AT your mouth, white and milk-warm sphinx,I taste a strange apocalypse:Your subtle taper finger-tipsWeave me new heavens, yet, methinks,I know the wiles and each iynxThat brought me passionate to your lips:I know you bare as laughter stripsYour charnel beauty; yet my spirit drinksPure knowledge from this tainted well,And now hears voices yet unheardWithin it, and without it seesThat world of which the poets tellTheir vision in the stammered wordOf those that wake from piercing ecstasies.
AT your mouth, white and milk-warm sphinx,I taste a strange apocalypse:Your subtle taper finger-tipsWeave me new heavens, yet, methinks,I know the wiles and each iynxThat brought me passionate to your lips:I know you bare as laughter stripsYour charnel beauty; yet my spirit drinksPure knowledge from this tainted well,And now hears voices yet unheardWithin it, and without it seesThat world of which the poets tellTheir vision in the stammered wordOf those that wake from piercing ecstasies.
AT your mouth, white and milk-warm sphinx,I taste a strange apocalypse:Your subtle taper finger-tipsWeave me new heavens, yet, methinks,I know the wiles and each iynxThat brought me passionate to your lips:I know you bare as laughter stripsYour charnel beauty; yet my spirit drinks
Pure knowledge from this tainted well,And now hears voices yet unheardWithin it, and without it seesThat world of which the poets tellTheir vision in the stammered wordOf those that wake from piercing ecstasies.
HER eyes of bright unwinking glazeAll imperturbable do notEven make pretences to regardThe jutting absence of her stays,Where many a Tyrian gallipotExcites desire with spilth of nard.The bistred rims above the fardOf cheeks as red as bergamotAttest that no shamefaced delaysWill clog fulfilment, nor retardFull payment of the Cyprian’s praiseDown to the last remorseful jot.Hail priestess of we know not whatStrange cult of Mycenean days!
HER eyes of bright unwinking glazeAll imperturbable do notEven make pretences to regardThe jutting absence of her stays,Where many a Tyrian gallipotExcites desire with spilth of nard.The bistred rims above the fardOf cheeks as red as bergamotAttest that no shamefaced delaysWill clog fulfilment, nor retardFull payment of the Cyprian’s praiseDown to the last remorseful jot.Hail priestess of we know not whatStrange cult of Mycenean days!
HER eyes of bright unwinking glazeAll imperturbable do notEven make pretences to regardThe jutting absence of her stays,Where many a Tyrian gallipotExcites desire with spilth of nard.The bistred rims above the fardOf cheeks as red as bergamotAttest that no shamefaced delaysWill clog fulfilment, nor retardFull payment of the Cyprian’s praiseDown to the last remorseful jot.Hail priestess of we know not whatStrange cult of Mycenean days!
IAM not one of those who sip,Like a quotidian bock,Cheap idylls from a languid lipPrepared to yawn or mock.I wait the indubitable word,The great Unconscious Cue.Has it been spoken and unheard?Spoken, perhaps, by you?
IAM not one of those who sip,Like a quotidian bock,Cheap idylls from a languid lipPrepared to yawn or mock.I wait the indubitable word,The great Unconscious Cue.Has it been spoken and unheard?Spoken, perhaps, by you?
IAM not one of those who sip,Like a quotidian bock,Cheap idylls from a languid lipPrepared to yawn or mock.
I wait the indubitable word,The great Unconscious Cue.Has it been spoken and unheard?Spoken, perhaps, by you?
STILL life, still life ... the high-lights shineHard and sharp on the bottles: the wineStands firmly solid in the glasses,Smooth yellow ice, through which there passesThe lamp’s bright pencil of down-struck light.The fruits metallically gleam,Globey in their heaped-up bowl,And there are faces against the nightOf the outer room—faces that seemPart of this still, still life ... they’ve lost their soul.And amongst these frozen faces you smiled,Surprised, surprisingly, like a child:And out of the frozen welter of soundYour voice came quietly, quietly.“What about God?” you said. “I have foundMuch to be said for Totality.All, I take it, is God: God’s all—This bottle, for instance....” I recall,Dimly, that you took God by the neck—God-in-the-bottle—and pushed Him across:But I, without a moment’s lossMoved God-in-the-salt in front and shouted: “Check!”
STILL life, still life ... the high-lights shineHard and sharp on the bottles: the wineStands firmly solid in the glasses,Smooth yellow ice, through which there passesThe lamp’s bright pencil of down-struck light.The fruits metallically gleam,Globey in their heaped-up bowl,And there are faces against the nightOf the outer room—faces that seemPart of this still, still life ... they’ve lost their soul.And amongst these frozen faces you smiled,Surprised, surprisingly, like a child:And out of the frozen welter of soundYour voice came quietly, quietly.“What about God?” you said. “I have foundMuch to be said for Totality.All, I take it, is God: God’s all—This bottle, for instance....” I recall,Dimly, that you took God by the neck—God-in-the-bottle—and pushed Him across:But I, without a moment’s lossMoved God-in-the-salt in front and shouted: “Check!”
STILL life, still life ... the high-lights shineHard and sharp on the bottles: the wineStands firmly solid in the glasses,Smooth yellow ice, through which there passesThe lamp’s bright pencil of down-struck light.The fruits metallically gleam,Globey in their heaped-up bowl,And there are faces against the nightOf the outer room—faces that seemPart of this still, still life ... they’ve lost their soul.
And amongst these frozen faces you smiled,Surprised, surprisingly, like a child:And out of the frozen welter of soundYour voice came quietly, quietly.“What about God?” you said. “I have foundMuch to be said for Totality.All, I take it, is God: God’s all—This bottle, for instance....” I recall,Dimly, that you took God by the neck—God-in-the-bottle—and pushed Him across:But I, without a moment’s lossMoved God-in-the-salt in front and shouted: “Check!”
WE judge by appearance merely:If I can’t think strangely, I can at least look queerly.So I grew the hair so long on my headThat my mother wouldn’t know me,Till a woman in a night-club said,As I was passing by,“Hullo, here comes Salome.”I looked in the dirty gilt-edged glass,And, oh Salome! there I was—Positively jewelled, half a vampire,With the soul in my eyes hanging dizzilyLike the gatherer of proverbial samphireOver the brink of the crag of sense,Looking down from perilous eminenceInto a gulf of windy night.And there’s straw in my tempestuous hair,And I’m not a poet: but never despair!I’ll madly live the poems I shall never write.
WE judge by appearance merely:If I can’t think strangely, I can at least look queerly.So I grew the hair so long on my headThat my mother wouldn’t know me,Till a woman in a night-club said,As I was passing by,“Hullo, here comes Salome.”I looked in the dirty gilt-edged glass,And, oh Salome! there I was—Positively jewelled, half a vampire,With the soul in my eyes hanging dizzilyLike the gatherer of proverbial samphireOver the brink of the crag of sense,Looking down from perilous eminenceInto a gulf of windy night.And there’s straw in my tempestuous hair,And I’m not a poet: but never despair!I’ll madly live the poems I shall never write.
WE judge by appearance merely:If I can’t think strangely, I can at least look queerly.So I grew the hair so long on my headThat my mother wouldn’t know me,Till a woman in a night-club said,As I was passing by,“Hullo, here comes Salome.”
I looked in the dirty gilt-edged glass,And, oh Salome! there I was—Positively jewelled, half a vampire,With the soul in my eyes hanging dizzilyLike the gatherer of proverbial samphireOver the brink of the crag of sense,Looking down from perilous eminenceInto a gulf of windy night.And there’s straw in my tempestuous hair,And I’m not a poet: but never despair!I’ll madly live the poems I shall never write.
IAM getting on well with this anecdote,When suddenly I recallThe many times I have told it of old,And all the worked-up phrases, and the dying fallOf voice, well timed in the crisis, the noteOf mock-heroic ingeniously struck—The whole thing sticks in my throat,And my face all tingles and pricks with shameFor myself and my hearers.These are the social pleasures, my God!But I finish the story triumphantly all the same.
IAM getting on well with this anecdote,When suddenly I recallThe many times I have told it of old,And all the worked-up phrases, and the dying fallOf voice, well timed in the crisis, the noteOf mock-heroic ingeniously struck—The whole thing sticks in my throat,And my face all tingles and pricks with shameFor myself and my hearers.These are the social pleasures, my God!But I finish the story triumphantly all the same.
IAM getting on well with this anecdote,When suddenly I recallThe many times I have told it of old,And all the worked-up phrases, and the dying fallOf voice, well timed in the crisis, the noteOf mock-heroic ingeniously struck—The whole thing sticks in my throat,And my face all tingles and pricks with shameFor myself and my hearers.These are the social pleasures, my God!But I finish the story triumphantly all the same.
FAILING sometimes to understandWhy there are folk whose flesh should seemLike carrion puffed with noisome steam,Fly-blown to the eye that looks on it,Fly-blown to the touch of a hand;Why there are men without any legs,Whizzing along on little trolliesWith long long arms like apes’:Failing to see why God the TopiaristShould train and carve and twistMen’s bodies into such fantastic shapes:Yes, failing to see the point of it all, I sometimes wishThat I were a fabulous thing in a fool’s mind,Or, at the ocean bottom, in a world that is deaf and blind,Very remote and happy, a great goggling fish.
FAILING sometimes to understandWhy there are folk whose flesh should seemLike carrion puffed with noisome steam,Fly-blown to the eye that looks on it,Fly-blown to the touch of a hand;Why there are men without any legs,Whizzing along on little trolliesWith long long arms like apes’:Failing to see why God the TopiaristShould train and carve and twistMen’s bodies into such fantastic shapes:Yes, failing to see the point of it all, I sometimes wishThat I were a fabulous thing in a fool’s mind,Or, at the ocean bottom, in a world that is deaf and blind,Very remote and happy, a great goggling fish.
FAILING sometimes to understandWhy there are folk whose flesh should seemLike carrion puffed with noisome steam,Fly-blown to the eye that looks on it,Fly-blown to the touch of a hand;Why there are men without any legs,Whizzing along on little trolliesWith long long arms like apes’:Failing to see why God the TopiaristShould train and carve and twistMen’s bodies into such fantastic shapes:Yes, failing to see the point of it all, I sometimes wishThat I were a fabulous thing in a fool’s mind,Or, at the ocean bottom, in a world that is deaf and blind,Very remote and happy, a great goggling fish.
SITTING on the top of the ’bus,I bite my pipe and look at the sky.Over my shoulder the smoke streams outAnd my life with it.“Conservation of energy,” you say.But I burn, I tell you, I burn;And the smoke of me streams outIn a vanishing skein of grey.Crash and bump ... my poor bruised body!I am a harp of twittering strings,An elegant instrument, but infinitely second-hand,And if I have not got phthisis it is only an accident.Droll phenomena!
SITTING on the top of the ’bus,I bite my pipe and look at the sky.Over my shoulder the smoke streams outAnd my life with it.“Conservation of energy,” you say.But I burn, I tell you, I burn;And the smoke of me streams outIn a vanishing skein of grey.Crash and bump ... my poor bruised body!I am a harp of twittering strings,An elegant instrument, but infinitely second-hand,And if I have not got phthisis it is only an accident.Droll phenomena!
SITTING on the top of the ’bus,I bite my pipe and look at the sky.Over my shoulder the smoke streams outAnd my life with it.“Conservation of energy,” you say.But I burn, I tell you, I burn;And the smoke of me streams outIn a vanishing skein of grey.Crash and bump ... my poor bruised body!I am a harp of twittering strings,An elegant instrument, but infinitely second-hand,And if I have not got phthisis it is only an accident.Droll phenomena!
INSTANTS in the quiet, small sharp stars,Pierce my spirit with a thrust whose speedBaffles even the grasp of time.Oh that I might reflect themAs swiftly, as keenly as they shine.But I am a pool of waters, summer-still,And the stars are mirrored across me;Those stabbing points of the skyTurned to a thread of shaken silver,A long fine thread.
INSTANTS in the quiet, small sharp stars,Pierce my spirit with a thrust whose speedBaffles even the grasp of time.Oh that I might reflect themAs swiftly, as keenly as they shine.But I am a pool of waters, summer-still,And the stars are mirrored across me;Those stabbing points of the skyTurned to a thread of shaken silver,A long fine thread.
INSTANTS in the quiet, small sharp stars,Pierce my spirit with a thrust whose speedBaffles even the grasp of time.Oh that I might reflect themAs swiftly, as keenly as they shine.But I am a pool of waters, summer-still,And the stars are mirrored across me;Those stabbing points of the skyTurned to a thread of shaken silver,A long fine thread.
THE eyes of the portraits on the wallLook at me, follow me,Stare incessantly:I take it their glance means nothing at all?—Clearly, oh clearly! Nothing at all....Out in the gardens by the lakeThe sleeping peacocks suddenly wake;Out in the gardens, moonlit and forlorn,Each of them sounds his mournful horn:Shrill peals that waver and crack and break.What can have made the peacocks wake?
THE eyes of the portraits on the wallLook at me, follow me,Stare incessantly:I take it their glance means nothing at all?—Clearly, oh clearly! Nothing at all....Out in the gardens by the lakeThe sleeping peacocks suddenly wake;Out in the gardens, moonlit and forlorn,Each of them sounds his mournful horn:Shrill peals that waver and crack and break.What can have made the peacocks wake?
THE eyes of the portraits on the wallLook at me, follow me,Stare incessantly:I take it their glance means nothing at all?—Clearly, oh clearly! Nothing at all....
Out in the gardens by the lakeThe sleeping peacocks suddenly wake;Out in the gardens, moonlit and forlorn,Each of them sounds his mournful horn:Shrill peals that waver and crack and break.What can have made the peacocks wake?
THOUGHT is an unseen net wherein our mindIs taken and vainly struggles to be free:Words, that should loose our spirit, do but bindNew fetters on our hoped-for liberty:And action bears us onward like a streamPast fabulous shores, scarce seen in our swift course;Glorious—and yet its headlong currents seemBut backwaters of some diviner force.There are slow curves, more subtle far than thought,That stoop to carry the grace of a girl’s breast;And hanging flowers, so exquisitely wroughtIn airy metal, that they seem possessedOf souls; and there are distant hills that liftThe shoulder of a god towards the light;And arrowy trees, sudden and sharp and swift,Piercing the spirit deeply with delight.Would I might make these miracles my own!Like a pure angel, thinking colour and form;Hardening to rage in a flame of chiselled stone;Spilling my love like sunlight, golden and warmOn noonday flowers; speaking the song of birdsAmong the branches; whispering the fall of rain;Beyond all thought, past action and past words,I would live in beauty, free from self and pain.
THOUGHT is an unseen net wherein our mindIs taken and vainly struggles to be free:Words, that should loose our spirit, do but bindNew fetters on our hoped-for liberty:And action bears us onward like a streamPast fabulous shores, scarce seen in our swift course;Glorious—and yet its headlong currents seemBut backwaters of some diviner force.There are slow curves, more subtle far than thought,That stoop to carry the grace of a girl’s breast;And hanging flowers, so exquisitely wroughtIn airy metal, that they seem possessedOf souls; and there are distant hills that liftThe shoulder of a god towards the light;And arrowy trees, sudden and sharp and swift,Piercing the spirit deeply with delight.Would I might make these miracles my own!Like a pure angel, thinking colour and form;Hardening to rage in a flame of chiselled stone;Spilling my love like sunlight, golden and warmOn noonday flowers; speaking the song of birdsAmong the branches; whispering the fall of rain;Beyond all thought, past action and past words,I would live in beauty, free from self and pain.
THOUGHT is an unseen net wherein our mindIs taken and vainly struggles to be free:Words, that should loose our spirit, do but bindNew fetters on our hoped-for liberty:And action bears us onward like a streamPast fabulous shores, scarce seen in our swift course;Glorious—and yet its headlong currents seemBut backwaters of some diviner force.
There are slow curves, more subtle far than thought,That stoop to carry the grace of a girl’s breast;And hanging flowers, so exquisitely wroughtIn airy metal, that they seem possessedOf souls; and there are distant hills that liftThe shoulder of a god towards the light;And arrowy trees, sudden and sharp and swift,Piercing the spirit deeply with delight.
Would I might make these miracles my own!Like a pure angel, thinking colour and form;Hardening to rage in a flame of chiselled stone;Spilling my love like sunlight, golden and warmOn noonday flowers; speaking the song of birdsAmong the branches; whispering the fall of rain;Beyond all thought, past action and past words,I would live in beauty, free from self and pain.
BOOKS and a coloured skein of thoughts were mine;And magic words lay ripening in my soulTill their much-whispered music turned a wineWhose subtlest power was all in my control.These things were mine, and they were real for meAs lips and darling eyes and a warm breast:For I could love a phrase, a melody,Like a fair woman, worshipped and possessed.I scorned all fire that outward of the eyesCould kindle passion; scorned, yet was afraid;Feared, and yet envied those more deeply wiseWho saw the bright earth beckon and obeyed.But a time came when, turning full of hateAnd weariness from my remembered themes,I wished my poet’s pipe could modulateBeauty more palpable than words and dreams.All loveliness with which an act informsThe dim uncertain chaos of desireIs mine to day; it touches me, it warmsBody and spirit with its outward fire.I am mine no more: I have become a partOf that great earth that draws a breath and stirsTo meet the spring. But I could wish my heartWere still a winter of frosty gossamers.
BOOKS and a coloured skein of thoughts were mine;And magic words lay ripening in my soulTill their much-whispered music turned a wineWhose subtlest power was all in my control.These things were mine, and they were real for meAs lips and darling eyes and a warm breast:For I could love a phrase, a melody,Like a fair woman, worshipped and possessed.I scorned all fire that outward of the eyesCould kindle passion; scorned, yet was afraid;Feared, and yet envied those more deeply wiseWho saw the bright earth beckon and obeyed.But a time came when, turning full of hateAnd weariness from my remembered themes,I wished my poet’s pipe could modulateBeauty more palpable than words and dreams.All loveliness with which an act informsThe dim uncertain chaos of desireIs mine to day; it touches me, it warmsBody and spirit with its outward fire.I am mine no more: I have become a partOf that great earth that draws a breath and stirsTo meet the spring. But I could wish my heartWere still a winter of frosty gossamers.
BOOKS and a coloured skein of thoughts were mine;And magic words lay ripening in my soulTill their much-whispered music turned a wineWhose subtlest power was all in my control.
These things were mine, and they were real for meAs lips and darling eyes and a warm breast:For I could love a phrase, a melody,Like a fair woman, worshipped and possessed.
I scorned all fire that outward of the eyesCould kindle passion; scorned, yet was afraid;Feared, and yet envied those more deeply wiseWho saw the bright earth beckon and obeyed.
But a time came when, turning full of hateAnd weariness from my remembered themes,I wished my poet’s pipe could modulateBeauty more palpable than words and dreams.
All loveliness with which an act informsThe dim uncertain chaos of desireIs mine to day; it touches me, it warmsBody and spirit with its outward fire.
I am mine no more: I have become a partOf that great earth that draws a breath and stirsTo meet the spring. But I could wish my heartWere still a winter of frosty gossamers.
IHAVE run where festival was loudWith drum and brass among the crowdOf panic revellers, whose criesAffront the quiet of the skies;Whose dancing lights contract the deepInfinity of night and sleepTo a narrow turmoil of troubled fire.And I have found my heart’s desireIn beechen caverns that autumn fillsWith the blue shadowiness of distant hills;Whose luminous grey pillars bearThe stooping sky: calm is the air,Nor any sound is heard to marThat crystal silence—as from far,Far off a man may seeThe busy world all utterlyHushed as an old memorial scene.Long evenings I have sat and beenStrangely content, while in my handsI held a wealth of coloured strands,Shimmering plaits of silk and skeinsOf soft bright wool. Each colour drainsNew life at the lamp’s round pool of gold;Each sinks again when I withholdThe quickening radiance, to a wanAnd shadowy oblivionOf what it was. And in my mindBeauty or sudden love has shinedAnd wakened colour in what was deadAnd turned to gold the sullen leadOf mean desires and everyday’sPoor thoughts and customary ways.Sometimes in lands where mountains throwTheir silent spell on all below,Drawing a magic circle wideAbout their feet on every side,Robbed of all speech and thought and act,I have seen God in the cataract.In falling water and in flame,Never at rest, yet still the same,God shows himself. And I have knownThe swift fire frozen into stone,And water frozen changelesslyInto the death of gems. And ILong sitting by the thunderous millHave seen the headlong wheel made still,And in the silence that ensuedHave known the endless solitudeOf being dead and utterly nought.Inhabitant of mine own thought,I look abroad, and all I seeIs my creation, made for me:Along my thread of life are pearledThe moments that make up the world.
IHAVE run where festival was loudWith drum and brass among the crowdOf panic revellers, whose criesAffront the quiet of the skies;Whose dancing lights contract the deepInfinity of night and sleepTo a narrow turmoil of troubled fire.And I have found my heart’s desireIn beechen caverns that autumn fillsWith the blue shadowiness of distant hills;Whose luminous grey pillars bearThe stooping sky: calm is the air,Nor any sound is heard to marThat crystal silence—as from far,Far off a man may seeThe busy world all utterlyHushed as an old memorial scene.Long evenings I have sat and beenStrangely content, while in my handsI held a wealth of coloured strands,Shimmering plaits of silk and skeinsOf soft bright wool. Each colour drainsNew life at the lamp’s round pool of gold;Each sinks again when I withholdThe quickening radiance, to a wanAnd shadowy oblivionOf what it was. And in my mindBeauty or sudden love has shinedAnd wakened colour in what was deadAnd turned to gold the sullen leadOf mean desires and everyday’sPoor thoughts and customary ways.Sometimes in lands where mountains throwTheir silent spell on all below,Drawing a magic circle wideAbout their feet on every side,Robbed of all speech and thought and act,I have seen God in the cataract.In falling water and in flame,Never at rest, yet still the same,God shows himself. And I have knownThe swift fire frozen into stone,And water frozen changelesslyInto the death of gems. And ILong sitting by the thunderous millHave seen the headlong wheel made still,And in the silence that ensuedHave known the endless solitudeOf being dead and utterly nought.Inhabitant of mine own thought,I look abroad, and all I seeIs my creation, made for me:Along my thread of life are pearledThe moments that make up the world.
IHAVE run where festival was loudWith drum and brass among the crowdOf panic revellers, whose criesAffront the quiet of the skies;Whose dancing lights contract the deepInfinity of night and sleepTo a narrow turmoil of troubled fire.And I have found my heart’s desireIn beechen caverns that autumn fillsWith the blue shadowiness of distant hills;Whose luminous grey pillars bearThe stooping sky: calm is the air,Nor any sound is heard to marThat crystal silence—as from far,Far off a man may seeThe busy world all utterlyHushed as an old memorial scene.Long evenings I have sat and beenStrangely content, while in my handsI held a wealth of coloured strands,Shimmering plaits of silk and skeinsOf soft bright wool. Each colour drainsNew life at the lamp’s round pool of gold;Each sinks again when I withholdThe quickening radiance, to a wanAnd shadowy oblivionOf what it was. And in my mindBeauty or sudden love has shinedAnd wakened colour in what was deadAnd turned to gold the sullen leadOf mean desires and everyday’sPoor thoughts and customary ways.Sometimes in lands where mountains throwTheir silent spell on all below,Drawing a magic circle wideAbout their feet on every side,Robbed of all speech and thought and act,I have seen God in the cataract.In falling water and in flame,Never at rest, yet still the same,God shows himself. And I have knownThe swift fire frozen into stone,And water frozen changelesslyInto the death of gems. And ILong sitting by the thunderous millHave seen the headlong wheel made still,And in the silence that ensuedHave known the endless solitudeOf being dead and utterly nought.Inhabitant of mine own thought,I look abroad, and all I seeIs my creation, made for me:Along my thread of life are pearledThe moments that make up the world.
IWOULD immortalize these nymphs; so brightTheir sunlit colouring, so airy light,It floats like drowsy down. Loved I a dream?My doubts, born of oblivious darkness, seemA subtle tracery of branches grownThe tree’s true self—proving that I have known,Thinking it love, the blushing of a rose.But think. These nymphs, their loveliness ... supposeThey bodied forth your senses’ fabulous thirst?Illusion! which the blue eyes of the first,As cold and chaste as is the weeping spring,Beget: the other, sighing, passioning,Is she the wind, warm in your fleece at noon?No; through this quiet, when a weary swoonCrushes and chokes the latest faint essayOf morning, cool against the encroaching day,There is no murmuring water, save the gushOf my clear fluted notes; and in the hushBlows never a wind, save that which through my reedPuffs out before the rain of notes can speedUpon the air, with that calm breath of artThat mounts the unwrinkled zenith visibly,Where inspiration seeks its native sky.You fringes of a calm Sicilian lake,The sun’s own mirror which I love to take,Silent beneath your starry flowers, tellHow here I cut the hollow rushes, wellTamed by my skill, when on the glaucous goldOf distant lawns about their fountain coldA living whiteness stirs like a lazy wave;And at the first slow notes my panpipes gaveThese flocking swans, these naiads, rather, flyOr dive. Noon burns inert and tawny dry,Nor marks how clean that Hymen slipped awayFrom me who seek in song the real A.Wake, then, to the first ardour and the sight,O lonely faun, of the old fierce white light,With, lilies, one of you for innocence.Other than their lips’ delicate pretence,The light caress that quiets treacherous lovers,My breast, I know not how to tell, discoversThe bitten print of some immortal’s kiss.But hush! a mystery so great as thisI dare not tell, save to my double reed,Which, sharer of my every joy and need,Dreams down its cadenced monologues that weFalsely confuse the beauties that we seeWith the bright palpable shapes our song creates:My flute, as loud as passion modulates,Purges the common dream of flank and breast,Seen through closed eyes and inwardly caressed,Of every empty and monotonous line.Bloom then, O Syrinx, in thy flight malign,A reed once more beside our trysting-lake.Proud of my music, let me often makeA song of goddesses and see their rapeProfanely done on many a painted shape.So when the grape’s transparent juice I drain,I quell regret for pleasures past and feignA new real grape. For holding towards the skyThe empty skin, I blow it tight and lieDream-drunk till evening, eyeing it.Tell o’erRemembered joys and plump the grape once more.Between the reeds I saw their bodies gleamWho cool no mortal fever in the streamCrying to the woods the rage of their desire:And their bright hair went down in jewelled fireWhere crystal broke and dazzled shudderingly.I check my swift pursuit: for see where lie,Bruised, being twins in love, by languor sweet,Two sleeping girls, clasped at my very feet.I seize and run with them, nor part the pair,Breaking this covert of frail petals, whereRoses drink scent of the sun and our light play’Mid tumbled flowers shall match the death of day.I love that virginal fury—ah, the wildThrill when a maiden body shrinks, defiled,Shuddering like arctic light, from lips that searIts nakedness ... the flesh in secret fear!Contagiously through my linked pair it fliesWhere innocence in either, struggling, dies,Wet with fond tears or some less piteous dew.Gay in the conquest of these fears, I grewSo rash that I must needs the sheaf divideOf ruffled kisses heaven itself had tied.For as I leaned to stifle in the hairOf one my passionate laughter (taking careWith a stretched finger, that her innocenceMight stain with her companion’s kindling senseTo touch the younger little one, who layChild-like unblushing) my ungrateful preySlips from me, freed by passion’s sudden deathNor heeds the frenzy of my sobbing breath.Let it pass! others of their hair shall twistA rope to drag me to those joys I missed.See how the ripe pomegranates bursting redTo quench the thirst of the mumbling bees have bled;So too our blood, kindled by some chance fire,Flows for the swarming legions of desire.At evening, when the woodland green turns goldAnd ashen grey, ’mid the quenched leaves, behold!Red Etna glows, by Venus visited,Walking the lava with her snowy treadWhene’er the flames in thunderous slumber die.I hold the goddess!Ah, sure penalty!But the unthinking soul and body swoonAt last beneath the heavy hush of noon.Forgetful let me lie where summer’s drouthSifts fine the sand and then with gaping mouthDream planet-struck by the grape’s round wine-red star.Nymphs, I shall see the shade that now you are.
IWOULD immortalize these nymphs; so brightTheir sunlit colouring, so airy light,It floats like drowsy down. Loved I a dream?My doubts, born of oblivious darkness, seemA subtle tracery of branches grownThe tree’s true self—proving that I have known,Thinking it love, the blushing of a rose.But think. These nymphs, their loveliness ... supposeThey bodied forth your senses’ fabulous thirst?Illusion! which the blue eyes of the first,As cold and chaste as is the weeping spring,Beget: the other, sighing, passioning,Is she the wind, warm in your fleece at noon?No; through this quiet, when a weary swoonCrushes and chokes the latest faint essayOf morning, cool against the encroaching day,There is no murmuring water, save the gushOf my clear fluted notes; and in the hushBlows never a wind, save that which through my reedPuffs out before the rain of notes can speedUpon the air, with that calm breath of artThat mounts the unwrinkled zenith visibly,Where inspiration seeks its native sky.You fringes of a calm Sicilian lake,The sun’s own mirror which I love to take,Silent beneath your starry flowers, tellHow here I cut the hollow rushes, wellTamed by my skill, when on the glaucous goldOf distant lawns about their fountain coldA living whiteness stirs like a lazy wave;And at the first slow notes my panpipes gaveThese flocking swans, these naiads, rather, flyOr dive. Noon burns inert and tawny dry,Nor marks how clean that Hymen slipped awayFrom me who seek in song the real A.Wake, then, to the first ardour and the sight,O lonely faun, of the old fierce white light,With, lilies, one of you for innocence.Other than their lips’ delicate pretence,The light caress that quiets treacherous lovers,My breast, I know not how to tell, discoversThe bitten print of some immortal’s kiss.But hush! a mystery so great as thisI dare not tell, save to my double reed,Which, sharer of my every joy and need,Dreams down its cadenced monologues that weFalsely confuse the beauties that we seeWith the bright palpable shapes our song creates:My flute, as loud as passion modulates,Purges the common dream of flank and breast,Seen through closed eyes and inwardly caressed,Of every empty and monotonous line.Bloom then, O Syrinx, in thy flight malign,A reed once more beside our trysting-lake.Proud of my music, let me often makeA song of goddesses and see their rapeProfanely done on many a painted shape.So when the grape’s transparent juice I drain,I quell regret for pleasures past and feignA new real grape. For holding towards the skyThe empty skin, I blow it tight and lieDream-drunk till evening, eyeing it.Tell o’erRemembered joys and plump the grape once more.Between the reeds I saw their bodies gleamWho cool no mortal fever in the streamCrying to the woods the rage of their desire:And their bright hair went down in jewelled fireWhere crystal broke and dazzled shudderingly.I check my swift pursuit: for see where lie,Bruised, being twins in love, by languor sweet,Two sleeping girls, clasped at my very feet.I seize and run with them, nor part the pair,Breaking this covert of frail petals, whereRoses drink scent of the sun and our light play’Mid tumbled flowers shall match the death of day.I love that virginal fury—ah, the wildThrill when a maiden body shrinks, defiled,Shuddering like arctic light, from lips that searIts nakedness ... the flesh in secret fear!Contagiously through my linked pair it fliesWhere innocence in either, struggling, dies,Wet with fond tears or some less piteous dew.Gay in the conquest of these fears, I grewSo rash that I must needs the sheaf divideOf ruffled kisses heaven itself had tied.For as I leaned to stifle in the hairOf one my passionate laughter (taking careWith a stretched finger, that her innocenceMight stain with her companion’s kindling senseTo touch the younger little one, who layChild-like unblushing) my ungrateful preySlips from me, freed by passion’s sudden deathNor heeds the frenzy of my sobbing breath.Let it pass! others of their hair shall twistA rope to drag me to those joys I missed.See how the ripe pomegranates bursting redTo quench the thirst of the mumbling bees have bled;So too our blood, kindled by some chance fire,Flows for the swarming legions of desire.At evening, when the woodland green turns goldAnd ashen grey, ’mid the quenched leaves, behold!Red Etna glows, by Venus visited,Walking the lava with her snowy treadWhene’er the flames in thunderous slumber die.I hold the goddess!Ah, sure penalty!But the unthinking soul and body swoonAt last beneath the heavy hush of noon.Forgetful let me lie where summer’s drouthSifts fine the sand and then with gaping mouthDream planet-struck by the grape’s round wine-red star.Nymphs, I shall see the shade that now you are.
IWOULD immortalize these nymphs; so brightTheir sunlit colouring, so airy light,It floats like drowsy down. Loved I a dream?My doubts, born of oblivious darkness, seemA subtle tracery of branches grownThe tree’s true self—proving that I have known,Thinking it love, the blushing of a rose.But think. These nymphs, their loveliness ... supposeThey bodied forth your senses’ fabulous thirst?Illusion! which the blue eyes of the first,As cold and chaste as is the weeping spring,Beget: the other, sighing, passioning,Is she the wind, warm in your fleece at noon?No; through this quiet, when a weary swoonCrushes and chokes the latest faint essayOf morning, cool against the encroaching day,There is no murmuring water, save the gushOf my clear fluted notes; and in the hushBlows never a wind, save that which through my reedPuffs out before the rain of notes can speedUpon the air, with that calm breath of artThat mounts the unwrinkled zenith visibly,Where inspiration seeks its native sky.You fringes of a calm Sicilian lake,The sun’s own mirror which I love to take,Silent beneath your starry flowers, tellHow here I cut the hollow rushes, wellTamed by my skill, when on the glaucous goldOf distant lawns about their fountain coldA living whiteness stirs like a lazy wave;And at the first slow notes my panpipes gaveThese flocking swans, these naiads, rather, flyOr dive. Noon burns inert and tawny dry,Nor marks how clean that Hymen slipped awayFrom me who seek in song the real A.Wake, then, to the first ardour and the sight,O lonely faun, of the old fierce white light,With, lilies, one of you for innocence.Other than their lips’ delicate pretence,The light caress that quiets treacherous lovers,My breast, I know not how to tell, discoversThe bitten print of some immortal’s kiss.But hush! a mystery so great as thisI dare not tell, save to my double reed,Which, sharer of my every joy and need,Dreams down its cadenced monologues that weFalsely confuse the beauties that we seeWith the bright palpable shapes our song creates:My flute, as loud as passion modulates,Purges the common dream of flank and breast,Seen through closed eyes and inwardly caressed,Of every empty and monotonous line.
Bloom then, O Syrinx, in thy flight malign,A reed once more beside our trysting-lake.Proud of my music, let me often makeA song of goddesses and see their rapeProfanely done on many a painted shape.So when the grape’s transparent juice I drain,I quell regret for pleasures past and feignA new real grape. For holding towards the skyThe empty skin, I blow it tight and lieDream-drunk till evening, eyeing it.Tell o’erRemembered joys and plump the grape once more.Between the reeds I saw their bodies gleamWho cool no mortal fever in the streamCrying to the woods the rage of their desire:And their bright hair went down in jewelled fireWhere crystal broke and dazzled shudderingly.I check my swift pursuit: for see where lie,Bruised, being twins in love, by languor sweet,Two sleeping girls, clasped at my very feet.I seize and run with them, nor part the pair,Breaking this covert of frail petals, whereRoses drink scent of the sun and our light play’Mid tumbled flowers shall match the death of day.I love that virginal fury—ah, the wildThrill when a maiden body shrinks, defiled,Shuddering like arctic light, from lips that searIts nakedness ... the flesh in secret fear!Contagiously through my linked pair it fliesWhere innocence in either, struggling, dies,Wet with fond tears or some less piteous dew.Gay in the conquest of these fears, I grewSo rash that I must needs the sheaf divideOf ruffled kisses heaven itself had tied.For as I leaned to stifle in the hairOf one my passionate laughter (taking careWith a stretched finger, that her innocenceMight stain with her companion’s kindling senseTo touch the younger little one, who layChild-like unblushing) my ungrateful preySlips from me, freed by passion’s sudden deathNor heeds the frenzy of my sobbing breath.
Let it pass! others of their hair shall twistA rope to drag me to those joys I missed.See how the ripe pomegranates bursting redTo quench the thirst of the mumbling bees have bled;So too our blood, kindled by some chance fire,Flows for the swarming legions of desire.At evening, when the woodland green turns goldAnd ashen grey, ’mid the quenched leaves, behold!Red Etna glows, by Venus visited,Walking the lava with her snowy treadWhene’er the flames in thunderous slumber die.I hold the goddess!Ah, sure penalty!
But the unthinking soul and body swoonAt last beneath the heavy hush of noon.Forgetful let me lie where summer’s drouthSifts fine the sand and then with gaping mouthDream planet-struck by the grape’s round wine-red star.
Nymphs, I shall see the shade that now you are.
TUNNELLED in solid blackness creepsThe old mole-soul, and wakes or sleeps,He knows not which, but tunnels onThrough ages of oblivion;Until at last the long constraintOf each hand-wall is lost, and faintComes daylight creeping from afar,And mole-work grows crepuscular.Tunnel meets air and bursts; mole seesMen as strange as walking trees?And far horizons smoking blue,And chasing clouds for ever new;Green hills, like lighted lamps aglowOr quenched beneath the cloud-shadow;Quenching and blazing turn by turn,Spring’s great green signals fitfully burn.Mole travels on, but finds the steeringA harder task of pioneeringThan when he thridded through the straitBlind catacombs that ancient fateHad carved for him. Stupid and dumbAnd blind and touchless he had comeA way without a turn; but here,Under the sky, the passengerChooses his own best way; and moleDistracted wanders, yet his holeRegrets not much wherein he crept,But runs, a joyous nympholept,This way and that, by all made mad—River nymph and oread,Ocean’s daughters and Lorelei,Combing the silken mystery,The glaucous gold of her rivery tresses—Each haunts the traveller, each possessesThe drunken wavering soul awhile;Then with a phantom’s cock-crow smileMocks craving with sheer vanishment.Mole-eyes grow hawk’s: knowledge is lentIn grudging driblets that pay highUnconscionable usury.To unrelenting life. Mole learnsTo travel more secure; the turnsOf his long way less puzzling seem,And all those magic forms that gleamIn airy invitation cheatLess often than they did of old.The earth slopes upward, fold by foldOf quiet hills that meet the goldSerenity of western skies.Over the world’s edge with clear eyesOur mole transcendent sees his wayTunnelled in light: he must obeyNecessity again and thridClose catacombs as erst he did,Fate’s tunnellings, himself must boreThrough the sunset’s inmost core.The guiding walls to each-hand shineLuminous and crystalline;And mole shall tunnel on and on,Till night let fall oblivion.
TUNNELLED in solid blackness creepsThe old mole-soul, and wakes or sleeps,He knows not which, but tunnels onThrough ages of oblivion;Until at last the long constraintOf each hand-wall is lost, and faintComes daylight creeping from afar,And mole-work grows crepuscular.Tunnel meets air and bursts; mole seesMen as strange as walking trees?And far horizons smoking blue,And chasing clouds for ever new;Green hills, like lighted lamps aglowOr quenched beneath the cloud-shadow;Quenching and blazing turn by turn,Spring’s great green signals fitfully burn.Mole travels on, but finds the steeringA harder task of pioneeringThan when he thridded through the straitBlind catacombs that ancient fateHad carved for him. Stupid and dumbAnd blind and touchless he had comeA way without a turn; but here,Under the sky, the passengerChooses his own best way; and moleDistracted wanders, yet his holeRegrets not much wherein he crept,But runs, a joyous nympholept,This way and that, by all made mad—River nymph and oread,Ocean’s daughters and Lorelei,Combing the silken mystery,The glaucous gold of her rivery tresses—Each haunts the traveller, each possessesThe drunken wavering soul awhile;Then with a phantom’s cock-crow smileMocks craving with sheer vanishment.Mole-eyes grow hawk’s: knowledge is lentIn grudging driblets that pay highUnconscionable usury.To unrelenting life. Mole learnsTo travel more secure; the turnsOf his long way less puzzling seem,And all those magic forms that gleamIn airy invitation cheatLess often than they did of old.The earth slopes upward, fold by foldOf quiet hills that meet the goldSerenity of western skies.Over the world’s edge with clear eyesOur mole transcendent sees his wayTunnelled in light: he must obeyNecessity again and thridClose catacombs as erst he did,Fate’s tunnellings, himself must boreThrough the sunset’s inmost core.The guiding walls to each-hand shineLuminous and crystalline;And mole shall tunnel on and on,Till night let fall oblivion.
TUNNELLED in solid blackness creepsThe old mole-soul, and wakes or sleeps,He knows not which, but tunnels onThrough ages of oblivion;Until at last the long constraintOf each hand-wall is lost, and faintComes daylight creeping from afar,And mole-work grows crepuscular.Tunnel meets air and bursts; mole seesMen as strange as walking trees?And far horizons smoking blue,And chasing clouds for ever new;Green hills, like lighted lamps aglowOr quenched beneath the cloud-shadow;Quenching and blazing turn by turn,Spring’s great green signals fitfully burn.Mole travels on, but finds the steeringA harder task of pioneeringThan when he thridded through the straitBlind catacombs that ancient fateHad carved for him. Stupid and dumbAnd blind and touchless he had comeA way without a turn; but here,Under the sky, the passengerChooses his own best way; and moleDistracted wanders, yet his holeRegrets not much wherein he crept,But runs, a joyous nympholept,This way and that, by all made mad—River nymph and oread,Ocean’s daughters and Lorelei,Combing the silken mystery,The glaucous gold of her rivery tresses—Each haunts the traveller, each possessesThe drunken wavering soul awhile;Then with a phantom’s cock-crow smileMocks craving with sheer vanishment.Mole-eyes grow hawk’s: knowledge is lentIn grudging driblets that pay highUnconscionable usury.To unrelenting life. Mole learnsTo travel more secure; the turnsOf his long way less puzzling seem,And all those magic forms that gleamIn airy invitation cheatLess often than they did of old.The earth slopes upward, fold by foldOf quiet hills that meet the goldSerenity of western skies.Over the world’s edge with clear eyesOur mole transcendent sees his wayTunnelled in light: he must obeyNecessity again and thridClose catacombs as erst he did,Fate’s tunnellings, himself must boreThrough the sunset’s inmost core.The guiding walls to each-hand shineLuminous and crystalline;And mole shall tunnel on and on,Till night let fall oblivion.
AWAGGON passed with scarlet wheelsAnd a yellow body, shining new.“Splendid!” said I. “How fine it feelsTo be alive, when beauty peelsThe grimy husk from life.” And youSaid, “Splendid!” and I thought you’d seenThat waggon blazing down the street;But I looked and saw that your gaze had beenOn a child that was kicking an obsceneBrown ordure with his feet.Our souls are elephants, thought I,Remote behind a prisoning grill,With trunks thrust out to peer and pryAnd pounce upon reality;And each at his own sweet willSeizes the bun that he likes bestAnd passes over all the rest.
AWAGGON passed with scarlet wheelsAnd a yellow body, shining new.“Splendid!” said I. “How fine it feelsTo be alive, when beauty peelsThe grimy husk from life.” And youSaid, “Splendid!” and I thought you’d seenThat waggon blazing down the street;But I looked and saw that your gaze had beenOn a child that was kicking an obsceneBrown ordure with his feet.Our souls are elephants, thought I,Remote behind a prisoning grill,With trunks thrust out to peer and pryAnd pounce upon reality;And each at his own sweet willSeizes the bun that he likes bestAnd passes over all the rest.
AWAGGON passed with scarlet wheelsAnd a yellow body, shining new.“Splendid!” said I. “How fine it feelsTo be alive, when beauty peelsThe grimy husk from life.” And you
Said, “Splendid!” and I thought you’d seenThat waggon blazing down the street;But I looked and saw that your gaze had beenOn a child that was kicking an obsceneBrown ordure with his feet.
Our souls are elephants, thought I,Remote behind a prisoning grill,With trunks thrust out to peer and pryAnd pounce upon reality;And each at his own sweet will
Seizes the bun that he likes bestAnd passes over all the rest.
THERE is a sadness in the street,And sullenly the folk I meetDroop their heads as they walk along,Without a smile, without a song.A mist of cold and muffling greyFalls, fold by fold, on another dayThat dies unwept. But suddenly,Under a tunnelled arch I seeOn flank and haunch the chestnut gleamOf horses in a lamplit steam;And the dead world moves for me once moreWith beauty for its living core.
THERE is a sadness in the street,And sullenly the folk I meetDroop their heads as they walk along,Without a smile, without a song.A mist of cold and muffling greyFalls, fold by fold, on another dayThat dies unwept. But suddenly,Under a tunnelled arch I seeOn flank and haunch the chestnut gleamOf horses in a lamplit steam;And the dead world moves for me once moreWith beauty for its living core.
THERE is a sadness in the street,And sullenly the folk I meetDroop their heads as they walk along,Without a smile, without a song.A mist of cold and muffling greyFalls, fold by fold, on another dayThat dies unwept. But suddenly,Under a tunnelled arch I seeOn flank and haunch the chestnut gleamOf horses in a lamplit steam;And the dead world moves for me once moreWith beauty for its living core.
SLOW-moving moonlight once did passAcross the dreaming looking-glass,Where, sunk inviolably deep,Old secrets unforgotten sleepOf beauties unforgettable.But dusty cobwebs are woven nowAcross that mirror, which of oldSaw fingers drawing back the goldFrom an untroubled brow;And the depths are blinded to the moon,And their secrets forgotten, for ever untold.
SLOW-moving moonlight once did passAcross the dreaming looking-glass,Where, sunk inviolably deep,Old secrets unforgotten sleepOf beauties unforgettable.But dusty cobwebs are woven nowAcross that mirror, which of oldSaw fingers drawing back the goldFrom an untroubled brow;And the depths are blinded to the moon,And their secrets forgotten, for ever untold.
SLOW-moving moonlight once did passAcross the dreaming looking-glass,Where, sunk inviolably deep,Old secrets unforgotten sleepOf beauties unforgettable.But dusty cobwebs are woven nowAcross that mirror, which of oldSaw fingers drawing back the goldFrom an untroubled brow;And the depths are blinded to the moon,And their secrets forgotten, for ever untold.
YOUTH as it opens out disclosesThe sinister metempsychosisOf lilies dead and turned to rosesRed as an angry dawn.But lilies, remember, are grave-side flowers,While slow bright rose-leaves sailAdrift on the music of happiest hours;And those lilies, cold and pale,Hide fiery roses beneath the lawnOf the young bride’s parting veil.
YOUTH as it opens out disclosesThe sinister metempsychosisOf lilies dead and turned to rosesRed as an angry dawn.But lilies, remember, are grave-side flowers,While slow bright rose-leaves sailAdrift on the music of happiest hours;And those lilies, cold and pale,Hide fiery roses beneath the lawnOf the young bride’s parting veil.
YOUTH as it opens out disclosesThe sinister metempsychosisOf lilies dead and turned to rosesRed as an angry dawn.But lilies, remember, are grave-side flowers,While slow bright rose-leaves sailAdrift on the music of happiest hours;And those lilies, cold and pale,Hide fiery roses beneath the lawnOf the young bride’s parting veil.
“GOD needs no christening,”Pantheist mutters,“Love opens shuttersOn heaven’s glistening,Flesh, key-hole listening,Hear what God utters”....Yes, but God stutters.
“GOD needs no christening,”Pantheist mutters,“Love opens shuttersOn heaven’s glistening,Flesh, key-hole listening,Hear what God utters”....Yes, but God stutters.
“GOD needs no christening,”Pantheist mutters,“Love opens shuttersOn heaven’s glistening,Flesh, key-hole listening,Hear what God utters”....Yes, but God stutters.
’TWAS I that leaned to AmoretWith: “What if the briars have tangled Time,Till, lost in the wood-ways, he quite forgetHow plaintive in cities at midnight sounds the chimeOf bells slow-dying from discord to the hush whence they rose and met?“And in the forest we shall live free,Free from the bondage that Time has madeTo hedge our soul from its liberty;We shall not fear what is mighty, and unafraidShall look wide-eyed at beauty, nor shrink from its majesty.”But Amoret answered me again:“We are lost in the forest, you and I;Lost, lost, not free, though no bonds restrain;For no spire rises for comfort, no landmark in the sky,And the long glades as they curve from sight are dark with a nameless pain.And Time creates what he devours,—Music that sweetly dreams itself away,Frail-swung leaves of autumn and the scent of flowers,And the beauty of that poised moment, when the dayHangs ’twixt the quiet of darkness and the mirth of the sunlit hours.”
’TWAS I that leaned to AmoretWith: “What if the briars have tangled Time,Till, lost in the wood-ways, he quite forgetHow plaintive in cities at midnight sounds the chimeOf bells slow-dying from discord to the hush whence they rose and met?“And in the forest we shall live free,Free from the bondage that Time has madeTo hedge our soul from its liberty;We shall not fear what is mighty, and unafraidShall look wide-eyed at beauty, nor shrink from its majesty.”But Amoret answered me again:“We are lost in the forest, you and I;Lost, lost, not free, though no bonds restrain;For no spire rises for comfort, no landmark in the sky,And the long glades as they curve from sight are dark with a nameless pain.And Time creates what he devours,—Music that sweetly dreams itself away,Frail-swung leaves of autumn and the scent of flowers,And the beauty of that poised moment, when the dayHangs ’twixt the quiet of darkness and the mirth of the sunlit hours.”
’TWAS I that leaned to AmoretWith: “What if the briars have tangled Time,Till, lost in the wood-ways, he quite forgetHow plaintive in cities at midnight sounds the chimeOf bells slow-dying from discord to the hush whence they rose and met?
“And in the forest we shall live free,Free from the bondage that Time has madeTo hedge our soul from its liberty;We shall not fear what is mighty, and unafraidShall look wide-eyed at beauty, nor shrink from its majesty.”
But Amoret answered me again:“We are lost in the forest, you and I;Lost, lost, not free, though no bonds restrain;For no spire rises for comfort, no landmark in the sky,And the long glades as they curve from sight are dark with a nameless pain.
And Time creates what he devours,—Music that sweetly dreams itself away,Frail-swung leaves of autumn and the scent of flowers,And the beauty of that poised moment, when the dayHangs ’twixt the quiet of darkness and the mirth of the sunlit hours.”
MOTTLED and grey and brown they pass,The wood-moths, wheeling, fluttering;And we chase and they vanish; and in the grassAre starry flowers, and the birds singFaint broken songs of the dying spring.And on the beech-hole, smooth and grey,Some lover of an older dayHas carved in time-blurred letteringOne world only:—“Alas.”
MOTTLED and grey and brown they pass,The wood-moths, wheeling, fluttering;And we chase and they vanish; and in the grassAre starry flowers, and the birds singFaint broken songs of the dying spring.And on the beech-hole, smooth and grey,Some lover of an older dayHas carved in time-blurred letteringOne world only:—“Alas.”
MOTTLED and grey and brown they pass,The wood-moths, wheeling, fluttering;And we chase and they vanish; and in the grassAre starry flowers, and the birds singFaint broken songs of the dying spring.And on the beech-hole, smooth and grey,Some lover of an older dayHas carved in time-blurred letteringOne world only:—“Alas.”
LUTES, I forbid you! You must never play,When shimmeringly, glimpse by glimpseSeen through the leaves, the silken figures swayIn measured dance. Never at shut of day,When Time perversely loitering limpsThrough endless twilights, should your stringsWhisper of light remembered thingsThat happened long ago and far away:Lutes, I forbid you! You must never play....And you, pale marble statues, far descriedWhere vistas open suddenly,I bid you shew yourselves no more, but hideYour loveliness, lest too much glorifiedBy western radiance slantinglyShot down the glade, you turn from stoneTo living gods, immortal grown,And, ageless, mock my beauty’s fleeting pride,You pale, relentless statues, far descried....
LUTES, I forbid you! You must never play,When shimmeringly, glimpse by glimpseSeen through the leaves, the silken figures swayIn measured dance. Never at shut of day,When Time perversely loitering limpsThrough endless twilights, should your stringsWhisper of light remembered thingsThat happened long ago and far away:Lutes, I forbid you! You must never play....And you, pale marble statues, far descriedWhere vistas open suddenly,I bid you shew yourselves no more, but hideYour loveliness, lest too much glorifiedBy western radiance slantinglyShot down the glade, you turn from stoneTo living gods, immortal grown,And, ageless, mock my beauty’s fleeting pride,You pale, relentless statues, far descried....
LUTES, I forbid you! You must never play,When shimmeringly, glimpse by glimpseSeen through the leaves, the silken figures swayIn measured dance. Never at shut of day,When Time perversely loitering limpsThrough endless twilights, should your stringsWhisper of light remembered thingsThat happened long ago and far away:Lutes, I forbid you! You must never play....
And you, pale marble statues, far descriedWhere vistas open suddenly,I bid you shew yourselves no more, but hideYour loveliness, lest too much glorifiedBy western radiance slantinglyShot down the glade, you turn from stoneTo living gods, immortal grown,And, ageless, mock my beauty’s fleeting pride,You pale, relentless statues, far descried....
OLD ghosts that death forgot to ferryAcross the Lethe of the years—These are my friends, and at their tearsI weep and with their mirth am merry.On a high tower, whose battlementsGive me all heaven at a glance,I lie long summer nights in trance,Drowsed by the murmurs and the scentsThat rise from earth, while the sky above meMerges its peace with my soul’s peace,Deep meeting deep. No stir can move me,Nought break the quiet of my release:In vain the windy sunlight ravesAt the hush and gloom of polar caves.
OLD ghosts that death forgot to ferryAcross the Lethe of the years—These are my friends, and at their tearsI weep and with their mirth am merry.On a high tower, whose battlementsGive me all heaven at a glance,I lie long summer nights in trance,Drowsed by the murmurs and the scentsThat rise from earth, while the sky above meMerges its peace with my soul’s peace,Deep meeting deep. No stir can move me,Nought break the quiet of my release:In vain the windy sunlight ravesAt the hush and gloom of polar caves.
OLD ghosts that death forgot to ferryAcross the Lethe of the years—These are my friends, and at their tearsI weep and with their mirth am merry.On a high tower, whose battlementsGive me all heaven at a glance,I lie long summer nights in trance,Drowsed by the murmurs and the scentsThat rise from earth, while the sky above meMerges its peace with my soul’s peace,Deep meeting deep. No stir can move me,Nought break the quiet of my release:In vain the windy sunlight ravesAt the hush and gloom of polar caves.
THERE’S a church by a lake in ItalyStands white on a hill against the sky;And a path of immemorial cobblesLeads up and up, where the pilgrim hobblesPast a score or so of neat reposories,Where you stop and breathe and tell your rosariesTo the shrined terra-cotta mannikins,That expound with the liveliest quirks and grinsKnown texts of Scripture. But no long stayShould the pilgrim make upon his way;But as means to the end these shrines stand hereTo guide to something holier,The church on the hill top.Your heaven’s soWith a path leading up to it past a rowOf votary Priapulids;At each you pause and tell your beadsAlong the quintuple strings of sense:Then on, to face Heaven’s eminence,New stimulated, new inspired.
THERE’S a church by a lake in ItalyStands white on a hill against the sky;And a path of immemorial cobblesLeads up and up, where the pilgrim hobblesPast a score or so of neat reposories,Where you stop and breathe and tell your rosariesTo the shrined terra-cotta mannikins,That expound with the liveliest quirks and grinsKnown texts of Scripture. But no long stayShould the pilgrim make upon his way;But as means to the end these shrines stand hereTo guide to something holier,The church on the hill top.Your heaven’s soWith a path leading up to it past a rowOf votary Priapulids;At each you pause and tell your beadsAlong the quintuple strings of sense:Then on, to face Heaven’s eminence,New stimulated, new inspired.
THERE’S a church by a lake in ItalyStands white on a hill against the sky;And a path of immemorial cobblesLeads up and up, where the pilgrim hobblesPast a score or so of neat reposories,Where you stop and breathe and tell your rosariesTo the shrined terra-cotta mannikins,That expound with the liveliest quirks and grinsKnown texts of Scripture. But no long stayShould the pilgrim make upon his way;But as means to the end these shrines stand hereTo guide to something holier,The church on the hill top.
Your heaven’s soWith a path leading up to it past a rowOf votary Priapulids;At each you pause and tell your beadsAlong the quintuple strings of sense:Then on, to face Heaven’s eminence,New stimulated, new inspired.
MOTHER of all my future memories,Mistress of my new life, which but to-dayBegan, when I beheld, deep in your eyes,My own love mirrored and the warm surpriseOf the first kiss swept both our souls away,Your love has freed me; for I was oppressedBy my own devil, whose unwholesome breathTarnished my youth, leaving to me at bestAge lacking comfort of a soul at restAnd weariness beyond the hope of death.
MOTHER of all my future memories,Mistress of my new life, which but to-dayBegan, when I beheld, deep in your eyes,My own love mirrored and the warm surpriseOf the first kiss swept both our souls away,Your love has freed me; for I was oppressedBy my own devil, whose unwholesome breathTarnished my youth, leaving to me at bestAge lacking comfort of a soul at restAnd weariness beyond the hope of death.
MOTHER of all my future memories,Mistress of my new life, which but to-dayBegan, when I beheld, deep in your eyes,My own love mirrored and the warm surpriseOf the first kiss swept both our souls away,
Your love has freed me; for I was oppressedBy my own devil, whose unwholesome breathTarnished my youth, leaving to me at bestAge lacking comfort of a soul at restAnd weariness beyond the hope of death.
AH, those were days of silent happiness!I never spoke, and had no need to speak,While on the windy down-land, cheek by cheek,The slow-driven sun beheld us. Each caressHad oratory for its own defence;And when I kissed or felt her fingers press,I envied not Demosthenes his Greek,Nor Tully for his Latin eloquence.
AH, those were days of silent happiness!I never spoke, and had no need to speak,While on the windy down-land, cheek by cheek,The slow-driven sun beheld us. Each caressHad oratory for its own defence;And when I kissed or felt her fingers press,I envied not Demosthenes his Greek,Nor Tully for his Latin eloquence.
AH, those were days of silent happiness!I never spoke, and had no need to speak,While on the windy down-land, cheek by cheek,The slow-driven sun beheld us. Each caressHad oratory for its own defence;And when I kissed or felt her fingers press,I envied not Demosthenes his Greek,Nor Tully for his Latin eloquence.
WHEN life burns low as the fire in the grateAnd all the evening’s books are read,I sit alone, save for the deadAnd the lovers I have grown to hate.But all at once the narrow gloomOf hatred and despair expandsIn tenderness: thought stretches handsTo welcome to the midnight roomAnother presence:—a memoryOf how last year in the sunlit field,Laughing, you suddenly revealedBeauty in immortality.For so it is; a gesture stripsLife bare of all its make-believe.All unprepared we may receiveOur casual apocalypse.Sheer beauty, then you seemed to stirUnbodied soul; soul sleeps to night,And love comes, dimming spirit’s sight,When body plays interpreter.
WHEN life burns low as the fire in the grateAnd all the evening’s books are read,I sit alone, save for the deadAnd the lovers I have grown to hate.But all at once the narrow gloomOf hatred and despair expandsIn tenderness: thought stretches handsTo welcome to the midnight roomAnother presence:—a memoryOf how last year in the sunlit field,Laughing, you suddenly revealedBeauty in immortality.For so it is; a gesture stripsLife bare of all its make-believe.All unprepared we may receiveOur casual apocalypse.Sheer beauty, then you seemed to stirUnbodied soul; soul sleeps to night,And love comes, dimming spirit’s sight,When body plays interpreter.
WHEN life burns low as the fire in the grateAnd all the evening’s books are read,I sit alone, save for the deadAnd the lovers I have grown to hate.
But all at once the narrow gloomOf hatred and despair expandsIn tenderness: thought stretches handsTo welcome to the midnight room
Another presence:—a memoryOf how last year in the sunlit field,Laughing, you suddenly revealedBeauty in immortality.
For so it is; a gesture stripsLife bare of all its make-believe.All unprepared we may receiveOur casual apocalypse.
Sheer beauty, then you seemed to stirUnbodied soul; soul sleeps to night,And love comes, dimming spirit’s sight,When body plays interpreter.