Palmerin, this nightBrings me a surfeit and a cloud of joys.I cannot seize them all. But many daysWill suck their drop of sweetness from this store,And many silent nights and absencesFeed on its garnered bliss.NURSE.What, prattling still?You 'll catch the ague and the chill of the fens,And lolling in the moonlight, talking love,You 'll die before the wedding. Come along.PALMERIN. Sleep, Flerida, falls sweetly on a heartFreed from long doubt and anguish. Take thy rest.Palmerin watches at thy castle gatesAnd all is well. Sleep, sleep, my Flerida.FLERIDA. Let me gaze long upon thee ere I go,Lest, waking, I believe that I have dreamtAnd weep anew and be disconsolate.PALMERIN. Ah, were I only lying by thy sideAt the first checking of thy peaceful breath,To chase away that doubt before it grieved theeAnd with two kisses close thy dreamful eyes!Alas that we should meet to part, and loveOnly to be divided!FLERIDA.Palmerin,Though thou hast faced the world and conquered it,Thy noble heart is young. My briefer yearsAnd lonely life have farther traced the threadBy which fate guides us through this labyrinth.To learn to part, to learn to be divided,We meet and love on earth; to learn to dieIs the one triumph of the life of prayer.Shall love be but to hug the mother's breast,Or else run wailing? To prolong for everThe lovers' kiss, or pine for blandishments?Is the Lord's body but unleavened breadWeighed with a baker's measure, or his bloodWine to be drunk in bumpers? And shall loveBe reckoned in embraces, and its graceDie with the taking of its sacrament?These be but symbols to the eye of timeOf secrets written in eternity.The love that fed must wean the nourished soul,And through the dark and narrow vale of deathSend forth the lover lone but panoplied.Else life were vain and love a moment's troubleThat, passing, left untenanted the void,As summer winds a-tremble in this bowerMight waft some fragrance from a rifled roseThrough yonder gulf of night and nothingness.Hadst thou in battle fallen, were my soulBereft of Palmerin? Or had I languished,Would Flerida have mocked thy constancy?Banish such thoughts, dear master of my being,From thy immortal soul. These fond enchantmentsMake the sweet holiday and youth of love;They are a largess and bright boon of heavenTo sweeten our resolves. But youth will fade,And death, not mowing with a two-edged scythe,Will cut down one and leave the other bowingBefore the wintry wind. Arm not with terrorThat swift, unheralded, insidious foe,But let him find our love invulnerableAnd our heart's treasure in eternal hands.My lord, good-night. To-day my joy is full,To God I leave to-morrow. Fare thee well.PALMERIN[kneeling to kiss the hand she gives him].Good-night, my own. May angels guard thyslumber—FLERIDA. And share thy vigil—PALMERIN.Till my angel come.
[ExitFLERIDA,followed by her household As they go, some voices repeat scratches of the previous song: "Come make thy dwelling here," etc.
[ExitFLERIDA,followed by her household As they go, some voices repeat scratches of the previous song: "Come make thy dwelling here," etc.
PALMERIN[alone].No, Palmerin, unbuckle not thy arms,Guard well thy lady's sleep.Haply the wizards of the wood have charmsTo make a virgin weep.All goblin sprites and fairies of the treesThat lead their impish danceWill spy thy mantle's cross; their blood will freezeTo see a Christian lance.Hark! the old croaking frogs, and the far dinOf crickets in the field.They bid me welcome home. "Hie, Palmerin,Once of the argent shield,"What's this device? Is Flerida this flower,And these five pearls her tears,Shed for thy love in her disconsolate bowerThese five unhappy years?"Those sable bars athwart a field of gules,Are they thy nights and daysSpent mid bluff captains and rash drunken foolsIn marches, bouts, and frays?"Ay, ye chirp well, if I divine your note,Ye civil, croaking elves!A foolish master have your fields and moatAnd your so learned selves.Nothing he knows of wit or bookish loreAnd nothing of the fair,Only to break the brutal front of warAnd half repeat a prayer.Yet this sad wight is he, as fairies know,Whom Flerida hath blest,Soon locked within her arms. She long agoWas locked within his breast,Celestial Flerida, whom all the hoursAdorning from her birthHave crowned the queen of stars, the queen of flowers,The queen of maids on earth.Her peerless heart hath chosen him her lord,The rare intrepid maid,Whose tender hand incarnadined a swordLest he should be betrayed.Out of his nothingness her bounteous loveBred all his poor desertAs God lent to the void he made us ofHis image for a heart.Like to the dateless dark before our birthAre those five winters past,This vigil like the twilight life of earth,Then paradise at lastAnd changeless love. How in the paling skiesThe star of morning burns!Open, heaven's gates! Eternal sun, arise!Sir Palmerin returns.
PREMONITIONThe muffled syllables that Nature speaksFill us with deeper longing for her word;She hides a meaning that the spirit seeks,She makes a sweeter music than is heard.A hidden light illumines all our seeing,An unknown love enchants our solitude.We feel and know that from the depths of beingExhales an infinite, a perfect good.Though the heart wear the garment of its sorrowAnd be not happy like a naked star,Yet from the thought of peace some peace we borrow,Some rapture from the rapture felt afar.Our heart strings are too coarse for Nature's fingersTo wake her purest melodies upon,And the harsh tremor that among them lingersWill into sweeter silence die anon.We catch the broken prelude and suggestionOf things unuttered, needing to be sung;We know the burden of them, and their questionLies heavy on the heart, nor finds a tongue.Till haply, lightning through the storm of ages,Our sullen secret flash from sky to sky,Glowing in some diviner poet's pagesAnd swelling into rapture from this sigh.SOLIPSISMI could believe that I am here alone,And all the world my dream;The passion of the scene is all my own,And things that seem but seem.Perchance an exhalation of my sorrowHath raised this vaporous show,For whence but from my soul should all things borrowSo deep a tinge of woe?I keep the secret doubt within my breastTo be the gods' defence,To ease the heart by too much ruth oppressedAnd drive the horror hence.O sorrow that the patient brute should cowerAnd die, not having sinned!O pity that the wild and fragile flowerShould shiver in the wind!Then were I dreaming dreams I know not of,For that is part of meThat feels the piercing pang of grief and loveAnd doubts eternally.But whether all to me the vision comeOr break in many beams,The pageant ever shifts, and being's sumIs but the sum of dreams.SYBARISLap, ripple, lap, Icarian wave, the sandAlong the ruins of this piteous land;Murmur the praises of a lost delight,And soothe the aching of my starved sightWith sheen of mirrored beauties, caught aright.Here stood enchanted palaces of old,All veined porphyry and burnished gold;Here matrons and slight maidens sat aloofBeneath cool porches, rich with Tyrian woofHung from the carven rafters of the roof.Here in the mart a swarthy turbaned braveShowed the wrought blade or praised the naked slave."Touch with your finger-tips this edge of steel,"Quoth he, "and see this lad, from head to heelLike a bronze Cupid. Feel, my masters, feel."Here Aphrodite filled with frenzied loveThe dark recesses of her murmurous grove.The doves that haunted it, the winds that sighed,Were souls of youths that in her coverts died,And hopes of heroes strewed her garden wide.Under her shades a narrow brazen gateLed to the courts of Ares and of Fate.Who entered breathed the unutterable prayerOf cruel hearts, and death was worshipped there,And men went thence enfranchised by despair.Here the proud athlete in the baths delayed,While a cool fountain on his shoulders played,Then in fine linen swathed his breast and thighs,And silent, myrtle-crowned, with serious eyes,Stepped forth to list the wranglings of the wise.A sage stalked by, his ragged mantle boundAbout his brows; his eyes perused the ground;He conned the number of the cube and squareOf the moon's orb; his horny feet and bareTrampled the lilies carpeting the stair.A jasper terrace hung above the seaWhere the King supped with his beloved three:The Libyan chanted of her native landIn raucous melody, the Indian fanned,And the huge mastiff licked his master's hand.Below, alone, despairing of the gale,A crouching sailor furled the saffron sail;Then rose, breathed deep, and plunged in the lagoon.A mermaid spied his glistening limbs: her croonEnticed him down; her cold arms choked him soon.And the King laughed, filled full his jewelled bowl,And drinking cried: "What know we of the soul?What number addeth to her harmonyThese drops of vintage that attune her key,Or those of brine that set the wretched free?"If death should change me, as old fables feign,Into some slave or beast, to purge with painMy lordly pleasures, let my torment beStill to behold thee, Sybaris, and seeThe sacred horror of thy loves and thee."Be thou my hell, my dumb eternal grief,But spare thy King the madness of belief,The brutish faith of ignorant desireThat strives and wanders. Let the visible fireOf beauty torture me. That doom is higher."I wear the crown of life. The rose and gemTwine with the pale gold of my diadem.Nature, long secret, hath unveiled to meAnd proved her vile. Her wanton bosoms beMy pillow now. I know her, I am free."He spoke, and smiling stretched a languid hand,And music burst in mighty chords and blandOf harp and flute and cymbal.—When betweenTwo cypresses the large moon rose, her sheenSilvered the nymphs' feet, tripping o'er the green.AVILAAgain my feet are on the fragrant moorAmid the purple uplands of Castile,Realm proudly desolate and nobly poor,Scorched by the sky's inexorable zeal.Wide desert where a diadem of towersAbove Adajar hems a silent town,And locks, unmindful of the mocking hours,Her twenty temples in a granite crown.The shafts of fervid light are in the sky,And in my heart the mysteries of yore.Here the sad trophies of my spirit lie:These dead fulfilled my destiny before.Like huge primeval stones that strew this plain,Their nameless sorrows sink upon my breast,And like this ardent sky their cancelled painSmiles at my grief and quiets my unrest.For here hath mortal life from age to ageEndured the silent hand that makes and mars,And, sighing, taken up its heritageBeneath the smiling and inhuman stars.Still o'er this town the crested castle stands,A nest for storks, as once for haughty souls;Still from the abbey, where the vale expands,The curfew for the long departed tolls,Wafting some ghostly blessing to the heartFrom prayer of nun or silent Capuchin,To heal with balm of Golgotha the smartOf weary labour and distracted sin.What fate has cast me on a tide of timeCareless of joy and covetous of gold,What force compelled to weave the pensive rhymeWhen loves are mean, and faith and honour old,When riches crown in vain men's sordid lives,And learning chokes a mind of base degree?What winged spirit rises from their hives?What heart, revolting, ventures to be free?Their pride will sink and more ignobly fadeWithout memorial of its hectic fire.What altars shall survive them, where they prayed?What lovely deities? What riven lyre?Tarry not, pilgrim, but with inward gazePass daily, musing, where their prisons are,And o'er the ocean of their babble raiseThy voice in greeting to thy changeless star.Abroad a tumult, and a ruin here;Nor world nor desert hath a home for thee.Out of the sorrows of the barren yearBuild thou thy dwelling in eternity.Let patience, faith's wise sister, be thy heaven,And with high thoughts necessity alloy.Love is enough, and love is ever given,While fleeting days bring gift of fleeting joy.The little pleasures that to catch the sunBubble a moment up from being's deep,The glittering sands of passion as they run,The merry laughter and the happy sleep,—These are the gems that, like the stars on fire,Encrust with glory all our heaven's zones;Each shining atom, in itself entire,Brightens the galaxy of sister stones,Dust of a world that crumbled when God's dreamTo throbbing pulses broke the life of things,And mingled with the void the scattered gleamOf many orbs that move in many rings,Perchance at last into the parent sunTo fall again and reunite their rays,When God awakes and gathers into oneThe light of all his loves and all his days.KING'S COLLEGE CHAPELThe buttress frowns, the gorgeous windows blaze,The vault hangs wonderful with woven fans,The four stone sentinels to heaven raiseTheir heads, in a more constant faith than man':The College gathers, and the courtly prayerIs answered still by hymn and organ-groan;The beauty and the mystery are there,The Virgin and Saint Nicholas are gone.Not oneOra pro nobisbids them pauseIn their far flight, to hear this anthem roll;No heart, of all that the King's relic awes,SingsRequiescatto his mournful soul.No grain of incense thrown upon the embersOf their cold hearth, no lamp in witness hungBefore their image. One alone remembers;Only the stranger knows their mother tongue.Long rows of tapers light the people's places;The little choristers may read, and markThe rhythmic fall; I see their wondering faces;Only the altar—like the soul—is dark.Ye floating voices through these arches ringingWith measured music, subtle, sweet, and strong,Feel ye the inmost reason of your singing?Know ye the ancient burden of your song?The twilight deepens, and the blood-dyed gloriesOf all these fiery blazonings are dim.Oh, they are jumbled, sad, forgotten stories!Why should ye read them, children? Chant your hymn.But I must con them while the rays of evenKindle aloft some fading jewel-gleamAnd the vast windows glow a peopled heaven,Rich with the gathering pageant of my dream.Eden I see, where from the leafy coverThe green-eyed snake begins to uncoil his lengthAnd whispers to the woman and her lover,As they lie musing, large, in peaceful strength.I see their children, bent with toil and terror,Lurking in caves, or heaping madly onThe stones of Babel, or the endless errorOf Sodom, Nineveh, and Babylon.Here the Egyptian, wedding life with death,Flies from the sun into his painted tomb,And winds the secret of his antique faithTight in his shroud, and seals in sterile gloom.There the bold prophets of the heart's desireHail the new Zion God shall build for them,And rapt Isaiah strikes the heavenly lyre,And Jeremiah mourns Jerusalem.Here David's daughter, full of grace and truth,Kneels in the temple, waiting for the Lord;With the firstAvecomes the wingèd youth,Bringing the lily ere he bring the sword.There, to behold the Mother and the Child,The sturdy shepherds down the mountain plod,And angels sing, with voices sweet and wildAnd wide lips parted: "Glory be to God."Here, mounted on an ass, the twain departTo hallowed Egypt, safe from Herod's wrong;And Mary ponders all things in her heart,And pensive Joseph sadly walks along.There with the Twelve, before his blood is shed,Christ blesses bread and breaks it with his hands,"This is my body." Thomas shakes his head,They marvel all, and no one understands,Save John, whom Jesus loved above the rest.He marvels too, but, seeking naught beside,Leans, as his wont is, on his Master's breast.Ah! the Lord's body also should abide.There Golgotha is dark against the blueIn the broad east, above the painted crowd,And many look upon the sign, but fewRead the hard lesson of the cross aloud.And from this altar, now an empty tomb,The Lord is risen. Lo! he is not here.No shining angel sitteth in the gloom,No Magdalen in anguish draweth near.All pure in heart, or all in aspect pure,The seemly Christians, kneeling, line the choir,And drop their eyelids, tender and demure,As the low lingering harmonies expire.In thatAmenare the last echoes blendedOf all the ghostly world. The shades departInto the sacred night. In peace is endedThe long delirious fever of the heart.Then I go forth into the open woldAnd breathe the vigour of the freshening wind,And with the piling drift of cloud I holdA worship sweeter to the homeless mind,Where the squat willows with their osiers crownedBorder the humble reaches of the Cam,And the deep meadows stretching far aroundMake me forget the exile that I am,—Exile not only from the wind-swept moorWhere Guadarrama lifts his purple crest,But from the spirit's realm, celestial, sureGoal of all hope and vision of the best.They also will go forth, these gentle youths,Strong in the virtues of their manful isle,Till one the pathway of the forest smooths,And one the Ganges rules, and one the NileAnd to whatever wilderness they chooseTheir hearts will bear the sanctities of home,The perfect ardours of the Grecian Muse,The mighty labour of the arms of Rome;But, ah! how little of these storied wallsBeneath whose shadow all their nurture was!No, not one passing memory recallsThe Blessed Mary and Saint Nicholas.Unhappy King, look not upon these towers,Remember not thine only work that grew.The moving world that feeds thy gift devours,And the same hand that finished overthrew.ON AN UNFINISHED STATUEBY MICHAEL ANGELO IN THE BARGELLO,CALLED AN APOLLO OR A DAVIDWhat beauteous form beneath a marble veilAwaited in this block the Master's hand?Could not the magic of his art availTo unseal that beauty's tomb and bid it stand?Alas! the torpid and unwilling massMisknew the sweetness of the mind's control,And the quick shifting of the winds, alas!Denied a body to that flickering soul.Fair homeless spirit, harbinger of bliss,It wooed dead matter that they both might live,But dreamful earth still slumbered through the kissAnd missed the blessing heaven stooped to give,As when Endymion, locked in dullard sleep,Endured the gaze of Dian, till she turnedStung with immortal wrath and doomed to weepHer maiden passion ignorantly spurned.How should the vision stay to guide the hand,How should the holy thought and ardour stay,When the false deeps of all the soul are sandAnd the loose rivets of the spirit clay?What chisel shaking in the pulse of lustShall find the perfect line, immortal, pure?What fancy blown by every random gustShall mount the breathless heavens and endure?Vain was the trance through which a thrill of joyPassed for the nonce, when a vague hand, unled,Half shaped the image of this lovely boyAnd caught the angel's garment as he fled.Leave, leave, distracted hand, the baffling stone,And on that clay, thy fickle heart, begin.Mould first some steadfast virtue of thine ownOut of the sodden substance of thy sin.They who wrought wonders by the Nile of old,Bequeathing their immortal part to us,Cast their own spirit first into the mouldAnd were themselves the rock they fashioned thus.Ever their docile and unwearied eyeTraced the same ancient pageant to the grave,And awe made rich their spirit's husbandryWith the perpetual refluence of its wave,Till 'twixt the desert and the constant NileSphinx, pyramid, and awful temple grew,And the vast gods, self-knowing, learned to smileBeneath the sky's unalterable blue.Long, long ere first the rapt Arcadian swainHeard Pan's wild music pulsing through the grove,His people's shepherds held paternal reignBeneath the large benignity of Jove.Long mused the Delphic sibyl in her caveEre mid his laurels she beheld the god,And Beauty rose a virgin from the waveIn lands the foot of Heracles had trod.Athena reared her consecrated wall,Poseidon laid its rocky basement sure,When Theseus had the monstrous race in thrallAnd made the worship of his people pure.Long had the stripling stood in silence, veiled,Hearing the heroes' legend o'er and o'er,Long in the keen palæstra striven, nor quailedTo tame the body to the task it bore,Ere soul and body, shaped by patient art,Walked linked with the gods, like friend with friend,And reason, mirrored in the sage's heart,Beheld her purpose and confessed her end.Mould, then, thyself and let the marble be.Look not to frailty for immortal themes,Nor mock the travail of mortalityWith barren husks and harvesting of dreams.MIDNIGHTThe dank earth reeks with three days' rain,The phantom trees are dark and still,Above the darkness and the hillThe tardy moon shines out again.O heavy lethargy of pain!O shadows of forgotten ill!My parrot lips, when I was young,To prove and to disprove were bold.The mighty world has tied my tongue,And in dull custom growing oldI leave the burning truth untoldAnd the heart's anguish all unsung.Youth dies in man's benumbed soul,Maid bows to woman's broken life,A thousand leagues of silence rollBetween the husband and the wife.The spirit faints with inward strifeAnd lonely gazing at the pole.But how should reptiles pine for wingsOr a parched desert know its dearth?Immortal is the soul that singsThe sorrow of her mortal birth.O cruel beauty of the earth!O love's unutterable stings!IN GRANTCHESTER MEADOWSON FIRST HEARING A SKYLARK SINGToo late, thou tender songster of the skyTrilling unseen, by things unseen inspired,I list thy far-heard cryThat poets oft to kindred song hath fired,As floating through the purple veils of airThy soul is poured on high,A little joy in an immense despair.Too late thou biddest me escape the earth,In ignorance of wrongTo spin a little slender thread of song;On yet unwearied wingTo rise and soar and sing,Not knowing death or birthOr any true unhappy human thing.To dwell 'twixt field and cloud,By river-willow and the murmurous sedge,Be thy sweet privilege,To thee and to thy happy lords allowed.My native valley higher mountains hedge'Neath starlit skies and proud,And sadder music in my soul is loud.Yet have I loved thy voice,Frail echo of some ancient sacred joy.Ah, who might not rejoiceHere to have wandered, a fair English boy,And breathed with life thy rapture and thy restWhere woven meadow-grasses fold thy nest?But whose life is his choice?And he who chooseth not hath chosen best.FUTILITYFair Nature, has thy wisdom naught to sayTo cheer thy child in a disconsolate hour?Why do thy subtle hands betray their powerAnd but half-fashioned leave thy finer clay?Upon what journeys doth thy fancy strayThat weeds in thy broad garden choke the flower,And many a pilgrim harboured in thy bowerA stranger came, a stranger went away?Ah, Mother, little can the soul availUnchristened at some font of ancient love.What boots the vision if the meaning fail,When all the marvels of the skies aboveMarch to the passions they are mirrors of?If the heart pine, the very stars will pale.BEFORE A STATUE OF ACHILLESIBehold Pelides with his yellow hair,Proud child of Thetis, hero loved of Jove;Above the frowning of his brows it woveA crown of gold, well combed, with Spartan care.Who might have seen him, sullen, great, and fair,As with the wrongful world he proudly strove,And by high deeds his wilder passion shrove,Mastering love, resentment, and despair.He knew his end, and Phoebus' arrow sureHe braved for fame immortal and a friend,Despising life; and we, who know our end,Know that in our decay he shall endureAnd all our children's hearts to grief inure,With whose first bitter battles his shall blend.IIWho brought thee forth, immortal vision, whoIn Phthia or in Tempe brought thee forth?Out of the sunlight and the sapful earthWhat god the simples of thy spirit drew?A goddess rose from the green waves, and threwHer arms about a king, to give thee birth;A centaur, patron of thy boyish mirth,Over the meadows in thy footsteps flew.Now Thessaly forgets thee, and the deepThy keeled bark furrowed answers not thy prayerBut far away new generations keepThy laurels fresh, where branching Isis hemsThe lawns of Oxford round about, or whereEnchanted Eton sits by pleasant Thames.IIII gaze on thee as Phidias of oldOr Polyclitus gazed, when first he sawThese hard and shining limbs, without a flaw,And cast his wonder in heroic mould.Unhappy me who only may behold,Nor make immutable and fix in aweA fair immortal form no worm shall gnaw,A tempered mind whose faith was never told!The godlike mien, the lion's lock and eye,The well-knit sinew, utter a brave heartBetter than many words that part by partSpell in strange symbols what serene and wholeIn nature lives, nor can in marble die.The perfect body is itself the soul.ODI ET AMOI love and hate. Alas, the whyI know not: but I love, and die.CATULLUS.IA wreathed altar was this pagan heart,In sad denial dressed and high intent,And amid ruins fed its flame apart,Heedless of shadows as they came and went.Till the poor soul, enticed by what she saw,Forsook her grief's eternal element,Filled with her tears a well from which to draw,And flooded heaven with a light she lent.A thousand times that mirrored glory fled,By ravished eyes a thousand times pursued;Yet loving hope outlived all beauties dead,And hunger turned the very stones to food.Insensate love, wilt thou then never tire,Breeding the fuel of thy proper fire?IIWhat gleaming cross rebukes this infidel?What lion groans, awakened in his lair?Angel or demon, what unearthly spellReturns, divinely false like all things fair,To mock this desolation? Fleeting vision,Frail as a smoke-wreath in the sunlit air,Indomitable hope or vain derision,Madness or revelation, sin or prayer,What art thou? Is man's sum of wisdom this,That he believe denying, and blasphemeWorshipping still, and drink eternal blissOut of the maddening chalice of a dream?Strange sweetness that embitterest content,Art thou a poison or a sacrament?CATHEDRALS BY THE SEAREPLY TO A SONNET BEGINNING "CATHEDRALSARE NOT BUILT ALONG THE SEA"For æons had the self-responsive tideRisen to ebb, and tempests blown to clear,And the belated moon refilled her sphereTo wane anew—for, æons since, she died—When to the deeps that called her earth replied(Lest year should cancel unavailing year)And took from her dead heart the stones to rearA cross-shaped temple to the Crucified.Then the wild winds through organ-pipes descendedTo utter what they meant eternally,And not in vain the moon devoutly mendedHer wasted taper, lighting Calvary,While with a psalmody of angels blendedThe sullen diapason of the sea.MONT BRÉVENTO dweller in the valley, lift thine eyesTo where, above the drift of cloud, the stoneEndures in silence, and to God aloneUpturns its furrowed visage, and is wise.There yet is being, far from all that dies,And beauty where no mortal maketh moan,Where larger planets swim the liquid zone,And wider spaces stretch to calmer skies.Only a little way above the plainIs snow eternal. Round the mountain's kneesHovers the fury of the wind and rain.Look up, and teach thy noble heart to ceaseFrom endless labour. There is perfect peaceOnly a little way above thy pain.THE RUSTIC AT THE PLAYOur youth is like a rustic at the playThat cries aloud in simple-hearted fear,Curses the villain, shudders at the fray,And weeps before the maiden's wreathed bier.Yet once familiar with the changeful show,He starts no longer at a brandished knife,But, his heart chastened at the sight of woe,Ponders the mirrored sorrows of his life.So tutored too, I watch the moving artOf all this magic and impassioned painThat tells the story of the human heartIn a false instance, such as poets feign;I smile, and keep within the parchment furledThat prompts the passions of this strutting world.RESURRECTIONTHE SOUL OF A BURIED BODYMethought that I was dead,Felt my large heart, a tomb within the tomb,Cold, hope-untenanted,Not thankless for this gloom.For all I loved on earth had fled before me.I was the last to die.I heard what my soul hated tramping o'er me,And knew that trouble stalked beneath the sky.But now is loosed the mailed hand of DeathClapped on my mouth. I seem to draw a breathAnd something like a sigh.I feel the blood againCoursing within my body's quickened house,Feel hands and throat and brain,And dim thoughts growing plain,Or dreams of thoughts. So spring might thaw the boughsAnd from its winter's lethargy arouseAn oak's numb spirit.—But hark! I seem to hearA sound, like distant thunder.Above the quaking earth it breaks, or under,And cracks the riven sphere.This vault is widened, I may lift my head,Behold a ray! The sun!—I was not dead.THE ANGEL OF ETERNITYYes, dead. Be not affrighted.Ages have passed. This world is not the same.Thy lamp of life, relighted,Burns with a purer flame.THE SOULWhat lovely form art thou?What spirit, voice, or faceKnown and unknown? I cannot name thee nowNor the long-vanished placeWhere first I pledged thee some forgotten vow.Dear mother or sweet sonOr young love dead or lost familiar friend,Which of these all art thou, or all, or none,Bright stranger, that dost bendThy glorious golden head,A kindlier sun, above the wakened dead?THE ANGELWe are not strangers. 'T is the world was strange,That rude antique parade of earth and sky,That foolish pageant of mortalityAnd weary round of change.Till this glad moment thou hast lived in dreams,Nursed in a fable, catechised to croonThe empty science of a sun and moonThat with their dubious beamsLight the huge dusky stage of all that seems.Believe it not, my own. Awake, departOut of the shades of hell,Trusting the sacred spellThat falls upon thy strong perplexed heart,The joy ineffable,The nameless premonition and dire pangOf love. Be free at last,Free as the hopes that from thy sorrow sprangForget the horror of the tyrant past,Forget the gods, forgetThe baleful shadow on the present castBy all that is not yet.Arise and follow me. Say not I seemA shadow among shades,A dryad's laugh amid the windy glades,A swimmer's body guessed beneath the streamThis is the dawn of day,Thy dream-oppressed vision breaking throughIts icy hood of clayAnd plunging deep into the balmy blue.Bid thy vain cares adieuAnd say farewell to earth, thy foster-mother.She hath befooled thee long,And fondly thought to smotherThe sweet and cruel laughter of my songWhich the stars sing together, and the throngOf seraphs ever shout to one another.Come, heaven-chosen brother,Dear kinsman, come along.THE SOULTo what fields beside what riversDost thou beckon me, fair love?With no sprinkled stars aboveIs high heaven seen? Or quivers,With no changes of the moon,Her bright path athwart the pool?Is thy strange world beautiful?Tell me true, before I shakeFrom my sense this heavy swoon.Tell me true, lest I awakeInto deeper dreams, poor fool,And rejoice for nothing's sake.THE ANGELFor mortals life and truthAre things apart, nor when the first is doneKnow they the other; for their lusty youthIs madness, and their age oblivion.But henceforth thou art oneWith the supernal mind,Not born in labour nor in death resigned,The life of all that live,The light by whose eclipse the world is blind,The truth of all that know,The joy for which we grieve,And the untasted sweet that makes our woe.Now thou hast drained the wineShatter the glass.The music was divine,Let the voice pass.Linger not in the hostOf the long lostBidding the dying bringMeal-cakes and fruit, and singTo cheer thy ghost.But be the living joyThat tunes all song,The loves of girl and boy,The hopes that throngThe unconquerable heart, defying wrong.Seek for thine immortality of blissNot other brighter skiesOr later worlds than this,But all that in this struggle is the prize,The love that wings the kiss,The truth the visions miss.THE SOULMy heaven lives, bright angel, in thine eyes.As when, beside the Lake of Galilee,John, o'er his meshes bent,Looked up, and saw another firmamentWhen God said, Follow me;So is my world transfigured, seeing thee,And, looking in thine eyes, I am content,And with thy sweet voice for all argumentI leave my tangled nets beside the sea.Done is my feigned task,Fallen the maskThat made me other, O my soul, than thee.I have fulfilled my painAnd borne my cross,And my great gainIs to have known my loss.Keep, blessed vision, keepThe sacred beauty that entranced my soul.I have read; seal the scroll.I have lived; let me sleep.THE ANGELBehold, I close thine eyesWith the first touch of my benignant hands.With consecrated brandsI light thy pyre and loose thy spirit's bands.The eternal gods receive thy sacrifice,The changeless bless thy embers.May there arise from thence no wailing ghostThat shivers and remembersThe haunts he loved, where he hath suffered most.The life that lived by changeIs dead, nor changeth more.No eager, dull, oblivious senses poreOn portents dark and strange.Thy first life was not life,Nor was thy first death death.Thy children took thy heritage of strife,And thy transmutable breathPassed to another heart that travaileth.Now thou hast truly died;Escaped, renounced, defiedThe insensate fervour and the fret of being;And thy own master, freedFrom shame of murderous need,Pure, just, all-seeing,Now thou shalt live indeed.THE SOULI pay the price of birth.My earth returns to earth.Hurry my ashes, thou avenging wind,Into the vortex of the whirling spheres!I die, for I have sinned,Yea, I have loved, and drained my heart of tears.And thou within whose womb,Mother of nations, labouring Universe,My life grew, be its tomb.Thou brought'st me forth, take now my vital seed.Receive thy wage, thou iron-hearted nurse,Thy blessing I requite thee and thy curse.Now shall my ashes breedWithin thy flesh for every thought a thought,For every deed a deed,For every pang I boreAn everlasting need,For every wrong a wrong, and endless war.All earthly hopes resignedAnd all thy battle's spoilsI lay upon thine altar and restore;But the inviolate mindIs loosened from thy toilsBy thy own fatal fires. I mount, I soar,Glad Phoenix, from the flameInto the placid heaven whence I came,Floating upon the smoke's slow lurid wingsInto my native skyTo bear report of all this vanityAnd sad offence of things,Where with knowledge I may lie,Veiled in the shadow of eternal wings.THE ANGELIf in the secret sessions of our loveAbove the heavenly spheres,Some stain upon the page of wisdom proveHer earthly price of tears,Cling closer, my beloved, that the beatOf my unruffled heartMay tune thy own, its tenderer counterpart,To noble courage, and from this high seatOf our divine reposeLarge consolation flow to mortal woes.For 'neath the sun's fierce heat,In midst of madness and inscrutable throes,His heart is strong who knowsThat o'er the mountains come the silent feetOf Patience, leading Peace,And his complainings ceaseTo see the starlight shining on the snows.
FROM MICHAEL ANGELOI"Non so se s'è la desiata luce"I know not if from uncreated spheresSome longed-for ray it be that warms my breast,Or lesser light, in memory expressed,Of some once lovely face, that reappears,Or passing rumour ringing in my ears,Or dreamy vision, once my bosom's guest,That left behind I know not what unrest,Haply the reason of these wayward tears.But what I feel and seek, what leads me on,Comes not of me; nor can I tell arightWhere shines the hidden star that sheds this light.Since I beheld thee, sweet and bitter fightWithin me. Resolution have I none.Can this be, Master, what thine eyes have done?II"Il mio refugio"The haven and last refuge of my pain(A strong and safe defence)Are tears and supplications, but in vain.Love sets upon me banded with Disdain,One armed with pity and one armed with death,And as death smites me, pity lends me breath.Else had my soul long since departed thence.She pineth to removeWhither her hopes of endless peace abideAnd beauty dwelleth without beauty's pride,There her last bliss to prove.But still the living fountain of my tearsWells in the heart when all thy truth appears,Lest death should vanquish love.III"Gli occhi miei vaghi delle cose belle"Ravished by all that to the eyes is fair,Yet hungry for the joys that truly bless,My soul can find no stairTo mount to heaven, save earth's loveliness.For from the stars aboveDescends a glorious lightThat lifts our longing to their highest heightAnd bears the name of love.Nor is there aught can moveA gentle heart, or purge or make it wise,But beauty and the starlight of her eyes.FROM ALFRED DE MUSSETSOUVENIRI weep, but with no bitterness I weep,To look again upon thee, hallowed spot,O dearest grave, and most of men forgot,Where buried love doth sleep.What witchcraft think you that this desert hath,Dear friends, who take my hand and bid me stay,Now that the gentle wont of many a dayWould lead me down this path?Here are the wooded slopes, the flowering heath,The silver footprints on the silent sand,The loitering lanes, alive with lovers' breath,Where first I kissed her hand.I know these fir-trees, and this mossy stone,And this deep gorge, and all its winding ways;These friendly giants, whose primeval moanHath rocked my happy days.My footsteps' echo in this tangled treeGives back youth's music, like a singing bird;Dear haunts, fair wilderness her presence stirred,Did you not watch for me?I will not dry these tear-drops: let them flow,And soothe a bitterness that yet might last,And o'er my waking-weary eyelids throwThe shadow of the past.My useless plainings shall not make to ceaseThe happy echoes of the vows we vowed:Proud is this forest in its noble peace,And my heart too is proud.Give o'er to hopeless grief the bitter hoursYou kneel to pray upon a brother's tomb:Here blows the breath of love, and graveyard flowersNot in this garden bloom.See! The moon rides athwart a bank of cloud.Thy veils, fair Queen of Night, still cling to thee,But soon thou loosenest thy virgin shroudAnd smilest to be free.As the rich earth, still dank with April rain,Beneath thy rays exhales day's captive balm,So from my purged soul, as pure, as calm,The old love breathes again.Where are they gone, those ghosts of sorrow pale,Where fled the passion that my heart defiled?Once in the bosom of this friendly valeI am again a child.O might of time, O changes of the year,Ye undo sorrow and the tears we shed,But, touched with pity, on our blossoms sereYour light feet never tread.Heavenly solace, be for ever blest!I had not thought a sword could pierce so farInto the heart, and leave upon the breastSo sweet and dear a scar.Far from me the sharp word, the thankless mind,Of vulgar sorrow customary weed,Shroud that about the corse of love they windWho never loved indeed.Why, Dante, dost thou say the saddest curseIs joy remembered in unhappy days?What grief compelled thee to this bitter verseIn sorrow's harsh dispraise?O'er all the worlds is light bereft of gladnessWhen sad eclipses cast their blight on us?Did thy great soul, in its immortal sadness,Speak to thee, Dante, thus?No, by this sacred light upon me cast!Not in thy heart this blasphemy had birth.It is the truest happiness on earthTo have a happy past.What! When the soul forlorn finds yet a sparkMid the hot ashes of her stifled sighs,And doth that flame, her only treasure, markWith captivated eyes,Bathing her wounds in the delicious pastThat mirrors brokenly her loves again,Thy cruel word her feeble joy would blastAnd turn to bitter pain?And couldst thou wrong thine own Francesca so,Wrong thy bright angel with a word like this,Her whose lips, parting to rehearse her woe,Broke an eternal kiss?What, righteous Heaven, is our human thought,And to the love of truth who yet will cling,If every pain or joy e'er shunned or soughtTurns to a doubtful thing?How can you live, strange souls that nothing awes?In midst of haste and passion, song and mirth,Nor all the stars of heaven give you pause,Nor all the sins of earth;But when upon your fated way you meetSome dumb memorial of a passion dead,That little pebble stops you, and you dreadTo bruise your tender feet.You cry aloud that life is but a dream,And, to the truth awaking, wring your hands,And grieve your bubble but a moment standsUpon time's foaming stream.Poor fools! That moment when your soul could shakeThe numbing fetters off that it enthrall,That fleeting moment was your all in all—Oh, mourn not for its sake!But rather mourn your weight of earthly dross,Your joyless toil, your stains of blood and mire,Your sunless days, your nights without desire;In these was utter loss.What profit have you of your late lament,And what from heaven do your murmurs crave,The plaints you sow upon the barren graveOf every pleasure spent?Life is a dream, and all things pass, I know:If some fair splendour we be charmed withal,We pluck the flower, and at the breath we blowIts withered petals fall.Ay, the first kiss and the first virgin vowThat ever mortals upon earth did swear,That whirlwind caught which strips the frozen boughAnd stones to sand doth wear.A witness to the lovers' troth was night,With changeful skies, o'ercast with mystery,And stars unnumbered, that an inward lightDevours unceasingly.They saw death hush the song bird in the glade,Blast the pale flower, and freeze the torpid worm,And choke the fountain where the image playedOf their forgotten form.Yet they joined hands above the mouldering clod,Blind with love's light that flashed across the sky,Nor felt the cold eye of the changeless GodWho watches all things die.Fools! says the sage: thrice blest! the poet says.What wretched joy is to the faint heart dearWhom noise of torrents fills with weak amazeAnd the wind fills with fear?I have seen beneath the sun more beauties failThan white sea foam or leaves of forest sere;More than the swallows and the roses frailDesert the widowed year.Mine eyes have gazed on sights of deeper woeThan Juliet dead within the gorged tomb,And deadlier than the cup that RomeoDrank to his love and doom.I have seen my love, when all I loved had perished,Who to a whited sepulchre is turned;Seen the thin dust of all I ever cherishedIn her cold heart inurned,—Dust of that faith which, in our bosoms furled,The gentle night had warded well from doubt.More than a single life, alas! a worldWas that day blotted out.Still young I found her, and, men said, more fair;In heaven's light her eyes could still rejoice,And her lips opened, and a smile was there,And sound as of a voice.But not that gentle voice, that tender grace,Those eyes I worshipped when they looked their prayer:My heart, still full of her, searched, searched her faceAnd could not find her there.And still I could have gone to her, and castMy arms about that chill and lifeless stone,And cried, Where hast thou left it, faithless one,Where hast thou left the past?But no: it rather seemed as if by chanceSome unknown woman had that voice and eye;I looked up into heaven; with cold glanceI passed that statue by.Not without pangs of shame and bitternessI watched her smiling shadow glide away;But what of that? Immortal nature, say,Have I loved therefore less?On me the gods may now their lightnings fling,They cannot undo truth, nor kill the past.Like a wrecked sailor to a broken mastTo my dead love I cling.I make no question of what flowers may bloom,What virtue from the seasons man may borrow,What heavenly lamp may flood with light to-morrowThe vault of this great tomb.I only say: Here at this hour, one day,I loved, and I was loved, and she was fair.This treasure which no death can filch awayMy soul to God shall bear.FROM THEOPHILE GAUTIERARTAll things are doubly fairIf patience fashion themAnd care—Verse, enamel, marble, gem.No idle chains endure:Yet, Muse, to walk aright,Lace tightThy buskin proud and sure.Fie on a facile measure,A shoe where every loutAt pleasureSlips his foot in and out!Sculptor, lay by the clayOn which thy nerveless fingerMay linger,Thy thoughts flown far away.Keep to Carrara rare,Struggle with Paros cold,That holdThe subtle line and fair.Lest haply nature loseThat proud, that perfect line,Make thineThe bronze of Syracuse.And with a tender dreadUpon an agate's faceRetraceApollo's golden head.Despise a watery hueAnd tints that soon expire.With fireBurn thine enamel true.Twine, twine in artful wiseThe blue-green mermaid's arms,Mid charmsOf thousand heraldries.Show in their triple lobeVirgin and Child, that holdTheir globe,Cross-crowned and aureoled.All things return to dustSave beauties fashioned well.The bustOutlasts the citadel.Oft doth the ploughman's heel,Breaking an ancient clod,RevealA Cæsar or a god.The gods, too, die, alas!But deathless and more strongThan brassRemains the sovereign song.Chisel and carve and file,Till thy vague dream imprintIts smileOn the unyielding flint.