Sweet for a little even to fear, and sweet,O love, to lay down fear at love's fair feet;Shall not some fiery memory of his breathLie sweet on lips that touch the lips of death?Yet leave me not; yet, if thou wilt, be free;Love me no more, but love my love of thee.Love where thou wilt, and live thy life; and I,One thing I can, and one love cannot—die.Pass from me; yet thine arms, thine eyes, thine hair,Feed my desire and deaden my despair.Yet once more ere time change us, ere my cheekWhiten, ere hope be dumb or sorrow speak,Yet once more ere thou hate me, one full kiss;Keep other hours for others, save me this.Yea, and I will not (if it please thee) weep,Lest thou be sad; I will but sigh, and sleep.Sweet, does death hurt? thou canst not do me wrong:I shall not lack thee, as I loved thee, long.Hast thou not given me above all that liveJoy, and a little sorrow shalt not give?What even though fairer fingers of strange girlsPass nestling through thy beautiful boy's curlsAs mine did, or those curled lithe lips of thineMeet theirs as these, all theirs come after mine;And though I were not, though I be not, best,I have loved and love thee more than all the rest.O love, O lover, loose or hold me fast,I had thee first, whoever have thee last;Fairer or not, what need I know, what care?To thy fair bud my blossom once seemed fair.Why am I fair at all before thee, whyAt all desired? seeing thou art fair, not I.I shall be glad of thee, O fairest head,Alive, alone, without thee, with thee, dead;I shall remember while the light lives yet,And in the night-time I shall not forget.Though (as thou wilt) thou leave me ere life leave,I will not, for thy love I will not, grieve;Not as they use who love not more than I,Who love not as I love thee though I die;And though thy lips, once mine, be oftener prestTo many another brow and balmier breast,And sweeter arms, or sweeter to thy mind,Lull thee or lure, more fond thou wilt not find.
Sweet for a little even to fear, and sweet,O love, to lay down fear at love's fair feet;Shall not some fiery memory of his breathLie sweet on lips that touch the lips of death?Yet leave me not; yet, if thou wilt, be free;Love me no more, but love my love of thee.Love where thou wilt, and live thy life; and I,One thing I can, and one love cannot—die.Pass from me; yet thine arms, thine eyes, thine hair,Feed my desire and deaden my despair.Yet once more ere time change us, ere my cheekWhiten, ere hope be dumb or sorrow speak,Yet once more ere thou hate me, one full kiss;Keep other hours for others, save me this.Yea, and I will not (if it please thee) weep,Lest thou be sad; I will but sigh, and sleep.Sweet, does death hurt? thou canst not do me wrong:I shall not lack thee, as I loved thee, long.Hast thou not given me above all that liveJoy, and a little sorrow shalt not give?What even though fairer fingers of strange girlsPass nestling through thy beautiful boy's curlsAs mine did, or those curled lithe lips of thineMeet theirs as these, all theirs come after mine;And though I were not, though I be not, best,I have loved and love thee more than all the rest.O love, O lover, loose or hold me fast,I had thee first, whoever have thee last;Fairer or not, what need I know, what care?To thy fair bud my blossom once seemed fair.Why am I fair at all before thee, whyAt all desired? seeing thou art fair, not I.I shall be glad of thee, O fairest head,Alive, alone, without thee, with thee, dead;I shall remember while the light lives yet,And in the night-time I shall not forget.Though (as thou wilt) thou leave me ere life leave,I will not, for thy love I will not, grieve;Not as they use who love not more than I,Who love not as I love thee though I die;And though thy lips, once mine, be oftener prestTo many another brow and balmier breast,And sweeter arms, or sweeter to thy mind,Lull thee or lure, more fond thou wilt not find.
Back to the flower-town, side by side,The bright months bring,New-born, the bridegroom and the bride,Freedom and spring.The sweet land laughs from sea to sea,Filled full of sun;All things come back to her, being free;All things but one.In many a tender wheaten plotFlowers that were deadLive, and old suns revive; but notThat holier head.By this white wandering waste of sea,Far north, I hearOne face shall never turn to meAs once this year:Shall never smile and turn and restOn mine as there,Nor one most sacred hand be prestUpon my hair.I came as one whose thoughts half linger,Half run before;The youngest to the oldest singerThat England bore.I found him whom I shall not findTill all grief end,In holiest age our mightiest mind,Father and friend.But thou, if anything endure,If hope there be,O spirit that man's life left pure,Man's death set free,Not with disdain of days that wereLook earthward now;Let dreams revive the reverend hair,The imperial brow;Come back in sleep, for in the lifeWhere thou art notWe find none like thee. Time and strifeAnd the world's lotMove thee no more; but love at leastAnd reverent heartMay move thee, royal and released,Soul, as thou art.And thou, his Florence, to thy trustReceive and keep,Keep safe his dedicated dust,His sacred sleep.So shall thy lovers, come from far,Mix with thy nameAs morning-star with evening-starHis faultless fame
Back to the flower-town, side by side,The bright months bring,New-born, the bridegroom and the bride,Freedom and spring.
The sweet land laughs from sea to sea,Filled full of sun;All things come back to her, being free;All things but one.
In many a tender wheaten plotFlowers that were deadLive, and old suns revive; but notThat holier head.
By this white wandering waste of sea,Far north, I hearOne face shall never turn to meAs once this year:
Shall never smile and turn and restOn mine as there,Nor one most sacred hand be prestUpon my hair.
I came as one whose thoughts half linger,Half run before;The youngest to the oldest singerThat England bore.
I found him whom I shall not findTill all grief end,In holiest age our mightiest mind,Father and friend.
But thou, if anything endure,If hope there be,O spirit that man's life left pure,Man's death set free,
Not with disdain of days that wereLook earthward now;Let dreams revive the reverend hair,The imperial brow;
Come back in sleep, for in the lifeWhere thou art notWe find none like thee. Time and strifeAnd the world's lot
Move thee no more; but love at leastAnd reverent heartMay move thee, royal and released,Soul, as thou art.
And thou, his Florence, to thy trustReceive and keep,Keep safe his dedicated dust,His sacred sleep.
So shall thy lovers, come from far,Mix with thy nameAs morning-star with evening-starHis faultless fame
Push hard across the sand,For the salt wind gathers breath;Shoulder and wrist and hand,Push hard as the push of death.The wind is as iron that rings,The foam-heads loosen and flee;It swells and welters and swings,The pulse of the tide of the sea.And up on the yellow cliffThe long corn flickers and shakes;Push, for the wind holds stiff,And the gunwale dips and rakes.Good hap to the fresh fierce weather,The quiver and beat of the sea!While three men hold together,The kingdoms are less by three.Out to the sea with her there,Out with her over the sand;Let the kings keep the earth for their share!We have done with the sharers of land.They have tied the world in a tether,They have bought over God with a fee;While three men hold together,The kingdoms are less by three.We have done with the kisses that sting,The thief's mouth red from the feast,The blood on the hands of the kingAnd the lie at the lips of the priest.Will they tie the winds in a tether,Put a bit in the jaws of the sea?While three men hold together,The kingdoms are less by three.Let our flag run out straight in the wind!The old red shall be floated againWhen the ranks that are thin shall be thinned,When the names that were twenty are ten;When the devil's riddle is masteredAnd the galley-bench creaks with a Pope,We shall see Buonaparte the bastardKick heels with his throat in a rope.While the shepherd sets wolves on his sheepAnd the emperor halters his kine,While Shame is a watchman asleepAnd Faith is a keeper of swine,Let the wind shake our flag like a feather,Like the plumes of the foam of the sea!While three men hold together,The kingdoms are less by three.All the world has its burdens to bear,From Cayenne to the Austrian whips;Forth, with the rain in our hairAnd the salt sweet foam in our lips;In the teeth of the hard glad weather,In the blown wet face of the sea;While three men hold together,The kingdoms are less by three.
Push hard across the sand,For the salt wind gathers breath;Shoulder and wrist and hand,Push hard as the push of death.
The wind is as iron that rings,The foam-heads loosen and flee;It swells and welters and swings,The pulse of the tide of the sea.
And up on the yellow cliffThe long corn flickers and shakes;Push, for the wind holds stiff,And the gunwale dips and rakes.
Good hap to the fresh fierce weather,The quiver and beat of the sea!While three men hold together,The kingdoms are less by three.
Out to the sea with her there,Out with her over the sand;Let the kings keep the earth for their share!We have done with the sharers of land.
They have tied the world in a tether,They have bought over God with a fee;While three men hold together,The kingdoms are less by three.
We have done with the kisses that sting,The thief's mouth red from the feast,The blood on the hands of the kingAnd the lie at the lips of the priest.
Will they tie the winds in a tether,Put a bit in the jaws of the sea?While three men hold together,The kingdoms are less by three.
Let our flag run out straight in the wind!The old red shall be floated againWhen the ranks that are thin shall be thinned,When the names that were twenty are ten;
When the devil's riddle is masteredAnd the galley-bench creaks with a Pope,We shall see Buonaparte the bastardKick heels with his throat in a rope.
While the shepherd sets wolves on his sheepAnd the emperor halters his kine,While Shame is a watchman asleepAnd Faith is a keeper of swine,
Let the wind shake our flag like a feather,Like the plumes of the foam of the sea!While three men hold together,The kingdoms are less by three.
All the world has its burdens to bear,From Cayenne to the Austrian whips;Forth, with the rain in our hairAnd the salt sweet foam in our lips;
In the teeth of the hard glad weather,In the blown wet face of the sea;While three men hold together,The kingdoms are less by three.
The heart of the rulers is sick, and the high-priest covers his head:For this is the song of the quick that is heard in the ears of the dead.The poor and the halt and the blind are keen and mighty and fleet:Like the noise of the blowing of wind is the sound of the noise of their feet.The wind has the sound of a laugh in the clamour of days and of deeds:The priests are scattered like chaff, and the rulers broken like reeds.The high-priest sick from qualms, with his raiment bloodily dashed;The thief with branded palms, and the liar with cheeks abashed.They are smitten, they tremble greatly, they are pained for their pleasant things:For the house of the priests made stately, and the might in the mouth of the kings.They are grieved and greatly afraid; they are taken, they shall not flee:For the heart of the nations is made as the strength of the springs of the sea.They were fair in the grace of gold, they walked with delicate feet:They were clothed with the cunning of old, and the smell of their garments was sweet.For the breaking of gold in their hair they halt as a man made lame:They are utterly naked and bare; their mouths are bitter with shame.Wilt thou judge thy people now, O king that wast found most wise?Wilt thou lie any more, O thou whose mouth is emptied of lies?Shall God make a pact with thee, till his hook be found in thy sides?Wilt thou put back the time of the sea, or the place of the season of tides?Set a word in thy lips, to stand before God with a word in thy mouth:That "the rain shall return in the land, and the tender dew after drouth."But the arm of the elders is broken, their strength is unbound and undone:They wait for a sign of a token; they cry, and there cometh none.Their moan is in every place, the cry of them filleth the land:There is shame in the sight of their face, there is fear in the thews of their hand.They are girdled about the reins with a curse for the girdle thereon:For the noise of the rending of chains the face of their colour is gone.For the sound of the shouting of men they are grievously stricken at heart:They are smitten asunder with pain, their bones are smitten apart.There is none of them all that is whole; their lips gape open for breath;They are clothed with sickness of soul, and the shape of the shadow of death.The wind is thwart in their feet; it is full of the shouting of mirth;As one shaketh the sides of a sheet, so it shaketh the ends of the earth.The sword, the sword is made keen; the iron has opened its mouth;The corn is red that was green; it is bound for the sheaves of the south.The sound of a word was shed, the sound of the wind as a breath,In the ears of the souls that were dead, in the dust of the deepness of death;Where the face of the moon is taken, the ways of the stars undone,The light of the whole sky shaken, the light of the face of the sun:Where the waters are emptied and broken, the waves of the waters are stayed;Where God has bound for a token the darkness that maketh afraid;Where the sword was covered and hidden, and dust had grown in its side,A word came forth which was bidden, the crying of one that cried:The sides of the two-edged sword shall be bare, and its mouth shall be red,For the breath of the face of the Lord that is felt in the bones of the dead.
The heart of the rulers is sick, and the high-priest covers his head:For this is the song of the quick that is heard in the ears of the dead.
The poor and the halt and the blind are keen and mighty and fleet:Like the noise of the blowing of wind is the sound of the noise of their feet.
The wind has the sound of a laugh in the clamour of days and of deeds:The priests are scattered like chaff, and the rulers broken like reeds.
The high-priest sick from qualms, with his raiment bloodily dashed;The thief with branded palms, and the liar with cheeks abashed.
They are smitten, they tremble greatly, they are pained for their pleasant things:For the house of the priests made stately, and the might in the mouth of the kings.
They are grieved and greatly afraid; they are taken, they shall not flee:For the heart of the nations is made as the strength of the springs of the sea.
They were fair in the grace of gold, they walked with delicate feet:They were clothed with the cunning of old, and the smell of their garments was sweet.
For the breaking of gold in their hair they halt as a man made lame:They are utterly naked and bare; their mouths are bitter with shame.
Wilt thou judge thy people now, O king that wast found most wise?Wilt thou lie any more, O thou whose mouth is emptied of lies?
Shall God make a pact with thee, till his hook be found in thy sides?Wilt thou put back the time of the sea, or the place of the season of tides?
Set a word in thy lips, to stand before God with a word in thy mouth:That "the rain shall return in the land, and the tender dew after drouth."
But the arm of the elders is broken, their strength is unbound and undone:They wait for a sign of a token; they cry, and there cometh none.
Their moan is in every place, the cry of them filleth the land:There is shame in the sight of their face, there is fear in the thews of their hand.
They are girdled about the reins with a curse for the girdle thereon:For the noise of the rending of chains the face of their colour is gone.
For the sound of the shouting of men they are grievously stricken at heart:They are smitten asunder with pain, their bones are smitten apart.
There is none of them all that is whole; their lips gape open for breath;They are clothed with sickness of soul, and the shape of the shadow of death.
The wind is thwart in their feet; it is full of the shouting of mirth;As one shaketh the sides of a sheet, so it shaketh the ends of the earth.
The sword, the sword is made keen; the iron has opened its mouth;The corn is red that was green; it is bound for the sheaves of the south.
The sound of a word was shed, the sound of the wind as a breath,In the ears of the souls that were dead, in the dust of the deepness of death;
Where the face of the moon is taken, the ways of the stars undone,The light of the whole sky shaken, the light of the face of the sun:
Where the waters are emptied and broken, the waves of the waters are stayed;Where God has bound for a token the darkness that maketh afraid;
Where the sword was covered and hidden, and dust had grown in its side,A word came forth which was bidden, the crying of one that cried:
The sides of the two-edged sword shall be bare, and its mouth shall be red,For the breath of the face of the Lord that is felt in the bones of the dead.
In the fair days when GodBy man as godlike trod,And each alike was Greek, alike was free,God's lightning spared, they said,Alone the happier headWhose laurels screened it; fruitless grace for thee,To whom the high gods gave of rightTheir thunders and their laurels and their light.Sunbeams and bays beforeOur master's servants wore,For these Apollo left in all men's lands;But far from these ere nowAnd watched with jealous browLay the blind lightnings shut between God's hands,And only loosed on slaves and kingsThe terror of the tempest of their wings.Born in those younger yearsThat shone with storms of spearsAnd shook in the wind blown from a dead world's pyre,When by her back-blown hairNapoleon caught the fairAnd fierce Republic with her feet of fire,And stayed with iron words and handsHer flight, and freedom in a thousand lands:Thou sawest the tides of thingsClose over heads of kings,And thine hand felt the thunder, and to theeLaurels and lightnings wereAs sunbeams and soft airMixed each in other, or as mist with seaMixed, or as memory with desire,Or the lute's pulses with the louder lyre.For thee man's spirit stoodDisrobed of flesh and blood,And bare the heart of the most secret hours;And to thine hand more tameThan birds in winter cameHigh hopes and unknown flying forms of powers,And from thy table fed, and sangTill with the tune men's ears took fire and rang.Even all men's eyes and earsWith fiery sound and tearsWaxed hot, and cheeks caught flame and eyelid light,At those high songs of thineThat stung the sense like wine,Or fell more soft than dew or snow by night,Or wailed as in some flooded caveSobs the strong broken spirit of a wave.But we, our master, weWhose hearts, uplift to thee,Ache with the pulse of thy remembered song,We ask not nor awaitFrom the clenched hands of fate,As thou, remission of the world's old wrong;Respite we ask not, nor release;Freedom a man may have, he shall not peace.Though thy most fiery hopeStorm heaven, to set wide opeThe all-sought-for gate whence God or Chance debarsAll feet of men, all eyes—The old night resumes her skies,Her hollow hiding-place of clouds and stars,Where nought save these is sure in sight;And, paven with death, our days are roofed with night.One thing we can; to beAwhile, as men may, free;But not by hope or pleasure the most sternGoddess, most awful-eyed,Sits, but on either sideSit sorrow and the wrath of hearts that burn,Sad faith that cannot hope or fear,And memory grey with many a flowerless year.Not that in stranger's wiseI lift not loving eyesTo the fair foster-mother France, that gaveBeyond the pale fleet foamHelp to my sires and home,Whose great sweet breast could shelter those and saveWhom from her nursing breasts and handsTheir land cast forth of old on gentler lands.Not without thoughts that acheFor theirs and for thy sake,I, born of exiles, hail thy banished head;I whose young song took flightToward the great heat and lightOn me a child from thy far splendour shed,From thine high place of soul and song,Which, fallen on eyes yet feeble, made them strong.Ah, not with lessening loveFor memories born hereof,I look to that sweet mother-land, and seeThe old fields and fair full streams,And skies, but fled like dreamsThe feet of freedom and the thought of thee;And all between the skies and gravesThe mirth of mockers and the shame of slaves.She, killed with noisome air,Even she! and still so fair,Who said "Let there be freedom," and there wasFreedom; and as a lanceThe fiery eyes of FranceTouched the world's sleep and as a sleep made passForth of men's heavier ears and eyesSmitten with fire and thunder from new skies.Are they men's friends indeedWho watch them weep and bleed?Because thou hast loved us, shall the gods love thee?Thou, first of men and friend,Seest thou, even thou, the end?Thou knowest what hath been, knowest thou what shall be?Evils may pass and hopes endure;But fate is dim, and all the gods obscure.O nursed in airs apart,O poet highest of heart,Hast thou seen time, who hast seen so many things?Are not the years more wise,More sad than keenest eyes,The years with soundless feet and sounding wings?Passing we hear them not, but pastThe clamour of them thrills us, and their blast.Thou art chief of us, and lord;Thy song is as a swordKeen-edged and scented in the blade from flowers;Thou art lord and king; but weLift younger eyes, and seeLess of high hope, less light on wandering hours;Hours that have borne men down so long,Seen the right fail, and watched uplift the wrong.But thine imperial soul,As years and ruins rollTo the same end, and all things and all dreamsWith the same wreck and roarDrift on the dim same shore,Still in the bitter foam and brackish streamsTracks the fresh water-spring to beAnd sudden sweeter fountains in the sea.As once the high God boundWith many a rivet roundMan's saviour, and with iron nailed him through,At the wild end of things,Where even his own bird's wingsFlagged, whence the sea shone like a drop of dew,From Caucasus beheld belowPast fathoms of unfathomable snow;So the strong God, the chanceCentral of circumstance,Still shows him exile who will not be slave;All thy great fame and theeGirt by the dim strait seaWith multitudinous walls of wandering wave;Shows us our greatest from his throneFate-stricken, and rejected of his own.Yea, he is strong, thou say'st,A mystery many-faced,The wild beasts know him and the wild birds flee;The blind night sees him, deathShrinks beaten at his breath,And his right hand is heavy on the sea:We know he hath made us, and is king;We know not if he care for anything.Thus much, no more, we know;He bade what is be so,Bade light be and bade night be, one by one;Bade hope and fear, bade illAnd good redeem and kill,Till all men be aweary of the sunAnd his world burn in its own flameAnd bear no witness longer of his name.Yet though all this be thus,Be those men praised of usWho have loved and wrought and sorrowed and not sinnedFor fame or fear or gold,Nor waxed for winter cold,Nor changed for changes of the worldly wind;Praised above men of men be these,Till this one world and work we know shall cease.Yea, one thing more than this,We know that one thing is,The splendour of a spirit without blame,That not the labouring yearsBlind-born, nor any fears,Nor men nor any gods can tire or tame;But purer power with fiery breathFills, and exalts above the gulfs of death.Praised above men be thou,Whose laurel-laden brow,Made for the morning, droops not in the night;Praised and beloved, that noneOf all thy great things doneFlies higher than thy most equal spirit's flight;Praised, that nor doubt nor hope could bendEarth's loftiest head, found upright to the end.
In the fair days when GodBy man as godlike trod,And each alike was Greek, alike was free,God's lightning spared, they said,Alone the happier headWhose laurels screened it; fruitless grace for thee,To whom the high gods gave of rightTheir thunders and their laurels and their light.
Sunbeams and bays beforeOur master's servants wore,For these Apollo left in all men's lands;But far from these ere nowAnd watched with jealous browLay the blind lightnings shut between God's hands,And only loosed on slaves and kingsThe terror of the tempest of their wings.
Born in those younger yearsThat shone with storms of spearsAnd shook in the wind blown from a dead world's pyre,When by her back-blown hairNapoleon caught the fairAnd fierce Republic with her feet of fire,And stayed with iron words and handsHer flight, and freedom in a thousand lands:
Thou sawest the tides of thingsClose over heads of kings,And thine hand felt the thunder, and to theeLaurels and lightnings wereAs sunbeams and soft airMixed each in other, or as mist with seaMixed, or as memory with desire,Or the lute's pulses with the louder lyre.
For thee man's spirit stoodDisrobed of flesh and blood,And bare the heart of the most secret hours;And to thine hand more tameThan birds in winter cameHigh hopes and unknown flying forms of powers,And from thy table fed, and sangTill with the tune men's ears took fire and rang.
Even all men's eyes and earsWith fiery sound and tearsWaxed hot, and cheeks caught flame and eyelid light,At those high songs of thineThat stung the sense like wine,Or fell more soft than dew or snow by night,Or wailed as in some flooded caveSobs the strong broken spirit of a wave.
But we, our master, weWhose hearts, uplift to thee,Ache with the pulse of thy remembered song,We ask not nor awaitFrom the clenched hands of fate,As thou, remission of the world's old wrong;Respite we ask not, nor release;Freedom a man may have, he shall not peace.
Though thy most fiery hopeStorm heaven, to set wide opeThe all-sought-for gate whence God or Chance debarsAll feet of men, all eyes—The old night resumes her skies,Her hollow hiding-place of clouds and stars,Where nought save these is sure in sight;And, paven with death, our days are roofed with night.
One thing we can; to beAwhile, as men may, free;But not by hope or pleasure the most sternGoddess, most awful-eyed,Sits, but on either sideSit sorrow and the wrath of hearts that burn,Sad faith that cannot hope or fear,And memory grey with many a flowerless year.
Not that in stranger's wiseI lift not loving eyesTo the fair foster-mother France, that gaveBeyond the pale fleet foamHelp to my sires and home,Whose great sweet breast could shelter those and saveWhom from her nursing breasts and handsTheir land cast forth of old on gentler lands.
Not without thoughts that acheFor theirs and for thy sake,I, born of exiles, hail thy banished head;I whose young song took flightToward the great heat and lightOn me a child from thy far splendour shed,From thine high place of soul and song,Which, fallen on eyes yet feeble, made them strong.
Ah, not with lessening loveFor memories born hereof,I look to that sweet mother-land, and seeThe old fields and fair full streams,And skies, but fled like dreamsThe feet of freedom and the thought of thee;And all between the skies and gravesThe mirth of mockers and the shame of slaves.
She, killed with noisome air,Even she! and still so fair,Who said "Let there be freedom," and there wasFreedom; and as a lanceThe fiery eyes of FranceTouched the world's sleep and as a sleep made passForth of men's heavier ears and eyesSmitten with fire and thunder from new skies.
Are they men's friends indeedWho watch them weep and bleed?Because thou hast loved us, shall the gods love thee?Thou, first of men and friend,Seest thou, even thou, the end?Thou knowest what hath been, knowest thou what shall be?Evils may pass and hopes endure;But fate is dim, and all the gods obscure.
O nursed in airs apart,O poet highest of heart,Hast thou seen time, who hast seen so many things?Are not the years more wise,More sad than keenest eyes,The years with soundless feet and sounding wings?Passing we hear them not, but pastThe clamour of them thrills us, and their blast.
Thou art chief of us, and lord;Thy song is as a swordKeen-edged and scented in the blade from flowers;Thou art lord and king; but weLift younger eyes, and seeLess of high hope, less light on wandering hours;Hours that have borne men down so long,Seen the right fail, and watched uplift the wrong.
But thine imperial soul,As years and ruins rollTo the same end, and all things and all dreamsWith the same wreck and roarDrift on the dim same shore,Still in the bitter foam and brackish streamsTracks the fresh water-spring to beAnd sudden sweeter fountains in the sea.
As once the high God boundWith many a rivet roundMan's saviour, and with iron nailed him through,At the wild end of things,Where even his own bird's wingsFlagged, whence the sea shone like a drop of dew,From Caucasus beheld belowPast fathoms of unfathomable snow;
So the strong God, the chanceCentral of circumstance,Still shows him exile who will not be slave;All thy great fame and theeGirt by the dim strait seaWith multitudinous walls of wandering wave;Shows us our greatest from his throneFate-stricken, and rejected of his own.
Yea, he is strong, thou say'st,A mystery many-faced,The wild beasts know him and the wild birds flee;The blind night sees him, deathShrinks beaten at his breath,And his right hand is heavy on the sea:We know he hath made us, and is king;We know not if he care for anything.
Thus much, no more, we know;He bade what is be so,Bade light be and bade night be, one by one;Bade hope and fear, bade illAnd good redeem and kill,Till all men be aweary of the sunAnd his world burn in its own flameAnd bear no witness longer of his name.
Yet though all this be thus,Be those men praised of usWho have loved and wrought and sorrowed and not sinnedFor fame or fear or gold,Nor waxed for winter cold,Nor changed for changes of the worldly wind;Praised above men of men be these,Till this one world and work we know shall cease.
Yea, one thing more than this,We know that one thing is,The splendour of a spirit without blame,That not the labouring yearsBlind-born, nor any fears,Nor men nor any gods can tire or tame;But purer power with fiery breathFills, and exalts above the gulfs of death.
Praised above men be thou,Whose laurel-laden brow,Made for the morning, droops not in the night;Praised and beloved, that noneOf all thy great things doneFlies higher than thy most equal spirit's flight;Praised, that nor doubt nor hope could bendEarth's loftiest head, found upright to the end.
Sweet life, if life were stronger,Earth clear of years that wrong her,Then two things might live longer,Two sweeter things than they;Delight, the rootless flower,And love, the bloomless bower;Delight that lives an hour,And love that lives a day.From evensong to daytime,When April melts in Maytime,Love lengthens out his playtime,Love lessens breath by breath,And kiss by kiss grows olderOn listless throat or shoulderTurned sideways now, turned colderThan life that dreams of death.This one thing once worth givingLife gave, and seemed worth living;Sin sweet beyond forgivingAnd brief beyond regret:To laugh and love togetherAnd weave with foam and featherAnd wind and words the tetherOur memories play with yet.Ah, one thing worth beginning,One thread in life worth spinning,Ah sweet, one sin worth sinningWith all the whole soul's will;To lull you till one stilled you,To kiss you till one killed you,To feed you till one filled you,Sweet lips, if love could fill;To hunt sweet Love and lose himBetween white arms and bosom,Between the bud and blossom,Between your throat and chin;To say of shame—what is it?Of virtue—we can miss it,Of sin—we can but kiss it,And it's no longer sin:To feel the strong soul, strickenThrough fleshly pulses, quickenBeneath swift sighs that thicken,Soft hands and lips that smite;Lips that no love can tire,With hands that sting like fire,Weaving the web DesireTo snare the bird Delight.But love so lightly plighted,Our love with torch unlighted,Paused near us unaffrighted,Who found and left him free;None, seeing us cloven in sunder,Will weep or laugh or wonder;Light love stands clear of thunder,And safe from winds at sea.As, when late larks give warningOf dying lights and dawning,Night murmurs to the morning,"Lie still, O love, lie still;"And half her dark limbs coverThe white limbs of her lover,With amorous plumes that hoverAnd fervent lips that chill;As scornful day repressesNight's void and vain caresses,And from her cloudier tressesUnwinds the gold of his,With limbs from limbs dividingAnd breath by breath subsiding;For love has no abiding,But dies before the kiss;So hath it been, so be it;For who shall live and flee it?But look that no man see itOr hear it unaware;Lest all who love and choose himSee Love, and so refuse him;For all who find him lose him,But all have found him fair.
Sweet life, if life were stronger,Earth clear of years that wrong her,Then two things might live longer,Two sweeter things than they;Delight, the rootless flower,And love, the bloomless bower;Delight that lives an hour,And love that lives a day.
From evensong to daytime,When April melts in Maytime,Love lengthens out his playtime,Love lessens breath by breath,And kiss by kiss grows olderOn listless throat or shoulderTurned sideways now, turned colderThan life that dreams of death.
This one thing once worth givingLife gave, and seemed worth living;Sin sweet beyond forgivingAnd brief beyond regret:To laugh and love togetherAnd weave with foam and featherAnd wind and words the tetherOur memories play with yet.
Ah, one thing worth beginning,One thread in life worth spinning,Ah sweet, one sin worth sinningWith all the whole soul's will;To lull you till one stilled you,To kiss you till one killed you,To feed you till one filled you,Sweet lips, if love could fill;
To hunt sweet Love and lose himBetween white arms and bosom,Between the bud and blossom,Between your throat and chin;To say of shame—what is it?Of virtue—we can miss it,Of sin—we can but kiss it,And it's no longer sin:
To feel the strong soul, strickenThrough fleshly pulses, quickenBeneath swift sighs that thicken,Soft hands and lips that smite;Lips that no love can tire,With hands that sting like fire,Weaving the web DesireTo snare the bird Delight.
But love so lightly plighted,Our love with torch unlighted,Paused near us unaffrighted,Who found and left him free;None, seeing us cloven in sunder,Will weep or laugh or wonder;Light love stands clear of thunder,And safe from winds at sea.
As, when late larks give warningOf dying lights and dawning,Night murmurs to the morning,"Lie still, O love, lie still;"And half her dark limbs coverThe white limbs of her lover,With amorous plumes that hoverAnd fervent lips that chill;
As scornful day repressesNight's void and vain caresses,And from her cloudier tressesUnwinds the gold of his,With limbs from limbs dividingAnd breath by breath subsiding;For love has no abiding,But dies before the kiss;
So hath it been, so be it;For who shall live and flee it?But look that no man see itOr hear it unaware;Lest all who love and choose himSee Love, and so refuse him;For all who find him lose him,But all have found him fair.
Cold eyelids that hide like a jewelHard eyes that grow soft for an hour;The heavy white limbs, and the cruelRed mouth like a venomous flower;When these are gone by with their glories,What shall rest of thee then, what remain,O mystic and sombre Dolores,Our Lady of Pain?Seven sorrows the priests give their Virgin;But thy sins, which are seventy times seven,Seven ages would fail thee to purge in,And then they would haunt thee in heaven:Fierce midnights and famishing morrows,And the loves that complete and controlAll the joys of the flesh, all the sorrowsThat wear out the soul.O garment not golden but gilded,O garden where all men may dwell,O tower not of ivory, but buildedBy hands that reach heaven from hell;O mystical rose of the mire,O house not of gold but of gain,O house of unquenchable fire,Our Lady of Pain!O lips full of lust and of laughter,Curled snakes that are fed from my breast,Bite hard, lest remembrance come afterAnd press with new lips where you pressed.For my heart too springs up at the pressure,Mine eyelids too moisten and burn;Ah, feed me and fill me with pleasure,Ere pain come in turn.In yesterday's reach and to-morrow's,Out of sight though they lie of to-day,There have been and there yet shall be sorrowsThat smite not and bite not in play.The life and the love thou despisest,These hurt us indeed, and in vain,O wise among women, and wisest,Our Lady of Pain.Who gave thee thy wisdom? what storiesThat stung thee, what visions that smote?Wert thou pure and a maiden, Dolores,When desire took thee first by the throat?What bud was the shell of a blossomThat all men may smell to and pluck?What milk fed thee first at what bosom?What sins gave thee suck?We shift and bedeck and bedrape us,Thou art noble and nude and antique;Libitina thy mother, PriapusThy father, a Tuscan and Greek.We play with light loves in the portal,And wince and relent and refrain;Loves die, and we know thee immortal,Our Lady of Pain.Fruits fail and love dies and time ranges;Thou art fed with perpetual breath,And alive after infinite changes,And fresh from the kisses of death;Of languors rekindled and rallied,Of barren delights and unclean,Things monstrous and fruitless, a pallidAnd poisonous queen.Could you hurt me, sweet lips, though I hurt you?Men touch them, and change in a triceThe lilies and languors of virtueFor the raptures and roses of vice;Those lie where thy foot on the floor is,These crown and caress thee and chain,O splendid and sterile Dolores,Our Lady of Pain.There are sins it may be to discover,There are deeds it may be to delight.What new work wilt thou find for thy lover,What new passions for daytime or night?What spells that they know not a word ofWhose lives are as leaves overblown?What tortures undreamt of, unheard of,Unwritten, unknown?Ah beautiful passionate bodyThat never has ached with a heart!On thy mouth though the kisses are bloody,Though they sting till it shudder and smart,More kind than the love we adore is,They hurt not the heart or the brain,O bitter and tender Dolores,Our Lady of Pain.As our kisses relax and redouble,From the lips and the foam and the fangsShall no new sin be born for men's trouble,No dream of impossible pangs?With the sweet of the sins of old agesWilt thou satiate thy soul as of yore?Too sweet is the rind, say the sages,Too bitter the core.Hast thou told all thy secrets the last time,And bared all thy beauties to one?Ah, where shall we go then for pastime,If the worst that can be has been done?But sweet as the rind was the core is;We are fain of thee still, we are fain,O sanguine and subtle Dolores,Our Lady of Pain.By the hunger of change and emotion,By the thirst of unbearable things,By despair, the twin-born of devotion,By the pleasure that winces and stings,The delight that consumes the desire,The desire that outruns the delight,By the cruelty deaf as a fireAnd blind as the night,By the ravenous teeth that have smittenThrough the kisses that blossom and bud,By the lips intertwisted and bittenTill the foam has a savour of blood,By the pulse as it rises and falters,By the hands as they slacken and strain,I adjure thee, respond from thine altars,Our Lady of Pain.Wilt thou smile as a woman disdainingThe light fire in the veins of a boy?But he comes to thee sad, without feigning,Who has wearied of sorrow and joy;Less careful of labour and gloryThan the elders whose hair has uncurled;And young, but with fancies as hoaryAnd grey as the world.I have passed from the outermost portalTo the shrine where a sin is a prayer;What care though the service be mortal?O our Lady of Torture, what care?All thine the last wine that I pour is,The last in the chalice we drain,O fierce and luxurious Dolores,Our Lady of Pain.All thine the new wine of desire,The fruit of four lips as they clungTill the hair and the eyelids took fire,The foam of a serpentine tongue,The froth of the serpents of pleasure,More salt than the foam of the sea,Now felt as a flame, now at leisureAs wine shed for me.Ah thy people, thy children, thy chosen,Marked cross from the womb and perverse!They have found out the secret to cozenThe gods that constrain us and curse;They alone, they are wise, and none other;Give me place, even me, in their train,O my sister, my spouse, and my mother,Our Lady of Pain.For the crown of our life as it closesIs darkness, the fruit thereof dust;No thorns go as deep as a rose's,And love is more cruel than lust.Time turns the old days to derision,Our loves into corpses or wives;And marriage and death and divisionMake barren our lives.And pale from the past we draw nigh thee,And satiate with comfortless hours;And we know thee, how all men belie thee,And we gather the fruit of thy flowers;The passion that slays and recovers,The pangs and the kisses that rainOn the lips and the limbs of thy lovers,Our Lady of Pain.The desire of thy furious embracesIs more than the wisdom of years,On the blossom though blood lie in traces,Though the foliage be sodden with tears.For the lords in whose keeping the door isThat opens on all who draw breathGave the cypress to love, my Dolores,The myrtle to death.And they laughed, changing hands in the measure,And they mixed and made peace after strife;Pain melted in tears, and was pleasure;Death tingled with blood, and was life.Like lovers they melted and tingled,In the dusk of thine innermost fane;In the darkness they murmured and mingled,Our Lady of Pain.In a twilight where virtues are vices,In thy chapels, unknown of the sun,To a tune that enthralls and entices,They were wed, and the twain were as one.For the tune from thine altar hath soundedSince God bade the world's work begin,And the fume of thine incense abounded,To sweeten the sin.Love listens, and paler than ashes,Through his curls as the crown on them slips,Lifts languid wet eyelids and lashes,And laughs with insatiable lips.Thou shalt hush him with heavy caresses,With music that scares the profane;Thou shalt darken his eyes with thy tresses,Our Lady of Pain.Thou shalt blind his bright eyes though he wrestle,Thou shalt chain his light limbs though he strive;In his lips all thy serpents shall nestle,In his hands all thy cruelties thrive.In the daytime thy voice shall go through him,In his dreams he shall feel thee and ache;Thou shalt kindle by night and subdue himAsleep and awake.Thou shalt touch and make redder his rosesWith juice not of fruit nor of bud;When the sense in the spirit reposes,Thou shalt quicken the soul through the blood.Thine, thine the one grace we implore is,Who would live and not languish or feign,O sleepless and deadly Dolores,Our Lady of Pain.Dost thou dream, in a respite of slumber,In a lull of the fires of thy life,Of the days without name, without number,When thy will stung the world into strife;When, a goddess, the pulse of thy passionSmote kings as they revelled in Rome;And they hailed thee re-risen, O Thalassian,Foam-white, from the foam?When thy lips had such lovers to flatter;When the city lay red from thy rods,And thine hands were as arrows to scatterThe children of change and their gods;When the blood of thy foemen made ferventA sand never moist from the main,As one smote them, their lord and thy servant,Our Lady of Pain.On sands by the storm never shaken,Nor wet from the washing of tides;Nor by foam of the waves overtaken,Nor winds that the thunder bestrides;But red from the print of thy paces,Made smooth for the world and its lords,Ringed round with a flame of fair faces,And splendid with swords.There the gladiator, pale for thy pleasure,Drew bitter and perilous breath;There torments laid hold on the treasureOf limbs too delicious for death;When thy gardens were lit with live torches;When the world was a steed for thy rein;When the nations lay prone in thy porches,Our Lady of Pain.When, with flame all around him aspirant,Stood flushed, as a harp-player stands,The implacable beautiful tyrant,Rose-crowned, having death in his hands;And a sound as the sound of loud waterSmote far through the flight of the fires,And mixed with the lightning of slaughterA thunder of lyres.Dost thou dream of what was and no more is,The old kingdoms of earth and the kings?Dost thou hunger for these things, Dolores,For these, in a world of new things?But thy bosom no fasts could emaciate,No hunger compel to complainThose lips that no bloodshed could satiate,Our Lady of Pain.As of old when the world's heart was lighter,Through thy garments the grace of thee glows,The white wealth of thy body made whiterBy the blushes of amorous blows,And seamed with sharp lips and fierce fingers,And branded by kisses that bruise;When all shall be gone that now lingers,Ah, what shall we lose?Thou wert fair in the fearless old fashion,And thy limbs are as melodies yet,And move to the music of passionWith lithe and lascivious regret.What ailed us, O gods, to desert youFor creeds that refuse and restrain?Come down and redeem us from virtue,Our Lady of Pain.All shrines that were Vestal are flameless,But the flame has not fallen from this;Though obscure be the god, and though namelessThe eyes and the hair that we kiss;Low fires that love sits by and forgesFresh heads for his arrows and thine;Hair loosened and soiled in mid orgiesWith kisses and wine.Thy skin changes country and colour,And shrivels or swells to a snake's.Let it brighten and bloat and grow duller,We know it, the flames and the flakes,Red brands on it smitten and bitten,Round skies where a star is a stain,And the leaves with thy litanies written,Our Lady of Pain.On thy bosom though many a kiss be,There are none such as knew it of old.Was it Alciphron once or Arisbe,Male ringlets or feminine gold,That thy lips met with under the statue,Whence a look shot out sharp after thievesFrom the eyes of the garden-god at youAcross the fig-leaves?Then still, through dry seasons and moister,One god had a wreath to his shrine;Then love was the pearl of his oyster,[4]And Venus rose red out of wine.We have all done amiss, choosing ratherSuch loves as the wise gods disdain;Intercede for us thou with thy father,Our Lady of Pain.In spring he had crowns of his garden,Red corn in the heat of the year,Then hoary green olives that hardenWhen the grape-blossom freezes with fear;And milk-budded myrtles with VenusAnd vine-leaves with Bacchus he trod;And ye said, "We have seen, he hath seen us,A visible God."What broke off the garlands that girt you?What sundered you spirit and clay?Weak sins yet alive are as virtueTo the strength of the sins of that day.For dried is the blood of thy lover,Ipsithilla, contracted the vein;Cry aloud, "Will he rise and recover,Our Lady of Pain?"Cry aloud; for the old world is broken:Cry out; for the Phrygian is priest,And rears not the bountiful tokenAnd spreads not the fatherly feast.From the midmost of Ida, from shadyRecesses that murmur at morn,They have brought and baptized her, Our Lady,A goddess new-born.And the chaplets of old are above us,And the oyster-bed teems out of reach;Old poets outsing and outlove us,And Catullus makes mouths at our speech.Who shall kiss, in thy father's own city,With such lips as he sang with, again?Intercede for us all of thy pity,Our Lady of Pain.Out of Dindymus heavily ladenHer lions draw bound and unfedA mother, a mortal, a maiden,A queen over death and the dead.She is cold, and her habit is lowly,Her temple of branches and sods;Most fruitful and virginal, holy,A mother of gods.She hath wasted with fire thine high places,She hath hidden and marred and made sadThe fair limbs of the Loves, the fair facesOf gods that were goodly and glad.She slays, and her hands are not bloody;She moves as a moon in the wane,White-robed, and thy raiment is ruddy,Our Lady of Pain.They shall pass and their places be taken,The gods and the priests that are pure.They shall pass, and shalt thou not be shaken?They shall perish, and shalt thou endure?Death laughs, breathing close and relentlessIn the nostrils and eyelids of lust,With a pinch in his fingers of scentlessAnd delicate dust.But the worm shall revive thee with kisses;Thou shalt change and transmute as a god,As the rod to a serpent that hisses,As the serpent again to a rod.Thy life shall not cease though thou doff it;Thou shalt live until evil be slain,And good shall die first, said thy prophet,Our Lady of Pain.Did he lie? did he laugh? does he know it,Now he lies out of reach, out of breath,Thy prophet, thy preacher, thy poet,Sin's child by incestuous Death?Did he find out in fire at his waking,Or discern as his eyelids lost light,When the bands of the body were breakingAnd all came in sight?Who has known all the evil before us,Or the tyrannous secrets of time?Though we match not the dead men that bore usAt a song, at a kiss, at a crime—Though the heathen outface and outlive us,And our lives and our longings are twain—Ah, forgive us our virtues, forgive us,Our Lady of Pain.Who are we that embalm and embrace theeWith spices and savours of song?What is time, that his children should face thee?What am I, that my lips do thee wrong?I could hurt thee—but pain would delight thee;Or caress thee—but love would repel;And the lovers whose lips would excite theeAre serpents in hell.Who now shall content thee as they did,Thy lovers, when temples were builtAnd the hair of the sacrifice braidedAnd the blood of the sacrifice spilt,In Lampsacus fervent with faces,In Aphaca red from thy reign,Who embraced thee with awful embraces,Our Lady of Pain?Where are they, Cotytto or Venus,Astarte or Ashtaroth, where?Do their hands as we touch come between us?Is the breath of them hot in thy hair?From their lips have thy lips taken fever,With the blood of their bodies grown red?Hast thou left upon earth a believerIf these men are dead?They were purple of raiment and golden,Filled full of thee, fiery with wine,Thy lovers, in haunts unbeholden,In marvellous chambers of thine.They are fled, and their footprints escape us,Who appraise thee, adore, and abstain,O daughter of Death and Priapus,Our Lady of Pain.What ails us to fear overmeasure,To praise thee with timorous breath,O mistress and mother of pleasure,The one thing as certain as death?We shall change as the things that we cherish,Shall fade as they faded before,As foam upon water shall perish,As sand upon shore.We shall know what the darkness discovers,If the grave-pit be shallow or deep;And our fathers of old, and our lovers,We shall know if they sleep not or sleep.We shall see whether hell be not heaven,Find out whether tares be not grain,And the joys of thee seventy times seven,Our Lady of Pain.
Cold eyelids that hide like a jewelHard eyes that grow soft for an hour;The heavy white limbs, and the cruelRed mouth like a venomous flower;When these are gone by with their glories,What shall rest of thee then, what remain,O mystic and sombre Dolores,Our Lady of Pain?
Seven sorrows the priests give their Virgin;But thy sins, which are seventy times seven,Seven ages would fail thee to purge in,And then they would haunt thee in heaven:Fierce midnights and famishing morrows,And the loves that complete and controlAll the joys of the flesh, all the sorrowsThat wear out the soul.
O garment not golden but gilded,O garden where all men may dwell,O tower not of ivory, but buildedBy hands that reach heaven from hell;O mystical rose of the mire,O house not of gold but of gain,O house of unquenchable fire,Our Lady of Pain!
O lips full of lust and of laughter,Curled snakes that are fed from my breast,Bite hard, lest remembrance come afterAnd press with new lips where you pressed.For my heart too springs up at the pressure,Mine eyelids too moisten and burn;Ah, feed me and fill me with pleasure,Ere pain come in turn.
In yesterday's reach and to-morrow's,Out of sight though they lie of to-day,There have been and there yet shall be sorrowsThat smite not and bite not in play.The life and the love thou despisest,These hurt us indeed, and in vain,O wise among women, and wisest,Our Lady of Pain.
Who gave thee thy wisdom? what storiesThat stung thee, what visions that smote?Wert thou pure and a maiden, Dolores,When desire took thee first by the throat?What bud was the shell of a blossomThat all men may smell to and pluck?What milk fed thee first at what bosom?What sins gave thee suck?
We shift and bedeck and bedrape us,Thou art noble and nude and antique;Libitina thy mother, PriapusThy father, a Tuscan and Greek.We play with light loves in the portal,And wince and relent and refrain;Loves die, and we know thee immortal,Our Lady of Pain.
Fruits fail and love dies and time ranges;Thou art fed with perpetual breath,And alive after infinite changes,And fresh from the kisses of death;Of languors rekindled and rallied,Of barren delights and unclean,Things monstrous and fruitless, a pallidAnd poisonous queen.
Could you hurt me, sweet lips, though I hurt you?Men touch them, and change in a triceThe lilies and languors of virtueFor the raptures and roses of vice;Those lie where thy foot on the floor is,These crown and caress thee and chain,O splendid and sterile Dolores,Our Lady of Pain.
There are sins it may be to discover,There are deeds it may be to delight.What new work wilt thou find for thy lover,What new passions for daytime or night?What spells that they know not a word ofWhose lives are as leaves overblown?What tortures undreamt of, unheard of,Unwritten, unknown?
Ah beautiful passionate bodyThat never has ached with a heart!On thy mouth though the kisses are bloody,Though they sting till it shudder and smart,More kind than the love we adore is,They hurt not the heart or the brain,O bitter and tender Dolores,Our Lady of Pain.
As our kisses relax and redouble,From the lips and the foam and the fangsShall no new sin be born for men's trouble,No dream of impossible pangs?With the sweet of the sins of old agesWilt thou satiate thy soul as of yore?Too sweet is the rind, say the sages,Too bitter the core.
Hast thou told all thy secrets the last time,And bared all thy beauties to one?Ah, where shall we go then for pastime,If the worst that can be has been done?But sweet as the rind was the core is;We are fain of thee still, we are fain,O sanguine and subtle Dolores,Our Lady of Pain.
By the hunger of change and emotion,By the thirst of unbearable things,By despair, the twin-born of devotion,By the pleasure that winces and stings,The delight that consumes the desire,The desire that outruns the delight,By the cruelty deaf as a fireAnd blind as the night,
By the ravenous teeth that have smittenThrough the kisses that blossom and bud,By the lips intertwisted and bittenTill the foam has a savour of blood,By the pulse as it rises and falters,By the hands as they slacken and strain,I adjure thee, respond from thine altars,Our Lady of Pain.
Wilt thou smile as a woman disdainingThe light fire in the veins of a boy?But he comes to thee sad, without feigning,Who has wearied of sorrow and joy;Less careful of labour and gloryThan the elders whose hair has uncurled;And young, but with fancies as hoaryAnd grey as the world.
I have passed from the outermost portalTo the shrine where a sin is a prayer;What care though the service be mortal?O our Lady of Torture, what care?All thine the last wine that I pour is,The last in the chalice we drain,O fierce and luxurious Dolores,Our Lady of Pain.
All thine the new wine of desire,The fruit of four lips as they clungTill the hair and the eyelids took fire,The foam of a serpentine tongue,The froth of the serpents of pleasure,More salt than the foam of the sea,Now felt as a flame, now at leisureAs wine shed for me.
Ah thy people, thy children, thy chosen,Marked cross from the womb and perverse!They have found out the secret to cozenThe gods that constrain us and curse;They alone, they are wise, and none other;Give me place, even me, in their train,O my sister, my spouse, and my mother,Our Lady of Pain.
For the crown of our life as it closesIs darkness, the fruit thereof dust;No thorns go as deep as a rose's,And love is more cruel than lust.Time turns the old days to derision,Our loves into corpses or wives;And marriage and death and divisionMake barren our lives.
And pale from the past we draw nigh thee,And satiate with comfortless hours;And we know thee, how all men belie thee,And we gather the fruit of thy flowers;The passion that slays and recovers,The pangs and the kisses that rainOn the lips and the limbs of thy lovers,Our Lady of Pain.
The desire of thy furious embracesIs more than the wisdom of years,On the blossom though blood lie in traces,Though the foliage be sodden with tears.For the lords in whose keeping the door isThat opens on all who draw breathGave the cypress to love, my Dolores,The myrtle to death.
And they laughed, changing hands in the measure,And they mixed and made peace after strife;Pain melted in tears, and was pleasure;Death tingled with blood, and was life.Like lovers they melted and tingled,In the dusk of thine innermost fane;In the darkness they murmured and mingled,Our Lady of Pain.
In a twilight where virtues are vices,In thy chapels, unknown of the sun,To a tune that enthralls and entices,They were wed, and the twain were as one.For the tune from thine altar hath soundedSince God bade the world's work begin,And the fume of thine incense abounded,To sweeten the sin.
Love listens, and paler than ashes,Through his curls as the crown on them slips,Lifts languid wet eyelids and lashes,And laughs with insatiable lips.Thou shalt hush him with heavy caresses,With music that scares the profane;Thou shalt darken his eyes with thy tresses,Our Lady of Pain.
Thou shalt blind his bright eyes though he wrestle,Thou shalt chain his light limbs though he strive;In his lips all thy serpents shall nestle,In his hands all thy cruelties thrive.In the daytime thy voice shall go through him,In his dreams he shall feel thee and ache;Thou shalt kindle by night and subdue himAsleep and awake.
Thou shalt touch and make redder his rosesWith juice not of fruit nor of bud;When the sense in the spirit reposes,Thou shalt quicken the soul through the blood.Thine, thine the one grace we implore is,Who would live and not languish or feign,O sleepless and deadly Dolores,Our Lady of Pain.
Dost thou dream, in a respite of slumber,In a lull of the fires of thy life,Of the days without name, without number,When thy will stung the world into strife;When, a goddess, the pulse of thy passionSmote kings as they revelled in Rome;And they hailed thee re-risen, O Thalassian,Foam-white, from the foam?
When thy lips had such lovers to flatter;When the city lay red from thy rods,And thine hands were as arrows to scatterThe children of change and their gods;When the blood of thy foemen made ferventA sand never moist from the main,As one smote them, their lord and thy servant,Our Lady of Pain.
On sands by the storm never shaken,Nor wet from the washing of tides;Nor by foam of the waves overtaken,Nor winds that the thunder bestrides;But red from the print of thy paces,Made smooth for the world and its lords,Ringed round with a flame of fair faces,And splendid with swords.
There the gladiator, pale for thy pleasure,Drew bitter and perilous breath;There torments laid hold on the treasureOf limbs too delicious for death;When thy gardens were lit with live torches;When the world was a steed for thy rein;When the nations lay prone in thy porches,Our Lady of Pain.
When, with flame all around him aspirant,Stood flushed, as a harp-player stands,The implacable beautiful tyrant,Rose-crowned, having death in his hands;And a sound as the sound of loud waterSmote far through the flight of the fires,And mixed with the lightning of slaughterA thunder of lyres.
Dost thou dream of what was and no more is,The old kingdoms of earth and the kings?Dost thou hunger for these things, Dolores,For these, in a world of new things?But thy bosom no fasts could emaciate,No hunger compel to complainThose lips that no bloodshed could satiate,Our Lady of Pain.
As of old when the world's heart was lighter,Through thy garments the grace of thee glows,The white wealth of thy body made whiterBy the blushes of amorous blows,And seamed with sharp lips and fierce fingers,And branded by kisses that bruise;When all shall be gone that now lingers,Ah, what shall we lose?
Thou wert fair in the fearless old fashion,And thy limbs are as melodies yet,And move to the music of passionWith lithe and lascivious regret.What ailed us, O gods, to desert youFor creeds that refuse and restrain?Come down and redeem us from virtue,Our Lady of Pain.
All shrines that were Vestal are flameless,But the flame has not fallen from this;Though obscure be the god, and though namelessThe eyes and the hair that we kiss;Low fires that love sits by and forgesFresh heads for his arrows and thine;Hair loosened and soiled in mid orgiesWith kisses and wine.
Thy skin changes country and colour,And shrivels or swells to a snake's.Let it brighten and bloat and grow duller,We know it, the flames and the flakes,Red brands on it smitten and bitten,Round skies where a star is a stain,And the leaves with thy litanies written,Our Lady of Pain.
On thy bosom though many a kiss be,There are none such as knew it of old.Was it Alciphron once or Arisbe,Male ringlets or feminine gold,That thy lips met with under the statue,Whence a look shot out sharp after thievesFrom the eyes of the garden-god at youAcross the fig-leaves?
Then still, through dry seasons and moister,One god had a wreath to his shrine;Then love was the pearl of his oyster,[4]And Venus rose red out of wine.We have all done amiss, choosing ratherSuch loves as the wise gods disdain;Intercede for us thou with thy father,Our Lady of Pain.
In spring he had crowns of his garden,Red corn in the heat of the year,Then hoary green olives that hardenWhen the grape-blossom freezes with fear;And milk-budded myrtles with VenusAnd vine-leaves with Bacchus he trod;And ye said, "We have seen, he hath seen us,A visible God."
What broke off the garlands that girt you?What sundered you spirit and clay?Weak sins yet alive are as virtueTo the strength of the sins of that day.For dried is the blood of thy lover,Ipsithilla, contracted the vein;Cry aloud, "Will he rise and recover,Our Lady of Pain?"
Cry aloud; for the old world is broken:Cry out; for the Phrygian is priest,And rears not the bountiful tokenAnd spreads not the fatherly feast.From the midmost of Ida, from shadyRecesses that murmur at morn,They have brought and baptized her, Our Lady,A goddess new-born.
And the chaplets of old are above us,And the oyster-bed teems out of reach;Old poets outsing and outlove us,And Catullus makes mouths at our speech.Who shall kiss, in thy father's own city,With such lips as he sang with, again?Intercede for us all of thy pity,Our Lady of Pain.
Out of Dindymus heavily ladenHer lions draw bound and unfedA mother, a mortal, a maiden,A queen over death and the dead.She is cold, and her habit is lowly,Her temple of branches and sods;Most fruitful and virginal, holy,A mother of gods.
She hath wasted with fire thine high places,She hath hidden and marred and made sadThe fair limbs of the Loves, the fair facesOf gods that were goodly and glad.She slays, and her hands are not bloody;She moves as a moon in the wane,White-robed, and thy raiment is ruddy,Our Lady of Pain.
They shall pass and their places be taken,The gods and the priests that are pure.They shall pass, and shalt thou not be shaken?They shall perish, and shalt thou endure?Death laughs, breathing close and relentlessIn the nostrils and eyelids of lust,With a pinch in his fingers of scentlessAnd delicate dust.
But the worm shall revive thee with kisses;Thou shalt change and transmute as a god,As the rod to a serpent that hisses,As the serpent again to a rod.Thy life shall not cease though thou doff it;Thou shalt live until evil be slain,And good shall die first, said thy prophet,Our Lady of Pain.
Did he lie? did he laugh? does he know it,Now he lies out of reach, out of breath,Thy prophet, thy preacher, thy poet,Sin's child by incestuous Death?Did he find out in fire at his waking,Or discern as his eyelids lost light,When the bands of the body were breakingAnd all came in sight?
Who has known all the evil before us,Or the tyrannous secrets of time?Though we match not the dead men that bore usAt a song, at a kiss, at a crime—Though the heathen outface and outlive us,And our lives and our longings are twain—Ah, forgive us our virtues, forgive us,Our Lady of Pain.
Who are we that embalm and embrace theeWith spices and savours of song?What is time, that his children should face thee?What am I, that my lips do thee wrong?I could hurt thee—but pain would delight thee;Or caress thee—but love would repel;And the lovers whose lips would excite theeAre serpents in hell.
Who now shall content thee as they did,Thy lovers, when temples were builtAnd the hair of the sacrifice braidedAnd the blood of the sacrifice spilt,In Lampsacus fervent with faces,In Aphaca red from thy reign,Who embraced thee with awful embraces,Our Lady of Pain?
Where are they, Cotytto or Venus,Astarte or Ashtaroth, where?Do their hands as we touch come between us?Is the breath of them hot in thy hair?From their lips have thy lips taken fever,With the blood of their bodies grown red?Hast thou left upon earth a believerIf these men are dead?
They were purple of raiment and golden,Filled full of thee, fiery with wine,Thy lovers, in haunts unbeholden,In marvellous chambers of thine.They are fled, and their footprints escape us,Who appraise thee, adore, and abstain,O daughter of Death and Priapus,Our Lady of Pain.
What ails us to fear overmeasure,To praise thee with timorous breath,O mistress and mother of pleasure,The one thing as certain as death?We shall change as the things that we cherish,Shall fade as they faded before,As foam upon water shall perish,As sand upon shore.
We shall know what the darkness discovers,If the grave-pit be shallow or deep;And our fathers of old, and our lovers,We shall know if they sleep not or sleep.We shall see whether hell be not heaven,Find out whether tares be not grain,And the joys of thee seventy times seven,Our Lady of Pain.