FINALE. Christmas loves this merry, merry place;Christmas saith with fondest face,Brightest eye, brightest hair:'Ben, the drink tastes rare of sack and mace:Rare!'
Algernon Charles Swinburne. 1837-1909
808. Chorus from 'Atalanta'
WHEN the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,The mother of months in meadow or plainFills the shadows and windy placesWith lisp of leaves and ripple of rain;And the brown bright nightingale amorousIs half assuaged for Itylus,For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces.The tongueless vigil, and all the pain.
Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers,Maiden most perfect, lady of light,With a noise of winds and many rivers,With a clamour of waters, and with might;Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet,Over the splendour and speed of thy feet;For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers,Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night.
Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her,Fold our hands round her knees, and cling?O that man's heart were as fire and could spring to her,Fire, or the strength of the streams that spring!For the stars and the winds are unto herAs raiment, as songs of the harp-player;For the risen stars and the fallen cling to her,And the southwest-wind and the west-wind sing.
For winter's rains and ruins are over,And all the season of snows and sins;The days dividing lover and lover,The light that loses, the night that wins;And time remember'd is grief forgotten,And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,And in green underwood and coverBlossom by blossom the spring begins.
The full streams feed on flower of rushes,Ripe grasses trammel a travelling foot,The faint fresh flame of the young year flushesFrom leaf to flower and flower to fruit;And fruit and leaf are as gold and fire,And the oat is heard above the lyre,And the hoofed heel of a satyr crushesThe chestnut-husk at the chestnut-root.
And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night,Fleeter of foot than the fleet-foot kid,Follows with dancing and fills with delightThe Maenad and the Bassarid;And soft as lips that laugh and hideThe laughing leaves of the trees divide,And screen from seeing and leave in sightThe god pursuing, the maiden hid.
The ivy falls with the Bacchanal's hairOver her eyebrows hiding her eyes;The wild vine slipping down leaves bareHer bright breast shortening into sighs;The wild vine slips with the weight of its leaves,But the berried ivy catches and cleavesTo the limbs that glitter, the feet that scareThe wolf that follows, the fawn that flies.
Algernon Charles Swinburne. 1837-1909
809. Hertha
I AM that which began;Out of me the years roll;Out of me God and man;I am equal and whole;God changes, and man, and the form of them bodily; I am the soul.
Before ever land was,Before ever the sea,Or soft hair of the grass,Or fair limbs of the tree,Or the flesh-colour'd fruit of my branches, I was, and thy soul was inme.
First life on my sourcesFirst drifted and swam;Out of me are the forcesThat save it or damn;Out of me man and woman, and wild-beast and bird: before God was, Iam.
Beside or above meNaught is there to go;Love or unlove me,Unknow me or know,I am that which unloves me and loves; I am stricken, and I am theblow.
I the mark that is miss'dAnd the arrows that miss,I the mouth that is kiss'dAnd the breath in the kiss,The search, and the sought, and the seeker, the soul and the body thatis.
I am that thing which blessesMy spirit elate;That which caressesWith hands uncreateMy limbs unbegotten that measure the length of the measure of fate.
But what thing dost thou now,Looking Godward, to cry,'I am I, thou art thou,I am low, thou art high'?I am thou, whom thou seekest to find him; find thou but thyself, thouart I.
I the grain and the furrow,The plough-cloven clodAnd the ploughshare drawn thorough,The germ and the sod,The deed and the doer, the seed and the sower, the dust which is God.
Hast thou known how I fashion'd thee,Child, underground?Fire that impassion'd thee,Iron that bound,Dim changes of water, what thing of all these hast thou known of orfound?
Canst thou say in thine heartThou hast seen with thine eyesWith what cunning of artThou wast wrought in what wise,By what force of what stuff thou wast shapen, and shown on my breastto the skies?
Who hath given, who hath sold it thee,Knowledge of me?Has the wilderness told it thee?Hast thou learnt of the sea?Hast thou communed in spirit with night? have the winds taken counselwith thee?
Have I set such a starTo show light on thy browThat thou sawest from afarWhat I show to thee now?Have ye spoken as brethren together, the sun and the mountains andthou?
What is here, dost thou know it?What was, hast thou known?Prophet nor poetNor tripod nor throneNor spirit nor flesh can make answer, but only thy mother alone.
Mother, not maker,Born, and not made;Though her children forsake her,Allured or afraid,Praying prayers to the God of their fashion, she stirs not for allthat have pray'd.
A creed is a rod,And a crown is of night;But this thing is God,To be man with thy might,To grow straight in the strength of thy spirit, and live out thy lifeas the light.
I am in thee to save thee,As my soul in thee saith;Give thou as I gave thee,Thy life-blood and breath,Green leaves of thy labour, white flowers of thy thought, and redfruit of thy death.
Be the ways of thy givingAs mine were to thee;The free life of thy living,Be the gift of it free;Not as servant to lord, nor as master to slave, shalt thou give theeto me.
O children of banishment,Souls overcast,Were the lights ye see vanish meantAlway to last,Ye would know not the sun overshining the shadows and stars overpast.
I that saw where ye trodThe dim paths of the nightSet the shadow call'd GodIn your skies to give light;But the morning of manhood is risen, and the shadowless soul is insight.
The tree many-rootedThat swells to the skyWith frondage red-fruited,The life-tree am I;In the buds of your lives is the sap of my leaves: ye shall live andnot die.
But the Gods of your fashionThat take and that give,In their pity and passionThat scourge and forgive,They are worms that are bred in the bark that falls off; they shalldie and not live.
My own blood is what stanchesThe wounds in my bark;Stars caught in my branchesMake day of the dark,And are worshipp'd as suns till the sunrise shall tread out theirfires as a spark.
Where dead ages hide underThe live roots of the tree,In my darkness the thunderMakes utterance of me;In the clash of my boughs with each other ye hear the waves sound ofthe sea.
That noise is of Time,As his feathers are spreadAnd his feet set to climbThrough the boughs overhead,And my foliage rings round him and rustles, and branches are bent withhis tread.
The storm-winds of agesBlow through me and cease,The war-wind that rages,The spring-wind of peace,Ere the breath of them roughen my tresses, ere one of my blossomsincrease.
All sounds of all changes,All shadows and lightsOn the world's mountain-rangesAnd stream-riven heights,Whose tongue is the wind's tongue and language of storm-clouds onearth-shaking nights;
All forms of all faces,All works of all handsIn unsearchable placesOf time-stricken lands,All death and all life, and all reigns and all ruins, drop through meas sands.
Though sore be my burdenAnd more than ye know,And my growth have no guerdonBut only to grow,Yet I fail not of growing for lightnings above me or deathworms below.
These too have their part in me,As I too in these;Such fire is at heart in me,Such sap is this tree's,Which hath in it all sounds and all secrets of infinite lands and ofseas.
In the spring-colour'd hoursWhen my mind was as May'sThere brake forth of me flowersBy centuries of days,Strong blossoms with perfume of manhood, shot out from my spirit asrays.
And the sound of them springingAnd smell of their shootsWere as warmth and sweet singingAnd strength to my roots;And the lives of my children made perfect with freedom of soul were myfruits.
I bid you but be;I have need not of prayer;I have need of you freeAs your mouths of mine air;That my heart may be greater within me, beholding the fruits of mefair.
More fair than strange fruit isOf faiths ye espouse;In me only the root isThat blooms in your boughs;Behold now your God that ye made you, to feed him with faith of yourvows.
In the darkening and whiteningAbysses adored,With dayspring and lightningFor lamp and for sword,God thunders in heaven, and his angels are red with the wrath of theLord.
O my sons, O too dutifulToward Gods not of me,Was not I enough beautiful?Was it hard to be free?For behold, I am with you, am in you and of you; look forth now andsee.
Lo, wing'd with world's wonders,With miracles shod,With the fires of his thundersFor raiment and rod,God trembles in heaven, and his angels are white with the terror ofGod.
For his twilight is come on him,His anguish is here;And his spirits gaze dumb on him,Grown gray from his fear;And his hour taketh hold on him stricken, the last of his infiniteyear.
Thought made him and breaks him,Truth slays and forgives;But to you, as time takes him,This new thing it gives,Even love, the beloved Republic, that feeds upon freedom and lives.
For truth only is living,Truth only is whole,And the love of his givingMan's polestar and pole;Man, pulse of my centre, and fruit of my body, and seed of my soul.
One birth of my bosom;One beam of mine eye;One topmost blossomThat scales the sky;Man, equal and one with me, man that is made of me, man that is I.
Algernon Charles Swinburne. 1837-1909
810. Ave atque Vale (IN MEMORY OF CHARLES BAUDELAIRE)
SHALL I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel,Brother, on this that was the veil of thee?Or quiet sea-flower moulded by the sea,Or simplest growth of meadow-sweet or sorrel,Such as the summer-sleepy Dryads weave,Waked up by snow-soft sudden rains at eve?Or wilt thou rather, as on earth before,Half-faded fiery blossoms, pale with heatAnd full of bitter summer, but more sweetTo thee than gleanings of a northern shoreTrod by no tropic feet?
For always thee the fervid languid gloriesAllured of heavier suns in mightier skies;Thine ears knew all the wandering watery sighsWhere the sea sobs round Lesbian promontories,The barren kiss of piteous wave to waveThat knows not where is that Leucadian graveWhich hides too deep the supreme head of song.Ah, salt and sterile as her kisses were,The wild sea winds her and the green gulfs bearHither and thither, and vex and work her wrong,Blind gods that cannot spare.
Thou sawest, in thine old singing season, brother,Secrets and sorrows unbeheld of us:Fierce loves, and lovely leaf-buds poisonous,Bare to thy subtler eye, but for none otherBlowing by night in some unbreathed-in clime;The hidden harvest of luxurious time,Sin without shape, and pleasure without speech;And where strange dreams in a tumultuous sleepMake the shut eyes of stricken spirits weep;And with each face thou sawest the shadow on each,Seeing as men sow men reap.
O sleepless heart and sombre soul unsleeping,That were athirst for sleep and no more lifeAnd no more love, for peace and no more strife!Now the dim gods of death have in their keepingSpirit and body and all the springs of song,Is it well now where love can do no wrong,Where stingless pleasure has no foam or fangBehind the unopening closure of her lips?Is it not well where soul from body slipsAnd flesh from bone divides without a pangAs dew from flower-bell drips?
It is enough; the end and the beginningAre one thing to thee, who art past the end.O hand unclasp'd of unbeholden friend,For thee no fruits to pluck, no palms for winning,No triumph and no labour and no lust,Only dead yew-leaves and a little dust.O quiet eyes wherein the light saith naught,Whereto the day is dumb, nor any nightWith obscure finger silences your sight,Nor in your speech the sudden soul speaks thought,Sleep, and have sleep for light.
Now all strange hours and all strange loves are over,Dreams and desires and sombre songs and sweet,Hast thou found place at the great knees and feetOf some pale Titan-woman like a lover,Such as thy vision here solicited,Under the shadow of her fair vast head,The deep division of prodigious breasts,The solemn slope of mighty limbs asleep,The weight of awful tresses that still keepThe savour and shade of old-world pine-forestsWhere the wet hill-winds weep?
Hast thou found any likeness for thy vision?O gardener of strange flowers, what bud, what bloom,Hast thou found sown, what gather'd in the gloom?What of despair, of rapture, of derision,What of life is there, what of ill or good?Are the fruits gray like dust or bright like blood?Does the dim ground grow any seed of ours,The faint fields quicken any terrene root,In low lands where the sun and moon are muteAnd all the stars keep silence? Are there flowersAt all, or any fruit?
Alas, but though my flying song flies after,O sweet strange elder singer, thy more fleetSinging, and footprints of thy fleeter feet,Some dim derision of mysterious laughterFrom the blind tongueless warders of the dead,Some gainless glimpse of Proserpine's veil'd head,Some little sound of unregarded tearsWept by effaced unprofitable eyes,And from pale mouths some cadence of dead sighs—These only, these the hearkening spirit hears,Sees only such things rise.
Thou art far too far for wings of words to follow,Far too far off for thought or any prayer.What ails us with thee, who art wind and air?What ails us gazing where all seen is hollow?Yet with some fancy, yet with some desire,Dreams pursue death as winds a flying fire,Our dreams pursue our dead and do not find.Still, and more swift than they, the thin flame flies,The low light fails us in elusive skies,Still the foil'd earnest ear is deaf, and blindAre still the eluded eyes.
Not thee, O never thee, in all time's changes,Not thee, but this the sound of thy sad soul,The shadow of thy swift spirit, this shut scrollI lay my hand on, and not death estrangesMy spirit from communion of thy song—These memories and these melodies that throngVeil'd porches of a Muse funereal—These I salute, these touch, these clasp and foldAs though a hand were in my hand to hold,Or through mine ears a mourning musicalOf many mourners roll'd.
I among these, I also, in such stationAs when the pyre was charr'd, and piled the sods.And offering to the dead made, and their gods,The old mourners had, standing to make libation,I stand, and to the Gods and to the deadDo reverence without prayer or praise, and shedOffering to these unknown, the gods of gloom,And what of honey and spice my seed-lands bear,And what I may of fruits in this chill'd air,And lay, Orestes-like, across the tombA curl of sever'd hair.
But by no hand nor any treason stricken,Not like the low-lying head of Him, the King,The flame that made of Troy a ruinous thing,Thou liest and on this dust no tears could quicken.There fall no tears like theirs that all men hearFall tear by sweet imperishable tearDown the opening leaves of holy poets' pages.Thee not Orestes, not Electra mourns;But bending us-ward with memorial urnsThe most high Muses that fulfil all agesWeep, and our God's heart yearns.
For, sparing of his sacred strength, not oftenAmong us darkling here the lord of lightMakes manifest his music and his mightIn hearts that open and in lips that softenWith the soft flame and heat of songs that shine.Thy lips indeed he touch'd with bitter wine,And nourish'd them indeed with bitter bread;Yet surely from his hand thy soul's food came,The fire that scarr'd thy spirit at his flameWas lighted, and thine hungering heart he fedWho feeds our hearts with fame.
Therefore he too now at thy soul's sunsetting,God of all suns and songs, he too bends downTo mix his laurel with thy cypress crown,And save thy dust from blame and from forgetting.Therefore he too, seeing all thou wert and art,Compassionate, with sad and sacred heart,Mourns thee of many his children the last dead,And hollows with strange tears and alien sighsThine unmelodious mouth and sunless eyes,And over thine irrevocable headSheds light from the under skies.
And one weeps with him in the ways Lethean,And stains with tears her changing bosom chill;That obscure Venus of the hollow hill,That thing transform'd which was the Cytherean,With lips that lost their Grecian laugh divineLong since, and face no more call'd Erycine—A ghost, a bitter and luxurious god.Thee also with fair flesh and singing spellDid she, a sad and second prey, compelInto the footless places once more trod,And shadows hot from hell.
And now no sacred staff shall break in blossom,No choral salutation lure to lightA spirit sick with perfume and sweet nightAnd love's tired eyes and hands and barren bosom.There is no help for these things; none to mend,And none to mar; not all our songs, O friend,Will make death clear or make life durable.Howbeit with rose and ivy and wild vineAnd with wild notes about this dust of thineAt least I fill the place where white dreams dwellAnd wreathe an unseen shrine.
Sleep; and if life was bitter to thee, pardon,If sweet, give thanks; thou hast no more to live;And to give thanks is good, and to forgive.Out of the mystic and the mournful gardenWhere all day through thine hands in barren braidWove the sick flowers of secrecy and shade,Green buds of sorrow and sin, and remnants gray,Sweet-smelling, pale with poison, sanguine-hearted,Passions that sprang from sleep and thoughts that started,Shall death not bring us all as thee one dayAmong the days departed?
For thee, O now a silent soul, my brother,Take at my hands this garland, and farewell.Thin is the leaf, and chill the wintry smell,And chill the solemn earth, a fatal mother,With sadder than the Niobean womb,And in the hollow of her breasts a tomb.Content thee, howsoe'er, whose days are done;There lies not any troublous thing before,Nor sight nor sound to war against thee more,For whom all winds are quiet as the sun,All waters as the shore.
Algernon Charles Swinburne. 1837-1909
811. Itylus
SWALLOW, my sister, O sister swallow,How can thine heart be full of the spring?A thousand summers are over and dead.What hast thou found in the spring to follow?What hast thou found in thine heart to sing?What wilt thou do when the summer is shed?
O swallow, sister, O fair swift swallow,Why wilt thou fly after spring to the south,The soft south whither thine heart is set?Shall not the grief of the old time follow?Shall not the song thereof cleave to thy mouth?Hast thou forgotten ere I forget?
Sister, my sister, O fleet sweet swallow,Thy way is long to the sun and the south;But I, fulfill'd of my heart's desire,Shedding my song upon height, upon hollow,From tawny body and sweet small mouthFeed the heart of the night with fire.
I the nightingale all spring through,O swallow, sister, O changing swallow,All spring through till the spring be done,Clothed with the light of the night on the dew,Sing, while the hours and the wild birds follow,Take fight and follow and find the sun.
Sister, my sister, O soft light swallow,Though all things feast in the spring's guest-chamber,How hast thou heart to be glad thereof yet?For where thou fliest I shall not follow,Till life forget and death remember,Till thou remember and I forget.
Swallow, my sister, O singing swallow,I know not how thou hast heart to sing.Hast thou the heart? is it all past over?Thy lord the summer is good to follow,And fair the feet of thy lover the spring:But what wilt thou say to the spring thy lover?
O swallow, sister, O fleeting swallow,My heart in me is a molten emberAnd over my head the waves have met.But thou wouldst tarry or I would followCould I forget or thou remember,Couldst thou remember and I forget.
O sweet stray sister, O shifting swallow,The heart's division divideth us.Thy heart is light as a leaf of a tree;But mine goes forth among sea-gulfs hollowTo the place of the slaying of Itylus,The feast of Daulis, the Thracian sea.
O swallow, sister, O rapid swallow,I pray thee sing not a little space.Are not the roofs and the lintels wet?The woven web that was plain to follow,The small slain body, the flower-like face,Can I remember if thou forget?
O sister, sister, thy first-begotten!The hands that cling and the feet that follow,The voice of the child's blood crying yet,Who hath remember'd me? who hath forgotten?Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow,But the world shall end when I forget.
William Dean Howells. b. 1837
812. Earliest Spring
TOSSING his mane of snows in wildest eddies and tangles,Lion-like March cometh in, hoarse, with tempestuous breath,Through all the moaning chimneys, and 'thwart all the hollows andanglesRound the shuddering house, threating of winter and death.
But in my heart I feel the life of the wood and the meadowThrilling the pulses that own kindred with fibres that liftBud and blade to the sunward, within the inscrutable shadow,Deep in the oak's chill core, under the gathering drift.
Nay, to earth's life in mine some prescience, or dream, or desire(How shall I name it aright?) comes for a moment and goes—Rapture of life ineffable, perfect—as if in the brier,Leafless there by my door, trembled a sense of the rose.
Bret Harte. 1839-1902
813. What the Bullet sang
O JOY of creation,To be!O rapture, to flyAnd be free!Be the battle lost or won,Though its smoke shall hide the sun,I shall find my love—the oneBorn for me!
I shall know him where he standsAll alone,With the power in his handsNot o'erthrown;I shall know him by his face,By his godlike front and grace;I shall hold him for a spaceAll my own!
It is he—O my love!So bold!It is I—all thy loveForetold!It is I—O love, what bliss!Dost thou answer to my kiss?O sweetheart! what is thisLieth there so cold?
John Todhunter. 1839-1916
814. Maureen
O, YOU plant the pain in my heart with your wistful eyes,Girl of my choice, Maureen!Will you drive me mad for the kisses your shy, sweet mouth denies,Maureen?
Like a walking ghost I am, and no words to woo,White rose of the West, Maureen:For it 's pale you are, and the fear that 's on you is over me too,Maureen!
Sure it 's one complaint that 's on us, asthore, this day,Bride of my dreams, Maureen:The smart of the bee that stung us his honey must cure, they say,Maureen!
I'll coax the light to your eyes, and the rose to your face,Mavourneen, my own Maureen!When I feel the warmth of your breast, and your nest is my arm'sembrace,Maureen!
O where was the King o' the World that day—only me?My one true love, Maureen!And you the Queen with me there, and your throne in my heart, machree,Maureen!
John Todhunter. 1839-1916
815. Aghadoe
THERE 's a glade in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, Aghadoe,There 's a green and silent glade in Aghadoe,Where we met, my love and I, Love's fair planet in the sky,O'er that sweet and silent glade in Aghadoe.
There 's a glen in Aghadoe, Aghadoe, Aghadoe,There 's a deep and secret glen in Aghadoe,Where I hid from the eyes of the red-coats and their spies,That year the trouble came to Aghadoe.
O, my curse on one black heart in Aghadoe, Aghadoe,On Shaun Dhu, my mother's son in Aghadoe!When your throat fries in hell's drouth, salt the flame be in yourmouth,For the treachery you did in Aghadoe!
For they track'd me to that glen in Aghadoe, Aghadoe,When the price was on his head in Aghadoe:O'er the mountain, through the wood, as I stole to him with food,Where in hiding lone he lay in Aghadoe.
But they never took him living in Aghadoe, Aghadoe;With the bullets in his heart in Aghadoe,There he lay, the head, my breast keeps the warmth of where 'twouldrest,Gone, to win the traitor's gold, from Aghadoe!
I walk'd to Mallow town from Aghadoe, Aghadoe,Brought his head from the gaol's gate to Aghadoe;Then I cover'd him with fern, and I piled on him the cairn,Like an Irish King he sleeps in Aghadoe.
O, to creep into that cairn in Aghadoe, Aghadoe!There to rest upon his breast in Aghadoe!Sure your dog for you could die with no truer heart than I,Your own love, cold on your cairn in Aghadoe.
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. b. 1840
816. Song
O FLY not, Pleasure, pleasant-hearted Pleasure;Fold me thy wings, I prithee, yet and stay:For my heart no measureKnows, nor other treasureTo buy a garland for my love to-day.
And thou, too, Sorrow, tender-hearted Sorrow,Thou gray-eyed mourner, fly not yet away:For I fain would borrowThy sad weeds to-morrow,To make a mourning for love's yesterday.
The voice of Pity, Time's divine dear Pity,Moved me to tears: I dared not say them nay,But passed forth from the city,Making thus my dittyOf fair love lost for ever and a day.
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. b. 1840
817. The Desolate City
DARK to me is the earth. Dark to me are the heavens.Where is she that I loved, the woman with eyes like stars?Desolate are the streets. Desolate is the city.A city taken by storm, where none are left but the slain.
Sadly I rose at dawn, undid the latch of my shutters,Thinking to let in light, but I only let in love.Birds in the boughs were awake; I listen'd to their chaunting;Each one sang to his love; only I was alone.
This, I said in my heart, is the hour of life and of pleasure.Now each creature on earth has his joy, and lives in the sun,Each in another's eyes finds light, the light of compassion,This is the moment of pity, this is the moment of love.
Speak, O desolate city! Speak, O silence in sadness!Where is she that I loved in my strength, that spoke to my soul?Where are those passionate eyes that appeal'd to my eyes in passion?Where is the mouth that kiss'd me, the breast I laid to my own?
Speak, thou soul of my soul, for rage in my heart is kindled.Tell me, where didst thou flee in the day of destruction and fear?See, my arms still enfold thee, enfolding thus all heaven,See, my desire is fulfill'd in thee, for it fills the earth.
Thus in my grief I lamented. Then turn'd I from the window,Turn'd to the stair, and the open door, and the empty street,Crying aloud in my grief, for there was none to chide me,None to mock my weakness, none to behold my tears.
Groping I went, as blind. I sought her house, my beloved's.There I stopp'd at the silent door, and listen'd and tried thelatch.Love, I cried, dost thou slumber? This is no hour for slumber,This is the hour of love, and love I bring in my hand.
I knew the house, with its windows barr'd, and its leafless fig-tree,Climbing round by the doorstep, the only one in the street;I knew where my hope had climb'd to its goal and there encircledAll that those desolate walls once held, my beloved's heart.
There in my grief she consoled me. She loved me when I loved not.She put her hand in my hand, and set her lips to my lips.She told me all her pain and show'd me all her trouble.I, like a fool, scarce heard, hardly return'd her kiss.
Love, thy eyes were like torches. They changed as I beheld them.Love, thy lips were like gems, the seal thou settest on my life.Love, if I loved not then, behold this hour thy vengeance;This is the fruit of thy love and thee, the unwise grown wise.
Weeping strangled my voice. I call'd out, but none answer'd;Blindly the windows gazed back at me, dumbly the door;See whom I love, who loved me, look'd not on my yearning,Gave me no more her hands to kiss, show'd me no more her soul.
Therefore the earth is dark to me, the sunlight blackness,Therefore I go in tears and alone, by night and day;Therefore I find no love in heaven, no light, no beauty,A heaven taken by storm, where none are left but the slain!
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. b. 1840
818. With Esther
HE who has once been happy is for ayeOut of destruction's reach. His fortune thenHolds nothing secret; and Eternity,Which is a mystery to other men,Has like a woman given him its joy.Time is his conquest. Life, if it should fret.Has paid him tribute. He can bear to die,He who has once been happy! When I setThe world before me and survey its range,Its mean ambitions, its scant fantasies,The shreds of pleasure which for lack of changeMen wrap around them and call happiness,The poor delights which are the tale and sumOf the world's courage in its martyrdom;
When I hear laughter from a tavern door,When I see crowds agape and in the rainWatching on tiptoe and with stifled roarTo see a rocket fired or a bull slain,When misers handle gold, when oratorsTouch strong men's hearts with glory till they weep,When cities deck their streets for barren warsWhich have laid waste their youth, and when I keepCalmly the count of my own life and seeOn what poor stuff my manhood's dreams were fedTill I too learn'd what dole of vanityWill serve a human soul for daily bread,—Then I remember that I once was youngAnd lived with Esther the world's gods among.
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. b. 1840
819. To Manon, on his Fortune in loving Her
I DID not choose thee, dearest. It was LoveThat made the choice, not I. Mine eyes were blindAs a rude shepherd's who to some lone groveHis offering brings and cares not at what shrineHe bends his knee. The gifts alone were mine;The rest was Love's. He took me by the hand,And fired the sacrifice, and poured the wine,And spoke the words I might not understand.I was unwise in all but the dear chanceWhich was my fortune, and the blind desireWhich led my foolish steps to Love's abode,And youth's sublime unreason'd prescienceWhich raised an altar and inscribed in fireIts dedication To the Unknown God.
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. b. 1840
820. St. Valentine's Day
TO-DAY, all day, I rode upon the down,With hounds and horsemen, a brave companyOn this side in its glory lay the sea,On that the Sussex weald, a sea of brown.The wind was light, and brightly the sun shone,And still we gallop'd on from gorse to gorse:And once, when check'd, a thrush sang, and my horsePrick'd his quick ears as to a sound unknown.I knew the Spring was come. I knew it evenBetter than all by this, that through my chaseIn bush and stone and hill and sea and heavenI seem'd to see and follow still your face.Your face my quarry was. For it I rode,My horse a thing of wings, myself a god.
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. b. 1840
821. Gibraltar
SEVEN weeks of sea, and twice seven days of stormUpon the huge Atlantic, and once moreWe ride into still water and the calmOf a sweet evening, screen'd by either shoreOf Spain and Barbary. Our toils are o'er,Our exile is accomplish'd. Once againWe look on Europe, mistress as of yoreOf the fair earth and of the hearts of men.Ay, this is the famed rock which HerculesAnd Goth and Moor bequeath'd us. At this doorEngland stands sentry. God! to hear the shrillSweet treble of her fifes upon the breeze,And at the summons of the rock gun's roarTo see her red coats marching from the hill!
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. b. 1840
822. Written at Florence
O WORLD, in very truth thou art too young;When wilt thou learn to wear the garb of age?World, with thy covering of yellow flowers,Hast thou forgot what generations sprungOut of thy loins and loved thee and are gone?Hast thou no place in all their heritageWhere thou dost only weep, that I may comeNor fear the mockery of thy yellow flowers?O world, in very truth thou art too young.The heroic wealth of passionate emprizeBuilt thee fair cities for thy naked plains:How hast thou set thy summer growth amongThe broken stones which were their palaces!Hast thou forgot the darkness where he liesWho made thee beautiful, or have thy beesFound out his grave to build their honeycombs?
O world, in very truth thou art too young:They gave thee love who measured out thy skies,And, when they found for thee another star,Who made a festival and straightway hungThe jewel on thy neck. O merry world,Hast thou forgot the glory of those eyesWhich first look'd love in thine? Thou hast not furl'dOne banner of thy bridal car for them.O world, in very truth thou art too young.There was a voice which sang about thy spring,Till winter froze the sweetness of his lips,And lo, the worms had hardly left his tongueBefore thy nightingales were come again.O world, what courage hast thou thus to sing?Say, has thy merriment no secret pain,No sudden weariness that thou art young?
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt. b. 1840
823. The Two Highwaymen
I LONG have had a quarrel set with TimeBecause he robb'd me. Every day of lifeWas wrested from me after bitter strife:I never yet could see the sun go downBut I was angry in my heart, nor hearThe leaves fall in the wind without a tearOver the dying summer. I have knownNo truce with Time nor Time's accomplice, Death.The fair world is the witness of a crimeRepeated every hour. For life and breathAre sweet to all who live; and bitterlyThe voices of these robbers of the heathSound in each ear and chill the passer-by.—What have we done to thee, thou monstrous Time?What have we done to Death that we must die?
Henry Austin Dobson. b. 1840
824. A Garden Song
HERE in this sequester'd closeBloom the hyacinth and rose,Here beside the modest stockFlaunts the flaring hollyhock;Here, without a pang, one seesRanks, conditions, and degrees.
All the seasons run their raceIn this quiet resting-place;Peach and apricot and figHere will ripen and grow big;Here is store and overplus,—More had not Alcinoüs!
Here, in alleys cool and green,Far ahead the thrush is seen;Here along the southern wallKeeps the bee his festival;All is quiet else—afarSounds of toil and turmoil are.
Here be shadows large and long;Here be spaces meet for song;Grant, O garden-god, that I,Now that none profane is nigh,—Now that mood and moment please,—Find the fair Pierides!
Henry Austin Dobson. b. 1840
825. Urceus Exit Triolet
I INTENDED an Ode,And it turn'd to a SonnetIt began a la mode,I intended an Ode;But Rose cross'd the roadIn her latest new bonnet;I intended an Ode;And it turn'd to a Sonnet.
Henry Austin Dobson. b. 1840
826. In After Days Rondeau
IN after days when grasses highO'er-top the stone where I shall lie,Though ill or well the world adjustMy slender claim to honour'd dust,I shall not question nor reply.
I shall not see the morning sky;I shall not hear the night-wind sigh;I shall be mute, as all men mustIn after days!
But yet, now living, fain would IThat some one then should testify,Saying—'He held his pen in trustTo Art, not serving shame or lust.'Will none?—Then let my memory dieIn after days!
Henry Clarence Kendall. 1841-1882
827. Mooni
HE that is by Mooni nowSees the water-sapphires gleamingWhere the River Spirit, dreaming,Sleeps by fall and fountain streamingUnder lute of leaf and bough!—Hears what stamp of Storm with stress is,Psalms from unseen wildernessesDeep amongst far hill-recesses—He that is by Mooni now.
Yea, for him by Mooni's margeSings the yellow-hair'd September,With the face the gods remember,When the ridge is burnt to ember,And the dumb sea chains the barge!Where the mount like molten brass is,Down beneath fern-feather'd passesNoonday dew in cool green grassesGleams on him by Mooni's marge.
Who that dwells by Mooni yet,Feels in flowerful forest archesSmiting wings and breath that parchesWhere strong Summer's path of march is,And the suns in thunder set!Housed beneath the gracious kirtleOf the shadowy water-myrtle—Winds may kiss with heat and hurtle,He is safe by Mooni yet!
Days there were when he who sings(Dumb so long through passion's losses)Stood where Mooni's water crossesShining tracks of green-hair'd mosses,Like a soul with radiant wings:Then the psalm the wind rehearses—Then the song the stream disperses—Lent a beauty to his verses,Who to-night of Mooni sings.
Ah, the theme—the sad, gray theme!Certain days are not above me,Certain hearts have ceased to love me,Certain fancies fail to move me,Like the effluent morning dream.Head whereon the white is stealing,Heart whose hurts are past all healing,Where is now the first, pure feeling?Ah, the theme—the sad, gray theme!. . .Still to be by Mooni cool—Where the water-blossoms glister,And by gleaming vale and vistaSits the English April's sister,Soft and sweet and wonderful!Just to rest beneath the burningOuter world—its sneers and spurning—Ah, my heart—my heart is yearningStill to be by Mooni cool!
Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy. 1844-1881
828. Ode
WE are the music-makers,And we are the dreamers of dreams,Wandering by lone sea-breakers,And sitting by desolate streams;World-losers and world-forsakers,On whom the pale moon gleams:Yet we are the movers and shakersOf the world for ever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless dittiesWe build up the world's great cities,And out of a fabulous storyWe fashion an empire's glory:One man with a dream, at pleasure,Shall go forth and conquer a crown;And three with a new song's measureCan trample an empire down.
We, in the ages lyingIn the buried past of the earth,Built Nineveh with our sighing,And Babel itself with our mirth;And o'erthrew them with prophesyingTo the old of the new world's worth;For each age is a dream that is dying,Or one that is coming to birth.
Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy. 1844-1881
829. Song
I MADE another garden, yea,For my new Love:I left the dead rose where it layAnd set the new above.Why did my Summer not begin?Why did my heart not haste?My old Love came and walk'd therein,And laid the garden waste.
She enter'd with her weary smile,Just as of old;She look'd around a little whileAnd shiver'd with the cold:Her passing touch was death to all,Her passing look a blight;She made the white rose-petals fall,And turn'd the red rose white.
Her pale robe clinging to the grassSeem'd like a snakeThat bit the grass and ground, alas!And a sad trail did make.She went up slowly to the gate,And then, just as of yore,She turn'd back at the last to waitAnd say farewell once more.
Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy. 1844-1881
830. The Fountain of Tears
IF you go over desert and mountain,Far into the country of Sorrow,To-day and to-night and to-morrow,And maybe for months and for years;You shall come with a heart that is burstingFor trouble and toiling and thirsting,You shall certainly come to the fountainAt length,—to the Fountain of Tears.
Very peaceful the place is, and solelyFor piteous lamenting and sighing,And those who come living or dyingAlike from their hopes and their fears;Full of cypress-like shadows the place is,And statues that cover their faces:But out of the gloom springs the holyAnd beautiful Fountain of Tears.
And it flows and it flows with a motionSo gentle and lovely and listless,And murmurs a tune so resistlessTo him who hath suffer'd and hears—You shall surely—without a word spoken,Kneel down there and know your heart broken,And yield to the long-curb'd emotionThat day by the Fountain of Tears.
For it grows and it grows, as though leapingUp higher the more one is thinking;And ever its tunes go on sinkingMore poignantly into the ears:Yea, so blessed and good seems that fountain,Reach'd after dry desert and mountain,You shall fall down at length in your weepingAnd bathe your sad face in the tears.
Then alas! while you lie there a seasonAnd sob between living and dying,And give up the land you were tryingTo find 'mid your hopes and your fears;—O the world shall come up and pass o'er you,Strong men shall not stay to care for you,Nor wonder indeed for what reasonYour way should seem harder than theirs.
But perhaps, while you lie, never liftingYour cheek from the wet leaves it presses,Nor caring to raise your wet tressesAnd look how the cold world appears—O perhaps the mere silences round you—All things in that place Grief hath found you—Yea, e'en to the clouds o'er you drifting,May soothe you somewhat through your tears.
You may feel, when a falling leaf brushesYour face, as though some one had kiss'd you,Or think at least some one who miss'd youHad sent you a thought,—if that cheers;Or a bird's little song, faint and broken,May pass for a tender word spoken:—Enough, while around you there rushesThat life-drowning torrent of tears.
And the tears shall flow faster and faster,Brim over and baffle resistance,And roll down blear'd roads to each distanceOf past desolation and years;Till they cover the place of each sorrow,And leave you no past and no morrow:For what man is able to masterAnd stem the great Fountain of Tears?
But the floods and the tears meet and gather;The sound of them all grows like thunder:—O into what bosom, I wonder,Is pour'd the whole sorrow of years?For Eternity only seems keepingAccount of the great human weeping:May God, then, the Maker and Father—May He find a place for the tears!
John Boyle O'Reilly. 1844-1890
831. A White Rose
THE red rose whispers of passion,And the white rose breathes of love;O the red rose is a falcon,And the white rose is a dove.
But I send you a cream-white rosebudWith a flush on its petal tips;For the love that is purest and sweetestHas a kiss of desire on the lips.
Robert Bridges. b. 1844
832. My Delight and Thy Delight
MY delight and thy delightWalking, like two angels white,In the gardens of the night:
My desire and thy desireTwining to a tongue of fire,Leaping live, and laughing higher:
Thro' the everlasting strifeIn the mystery of life.
Love, from whom the world begun,Hath the secret of the sun.
Love can tell, and love alone,Whence the million stars were strewn,Why each atom knows its own,How, in spite of woe and death,Gay is life, and sweet is breath:
This he taught us, this we knew,Happy in his science true,Hand in hand as we stood'Neath the shadows of the wood,Heart to heart as we layIn the dawning of the day.
Robert Bridges. b. 1844
833. Spirits
ANGEL spirits of sleep,White-robed, with silver hair,In your meadows fair,Where the willows weep,And the sad moonbeamOn the gliding streamWrites her scatter'd dream:
Angel spirits of sleep,Dancing to the weirIn the hollow roarOf its waters deep;Know ye how men sayThat ye haunt no moreIsle and grassy shoreWith your moonlit play;That ye dance not here,White-robed spirits of sleep,All the summer nightThreading dances light?
Robert Bridges. b. 1844
834. Nightingales
BEAUTIFUL must be the mountains whence ye come,And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefromYe learn your song:Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there,Among the flowers, which in that heavenly airBloom the year long!
Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams:Our song is the voice of desire, that haunts our dreams,A throe of the heart,Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound,No dying cadence nor long sigh can sound,For all our art.
Alone, aloud in the raptured ear of menWe pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then,As night is withdrawnFrom these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May,Dream, while the innumerable choir of dayWelcome the dawn.
Robert Bridges. b. 1844
835. A Passer-by
WHITHER, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding,Leaning across the bosom of the urgent West,That fearest nor sea rising, nor sky clouding,Whither away, fair rover, and what thy quest?Ah! soon, when Winter has all our vales opprest,When skies are cold and misty, and hail is hurling,Wilt thou glìde on the blue Pacific, or restIn a summer haven asleep, thy white sails furling.
I there before thee, in the country that well thou knowest,Already arrived am inhaling the odorous air:I watch thee enter unerringly where thou goest,And anchor queen of the strange shipping there,Thy sails for awnings spread, thy masts bare:Nor is aught from the foaming reef to the snow-capp'd grandestPeak, that is over the feathery palms, more fairThan thou, so upright, so stately and still thou standest.
And yet, O splendid ship, unhail'd and nameless,I know not if, aiming a fancy, I rightly divineThat thou hast a purpose joyful, a courage blameless,Thy port assured in a happier land than mine.But for all I have given thee, beauty enough is thine,As thou, aslant with trim tackle and shrouding,From the proud nostril curve of a prow's lineIn the offing scatterest foam, thy white sails crowding.
Robert Bridges. b. 1844
836. Absence
WHEN my love was away,Full three days were not sped,I caught my fancy astrayThinking if she were dead,
And I alone, alone:It seem'd in my miseryIn all the world was noneEver so lone as I.
I wept; but it did not shameNor comfort my heart: awayI rode as I might, and cameTo my love at close of day.
The sight of her still'd my fears,My fairest-hearted love:And yet in her eyes were tears:Which when I question'd of,
'O now thou art come,' she cried,''Tis fled: but I thought to-dayI never could here abide,If thou wert longer away.'
Robert Bridges. b. 1844
837. On a Dead Child
PERFECT little body, without fault or stain on thee,With promise of strength and manhood full and fair!Though cold and stark and bare,The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee.
Thy mother's treasure wert thou;—alas! no longerTo visit her heart with wondrous joy; to beThy father's pride:—ah, heMust gather his faith together, and his strength make stronger.
To me, as I move thee now in the last duty,Dost thou with a turn or gesture anon respond;Startling my fancy fondWith a chance attitude of the head, a freak of beauty.
Thy hand clasps, as 'twas wont, my finger, and holds it:But the grasp is the clasp of Death, heartbreaking and stiff;Yet feels to my hand as if'Twas still thy will, thy pleasure and trust that enfolds it.
So I lay thee there, thy sunken eyelids closing,—Go lie thou there in thy coffin, thy last little bed!—Propping thy wise, sad head,Thy firm, pale hands across thy chest disposing.
So quiet! doth the change content thee?—Death, whither hath he takenthee?To a world, do I think, that rights the disaster of this?The vision of which I miss,Who weep for the body, and wish but to warm thee and awaken thee?
Ah! little at best can all our hopes avail usTo lift this sorrow, or cheer us, when in the dark,Unwilling, alone we embark,And the things we have seen and have known and have heard of, fail us.
Robert Bridges. b. 1844
838. Pater Filio
SENSE with keenest edge unused,Yet unsteel'd by scathing fire;Lovely feet as yet unbruisedOn the ways of dark desire;Sweetest hope that lookest smilingO'er the wilderness defiling!
Why such beauty, to be blightedBy the swarm of foul destruction?Why such innocence delighted,When sin stalks to thy seduction?All the litanies e'er chauntedShall not keep thy faith undaunted.
I have pray'd the sainted MorningTo unclasp her hands to hold thee;From resignful Eve's adorningStol'n a robe of peace to enfold thee;With all charms of man's contrivingArm'd thee for thy lonely striving.
Me too once unthinking Nature,—Whence Love's timeless mockery took me,—Fashion'd so divine a creature,Yea, and like a beast forsook me.I forgave, but tell the measureOf her crime in thee, my treasure.
Robert Bridges. b. 1844
839. Winter Nightfall
THE day begins to droop,—Its course is done:But nothing tells the placeOf the setting sun.
The hazy darkness deepens,And up the laneYou may hear, but cannot see,The homing wain.
An engine pants and humsIn the farm hard by:Its lowering smoke is lostIn the lowering sky.
The soaking branches drip,And all night throughThe dropping will not ceaseIn the avenue.
A tall man there in the houseMust keep his chair:He knows he will never againBreathe the spring air:
His heart is worn with work;He is giddy and sickIf he rise to go as farAs the nearest rick:
He thinks of his morn of life,His hale, strong years;And braves as he may the nightOf darkness and tears.
Robert Bridges. b. 1844
840. When Death to Either shall come
WHEN Death to either shall come,—I pray it be first to me,—Be happy as ever at home,If so, as I wish, it be.
Possess thy heart, my own;And sing to the child on thy knee,Or read to thyself aloneThe songs that I made for thee.
Andrew Lang. 1844-1912
841. The Odyssey
AS one that for a weary space has lainLull'd by the song of Circe and her wineIn gardens near the pale of Proserpine,Where that Aeaean isle forgets the main,And only the low lutes of love complain,And only shadows of wan lovers pine—As such an one were glad to know the brineSalt on his lips, and the large air again—So gladly from the songs of modern speechMen turn, and see the stars, and feel the freeShrill wind beyond the close of heavy flowers,And through the music of the languid hoursThey hear like Ocean on a western beachThe surge and thunder of the Odyssey.
William Ernest Henley. 1849-1903
842. Invictus
OUT of the night that covers me,Black as the pit from pole to pole,I thank whatever gods may beFor my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstanceI have not winced nor cried aloud.Under the bludgeonings of chanceMy head is bloody, but unbow'd.
Beyond this place of wrath and tearsLooms but the Horror of the shade,And yet the menace of the yearsFinds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,How charged with punishments the scroll,I am the master of my fate:I am the captain of my soul.
William Ernest Henley. 1849-1903
843. Margaritae Sorori
A LATE lark twitters from the quiet skies:And from the west,Where the sun, his day's work ended,Lingers as in content,There falls on the old, gray cityAn influence luminous and serene,A shining peace.
The smoke ascendsIn a rosy-and-golden haze. The spiresShine and are changed. In the valleyShadows rise. The lark sings on. The sun,Closing his benediction,Sinks, and the darkening airThrills with a sense of the triumphing night—Night with her train of starsAnd her great gift of sleep.
So be my passing!My task accomplish'd and the long day done,My wages taken, and in my heartSome late lark singing,Let me be gather'd to the quiet west,The sundown splendid and serene,Death.
William Ernest Henley. 1849-1903
844. England, My England
WHAT have I done for you,England, my England?What is there I would not do,England, my own?With your glorious eyes austere,As the Lord were walking near,Whispering terrible things and dearAs the Song on your bugles blown,England—Round the world on your bugles blown!
Where shall the watchful sun,England, my England,Match the master-work you've done,England, my own?When shall he rejoice agenSuch a breed of mighty menAs come forward, one to ten,To the Song on your bugles blown,England—Down the years on your bugles blown?