The Moon more indolently dreams to-nightThan a fair woman on her couch at rest.Caressing, with a hand distraught and light,Before she sleeps, the contour of her breast.Upon her silken avalanche of down,Dying she breathes a long and swooning sigh;And watches the white visions past her flown,Which rise like blossoms to the azure sky.And when, at times, wrapped in her languor deep,Earthward she lets a furtive tear-drop flow,Some pious poet, enemy of sleep,Takes in his hollow hand the tear of snowWhence gleams of iris and of opal start,And hides it from the Sun, deep in his heart.
When with closed eyes in autumn's eves of goldI breathe the burning odours of your breast,Before my eyes the hills of happy restBathed in the sun's monotonous fires, unfold.Islands of Lethe where exotic boughsBend with their burden of strange fruit bowed down.Where men are upright, maids have never grownUnkind, but bear a light upon their brows.Led by that perfume to these lands of ease,I see a port where many ships have flownWith sails outwearied of the wandering seas;While the faint odours from green tamarisks blown,Float to my soul and in my senses throng,And mingle vaguely with the sailor's song.
I am as lovely as a dream in stone,And this my heart where each finds death in turn,Inspires the poet with a love as loneAs clay eternal and as taciturn.Swan-white of heart, a sphinx no mortal knows,My throne is in the heaven's azure deep;I hate all movements that disturb my pose,I smile not ever, neither do I weep.Before my monumental attitudes,That breathe a soul into the plastic arts,My poets pray in austere studious moods,For I, to fold enchantment round their hearts,Have pools of light where beauty flames and dies,The placid mirrors of my luminous eyes.
Mother of memories, mistress of mistresses,O thou, my pleasure, thou, all my desire,Thou shalt recall the beauty of caresses,The charm of evenings by the gentle fire,Mother of memories, mistress of mistresses!The eves illumined by the burning coal,The balcony where veiled rose-vapour clings—How soft your breast was then, how sweet your soul!Ah, and we said imperishable things,Those eves illumined by the burning coal.Lovely the suns were in those twilights warm,And space profound, and strong life's pulsing flood,In bending o'er you, queen of every charm,I thought I breathed the perfume in your blood.The suns were beauteous in those twilights warm.The film of night flowed round and over us,And my eyes in the dark did your eyes meet;I drank your breath, ah! sweet and poisonous,And in my hands fraternal slept your feet—Night, like a film, flowed round and over us.I can recall those happy days forgot,And see, with head bowed on your knees, my past.Your languid beauties now would move me notDid not your gentle heart and body castThe old spell of those happy days forgot.Can vows and perfumes, kisses infinite,Be reborn from the gulf we cannot sound;As rise to heaven suns once again made brightAfter being plunged in deep seas and profound?Ah, vows and perfumes, kisses infinite!
Poor Muse, alas, what ails thee, then, to-day?Thy hollow eyes with midnight visions burn,Upon thy brow in alternation play,Folly and Horror, cold and taciturn.Have the green lemure and the goblin red,Poured on thee love and terror from their urn?Or with despotic hand the nightmare dreadDeep plunged thee in some fabulous Minturne?Would that thy breast where so deep thoughts arise,Breathed forth a healthful perfume with thy sighs;Would that thy Christian blood ran wave by waveIn rhythmic sounds the antique numbers gave,When Phœbus shared his alternating reignWith mighty Pan, lord of the ripening grain.
Muse of my heart, lover of palaces,When January comes with wind and sleet,During the snowy eve's long wearinesses,Will there be fire to warm thy violet feet?Wilt thou reanimate thy marble shouldersIn the moon-beams that through the window fly?Or when thy purse dries up, thy palace moulders,Reap the far star-gold of the vaulted sky?For thou, to keep thy body to thy soul,Must swing a censer, wear a holy stole,And chaunt Te Deums with unbelief between.Or, like a starving mountebank, exposeThy beauty and thy tear-drowned smile to thoseWho wait thy jeste to drive away thy spleen.
The ancient cloisters on their lofty wallsHad holy Truth in painted frescoes shown,And, seeing these, the pious in those hallsFelt their cold, lone austereness less alone.At that time when Christ's seed flowered all around,More than one monk, forgotten in his hour,Taking for studio the burial-ground,Glorified Death with simple faith and power.And my soul is a sepulchre where I,Ill cenobite, have spent eternity:On the vile cloister walls no pictures rise.O when may I cast off this weariness,And make the pageant of my old distressFor these hands labour, pleasure for these eyes?
The Demon, in my chamber high.This morning came to visit me,And, thinking he would find some fault,He whispered: "I would know of theeAmong the many lovely thingsThat make the magic of her face,Among the beauties, black and rose,That make her body's charm and grace,Which is most fair?" Thou didst replyTo the Abhorred, O soul of mine:"No single beauty is the bestWhen she is all one flower divine.When all things charm me I ignoreWhich one alone brings most delight;She shines before me like the dawn,And she consoles me like the night.The harmony is far too great,That governs all her body fair,For impotence to analyseAnd say which note is sweetest there.O mystic metamorphosis!My senses into one sense flow—Her voice makes perfume when she speaks,Her breath is music faint and low!"
Can we suppress the old RemorseWho bends our heart beneath his stroke,Who feeds, as worms feed on the corse,Or as the acorn on the oak?Can we suppress the old Remorse!Ah, in what philtre, wine, or spell,May we drown this our ancient foe,Destructive glutton, gorging well,Patient as the ants, and slow?What wine, what philtre, or what spell?Tell it, enchantress, if you can,Tell me, with anguish overcast,Wounded, as a dying man,Beneath the swift hoofs hurrying past.Tell it, enchantress, if you can,To him the wolf already tearsWho sees the carrion pinions wave,This broken warrior who despairsTo have a cross above his grave—This wretch the wolf already tears.Can one illume a leaden sky,Or tear apart the shadowy veilThicker than pitch, no star on high,Not one funereal glimmer paleCan one illume a leaden sky?Hope lit the windows of the Inn,But now that shining flame is dead;And how shall martyred pilgrims winAlong the moonless road they tread?Satan has darkened all the Inn!Witch, do you love accursèd hearts?Say, do you know the reprobate?Know you Remorse, whose venomed dartsMake souls the targets for their hate?Witch, do you know accursèd hearts?The Might-have-been with tooth accursedGnaws at the piteous souls of men,The deep foundations suffer first,And all the structure crumbles thenBeneath the bitter tooth accursed.
Often, when seated at the play,And sonorous music lights the stage,I see the frail hand of a FayWith magic dawn illume the rageOf the dark sky. Oft at the playA being made of gauze and fireCasts to the earth a Demon great.And my heart, whence all hopes expire,Is like a stage where I await,In vain, the Fay with wings of fire!
Long since, I lived beneath vast porticoes,By many ocean-sunsets tinged and fired,Where mighty pillars, in majestic rows,Seemed like basaltic caves when day expired.The rolling surge that mirrored all the skiesMingled its music, turbulent and rich,Solemn and mystic, with the colours whichThe setting sun reflected in my eyes.And there I lived amid voluptuous calms,In splendours of blue sky and wandering wave,Tended by many a naked, perfumed slave,Who fanned my languid brow with waving palms.They were my slaves—the only care they hadTo know what secret grief had made me sad.
When Juan sought the subterranean flood.And paid his obolus on the Stygian shore.Charon, the proud and sombre beggar, stoodWith one strong, vengeful hand on either oar.With open robes and bodies agonised,Lost women writhed beneath that darkling sky;There were sounds as of victims sacrificed:Behind him all the dark was one long cry.And Sganarelle, with laughter, claimed his pledge;Don Luis, with trembling finger in the air,Showed to the souls who wandered in the sedgeThe evil son who scorned his hoary hair.Shivering with woe, chaste Elvira the while,Near him untrue to all but her till now,Seemed to beseech him for one farewell smileLit with the sweetness of the first soft vow.And clad in armour, a tall man of stoneHeld firm the helm, and clove the gloomy flood;But, staring at the vessel's track alone,Bent on his sword the unmoved hero stood.
They pass before me, these Eyes full of light,Eyes made magnetic by some angel wise;The holy brothers pass before my sight,And cast their diamond fires in my dim eyes.They keep me from all sin and error grave,They set me in the path whence Beauty came;They are my servants, and I am their slave,And all my soul obeys the living flame.Beautiful Eyes that gleam with mystic lightAs candles lighted at full noon; the sunDims not your flame phantastical and bright.You sing the dawn; they celebrate life done;Marching you chaunt my soul's awakening hymn,Stars that no sun has ever made grow dim!
In Nature's temple living pillars rise,And words are murmured none have understood.And man must wander through a tangled woodOf symbols watching him with friendly eyes.As long-drawn echoes heard far-off and dimMingle to one deep sound and fade away;Vast as the night and brilliant as the day,Colour and sound and perfume speak to him.Some perfumes are as fragrant as a child,Sweet as the sound of hautboys, meadow-green;Others, corrupted, rich, exultant, wild,Have all the expansion of things infinite:As amber, incense, musk, and benzoin,Which sing the sense's and the soul's delight.
There are some powerful odours that can passOut of the stoppered flagon; even glassTo them is porous. Oft when some old boxBrought from the East is opened and the locksAnd hinges creak and cry; or in a pressIn some deserted house, where the sharp stressOf odours old and dusty fills the brain;An ancient flask is brought to light again,And forth the ghosts of long-dead odours creep.There, softly trembling in the shadows, sleepA thousand thoughts, funereal chrysalides,Phantoms of old the folding darkness hides,Who make faint flutterings as their wings unfold,Rose-washed and azure-tinted, shot with gold.
A memory that brings languor flutters here:The fainting eyelids droop, and giddy FearThrusts with both hands the soul towards the pitWhere, like a Lazarus from his winding-sheet,Arises from the gulf of sleep a ghostOf an old passion, long since loved and lost.So I, when vanished from man's memoryDeep in some dark and sombre chest I lie.An empty flagon they have cast aside,Broken and soiled, the dust upon my pride,Will be your shroud, beloved pestilence!The witness of your might and virulence,Sweet poison mixed by angels; bitter cupOf life and death my heart has drunken up!
Angel of gaiety, have you tasted grief?Shame and remorse and sobs and weary spite,And the vague terrors of the fearful nightThat crush the heart up like a crumpled leaf?Angel of gaiety, have you tasted grief?Angel of kindness, have you tasted hate?With hands clenched in the shade and tears of gall,When Vengeance beats her hellish battle-call,And makes herself the captain of our fate,Angel of kindness, have you tasted hate?Angel of health, did ever you know pain,Which like an exile trails his tired footfallsThe cold length of the white infirmary walls,With lips compressed, seeking the sun in vain?Angel of health, did ever you know pain?Angel of beauty, do you wrinkles know?Know you the fear of age, the torment vileOf reading secret horror in the smileOf eyes your eyes have loved since long ago?Angel of beauty, do you wrinkles know?Angel of happiness, and joy, and light,Old David would have asked for youth afreshFrom the pure touch of your enchanted flesh;I but implore your prayers to aid my plight,Angel of happiness, and joy, and light.
You are a sky of autumn, pale and rose;But all the sea of sadness in my bloodSurges, and ebbing, leaves my lips morose,Salt with the memory of the bitter flood.In vain your hand glides my faint bosom o'er,That which you seek, beloved, is desecrateBy woman's tooth and talon; ah, no moreSeek in me for a heart which those dogs ate.It is a ruin where the jackals rest,And rend and tear and glut themselves and slay—A perfume swims about your naked breast!Beauty, hard scourge of spirits, have your way!With flame-like eyes that at bright feasts have flaredBurn up these tatters that the beasts have spared!
They say to me, thy clear and crystal eyes:"Why dost thou love me so, strange lover mine?"Be sweet, be still! My heart and soul despiseAll save that antique brute-like faith of thine;And will not bare the secret of their shameTo thee whose hand soothes me to slumbers long,Nor their black legend write for thee in flame!Passion I hate, a spirit does me wrong.Let us love gently. Love, from his retreat,Ambushed and shadowy, bends his fatal bow,And I too well his ancient arrows know:Crime, horror, folly. O pale marguerite,Thou art as I, a bright sun fallen low,O my so white, my so cold Marguerite.
O shadowy Beauty mine, when thou shalt sleepIn the deep heart of a black marble tomb;When thou for mansion and for bower shalt keepOnly one rainy cave of hollow gloom;And when the stone upon thy trembling breast,And on thy straight sweet body's supple grace,Crushes thy will and keeps thy heart at rest,And holds those feet from their adventurous race;Then the deep grave, who shares my reverie,(For the deep grave is aye the poet's friend)During long nights when sleep is far from thee,Shall whisper: "Ah, thou didst not comprehendThe dead wept thus, thou woman frail and weak"—And like remorse the worm shall gnaw thy cheek.
Softly as brown-eyed Angels roveI will return to thy alcove.And glide upon the night to thee,Treading the shadows silently.And I will give to thee, my own,Kisses as icy as the moon,And the caresses of a snakeCold gliding in the thorny brake.And when returns the livid mornThou shalt find all my place forlornAnd chilly, till the falling night.Others would rule by tendernessOver thy life and youthfulness,But I would conquer thee by fright!
(An Ex-Voto in the Spanish taste.)
Madonna, mistress. I would build for theeAn altar deep in the sad soul of me;And in the darkest corner of my heart,From mortal hopes and mocking eyes apart,Carve of enamelled blue and gold a shrineFor thee to stand erect in, Image divine!And with a mighty Crown thou shalt be crownedWrought of the gold of my smooth Verse, set roundWith starry crystal rhymes; and I will make,O mortal maid, a Mantle for thy sake,And weave it of my jealousy, a gownHeavy, barbaric, stiff, and weighted downWith my distrust, and broider round the hemNot pearls, but all my tears in place of them.And then thy wavering, trembling robe shall beAll the desires that rise and fall in meFrom mountain-peaks to valleys of repose,Kissing thy lovely body's white and rose.For thy humiliated feet divine,Of my Respect I'll make thee Slippers fineWhich, prisoning them within a gentle fold,Shall keep their imprint like a faithful mould.And if my art, unwearying and discreet,Can make no Moon of Silver for thy feetTo have for Footstool, then thy heel shall restUpon the snake that gnaws within my breast,Victorious Queen of whom our hope is born!And thou shalt trample down and make a scornOf the vile reptile swollen up with hate.And thou shalt see my thoughts, all consecrate,Like candles set before thy flower-strewn shrine,O Queen of Virgins, and the taper-shineShall glimmer star-like in the vault of blue,With eyes of flame for ever watching you.While all the love and worship in my senseWill be sweet smoke of myrrh and frankincense.Ceaselessly up to thee, white peak of snow,My stormy spirit will in vapours go!And last, to make thy drama all complete,That love and cruelty may mix and meet,I, thy remorseful torturer, will takeAll the Seven Deadly Sins, and from them makeIn darkest joy, Seven Knives, cruel-edged and keen,And like a juggler choosing, O my Queen,That spot profound whence love and mercy start,I'll plunge them all within thy panting heart!
Where'er he be, on water or on land,Under pale suns or climes that flames enfold;One of Christ's own, or of Cythera's band,Shadowy beggar or Crœsus rich with gold;Citizen, peasant, student, tramp; whate'erHis little brain may be, alive or dead;Man knows the fear of mystery everywhere,And peeps, with trembling glances, overhead.The heaven above? A strangling cavern wall;The lighted ceiling of a music-hallWhere every actor treads a bloody soil—The hermit's hope; the terror of the sot;The sky: the black lid of the mighty potWhere the vast human generations boil!
I'm like some king in whose corrupted veinsFlows aged blood; who rules a land of rains;Who, young in years, is old in all distress;Who flees good counsel to find wearinessAmong his dogs and playthings, who is stirredNeither by hunting-hound nor hunting-bird;Whose weary face emotion moves no moreE'en when his people die before his door.His favourite Jester's most fantastic wileUpon that sick, cruel face can raise no smile;The courtly dames, to whom all kings are good,Can lighten this young skeleton's dull moodNo more with shameless toilets. In his gloomEven his lilied bed becomes a tomb.The sage who takes his gold essays in vainTo purge away the old corrupted strain,His baths of blood, that in the days of oldThe Romans used when their hot blood grew cold,Will never warm this dead man's bloodless pains,For green Lethean water fills his veins.
Under the overhanging yews,The dark owls sit in solemn state.Like stranger gods; by twos and twosTheir red eyes gleam. They meditate.Motionless thus they sit and dreamUntil that melancholy hourWhen, with the sun's last fading gleam,The nightly shades assume their power.From their still attitude the wiseWill learn with terror to despiseAll tumult, movement, and unrest;For he who follows every shade,Carries the memory in his breast,Of each unhappy journey made.
Here is the chamber consecrate,Wherein this maiden delicate,And enigmatically sedate,Fans herself while the moments creep,Upon her cushions half-asleep,And hears the fountains plash and weep.Dorothy's chamber undefiled.The winds and waters sing afarTheir song of sighing strange and wildTo lull to sleep the petted child.From head to foot with subtle care,Slaves have perfumed her delicate skinWith odorous oils and benzoin.And flowers faint in a corner there.
Music doth oft uplift me like a seaTowards my planet pale,Then through dark fogs or heaven's infinityI lift my wandering sail.With breast advanced, drinking the winds that flee,And through the cordage wail,I mount the hurrying waves night hides from meBeneath her sombre veil.I feel the tremblings of all passions knownTo ships before the breeze;Cradled by gentle winds, or tempest-blownI pass the abysmal seasThat are, when calm, the mirror level and fairOf my despair!
Thou, O my Grief, be wise and tranquil still,The eve is thine which even now drops down,To carry peace or care to human will,And in a misty veil enfolds the town.While the vile mortals of the multitude,By pleasure, cruel tormentor, goaded on,Gather remorseful blossoms in light mood—Grief, place thy hand in mine, let us be goneFar from them. Lo, see how the vanished years,In robes outworn lean over heaven's rim;And from the water, smiling through her tears,Remorse arises, and the sun grows dim;And in the east, her long shroud trailing light,List, O my grief, the gentle steps of Night.
White maiden with the russet hair,Whose garments, through their holes, declareThat poverty is part of you,And beauty too.To me, a sorry bard and mean,Your youthful beauty, frail and lean,With summer freckles here and there,Is sweet and fair.Your sabots tread the roads of chance,And not one queen of old romanceCarried her velvet shoes and laceWith half your grace.In place of tatters far too shortLet the proud garments worn at CourtFall down with rustling fold and pleatAbout your feet;In place of stockings, worn and old,Let a keen dagger all of goldGleam in your garter for the eyesOf roués wise;Let ribbons carelessly untiedReveal to us the radiant prideOf your white bosom purer farThan any star;Let your white arms uncovered shine.Polished and smooth and half divine;And let your elfish fingers chaseWith riotous graceThe purest pearls that softly glow.The sweetest sonnets of Belleau,Offered by gallants ere they fightFor your delight;And many fawning rhymers whoInscribe their first thin book to youWill contemplate upon the stairYour slipper fair;And many a page who plays at cards,And many lords and many bards,Will watch your going forth, and burnFor your return;And you will count before your glassMore kisses than the lily has;And more than one Valois will sighWhen you pass by.But meanwhile you are on the tramp,Begging your living in the damp,Wandering mean streets and alleys o'er,From door to door;And shilling bangles in a shopCause you with eager eyes to stop,And I, alas, have not a sonTo give to you.Then go, with no more ornament,Pearl, diamond, or subtle scent,Than your own fragile naked graceAnd lovely face.
Andromache, I think of you! The stream,The poor, sad mirror where in bygone daysShone all the majesty of your widowed grief,The lying Simoïs flooded by your tears,Made all my fertile memory blossom forthAs I passed by the new-built Carrousel.Old Paris is no more (a town, alas,Changes more quickly than man's heart may change);Yet in my mind I still can see the booths;The heaps of brick and rough-hewn capitals;The grass; the stones all over-green with moss;Thedébris, and the square-set heaps of tiles.There a menagerie was once outspread;And there I saw, one morning at the hourWhen toil awakes beneath the cold, clear sky,And the road roars upon the silent air,A swan who had escaped his cage, and walkedOn the dry pavement with his webby feet,And trailed his spotless plumage on the ground.And near a waterless stream the piteous swanOpened his beak, and bathing in the dustHis nervous wings, he cried (his heart the whileFilled with a vision of his own fair lake):"O water, when then wilt thou come in rain?Lightning, when wilt thou glitter?"Sometimes yetI see the hapless bird—strange, fatal myth—Like him that Ovid writes of, lifting upUnto the cruelly blue, ironic heavens,With stretched, convulsive neck a thirsty face,As though he sent reproaches up to God!
Paris may change; my melancholy is fixed.New palaces, and scaffoldings, and blocks,And suburbs old, are symbols all to meWhose memories are as heavy as a stone.And so, before the Louvre, to vex my soul,The image came of my majestic swanWith his mad gestures, foolish and sublime,As of an exile whom one great desireGnaws with no truce. And then I thought of you,Andromache! torn from your hero's arms;Beneath the hand of Pyrrhus in his pride;Bent o'er an empty tomb in ecstasy;Widow of Hector—wife of Helenus!And of the negress, wan and phthisical,Tramping the mud, and with her haggard eyesSeeking beyond the mighty walls of fogThe absent palm-trees of proud Africa;Of all who lose that which they never find;Of all who drink of tears; all whom grey griefGives suck to as the kindly wolf gave suck;Of meagre orphans who like blossoms fade.And one old Memory like a crying hornSounds through the forest where my soul is lost....I think of sailors on some isle forgotten;Of captives; vanquished ... and of many more.
O swarming city, city full of dreams,Where in full day the spectre walks and speaks;Mighty colossus, in your narrow veinsMy story flows as flows the rising sap.One morn, disputing with my tired soul,And like a hero stiffening all my nerves,I trod a suburb shaken by the jarOf rolling wheels, where the fog magnifiedThe houses either side of that sad street,So they seemed like two wharves the ebbing floodLeaves desolate by the river-side. A mist,Unclean and yellow, inundated space—A scene that would have pleased an actor's soul.Then suddenly an aged man, whose ragsWere yellow as the rainy sky, whose looksShould have brought alms in floods upon his head,Without the misery gleaming in his eye,Appeared before me; and his pupils seemedTo have been washed with gall; the bitter frostSharpened his glance; and from his chin a beardSword-stiff and ragged, Judas-like stuck forth.He was not bent but broken: his backboneMade a so true right angle with his legs,That, as he walked, the tapping stick which gaveThe finish to the picture, made him seemLike some infirm and stumbling quadrupedOr a three-legged Jew. Through snow and mudHe walked with troubled and uncertain gait,As though his sabots trod upon the dead,Indifferent and hostile to the world.His double followed him: tatters and stickAnd back and eye and beard, all were the same;Out of the same Hell, indistinguishable,These centenarian twins, these spectres odd,Trod the same pace toward some end unknown.To what fell complot was I then exposed!Humiliated by what evil chance?For as the minutes one by one went bySeven times I saw this sinister old manRepeat his image there before my eyes!Let him who smiles at my inquietude,Who never trembled at a fear like mine,Know that in their decrepitude's despiteThese seven old hideous monsters had the mienOf beings immortal.Then, I thought, must I,Undying, contemplate the awful eighth;Inexorable, fatal, and ironic double;Disgusting Phoenix, father of himselfAnd his own son! In terror then I turnedMy back upon the infernal band, and fledTo my own place, and closed my door; distraughtAnd like a drunkard who sees all things twice,With feverish troubled spirit, chilly and sick,Wounded by mystery and absurdity!In vain my reason tried to cross the bar,The whirling storm but drove her back again;And my soul tossed, and tossed, an outworn wreck,Mastless, upon a monstrous, shoreless sea.
Deep in the tortuous folds of ancient towns,Where all, even horror, to enchantment turns,I watch, obedient to my fatal mood,For the decrepit, strange and charming beings,The dislocated monsters that of oldWere lovely women—Laïs or Eponine!Hunchbacked and broken, crooked though they be,Let us still love them, for they still have souls.They creep along wrapped in their chilly rags,Beneath the whipping of the wicked wind,They tremble when an omnibus rolls by,And at their sides, a relic of the past,A little flower-embroidered satchel hangs.They trot about, most like to marionettes;They drag themselves, as does a wounded beast;Or dance unwillingly as a clapping bellWhere hangs and swings a demon without pity.Though they be broken they have piercing eyes,That shine like pools where water sleeps at night;The astonished and divine eyes of a childWho laughs at all that glitters in the world.
Have you not seen that most old women's shroudsAre little like the shroud of a dead child?Wise Death, in token of his happy whim,Wraps old and young in one enfolding sheet.And when I see a phantom, frail and wan,Traverse the swarming picture that is Paris,It ever seems as though the delicate thingTrod with soft steps towards a cradle new.And then I wonder, seeing the twisted form,How many times must workmen change the shapeOf boxes where at length such limbs are laid?These eyes are wells brimmed with a million tears;Crucibles where the cooling metal pales—Mysterious eyes that are strong charms to himWhose life-long nurse has been austere Disaster.
The love-sick vestal of the old "Frasciti";Priestess of Thalia, alas! whose nameOnly the prompter knows and he is dead;Bygone celebrities that in bygone daysThe Tivoli o'ershadowed in their bloom;All charm me; yet among these beings frailThree, turning pain to honey-sweetness, saidTo the Devotion that had lent them wings:"Lift me, O powerful Hippogriffe, to the skies"—One by her country to despair was driven;One by her husband overwhelmed with grief;One wounded by her child, Madonna-like;Each could have made a river with her tears.
Oft have I followed one of these old women,One among others, when the falling sunReddened the heavens with a crimson wound—Pensive, apart, she rested on a benchTo hear the brazen music of the band,Played by the soldiers in the public parkTo pour some courage into citizens' hearts,On golden eves when all the world revives.Proud and erect she drank the music in,The lively and the warlike call to arms;Her eyes blinked like an ancient eagle's eyes;Her forehead seemed to await the laurel crown!
Thus you do wander, uncomplaining Stoics,Through all the chaos of the living town:Mothers with bleeding hearts, saints, courtesans,Whose names of yore were on the lips of all;Who were all glory and all grace, and nowNone know you; and the brutish drunkard stops,Insulting you with his derisive love;And cowardly urchins call behind your back.Ashamed of living, withered shadows all,With fear-bowed backs you creep beside the walls,And none salute you, destined to loneliness!Refuse of Time ripe for Eternity!But I, who watch you tenderly afar,With unquiet eyes on your uncertain steps,As though I were your father, I—O wonder!—Unknown to you taste secret, hidden joy.I see your maiden passions bud and bloom,Sombre or luminous, and your lost daysUnroll before me while my heart enjoysAll your old vices, and my soul expandsTo all the virtues that have once been yours.Ruined! and my sisters! O congenerate hearts,Octogenarian Eves o'er whom is stretchedGod's awful claw, where will you be to-morrow?
What do I care though you be wise?Be sad, be beautiful; your tearsBut add one more charm to your eyes,As streams to valleys where they rise;And fairer every flower appearsAfter the storm. I love you mostWhen joy has fled your brow downcast;When your heart is in horror lost,And o'er your present like a ghostFloats the dark shadow of the past.I love you when the teardrop flows,Hotter than blood, from your large eye;When I would hush you to reposeYour heavy pain breaks forth and growsInto a loud and tortured cry.And then, voluptuousness divine!Delicious ritual and profound!I drink in every sob like wine,And dream that in your deep heart shineThe pearls wherein your eyes were drowned.I know your heart, which overflowsWith outworn loves long cast aside,Still like a furnace flames and glows,And you within your breast encloseA damnèd soul's unbending pride;But till your dreams without releaseReflect the leaping flames of hell;Till in a nightmare without ceaseYou dream of poison to bring peace,And love cold steel and powder well;And tremble at each opened door,And feel for every man distrust,And shudder at the striking hour—Till then you have not felt the powerOf Irresistible Disgust.My queen, my slave, whose love is fear,When you awaken shuddering,Until that awful hour be here,You cannot say at midnight drear:"I am your equal, O my King!"
Not all the beauties in old prints vignetted,The worthless products of an outworn age,With slippered feet and fingers castanetted,The thirst of hearts like this heart can assuage.To Gavarni, the poet of chloroses,I leave his troupes of beauties sick and wan;I cannot find among these pale, pale roses,The red ideal mine eyes would gaze upon.Lady Macbeth, the lovely star of crime,The Greek poet's dream born in a northern clime—Ah, she could quench my dark heart's deep desiring;Or Michelangelo's dark daughter Night,In a strange posture dreamily admiringHer beauty fashioned for a giant's delight!
Autumns and winters, springs of mire and rain,Seasons of sleep, I sing your praises loud,For thus I love to wrap my heart and brainIn some dim tomb beneath a vapoury shroudIn the wide plain where revels the cold wind,Through long nights when the weathercock whirls round,More free than in warm summer day my mindLifts wide her raven pinions from the ground.Unto a heart filled with funereal thingsThat since old days hoar frosts have gathered on,Naught is more sweet, O pallid, queenly springs,Than the long pageant of your shadows wan,Unless it be on moonless eves to weepOn some chance bed and rock our griefs to sleep.
Fair is the sun when first he flames above,Flinging his joy down in a happy beam;And happy he who can salute with loveThe sunset far more glorious than a dream.Flower, stream, and furrow!—I have seen them allIn the sun's eye swoon like one trembling heart—Though it be late let us with speed departTo catch at least one last ray ere it fall!But I pursue the fading god in vain,For conquering Night makes firm her dark domain,Mist and gloom fall, and terrors glide between,And graveyard odours in the shadow swim,And my faint footsteps on the marsh's rim,Bruise the cold snail and crawling toad unseen.
Remember, my Beloved, what thing we metBy the roadside on that sweet summer day;There on a grassy couch with pebbles set,A loathsome body lay.The wanton limbs stiff-stretched into the air,Steaming with exhalations vile and dank,In ruthless cynic fashion had laid bareThe swollen side and flank.On this decay the sun shone hot from heavenAs though with chemic heat to broil and burn,And unto Nature all that she had givenA hundredfold return.The sky smiled down upon the horror thereAs on a flower that opens to the day;So awful an infection smote the air,Almost you swooned away.The swarming flies hummed on the putrid side,Whence poured the maggots in a darkling stream,That ran along these tatters of life's prideWith a liquescent gleam.And like a wave the maggots rose and fell,The murmuring flies swirled round in busy strife:It seemed as though a vague breath came to swellAnd multiply with lifeThe hideous corpse. From all this living worldA music as of wind and water ran,Or as of grain in rhythmic motion swirledBy the swift winnower's fan.And then the vague forms like a dream died out,Or like some distant scene that slowly fallsUpon the artist's canvas, that with doubtHe only half recalls.A homeless dog behind the boulders layAnd watched us both with angry eyes forlorn,Waiting a chance to come and take awayThe morsel she had torn.And you, even you, will be like this drear thing,A vile infection man may not endure;Star that I yearn to! Sun that lights my spring!O passionate and pure!Yes, such will you be, Queen of every grace!When the last sacramental words are said;And beneath grass and flowers that lovely faceMoulders among the dead.Then, O Beloved, whisper to the wormThat crawls up to devour you with a kiss,That I still guard in memory the dear formOf love that comes to this!
Here is a woman, richly clad and fair,Who in her wine dips her long, heavy hair;Love's claws, and that sharp poison which is sin,Are dulled against the granite of her skin.Death she defies, Debauch she smiles upon,For their sharp scythe-like talons every onePass by her in their all-destructive play;Leaving her beauty till a later day.Goddess she walks; sultana in her leisure;She has Mohammed's faith that heaven is pleasure,And bids all men forget the world's alarmsUpon her breast, between her open arms.She knows, and she believes, this sterile maid,Without whom the world's onward dream would fade,That bodily beauty is the supreme giftWhich may from every sin the terror lift.Hell she ignores, and Purgatory defies;And when black Night shall roll before her eyes,She will look straight in Death's grim face forlorn,Without remorse or hate—as one new born.
Like pensive herds at rest upon the sands,These to the sea-horizons turn their eyes;Out of their folded feet and clinging handsBitter sharp tremblings and soft languors rise.Some tread the thicket by the babbling stream,Their hearts with untold secrets ill at ease;Calling the lover of their childhood's dream,They wound the green bark of the shooting trees.Others like sisters wander, grave and slow,Among the rocks haunted by spectres thin,Where Antony saw as larvæ surge and flowThe veined bare breasts that tempted him to sin.Some, when the resinous torch of burning woodFlares in lost pagan caverns dark and deep,Call thee to quench the fever in their blood,Bacchus, who singest old remorse to sleep!Then there are those the scapular bedights,Whose long white vestments hide the whip's red stain,Who mix, in sombre woods on lonely nights,The foam of pleasure with the tears of pain.O virgins, demons, monsters, martyrs! yeWho scorn whatever actual appears;Saints, satyrs, seekers of Infinity,So full of cries, so full of bitter tears;Te whom my soul has followed into hell,I love and pity, O sad sisters mine,Tour thirsts unquenched, your pains no tongue can tell,And your great hearts, those urns of love divine!
In a burnt, ashen land, where no herb grew,I to the winds my cries of anguish threw;And in my thoughts, in that sad place apart,Pricked gently with the poignard o'er my heart.Then in full noon above my head a cloudDescended tempest-swollen, and a crowdOf wild, lascivious spirits huddled there,The cruel and curious demons of the air,Who coldly to consider me began;Then, as a crowd jeers some unhappy man,Exchanging gestures, winking with their eyes—I heard a laughing and a whispering rise:"Let us at leisure contemplate this clown,This shadow of Hamlet aping Hamlet's frown,With wandering eyes and hair upon the wind.Is't not a pity that this empty mind,This tramp, this actor out of work, this droll,Because he knows how to assume a rôleShould dream that eagles and insects, streams and woods,Stand still to hear him chaunt his dolorous moods?Even unto us, who made these ancient things,The fool his public lamentation sings."With pride as lofty as the towering cloud,I would have stilled these clamouring demons loud,And turned in scorn my sovereign head awayHad I not seen—O sight to dim the day!—There in the middle of the troupe obsceneThe proud and peerless beauty of my Queen!She laughed with them at all my dark distress,And gave to each in turn a vile caress.
One eve in the bottle sang the soul of wine:"Man, unto thee, dear disinherited,I sing a song of love and light divine—Prisoned in glass beneath my seals of red."I know thou labourest on the hill of fire,In sweat and pain beneath a flaming sun,To give the life and soul my vines desire,And I am grateful for thy labours done."For I find joys unnumbered when I laveThe throat of man by travail long outworn,And his hot bosom is a sweeter graveOf sounder sleep than my cold caves forlorn."Hearest thou not the echoing Sabbath sound?The hope that whispers in my trembling breast?Thy elbows on the table! gaze around;Glorify me with joy and be at rest."To thy wife's eyes I'll bring their long-lost gleam,I'll bring back to thy child his strength and light,To him, life's fragile athlete I will seemRare oil that firms his muscles for the fight."I flow in man's heart as ambrosia flows;The grain the eternal Sower casts in the sod—From our first loves the first fair verse arose,Flower-like aspiring to the heavens and God!"
Space rolls to-day her splendour round!Unbridled, spurless, without bound,Mount we upon the wings of wineFor skies fantastic and divine!Let us, like angels tortured bySome wild delirious phantasy,Follow the far-off mirage bornIn the blue crystal of the morn.And gently balanced on the wingOf the wild whirlwind we will ride,Rejoicing with the joyous thing.My sister, floating side by side,Fly we unceasing whither gleamsThe distant heaven of my dreams.
There shall be couches whence faint odours rise,Divans like sepulchres, deep and profound;Strange flowers that bloomed beneath diviner skiesThe death-bed of our love shall breathe around.And guarding their last embers till the end,Our hearts shall be the torches of the shrine,And their two leaping flames shall fade and blendIn the twin mirrors of your soul and mine.And through the eve of rose and mystic blueA beam of love shall pass from me to you,Like a long sigh charged with a last farewell;And later still an angel, flinging wideThe gates, shall bring to life with joyful spellThe tarnished mirrors and the flames that died.
Death is consoler and Death brings to life;The end of all, the solitary hope;We, drunk with Death's elixir, face the strife,Take heart, and mount till eve the weary slope.Across the storm, the hoar-frost, and the snow,Death on our dark horizon pulses clear;Death is the famous hostel we all know,Where we may rest and sleep and have good cheer.Death is an angel whose magnetic palmsBring dreams of ecstasy and slumberous calmsTo smooth the beds of naked men and poor.Death is the mystic granary of God;The poor man's purse; his fatherland of yore;The Gate that opens into heavens un trod!
When by the high decree of powers supreme,The Poet came into this world outworn,She who had borne him, in a ghastly dream,Clenched blasphemous hands at God, and cried in scorn:"O rather had I borne a writhing knotOf unclean vipers, than my breast should nurseThis vile derision, of my joy begotTo be my expiation and my curse!"Since of all women thou hast made of meUnto my husband a disgust and shame;Since I may not cast this monstrosity,Like an old love-epistle, to the flame;"I will pour out thine overwhelming hateOn this the accursed weapon of thy spite;This stunted tree I will so desecrateThat not one tainted bud shall see the light!"So foaming with the foam of hate and shame,Blind unto God's design inexorable,With her own hands she fed the purging flameTo crimes maternal consecrate in hell.Meanwhile beneath an Angel's care unseenThe child disowned grows drunken with the sun;His food and drink, though they be poor and mean,With streams of nectar and ambrosia run.Speaking to clouds and playing with the wind,With joy he sings the sad Way of the Rood;His shadowing pilgrim spirit weeps behindTo see him gay as birds are in the wood.Those he would love looked sideways and with fear,Or, taking courage from his aspect mild,Sought who should first bring to his eye the tear,And spent their anger on the dreaming child.With all the bread and wine the Poet must eatThey mingled earth and ash and excrement,All things he touched were spurned beneath their feet;They mourned if they must tread the road he went.His wife ran crying in the public square:"Since he has found me worthy to adore,Shall I not be as antique idols were,With gold and with bright colours painted o'er?"I will be drunk with nard and frankincense.With myrrh, and knees bowed down, and flesh and wine.Can I not, smiling, in his love-sick sense,Usurp the homage due to beings divine?"I will lay on him my fierce, fragile handWhen I am weary of the impious play;For well these harpy talons understandTo furrow to his heart their crimson way."I'll tear the red thing beating from his breast,To cast it with disdain upon the ground,Like a young bird torn trembling from the nest—His heart shall go to gorge my favourite hound."To the far heaven, where gleams a splendid throne,The Poet uplifts his arms in calm delight,And the vast beams from his pure spirit flown,Wrap all the furious peoples from his sight:"Thou, O my God, be blest who givest pain,The balm divine for each imperfect heart,The strong pure essence cleansing every stainOf sin that keeps us from thy joys apart."Among the numbers of thy legions blest,I know a place awaits the poet there;Him thou hast bid attend the eternal feastThat Thrones and Virtues and Dominions share."I know the one thing noble is a griefWithstanding earth's and hell's destructive tooth,And I, through all my dolorous life and brief,To gain the mystic crown, must cry the truth."The jewels lost in Palmyra of old,Metals unknown, pearls of the outer sea,Are far too dim to set within the goldOf the bright crown that Time prepares for me."For it is wrought of pure unmingled light,Dipped in the white flame whence all flame is born—The flame that makes all eyes, though diamond-bright,Seem obscure mirrors, darkened and forlorn."
The tribe prophetic with the eyes of fireWent forth last night; their little ones at restEach on his mother's back, with his desireSet on the ready treasure of her breast.Laden with shining arms the men-folk treadBy the long wagons where their goods lie hidden;They watch the heaven with eyes grown weariedOf hopeless dreams that come to them unbidden.The grasshopper, from out his sandy screen,Watching them pass redoubles his shrill song;Dian, who loves them, makes the grass more green,And makes the rock run water for this throngOf ever-wandering ones whose calm eyes seeFamiliar realms of darkness yet to be.
Novis te cantabo chordis,O novelletum quod ludiaIn solitudine cordis.Esto sertis implicata,O fœmina delicataPer quam solvuntur peccataSicut beneficum Lethe,Hauriam oscula de te,Quæ imbuta es magnete.Quum vitiorum tempestasTurbabat omnes semitas,Apparuisti, Deitas,Velut stella salutarisIn naufragiis amaris....Suspendam cor tuis aris!Piscina plena virtutis,Fons æternæ juventutis,Labris vocem redde mutis!Quod erat spurcum, cremasti;Quod rudius, exæquasti;Quod debile, confirmasti!In fame mea taberna,In nocte mea lucerna,Recte me semper guberna.Adde nunc vires viribus,Dulce balneum suavibus,Unguentatum odoribus!Meos circa I umbos mica,O castitatis lorica,Aqua tincta seraphica;Patera gemmis corusca,Panis salsus, mollis esca,Divinum vinum, Francisca!
Robed in a silken robe that shines and shakes,She seems to dance whene'er she treads the sod,Like the long serpent that a fakir makesDance to the waving cadence of a rod.As the sad sand upon the desert's verge,Insensible to mortal grief and strife;As the long weeds that float among the surge,She folds indifference round her budding life.Her eyes are carved of minerals pure and cold,And in her strange symbolic nature whereAn angel mingles with the sphinx of old,Where all is gold and steel and light and air,For ever, like a vain star, unafraidShines the cold hauteur of the sterile maid.
I would, when I compose my solemn verse,Sleep near the heaven as do astrologers,Near the high bells, and with a dreaming mindHear their calm hymns blown to me on the wind.Out of my tower, with chin upon my hands,I'll watch the singing, babbling human bands;And see clock-towers like spars against the sky,And heavens that bring thoughts of eternity;And softly, through the mist, will watch the birthOf stars in heaven and lamplight on the earth;The threads of smoke that rise above the town;The moon that pours her pale enchantment down.Seasons will pass till Autumn fades the rose;And when comes Winter with his weary snows,I'll shut the doors and window-casements tight,And build my faery palace in the night.Then I will dream of blue horizons deep;Of gardens where the marble fountains weep;Of kisses, and of ever-singing birds—A sinless Idyll built of innocent words.And Trouble, knocking at my window-paneAnd at my closet door, shall knock in vain;I will not heed him with his stealthy tread,Nor from my reverie uplift my head;For I will plunge deep in the pleasure stillOf summoning the spring-time with my will,Drawing the sun out of my heart, and thereWith burning thoughts making a summer air.