This is the golden book of spirit and sense,The holy writ of beauty; he that wroughtMade it with dreams and faultless words and thoughtThat seeks and finds and loses in the denseDim air of life that beauty's excellenceWherewith love makes one hour of life distraughtAnd all hours after follow and find not aught.Here is that height of all love's eminenceWhere man may breathe but for a breathing‑spaceAnd feel his soul burn as an altar‑fireTo the unknown God of unachieved desire,And from the middle mystery of the placeWatch lights that break, hear sounds as of a quire,But see not twice unveiled the veiled God's face.
IIn vain men tell us time can alterOld loves or make old memories falter,That with the old year the old year's life closes.The old dew still falls on the old sweet flowers,The old sun revives the new‑fledged hours,The old summer rears the new‑born roses.IIMuch more a Muse that bears upon herRaiment and wreath and flower of honour,Gathered long since and long since woven,Fades not or falls as fall the vernalBlossoms that bear no fruit eternal,By summer or winter charred or cloven.IIINo time casts down, no time upraises,Such loves, such memories, and such praises,As need no grace of sun or shower,No saving screen from frost or thunderTo tend and house around and underThe imperishable and fearless flower.IVOld thanks, old thoughts, old aspirations,Outlive men's lives and lives of nations,Dead, but for one thing which survives—The inalienable and unpriced treasure,The old joy of power, the old pride of pleasure,That lives in light above men's lives.
IIn the garden of death, where the singers whose names are deathlessOne with another make music unheard of men,Where the dead sweet roses fade not of lips long breathless,And the fair eyes shine that shall weep not or change again,Who comes now crowned with the blossom of snow‑white years?What music is this that the world of the dead men hears?IIBeloved of men, whose words on our lips were honey,Whose name in our ears and our fathers' ears was sweet,Like summer gone forth of the land his songs made sunny,To the beautiful veiled bright world where the glad ghosts meet,Child, father, bridegroom and bride, and anguish and rest,No soul shall pass of a singer than this more blest.IIIBlest for the years' sweet sake that were filled and brightened,As a forest with birds, with the fruit and the flower of his song;For the souls' sake blest that heard, and their cares were lightened,For the hearts' sake blest that have fostered his name so long;By the living and dead lips blest that have loved his name,And clothed with their praise and crowned with their love for fame.IVAh, fair and fragrant his fame as flowers that close not,That shrink not by day for heat or for cold by night,As a thought in the heart shall increase when the heart's self knows not,Shall endure in our ears as a sound, in our eyes as a light;Shall wax with the years that wane and the seasons' chime,As a white rose thornless that grows in the garden of time.VThe same year calls, and one goes hence with another,And men sit sad that were glad for their sweet songs' sake;The same year beckons, and elder with younger brotherTakes mutely the cup from his hand that we all shall take.1They pass ere the leaves be past or the snows be come;And the birds are loud, but the lips that outsang them dumb.VITime takes them home that we loved, fair names and famous,To the soft long sleep, to the broad sweet bosom of death;But the flower of their souls he shall take not away to shame us,Nor the lips lack song for ever that now lack breath.For with us shall the music and perfume that die not dwell,Though the dead to our dead bid welcome, and we farewell.
1Sydney Dobell died August 22, 1874.
Life may give for love to deathLittle; what are life's gifts worthTo the dead wrapt round with earth?Yet from lips of living breathSighs or words we are fain to give,All that yet, while yet we live,Life may give for love to death.Dead so long before his day,Passed out of the Italian sunTo the dark where all is done,Fallen upon the verge of May;Here at life's and April's endHow should song salute my friendDead so long before his day?Not a kindlier life or sweeterTime, that lights and quenches men,Now may quench or light again,Mingling with the mystic metreWoven of all men's lives with hisNot a clearer note than this,Not a kindlier life or sweeter.In this heavenliest part of earthHe that living loved the light,Light and song, may rest aright,One in death, if strange in birth,With the deathless dead that makeLife the lovelier for their sakeIn this heavenliest part of earth.Light, and song, and sleep at last—Struggling hands and suppliant kneesGet no goodlier gift than these.Song that holds remembrance fast,Light that lightens death, attendRound their graves who have to friendLight, and song, and sleep at last.
He had no children, who for love of men,Being God, endured of Gods such things as thou,Father; nor on his thunder‑beaten browFell such a woe as bows thine head again,Twice bowed before, though godlike, in man's ken,And seen too high for any stroke to bowSave this of some strange God's that bends it nowThe third time with such weight as bruised it then.Fain would grief speak, fain utter for love's sakeSome word; but comfort who might bid thee take?What God in your own tongue shall talk with thee,Showing how all souls that look upon the sunShall be for thee one spirit and thy son,And thy soul's child the soul of man to be?January 3, 1876.
Spring, and the light and sound of things on earthRequickening, all within our green sea's girth;A time of passage or a time of birthFourscore years since as this year, first and last.The sun is all about the world we see,The breath and strength of very spring; and weLive, love, and feed on our own hearts; but heWhose heart fed mine has passed into the past.Past, all things born with sense and blood and breath;The flesh hears nought that now the spirit saith.If death be like as birth and birth as death,The first was fair—more fair should be the last.Fourscore years since, and come but one month moreThe count were perfect of his mortal scoreWhose sail went seaward yesterday from shoreTo cross the last of many an unsailed sea.Light, love and labour up to life's last height,These three were stars unsetting in his sight;Even as the sun is life and heat and lightAnd sets not nor is dark when dark are we.The life, the spirit, and the work were oneThat here—ah, who shall say, that here are done?Not I, that know not; father, not thy son,For all the darkness of the night and sea.March 5, 1877
Out of the dark sweet sleepWhere no dreams laugh or weepBorne through bright gates of birthInto the dim sweet lightWhere day still dreams of nightWhile heaven takes form on earth,White rose of spirit and flesh, red lily of love,What note of song have weFit for the birds and thee,Fair nestling couched beneath the mother‑dove?Nay, in some more divineSmall speechless song of thineSome news too good for words,Heart‑hushed and smiling, weMight hope to have of thee,The youngest of God's birds,If thy sweet sense might mix itself with ours,If ours might understandThe language of thy land,Ere thine become the tongue of mortal hours:Ere thy lips learn too soonTheir soft first human tune,Sweet, but less sweet than now,And thy raised eyes to readGlad and good things indeed,But none so sweet as thou:Ere thought lift up their flower‑soft lids to seeWhat life and love on earthBring thee for gifts at birth,But none so good as thine who hast given us thee:Now, ere thy sense forgetThe heaven that fills it yet,Now, sleeping or awake,If thou couldst tell, or weAsk and be heard of thee,For love's undying sake,From thy dumb lips divine and bright mute speechSuch news might touch our earThat then would burn to hearToo high a message now for man's to reach.Ere the gold hair of cornHad withered wast thou born,To make the good time glad;The time that but last yearFell colder than a tearOn hearts and hopes turned sad,High hopes and hearts requickening in thy dawn,Even theirs whose life‑springs, child,Filled thine with life and smiled,But then wept blood for half their own withdrawn.1If death and birth be one,And set with rise of sun,And truth with dreams divine,Some word might come with theeFrom over the still seaDeep hid in shade or shine,Crossed by the crossing sails of death and birth,Word of some sweet new thingFit for such lips to bring,Some word of love, some afterthought of earth.If love be strong as death,By what so natural breathAs thine could this be said?By what so lovely wayCould love send word to sayHe lives and is not dead?Such word alone were fit for only thee,If his and thine have metWhere spirits rise and set,His whom we see not, thine whom scarce we see:His there new‑born, as thouNew‑born among us now;His, here so fruitful‑souled,Now veiled and silent here,Now dumb as thou last year,A ghost of one year old:If lights that change their sphere in changing meet,Some ray might his not giveTo thine who wast to live,And make thy present with his past life sweet?Let dreams that laugh or weep,All glad and sad dreams, sleep;Truth more than dreams is dear.Let thoughts that change and fly,Sweet thoughts and swift, go by;More than all thought is here.More than all hope can forge or memory feignThe life that in our eyes,Made out of love's life, lies,And flower‑like fed with love for sun and rain.Twice royal in its rootThe sweet small olive‑shootHere set in sacred earth;Twice dowered with glorious graceFrom either heaven‑born raceFirst blended in its birth;Fair God or Genius of so fair an hour,For love of either nameTwice crowned, with love and fame,Guard and be gracious to the fair‑named flower.October 19, 1875.1Oliver Madox Brown died November 5, 1874, in his twentieth year.
When their last hour shall risePale on these mortal eyes,Herself like one that dies,And kiss me dyingThe cold last kiss, and foldClose round my limbs her coldSoft shade as raiment rolledAnd leave them lying,If aught my soul would sayMight move to hear me prayThe birth‑god of my dayThat he might hearken,This grace my heart should crave,To find no landward graveThat worldly springs make brave,World's winters darken,Nor grow through gradual hoursThe cold blind seed of flowersMade by new beams and showersFrom limbs that moulder,Nor take my part with earth,But find for death's new birthA bed of larger girth,More chaste and colder.Not earth's for spring and fall,Not earth's at heart, not allEarth's making, though men callEarth only mother,Not hers at heart she bareMe, but thy child, O fairSea, and thy brother's care,The wind thy brother.Yours was I born, and ye,The sea‑wind and the sea,Made all my soul in meA song for ever,A harp to string and smiteFor love's sake of the brightWind and the sea's delight,To fail them never:Not while on this side deathI hear what either saithAnd drink of either's breathWith heart's thanksgivingThat in my veins like wineSome sharp salt blood of thine,Some springtide pulse of brine,Yet leaps up living.When thy salt lips wellnighSucked in my mouth's last sigh,Grudged I so much to dieThis death as others?Was it no ease to thinkThe chalice from whose brinkFate gave me death to drinkWas thine—my mother's?Thee too, the all‑fostering earth,Fair as thy fairest birth,More than thy worthiest worth,We call, we know thee,More sweet and just and dreadThan live men highest of headOr even thy holiest deadLaid low below thee.The sunbeam on the sheaf,The dewfall on the leaf,All joy, all grace, all grief,Are thine for giving;Of thee our loves are born,Our lives and loves, that mournAnd triumph; tares with corn,Dead seed with living:All good and ill things doneIn eyeshot of the sunAt last in thee made oneRest well contented;All words of all man's breathAnd works he doth or saith,All wholly done to death,None long lamented.A slave to sons of thee,Thou, seeming, yet art free;But who shall make the seaServe even in seeming?What plough shall bid it bearSeed to the sun and the air,Fruit for thy strong sons' fare,Fresh wine's foam streaming?What oldworld son of thine,Made drunk with death as wine,Hath drunk the bright sea's brineWith lips of laughter?Thy blood they drink; but heWho hath drunken of the seaOnce deeplier than of theeShall drink not after.Of thee thy sons of menDrink deep, and thirst again;For wine in feasts, and thenIn fields for slaughter;But thirst shall touch not himWho hath felt with sense grown dimRise, covering lip and limb,The wan sea's water.All fire of thirst that achesThe salt sea cools and slakesMore than all springs or lakes,Freshets or shallows;Wells where no beam can burnThrough frondage of the fernThat hides from hart and hernThe haunt it hallows.Peace with all graves on earthFor death or sleep or birthBe alway, one in worthOne with another;But when my time shall be,O mother, O my sea,Alive or dead, take me,Me too, my mother.
I hid my heart in a nest of roses,Out of the sun's way, hidden apart;In a softer bed than the soft white snow's is,Under the roses I hid my heart.Why would it sleep not? why should it start,When never a leaf of the rose‑tree stirred?What made sleep flutter his wings and part?Only the song of a secret bird.Lie still, I said, for the wind's wing closes,And mild leaves muffle the keen sun's dart;Lie still, for the wind on the warm sea dozes,And the wind is unquieter yet than thou art.Does a thought in thee still as a thorn's wound smart?Does the fang still fret thee of hope deferred?What bids the lids of thy sleep dispart?Only the song of a secret bird.The green land's name that a charm encloses,It never was writ in the traveller's chart,And sweet on its trees as the fruit that grows is,It never was sold in the merchant's mart.The swallows of dreams through its dim fields dart,And sleep's are the tunes in its tree‑tops heard;No hound's note wakens the wildwood hart,Only the song of a secret bird.
ENVOIIn the world of dreams I have chosen my part,To sleep for a season and hear no wordOf true love's truth or of light love's art,Only the song of a secret bird.
A sea that heaves with horror of the night,As maddened by the moon that hangs aghastWith strain and torment of the ravening blast,Haggard as hell, a bleak blind bloody light;No shore but one red reef of rock in sight,Whereon the waifs of many a wreck were castAnd shattered in the fierce nights overpastWherein more souls toward hell than heaven took flight;And 'twixt the shark‑toothed rocks and swallowing shoalsA cry as out of hell from all these soulsSent through the sheer gorge of the slaughtering sea,Whose thousand throats, full‑fed with life by death,Fill the black air with foam and furious breath;And over all these one star—Chastity.
Bird of the bitter bright grey golden mornScarce risen upon the dusk of dolorous years,First of us all and sweetest singer bornWhose far shrill note the world of new men hearsCleave the cold shuddering shade as twilight clears;When song new‑born put off the old world's attireAnd felt its tune on her changed lips expire,Writ foremost on the roll of them that cameFresh girt for service of the latter lyre,Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name!Alas the joy, the sorrow, and the scorn,That clothed thy life with hopes and sins and fears,And gave thee stones for bread and tares for cornAnd plume‑plucked gaol‑birds for thy starveling peersTill death clipt close their flight with shameful shears;Till shifts came short and loves were hard to hire,When lilt of song nor twitch of twangling wireCould buy thee bread or kisses; when light fameSpurned like a ball and haled through brake and briar,Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name!Poor splendid wings so frayed and soiled and torn!Poor kind wild eyes so dashed with light quick tears!Poor perfect voice, most blithe when most forlorn,That rings athwart the sea whence no man steersLike joy‑bells crossed with death‑bells in our ears!What far delight has cooled the fierce desireThat like some ravenous bird was strong to tireOn that frail flesh and soul consumed with flame,But left more sweet than roses to respire,Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name?
ENVOIPrince of sweet songs made out of tears and fire,A harlot was thy nurse, a God thy sire;Shame soiled thy song, and song assoiled thy shame.But from thy feet now death has washed the mire,Love reads out first at head of all our quire,Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name.
Now the days are all gone overOf our singing, love by lover,Days of summer‑coloured seasBlown adrift through beam and breeze.Now the nights are all past overOf our dreaming, dreams that hoverIn a mist of fair false things,Nights afloat on wide wan wings.Now the loves with faith for mother,Now the fears with hope for brother,Scarce are with us as strange words,Notes from songs of last year's birds.Now all good that comes or goes isAs the smell of last year's roses,As the radiance in our eyesShot from summer's ere he dies.Now the morning faintlier risenSeems no God come forth of prison,But a bird of plume‑plucked wing,Pale with thoughts of evening.Now hath hope, outraced in running,Given the torch up of his cunningAnd the palm he thought to wearEven to his own strong child—despair.
In the lower lands of dayOn the hither side of night,There is nothing that will stay,There are all things soft to sight;Lighted shade and shadowy lightIn the wayside and the way,Hours the sun has spared to smite,Flowers the rain has left to play.Shall these hours run down and sayNo good thing of thee and me?Time that made us and will slayLaughs at love in me and thee;But if here the flowers may seeOne whole hour of amorous breath,Time shall die, and love shall beLord as time was over death.
Love laid his sleepless headOn a thorny rosy bed;And his eyes with tears were red,And pale his lips as the dead.And fear and sorrow and scornKept watch by his head forlorn,Till the night was overwornAnd the world was merry with morn.And Joy came up with the dayAnd kissed Love's lips as he lay,And the watchers ghostly and greySped from his pillow away.And his eyes as the dawn grew bright,And his lips waxed ruddy as light:Sorrow may reign for a night,But day shall bring back delight.
IO tender time that love thinks long to see,Sweet foot of spring that with her footfall sowsLate snowlike flowery leavings of the snows,Be not too long irresolute to be;O mother‑month, where have they hidden thee?Out of the pale time of the flowerless roseI reach my heart out toward the springtime lands,I stretch my spirit forth to the fair hours,The purplest of the prime;I lean my soul down over them, with handsMade wide to take the ghostly growths of flowers;I send my love back to the lovely time.IIWhere has the greenwood hid thy gracious head?Veiled with what visions while the grey world grieves,Or muffled with what shadows of green leaves,What warm intangible green shadows spreadTo sweeten the sweet twilight for thy bed?What sleep enchants thee? what delight deceives?Where the deep dreamlike dew before the dawnFeels not the fingers of the sunlight yetIts silver web unweave,Thy footless ghost on some unfooted lawnWhose air the unrisen sunbeams fear to fretLives a ghost's life of daylong dawn and eve.IIISunrise it sees not, neither set of star,Large nightfall, nor imperial plenilune,Nor strong sweet shape of the full‑breasted noon;But where the silver‑sandalled shadows are,Too soft for arrows of the sun to mar,Moves with the mild gait of an ungrown moon:Hard overhead the half‑lit crescent swims,The tender‑coloured night draws hardly breath,The light is listening;They watch the dawn of slender‑shapen limbs,Virginal, born again of doubtful death,Chill foster‑father of the weanling spring.IVAs sweet desire of day before the day,As dreams of love before the true love born,From the outer edge of winter overwornThe ghost arisen of May before the MayTakes through dim air her unawakened way,The gracious ghost of morning risen ere morn.With little unblown breasts and child‑eyed looksFollowing, the very maid, the girl‑child spring,Lifts windward her bright brows,Dips her light feet in warm and moving brooks,And kindles with her own mouth's colouringThe fearful firstlings of the plumeless boughs.VI seek thee sleeping, and awhile I see,Fair face that art not, how thy maiden breathShall put at last the deadly days to deathAnd fill the fields and fire the woods with theeAnd seaward hollows where my feet would beWhen heaven shall hear the word that April saithTo change the cold heart of the weary time,To stir and soften all the time to tears,Tears joyfuller than mirth;As even to May's clear height the young days climbWith feet not swifter than those fair first yearsWhose flowers revive not with thy flowers on earth.VII would not bid thee, though I might, give backOne good thing youth has given and borne away;I crave not any comfort of the dayThat is not, nor on time's retrodden trackWould turn to meet the white‑robed hours or blackThat long since left me on their mortal way;Nor light nor love that has been, nor the breathThat comes with morning from the sun to beAnd sets light hope on fire;No fruit, no flower thought once too fair for death,No flower nor hour once fallen from life's green tree,No leaf once plucked or once fulfilled desire.VIIThe morning song beneath the stars that fledWith twilight through the moonless mountain air,While youth with burning lips and wreathless hairSang toward the sun that was to crown his head,Rising; the hopes that triumphed and fell dead,The sweet swift eyes and songs of hours that were;These may'st thou not give back for ever; these,As at the sea's heart all her wrecks lie waste,Lie deeper than the sea;But flowers thou may'st, and winds, and hours of ease,And all its April to the world thou may'stGive back, and half my April back to me.
Love, what ailed thee to leave life that was madelovely, we thought, with love?What sweet visions of sleep lured thee away, downfrom the light above?What strange faces of dreams, voices that called,hands that were raised to wave,Lured or led thee, alas, out of the sun, down to thesunless grave?Ah, thy luminous eyes! once was their light fed withthe fire of day;Now their shadowy lids cover them close, hush themand hide away.Ah, thy snow-coloured hands! once were they chains,mighty to bind me fast;Now no blood in them burns, mindless of love, senselessof passion past.Ah, thy beautiful hair! so was it once braided forme, for me;Now for death is it crowned, only for death, loverand lord of thee.Sweet, the kisses of death set on thy lips, colder arethey than mine;Colder surely than past kisses that love poured forthy lips as wine.Lov'st thou death? is his face fairer than love's,brighter to look upon?Seest thou light in his eyes, light by which love'spales and is overshone?Lo the roses of death, grey as the dust, chiller of leafthan snow!Why let fall from thy hand love's that were thine,roses that loved thee so?Large red lilies of love, sceptral and tall, lovely foreyes to see;Thornless blossom of love, full of the sun, fruits thatwere reared for thee.Now death's poppies alone circle thy hair, girdle thybreasts as white;Bloodless blossoms of death, leaves that have sprungnever against the light.Nay then, sleep if thou wilt; love is content; whatshould he do to weep?Sweet was love to thee once; now in thine eyessweeter than love is sleep.
For a day and a night Love sang to us, played with us,Folded us round from the dark and the light;And our hearts were fulfilled of the music he made with us,Made with our hearts and our lips while he stayed with us,Stayed in mid passage his pinions from flightFor a day and a night.From his foes that kept watch with his wings had he hidden us,Covered us close from the eyes that would smite,From the feet that had tracked and the tongues that had chidden usSheltering in shade of the myrtles forbidden usSpirit and flesh growing one with delightFor a day and a night.But his wings will not rest and his feet will not stay for us:Morning is here in the joy of its might;With his breath has he sweetened a night and a day for us;Now let him pass, and the myrtles make way for us;Love can but last in us here at his heightFor a day and a night.
IThou whose beautyKnows no dutyDue to love that moves thee never;Thou whose merciesAre men's curses,And thy smile a scourge for ever;IIThou that givestDeath and livestOn the death of thy sweet giving;Thou that sparestNot nor carestThough thy scorn leave no love living;IIIThou whose rootlessFlower is fruitlessAs the pride its heart encloses,But thine eyes areAs May skies are,And thy words like spoken roses;IVThou whose grace isIn men's facesFierce and wayward as thy will is;Thou whose peerlessEyes are tearless,And thy thoughts as cold sweet lilies;VThou that takestHearts and makestWrecks of loves to strew behind thee,Whom the swallowSure should follow,Finding summer where we find thee;VIThou that wakestHearts and breakest,And thy broken hearts forgive thee,That wilt make noPause and take noGift that love for love might give thee;VIIThou that bindestEyes and blindest,Serving worst who served thee longest;Thou that speakest,And the weakestHeart is his that was the strongest;VIIITake in seasonThought with reason;Think what gifts are ours for giving;Hear what beautyOwes of dutyTo the love that keeps it living.IXDust that coversLong dead loversSong blows off with breath that brightens;At its flashesTheir white ashesBurst in bloom that lives and lightens.XHad they bent notHead or lent notEar to love and amorous duties,Song had neverSaved for ever,Love, the least of all their beauties.XIAll the goldenNames of oldenWomen yet by men's love cherished,All our dearestThoughts hold nearest,Had they loved not, all had perished.XIIIf no fruit isOf thy beauties,Tell me yet, since none may win them,What and whereforeLove should care forOf all good things hidden in them?XIIIPain for profitComes but of it,If the lips that lure their lover'sHold no treasurePast the measureOf the lightest hour that hovers.XIVIf they give notOr forgive notGifts or thefts for grace or guerdon,Love that missesFruit of kissesLong will bear no thankless burden.XVIf they care notThough love were not,If no breath of his burn through them,Joy must borrowSong from sorrow,Fear teach hope the way to woo them.XVIGrief has measuresSoft as pleasure's,Fear has moods that hope lies deep in,Songs to sing him,Dreams to bring him,And a red‑rose bed to sleep in.XVIIHope with fearlessLooks and tearlessLies and laughs too near the thunder;Fear hath sweeterSpeech and meeterFor heart's love to hide him under.XVIIIJoy by daytimeFills his playtimeFull of songs loud mirth takes pride in;Night and morrowWeave round sorrowThoughts as soft as sleep to hide in.XIXGraceless faces,Loveless graces,Are but motes in light that quicken,Sands that run downEre the sundown,Roseleaves dead ere autumn sicken.XXFair and fruitlessCharms are bootlessSpells to ward off age's peril;Lips that give notLove shall live not,Eyes that meet not eyes are sterile.XXIBut the beautyBound in dutyFast to love that falls off neverLove shall cherishLest it perish,And its root bears fruit for ever.