Here, where the world is quiet;Here, where all trouble seemsDead winds' and spent waves' riotIn doubtful dreams of dreams;I watch the green field growingFor reaping folk and sowing,For harvest-time and mowing,A sleepy world of streams.I am tired of tears and laughter,And men that laugh and weep;Of what may come hereafterFor men that sow to reap:I am weary of days and hours,Blown buds of barren flowers,Desires and dreams and powersAnd everything but sleep.Here life has death for neighbour,And far from eye or earWan waves and wet winds labour,Weak ships and spirits steer;They drive adrift, and whitherThey wot not who make thither;But no such winds blow hither,And no such things grow here.No growth of moor or coppice,No heather-flower or vine,But bloomless buds of poppies,Green grapes of Proserpine,Pale beds of blowing rushesWhere no leaf blooms or blushesSave this whereout she crushesFor dead men deadly wine.Pale, without name or number,In fruitless fields of corn,They bow themselves and slumberAll night till light is born;And like a soul belated,In hell and heaven unmated,By cloud and mist abatedComes out of darkness morn.Though one were strong as seven,He too with death shall dwell,Nor wake with wings in heaven,Nor weep for pains in hell;Though one were fair as roses,His beauty clouds and closes;And well though love reposes,In the end it is not well.Pale, beyond porch and portal,Crowned with calm leaves, she standsWho gathers all things mortalWith cold immortal hands;Her languid lips are sweeterThan love's who fears to greet herTo men that mix and meet herFrom many times and lands.She waits for each and other,She waits for all men born;Forgets the earth her mother,The life of fruits and corn;And spring and seed and swallowTake wing for her and followWhere summer song rings hollowAnd flowers are put to scorn.There go the loves that wither,The old loves with wearier wings;And all dead years draw thither,And all disastrous things;Dead dreams of days forsaken,Blind buds that snows have shaken,Wild leaves that winds have taken,Red strays of ruined springs.We are not sure of sorrow,And joy was never sure;To-day will die to-morrow;Time stoops to no man's lure;And love, grown faint and fretful,With lips but half regretfulSighs, and with eyes forgetfulWeeps that no loves endure.From too much love of living,From hope and fear set free,We thank with brief thanksgivingWhatever gods may beThat no life lives for ever;That dead men rise up never;That even the weariest riverWinds somewhere safe to sea.Then star nor sun shall waken,Nor any change of light:Nor sound of waters shaken,Nor any sound or sight:Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,Nor days nor things diurnal;Only the sleep eternalIn an eternal night.
Here, where the world is quiet;Here, where all trouble seemsDead winds' and spent waves' riotIn doubtful dreams of dreams;I watch the green field growingFor reaping folk and sowing,For harvest-time and mowing,A sleepy world of streams.
I am tired of tears and laughter,And men that laugh and weep;Of what may come hereafterFor men that sow to reap:I am weary of days and hours,Blown buds of barren flowers,Desires and dreams and powersAnd everything but sleep.
Here life has death for neighbour,And far from eye or earWan waves and wet winds labour,Weak ships and spirits steer;They drive adrift, and whitherThey wot not who make thither;But no such winds blow hither,And no such things grow here.
No growth of moor or coppice,No heather-flower or vine,But bloomless buds of poppies,Green grapes of Proserpine,Pale beds of blowing rushesWhere no leaf blooms or blushesSave this whereout she crushesFor dead men deadly wine.
Pale, without name or number,In fruitless fields of corn,They bow themselves and slumberAll night till light is born;And like a soul belated,In hell and heaven unmated,By cloud and mist abatedComes out of darkness morn.
Though one were strong as seven,He too with death shall dwell,Nor wake with wings in heaven,Nor weep for pains in hell;Though one were fair as roses,His beauty clouds and closes;And well though love reposes,In the end it is not well.
Pale, beyond porch and portal,Crowned with calm leaves, she standsWho gathers all things mortalWith cold immortal hands;Her languid lips are sweeterThan love's who fears to greet herTo men that mix and meet herFrom many times and lands.
She waits for each and other,She waits for all men born;Forgets the earth her mother,The life of fruits and corn;And spring and seed and swallowTake wing for her and followWhere summer song rings hollowAnd flowers are put to scorn.
There go the loves that wither,The old loves with wearier wings;And all dead years draw thither,And all disastrous things;Dead dreams of days forsaken,Blind buds that snows have shaken,Wild leaves that winds have taken,Red strays of ruined springs.
We are not sure of sorrow,And joy was never sure;To-day will die to-morrow;Time stoops to no man's lure;And love, grown faint and fretful,With lips but half regretfulSighs, and with eyes forgetfulWeeps that no loves endure.
From too much love of living,From hope and fear set free,We thank with brief thanksgivingWhatever gods may beThat no life lives for ever;That dead men rise up never;That even the weariest riverWinds somewhere safe to sea.
Then star nor sun shall waken,Nor any change of light:Nor sound of waters shaken,Nor any sound or sight:Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,Nor days nor things diurnal;Only the sleep eternalIn an eternal night.
Out of the golden remote wild west where the sea without shore is,Full of the sunset, and sad, if at all, with the fulness of joy,As a wind sets in with the autumn that blows from the region of stories,Blows with a perfume of songs and of memories beloved from a boy,Blows from the capes of the past oversea to the bays of the present,Filled as with shadow of sound with the pulse of invisible feet,Far out to the shallows and straits of the future, by rough ways or pleasant,Is it thither the wind's wings beat? is it hither to me, O my sweet?For thee, in the stream of the deep tide-wind blowing in with the water,Thee I behold as a bird borne in with the wind from the west,Straight from the sunset, across white waves whence rose as a daughterVenus thy mother, in years when the world was a water at rest.Out of the distance of dreams, as a dream that abides after slumber,Strayed from the fugitive flock of the night, when the moon overheadWanes in the wan waste heights of the heaven, and stars without numberDie without sound, and are spent like lamps that are burnt by the dead,Comes back to me, stays by me, lulls me with touch of forgotten caresses,One warm dream clad about with a fire as of life that endures;The delight of thy face, and the sound of thy feet, and the wind of thy tresses,And all of a man that regrets, and all of a maid that allures.But thy bosom is warm for my face and profound as a manifold flower,Thy silence as music, thy voice as an odour that fades in a flame;Not a dream, not a dream is the kiss of thy mouth, and the bountiful hourThat makes me forget what was sin, and would make me forget were it shame.Thine eyes that are quiet, thine hands that are tender, thy lips that are loving,Comfort and cool me as dew in the dawn of a moon like a dream;And my heart yearns baffled and blind, moved vainly toward thee, and movingAs the refluent seaweed moves in the languid exuberant stream,Fair as a rose is on earth, as a rose under water in prison,That stretches and swings to the slow passionate pulse of the sea,Closed up from the air and the sun, but alive, as a ghost rearisen,Pale as the love that revives as a ghost rearisen in me.From the bountiful infinite west, from the happy memorial placesFull of the stately repose and the lordly delight of the dead,Where the fortunate islands are lit with the light of ineffable faces,And the sound of a sea without wind is about them, and sunset is red,Come back to redeem and release me from love that recalls and represses,That cleaves to my flesh as a flame, till the serpent has eaten his fill;From the bitter delights of the dark, and the feverish, the furtive caressesThat murder the youth in a man or ever his heart have its will.Thy lips cannot laugh and thine eyes cannot weep; thou art pale as a rose is,Paler and sweeter than leaves that cover the blush of the bud;And the heart of the flower is compassion, and pity the core it encloses,Pity, not love, that is born of the breath and decays with the blood.As the cross that a wild nun clasps till the edge of it bruises her bosom,So love wounds as we grasp it, and blackens and burns as a flame;I have loved overmuch in my life; when the live bud bursts with the blossom,Bitter as ashes or tears is the fruit, and the wine thereof shame.As a heart that its anguish divides is the green bud cloven asunder;As the blood of a man self-slain is the flush of the leaves that allure;And the perfume as poison and wine to the brain, a delight and a wonder;And the thorns are too sharp for a boy, too slight for a man, to endure.Too soon did I love it, and lost love's rose; and I cared not for glory's:Only the blossoms of sleep and of pleasure were mixed in my hair.Was it myrtle or poppy thy garland was woven with, O my Dolores?Was it pallor of slumber, or blush as of blood, that I found in thee fair?For desire is a respite from love, and the flesh not the heart is her fuel;She was sweet to me once, who am fled and escaped from the rage of her reign;Who behold as of old time at hand as I turn, with her mouth growing cruel,And flushed as with wine with the blood of her lovers, Our Lady of Pain.Low down where the thicket is thicker with thorns than with leaves in the summer,In the brake is a gleaming of eyes and a hissing of tongues that I knew;And the lithe long throats of her snakes reach round her, their mouths overcome her,And her lips grow cool with their foam, made moist as a desert with dew.With the thirst and the hunger of lust though her beautiful lips be so bitter,With the cold foul foam of the snakes they soften and redden and smile;And her fierce mouth sweetens, her eyes wax wide and her eyelashes glitter,And she laughs with a savour of blood in her face, and a savour of guile.She laughs, and her hands reach hither, her hair blows hither and hisses,As a low-lit flame in a wind, back-blown till it shudder and leap;Let her lips not again lay hold on my soul, nor her poisonous kisses,To consume it alive and divide from thy bosom, Our Lady of Sleep.Ah daughter of sunset and slumber, if now it return into prison,Who shall redeem it anew? but we, if thou wilt, let us fly;Let us take to us, now that the white skies thrill with a moon unarisen,Swift horses of fear or of love, take flight and depart and not die.They are swifter than dreams, they are stronger than death; there is none that hath ridden,None that shall ride in the dim strange ways of his life as we ride;By the meadows of memory, the highlands of hope, and the shore that is hidden,Where life breaks loud and unseen, a sonorous invisible tide;By the sands where sorrow has trodden, the salt pools bitter and sterile,By the thundering reef and the low sea-wall and the channel of years,Our wild steeds press on the night, strain hard through pleasure and peril,Labour and listen and pant not or pause for the peril that nears;And the sound of them trampling the way cleaves night as an arrow asunder,And slow by the sand-hill and swift by the down with its glimpses of grass,Sudden and steady the music, as eight hoofs trample and thunder,Rings in the ear of the low blind wind of the night as we pass;Shrill shrieks in our faces the blind bland air that was mute as a maiden,Stung into storm by the speed of our passage, and deaf where we past;And our spirits too burn as we bound, thine holy but mine heavy-laden,As we burn with the fire of our flight; ah love, shall we win at the last?
Out of the golden remote wild west where the sea without shore is,Full of the sunset, and sad, if at all, with the fulness of joy,As a wind sets in with the autumn that blows from the region of stories,Blows with a perfume of songs and of memories beloved from a boy,Blows from the capes of the past oversea to the bays of the present,Filled as with shadow of sound with the pulse of invisible feet,Far out to the shallows and straits of the future, by rough ways or pleasant,Is it thither the wind's wings beat? is it hither to me, O my sweet?For thee, in the stream of the deep tide-wind blowing in with the water,Thee I behold as a bird borne in with the wind from the west,Straight from the sunset, across white waves whence rose as a daughterVenus thy mother, in years when the world was a water at rest.Out of the distance of dreams, as a dream that abides after slumber,Strayed from the fugitive flock of the night, when the moon overheadWanes in the wan waste heights of the heaven, and stars without numberDie without sound, and are spent like lamps that are burnt by the dead,Comes back to me, stays by me, lulls me with touch of forgotten caresses,One warm dream clad about with a fire as of life that endures;The delight of thy face, and the sound of thy feet, and the wind of thy tresses,And all of a man that regrets, and all of a maid that allures.But thy bosom is warm for my face and profound as a manifold flower,Thy silence as music, thy voice as an odour that fades in a flame;Not a dream, not a dream is the kiss of thy mouth, and the bountiful hourThat makes me forget what was sin, and would make me forget were it shame.Thine eyes that are quiet, thine hands that are tender, thy lips that are loving,Comfort and cool me as dew in the dawn of a moon like a dream;And my heart yearns baffled and blind, moved vainly toward thee, and movingAs the refluent seaweed moves in the languid exuberant stream,Fair as a rose is on earth, as a rose under water in prison,That stretches and swings to the slow passionate pulse of the sea,Closed up from the air and the sun, but alive, as a ghost rearisen,Pale as the love that revives as a ghost rearisen in me.From the bountiful infinite west, from the happy memorial placesFull of the stately repose and the lordly delight of the dead,Where the fortunate islands are lit with the light of ineffable faces,And the sound of a sea without wind is about them, and sunset is red,Come back to redeem and release me from love that recalls and represses,That cleaves to my flesh as a flame, till the serpent has eaten his fill;From the bitter delights of the dark, and the feverish, the furtive caressesThat murder the youth in a man or ever his heart have its will.Thy lips cannot laugh and thine eyes cannot weep; thou art pale as a rose is,Paler and sweeter than leaves that cover the blush of the bud;And the heart of the flower is compassion, and pity the core it encloses,Pity, not love, that is born of the breath and decays with the blood.As the cross that a wild nun clasps till the edge of it bruises her bosom,So love wounds as we grasp it, and blackens and burns as a flame;I have loved overmuch in my life; when the live bud bursts with the blossom,Bitter as ashes or tears is the fruit, and the wine thereof shame.As a heart that its anguish divides is the green bud cloven asunder;As the blood of a man self-slain is the flush of the leaves that allure;And the perfume as poison and wine to the brain, a delight and a wonder;And the thorns are too sharp for a boy, too slight for a man, to endure.Too soon did I love it, and lost love's rose; and I cared not for glory's:Only the blossoms of sleep and of pleasure were mixed in my hair.Was it myrtle or poppy thy garland was woven with, O my Dolores?Was it pallor of slumber, or blush as of blood, that I found in thee fair?For desire is a respite from love, and the flesh not the heart is her fuel;She was sweet to me once, who am fled and escaped from the rage of her reign;Who behold as of old time at hand as I turn, with her mouth growing cruel,And flushed as with wine with the blood of her lovers, Our Lady of Pain.Low down where the thicket is thicker with thorns than with leaves in the summer,In the brake is a gleaming of eyes and a hissing of tongues that I knew;And the lithe long throats of her snakes reach round her, their mouths overcome her,And her lips grow cool with their foam, made moist as a desert with dew.With the thirst and the hunger of lust though her beautiful lips be so bitter,With the cold foul foam of the snakes they soften and redden and smile;And her fierce mouth sweetens, her eyes wax wide and her eyelashes glitter,And she laughs with a savour of blood in her face, and a savour of guile.She laughs, and her hands reach hither, her hair blows hither and hisses,As a low-lit flame in a wind, back-blown till it shudder and leap;Let her lips not again lay hold on my soul, nor her poisonous kisses,To consume it alive and divide from thy bosom, Our Lady of Sleep.Ah daughter of sunset and slumber, if now it return into prison,Who shall redeem it anew? but we, if thou wilt, let us fly;Let us take to us, now that the white skies thrill with a moon unarisen,Swift horses of fear or of love, take flight and depart and not die.They are swifter than dreams, they are stronger than death; there is none that hath ridden,None that shall ride in the dim strange ways of his life as we ride;By the meadows of memory, the highlands of hope, and the shore that is hidden,Where life breaks loud and unseen, a sonorous invisible tide;By the sands where sorrow has trodden, the salt pools bitter and sterile,By the thundering reef and the low sea-wall and the channel of years,Our wild steeds press on the night, strain hard through pleasure and peril,Labour and listen and pant not or pause for the peril that nears;And the sound of them trampling the way cleaves night as an arrow asunder,And slow by the sand-hill and swift by the down with its glimpses of grass,Sudden and steady the music, as eight hoofs trample and thunder,Rings in the ear of the low blind wind of the night as we pass;Shrill shrieks in our faces the blind bland air that was mute as a maiden,Stung into storm by the speed of our passage, and deaf where we past;And our spirits too burn as we bound, thine holy but mine heavy-laden,As we burn with the fire of our flight; ah love, shall we win at the last?
We are in love's land to-day;Where shall we go?Love, shall we start or stay,Or sail or row?There's many a wind and way,And never a May but May;We are in love's hand to-day;Where shall we go?Our landwind is the breathOf sorrows kissed to deathAnd joys that were;Our ballast is a rose;Our way lies where God knowsAnd love knows where.We are in love's hand to-day—Our seamen are fledged Loves,Our masts are bills of doves,Our decks fine gold;Our ropes are dead maids' hair,Our stores are love-shafts fairAnd manifold.We are in love's land to-day—Where shall we land you, sweet?On fields of strange men's feet,Or fields near home?Or where the fire-flowers blow,Or where the flowers of snowOr flowers of foam?We are in love's hand to-day—Land me, she says, where loveShows but one shaft, one dove,One heart, one hand.—A shore like that, my dear,Lies where no man will steer,No maiden land.Imitated from Théophile Gautier.
We are in love's land to-day;Where shall we go?Love, shall we start or stay,Or sail or row?There's many a wind and way,And never a May but May;We are in love's hand to-day;Where shall we go?
Our landwind is the breathOf sorrows kissed to deathAnd joys that were;Our ballast is a rose;Our way lies where God knowsAnd love knows where.We are in love's hand to-day—
Our seamen are fledged Loves,Our masts are bills of doves,Our decks fine gold;Our ropes are dead maids' hair,Our stores are love-shafts fairAnd manifold.We are in love's land to-day—
Where shall we land you, sweet?On fields of strange men's feet,Or fields near home?Or where the fire-flowers blow,Or where the flowers of snowOr flowers of foam?We are in love's hand to-day—
Land me, she says, where loveShows but one shaft, one dove,One heart, one hand.—A shore like that, my dear,Lies where no man will steer,No maiden land.
Imitated from Théophile Gautier.
When the fields catch flowerAnd the underwood is green,And from bower unto bowerThe songs of the birds begin,I sing with sighing between.When I laugh and sing,I am heavy at heart for my sin;I am sad in the springFor my love that I shall not win,For a foolish thing.This profit I have of my woe,That I know, as I sing,I know he will needs have it soWho is master and king,Who is lord of the spirit of spring.I will serve her and will not spareTill her pity awakeWho is good, who is pure, who is fair,Even her for whose sakeLove hath ta'en me and slain unaware.O my lord, O Love,I have laid my life at thy feet;Have thy will thereof,Do as it please thee with it,For what shall please thee is sweet.I am come unto theeTo do thee service, O Love;Yet cannot I seeThou wilt take any pity thereof,Any mercy on me.But the grace I have long time soughtComes never in sight,If in her it abideth not,Through thy mercy and might,Whose heart is the world's delight.Thou hast sworn without fail I shall die,For my heart is setOn what hurts me, I wot not why,But cannot forgetWhat I love, what I sing for and sigh.She is worthy of praise,For this grief of her giving is worthAll the joy of my daysThat lie between death's day and birth,All the lordship of things upon earth.Nay, what have I said?I would not be glad if I could;My dream and my dreadAre of her, and for her sake I wouldThat my life were fled.Lo, sweet, if I durst not pray to you,Then were I dead;If I sang not a little to say to you,(Could it be said)O my love, how my heart would be fed;Ah sweet who hast hold of my heart,For thy love's sake I live,Do but tell me, ere either depart,What a lover may giveFor a woman so fair as thou art.The lovers that disbelieve,False rumours shall grieveAnd evil-speaking shall part.
When the fields catch flowerAnd the underwood is green,And from bower unto bowerThe songs of the birds begin,I sing with sighing between.When I laugh and sing,I am heavy at heart for my sin;I am sad in the springFor my love that I shall not win,For a foolish thing.
This profit I have of my woe,That I know, as I sing,I know he will needs have it soWho is master and king,Who is lord of the spirit of spring.I will serve her and will not spareTill her pity awakeWho is good, who is pure, who is fair,Even her for whose sakeLove hath ta'en me and slain unaware.
O my lord, O Love,I have laid my life at thy feet;Have thy will thereof,Do as it please thee with it,For what shall please thee is sweet.I am come unto theeTo do thee service, O Love;Yet cannot I seeThou wilt take any pity thereof,Any mercy on me.
But the grace I have long time soughtComes never in sight,If in her it abideth not,Through thy mercy and might,Whose heart is the world's delight.Thou hast sworn without fail I shall die,For my heart is setOn what hurts me, I wot not why,But cannot forgetWhat I love, what I sing for and sigh.
She is worthy of praise,For this grief of her giving is worthAll the joy of my daysThat lie between death's day and birth,All the lordship of things upon earth.Nay, what have I said?I would not be glad if I could;My dream and my dreadAre of her, and for her sake I wouldThat my life were fled.
Lo, sweet, if I durst not pray to you,Then were I dead;If I sang not a little to say to you,(Could it be said)O my love, how my heart would be fed;Ah sweet who hast hold of my heart,For thy love's sake I live,Do but tell me, ere either depart,What a lover may giveFor a woman so fair as thou art.
The lovers that disbelieve,False rumours shall grieveAnd evil-speaking shall part.
A month or twain to live on honeycombIs pleasant; but one tires of scented time,Cold sweet recurrence of accepted rhyme,And that strong purple under juice and foamWhere the wine's heart has burst;Nor feel the latter kisses like the first.Once yet, this poor one time; I will not prayEven to change the bitterness of it,The bitter taste ensuing on the sweet,To make your tears fall where your soft hair layAll blurred and heavy in some perfumed wiseOver my face and eyes.And yet who knows what end the scythèd wheatMakes of its foolish poppies' mouths of red?These were not sown, these are not harvested,They grow a month and are cast under feetAnd none has care thereof,As none has care of a divided love.I know each shadow of your lips by rote,Each change of love in eyelids and eyebrows;The fashion of fair temples tremulousWith tender blood, and colour of your throat;I know not how love is gone out of this,Seeing that all was his.Love's likeness there endures upon all these:But out of these one shall not gather love.Day hath not strength nor the night shade enoughTo make love whole and fill his lips with ease,As some bee-builded cellFeels at filled lips the heavy honey swell.I know not how this last month leaves your hairLess full of purple colour and hid spice,And that luxurious trouble of closed eyesIs mixed with meaner shadow and waste care;And love, kissed out by pleasure, seems not yetWorth patience to regret.
A month or twain to live on honeycombIs pleasant; but one tires of scented time,Cold sweet recurrence of accepted rhyme,And that strong purple under juice and foamWhere the wine's heart has burst;Nor feel the latter kisses like the first.
Once yet, this poor one time; I will not prayEven to change the bitterness of it,The bitter taste ensuing on the sweet,To make your tears fall where your soft hair layAll blurred and heavy in some perfumed wiseOver my face and eyes.
And yet who knows what end the scythèd wheatMakes of its foolish poppies' mouths of red?These were not sown, these are not harvested,They grow a month and are cast under feetAnd none has care thereof,As none has care of a divided love.
I know each shadow of your lips by rote,Each change of love in eyelids and eyebrows;The fashion of fair temples tremulousWith tender blood, and colour of your throat;I know not how love is gone out of this,Seeing that all was his.
Love's likeness there endures upon all these:But out of these one shall not gather love.Day hath not strength nor the night shade enoughTo make love whole and fill his lips with ease,As some bee-builded cellFeels at filled lips the heavy honey swell.
I know not how this last month leaves your hairLess full of purple colour and hid spice,And that luxurious trouble of closed eyesIs mixed with meaner shadow and waste care;And love, kissed out by pleasure, seems not yetWorth patience to regret.
A little marsh-plant, yellow green,And pricked at lip with tender red.Tread close, and either way you treadSome faint black water jets betweenLest you should bruise the curious head.A live thing maybe; who shall know?The summer knows and suffers it;For the cool moss is thick and sweetEach side, and saves the blossom soThat it lives out the long June heat.The deep scent of the heather burnsAbout it; breathless though it be,Bow down and worship; more than weIs the least flower whose life returns,Least weed renascent in the sea.We are vexed and cumbered in earth's sightWith wants, with many memories;These see their mother what she is,Glad-growing, till August leave more brightThe apple-coloured cranberries.Wind blows and bleaches the strong grass,Blown all one way to shelter itFrom trample of strayed kine, with feetFelt heavier than the moorhen was,Strayed up past patches of wild wheat.You call it sundew: how it grows,If with its colour it have breath,If life taste sweet to it, if deathPain its soft petal, no man knows:Man has no sight or sense that saith.My sundew, grown of gentle days,In these green miles the spring begunThy growth ere April had half doneWith the soft secret of her waysOr June made ready for the sun.O red-lipped mouth of marsh-flower,I have a secret halved with thee.The name that is love's name to meThou knowest, and the face of herWho is my festival to see.The hard sun, as thy petals knew,Coloured the heavy moss-water:Thou wert not worth green midsummerNor fit to live to August blue,O sundew, not remembering her.
A little marsh-plant, yellow green,And pricked at lip with tender red.Tread close, and either way you treadSome faint black water jets betweenLest you should bruise the curious head.
A live thing maybe; who shall know?The summer knows and suffers it;For the cool moss is thick and sweetEach side, and saves the blossom soThat it lives out the long June heat.
The deep scent of the heather burnsAbout it; breathless though it be,Bow down and worship; more than weIs the least flower whose life returns,Least weed renascent in the sea.
We are vexed and cumbered in earth's sightWith wants, with many memories;These see their mother what she is,Glad-growing, till August leave more brightThe apple-coloured cranberries.
Wind blows and bleaches the strong grass,Blown all one way to shelter itFrom trample of strayed kine, with feetFelt heavier than the moorhen was,Strayed up past patches of wild wheat.
You call it sundew: how it grows,If with its colour it have breath,If life taste sweet to it, if deathPain its soft petal, no man knows:Man has no sight or sense that saith.
My sundew, grown of gentle days,In these green miles the spring begunThy growth ere April had half doneWith the soft secret of her waysOr June made ready for the sun.
O red-lipped mouth of marsh-flower,I have a secret halved with thee.The name that is love's name to meThou knowest, and the face of herWho is my festival to see.
The hard sun, as thy petals knew,Coloured the heavy moss-water:Thou wert not worth green midsummerNor fit to live to August blue,O sundew, not remembering her.
What shall be said between us hereAmong the downs, between the trees,In fields that knew our feet last year,In sight of quiet sands and seas,This year, Félise?Who knows what word were best to say?For last year's leaves lie dead and redOn this sweet day, in this green May,And barren corn makes bitter bread.What shall be said?Here as last year the fields begin,A fire of flowers and glowing grass;The old fields we laughed and lingered in,Seeing each our souls in last year's glass,Félise, alas!Shall we not laugh, shall we not weep,Not we, though this be as it is?For love awake or love asleepEnds in a laugh, a dream, a kiss,A song like this.I that have slept awake, and youSleep, who last year were well awake,Though love do all that love can do,My heart will never ache or breakFor your heart's sake.The great sea, faultless as a flower,Throbs, trembling under beam and breeze,And laughs with love of the amorous hour.I found you fairer once, Félise,Than flowers or seas.We played at bondsman and at queen;But as the days change men change too;I find the grey sea's notes of green,The green sea's fervent flakes of blue,More fair than you.Your beauty is not over fairNow in mine eyes, who am grown up wise.The smell of flowers in all your hairAllures not now; no sigh repliesIf your heart sighs.But you sigh seldom, you sleep sound,You find love's new name good enough.Less sweet I find it than I foundThe sweetest name that ever loveGrew weary of.My snake with bright bland eyes, my snakeGrown tame and glad to be caressed,With lips athirst for mine to slakeTheir tender fever! who had guessedYou loved me best?I had died for this last year, to knowYou loved me. Who shall turn on fate?I care not if love come or goNow, though your love seek mine for mate.It is too late.The dust of many strange desiresLies deep between us; in our eyesDead smoke of perishable firesFlickers, a fume in air and skies,A steam of sighs.You loved me and you loved me not;A little, much, and overmuch.Will you forget as I forgot?Let all dead things lie dead; none suchAre soft to touch.I love you and I do not love,Too much, a little, not at all;Too much, and never yet enough.Birds quick to fledge and fly at callAre quick to fall.And these love longer now than men,And larger loves than ours are these.No diver brings up love againDropped once, my beautiful Félise,In such cold seas.Gone deeper than all plummets sound,Where in the dim green dayless dayThe life of such dead things lies boundAs the sea feeds on, wreck and strayAnd castaway.Can I forget? yea, that can I,And that can all men; so will you,Alive, or later, when you die.Ah, but the love you plead was true?Was mine not too?I loved you for that name of yoursLong ere we met, and long enough.Now that one thing of all endures—The sweetest name that ever loveWaxed weary of.Like colours in the sea, like flowers,Like a cat's splendid circled eyesThat wax and wane with love for hours,Green as green flame, blue-grey like skies,And soft like sighs—And all these only like your name,And your name full of all of these.I say it, and it sounds the same—Save that I say it now at ease,Your name, Félise.I said "she must be swift and white,And subtly warm, and half perverse,And sweet like sharp soft fruit to bite,And like a snake's love lithe and fierce."Men have guessed worse.What was the song I made of youHere where the grass forgets our feetAs afternoon forgets the dew?Ah that such sweet things should be fleet,Such fleet things sweet!As afternoon forgets the dew,As time in time forgets all men,As our old place forgets us two,Who might have turned to one thing thenBut not again.O lips that mine have grown intoLike April's kissing May,O fervent eyelids letting throughThose eyes the greenest of things blue,The bluest of things grey,If you were I and I were you,How could I love you, say?How could the roseleaf love the rue,The day love nightfall and her dew,Though night may love the day?You loved it may be more than I;We know not; love is hard to seize.And all things are not good to try;And lifelong loves the worst of theseFor us, Félise.Ah, take the season and have done,Love well the hour and let it go:Two souls may sleep and wake up one,Or dream they wake and find it so,And then—you know.Kiss me once hard as though a flameLay on my lips and made them fire;The same lips now, and not the same;What breath shall fill and re-inspireA dead desire?The old song sounds hollower in mine earThan thin keen sounds of dead men's speech—A noise one hears and would not hear;Too strong to die, too weak to reachFrom wave to beach.We stand on either side the sea,Stretch hands, blow kisses, laugh and leanI toward you, you toward me;But what hears either save the keenGrey sea between?A year divides us, love from love,Though you love now, though I loved then.The gulf is strait, but deep enough;Who shall recross, who among menShall cross again?Love was a jest last year, you said,And what lives surely, surely dies.Even so; but now that love is dead,Shall love rekindle from wet eyes,From subtle sighs?For many loves are good to see;Mutable loves, and loves perverse;But there is nothing, nor shall be,So sweet, so wicked, but my verseCan dream of worse.For we that sing and you that loveKnow that which man may, only we.The rest live under us; above,Live the great gods in heaven, and seeWhat things shall be.So this thing is and must be so;For man dies, and love also dies.Though yet love's ghost moves to and froThe sea-green mirrors of your eyes,And laughs, and lies.Eyes coloured like a water-flower,And deeper than the green sea's glass;Eyes that remember one sweet hour—In vain we swore it should not pass;In vain, alas!Ah my Félise, if love or sin,If shame or fear could hold it fast,Should we not hold it? Love wears thin,And they laugh well who laugh the last.Is it not past?The gods, the gods are stronger; timeFalls down before them, all men's kneesBow, all men's prayers and sorrows climbLike incense towards them; yea, for theseAre gods, Félise.Immortal are they, clothed with powers,Not to be comforted at all;Lords over all the fruitless hours;Too great to appease, too high to appal,Too far to call.For none shall move the most high gods,Who are most sad, being cruel; noneShall break or take away the rodsWherewith they scourge us, not as oneThat smites a son.By many a name of many a creedWe have called upon them, since the sandsFell through time's hour-glass first, a seedOf life; and out of many landsHave we stretched hands.When have they heard us? who hath knownTheir faces, climbed unto their feet,Felt them and found them? Laugh or groan,Doth heaven remurmur and repeatSad sounds or sweet?Do the stars answer? in the nightHave ye found comfort? or by dayHave ye seen gods? What hope, what light,Falls from the farthest starriest wayOn you that pray?Are the skies wet because we weep,Or fair because of any mirth?Cry out; they are gods; perchance they sleep;Cry; thou shalt know what prayers are worth,Thou dust and earth.O earth, thou art fair; O dust, thou art great;O laughing lips and lips that mourn,Pray, till ye feel the exceeding weightOf God's intolerable scorn,Not to be borne.Behold, there is no grief like this;The barren blossom of thy prayer,Thou shalt find out how sweet it is.O fools and blind, what seek ye there,High up in the air?Ye must have gods, the friends of men,Merciful gods, compassionate,And these shall answer you again.Will ye beat always at the gate,Ye fools of fate?Ye fools and blind; for this is sure,That all ye shall not live, but die.Lo, what thing have ye found endure?Or what thing have ye found on highPast the blind sky?The ghosts of words and dusty dreams,Old memories, faiths infirm and dead.Ye fools; for which among you deemsHis prayer can alter green to redOr stones to bread?Why should ye bear with hopes and fearsTill all these things be drawn in one,The sound of iron-footed years,And all the oppression that is doneUnder the sun?Ye might end surely, surely passOut of the multitude of things,Under the dust, beneath the grass,Deep in dim death, where no thought stings,No record clings.No memory more of love or hate,No trouble, nothing that aspires,No sleepless labour thwarting fate,And thwarted; where no travail tires,Where no faith fires.All passes, nought that has been is,Things good and evil have one end.Can anything be otherwiseThough all men swear all things would mendWith God to friend?Can ye beat off one wave with prayer,Can ye move mountains? bid the flowerTake flight and turn to a bird in the air?Can ye hold fast for shine or showerOne wingless hour?Ah sweet, and we too, can we bringOne sigh back, bid one smile revive?Can God restore one ruined thing,Or he who slays our souls aliveMake dead things thrive?Two gifts perforce he has given us yet,Though sad things stay and glad things fly;Two gifts he has given us, to forgetAll glad and sad things that go by,And then to die.We know not whether death be good,But life at least it will not be:Men will stand saddening as we stood,Watch the same fields and skies as weAnd the same sea.Let this be said between us here,One love grows green when one turns grey;This year knows nothing of last year;To-morrow has no more to sayTo yesterday.Live and let live, as I will do,Love and let love, and so will I.But, sweet, for me no more with you:Not while I live, not though I die.Goodnight, goodbye.
What shall be said between us hereAmong the downs, between the trees,In fields that knew our feet last year,In sight of quiet sands and seas,This year, Félise?
Who knows what word were best to say?For last year's leaves lie dead and redOn this sweet day, in this green May,And barren corn makes bitter bread.What shall be said?
Here as last year the fields begin,A fire of flowers and glowing grass;The old fields we laughed and lingered in,Seeing each our souls in last year's glass,Félise, alas!
Shall we not laugh, shall we not weep,Not we, though this be as it is?For love awake or love asleepEnds in a laugh, a dream, a kiss,A song like this.
I that have slept awake, and youSleep, who last year were well awake,Though love do all that love can do,My heart will never ache or breakFor your heart's sake.
The great sea, faultless as a flower,Throbs, trembling under beam and breeze,And laughs with love of the amorous hour.I found you fairer once, Félise,Than flowers or seas.
We played at bondsman and at queen;But as the days change men change too;I find the grey sea's notes of green,The green sea's fervent flakes of blue,More fair than you.
Your beauty is not over fairNow in mine eyes, who am grown up wise.The smell of flowers in all your hairAllures not now; no sigh repliesIf your heart sighs.
But you sigh seldom, you sleep sound,You find love's new name good enough.Less sweet I find it than I foundThe sweetest name that ever loveGrew weary of.
My snake with bright bland eyes, my snakeGrown tame and glad to be caressed,With lips athirst for mine to slakeTheir tender fever! who had guessedYou loved me best?
I had died for this last year, to knowYou loved me. Who shall turn on fate?I care not if love come or goNow, though your love seek mine for mate.It is too late.
The dust of many strange desiresLies deep between us; in our eyesDead smoke of perishable firesFlickers, a fume in air and skies,A steam of sighs.
You loved me and you loved me not;A little, much, and overmuch.Will you forget as I forgot?Let all dead things lie dead; none suchAre soft to touch.
I love you and I do not love,Too much, a little, not at all;Too much, and never yet enough.Birds quick to fledge and fly at callAre quick to fall.
And these love longer now than men,And larger loves than ours are these.No diver brings up love againDropped once, my beautiful Félise,In such cold seas.
Gone deeper than all plummets sound,Where in the dim green dayless dayThe life of such dead things lies boundAs the sea feeds on, wreck and strayAnd castaway.
Can I forget? yea, that can I,And that can all men; so will you,Alive, or later, when you die.Ah, but the love you plead was true?Was mine not too?
I loved you for that name of yoursLong ere we met, and long enough.Now that one thing of all endures—The sweetest name that ever loveWaxed weary of.
Like colours in the sea, like flowers,Like a cat's splendid circled eyesThat wax and wane with love for hours,Green as green flame, blue-grey like skies,And soft like sighs—
And all these only like your name,And your name full of all of these.I say it, and it sounds the same—Save that I say it now at ease,Your name, Félise.
I said "she must be swift and white,And subtly warm, and half perverse,And sweet like sharp soft fruit to bite,And like a snake's love lithe and fierce."Men have guessed worse.
What was the song I made of youHere where the grass forgets our feetAs afternoon forgets the dew?Ah that such sweet things should be fleet,Such fleet things sweet!
As afternoon forgets the dew,As time in time forgets all men,As our old place forgets us two,Who might have turned to one thing thenBut not again.
O lips that mine have grown intoLike April's kissing May,O fervent eyelids letting throughThose eyes the greenest of things blue,The bluest of things grey,
If you were I and I were you,How could I love you, say?How could the roseleaf love the rue,The day love nightfall and her dew,Though night may love the day?
You loved it may be more than I;We know not; love is hard to seize.And all things are not good to try;And lifelong loves the worst of theseFor us, Félise.
Ah, take the season and have done,Love well the hour and let it go:Two souls may sleep and wake up one,Or dream they wake and find it so,And then—you know.
Kiss me once hard as though a flameLay on my lips and made them fire;The same lips now, and not the same;What breath shall fill and re-inspireA dead desire?
The old song sounds hollower in mine earThan thin keen sounds of dead men's speech—A noise one hears and would not hear;Too strong to die, too weak to reachFrom wave to beach.
We stand on either side the sea,Stretch hands, blow kisses, laugh and leanI toward you, you toward me;But what hears either save the keenGrey sea between?
A year divides us, love from love,Though you love now, though I loved then.The gulf is strait, but deep enough;Who shall recross, who among menShall cross again?
Love was a jest last year, you said,And what lives surely, surely dies.Even so; but now that love is dead,Shall love rekindle from wet eyes,From subtle sighs?
For many loves are good to see;Mutable loves, and loves perverse;But there is nothing, nor shall be,So sweet, so wicked, but my verseCan dream of worse.
For we that sing and you that loveKnow that which man may, only we.The rest live under us; above,Live the great gods in heaven, and seeWhat things shall be.
So this thing is and must be so;For man dies, and love also dies.Though yet love's ghost moves to and froThe sea-green mirrors of your eyes,And laughs, and lies.
Eyes coloured like a water-flower,And deeper than the green sea's glass;Eyes that remember one sweet hour—In vain we swore it should not pass;In vain, alas!
Ah my Félise, if love or sin,If shame or fear could hold it fast,Should we not hold it? Love wears thin,And they laugh well who laugh the last.Is it not past?
The gods, the gods are stronger; timeFalls down before them, all men's kneesBow, all men's prayers and sorrows climbLike incense towards them; yea, for theseAre gods, Félise.
Immortal are they, clothed with powers,Not to be comforted at all;Lords over all the fruitless hours;Too great to appease, too high to appal,Too far to call.
For none shall move the most high gods,Who are most sad, being cruel; noneShall break or take away the rodsWherewith they scourge us, not as oneThat smites a son.
By many a name of many a creedWe have called upon them, since the sandsFell through time's hour-glass first, a seedOf life; and out of many landsHave we stretched hands.
When have they heard us? who hath knownTheir faces, climbed unto their feet,Felt them and found them? Laugh or groan,Doth heaven remurmur and repeatSad sounds or sweet?
Do the stars answer? in the nightHave ye found comfort? or by dayHave ye seen gods? What hope, what light,Falls from the farthest starriest wayOn you that pray?
Are the skies wet because we weep,Or fair because of any mirth?Cry out; they are gods; perchance they sleep;Cry; thou shalt know what prayers are worth,Thou dust and earth.
O earth, thou art fair; O dust, thou art great;O laughing lips and lips that mourn,Pray, till ye feel the exceeding weightOf God's intolerable scorn,Not to be borne.
Behold, there is no grief like this;The barren blossom of thy prayer,Thou shalt find out how sweet it is.O fools and blind, what seek ye there,High up in the air?
Ye must have gods, the friends of men,Merciful gods, compassionate,And these shall answer you again.Will ye beat always at the gate,Ye fools of fate?
Ye fools and blind; for this is sure,That all ye shall not live, but die.Lo, what thing have ye found endure?Or what thing have ye found on highPast the blind sky?
The ghosts of words and dusty dreams,Old memories, faiths infirm and dead.Ye fools; for which among you deemsHis prayer can alter green to redOr stones to bread?
Why should ye bear with hopes and fearsTill all these things be drawn in one,The sound of iron-footed years,And all the oppression that is doneUnder the sun?
Ye might end surely, surely passOut of the multitude of things,Under the dust, beneath the grass,Deep in dim death, where no thought stings,No record clings.
No memory more of love or hate,No trouble, nothing that aspires,No sleepless labour thwarting fate,And thwarted; where no travail tires,Where no faith fires.
All passes, nought that has been is,Things good and evil have one end.Can anything be otherwiseThough all men swear all things would mendWith God to friend?
Can ye beat off one wave with prayer,Can ye move mountains? bid the flowerTake flight and turn to a bird in the air?Can ye hold fast for shine or showerOne wingless hour?
Ah sweet, and we too, can we bringOne sigh back, bid one smile revive?Can God restore one ruined thing,Or he who slays our souls aliveMake dead things thrive?
Two gifts perforce he has given us yet,Though sad things stay and glad things fly;Two gifts he has given us, to forgetAll glad and sad things that go by,And then to die.
We know not whether death be good,But life at least it will not be:Men will stand saddening as we stood,Watch the same fields and skies as weAnd the same sea.
Let this be said between us here,One love grows green when one turns grey;This year knows nothing of last year;To-morrow has no more to sayTo yesterday.
Live and let live, as I will do,Love and let love, and so will I.But, sweet, for me no more with you:Not while I live, not though I die.Goodnight, goodbye.
In the greenest growth of the Maytime,I rode where the woods were wet,Between the dawn and the daytime;The spring was glad that we met.There was something the season wanted,Though the ways and the woods smelt sweet;The breath at your lips that panted,The pulse of the grass at your feet.You came, and the sun came after,And the green grew golden above;And the flag-flowers lightened with laughter,And the meadow-sweet shook with love.Your feet in the full-grown grassesMoved soft as a weak wind blows;You passed me as April passes,With face made out of a rose.By the stream where the stems were slender,Your bright foot paused at the sedge;It might be to watch the tenderLight leaves in the springtime hedge,On boughs that the sweet month blanchesWith flowery frost of May:It might be a bird in the branches,It might be a thorn in the way.I waited to watch you lingerWith foot drawn back from the dew,Till a sunbeam straight like a fingerStruck sharp through the leaves at you.And a bird overhead sangFollow,And a bird to the right sangHere;And the arch of the leaves was hollow,And the meaning of May was clear.I saw where the sun's hand pointed,I knew what the bird's note said;By the dawn and the dewfall anointed,You were queen by the gold on your head.As the glimpse of a burnt-out emberRecalls a regret of the sun,I remember, forget, and rememberWhat Love saw done and undone.I remember the way we parted,The day and the way we met;You hoped we were both broken-hearted,And knew we should both forget.And May with her world in flowerSeemed still to murmur and smileAs you murmured and smiled for an hour;I saw you turn at the stile.A hand like a white wood-blossomYou lifted, and waved, and passed,With head hung down to the bosom,And pale, as it seemed, at last.And the best and the worst of this isThat neither is most to blameIf you've forgotten my kissesAnd I've forgotten your name.
In the greenest growth of the Maytime,I rode where the woods were wet,Between the dawn and the daytime;The spring was glad that we met.
There was something the season wanted,Though the ways and the woods smelt sweet;The breath at your lips that panted,The pulse of the grass at your feet.
You came, and the sun came after,And the green grew golden above;And the flag-flowers lightened with laughter,And the meadow-sweet shook with love.
Your feet in the full-grown grassesMoved soft as a weak wind blows;You passed me as April passes,With face made out of a rose.
By the stream where the stems were slender,Your bright foot paused at the sedge;It might be to watch the tenderLight leaves in the springtime hedge,
On boughs that the sweet month blanchesWith flowery frost of May:It might be a bird in the branches,It might be a thorn in the way.
I waited to watch you lingerWith foot drawn back from the dew,Till a sunbeam straight like a fingerStruck sharp through the leaves at you.
And a bird overhead sangFollow,And a bird to the right sangHere;And the arch of the leaves was hollow,And the meaning of May was clear.
I saw where the sun's hand pointed,I knew what the bird's note said;By the dawn and the dewfall anointed,You were queen by the gold on your head.
As the glimpse of a burnt-out emberRecalls a regret of the sun,I remember, forget, and rememberWhat Love saw done and undone.
I remember the way we parted,The day and the way we met;You hoped we were both broken-hearted,And knew we should both forget.
And May with her world in flowerSeemed still to murmur and smileAs you murmured and smiled for an hour;I saw you turn at the stile.
A hand like a white wood-blossomYou lifted, and waved, and passed,With head hung down to the bosom,And pale, as it seemed, at last.
And the best and the worst of this isThat neither is most to blameIf you've forgotten my kissesAnd I've forgotten your name.