Or as a schoolboy tired of his bookFlings himself down upon the reedy grassAnd plucks two water-lilies from the brook,And for a time forgets the hour glass,Then wearies of their sweets, and goes his way,And lets the hot sun kill them, even go these lovers lay.
And Venus cried, ‘It is dread ArtemisWhose bitter hand hath wrought this cruelty,Or else that mightier maid whose care it isTo guard her strong and stainless majestyUpon the hill Athenian,—alas!That they who loved so well unloved into Death’s house should pass.’
So with soft hands she laid the boy and girlIn the great golden waggon tenderly(Her white throat whiter than a moony pearlJust threaded with a blue vein’s tapestryHad not yet ceased to throb, and still her breastSwayed like a wind-stirred lily in ambiguous unrest)
And then each pigeon spread its milky van,The bright car soared into the dawning sky,And like a cloud the aerial caravanPassed over the Ægean silently,Till the faint air was troubled with the songFrom the wan mouths that call on bleeding Thammuz all night long.
But when the doves had reached their wonted goalWhere the wide stair of orbèd marble dipsIts snows into the sea, her fluttering soulJust shook the trembling petals of her lipsAnd passed into the void, and Venus knewThat one fair maid the less would walk amid her retinue,
And bade her servants carve a cedar chestWith all the wonder of this history,Within whose scented womb their limbs should restWhere olive-trees make tender the blue skyOn the low hills of Paphos, and the FaunPipes in the noonday, and the nightingale sings on till dawn.
Nor failed they to obey her hest, and ereThe morning bee had stung the daffodilWith tiny fretful spear, or from its lairThe waking stag had leapt across the rillAnd roused the ouzel, or the lizard creptAthwart the sunny rock, beneath the grass their bodies slept.
And when day brake, within that silver shrineFed by the flames of cressets tremulous,Queen Venus knelt and prayed to ProserpineThat she whose beauty made Death amorousShould beg a guerdon from her pallid Lord,And let Desire pass across dread Charon’s icy ford.
III
Inmelancholy moonless Acheron,Farm for the goodly earth and joyous dayWhere no spring ever buds, nor ripening sunWeighs down the apple trees, nor flowery MayChequers with chestnut blooms the grassy floor,Where thrushes never sing, and piping linnets mate no more,
There by a dim and dark Lethæan wellYoung Charmides was lying; wearilyHe plucked the blossoms from the asphodel,And with its little rifled treasuryStrewed the dull waters of the dusky stream,And watched the white stars founder, and the land was like a dream,
When as he gazed into the watery glassAnd through his brown hair’s curly tangles scannedHis own wan face, a shadow seemed to passAcross the mirror, and a little handStole into his, and warm lips timidlyBrushed his pale cheeks, and breathed their secret forth into a sigh.
Then turned he round his weary eyes and saw,And ever nigher still their faces came,And nigher ever did their young mouths drawUntil they seemed one perfect rose of flame,And longing arms around her neck he cast,And felt her throbbing bosom, and his breath came hot and fast,
And all his hoarded sweets were hers to kiss,And all her maidenhood was his to slay,And limb to limb in long and rapturous blissTheir passion waxed and waned,—O why essayTo pipe again of love, too venturous reed!Enough, enough that Eros laughed upon that flowerless mead.
Too venturous poesy, O why essayTo pipe again of passion! fold thy wingsO’er daring Icarus and bid thy laySleep hidden in the lyre’s silent stringsTill thou hast found the old Castalian rill,Or from the Lesbian waters plucked drowned Sappho’s golden quid!
Enough, enough that he whose life had beenA fiery pulse of sin, a splendid shame,Could in the loveless land of Hades gleanOne scorching harvest from those fields of flameWhere passion walks with naked unshod feetAnd is not wounded,—ah! enough that once their lips could meet
In that wild throb when all existencesSeemed narrowed to one single ecstasyWhich dies through its own sweetness and the stressOf too much pleasure, ere PersephoneHad bade them serve her by the ebon throneOf the pale God who in the fields of Enna loosed her zone.
Thesea is flecked with bars of grey,The dull dead wind is out of tune,And like a withered leaf the moonIs blown across the stormy bay.
Etched clear upon the pallid sandLies the black boat: a sailor boyClambers aboard in careless joyWith laughing face and gleaming hand.
And overhead the curlews cry,Where through the dusky upland grassThe young brown-throated reapers pass,Like silhouettes against the sky.
Toouter senses there is peace,A dreamy peace on either handDeep silence in the shadowy land,Deep silence where the shadows cease.
Save for a cry that echoes shrillFrom some lone bird disconsolate;A corncrake calling to its mate;The answer from the misty hill.
And suddenly the moon withdrawsHer sickle from the lightening skies,And to her sombre cavern flies,Wrapped in a veil of yellow gauze.
Ridof the world’s injustice, and his pain,He rests at last beneath God’s veil of blue:Taken from life when life and love were newThe youngest of the martyrs here is lain,Fair as Sebastian, and as early slain.No cypress shades his grave, no funeral yew,But gentle violets weeping with the dewWeave on his bones an ever-blossoming chain.O proudest heart that broke for misery!O sweetest lips since those of Mitylene!O poet-painter of our English Land!Thy name was writ in water—it shall stand:And tears like mine will keep thy memory green,As Isabella did her Basil-tree.
Rome.
A VILLANELLE
Osingerof Persephone!In the dim meadows desolateDost thou remember Sicily?
Still through the ivy flits the beeWhere Amaryllis lies in state;O Singer of Persephone!
Simætha calls on HecateAnd hears the wild dogs at the gate;Dost thou remember Sicily?
Still by the light and laughing seaPoor Polypheme bemoans his fate;O Singer of Persephone!
And still in boyish rivalryYoung Daphnis challenges his mate;Dost thou remember Sicily?
Slim Lacon keeps a goat for thee,For thee the jocund shepherds wait;O Singer of Persephone!Dost thou remember Sicily?
A HARMONY
Herivory hands on the ivory keysStrayed in a fitful fantasy,Like the silver gleam when the poplar treesRustle their pale-leaves listlessly,Or the drifting foam of a restless seaWhen the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze.
Her gold hair fell on the wall of goldLike the delicate gossamer tangles spunOn the burnished disk of the marigold,Or the sunflower turning to meet the sunWhen the gloom of the dark blue night is done,And the spear of the lily is aureoled.
And her sweet red lips on these lips of mineBurned like the ruby fire setIn the swinging lamp of a crimson shrine,Or the bleeding wounds of the pomegranate,Or the heart of the lotus drenched and wetWith the spilt-out blood of the rose-red wine.
(NORMANDE)
Iamweary of lying within the chaseWhen the knights are meeting in market-place.
Nay, go not thou to the red-roofed townLest the hoofs of the war-horse tread thee down.
But I would not go where the Squires ride,I would only walk by my Lady’s side.
Alack! and alack! thou art overbold,A Forester’s son may not eat off gold.
Will she love me the less that my Father is seenEach Martinmas day in a doublet green?
Perchance she is sewing at tapestrie,Spindle and loom are not meet for thee.
Ah, if she is working the arras brightI might ravel the threads by the fire-light.
Perchance she is hunting of the deer,How could you follow o’er hill and mere?
Ah, if she is riding with the court,I might run beside her and wind the morte.
Perchance she is kneeling in St. Denys,(On her soul may our Lady have gramercy!)
Ah, if she is praying in lone chapelle,I might swing the censer and ring the bell.
Come in, my son, for you look sae pale,The father shall fill thee a stoup of ale.
But who are these knights in bright array?Is it a pageant the rich folks play?
’T is the King of England from over sea,Who has come unto visit our fair countrie.
But why does the curfew toll sae low?And why do the mourners walk a-row?
O ’t is Hugh of Amiens my sister’s sonWho is lying stark, for his day is done.
Nay, nay, for I see white lilies clear,It is no strong man who lies on the bier.
O ’t is old Dame Jeannette that kept the hall,I knew she would die at the autumn fall.
Dame Jeannette had not that gold-brown hair,Old Jeannette was not a maiden fair.
O ’t is none of our kith and none of our kin,(Her soul may our Lady assoil from sin!)
But I hear the boy’s voice chaunting sweet,‘Elle est morte, la Marguerite.’
Come in, my son, and lie on the bed,And let the dead folk bury their dead.
O mother, you know I loved her true:O mother, hath one grave room for two?
(BRETON)
Sevenstars in the still water,And seven in the sky;Seven sins on the King’s daughter,Deep in her soul to lie.
Red roses are at her feet,(Roses are red in her red-gold hair)And O where her bosom and girdle meetRed roses are hidden there.
Fair is the knight who lieth slainAmid the rush and reed,See the lean fishes that are fainUpon dead men to feed.
Sweet is the page that lieth there,(Cloth of gold is goodly prey,)See the black ravens in the air,Black, O black as the night are they.
What do they there so stark and dead?(There is blood upon her hand)Why are the lilies flecked with red?(There is blood on the river sand.)
There are two that ride from the south and east,And two from the north and west,For the black raven a goodly feast,For the King’s daughter rest.
There is one man who loves her true,(Red, O red, is the stain of gore!)He hath duggen a grave by the darksome yew,(One grave will do for four.)
No moon in the still heaven,In the black water none,The sins on her soul are seven,The sin upon his is one.
Ofthave we trod the vales of CastalyAnd heard sweet notes of sylvan music blownFrom antique reeds to common folk unknown:And often launched our bark upon that seaWhich the nine Muses hold in empery,And ploughed free furrows through the wave and foam,Nor spread reluctant sail for more safe homeTill we had freighted well our argosy.Of which despoilèd treasures these remain,Sordello’s passion, and the honeyed lineOf young Endymion, lordly TamburlaineDriving his pampered jades, and more than these,The seven-fold vision of the Florentine,And grave-browed Milton’s solemn harmonies.
TheGods are dead: no longer do we bringTo grey-eyed Pallas crowns of olive-leaves!Demeter’s child no more hath tithe of sheaves,And in the noon the careless shepherds sing,For Pan is dead, and all the wantoningBy secret glade and devious haunt is o’er:Young Hylas seeks the water-springs no more;Great Pan is dead, and Mary’s son is King.
And yet—perchance in this sea-trancèd isle,Chewing the bitter fruit of memory,Some God lies hidden in the asphodel.Ah Love! if such there be, then it were wellFor us to fly his anger: nay, but see,The leaves are stirring: let us watch awhile.
Corfu.
Twocrownèd Kings, and One that stood aloneWith no green weight of laurels round his head,But with sad eyes as one uncomforted,And wearied with man’s never-ceasing moanFor sins no bleating victim can atone,And sweet long lips with tears and kisses fed.Girt was he in a garment black and red,And at his feet I marked a broken stoneWhich sent up lilies, dove-like, to his knees.Now at their sight, my heart being lit with flame,I cried to Beatricé, ‘Who are these?’And she made answer, knowing well each name,‘Æschylos first, the second Sophokles,And last (wide stream of tears!) Euripides.’
Thesea was sapphire coloured, and the skyBurned like a heated opal through the air;We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fairFor the blue lands that to the eastward lie.From the steep prow I marked with quickening eyeZakynthos, every olive grove and creek,Ithaca’s cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak,And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady.The flapping of the sail against the mast,The ripple of the water on the side,The ripple of girls’ laughter at the stern,The only sounds:—when ’gan the West to burn,And a red sun upon the seas to ride,I stood upon the soil of Greece at last!
Katakolo.
Likeburnt-out torches by a sick man’s bedGaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone;Here doth the little night-owl make her throne,And the slight lizard show his jewelled head.And, where the chaliced poppies flame to red,In the still chamber of yon pyramidSurely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid,Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead.
Ah! sweet indeed to rest within the wombOf Earth, great mother of eternal sleep,But sweeter far for thee a restless tombIn the blue cavern of an echoing deep,Or where the tall ships founder in the gloomAgainst the rocks of some wave-shattered steep.
Rome.
Theoleander on the wallGrows crimson in the dawning light,Though the grey shadows of the nightLie yet on Florence like a pall.
The dew is bright upon the hill,And bright the blossoms overhead,But ah! the grasshoppers have fled,The little Attic song is still.
Only the leaves are gently stirredBy the soft breathing of the gale,And in the almond-scented valeThe lonely nightingale is heard.
The day will make thee silent soon,O nightingale sing on for love!While yet upon the shadowy groveSplinter the arrows of the moon.
Before across the silent lawnIn sea-green vest the morning steals,And to love’s frightened eyes revealsThe long white fingers of the dawn
Fast climbing up the eastern skyTo grasp and slay the shuddering night,All careless of my heart’s delight,Or if the nightingale should die.
To my Friend Henry Irving
Thesilent room, the heavy creeping shade,The dead that travel fast, the opening door,The murdered brother rising through the floor,The ghost’s white fingers on thy shoulders laid,And then the lonely duel in the glade,The broken swords, the stifled scream, the gore,Thy grand revengeful eyes when all is o’er,—These things are well enough,—but thou wert madeFor more august creation! frenzied LearShould at thy bidding wander on the heathWith the shrill fool to mock him, RomeoFor thee should lure his love, and desperate fearPluck Richard’s recreant dagger from its sheath—Thou trumpet set for Shakespeare’s lips to blow!
To Sarah Bernhardt
Howvain and dull this common world must seemTo such a One as thou, who should’st have talkedAt Florence with Mirandola, or walkedThrough the cool olives of the Academe:Thou should’st have gathered reeds from a green streamFor Goat-foot Pan’s shrill piping, and have playedWith the white girls in that Phæacian gladeWhere grave Odysseus wakened from his dream.
Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clayHeld thy wan dust, and thou hast come againBack to this common world so dull and vain,For thou wert weary of the sunless day,The heavy fields of scentless asphodel,The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell.
To Ellen Terry
Imarvelnot Bassanio was so boldTo peril all he had upon the lead,Or that proud Aragon bent low his headOr that Morocco’s fiery heart grew cold:For in that gorgeous dress of beaten goldWhich is more golden than the golden sunNo woman Veronesé looked uponWas half so fair as thou whom I behold.Yet fairer when with wisdom as your shieldThe sober-suited lawyer’s gown you donned,And would not let the laws of Venice yieldAntonio’s heart to that accursèd Jew—O Portia! take my heart: it is thy due:I think I will not quarrel with the Bond.
To Ellen Terry
Inthe lone tent, waiting for victory,She stands with eyes marred by the mists of pain,Like some wan lily overdrenched with rain:The clamorous clang of arms, the ensanguined sky,War’s ruin, and the wreck of chivalryTo her proud soul no common fear can bring:Bravely she tarrieth for her Lord the King,Her soul a-flame with passionate ecstasy.O Hair of Gold! O Crimson Lips! O FaceMade for the luring and the love of man!With thee I do forget the toil and stress,The loveless road that knows no resting place,Time’s straitened pulse, the soul’s dread weariness,My freedom, and my life republican!
To Ellen Terry
Asone who poring on a Grecian urnScans the fair shapes some Attic hand hath made,God with slim goddess, goodly man with maid,And for their beauty’s sake is loth to turnAnd face the obvious day, must I not yearnFor many a secret moon of indolent bliss,When in midmost shrine of ArtemisI see thee standing, antique-limbed, and stern?
And yet—methinks I’d rather see thee playThat serpent of old Nile, whose witcheryMade Emperors drunken,—come, great Egypt, shakeOur stage with all thy mimic pageants! Nay,I am grown sick of unreal passions, makeThe world thine Actium, me thine Anthony!
Nay, let us walk from fire unto fire,From passionate pain to deadlier delight,—I am too young to live without desire,Too young art thou to waste this summer nightAsking those idle questions which of oldMan sought of seer and oracle, and no reply was told.
For, sweet, to feel is better than to know,And wisdom is a childless heritage,One pulse of passion—youth’s first fiery glow,—Are worth the hoarded proverbs of the sage:Vex not thy soul with dead philosophy,Have we not lips to kiss with, hearts to love and eyes to see!
Dost thou not hear the murmuring nightingale,Like water bubbling from a silver jar,So soft she sings the envious moon is pale,That high in heaven she is hung so farShe cannot hear that love-enraptured tune,—Mark how she wreathes each horn with mist, yon late and labouring moon.
White lilies, in whose cups the gold bees dream,The fallen snow of petals where the breezeScatters the chestnut blossom, or the gleamOf boyish limbs in water,—are not theseEnough for thee, dost thou desire more?Alas! the Gods will give nought else from their eternal store.
For our high Gods have sick and wearied grownOf all our endless sins, our vain endeavourFor wasted days of youth to make atoneBy pain or prayer or priest, and never, never,Hearken they now to either good or ill,But send their rain upon the just and the unjust at will.
They sit at ease, our Gods they sit at ease,Strewing with leaves of rose their scented wine,They sleep, they sleep, beneath the rocking treesWhere asphodel and yellow lotus twine,Mourning the old glad days before they knewWhat evil things the heart of man could dream, and dreaming do.
And far beneath the brazen floor they seeLike swarming flies the crowd of little men,The bustle of small lives, then wearilyBack to their lotus-haunts they turn againKissing each others’ mouths, and mix more deepThe poppy-seeded draught which brings soft purple-lidded sleep.
There all day long the golden-vestured sun,Their torch-bearer, stands with his torch ablaze,And, when the gaudy web of noon is spunBy its twelve maidens, through the crimson hazeFresh from Endymion’s arms comes forth the moon,And the immortal Gods in toils of mortal passions swoon.
There walks Queen Juno through some dewy mead,Her grand white feet flecked with the saffron dustOf wind-stirred lilies, while young GanymedeLeaps in the hot and amber-foaming must,His curls all tossed, as when the eagle bareThe frightened boy from Ida through the blue Ionian air.
There in the green heart of some garden closeQueen Venus with the shepherd at her side,Her warm soft body like the briar roseWhich would be white yet blushes at its pride,Laughs low for love, till jealous SalmacisPeers through the myrtle-leaves and sighs for pain of lonely bliss.
There never does that dreary north-wind blowWhich leaves our English forests bleak and bare,Nor ever falls the swift white-feathered snow,Nor ever doth the red-toothed lightning dareTo wake them in the silver-fretted nightWhen we lie weeping for some sweet sad sin, some dead delight.
Alas! they know the far Lethæan spring,The violet-hidden waters well they know,Where one whose feet with tired wanderingAre faint and broken may take heart and go,And from those dark depths cool and crystallineDrink, and draw balm, and sleep for sleepless souls, and anodyne.
But we oppress our natures, God or FateIs our enemy, we starve and feedOn vain repentance—O we are born too late!What balm for us in bruisèd poppy seedWho crowd into one finite pulse of timeThe joy of infinite love and the fierce pain of infinite crime.
O we are wearied of this sense of guilt,Wearied of pleasure’s paramour despair,Wearied of every temple we have built,Wearied of every right, unanswered prayer,For man is weak; God sleeps: and heaven is high:One fiery-coloured moment: one great love; and lo! we die.
Ah! but no ferry-man with labouring poleNears his black shallop to the flowerless strand,No little coin of bronze can bring the soulOver Death’s river to the sunless land,Victim and wine and vow are all in vain,The tomb is sealed; the soldiers watch; the dead rise not again.
We are resolved into the supreme air,We are made one with what we touch and see,With our heart’s blood each crimson sun is fair,With our young lives each spring-impassioned treeFlames into green, the wildest beasts that rangeThe moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.
With beat of systole and of diastoleOne grand great life throbs through earth’s giant heart,And mighty waves of single Being rollFrom nerveless germ to man, for we are partOf every rock and bird and beast and hill,One with the things that prey on us, and one with what we kill.
From lower cells of waking life we passTo full perfection; thus the world grows old:We who are godlike now were once a massOf quivering purple flecked with bars of gold,Unsentient or of joy or misery,And tossed in terrible tangles of some wild and wind-swept sea.
This hot hard flame with which our bodies burnWill make some meadow blaze with daffodil,Ay! and those argent breasts of thine will turnTo water-lilies; the brown fields men tillWill be more fruitful for our love to-night,Nothing is lost in nature, all things live in Death’s despite.
The boy’s first kiss, the hyacinth’s first bell,The man’s last passion, and the last red spearThat from the lily leaps, the asphodelWhich will not let its blossoms blow for fearOf too much beauty, and the timid shameOf the young bridegroom at his lover’s eyes,—these with the same
One sacrament are consecrate, the earthNot we alone hath passions hymeneal,The yellow buttercups that shake for mirthAt daybreak know a pleasure not less realThan we do, when in some fresh-blossoming wood,We draw the spring into our hearts, and feel that life is good.
So when men bury us beneath the yewThy crimson-stainèd mouth a rose will be,And thy soft eyes lush bluebells dimmed with dew,And when the white narcissus wantonlyKisses the wind its playmate some faint joyWill thrill our dust, and we will be again fond maid and boy.
And thus without life’s conscious torturing painIn some sweet flower we will feel the sun,And from the linnet’s throat will sing again,And as two gorgeous-mailèd snakes will runOver our graves, or as two tigers creepThrough the hot jungle where the yellow-eyed huge lions sleep
And give them battle! How my heart leaps upTo think of that grand living after deathIn beast and bird and flower, when this cup,Being filled too full of spirit, bursts for breath,And with the pale leaves of some autumn dayThe soul earth’s earliest conqueror becomes earth’s last great prey.
O think of it! We shall inform ourselvesInto all sensuous life, the goat-foot Faun,The Centaur, or the merry bright-eyed ElvesThat leave their dancing rings to spite the dawnUpon the meadows, shall not be more nearThan you and I to nature’s mysteries, for we shall hear
The thrush’s heart beat, and the daisies grow,And the wan snowdrop sighing for the sunOn sunless days in winter, we shall knowBy whom the silver gossamer is spun,Who paints the diapered fritillaries,On what wide wings from shivering pine to pine the eagle flies.
Ay! had we never loved at all, who knowsIf yonder daffodil had lured the beeInto its gilded womb, or any roseHad hung with crimson lamps its little tree!Methinks no leaf would ever bud in spring,But for the lovers’ lips that kiss, the poets’ lips that sing.
Is the light vanished from our golden sun,Or is this dædal-fashioned earth less fair,That we are nature’s heritors, and oneWith every pulse of life that beats the air?Rather new suns across the sky shall pass,New splendour come unto the flower, new glory to the grass.
And we two lovers shall not sit afar,Critics of nature, but the joyous seaShall be our raiment, and the bearded starShoot arrows at our pleasure! We shall bePart of the mighty universal whole,And through all æons mix and mingle with the Kosmic Soul!
We shall be notes in that great SymphonyWhose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres,And all the live World’s throbbing heart shall beOne with our heart; the stealthy creeping yearsHave lost their terrors now, we shall not die,The Universe itself shall be our Immortality.
LE RÉVEILLON
Thesky is laced with fitful red,The circling mists and shadows flee,The dawn is rising from the sea,Like a white lady from her bed.
And jagged brazen arrows fallAthwart the feathers of the night,And a long wave of yellow lightBreaks silently on tower and hall,
And spreading wide across the woldWakes into flight some fluttering bird,And all the chestnut tops are stirred,And all the branches streaked with gold.
Howsteep the stairs within Kings’ houses areFor exile-wearied feet as mine to tread,And O how salt and bitter is the breadWhich falls from this Hound’s table,—better farThat I had died in the red ways of war,Or that the gate of Florence bare my head,Than to live thus, by all things comradedWhich seek the essence of my soul to mar.
‘Curse God and die: what better hope than this?He hath forgotten thee in all the blissOf his gold city, and eternal day’—Nay peace: behind my prison’s blinded barsI do possess what none can take awayMy love, and all the glory of the stars.
Isit thy will that I should wax and wane,Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey,And at thy pleasure weave that web of painWhose brightest threads are each a wasted day?
Is it thy will—Love that I love so well—That my Soul’s House should be a tortured spotWherein, like evil paramours, must dwellThe quenchless flame, the worm that dieth not?
Nay, if it be thy will I shall endure,And sell ambition at the common mart,And let dull failure be my vestiture,And sorrow dig its grave within my heart.
Perchance it may be better so—at leastI have not made my heart a heart of stone,Nor starved my boyhood of its goodly feast,Nor walked where Beauty is a thing unknown.
Many a man hath done so; sought to fenceIn straitened bonds the soul that should be free,Trodden the dusty road of common sense,While all the forest sang of liberty,
Not marking how the spotted hawk in flightPassed on wide pinion through the lofty air,To where some steep untrodden mountain heightCaught the last tresses of the Sun God’s hair.
Or how the little flower he trod upon,The daisy, that white-feathered shield of gold,Followed with wistful eyes the wandering sunContent if once its leaves were aureoled.
But surely it is something to have beenThe best belovèd for a little while,To have walked hand in hand with Love, and seenHis purple wings flit once across thy smile.
Ay! though the gorgèd asp of passion feedOn my boy’s heart, yet have I burst the bars,Stood face to face with Beauty, known indeedThe Love which moves the Sun and all the stars!
DearHeart, I think the young impassioned priestWhen first he takes from out the hidden shrineHis God imprisoned in the Eucharist,And eats the bread, and drinks the dreadful wine,
Feels not such awful wonder as I feltWhen first my smitten eyes beat full on thee,And all night long before thy feet I kneltTill thou wert wearied of Idolatry.
Ah! hadst thou liked me less and loved me more,Through all those summer days of joy and rain,I had not now been sorrow’s heritor,Or stood a lackey in the House of Pain.
Yet, though remorse, youth’s white-faced seneschal,Tread on my heels with all his retinue,I am most glad I loved thee—think of allThe suns that go to make one speedwell blue!
Asoften-times the too resplendent sunHurries the pallid and reluctant moonBack to her sombre cave, ere she hath wonA single ballad from the nightingale,So doth thy Beauty make my lips to fail,And all my sweetest singing out of tune.
And as at dawn across the level meadOn wings impetuous some wind will come,And with its too harsh kisses break the reedWhich was its only instrument of song,So my too stormy passions work me wrong,And for excess of Love my Love is dumb.
But surely unto Thee mine eyes did showWhy I am silent, and my lute unstrung;Else it were better we should part, and go,Thou to some lips of sweeter melody,And I to nurse the barren memoryOf unkissed kisses, and songs never sung.
Thewild bee reels from bough to boughWith his furry coat and his gauzy wing,Now in a lily-cup, and nowSetting a jacinth bell a-swing,In his wandering;Sit closer love: it was here I trowI made that vow,
Swore that two lives should be like oneAs long as the sea-gull loved the sea,As long as the sunflower sought the sun,—It shall be, I said, for eternity’Twixt you and me!Dear friend, those times are over and done;Love’s web is spun.
Look upward where the poplar treesSway and sway in the summer air,Here in the valley never a breezeScatters the thistledown, but thereGreat winds blow fairFrom the mighty murmuring mystical seas,And the wave-lashed leas.
Look upward where the white gull screams,What does it see that we do not see?Is that a star? or the lamp that gleamsOn some outward voyaging argosy,—Ah! can it beWe have lived our lives in a land of dreams!How sad it seems.
Sweet, there is nothing left to sayBut this, that love is never lost,Keen winter stabs the breasts of MayWhose crimson roses burst his frost,Ships tempest-tossedWill find a harbour in some bay,And so we may.
And there is nothing left to doBut to kiss once again, and part,Nay, there is nothing we should rue,I have my beauty,—you your Art,Nay, do not start,One world was not enough for twoLike me and you.
Withinthis restless, hurried, modern worldWe took our hearts’ full pleasure—You and I,And now the white sails of our ship are furled,And spent the lading of our argosy.
Wherefore my cheeks before their time are wan,For very weeping is my gladness fled,Sorrow has paled my young mouth’s vermilion,And Ruin draws the curtains of my bed.
But all this crowded life has been to theeNo more than lyre, or lute, or subtle spellOf viols, or the music of the seaThat sleeps, a mimic echo, in the shell.
Tostab my youth with desperate knives, to wearThis paltry age’s gaudy livery,To let each base hand filch my treasury,To mesh my soul within a woman’s hair,And be mere Fortune’s lackeyed groom,—I swearI love it not! these things are less to meThan the thin foam that frets upon the sea,Less than the thistledown of summer airWhich hath no seed: better to stand aloofFar from these slanderous fools who mock my lifeKnowing me not, better the lowliest roofFit for the meanest hind to sojourn in,Than to go back to that hoarse cave of strifeWhere my white soul first kissed the mouth of sin.
Itis full winter now: the trees are bare,Save where the cattle huddle from the coldBeneath the pine, for it doth never wearThe autumn’s gaudy livery whose goldHer jealous brother pilfers, but is trueTo the green doublet; bitter is the wind, as though it blew
From Saturn’s cave; a few thin wisps of hayLie on the sharp black hedges, where the wainDragged the sweet pillage of a summer’s dayFrom the low meadows up the narrow lane;Upon the half-thawed snow the bleating sheepPress close against the hurdles, and the shivering house-dogs creep
From the shut stable to the frozen streamAnd back again disconsolate, and missThe bawling shepherds and the noisy team;And overhead in circling listlessnessThe cawing rooks whirl round the frosted stack,Or crowd the dripping boughs; and in the fen the ice-pools crack
Where the gaunt bittern stalks among the reedsAnd flaps his wings, and stretches back his neck,And hoots to see the moon; across the meadsLimps the poor frightened hare, a little speck;And a stray seamew with its fretful cryFlits like a sudden drift of snow against the dull grey sky.
Full winter: and the lusty goodman bringsHis load of faggots from the chilly byre,And stamps his feet upon the hearth, and flingsThe sappy billets on the waning fire,And laughs to see the sudden lightening scareHis children at their play, and yet,—the spring is in the air;
Already the slim crocus stirs the snow,And soon yon blanchèd fields will bloom againWith nodding cowslips for some lad to mow,For with the first warm kisses of the rainThe winter’s icy sorrow breaks to tears,And the brown thrushes mate, and with bright eyes the rabbit peers
From the dark warren where the fir-cones lie,And treads one snowdrop under foot, and runsOver the mossy knoll, and blackbirds flyAcross our path at evening, and the sunsStay longer with us; ah! how good to seeGrass-girdled spring in all her joy of laughing greenery
Dance through the hedges till the early rose,(That sweet repentance of the thorny briar!)Burst from its sheathèd emerald and discloseThe little quivering disk of golden fireWhich the bees know so well, for with it comePale boy’s-love, sops-in-wine, and daffadillies all in bloom.
Then up and down the field the sower goes,While close behind the laughing younker scaresWith shrilly whoop the black and thievish crows,And then the chestnut-tree its glory wears,And on the grass the creamy blossom fallsIn odorous excess, and faint half-whispered madrigals
Steal from the bluebells’ nodding carillonsEach breezy morn, and then white jessamine,That star of its own heaven, snap-dragonsWith lolling crimson tongues, and eglantineIn dusty velvets clad usurp the bedAnd woodland empery, and when the lingering rose hath shed
Red leaf by leaf its folded panoply,And pansies closed their purple-lidded eyes,Chrysanthemums from gilded argosyUnload their gaudy scentless merchandise,And violets getting overbold withdrawFrom their shy nooks, and scarlet berries dot the leafless haw.
O happy field! and O thrice happy tree!Soon will your queen in daisy-flowered smockAnd crown of flower-de-luce trip down the lea,Soon will the lazy shepherds drive their flockBack to the pasture by the pool, and soonThrough the green leaves will float the hum of murmuring bees at noon.
Soon will the glade be bright with bellamour,The flower which wantons love, and those sweet nunsVale-lilies in their snowy vestitureWill tell their beaded pearls, and carnationsWith mitred dusky leaves will scent the wind,And straggling traveller’s-joy each hedge with yellow stars will bind.
Dear bride of Nature and most bounteous spring,That canst give increase to the sweet-breath’d kine,And to the kid its little horns, and bringThe soft and silky blossoms to the vine,Where is that old nepenthe which of yoreMan got from poppy root and glossy-berried mandragore!
There was a time when any common birdCould make me sing in unison, a timeWhen all the strings of boyish life were stirredTo quick response or more melodious rhymeBy every forest idyll;—do I change?Or rather doth some evil thing through thy fair pleasaunce range?
Nay, nay, thou art the same: ’tis I who seekTo vex with sighs thy simple solitude,And because fruitless tears bedew my cheekWould have thee weep with me in brotherhood;Fool! shall each wronged and restless spirit dareTo taint such wine with the salt poison of own despair!
Thou art the same: ’tis I whose wretched soulTakes discontent to be its paramour,And gives its kingdom to the rude controlOf what should be its servitor,—for sureWisdom is somewhere, though the stormy seaContain it not, and the huge deep answer ‘’Tis not in me.’
To burn with one clear flame, to stand erectIn natural honour, not to bend the kneeIn profitless prostrations whose effectIs by itself condemned, what alchemyCan teach me this? what herb Medea brewedWill bring the unexultant peace of essence not subdued?
The minor chord which ends the harmony,And for its answering brother waits in vainSobbing for incompleted melody,Dies a swan’s death; but I the heir of pain,A silent Memnon with blank lidless eyes,Wait for the light and music of those suns which never rise.
The quenched-out torch, the lonely cypress-gloom,The little dust stored in the narrow urn,The gentle ΧΑΙΡΕ of the Attic tomb,—Were not these better far than to returnTo my old fitful restless malady,Or spend my days within the voiceless cave of misery?
Nay! for perchance that poppy-crownèd godIs like the watcher by a sick man’s bedWho talks of sleep but gives it not; his rodHath lost its virtue, and, when all is said,Death is too rude, too obvious a keyTo solve one single secret in a life’s philosophy.
And Love! that noble madness, whose augustAnd inextinguishable might can slayThe soul with honeyed drugs,—alas! I mustFrom such sweet ruin play the runaway,Although too constant memory never canForget the archèd splendour of those brows Olympian
Which for a little season made my youthSo soft a swoon of exquisite indolenceThat all the chiding of more prudent TruthSeemed the thin voice of jealousy,—O henceThou huntress deadlier than Artemis!Go seek some other quarry! for of thy too perilous bliss.
My lips have drunk enough,—no more, no more,—Though Love himself should turn his gilded prowBack to the troubled waters of this shoreWhere I am wrecked and stranded, even nowThe chariot wheels of passion sweep too near,Hence! Hence! I pass unto a life more barren, more austere.
More barren—ay, those arms will never leanDown through the trellised vines and draw my soulIn sweet reluctance through the tangled green;Some other head must wear that aureole,For I am hers who loves not any manWhose white and stainless bosom bears the sign Gorgonian.
Let Venus go and chuck her dainty page,And kiss his mouth, and toss his curly hair,With net and spear and hunting equipageLet young Adonis to his tryst repair,But me her fond and subtle-fashioned spellDelights no more, though I could win her dearest citadel.
Ay, though I were that laughing shepherd boyWho from Mount Ida saw the little cloudPass over Tenedos and lofty TroyAnd knew the coming of the Queen, and bowedIn wonder at her feet, not for the sakeOf a new Helen would I bid her hand the apple take.
Then rise supreme Athena argent-limbed!And, if my lips be musicless, inspireAt least my life: was not thy glory hymnedBy One who gave to thee his sword and lyreLike Æschylos at well-fought Marathon,And died to show that Milton’s England still could bear a son!
And yet I cannot tread the PorticoAnd live without desire, fear and pain,Or nurture that wise calm which long agoThe grave Athenian master taught to men,Self-poised, self-centred, and self-comforted,To watch the world’s vain phantasies go by with unbowed head.
Alas! that serene brow, those eloquent lips,Those eyes that mirrored all eternity,Rest in their own Colonos, an eclipseHath come on Wisdom, and MnemosyneIs childless; in the night which she had madeFor lofty secure flight Athena’s owl itself hath strayed.
Nor much with Science do I care to climb,Although by strange and subtle witcheryShe drew the moon from heaven: the Muse TimeUnrolls her gorgeous-coloured tapestryTo no less eager eyes; often indeedIn the great epic of Polymnia’s scroll I love to read
How Asia sent her myriad hosts to warAgainst a little town, and panopliedIn gilded mail with jewelled scimitar,White-shielded, purple-crested, rode the MedeBetween the waving poplars and the seaWhich men call Artemisium, till he saw Thermopylæ
Its steep ravine spanned by a narrow wall,And on the nearer side a little broodOf careless lions holding festival!And stood amazèd at such hardihood,And pitched his tent upon the reedy shore,And stayed two days to wonder, and then crept at midnight o’er
Some unfrequented height, and coming downThe autumn forests treacherously slewWhat Sparta held most dear and was the crownOf far Eurotas, and passed on, nor knewHow God had staked an evil net for himIn the small bay at Salamis,—and yet, the page grows dim,
Its cadenced Greek delights me not, I feelWith such a goodly time too out of tuneTo love it much: for like the Dial’s wheelThat from its blinded darkness strikes the noonYet never sees the sun, so do my eyesRestlessly follow that which from my cheated vision flies.
O for one grand unselfish simple lifeTo teach us what is Wisdom! speak ye hillsOf lone Helvellyn, for this note of strifeShunned your untroubled crags and crystal rills,Where is that Spirit which living blamelesslyYet dared to kiss the smitten mouth of his own century!
Speak ye Rydalian laurels! where is heWhose gentle head ye sheltered, that pure soulWhose gracious days of uncrowned majestyThrough lowliest conduct touched the lofty goalWhere love and duty mingle! Him at leastThe most high Laws were glad of, he had sat at Wisdom’s feast;
But we are Learning’s changelings, know by roteThe clarion watchword of each Grecian schoolAnd follow none, the flawless sword which smoteThe pagan Hydra is an effete toolWhich we ourselves have blunted, what man nowShall scale the august ancient heights and to old Reverence bow?
One such indeed I saw, but, Ichabod!Gone is that last dear son of Italy,Who being man died for the sake of God,And whose unrisen bones sleep peacefully,O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto’s tower,Thou marble lily of the lily town! let not the lour
Of the rude tempest vex his slumber, orThe Arno with its tawny troubled goldO’er-leap its marge, no mightier conquerorClomb the high Capitol in the days of oldWhen Rome was indeed Rome, for LibertyWalked like a bride beside him, at which sight pale Mystery
Fled shrieking to her farthest sombrest cellWith an old man who grabbled rusty keys,Fled shuddering, for that immemorial knellWith which oblivion buries dynastiesSwept like a wounded eagle on the blast,As to the holy heart of Rome the great triumvir passed.
He knew the holiest heart and heights of Rome,He drave the base wolf from the lion’s lair,And now lies dead by that empyreal domeWhich overtops Valdarno hung in airBy Brunelleschi—O MelpomeneBreathe through thy melancholy pipe thy sweetest threnody!
Breathe through the tragic stops such melodiesThat Joy’s self may grow jealous, and the NineForget awhile their discreet emperies,Mourning for him who on Rome’s lordliest shrineLit for men’s lives the light of Marathon,And bare to sun-forgotten fields the fire of the sun!
O guard him, guard him well, my Giotto’s tower!Let some young Florentine each eventideBring coronals of that enchanted flowerWhich the dim woods of Vallombrosa hide,And deck the marble tomb wherein he liesWhose soul is as some mighty orb unseen of mortal eyes;
Some mighty orb whose cycled wanderings,Being tempest-driven to the farthest rimWhere Chaos meets Creation and the wingsOf the eternal chanting CherubimAre pavilioned on Nothing, passed awayInto a moonless void,—and yet, though he is dust and clay,
He is not dead, the immemorial FatesForbid it, and the closing shears refrain.Lift up your heads ye everlasting gates!Ye argent clarions, sound a loftier strainFor the vile thing he hated lurks withinIts sombre house, alone with God and memories of sin.
Still what avails it that she sought her caveThat murderous mother of red harlotries?At Munich on the marble architraveThe Grecian boys die smiling, but the seasWhich wash Ægina fret in lonelinessNot mirroring their beauty; so our lives grow colourless
For lack of our ideals, if one starFlame torch-like in the heavens the unjustSwift daylight kills it, and no trump of warCan wake to passionate voice the silent dustWhich was Mazzini once! rich NiobeFor all her stony sorrows hath her sons; but Italy,
What Easter Day shall make her children rise,Who were not Gods yet suffered? what sure feetShall find their grave-clothes folded? what clear eyesShall see them bodily? O it were meetTo roll the stone from off the sepulchreAnd kiss the bleeding roses of their wounds, in love of her,
Our Italy! our mother visible!Most blessed among nations and most sad,For whose dear sake the young Calabrian fellThat day at Aspromonte and was gladThat in an age when God was bought and soldOne man could die for Liberty! but we, burnt out and cold,
See Honour smitten on the cheek and gyvesBind the sweet feet of Mercy: PovertyCreeps through our sunless lanes and with sharp knivesCuts the warm throats of children stealthily,And no word said:—O we are wretched menUnworthy of our great inheritance! where is the pen
Of austere Milton? where the mighty swordWhich slew its master righteously? the yearsHave lost their ancient leader, and no wordBreaks from the voiceless tripod on our ears:While as a ruined mother in some spasmBears a base child and loathes it, so our best enthusiasm
Genders unlawful children, AnarchyFreedom’s own Judas, the vile prodigalLicence who steals the gold of LibertyAnd yet has nothing, Ignorance the realOne Fraticide since Cain, Envy the aspThat stings itself to anguish, Avarice whose palsied grasp
Is in its extent stiffened, moneyed GreedFor whose dull appetite men waste awayAmid the whirr of wheels and are the seedOf things which slay their sower, these each daySees rife in England, and the gentle feetOf Beauty tread no more the stones of each unlovely street.
What even Cromwell spared is desecratedBy weed and worm, left to the stormy playOf wind and beating snow, or renovatedBy more destructful hands: Time’s worst decayWill wreathe its ruins with some loveliness,But these new Vandals can but make a rain-proof barrenness.
Where is that Art which bade the Angels singThrough Lincoln’s lofty choir, till the airSeems from such marble harmonies to ringWith sweeter song than common lips can dareTo draw from actual reed? ah! where is nowThe cunning hand which made the flowering hawthorn branches bow
For Southwell’s arch, and carved the House of OneWho loved the lilies of the field with allOur dearest English flowers? the same sunRises for us: the seasons naturalWeave the same tapestry of green and grey:The unchanged hills are with us: but that Spirit hath passed away.
And yet perchance it may be better so,For Tyranny is an incestuous Queen,Murder her brother is her bedfellow,And the Plague chambers with her: in obsceneAnd bloody paths her treacherous feet are set;Better the empty desert and a soul inviolate!
For gentle brotherhood, the harmonyOf living in the healthful air, the swiftClean beauty of strong limbs when men are freeAnd women chaste, these are the things which liftOur souls up more than even Agnolo’sGaunt blinded Sibyl poring o’er the scroll of human woes,
Or Titian’s little maiden on the stairWhite as her own sweet lily and as tall,Or Mona Lisa smiling through her hair,—Ah! somehow life is bigger after allThan any painted angel, could we seeThe God that is within us! The old Greek serenity
Which curbs the passion of that level lineOf marble youths, who with untroubled eyesAnd chastened limbs ride round Athena’s shrineAnd mirror her divine economies,And balanced symmetry of what in manWould else wage ceaseless warfare,—this at least within the span
Between our mother’s kisses and the graveMight so inform our lives, that we could winSuch mighty empires that from her caveTemptation would grow hoarse, and pallid SinWould walk ashamed of his adulteries,And Passion creep from out the House of Lust with startled eyes.
To make the body and the spirit oneWith all right things, till no thing live in vainFrom morn to noon, but in sweet unisonWith every pulse of flesh and throb of brainThe soul in flawless essence high enthroned,Against all outer vain attack invincibly bastioned,
Mark with serene impartialityThe strife of things, and yet be comforted,Knowing that by the chain causalityAll separate existences are wedInto one supreme whole, whose utteranceIs joy, or holier praise! ah! surely this were governance
Of Life in most august omnipresence,Through which the rational intellect would findIn passion its expression, and mere sense,Ignoble else, lend fire to the mind,And being joined with it in harmonyMore mystical than that which binds the stars planetary,
Strike from their several tones one octave chordWhose cadence being measureless would flyThrough all the circling spheres, then to its LordReturn refreshed with its new emperyAnd more exultant power,—this indeedCould we but reach it were to find the last, the perfect creed.
Ah! it was easy when the world was youngTo keep one’s life free and inviolate,From our sad lips another song is rung,By our own hands our heads are desecrate,Wanderers in drear exile, and dispossessedOf what should be our own, we can but feed on wild unrest.
Somehow the grace, the bloom of things has flown,And of all men we are most wretched whoMust live each other’s lives and not our ownFor very pity’s sake and then undoAll that we lived for—it was otherwiseWhen soul and body seemed to blend in mystic symphonies.
But we have left those gentle haunts to passWith weary feet to the new Calvary,Where we behold, as one who in a glassSees his own face, self-slain Humanity,And in the dumb reproach of that sad gazeLearn what an awful phantom the red hand of man can raise.
O smitten mouth! O forehead crowned with thorn!O chalice of all common miseries!Thou for our sakes that loved thee not hast borneAn agony of endless centuries,And we were vain and ignorant nor knewThat when we stabbed thy heart it was our own real hearts we slew.