Am I so soon grown tired?—yet this old skyCan open still each morn so blue an eye,This great old river still through nights and daysRun like a happy boy to holidays,This sun be still a bridegroom, though long wed,And still those stars go singing up the night,Glad as yon lark there splashing in the light:Are these old things indeed unwearied,Yet I, so soon grown tired, would creep away to bed!
The year grows still again, the surging wakeOf full-sailed summer folds its furrows up,As after passing of an argosyOld Silence settles back upon the sea,And ocean grows as placid as a cup.Spring, the young morn, and Summer, the strong noon,Have dreamed and done and died for Autumn's sake:Autumn that finds not for a loss so dearSolace in stack and garner hers too soon—Autumn, the faithful widow of the year.
Autumn, a poet once so full of song,Wise in all rhymes of blossom and of bud,Hath lost the early magic of his tongue,And hath no passion in his failing blood.Hear ye no sound of sobbing in the air?'Tis his. Low bending in a secret lane,Late blooms of second childhood in his hair,He tries old magic, like a dotard mage;Tries spell and spell, to weep and try again:Yet not a daisy hears, and everywhereThe hedgerow rattles like an empty cage.
He hath no pleasure in his silken skies,Nor delicate ardours of the yellow land;Yea, dead, for all its gold, the woodland lies,And all the throats of music filled with sand.Neither to him across the stubble fieldMay stack nor garner any comfort bring,Who loveth more this jasmine he hath made,The little tender rhyme he yet can sing,Than yesterday, with all its pompous yield,Or all its shaken laurels on his head.
Summer gone,Winter here;Ways are white,Skies are clear.And the sunA ruddy boyAll day sliding,While at nightThe stars appearLike skaters glidingOn a mere.
The world is wide—around yon court,Where dirty little children play,Another world of street on streetGrows wide and wider every day.
And round the town for endless milesA great strange land of green is spread—O wide the world, O weary-wide,But it is wider overhead.
For could you mount yon glittering stairsAnd on their topmost turret stand,—Still endless shining courts and squares,And lanes of lamps on every hand.
And, might you tread those starry streetsTo where those long perspectives bend,O you would cast you down and die—Street upon street, world without end.
'"Saint Charles," said Thackeray to me, thirty years ago, putting one ofCharles Lamb's letters to his forehead.'—LETTERS OF EDWARD FITZGERALD.
Saint Charles! ah yes, let other menLove Elia for his antic pen,And watch with dilettante eyesHis page for every quaint surprise,Curious ofcaviarephrase.Yea; these who will not also praise?We surely must, but which is moreThe motley that his sorrow wore,Or the great heart whose valorous beatUpheld his brave unfaltering feetAlong the narrow path he chose,And followed faithful to the close?
Yea, Elia, thank thee for thy wit,How poor our laughter, lacking it!For all thy gillyflowers of speechGramercy, Elia; but most richAre we, most holpen, when we meetThee and thy Bridget in the street,Upon that tearful errand set—So often trod, so patient yet!
Midnight, and through the blind the moonlight stealingOn silver feet across the sleeping room,Ah, moonlight, what is this thou art revealing—Her breast, a great sweet lily in the gloom.
It is their bed, white little isle of blissIn the dark wilderness of midnight sea,—Hush! 'tis their hearts still beating from the kiss,The warm dark kiss that only night may see.
Their cheeks still burn, they close and nestle yet,Ere, with faint breath, they falter out good-night,Her hand in his upon the coverletLies in the silver pathway of the light.
(LILLEHAMMER,August22, 1892.)
Nine mystic revolutions of the spheresSince Dante's birth, and lo! a star new-bornShining in heaven: and like a lark at mornSpringing to meet it, straight in all men's ears,A strange new song, which through the listening yearsGrew deep as lonely sobbing from the thornRising at eve, shot through with bitter scorn,Full-throated with the ecstasy of tears.
Long since that star arose, that song upsprang,That shine and sing in heaven above us yet;Since thy white childhood, glorious Beatrice,Dawned like a blessed angel upon his:Thy star it was that did his song beget,Star shining for us still because he sang.
The sun is weary, for he ranSo far and fast to-day;The birds are weary, for who sangSo many songs as they?The bees and butterflies at lastAre tired out, for just think tooHow many gardens through the dayTheir little wings have fluttered through.And so, as all tired people do,They've gone to lay their sleepy headsDeep deep in warm and happy beds.The sun has shut his golden eyeAnd gone to sleep beneath the sky,The birds and butterflies and beesHave all crept into flowers and trees,And all lie quiet, still as mice,Till morning comes—like father's voice.
So Geoffrey, Owen, Phyllis, youMust sleep away till morning too.Close little eyes, down little heads,And sleep—sleep—sleep in happy beds.
Five inches deep Sir Goldfish lies,Here last September was he laid,Poppies these that were his eyes,Of fish-bones were these bluebells made.His fins of gold that to and froWaved and waved so long ago,Still as petals wave and waveTo and fro above his grave.Hearken too! for so his knellTolls all day each tiny bell.
I am so fair that wheresoe'er I wendMen yearn with strange desire to kiss my face,Stretch out their hands to touch me as I pass,And women follow me from place to place.
A poet writing honey of his dearLeaves the wet page,—ah! leaves it long to dry.The bride forgets it is her marriage-morn,The bridegroom too forgets as I go by.
Within the street where my strange feet shall strayAll markets hush and traffickers forget,In my gold head forget their meaner gold,The poor man grows unmindful of his debt.
Two lovers kissing in a secret place,Should I draw nigh,—will never kiss again;I come between the king and his desire,And where I am all loving else is vain.
Lo! when I walk along the woodland wayStrange creatures leer at me with uncouth love,And from the grass reach upward to my breast,And to my mouth lean from the boughs above.
The sleepy kine move round me in desireAnd press their oozy lips upon my hair,Toads kiss my feet and creatures of the mire,The snails will leave their shells to watch me there.
But all this worship, what is it to me?I smite the ox and crush the toad in death:I only know I am so very fair,And that the world was made to give me breath.
I only wait the hour when God shall riseUp from the star where he so long hath sat,And bow before the wonder of my eyesAnd setmethere—I am so fair as that.
And is it true indeed, and must you go,Set out alone across that moorland track,No love avail, though we have loved you so,No voice have any power to call you back?And losing hands stretch after you in vain,And all our eyes grow empty for your lack,Nor hands, nor eyes, know aught of you again.
Dear friend, I shed no tear while yet you stayed,Nor vexed your soul with unavailing word,But you are gone, and now can all be said,And tear and sigh too surely fall unheard.So long I kept for you an undimmed eye,Surely for grief this hour may well be spared,Though could you know I still must keep it dry.
For what can tears avail you? the spring rainThat softly pelts the lattice, as with flowers,Will of its tears a daisied counterpaneWeave for your rest, and all its sound of showersMakes of its sobbing low a cradle song:All tears avail but these salt tears of ours,These tears alone 'tis idle to prolong.
Yet must we shed them, barren though they be,Though bloom nor burden answer as they flow,Though no sun shines that our sad eyes can seeTo throw across their fall hope's radiant bow.Poor selfish tears! we weep them not for him,'Tis our own sorrow that we pity so,'Tis our own loss that leaves our eyes so dim.
Above the town a monstrous wheel is turning,With glowing spokes of red,Low in the west its fiery axle burning;And, lost amid the spaces overhead,A vague white moth, the moon, is fluttering.
Above the town an azure sea is flowing,'Mid long peninsulas of shining sand,From opal unto pearl the moon is growing,Dropped like a shell upon the changing strand.
Within the town the streets grow strange and haunted,And, dark against the western lakes of green,The buildings change to temples, and unwontedShadows and sounds creep in where day has been.
Within the town, the lamps of sin are flaring,Poor foolish men that know not what ye are!Tired traffic still upon his feet is faring—Two lovers meet and kiss and watch a star.
Dear city in the moonlight dreaming,How changed and lovely is your face;Where is the sordid busy schemingThat filled all day the market-place?
Was it but fancy that a rabbleOf money-changers bought and sold,Filling with sacrilegious babbleThis temple-court of solemn gold?
Ah no, poor captive-slave of Croesus,His bond-maid all the toiling day,You, like some hunted child of Jesus,Steal out beneath the moon to pray.
To James Ashcroft Noble,
Poet and Critic, a small acknowledgment of much unforgotten kindness
Poet, a truce to your song!Have you heard the heart sing?Like a brook among trees,Like the humming of bees,Like the ripple of wine:Had you heard, would you stayBlowing bubbles so long?You have ears for the spheres—Have you heard the heart sing?
* * * * *
Have you loved the good books of the world,—And written none?Have you loved the great poet,—And burnt your little rhyme?'O be my friend, and teach me to be thine.'
* * * * *
By many hands the work of God is done,Swart toil, pale thought, flushed dream, he spurneth none:Yea! and the weaver of a little rhymeIs seen his worker in his own full time.
The Décadent was speaking to his soul—Poor useless thing, he said,Why did God burden me with such as thou?The body were enough,The body gives me all.
The soul's a sort of sentimental wifeThat prays and whimpers of the higher life,Objects to latch-keys, and bewails the old,The dear old days, of passion and of dream,When life was a blank canvas, yet untouchedOf the great painter Sin.
Yet, little soul, thou hast fine eyes,And knowest fine airy motions,Hast a voice—Why wilt thou so devote them to the church?
His face grew strangely sweet—As when a toad smiles.He dreamed of a new sin:An incest 'twixt the body and the soul.
He drugged his soul, and in a house of sinShe played all she remembered out of heavenFor him to kiss and clip by.He took a little harlot in his hands,And she made all his veins like boiling oil,Then that grave organ made them cool again.
Then from that day, he used his soulAs bitters to the over dulcet sins,As olives to the fatness of the feast—She made those dear heart-breaking ecstasiesOf minor chords amid the Phrygian flutes,She sauced his sins with splendid memories,Starry regrets and infinite hopes and fears;His holy youth and his first loveMade pearly background to strange-coloured vice.
Sin is no sin when virtue is forgot.It is so good in sin to keep in sightThe white hills whence we fell, to measure by—To say I was so high, so white, so pure,And am so low, so blood-stained and so base;I revel here amid the sweet sweet mireAnd yonder are the hills of morning flowers;So high, so low; so lost and with me yet;To stretch the octave 'twixt the dream and deed,Ah, that's the thrill!To dream so well, to do so ill,—There comes the bitter-sweet that makes the sin.
First drink the stars, then grunt amid the mire,So shall the mire have something of the stars,And the high stars be fragrant of the mire.
The Décadent was speaking to his soul—Dear witch, I said the body was enough.How young, how simple as a suckling child!And then I dreamed—'an incest 'twixt the body and the soul:'Let's wed, I thought, the seraph with the dog,And wait the purple thing that shall be born.
And now look round—seest thou this bloom?Seven petals and each petal seven dyes,The stem is gilded and the root in blood:That came of thee.Yea, all my flowers were single save for thee.I pluck seven fruits from off a single tree,I pluck seven flowers from off a single stem,I light my palace with the seven stars,And eat strange dishes to Gregorian chants:All thanks to thee.
But the soul wept with hollow hectic face,Captive in that lupanar of a man.
And I who passed by heard and wept for both,—The man was once an apple-cheek dear lad,The soul was once an angel up in heaven.
O let the body be a healthy beast,And keep the soul a singing soaring bird;But lure thou not the soul from out the skyTo pipe unto the body in the sty.
As one, the secret lover of a queen,Watches her move within the people's eye,Hears their poor chatter as she passes by,And smiles to think of what his eyes have seen;The little room where love did 'shut them in,'The fragrant couch whereon they twain did lie,And rests his hand where on his heart doth dieA bruised daffodil of last night's sin:
So, Poet, as I read your rhyme once moreHere where a thousand eyes may read it too,I smile your own sweet secret smile at thoseWho deem the outer petals of the roseThe rose's heart—I, who through grace of you,Have known it for my own so long before.
Doth it not thrill thee, Poet,Dead and dust though thou art,To feel how I press thy singingClose to my heart?—
Take it at night to my pillow,Kiss it before I sleep,And again when the delicate morningBeginneth to peep?
See how I bathe thy pagesHere in the light of the sun,Through thy leaves, as a wind among roses,The breezes shall run.
Feel how I take thy poemAnd bury within it my face,As I pressed it last night in the heart ofa flower,Or deep in a dearer place.
Think, as I love thee, Poet,A thousand love beside,Dear women love to press thee tooAgainst a sweeter side.
Art thou not happy, Poet?I sometimes dream that IFor such a fragrant fame as thineWould gladly sing and die.
Say, wilt thou change thy gloryFor this same youth of mine?And I will give my days i' the sunFor that great song of thine.
Within that wood where thine own scholar strays,O! Poet, thou art passed, and at its boundHollow and sere we cry, yet win no soundBut the dark muttering of the forest mazeWe may not tread, nor pierce with any gaze;And hardly love dare whisper thou hast foundThat restful moonlit slope of pastoral groundSet in dark dingles of the songful ways.
Gone! they have called our shepherd from the hill,Passed is the sunny sadness of his song,That song which sang of sight and yet was braveTo lay the ghosts of seeing, subtly strongTo wean from tears and from the troughs to save;And who shall teach us now that he is still!
O you that dwell 'mid farm and fold,Yet keep so quick undulled a heart,I send you here that book of gold,So loved so long;The fairest art,The sweetest English song.
And often in the far-off town,When summer sits with open door,I'll dream I see you set it downBeside the churn,
Whose round shall slacken more and more,Till you forget to turn.
And I shall smile that you forget,And Dad will scold—but never mind!Butter is good, but better yet,Think such as we,To leave the farm and fold behind,And follow such as he.
Dear Desk, Farewell! I spoke you oftIn phrases neither sweet nor soft,But at the end I come to seeThat thou a friend hast been to me,No flatterer but very friend.For who shall teach so well againThe blessed lesson-book of pain,The truth that souls that would aspireMust bravely face the scourge and fire,If they would conquer in the end?Two days!Shall I not hug thee very close?Two days,And then we part upon our ways.Ah me!Who shall possess thee after me?O pray he be no enemy to poesy,To gentle maid or gentle dream.
How have we dreamed together, I and thou,Sweet dreams that like some incense wrapt us roundThe last new book, the last new love,The last new trysting-ground.How many queens have ruled and passedSince first we met; how thick and fastThe letters used to come at first, how thin at last;Then ceased, and winter for a space!Until another handBrought spring into the land,And went the seasons' pace.
And now, Dear Desk, thou knowest for how long timeI have no queen but song:Yea, thou hast seen the last love fade, and nowBehold the last of many a secret rhyme!
'A Library in a garden! The phrase seems to contain the whole felicity of man.'—Mr. EDMUND GOSSE inGossip in a Library.
A world of books amid a world of green,Sweet song without, sweet song again withinFlowers in the garden, in the folios too:O happy Bookman, let me live with you!
One says he is immoral, and points outWarm sin in ruddy specks upon his soul:Bigot, one folly of the man you floutIs more to God than thy lean life is whole.
A poet hungered, as well he might—Not a morsel since yesternight!And sad he grew—good reason why—For the poet had nought wherewith to buy.
'Are not two sparrows sold,' he cried,'Sold for a farthing? and,' he sighed,As he pushed his morning post away,'Are not two sonnets more than they?'
Yet store of gold, great store had he,—Of the gold that is known as 'faery.'He had the gold of his burning dreams,He had his golden rhymes—in reams,He had the strings of his golden lyre,And his own was that golden west on fire.
But the poet knew his world too wellTo dream that such would buy or sell.He had his poets, 'pure gold,' he said,But the man at the bookstall shook his head,And offered a grudging half-a-crownFor the five the poet had brought him down.
Ah, what a world we are in! we sigh,Where a lunch costs more than a Keats can buy,And even Shakespeare's hallowed lineFalls short of the requisite sum to dine.
Yet other gold had the poet got,For see from that grey-blue Gouda potThree golden tulips spouting flame—From his love, from his love, this morn, they came.His love he loved even more than fame.
Three golden tulips thrice more fairThan other golden tulips were—'And yet,' he smiled as he took one up,And feasted on its yellow cup,—'I wonder how many eggs you'd buy!By Bacchus, I've half a mind to try!'One golden bloom for one golden yolk—Nay, on my word, sir, I mean no joke—Gold for gold is fair dealing, sir.'Think of the grocer gaping there!
Or the baker, if I went and said,—'This tulip for a loaf of bread,God's beauty for your kneaded grain;'
Or the vintner—'For this flower of mineA flagon, pray, of yellow wine,And you shall keep the change for gain.'
Ah me, on what a different earthI and these fellows had our birth,Strange that these golden things should beFor them so poor, so rich for me.'
Ended his sigh, the poet searched his shelf—Seeking another poet to feed himself;Then sadly went, and, full of shame and grief,Sold his last Swinburne for a plate of beef.
Thus poets too, to fill the hungry maw,Must eat each other—'tis the eternal law.
What shall I sing when all is sung,And every tale is told,And in the world is nothing youngThat was not long since old?
Why should I fret unwilling earsWith old things sung anew,While voices from the old dead yearsStill go on singing too?
A dead man singing of his maidMakes all my rhymes in vain,Yet his poor lips must fade and fade,And mine shall kiss again.
Why should I strive through weary moonsTo make my music true?Only the dead men knew the tunesThe live world dances to.
Yea, it is best, dear friends, who have so oftFed full my ears with praises sweet and soft,Sweeter and softer than my song should win,Too sweet and soft—I must not listen more,Lest its dear perilous honey make me mad,And once again an overweening ladPresume against Apollo. Nay, no more!'Tis not to pipes like mine sing stars at morn,Nor stars at night dance in their solemn dance:Nay, stars! why tell of stars? the very thrushPutteth my daintiest cunning to the blushAnd boasteth him the hedgerow laureate.Yea, dimmest daisies lost amid the grass,One might have deemed blessed us for looking at,Would rather choose,—yea, so it is, alas!—The meanest bird that from its tiny throatDroppeth the pearl of one monotonous note,Than any music I can bring to pass.
So, let me go: for, while I linger here,Piping these dainty ditties for your ear,To win that dearer honey for my own,Daylong my Thestylis doth sit alone,Weeping, mayhap, because the gods have givenSong but not sheep—the rarer gift of heaven;And little Phyllis solitary grows,And little Corydon unheeded goes.
Sheep are the shepherd's business,—let me go,—Piping his pastime when the sun is low:But I, alas! the other order keep,Piping my business, and forgot my sheep.
My song that once was as a little sweetSavouring the daily bread we all must eat,Lo! it has come to be my only food:And, as a lover of the Indian weedSteals to a self-indulgent solitude,To draw the dreamy sweetness from its root,So from the strong blithe world of valorous deedI steal away to suck this singing weed;And while the morning gathers up its strength,And while the noonday runneth on in might,Until the shadows and the evening lightCome and awake me with a fear at length,Prone in some hankering covert hid away,Fain am I still my piping to prolong,And for the largess of a bounteous dayDare pay my maker with a paltry song.
Welcome the song that like a trumpet highLifts the tired head of battle with its cry,Welcome the song that from its morning heightsCheers jaded markets with the health of fields,Brings down the stars to mock the city lights.Or up to heaven a shining ladder builds.But not to me belongeth such a grace,And, were it mine, 'tis not in amorous shadeTo river music that such song is made:The song that moves the battle on awokeTo the stern rhythm of the swordsman's stroke,The song that fans the city's weary faceSprang not afar from out some leafy place,But bubbled spring-like in its dingiest laneFrom out a heart that shared the city's pain;And he who brings the stars into the streetAnd builds that shining ladder for our feet,Dwells in no mystic Abora aloof,But shares the shelter of the common roof;He learns great metres from the thunderous hum,And all his songs pulse to the human beat.
But I am Corydon, I am not he,Though I no more that Corydon shall beTo make a sugared comfit of my song.So now I go, go back to Thestylis—How her poor eyes will laugh again for this!Go back to Thestylis, and no more roamIn melancholy meadows mad to sing,But teach our little home itself to sing.Yea, Corydon, now cast thy pipe away—-See, how it floats upon the stream, and seeThere it has gone, and now—away! away!But O! my pipe, how sweet thou wert to me!