I’llnever be a nun, I trow,While apple bloom is white as snow,But far more fair to see;I’ll never wear nun’s black and whiteWhile nightingales make sweet the nightWithin the apple tree.
Ah, listen! ’tis the nightingale,And in the wood he makes his wail,Within the apple tree;He singeth of the sore distressOf many ladies loverless;Thank God, no song for me.
For when the broad May moon is low,A gold fruit seen where blossoms blowIn the boughs of the apple tree,A step I know is at the gate;Ah love, but it is long to waitUntil night’s noon bring thee!
Between lark’s song and nightingale’sA silent space, while dawning pales,The birds leave still and freeFor words and kisses musical,For silence and for sighs that fallIn the dawn, ’twixt him and me.
‘When last we gathered roses in the gardenI found my wits, but truly you lost yours.’
The Broken Heart.
July, and June brought flowers and loveTo you, but I would none thereof,Whose heart kept all through summer timeA flower of frost and winter rime.Yours was true wisdom—was it not?—Even love; but I had clean forgot,Till seasons of the falling leaf,All loves, but one that turned to grief.At length at touch of autumn tide,When roses fell, and summer died,All in a dawning deep with dew,Love flew to me, love fled from you.
The roses drooped their weary heads,I spoke among the garden beds;You would not hear, you could not know,Summer and love seemed long ago,As far, as faint, as dim a dream,As to the dead this world may seem.Ah sweet, in winter’s miseries,Perchance you may remember this,How wisdom was not justifiedIn summer time or autumn-tide,Though for this once below the sun,Wisdom and love were made at one;But love was bitter-bought enough,And wisdom light of wing as love.
Kissme, and say good-bye;Good-bye, there is no word to say but this,Nor any lips left for my lips to kiss,Nor any tears to shed, when these tears dry;Kiss me, and say, good-bye.
Farewell, be glad, forget;There is no need to say ‘forget,’ I know,For youth is youth, and time will have it so,And though your lips are pale, and your eyes wet,Farewell, you must forget.
You shall bring home your sheaves,Many, and heavy, and with blossoms twinedOf memories that go not out of mind;Let this one sheaf be twined with poppy leavesWhen you bring home your sheaves.
In garnered loves of thine,The ripe good fruit of many hearts and years,Somewhere let this lie, grey and salt with tears;It grew too near the sea wind, and the brineOf life, this love of mine.
This sheaf was spoiled in spring,And over-long was green, and early sere,And never gathered gold in the late yearFrom autumn suns, and moons of harvesting,But failed in frosts of spring.
Yet was it thine my sweet,This love, though weak as young corn witheréd,Whereof no man may gather and make bread;Thine, though it never knew the summer heat;Forget not quite, my sweet.
Χαιρέ μοι, ῶ Βασίλεια, διαμπερὲς εἰς ὅ κε γῆραςἜλθῃ καὶ θάνατος,τὰ τ’ ἐπ’ ἀνθρώποισι πέλονται.Odyssey, xiii. 59.
Χαιρέ μοι, ῶ Βασίλεια, διαμπερὲς εἰς ὅ κε γῆραςἜλθῃ καὶ θάνατος,τὰ τ’ ἐπ’ ἀνθρώποισι πέλονται.
Odyssey, xiii. 59.
Myprayer an old prayer borroweth,Of ancient love and memory—‘Do thou farewell, till Eld and Death,That come to all men, come to thee.’Gently as winter’s early breath,Scarce felt, what time the swallows flee,To lands whereofno man knowethOf summer, over land and sea;So with thy soul may summer be,Even as the ancient singer saith,‘Do thou farewell, till Eld and Death,That come to all men, come to thee.’
Withother helpless folk about the gate,The gate called Beautiful, with weary eyesThat take no pleasure in the summer skies,Nor all things that are fairest, does she wait;So bleak a time, so sad a changeless fateMakes her with dull experience early wise,And in the dawning and the sunset, sighsThat all hath been, and shall be, desolate.
Ah, if Love come not soon, and bid her live,And know herself the fairest of fair things,Ah, if he have no healing gift to give,Warm from his breast, and holy from his wings,Or if at least Love’s shadow in passing byTouch not and heal her, surely she must die.
Hespake not truth, however wise, who saidThat happy, and that hapless men in sleepHave equal fortune, fallen from care as deepAs countless, careless, races of the dead.Not so, for alien paths of dreams we tread,And one beholds the faces that he sighsIn vain to bring before his daylit eyes,And waking, he remembers on his bed;
And one with fainting heart and feeble handFights a dim battle in a doubtful land,Where strength and courage were of no avail;And one is borne on fairy breezes farTo the bright harbours of a golden starDown fragrant fleeting waters rosy pale.
Inlight of sunrise and sunsetting,The long days lingered, in forgettingThat ever passion, keen to holdWhat may not tarry, was of old,In lands beyond the weary wold;Beyond the bitter stream whose floodRuns red waist-high with slain men’s blood.Was beauty once a thing that died?Was pleasure never satisfied?Was rest still broken by the vainDesire of action, bringing pain,To die in languid rest again?All this was quite forgotten there,Where never winter chilled the year,Nor spring brought promise unfulfilled,Nor, with the eager summer killed,The languid days drooped autumnwards.So magical a season guardsThe constant prime of a cool June;So slumbrous is the river’s tune,That knows no thunder of heavy rains,Nor ever in the summer wanes,Like waters of the summer timeIn lands far from the Fairy clime.
Yea, there the Fairy maids are kind,With nothing of the changeful mindOf maidens in the days that were;And if no laughter fills the airWith sound of silver murmurings,And if no prayer of passion bringsA love nigh dead to life again,Yet sighs more subtly sweet remain,And smiles that never satiate,And loves that fear scarce any fate.Alas, no words can bring the bloomOf Fairy Land; the faint perfume,The sweet low light, the magic air,To eyes of who has not been there:Alas, no words, nor any spellCan lull the eyes that know too well,The lost fair world of Fairy Land.
Ah, would that I had never beenThe lover of the Fairy Queen!Or would that through the sleepy town,The grey old place of Ercildoune,And all along the little street,The soft fall of the white deer’s feetCame, with the mystical commandThat I must back to Fairy Land!
‘Les Sirènes estoient tant intimes amies et fidelles compagnes de Proserpine, qu’elles estoient toujours ensemble. Esmues du juste deuil de la perte de leur chère compagne, et enuyées jusques au desespoir, elles s’arrestèrent à la mer Sicilienne, où par leurs chants elles attiroient les navigans, mais l’unique fin de la volupé de leur musique est la Mort.’—Pontus de Tyard. 1570.
I.
TheSirens once were maidens innocentThat through the water-meads with ProserpinePlucked no fire-hearted flowers, but were contentCool fritillaries and flag-flowers to twine,With lilies woven and with wet woodbine;Till once they sought the bright Ætnaean flowers,And their bright mistress fled from summer hoursWith Hades, down the irremeable decline.And they have sought her all the wide world throughTill many years, and wisdom, and much wrongHave filled and changed their song, and o’er the blueRings deadly sweet the magic of the song,And whoso hears must listen till he dieFar on the flowery shores of Sicily.
II.
So is it with this singing art of ours,That once with maids went maidenlike, and playedWith woven dances in the poplar-shade,And all her song was but of lady’s bowersAnd the returning swallows, and spring-flowers,Till forth to seek a shadow-queen she strayed,A shadowy land; and now hath overweighedHer singing chaplet with the snow and showers.Yea, fair well-water for the bitter brineShe left, and by the margin of life’s seaSings, and her song is full of the sea’s moan,And wild with dread, and love of Proserpine;And whoso once has listened to her, heHis whole life long is slave to her alone.
AFTER RONSARD.
Moreclosely than the clinging vineAbout the wedded tree,Clasp thou thine arms, ah, mistress mine!About the heart of me.Or seem to sleep, and stoop your faceSoft on my sleeping eyes,Breathe in your life, your heart, your grace,Through me, in kissing wise.Bow down, bow down your face, I pray,To me, that swoon to death,Breathe back the life you kissed away,Breathe back your kissing breath.So by your eyes I swear and say,My mighty oath and sure,From your kind arms no maiden mayMy loving heart allure.I’ll bear your yoke, that’s light enough,And to the Elysian plain,When we are dead of love, my love,One boat shall bear us twain.They’ll flock around you, fleet and fair,All true loves that have been,And you of all the shadows there,Shall be the shadow queen.Ah shadow-loves,and shadow-lips!Ah,while ’tis called to-day,Love me,my love, for summer slips,And August ebbs away.
IN MEMORY OF GÉRARD DE NERVAL.
Twoloves there were, and one was bornBetween the sunset and the rain;Her singing voice went through the corn,Her dance was woven ‘neath the thorn,On grass the fallen blossoms stain;And suns may set, and moons may wane,But this love comes no more again.
There were two loves and one made whiteThy singing lips, and golden hair;Born of the city’s mire and light,The shame and splendour of the night,She trapped and fled thee unaware;Not through the lamplight and the rainShalt thou behold this love again.
Go forth and seek, by wood and hill,Thine ancient love of dawn and dew;There comes no voice from mere or rill,Her dance is over, fallen stillThe ballad burdens that she knew;And thou must wait for her in vain,Till years bring back thy youth again.
That other love, afield, afarFled the light love, with lighter feet.Nay, though thou seek where gravesteads are,And flit in dreams from star to star,That dead love shalt thou never meet,Till through bleak dawn and blowing rainThy fled soul find her soul again.
Plotinus, the Greek philosopher, had a certain proper mode of ecstasy, whereby, as Porphyry saith, his soul, becoming free from his deathly flesh, was made one with the Spirit that is in the World.
Alas, the path is lost, we cannot leaveOur bright, our clouded life, and pass awayAs through strewn clouds, that stain the quiet eve,To heights remoter of the purer day.The soul may not, returning whence she came,Bathe herself deep in Being, and forgetThe joys that fever, and the cares that fret,Made once more one with the eternal flameThat breathes in all things ever more the same.She would be young again, thus drinking deepOf her old life; and this has been, men say,But this we know not, who have only sleepTo soothe us, sleep more terrible than day,Where dead delights, and fair lost faces stray,To make us weary at our wakening;And of that long-lost path to the DivineWe dream, as some Greek shepherd erst might sing,Half credulous, of easy ProserpineAnd of the lands that lie ‘beneath the day’s decline.’
Some say that Helen went never to Troy, but abode in Egypt; for the Gods, having made in her semblance a woman out of clouds and shadows, sent the same to be wife to Paris. For this shadow then the Greeks and Trojans slew each other.
Whyfrom the quiet hollows of the hills,And extreme meeting place of light and shade,Wherein soft rains fell slowly, and becameClouds among sister clouds, where fair spent beamsAnd dying glories of the sun would dwell,Why have they whom I know not, nor may know,Strange hands, unseen and ruthless, fashioned me,And borne me from the silent shadowy hills,Hither, to noise and glow of alien life,To harsh and clamorous swords, and sound of war?
One speaks unto me words that would be sweet,Made harsh, made keen with love that knows me not,And some strange force, within me or around,Makes answer, kiss for kiss, and sigh for sigh,And somewhere there is fever in the halls,That troubles me, for no such trouble cameTo vex the cool far hollows of the hills.
The foolish folk crowd round me, and they cry,That house, and wife, and lands, and all Troy town,Are little to lose, if they may keep me here,And see me flit, a pale and silent shade,Among the streets bereft, and helpless shrines.
At other hours another life seems mine,Where one great river runs unswollen of rain,By pyramids of unremembered kings,And homes of men obedient to the Dead.There dark and quiet faces come and goAround me, then again the shriek of arms,And all the turmoil of the Ilian men.What are they? Even shadows such as I.What make they? Even this—the sport of Gods—The sport of Gods, however free they seem.Ah would the game were ended, and the light,The blinding light, and all too mighty suns,Withdrawn, and I once more with sister shades,Unloved, forgotten, mingled with the mist,Dwelt in the hollows of the shadowy hills.Ah, would ‘t were the cloud’s playtime, when the sunClothes us in raiment of a rosy flame,And through the sky we flit, and gather grey,Like men that leave their golden youth behind,And through their wind-driven ways they gather grey,And we like them grow wan, and the chill EastReceives us, as the Earth accepts all men,—Butweawait the dawn of a new day.
Ahthou! that, undeceived and unregretting,Saw’st Death so near thee on the flowery way,And with no sigh that life was near the setting,Took’st the delight and dalliance of the day,Happy thou wert, to live and pass awayEre life or love had done thee any wrong;Ere thy wreath faded, or thy locks grew grey,Or summer came to lull thine April song,Sweet as all shapes of sweet things unfulfilled,Buds bloomless, and the broken violet,The first spring days, the sounds and scents thereof;So clear thy fire of song, so early chilled,So brief, so bright thy life that gaily metDeath, for thy Death came hand in hand with Love.
List, all that love light mirth, light tears, and allThat know the heart of shameful loves, or pure;That know delights depart, desires endure,A fevered tribe of ghosts funereal,Widowed of dead delights gone out of call;List, all that deem the glory of the roseIs brief as last year’s suns, or last year’s snowsThe new suns melt from off the sundial.
All this your master Villon knew and sung;Despised delights, and faint foredone desire;And shame, a deathless worm, a quenchless fire;And laughter from the heart’s last sorrow wrung,When half-repentance but makes evil whole,And prayer that cannot help wears out the soul.
Master, I see thee with the locks of grey,Crowned by the Muses with the laurel-wreath;I see the roses hiding underneath,Cassandra’s gift; she was less dear than they.Thou, Master, first hast roused the lyric lay,The sleeping song that the dead years bequeath,Hast sung sweet answer to the songs that breatheThrough ages, and through ages far away.
Yea, and in thee the pulse of ancient passionLeaped, and the nymphs amid the spring-waterMade bare their lovely limbs in the old fashion,And birds’ song in the branches was astir.Ah, but thy songs are sad, thy roses wan,Thy bees have fed on yews Sardinian.
Ofall that were thy prisons—ah, untamed,Ah, light and sacred soul!—none holds thee now;No wall, no bar, no body of flesh, but thouArt free and happy in the lands unnamed,About whose gates, with weary wings and maimed,Thou most wert wont to linger, entering thereA moment, and returning rapt, with fairTidings that men or heeded not or blamed;And they would smile and wonder, seeing whereThou stood’st, to watch light leaves, or clouds, or wind,Dreamily murmuring a ballad air,Caught from the Valois peasants; dost thou findOld prophecies fulfilled now, old tales trueIn the new world, where all things are made new?
‘The Queen of Heaven appeared, comforting him and promising that he should not utterly die.’—Thomas More,Life of Piens, Earl of Mirandola.
Strangelilies came with autumn; new and oldWere mingling, and the old world passed away,And the night gathered, and the shadows greyDimmed the kind eyes and dimmed the locks of gold,And face beloved of Mirandola.The Virgin then, to comfort him and stay,Kissed the thin cheek, and kissed the lips acold,The lips unkissed of women many a day.Nor she alone, for queens of the old creed,Like rival queens that tended Arthur, thereWere gathered, Venus in her mourning weed,Pallas and Dian; wise, and pure, and fairWas he they mourned, who living did not wrongOne altar of its dues of wine and song.
LONDON: PRINTED BYSPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUAREAND PARLIAMENT STREET
[23]Aphrodite—Avril.
[110]From the Romaic.