And each man trembled as he crept + Into his numbered tomb. + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + That night the empty corridors + Were full of forms of Fear, + And up and down the iron town + Stole feet we could not hear, + And through the bars that hide the stars + White faces seemed to peer. + + He lay as one who lies and dreams + In a pleasant meadow-land, + The watchers watched him as he slept, + And could not understand + How one could sleep so sweet a sleep + With a hangman close at hand. + + But there is no sleep when men must weep + Who never yet have wept: + So we—the fool, the fraud, the knave— + That endless vigil kept, + And through each brain on hands of pain + Another’s terror crept. + + Alas! it is a fearful thing + To feel another’s guilt! + For, right within, the sword of Sin + Pierced to its poisoned hilt, + And as molten lead were the tears we shed + For the blood we had not spilt. + + The Warders with their shoes of felt + Crept by each padlocked door, + And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe, + Grey figures on the floor, + And wondered why men knelt to pray + Who never prayed before. + + All through the night we knelt and prayed, + Mad mourners of a corse! + The troubled plumes of midnight were + The plumes upon a hearse: + And bitter wine upon a sponge + Was the savour of Remorse. + + * * * * * + + The grey cock crew, the red cock crew, + But never came the day: + And crooked shapes of Terror crouched, + In the corners where we lay: + And each evil sprite that walks by night + Before us seemed to play. + + They glided past, they glided fast, + Like travellers through a mist: + They mocked the moon in a rigadoon + Of delicate turn and twist, + And with formal pace and loathsome grace + The phantoms kept their tryst. + + With mop and mow, we saw them go, + Slim shadows hand in hand: + About, about, in ghostly rout + They trod a saraband: + And the damned grotesques made arabesques, + Like the wind upon the sand! + + With the pirouettes of marionettes, + They tripped on pointed tread: + But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear, + As their grisly masque they led, + And loud they sang, and long they sang, + For they sang to wake the dead. + + ‘_Oho_!’ _they cried_, ‘_The world is wide_, + _But fettered limbs go lame_! + _And once_, _or twice_, _to throw the dice_ + _Is a gentlemanly game_, + _But he does not win who plays with Sin_ + _In the secret House of Shame_.’ + + No things of air these antics were, + That frolicked with such glee: + To men whose lives were held in gyves, + And whose feet might not go free, + Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things, + Most terrible to see. + + Around, around, they waltzed and wound; + Some wheeled in smirking pairs; + With the mincing step of a demirep + Some sidled up the stairs: + And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer, + Each helped us at our prayers. + + The morning wind began to moan, + But still the night went on: + Through its giant loom the web of gloom + Crept till each thread was spun: + And, as we prayed, we grew afraid + Of the Justice of the Sun. + + The moaning wind went wandering round + The weeping prison-wall: + Till like a wheel of turning steel + We felt the minutes crawl: + O moaning wind! what had we done + To have such a seneschal? + + At last I saw the shadowed bars, + Like a lattice wrought in lead, + Move right across the whitewashed wall + That faced my three-plank bed, + And I knew that somewhere in the world + God’s dreadful dawn was red. + + At six o’clock we cleaned our cells, + At seven all was still, + But the sough and swing of a mighty wing + The prison seemed to fill, + For the Lord of Death with icy breath + Had entered in to kill. + + He did not pass in purple pomp, + Nor ride a moon-white steed. + Three yards of cord and a sliding board + Are all the gallows’ need: + So with rope of shame the Herald came + To do the secret deed. + + We were as men who through a fen + Of filthy darkness grope: + We did not dare to breathe a prayer, + Or to give our anguish scope: + Something was dead in each of us, + And what was dead was Hope. + + For Man’s grim Justice goes its way, + And will not swerve aside: + It slays the weak, it slays the strong, + It has a deadly stride: + With iron heel it slays the strong, + The monstrous parricide! + + We waited for the stroke of eight: + Each tongue was thick with thirst: + For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate + That makes a man accursed, + And Fate will use a running noose + For the best man and the worst. + + We had no other thing to do, + Save to wait for the sign to come: + So, like things of stone in a valley lone, + Quiet we sat and dumb: + But each man’s heart beat thick and quick, + Like a madman on a drum! + + With sudden shock the prison-clock + Smote on the shivering air, + And from all the gaol rose up a wail + Of impotent despair, + Like the sound that frightened marshes hear + From some leper in his lair. + + And as one sees most fearful things + In the crystal of a dream, + We saw the greasy hempen rope + Hooked to the blackened beam, + And heard the prayer the hangman’s snare + Strangled into a scream. + + And all the woe that moved him so + That he gave that bitter cry, + And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats, + None knew so well as I: + For he who lives more lives than one + More deaths than one must die. + + IV + + THERE is no chapel on the day + On which they hang a man: + The Chaplain’s heart is far too sick, + Or his face is far too wan, + Or there is that written in his eyes + Which none should look upon. + + So they kept us close till nigh on noon, + And then they rang the bell, + And the Warders with their jingling keys + Opened each listening cell, + And down the iron stair we tramped, + Each from his separate Hell. + + Out into God’s sweet air we went, + But not in wonted way, + For this man’s face was white with fear, + And that man’s face was grey, + And I never saw sad men who looked + So wistfully at the day. + + I never saw sad men who looked + With such a wistful eye + Upon that little tent of blue + We prisoners called the sky, + And at every careless cloud that passed + In happy freedom by. + + But there were those amongst us all + Who walked with downcast head, + And knew that, had each got his due, + They should have died instead: + He had but killed a thing that lived, + Whilst they had killed the dead. + + For he who sins a second time + Wakes a dead soul to pain, + And draws it from its spotted shroud, + And makes it bleed again, + And makes it bleed great gouts of blood, + And makes it bleed in vain! + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb + With crooked arrows starred, + Silently we went round and round + The slippery asphalte yard; + Silently we went round and round, + And no man spoke a word. + + Silently we went round and round, + And through each hollow mind + The Memory of dreadful things + Rushed like a dreadful wind, + And Horror stalked before each man, + And Terror crept behind. + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + The Warders strutted up and down, + And kept their herd of brutes, + Their uniforms were spick and span, + And they wore their Sunday suits, + But we knew the work they had been at, + By the quicklime on their boots. + + For where a grave had opened wide, + There was no grave at all: + Only a stretch of mud and sand + By the hideous prison-wall, + And a little heap of burning lime, + That the man should have his pall. + + For he has a pall, this wretched man, + Such as few men can claim: + Deep down below a prison-yard, + Naked for greater shame, + He lies, with fetters on each foot, + Wrapt in a sheet of flame! + + And all the while the burning lime + Eats flesh and bone away, + It eats the brittle bone by night, + And the soft flesh by day, + It eats the flesh and bone by turns, + But it eats the heart alway. + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + For three long years they will not sow + Or root or seedling there: + For three long years the unblessed spot + Will sterile be and bare, + And look upon the wondering sky + With unreproachful stare. + + They think a murderer’s heart would taint + Each simple seed they sow. + It is not true! God’s kindly earth + Is kindlier than men know, + And the red rose would but blow more red, + The white rose whiter blow. + + Out of his mouth a red, red rose! + Out of his heart a white! + For who can say by what strange way, + Christ brings His will to light, + Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore + Bloomed in the great Pope’s sight? + + But neither milk-white rose nor red + May bloom in prison-air; + The shard, the pebble, and the flint, + Are what they give us there: + For flowers have been known to heal + A common man’s despair. + + So never will wine-red rose or white, + Petal by petal, fall + On that stretch of mud and sand that lies + By the hideous prison-wall, + To tell the men who tramp the yard + That God’s Son died for all. + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + Yet though the hideous prison-wall + Still hems him round and round, + And a spirit may not walk by night + That is with fetters bound, + And a spirit may but weep that lies + In such unholy ground, + + He is at peace—this wretched man— + At peace, or will be soon: + There is no thing to make him mad, + Nor does Terror walk at noon, + For the lampless Earth in which he lies + Has neither Sun nor Moon. + + They hanged him as a beast is hanged: + They did not even toll + A requiem that might have brought + Rest to his startled soul, + But hurriedly they took him out, + And hid him in a hole. + + They stripped him of his canvas clothes, + And gave him to the flies: + They mocked the swollen purple throat, + And the stark and staring eyes: + And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud + In which their convict lies. + + The Chaplain would not kneel to pray + By his dishonoured grave: + Nor mark it with that blessed Cross + That Christ for sinners gave, + Because the man was one of those + Whom Christ came down to save. + + Yet all is well; he has but passed + To Life’s appointed bourne: + And alien tears will fill for him + Pity’s long-broken urn, + For his mourners will be outcast men, + And outcasts always mourn + + V + + I KNOW not whether Laws be right, + Or whether Laws be wrong; + All that we know who lie in gaol + Is that the wall is strong; + And that each day is like a year, + A year whose days are long. + + But this I know, that every Law + That men have made for Man, + Since first Man took his brother’s life, + And the sad world began, + But straws the wheat and saves the chaff + With a most evil fan. + + This too I know—and wise it were + If each could know the same— + That every prison that men build + Is built with bricks of shame, + And bound with bars lest Christ should see + How men their brothers maim. + + With bars they blur the gracious moon, + And blind the goodly sun: + And they do well to hide their Hell, + For in it things are done + That Son of God nor son of Man + Ever should look upon! + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + The vilest deeds like poison weeds, + Bloom well in prison-air; + It is only what is good in Man + That wastes and withers there: + Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate, + And the Warder is Despair. + + For they starve the little frightened child + Till it weeps both night and day: + And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool, + And gibe the old and grey, + And some grow mad, and all grow bad, + And none a word may say. + + Each narrow cell in which we dwell + Is a foul and dark latrine, + And the fetid breath of living Death + Chokes up each grated screen, + And all, but Lust, is turned to dust + In Humanity’s machine. + + The brackish water that we drink + Creeps with a loathsome slime, + And the bitter bread they weigh in scales + Is full of chalk and lime, + And Sleep will not lie down, but walks + Wild-eyed, and cries to Time. + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + But though lean Hunger and green Thirst + Like asp with adder fight, + We have little care of prison fare, + For what chills and kills outright + Is that every stone one lifts by day + Becomes one’s heart by night. + + With midnight always in one’s heart, + And twilight in one’s cell, + We turn the crank, or tear the rope, + Each in his separate Hell, + And the silence is more awful far + Than the sound of a brazen bell. + + And never a human voice comes near + To speak a gentle word: + And the eye that watches through the door + Is pitiless and hard: + And by all forgot, we rot and rot, + With soul and body marred. + + And thus we rust Life’s iron chain + Degraded and alone: + And some men curse, and some men weep, + And some men make no moan: + But God’s eternal Laws are kind + And break the heart of stone. + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + And every human heart that breaks, + In prison-cell or yard, + Is as that broken box that gave + Its treasure to the Lord, + And filled the unclean leper’s house + With the scent of costliest nard. + + Ah! happy they whose hearts can break + And peace of pardon win! + How else may man make straight his plan + And cleanse his soul from Sin? + How else but through a broken heart + May Lord Christ enter in? + + [Picture: Decorative graphic] + + And he of the swollen purple throat, + And the stark and staring eyes, + Waits for the holy hands that took + The Thief to Paradise; + And a broken and a contrite heart + The Lord will not despise. + + The man in red who reads the Law + Gave him three weeks of life, + Three little weeks in which to heal + His soul of his soul’s strife, + And cleanse from every blot of blood + The hand that held the knife. + + And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand, + The hand that held the steel: + For only blood can wipe out blood, + And only tears can heal: + And the crimson stain that was of Cain + Became Christ’s snow-white seal. + + VI + + IN Reading gaol by Reading town + There is a pit of shame, + And in it lies a wretched man + Eaten by teeth of flame, + In a burning winding-sheet he lies, + And his grave has got no name. + + And there, till Christ call forth the dead, + In silence let him lie: + No need to waste the foolish tear, + Or heave the windy sigh: + The man had killed the thing he loved, + And so he had to die. + + And all men kill the thing they love, + By all let this be heard, + Some do it with a bitter look, + Some with a flattering word, + The coward does it with a kiss, + The brave man with a sword! + + + + +RAVENNA + + + _Newdigate Prize Poem_ + Recited in the Sheldonian Theatre + Oxford + June 26th, 1878 + + * * * * * + + TO MY FRIEND + GEORGE FLEMING + AUTHOR OF + ‘THE NILE NOVEL’ AND ‘MIRAGE’ + + _Ravenna_, _March_ 1877 + _Oxford_, _March_ 1878 + + + +RAVENNA + + + I. + + A YEAR ago I breathed the Italian air,— + And yet, methinks this northern Spring is fair,— + These fields made golden with the flower of March, + The throstle singing on the feathered larch, + The cawing rooks, the wood-doves fluttering by, + The little clouds that race across the sky; + And fair the violet’s gentle drooping head, + The primrose, pale for love uncomforted, + The rose that burgeons on the climbing briar, + The crocus-bed, (that seems a moon of fire + Round-girdled with a purple marriage-ring); + And all the flowers of our English Spring, + Fond snowdrops, and the bright-starred daffodil. + Up starts the lark beside the murmuring mill, + And breaks the gossamer-threads of early dew; + And down the river, like a flame of blue, + Keen as an arrow flies the water-king, + While the brown linnets in the greenwood sing. + A year ago!—it seems a little time + Since last I saw that lordly southern clime, + Where flower and fruit to purple radiance blow, + And like bright lamps the fabled apples glow. + Full Spring it was—and by rich flowering vines, + Dark olive-groves and noble forest-pines, + I rode at will; the moist glad air was sweet, + The white road rang beneath my horse’s feet, + And musing on Ravenna’s ancient name, + I watched the day till, marked with wounds of flame, + The turquoise sky to burnished gold was turned. + + O how my heart with boyish passion burned, + When far away across the sedge and mere + I saw that Holy City rising clear, + Crowned with her crown of towers!—On and on + I galloped, racing with the setting sun, + And ere the crimson after-glow was passed, + I stood within Ravenna’s walls at last! + + II. + + How strangely still! no sound of life or joy + Startles the air; no laughing shepherd-boy + Pipes on his reed, nor ever through the day + Comes the glad sound of children at their play: + O sad, and sweet, and silent! surely here + A man might dwell apart from troublous fear, + Watching the tide of seasons as they flow + From amorous Spring to Winter’s rain and snow, + And have no thought of sorrow;—here, indeed, + Are Lethe’s waters, and that fatal weed + Which makes a man forget his fatherland. + + Ay! amid lotus-meadows dost thou stand, + Like Proserpine, with poppy-laden head, + Guarding the holy ashes of the dead. + For though thy brood of warrior sons hath ceased, + Thy noble dead are with thee!—they at least + Are faithful to thine honour:—guard them well, + O childless city! for a mighty spell, + To wake men’s hearts to dreams of things sublime, + Are the lone tombs where rest the Great of Time. + + III. + + Yon lonely pillar, rising on the plain, + Marks where the bravest knight of France was slain,— + The Prince of chivalry, the Lord of war, + Gaston de Foix: for some untimely star + Led him against thy city, and he fell, + As falls some forest-lion fighting well. + Taken from life while life and love were new, + He lies beneath God’s seamless veil of blue; + Tall lance-like reeds wave sadly o’er his head, + And oleanders bloom to deeper red, + Where his bright youth flowed crimson on the ground. + + Look farther north unto that broken mound,— + There, prisoned now within a lordly tomb + Raised by a daughter’s hand, in lonely gloom, + Huge-limbed Theodoric, the Gothic king, + Sleeps after all his weary conquering. + Time hath not spared his ruin,—wind and rain + Have broken down his stronghold; and again + We see that Death is mighty lord of all, + And king and clown to ashen dust must fall + + Mighty indeed _their_ glory! yet to me + Barbaric king, or knight of chivalry, + Or the great queen herself, were poor and vain, + Beside the grave where Dante rests from pain. + His gilded shrine lies open to the air; + And cunning sculptor’s hands have carven there + The calm white brow, as calm as earliest morn, + The eyes that flashed with passionate love and scorn, + The lips that sang of Heaven and of Hell, + The almond-face which Giotto drew so well, + The weary face of Dante;—to this day, + Here in his place of resting, far away + From Arno’s yellow waters, rushing down + Through the wide bridges of that fairy town, + Where the tall tower of Giotto seems to rise + A marble lily under sapphire skies! + + Alas! my Dante! thou hast known the pain + Of meaner lives,—the exile’s galling chain, + How steep the stairs within kings’ houses are, + And all the petty miseries which mar + Man’s nobler nature with the sense of wrong. + Yet this dull world is grateful for thy song; + Our nations do thee homage,—even she, + That cruel queen of vine-clad Tuscany, + Who bound with crown of thorns thy living brow, + Hath decked thine empty tomb with laurels now, + And begs in vain the ashes of her son. + + O mightiest exile! all thy grief is done: + Thy soul walks now beside thy Beatrice; + Ravenna guards thine ashes: sleep in peace. + + IV. + + How lone this palace is; how grey the walls! + No minstrel now wakes echoes in these halls. + The broken chain lies rusting on the door, + And noisome weeds have split the marble floor: + Here lurks the snake, and here the lizards run + By the stone lions blinking in the sun. + Byron dwelt here in love and revelry + For two long years—a second Anthony, + Who of the world another Actium made! + Yet suffered not his royal soul to fade, + Or lyre to break, or lance to grow less keen, + ’Neath any wiles of an Egyptian queen. + For from the East there came a mighty cry, + And Greece stood up to fight for Liberty, + And called him from Ravenna: never knight + Rode forth more nobly to wild scenes of fight! + None fell more bravely on ensanguined field, + Borne like a Spartan back upon his shield! + O Hellas! Hellas! in thine hour of pride, + Thy day of might, remember him who died + To wrest from off thy limbs the trammelling chain: + O Salamis! O lone Platæan plain! + O tossing waves of wild Euboean sea! + O wind-swept heights of lone Thermopylæ! + He loved you well—ay, not alone in word, + Who freely gave to thee his lyre and sword, + Like Æschylos at well-fought Marathon: + + And England, too, shall glory in her son, + Her warrior-poet, first in song and fight. + No longer now shall Slander’s venomed spite + Crawl like a snake across his perfect name, + Or mar the lordly scutcheon of his fame. + + For as the olive-garland of the race, + Which lights with joy each eager runner’s face, + As the red cross which saveth men in war, + As a flame-bearded beacon seen from far + By mariners upon a storm-tossed sea,— + Such was his love for Greece and Liberty! + + Byron, thy crowns are ever fresh and green: + Red leaves of rose from Sapphic Mitylene + Shall bind thy brows; the myrtle blooms for thee, + In hidden glades by lonely Castaly; + The laurels wait thy coming: all are thine, + And round thy head one perfect wreath will twine. + + V. + + The pine-tops rocked before the evening breeze + With the hoarse murmur of the wintry seas, + And the tall stems were streaked with amber bright;— + I wandered through the wood in wild delight, + Some startled bird, with fluttering wings and fleet, + Made snow of all the blossoms; at my feet, + Like silver crowns, the pale narcissi lay, + And small birds sang on every twining spray. + O waving trees, O forest liberty! + Within your haunts at least a man is free, + And half forgets the weary world of strife: + The blood flows hotter, and a sense of life + Wakes i’ the quickening veins, while once again + The woods are filled with gods we fancied slain. + Long time I watched, and surely hoped to see + Some goat-foot Pan make merry minstrelsy + Amid the reeds! some startled Dryad-maid + In girlish flight! or lurking in the glade, + The soft brown limbs, the wanton treacherous face + Of woodland god! Queen Dian in the chase, + White-limbed and terrible, with look of pride, + And leash of boar-hounds leaping at her side! + Or Hylas mirrored in the perfect stream. + + O idle heart! O fond Hellenic dream! + Ere long, with melancholy rise and swell, + The evening chimes, the convent’s vesper bell, + Struck on mine ears amid the amorous flowers. + Alas! alas! these sweet and honied hours + Had whelmed my heart like some encroaching sea, + And drowned all thoughts of black Gethsemane. + + VI. + + O lone Ravenna! many a tale is told + Of thy great glories in the days of old: + Two thousand years have passed since thou didst see + Cæsar ride forth to royal victory. + Mighty thy name when Rome’s lean eagles flew + From Britain’s isles to far Euphrates blue; + And of the peoples thou wast noble queen, + Till in thy streets the Goth and Hun were seen. + Discrowned by man, deserted by the sea, + Thou sleepest, rocked in lonely misery! + No longer now upon thy swelling tide, + Pine-forest-like, thy myriad galleys ride! + For where the brass-beaked ships were wont to float, + The weary shepherd pipes his mournful note; + And the white sheep are free to come and go + Where Adria’s purple waters used to flow. + + O fair! O sad! O Queen uncomforted! + In ruined loveliness thou liest dead, + Alone of all thy sisters; for at last + Italia’s royal warrior hath passed + Rome’s lordliest entrance, and hath worn his crown + In the high temples of the Eternal Town! + The Palatine hath welcomed back her king, + And with his name the seven mountains ring! + + And Naples hath outlived her dream of pain, + And mocks her tyrant! Venice lives again, + New risen from the waters! and the cry + Of Light and Truth, of Love and Liberty, + Is heard in lordly Genoa, and where + The marble spires of Milan wound the air, + Rings from the Alps to the Sicilian shore, + And Dante’s dream is now a dream no more. + + But thou, Ravenna, better loved than all, + Thy ruined palaces are but a pall + That hides thy fallen greatness! and thy name + Burns like a grey and flickering candle-flame + Beneath the noonday splendour of the sun + Of new Italia! for the night is done, + The night of dark oppression, and the day + Hath dawned in passionate splendour: far away + The Austrian hounds are hunted from the land, + Beyond those ice-crowned citadels which stand + Girdling the plain of royal Lombardy, + From the far West unto the Eastern sea. + + I know, indeed, that sons of thine have died + In Lissa’s waters, by the mountain-side + Of Aspromonte, on Novara’s plain,— + Nor have thy children died for thee in vain: + And yet, methinks, thou hast not drunk this wine + From grapes new-crushed of Liberty divine, + Thou hast not followed that immortal Star + Which leads the people forth to deeds of war. + Weary of life, thou liest in silent sleep, + As one who marks the lengthening shadows creep, + Careless of all the hurrying hours that run, + Mourning some day of glory, for the sun + Of Freedom hath not shewn to thee his face, + And thou hast caught no flambeau in the race. + + Yet wake not from thy slumbers,—rest thee well, + Amidst thy fields of amber asphodel, + Thy lily-sprinkled meadows,—rest thee there, + To mock all human greatness: who would dare + To vent the paltry sorrows of his life + Before thy ruins, or to praise the strife + Of kings’ ambition, and the barren pride + Of warring nations! wert not thou the Bride + Of the wild Lord of Adria’s stormy sea! + The Queen of double Empires! and to thee + Were not the nations given as thy prey! + And now—thy gates lie open night and day, + The grass grows green on every tower and hall, + The ghastly fig hath cleft thy bastioned wall; + And where thy mailèd warriors stood at rest + The midnight owl hath made her secret nest. + O fallen! fallen! from thy high estate, + O city trammelled in the toils of Fate, + Doth nought remain of all thy glorious days, + But a dull shield, a crown of withered bays! + + Yet who beneath this night of wars and fears, + From tranquil tower can watch the coming years; + Who can foretell what joys the day shall bring, + Or why before the dawn the linnets sing? + Thou, even thou, mayst wake, as wakes the rose + To crimson splendour from its grave of snows; + As the rich corn-fields rise to red and gold + From these brown lands, now stiff with Winter’s cold; + As from the storm-rack comes a perfect star! + + O much-loved city! I have wandered far + From the wave-circled islands of my home; + Have seen the gloomy mystery of the Dome + Rise slowly from the drear Campagna’s way, + Clothed in the royal purple of the day: + I from the city of the violet crown + Have watched the sun by Corinth’s hill go down, + And marked the ‘myriad laughter’ of the sea + From starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady; + Yet back to thee returns my perfect love, + As to its forest-nest the evening dove. + + O poet’s city! one who scarce has seen + Some twenty summers cast their doublets green + For Autumn’s livery, would seek in vain + To wake his lyre to sing a louder strain, + Or tell thy days of glory;—poor indeed + Is the low murmur of the shepherd’s reed, + Where the loud clarion’s blast should shake the sky, + And flame across the heavens! and to try + Such lofty themes were folly: yet I know + That never felt my heart a nobler glow + Than when I woke the silence of thy street + With clamorous trampling of my horse’s feet, + And saw the city which now I try to sing, + After long days of weary travelling. + + VII. + + Adieu, Ravenna! but a year ago, + I stood and watched the crimson sunset glow + From the lone chapel on thy marshy plain: + The sky was as a shield that caught the stain + Of blood and battle from the dying sun, + And in the west the circling clouds had spun + A royal robe, which some great God might wear, + While into ocean-seas of purple air + Sank the gold galley of the Lord of Light. + + Yet here the gentle stillness of the night + Brings back the swelling tide of memory, + And wakes again my passionate love for thee: + Now is the Spring of Love, yet soon will come + On meadow and tree the Summer’s lordly bloom; + And soon the grass with brighter flowers will blow, + And send up lilies for some boy to mow. + Then before long the Summer’s conqueror, + Rich Autumn-time, the season’s usurer, + Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees, + And see it scattered by the spendthrift breeze; + And after that the Winter cold and drear. + So runs the perfect cycle of the year. + And so from youth to manhood do we go, + And fall to weary days and locks of snow. + Love only knows no winter; never dies: + Nor cares for frowning storms or leaden skies + And mine for thee shall never pass away, + Though my weak lips may falter in my lay. + + Adieu! Adieu! yon silent evening star, + The night’s ambassador, doth gleam afar, + And bid the shepherd bring his flocks to fold. + Perchance before our inland seas of gold + Are garnered by the reapers into sheaves, + Perchance before I see the Autumn leaves, + I may behold thy city; and lay down + Low at thy feet the poet’s laurel crown. + + Adieu! Adieu! yon silver lamp, the moon, + Which turns our midnight into perfect noon, + Doth surely light thy towers, guarding well + Where Dante sleeps, where Byron loved to dwell. + + * * * * * + + Printed by T. and A. 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