From peaks that clove the heavens asunderThe hunchback god with sooty clawsLoomed o'er the night, a cloud of thunder,And hurled the net of mortal laws;It flew, and all the world grew dimmer;Its blackness blotted out the stars,Then fell across the rosy glimmerThat told where Venus couched with Mars.And, when the steeds that draw the morningSpurned from their Orient hooves the spray,All vainly soared the lavrock, warningThose tangled lovers of the day:Still with those twin white waves in blossom,Against the warrior's rock-broad breast,The netted light of the foam-born bosomBreathed like a sea at rest.And light was all that followed after,Light the derision of the sky,Light the divine Olympian laughterOf kindlier gods in days gone by:Low to her lover whispered Venus,"The shameless net be praised for this—When night herself no more could screen usIt snared us one more hour of bliss."
From peaks that clove the heavens asunderThe hunchback god with sooty clawsLoomed o'er the night, a cloud of thunder,And hurled the net of mortal laws;It flew, and all the world grew dimmer;Its blackness blotted out the stars,Then fell across the rosy glimmerThat told where Venus couched with Mars.
And, when the steeds that draw the morningSpurned from their Orient hooves the spray,All vainly soared the lavrock, warningThose tangled lovers of the day:Still with those twin white waves in blossom,Against the warrior's rock-broad breast,The netted light of the foam-born bosomBreathed like a sea at rest.
And light was all that followed after,Light the derision of the sky,Light the divine Olympian laughterOf kindlier gods in days gone by:Low to her lover whispered Venus,"The shameless net be praised for this—When night herself no more could screen usIt snared us one more hour of bliss."
How like the sky she bends above her child,One with the great horizon of her pain!No sob from our low seas where woe runs wild,No weeping cloud, no momentary rain,Can mar the heaven-high visage of her grief,That frozen anguish, proud, majestic, dumb.She stoops in pity above the labouring earth,Knowing how fond, how briefIs all its hope, past, present, and to come,She stoops in pity, and yearns to assuage its dearth.Through that fair face the whole dark universeSpeaks, as a thorn-tree speaks thro' one white flower;And all those wrenched Promethean souls that curseThe gods, but cannot die before their hour,Find utterance in her beauty. That fair headBows over all earth's graves. It was her cryMen heard in Rama when the twisted waysWith children's blood ran red!Her silence utters all the sea would sigh;And, in her face, the whole earth's anguish prays.It is the pity, the pity of human loveThat strains her face, upturned to meet the doom,And her deep bosom, like a snow-white doveFrozen upon its nest, ne'er to resumeIts happy breathing o'er the golden braceWhose fostering was her death. Death, death aloneCan break the anguished horror of that spell!The sorrow on her faceIs sealed: the living flesh is turned to stone;She knows all, all, that Life and Time can tell.Ah, yet, her woman's love, so vast, so tender;Her woman's body, hurt by every dart;Braving the thunder, still, still hide the slenderSoft frightened child beneath her mighty heart.She is all one mute immortal cry, one briefInfinite pang of such victorious painThat she transcends the heavens and bows them down!The majesty of griefIs hers, and her dominion must remainEternal. God nor man usurps that crown.
How like the sky she bends above her child,One with the great horizon of her pain!No sob from our low seas where woe runs wild,No weeping cloud, no momentary rain,Can mar the heaven-high visage of her grief,That frozen anguish, proud, majestic, dumb.She stoops in pity above the labouring earth,Knowing how fond, how briefIs all its hope, past, present, and to come,She stoops in pity, and yearns to assuage its dearth.
Through that fair face the whole dark universeSpeaks, as a thorn-tree speaks thro' one white flower;And all those wrenched Promethean souls that curseThe gods, but cannot die before their hour,Find utterance in her beauty. That fair headBows over all earth's graves. It was her cryMen heard in Rama when the twisted waysWith children's blood ran red!Her silence utters all the sea would sigh;And, in her face, the whole earth's anguish prays.
It is the pity, the pity of human loveThat strains her face, upturned to meet the doom,And her deep bosom, like a snow-white doveFrozen upon its nest, ne'er to resumeIts happy breathing o'er the golden braceWhose fostering was her death. Death, death aloneCan break the anguished horror of that spell!The sorrow on her faceIs sealed: the living flesh is turned to stone;She knows all, all, that Life and Time can tell.
Ah, yet, her woman's love, so vast, so tender;Her woman's body, hurt by every dart;Braving the thunder, still, still hide the slenderSoft frightened child beneath her mighty heart.She is all one mute immortal cry, one briefInfinite pang of such victorious painThat she transcends the heavens and bows them down!The majesty of griefIs hers, and her dominion must remainEternal. God nor man usurps that crown.
IHeight over height, the purple pine-woods clung to the rich Arcadian mountains,Holy-sweet as a sea of incense, under the low dark crimson skies:Glad were the glens where Eurydice bathed, in the beauty of dawn, at the haunted fountainsDeep in the blue hyacinthine hollows, whence all the rivers of Arcady rise.Long ago, ah, white as the Huntress, cold and sweet as the petals that crowned her,Fair and fleet as the fawn that shakes the dew from the fern at break of day,Wreathed with the clouds of her dusky hair that swept in a sun-bright glory around her,Down to the valley her light feet stole, ah, soft as the budding of flowers in May.Down to the valley she came, for far and far below in the dreaming meadowsPleaded ever the Voice of voices, calling his love by her golden name;So she arose from her home in the hills, and down through the blossoms that danced with their shadows,Out of the blue of the dreaming distance, down to the heart of her lover she came.* * * *Red were the lips that hovered above her lips in the flowery haze of the June-day:Red as a rose through the perfumed mist of passion that reeled before her eyes;Strong the smooth young sunburnt arms that folded her heart to his heart in the noon-day,Strong and supple with throbbing sunshine under the blinding southern skies.Ah, the kisses, the little murmurs, mad with pain for their phantom fleetness,Mad with pain for the passing of love that lives, they dreamed—as we dream—for an hour!Ah, the sudden tempest of passion, mad with pain, for its over-sweetness,As petal by petal and pang by pang their love broke out into perfect flower.Ah, the wonder as once he wakened, out of a dream of remembered blisses,Couched in the meadows of dreaming blossom to feel, like the touch of a flower on his eyes,Cool and fresh with the fragment dews of dawn the touch of her light swift kisses,Shed from the shadowy rose of her face between his face and the warm blue skies.IILost in his new desireHe dreamed away the hours;His lyreLay buried in the flowers:To whom the King of Heaven,Apollo, lord of light,Had givenBeauty and love and might:Might, if he would, to slayAll evil dreams and pierceThe greyVeil of the Universe;With Love that holds in oneSacred and ancient bondThe sunAnd all the vast beyond,And Beauty to enthrallThe soul of man to heaven:Yea, allThese gifts to him were given.Yet in his dream's desireHe drowsed away the hours:His lyreLay buried in the flowers.Then in his wrath aroseApollo, lord of light,That showsThe wrong deed from the right;And by what radiant lawsO'erruling human needs,The causeTo consequence proceeds;How balanced is the swayHe gives each mortal doom:How dayDemands the atoning gloom:How all good things awaitThe soul that pays the priceTo FateBy equal sacrifice;And how on him that sleepsFor less than labour's sakeThere creepsUncharmed, the Pythian snake.IIILulled by the wash of the feathery grasses, a sea with many a sun-swept billow,Heart to heart in the heart of the summer, lover by lover asleep they lay,Hearing only the whirring cicala that chirruped awhile at their poppied pillowFaint and sweet as the murmur of men that laboured in villages far away.Was not the menace indeed more silent? Ah, what care for labour and sorrow?Gods in the meadows of moly and amaranth surely might envy their deep sweet bedHere where the butterflies troubled the lilies of peace, and took no thought for the morrow,And golden-girdled bees made feast as over the lotus the soft sun spread.Nearer, nearer the menace glided, out of the gorgeous gloom around them,Out of the poppy-haunted shadows deep in the heart of the purple brake;Till through the hush and the heat as they lay, and their own sweet listless dreams enwound them,—Mailed and mottled with hues of the grape-bloom suddenly, quietly, glided the snake.Subtle as jealousy, supple as falsehood, diamond-headed and cruel as pleasure,Coil by coil he lengthened and glided, straight to the fragrant curve of her throat:There in the print of the last of the kisses that still glowed red from the sweet long pressure,Fierce as famine and swift as lightning over the glittering lyre he smote.IVAnd over the cold white body of love and delightOrpheus arose in the terrible storm of his grief,With quivering up-clutched hands, deadly and white,And his whole soul wavered and shook like a wind-swept leaf:As a leaf that beats on a mountain, his spirit in vainAssaulted his doom and beat on the Gates of Death:Then prone with his arms o'er the lyre he sobbed out his pain,And the tense chords faintly gave voice to the pulse of his breath.And he heard it and rose, once again, with the lyre in his hand,And smote out the cry that his white-lipped sorrow denied:And the grief's mad ecstasy swept o'er the summer-sweet land,And gathered the tears of all Time in the rush of its tide.There was never a love forsaken or faith forsworn,There was never a cry for the living or moan for the slain,But was voiced in that great consummation of song; ay, and borneTo storm on the Gates of the land whence none cometh again.Transcending the barriers of earth, comprehending them allHe followed the soul of his loss with the night in his eyes;And the portals lay bare to him there; and he heard the faint callOf his love o'er the rabble that wails by the river of sighs.Yea, there in the mountains before him, he knew it of old,That portal enormous of gloom, he had seen it in dreams,When the secrets of Time and of Fate through his harmonies rolled;And behind it he heard the dead moan by their desolate streams.And he passed through the Gates with the light and the cloud of his song,Dry-shod over Lethe he passed to the chasms of hell;And the hosts of the dead made mock at him, crying,How longHave we dwelt in the darkness, oh fool, and shall evermore dwell?Did our lovers not love us?the grey skulls hissed in his face;Were our lips not red? Were these cavernous eyes not bright?Yet us, whom the soft flesh clothed with such roseate grace,Our lovers would loathe if we ever returned to their sight!Oh then, through the soul of the Singer, a pity so vastMixed with his anguish that, smiting anew on his lyre,He caught up the sorrows of hell in his utterance at last,Comprehending the need of them all in his own great desire.VAnd they that were dead, in his radiant music, remembered the dawn with its low deep crimson,Heard the murmur of doves in the pine-wood, heard the moan of the roaming sea,Heard and remembered the little kisses, in woods where the last of the moon yet swims onFragrant, flower-strewn April nights of young-eyed lovers in Arcady;Saw the soft blue veils of shadow floating over the billowy grassesUnder the crisp white curling clouds that sailed and trailed through the melting blue;Heard once more the quarrel of lovers above them pass, as a lark-song passes,Light and bright, till it vanished away in an eye-bright heaven of silvery dew.Out of the dark, ah, white as the Huntress, cold and sweet as the petals that crowned her,Fair and fleet as a fawn that shakes the dew from the fern at break of day;Wreathed with the clouds of her dusky hair that swept in a sun-bright glory around her,On through the deserts of hell she came, and the brown air bloomed with the light of May.On through the deserts of hell she came; for over the fierce and frozen meadowsPleaded ever the Voice of voices, calling his love by her golden name;So she arose from her grave in the darkness, and up through the wailing fires and shadows,On by chasm and cliff and cavern, out of the horrors of death she came.Then had she followed him, then had he won her, striking a chord that should echo for ever,Had he been steadfast only a little, nor paused in the great transcendent song;But ere they had won to the glory of day, he came to the brink of the flaming riverAnd ceased, to look on his love a moment, a little moment, and overlong.VIO'er Phlegethon he stood:Below him roared and flamedThe floodFor utmost anguish named.And lo, across the night,The shining form he knewWith lightSwift footsteps upward drew.Up through the desolate landsShe stole, a ghostly star,With handsOutstretched to him afar.With arms outstretched, she cameIn yearning majesty,The sameRoyal Eurydice.Up through the ghastly deadShe came, with shining eyesAnd redSweet lips of child-surprise.Up through the wizened crowdsShe stole, as steals the moonThrough cloudsOf flowery mist in June.He gazed: he ceased to smiteThe golden-chorded lyre:DelightConsumed his heart with fire.Though in that deadly landHis task was but half-done,His handDrooped, and the fight half-won.He saw the breasts that glowed,The fragrant clouds of hair:They flowedAround him like a snare.O'er Phlegethon he stood,For utmost anguish named:The floodBelow him roared and flamed.Out of his hand the lyreSuddenly slipped and fell,The fireAcclaimed it into hell.The night grew dark again:There came a bitter cryOf pain,Oh Love, once more I die!And lo, the earth-dawn broke,And like a wraith she fled:He wokeAlone: his love was dead.He woke on earth: the dayShone coldly: at his sideThere layThe body of his bride.VIIOnly now when the purple vintage bubbles and winks in the autumn glory,Only now when the great white oxen drag the weight of the harvest home,Sunburnt labourers, under the star of the sunset, sing as an old-world storyHow two pale and thwarted lovers ever through Arcady still must roam.Faint as the silvery mists of morning over the peaks that the noonday parches,On through the haunts of the gloaming musk-rose, down to the rivers that glisten below,Ever they wander from meadow to pinewood, under the whispering woodbine arches,Faint as the mists of the dews of the dusk when violets dream and the moon-winds blow.Though the golden lute of Orpheus gathered the splendours of earth and heaven,All the golden greenwood notes and all the chimes of the changing sea,Old men over the fires of winter murmur again that he was not givenThe steadfast heart divine to rule that infinite freedom of harmony.Therefore he failed, say they; but we, that have no wisdom, can only rememberHow through the purple perfumed pinewoods white Eurydice roamed and sung:How through the whispering gold of the wheat, where the poppy burned like a crimson ember,Down to the valley in beauty she came, and under her feet the flowers upsprung.Down to the valley she came, for far and far below in the dreaming meadowsPleaded ever the Voice of voices, calling his love by her golden name;So she arose from her home in the hills, and down through the blossoms that danced with their shadows,Out of the blue of the dreaming distance, down to the heart of her lover she came.
I
Height over height, the purple pine-woods clung to the rich Arcadian mountains,Holy-sweet as a sea of incense, under the low dark crimson skies:Glad were the glens where Eurydice bathed, in the beauty of dawn, at the haunted fountainsDeep in the blue hyacinthine hollows, whence all the rivers of Arcady rise.
Long ago, ah, white as the Huntress, cold and sweet as the petals that crowned her,Fair and fleet as the fawn that shakes the dew from the fern at break of day,Wreathed with the clouds of her dusky hair that swept in a sun-bright glory around her,Down to the valley her light feet stole, ah, soft as the budding of flowers in May.
Down to the valley she came, for far and far below in the dreaming meadowsPleaded ever the Voice of voices, calling his love by her golden name;So she arose from her home in the hills, and down through the blossoms that danced with their shadows,Out of the blue of the dreaming distance, down to the heart of her lover she came.
* * * *
Red were the lips that hovered above her lips in the flowery haze of the June-day:Red as a rose through the perfumed mist of passion that reeled before her eyes;Strong the smooth young sunburnt arms that folded her heart to his heart in the noon-day,Strong and supple with throbbing sunshine under the blinding southern skies.
Ah, the kisses, the little murmurs, mad with pain for their phantom fleetness,Mad with pain for the passing of love that lives, they dreamed—as we dream—for an hour!Ah, the sudden tempest of passion, mad with pain, for its over-sweetness,As petal by petal and pang by pang their love broke out into perfect flower.
Ah, the wonder as once he wakened, out of a dream of remembered blisses,Couched in the meadows of dreaming blossom to feel, like the touch of a flower on his eyes,Cool and fresh with the fragment dews of dawn the touch of her light swift kisses,Shed from the shadowy rose of her face between his face and the warm blue skies.
II
Lost in his new desireHe dreamed away the hours;His lyreLay buried in the flowers:
To whom the King of Heaven,Apollo, lord of light,Had givenBeauty and love and might:
Might, if he would, to slayAll evil dreams and pierceThe greyVeil of the Universe;
With Love that holds in oneSacred and ancient bondThe sunAnd all the vast beyond,
And Beauty to enthrallThe soul of man to heaven:Yea, allThese gifts to him were given.
Yet in his dream's desireHe drowsed away the hours:His lyreLay buried in the flowers.
Then in his wrath aroseApollo, lord of light,That showsThe wrong deed from the right;
And by what radiant lawsO'erruling human needs,The causeTo consequence proceeds;
How balanced is the swayHe gives each mortal doom:How dayDemands the atoning gloom:
How all good things awaitThe soul that pays the priceTo FateBy equal sacrifice;
And how on him that sleepsFor less than labour's sakeThere creepsUncharmed, the Pythian snake.
III
Lulled by the wash of the feathery grasses, a sea with many a sun-swept billow,Heart to heart in the heart of the summer, lover by lover asleep they lay,Hearing only the whirring cicala that chirruped awhile at their poppied pillowFaint and sweet as the murmur of men that laboured in villages far away.
Was not the menace indeed more silent? Ah, what care for labour and sorrow?Gods in the meadows of moly and amaranth surely might envy their deep sweet bedHere where the butterflies troubled the lilies of peace, and took no thought for the morrow,And golden-girdled bees made feast as over the lotus the soft sun spread.
Nearer, nearer the menace glided, out of the gorgeous gloom around them,Out of the poppy-haunted shadows deep in the heart of the purple brake;Till through the hush and the heat as they lay, and their own sweet listless dreams enwound them,—Mailed and mottled with hues of the grape-bloom suddenly, quietly, glided the snake.
Subtle as jealousy, supple as falsehood, diamond-headed and cruel as pleasure,Coil by coil he lengthened and glided, straight to the fragrant curve of her throat:There in the print of the last of the kisses that still glowed red from the sweet long pressure,Fierce as famine and swift as lightning over the glittering lyre he smote.
IV
And over the cold white body of love and delightOrpheus arose in the terrible storm of his grief,With quivering up-clutched hands, deadly and white,And his whole soul wavered and shook like a wind-swept leaf:
As a leaf that beats on a mountain, his spirit in vainAssaulted his doom and beat on the Gates of Death:Then prone with his arms o'er the lyre he sobbed out his pain,And the tense chords faintly gave voice to the pulse of his breath.
And he heard it and rose, once again, with the lyre in his hand,And smote out the cry that his white-lipped sorrow denied:And the grief's mad ecstasy swept o'er the summer-sweet land,And gathered the tears of all Time in the rush of its tide.
There was never a love forsaken or faith forsworn,There was never a cry for the living or moan for the slain,But was voiced in that great consummation of song; ay, and borneTo storm on the Gates of the land whence none cometh again.
Transcending the barriers of earth, comprehending them allHe followed the soul of his loss with the night in his eyes;And the portals lay bare to him there; and he heard the faint callOf his love o'er the rabble that wails by the river of sighs.
Yea, there in the mountains before him, he knew it of old,That portal enormous of gloom, he had seen it in dreams,When the secrets of Time and of Fate through his harmonies rolled;And behind it he heard the dead moan by their desolate streams.
And he passed through the Gates with the light and the cloud of his song,Dry-shod over Lethe he passed to the chasms of hell;And the hosts of the dead made mock at him, crying,How longHave we dwelt in the darkness, oh fool, and shall evermore dwell?
Did our lovers not love us?the grey skulls hissed in his face;Were our lips not red? Were these cavernous eyes not bright?Yet us, whom the soft flesh clothed with such roseate grace,Our lovers would loathe if we ever returned to their sight!
Oh then, through the soul of the Singer, a pity so vastMixed with his anguish that, smiting anew on his lyre,He caught up the sorrows of hell in his utterance at last,Comprehending the need of them all in his own great desire.
V
And they that were dead, in his radiant music, remembered the dawn with its low deep crimson,Heard the murmur of doves in the pine-wood, heard the moan of the roaming sea,Heard and remembered the little kisses, in woods where the last of the moon yet swims onFragrant, flower-strewn April nights of young-eyed lovers in Arcady;
Saw the soft blue veils of shadow floating over the billowy grassesUnder the crisp white curling clouds that sailed and trailed through the melting blue;Heard once more the quarrel of lovers above them pass, as a lark-song passes,Light and bright, till it vanished away in an eye-bright heaven of silvery dew.
Out of the dark, ah, white as the Huntress, cold and sweet as the petals that crowned her,Fair and fleet as a fawn that shakes the dew from the fern at break of day;Wreathed with the clouds of her dusky hair that swept in a sun-bright glory around her,On through the deserts of hell she came, and the brown air bloomed with the light of May.
On through the deserts of hell she came; for over the fierce and frozen meadowsPleaded ever the Voice of voices, calling his love by her golden name;So she arose from her grave in the darkness, and up through the wailing fires and shadows,On by chasm and cliff and cavern, out of the horrors of death she came.
Then had she followed him, then had he won her, striking a chord that should echo for ever,Had he been steadfast only a little, nor paused in the great transcendent song;But ere they had won to the glory of day, he came to the brink of the flaming riverAnd ceased, to look on his love a moment, a little moment, and overlong.
VI
O'er Phlegethon he stood:Below him roared and flamedThe floodFor utmost anguish named.
And lo, across the night,The shining form he knewWith lightSwift footsteps upward drew.
Up through the desolate landsShe stole, a ghostly star,With handsOutstretched to him afar.
With arms outstretched, she cameIn yearning majesty,The sameRoyal Eurydice.
Up through the ghastly deadShe came, with shining eyesAnd redSweet lips of child-surprise.
Up through the wizened crowdsShe stole, as steals the moonThrough cloudsOf flowery mist in June.
He gazed: he ceased to smiteThe golden-chorded lyre:DelightConsumed his heart with fire.
Though in that deadly landHis task was but half-done,His handDrooped, and the fight half-won.
He saw the breasts that glowed,The fragrant clouds of hair:They flowedAround him like a snare.
O'er Phlegethon he stood,For utmost anguish named:The floodBelow him roared and flamed.
Out of his hand the lyreSuddenly slipped and fell,The fireAcclaimed it into hell.
The night grew dark again:There came a bitter cryOf pain,Oh Love, once more I die!
And lo, the earth-dawn broke,And like a wraith she fled:He wokeAlone: his love was dead.
He woke on earth: the dayShone coldly: at his sideThere layThe body of his bride.
VII
Only now when the purple vintage bubbles and winks in the autumn glory,Only now when the great white oxen drag the weight of the harvest home,Sunburnt labourers, under the star of the sunset, sing as an old-world storyHow two pale and thwarted lovers ever through Arcady still must roam.
Faint as the silvery mists of morning over the peaks that the noonday parches,On through the haunts of the gloaming musk-rose, down to the rivers that glisten below,Ever they wander from meadow to pinewood, under the whispering woodbine arches,Faint as the mists of the dews of the dusk when violets dream and the moon-winds blow.
Though the golden lute of Orpheus gathered the splendours of earth and heaven,All the golden greenwood notes and all the chimes of the changing sea,Old men over the fires of winter murmur again that he was not givenThe steadfast heart divine to rule that infinite freedom of harmony.
Therefore he failed, say they; but we, that have no wisdom, can only rememberHow through the purple perfumed pinewoods white Eurydice roamed and sung:How through the whispering gold of the wheat, where the poppy burned like a crimson ember,Down to the valley in beauty she came, and under her feet the flowers upsprung.
Down to the valley she came, for far and far below in the dreaming meadowsPleaded ever the Voice of voices, calling his love by her golden name;So she arose from her home in the hills, and down through the blossoms that danced with their shadows,Out of the blue of the dreaming distance, down to the heart of her lover she came.
Love, so strangely lost and found,Love, beyond the seas of death,Love, immortally re-crowned,Love, who swayest this mortal breath,Sweetlier to thy lover's earSteals the tale that ne'er was told;Bright-eyes, ah, thine arms are near,Nearer now than e'er of old.When on earth thy hands were mine,Mine to hold for evermore,Oft we watched the sunset shineLonely from this wave-beat shore;Pent in prison-cells of clay,Time had power on thee and me:Thou and heaven are one to-day,One with earth and sky and sea;Indivisible and one!Beauty hath unlocked the Gate,Oped the portals of the sun,Burst the bars of Time and Fate!Violets in the dawn of SpringHold the secret of thine eyes:Lilies bare their breasts and flingScents of thee from Paradise.Brooklets have thy talk by rote;Thy farewells array the West;Fur that clasped thee round the throatLeaps—a squirrel—to its nest!Backward from a sparkling eyeHalf-forgotten jests returnWhere the rabbit lollops byHurry-scurry through the fern!Roses where I lonely passBrush my brow and breathe thy kiss:Zephyrs, whispering through the grass,Lure me on from bliss to bliss:Here thy robe is rustling close,There thy fluttering lace is blown,—All the tide of beauty flowsTributary to thine own.Birds that sleek their shining throatsCapture every curve from thee:All their golden warbled notes,Fragments of thy melody,Crowding, clustering, one by one,Build it upward, spray by spray,Till the lavrock in the sunPours thy rapture down the day.Silver birch and purple pine,Crumpled fern and crimson rose,Flash to feel their beauty thine,Clasp and fold thee, warm and close:Every beat and gleam of wingsHolds thee in its bosom furled;All that chatters, laughs, and sings,Darts thy sparkle round the world.Love, so strangely lost and found,Love, beyond the seas of death,Love, immortally re-crowned,Love, who swayest this mortal breath,Sweetlier to thy lover's earSteals the tale that ne'er was told;Bright eyes, ah, thine arms are near,Nearer now than e'er of old.
Love, so strangely lost and found,Love, beyond the seas of death,Love, immortally re-crowned,Love, who swayest this mortal breath,Sweetlier to thy lover's earSteals the tale that ne'er was told;Bright-eyes, ah, thine arms are near,Nearer now than e'er of old.
When on earth thy hands were mine,Mine to hold for evermore,Oft we watched the sunset shineLonely from this wave-beat shore;Pent in prison-cells of clay,Time had power on thee and me:Thou and heaven are one to-day,One with earth and sky and sea;
Indivisible and one!Beauty hath unlocked the Gate,Oped the portals of the sun,Burst the bars of Time and Fate!Violets in the dawn of SpringHold the secret of thine eyes:Lilies bare their breasts and flingScents of thee from Paradise.
Brooklets have thy talk by rote;Thy farewells array the West;Fur that clasped thee round the throatLeaps—a squirrel—to its nest!Backward from a sparkling eyeHalf-forgotten jests returnWhere the rabbit lollops byHurry-scurry through the fern!
Roses where I lonely passBrush my brow and breathe thy kiss:Zephyrs, whispering through the grass,Lure me on from bliss to bliss:Here thy robe is rustling close,There thy fluttering lace is blown,—All the tide of beauty flowsTributary to thine own.
Birds that sleek their shining throatsCapture every curve from thee:All their golden warbled notes,Fragments of thy melody,Crowding, clustering, one by one,Build it upward, spray by spray,Till the lavrock in the sunPours thy rapture down the day.
Silver birch and purple pine,Crumpled fern and crimson rose,Flash to feel their beauty thine,Clasp and fold thee, warm and close:Every beat and gleam of wingsHolds thee in its bosom furled;All that chatters, laughs, and sings,Darts thy sparkle round the world.
Love, so strangely lost and found,Love, beyond the seas of death,Love, immortally re-crowned,Love, who swayest this mortal breath,Sweetlier to thy lover's earSteals the tale that ne'er was told;Bright eyes, ah, thine arms are near,Nearer now than e'er of old.
O, hedges white with laughing may,O, meadows where we met,This heart of mine will break to-dayUnless ye, too, forget.Breathe not so sweet, breathe not so sweet,But swiftly let me passAcross the fields that felt her feetIn the old time that was.A year ago, but one brief year,O, happy flowering land,We wandered here and whispered there,And hand was warm in hand.O, crisp white clouds beyond the hill,O, lavrock in the skies,Why do ye all remember stillHer bright uplifted eyes.Red heather on the windy moor,Wild thyme beside the way,White jasmine by the cottage door,Harden your hearts to-day.Smile not so kind, smile not so kind,Thou happy haunted place,Or thou wilt strike these poor eyes blindWith her remembered face.
O, hedges white with laughing may,O, meadows where we met,This heart of mine will break to-dayUnless ye, too, forget.
Breathe not so sweet, breathe not so sweet,But swiftly let me passAcross the fields that felt her feetIn the old time that was.
A year ago, but one brief year,O, happy flowering land,We wandered here and whispered there,And hand was warm in hand.
O, crisp white clouds beyond the hill,O, lavrock in the skies,Why do ye all remember stillHer bright uplifted eyes.
Red heather on the windy moor,Wild thyme beside the way,White jasmine by the cottage door,Harden your hearts to-day.
Smile not so kind, smile not so kind,Thou happy haunted place,Or thou wilt strike these poor eyes blindWith her remembered face.
O, unforgotten lips, grey haunting eyes,Soft curving cheeks and heart-remembered brow,It is all true, the old love never dies;And, parted, we must meet for ever now.We did not think it true! We did not thinkLove meant this universal cry of pain,This crown of thorn, this vinegar to drink,This lonely crucifixion o'er again.Yet through the darkness of the sleepless nightYour tortured face comes meekly answering mine;Dumb, but I know why those mute lips are white;Dark, but I know why those dark lashes shine.O, love, love, love, what death can set us freeFrom this implacable ghost of memory?
O, unforgotten lips, grey haunting eyes,Soft curving cheeks and heart-remembered brow,It is all true, the old love never dies;And, parted, we must meet for ever now.
We did not think it true! We did not thinkLove meant this universal cry of pain,This crown of thorn, this vinegar to drink,This lonely crucifixion o'er again.
Yet through the darkness of the sleepless nightYour tortured face comes meekly answering mine;Dumb, but I know why those mute lips are white;Dark, but I know why those dark lashes shine.
O, love, love, love, what death can set us freeFrom this implacable ghost of memory?
Only a little, O Father, only to restOr ever the night comes and the eternal sleep,Only to rest a little, a little to weepIn the dead love's pitiful arms, on the dead love's breast,A little to loosen the frozen fountains, to freeRivers of blood and tears that should slacken the pulseOf this pitiless heart, and appease these pangs that convulseBody and soul; oh, out of Eternity,A moment to whisper, only a moment to tellMy dead, my dead, what words are so helpless to say—The dreams unuttered, the prayers no passion could pray,And then—the eternal sleep or the pains of hell,I could welcome them, Father, gladly as ever a childLaying his head on the pillow might turn to his restAnd remember in dreams, as the hand of the mother is prestOn his hair, how the Pitiful blessed him of old and smiled.
Only a little, O Father, only to restOr ever the night comes and the eternal sleep,Only to rest a little, a little to weepIn the dead love's pitiful arms, on the dead love's breast,
A little to loosen the frozen fountains, to freeRivers of blood and tears that should slacken the pulseOf this pitiless heart, and appease these pangs that convulseBody and soul; oh, out of Eternity,
A moment to whisper, only a moment to tellMy dead, my dead, what words are so helpless to say—The dreams unuttered, the prayers no passion could pray,And then—the eternal sleep or the pains of hell,
I could welcome them, Father, gladly as ever a childLaying his head on the pillow might turn to his restAnd remember in dreams, as the hand of the mother is prestOn his hair, how the Pitiful blessed him of old and smiled.
IThy house is dark and still: I stand once moreBeside the marble door.It opens as of old: thy pale, pale facePeers thro' the narrow space:Thy hands are mine, thy hands are mine to hold,Just as of old.II"Hush! hush! or God will hear us! Ah, speak lowAs Love spake long ago.""Sweet, sweet, are these thine arms, thy breast, thy hairAssuaging my despair,Assuaging the long thirst, quenching the tearsOf all these years?III"Thy house is deep and still: God cannot hear;Sweet, have no fear!Are not thy cold lips crushed against my kiss?Love gives us this,Not God;" but "Ah," she moans, "God hears us; speak,Speak low, hide cheek on cheek."IVOh then what eager whisperings, hoarded long,Sweeter than any song,What treasured news to tell, what hopes, what fears,Gleaned from the barren years,What raptures wrung from out the heart of pain,What wild farewells again!VWhose pity is this? Ah, quick, one kiss! Once moreCloses the marble door!I grope here in the darkness all alone.Across the cold white stone,Over thy tomb, a sudden starlight gleams:Death gave me this—in dreams.
I
Thy house is dark and still: I stand once moreBeside the marble door.It opens as of old: thy pale, pale facePeers thro' the narrow space:Thy hands are mine, thy hands are mine to hold,Just as of old.
II
"Hush! hush! or God will hear us! Ah, speak lowAs Love spake long ago.""Sweet, sweet, are these thine arms, thy breast, thy hairAssuaging my despair,Assuaging the long thirst, quenching the tearsOf all these years?
III
"Thy house is deep and still: God cannot hear;Sweet, have no fear!Are not thy cold lips crushed against my kiss?Love gives us this,Not God;" but "Ah," she moans, "God hears us; speak,Speak low, hide cheek on cheek."
IV
Oh then what eager whisperings, hoarded long,Sweeter than any song,What treasured news to tell, what hopes, what fears,Gleaned from the barren years,What raptures wrung from out the heart of pain,What wild farewells again!
V
Whose pity is this? Ah, quick, one kiss! Once moreCloses the marble door!I grope here in the darkness all alone.Across the cold white stone,Over thy tomb, a sudden starlight gleams:Death gave me this—in dreams.
A drizzle of drifting rainAnd a blurred white lamp o'erhead,That shines as my love will shine againIn the world of the dead.Round me the wet black night,And, afar in the limitless gloom,Crimson and green, two blossoms of light,Two stars of doom.But the night of death is aflareWith a torch of back-blown fire,And the coal-black deeps of the quivering airRend for my soul's desire.Leap, heart, for the pulse and the roarAnd the lights of the streaming trainThat leaps with the heart of thy love once moreOut of the mist and the rain.Out of the desolate yearsThe thundering pageant flows;But I see no more than a window of tearsWhich her face has turned to a rose.
A drizzle of drifting rainAnd a blurred white lamp o'erhead,That shines as my love will shine againIn the world of the dead.
Round me the wet black night,And, afar in the limitless gloom,Crimson and green, two blossoms of light,Two stars of doom.
But the night of death is aflareWith a torch of back-blown fire,And the coal-black deeps of the quivering airRend for my soul's desire.
Leap, heart, for the pulse and the roarAnd the lights of the streaming trainThat leaps with the heart of thy love once moreOut of the mist and the rain.
Out of the desolate yearsThe thundering pageant flows;But I see no more than a window of tearsWhich her face has turned to a rose.
Changed and estranged, like a ghost, I pass the familiar portals,Echoing now like a tomb, they accept me no more as of old;Yet I go wistfully onward, a shade thro' a kingdom of mortalsWanting a face to greet me, a hand to grasp and to hold.Hardly I know as I go if the beautiful City is onlyMocking me under the moon, with its streams and its willows agleam,Whether the City or friends or I that am friendless and lonely,Whether the boys that go by or the time-worn towers be the dream;Whether the walls that I know, or the unknown fugitive faces,Faces like those that I loved, faces that haunt and waylay,Faces so like and unlike, in the dim unforgettable places,Startling the heart into sickness that aches with the sweet of the May,—Whether all these or the world with its wars be the wandering shadows!Ah, sweet over green-gloomed waters the may hangs, crimson and white;And quiet canoes creep down by the warm gold dusk of the meadows,Lapping with little splashes and ripples of silvery light.Others as I have returned: I shall see the old faces to-morrow,Down by the gay-coloured barges, alert for the throb of the oars,Wanting to row once again, or tenderly jesting with sorrowUp the old stairways and noting the strange new names on the doors.Is it a dream? And I know not nor care if there be an awakingEver at all any more, for the years that have torn us apart,Few, so few as they are, will ever be rending and breaking:Sooner by far than I knew have they wrought this change for my heart!Well; I grow used to it now! Could the dream but remain and for ever,With the flowers round the grey quadrangle laughing as time grows old!For the waters go down to the sea, but the sky still gleams on the river!We plucked them—but there shall be lilies, ivory lilies and gold.And still, in the beautiful City, the river of life is no duller,Only a little strange as the eighth hour dreamily chimes,In the City of friends and echoes, ribbons and music and colour,Lilac and blossoming chestnut, willows and whispering limes.Over the Radcliffe Dome the moon as the ghost of a flowerWeary and white awakes in the phantom fields of the sky:The trustful shepherded clouds are asleep over steeple and tower,Dark under Magdalen walls the Cher like a dream goes by.Back, we come wandering back, poor ghosts, to the home that one missesOut in the shelterless world, the world that was heaven to us then,Back from the coil and the vastness, the stars and the boundless abysses,Like monks from a pilgrimage stealing in bliss to their cloisters again.City of dreams that we lost, accept now the gift we inherit—Love, such a love as we knew not of old in the blaze of our noon,We that have found thee at last, half City, half heavenly Spirit,While over a mist of spires the sunset mellows the moon.
Changed and estranged, like a ghost, I pass the familiar portals,Echoing now like a tomb, they accept me no more as of old;Yet I go wistfully onward, a shade thro' a kingdom of mortalsWanting a face to greet me, a hand to grasp and to hold.
Hardly I know as I go if the beautiful City is onlyMocking me under the moon, with its streams and its willows agleam,Whether the City or friends or I that am friendless and lonely,Whether the boys that go by or the time-worn towers be the dream;
Whether the walls that I know, or the unknown fugitive faces,Faces like those that I loved, faces that haunt and waylay,Faces so like and unlike, in the dim unforgettable places,Startling the heart into sickness that aches with the sweet of the May,—
Whether all these or the world with its wars be the wandering shadows!Ah, sweet over green-gloomed waters the may hangs, crimson and white;And quiet canoes creep down by the warm gold dusk of the meadows,Lapping with little splashes and ripples of silvery light.
Others as I have returned: I shall see the old faces to-morrow,Down by the gay-coloured barges, alert for the throb of the oars,Wanting to row once again, or tenderly jesting with sorrowUp the old stairways and noting the strange new names on the doors.
Is it a dream? And I know not nor care if there be an awakingEver at all any more, for the years that have torn us apart,Few, so few as they are, will ever be rending and breaking:Sooner by far than I knew have they wrought this change for my heart!
Well; I grow used to it now! Could the dream but remain and for ever,With the flowers round the grey quadrangle laughing as time grows old!For the waters go down to the sea, but the sky still gleams on the river!We plucked them—but there shall be lilies, ivory lilies and gold.
And still, in the beautiful City, the river of life is no duller,Only a little strange as the eighth hour dreamily chimes,In the City of friends and echoes, ribbons and music and colour,Lilac and blossoming chestnut, willows and whispering limes.
Over the Radcliffe Dome the moon as the ghost of a flowerWeary and white awakes in the phantom fields of the sky:The trustful shepherded clouds are asleep over steeple and tower,Dark under Magdalen walls the Cher like a dream goes by.
Back, we come wandering back, poor ghosts, to the home that one missesOut in the shelterless world, the world that was heaven to us then,Back from the coil and the vastness, the stars and the boundless abysses,Like monks from a pilgrimage stealing in bliss to their cloisters again.
City of dreams that we lost, accept now the gift we inherit—Love, such a love as we knew not of old in the blaze of our noon,We that have found thee at last, half City, half heavenly Spirit,While over a mist of spires the sunset mellows the moon.
IAs I went up the mountain-side,The sea below me glittered wide,And, Eastward, far away, I spiedOn Christmas Day, on Christmas Day,The three great ships that take the tideOn Christmas Day in the morning.IIYe have heard the song, how these must plyFrom the harbours of home to the ports o' the sky!Do ye dream none knoweth the whither and whyOn Christmas Day, on Christmas Day,The three great ships go sailing byOn Christmas Day in the morning?IIIYet, as I live, I never knewThat ever a song could ring so true,Till I saw them break thro' a haze of blueOn Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;And the marvellous ancient flags they flewOn Christmas Day in the morning!IVFrom the heights above the belfried townI saw that the sails were patched and brown,But the flags were a-flame with a great renownOn Christmas Day, on Christmas Day,And on every mast was a golden crownOn Christmas Day in the morning.VMost marvellous ancient ships were these!Were their prows a-plunge to the Chersonese?For the pomp of Rome or the glory of Greece,On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day,Were they out on a quest for the Golden FleeceOn Christmas Day in the morning?VIAnd the sun and the wind they told me thereHow goodly a load the three ships bear,For the first is gold and the second is myrrhOn Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;And the third is frankincense most rareOn Christmas Day in the morning.VIIThey have mixed their shrouds with the golden sky,They have faded away where the last dreams die ...Ah yet, will ye watch, when the mist lifts highOn Christmas Day, on Christmas Day?Will ye see three ships come sailing byOn Christmas Day in the morning?
I
As I went up the mountain-side,The sea below me glittered wide,And, Eastward, far away, I spiedOn Christmas Day, on Christmas Day,The three great ships that take the tideOn Christmas Day in the morning.
II
Ye have heard the song, how these must plyFrom the harbours of home to the ports o' the sky!Do ye dream none knoweth the whither and whyOn Christmas Day, on Christmas Day,The three great ships go sailing byOn Christmas Day in the morning?
III
Yet, as I live, I never knewThat ever a song could ring so true,Till I saw them break thro' a haze of blueOn Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;And the marvellous ancient flags they flewOn Christmas Day in the morning!
IV
From the heights above the belfried townI saw that the sails were patched and brown,But the flags were a-flame with a great renownOn Christmas Day, on Christmas Day,And on every mast was a golden crownOn Christmas Day in the morning.
V
Most marvellous ancient ships were these!Were their prows a-plunge to the Chersonese?For the pomp of Rome or the glory of Greece,On Christmas Day, on Christmas Day,Were they out on a quest for the Golden FleeceOn Christmas Day in the morning?
VI
And the sun and the wind they told me thereHow goodly a load the three ships bear,For the first is gold and the second is myrrhOn Christmas Day, on Christmas Day;And the third is frankincense most rareOn Christmas Day in the morning.
VII
They have mixed their shrouds with the golden sky,They have faded away where the last dreams die ...Ah yet, will ye watch, when the mist lifts highOn Christmas Day, on Christmas Day?Will ye see three ships come sailing byOn Christmas Day in the morning?
Dante saw the great white RoseHalf unclose;Dante saw the golden beesGathering from its heart of goldSweets untold,Love's most honeyed harmonies.Dante saw the threefold bowStrangely glow,Saw the Rainbow Vision rise,And the Flame that wore the crownBending downO'er the flowers of Paradise.Something yet remained, it seems;In his dreamsDante missed—as angels mayIn their white and burning bliss—Some small kissMortals meet with every day.Italy in splendour faints'Neath her saints!O, her great Madonnas, too,Faces calm as any moonGlows in June,Hooded with the night's deep blue!What remains? I pass and hearEverywhere,Ay, or see in silent eyesJust the song she still would singThus—a-swingO'er the cradle where He lies.
Dante saw the great white RoseHalf unclose;Dante saw the golden beesGathering from its heart of goldSweets untold,Love's most honeyed harmonies.
Dante saw the threefold bowStrangely glow,Saw the Rainbow Vision rise,And the Flame that wore the crownBending downO'er the flowers of Paradise.
Something yet remained, it seems;In his dreamsDante missed—as angels mayIn their white and burning bliss—Some small kissMortals meet with every day.
Italy in splendour faints'Neath her saints!O, her great Madonnas, too,Faces calm as any moonGlows in June,Hooded with the night's deep blue!
What remains? I pass and hearEverywhere,Ay, or see in silent eyesJust the song she still would singThus—a-swingO'er the cradle where He lies.