It was a night of early spring,The winter-sleep was scarcely broken;Around us shadows and the windListened for what was never spoken.
Though half a score of years are gone,Spring comes as sharply now as then—But if we had it all to doIt would be done the same again.
It was a spring that never came;But we have lived enough to knowThat what we never have, remains;It is the things we have that go.
Aloof as aged kings,Wearing like them the purple,The mountains ring the mesaCrowned with a dusky light;Many a time I watchedThat coming-on of darknessTill stars burned through the heavensIntolerably bright.
It was not long I lived there,But I became a womanUnder those vehement stars,For it was there I heardFor the first time my spiritForging an iron rule for me,As though with slow cold hammersBeating out word by word:
"Take love when love is given,But never think to find itA sure escape from sorrowOr a complete repose;Only yourself can heal you,Only yourself can lead youUp the hard road to heavenThat ends where no one knows."
I listened, there was not a sound to hearIn the great rain of moonlight pouring down,The eucalyptus trees were carved in silver,And a light mist of silver lulled the town.
I saw far off the gray Pacific bearingA broad white disk of flame,And on the garden-walk a snail beside meTracing in crystal the slow way he came.
There was a bush with scarlet berries,And there were hemlocks heaped with snow,With a sound like surf on long sea-beachesThey took the wind and let it go.
The hills were shining in their samite,Fold after fold they flowed away;"Let come what may," your eyes were saying,"At least we two have had to-day."
There was an evening when the sky was clear,Ineffably translucent in its blue;The tide was falling, and the sea withdrewIn hushed and happy music from the sheerShadowy granite of the cliffs; and fearOf what life may be, and what death can do,Fell from us like steel armor, and we knewThe beauty of the Law that holds us here.
It was as though we saw the Secret Will,It was as though we floated and were free;In the south-west a planet shone serenely,And the high moon, most reticent and queenly,Seeing the earth had darkened and grown still,Misted with light the meadows of the sea.
Your heart is bound tightly, letBeauty beware;It is not hers to setFree from the snare.
Tell her a bleeding handBound it and tied it;Tell her the knot will standThough she deride it.
One who withheld so longAll that you yearned to take,Has made a snare too strongFor Beauty's self to break.
Those who love the mostDo not talk of their love;Francesca, Guenevere,Dierdre, Iseult, HeloiseIn the fragrant gardens of heavenAre silent, or speak, if at all,Of fragile, inconsequent things.
And a woman I used to knowWho loved one man from her youth,Against the strength of the fatesFighting in lonely pride,Never spoke of this thing,But hearing his name by chance,A light would pass over her face.
I shall gather myself into myself again,I shall take my scattered selves and make them one,I shall fuse them into a polished crystal ballWhere I can see the moon and the flashing sun.
I shall sit like a sibyl, hour after hour intent,Watching the future come and the present go—And the little shifting pictures of people rushingIn tiny self-importance to and fro.
My heart has grown rich with the passing of years,I have less need now than when I was youngTo share myself with every comer,Or shape my thoughts into words with my tongue.
It is one to me that they come or goIf I have myself and the drive of my will,And strength to climb on a summer nightAnd watch the stars swarm over the hill.
Let them think I love them more than I do,Let them think I care, though I go alone,If it lifts their pride, what is it to meWho am self-complete as a flower or a stone?
Heinrich Heine ætat 56, loquitur:
Can that be you,la mouche?Wait till I liftThis palsied eye-lid and make sure... Ah, true.Come in, dear fly, and pardon my delayIn thus existing; I can promise youNext time you come you'll find no dying poet—Without sufficient spleen to see me through,The joke becomes too tedious a jest.I am afraid my mind is dull to-day;I have that—something—heavier on my chestAnd then, you see, I've been exchanging thoughtsWith Doctor Franz. He talked of Kant and HegelAs though he'd nursed them both through whooping coughAnd, as he left, he let his finger shakeToo playfully, as though to say, "Now offWith that long face—you've years and years to live."I think he thinks so. But, for Heaven's sake,Don't credit it—and never tell Mathilde.Poor dear, she has enough to bear already....
Thiswasa month! During my lonely weeksOne person actually climbed the stairsTo seek a cripple. It was Berlioz—But Berlioz always was original.Meissner was also here; he caught me unawares,Scribbling to my old mother. "What!" he cried,"Is the old lady of theDammthorstill alive?And do you write her still?" "Each month or so.""And is she not unhappy then, to findHow wretched you must be?" "How can she know?You see," I laughed, "she thinks I am as wellAs when she saw me last. She is too blindTo read the papers—some one else must tellWhat's in my letters, merely signed by me.Thus she is happy. For the rest—That any son should be as sick as I,No mother could believe."Ja, so it goes.
Come here, my lotus-flower. It is bestI drop the mask to-day; the half-cracked shieldOf mockery calls for younger hands to wield.Laugh—or I'll hug it closer to my breast.So ... I can be as mawkish as I chooseAnd give my thoughts an airing, let them looseFor one last rambling stroll before—Now look!Why tears? You never heard me say "the end."Before ... before I clap them in a bookAnd so get rid of them once and for all.This is their holiday—we'll let them run—Some have escaped already. There goes one ...What, I have often mused, did Goethe mean?So many years ago at Weimar, Goethe said"Heine has all the poet's gifts but love."Good God! But that is all I ever had.More than enough! So much of love to giveThat no one gave me any in return.And so I flashed and snapped in my own firesUntil I stood, with nothing left to burn,A twisted trunk, in chilly isolation.Ein Fichtenbaum steht einsam—you recall?I was that Northern tree and, in the South,Amalia... So I turned to scornful cries,Hot iron songs to save the rest of me;Plunging the brand in my own misery.Crouching behind my pointed wall of words,Ramparts I built of moons and loreleys,Enchanted roses, sphinxes, love-sick birds,Giants, dead lads who left their graves to dance,Fairies and phœnixes and friendly gods—A curious frieze, half Renaissance, half Greek,Behind which, in revulsion of romance,I lay and laughed—and wept—till I was weak.Words were my shelter, words my one escape,Words were my weapons against everything.Was I not once the son of Revolution?Give me the lyre, I said, and let me singMy song of battle: Words like flaming starsShot down with power to burn the palaces;Words like bright javelins to fly with fierceHate of the oily Philistines and glideThrough all the seven heavens till they pierceThe pious hypocrites who dare to creepInto the Holy Places. "Then," I cried,"I am a fire to rend and roar and leap;I am all joy and song, all sword and flame!"Ha—you observe me passionate. I aimTo curb these wild emotions lest they soarOr drive against my will. (So I have saidThese many years—and still they are not tame.)Scraps of a song keep rumbling in my head ...Listen—you never heard me sing before.
When a false world betrays your trustAnd stamps upon your fire,When what seemed blood is only rust,Take up the lyre!
How quickly the heroic moodResponds to its own ringing;The scornful heart, the angry bloodLeap upward, singing!
Ah, that was how it used to be. But now,Du schöner Todesengel, it is oddHow more than calm I am. Franz said it showsPower of religion, and it does, perhaps—Religion or morphine or poultices—God knows.I sometimes have a sentimental lapseAnd long for saviours and a physical God.When health is all used up, when money goes,When courage cracks and leaves a shattered will,Then Christianity begins. For a sick Jew,It is a very good religion ... Still,I fear that I will die as I have lived,A long-nosed heathen playing with his scars,A pagan killed by weltschmerz ... I remember,Once when I stood with Hegel at a window,I, being full of bubbling youth and coffee,Spoke in symbolic tropes about the stars.Something I said about "those highAbodes of all the blest" provoked his temper."Abodes? The stars?" He froze me with a sneer,"A light eruption on the firmament.""But," cried romantic I, "is there no sphereWhere virtue is rewarded when we die?"And Hegel mocked, "A very pleasant whim.So you demand a bonus since you spentOne lifetime and refrained from poisoningYour testy grandmother!" ... How much of himRemains in me—even when I am caughtIn dreams of death and immortality.
To be eternal—what a brilliant thought!It must have been conceived and coddled firstBy some old shopkeeper in Nuremberg,His slippers warm, his children amply nursed,Who, with his lighted meerschaum in his hand,His nightcap on his head, one summer nightSat drowsing at his door. And mused, how grandIf all of this could last beyond a doubt—This placid moon, this plumpgemüthlichkeit;Pipe, breath and summer never going out—To vegetate through all eternity ...But no such everlastingness for me!God, if he can, keep me from such a blight.
Death, it is but the long, cool night,And Life's a dull and sultry day.It darkens; I grow sleepy;I am weary of the light.
Over my bed a strange tree gleamsAnd there a nightingale is loud.She sings of love, love only ...I hear it, even in dreams.
My Mouche, the other day as I lay here,Slightly propped up upon this mattress-graveIn which I've been interred these few eight years,I saw a dog, a little pampered slave,Running about and barking. I would have givenHeaven could I have been that dog; to thriveLike him, so senseless—and so much alive!And once I called myself a blithe Hellene,Who am too much in love with life to live.(The shrug is pure Hebraic) ... For what I've been,A lenient Lord will tax me—and forgive.Dieu me pardonnera—c'est son metier.But this is jesting. There are other scandalsYou haven't heard ... Can it be dusk so soon?Or is this deeper darkness ...? Is that you,Mother? How did you come? Where are the candles?...Over my bed a strange tree gleams—half filledWith stars and birds whose white notes glimmer throughIts seven branches now that all is stilled.What? Friday night again and all my songsForgotten? Wait ... I still can sing—Sh'ma Yisroel Adonai Elohenu,Adonai Echod ...Mouche—Mathilde!...
What presses about us here in the eveningAs you open a window and stare at a stone-gray sky,And the streets give back the jangle of meaningless movementThat is tired of life and almost too tired to die.
Night comes on, and even the night is wounded;There, on its breast, it carries a curved, white scar.What will you find out there that is not torn and anguished?Can God be less distressed than the least of His creatures are?
Below are the blatant lights in a huddled squalor;Above are futile fires in freezing space.What can they give that you should look to them for compassionThough you bare your heart and lift an imploring face?
They have seen, by countless waters and windows,The women of your race facing a stony sky;They have heard, for thousands of years, the voices of womenAsking them: "Why ...?"
Let the night be; it has neither knowledge nor pity.One thing alone can hope to answer your fear;It is that which struggles and blinds us and burns between us....Let the night be. Close the window, belovèd.... Come here.
Though for fifteen years you have chaffed me across the table,Slept in my arms and fingered my plunging heart,I scarcely know you; we have not known each other.For all the fierce and casual contacts, something keeps us apart.
Are you struggling, perhaps, in a world that I see only dimly,Except as it sweeps toward the star on which I stand alone?Are we swung like two planets, compelled in our separate orbits,Yet held in a flaming circle far greater than our own?
Last night we were single, a radiant core of completion,Surrounded by flames that embraced us but left no burns,To-day we are only ourselves; we have plans and pretensions;We move in dividing streets with our small and different concerns.
Merging and rending, we wait for the miracle. MeanwhileThe fire runs deeper, consuming these selves in its growth.Can this be the mystical marriage—this clash and communion;This pain of possession that frees and encircles us both?
What nudity is beautiful as thisObedient monster purring at its toil;These naked iron muscles dripping oilAnd the sure-fingered rods that never miss.This long and shining flank of metal isMagic that greasy labor cannot spoil;While this vast engine that could rend the soilConceals its fury with a gentle hiss.
It does not vent its loathing, does not turnUpon its makers with destroying hate.It bears a deeper malice; lives to earnIts master's bread and laughs to see this greatLord of the earth, who rules but cannot learn,Become the slave of what his slaves create.
"Old Jews!" Well, David, aren't we?What news is that to make you see so red,To swear and almost tear your beard in half?Jeered at? Well, let them laugh.You can laugh longer when you're dead.
What? Are you still too blind to see?Have you forgot your Midrash!... They were right,The littlegoyim, with their angry stones.You should be buried in the desert out of sightAnd not a dog should howl miscarried moansOver your foul bones....
Have you forgotten what is promised us,Because of stinking days and rotting nights?Eternal feasting, drinking, blazing lightsWith endless leisure, periods of play!Supernal pleasures, myriads of gayDiscussions, great debates with prophet-kings!And rings of riddling scholars all surroundingGod who sits in the very middle, expoundingThe Torah....Nowyour dull eyes glisten!Listen:
It is the final Day.A blast of Gabriel's horn has torn awayThe last haze from our eyes, and we can seePast the three hundred skies and gaze uponThe Ineffable Name engraved deep in the sun.Now one by one, the pious and the justAre seated by us, radiantly risenFrom their dull prison in the dust.And then the festival begins!A sudden music spins great webs of soundSpanning the ground, the stars and their companions;While from the cliffs and cañons of blue air,Prayers of all colors, cries of exultationRise into choruses of singing gold.And at the height of this bright consecration,The whole Creation's rolled before us.The seven burning heavens unfold....We see the first (the only one we know)Dispersed and, shining through,The other six declining: Those that holdThe stars and moons, together with all thoseContaining rain and fire and sullen weather;Cellars of dew-fall higher than the brim;Huge arsenals with centuries of snows;Infinite rows of storms and swarms of seraphim....
Divided now are winds and waters. Sea and land,Tohu and Bohu, light and darkness, standUpright on either hand.And down this terrible aisle,While heaven's ranges roar aghast,Pours a vast file of strange and hidden things:Forbidden monsters, crocodiles with wingsAnd perfumed flesh that sings and glowsWith more fresh colors than the rainbow knows....Thereëm, those great beasts with eighteen horns,Who mate but once in seventy years and dieIn their own tears which flow ten stadia high.Theshamir, made by God on the sixth morn,No longer than a grain of barley cornBut stronger than the bull of Bashan and so hardIt cuts through diamonds. Meshed and starredWith precious stones, there struts the shatteringzizWhose groans are wrinkled thunder....For thrice three hundred years the full paradeFiles past, a cavalcade of fear and wonder.And then the vast aisle clears.
Now comes our constantly increased reward.The Lord commands that monstrous beast,Leviathan, to be our feast.What cheers ascend from horde on ravenous horde!One hears the towering creature rend the seas,Frustrated, cowering, and his pleas ignored.In vain his great, belated tears are poured—For this he was created, kept and nursed.Cries burst from all the millions that attend:"Ascend, Leviathan, it is the end!We hunger and we thirst! Ascend!" ...
Observe him first, my friend.God's deathless plaything rolls an eyeFive hundred thousand cubits high.The smallest scale upon his tailCould hide six dolphins and a whale.His nostrils breathe—and on the spotThe churning waves turn seething hot.If he be hungry, one huge finDrives seven thousand fishes in;And when he drinks what he may need,The rivers of the earth recede.Yet he is more than huge and strong—Twelve brilliant colors play alongHis sides until, compared to him,The naked, burning sun seems dim.New scintillating rays extendThrough endless singing space and riseInto an ecstasy that cries:"Ascend, Leviathan, ascend!"
God now commands the multi-colored bandsOf angels to intrude and slay the beastThat His good sons may have a feast of food.But as they come, Leviathan sneezes twice ...And, numb with sudden pangs, each arm hangs slack.Black terror seizes them; blood freezes into iceAnd every angel flees from the attack!God, with a look that spells eternal law,Compels them back.But, though they fight and smite him tail and jaw,Nothing avails; upon his scales their swordsBreak like frayed cords or, like a blade of straw,Bend towards the hilt and wilt like faded grass.Defeat and fresh retreat.... But once againGod's murmurs pass among them and they massWith firmer steps upon the crowded plain.Vast clouds of spears and stones rise from the ground;But every dart flies past and rocks reboundTo the disheartened angels falling around.
A pause.The angel host withdrawsWith empty boasts throughout its sullen files.Suddenly God smiles....On the walls of heaven a tumble of light is caught.Low thunder rumbles like an afterthought;And God's slow laughter calls:"Behemot!"
Behemot, sweating blood,Uses for his daily foodAll the fodder, flesh and juiceThat twelve tall mountains can produce.
Jordan, flooded to the brim,Is a single gulp to him;Two great streams from ParadiseCool his lips and scarce suffice.
When he shifts from side to sideEarthquakes gape and open wide;When a nightmare makes him snore,All the dead volcanoes roar.
In the space between each toe,Kingdoms rise and saviours go;Epochs fall and causes dieIn the lifting of his eye.
Wars and justice, love and death,These are but his wasted breath;Chews a planet for his cud—Behemot sweating blood.
Roused from his unconcern,Behemot burns with anger.Dripping sleep and languor from his heavy haunches,He turns from deep disdain and launchesHimself upon the thickening air,And, with weird cries of sickening despair,Flies at Leviathan.None can surmise the struggle that ensues—The eyes lose sight of it and words refuseTo tell the story in its gory might.Night passes after night,And still the fight continues, still the sparksFly from the iron sinews,... till the marksOf fire and belching thunder fill the darkAnd, almost torn asunder, one falls stark,Hammering upon the other!...What clamor now is born, what crashings rise!Hot lightnings lash the skies and frightening criesClash with the hymns of saints and seraphim.The bloody limbs thrash through a ruddy dusk,Till one great tusk of Behemot has goredLeviathan, restored to his full strength,Who, dealing fiercer blows in those last throes,Closes on reeling Behemot at length—Piercing him with steel-pointed claws,Straight through the jaws to his disjointed head.And both lie dead.
Thencome the angels!With hoists and levers, joists and poles,With knives and cleavers, ropes and saws,Down the long slopes to the gaping maws,The angels hasten; hacking and carving,So nought will be lacking for the starvingChosen of God, who in frozen wondermentRealize now what the terrible thunder meant.How their mouths water while they are lookingAt miles of slaughter and sniffing the cooking!Whiffs of delectable fragrance swim by;Spice-laden vagrants that float and entice,Tickling the throat and brimming the eye.Ah! what rejoicing and crackling and roasting!Ah! How the boys sing as, cackling and boasting,The angels' old wives and their nervous assistantsRun in to serve us....
And while we are toastingThe Fairest of All, they call from the distanceThe rare ones of Time, they share our enjoyment;Their only employment to bear jars of wineAnd shine like the stars in a circle of glory.Here sways Rebekah accompanied by Zilpah;Miriam plays to the singing of Bilhah;Hagar has tales for us, Judith her story;Esther exhales bright romances and musk.There, in the dusky light, Salome dances.Sara and Rachel and Leah and Ruth,Fairer than ever and all in their youth,Come at our call and go by our leave.And, from her bower of beauty, walks EveWhile, with the voice of a flower, she singsOf Eden, young earth and the birth of all things....
Peace without end.Peace will descend on us, discord will cease;And we, now so wretched, will lie stretched outFree of old doubt, on our cushions of ease.And, like a gold canopy over our bed,The skin of Leviathan, tail-tip to head,Soon will be spread till it covers the skies.Light will still rise from it; millions of brightFacets of brilliance, shaming the whiteGlass of the moon, inflaming the night.
So Time shall pass and rest and pass again,Burn with an endless zest and then return,Walk at our side and tide us to new joys;God's voice to guide us, beauty as our staff.Thus shall Life be when Death has disappeared....
Jeered at? Well, let them laugh.
Tie a bandage over his eyes,And at his feetLet rifles drearily patterTheir death-prayers of defeat.
Throw a blanket over his body,It need no longer stir;Truth will but stand the strongerFor all who died for her.
Now he has broken throughTo his own secret place;Which, if we dared to do,We would have no more power left to look on that dead face.
This rock, too, was a word;A word of flame and force when that which hurledThe stars into their places in the nightFirst stirred.
And, in the summer's heat,Lay not your hand on it, for while the iron hours beatGray anvils in the sky, it glows againWith unfulfilled desire.
Touch it not; let it standRagged, forlorn, still looking at the land;The dry blue chaos of mountains in the distance,The slender blades of grass it shelters areIts own dark thoughts of what is near and far.Your thoughts are yours, too; naked let them stand.
Sea-violins are playing on the sands;Curved bows of blue and white are flying over the pebbles,See them attack the chords—dark basses, glinting trebles.Dimly and faint they croon, blue violins."Suffer without regret," they seem to cry,"Though dark your suffering is, it may be music,Waves of blue heat that wash midsummer sky;Sea-violins that play along the sands."
Let the winds come,And bury our feet in the sands of seven deserts;Let strong breezes rise,Washing our ears with the far-off sounds of the foam.Let there be between our facesGreen turf and a branch or two of back-tossed trees;Set firmly over questioning heartsThe deep unquenchable answer of the wind.
My mind is a puddle in the street reflecting green Sirius;In thick dark groves trees huddle lifting their branches like beckoning hands.We eat the grain, the grain is death, all goes back to the earth's dark mass,All but a song which moves across the plain like the wind's deep-muttering breath.Bowed down upon the earth, man sets his plants and watches for the seed,Though he be part of the tragic pageant of the sky, no heaven will aid his mortal need.I find flame in the dust, a word once uttered that will stir again,And a wine-cup reflecting Sirius in the water held in my hands.
The rain drives, drives endlessly,Heavy threads of rain;The wind beats at the shutters,The surf drums on the shore;Drunken telegraph poles lean sideways;Dank summer cottages gloom hopelessly;Bleak factory-chimneys are etched on the filmy distance,Tepid with rain.It seems I have lived for a hundred yearsAmong these things;And it is useless for me now to make complaint against them.For I know I shall never escape from this dull barbarian country,Where there is none now left to lift a cool jade winecup,Or share with me a single human thought.
Higher and still more high,Palaces made for cloud,Above the dingy city-roofsBlue-white like angels with broad wings,Pillars of the sky at restThe mountains from the great plateauUprise.
But the world heeds them not;They have been here now for too long a time.The world makes war on them,Tunnels their granite cliffs,Splits down their shining sides,Plasters their cliffs with soap-advertisements,Destroys the lonely fragments of their peace.
Vaster and still more vast,Peak after peak, pile after pile,Wilderness still untamed,To which the future is as was the past,Barrier spread by Gods,Sunning their shining foreheads,Barrier broken down by those who do not needThe joy of time-resisting storm-worn stone,The mountains swing alongThe south horizon of the sky;Welcoming with wide floors of blue-green iceThe mists that dance and drive before the sun.
After ten thousand centuries have gone,Man will ascend the last long pass to knowThat all the summits which he saw at dawnAre buried deep in everlasting snow.
Below him endless gloomy valleys, chill,Will wreathe and whirl with fighting cloud, driven by the wind's fierce breath;But on the summit, wind and cloud are still:—Only the sunlight, and death.
And staggering up to the brink of the gulf man will look downAnd painfully strive with weak sight to exploreThe silent gulfs below which the long shadows drown;Through every one of these he passed before.
Then since he has no further heights to climb,And naught to witness he has come this endless way,On the wind-bitten ice cap he will wait for the last of time,And watch the crimson sunrays fading of the world's latest day:
And blazing stars will burst upon him there,Dumb in the midnight of his hope and pain,Speeding no answer back to his last prayer,And, if akin to him, akin in vain.
A hundred miles of landscape spread before me like a fan;Hills behind naked hills, bronze light of evening on them shed;How many thousand ages have these summits spied on man?How many thousand times shall I look on them ere this fire in me is dead?
If the autumn endedEre the birds flew southward,If in the cold with weary throatsThey vainly strove to sing,Winter would be eternal;Leaf and bush and blossomWould never once more riotIn the spring.
If remembrance endedWhen life and love are gathered,If the world were not livingLong after one is gone,Song would not ring, nor sorrowStand at the door in evening;Life would vanish and slacken,Men would be changed to stone.
But there will be autumn's bountyDropping upon our weariness,There will be hopes unspokenAnd joys to haunt us still;There will be dawn and sunsetThough we have cast the world away,And the leaves dancingOver the hill.
When an old man walks with lowered headAnd eyes that do not seem to see,I wonder does he ponder onThe worm he was or is to be.
Or has he turned his gaze within,Lost to his own vicinity;Erecting in a doubtful dreamFrail bridges to Infinity.
(Malipiero:Impressioni Dal Vero)
Across the hot square, where the barbaric sunPours coarse laughter on the crowds,Trumpets throw their loud noosesFrom corner to corner.Elephants, whose indifferent backsHeave with red lambrequins,Tigers with golden muzzles,Negresses, greased and turbaned in green and yellow,Weave and interweave in the merciless glare of noon.The sun flicks here and there like a throned tyrant,Snapping his whip.From amber platters, the smells ascendOf overripe peaches mingled with dust and heated oils.Pages in purple run madly about,Rolling their eyes and grinning with huge, frightened mouths.
And from a high window—a square of black velvet—A haughty figure stands back in the shadow,Aloof and silent.
They say I have a constant heart, who knowNot anything of how it turns and yieldsFirst here, first there; nor how in separate fieldsIt runs to reap and then remains to sow;How, with quick worship, it will bend and glowBefore a line of song, an antique vase,Evening at sea; or in a well-loved faceSeek and find all that Beauty can bestow.
Yet they do well who name it with a name,For all its rash surrenders call it true.Though many lamps be lit, yet flame is flame;The sun can show the way, a candle too.The tribute to each fragment is the sameService to all of Beauty—and her due.
Wind and wave and the swinging ropeWere calling me last night;None to save and little hope,No inner light.
Each snarling lash of the stormy seaCurled like a hungry tongue.One desperate splash—and no use to meThe noose that swung!
Death reached out three crooked clawsTo still my clamoring pain.I wheeled about, and Life's gray jawsGrinned once again.
To sea I gazed, and then I turnedStricken toward the shore,Praying half-crazed to a moon that burnedAbove your door.
And at your door, you discovered me;And at your heart, I sobbed ...And if there be more of eternityLet me be robbed.
Let me be clipped of that heritageAnd burned for ages through;Freed and stripped of my fear and rage—But not of you.
I stand between them and the outer winds,But I am a crumbling wall.They told me they could bear the blast alone,They told me: that was all.But I must wedge myself betweenThem and the first snowfall.
Riddled am I by onslaughts and attacksI thought I could forestall;I reared and braced myself to shelter themBefore I heard them call.I cry them, God, a better shield!I am about to fall.
Plow not nor plant this arid mound.Here is no sap for seed,No ferment for your need—Ungrateful ground!
No sun can warm this spotGod has forgot;No rain can penetrateIts barren slate.
Demonic winds blow last year's stubbleFrom its hard slope.Go, leave the hopeless without hope;Spare your trouble.
Most holy Satyr,like a goat,with horns and hoovesto match thy coatof russet brown,I make leaf-circletsand a crown of honey-flowersfor thy throat;where the amber petalsdrip to ivory,I cut and slipeach stiffened petalin the riftof carven petal:honey hornhas wed the brightvirgin petal of the whiteflower cluster: lip to liplet them whisper,let them lilt, quivering:
Most holy Satyr,like a goat,hear this our song,accept our leaves,love-offering,return our hymn;like echo flinga sweet song,answering note for note.
Let her who walks in Paphostake the glass,let Paphos take the mirrorand the work of frosted fruit,gold apples setwith silver apple-leaf,white leaf of silverwrought with vein of gilt.
Let Paphos lift the mirror;let her lookinto the polished center of the disk.
Let Paphos take the mirror:did she pressflowerlet of flame-flowerto the lustrous whiteof the white forehead?did the dark veins beata deeper purplethan the wine-deep tintof the dark flower?
Did she deck black hair,one evening, with the winter-whiteflower of the winter-berry?Did she look (reft of her lover)at a face gone whiteunder the chapletof white virgin-breath?
Lais, exultant, tyrannizing Greece,Lais who kept her lovers in the porch,lover on lover waiting(but to creepwhere the robe brushed the thresholdwhere still sleeps Lais),so she creeps, Lais,to lay her mirror at the feetof her who reigns in Paphos.
Lais has left her mirror,for she sees no longer in its depththe Lais' selfthat laughed exultant,tyrannizing Greece.
Lais has left her mirror,for she weeps no longer,finding in its deptha face, but otherthan dark flame and whitefeature of perfect marble.
Lais has left her mirror(so one wrote)to her who reigns in Paphos;Lais who laughed a tyrant over Greece,Lais who turned the lovers from the porch,that swarm for whom nowLais has no use;Lais is now no lover of the glass,seeing no more the face as once it was,wishing to see that face and finding this.