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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ballads and Lyrics of Old France
+by Andrew Lang
+(#6 in our series by Andrew Lang)
+
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
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+
+Title: Ballads and Lyrics of Old France: with other Poems
+
+Author: Andrew Lang
+
+Release Date: January, 1997  [EBook #795]
+[This file was first posted on January 31, 1997]
+[Most recently updated: September 25, 2002]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, BALLADS AND LYRICS OF OLD FRANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+Transcribed from the 1872 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David
+Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
+
+
+
+
+BALLADS AND LYRICS OF OLD FRANCE:  WITH OTHER POEMS
+
+
+
+
+Translations
+
+
+
+LIST OF POETS TRANSLATED
+
+
+
+I.  CHARLES D'ORLEANS, who has sometimes, for no very obvious
+reason, been styled the father of French lyric poetry, was born in
+May, 1391.  He was the son of Louis D'Orleans, the grandson of
+Charles V., and the father of Louis XII.  Captured at Agincourt, he
+was kept in England as a prisoner from 1415 to 1440, when he
+returned to France, where he died in 1465.  His verses, for the
+most part roundels on two rhymes, are songs of love and spring, and
+retain the allegorical forms of the Roman de la Rose.
+
+II.  FRANCOIS VILLON, 1431-14-?  Nothing is known of Villon's birth
+or death, and only too much of his life.  In his poems the ancient
+forms of French verse are animated with the keenest sense of
+personal emotion, of love, of melancholy, of mocking despair, and
+of repentance for a life passed in taverns and prisons.
+
+III.  JOACHIM DU BELLAY, 1525-1560.  The exact date of Du Bellay's
+birth is unknown.  He was certainly a little younger than Ronsard,
+who was born in September, 1524, although an attempt has been made
+to prove that his birth took place in 1525, as a compensation from
+Nature to France for the battle of Pavia.  As a poet Du Bellay had
+the start, by a few mouths, of Ronsard; his Recueil was published
+in 1549.  The question of priority in the new style of poetry
+caused a quarrel, which did not long separate the two singers.  Du
+Bellay is perhaps the most interesting of the Pleiad, that company
+of Seven, who attempted to reform French verse, by inspiring it
+with the enthusiasm of the Renaissance.  His book L'Illustration de
+la langue Francaise is a plea for the study of ancient models and
+for the improvement of the vernacular.  In this effort Du Bellay
+and Ronsard are the predecessors of Malherbe, and of Andre Chenier,
+more successful through their frank eagerness than the former, less
+fortunate in the possession of critical learning and appreciative
+taste than the latter.  There is something in Du Bellay's life, in
+the artistic nature checked by occupation in affairs--he was the
+secretary of Cardinal Du Bellay--in the regret and affection with
+which Rome depressed and allured him, which reminds the English
+reader of the thwarted career of Clough.
+
+IV.  REMY BELLEAU, 1528-1577.  Du Belleau's life was spent in the
+household of Charles de Lorraine, Marquis d'Elboeuf, and was marked
+by nothing more eventful than the usual pilgrimage to Italy, the
+sacred land and sepulchre of art.
+
+V.  PIERRE RONSARD, 1524-1585.  Ronsard's early years gave little
+sign of his vocation.  He was for some time a page of the court,
+was in the service of James V. of Scotland, and had his share of
+shipwrecks, battles, and amorous adventures.  An illness which
+produced total deafness made him a scholar and poet, as in another
+age and country it might have made him a saint and an ascetic.
+With all his industry, and almost religious zeal for art, he is one
+of the poets who make themselves, rather than are born singers.
+His epic, the Franciade, is as tedious as other artificial epics,
+and his odes are almost unreadable.  We are never allowed to forget
+that he is the poet who read the Iliad through in three days.  He
+is, as has been said of Le Brun, more mythological than Pindar.
+His constant allusion to his grey hair, an affectation which may be
+noticed in Shelley, is borrowed from Anacreon.  Many of the sonnets
+in which he 'petrarquizes,' retain the faded odour of the roses he
+loved; and his songs have fire and melancholy and a sense as of
+perfume from 'a closet long to quiet vowed, with mothed and
+dropping arras hung.'  Ronsard's great fame declined when is
+Malherbe came to 'bind the sweet influences of the Pleiad,' but he
+has been duly honoured by the newest school of French poetry.
+
+VI.  JACQUES TAHUREAU, 1527-1555.  The amorous poetry of Jacques
+Tahureau has the merit, rare in his, or in any age, of being the
+real expression of passion.  His brief life burned itself away
+before he had exhausted the lyric effusion of his youth.  'Le plus
+beau gentilhomme de son siecle, et le plus dextre a toutes sortes
+de gentillesses,' died at the age of twenty-eight, fulfilling the
+presentiment which tinges, but scarcely saddens his poetry.
+
+VII.  JEAN PASSERAT, 1534-1602.  Better known as a political
+satirist than as a poet.
+
+
+POETS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
+
+
+VICTOR HUGO.
+ALFRED DE MUSSET, 1810-1857.
+GERARD DE NERVAL, 1801-1855.
+HENRI MURGER, 1822-1861.
+
+BALLADS.
+
+The originals of the French folk-songs here translated are to be
+found in the collections of MM. De Puymaigre and Gerard de Nerval,
+and in the report of M. Ampere.
+
+The verses called a 'Lady of High Degree' are imitated from a very
+early chanson in Bartsch's collection.
+
+The Greek ballads have been translated with the aid of the French
+versions by M. Fauriel.
+
+
+
+SPRING.
+CHARLES D'ORLEANS, 1391-1465.
+
+
+
+[The new-liveried year.--Sir Henry Wotton.]
+
+The year has changed his mantle cold
+Of wind, of rain, of bitter air;
+And he goes clad in cloth of gold,
+Of laughing suns and season fair;
+No bird or beast of wood or wold
+But doth with cry or song declare
+The year lays down his mantle cold.
+All founts, all rivers, seaward rolled,
+The pleasant summer livery wear,
+With silver studs on broidered vair;
+The world puts off its raiment old,
+The year lays down his mantle cold.
+
+
+
+RONDEL.
+CHARLES D'ORLEANS, 1391-1465.
+
+
+
+[To his Mistress, to succour his heart that is beleaguered by
+jealousy.]
+
+Strengthen, my Love, this castle of my heart,
+And with some store of pleasure give me aid,
+For Jealousy, with all them of his part,
+Strong siege about the weary tower has laid.
+Nay, if to break his bands thou art afraid,
+Too weak to make his cruel force depart,
+Strengthen at least this castle of my heart,
+And with some store of pleasure give me aid.
+Nay, let not Jealousy, for all his art
+Be master, and the tower in ruin laid,
+That still, ah Love! thy gracious rule obeyed.
+Advance, and give me succour of thy part;
+Strengthen, my Love, this castle of my heart.
+
+
+
+RONDEL.
+FRANCOIS VILLON, 1460
+
+
+
+Goodbye! the tears are in my eyes;
+Farewell, farewell, my prettiest;
+Farewell, of women born the best;
+Good-bye! the saddest of good-byes.
+Farewell! with many vows and sighs
+My sad heart leaves you to your rest;
+Farewell! the tears are in my eyes;
+Farewell! from you my miseries
+Are more than now may be confessed,
+And most by thee have I been blessed,
+Yea, and for thee have wasted sighs;
+Goodbye! the last of my goodbyes.
+
+
+
+ARBOR AMORIS.
+FRANCOIS VILLON, 1460
+
+
+
+I have a tree, a graft of Love,
+That in my heart has taken root;
+Sad are the buds and blooms thereof,
+And bitter sorrow is its fruit;
+Yet, since it was a tender shoot,
+So greatly hath its shadow spread,
+That underneath all joy is dead,
+And all my pleasant days are flown,
+Nor can I slay it, nor instead
+Plant any tree, save this alone.
+
+Ah, yet, for long and long enough
+My tears were rain about its root,
+And though the fruit be harsh thereof,
+I scarcely looked for better fruit
+Than this, that carefully I put
+In garner, for the bitter bread
+Whereon my weary life is fed:
+Ah, better were the soil unsown
+That bears such growths; but Love instead
+Will plant no tree, but this alone.
+
+Ah, would that this new spring, whereof
+The leaves and flowers flush into shoot,
+I might have succour and aid of Love,
+To prune these branches at the root,
+That long have borne such bitter fruit,
+And graft a new bough, comforted
+With happy blossoms white and red;
+So pleasure should for pain atone,
+Nor Love slay this tree, nor instead
+Plant any tree, but this alone.
+
+L'ENVOY.
+
+Princess, by whom my hope is fed,
+My heart thee prays in lowlihead
+To prune the ill boughs overgrown,
+Nor slay Love's tree, nor plant instead
+Another tree, save this alone.
+
+
+
+BALLAD OF THE GIBBET.
+
+
+
+[An epitaph in the form of a ballad that Francois Villon wrote of
+himself and his company, they expecting shortly to be hanged.]
+
+Brothers and men that shall after us be,
+Let not your hearts be hard to us:
+For pitying this our misery
+Ye shall find God the more piteous.
+Look on us six that are hanging thus,
+And for the flesh that so much we cherished
+How it is eaten of birds and perished,
+And ashes and dust fill our bones' place,
+Mock not at us that so feeble be,
+But pray God pardon us out of His grace.
+
+Listen, we pray you, and look not in scorn,
+Though justly, in sooth, we are cast to die;
+Ye wot no man so wise is born
+That keeps his wisdom constantly.
+Be ye then merciful, and cry
+To Mary's Son that is piteous,
+That His mercy take no stain from us,
+Saving us out of the fiery place.
+We are but dead, let no soul deny
+To pray God succour us of His grace.
+
+The rain out of heaven has washed us clean,
+The sun has scorched us black and bare,
+Ravens and rooks have pecked at our eyne,
+And feathered their nests with our beards and hair.
+Round are we tossed, and here and there,
+This way and that, at the wild wind's will,
+Never a moment my body is still;
+Birds they are busy about my face.
+Live not as we, nor fare as we fare;
+Pray God pardon us out of His grace.
+
+L'ENVOY.
+
+Prince Jesus, Master of all, to thee
+We pray Hell gain no mastery,
+That we come never anear that place;
+And ye men, make no mockery,
+Pray God pardon us out of His grace.
+
+
+
+HYMN TO THE WINDS.
+DU BELLAY, 1550.
+
+
+
+[The winds are invoked by the winnowers of corn.]
+
+To you, troop so fleet,
+That with winged wandering feet,
+Through the wide world pass,
+And with soft murmuring
+Toss the green shades of spring
+In woods and grass,
+Lily and violet
+I give, and blossoms wet,
+Roses and dew;
+This branch of blushing roses,
+Whose fresh bud uncloses,
+Wind-flowers too.
+Ah, winnow with sweet breath,
+Winnow the holt and heath,
+Round this retreat;
+Where all the golden morn
+We fan the gold o' the corn,
+In the sun's heat.
+
+
+
+A VOW TO HEAVENLY VENUS.
+DU BELLAY, 1500
+
+
+
+We that with like hearts love, we lovers twain,
+New wedded in the village by thy fane,
+Lady of all chaste love, to thee it is
+We bring these amaranths, these white lilies,
+A sign, and sacrifice; may Love, we pray,
+Like amaranthine flowers, feel no decay;
+Like these cool lilies may our loves remain,
+Perfect and pure, and know not any stain;
+And be our hearts, from this thy holy hour,
+Bound each to each, like flower to wedded flower.
+
+
+
+TO HIS FRIEND IN ELYSIUM.
+DU BELLAY, 1550.
+
+
+
+So long you wandered on the dusky plain,
+Where flit the shadows with their endless cry,
+You reach the shore where all the world goes by,
+You leave the strife, the slavery, the pain;
+But we, but we, the mortals that remain
+In vain stretch hands; for Charon sullenly
+Drives us afar, we may not come anigh
+Till that last mystic obolus we gain.
+
+But you are happy in the quiet place,
+And with the learned lovers of old days,
+And with your love, you wander ever-more
+In the dim woods, and drink forgetfulness
+Of us your friends, a weary crowd that press
+About the gate, or labour at the oar.
+
+
+
+A SONNET TO HEAVENLY BEAUTY.
+DU BELLAY, 1550.
+
+
+
+If this our little life is but a day
+In the Eternal,--if the years in vain
+Toil after hours that never come again, -
+If everything that hath been must decay,
+Why dreamest thou of joys that pass away,
+My soul, that my sad body doth restrain?
+Why of the moment's pleasure art thou fain?
+Nay, thou hast wings,--nay, seek another stay.
+
+There is the joy whereto each soul aspires,
+And there the rest that all the world desires,
+And there is love, and peace, and gracious mirth;
+And there in the most highest heavens shalt thou
+Behold the Very Beauty, whereof now
+Thou worshippest the shadow upon earth.
+
+
+
+APRIL.
+REMY BELLEAU, 1560.
+
+
+
+April, pride of woodland ways,
+Of glad days,
+April, bringing hope of prime,
+To the young flowers that beneath
+Their bud sheath
+Are guarded in their tender time;
+
+April, pride of fields that be
+Green and free,
+That in fashion glad and gay,
+Stud with flowers red and blue,
+Every hue,
+Their jewelled spring array;
+
+April, pride of murmuring
+Winds of spring,
+That beneath the winnowed air,
+Trap with subtle nets and sweet
+Flora's feet,
+Flora's feet, the fleet and fair;
+
+April, by thy hand caressed,
+From her breast
+Nature scatters everywhere
+Handfuls of all sweet perfumes,
+Buds and blooms,
+Making faint the earth and air.
+
+April, joy of the green hours,
+Clothes with flowers
+Over all her locks of gold
+My sweet Lady; and her breast
+With the blest
+Birds of summer manifold.
+
+April, with thy gracious wiles,
+Like the smiles,
+Smiles of Venus; and thy breath
+Like her breath, the Gods' delight,
+(From their height
+They take the happy air beneath;)
+
+It is thou that, of thy grace,
+From their place
+In the far-oft isles dost bring
+Swallows over earth and sea,
+Glad to be
+Messengers of thee, and Spring.
+
+Daffodil and eglantine,
+And woodbine,
+Lily, violet, and rose
+Plentiful in April fair,
+To the air,
+Their pretty petals do unclose.
+
+Nightingales ye now may hear,
+Piercing clear,
+Singing in the deepest shade;
+Many and many a babbled note
+Chime and float,
+Woodland music through the glade.
+
+April, all to welcome thee,
+Spring sets free
+Ancient flames, and with low breath
+Wakes the ashes grey and old
+That the cold
+Chilled within our hearts to death.
+
+Thou beholdest in the warm
+Hours, the swarm
+Of the thievish bees, that flies
+Evermore from bloom to bloom
+For perfume,
+Hid away in tiny thighs.
+
+Her cool shadows May can boast,
+Fruits almost
+Ripe, and gifts of fertile dew,
+Manna-sweet and honey-sweet,
+That complete
+Her flower garland fresh and new.
+
+Nay, but I will give my praise,
+To these days,
+Named with the glad name of Her {1}
+That from out the foam o' the sea
+Came to be
+Sudden light on earth and air.
+
+
+
+ROSES.
+RONSARD, 1550.
+
+
+
+I send you here a wreath of blossoms blown,
+And woven flowers at sunset gathered,
+Another dawn had seen them ruined, and shed
+Loose leaves upon the grass at random strown.
+By this, their sure example, be it known,
+That all your beauties, now in perfect flower,
+Shall fade as these, and wither in an hour,
+Flowerlike, and brief of days, as the flower sown.
+
+Ah, time is flying, lady--time is flying;
+Nay, 'tis not time that flies but we that go,
+Who in short space shall be in churchyard lying,
+And of our loving parley none shall know,
+Nor any man consider what we were;
+Be therefore kind, my love, whiles thou art fair.
+
+
+
+THE ROSE.
+RONSARD, 1550.
+
+
+
+See, Mignonne, hath not the Rose,
+That this morning did unclose
+Her purple mantle to the light,
+Lost, before the day be dead,
+The glory of her raiment red,
+Her colour, bright as yours is bright?
+
+Ah, Mignonne, in how few hours,
+The petals of her purple flowers
+All have faded, fallen, died;
+Sad Nature, mother ruinous,
+That seest thy fair child perish thus
+'Twixt matin song and even tide.
+
+Hear me, my darling, speaking sooth,
+Gather the fleet flower of your youth,
+Take ye your pleasure at the best;
+Be merry ere your beauty flit,
+For length of days will tarnish it
+Like roses that were loveliest.
+
+
+
+TO THE MOON.
+RONSARD, 1550.
+
+
+
+Hide this one night thy crescent, kindly Moon;
+So shall Endymion faithful prove, and rest
+Loving and unawakened on thy breast;
+So shall no foul enchanter importune
+Thy quiet course; for now the night is boon,
+And through the friendly night unseen I fare,
+Who dread the face of foemen unaware,
+And watch of hostile spies in the bright noon.
+Thou knowest, Moon, the bitter power of Love;
+'Tis told how shepherd Pan found ways to move,
+For little price, thy heart; and of your grace,
+Sweet stars, be kind to this not alien fire,
+Because on earth ye did not scorn desire,
+Bethink ye, now ye hold your heavenly place.
+
+
+
+TO HIS YOUNG MISTRESS.
+RONSARD, 1550.
+
+
+
+Fair flower of fifteen springs, that still
+Art scarcely blossomed from the bud,
+Yet hast such store of evil will,
+A heart so full of hardihood,
+Seeking to hide in friendly wise
+The mischief of your mocking eyes.
+
+If you have pity, child, give o'er;
+Give back the heart you stole from me,
+Pirate, setting so little store
+On this your captive from Love's sea,
+Holding his misery for gain,
+And making pleasure of his pain.
+
+Another, not so fair of face,
+But far more pitiful than you,
+Would take my heart, if of his grace,
+My heart would give her of Love's due;
+And she shall have it, since I find
+That you are cruel and unkind.
+
+Nay, I would rather that it died,
+Within your white hands prisoning,
+Would rather that it still abide
+In your ungentle comforting.
+Than change its faith, and seek to her
+That is more kind, but not so fair.
+
+
+
+DEADLY KISSES.
+RONSARD, 1550.
+
+
+
+All take these lips away; no more,
+No more such kisses give to me.
+My spirit faints for joy; I see
+Through mists of death the dreamy shore,
+And meadows by the water-side,
+Where all about the Hollow Land
+Fare the sweet singers that have died,
+With their lost ladies, hand in hand;
+Ah, Love, how fireless are their eyes,
+How pale their lips that kiss and smile!
+So mine must be in little while
+If thou wilt kiss me in such wise.
+
+
+
+OF HIS LADY'S OLD AGE.
+RONSARD, 1550
+
+
+
+When you are very old, at evening
+You'll sit and spin beside the fire, and say,
+Humming my songs, 'Ah well, ah well-a-day!
+When I was young, of me did Ronsard sing.'
+None of your maidens that doth hear the thing,
+Albeit with her weary task foredone,
+But wakens at my name, and calls you one
+Blest, to be held in long remembering.
+
+I shall be low beneath the earth, and laid
+On sleep, a phantom in the myrtle shade,
+While you beside the fire, a grandame grey,
+My love, your pride, remember and regret;
+Ah, love me, love! we may be happy yet,
+And gather roses, while 'tis called to-day.
+
+
+
+ON HIS LADY'S WAKING.
+RONSARD, 1550
+
+
+
+My lady woke upon a morning fair,
+What time Apollo's chariot takes the skies,
+And, fain to fill with arrows from her eyes
+His empty quiver, Love was standing there:
+I saw two apples that her breast doth bear
+None such the close of the Hesperides
+Yields; nor hath Venus any such as these,
+Nor she that had of nursling Mars the care.
+
+Even such a bosom, and so fair it was,
+Pure as the perfect work of Phidias,
+That sad Andromeda's discomfiture
+Left bare, when Perseus passed her on a day,
+And pale as Death for fear of Death she lay,
+With breast as marble cold, as marble pure.
+
+
+
+HIS LADY'S DEATH.
+RONSARD, 1550.
+
+
+
+Twain that were foes, while Mary lived, are fled;
+One laurel-crowned abides in heaven, and one
+Beneath the earth has fared, a fallen sun,
+A light of love among the loveless dead.
+The first is Chastity, that vanquished
+The archer Love, that held joint empery
+With the sweet beauty that made war on me,
+When laughter of lips with laughing eyes was wed.
+
+Their strife the Fates have closed, with stern control,
+The earth holds her fair body, and her soul
+An angel with glad angels triumpheth;
+Love has no more that he can do; desire
+Is buried, and my heart a faded fire,
+And for Death's sake, I am in love with Death.
+
+
+
+LADY'S TOMB.
+RONSARD, 1550.
+
+
+
+As in the gardens, all through May, the rose,
+Lovely, and young, and fair apparelled,
+Makes sunrise jealous of her rosy red,
+When dawn upon the dew of dawning glows;
+Graces and Loves within her breast repose,
+The woods are faint with the sweet odour shed,
+Till rains and heavy suns have smitten dead
+The languid flower, and the loose leaves unclose, -
+
+So this, the perfect beauty of our days,
+When earth and heaven were vocal of her praise,
+The fates have slain, and her sweet soul reposes;
+And tears I bring, and sighs, and on her tomb
+Pour milk, and scatter buds of many a bloom,
+That dead, as living, she may be with roses.
+
+
+
+SHADOWS OF HIS LADY.
+JACQUES TAHUREAU, 1527-1555.
+
+
+
+Within the sand of what far river lies
+The gold that gleams in tresses of my Love?
+What highest circle of the Heavens above
+Is jewelled with such stars as are her eyes?
+And where is the rich sea whose coral vies
+With her red lips, that cannot kiss enough?
+What dawn-lit garden knew the rose, whereof
+The fled soul lives in her cheeks' rosy guise?
+
+What Parian marble that is loveliest,
+Can match the whiteness of her brow and breast?
+When drew she breath from the Sabaean glade?
+Oh happy rock and river, sky and sea,
+Gardens, and glades Sabaean, all that be
+The far-off splendid semblance of my maid!
+
+
+
+MOONLIGHT.
+JACQUES TAHUREAU, 1527-1555.
+
+
+
+The high Midnight was garlanding her head
+With many a shining star in shining skies,
+And, of her grace, a slumber on mine eyes,
+And, after sorrow, quietness was shed.
+Far in dim fields cicalas jargoned
+A thin shrill clamour of complaints and cries;
+And all the woods were pallid, in strange wise,
+With pallor of the sad moon overspread.
+
+Then came my lady to that lonely place,
+And, from her palfrey stooping, did embrace
+And hang upon my neck, and kissed me over;
+Wherefore the day is far less dear than night,
+And sweeter is the shadow than the light,
+Since night has made me such a happy lover.
+
+
+
+LOVE IN MAY.
+PASSERAT, 1580.
+
+
+
+Off with sleep, love, up from bed,
+This fair morn;
+See, for our eyes the rosy red
+New dawn is born;
+Now that skies are glad and gay
+In this gracious month of May,
+Love me, sweet,
+Fill my joy in brimming measure,
+In this world he hath no pleasure,
+That will none of it.
+
+Come, love, through the woods of spring,
+Come walk with me;
+Listen, the sweet birds jargoning
+From tree to tree.
+List and listen, over all
+Nightingale most musical
+That ceases never;
+Grief begone, and let us be
+For a space as glad as he;
+Time's flitting ever.
+
+Old Time, that loves not lovers, wears
+Wings swift in flight;
+All our happy life he bears
+Far in the night.
+Old and wrinkled on a day,
+Sad and weary shall you say,
+'Ah, fool was I,
+That took no pleasure in the grace
+Of the flower that from my face
+Time has seen die.'
+
+Leave then sorrow, teen, and tears
+Till we be old;
+Young we are, and of our years
+Till youth be cold
+Pluck the flower; while spring is gay
+In this happy month of May,
+Love me, love;
+Fill our joy in brimming measure;
+In this world he hath no pleasure
+That will none thereof.
+
+
+
+THE GRAVE AND THE ROSE.
+VICTOR HUGO.
+
+
+
+The Grave said to the Rose,
+'What of the dews of dawn,
+Love's flower, what end is theirs?'
+'And what of spirits flown,
+The souls whereon doth close
+The tomb's mouth unawares?'
+The Rose said to the Grave.
+
+The Rose said, 'In the shade
+From the dawn's tears is made
+A perfume faint and strange,
+Amber and honey sweet.'
+'And all the spirits fleet
+Do suffer a sky-change,
+More strangely than the dew,
+To God's own angels new,'
+The Grave said to the Rose.
+
+
+
+THE GENESIS OF BUTTERFLIES.
+VICTOR HUGO.
+
+
+
+The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers
+The tearful roses; lo, the little lovers
+That kiss the buds, and all the flutterings
+In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings,
+That go and come, and fly, and peep and hide,
+With muffled music, murmured far and wide!
+Ah, Spring time, when we think of all the lays
+That dreamy lovers send to dreamy mays,
+Of the fond hearts within a billet bound,
+Of all the soft silk paper that pens wound,
+The messages of love that mortals write
+Filled with intoxication of delight,
+Written in April, and before the May time
+Shredded and flown, play things for the wind's play-time,
+We dream that all white butterflies above,
+Who seek through clouds or waters souls to love,
+And leave their lady mistress in despair,
+To flit to flowers, as kinder and more fair,
+Are but torn love-letters, that through the skies
+Flutter, and float, and change to Butterflies.
+
+
+
+MORE STRONG THAN TIME.
+VICTOR HUGO.
+
+
+
+Since I have set my lips to your full cup, my sweet,
+Since I my pallid face between your hands have laid,
+Since I have known your soul, and all the bloom of it,
+And all the perfume rare, now buried in the shade;
+
+Since it was given to me to hear one happy while,
+The words wherein your heart spoke all its mysteries,
+Since I have seen you weep, and since I have seen you smile,
+Your lips upon my lips, and your eyes upon my eyes;
+
+Since I have known above my forehead glance and gleam,
+A ray, a single ray, of your star, veiled always,
+Since I have felt the fall, upon my lifetime's stream,
+Of one rose petal plucked from the roses of your days;
+
+I now am bold to say to the swift changing hours,
+Pass, pass upon your way, for I grow never old,
+Fleet to the dark abysm with all your fading flowers,
+One rose that none may pluck, within my heart I hold.
+
+Your flying wings may smite, but they can never spill
+The cup fulfilled of love, from which my lips are wet;
+My heart has far more fire than you have frost to chill,
+My soul more love than you can make my soul forget.
+
+
+
+AN OLD TUNE.
+GERARD DE NERVAL.
+
+
+
+There is an air for which I would disown
+Mozart's, Rossini's, Weber's melodies, -
+A sweet sad air that languishes and sighs,
+And keeps its secret charm for me alone.
+
+Whene'er I hear that music vague and old,
+Two hundred years are mist that rolls away;
+The thirteenth Louis reigns, and I behold
+A green land golden in the dying day.
+
+An old red castle, strong with stony towers,
+The windows gay with many coloured glass;
+Wide plains, and rivers flowing among flowers,
+That bathe the castle basement as they pass.
+
+In antique weed, with dark eyes and gold hair,
+A lady looks forth from her window high;
+It may be that I knew and found her fair,
+In some forgotten life, long time gone by.
+
+
+
+JUANA.
+ALFRED DE MUSSET.
+
+
+
+Again I see you, ah my queen,
+Of all my old loves that have been,
+The first love, and the tenderest;
+Do you remember or forget -
+Ah me, for I remember yet -
+How the last summer days were blest?
+
+Ah lady, when we think of this,
+The foolish hours of youth and bliss,
+How fleet, how sweet, how hard to hold!
+How old we are, ere spring be green!
+You touch the limit of eighteen
+And I am twenty winters old.
+
+My rose, that mid the red roses,
+Was brightest, ah, how pale she is!
+Yet keeps the beauty of her prime;
+Child, never Spanish lady's face
+Was lovely with so wild a grace;
+Remember the dead summer time.
+
+Think of our loves, our feuds of old,
+And how you gave your chain of gold
+To me for a peace offering;
+And how all night I lay awake
+To touch and kiss it for your sake, -
+To touch and kiss the lifeless thing.
+
+Lady, beware, for all we say,
+This Love shall live another day,
+Awakened from his deathly sleep;
+The heart that once has been your shrine
+For other loves is too divine;
+A home, my dear, too wide and deep.
+
+What did I say--why do I dream?
+Why should I struggle with the stream
+Whose waves return not any day?
+Close heart, and eyes, and arms from me;
+Farewell, farewell! so must it be,
+So runs, so runs, the world away,
+
+The season bears upon its wing
+The swallows and the songs of spring,
+And days that were, and days that flit;
+The loved lost hours are far away;
+And hope and fame are scattered spray
+For me, that gave you love a day
+For you that not remember it.
+
+
+
+SPRING IN THE STUDENT'S QUARTER.
+HENRI MURGER.
+
+
+
+Winter is passing, and the bells
+For ever with their silver lay
+Murmur a melody that tells
+Of April and of Easter day.
+High in sweet air the light vane sets,
+The weathercocks all southward twirl;
+A sou will buy her violets
+And make Nini a happy girl.
+
+The winter to the poor was sore,
+Counting the weary winter days,
+Watching his little fire-wood store,
+The bitter snow-flakes fell always;
+And now his last log dimly gleamed,
+Lighting the room with feeble glare,
+Half cinder and half smoke it seemed
+That the wind wafted into air.
+
+Pilgrims from ocean and far isles
+See where the east is reddening,
+The flocks that fly a thousand miles
+From sunsetting to sunsetting;
+Look up, look out, behold the swallows,
+The throats that twitter, the wings that beat;
+And on their song the summer follows,
+And in the summer life is sweet.
+
+* * * * * *
+
+With the green tender buds that know
+The shoot and sap of lusty spring
+My neighbour of a year ago
+Her casement, see, is opening;
+Through all the bitter months that were,
+Forth from her nest she dared not flee,
+She was a study for Boucher,
+She now might sit to Gavarni.
+
+
+
+OLD LOVES.
+HENRI MURGER.
+
+
+
+Louise, have you forgotten yet
+The corner of the flowery land,
+The ancient garden where we met,
+My hand that trembled in your hand?
+Our lips found words scarce sweet enough,
+As low beneath the willow-trees
+We sat; have you forgotten, love?
+Do you remember, love Louise?
+
+Marie, have you forgotten yet
+The loving barter that we made?
+The rings we changed, the suns that set,
+The woods fulfilled with sun and shade?
+The fountains that were musical
+By many an ancient trysting tree -
+Marie, have you forgotten all?
+Do you remember, love Marie?
+
+Christine, do you remember yet
+Your room with scents and roses gay?
+My garret--near the sky 'twas set -
+The April hours, the nights of May?
+The clear calm nights--the stars above
+That whispered they were fairest seen
+Through no cloud-veil?  Remember, love!
+Do you remember, love Christine?
+
+Louise is dead, and, well-a-day!
+Marie a sadder path has ta'en;
+And pale Christine has passed away
+In southern suns to bloom again.
+Alas! for one and all of us -
+Marie, Louise, Christine forget;
+Our bower of love is ruinous,
+And I alone remember yet.
+
+
+
+MUSETTE.
+HENRI MURGER.  1850
+
+
+
+Yesterday, watching the swallows' flight
+That bring the spring and the season fair,
+A moment I thought of the beauty bright
+Who loved me, when she had time to spare;
+And dreamily, dreamily all the day,
+I mused on the calendar of the year,
+The year so near and so far away,
+When you were lief, and when I was dear.
+
+Your memory has not had time to pass;
+My youth has days of its lifetime yet;
+If you only knocked at the door, alas,
+My heart would open the door, Musette!
+Still at your name must my sad heart beat;
+Ah Muse, ah maiden of faithlessness!
+Return for a moment, and deign to eat
+The bread that pleasure was wont to bless.
+
+The tables and curtains, the chairs and all,
+Friends of our pleasure that looked on our pain,
+Are glad with the gladness of festival,
+Hoping to see you at home again;
+Come, let the days of their mourning pass,
+The silent friends that are sad for you yet;
+The little sofa, the great wine glass -
+For know you had often my share, Musette.
+
+Come, you shall wear the raiment white
+You wore of old, when the world was gay,
+We will wander in woods of the heart's delight
+The whole of the Sunday holiday.
+Come, we will sit by the wayside inn,
+Come, and your song will gain force to fly,
+Dipping its wing in the clear and thin
+Wine, as of old, ere it scale the sky.
+
+Musette, who had scarcely forgotten withal
+One beautiful dawn of the new year's best,
+Returned at the end of the carnival,
+A flown bird, to a forsaken nest.
+Ah faithless and fair!  I embrace her yet,
+With no heart-beat, and with never a sigh;
+And Musette, no longer the old Musette,
+Declares that I am no longer I.
+
+Farewell, my dear that was once so dear,
+Dead with the death of our latest love;
+Our youth is laid in its sepulchre,
+The calendar stands for a stone above.
+'Tis only in searching the dust of the days,
+The ashes of all old memories,
+That we find the key of the woodland ways
+That lead to the place of our paradise.
+
+
+
+
+THE THREE CAPTAINS.
+
+
+
+All beneath the white-rose tree
+Walks a lady fair to see,
+She is as white as the snows,
+She is as fair as the day:
+From her father's garden close
+Three knights have ta'en her away.
+
+He has ta'en her by the hand,
+The youngest of the three -
+'Mount and ride, my bonnie bride,
+On my white horse with me.'
+
+And ever they rode, and better rode,
+Till they came to Senlis town,
+The hostess she looked hard at them
+As they were lighting down.
+
+'And are ye here by force,' she said,
+'Or are ye here for play?
+From out my father's garden close
+Three knights me stole away.
+
+'And fain would I win back,' she said,
+'The weary way I come;
+And fain would see my father dear,
+And fain go maiden home.'
+
+'Oh, weep not, lady fair,' said she,
+'You shall win back,' she said,
+'For you shall take this draught from me
+Will make you lie for dead.'
+
+'Come in and sup, fair lady,' they said,
+'Come busk ye and be bright;
+It is with three bold captains
+That ye must be this night.'
+
+When they had eaten well and drunk,
+She fell down like one slain:
+'Now, out and alas! for my bonny may
+Shall live no more again.'
+
+'Within her father's garden stead
+There are three white lilies;
+With her body to the lily bed,
+With her soul to Paradise.'
+
+They bore her to her father's house,
+They bore her all the three,
+They laid her in her father's close,
+Beneath the white-rose tree.
+
+She had not lain a day, a day,
+A day but barely three,
+When the may awakes, 'Oh, open, father,
+Oh, open the door for me.
+
+''Tis I have lain for dead, father,
+Have lain the long days three,
+That I might maiden come again
+To my mother and to thee.'
+
+
+
+THE BRIDGE OF DEATH.
+
+
+
+'The dance is on the Bridge of Death
+And who will dance with me?'
+'There's never a man of living men
+Will dare to dance with thee.'
+
+Now Margaret's gone within her bower
+Put ashes in her hair,
+And sackcloth on her bonny breast,
+And on her shoulders bare.
+
+There came a knock to her bower door,
+And blithe she let him in;
+It was her brother from the wars,
+The dearest of her kin.
+
+'Set gold within your hair, Margaret,
+Set gold within your hair,
+And gold upon your girdle band,
+And on your breast so fair.
+
+'For we are bidden to dance to-night,
+We may not bide away;
+This one good night, this one fair night,
+Before the red new day.'
+
+'Nay, no gold for my head brother,
+Nay, no gold for my hair;
+It is the ashes and dust of earth
+That you and I must wear.
+
+'No gold work for my girdle band,
+No gold work on my feet;
+But ashes of the fire, my love,
+But dust that the serpents eat.'
+
+* * * * * *
+
+They danced across the bridge of Death,
+Above the black water,
+And the marriage-bell was tolled in hell
+For the souls of him and her.
+
+
+
+LE PERE SEVERE.
+KING LOUIS' DAUGHTER.
+BALLAD OF THE ISLE OF FRANCE.
+
+
+
+King Louis on his bridge is he,
+He holds his daughter on his knee.
+
+She asks a husband at his hand
+That is not worth a rood of land.
+
+'Give up your lover speedily,
+Or you within the tower must lie.'
+
+'Although I must the prison dree,
+I will not change my love for thee.
+
+'I will not change my lover fair
+Not for the mother that me bare.
+
+'I will not change my true lover
+For friends, or for my father dear.'
+
+'Now where are all my pages keen,
+And where are all my serving men?
+
+'My daughter must lie in the tower alway,
+Where she shall never see the day.'
+
+* * * * * *
+
+Seven long years are past and gone
+And there has seen her never one.
+
+At ending of the seventh year
+Her father goes to visit her.
+
+'My child, my child, how may you be?'
+'O father, it fares ill with me.
+
+'My feet are wasted in the mould,
+The worms they gnaw my side so cold.'
+
+'My child, change your love speedily
+Or you must still in prison lie.'
+
+''Tis better far the cold to dree
+Than give my true love up for thee.'
+
+
+
+THE MILK WHITE DOE.
+
+
+
+It was a mother and a maid
+That walked the woods among,
+And still the maid went slow and sad,
+And still the mother sung.
+
+'What ails you, daughter Margaret?
+Why go you pale and wan?
+Is it for a cast of bitter love,
+Or for a false leman?'
+
+'It is not for a false lover
+That I go sad to see;
+But it is for a weary life
+Beneath the greenwood tree.
+
+'For ever in the good daylight
+A maiden may I go,
+But always on the ninth midnight
+I change to a milk white doe.
+
+'They hunt me through the green forest
+With hounds and hunting men;
+And ever it is my fair brother
+That is so fierce and keen.'
+
+* * * * *
+
+'Good-morrow, mother.'  'Good-morrow, son;
+Where are your hounds so good?'
+Oh, they are hunting a white doe
+Within the glad greenwood.
+
+'And three times have they hunted her,
+And thrice she's won away;
+The fourth time that they follow her
+That white doe they shall slay.'
+
+* * * * * *
+
+Then out and spoke the forester,
+As he came from the wood,
+'Now never saw I maid's gold hair
+Among the wild deer's blood.
+
+'And I have hunted the wild deer
+In east lands and in west;
+And never saw I white doe yet
+That had a maiden's breast.'
+
+Then up and spake her fair brother,
+Between the wine and bread,
+'Behold, I had but one sister,
+And I have been her dead.'
+
+'But ye must bury my sweet sister
+With a stone at her foot and her head,
+And ye must cover her fair body
+With the white roses and red.'
+
+And I must out to the greenwood,
+The roof shall never shelter me;
+And I shall lie for seven long years
+On the grass below the hawthorn tree.
+
+
+
+A LADY OF HIGH DEGREE.
+
+
+
+[I be pareld most of prise,
+I ride after the wild fee.]
+
+Will ye that I should sing
+Of the love of a goodly thing,
+Was no vilein's may?
+'Tis sung of a knight so free,
+Under the olive tree,
+Singing this lay.
+
+Her weed was of samite fine,
+Her mantle of white ermine,
+Green silk her hose;
+Her shoon with silver gay,
+Her sandals flowers of May,
+Laced small and close.
+
+Her belt was of fresh spring buds,
+Set with gold clasps and studs,
+Fine linen her shift;
+Her purse it was of love,
+Her chain was the flower thereof,
+And Love's gift.
+
+Upon a mule she rode,
+The selle was of brent gold,
+The bits of silver made;
+Three red rose trees there were
+That overshadowed her,
+For a sun shade.
+
+She riding on a day,
+Knights met her by the way,
+They did her grace;
+'Fair lady, whence be ye?'
+'France it is my countrie,
+I come of a high race.
+
+'My sire is the nightingale,
+That sings, making his wail,
+In the wild wood, clear;
+The mermaid is mother to me,
+That sings in the salt sea,
+In the ocean mere.'
+
+'Ye come of a right good race,
+And are born of a high place,
+And of high degree;
+Would to God that ye were
+Given unto me, being fair,
+My lady and love to be.'
+
+
+
+LOST FOR A ROSE'S SAKE.
+
+
+
+I laved my hands,
+BY the water side;
+With the willow leaves
+My hands I dried.
+
+The nightingale sung
+On the bough of the tree;
+Sing, sweet nightingale,
+It is well with thee.
+
+Thou hast heart's delight,
+I have sad heart's sorrow
+For a false false maid
+That will wed to-morrow.
+
+'Tis all for a rose,
+That I gave her not,
+And I would that it grew
+In the garden plot.
+
+And I would the rose-tree
+Were still to set,
+That my love Marie
+Might love me yet.
+
+
+
+
+BALLADS OF MODERN GREECE.
+
+
+
+
+THE BRIGAND'S GRAVE.
+
+
+
+The moon came up above the hill,
+The sun went down the sea;
+Go, maids, and fetch the well-water,
+But, lad, come here to me.
+
+Gird on my jack and my old sword,
+For I have never a son;
+And you must be the chief of all
+When I am dead and gone.
+
+But you must take my old broad sword,
+And cut the green bough of the tree,
+And strew the green boughs on the ground
+To make a soft death bed for me.
+
+And you must bring the holy priest
+That I may sained be;
+For I have lived a roving life
+Fifty years under the greenwood tree.
+
+And you shall make a grave for me,
+And make it deep and wide;
+That I may turn about and dream
+With my old gun by my side.
+
+And leave a window to the east,
+And the swallows will bring the spring;
+And all the merry month of May
+The nightingales will sing.
+
+
+
+THE SUDDEN BRIDAL.
+
+
+
+It was a maid lay sick of love,
+All for a leman fair;
+And it was three of her bower-maidens
+That came to comfort her.
+
+The first she bore a blossomed branch,
+The second an apple brown,
+The third she had a silk kerchief,
+And still her tears ran down.
+
+The first she mocked, the second she laughed -
+'We have loved lemans fair,
+We made our hearts like the iron stone
+Had little teen or care.'
+
+'If ye have loved 'twas a false false love,
+And an ill leman was he;
+But her true love had angel's eyes,
+And as fair was his sweet body.
+
+And I will gird my green kirtle,
+And braid my yellow hair,
+And I will over the high hills
+And bring her love to her.'
+
+'Nay, if you braid your yellow hair,
+You'll twine my love from me.'
+'Now nay, now nay, my lady good,
+That ever this should be!'
+
+'When you have crossed the western hills
+My true love you shall meet,
+With a green flag blowing over him,
+And green grass at his feet.'
+
+She has crossed over the high hills,
+And the low hills between,
+And she has found the may's leman
+Beneath a flag of green.
+
+'Twas four and twenty ladies fair
+Were sitting on the grass;
+But he has turned and looked on her,
+And will not let her pass.
+
+'You've maidens here, and maidens there,
+And loves through all the land;
+But what have you made of the lady fair
+You gave the rose-garland?'
+
+She was so harsh and cold of love,
+To me gave little grace;
+She wept if I but touched her hand,
+Or kissed her bonny face.
+
+'Yea, crows shall build in the eagle's nest,
+The hawk the dove shall wed,
+Before my old true love and I
+Meet in one wedding bed.'
+
+When she had heard his bitter rede
+That was his old true love,
+She sat and wept within her bower,
+And moaned even as a dove.
+
+She rose up from her window seat,
+And she looked out to see;
+Her love came riding up the street
+With a goodly company.
+
+He was clad on with Venice gold,
+Wrought upon cramoisie,
+His yellow hair shone like the sun
+About his fair body.
+
+'Now shall I call him blossomed branch
+That has ill knots therein?
+Or shall I call him basil plant,
+That comes of an evil kin?
+
+'Oh, I shall give him goodly names,
+My sword of damask fine;
+My silver flower, my bright-winged bird,
+Where go you, lover mine?'
+
+'I go to marry my new bride,
+That I bring o'er the down;
+And you shall be her bridal maid,
+And hold her bridal crown.'
+
+'When you come to the bride chamber
+Where your fair maiden is,
+You'll tell her I was fair of face,
+But never tell her this,
+
+'That still my lips were lips of love,
+My kiss love's spring-water,
+That my love was a running spring,
+My breast a garden fair.
+
+'And you have kissed the lips of love
+And drained the well-water,
+And you have spoiled the running spring,
+And robbed the fruits so fair.'
+
+* * * * * *
+
+'Now he that will may scatter nuts,
+And he may wed that will;
+But she that was my old true love
+Shall be my true love still.'
+
+
+
+
+GREEK FOLK SONGS.
+
+
+
+
+IANNOULA.
+
+
+
+All the maidens were merry and wed
+All to lovers so fair to see;
+The lover I took to my bridal bed
+He is not long for love and me.
+
+I spoke to him and he noting said,
+I gave him bread of the wheat so fine,
+He did not eat of the bridal bread,
+He did not drink of the bridal wine.
+
+I made him a bed was soft and deep,
+I made him a bed to sleep with me;
+'Look on me once before you sleep,
+And look on the flower of my fair body.
+
+'Flowers of April, and fresh May-dew,
+Dew of April and buds of May;
+Two white blossoms that bud for you,
+Buds that blossom before the day.'
+
+
+
+THE TELL-TALES.
+
+
+
+All in the mirk midnight when I was beside you,
+Who has seen, who has heard, what was said, what was done?
+'Twas the night and the light of the stars that espied you,
+The fall of the moon, and the dawning begun.
+
+'Tis a swift star has fallen, a star that discovers
+To the sea what the green sea has told to the oars,
+And the oars to the sailors, and they of us lovers
+Go singing this song at their mistress's doors.
+
+
+
+
+AVE.
+
+
+
+
+TWILIGHT ON TWEED.
+
+
+
+Three crests against the saffron sky,
+Beyond the purple plain,
+The dear remembered melody
+Of Tweed once more again.
+
+Wan water from the border hills,
+Dear voice from the old years,
+Thy distant music lulls and stills,
+And moves to quiet tears.
+
+Like a loved ghost thy fabled flood
+Fleets through the dusky land;
+Where Scott, come home to die, has stood,
+My feet returning stand.
+
+A mist of memory broods and floats,
+The border waters flow;
+The air is full of ballad notes,
+Borne out of long ago.
+
+Old songs that sung themselves to me,
+Sweet through a boy's day dream,
+While trout below the blossom'd tree
+Plashed in the golden stream.
+
+* * * * * *
+
+Twilight, and Tweed, and Eildon Hill,
+Fair and thrice fair you be;
+You tell me that the voice is still
+That should have welcomed me.
+
+
+
+ONE FLOWER.
+
+
+
+["Up there shot a lily red,
+With a patch of earth from the land of the dead,
+For she was strong in the land of the dead."]
+
+When autumn suns are soft, and sea winds moan,
+And golden fruits make sweet the golden air,
+In gardens where the apple blossoms were,
+In these old springs before I walked alone;
+I pass among the pathways overgrown,
+Of all the former flowers that kissed your feet
+Remains a poppy, pallid from the heat,
+A wild poppy that the wild winds have sown.
+Alas! the rose forgets your hands of rose;
+The lilies slumber in the lily bed;
+'Tis only poppies in the dreamy close,
+The changeless, windless garden of the dead,
+You tend, with buds soft as your kiss that lies
+In over happy dreams, upon mine eyes.
+
+
+
+METEMPSYCHOSIS.
+
+
+
+I shall not see thee, nay, but I shall know
+Perchance, thy grey eyes in another's eyes,
+Shall guess thy curls in gracious locks that flow
+On purest brows, yea, and the swift surmise
+Shall follow, and track, and find thee in disguise
+Of all sad things, and fair, where sunsets glow,
+When through the scent of heather, faint and low,
+The weak wind whispers to the day that dies.
+
+From all sweet art, and out of all 'old rhyme,'
+Thine eyes and lips are light and song to me;
+The shadows of the beauty of all time,
+Carven and sung, are only shapes of thee;
+Alas, the shadowy shapes! ah, sweet my dear
+Shall life or death bring all thy being near?
+
+
+
+LOST IN HADES.
+
+
+
+I dreamed that somewhere in the shadowy place,
+Grief of farewell unspoken was forgot
+In welcome, and regret remembered not;
+And hopeless prayer accomplished turned to praise
+On lips that had been songless many days;
+Hope had no more to hope for, and desire
+And dread were overpast, in white attire
+New born we walked among the new world's ways.
+
+Then from the press of shades a spirit threw
+Towards me such apples as these gardens bear;
+And turning, I was 'ware of her, and knew
+And followed her fleet voice and flying hair, -
+Followed, and found her not, and seeking you
+I found you never, dearest, anywhere.
+
+
+
+A STAR IN THE NIGHT.
+
+
+
+The perfect piteous beauty of thy face,
+Is like a star the dawning drives away;
+Mine eyes may never see in the bright day
+Thy pallid halo, thy supernal grace:
+But in the night from forth the silent place
+Thou comest, dim in dreams, as doth a stray
+Star of the starry flock that in the grey
+Is seen, and lost, and seen a moment's space.
+
+And as the earth at night turns to a star,
+Loved long ago, and dearer than the sun,
+So in the spiritual place afar,
+At night our souls are mingled and made one,
+And wait till one night fall, and one dawn rise,
+That brings no noon too splendid for your eyes.
+
+
+
+A SUNSET ON YARROW.
+
+
+
+The wind and the day had lived together,
+They died together, and far away
+Spoke farewell in the sultry weather,
+Out of the sunset, over the heather,
+The dying wind and the dying day.
+
+Far in the south, the summer levin
+Flushed, a flame in the grey soft air:
+We seemed to look on the hills of heaven;
+You saw within, but to me 'twas given
+To see your face, as an angel's, there.
+
+Never again, ah surely never
+Shall we wait and watch, where of old we stood,
+The low good-night of the hill and the river,
+The faint light fade, and the wan stars quiver,
+Twain grown one in the solitude.
+
+
+
+
+HESPEROTHEN.
+
+
+
+
+By the example of certain Grecian mariners, who, being safely
+returned from the war about Troy, leave yet again their old lands
+and gods, seeking they know not what, and choosing neither to abide
+in the fair Phaeacian island, nor to dwell and die with the Sirens,
+at length end miserably in a desert country by the sea, is set
+forth the Vanity of Melancholy.  And by the land of Phaeacia is to
+be understood the place of Art and of fair Pleasures; and by
+Circe's Isle, the places of bodily delights, whereof men, falling
+aweary, attain to Eld, and to the darkness of that age.  Which
+thing Master Francoys Rabelais feigned, under the similitude of the
+Isle of the Macraeones.
+
+
+
+THE SEEKERS FOR PHAEACIA.
+
+
+
+There is a land in the remotest day,
+Where the soft night is born, and sunset dies;
+The eastern shores see faint tides fade away,
+That wash the lands where laughter, tears, and sighs,
+Make life,--the lands beneath the blue of common skies.
+
+But in the west is a mysterious sea,
+(What sails have seen it, or what shipmen known?)
+With coasts enchanted where the Sirens be,
+With islands where a Goddess walks alone,
+And in the cedar trees the magic winds make moan
+
+Eastward the human cares of house and home,
+Cities, and ships, and unknown Gods, and loves;
+Westward, strange maidens fairer than the foam,
+And lawless lives of men, and haunted groves,
+Wherein a God may dwell, and where the Dryad roves.
+
+The Gods are careless of the days and death
+Of toilsome men, beyond the western seas;
+The Gods are heedless of their painful breath,
+And love them not, for they are not as these;
+But in the golden west they live and lie at ease.
+
+Yet the Phaeacians well they love, who live
+At the light's limit, passing careless hours,
+Most like the Gods; and they have gifts to give,
+Even wine, and fountains musical, and flowers,
+And song, and if they will, swift ships, and magic powers.
+
+It is a quiet midland; in the cool
+Of twilight comes the God, though no man prayed,
+To watch the maids and young men beautiful
+Dance, and they see him, and are not afraid,
+For they are near of kin to Gods, and undismayed.
+
+Ah, would the bright red prows might bring us nigh
+The dreamy isles that the Immortals keep!
+But with a mist they hide them wondrously,
+And far the path and dim to where they sleep, -
+The loved, the shadowy lands along the shadowy deep.
+
+
+
+A SONG OF PHAEACIA.
+
+
+
+The languid sunset, mother of roses,
+Lingers, a light on the magic seas,
+The wide fire flames, as a flower uncloses,
+Heavy with odour, and loose to the breeze.
+
+The red rose clouds, without law or leader,
+Gather and float in the airy plain;
+The nightingale sings to the dewy cedar,
+The cedar scatters his scent to the main.
+
+The strange flowers' perfume turns to singing,
+Heard afar over moonlit seas;
+The Siren's song, grown faint in winging,
+Falls in scent on the cedar trees.
+
+As waifs blown out of the sunset, flying,
+Purple, and rosy, and grey, the birds
+Brighten the air with their wings; their crying
+Wakens a moment the weary herds.
+
+Butterflies flit from the fairy garden,
+Living blossoms of flying flowers;
+Never the nights with winter harden,
+Nor moons wax keen in this land of ours.
+
+Great fruits, fragrant, green and golden,
+Gleam in the green, and droop and fall;
+Blossom, and bud, and flower unfolden,
+Swing, and cling to the garden wall.
+
+Deep in the woods as twilight darkens,
+Glades are red with the scented fire;
+Far in the dells the white maid hearkens,
+Song and sigh of the heart's desire.
+
+Ah, and as moonlight fades in morning,
+Maiden's song in the matin grey,
+Faints as the first bird's note, a warning,
+Wakes and wails to the new-born day.
+
+The waking song and the dying measure
+Meet, and the waxing and waning light
+Meet, and faint with the hours of pleasure,
+The rose of the sea and the sky is white.
+
+
+
+THE DEPARTURE FROM PHAEACIA.
+
+
+
+
+THE PHAEACIANS.
+
+Why from the dreamy meadows,
+More fair than any dream,
+Why will you seek the shadows
+Beyond the ocean stream?
+
+Through straits of storm and peril,
+Through firths unsailed before,
+Why make you for the sterile,
+The dark Kimmerian shore?
+
+There no bright streams are flowing,
+There day and night are one,
+No harvest time, no sowing,
+No sight of any sun;
+
+No sound of song or tabor,
+No dance shall greet you there;
+No noise of mortal labour,
+Breaks on the blind chill air.
+
+Are ours not happy places,
+Where Gods with mortals trod?
+Saw not our sires the faces
+Of many a present God?
+
+THE SEEKERS.
+
+Nay, now no God comes hither,
+In shape that men may see;
+They fare we know not whither,
+We know not what they be.
+
+Yea, though the sunset lingers
+Far in your fairy glades,
+Though yours the sweetest singers,
+Though yours the kindest maids,
+
+Yet here be the true shadows,
+Here in the doubtful light;
+Amid the dreamy meadows
+No shadow haunts the night.
+
+We seek a city splendid,
+With light beyond the sun;
+Or lands where dreams are ended,
+And works and days are done.
+
+
+
+A BALLAD OF DEPARTURE. {2}
+
+
+
+Fair white bird, what song art thou singing
+In wintry weather of lands o'er sea?
+Dear white bird, what way art thou winging,
+Where no grass grows, and no green tree?
+
+I looked at the far off fields and grey,
+There grew no tree but the cypress tree,
+That bears sad fruits with the flowers of May,
+And whoso looks on it, woe is he.
+
+And whoso eats of the fruit thereof
+Has no more sorrow, and no more love;
+And who sets the same in his garden stead,
+In a little space he is waste and dead.
+
+
+
+THEY HEAR THE SIRENS FOR THE SECOND TIME.
+
+
+
+The weary sails a moment slept,
+The oars were silent for a space,
+As past Hesperian shores we swept,
+That were as a remembered face
+Seen after lapse of hopeless years,
+In Hades, when the shadows meet,
+Dim through the mist of many tears,
+And strange, and though a shadow, sweet.
+
+So seemed the half-remembered shore,
+That slumbered, mirrored in the blue,
+With havens where we touched of yore,
+And ports that over well we knew.
+Then broke the calm before a breeze
+That sought the secret of the west;
+And listless all we swept the seas
+Towards the Islands of the Blest.
+
+Beside a golden sanded bay
+We saw the Sirens, very fair
+The flowery hill whereon they lay,
+The flowers set upon their hair.
+Their old sweet song came down the wind,
+Remembered music waxing strong,
+Ah now no need of cords to bind,
+No need had we of Orphic song.
+
+It once had seemed a little thing,
+To lay our lives down at their feet,
+That dying we might hear them sing,
+And dying see their faces sweet;
+But now, we glanced, and passing by,
+No care had we to tarry long;
+Faint hope, and rest, and memory
+Were more than any Siren's song.
+
+
+
+CIRCE'S ISLE REVISITED.
+
+
+
+Ah, Circe, Circe! in the wood we cried;
+Ah, Circe, Circe! but no voice replied;
+No voice from bowers o'ergrown and ruinous
+As fallen rocks upon the mountain side.
+
+There was no sound of singing in the air;
+Failed or fled the maidens that were fair,
+No more for sorrow or joy were seen of us,
+No light of laughing eyes, or floating hair.
+
+The perfume, and the music, and the flame
+Had passed away; the memory of shame
+Alone abode, and stings of faint desire,
+And pulses of vague quiet went and came.
+
+Ah, Circe! in thy sad changed fairy place,
+Our dead Youth came and looked on us a space,
+With drooping wings, and eyes of faded fire,
+And wasted hair about a weary face.
+
+Why had we ever sought the magic isle
+That seemed so happy in the days erewhile?
+Why did we ever leave it, where we met
+A world of happy wonders in one smile?
+
+Back to the westward and the waning light
+We turned, we fled; the solitude of night
+Was better than the infinite regret,
+In fallen places of our dead delight.
+
+
+
+THE LIMIT OF LANDS.
+
+
+
+Between the circling ocean sea
+And the poplars of Persephone
+There lies a strip of barren sand,
+Flecked with the sea's last spray, and strown
+With waste leaves of the poplars, blown
+From gardens of the shadow land.
+
+With altars of old sacrifice
+The shore is set, in mournful wise
+The mists upon the ocean brood;
+Between the water and the air
+The clouds are born that float and fare
+Between the water and the wood.
+
+Upon the grey sea never sail
+Of mortals passed within our hail,
+Where the last weak waves faint and flow;
+We heard within the poplar pale
+The murmur of a doubtful wail
+Of voices loved so long ago.
+
+We scarce had care to die or live,
+We had no honey cake to give,
+No wine of sacrifice to shed;
+There lies no new path over sea,
+And now we know how faint they be,
+The feasts and voices of the Dead.
+
+Ah, flowers and dance! ah, sun and snow!
+Glad life, sad life we did forego
+To dream of quietness and rest;
+Ah, would the fleet sweet roses here
+Poured light and perfume through the drear
+Pale year, and wan land of the west.
+
+Sad youth, that let the spring go by
+Because the spring is swift to fly,
+Sad youth, that feared to mourn or love,
+Behold how sadder far is this,
+To know that rest is nowise bliss,
+And darkness is the end thereof.
+
+
+
+
+VERSES ON PICTURES.
+
+
+
+
+
+COLINETTE.
+
+
+
+
+[FOR A SKETCH BY MR. G. LESLIE, A.R.A.]
+
+France your country, as we know;
+Room enough for guessing yet,
+What lips now or long ago,
+Kissed and named you--Colinette.
+In what fields from sea to sea,
+By what stream your home was set,
+Loire or Seine was glad of thee,
+Marne or Rhone, O Colinette?
+
+Did you stand with 'maidens ten,
+Fairer maids were never seen,'
+When the young king and his men
+Passed among the orchards green?
+Nay, old ballads have a note
+Mournful, we would fain forget;
+No such sad old air should float
+Round your young brows, Colinette.
+
+Say, did Ronsard sing to you,
+Shepherdess, to lull his pain,
+When the court went wandering through
+Rose pleasances of Touraine?
+Ronsard and his famous Rose
+Long are dust the breezes fret;
+You, within the garden close,
+You are blooming, Colinette.
+
+Have I seen you proud and gay,
+With a patched and perfumed beau,
+Dancing through the summer day,
+Misty summer of Watteau?
+Nay, so sweet a maid as you
+Never walked a minuet
+With the splendid courtly crew;
+Nay, forgive me, Colinette.
+
+Not from Greuze's canvasses
+Do you cast a glance, a smile;
+You are not as one of these,
+Yours is beauty without guile.
+Round your maiden brows and hair
+Maidenhood and Childhood met
+Crown and kiss you, sweet and fair,
+New art's blossom, Colinette.
+
+
+
+A SUNSET OF WATTEAU.
+
+
+
+LUI.
+
+The silk sail fills, the soft winds wake,
+Arise and tempt the seas;
+Our ocean is the Palace lake,
+Our waves the ripples that we make
+Among the mirrored trees.
+
+ELLE.
+
+Nay, sweet the shore, and sweet the song,
+And dear the languid dream;
+The music mingled all day long
+With paces of the dancing throng,
+And murmur of the stream.
+
+An hour ago, an hour ago,
+We rested in the shade;
+And now, why should we seek to know
+What way the wilful waters flow?
+There is no fairer glade.
+
+LUI.
+
+Nay, pleasure flits, and we must sail,
+And seek him everywhere;
+Perchance in sunset's golden pale
+He listens to the nightingale,
+Amid the perfumed air.
+
+Come, he has fled; you are not you,
+And I no more am I;
+Delight is changeful as the hue
+Of heaven, that is no longer blue
+In yonder sunset sky.
+
+ELLE.
+
+Nay, if we seek we shall not find,
+If we knock none openeth;
+Nay, see, the sunset fades behind
+The mountains, and the cold night wind
+Blows from the house of Death.
+
+
+
+A NATIVITY OF SANDRO BOTTICELLI.
+
+
+
+'Wrought in the troublous times of Italy
+By Sandro Botticelli,' when for fear
+Of that last judgment, and last day drawn near
+To end all labour and all revelry,
+He worked and prayed in silence; this is she
+That by the holy cradle sees the bier,
+And in spice gifts the hyssop on the spear,
+And out of Bethlehem, Gethsemane.
+
+Between the gold sky and the green o'er head,
+The twelve great shining angels, garlanded,
+Marvel upon this face, wherein combine
+The mother's love that shone on all of us,
+And maiden rapture that makes luminous
+The brows of Margaret and Catherine.
+
+
+
+
+SONGS AND SONNETS
+
+
+
+
+
+TWO HOMES.
+
+
+
+
+[To a young English lady in the Hospital of the Wounded at
+Carlsruhe.  Sept. 1870.]
+
+What does the dim gaze of the dying find
+To waken dream or memory, seeing you?
+In your sweet eyes what other eyes are blue,
+And in your hair what gold hair on the wind
+Floats of the days gone almost out of mind?
+In deep green valleys of the Fatherland
+He may remember girls with locks like thine;
+May dream how, where the waiting angels stand,
+Some lost love's eyes are dim before they shine
+With welcome: --so past homes, or homes to be,
+He sees a moment, ere, a moment blind,
+He crosses Death's inhospitable sea,
+And with brief passage of those barren lands
+Comes to the home that is not made with hands.
+
+
+
+SUMMER'S ENDING.
+
+
+
+The flags below the shadowy fern
+Shine like spears between sun and sea,
+The tide and the summer begin to turn,
+And ah, for hearts, for hearts that yearn,
+For fires of autumn that catch and burn,
+For love gone out between thee and me.
+
+The wind is up, and the weather broken,
+Blue seas, blue eyes, are grieved and grey,
+Listen, the word that the wind has spoken,
+Listen, the sound of the sea,--a token
+That summer's over, and troths are broken, -
+That loves depart as the hours decay.
+
+A love has passed to the loves passed over,
+A month has fled to the months gone by;
+And none may follow, and none recover
+July and June, and never a lover
+May stay the wings of the Loves that hover,
+As fleet as the light in a sunset sky.
+
+
+
+NIGHTINGALE WEATHER.
+
+
+
+['Serai-je nonnette, oui ou non?
+Serai-je nonnette? je crois que non.
+Derriere chez mon pere
+Il est un bois taillis,
+Le rossignol y chante
+Et le jour et le nuit.
+Il chaste pour les filles
+Qui n'ont pas d'ami;
+Il ne chante pas pour moi,
+J'en ai un, Dieu merci.'--OLD FRENCH.]
+
+I'LL never be a nun, I trow,
+While apple bloom is white as snow,
+But far more fair to see;
+I'll never wear nun's black and white
+While nightingales make sweet the night
+Within the apple tree.
+
+Ah, listen! 'tis the nightingale,
+And in the wood he makes his wail,
+Within the apple tree;
+He singeth of the sore distress
+Of many ladies loverless;
+Thank God, no song for me.
+
+For when the broad May moon is low,
+A gold fruit seen where blossoms blow
+In the boughs of the apple tree,
+A step I know is at the gate;
+Ah love, but it is long to wait
+Until night's noon bring thee!
+
+Between lark's song and nightingale's
+A silent space, while dawning pales,
+The birds leave still and free
+For words and kisses musical,
+For silence and for sighs that fall
+In the dawn, 'twixt him and me.
+
+
+
+LOVE AND WISDOM.
+
+
+
+['When last we gathered roses in the garden
+I found my wits, but truly you lost yours.'
+THE BROKEN HEART.]
+
+July, and June brought flowers and love
+To you, but I would none thereof,
+Whose heart kept all through summer time
+A flower of frost and winter rime.
+Yours was true wisdom--was it not? -
+Even love; but I had clean forgot,
+Till seasons of the falling leaf,
+All loves, but one that turned to grief.
+At length at touch of autumn tide,
+When roses fell, and summer died,
+All in a dawning deep with dew,
+Love flew to me, love fled from you.
+
+The roses drooped their weary heads,
+I spoke among the garden beds;
+You would not hear, you could not know,
+Summer and love seemed long ago,
+As far, as faint, as dim a dream,
+As to the dead this world may seem.
+Ah sweet, in winter's miseries,
+Perchance you may remember this,
+How wisdom was not justified
+In summer time or autumn-tide,
+Though for this once below the sun,
+Wisdom and love were made at one;
+But love was bitter-bought enough,
+And wisdom light of wing as love.
+
+
+
+GOOD-BYE.
+
+
+
+Kiss me, and say good-bye;
+Good-bye, there is no word to say but this,
+Nor any lips left for my lips to kiss,
+Nor any tears to shed, when these tears dry;
+Kiss me, and say, good-bye.
+
+Farewell, be glad, forget;
+There is no need to say 'forget,' I know,
+For youth is youth, and time will have it so,
+And though your lips are pale, and your eyes wet,
+Farewell, you must forget.
+
+You shall bring home your sheaves,
+Many, and heavy, and with blossoms twined
+Of memories that go not out of mind;
+Let this one sheaf be twined with poppy leaves
+When you bring home your sheaves.
+
+In garnered loves of thine,
+The ripe good fruit of many hearts and years,
+Somewhere let this lie, grey and salt with tears;
+It grew too near the sea wind, and the brine
+Of life, this love of mine.
+
+This sheaf was spoiled in spring,
+And over-long was green, and early sere,
+And never gathered gold in the late year
+From autumn suns, and moons of harvesting,
+But failed in frosts of spring.
+
+Yet was it thine my sweet,
+This love, though weak as young corn withered,
+Whereof no man may gather and make bread;
+Thine, though it never knew the summer heat;
+Forget not quite, my sweet.
+
+
+
+AN OLD PRAYER.
+
+
+
+[Greek text which cannot be reproduced
+ODYSSEY, xiii. 59.]
+
+My prayer an old prayer borroweth,
+Of ancient love and memory -
+'Do thou farewell, till Eld and Death,
+That come to all men, come to thee.'
+Gently as winter's early breath,
+Scarce felt, what time the swallows flee,
+To lands whereof NO MAN KNOWETH
+Of summer, over land and sea;
+So with thy soul may summer be,
+Even as the ancient singer saith,
+'Do thou farewell, till Eld and Death,
+That come to all men, come to thee.'
+
+
+
+LOVE'S MIRACLE.
+
+
+
+With other helpless folk about the gate,
+The gate called Beautiful, with weary eyes
+That take no pleasure in the summer skies,
+Nor all things that are fairest, does she wait;
+So bleak a time, so sad a changeless fate
+Makes her with dull experience early wise,
+And in the dawning and the sunset, sighs
+That all hath been, and shall be, desolate.
+
+Ah, if Love come not soon, and bid her live,
+And know herself the fairest of fair things,
+Ah, if he have no healing gift to give,
+Warm from his breast, and holy from his wings,
+Or if at least Love's shadow in passing by
+Touch not and heal her, surely she must die.
+
+
+
+DREAMS.
+
+
+
+He spake not truth, however wise, who said
+That happy, and that hapless men in sleep
+Have equal fortune, fallen from care as deep
+As countless, careless, races of the dead.
+Not so, for alien paths of dreams we tread,
+And one beholds the faces that he sighs
+In vain to bring before his daylit eyes,
+And waking, he remembers on his bed;
+
+And one with fainting heart and feeble hand
+Fights a dim battle in a doubtful land,
+Where strength and courage were of no avail;
+And one is borne on fairy breezes far
+To the bright harbours of a golden star
+Down fragrant fleeting waters rosy pale.
+
+
+
+FAIRY LAND.
+
+
+
+In light of sunrise and sunsetting,
+The long days lingered, in forgetting
+That ever passion, keen to hold
+What may not tarry, was of old,
+In lands beyond the weary wold;
+Beyond the bitter stream whose flood
+Runs red waist-high with slain men's blood.
+Was beauty once a thing that died?
+Was pleasure never satisfied?
+Was rest still broken by the vain
+Desire of action, bringing pain,
+To die in languid rest again?
+All this was quite forgotten there,
+Where never winter chilled the year,
+Nor spring brought promise unfulfilled,
+Nor, with the eager summer killed,
+The languid days drooped autumnwards.
+So magical a season guards
+The constant prime of a cool June;
+So slumbrous is the river's tune,
+That knows no thunder of heavy rains,
+Nor ever in the summer wanes,
+Like waters of the summer time
+In lands far from the Fairy clime.
+
+Yea, there the Fairy maids are kind,
+With nothing of the changeful mind
+Of maidens in the days that were;
+And if no laughter fills the air
+With sound of silver murmurings,
+And if no prayer of passion brings
+A love nigh dead to life again,
+Yet sighs more subtly sweet remain,
+And smiles that never satiate,
+And loves that fear scarce any fate.
+Alas, no words can bring the bloom
+Of Fairy Land; the faint perfume,
+The sweet low light, the magic air,
+To eyes of who has not been there:
+Alas, no words, nor any spell
+Can lull the eyes that know too well,
+The lost fair world of Fairy Land.
+
+Ah, would that I had never been
+The lover of the Fairy Queen!
+Or would that through the sleepy town,
+The grey old place of Ercildoune,
+And all along the little street,
+The soft fall of the white deer's feet
+Came, with the mystical command
+That I must back to Fairy Land!
+
+
+
+TWO SONNETS OF THE SIRENS.
+
+
+
+['Les Sirenes estoient tant intimes amies et fidelles compagnes de
+Proserpine, qu'elles estoient toujours ensemble.  Esmues du juste
+deuil de la perte de leur chere compagne, et enuyees jusques au
+desespoir, elles s'arresterent a la mer Sicilienne, ou par leurs
+chants elles attiroient les navigans, mais l'unique fin de la
+volupe de leur musique est la Mort.'--PONTUS DE TYARD.  1570.]
+
+I.
+
+The Sirens once were maidens innocent
+That through the water-meads with Proserpine
+Plucked no fire-hearted flowers, but were content
+Cool fritillaries and flag-flowers to twine,
+With lilies woven and with wet woodbine;
+Till once they sought the bright AEtnaean flowers,
+And their bright mistress fled from summer hours
+With Hades, down the irremeable decline.
+And they have sought her all the wide world through
+Till many years, and wisdom, and much wrong
+Have filled and changed their song, and o'er the blue
+Rings deadly sweet the magic of the song,
+And whoso hears must listen till he die
+Far on the flowery shores of Sicily.
+
+II.
+
+So is it with this singing art of ours,
+That once with maids went maidenlike, and played
+With woven dances in the poplar-shade,
+And all her song was but of lady's bowers
+And the returning swallows, and spring-flowers,
+Till forth to seek a shadow-queen she strayed,
+A shadowy land; and now hath overweighed
+Her singing chaplet with the snow and showers.
+Yea, fair well-water for the bitter brine
+She left, and by the margin of life's sea
+Sings, and her song is full of the sea's moan,
+And wild with dread, and love of Proserpine;
+And whoso once has listened to her, he
+His whole life long is slave to her alone.
+
+
+
+A LA BELLE HELENE.
+AFTER RONSARD.
+
+
+
+More closely than the clinging vine
+About the wedded tree,
+Clasp thou thine arms, ah, mistress mine!
+About the heart of me.
+Or seem to sleep, and stoop your face
+Soft on my sleeping eyes,
+Breathe in your life, your heart, your grace,
+Through me, in kissing wise.
+Bow down, bow down your face, I pray,
+To me, that swoon to death,
+Breathe back the life you kissed away,
+Breathe back your kissing breath.
+So by your eyes I swear and say,
+My mighty oath and sure,
+From your kind arms no maiden may
+My loving heart allure.
+I'll bear your yoke, that's light enough,
+And to the Elysian plain,
+When we are dead of love, my love,
+One boat shall bear us twain.
+They'll flock around you, fleet and fair,
+All true loves that have been,
+And you of all the shadows there,
+Shall be the shadow queen.
+Ah shadow-loves, and shadow-lips!
+Ah, while 'tis called to-day,
+Love me, my love, for summer slips,
+And August ebbs away.
+
+
+
+SYLVIE ET AURELIE.
+
+
+
+[IN MEMORY OF GERARD DE NERVAL.]
+
+Two loves there were, and one was born
+Between the sunset and the rain;
+Her singing voice went through the corn,
+Her dance was woven 'neath the thorn,
+On grass the fallen blossoms stain;
+And suns may set, and moons may wane,
+But this love comes no more again.
+
+There were two loves and one made white
+Thy singing lips, and golden hair;
+Born of the city's mire and light,
+The shame and splendour of the night,
+She trapped and fled thee unaware;
+Not through the lamplight and the rain
+Shalt thou behold this love again.
+
+Go forth and seek, by wood and hill,
+Thine ancient love of dawn and dew;
+There comes no voice from mere or rill,
+Her dance is over, fallen still
+The ballad burdens that she knew;
+And thou must wait for her in vain,
+Till years bring back thy youth again.
+
+That other love, afield, afar
+Fled the light love, with lighter feet.
+Nay, though thou seek where gravesteads are,
+And flit in dreams from star to star,
+That dead love shalt thou never meet,
+Till through bleak dawn and blowing rain
+Thy fled soul find her soul again.
+
+
+
+A LOST PATH.
+
+
+
+[Plotinus, the Greek philosopher, had a certain proper mode of
+ecstasy, whereby, as Porphyry saith, his soul, becoming free from
+his deathly flesh, was made one with the Spirit that is in the
+World.]
+
+Alas, the path is lost, we cannot leave
+Our bright, our clouded life, and pass away
+As through strewn clouds, that stain the quiet eve,
+To heights remoter of the purer day.
+The soul may not, returning whence she came,
+Bathe herself deep in Being, and forget
+The joys that fever, and the cares that fret,
+Made once more one with the eternal flame
+That breathes in all things ever more the same.
+She would be young again, thus drinking deep
+Of her old life; and this has been, men say,
+But this we know not, who have only sleep
+To soothe us, sleep more terrible than day,
+Where dead delights, and fair lost faces stray,
+To make us weary at our wakening;
+And of that long-lost path to the Divine
+We dream, as some Greek shepherd erst might sing,
+Half credulous, of easy Proserpine
+And of the lands that lie 'beneath the day's decline.'
+
+
+
+THE SHADE OF HELEN.
+
+
+
+[Some say that Helen went never to Troy, but abode in Egypt; for
+the Gods, having made in her semblance a woman out of clouds and
+shadows, sent the same to be wife to Paris.  For this shadow then
+the Greeks and Trojans slew each other.]
+
+Why from the quiet hollows of the hills,
+And extreme meeting place of light and shade,
+Wherein soft rains fell slowly, and became
+Clouds among sister clouds, where fair spent beams
+And dying glories of the sun would dwell,
+Why have they whom I know not, nor may know,
+Strange hands, unseen and ruthless, fashioned me,
+And borne me from the silent shadowy hills,
+Hither, to noise and glow of alien life,
+To harsh and clamorous swords, and sound of war?
+
+One speaks unto me words that would be sweet,
+Made harsh, made keen with love that knows me not,
+And some strange force, within me or around,
+Makes answer, kiss for kiss, and sigh for sigh,
+And somewhere there is fever in the halls,
+That troubles me, for no such trouble came
+To vex the cool far hollows of the hills.
+
+The foolish folk crowd round me, and they cry,
+That house, and wife, and lands, and all Troy town,
+Are little to lose, if they may keep me here,
+And see me flit, a pale and silent shade,
+Among the streets bereft, and helpless shrines.
+
+At other hours another life seems mine,
+Where one great river runs unswollen of rain,
+By pyramids of unremembered kings,
+And homes of men obedient to the Dead.
+There dark and quiet faces come and go
+Around me, then again the shriek of arms,
+And all the turmoil of the Ilian men.
+What are they?  Even shadows such as I.
+What make they?  Even this--the sport of Gods -
+The sport of Gods, however free they seem.
+Ah would the game were ended, and the light,
+The blinding light, and all too mighty suns,
+Withdrawn, and I once more with sister shades,
+Unloved, forgotten, mingled with the mist,
+Dwelt in the hollows of the shadowy hills.
+Ah, would 't were the cloud's playtime, when the sun
+Clothes us in raiment of a rosy flame,
+And through the sky we flit, and gather grey,
+Like men that leave their golden youth behind,
+And through their wind-driven ways they gather grey,
+And we like them grow wan, and the chill East
+Receives us, as the Earth accepts all men, -
+But WE await the dawn of a new day.
+
+
+
+
+SONNETS TO POETS.
+
+
+
+
+JACQUES TAHUREAU.  1530.
+
+
+
+Ah thou! that, undeceived and unregretting,
+Saw'st Death so near thee on the flowery way,
+And with no sigh that life was near the setting,
+Took'st the delight and dalliance of the day,
+Happy thou wert, to live and pass away
+Ere life or love had done thee any wrong;
+Ere thy wreath faded, or thy locks grew grey,
+Or summer came to lull thine April song,
+Sweet as all shapes of sweet things unfulfilled,
+Buds bloomless, and the broken violet,
+The first spring days, the sounds and scents thereof;
+So clear thy fire of song, so early chilled,
+So brief, so bright thy life that gaily met
+Death, for thy Death came hand in hand with Love.
+
+
+
+FRANCOIS VILLON.  1450.
+
+
+
+List, all that love light mirth, light tears, and all
+That know the heart of shameful loves, or pure;
+That know delights depart, desires endure,
+A fevered tribe of ghosts funereal,
+Widowed of dead delights gone out of call;
+List, all that deem the glory of the rose
+Is brief as last year's suns, or last year's snows
+The new suns melt from off the sundial.
+
+All this your master Villon knew and sung;
+Despised delights, and faint foredone desire;
+And shame, a deathless worm, a quenchless fire;
+And laughter from the heart's last sorrow wrung,
+When half-repentance but makes evil whole,
+And prayer that cannot help wears out the soul.
+
+
+
+PIERRE RONSARD.  1560.
+
+
+
+Master, I see thee with the locks of grey,
+Crowned by the Muses with the laurel-wreath;
+I see the roses hiding underneath,
+Cassandra's gift; she was less dear than they.
+Thou, Master, first hast roused the lyric lay,
+The sleeping song that the dead years bequeath,
+Hast sung sweet answer to the songs that breathe
+Through ages, and through ages far away.
+
+Yea, and in thee the pulse of ancient passion
+Leaped, and the nymphs amid the spring-water
+Made bare their lovely limbs in the old fashion,
+And birds' song in the branches was astir.
+Ah, but thy songs are sad, thy roses wan,
+Thy bees have fed on yews Sardinian.
+
+
+
+GERARD DE NERVAL.
+
+
+
+Of all that were thy prisons--ah, untamed,
+Ah, light and sacred soul!--none holds thee now;
+No wall, no bar, no body of flesh, but thou
+Art free and happy in the lands unnamed,
+About whose gates, with weary wings and maimed,
+Thou most wert wont to linger, entering there
+A moment, and returning rapt, with fair
+Tidings that men or heeded not or blamed;
+And they would smile and wonder, seeing where
+Thou stood'st, to watch light leaves, or clouds, or wind,
+Dreamily murmuring a ballad air,
+Caught from the Valois peasants; dost thou find
+Old prophecies fulfilled now, old tales true
+In the new world, where all things are made new?
+
+
+
+THE DEATH OF MIRANDOLA.  1494.
+
+
+
+['The Queen of Heaven appeared, comforting him and promising that
+he should not utterly die.'--THOMAS MORE, Life of Piens, Earl of
+Mirandola.]
+
+Strange lilies came with autumn; new and old
+Were mingling, and the old world passed away,
+And the night gathered, and the shadows grey
+Dimmed the kind eyes and dimmed the locks of gold,
+And face beloved of Mirandola.
+The Virgin then, to comfort him and stay,
+Kissed the thin cheek, and kissed the lips acold,
+The lips unkissed of women many a day.
+Nor she alone, for queens of the old creed,
+Like rival queens that tended Arthur, there
+Were gathered, Venus in her mourning weed,
+Pallas and Dian; wise, and pure, and fair
+Was he they mourned, who living did not wrong
+One altar of its dues of wine and song.
+
+
+Footnotes:
+
+{1}  Aphrodite--Avril.
+
+{2}  From the Romaic.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, BALLADS AND LYRICS OF OLD FRANCE ***
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