The Project Gutenberg eBook ofPoemsThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: PoemsAuthor: Muriel StuartRelease date: August 14, 2011 [eBook #37087]Most recently updated: January 8, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Al Haines*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: PoemsAuthor: Muriel StuartRelease date: August 14, 2011 [eBook #37087]Most recently updated: January 8, 2021Language: EnglishCredits: Produced by Al Haines
Title: Poems
Author: Muriel Stuart
Author: Muriel Stuart
Release date: August 14, 2011 [eBook #37087]Most recently updated: January 8, 2021
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS ***
POEMS
By
MURIEL STUART
AUTHOR OF"CHRIST AT CARNIVAL,""THE COCKPIT OF IDOLS"
1922LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
SONGS IN CAPTIVITYBy R. H. Sauter
BALLAD OF THE "ROYAL ANN"By Crosbie Garstin
POEMS OF ISAAC ROSENBERG
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN
TOCHANGE,THE IMMORTAL FACTOR OF DELIVERANCE
I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to the Editors ofThe English Review, The New World, Poetry in America,and toMr. Cecil Palmer,for several poems included in this volume.
CONTENTS
The Seed ShopMan and his MakersThe New AspasiaA Song For Old LoveSic TransitMrs. Effingham's Swan SongAnnunciationBoys BathingLady HamiltonWhite MagicIn the OrchardThe Wood and the ShoreThe TrystLedaThe HarebellWordsShriftThe Thief of BeautyForgotten Dead, I Salute YouMadala Goes by the OrphanageObsessionEnoughIn Memory of Douglas Vernon CowThe CloudberryTo ——For Fasting DaysThe FatherAndromeda Unfettered
Here in a quiet and dusty room they lie,Faded as crumbled stone or shifting sand,Forlorn as ashes, shrivelled, scentless, dry—Meadows and gardens running through my hand.
Dead that shall quicken at the call of Spring,Sleepers to stir beneath June's magic kiss,Though birds pass over, unremembering,And no bee seek here roses that were his.
In this brown husk a dale of hawthorn dreamsA cedar in this narrow cell is thrustThat will drink deeply of a century's streams,These lilies shall make summer on my dust.
Here in their safe and simple house of death,Sealed in their shells a million roses leap;Here I can blow a garden with my breath,And in my hand a forest lies asleep.
1.
I am one of the wind's stories,I am a fancy of the rain,—A memory of the high noon's glories,The hint the sunset had of pain.
2.
They dreamed me as they dreamed all other;Hawthorn and I, I and the grass,With sister shade and phantom brotherAcross their slumber glide and pass.
3.
Twilight is in my blood, my beingMingles with trees and ferns and stones;Thunder and stars my lips are freeing,And there is sea-rack in my bones.
4.
Those that have dreamed me shall out-wake me,But I go hence with flowers and weeds;I am no more to those who make meThan other drifting fruit and seeds.
5.
And though I love them—mourn to leave them—Sea, earth and sunset, stars and streams,My tears, my passing do not grieve them...Other dreams have they, other dreams.
If I have given myself to you and you,And if these pale hands are not virginal,Nor these bright lips beneath your own lips true,What matters it? I do not stand nor fallBy your old foolish judgments of desire:If this were Helen's way it is not mine;I bring you beauty, but no Troys to fire:The cup I hold brims not with Borgia's wine.You, so soon snared of sudden brows and breasts,Lightly you think upon these lips, this hair.My thoughts are kinder: you are pity's guests:Compassion's bed you share.
It was not lust delivered me to you;I gave my wondering mouth for pity's sake,For your strange, sighing lips I did but breakMany times this bread, and poured this wine anew.My body's woven sweetness and kindling hairWere given for heal of hurts unknown of me,For something I could slake but could not share.Sudden and rough and cruel I let you be,I gave my body for what the world calls sin,Even as for your souls the NazareneGave once. Long years in pity I and HeHave served you—Jesus and the Magdalen.
As on the river in the fading lightA rust-red sail across the evening creeps,Torching the gloom, and slowly sinks from sight,The blood may rise to some old face at night,Remembering old sins before it sleeps.So might you hence recall me, were I trueTo your sad violence. Were I not freeSo me you might remember now; but youWere no more loved by meThan clouds at sunset, or the wild bird goingAbout his pleasure on the apple tree,Or wide-blown roses swelling to the bee;No sweeter than flowers suddenly found growingIn frost-bound dells, or, on the bare, high hills,The gold, unlaced, dew-drunken daffodilsShouting the dawn, or the brown river flowingDown quietly to the sea;Or day in twilight's hair bound safe and dim,Stirless in lavender, or the wind blowing,Tumbling the poppy's turban after him.
I knew you as I knew these happy things,Passing, unwept, on wide and tranquil wingsTo their own place in nature; below, aboveTransient passion with its stains and stings.For this strange pity that you knew not ofWas neither lust nor love.
Do not repent, nor pity, nor regret.I do not seek your pardon, nor give you mine.Pass by, be silent, drop no tears, forget.Return not, make no signWhen I am dead, nor turn your lips awayFrom Phryne's silver limbs and Faustine's kiss.I need no pity. No word of pity say.I have given a new sweet name and crown to thisThat served men's lust and was Aspasia.
There shall be a song for both of us that dayThough fools say you have long outlived your songs,And when, perhaps, because your hair is grey,You go unsung, to whom all praise belongs,And no men kiss your hands—your fragile handsFolded like empty shells on sea-spurned sands.And you that were dawn whereat men shouted onceAre sunset now, with but one worshipper,Then to your twilight heart this song shall beSweeter than those that did your youth announceFor your brave beautiful spirit is lovelierThan once your lovely body was to me.Your folded hands and your shut eyelids stirA passion that Time has crowned with sanctity.Young fools shall wonder why, your youth being over,You are so sung still, but your heart will knowThat he who loved your soul was your true loverAnd the last song alone was worthy you.
"What did she leave?" ...Only these hungry miser-words, poor heart!Not "Did she love?" "Did she suffer?" "Was she sadFrom this green, bright and tossing world to part?"No word of "Do they miss her? do they grieve?"Only this wolf-thought for the gold she had..."What did she leave?"
I am growing old: I have kept youth too long,But I dare not let them know it now.I have done the heart of youth a grievous wrong,Danced it to dust and drugged it with the rose,Forced its reluctant lips to one more vow.I have denied the lawful grey,So kind, so wise, to settle in my hair;I belong no more to April, but September has not taught me her repose.I wish I had let myself grow old in the quiet wayThat is so gracious.... I wish I did not care.My faded mouth will never flower again,Under the paint the wrinkles fret my eyes,My hair is dull beneath its henna stain,I have come to the last ramparts of disguise.And now the day draws on of my defeat.I shall not meetThe swift, male glance across the crowded room,Where the chance contact of limbs in passing hasIts answer in some future fierce embrace.I shall sit there in the corners looking onWith the older women, withered and overblown,Who have grown old more graciously than I,In a sort of safe and comfortable tombKnitting myself into Eternity.And men will talk to me because they are kind,Or as cunning or as courtesy demands;There will be no hidden question in their eyesAnd no subtle implication in their hands.And I shall be so grateful who have beenSo gracious, and so tyrannous, moving betweenDenial and surrender. To-morrow I shall findHow women live who have no lovers and no answer for life'sgrey monotonies.Upon my table will be no more flowers,They will bring me no more flowers till I am dead;There will be no violent, sweet, exciting hours,No wild things done or said.
Yet sometimes I'm so tired of it all—This everlasting battle with the flesh,This pitiful slavery to the body's thrall—And then I do not want to lure or charm,I want to wearSoft, easy things, be comfortable and warm;I want to drowse at leisure in my chair.I do not want to wear a veil with heavy mesh,Or sit in shaded rooms afraid to face the light;I do not want to go out every night,And be bright and vivid and intense,Nor be on the alert and the defenceWith other women, fierce and afraid as I,Drawing a knife unseen as each goes by.
I am so tired of men and making love,For every one's the same.There's nothing new in love beneath the sun;All love can say or do has long been said and done:I have eaten the fruit of knowledge long enough,Been over-kissed, over-praised and over-won.Why should I try to play still the old, foolish game?Because I have played the rose's part too long.Who plays the rose must pay the rose's price,And be a rose or nothing till it dies.And even then sometimes the blood will answer fierce and strongTo the old hunger, to the old dance, old tune;I shall feel cruel and passionate and madThough I have lost the look of June.The fever of the past will burn my handsAs men who live long in intemperate landsFeel the old ague wring them, far removedFrom the old dreadful glitter of seas and sands.The rose dies hard in women who have hadLovers all their lives, and have been much loved.
I am afraid to grow old now even if I would.I have fought too well, too long, and what was onceA foolish trick to make the rose more strangely gayIs now a close-locked, mortal conflict of brain and blood—A feud too old to settle or renounce.I shall grow too tired to struggle, and the fight will end,And they will enter in at last—Nature and Time, long thwarted of their prey,Those old grey two, more cruel for the lips that said them "Nay,"For the bitterest foe is he who in the pastHas been repulsed when he would fain be friend.
I am sorry for women who are growing old,I do not blame them holding youth with shameful hold,Or doing desperate things to lips and eyes.They have so pitifully short a flowering time,So suddenly sweet a story so soon told.They only strive to keep what men have taught them most to prize—Men who have longer, fuller lives to live,Who are not stopped and broken in their prime,With their faces still to summer, Men do not knowWhat Age says to a woman. They would not waitTo feel slip from their hands without a throe,Without a struggle, futile and desperate,All that has given them wealth and love and powerDoomed, without hope or rumour of reprieve.They would not smile into the eyes of that advancing hourWho had bent all summer to their bow, and had flungThe widest rose and kissed the keenest mouthAnd slept in the lordliest bed when they were young.That bitter twilight which sun-worshipping YouthFlies headlong keeps Age loitering on the hill,Uneager to fold such greyness to his breast,Knowing that none will thwart him of his will,None be before him on that quest.
I am growing old.I was not always kind when I was youngTo women who were old, for Youth is blind—A small, green, bitter thing beneath its fragrant rind,And fanged against the old with boisterous tongue—Those whose poor morning heads are touched with rime,Walking before their misery like kings.I did not think that I should feel such stings,Nor flinch beneath such arrows. But now I know.One day I shall be stupid and rather slow,And easily cowed and troubled in my mind,And tremulous, vaguely frightened, feeble and cold.I am growing old.... My God! how old, how old! ...I dare not tell them, but one day they will know...I hope they will be kind.
"The Lord appeared in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush and behold, the bush burned with fire and the bush was not consumed."—EXODUS iii. 2.
When to your virgin heart, unstirred, ungiven,Upon the quiet mountain side untrod,The sudden naked fire came down from heaven,Burning you with the very breath of God,
Was the sun lost? Were all the sweet stars dimWhile God raised round your head those walls of light?Were you locked dumbly, terribly with Him,Within that burning temple day and night?
What was it to have God there like a bird—God like a great, gold flower upon your breast—While He spake things that only one man heard,Face down before that glory manifest?
When that strange flame went up the mountain side,Were your forsaken lips so burned with goldThat the creatures of the wild stood off and cried,And in your breast no blossom dared unfold?
Did you call back the startled birds to build,And put forth all your simple buds again,Forgetting how your branches once were filled,In sweet embrace of passing sun and rain?
Or were all other birds forbidden singAfter those great, gold plumes had made their nest?Was, in its strange and awful blossoming,That great, gold flower the last upon your breast?
Round them a fierce, wide, crazy noonHeaves with crushed lips and glowing sidesAgainst the huge and drowsy sun.Beneath them turn the glittering tidesWhere dizzy waters reel with gold,And strange, rich trophies sink and riseFrom decks of sunken argosies.With shining arms they cleave the coldFar reaches of the sea, and beatThe hissing foam with flash of feetInto bright fangs, while breathlesslyCurls over them the amorous sea.
Naked they laugh and revel there.One shakes the sea-drops from his hair,Then, singing, takes the bubbles: oneLies couched among the shells, the sandsTelling gold hours between his hands:One floats like sea-wrack in the sun.The gods of Youth, the lords of Love,Greeks of eternal Thessaly,Mocking the powers they know not of,Naked and unembraced and free!To whom the Siren sings in vainTo-day, to-morrow who shall beThe destined sport of gods and men.
Unseen the immortal ones are here,Remembering their mortal loves—The strange, sweet flesh, the lips that wereFrail and most perishably fair.Diana leaves her whispering groves,And of Actæon dreams and sighs,And hears the hounds bay in the wood.Oh, Cythera, the trembling bloodUpon one petal's paling mouthBefore thee and this noon must riseWhile thou remember Adon's eyes!One mournful and complaining shadeBeyond Avernus bows his head,Dreaming of one beloved youthBorne from him, lost and dazed and dead,Dragged by the nymphs' avenging hairInto the sea-bed oozing dim,In that cold twilight unawareOf each great sunrise over him.
*****
One day, while still these waters run,And noon still heaves beneath this sun,You shall creep, unremembering,Whom Life has humbled and subdued,Ruined your bodies, tamed your blood,No more the lords of anything.But spent and racked with mortal pains,The slow tide pushing through your veins,Coldly you face this magic shore;For you the disenchanted noonScarce haunted is with ghosts that wereOnce, and were you, and are no more.
Faltering against the wind and sunThat vainly seek your hair for gold,Stubborned with habit, grey and old,You know not why you wander here,Nor what vague dream pursues you still,For Life has taken fullest tollOf all your beauty; on each soulLove's hand has left his bitter mark,Has had of you his utmost will,And thrusts you headlong to the dark.
And colder than these waters areThe stream that takes your limbs at last:Earth's vales and hills drift slowly past...One shore far off, and one more far.
Men wondered why I loved you, and none guessedHow sweet your slow, divine stupidity,Your look of earth, your sense of drowsy rest,So rich, so strange, so all unlike my sea.After the temper of my sails, my leanTall masts, you were the lure of harbour hours,—A sleepy landscape warm and very green,Where browsing creatures stare above still flowers.These salt hands holding sweetness, the leader led,A slave, too happy and too crazed to rule,Sea land-locked, brine and honey in one bed,And England's man your servant and your fool!My banqueting eyes foreswore my waiting ships;I was a silly landsman at your lips.
Is it not a wonderful thing to be able to force an astonished plant to bear rare flowers which are foreign to it ... and to obtain a marvellous result from sap which, left to itself, would have produced corollas without beauty?—VIRGIL.
I stood forlorn and pale,Pressed by the cold sand, pinched by the thin grass,Last of my race and frailWho reigned in beauty once when beauty was,Before the rich earth beckoned to the sea,Took his salt lips to taste,And spread this gradual waste—This ruin of flower, this doom of grass and tree.Each Spring could scarcely liftMy brows from the sand driftTo fill my lips with April as she went,Or force my wearinessTo its sad, summer dress:On the harsh beach I heard the grey sea rise,The ragged grass made ceaseless, dim lament,And day and night scarce changed the mournful skies.
Foot on the sand, a shadow on the sea!A face leaned over me.Across each wasted limbPassed healingly a warm, great, god-like hand.I was drawn up to him,From my frail feet fell the last grains of sand.Then haste and darkness stooped and made me theirs;Deep handed me to deep;...I faded then as names fade from men's prayers,—As a sigh from lips at last made friends with sleep.
But the same hand that bore me from the sea,Waking me tenderly,Bound me to a rough stranger of my race,—Me weary and pale to him and him to me.I turned my piteous faceAside ashamed; I struggled to be free.I slept, I dreamed, I woke to that embrace! ...
Sweet tides stole through my veins,Strange fires and thrills and pains;To my cold lips the bloom crept back once moreI glowed as a bride glows;I watched the days with delicate hands restoreMy kinship with the rose.About my throat my hair went like a flame,
My brows were wreathed, in purple I was dressed,I bore a new bride's name,A great star burned my breast.No longer bound, I leaned the same sweet wayAs even a great Queen mayTowards her lover. Now astonished IWho was a beggar stand obedientlyBeside Cophetua.
"I thought you loved me." "No, it was only fun.""When we stood there, closer than all?" "Well, the harvest moon"Was shining and queer in your hair, and it turned my head.""That made you?" "Yes." "Just the moon and the light it made"Under the tree?" "Well, your mouth, too." "Yes, my mouth?""And the quiet there that sang like the drum in the booth."You shouldn't have danced like that." "Like what?" "So close,"With your head turned up, and the flower in your hair, a rose"That smelt all warm." "I loved you. I thought you knew"I wouldn't have danced like that with any but you.""I didn't know. I thought you knew it was fun.""I thought it was love you meant." "Well, it's done." "Yes, it's done."I've seen boys stone a blackbird, and watched them drown"A kitten ... it clawed at the reeds, and they pushed it down"Into the pool while it screamed. Is that fun, too?""Well, boys are like that ... Your brothers..." "Yes, I know."But you, so lovely and strong! Not you! Not you!""They don't understand it's cruel. It's only a game.""And are girls fun, too?" "No, still in a way it's the same."It's queer and lovely to have a girl..." "Go on.""It makes you mad for a bit to feel she's your own,"And you laugh and kiss her, and maybe you give her a ring,"But it's only in fun." "But I gave you everything.""Well, you shouldn't have done it. You know what a fellow thinks"When a girl does that." "Yes, he talks of her over his drinks"And calls her a—" "Stop that now. I thought you knew.""But it wasn't with anyone else. It was only you.""How did I know? I thought you wanted it too."I thought you were like the rest. Well, what's to be done?""To be done?" "Is it all right?" "Yes." "Sure?" "Yes, but why?""I don't know. I thought you were going to cry."You said you had something to tell me." "Yes, I know."It wasn't anything really ... I think I'll go.""Yes, it's late. There's thunder about, a drop of rain"Fell on my hand in the dark. I'll see you again"At the dance next week. You're sure that everything's right?""Yes." "Well, I'll be going." "Kiss me..." "Good night." ..."Good night."
The low bay melts into a ring of silver,And slips it on the shore's reluctant finger,Though in an hour the tide will turn, will tremble,Forsaking her because the moon persuades him.But the black wood that leans and sighs above herNo hour can change, no moon can slave nor summon.Then comes the dark; on sleepy, shell-strewn beaches,O'er long, pale leagues of sand, and cold, clear waterShe hears the tide go out towards the moonlight.The wood still leans ... weeping she turns to seek him,And his black hair all night is on her bosom.
I raised the veil, I loosed the bands,I took the dead thing from its place.Like a warm stream in frozen landsMy lips went wandering on her face,My hands burnt in her hands.
She could not stay me, being dead;Her body here was mine to hold.What if her lips had lost their red?To me they always tasted coldWith the cold words she said.
Did my breath run along her hair,And free the pulse, and fire the brain,My wild blood wake her wild blood there?Her eyelids lifted wide againIn a blue, sudden stare.
Beneath my fierce, profane caressThe whole white length of body moved;The drowsy bosom seemed to pressAs if against a breast beloved,Then fail for weariness.
No, not that anguish! Christ forbidThat I should raise such dead! I rose,Stifled the mouth with lilies, hidThose eyes, and drew the long hair close,And shut the coffin lid.
My cold brow on the cold wood laid,Quiet and close to-night we lie.No cruel words her lips have said.I shall not take nor she deny.The dead is with the dead.
Do you remember, Leda?
There are those who love, to whom Love bringsGreat gladness: such thing have not I.Love looks and has no mercy, bringsLong doom to others. Such was I.Heart breaking hand upon the lute,Touching one note only ... such were you.Who shall play now upon that luteLong last made musical by you?Sharp bird-beak in the swelling fruit,Blind frost upon the eyes of flowers.Who shall now praise the shrivelled fruit,Or raise the eyelids of those flowers?
I dare not watch that hidden pool,Nor see the wild bird's sudden wingLifting the wide, brown, shaken pool,But round me falls that secret wing,And in that sharp, perverse, sweet painThat is half-terror and half-blissMy withered hands are curled on painThat were so wide once after bliss.And gold is springing in my hairAs my thoughts spring and flower with it,Though I sit hid in my grey hair,Without love or the pain of it.
Yet, oh my Swan, if love have wings,As the gods tell us, you were loveWho took and broke me with those wings.I, weak, and being far gone in loveLet blushless things be breathed and done—Things flowered out now in bitter fruitThat once done are no more undoneThan last year's frost and last year's fruit.
For what has come of love and meWho knew the first joy that loving is?Where has love led and beckoned meBut to the end where nothing is?I have seen my blood beat out againRed in the hands of all my line,My sin has swelled and flowered againCorrupt and fierce through Sparta's line.Bred through me—bred through delicate handsAnd wandering eyes and wanton lips,Sighing after strange flesh as sighed these lips,Straying after new sin as strayed these hands.Mother of Helen! She whose breastsTo new desires unshaped the world;Above Troy's summit towered these breasts,Helen who wantoned with the world!Helen is dead (she had love enoughTo laugh at doom and mock at shrine)And Clytemnestra, quiet enoughTo-night beneath Apollo's shrine.And I am left, the source, the springOf all their madness. They are deadWhile I still sit here, the old springThat fouled them flows above the dead.
But I have paid. I have borne enough.I am very old in love and woe.For all souls these things are enough—Who have known love are the friends of woe.There those who love, and who escape,There are those who love and do not die.I loved, and there was no escape,Long since I died and daily die.And death alone makes hate and loveFriends with each other and with sleep...All's quiet here that once was love,This that is left belongs to sleep.
You give no portent of impermanenceThough before sun goes you are long gone hence,Your bright, inherited crownWithered and fallen down.
It seems that your blue immobilityHas been for ever, and must for ever be.Man seems the unstable thing,Fevered and hurrying.
So free of joy, so prodigal of tears,Yet he can hold his fevers seventy years,Out-wear sun, rain and frost,By which you are soon lost.
Is it not brave to be a king, Techelles!—Usumcasane and Theridamas,Is it not passing brave to be a king,And ride in triumph through Persepolis?—MARLOWE.
Bring the great words that scourge the thundering lineWith lust and slaughter—words that reek of doomAnd the lost battle and the ruined shrine;—Words dire and black as midnight on a tomb;Hushed speech of waters on the lip of gloom;Huge sounds of death and plunder in the night;—Words whose vast plumes above the ages meet,Girdling the lost, dark centuries in their flight,The slave of their unfetterable feet.
Bring words as pure as rills of earliest SpringIn some far cranny of the hillside bornTo stitch again the earth's green habiting;—Words lonely as the long, blue fields of morn;—Words on the wistful lyre of winds forlornTo the sad ear of grief from distance blown;Thin bleat of fawn and airy babble of birds;Sounds of bright water slipping on the stoneWhere the thrilled fountain pipes to woodland words.
Bring passionate words from noontide's slumber roused,To slake the amorous lips of love with fruit,Dripping with honey, and with syrups drowsedTo draw bee-murmurs from the dreaming lute—Words gold and mad and headlong in pursuitOf laughter; words that are too sweet to sayAnd fade, unsaid, upon some rose's mouth;—Words soft as winds that ever blow one way,The summer way, the long way from the south.
For such words have high lineage, and were knownOf Milton once, whose heart on theirs still beats;Marlowe hurled forth huge stars to make them crown;They are stained still with the dying lips of Keats;As queens they trod the cloak in Shakespeare's streets;Pale hands of Shelley gently guard their flame;Chatterton's heart was burst upon their spears:Their dynasty unbroken, and their nameMusic in all men's mouths for all men's ears.
But now they are lost, their lordliest 'scutcheon stained;Upon their ruined walls no trumpet rings;Their shrines defiled, their sacraments profaned:Men crown the crow, they have given the jackal wings.Slaves wear the peplum, beggars ride as kings.They couple foolish words and look for birthOf mighty emperor, Christ or Avatar,They mate with slaves from whom no king comes forth;No child is theirs who follow not the Star.
Lyric Apollo! Thou art worshipped still!We quest for beauty on Thy hills like hounds,Let these poor rhymers babble as they will,Filling their pipes with shrill and crazy sounds.Poets still praise Thee, music still abounds,And Beauty knows the hour of Thy return,For the Gods live albeit temples burn,Suffer the fools their folly, let them be,Wreathing each other with their wreaths of straw,Trailing their pageants of the mud; but weAwait Thy laurel on our brows with awe.And if Thou wreathe not, let us still be foundThy slaves: Thou dost not bind unworthy things.Them hast Thou chained not. Better heads uncrownedThan mock regalia of the rabble's kings!
I am not true, but you would pardon thisIf you could see the tortured spirit takeIts place beside you in the dark, and breakYour daily food of love and kindliness.You'd guess the bitter thing that treachery is,Furtive and on its guard, asleep, awake,Fearing to sin, yet fearing to forsake,And daily giving Christ the Judas kiss.
But piteous amends I make each dayTo recompense the evil with the good;With double pang I play the double partOf all you trust and all that I betray.What long atonement makes my penitent blood,To what sad tryst goes my unfaithful heart!