Oneof twain, twin-born with flowers that waken,Now hath passed from sense of sun and rain:Wind from off the flower-crowned branch hath shakenOne of twain.
One twin flower must pass, and one remain:One, the word said soothly, shall be taken,And another left: can death refrain?
Two years since was love’s light song mistaken,Blessing then both blossoms, half in vain?Night outspeeding light hath overtakenOne of twain.
Night and light? O thou of heart unwary,Love, what knowest thou here at all aright,Lured, abused, misled as men by fairyNight and light?
Haply, where thine eyes behold but night,Soft as o’er her babe the smile of MaryLight breaks flowerwise into new-born sight.
What though night of light to thee be chary?What though stars of hope like flowers take flight?Seest thou all things here, where all see varyNight and light?
Deathand birth should dwell not near together:Wealth keeps house not, even for shame, with dearth:Fate doth ill to link in one brief tetherDeath and birth.
Harsh the yoke that binds them, strange the girthSeems that girds them each with each: yet whetherDeath be best, who knows, or life on earth?
Ill the rose-red and the sable featherBlend in one crown’s plume, as grief with mirth:Ill met still are warm and wintry weather,Death and birth.
Birthand death, twin-sister and twin-brother,Night and day, on all things that draw breath,Reign, while time keeps friends with one anotherBirth and death.
Each brow-bound with flowers diverse of wreath,Heaven they hail as father, earth as mother,Faithful found above them and beneath.
Smiles may lighten tears, and tears may smotherSmiles, for all that joy or sorrow saith:Joy nor sorrow knows not from each otherBirth and death.
Blestin death and life beyond man’s guessingLittle children live and die, possestStill of grace that keeps them past expressingBlest.
Each least chirp that rings from every nest,Each least touch of flower-soft fingers pressingAught that yearns and trembles to be prest,
Each least glance, gives gifts of grace, redressingGrief’s worst wrongs: each mother’s nurturing breastFeeds a flower of bliss, beyond all blessingBlest.
ABaby’sfeet, like sea-shells pink,Might tempt, should heaven see meet,An angel’s lips to kiss, we think,A baby’s feet.
Like rose-hued sea-flowers toward the heatThey stretch and spread and winkTheir ten soft buds that part and meet.
No flower-bells that expand and shrinkGleam half so heavenly sweetAs shine on life’s untrodden brinkA baby’s feet.
A baby’s hands, like rosebuds furledWhence yet no leaf expands,Ope if you touch, though close upcurled,A baby’s hands.
Then, fast as warriors grip their brandsWhen battle’s bolt is hurled,They close, clenched hard like tightening bands.
No rosebuds yet by dawn impearledMatch, even in loveliest lands,The sweetest flowers in all the world—A baby’s hands.
A baby’s eyes, ere speech begin,Ere lips learn words or sighs,Bless all things bright enough to winA baby’s eyes.
Love, while the sweet thing laughs and lies,And sleep flows out and in,Sees perfect in them Paradise.
Their glance might cast out pain and sin,Their speech make dumb the wise,By mute glad godhead felt withinA baby’s eyes.
Ababyshines as brightIf winter or if May beOn eyes that keep in sightA baby.
Though dark the skies or grey be,It fills our eyes with light,If midnight or midday be.
Love hails it, day and night,The sweetest thing that may beYet cannot praise arightA baby.
All heaven, in every baby born,All absolute of earthly leaven,Reveals itself, though man may scornAll heaven.
Yet man might feel all sin forgiven,All grief appeased, all pain outworn,By this one revelation given.
Soul, now forget thy burdens borne:Heart, be thy joys now seven times seven:Love shows in light more bright than mornAll heaven.
What likeness may define, and stray notFrom truth’s exactest way,A baby’s beauty? Love can say notWhat likeness may.
The Mayflower loveliest held in MayOf all that shine and stay notLaughs not in rosier disarray.
Sleek satin, swansdown, buds that play notAs yet with winds that play,Would fain be matched with this, and may not:What likeness may?
Rose, round whose bedDawn’s cloudlets close,Earth’s brightest-bredRose!
No song, love knows,May praise the headYour curtain shows.
Ere sleep has fled,The whole child glowsOne sweet live redRose.
Alittleway, more soft and sweetThan fields aflower with May,A babe’s feet, venturing, scarce completeA little way.
Eyes full of dawning dayLook up for mother’s eyes to meet,Too blithe for song to say.
Glad as the golden spring to greetIts first live leaflet’s play,Love, laughing, leads the little feetA little way.
Threetimes thrice hath winter’s rough white wingCrossed and curdled wells and streams with iceSince his birth whose praises love would singThree times thrice.
Earth nor sea bears flower nor pearl of priceFit to crown the forehead of my king,Honey meet to please him, balm, nor spice.
Love can think of nought but love to bringFit to serve or do him sacrificeEre his eyes have looked upon the springThree times thrice.
Three times thrice the world has fallen on slumber,Shone and waned and withered in a trice,Frost has fettered Thames and Tyne and HumberThree times thrice,
Fogs have swoln too thick for steel to slice,Cloud and mud have soiled with grime and umberEarth and heaven, defaced as souls with vice,
Winds have risen to wreck, snows fallen to cumber,Ships and chariots, trapped like rats or mice,Since my king first smiled, whose years now numberThree times thrice.
Three times thrice, in wine of song full-flowing,Pledge, my heart, the child whose eyes suffice,Once beheld, to set thy joy-bells goingThree times thrice.
Not the lands of palm and date and riceGlow more bright when summer leaves them glowing,Laugh more light when suns and winds entice.
Noon and eve and midnight and cock-crowing,Child whose love makes life as paradise,Love should sound your praise with clarions blowingThree times thrice.
‘Nota child: I call myself a boy,’Says my king, with accent stern yet mild,Now nine years have brought him change of joy;‘Not a child.’
How could reason be so far beguiled,Err so far from sense’s safe employ,Stray so wide of truth, or run so wild?
Seeing his face bent over book or toy,Child I called him, smiling: but he smiledBack, as one too high for vain annoy—Not a child.
Not a child? alack the year!What should ail an undefiledHeart, that he would fain appearNot a child?
Men, with years and memories piledEach on other, far and near,Fain again would so be styled:
Fain would cast off hope and fear,Rest, forget, be reconciled:Why would you so fain be, dear,Not a child?
Child or boy, my darling, which you will,Still your praise finds heart and song employ,Heart and song both yearning toward you still,Child or boy.
All joys else might sooner pall or cloyLove than this which inly takes its fill,Dear, of sight of your more perfect joy.
Nay, be aught you please, let all fulfilAll your pleasure; be your world your toy:Mild or wild we love you, loud or still,Child or boy.
Childof two strong nations, heirBorn of high-souled hope that smiled,Seeing for each brought forth a fairChild,
By thy gracious brows, and wildGolden-clouded heaven of hair,By thine eyes elate and mild,
Hope would fain take heart to swearMen should yet be reconciled,Seeing the sign she bids thee bear,Child.
Aroundelis wrought as a ring or a starbright sphere,With craft of delight and with cunning of sound unsought,That the heart of the hearer may smile if to pleasure his earA roundel is wrought.
Its jewel of music is carven of all or of aught—Love, laughter, or mourning—remembrance of rapture or fear—That fancy may fashion to hang in the ear of thought.
As a bird’s quick song runs round, and the hearts in us hearPause answer to pause, and again the same strain caught,So moves the device whence, round as a pearl or tear,A roundel is wrought.
‘Farewelland adieu’ was the burden prevailingLong since in the chant of a home-faring crew;And the heart in us echoes, with laughing or wailing,Farewell and adieu.
Each year that we live shall we sing it anew,With a water untravelled before us for sailingAnd a water behind us that wrecks may bestrew.
The stars of the past and the beacons are paling,The heavens and the waters are hoarier of hue:But the heart in us chants not an all unavailingFarewell and adieu.
Whatshall be done for sorrowWith love whose race is run?Where help is none to borrow,What shall be done?
In vain his hands have spunThe web, or drawn the furrow:No rest their toil hath won.
His task is all gone thorough,And fruit thereof is none:And who dare say to-morrowWhat shall be done?
Love’stwilight wanes in heaven above,On earth ere twilight reigns:Ere fear may feel the chill thereof,Love’s twilight wanes.
Ere yet the insatiate heart complains‘Too much, and scarce enough,’The lip so late athirst refrains.
Soft on the neck of either doveLove’s hands let slip the reins:And while we look for light of loveLove’s twilight wanes.
Far-fetchedand dear-bought, as the proverb rehearses,Is good, or was held so, for ladies: but noughtIn a song can be good if the turn of the verse isFar-fetched and dear-bought.
As the turn of a wave should it sound, and the thoughtRing smooth, and as light as the spray that dispersesBe the gleam of the words for the garb thereof wrought.
Let the soul in it shine through the sound as it piercesMen’s hearts with possession of music unsought;For the bounties of song are no jealous god’s mercies,Far-fetched and dear-bought.
Lovelies bleeding in the bed whereoverRoses lean with smiling mouths or pleading:Earth lies laughing where the sun’s dart clove her:Love lies bleeding.
Stately shine his purple plumes, exceedingPride of princes: nor shall maid or loverFind on earth a fairer sign worth heeding.
Yet may love, sore wounded scarce recoverStrength and spirit again, with life receding:Hope and joy, wind-winged, about him hover:Love lies bleeding.
Light love in a mist, by the midsummer moon misguided,Scarce seen in the twilight garden if gloom insist,Seems vainly to seek for a star whose gleam has deridedLight love in a mist.
All day in the sun, when the breezes do all they list,His soft blue raiment of cloudlike blossom abidedUnrent and unwithered of winds and of rays that kissed.
Blithe-hearted or sad, as the cloud or the sun subsided,Love smiled in the flower with a meaning whereof none wistSave two that beheld, as a gleam that before them glided,Light love in a mist.
Thesky and sea glared hard and bright and blank:Down the one steep street, with slow steps firm and free,A tall girl paced, with eyes too proud to thankThe sky and sea.
One dead flat sapphire, void of wrath or glee,Through bay on bay shone blind from bank to bankThe weary Mediterranean, drear to see.
More deep, more living, shone her eyes that drankThe breathless light and shed again on me,Till pale before their splendour waned and shrankThe sky and sea.
Again the same strange might of eyes, that sawIn heaven and earth nought fairer, overcameMy sight with rapture of reiterate awe,Again the same.
The self-same pulse of wonder shook like flameThe spirit of sense within me: what strange lawHad bid this be, for blessing or for blame?
To what veiled end that fate or chance foresawCame forth this second sister face, that cameAbsolute, perfect, fair without a flaw,Again the same?
Out of the dark pure twilight, where the streamFlows glimmering, streaked by many a birdlike barkThat skims the gloom whence towers and bridges gleamOut of the dark,
Once more a face no glance might choose but markShone pale and bright, with eyes whose deep slow beamMade quick the twilight, lifeless else and stark.
The same it seemed, or mystery made it seem,As those before beholden; but St. MarkRuled here the ways that showed it like a dreamOut of the dark.
Eros, from rest in isles far-famed,With rising Anthesterion rose,And all Hellenic heights acclaimedEros.
The sea one pearl, the shore one rose,All round him all the flower-month flamedAnd lightened, laughing off repose.
Earth’s heart, sublime and unashamed,Knew, even perchance as man’s heart knows,The thirst of all men’s nature namedEros.
Eros, a fire of heart untamed,A light of spirit in sense that glows,Flamed heavenward still ere earth defamedEros.
Nor fear nor shame durst curb or closeHis golden godhead, marred and maimed,Fast round with bonds that burnt and froze.
Ere evil faith struck blind and lamedLove, pure as fire or flowers or snows,Earth hailed as blameless and unblamedEros.
Eros, with shafts by thousands aimedAt laughing lovers round in rows,Fades from their sight whose tongues proclaimedEros.
But higher than transient shapes or showsThe light of love in life inflamedSprings, toward no goal that these disclose.
Above those heavens which passion claimedShines, veiled by change that ebbs and flows,The soul in all things born or framed,Eros.
Sorrow, on wing through the world for ever,Here and there for awhile would borrowRest, if rest might haply deliverSorrow.
One thought lies close in her heart gnawn thoroughWith pain, a weed in a dried-up river,A rust-red share in an empty furrow.
Hearts that strain at her chain would severThe link where yesterday frets to-morrow:All things pass in the world, but neverSorrow.
Sleep, when a soul that her own clouds coverWails that sorrow should always keepWatch, nor see in the gloom above herSleep,
Down, through darkness naked and steep,Sinks, and the gifts of his grace recoverSoon the soul, though her wound be deep.
God beloved of us, all men’s lover,All most weary that smile or weepFeel thee afar or anear them hover,Sleep.
Translated by D. C. Rossetti from the French of Villon.
Death, from thy rigour a voice appealed,And men still hear what the sweet cry saith,Crying aloud in thine ears fast sealed,Death.
As a voice in a vision that vanisheth,Through the grave’s gate barred and the portal steeledThe sound of the wail of it travelleth.
Wailing aloud from a heart unhealed,It woke response of melodious breathFrom lips now too by thy kiss congealed,Death.
Ages ago, from the lips of a sad glad poetWhose soul was a wild dove lost in the whirling snow,The soft keen plaint of his pain took voice to show itAges ago.
So clear, so deep, the divine drear accents flow,No soul that listens may choose but thrill to know it,Pierced and wrung by the passionate music’s throe.
For us there murmurs a nearer voice below it,Known once of ears that never again shall know,Now mute as the mouth which felt death’s wave o’erflow itAges ago.
Lowlies the mere beneath the moorside, stillAnd glad of silence: down the wood sweeps clearTo the utmost verge where fed with many a rillLow lies the mere.
The wind speaks only summer: eye nor earSees aught at all of dark, hears aught of shrill,From sound or shadow felt or fancied here.
Strange, as we praise the dead man’s might and skill,Strange that harsh thoughts should make such heavy cheer,While, clothed with peace by heaven’s most gentle will,Low lies the mere.
Heart’sease or pansy, pleasure or thought,Which would the picture give us of these?Surely the heart that conceived it soughtHeart’s ease.
Surely by glad and divine degreesThe heart impelling the hand that wroughtWrought comfort here for a soul’s disease.
Deep flowers, with lustre and darkness fraught,From glass that gleams as the chill still seasLean and lend for a heart distraughtHeart’s ease.
Windand sea and cloud and cloud-forsakingMirth of moonlight where the storm leaves freeHeaven awhile, for all the wrath of wakingWind and sea.
Bright with glad mad rapture, fierce with glee,Laughs the moon, borne on past cloud’s o’ertakingFast, it seems, as wind or sail can flee.
One blown sail beneath her, hardly makingForth, wild-winged for harbourage yet to be,Strives and leaps and pants beneath the breakingWind and sea.
MadMarch, with the wind in his wings wide-spread,Leaps from heaven, and the deep dawn’s archHails re-risen again from the deadMad March.
Soft small flames on rowan and larchBreak forth as laughter on lips that saidNought till the pulse in them beat love’s march.
But the heartbeat now in the lips rose-redSpeaks life to the world, and the winds that parchBring April forth as a bride to wedMad March.
Deadlove, by treason slain, lies stark,White as a dead stark-stricken dove:None that pass by him pause to markDead love.
His heart, that strained and yearned and stroveAs toward the sundawn strives the lark,Is cold as all the old joy thereof.
Dead men, re-risen from dust, may harkWhen rings the trumpet blown above:It will not raise from out the darkDead love.
Unreconciledby life’s fleet years, that fledWith changeful clang of pinions wide and wild,Though two great spirits had lived, and hence had spedUnreconciled;
Though time and change, harsh time’s imperious child,That wed strange hands together, might not wedHigh hearts by hope’s misprision once beguiled;
Faith, by the light from either’s memory shed,Sees, radiant as their ends were undefiled,One goal for each—not twain among the deadUnreconciled.
Reconciledby death’s mild hand, that givingPeace gives wisdom, not more strong than mild,Love beholds them, each without misgivingReconciled.
Each on earth alike of earth reviled,Hated, feared, derided, and forgiving,Each alike had heaven at heart, and smiled.
Both bright names, clothed round with man’s thanksgiving,Shine, twin stars above the storm-drifts piled,Dead and deathless, whom we saw not livingReconciled.
Alasmy brother! the cry of the mourners of oldThat cried on each other,All crying aloud on the dead as the death-note rolled,Alas my brother!
As flashes of dawn that mists from an east wind smotherWith fold upon fold,The past years gleam that linked us one with another.
Time sunders hearts as of brethren whose eyes beholdNo more their mother:But a cry sounds yet from the shrine whose fires wax cold,Alas my brother!
Strongas death, and cruel as the grave,Clothed with cloud and tempest’s blackening breath,Known of death’s dread self, whom none outbrave,Strong as death,
Love, brow-bound with anguish for a wreath,Fierce with pain, a tyrant-hearted slave,Burns above a world that groans beneath.
Hath not pity power on thee to save,Love? hath power no pity? Nought he saith,Answering: blind he walks as wind or wave,Strong as death.
Mybrother, my Valerius, dearest headOf all whose crowning bay-leaves crown their motherRome, in the notes first heard of thine I readMy brother.
No dust that death or time can strew may smotherLove and the sense of kinship inly bredFrom loves and hates at one with one another.
To thee was Cæsar’s self nor dear nor dread,Song and the sea were sweeter each than other:How should I living fear to call thee deadMy brother?
Sark, fairer than aught in the world that the lit skies cover,Laughs inly behind her cliffs, and the seafarers markAs a shrine where the sunlight serves, though the blown clouds hover,Sark.
We mourn, for love of a song that outsang the lark,That nought so lovely beholden of Sirmio’s loverMade glad in Propontis the flight of his Pontic bark.
Here earth lies lordly, triumphal as heaven is above her,And splendid and strange as the sea that upbears as an ark,As a sign for the rapture of storm-spent eyes to discover,Sark.
Abreastand ahead of the sea is a crag’s front cloven asunderWith strong sea-breach and with wasting of winds whence terror is shedAs a shadow of death from the wings of the darkness on waters that thunderAbreast and ahead.
At its edge is a sepulchre hollowed and hewn for a lone man’s bed,Propped open with rock and agape on the sky and the sea thereunder,But roofed and walled in well from the wrath of them slept its dead.
Here might not a man drink rapture of rest, or delight above wonder,Beholding, a soul disembodied, the days and the nights that fled,With splendour and sound of the tempest around and above him and under,Abreast and ahead?
TO THEODORE WATTS.
Theheavenly bay, ringed round with cliffs and moors,Storm-stained ravines, and crags that lawns inlay,Soothes as with love the rocks whose guard securesThe heavenly bay.
O friend, shall time take ever this away,This blessing given of beauty that endures,This glory shown us, not to pass but stay?
Though sight be changed for memory, love ensuresWhat memory, changed by love to sight, would say—The word that seals for ever mine and yoursThe heavenly bay.
My mother sea, my fostress, what new strand,What new delight of waters, may this be,The fairest found since time’s first breezes fannedMy mother sea?
Once more I give me body and soul to thee,Who hast my soul for ever: cliff and sandRecede, and heart to heart once more are we.
My heart springs first and plunges, ere my handStrike out from shore: more close it brings to me,More near and dear than seems my fatherland,My mother sea.
Across and along, as the bay’s breadth opens, and o’er usWild autumn exults in the wind, swift rapture and strongImpels us, and broader the wide waves brighten before usAcross and along.
The whole world’s heart is uplifted, and knows not wrong;The whole world’s life is a chant to the sea-tide’s chorus;Are we not as waves of the water, as notes of the song?
Like children unworn of the passions and toils that wore us,We breast for a season the breadth of the seas that throng,Rejoicing as they, to be borne as of old they bore usAcross and along.
On Dante’s track by some funereal spellDrawn down through desperate ways that lead not backWe seem to move, bound forth past flood and fellOn Dante’s track.
The grey path ends: the gaunt rocks gape: the blackDeep hollow tortuous night, a soundless shell,Glares darkness: are the fires of old grown slack?
Nay, then, what flames are these that leap and swellAs ’twere to show, where earth’s foundations crack,The secrets of the sepulchres of hellOn Dante’s track?
By mere men’s hands the flame was lit, we know,From heaps of dry waste whin and casual brands:Yet, knowing, we scarce believe it kindled soBy mere men’s hands.
Above, around, high-vaulted hell expands,Steep, dense, a labyrinth walled and roofed with woe,Whose mysteries even itself not understands.
The scorn in Farinata’s eyes aglowSeems visible in this flame: there Geryon stands:No stage of earth’s is here, set forth to showBy mere men’s hands.
Night, in utmost noon forlorn and strong, with heart athirst and fasting,Hungers here, barred up for ever, whence as one whom dreams affrightDay recoils before the low-browed lintel threatening doom and castingNight.
All the reefs and islands, all the lawns and highlands, clothed with light,Laugh for love’s sake in their sleep outside: but here the night speaks, blastingDay with silent speech and scorn of all things known from depth to height.
Lower than dive the thoughts of spirit-stricken fear in souls forecastingHell, the deep void seems to yawn beyond fear’s reach, and higher than sightRise the walls and roofs that compass it about with everlastingNight.
The house accurst, with cursing sealed and signed,Heeds not what storms about it burn and burst:No fear more fearful than its own may findThe house accurst.
Barren as crime, anhungered and athirst,Blank miles of moor sweep inland, sere and blind,Where summer’s best rebukes not winter’s worst.
The low bleak tower with nought save wastes behindStares down the abyss whereon chance reared and nursedThis type and likeness of the accurst man’s mind,The house accurst.
Beloved and blest, lit warm with love and fame,The house that had the light of the earth for guestHears for his name’s sake all men hail its nameBeloved and blest.
This eyrie was the homeless eagle’s nestWhen storm laid waste his eyrie: hence he cameAgain, when storm smote sore his mother’s breast.
Bow down men bade us, or be clothed with blameAnd mocked for madness: worst, they sware, was best:But grief shone here, while joy was one with shame,Beloved and blest.
Fly, white butterflies, out to sea,Frail pale wings for the winds to try,Small white wings that we scarce can seeFly.
Here and there may a chance-caught eyeNote in a score of you twain or threeBrighter or darker of tinge or dye.
Some fly light as a laugh of glee,Some fly soft as a low long sigh:All to the haven where each would beFly.