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east was tremulous With the faint fluttering wings of flying dawn, Ere from the silent sombre shrine his lover had withdrawn.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 horned 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 fenced 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 crowned 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 Cytheraea, 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 AEgean, 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 arched 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 parched 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 barbed 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 winged 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 AEgean 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 orbed 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 Lethaean 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.
Poem: 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.
Poem: 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.
Poem: 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.
Poem: 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!
Simaetha 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?
Poem: 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.
Poem: 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?
Poem: 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.
Poem: 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 despoiled 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.
Poem: 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-tranced 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.
Poem: A Vision
Two crowned 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 Beatrice, ‘Who are these?’
And she made answer, knowing well each name, ‘AEschylos first, the second Sophokles,
And last (wide stream of tears!) Euripides.’
Poem: 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.
Poem: 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.
Poem: 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.
Poem: 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!
Poem: Phedre
(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 Phaeacian 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.
Poem: 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 Veronese 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 accursed Jew–
O Portia! take my heart: it is thy due: I think I will not quarrel with the Bond.
Poem: 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!
Poem: 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!
Poem: 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 Lethaean 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 bruised 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-stained 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-mailed 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 daedal-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 aeons 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.
Poem: Impression–Le Reveillon
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.
Poem: 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.
Poem: 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 beloved 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 gorged 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!
Poem: 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!
Poem: 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.
Poem: 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.
Poem: 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.
Poem: Taedium Vitae
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.
Poem: 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 blanched 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 sheathed 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 XAIPE 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-crowned 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 arched 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 AEschylos 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 Thermopylae
Its steep ravine spanned by a narrow wall, And on the nearer side a little brood
Of careless lions holding festival! And stood amazed 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 AEgina fret in loneliness
Not mirroring their beauty; so our lives grow colourless