'I am not as these are,' the poet saithIn youth's pride, and the painter, among menAt bay, where never pencil comes nor pen,And shut about with his own frozen breath.To others, for whom only rhyme wins faithAs poets,—only paint as painters,—thenHe turns in the cold silence; and againShrinking, 'I am not as these are,' he saith.
And say that this is so, what follows it?For were thine eyes set backwards in thine head,Such words were well; but they see on, and far.Unto the lights of the great Past, new-litFair for the Future's track, look thou instead,—Say thou instead 'I am not astheseare.'
Though God, as one that is an householder,Called these to labour in his vine-yard first,Before the husk of darkness was well burstBidding them grope their way out and bestir,(Who, questioned of their wages, answered, 'Sir,Unto each man a penny:') though the worstBurthen of heat was theirs and the dry thirst:Though God hath since found none such as these wereTo do their work like them:—Because of thisStand not ye idle in the market-place.Which of ye knowethheis not that lastWho may be first by faith and will?—yea, hisThe hand which after the appointed daysAnd hours shall give a Future to their Past?
Under the arch of Life, where love and death,Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I sawBeauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe,I drew it in as simply as my breath.Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath,The sky and sea bend on thee,—which can draw,By sea or sky or woman, to one law,The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath.
This is that Lady Beauty, in whose praiseThy voice and hand shake still,—long known to theeBy flying hair and fluttering hem,—the beatFollowing her daily of thy heart and feet,How passionately and irretrievably,In what fond flight, how many ways and days!
Of Adam's first wife, Lilith, it is told(The witch he loved before the gift of Eve,)That, ere the snake's, her sweet tongue could deceive,And her enchanted hair was the first gold.And still she sits, young while the earth is old,And, subtly of herself contemplative,Draws men to watch the bright web she can weave,Till heart and body and life are in its hold.
The rose and poppy are her flowers; for whereIs he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scentAnd soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so wentThy spell through him, and left his straight neck bentAnd round his heart one strangling golden hair.
Is it this sky's vast vault or ocean's soundThat is Life's self and draws my life from me,And by instinct ineffable decreeHolds my breath quailing on the bitter bound?Nay, is it Life or Death, thus thunder-crown'd,That 'mid the tide of all emergencyNow notes my separate wave, and to what seaIts difficult eddies labour in the ground?
Oh! what is this that knows the road I came,The flame turned cloud, the cloud returned to flame,The lifted shifted steeps and all the way?—That draws round me at last this wind-warm space,And in regenerate rapture turns my faceUpon the devious coverts of dismay?
As the child knows not if his mother's faceBe fair; nor of his elders yet can deemWhat each most is; but as of hill or streamAt dawn, all glimmering life surrounds his place:Who yet, tow'rd noon of his half-weary race,Pausing awhile beneath the high sun-beamAnd gazing steadily back,—as through a dream,In things long past new features now can trace:—
Even so the thought that is at length fullgrownTurns back to note the sun-smit paths, all greyAnd marvellous once, where first it walked alone;And haply doubts, amid the unblenching day,Which most or least impelled its onward way,—Those unknown things or these things overknown.
What place so strange,—though unrevealed snowWith unimaginable fires ariseAt the earth's end,—what passion of surpriseLike frost-bound fire-girt scenes of long ago?Lo! this is none but I this hour; and lo!This is the very place which to mine eyesThose mortal hours in vain immortalize,'Mid hurrying crowds, with what alone I know.
City, of thine a single simple door,By some new Power reduplicate, must beEven yet my life-porch in eternity,Even with one presence filled, as once of yoreOr mocking winds whirl round a chaff-strown floorThee and thy years and these my words and me.
I said: 'Nay, pluck not,—let the first fruit be:Even as thou sayest, it is sweet and red,But let it ripen still. The tree's bent headSees in the stream its own fecundityAnd bides the day of fulness. Shall not weAt the sun's hour that day possess the shade,And claim our fruit before its ripeness fade,And eat it from the branch and praise the tree?'
I say: 'Alas! our fruit hath wooed the sunToo long,—'tis fallen and floats adown the stream.Lo, the last clusters! Pluck them every one,And let us sup with summer; ere the gleamOf autumn set the year's pent sorrow free,And the woods wail like echoes from the sea.'
So now the changed year's turning wheel returnsAnd as a girl sails balanced in the wind,And now before and now again behindStoops as it swoops, with cheek that laughs and burns,—So Spring comes merry towards me now, but earnsNo answering smile from me, whose life is twin'dWith the dead boughs that winter still must bind,And whom to-day the Spring no more concerns.
Behold, this crocus is a withering flame;This snowdrop, snow; this apple-blossom's partTo breed the fruit that breeds the serpent's art.Nay, for these Spring-flowers, turn thy face from them,Nor gaze till on the year's last lily-stemThe white cup shrivels round the golden heart.
Sweet stream-fed glen, why say 'farewell' to theeWho far'st so well and find'st for ever smoothThe brow of Time where man may read no ruth?Nay, do thou rather say 'farewell' to me,Who now fare forth in bitterer fantasyThan erst was mine where other shade might sootheBy other streams, what while in fragrant youthThe bliss of being sad made melancholy.
And yet, farewell! For better shalt thou fareWhen children bathe sweet faces in thy flowAnd happy lovers blend sweet shadows thereIn hours to come, than when an hour agoThine echoes had but one man's sighs to bearAnd thy trees whispered what he feared to know.
What is the sorriest thing that enters Hell?None of the sins,—but this and that fair deedWhich a soul's sin at length could supersede.These yet are virgins, whom death's timely knellMight once have sainted; whom the fiends compelTogether now, in snake-bound shuddering sheavesOf anguish, while the scorching bridegroom leavesTheir refuse maidenhood abominable.
Night sucks them down, the garbage of the pit,Whose names, half entered in the book of Life,Were God's desire at noon. And as their hairAnd eyes sink last, the Torturer deigns no whitTo gaze, but, yearning, waits his worthier wife,The Sin still blithe on earth that sent them there.
The lost days of my life until to-day,What were they, could I see them on the streetLie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheatSown once for food but trodden into clay?Or golden coins squandered and still to pay?Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet?Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheatThe throats of men in Hell, who thirst alway?
I do not see them here; but after deathGod knows I know the faces I shall see,Each one a murdered self, with low last breath.'I am thyself,—what hast thou done to me?''And I—and I—thyself,' (lo! each one saith,)'And thou thyself to all eternity!'
When first that horse, within whose populous wombThe birth was death, o'ershadowed Troy with fate,Her elders, dubious of its Grecian freight,Brought Helen there to sing the songs of home:She whispered, 'Friends, I am alone; come, come!'Then, crouched within, Ulysses waxed afraid,And on his comrades' quivering mouths he laidHis hands, and held them till the voice was dumb.
The same was he who, lashed to his own mast,There where the sea-flowers screen the charnel-caves,Beside the sirens' singing island pass'd,Till sweetness failed along the inveterate waves…Say, soul,—are songs of Death no heaven to thee,Nor shames her lip the cheek of Victory?
That lamp thou fill'st in Eros name to-night,O Hero, shall the Sestian augurs takeTo-morrow, and for drowned Leander's sakeTo Anteros its fireless lip shall plight.Aye, waft the unspoken vow: yet dawn's first lightOn ebbing storm and life twice ebb'd must break;While 'neath no sunrise, by the Avernian Lake,Lo where Love walks, Death's pallid neophyte.
That lamp within Anteros' shadowy shrineShall stand unlit (for so the gods decree)Till some one man the happy issue seeOf a life's love, and bid its flame to shine:Which still may rest unfir'd; for, theirs or thine,O brother, what brought love to them or thee?
*After the deaths of Leander and Hero, the signal-lamp was dedicated to Anteros, with the edict that no man should light it unless his love had proved fortunate.
Ye who have passed Death's haggard hills; and yeWhom trees that knew your sires shall cease to knowAnd still stand silent:—is it all a show,A wisp that laughs upon the wall?—decreeOf some inexorable supremacyWhich ever, as man strains his blind surmiseFrom depth to ominous depth, looks past his eyes,Sphinx-faced with unabashed augury?
Nay, rather question the Earth's self. InvokeThe storm-felled forest-trees moss-grown to-dayWhose roots are hillocks where the children play;Or ask the silver sapling 'neath what yokeThose stars, his spray-crown's clustering gems, shall wageTheir journey still when his boughs shrink with age.
Get thee behind me. Even as, heavy-curled,Stooping against the wind, a charioteerIs snatched from out his chariot by the hair,So shall Time be; and as the void car, hurledAbroad by reinless steeds, even so the world:Yea, even as chariot-dust upon the air,It shall be sought and not found anywhere.Get thee behind me, Satan. Oft unfurled,Thy perilous wings can beat and break like lathMuch mightiness of men to win thee praise.Leave these weak feet to tread in narrow ways.Thou still, upon the broad vine-sheltered path,Mayst wait the turning of the phials of wrathFor certain years, for certain months and days.
As when two men have loved a woman well,Each hating each, through Love's and Death's deceit;Since not for either this stark marriage-sheetAnd the long pauses of this wedding bell;Yet o'er her grave the night and day dispelAt last their feud forlorn, with cold and heat;Nor other than dear friends to death may fleetThe two lives left that most of her can tell:—
So separate hopes, which in a soul had wooedThe one same Peace, strove with each other long,And Peace before their faces perished since:So through that soul, in restless brotherhood,They roam together now, and wind amongIts bye-streets, knocking at the dusty inns.
Beholding youth and hope in mockery caughtFrom life; and mocking pulses that remainWhen the soul's death of bodily death is fain;Honour unknown, and honour known unsought;And penury's sedulous self-torturing thoughtOn gold, whose master therewith buys his bane;And longed-for woman longing all in vainFor lonely man with love's desire distraught;And wealth, and strength, and power, and pleasantness,Given unto bodies of whose souls men say,None poor and weak, slavish and foul, as they:—Beholding these things, I behold no lessThe blushing morn and blushing eve confessThe shame that loads the intolerable day.
As some true chief of men, bowed down with stressOf life's disastrous eld, on blossoming youthMay gaze, and murmur with self-pity and ruth,'Might I thy fruitless treasure but possess,Such blessing of mine all coming years should bless;'—Then sends one sigh forth to the unknown goal,And bitterly feels breathe against his soulThe hour swift-winged of nearer nothingness:—
Even so the World's grey Soul to the green WorldPerchance one hour must cry: 'Woe's me, for whomInveteracy of ill portends the doom,—Whose heart's old fire in shadow of shame is furl'd:While thou even as of yore art journeying,All soulless now, yet merry with the Spring!'
Great Michelangelo, with age grown bleakAnd uttermost labours, having once o'ersaidAll grievous memories on his long life shed,This worst regret to one true heart could speak:—That when, with sorrowing love and reverence meek,He stooped o'er sweet Colonna's dying bed,His Muse and dominant Lady, spirit-wed,Her hand he kissed, but not her brow or cheek.
O Buonarruoti,—good at Art's fire-wheelsTo urge her chariot!—even thus the Soul,Touching at length some sorely-chastened goal,Earns oftenest but a little: her appealsWere deep and mute,—lowly her claim. Let be:What holds for her Death's garner? And for thee?
Around the vase of Life at your slow paceHe has not crept, but turned it with his hands,And all its sides already understands.There, girt, one breathes alert for some great race;Whose road runs far by sands and fruitful space;Who laughs, yet through the jolly throng has pass'd;Who weeps, nor stays for weeping; who at last,A youth, stands somewhere crowned, with silent face.
And he has filled this vase with wine for blood,With blood for tears, with spice for burning vow,With watered flowers for buried love most fit;And would have cast it shattered to the flood,Yet in Fate's name has kept it whole; which nowStands empty till his ashes fall in it.
As thy friend's face, with shadow of soul o'erspread,Somewhile unto thy sight perchance hath beenGhastly and strange, yet never so is seenIn thought, but to all fortunate favour wed;As thy love's death-bound features never deadTo memory's glass return, but contraveneFrail fugitive days, and always keep, I weenThan all new life a livelier lovelihead:—
So Life herself, thy spirit's friend and love,Even still as Spring's authentic harbingerGlows with fresh hours for hope to glorify;Though pale she lay when in the winter groveHer funeral flowers were snow-flakes shed on herAnd the red wings of frost-fire rent the sky.
Look in my face; my name is Might-have-been;I am also called No-more, Too-late, Farewell;Unto thine ear I hold the dead-sea shellCast up thy Life's foam-fretted feet between;Unto thine eyes the glass where that is seenWhich had Life's form and Love's, but by my spellIs now a shaken shadow intolerable,Of ultimate things unuttered the frail screen.
Mark me, how still I am! But should there dartOne moment through thy soul the soft surpriseOf that winged Peace which lulls the breath of sighs,Then shalt thou see me smile, and turn apartThy visage to mine ambush at thy heartSleepless with cold commemorative eyes.
Whence came his feet into my field, and why?How is it that he sees it all so drear?How do I see his seeing, and how hearThe name his bitter silence knows it by?This was the little fold of separate skyWhose pasturing clouds in the soul's atmosphereDrew living light from one continual year:How should he find it lifeless? He, or I?
Lo! this new Self now wanders round my field,With plaints for every flower, and for each treeA moan, the sighing wind's auxiliary:And o'er sweet waters of my life, that yieldUnto his lips no draught but tears unseal'd,Even in my place he weeps. Even I, not he.
To-day Death seems to me an infant childWhich her worn mother Life upon my kneeHas set to grow my friend and play with me;If haply so my heart might be beguil'dTo find no terrors in a face so mild,—If haply so my weary heart might beUnto the newborn milky eyes of thee,O Death, before resentment reconcil'd.
How long, O Death? And shall thy feet departStill a young child's with mine, or wilt thou standFullgrown the helpful daughter of my heart,What time with thee indeed I reach the strandOf the pale wave which knows thee what thou art,And drink it in the hollow of thy hand?
And thou, O Life, the lady of all bliss,With whom, when our first heart beat full and fast,I wandered till the haunts of men were pass'd,And in fair places found all bowers amissTill only woods and waves might hear our kiss,While to the winds all thought of Death we cast:Ah, Life! and must I have from thee at lastNo smile to greet me and no babe but this?
Lo! Love, the child once ours; and Song, whose hairBlew like a flame and blossomed like a wreath;And Art, whose eyes were worlds by God found fair;These o'er the book of Nature mixed their breathWith neck-twined arms, as oft we watched them there:And did these die that thou mightst bear me Death?
When all desire at last and all regretGo hand in hand to death, and all is vain,What shall assuage the unforgotten painAnd teach the unforgetful to forget?Shall Peace be still a sunk stream long unmet,—Or may the soul at once in a green plainStoop through the spray of some sweet life-fountainAnd cull the dew-drenched flowering amulet?
Ah! when the wan soul in that golden airBetween the scriptured petals softly blownPeers breathless for the gift of grace unknown,Ah! let none other written spell soe'erBut only the one Hope's one name be there,—Not less nor more, but even that word alone.
End of Project Gutenberg's The House of Life, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti