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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/10913-0.txt b/10913-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3faf190 --- /dev/null +++ b/10913-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2589 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10913 *** + +ENGLISH +POEMS + +By + +Richard Le Gallienne + +London: John Lane at The Bodley Head in Vigo Street. + +Boston: Copland & Day +69 Cornhill. + +A.D. 1895. + + +_First Edition + September 1892 + +Second Edition + October 1892 + +Third Edition + January 1894 + +Fourth Edition + Revised April 1895_ + + + +To Sissie Le Gallienne + + + + + +EPISTLE DEDICATORY + +_Dear Sister: Hear the conclusion of the whole matter. You dream like +mad, you love like tinder, you aspire like a star-struck moth--for what? +That you may hive little lyrics, and sell to a publisher for thirty +pieces of silver. + +Hard by us here is a 'bee-farm.' It always reminds me of a publisher's. +The bee has loved a thousand flowers, through a hundred afternoons, he +has filled little sacred cells with the gold of his stolen kisses--for +what? That the whole should be wrenched away and sold at so much 'the +comb'--as though it were a hair-comb. 'Mummy is become merchandise ... +and Pharaoh is sold for balsams.' + +Can we ever forget those old mornings when we rose with the lark, and, +while the earliest sunlight slanted through the sleeping house, stole to +the little bookclad study to read--Heaven bless us!--you, perhaps, Mary +Wollstonecraft, and I, Livy, in a Froben folio of 1531!! + +Will you accept these old verses in memory of those old mornings? Ah, +then came in the sweet o' the year. + +Yours now as then_, + +R. Le G. + +May 14th, 1892. + +CONTENTS + + +_Epistle Dedicatory, + +To the Reader_, + + +I. PAOLO AND FRANCESCA, + +II. YOUNG LOVE-- + + i. Preludes, + + ii. Prelude--'I make this rhyme,' + + iii. 'But, Song, arise thee on a greater wing,' + + iv. Once, + + v. The Two Daffodils, + + vi. 'Why did she marry him?' + + vii. The Lamp and the Star, + + viii. Orbits, + + ix. Never--Ever, + + x. Love's Poor, + + xi. Comfort of Dante, + + xii. A Lost Hour, + + xiii. Met once more, + + xiv. A June Lily, + + xv. Regret + + xvi. Love Afar + + xvii. Canst thou be true across so many miles? + +_Postscript_ + + +III. COR CORDIUM-- + +To my Wife, Mildred + +The Destined Maid: a Prayer + +With some old Love Verses + +In a copy of Mr. Swinburne's _Tristram_ + +Comfort at Parting + +Happy Letter + +Primrose and Violet + +'Juliet and her Romeo,' + +In her Diary + +Two Parables + +A Love Letter + +In the Night + +The Constant Lover + +The Wonder-Child + + +IV. MISCELLANEOUS-- + +The House of Venus + +Satiety + +What of the Darkness? + +Ad Cimmerios + +Old Love Letters + +Death in a London Lodging + +Time Flies + +So soon Tired + +Autumn + +A Frost Fancy + +The World is Wide + +Saint Charles! + +Good-Night + +Beatrice + +A Child's Evensong + +An Epitaph on a Goldfish + +Beauty Accurst + +To a Dead Friend + +Sunset in the City + +The City in Moonlight + + +V. OF POETS AND POETRY-- + +Inscriptions + +The Décadent to his Soul + +To a Poet + +The Passionate Reader to his Poet + +Matthew Arnold + +'Tennyson' at the Farm + +'The Desk's Dry Wood,' + +A Library in a Garden + +On the Morals of Poets + +Faery Gold + +All Sung + +Corydon's Farewell to his Pipe + + + + +ENGLISH POEMS + +TO THE READER + +_Art was a palace once, things great and fair, +And strong and holy, found a temple there: +Now 'tis a lazar-house of leprous men. +O shall me hear an English song again! +Still English larks mount in the merry morn, +An English May still brings an English thorn, +Still English daisies up and down the grass, +Still English love for English lad and lass-- +Yet youngsters blush to sing an English song!_ + +_Thou nightingale that for six hundred years +Sang to the world--O art thou husht at last! +For, not of thee this new voice in our ears, +Music of France that once was of the spheres; +And not of thee these strange green flowers that spring +From daisy roots and seemed to bear a sting_. + +_Thou Helicon of numbers 'undefiled,' +Forgive that 'neath the shadow of thy name, +England, I bring a song of little fame; +Not as one worthy but as loving thee, +Not as a singer, only as a child_. + + + +PAOLO AND FRANCESCA + + +To R.K. Leather +(July 16th, 1892.) + +PAOLO AND FRANCESCA + + It happened in that great Italian land + Where every bosom heateth with a star-- + At Rimini, anigh that crumbling strand + The Adriatic filcheth near and far-- + In that same past where Dante's dream-days are, + That one Francesca gave her youthful gold + Unto an aged carle to bolt and bar; + Though all the love which great young hearts can hold, +How could she give that love unto a miser old? + + Nay! but young Paolo was the happy lad, + A youth of dreaming eye yet dauntless foot, + Who all Francesca's wealth of loving had; + One brave to scale a wall and steal the fruit, + Nor fear because some dotard owned the root; + Yea! one who wore his love like sword on thigh + And kept not all his valour for his lute; + One who could dare as well as sing and sigh. +Ah! then were hearts to love, but they are long gone by. + + Ye lily-wives so happy in the nest, + Whose joy within the gates of duty springs, + Blame not Love's poor, who, if they would be blest, + Must steal what comes to you with marriage rings: + Ye pity the poor lark whose scarce-tried wings + Faint in the net, while still the morning air + With brown free throats of all his brethren sings, + And can it be ye will not pity her, +Whose youth is as a lark all lost to singing there? + + In opportunity of dear-bought joy + Rich were this twain, for old Lanciotto, he + Who was her lord, was brother of her boy, + And in one home together dwelt the three, + With brothers two beside; and he and she + Sat at one board together, in one fane + Their voices rose upon one hymn, ah me! + Beneath one roof each night their limbs had lain, +As now in death they share the one eternal pain. + + As much as common men can love a flower + Unto Lanciotto was Francesca dear, + 'Tis not on such Love wields his jealous power; + And therefore Paolo moved him not to fear, + Though he so green with youth and he so sere. + Nor yet indeed was wrong, the hidden thing + Grew at each heart, unknown of each, a year,-- + Two eggs still silent in the nest through spring, +May draws so near to June, and not yet time to sing! + + Yet oft, indeed, through days that gave no sign + Had but Francesca turned about and read + Paolo's bright eyes that only dared to shine + On the dear gold that glorified her head; + Ere all the light had from their circles fled + And the grey Honour darkened all his face: + They had not come to June and nothing said, + Day followed day with such an even pace, +Nor night succeeded night and left no starry trace. + + Or, surely, had the flower Paolo pressed + In some sweet volume when he put it by. + Told how his mistress drew it to her breast + And called upon his name when none was nigh; + Had but the scarf he kissed with piteous cry + But breathed again its secret unto her, + Or had but one of every little sigh + Each left for each been love's true messenger: +They surely had not kept that winter all the year. + + Yea! love lay hushed and waiting like a seed, + Some laggard of the season still abed + Though the sun calls and gentle zephyrs plead, + And Hope that waited long must deem it dead; + Yet lo! to-morrow sees its shining head + Singing at dawn 'mid all the garden throng: + Ah, had it known, it had been earlier sped-- + Was it for fear of day it slept so long, +Or were its dreams of singing sweeter than the song? + + But what poor flower can symbol all the might + And all the magnitude, great Love, of thee? + Ah, is there aught can image thee aright + In earth or heaven, how great or fair it be? + We watch the acorn grow into the tree, + We watch the patient spark surprise the mine, + But what are oaks to thy Ygdrasil-tree? + What the mad mine's convulsive strength to thine, +That wrecks a world but bids heaven's soaring steeples shine? + + A god that hath no earthly metaphor, + A blinding word that hath no earthly rhyme, + Love! we can only call and no name more; + As the great lonely thunder rolls sublime, + As the great sun doth solitary climb, + And we have but themselves to know them by, + Just so Love stands a stranger amid Time: + The god is there, the great voice speaks on high, +We pray, 'What art thou, Lord?' but win us no reply. + + So in the dark grew Love, but feared to flower, + Dreamed to himself, but never spake a word, + Burned like a prisoned fire from hour to hour, + Sang his dear song like an unheeded bird; + Waiting the summoning voice so long unheard, + Waiting with weary eyes the gracious sign + To bring his rose, and tell the dream he dared, + The tremulous moment when the star should shine, +And each should ask of each, and each should answer + --'Thine.' + + Winter to-day, but lo! to-morrow spring! + They waited long, but oh at last it came, + Came in a silver hush at evening; + Francesca toyed with threads upon a frame, + Hard by young Paolo read of knight and dame + That long ago had loved and passed away: + He had no other way to tell his flame, + She dare not listen any other way-- +But even that was bliss to lovers poor as they. + + The world grew sweet with wonder in the west + The while he read and while she listened there, + And many a dream from out its silken nest + Stole like a curling incense through the air; + Yet looked she not on him, nor did he dare: + But when the lovers kissed in Paradise + His voice sank and he turned his gaze on her, + Like a young bird that flutters ere it flies,-- +And lo! a shining angel called him from her eyes. + + Then from the silence sprang a kiss like flame, + And they hung lost together; while around + The world was changed, no more to be the same + Meadow or sky, no little flower or sound + Again the same, for earth grew holy ground: + While in the silence of the mounting moon + Infinite love throbbed in the straining bound + Of that great kiss, the long-delaying boon, +Granted indeed at last, but ended, ah! so soon. + + As the great sobbing fulness of the sea + Fills to the throat some void and aching cave, + Till all its hollows tremble silently, + Pressed with sweet weight of softly-lapping wave: + So kissed those mighty lovers glad and brave. + And as a sky from which the sun has gone + Trembles all night with all the stars he gave + A firmament of memories of the sun,-- +So thrilled and thrilled each life when that great kiss was done. + + But coward shame that had no word to say + In passion's hour, with sudden icy clang + Slew the bright morn, and through the tarnished day + An iron bell from light to darkness rang: + She shut her ears because a throstle sang, + She dare not hear the little innocent bird, + And a white flower made her poor head to hang-- + To be so white! once she was white as curd, +But now--'Alack!' 'Alack!' She speaks no other word. + + The pearly line on yonder hills afar + Within the dawn, when mounts the lark and sings + By the great angel of the morning star,-- + That was his love, and all free fair fresh things + That move and glitter while the daylight springs: + To thus know love, and yet to spoil love thus! + To lose the dream--O silly beating wings-- + Great dream so splendid and miraculous: +O Lord, O Lord, have mercy, have mercy upon us. + + She turned her mind upon the holy ones + Whose love lost here was love in heaven tenfold, + She thought of Lucy, that most blessed of nuns + Who sent her blue eyes on a plate of gold + To him who wooed her daily for her love-- + 'Mine eyes!' 'Mine eyes!' 'Here,--go in peace, they are!' + But ever love came through the midnight grove, + Young Love, with wild eyes watching from afar, +And called and called and called until the morning star. + + Ah, poor Francesca, 'tis not such as thou + That up the stony steeps of heaven climb; + Take thou thy heaven with thy Paolo now-- + Sweet saint of sin, saint of a deathless rhyme, + Song shall defend thee at the bar of Time, + Dante shall set thy fair young glowing face + On the dark background of his theme sublime, + And Thou and He in your superb disgrace +Still on that golden wind of passion shall embrace. + + * * * * * + + So love this twain, but whither have they passed? + Ah me, that dark must always follow day, + That Love's last kiss is surely kissed at last, + Howe'er so wildly the poor lips may pray: + Merciful God, is there no other way? + And pen, O must thou of the ending write, + The hour Lanciotto found them where they lay, + Folded together, weary with delight, +Within the sumptuous petals of the rose of night. + + Yea, for Lanciotto found them: many an hour + Ere their dear joy had run its doomèd date, + Had they, in silken nook and blossomed bower, + All unsuspect the blessed apple ate, + Who now must grind its core predestinate. + Kiss, kiss, poor losing lovers, nor deny + One little tremor of its bliss, for Fate + Cometh upon you, and the dark is nigh +Where all, unkissed, unkissing, learn at length to lie. + + Bent on some journey of the state's concern + They deemed him, and indeed he rode thereon + But questioned Paolo--'What if he return!' + 'Nay, love, indeed he is securely gone + As thou art surely here, beloved one, + He went ere sundown, and our moon is here-- + A fear, love, in this heart that yet knew none!' + How could he fright that little velvet ear +With last night's dream and all its ghostly fear! + + So did he yield him to her eager breast, + And half forgot, but could not quite forget, + No sweetest kiss could put that fear to rest, + And all its haggard vision chilled him yet; + Their warder moon in nameless trouble set, + There seemed a traitor echo in the place, + A moaning wind that moaned for lovers met, + And once above her head's deep sunk embrace +He saw--Death at the window with his yellow face. + + Had that same dream caught old Lanciotto's reins, + Bent in a weary huddle on his steed, + In darkling haste along the blindfold lanes, + Making a clattering halt in all that speed:-- + 'Fool! fool!' he cried, 'O dotard fool, indeed, + So ho! they wanton while the old man rides,' + And on the night flashed pictures of the deed. + 'Come!'--and he dug his charger's panting sides, +And all the homeward dark tore by in roaring tides. + + As some great lord of acres when a thief + Steals from his park some flower he never sees, + Calls it a lily fair beyond belief, + Prisons the wretch, and fines before he frees; + Such jealous madness did Lanciotto seize: + All in an instant is Francesca dear, + He claims the wife he never cared to please, + All in an instant seems his castle near,-- +And those poor lovers sleep, forgot at last their fear. + + His horse left steaming at his journey's end, + Up through his palace stairs with springing tread + He strode; the silence met him like a friend, + Fain to dissuade him from that deed of dread, + Making a breeze about his burning head, + Laying large hands of comfort on his soul; + Within the ashes of his cheek burned red + A long-shut rose of youth, as to the goal +Of death he sped, as once to love's own tryst he stole. + + He caught a sound as of a rose's breath, + He caught another breath of deeper lung, + Rose-leaves and oak-leaves on the wind of death; + He drew aside the arras where they clung + In the dim light, so lovely and so young-- + They lay in sin as in a cradle there, + Twin babes that in one bosom nestling hung: + Even Lanciotto paused, ah, will he spare? +Who could not quite forgive a wrong that is so fair! + + The grave old clock ticked somewhere in the gloom, + A dozen waiting seconds rose and fell + Ere his pale dagger flickered in the room, + Then quenched its corpse-light in their bosoms' swell-- + 'Thus, dears, I mate you evermore in hell.' + Their blood ran warm about them and they sighed + For the mad smiter did his work too well, + Just drew together softly and so died, +Fell very still and strange, and moved not side by side. + + Yea, moved not, though two hours he watched the twain + And heard their blood drip drip upon the floor, + Twice with stern voice he spake to them again, + And then, a little tenderly, once more,-- + 'Thus, dears, in hell I mate you evermore.' + And when the curious fingers of the day + Unravelled all the dark, and morning wore, + And the young light played round them where they lay, +The souls were many leagues upon the hellward way. + + + + +YOUNG LOVE + +N.B.--_This sequence of poems has appeared in former +editions under the title of 'Love Platonic_.' + + +I + +1 +Surely at last, O Lady, the sweet moon + That bringeth in the happy singing weather +Groweth to pearly queendom, and full soon + Shall Love and Song go hand in hand together; +For all the pain that all too long hath waited + In deep dumb darkness shall have speech at last, +And the bright babe Death gave the Love he mated + Shall leap to light and kiss the weeping past. + +For all the silver morning is a-glimmer + With gleaming spears of great Apollo's host, +And the night fadeth like a spent out swimmer + Hurled from the headlands of some shining coast. +O, happy soul, thy mouth at last is singing, + Drunken with wine of morning's azure deep, +Sing on, my soul, the world beneath thee swinging, + A bough of song above a sea of sleep. + +2 +Who is the lady I sing? + Ah, how can I tell thee her praise +For whom all my life's but the string + Of a rosary painful of days; + +Which I count with a curious smile + As a miser who hoardeth his gain, +Though, a madhearted spendthrift the while, + I but gather to waste again. + +Yea, I pluck from the tree of the years, + As a country maid greedy of flowers, +Each day brimming over with tears, + And I scatter like petals its hours; + +And I trample them under my feet + In a frenzy of cloven-hoofed swine, +And the breath of their dying is sweet, + And the blood of their hearts is as wine. + +O, I throw me low down on the ground + And I bury my face in their death, +And only I rise at the sound + Of a wind as it scattereth, + +As it scattereth sweetly the dried + Leaves withered and brittle and sere +Of days of old years that have died-- + And, O, it is sweet in my ear + +And I rise me and build me a pyre + Of the whispering skeleton things, +And my heart laugheth low with the fire, + Laugheth high with the flame as it springs; + +And above in the flickering glare + I mark me the boughs of my tree, +My tree of the years, growing bare. + Growing bare with the scant days to be. + +Then I turn to my beads and I pray + For the axe at the root of the tree-- +Last flower, last bead--ah! last day + That shall part me, my darling, from thee! + +And I pray for the knife on the string + Of this rosary painful of days: +But who is the Lady I sing? + Ah, how can I tell thee her praise! + + +II + +I make this rhyme of my lady and me +To give me ease of my misery, +Of my lady and me I make this rhyme +For lovers in the after-time. +And I weave its warp from day to day +In a golden loom deep hid away +In my secret heart, where no one goes +But my lady's self, and--no one knows. + +With bended head all day I pore +On a joyless task, and yet before +My eyes all day, through each weary hour, +Breathes my lady's face like a dewy flower. +Like rain it comes through the dusty air, +Like sun on the meadows to think of her; +O sweet as violets in early spring +The flower-girls to the city bring, +O, healing-bright to wintry eyes +As primrose-gold 'neath northern skies-- +But O for fit thing to compare +With the joy I have in the thought of her! +So all day long doth her holy face +Bring fragrance to the barren place, +And whensoe'er it comes nearest me, +My loom it weaveth busily. + +Some days there be when the loom is still +And my soul is sad as an autumn hill, +But how to tell the blessed time +When my heart is one glowing prayer of rhyme! +Think on the humming afternoon +Within some busy wood in June, +When nettle patches, drunk with the sun, +Are fiery outposts of the shade; +While gnats keep up a dizzy reel, +And the grasshopper, perched upon his blade, +Loud drones his fairy threshing-wheel:-- +Hour when some poet-wit might feign +The drowsy tune of the throbbing air +The weaving of the gossamer +In secret nooks of wood and lane-- +The gossamer, silk night-robes of the flowers, +Fluttered apart by amorous morning hours. +Yea, as the weaving of the gossamer, +If truly that the mystic golden boom, +Is the strange rapture of my hidden loom, +As I sit in the light of the thought of her; +And it weaveth, weaveth, day by day, +This parti-coloured roundelay; +Weaving for ease of misery, +Weaving this rhyme of my lady and me, +Weaving, weaving this warp of rhyme +For lovers in the after-time. + +My lady, lover, may never be mine +In the same sweet way that thine is thine, +My lady and I may never stand +By the holy altar hand in hand, +My lady and I may never rest +Through the golden midnight breast to breast, +Nor share long days of happy light +Sweet moving in each other's sight: +Yea, even must we ever miss +The honey of the chastest kiss. + + +III + +But, Song, arise thee on a greater wing, +Nor twitter robin-like of love, nor sing +A pretty dalliance with grief--but try +Some metre like a sky, +Wherein to set +Stars that may linger yet +When I, thy master, shall have come to die. + Twitter and tweet + Thy carollings + Of little things, + Of fair and sweet; + For it is meet, + O robin red! + That little theme + Hath little song, + That little head + Hath little dream, + And long. +But we have starry business, such a grief +As Autumn's, dead by some forgotten sheaf, +While all the distance echoes of the wain; +Grief as an ocean's for some sudden isle +Of living green that stayed with it a while, + Then to oblivious deluge plunged again! +Grief as of Alps that yearn but never reach, + Grief as of Death for Life, of Night for Day: +Such grief, O Song, how hast thou strength to teach, + How hope to make assay? + + +IV + +ONCE + +Once we met, and then there came +Like a Pentecostal flame, + A word; +And I said not, +Only thought, + She heard! +All I never say but sing, +Worshipping; +Wrapt in the hidden tongue +Of an ambiguous song. + +How we met what need to say? + When or where, +Years ago or yesterday, + Here or there. +All the song is--once we met, + She and I; +Once, but never to forget, + Till we die. + +All the song is that we meet + Never now-- +'Hast thou yet forgotten, sweet?' + 'Love, hast thou?' + + +V + +THE DAY OF THE TWO DAFFODILS + +'The daffodils are fine this year,' I said; +'O yes, but see my crocuses,' said she. +And so we entered in and sat at talk +Within a little parlour bowered about +With garden-noises, filled with garden scent, +As some sweet sea-shell rings with pearly chimes +And sighs out fragrance of its mother's breast. + +We sat at talk, and all the afternoon +Whispered about in changing silences +Of flush and sudden light and gathering shade, +As though some Maestro drew out organ stops +Somewhere in heaven. As two within a boat +On the wide sea we sat at talk, the hours +Lapping unheeded round us as the waves. +And as such two will ofttimes pause in speech, +Gaze at high heaven and draw deep to their hearts +The infinite azure, then meet eyes again +And flash it to each other; without words +First, and then with voice trembling as trumpets +Tremble with fierce breath, voice cadenced too +As deep as the deep sea, Aeolian voice, +Voice of star-spaces, and the pine-wood's voice +In dewy mornings, Life's own awful voice: +So did We talk, gazing with God's own eyes +Into Life's deeps--ah, how they throbbed with stars! +And were we not ourselves like pulsing suns +Who, once an aeon met within the void, +So fiery close, forget how far away +Each orbit sweeps, and dream a little space +Of fiery wedding. So our hearts made answering +Lightnings all that afternoon through purple mists +Of riddled speech; and when at last the sun, +Our sentinel, made sign beneath the trees +Of coming night, and we arose and passed +Across the threshold to the flowers again, +We knew a presence walking in the grove, +And a voice speaking through the evening's cool +Unknown before: though Love had wrought no wrong, +His rune was spoken, and another rhyme +Writ in his poem by the master Life. + +'Pray, pluck me some,' I said. She brought me two, +For daffodils were very fine that year,-- +O very fine, but daffodils no more. + + +VI + +WHY DID SHE MARRY HIM? + +Why did she marry him? Ah, say why! + How was her fancy caught? +What was the dream that he drew her by, + Or was she only bought? +Gave she her gold for a girlish whim, + A freak of a foolish mood? +Or was it some will, like a snake in him, + Lay a charm upon her blood? + +Love of his limbs, was it that, think you? + Body of bullock build, +Sap in the bones, and spring in the thew, + A lusty youth unspilled? +But is it so that a maid is won, + Such a maiden maid as she? +Her face like a lily all white in the sun, + For such mere male as he! +Ah, why do the fields with their white and gold + To Farmer Clod belong, +Who though he hath reaped and stacked and sold + Hath never heard their song? +Nay, seek not an answer, comfort ye, + The poet heard their call, +And so, dear Love, will I comfort me-- + He hath thy lease, that's all. + + +VII + +THE LAMP AND THE STAR + +Yea, let me be 'thy bachelere,' + 'Tis sweeter than thy lord; +How should I envy him, my dear, + The lamp upon his board. +Still make his little circle bright +With boon of dear domestic light, + While I afar, +Watching his windows in the night, + Worship a star +For which he hath no bolt or bar. + Yea, dear, + Thy 'bachelere.' + + +VIII + +ORBITS + +Two stars once on their lonely way + Met in the heavenly height, +And they dreamed a dream they might shine alway + With undivided light; +Melt into one with a breathless throe, + And beam as one in the night. + +And each forgot in the dream so strange + How desolately far +Swept on each path, for who shall change + The orbit of a star? +Yea, all was a dream, and they still must go + As lonely as they are. + + +IX + +NEVER--EVER + +My mouth to thy mouth + Ah never, ah never! +My breast from thy breast + Eternities sever; +But my soul to thy soul + For ever and ever. + + +X + +LOVE'S POOR + +Yea, love, I know, and I would have it thus, +I know that not for us +Is springtide Passion with his fire and flowers, +I know this love of ours +Lives not, nor yet may live, +By the dear food that lips and hands can give. +Not, Love, that we in some high dream despise +The common lover's common Paradise; +Ah, God, if Thou and I +But one short hour their blessedness might try, +How could we poor ones teach +Those happy ones who half forget them rich: +For if we thus endure, +'Tis only, love, because we are so poor. + + +XI + +COMFORT OF DANTE + +Down where the unconquered river still flows on, + One strong free thing within a prison's heart, + I drew me with my sacred grief apart, +That it might look that spacious joy upon: +And as I mused, lo! Dante walked with me, + And his face spake of the high peace of pain +Till all my grief glowed in me throbbingly + As in some lily's heart might glow the rain. + +So like a star I listened, till mine eye + Caught that lone land across the water-way + Wherein my lady breathed,--now breathing is-- +'O Dante,' then I said, 'she more than I + Should know thy comfort, go to _her_, I pray.' + 'Nay!' answered he, 'for she hath Beatrice.' + + +XII + +A LOST HOUR + +God gave us an hour for our tears, +One hour out of all the years, +For all the years were another's gold, +Given in a cruel troth of old. + +And how did we spend his boon? + That sweet miraculous flower + Born to die in an hour, +Late born to die so soon. + +Did we watch it with breathless breath + By slow degrees unfold? + Did we taste the innermost heart of it + The honey of each sweet part of it? + Suck all its hidden gold +To the very dregs of its death? + +Nay, this is all we did with our hour-- +We tore it to pieces, that precious flower; +Like any daisy, with listless mirth, +We shed its petals upon the earth; +And, children-like, when it all was done, +We cried unto God for another one. + + +XIII + +MET ONCE MORE + +O Lady, I have looked on thee once more, +Thou too hast looked on me, as thou hadst said, +And though the joy was pain, the pain was bliss, +Bliss that more happy lovers well may miss: +Captives feast richly on a little bread, +So are we very rich who are so poor. + + +XIV + +A JUNE LILY + +[_The poet dramatises his Lady's loneliness_] + +Alone! once more alone! how like a tomb +My little parlour sounds which only now +Yearned like some holy chancel with his voice. +So still! so empty! Surely one might fear +The walls should meet in ruinous collapse +That held no more his music. Yet they stand +Firm in a foolish firmness, meaningless +As frescoed sepulchre some Pharaoh built +But never came to sleep in; built, indeed, +For--that grey moth to flit in like a ghost! + +Alone! another feast-day come and gone, +Watched through the weeks as in my garden there +I watch a seedling grow from blade to bud +Impatient for its blossom. So this day +Has bloomed at last, and we have plucked its flower +And shared its sweetness, and once more the time +Is as that stalk from which but now I plucked +Its last June-lily as a parting sign. +Yea, but he seemed to love it! yet if he +But craved it in deceit of tenderness +To make my heart glow brighter with a lie! +Will it indeed be cherished as he said, +Or will he keep it near his book a while, +And when grown rank forget it in his glass, +And leave it for the maid who dusts his room +To clear away and cast upon the heap? +Or, may be, will he bury it away +In some old drawer with other mummy-flowers? + +Nay, but I wrong thee, dear one, thinking so. +My boy, my love, my poet! Nay, I know +Thy lonely room, tomb-like to thee as mine, +Tomb-like as tomb of some returning ghost +Seems only bright about my lily-flower. +And, mayhap, while I wrong thee thus in thought +Thou bendest o'er it, feigning for some ease +Of parted ache conceits of poet-wit +On petal and on stamen--let me try! +If lilies be alike thine is as this, +I wonder if thy reading tallies too. + +Six petals with a dewdrop in their heart, +Six pure brave years, an ivory cup of tears; +Six pearly-pillared stamens golden-crowned +Growing from out the dewdrop, and a seventh +Soaring alone trilobed and mystic green; +Six pearl-bright years aflower with gold of joy, +Sprung from the heart of those brave tear-fed years: +But what that seventh single stamen is +My little wit must leave for thee to tell. + +But neither poet nor a sibyl thou! +What brave conceit had he, my poet, built; +No jugglery of numbers that mean nought, +That can mean nought for ever, unto us. + + +XV + +REGRET + +One asked of regret, + And I made reply: +To have held the bird, + And let it fly; +To have seen the star + For a moment nigh, +And lost it + Through a slothful eye; +To have plucked the flower + And cast it by; +To have one only hope-- + To die. + + +XVI + +LOVE AFAR + +Love, art thou lonely to-day? + Lost love that I never see, +Love that, come noon or come night, + Comes never to me; +Love that I used to meet + In the hidden past, in the land +Of forbidden sweet. + +Love! do you never miss +The old light in the days? +Does a hand +Come and touch thee at whiles +Like the wand of old smiles, +Like the breath of old bliss? +Or hast thou forgot, +And is all as if not? + +What was it we swore? + 'Evermore! + I and Thou,' +Ah, but Fate held the pen + And wrote N + Just before: + So that now, +See, it stands, +Our seals and our hands, + 'I and Thou, + Nevermore!' + +We said 'It is best!' +And then, dear, I went +And returned not again. +Forgive that I stir, +Like a breath in thy hair, +The old pain, +'Twas unmeant. +I will strive, I will wrest +Iron peace--it _is_ best. + +But, O for thy hand + Just to hold for a space, +For a moment to stand + In the light of thy face; +Translate Then to Now, +To hear 'Is it Thou?' + And reply + 'It is I!' +Then, then I could rest, +Ah, then I could wait + Long and late. + + +XVII + +Canst thou be true across so many miles, + So many days that keep us still apart? +Ah, canst thou live upon remembered smiles, + And ask no warmer comfort for thy heart? + +I call thy name right up into the sky, + Dear name, O surely she shall hear and hark! +Nay, though I toss it singing up so high, + It drops again, like yon returning lark. + +O be a dove, dear name, and find her breast, + There croon and croodle all the lonely day; +Go tell her that I love her still the best, + So many days, so many miles, away. + + +_POSTSCRIPT_ + +_So sang young Love in high and holy dream + Of a white Love that hath no earthly taint, +So rapt within his vision he did seem + Less like a boyish singer than a saint. + +Ah, Boy, it is a dream for life too high, + It is a bird that hath no feet for earth: +Strange wings, strange eyes, go seek another sky + And find thy fellows of an equal birth. + +For many a body-sweet material thing, + What canst thou give us half so dear as these? +We would not soar amid the stars to sing, + Warm and content amid the nested trees. + +Young Seraph, go and lake thy song to heaven, + We would not grow unhappy with our lot, +Leave us the simple love the earth hath given-- + Sing where thou wilt, so that we hear thee not_. + + + + +COR CORDIUM + + +TO MY WIFE, MILDRED + +_Dear wife, there is no word in all my songs +But unto thee belongs: +Though I indeed before our true day came +Mistook thy star in many a wandering flame, +Singing to thee in many a fair disguise, +Calling to thee in many another's name, +Before I knew thine everlasting eyes. + +Faces that fled me like a hunted fawn +I followed singing, deeming it was Thou, +Seeking this face that on our pillow now +Glimmers behind thy golden hair like dawn, +And, like a setting moon, within my breast +Sinks down each night to rest. + +Moon follows moon before the great moon flowers, +Moon of the wild wild honey that is ours; +Long must the tree strive up in leaf and root, +Before it bear the golden-hearted fruit: +And shall great Love at once perfected spring, +Nor grow by steps like any other thing?_ + + +COR CORDIUM + +_The lawless love that would not be denied, +The love that waited, and in waiting died, +The love that met and mated, satisfied. + +Ah, love, 'twas good to climb forbidden walls, +Who would not follow where his Juliet calls? +'Twas good to try and love the angel's way, +With starry souls untainted of the clay; +But, best the love where earth and heaven meet, +The god made flesh and dwelling in us, sweet._ + +(October 22, 1891.) + + +THE DESTINED MAID: A PRAYER + +_(Chant Royal)_ + +O MIGHTY Queen, our Lady of the fire, + The light, the music, and the honey, all +Blent in one Power, one passionate Desire + Man calleth Love--'Sweet love,' the blessed + call--: +I come a sad-eyed suppliant to thy knee, +If thou hast pity, pity grant to me; + If thou hast bounty, here a heart I bring + For all that bounty 'thirst and hungering. +O Lady, save thy grace, there is no way + For me, I know, but lonely sorrowing-- +Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray! + +I lay in darkness, face down in the mire, + And prayed that darkness might become my + pall; +The rabble rout roared round me like some quire + Of filthy animals primordial; +My heart seemed like a toad eternally +Prisoned in stone, ugly and sad as he; + Sweet sunlight seemed a dream, a mythic thing, + And life some beldam's dotard gossiping. +Then, Lady, I bethought me of thy sway, + And hoped again, rose up this prayer to wing-- +Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray! + +Lady, I bear no high resounding lyre + To hymn thy glory, and thy foes appal +With thunderous splendour of my rhythmic ire; + A little lute I lightly touch and small +My skill thereon: yet, Lady, if it be +I ever woke ear-winning melody, + 'Twas for thy praise I sought the throbbing string, + Thy praise alone--for all my worshipping +Is at thy shrine, thou knowest, day by day, + Then shall it be in vain my plaint to sing?-- +Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray! + +Yea! why of all men should this sorrow dire + Unto thy servant bitterly befall? +For, Lady, thou dost know I ne'er did tire + Of thy sweet sacraments and ritual; +In morning meadows I have knelt to thee, +In noontide woodlands hearkened hushedly + Thy heart's warm beat in sacred slumbering, +And in the spaces of the night heard ring +Thy voice in answer to the spheral lay: +Now 'neath thy throne my suppliant life I fling-- +Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray! + +I ask no maid for all men to admire, + Mere body's beauty hath in me no thrall, +And noble birth, and sumptuous attire, + Are gauds I crave not--yet shall have withal, +With a sweet difference, in my heart's own She, +Whom words speak not but eyes know when they + see. + Beauty beyond all glass's mirroring, + And dream and glory hers for garmenting; +Her birth--O Lady, wilt thou say me nay?-- + Of thine own womb, of thine own nurturing-- +Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray! + + +ENVOI + +Sweet Queen who sittest at the heart of spring, +My life is thine, barren or blossoming; + 'Tis thine to flush it gold or leave it grey: +And so unto thy garment's hem I cling-- + Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray. + +(_January_ 13, 1888.) + + +WITH SOME OLD LOVE VERSES + +Dear Heart, this is my book of boyish song, + The changing story of the wandering quest + That found at last its ending in thy breast-- +The love it sought and sang astray so long +With wild young heart and happy eager tongue. + Much meant it all to me to seek and sing, + Ah, Love, but how much more to-day to bring +This 'rhyme that first of all he made when young.' + +Take it and love it, 'tis the prophecy + For whose poor silver thou hast given me gold; + Yea! those old faces for an hour seemed fair + Only because some hints of Thee they were: + Judge then, if I so loved weak types of old, +How good, dear Heart, the perfect gift of Thee. + + +IN A COPY OF MR. SWINBURNE'S +_TRISTRAM OF LYONESSE_ + +Dear Heart, what thing may symbolise for us + A love like ours, what gift, whate'er it be, + Hold more significance 'twixt thee and me +Than paltry words a truth miraculous; +Or the poor signs that in astronomy + Tell giant splendours in their gleaming might: + Yet love would still give such, as in delight +To mock their impotence--so this for thee. + +This song for thee! our sweetest honeycomb + Of lovesome thought and passion-hearted rhyme, + Builded of gold and kisses and desire, + By that wild poet who so many a time + Our hungering lips have blessed, until a fire +Burnt speech up and the wordless hour had come. + + +COMFORT AT PARTING + +O little Heart, +So much I see +Thy hidden smart, +So much I long +To sing some song +To comfort thee. + +For, little Heart, +Indeed, indeed, +The hour to part +Makes cruel speed; +Yet, dear, think thou +How even now, +With happy haste, +With eager feet, +The hour when we +Again shall meet +Cometh across the waste. + + +HAPPY LETTER + +Fly, little note, +And know no rest +Till warm you lie +Within that nest +Which is her breast; +Though why to thee +Such joy should be +Who carest not, +While I must wait +Here desolate, +I cannot wot. +O what I 'd do +To come with you! + + +PRIMROSE AND VIOLET + +Primrose and Violet-- +May they help thee to forget +All that love should not remember, +Sweet as meadows after rain +When the sun has come again, +As woods awakened from December. +How they wash the soul from stain! +How they set the spirit free! +Take them, dear, and pray for me. + + +'JULIET AND HER ROMEO' + +_(With Mr. Dicksee's Picture)_ + +Take 'this of Juliet and her Romeo,' + Dear Heart of mine, for though yon budding sky +Yearns o'er Verona, and so long ago + That kiss was kissed; yet surely Thou and I, +Surely it is, whom morning tears apart, + As ruthless men tear tendrilled ivy down: + Is not Verona warm within thy gown, +And Mantua all the world save where thou art? + +O happy grace of lovers of old time, + Living to love like gods, and dead to live + Symbols and saints for us who follow them; + Even bitter Death must sweets to lovers give: + See how they wear their tears for diadem, +Throned on the star of an unshaken rhyme. + + +IN HER DIARY + +Go, little book, and be the looking-glass + Of her dear soul, +The mirror of her moments as they pass, + Keeping the whole; +Wherein she still may look on yesterday + To-day to cheer, +And towards To-morrow pass upon her way + Without a fear. +For yesterday hath never won a crown, + However fair, +But that To-day a better for its own + Might win and wear; +And yesterday hath never joyed a joy, + However sweet, +That this To-day or that To-morrow too + May not repeat. +Think too, To-day is trustee for to-morrow, + And present pain +That's bravely borne shall ease the future sorrow + Nor cry in vain +'Spare us To-day, To-morrow bring the rod,' + For then again +To-morrow from To-morrow still shall borrow, + A little ease to gain: +But bear to-day whate'er To-day may bring, +'Tis the one way to make To-morrow sing. + + + + +PARABLES + + +I + +Dear Love, you ask if I be true, + If other women move +The heart that only beats for you + With pulses all of love. + +Out in the chilly dew one morn + I plucked a wild sweet rose, +A little silver bud new-born + And longing to unclose. + +I took it, loving new-born things, + I knew my heart was warm, +'O little silver rose, come in + And shelter from the storm.' + +And soon, against my body pressed, + I felt its petals part, +And, looking down within my breast + I saw its golden heart. + +O such a golden heart it has, + Your eyes may never see, +To others it is always shut, + It opens but for me. + +But that is why you see me pass + The honeysuckle there, +And leave the lilies in the grass, + Although they be so fair; + +Why the strange orchid half-accurst-- + Circe of flowers she grows-- +Can tempt me not: see! in my heart, + Silver and gold, my rose. + + +II + +Deep in a hidden lane we were, + My little love and I; +When lo! as we stood kissing there-- + A flower against the sky! + +Frail as a tear its beauty hung-- + O spare it, little hand. +But innocence like its, alas! + Desire may not withstand. + +And so I clambered up the bank + And threw the blossom down, +But we were sadder for its sake + As we walked back to town. + + +A LOVE-LETTER + +Darling little woman, just a little line, + Just a little silver word +For that dear gold of thine, + Only a whisper you have so often heard: + +Only such a whisper as hidden in a shell + Holds a little breath of all the mighty sea, +But think what a little of all its depth and swell, + And think what a little is this little note of me. + +'Darling, I love thee, that is all I live for'-- + There is the whisper stealing from the shell, +But here is the ocean, O so deep and boundless, + And each little wave with its whisper as well. + + +IN THE NIGHT + + 'Kiss me, dear Love!'-- +But there was none to hear, + Only the darkness round about my bed + And hollow silence, for thy face had fled, +Though in my dreaming it had come so near. + +I slept again and it came back to me, + Burning within the hollow arch of night + Like some fair flame of sacrificial light, +And all my soul sprang up to mix with thee-- + 'Kiss me, my love! +Ah, Love, thy face how fair!' +So did I cry, but still thou wert not there. + + +THE CONSTANT LOVER + +I see fair women all the day, + They pass and pass--and go; +I almost dream that they are shades + Within a shadow-show. + +Their beauty lays no hand on me, + They talk--- I hear no word; +I ask my eyes if they have seen, + My ears if they have heard. + +For why--within the north countree + A little maid, I know, +Is waiting through the days for me, + Drear days so long and slow. + + +THE WONDER-CHILD + +'Our little babe,' each said, 'shall be +Like unto thee'--'Like unto _thee_!' + 'Her mother's'--'Nay, his father's'--'eyes,' + 'Dear curls like thine'--but each replies, +'As thine, all thine, and nought of me.' + +What sweet solemnity to see +The little life upon thy knee, + And whisper as so soft it lies,-- + 'Our little babe!' + +For, whether it be he or she, +A David or a Dorothy, + 'As mother fair,' or 'father wise,' + Both when it's 'good,' and when it cries, +One thing is certain,--it will be + _Our_ little babe. + + + + +MISCELLANEOUS + + +THE HOUSE OF VENUS + +Not that Queen Venus of adulterous fame, +Whose love was lust's insatiable flame-- +Not hers the house I would be singer in +Whose loose-lipped servants seek a weary sin: +But mine the Venus of that morning flood +With all the dawn's young passion in her blood, +With great blue eyes and unpressed bosom sweet. +Her would I sing, and of the shy retreat +Where Love first kissed her wondering maidenhood, +And He and She first stood, with eyes afraid, +In the most golden House that God has made. + + +SATIETY + +The heart of the rose--how sweet + Its fragrance to drain, + Till the greedy brain + Reels and grows faint + With the garnered scent, +Reels as a dream on its silver feet. + +Sweet thus to drain--then to sleep: + For, beware how you stay + Till the joy pass away, + And the jaded brain + Seeketh fragrance in vain, +And hates what it may not reap. + + +WHAT OF THE DARKNESS? + +What of the darkness? Is it very fair? +Are there great calms and find ye silence there? +Like soft-shut lilies all your faces glow +With some strange peace our faces never know, +With some great faith our faces never dare. +Dwells it in Darkness? Do you find it there? + +Is it a Bosom where tired heads may lie? +Is it a Mouth to kiss our weeping dry? +Is it a Hand to still the pulse's leap? +Is it a Voice that holds the runes of sleep? +Day shows us not such comfort anywhere. +Dwells it in Darkness? Do you find it there? + +Out of the Day's deceiving light we call, +Day that shows man so great and God so small, +That hides the stars and magnifies the grass; +O is the Darkness too a lying glass, +Or, undistracted, do you find truth there? +What of the Darkness? Is it very fair? + + +AD CIMMERIOS + +(_A Prefatory Sonnet for_ SANTA LUCIA_, the Misses Hodgkin's +Magazine for the Blind)_ + +We, deeming day-light fair, and loving well + Its forms and dyes, and all the motley play + Of lives that win their colour from the day, +Are fain some wonder of it all to tell +To you that in that elder kingdom dwell + Of Ancient Night, and thus we make assay + Day to translate to Darkness, so to say, +To talk Cimmerian for a little spell. + +Yet, as we write, may we not doubt lest ye + Should smile on us, as once our fathers smiled, + When we made vaunt of joys they knew no more; +Knowing great dreams young eyes can never see, + Dwelling in peace unguessed of any child-- + Will ye smile thus upon our daylight lore? + + +OLD LOVE-LETTERS + +You ask and I send. It is well, yea! best: + A lily hangs dead on its stalk, ah me! +A dream hangs dead on a life it blest. + Shall it flaunt its death where sad eyes may see + In the cold dank wind of our memory? +Shall we watch it rot like an empty nest? + Love's ghost, poor pitiful mockery-- +Bury these shreds and behold it shall rest. + +And shall life fail if one dream be sped? + For loss of one bloom shall the lily pass? + Nay, bury these deep round the roots, for so + In soil of old dreams do the new dreams grow, + New 'Hail' is begot of the old 'Alas.' +See, here are our letters, so sweet--so dead. + + +DEATH IN A LONDON LODGING + +'Yes, Sir, she's gone at last--'twas only five minutes ago +We heard her sigh from her corner,--she sat in the kitchen, you know: +We were all just busy on breakfast, John cleaning the boots, and I +Had just gone into the larder--but you could have heard that sigh +Right up in the garret, sir, for it seemed to pass one by +Like a puff of wind--may be 'twas her soul, who knows-- +And we all looked up and ran to her--just in time to see her head +Was sinking down on her bosom and "she's gone at last," I said.' + +So Mrs. Pownceby, meeting on the stairs +Her second-floor lodger, me, bound citywards, +Told of her sister's death, doing her best +To match her face's colour with the news: +While I in listening made a running gloss +Beneath her speech of all she left unsaid. + As--'in the kitchen,' _rather in the way,_ +_Poor thing_; 'busy on breakfast,' _awkward time_, +_Indeed, for one must live and lodgers' meals_, +_You know, must be attended to what comes_-- +(Or goes, I added for her) _yes! indeed_. +'"She's gone at last," I said,' _and better perhaps_, +_For what had life for her but suffering?_ +_And then, we're only poor, sir, John and I_, +_And she indeed was somewhat of a strain_: +_O! yes, it's for the best for all of us_. +And still beneath all else methought I read +'_What will the lodgers think, having the dead_ +_Within the house! how inconvenient!_' + +What did the lodgers think? Well, I replied +In grief's set phrase, but 'the first floor,' +I fancy, frowned at first, as though indeed +Landladies' sisters had no right to die +And taint the air for nervous lodger folk; +Then smoothed his brow out into decency, +And said, 'how sad!' and presently inquired +The day of burial, ending with the hope +His lunch would not be late like yesterday. +The maiden-lady living near the roof +Quoted Isaiah may be, or perhaps Job-- +How the Lord gives, and likewise takes away, +And how exceeding blessed is the Lord!-- +For she has pious features; while downstairs +Two 'medicals'--both 'decent' lads enough-- +Hearkened the story out like gentlemen, +And said the right thing--almost looked it too! +Though all the while within them laughed a sea +Of student mirth, which for full half an hour +They stifled well, but then could hold no more, +As soon their mad piano testified: +While in the kitchen dinner was toward +With hiss and bubble from the cooking stove, +And now a laugh from John ran up the stairs, +And a voice called aloud--of boiling pans. + +'So soon,' reflected I, 'the waters of life +Close o'er the sunken head!' Reflected _I_, +Not that in truth I was more pitiful +To the poor dead than those about me were, +Nay, but a trick of thinking much on Life +And Death i' the piece giveth each little strand +More deep significance--love for the whole +Must make us tender for the parts, methinks, +As in some souls the equal law holds true, +Sorrow for one makes sorrow for the world. +A fallen leaf or a dead flower indeed +Has made me just as sad, or some poor bee +Dead in the early summer--what's the odds? +Death was at '48,' and yet what sign? +Who seemed to know? who could have known that called? +For not a blind was lower than its wont-- +'The lodgers would not like them down,' you know-- +And in all rooms, save one, the boisterous life +Blazed like the fires within the several grates-- +Save one where lay the poor dead silent thing, +A closest chill as who hath sat at night +With love beside the ingle knows the ashes +In the morning. + + Death was at '48,' +Yet Life and Love and Sunlight were there too. +I ate and slept, and morning came at length +And brought my Lady's letter to my bed: +Thrice read and thirty kisses, came a thought, +As the sweet morning laughed about the room +Of the poor face downstairs, the sunshine there +Playing about it like a wakeful child +Whose weary mother sleepeth in the dawn, +Pressing soft fingers round about the eyes +To make them open, then with laughing shout +Making a gambol all her body's length +Ah me! poor eyes that never open more! +And mine as blithe to meet the morning's glance +As thirsty lips to close on thirsty lips! +Poor limbs no sun could ever warm again! +And mine so eager for the coming day! + + +TIME FLIES + +On drives the road--another mile! and still +Time's horses gallop down the lessening hill +O why such haste, with nothing at the end! +Fain are we all, grim driver, to descend +And stretch with lingering feet the little way +That yet is ours--O stop thy horses, pray! + +Yet, sister dear, if we indeed had grace +To win from Time one lasting halting-place, +Which out of all life's valleys would we choose, +And, choosing--which with willingness would lose? +Would we as children be content to stay, +Because the children are as birds all day; + +Or would we still as youngling lovers kiss, +Fearing the ardours of the greater bliss? +The maid be still a maid and never know +Why mothers love their little blossoms so +Or can the mother be content her bud +Shall never open out of babyhood? + +Ah yes, Time flies because we fain would fly, +It is such ardent souls as you and I, +Greedy of living, give his wings to him-- +And now we grumble that he uses them! + + +SO SOON TIRED! + + Am I so soon grown tired?--yet this old sky + Can open still each morn so blue an eye, + This great old river still through nights and days + Run like a happy boy to holidays, + This sun be still a bridegroom, though long wed, + And still those stars go singing up the night, + Glad as yon lark there splashing in the light: + Are these old things indeed unwearied, +Yet I, so soon grown tired, would creep away to bed! + + +AUTUMN + +The year grows still again, the surging wake + Of full-sailed summer folds its furrows up, + As after passing of an argosy + Old Silence settles back upon the sea, + And ocean grows as placid as a cup. + Spring, the young morn, and Summer, the strong noon, +Have dreamed and done and died for Autumn's sake: + Autumn that finds not for a loss so dear + Solace in stack and garner hers too soon-- + Autumn, the faithful widow of the year. + +Autumn, a poet once so full of song, + Wise in all rhymes of blossom and of bud, +Hath lost the early magic of his tongue, + And hath no passion in his failing blood. +Hear ye no sound of sobbing in the air? + 'Tis his. Low bending in a secret lane, +Late blooms of second childhood in his hair, + He tries old magic, like a dotard mage; + Tries spell and spell, to weep and try again: +Yet not a daisy hears, and everywhere + The hedgerow rattles like an empty cage. + +He hath no pleasure in his silken skies, + Nor delicate ardours of the yellow land; +Yea, dead, for all its gold, the woodland lies, + And all the throats of music filled with sand. +Neither to him across the stubble field + May stack nor garner any comfort bring, + Who loveth more this jasmine he hath made, + The little tender rhyme he yet can sing, +Than yesterday, with all its pompous yield, + Or all its shaken laurels on his head. + + +A FROST FANCY + +Summer gone, +Winter here; +Ways are white, +Skies are clear. +And the sun +A ruddy boy +All day sliding, +While at night +The stars appear +Like skaters gliding +On a mere. + + +THE WORLD IS WIDE + +The world is wide--around yon court, + Where dirty little children play, +Another world of street on street + Grows wide and wider every day. + +And round the town for endless miles + A great strange land of green is spread-- +O wide the world, O weary-wide, + But it is wider overhead. + +For could you mount yon glittering stairs + And on their topmost turret stand,-- +Still endless shining courts and squares, + And lanes of lamps on every hand. + +And, might you tread those starry streets + To where those long perspectives bend, +O you would cast you down and die-- + Street upon street, world without end. + + +SAINT CHARLES + +'"Saint Charles," said Thackeray to me, thirty years ago, putting one of +Charles Lamb's letters to his forehead.'--LETTERS OF EDWARD FITZGERALD. + +Saint Charles! ah yes, let other men +Love Elia for his antic pen, +And watch with dilettante eyes +His page for every quaint surprise, +Curious of _caviare_ phrase. +Yea; these who will not also praise? +We surely must, but which is more +The motley that his sorrow wore, +Or the great heart whose valorous beat +Upheld his brave unfaltering feet +Along the narrow path he chose, +And followed faithful to the close? + +Yea, Elia, thank thee for thy wit, +How poor our laughter, lacking it! +For all thy gillyflowers of speech +Gramercy, Elia; but most rich +Are we, most holpen, when we meet +Thee and thy Bridget in the street, +Upon that tearful errand set-- +So often trod, so patient yet! + + +GOOD-NIGHT + +(AFTER THE NORWEGIAN OF ROSENCRANTZ JOHNSEN) + +Midnight, and through the blind the moonlight stealing + On silver feet across the sleeping room, +Ah, moonlight, what is this thou art revealing-- + Her breast, a great sweet lily in the gloom. + +It is their bed, white little isle of bliss + In the dark wilderness of midnight sea,-- +Hush! 'tis their hearts still beating from the kiss, + The warm dark kiss that only night may see. + +Their cheeks still burn, they close and nestle yet, + Ere, with faint breath, they falter out good-night, +Her hand in his upon the coverlet + Lies in the silver pathway of the light. + +(LILLEHAMMER, _August_ 22, 1892.) + + +BEATRICE + +(FOR THE BEATRICE CELEBRATION, 1890) + +Nine mystic revolutions of the spheres + Since Dante's birth, and lo! a star new-born + Shining in heaven: and like a lark at morn +Springing to meet it, straight in all men's ears, +A strange new song, which through the listening years + Grew deep as lonely sobbing from the thorn + Rising at eve, shot through with bitter scorn, +Full-throated with the ecstasy of tears. + +Long since that star arose, that song upsprang, + That shine and sing in heaven above us yet; + Since thy white childhood, glorious Beatrice, + Dawned like a blessed angel upon his: + Thy star it was that did his song beget, +Star shining for us still because he sang. + + +A CHILD'S EVENSONG + +The sun is weary, for he ran + So far and fast to-day; +The birds are weary, for who sang + So many songs as they? +The bees and butterflies at last + Are tired out, for just think too +How many gardens through the day + Their little wings have fluttered through. + And so, as all tired people do, +They've gone to lay their sleepy heads +Deep deep in warm and happy beds. +The sun has shut his golden eye +And gone to sleep beneath the sky, +The birds and butterflies and bees +Have all crept into flowers and trees, +And all lie quiet, still as mice, +Till morning comes--like father's voice. + +So Geoffrey, Owen, Phyllis, you +Must sleep away till morning too. +Close little eyes, down little heads, +And sleep--sleep--sleep in happy beds. + + +AN EPITAPH ON A GOLDFISH + +(WITH APOLOGIES TO ARIEL) + +Five inches deep Sir Goldfish lies, + Here last September was he laid, +Poppies these that were his eyes, + Of fish-bones were these bluebells made. +His fins of gold that to and fro +Waved and waved so long ago, +Still as petals wave and wave +To and fro above his grave. +Hearken too! for so his knell +Tolls all day each tiny bell. + + +BEAUTY ACCURST + +I am so fair that wheresoe'er I wend + Men yearn with strange desire to kiss my face, +Stretch out their hands to touch me as I pass, + And women follow me from place to place. + +A poet writing honey of his dear + Leaves the wet page,--ah! leaves it long to dry. +The bride forgets it is her marriage-morn, + The bridegroom too forgets as I go by. + +Within the street where my strange feet shall stray + All markets hush and traffickers forget, +In my gold head forget their meaner gold, + The poor man grows unmindful of his debt. + +Two lovers kissing in a secret place, + Should I draw nigh,--will never kiss again; +I come between the king and his desire, + And where I am all loving else is vain. + +Lo! when I walk along the woodland way + Strange creatures leer at me with uncouth love, +And from the grass reach upward to my breast, + And to my mouth lean from the boughs above. + +The sleepy kine move round me in desire + And press their oozy lips upon my hair, +Toads kiss my feet and creatures of the mire, + The snails will leave their shells to watch me there. + +But all this worship, what is it to me? + I smite the ox and crush the toad in death: +I only know I am so very fair, + And that the world was made to give me breath. + +I only wait the hour when God shall rise + Up from the star where he so long hath sat, +And bow before the wonder of my eyes + And set _me_ there--I am so fair as that. + + +TO A DEAD FRIEND + +And is it true indeed, and must you go, + Set out alone across that moorland track, +No love avail, though we have loved you so, + No voice have any power to call you back? +And losing hands stretch after you in vain, + And all our eyes grow empty for your lack, +Nor hands, nor eyes, know aught of you again. + +Dear friend, I shed no tear while yet you stayed, + Nor vexed your soul with unavailing word, +But you are gone, and now can all be said, + And tear and sigh too surely fall unheard. +So long I kept for you an undimmed eye, + Surely for grief this hour may well be spared, +Though could you know I still must keep it dry. + +For what can tears avail you? the spring rain + That softly pelts the lattice, as with flowers, +Will of its tears a daisied counterpane + Weave for your rest, and all its sound of showers +Makes of its sobbing low a cradle song: + All tears avail but these salt tears of ours, +These tears alone 'tis idle to prolong. + +Yet must we shed them, barren though they be, + Though bloom nor burden answer as they flow, +Though no sun shines that our sad eyes can see + To throw across their fall hope's radiant bow. +Poor selfish tears! we weep them not for him, + 'Tis our own sorrow that we pity so, +'Tis our own loss that leaves our eyes so dim. + + +SUNSET IN THE CITY + +Above the town a monstrous wheel is turning, + With glowing spokes of red, +Low in the west its fiery axle burning; + And, lost amid the spaces overhead, +A vague white moth, the moon, is fluttering. + +Above the town an azure sea is flowing, + 'Mid long peninsulas of shining sand, +From opal unto pearl the moon is growing, + Dropped like a shell upon the changing strand. + +Within the town the streets grow strange and haunted, + And, dark against the western lakes of green, +The buildings change to temples, and unwonted + Shadows and sounds creep in where day has been. + +Within the town, the lamps of sin are flaring, + Poor foolish men that know not what ye are! +Tired traffic still upon his feet is faring-- + Two lovers meet and kiss and watch a star. + + +THE CITY IN MOONLIGHT + +Dear city in the moonlight dreaming, + How changed and lovely is your face; +Where is the sordid busy scheming + That filled all day the market-place? + +Was it but fancy that a rabble + Of money-changers bought and sold, +Filling with sacrilegious babble + This temple-court of solemn gold? + +Ah no, poor captive-slave of Croesus, + His bond-maid all the toiling day, +You, like some hunted child of Jesus, + Steal out beneath the moon to pray. + + + + +OF POETS AND POETRY + +To James Ashcroft Noble, + +Poet and Critic, a small acknowledgment of much +unforgotten kindness + + + +INSCRIPTIONS + +Poet, a truce to your song! + Have you heard the heart sing? + Like a brook among trees, + Like the humming of bees, + Like the ripple of wine: +Had you heard, would you stay +Blowing bubbles so long? +You have ears for the spheres-- + Have you heard the heart sing? + + * * * * * + +Have you loved the good books of the world,-- + And written none? +Have you loved the great poet,-- + And burnt your little rhyme? +'O be my friend, and teach me to be thine.' + + * * * * * + +By many hands the work of God is done, +Swart toil, pale thought, flushed dream, he spurneth none: +Yea! and the weaver of a little rhyme +Is seen his worker in his own full time. + + +THE DÉCADENT TO HIS SOUL + +The Décadent was speaking to his soul-- +Poor useless thing, he said, +Why did God burden me with such as thou? +The body were enough, +The body gives me all. + +The soul's a sort of sentimental wife +That prays and whimpers of the higher life, +Objects to latch-keys, and bewails the old, +The dear old days, of passion and of dream, +When life was a blank canvas, yet untouched +Of the great painter Sin. + +Yet, little soul, thou hast fine eyes, +And knowest fine airy motions, +Hast a voice-- +Why wilt thou so devote them to the church? + +His face grew strangely sweet-- +As when a toad smiles. +He dreamed of a new sin: +An incest 'twixt the body and the soul. + +He drugged his soul, and in a house of sin +She played all she remembered out of heaven +For him to kiss and clip by. +He took a little harlot in his hands, +And she made all his veins like boiling oil, +Then that grave organ made them cool again. + +Then from that day, he used his soul +As bitters to the over dulcet sins, +As olives to the fatness of the feast-- +She made those dear heart-breaking ecstasies +Of minor chords amid the Phrygian flutes, +She sauced his sins with splendid memories, +Starry regrets and infinite hopes and fears; +His holy youth and his first love +Made pearly background to strange-coloured vice. + +Sin is no sin when virtue is forgot. +It is so good in sin to keep in sight +The white hills whence we fell, to measure by-- +To say I was so high, so white, so pure, +And am so low, so blood-stained and so base; +I revel here amid the sweet sweet mire +And yonder are the hills of morning flowers; +So high, so low; so lost and with me yet; +To stretch the octave 'twixt the dream and deed, +Ah, that's the thrill! +To dream so well, to do so ill,-- +There comes the bitter-sweet that makes the sin. + +First drink the stars, then grunt amid the mire, +So shall the mire have something of the stars, +And the high stars be fragrant of the mire. + +The Décadent was speaking to his soul-- +Dear witch, I said the body was enough. +How young, how simple as a suckling child! +And then I dreamed--'an incest 'twixt the body and the soul:' +Let's wed, I thought, the seraph with the dog, +And wait the purple thing that shall be born. + +And now look round--seest thou this bloom? +Seven petals and each petal seven dyes, +The stem is gilded and the root in blood: +That came of thee. +Yea, all my flowers were single save for thee. +I pluck seven fruits from off a single tree, +I pluck seven flowers from off a single stem, +I light my palace with the seven stars, +And eat strange dishes to Gregorian chants: +All thanks to thee. + +But the soul wept with hollow hectic face, +Captive in that lupanar of a man. + +And I who passed by heard and wept for both,-- +The man was once an apple-cheek dear lad, +The soul was once an angel up in heaven. + +O let the body be a healthy beast, +And keep the soul a singing soaring bird; +But lure thou not the soul from out the sky +To pipe unto the body in the sty. + + +TO A POET + +As one, the secret lover of a queen, + Watches her move within the people's eye, + Hears their poor chatter as she passes by, +And smiles to think of what his eyes have seen; +The little room where love did 'shut them in,' + The fragrant couch whereon they twain did lie, + And rests his hand where on his heart doth die +A bruised daffodil of last night's sin: + +So, Poet, as I read your rhyme once more + Here where a thousand eyes may read it too, + I smile your own sweet secret smile at those + Who deem the outer petals of the rose + The rose's heart--I, who through grace of you, +Have known it for my own so long before. + + +THE PASSIONATE READER TO HIS POET + +Doth it not thrill thee, Poet, + Dead and dust though thou art, +To feel how I press thy singing + Close to my heart?-- + +Take it at night to my pillow, + Kiss it before I sleep, +And again when the delicate morning + Beginneth to peep? + +See how I bathe thy pages + Here in the light of the sun, +Through thy leaves, as a wind among roses, + The breezes shall run. + +Feel how I take thy poem + And bury within it my face, +As I pressed it last night in the heart of + a flower, + Or deep in a dearer place. + +Think, as I love thee, Poet, + A thousand love beside, +Dear women love to press thee too + Against a sweeter side. + +Art thou not happy, Poet? + I sometimes dream that I +For such a fragrant fame as thine + Would gladly sing and die. + +Say, wilt thou change thy glory + For this same youth of mine? +And I will give my days i' the sun + For that great song of thine. + + +MATTHEW ARNOLD + +(DIED, APRIL 15, 1888) + +Within that wood where thine own scholar strays, + O! Poet, thou art passed, and at its bound + Hollow and sere we cry, yet win no sound +But the dark muttering of the forest maze +We may not tread, nor pierce with any gaze; + And hardly love dare whisper thou hast found + That restful moonlit slope of pastoral ground +Set in dark dingles of the songful ways. + +Gone! they have called our shepherd from the hill, + Passed is the sunny sadness of his song, + That song which sang of sight and yet was brave + To lay the ghosts of seeing, subtly strong + To wean from tears and from the troughs to save; +And who shall teach us now that he is still! + + +'TENNYSON' AT THE FARM + +(TO L. AND H.H.) + +O you that dwell 'mid farm and fold, + Yet keep so quick undulled a heart, +I send you here that book of gold, + So loved so long; +The fairest art, + The sweetest English song. + +And often in the far-off town, + When summer sits with open door, +I'll dream I see you set it down + Beside the churn, + +Whose round shall slacken more and more, + Till you forget to turn. + +And I shall smile that you forget, + And Dad will scold--but never mind! +Butter is good, but better yet, + Think such as we, +To leave the farm and fold behind, + And follow such as he. + + +'THE DESK'S DRY WOOD' + +(TO JAMES WELCH) + +Dear Desk, Farewell! I spoke you oft +In phrases neither sweet nor soft, +But at the end I come to see +That thou a friend hast been to me, + No flatterer but very friend. +For who shall teach so well again +The blessed lesson-book of pain, +The truth that souls that would aspire +Must bravely face the scourge and fire, + If they would conquer in the end? +Two days! +Shall I not hug thee very close? +Two days, +And then we part upon our ways. +Ah me! +Who shall possess thee after me? +O pray he be no enemy to poesy, +To gentle maid or gentle dream. + +How have we dreamed together, I and thou, +Sweet dreams that like some incense wrapt us round +The last new book, the last new love, +The last new trysting-ground. +How many queens have ruled and passed +Since first we met; how thick and fast +The letters used to come at first, how thin at last; +Then ceased, and winter for a space! +Until another hand +Brought spring into the land, +And went the seasons' pace. + +And now, Dear Desk, thou knowest for how long time +I have no queen but song: +Yea, thou hast seen the last love fade, and now +Behold the last of many a secret rhyme! + + +A LIBRARY IN A GARDEN + +'A Library in a garden! The phrase seems to contain the whole felicity +of man.'--Mr. EDMUND GOSSE in _Gossip in a Library_. + +A world of books amid a world of green, +Sweet song without, sweet song again within +Flowers in the garden, in the folios too: +O happy Bookman, let me live with you! + + +ON THE MORALS OF POETS + +One says he is immoral, and points out + Warm sin in ruddy specks upon his soul: +Bigot, one folly of the man you flout + Is more to God than thy lean life is whole. + + +FAERY GOLD + +(TO MRS. PERCY DEARMER) + +A poet hungered, as well he might-- +Not a morsel since yesternight! +And sad he grew--good reason why-- +For the poet had nought wherewith to buy. + +'Are not two sparrows sold,' he cried, +'Sold for a farthing? and,' he sighed, +As he pushed his morning post away, +'Are not two sonnets more than they?' + +Yet store of gold, great store had he,-- +Of the gold that is known as 'faery.' +He had the gold of his burning dreams, +He had his golden rhymes--in reams, +He had the strings of his golden lyre, +And his own was that golden west on fire. + +But the poet knew his world too well +To dream that such would buy or sell. +He had his poets, 'pure gold,' he said, +But the man at the bookstall shook his head, +And offered a grudging half-a-crown +For the five the poet had brought him down. + +Ah, what a world we are in! we sigh, +Where a lunch costs more than a Keats can buy, +And even Shakespeare's hallowed line +Falls short of the requisite sum to dine. + +Yet other gold had the poet got, +For see from that grey-blue Gouda pot +Three golden tulips spouting flame-- +From his love, from his love, this morn, they came. +His love he loved even more than fame. + +Three golden tulips thrice more fair +Than other golden tulips were-- +'And yet,' he smiled as he took one up, +And feasted on its yellow cup,-- +'I wonder how many eggs you'd buy! +By Bacchus, I've half a mind to try! +'One golden bloom for one golden yolk-- +Nay, on my word, sir, I mean no joke-- +Gold for gold is fair dealing, sir.' +Think of the grocer gaping there! + +Or the baker, if I went and said, +--'This tulip for a loaf of bread, +God's beauty for your kneaded grain;' + +Or the vintner--'For this flower of mine +A flagon, pray, of yellow wine, +And you shall keep the change for gain.' + +Ah me, on what a different earth +I and these fellows had our birth, +Strange that these golden things should be +For them so poor, so rich for me.' + +Ended his sigh, the poet searched his shelf-- +Seeking another poet to feed himself; +Then sadly went, and, full of shame and grief, +Sold his last Swinburne for a plate of beef. + +Thus poets too, to fill the hungry maw, +Must eat each other--'tis the eternal law. + + +ALL SUNG + +What shall I sing when all is sung, + And every tale is told, +And in the world is nothing young + That was not long since old? + +Why should I fret unwilling ears + With old things sung anew, +While voices from the old dead years + Still go on singing too? + +A dead man singing of his maid + Makes all my rhymes in vain, +Yet his poor lips must fade and fade, + And mine shall kiss again. + +Why should I strive through weary moons + To make my music true? +Only the dead men knew the tunes + The live world dances to. + + +CORYDON'S FAREWELL TO HIS PIPE + +Yea, it is best, dear friends, who have so oft +Fed full my ears with praises sweet and soft, +Sweeter and softer than my song should win, +Too sweet and soft--I must not listen more, +Lest its dear perilous honey make me mad, +And once again an overweening lad +Presume against Apollo. Nay, no more! +'Tis not to pipes like mine sing stars at morn, +Nor stars at night dance in their solemn dance: +Nay, stars! why tell of stars? the very thrush +Putteth my daintiest cunning to the blush +And boasteth him the hedgerow laureate. +Yea, dimmest daisies lost amid the grass, +One might have deemed blessed us for looking at, +Would rather choose,--yea, so it is, alas!-- +The meanest bird that from its tiny throat +Droppeth the pearl of one monotonous note, +Than any music I can bring to pass. + +So, let me go: for, while I linger here, +Piping these dainty ditties for your ear, +To win that dearer honey for my own, +Daylong my Thestylis doth sit alone, +Weeping, mayhap, because the gods have given +Song but not sheep--the rarer gift of heaven; +And little Phyllis solitary grows, +And little Corydon unheeded goes. + +Sheep are the shepherd's business,--let me go,-- +Piping his pastime when the sun is low: +But I, alas! the other order keep, +Piping my business, and forgot my sheep. + +My song that once was as a little sweet +Savouring the daily bread we all must eat, +Lo! it has come to be my only food: +And, as a lover of the Indian weed +Steals to a self-indulgent solitude, +To draw the dreamy sweetness from its root, +So from the strong blithe world of valorous deed +I steal away to suck this singing weed; +And while the morning gathers up its strength, +And while the noonday runneth on in might, +Until the shadows and the evening light +Come and awake me with a fear at length, +Prone in some hankering covert hid away, +Fain am I still my piping to prolong, +And for the largess of a bounteous day +Dare pay my maker with a paltry song. + +Welcome the song that like a trumpet high +Lifts the tired head of battle with its cry, +Welcome the song that from its morning heights +Cheers jaded markets with the health of fields, +Brings down the stars to mock the city lights. +Or up to heaven a shining ladder builds. +But not to me belongeth such a grace, +And, were it mine, 'tis not in amorous shade +To river music that such song is made: +The song that moves the battle on awoke +To the stern rhythm of the swordsman's stroke, +The song that fans the city's weary face +Sprang not afar from out some leafy place, +But bubbled spring-like in its dingiest lane +From out a heart that shared the city's pain; +And he who brings the stars into the street +And builds that shining ladder for our feet, +Dwells in no mystic Abora aloof, +But shares the shelter of the common roof; +He learns great metres from the thunderous hum, +And all his songs pulse to the human beat. + +But I am Corydon, I am not he, +Though I no more that Corydon shall be +To make a sugared comfit of my song. +So now I go, go back to Thestylis-- +How her poor eyes will laugh again for this! +Go back to Thestylis, and no more roam +In melancholy meadows mad to sing, +But teach our little home itself to sing. +Yea, Corydon, now cast thy pipe away--- +See, how it floats upon the stream, and see +There it has gone, and now--away! away! +But O! my pipe, how sweet thou wert to me! + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of English Poems, by Richard Le Gallienne + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 10913 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6906481 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #10913 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10913) diff --git a/old/10913-8.txt b/old/10913-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..043bbbb --- /dev/null +++ b/old/10913-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3011 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of English Poems, by Richard Le Gallienne + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: English Poems + +Author: Richard Le Gallienne + +Release Date: February 2, 2004 [EBook #10913] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH POEMS *** + + + + +Produced by Brendan Lane, carol david and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + + + + +ENGLISH +POEMS + +By + +Richard Le Gallienne + +London: John Lane at The Bodley Head in Vigo Street. + +Boston: Copland & Day +69 Cornhill. + +A.D. 1895. + + +_First Edition + September 1892 + +Second Edition + October 1892 + +Third Edition + January 1894 + +Fourth Edition + Revised April 1895_ + + + +To Sissie Le Gallienne + + + + + +EPISTLE DEDICATORY + +_Dear Sister: Hear the conclusion of the whole matter. You dream like +mad, you love like tinder, you aspire like a star-struck moth--for what? +That you may hive little lyrics, and sell to a publisher for thirty +pieces of silver. + +Hard by us here is a 'bee-farm.' It always reminds me of a publisher's. +The bee has loved a thousand flowers, through a hundred afternoons, he +has filled little sacred cells with the gold of his stolen kisses--for +what? That the whole should be wrenched away and sold at so much 'the +comb'--as though it were a hair-comb. 'Mummy is become merchandise ... +and Pharaoh is sold for balsams.' + +Can we ever forget those old mornings when we rose with the lark, and, +while the earliest sunlight slanted through the sleeping house, stole to +the little bookclad study to read--Heaven bless us!--you, perhaps, Mary +Wollstonecraft, and I, Livy, in a Froben folio of 1531!! + +Will you accept these old verses in memory of those old mornings? Ah, +then came in the sweet o' the year. + +Yours now as then_, + +R. Le G. + +May 14th, 1892. + +CONTENTS + + +_Epistle Dedicatory, + +To the Reader_, + + +I. PAOLO AND FRANCESCA, + +II. YOUNG LOVE-- + + i. Preludes, + + ii. Prelude--'I make this rhyme,' + + iii. 'But, Song, arise thee on a greater wing,' + + iv. Once, + + v. The Two Daffodils, + + vi. 'Why did she marry him?' + + vii. The Lamp and the Star, + + viii. Orbits, + + ix. Never--Ever, + + x. Love's Poor, + + xi. Comfort of Dante, + + xii. A Lost Hour, + + xiii. Met once more, + + xiv. A June Lily, + + xv. Regret + + xvi. Love Afar + + xvii. Canst thou be true across so many miles? + +_Postscript_ + + +III. COR CORDIUM-- + +To my Wife, Mildred + +The Destined Maid: a Prayer + +With some old Love Verses + +In a copy of Mr. Swinburne's _Tristram_ + +Comfort at Parting + +Happy Letter + +Primrose and Violet + +'Juliet and her Romeo,' + +In her Diary + +Two Parables + +A Love Letter + +In the Night + +The Constant Lover + +The Wonder-Child + + +IV. MISCELLANEOUS-- + +The House of Venus + +Satiety + +What of the Darkness? + +Ad Cimmerios + +Old Love Letters + +Death in a London Lodging + +Time Flies + +So soon Tired + +Autumn + +A Frost Fancy + +The World is Wide + +Saint Charles! + +Good-Night + +Beatrice + +A Child's Evensong + +An Epitaph on a Goldfish + +Beauty Accurst + +To a Dead Friend + +Sunset in the City + +The City in Moonlight + + +V. OF POETS AND POETRY-- + +Inscriptions + +The Décadent to his Soul + +To a Poet + +The Passionate Reader to his Poet + +Matthew Arnold + +'Tennyson' at the Farm + +'The Desk's Dry Wood,' + +A Library in a Garden + +On the Morals of Poets + +Faery Gold + +All Sung + +Corydon's Farewell to his Pipe + + + + +ENGLISH POEMS + +TO THE READER + +_Art was a palace once, things great and fair, +And strong and holy, found a temple there: +Now 'tis a lazar-house of leprous men. +O shall me hear an English song again! +Still English larks mount in the merry morn, +An English May still brings an English thorn, +Still English daisies up and down the grass, +Still English love for English lad and lass-- +Yet youngsters blush to sing an English song!_ + +_Thou nightingale that for six hundred years +Sang to the world--O art thou husht at last! +For, not of thee this new voice in our ears, +Music of France that once was of the spheres; +And not of thee these strange green flowers that spring +From daisy roots and seemed to bear a sting_. + +_Thou Helicon of numbers 'undefiled,' +Forgive that 'neath the shadow of thy name, +England, I bring a song of little fame; +Not as one worthy but as loving thee, +Not as a singer, only as a child_. + + + +PAOLO AND FRANCESCA + + +To R.K. Leather +(July 16th, 1892.) + +PAOLO AND FRANCESCA + + It happened in that great Italian land + Where every bosom heateth with a star-- + At Rimini, anigh that crumbling strand + The Adriatic filcheth near and far-- + In that same past where Dante's dream-days are, + That one Francesca gave her youthful gold + Unto an aged carle to bolt and bar; + Though all the love which great young hearts can hold, +How could she give that love unto a miser old? + + Nay! but young Paolo was the happy lad, + A youth of dreaming eye yet dauntless foot, + Who all Francesca's wealth of loving had; + One brave to scale a wall and steal the fruit, + Nor fear because some dotard owned the root; + Yea! one who wore his love like sword on thigh + And kept not all his valour for his lute; + One who could dare as well as sing and sigh. +Ah! then were hearts to love, but they are long gone by. + + Ye lily-wives so happy in the nest, + Whose joy within the gates of duty springs, + Blame not Love's poor, who, if they would be blest, + Must steal what comes to you with marriage rings: + Ye pity the poor lark whose scarce-tried wings + Faint in the net, while still the morning air + With brown free throats of all his brethren sings, + And can it be ye will not pity her, +Whose youth is as a lark all lost to singing there? + + In opportunity of dear-bought joy + Rich were this twain, for old Lanciotto, he + Who was her lord, was brother of her boy, + And in one home together dwelt the three, + With brothers two beside; and he and she + Sat at one board together, in one fane + Their voices rose upon one hymn, ah me! + Beneath one roof each night their limbs had lain, +As now in death they share the one eternal pain. + + As much as common men can love a flower + Unto Lanciotto was Francesca dear, + 'Tis not on such Love wields his jealous power; + And therefore Paolo moved him not to fear, + Though he so green with youth and he so sere. + Nor yet indeed was wrong, the hidden thing + Grew at each heart, unknown of each, a year,-- + Two eggs still silent in the nest through spring, +May draws so near to June, and not yet time to sing! + + Yet oft, indeed, through days that gave no sign + Had but Francesca turned about and read + Paolo's bright eyes that only dared to shine + On the dear gold that glorified her head; + Ere all the light had from their circles fled + And the grey Honour darkened all his face: + They had not come to June and nothing said, + Day followed day with such an even pace, +Nor night succeeded night and left no starry trace. + + Or, surely, had the flower Paolo pressed + In some sweet volume when he put it by. + Told how his mistress drew it to her breast + And called upon his name when none was nigh; + Had but the scarf he kissed with piteous cry + But breathed again its secret unto her, + Or had but one of every little sigh + Each left for each been love's true messenger: +They surely had not kept that winter all the year. + + Yea! love lay hushed and waiting like a seed, + Some laggard of the season still abed + Though the sun calls and gentle zephyrs plead, + And Hope that waited long must deem it dead; + Yet lo! to-morrow sees its shining head + Singing at dawn 'mid all the garden throng: + Ah, had it known, it had been earlier sped-- + Was it for fear of day it slept so long, +Or were its dreams of singing sweeter than the song? + + But what poor flower can symbol all the might + And all the magnitude, great Love, of thee? + Ah, is there aught can image thee aright + In earth or heaven, how great or fair it be? + We watch the acorn grow into the tree, + We watch the patient spark surprise the mine, + But what are oaks to thy Ygdrasil-tree? + What the mad mine's convulsive strength to thine, +That wrecks a world but bids heaven's soaring steeples shine? + + A god that hath no earthly metaphor, + A blinding word that hath no earthly rhyme, + Love! we can only call and no name more; + As the great lonely thunder rolls sublime, + As the great sun doth solitary climb, + And we have but themselves to know them by, + Just so Love stands a stranger amid Time: + The god is there, the great voice speaks on high, +We pray, 'What art thou, Lord?' but win us no reply. + + So in the dark grew Love, but feared to flower, + Dreamed to himself, but never spake a word, + Burned like a prisoned fire from hour to hour, + Sang his dear song like an unheeded bird; + Waiting the summoning voice so long unheard, + Waiting with weary eyes the gracious sign + To bring his rose, and tell the dream he dared, + The tremulous moment when the star should shine, +And each should ask of each, and each should answer + --'Thine.' + + Winter to-day, but lo! to-morrow spring! + They waited long, but oh at last it came, + Came in a silver hush at evening; + Francesca toyed with threads upon a frame, + Hard by young Paolo read of knight and dame + That long ago had loved and passed away: + He had no other way to tell his flame, + She dare not listen any other way-- +But even that was bliss to lovers poor as they. + + The world grew sweet with wonder in the west + The while he read and while she listened there, + And many a dream from out its silken nest + Stole like a curling incense through the air; + Yet looked she not on him, nor did he dare: + But when the lovers kissed in Paradise + His voice sank and he turned his gaze on her, + Like a young bird that flutters ere it flies,-- +And lo! a shining angel called him from her eyes. + + Then from the silence sprang a kiss like flame, + And they hung lost together; while around + The world was changed, no more to be the same + Meadow or sky, no little flower or sound + Again the same, for earth grew holy ground: + While in the silence of the mounting moon + Infinite love throbbed in the straining bound + Of that great kiss, the long-delaying boon, +Granted indeed at last, but ended, ah! so soon. + + As the great sobbing fulness of the sea + Fills to the throat some void and aching cave, + Till all its hollows tremble silently, + Pressed with sweet weight of softly-lapping wave: + So kissed those mighty lovers glad and brave. + And as a sky from which the sun has gone + Trembles all night with all the stars he gave + A firmament of memories of the sun,-- +So thrilled and thrilled each life when that great kiss was done. + + But coward shame that had no word to say + In passion's hour, with sudden icy clang + Slew the bright morn, and through the tarnished day + An iron bell from light to darkness rang: + She shut her ears because a throstle sang, + She dare not hear the little innocent bird, + And a white flower made her poor head to hang-- + To be so white! once she was white as curd, +But now--'Alack!' 'Alack!' She speaks no other word. + + The pearly line on yonder hills afar + Within the dawn, when mounts the lark and sings + By the great angel of the morning star,-- + That was his love, and all free fair fresh things + That move and glitter while the daylight springs: + To thus know love, and yet to spoil love thus! + To lose the dream--O silly beating wings-- + Great dream so splendid and miraculous: +O Lord, O Lord, have mercy, have mercy upon us. + + She turned her mind upon the holy ones + Whose love lost here was love in heaven tenfold, + She thought of Lucy, that most blessed of nuns + Who sent her blue eyes on a plate of gold + To him who wooed her daily for her love-- + 'Mine eyes!' 'Mine eyes!' 'Here,--go in peace, they are!' + But ever love came through the midnight grove, + Young Love, with wild eyes watching from afar, +And called and called and called until the morning star. + + Ah, poor Francesca, 'tis not such as thou + That up the stony steeps of heaven climb; + Take thou thy heaven with thy Paolo now-- + Sweet saint of sin, saint of a deathless rhyme, + Song shall defend thee at the bar of Time, + Dante shall set thy fair young glowing face + On the dark background of his theme sublime, + And Thou and He in your superb disgrace +Still on that golden wind of passion shall embrace. + + * * * * * + + So love this twain, but whither have they passed? + Ah me, that dark must always follow day, + That Love's last kiss is surely kissed at last, + Howe'er so wildly the poor lips may pray: + Merciful God, is there no other way? + And pen, O must thou of the ending write, + The hour Lanciotto found them where they lay, + Folded together, weary with delight, +Within the sumptuous petals of the rose of night. + + Yea, for Lanciotto found them: many an hour + Ere their dear joy had run its doomèd date, + Had they, in silken nook and blossomed bower, + All unsuspect the blessed apple ate, + Who now must grind its core predestinate. + Kiss, kiss, poor losing lovers, nor deny + One little tremor of its bliss, for Fate + Cometh upon you, and the dark is nigh +Where all, unkissed, unkissing, learn at length to lie. + + Bent on some journey of the state's concern + They deemed him, and indeed he rode thereon + But questioned Paolo--'What if he return!' + 'Nay, love, indeed he is securely gone + As thou art surely here, beloved one, + He went ere sundown, and our moon is here-- + A fear, love, in this heart that yet knew none!' + How could he fright that little velvet ear +With last night's dream and all its ghostly fear! + + So did he yield him to her eager breast, + And half forgot, but could not quite forget, + No sweetest kiss could put that fear to rest, + And all its haggard vision chilled him yet; + Their warder moon in nameless trouble set, + There seemed a traitor echo in the place, + A moaning wind that moaned for lovers met, + And once above her head's deep sunk embrace +He saw--Death at the window with his yellow face. + + Had that same dream caught old Lanciotto's reins, + Bent in a weary huddle on his steed, + In darkling haste along the blindfold lanes, + Making a clattering halt in all that speed:-- + 'Fool! fool!' he cried, 'O dotard fool, indeed, + So ho! they wanton while the old man rides,' + And on the night flashed pictures of the deed. + 'Come!'--and he dug his charger's panting sides, +And all the homeward dark tore by in roaring tides. + + As some great lord of acres when a thief + Steals from his park some flower he never sees, + Calls it a lily fair beyond belief, + Prisons the wretch, and fines before he frees; + Such jealous madness did Lanciotto seize: + All in an instant is Francesca dear, + He claims the wife he never cared to please, + All in an instant seems his castle near,-- +And those poor lovers sleep, forgot at last their fear. + + His horse left steaming at his journey's end, + Up through his palace stairs with springing tread + He strode; the silence met him like a friend, + Fain to dissuade him from that deed of dread, + Making a breeze about his burning head, + Laying large hands of comfort on his soul; + Within the ashes of his cheek burned red + A long-shut rose of youth, as to the goal +Of death he sped, as once to love's own tryst he stole. + + He caught a sound as of a rose's breath, + He caught another breath of deeper lung, + Rose-leaves and oak-leaves on the wind of death; + He drew aside the arras where they clung + In the dim light, so lovely and so young-- + They lay in sin as in a cradle there, + Twin babes that in one bosom nestling hung: + Even Lanciotto paused, ah, will he spare? +Who could not quite forgive a wrong that is so fair! + + The grave old clock ticked somewhere in the gloom, + A dozen waiting seconds rose and fell + Ere his pale dagger flickered in the room, + Then quenched its corpse-light in their bosoms' swell-- + 'Thus, dears, I mate you evermore in hell.' + Their blood ran warm about them and they sighed + For the mad smiter did his work too well, + Just drew together softly and so died, +Fell very still and strange, and moved not side by side. + + Yea, moved not, though two hours he watched the twain + And heard their blood drip drip upon the floor, + Twice with stern voice he spake to them again, + And then, a little tenderly, once more,-- + 'Thus, dears, in hell I mate you evermore.' + And when the curious fingers of the day + Unravelled all the dark, and morning wore, + And the young light played round them where they lay, +The souls were many leagues upon the hellward way. + + + + +YOUNG LOVE + +N.B.--_This sequence of poems has appeared in former +editions under the title of 'Love Platonic_.' + + +I + +1 +Surely at last, O Lady, the sweet moon + That bringeth in the happy singing weather +Groweth to pearly queendom, and full soon + Shall Love and Song go hand in hand together; +For all the pain that all too long hath waited + In deep dumb darkness shall have speech at last, +And the bright babe Death gave the Love he mated + Shall leap to light and kiss the weeping past. + +For all the silver morning is a-glimmer + With gleaming spears of great Apollo's host, +And the night fadeth like a spent out swimmer + Hurled from the headlands of some shining coast. +O, happy soul, thy mouth at last is singing, + Drunken with wine of morning's azure deep, +Sing on, my soul, the world beneath thee swinging, + A bough of song above a sea of sleep. + +2 +Who is the lady I sing? + Ah, how can I tell thee her praise +For whom all my life's but the string + Of a rosary painful of days; + +Which I count with a curious smile + As a miser who hoardeth his gain, +Though, a madhearted spendthrift the while, + I but gather to waste again. + +Yea, I pluck from the tree of the years, + As a country maid greedy of flowers, +Each day brimming over with tears, + And I scatter like petals its hours; + +And I trample them under my feet + In a frenzy of cloven-hoofed swine, +And the breath of their dying is sweet, + And the blood of their hearts is as wine. + +O, I throw me low down on the ground + And I bury my face in their death, +And only I rise at the sound + Of a wind as it scattereth, + +As it scattereth sweetly the dried + Leaves withered and brittle and sere +Of days of old years that have died-- + And, O, it is sweet in my ear + +And I rise me and build me a pyre + Of the whispering skeleton things, +And my heart laugheth low with the fire, + Laugheth high with the flame as it springs; + +And above in the flickering glare + I mark me the boughs of my tree, +My tree of the years, growing bare. + Growing bare with the scant days to be. + +Then I turn to my beads and I pray + For the axe at the root of the tree-- +Last flower, last bead--ah! last day + That shall part me, my darling, from thee! + +And I pray for the knife on the string + Of this rosary painful of days: +But who is the Lady I sing? + Ah, how can I tell thee her praise! + + +II + +I make this rhyme of my lady and me +To give me ease of my misery, +Of my lady and me I make this rhyme +For lovers in the after-time. +And I weave its warp from day to day +In a golden loom deep hid away +In my secret heart, where no one goes +But my lady's self, and--no one knows. + +With bended head all day I pore +On a joyless task, and yet before +My eyes all day, through each weary hour, +Breathes my lady's face like a dewy flower. +Like rain it comes through the dusty air, +Like sun on the meadows to think of her; +O sweet as violets in early spring +The flower-girls to the city bring, +O, healing-bright to wintry eyes +As primrose-gold 'neath northern skies-- +But O for fit thing to compare +With the joy I have in the thought of her! +So all day long doth her holy face +Bring fragrance to the barren place, +And whensoe'er it comes nearest me, +My loom it weaveth busily. + +Some days there be when the loom is still +And my soul is sad as an autumn hill, +But how to tell the blessed time +When my heart is one glowing prayer of rhyme! +Think on the humming afternoon +Within some busy wood in June, +When nettle patches, drunk with the sun, +Are fiery outposts of the shade; +While gnats keep up a dizzy reel, +And the grasshopper, perched upon his blade, +Loud drones his fairy threshing-wheel:-- +Hour when some poet-wit might feign +The drowsy tune of the throbbing air +The weaving of the gossamer +In secret nooks of wood and lane-- +The gossamer, silk night-robes of the flowers, +Fluttered apart by amorous morning hours. +Yea, as the weaving of the gossamer, +If truly that the mystic golden boom, +Is the strange rapture of my hidden loom, +As I sit in the light of the thought of her; +And it weaveth, weaveth, day by day, +This parti-coloured roundelay; +Weaving for ease of misery, +Weaving this rhyme of my lady and me, +Weaving, weaving this warp of rhyme +For lovers in the after-time. + +My lady, lover, may never be mine +In the same sweet way that thine is thine, +My lady and I may never stand +By the holy altar hand in hand, +My lady and I may never rest +Through the golden midnight breast to breast, +Nor share long days of happy light +Sweet moving in each other's sight: +Yea, even must we ever miss +The honey of the chastest kiss. + + +III + +But, Song, arise thee on a greater wing, +Nor twitter robin-like of love, nor sing +A pretty dalliance with grief--but try +Some metre like a sky, +Wherein to set +Stars that may linger yet +When I, thy master, shall have come to die. + Twitter and tweet + Thy carollings + Of little things, + Of fair and sweet; + For it is meet, + O robin red! + That little theme + Hath little song, + That little head + Hath little dream, + And long. +But we have starry business, such a grief +As Autumn's, dead by some forgotten sheaf, +While all the distance echoes of the wain; +Grief as an ocean's for some sudden isle +Of living green that stayed with it a while, + Then to oblivious deluge plunged again! +Grief as of Alps that yearn but never reach, + Grief as of Death for Life, of Night for Day: +Such grief, O Song, how hast thou strength to teach, + How hope to make assay? + + +IV + +ONCE + +Once we met, and then there came +Like a Pentecostal flame, + A word; +And I said not, +Only thought, + She heard! +All I never say but sing, +Worshipping; +Wrapt in the hidden tongue +Of an ambiguous song. + +How we met what need to say? + When or where, +Years ago or yesterday, + Here or there. +All the song is--once we met, + She and I; +Once, but never to forget, + Till we die. + +All the song is that we meet + Never now-- +'Hast thou yet forgotten, sweet?' + 'Love, hast thou?' + + +V + +THE DAY OF THE TWO DAFFODILS + +'The daffodils are fine this year,' I said; +'O yes, but see my crocuses,' said she. +And so we entered in and sat at talk +Within a little parlour bowered about +With garden-noises, filled with garden scent, +As some sweet sea-shell rings with pearly chimes +And sighs out fragrance of its mother's breast. + +We sat at talk, and all the afternoon +Whispered about in changing silences +Of flush and sudden light and gathering shade, +As though some Maestro drew out organ stops +Somewhere in heaven. As two within a boat +On the wide sea we sat at talk, the hours +Lapping unheeded round us as the waves. +And as such two will ofttimes pause in speech, +Gaze at high heaven and draw deep to their hearts +The infinite azure, then meet eyes again +And flash it to each other; without words +First, and then with voice trembling as trumpets +Tremble with fierce breath, voice cadenced too +As deep as the deep sea, Aeolian voice, +Voice of star-spaces, and the pine-wood's voice +In dewy mornings, Life's own awful voice: +So did We talk, gazing with God's own eyes +Into Life's deeps--ah, how they throbbed with stars! +And were we not ourselves like pulsing suns +Who, once an aeon met within the void, +So fiery close, forget how far away +Each orbit sweeps, and dream a little space +Of fiery wedding. So our hearts made answering +Lightnings all that afternoon through purple mists +Of riddled speech; and when at last the sun, +Our sentinel, made sign beneath the trees +Of coming night, and we arose and passed +Across the threshold to the flowers again, +We knew a presence walking in the grove, +And a voice speaking through the evening's cool +Unknown before: though Love had wrought no wrong, +His rune was spoken, and another rhyme +Writ in his poem by the master Life. + +'Pray, pluck me some,' I said. She brought me two, +For daffodils were very fine that year,-- +O very fine, but daffodils no more. + + +VI + +WHY DID SHE MARRY HIM? + +Why did she marry him? Ah, say why! + How was her fancy caught? +What was the dream that he drew her by, + Or was she only bought? +Gave she her gold for a girlish whim, + A freak of a foolish mood? +Or was it some will, like a snake in him, + Lay a charm upon her blood? + +Love of his limbs, was it that, think you? + Body of bullock build, +Sap in the bones, and spring in the thew, + A lusty youth unspilled? +But is it so that a maid is won, + Such a maiden maid as she? +Her face like a lily all white in the sun, + For such mere male as he! +Ah, why do the fields with their white and gold + To Farmer Clod belong, +Who though he hath reaped and stacked and sold + Hath never heard their song? +Nay, seek not an answer, comfort ye, + The poet heard their call, +And so, dear Love, will I comfort me-- + He hath thy lease, that's all. + + +VII + +THE LAMP AND THE STAR + +Yea, let me be 'thy bachelere,' + 'Tis sweeter than thy lord; +How should I envy him, my dear, + The lamp upon his board. +Still make his little circle bright +With boon of dear domestic light, + While I afar, +Watching his windows in the night, + Worship a star +For which he hath no bolt or bar. + Yea, dear, + Thy 'bachelere.' + + +VIII + +ORBITS + +Two stars once on their lonely way + Met in the heavenly height, +And they dreamed a dream they might shine alway + With undivided light; +Melt into one with a breathless throe, + And beam as one in the night. + +And each forgot in the dream so strange + How desolately far +Swept on each path, for who shall change + The orbit of a star? +Yea, all was a dream, and they still must go + As lonely as they are. + + +IX + +NEVER--EVER + +My mouth to thy mouth + Ah never, ah never! +My breast from thy breast + Eternities sever; +But my soul to thy soul + For ever and ever. + + +X + +LOVE'S POOR + +Yea, love, I know, and I would have it thus, +I know that not for us +Is springtide Passion with his fire and flowers, +I know this love of ours +Lives not, nor yet may live, +By the dear food that lips and hands can give. +Not, Love, that we in some high dream despise +The common lover's common Paradise; +Ah, God, if Thou and I +But one short hour their blessedness might try, +How could we poor ones teach +Those happy ones who half forget them rich: +For if we thus endure, +'Tis only, love, because we are so poor. + + +XI + +COMFORT OF DANTE + +Down where the unconquered river still flows on, + One strong free thing within a prison's heart, + I drew me with my sacred grief apart, +That it might look that spacious joy upon: +And as I mused, lo! Dante walked with me, + And his face spake of the high peace of pain +Till all my grief glowed in me throbbingly + As in some lily's heart might glow the rain. + +So like a star I listened, till mine eye + Caught that lone land across the water-way + Wherein my lady breathed,--now breathing is-- +'O Dante,' then I said, 'she more than I + Should know thy comfort, go to _her_, I pray.' + 'Nay!' answered he, 'for she hath Beatrice.' + + +XII + +A LOST HOUR + +God gave us an hour for our tears, +One hour out of all the years, +For all the years were another's gold, +Given in a cruel troth of old. + +And how did we spend his boon? + That sweet miraculous flower + Born to die in an hour, +Late born to die so soon. + +Did we watch it with breathless breath + By slow degrees unfold? + Did we taste the innermost heart of it + The honey of each sweet part of it? + Suck all its hidden gold +To the very dregs of its death? + +Nay, this is all we did with our hour-- +We tore it to pieces, that precious flower; +Like any daisy, with listless mirth, +We shed its petals upon the earth; +And, children-like, when it all was done, +We cried unto God for another one. + + +XIII + +MET ONCE MORE + +O Lady, I have looked on thee once more, +Thou too hast looked on me, as thou hadst said, +And though the joy was pain, the pain was bliss, +Bliss that more happy lovers well may miss: +Captives feast richly on a little bread, +So are we very rich who are so poor. + + +XIV + +A JUNE LILY + +[_The poet dramatises his Lady's loneliness_] + +Alone! once more alone! how like a tomb +My little parlour sounds which only now +Yearned like some holy chancel with his voice. +So still! so empty! Surely one might fear +The walls should meet in ruinous collapse +That held no more his music. Yet they stand +Firm in a foolish firmness, meaningless +As frescoed sepulchre some Pharaoh built +But never came to sleep in; built, indeed, +For--that grey moth to flit in like a ghost! + +Alone! another feast-day come and gone, +Watched through the weeks as in my garden there +I watch a seedling grow from blade to bud +Impatient for its blossom. So this day +Has bloomed at last, and we have plucked its flower +And shared its sweetness, and once more the time +Is as that stalk from which but now I plucked +Its last June-lily as a parting sign. +Yea, but he seemed to love it! yet if he +But craved it in deceit of tenderness +To make my heart glow brighter with a lie! +Will it indeed be cherished as he said, +Or will he keep it near his book a while, +And when grown rank forget it in his glass, +And leave it for the maid who dusts his room +To clear away and cast upon the heap? +Or, may be, will he bury it away +In some old drawer with other mummy-flowers? + +Nay, but I wrong thee, dear one, thinking so. +My boy, my love, my poet! Nay, I know +Thy lonely room, tomb-like to thee as mine, +Tomb-like as tomb of some returning ghost +Seems only bright about my lily-flower. +And, mayhap, while I wrong thee thus in thought +Thou bendest o'er it, feigning for some ease +Of parted ache conceits of poet-wit +On petal and on stamen--let me try! +If lilies be alike thine is as this, +I wonder if thy reading tallies too. + +Six petals with a dewdrop in their heart, +Six pure brave years, an ivory cup of tears; +Six pearly-pillared stamens golden-crowned +Growing from out the dewdrop, and a seventh +Soaring alone trilobed and mystic green; +Six pearl-bright years aflower with gold of joy, +Sprung from the heart of those brave tear-fed years: +But what that seventh single stamen is +My little wit must leave for thee to tell. + +But neither poet nor a sibyl thou! +What brave conceit had he, my poet, built; +No jugglery of numbers that mean nought, +That can mean nought for ever, unto us. + + +XV + +REGRET + +One asked of regret, + And I made reply: +To have held the bird, + And let it fly; +To have seen the star + For a moment nigh, +And lost it + Through a slothful eye; +To have plucked the flower + And cast it by; +To have one only hope-- + To die. + + +XVI + +LOVE AFAR + +Love, art thou lonely to-day? + Lost love that I never see, +Love that, come noon or come night, + Comes never to me; +Love that I used to meet + In the hidden past, in the land +Of forbidden sweet. + +Love! do you never miss +The old light in the days? +Does a hand +Come and touch thee at whiles +Like the wand of old smiles, +Like the breath of old bliss? +Or hast thou forgot, +And is all as if not? + +What was it we swore? + 'Evermore! + I and Thou,' +Ah, but Fate held the pen + And wrote N + Just before: + So that now, +See, it stands, +Our seals and our hands, + 'I and Thou, + Nevermore!' + +We said 'It is best!' +And then, dear, I went +And returned not again. +Forgive that I stir, +Like a breath in thy hair, +The old pain, +'Twas unmeant. +I will strive, I will wrest +Iron peace--it _is_ best. + +But, O for thy hand + Just to hold for a space, +For a moment to stand + In the light of thy face; +Translate Then to Now, +To hear 'Is it Thou?' + And reply + 'It is I!' +Then, then I could rest, +Ah, then I could wait + Long and late. + + +XVII + +Canst thou be true across so many miles, + So many days that keep us still apart? +Ah, canst thou live upon remembered smiles, + And ask no warmer comfort for thy heart? + +I call thy name right up into the sky, + Dear name, O surely she shall hear and hark! +Nay, though I toss it singing up so high, + It drops again, like yon returning lark. + +O be a dove, dear name, and find her breast, + There croon and croodle all the lonely day; +Go tell her that I love her still the best, + So many days, so many miles, away. + + +_POSTSCRIPT_ + +_So sang young Love in high and holy dream + Of a white Love that hath no earthly taint, +So rapt within his vision he did seem + Less like a boyish singer than a saint. + +Ah, Boy, it is a dream for life too high, + It is a bird that hath no feet for earth: +Strange wings, strange eyes, go seek another sky + And find thy fellows of an equal birth. + +For many a body-sweet material thing, + What canst thou give us half so dear as these? +We would not soar amid the stars to sing, + Warm and content amid the nested trees. + +Young Seraph, go and lake thy song to heaven, + We would not grow unhappy with our lot, +Leave us the simple love the earth hath given-- + Sing where thou wilt, so that we hear thee not_. + + + + +COR CORDIUM + + +TO MY WIFE, MILDRED + +_Dear wife, there is no word in all my songs +But unto thee belongs: +Though I indeed before our true day came +Mistook thy star in many a wandering flame, +Singing to thee in many a fair disguise, +Calling to thee in many another's name, +Before I knew thine everlasting eyes. + +Faces that fled me like a hunted fawn +I followed singing, deeming it was Thou, +Seeking this face that on our pillow now +Glimmers behind thy golden hair like dawn, +And, like a setting moon, within my breast +Sinks down each night to rest. + +Moon follows moon before the great moon flowers, +Moon of the wild wild honey that is ours; +Long must the tree strive up in leaf and root, +Before it bear the golden-hearted fruit: +And shall great Love at once perfected spring, +Nor grow by steps like any other thing?_ + + +COR CORDIUM + +_The lawless love that would not be denied, +The love that waited, and in waiting died, +The love that met and mated, satisfied. + +Ah, love, 'twas good to climb forbidden walls, +Who would not follow where his Juliet calls? +'Twas good to try and love the angel's way, +With starry souls untainted of the clay; +But, best the love where earth and heaven meet, +The god made flesh and dwelling in us, sweet._ + +(October 22, 1891.) + + +THE DESTINED MAID: A PRAYER + +_(Chant Royal)_ + +O MIGHTY Queen, our Lady of the fire, + The light, the music, and the honey, all +Blent in one Power, one passionate Desire + Man calleth Love--'Sweet love,' the blessed + call--: +I come a sad-eyed suppliant to thy knee, +If thou hast pity, pity grant to me; + If thou hast bounty, here a heart I bring + For all that bounty 'thirst and hungering. +O Lady, save thy grace, there is no way + For me, I know, but lonely sorrowing-- +Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray! + +I lay in darkness, face down in the mire, + And prayed that darkness might become my + pall; +The rabble rout roared round me like some quire + Of filthy animals primordial; +My heart seemed like a toad eternally +Prisoned in stone, ugly and sad as he; + Sweet sunlight seemed a dream, a mythic thing, + And life some beldam's dotard gossiping. +Then, Lady, I bethought me of thy sway, + And hoped again, rose up this prayer to wing-- +Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray! + +Lady, I bear no high resounding lyre + To hymn thy glory, and thy foes appal +With thunderous splendour of my rhythmic ire; + A little lute I lightly touch and small +My skill thereon: yet, Lady, if it be +I ever woke ear-winning melody, + 'Twas for thy praise I sought the throbbing string, + Thy praise alone--for all my worshipping +Is at thy shrine, thou knowest, day by day, + Then shall it be in vain my plaint to sing?-- +Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray! + +Yea! why of all men should this sorrow dire + Unto thy servant bitterly befall? +For, Lady, thou dost know I ne'er did tire + Of thy sweet sacraments and ritual; +In morning meadows I have knelt to thee, +In noontide woodlands hearkened hushedly + Thy heart's warm beat in sacred slumbering, +And in the spaces of the night heard ring +Thy voice in answer to the spheral lay: +Now 'neath thy throne my suppliant life I fling-- +Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray! + +I ask no maid for all men to admire, + Mere body's beauty hath in me no thrall, +And noble birth, and sumptuous attire, + Are gauds I crave not--yet shall have withal, +With a sweet difference, in my heart's own She, +Whom words speak not but eyes know when they + see. + Beauty beyond all glass's mirroring, + And dream and glory hers for garmenting; +Her birth--O Lady, wilt thou say me nay?-- + Of thine own womb, of thine own nurturing-- +Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray! + + +ENVOI + +Sweet Queen who sittest at the heart of spring, +My life is thine, barren or blossoming; + 'Tis thine to flush it gold or leave it grey: +And so unto thy garment's hem I cling-- + Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray. + +(_January_ 13, 1888.) + + +WITH SOME OLD LOVE VERSES + +Dear Heart, this is my book of boyish song, + The changing story of the wandering quest + That found at last its ending in thy breast-- +The love it sought and sang astray so long +With wild young heart and happy eager tongue. + Much meant it all to me to seek and sing, + Ah, Love, but how much more to-day to bring +This 'rhyme that first of all he made when young.' + +Take it and love it, 'tis the prophecy + For whose poor silver thou hast given me gold; + Yea! those old faces for an hour seemed fair + Only because some hints of Thee they were: + Judge then, if I so loved weak types of old, +How good, dear Heart, the perfect gift of Thee. + + +IN A COPY OF MR. SWINBURNE'S +_TRISTRAM OF LYONESSE_ + +Dear Heart, what thing may symbolise for us + A love like ours, what gift, whate'er it be, + Hold more significance 'twixt thee and me +Than paltry words a truth miraculous; +Or the poor signs that in astronomy + Tell giant splendours in their gleaming might: + Yet love would still give such, as in delight +To mock their impotence--so this for thee. + +This song for thee! our sweetest honeycomb + Of lovesome thought and passion-hearted rhyme, + Builded of gold and kisses and desire, + By that wild poet who so many a time + Our hungering lips have blessed, until a fire +Burnt speech up and the wordless hour had come. + + +COMFORT AT PARTING + +O little Heart, +So much I see +Thy hidden smart, +So much I long +To sing some song +To comfort thee. + +For, little Heart, +Indeed, indeed, +The hour to part +Makes cruel speed; +Yet, dear, think thou +How even now, +With happy haste, +With eager feet, +The hour when we +Again shall meet +Cometh across the waste. + + +HAPPY LETTER + +Fly, little note, +And know no rest +Till warm you lie +Within that nest +Which is her breast; +Though why to thee +Such joy should be +Who carest not, +While I must wait +Here desolate, +I cannot wot. +O what I 'd do +To come with you! + + +PRIMROSE AND VIOLET + +Primrose and Violet-- +May they help thee to forget +All that love should not remember, +Sweet as meadows after rain +When the sun has come again, +As woods awakened from December. +How they wash the soul from stain! +How they set the spirit free! +Take them, dear, and pray for me. + + +'JULIET AND HER ROMEO' + +_(With Mr. Dicksee's Picture)_ + +Take 'this of Juliet and her Romeo,' + Dear Heart of mine, for though yon budding sky +Yearns o'er Verona, and so long ago + That kiss was kissed; yet surely Thou and I, +Surely it is, whom morning tears apart, + As ruthless men tear tendrilled ivy down: + Is not Verona warm within thy gown, +And Mantua all the world save where thou art? + +O happy grace of lovers of old time, + Living to love like gods, and dead to live + Symbols and saints for us who follow them; + Even bitter Death must sweets to lovers give: + See how they wear their tears for diadem, +Throned on the star of an unshaken rhyme. + + +IN HER DIARY + +Go, little book, and be the looking-glass + Of her dear soul, +The mirror of her moments as they pass, + Keeping the whole; +Wherein she still may look on yesterday + To-day to cheer, +And towards To-morrow pass upon her way + Without a fear. +For yesterday hath never won a crown, + However fair, +But that To-day a better for its own + Might win and wear; +And yesterday hath never joyed a joy, + However sweet, +That this To-day or that To-morrow too + May not repeat. +Think too, To-day is trustee for to-morrow, + And present pain +That's bravely borne shall ease the future sorrow + Nor cry in vain +'Spare us To-day, To-morrow bring the rod,' + For then again +To-morrow from To-morrow still shall borrow, + A little ease to gain: +But bear to-day whate'er To-day may bring, +'Tis the one way to make To-morrow sing. + + + + +PARABLES + + +I + +Dear Love, you ask if I be true, + If other women move +The heart that only beats for you + With pulses all of love. + +Out in the chilly dew one morn + I plucked a wild sweet rose, +A little silver bud new-born + And longing to unclose. + +I took it, loving new-born things, + I knew my heart was warm, +'O little silver rose, come in + And shelter from the storm.' + +And soon, against my body pressed, + I felt its petals part, +And, looking down within my breast + I saw its golden heart. + +O such a golden heart it has, + Your eyes may never see, +To others it is always shut, + It opens but for me. + +But that is why you see me pass + The honeysuckle there, +And leave the lilies in the grass, + Although they be so fair; + +Why the strange orchid half-accurst-- + Circe of flowers she grows-- +Can tempt me not: see! in my heart, + Silver and gold, my rose. + + +II + +Deep in a hidden lane we were, + My little love and I; +When lo! as we stood kissing there-- + A flower against the sky! + +Frail as a tear its beauty hung-- + O spare it, little hand. +But innocence like its, alas! + Desire may not withstand. + +And so I clambered up the bank + And threw the blossom down, +But we were sadder for its sake + As we walked back to town. + + +A LOVE-LETTER + +Darling little woman, just a little line, + Just a little silver word +For that dear gold of thine, + Only a whisper you have so often heard: + +Only such a whisper as hidden in a shell + Holds a little breath of all the mighty sea, +But think what a little of all its depth and swell, + And think what a little is this little note of me. + +'Darling, I love thee, that is all I live for'-- + There is the whisper stealing from the shell, +But here is the ocean, O so deep and boundless, + And each little wave with its whisper as well. + + +IN THE NIGHT + + 'Kiss me, dear Love!'-- +But there was none to hear, + Only the darkness round about my bed + And hollow silence, for thy face had fled, +Though in my dreaming it had come so near. + +I slept again and it came back to me, + Burning within the hollow arch of night + Like some fair flame of sacrificial light, +And all my soul sprang up to mix with thee-- + 'Kiss me, my love! +Ah, Love, thy face how fair!' +So did I cry, but still thou wert not there. + + +THE CONSTANT LOVER + +I see fair women all the day, + They pass and pass--and go; +I almost dream that they are shades + Within a shadow-show. + +Their beauty lays no hand on me, + They talk--- I hear no word; +I ask my eyes if they have seen, + My ears if they have heard. + +For why--within the north countree + A little maid, I know, +Is waiting through the days for me, + Drear days so long and slow. + + +THE WONDER-CHILD + +'Our little babe,' each said, 'shall be +Like unto thee'--'Like unto _thee_!' + 'Her mother's'--'Nay, his father's'--'eyes,' + 'Dear curls like thine'--but each replies, +'As thine, all thine, and nought of me.' + +What sweet solemnity to see +The little life upon thy knee, + And whisper as so soft it lies,-- + 'Our little babe!' + +For, whether it be he or she, +A David or a Dorothy, + 'As mother fair,' or 'father wise,' + Both when it's 'good,' and when it cries, +One thing is certain,--it will be + _Our_ little babe. + + + + +MISCELLANEOUS + + +THE HOUSE OF VENUS + +Not that Queen Venus of adulterous fame, +Whose love was lust's insatiable flame-- +Not hers the house I would be singer in +Whose loose-lipped servants seek a weary sin: +But mine the Venus of that morning flood +With all the dawn's young passion in her blood, +With great blue eyes and unpressed bosom sweet. +Her would I sing, and of the shy retreat +Where Love first kissed her wondering maidenhood, +And He and She first stood, with eyes afraid, +In the most golden House that God has made. + + +SATIETY + +The heart of the rose--how sweet + Its fragrance to drain, + Till the greedy brain + Reels and grows faint + With the garnered scent, +Reels as a dream on its silver feet. + +Sweet thus to drain--then to sleep: + For, beware how you stay + Till the joy pass away, + And the jaded brain + Seeketh fragrance in vain, +And hates what it may not reap. + + +WHAT OF THE DARKNESS? + +What of the darkness? Is it very fair? +Are there great calms and find ye silence there? +Like soft-shut lilies all your faces glow +With some strange peace our faces never know, +With some great faith our faces never dare. +Dwells it in Darkness? Do you find it there? + +Is it a Bosom where tired heads may lie? +Is it a Mouth to kiss our weeping dry? +Is it a Hand to still the pulse's leap? +Is it a Voice that holds the runes of sleep? +Day shows us not such comfort anywhere. +Dwells it in Darkness? Do you find it there? + +Out of the Day's deceiving light we call, +Day that shows man so great and God so small, +That hides the stars and magnifies the grass; +O is the Darkness too a lying glass, +Or, undistracted, do you find truth there? +What of the Darkness? Is it very fair? + + +AD CIMMERIOS + +(_A Prefatory Sonnet for_ SANTA LUCIA_, the Misses Hodgkin's +Magazine for the Blind)_ + +We, deeming day-light fair, and loving well + Its forms and dyes, and all the motley play + Of lives that win their colour from the day, +Are fain some wonder of it all to tell +To you that in that elder kingdom dwell + Of Ancient Night, and thus we make assay + Day to translate to Darkness, so to say, +To talk Cimmerian for a little spell. + +Yet, as we write, may we not doubt lest ye + Should smile on us, as once our fathers smiled, + When we made vaunt of joys they knew no more; +Knowing great dreams young eyes can never see, + Dwelling in peace unguessed of any child-- + Will ye smile thus upon our daylight lore? + + +OLD LOVE-LETTERS + +You ask and I send. It is well, yea! best: + A lily hangs dead on its stalk, ah me! +A dream hangs dead on a life it blest. + Shall it flaunt its death where sad eyes may see + In the cold dank wind of our memory? +Shall we watch it rot like an empty nest? + Love's ghost, poor pitiful mockery-- +Bury these shreds and behold it shall rest. + +And shall life fail if one dream be sped? + For loss of one bloom shall the lily pass? + Nay, bury these deep round the roots, for so + In soil of old dreams do the new dreams grow, + New 'Hail' is begot of the old 'Alas.' +See, here are our letters, so sweet--so dead. + + +DEATH IN A LONDON LODGING + +'Yes, Sir, she's gone at last--'twas only five minutes ago +We heard her sigh from her corner,--she sat in the kitchen, you know: +We were all just busy on breakfast, John cleaning the boots, and I +Had just gone into the larder--but you could have heard that sigh +Right up in the garret, sir, for it seemed to pass one by +Like a puff of wind--may be 'twas her soul, who knows-- +And we all looked up and ran to her--just in time to see her head +Was sinking down on her bosom and "she's gone at last," I said.' + +So Mrs. Pownceby, meeting on the stairs +Her second-floor lodger, me, bound citywards, +Told of her sister's death, doing her best +To match her face's colour with the news: +While I in listening made a running gloss +Beneath her speech of all she left unsaid. + As--'in the kitchen,' _rather in the way,_ +_Poor thing_; 'busy on breakfast,' _awkward time_, +_Indeed, for one must live and lodgers' meals_, +_You know, must be attended to what comes_-- +(Or goes, I added for her) _yes! indeed_. +'"She's gone at last," I said,' _and better perhaps_, +_For what had life for her but suffering?_ +_And then, we're only poor, sir, John and I_, +_And she indeed was somewhat of a strain_: +_O! yes, it's for the best for all of us_. +And still beneath all else methought I read +'_What will the lodgers think, having the dead_ +_Within the house! how inconvenient!_' + +What did the lodgers think? Well, I replied +In grief's set phrase, but 'the first floor,' +I fancy, frowned at first, as though indeed +Landladies' sisters had no right to die +And taint the air for nervous lodger folk; +Then smoothed his brow out into decency, +And said, 'how sad!' and presently inquired +The day of burial, ending with the hope +His lunch would not be late like yesterday. +The maiden-lady living near the roof +Quoted Isaiah may be, or perhaps Job-- +How the Lord gives, and likewise takes away, +And how exceeding blessed is the Lord!-- +For she has pious features; while downstairs +Two 'medicals'--both 'decent' lads enough-- +Hearkened the story out like gentlemen, +And said the right thing--almost looked it too! +Though all the while within them laughed a sea +Of student mirth, which for full half an hour +They stifled well, but then could hold no more, +As soon their mad piano testified: +While in the kitchen dinner was toward +With hiss and bubble from the cooking stove, +And now a laugh from John ran up the stairs, +And a voice called aloud--of boiling pans. + +'So soon,' reflected I, 'the waters of life +Close o'er the sunken head!' Reflected _I_, +Not that in truth I was more pitiful +To the poor dead than those about me were, +Nay, but a trick of thinking much on Life +And Death i' the piece giveth each little strand +More deep significance--love for the whole +Must make us tender for the parts, methinks, +As in some souls the equal law holds true, +Sorrow for one makes sorrow for the world. +A fallen leaf or a dead flower indeed +Has made me just as sad, or some poor bee +Dead in the early summer--what's the odds? +Death was at '48,' and yet what sign? +Who seemed to know? who could have known that called? +For not a blind was lower than its wont-- +'The lodgers would not like them down,' you know-- +And in all rooms, save one, the boisterous life +Blazed like the fires within the several grates-- +Save one where lay the poor dead silent thing, +A closest chill as who hath sat at night +With love beside the ingle knows the ashes +In the morning. + + Death was at '48,' +Yet Life and Love and Sunlight were there too. +I ate and slept, and morning came at length +And brought my Lady's letter to my bed: +Thrice read and thirty kisses, came a thought, +As the sweet morning laughed about the room +Of the poor face downstairs, the sunshine there +Playing about it like a wakeful child +Whose weary mother sleepeth in the dawn, +Pressing soft fingers round about the eyes +To make them open, then with laughing shout +Making a gambol all her body's length +Ah me! poor eyes that never open more! +And mine as blithe to meet the morning's glance +As thirsty lips to close on thirsty lips! +Poor limbs no sun could ever warm again! +And mine so eager for the coming day! + + +TIME FLIES + +On drives the road--another mile! and still +Time's horses gallop down the lessening hill +O why such haste, with nothing at the end! +Fain are we all, grim driver, to descend +And stretch with lingering feet the little way +That yet is ours--O stop thy horses, pray! + +Yet, sister dear, if we indeed had grace +To win from Time one lasting halting-place, +Which out of all life's valleys would we choose, +And, choosing--which with willingness would lose? +Would we as children be content to stay, +Because the children are as birds all day; + +Or would we still as youngling lovers kiss, +Fearing the ardours of the greater bliss? +The maid be still a maid and never know +Why mothers love their little blossoms so +Or can the mother be content her bud +Shall never open out of babyhood? + +Ah yes, Time flies because we fain would fly, +It is such ardent souls as you and I, +Greedy of living, give his wings to him-- +And now we grumble that he uses them! + + +SO SOON TIRED! + + Am I so soon grown tired?--yet this old sky + Can open still each morn so blue an eye, + This great old river still through nights and days + Run like a happy boy to holidays, + This sun be still a bridegroom, though long wed, + And still those stars go singing up the night, + Glad as yon lark there splashing in the light: + Are these old things indeed unwearied, +Yet I, so soon grown tired, would creep away to bed! + + +AUTUMN + +The year grows still again, the surging wake + Of full-sailed summer folds its furrows up, + As after passing of an argosy + Old Silence settles back upon the sea, + And ocean grows as placid as a cup. + Spring, the young morn, and Summer, the strong noon, +Have dreamed and done and died for Autumn's sake: + Autumn that finds not for a loss so dear + Solace in stack and garner hers too soon-- + Autumn, the faithful widow of the year. + +Autumn, a poet once so full of song, + Wise in all rhymes of blossom and of bud, +Hath lost the early magic of his tongue, + And hath no passion in his failing blood. +Hear ye no sound of sobbing in the air? + 'Tis his. Low bending in a secret lane, +Late blooms of second childhood in his hair, + He tries old magic, like a dotard mage; + Tries spell and spell, to weep and try again: +Yet not a daisy hears, and everywhere + The hedgerow rattles like an empty cage. + +He hath no pleasure in his silken skies, + Nor delicate ardours of the yellow land; +Yea, dead, for all its gold, the woodland lies, + And all the throats of music filled with sand. +Neither to him across the stubble field + May stack nor garner any comfort bring, + Who loveth more this jasmine he hath made, + The little tender rhyme he yet can sing, +Than yesterday, with all its pompous yield, + Or all its shaken laurels on his head. + + +A FROST FANCY + +Summer gone, +Winter here; +Ways are white, +Skies are clear. +And the sun +A ruddy boy +All day sliding, +While at night +The stars appear +Like skaters gliding +On a mere. + + +THE WORLD IS WIDE + +The world is wide--around yon court, + Where dirty little children play, +Another world of street on street + Grows wide and wider every day. + +And round the town for endless miles + A great strange land of green is spread-- +O wide the world, O weary-wide, + But it is wider overhead. + +For could you mount yon glittering stairs + And on their topmost turret stand,-- +Still endless shining courts and squares, + And lanes of lamps on every hand. + +And, might you tread those starry streets + To where those long perspectives bend, +O you would cast you down and die-- + Street upon street, world without end. + + +SAINT CHARLES + +'"Saint Charles," said Thackeray to me, thirty years ago, putting one of +Charles Lamb's letters to his forehead.'--LETTERS OF EDWARD FITZGERALD. + +Saint Charles! ah yes, let other men +Love Elia for his antic pen, +And watch with dilettante eyes +His page for every quaint surprise, +Curious of _caviare_ phrase. +Yea; these who will not also praise? +We surely must, but which is more +The motley that his sorrow wore, +Or the great heart whose valorous beat +Upheld his brave unfaltering feet +Along the narrow path he chose, +And followed faithful to the close? + +Yea, Elia, thank thee for thy wit, +How poor our laughter, lacking it! +For all thy gillyflowers of speech +Gramercy, Elia; but most rich +Are we, most holpen, when we meet +Thee and thy Bridget in the street, +Upon that tearful errand set-- +So often trod, so patient yet! + + +GOOD-NIGHT + +(AFTER THE NORWEGIAN OF ROSENCRANTZ JOHNSEN) + +Midnight, and through the blind the moonlight stealing + On silver feet across the sleeping room, +Ah, moonlight, what is this thou art revealing-- + Her breast, a great sweet lily in the gloom. + +It is their bed, white little isle of bliss + In the dark wilderness of midnight sea,-- +Hush! 'tis their hearts still beating from the kiss, + The warm dark kiss that only night may see. + +Their cheeks still burn, they close and nestle yet, + Ere, with faint breath, they falter out good-night, +Her hand in his upon the coverlet + Lies in the silver pathway of the light. + +(LILLEHAMMER, _August_ 22, 1892.) + + +BEATRICE + +(FOR THE BEATRICE CELEBRATION, 1890) + +Nine mystic revolutions of the spheres + Since Dante's birth, and lo! a star new-born + Shining in heaven: and like a lark at morn +Springing to meet it, straight in all men's ears, +A strange new song, which through the listening years + Grew deep as lonely sobbing from the thorn + Rising at eve, shot through with bitter scorn, +Full-throated with the ecstasy of tears. + +Long since that star arose, that song upsprang, + That shine and sing in heaven above us yet; + Since thy white childhood, glorious Beatrice, + Dawned like a blessed angel upon his: + Thy star it was that did his song beget, +Star shining for us still because he sang. + + +A CHILD'S EVENSONG + +The sun is weary, for he ran + So far and fast to-day; +The birds are weary, for who sang + So many songs as they? +The bees and butterflies at last + Are tired out, for just think too +How many gardens through the day + Their little wings have fluttered through. + And so, as all tired people do, +They've gone to lay their sleepy heads +Deep deep in warm and happy beds. +The sun has shut his golden eye +And gone to sleep beneath the sky, +The birds and butterflies and bees +Have all crept into flowers and trees, +And all lie quiet, still as mice, +Till morning comes--like father's voice. + +So Geoffrey, Owen, Phyllis, you +Must sleep away till morning too. +Close little eyes, down little heads, +And sleep--sleep--sleep in happy beds. + + +AN EPITAPH ON A GOLDFISH + +(WITH APOLOGIES TO ARIEL) + +Five inches deep Sir Goldfish lies, + Here last September was he laid, +Poppies these that were his eyes, + Of fish-bones were these bluebells made. +His fins of gold that to and fro +Waved and waved so long ago, +Still as petals wave and wave +To and fro above his grave. +Hearken too! for so his knell +Tolls all day each tiny bell. + + +BEAUTY ACCURST + +I am so fair that wheresoe'er I wend + Men yearn with strange desire to kiss my face, +Stretch out their hands to touch me as I pass, + And women follow me from place to place. + +A poet writing honey of his dear + Leaves the wet page,--ah! leaves it long to dry. +The bride forgets it is her marriage-morn, + The bridegroom too forgets as I go by. + +Within the street where my strange feet shall stray + All markets hush and traffickers forget, +In my gold head forget their meaner gold, + The poor man grows unmindful of his debt. + +Two lovers kissing in a secret place, + Should I draw nigh,--will never kiss again; +I come between the king and his desire, + And where I am all loving else is vain. + +Lo! when I walk along the woodland way + Strange creatures leer at me with uncouth love, +And from the grass reach upward to my breast, + And to my mouth lean from the boughs above. + +The sleepy kine move round me in desire + And press their oozy lips upon my hair, +Toads kiss my feet and creatures of the mire, + The snails will leave their shells to watch me there. + +But all this worship, what is it to me? + I smite the ox and crush the toad in death: +I only know I am so very fair, + And that the world was made to give me breath. + +I only wait the hour when God shall rise + Up from the star where he so long hath sat, +And bow before the wonder of my eyes + And set _me_ there--I am so fair as that. + + +TO A DEAD FRIEND + +And is it true indeed, and must you go, + Set out alone across that moorland track, +No love avail, though we have loved you so, + No voice have any power to call you back? +And losing hands stretch after you in vain, + And all our eyes grow empty for your lack, +Nor hands, nor eyes, know aught of you again. + +Dear friend, I shed no tear while yet you stayed, + Nor vexed your soul with unavailing word, +But you are gone, and now can all be said, + And tear and sigh too surely fall unheard. +So long I kept for you an undimmed eye, + Surely for grief this hour may well be spared, +Though could you know I still must keep it dry. + +For what can tears avail you? the spring rain + That softly pelts the lattice, as with flowers, +Will of its tears a daisied counterpane + Weave for your rest, and all its sound of showers +Makes of its sobbing low a cradle song: + All tears avail but these salt tears of ours, +These tears alone 'tis idle to prolong. + +Yet must we shed them, barren though they be, + Though bloom nor burden answer as they flow, +Though no sun shines that our sad eyes can see + To throw across their fall hope's radiant bow. +Poor selfish tears! we weep them not for him, + 'Tis our own sorrow that we pity so, +'Tis our own loss that leaves our eyes so dim. + + +SUNSET IN THE CITY + +Above the town a monstrous wheel is turning, + With glowing spokes of red, +Low in the west its fiery axle burning; + And, lost amid the spaces overhead, +A vague white moth, the moon, is fluttering. + +Above the town an azure sea is flowing, + 'Mid long peninsulas of shining sand, +From opal unto pearl the moon is growing, + Dropped like a shell upon the changing strand. + +Within the town the streets grow strange and haunted, + And, dark against the western lakes of green, +The buildings change to temples, and unwonted + Shadows and sounds creep in where day has been. + +Within the town, the lamps of sin are flaring, + Poor foolish men that know not what ye are! +Tired traffic still upon his feet is faring-- + Two lovers meet and kiss and watch a star. + + +THE CITY IN MOONLIGHT + +Dear city in the moonlight dreaming, + How changed and lovely is your face; +Where is the sordid busy scheming + That filled all day the market-place? + +Was it but fancy that a rabble + Of money-changers bought and sold, +Filling with sacrilegious babble + This temple-court of solemn gold? + +Ah no, poor captive-slave of Croesus, + His bond-maid all the toiling day, +You, like some hunted child of Jesus, + Steal out beneath the moon to pray. + + + + +OF POETS AND POETRY + +To James Ashcroft Noble, + +Poet and Critic, a small acknowledgment of much +unforgotten kindness + + + +INSCRIPTIONS + +Poet, a truce to your song! + Have you heard the heart sing? + Like a brook among trees, + Like the humming of bees, + Like the ripple of wine: +Had you heard, would you stay +Blowing bubbles so long? +You have ears for the spheres-- + Have you heard the heart sing? + + * * * * * + +Have you loved the good books of the world,-- + And written none? +Have you loved the great poet,-- + And burnt your little rhyme? +'O be my friend, and teach me to be thine.' + + * * * * * + +By many hands the work of God is done, +Swart toil, pale thought, flushed dream, he spurneth none: +Yea! and the weaver of a little rhyme +Is seen his worker in his own full time. + + +THE DÉCADENT TO HIS SOUL + +The Décadent was speaking to his soul-- +Poor useless thing, he said, +Why did God burden me with such as thou? +The body were enough, +The body gives me all. + +The soul's a sort of sentimental wife +That prays and whimpers of the higher life, +Objects to latch-keys, and bewails the old, +The dear old days, of passion and of dream, +When life was a blank canvas, yet untouched +Of the great painter Sin. + +Yet, little soul, thou hast fine eyes, +And knowest fine airy motions, +Hast a voice-- +Why wilt thou so devote them to the church? + +His face grew strangely sweet-- +As when a toad smiles. +He dreamed of a new sin: +An incest 'twixt the body and the soul. + +He drugged his soul, and in a house of sin +She played all she remembered out of heaven +For him to kiss and clip by. +He took a little harlot in his hands, +And she made all his veins like boiling oil, +Then that grave organ made them cool again. + +Then from that day, he used his soul +As bitters to the over dulcet sins, +As olives to the fatness of the feast-- +She made those dear heart-breaking ecstasies +Of minor chords amid the Phrygian flutes, +She sauced his sins with splendid memories, +Starry regrets and infinite hopes and fears; +His holy youth and his first love +Made pearly background to strange-coloured vice. + +Sin is no sin when virtue is forgot. +It is so good in sin to keep in sight +The white hills whence we fell, to measure by-- +To say I was so high, so white, so pure, +And am so low, so blood-stained and so base; +I revel here amid the sweet sweet mire +And yonder are the hills of morning flowers; +So high, so low; so lost and with me yet; +To stretch the octave 'twixt the dream and deed, +Ah, that's the thrill! +To dream so well, to do so ill,-- +There comes the bitter-sweet that makes the sin. + +First drink the stars, then grunt amid the mire, +So shall the mire have something of the stars, +And the high stars be fragrant of the mire. + +The Décadent was speaking to his soul-- +Dear witch, I said the body was enough. +How young, how simple as a suckling child! +And then I dreamed--'an incest 'twixt the body and the soul:' +Let's wed, I thought, the seraph with the dog, +And wait the purple thing that shall be born. + +And now look round--seest thou this bloom? +Seven petals and each petal seven dyes, +The stem is gilded and the root in blood: +That came of thee. +Yea, all my flowers were single save for thee. +I pluck seven fruits from off a single tree, +I pluck seven flowers from off a single stem, +I light my palace with the seven stars, +And eat strange dishes to Gregorian chants: +All thanks to thee. + +But the soul wept with hollow hectic face, +Captive in that lupanar of a man. + +And I who passed by heard and wept for both,-- +The man was once an apple-cheek dear lad, +The soul was once an angel up in heaven. + +O let the body be a healthy beast, +And keep the soul a singing soaring bird; +But lure thou not the soul from out the sky +To pipe unto the body in the sty. + + +TO A POET + +As one, the secret lover of a queen, + Watches her move within the people's eye, + Hears their poor chatter as she passes by, +And smiles to think of what his eyes have seen; +The little room where love did 'shut them in,' + The fragrant couch whereon they twain did lie, + And rests his hand where on his heart doth die +A bruised daffodil of last night's sin: + +So, Poet, as I read your rhyme once more + Here where a thousand eyes may read it too, + I smile your own sweet secret smile at those + Who deem the outer petals of the rose + The rose's heart--I, who through grace of you, +Have known it for my own so long before. + + +THE PASSIONATE READER TO HIS POET + +Doth it not thrill thee, Poet, + Dead and dust though thou art, +To feel how I press thy singing + Close to my heart?-- + +Take it at night to my pillow, + Kiss it before I sleep, +And again when the delicate morning + Beginneth to peep? + +See how I bathe thy pages + Here in the light of the sun, +Through thy leaves, as a wind among roses, + The breezes shall run. + +Feel how I take thy poem + And bury within it my face, +As I pressed it last night in the heart of + a flower, + Or deep in a dearer place. + +Think, as I love thee, Poet, + A thousand love beside, +Dear women love to press thee too + Against a sweeter side. + +Art thou not happy, Poet? + I sometimes dream that I +For such a fragrant fame as thine + Would gladly sing and die. + +Say, wilt thou change thy glory + For this same youth of mine? +And I will give my days i' the sun + For that great song of thine. + + +MATTHEW ARNOLD + +(DIED, APRIL 15, 1888) + +Within that wood where thine own scholar strays, + O! Poet, thou art passed, and at its bound + Hollow and sere we cry, yet win no sound +But the dark muttering of the forest maze +We may not tread, nor pierce with any gaze; + And hardly love dare whisper thou hast found + That restful moonlit slope of pastoral ground +Set in dark dingles of the songful ways. + +Gone! they have called our shepherd from the hill, + Passed is the sunny sadness of his song, + That song which sang of sight and yet was brave + To lay the ghosts of seeing, subtly strong + To wean from tears and from the troughs to save; +And who shall teach us now that he is still! + + +'TENNYSON' AT THE FARM + +(TO L. AND H.H.) + +O you that dwell 'mid farm and fold, + Yet keep so quick undulled a heart, +I send you here that book of gold, + So loved so long; +The fairest art, + The sweetest English song. + +And often in the far-off town, + When summer sits with open door, +I'll dream I see you set it down + Beside the churn, + +Whose round shall slacken more and more, + Till you forget to turn. + +And I shall smile that you forget, + And Dad will scold--but never mind! +Butter is good, but better yet, + Think such as we, +To leave the farm and fold behind, + And follow such as he. + + +'THE DESK'S DRY WOOD' + +(TO JAMES WELCH) + +Dear Desk, Farewell! I spoke you oft +In phrases neither sweet nor soft, +But at the end I come to see +That thou a friend hast been to me, + No flatterer but very friend. +For who shall teach so well again +The blessed lesson-book of pain, +The truth that souls that would aspire +Must bravely face the scourge and fire, + If they would conquer in the end? +Two days! +Shall I not hug thee very close? +Two days, +And then we part upon our ways. +Ah me! +Who shall possess thee after me? +O pray he be no enemy to poesy, +To gentle maid or gentle dream. + +How have we dreamed together, I and thou, +Sweet dreams that like some incense wrapt us round +The last new book, the last new love, +The last new trysting-ground. +How many queens have ruled and passed +Since first we met; how thick and fast +The letters used to come at first, how thin at last; +Then ceased, and winter for a space! +Until another hand +Brought spring into the land, +And went the seasons' pace. + +And now, Dear Desk, thou knowest for how long time +I have no queen but song: +Yea, thou hast seen the last love fade, and now +Behold the last of many a secret rhyme! + + +A LIBRARY IN A GARDEN + +'A Library in a garden! The phrase seems to contain the whole felicity +of man.'--Mr. EDMUND GOSSE in _Gossip in a Library_. + +A world of books amid a world of green, +Sweet song without, sweet song again within +Flowers in the garden, in the folios too: +O happy Bookman, let me live with you! + + +ON THE MORALS OF POETS + +One says he is immoral, and points out + Warm sin in ruddy specks upon his soul: +Bigot, one folly of the man you flout + Is more to God than thy lean life is whole. + + +FAERY GOLD + +(TO MRS. PERCY DEARMER) + +A poet hungered, as well he might-- +Not a morsel since yesternight! +And sad he grew--good reason why-- +For the poet had nought wherewith to buy. + +'Are not two sparrows sold,' he cried, +'Sold for a farthing? and,' he sighed, +As he pushed his morning post away, +'Are not two sonnets more than they?' + +Yet store of gold, great store had he,-- +Of the gold that is known as 'faery.' +He had the gold of his burning dreams, +He had his golden rhymes--in reams, +He had the strings of his golden lyre, +And his own was that golden west on fire. + +But the poet knew his world too well +To dream that such would buy or sell. +He had his poets, 'pure gold,' he said, +But the man at the bookstall shook his head, +And offered a grudging half-a-crown +For the five the poet had brought him down. + +Ah, what a world we are in! we sigh, +Where a lunch costs more than a Keats can buy, +And even Shakespeare's hallowed line +Falls short of the requisite sum to dine. + +Yet other gold had the poet got, +For see from that grey-blue Gouda pot +Three golden tulips spouting flame-- +From his love, from his love, this morn, they came. +His love he loved even more than fame. + +Three golden tulips thrice more fair +Than other golden tulips were-- +'And yet,' he smiled as he took one up, +And feasted on its yellow cup,-- +'I wonder how many eggs you'd buy! +By Bacchus, I've half a mind to try! +'One golden bloom for one golden yolk-- +Nay, on my word, sir, I mean no joke-- +Gold for gold is fair dealing, sir.' +Think of the grocer gaping there! + +Or the baker, if I went and said, +--'This tulip for a loaf of bread, +God's beauty for your kneaded grain;' + +Or the vintner--'For this flower of mine +A flagon, pray, of yellow wine, +And you shall keep the change for gain.' + +Ah me, on what a different earth +I and these fellows had our birth, +Strange that these golden things should be +For them so poor, so rich for me.' + +Ended his sigh, the poet searched his shelf-- +Seeking another poet to feed himself; +Then sadly went, and, full of shame and grief, +Sold his last Swinburne for a plate of beef. + +Thus poets too, to fill the hungry maw, +Must eat each other--'tis the eternal law. + + +ALL SUNG + +What shall I sing when all is sung, + And every tale is told, +And in the world is nothing young + That was not long since old? + +Why should I fret unwilling ears + With old things sung anew, +While voices from the old dead years + Still go on singing too? + +A dead man singing of his maid + Makes all my rhymes in vain, +Yet his poor lips must fade and fade, + And mine shall kiss again. + +Why should I strive through weary moons + To make my music true? +Only the dead men knew the tunes + The live world dances to. + + +CORYDON'S FAREWELL TO HIS PIPE + +Yea, it is best, dear friends, who have so oft +Fed full my ears with praises sweet and soft, +Sweeter and softer than my song should win, +Too sweet and soft--I must not listen more, +Lest its dear perilous honey make me mad, +And once again an overweening lad +Presume against Apollo. Nay, no more! +'Tis not to pipes like mine sing stars at morn, +Nor stars at night dance in their solemn dance: +Nay, stars! why tell of stars? the very thrush +Putteth my daintiest cunning to the blush +And boasteth him the hedgerow laureate. +Yea, dimmest daisies lost amid the grass, +One might have deemed blessed us for looking at, +Would rather choose,--yea, so it is, alas!-- +The meanest bird that from its tiny throat +Droppeth the pearl of one monotonous note, +Than any music I can bring to pass. + +So, let me go: for, while I linger here, +Piping these dainty ditties for your ear, +To win that dearer honey for my own, +Daylong my Thestylis doth sit alone, +Weeping, mayhap, because the gods have given +Song but not sheep--the rarer gift of heaven; +And little Phyllis solitary grows, +And little Corydon unheeded goes. + +Sheep are the shepherd's business,--let me go,-- +Piping his pastime when the sun is low: +But I, alas! the other order keep, +Piping my business, and forgot my sheep. + +My song that once was as a little sweet +Savouring the daily bread we all must eat, +Lo! it has come to be my only food: +And, as a lover of the Indian weed +Steals to a self-indulgent solitude, +To draw the dreamy sweetness from its root, +So from the strong blithe world of valorous deed +I steal away to suck this singing weed; +And while the morning gathers up its strength, +And while the noonday runneth on in might, +Until the shadows and the evening light +Come and awake me with a fear at length, +Prone in some hankering covert hid away, +Fain am I still my piping to prolong, +And for the largess of a bounteous day +Dare pay my maker with a paltry song. + +Welcome the song that like a trumpet high +Lifts the tired head of battle with its cry, +Welcome the song that from its morning heights +Cheers jaded markets with the health of fields, +Brings down the stars to mock the city lights. +Or up to heaven a shining ladder builds. +But not to me belongeth such a grace, +And, were it mine, 'tis not in amorous shade +To river music that such song is made: +The song that moves the battle on awoke +To the stern rhythm of the swordsman's stroke, +The song that fans the city's weary face +Sprang not afar from out some leafy place, +But bubbled spring-like in its dingiest lane +From out a heart that shared the city's pain; +And he who brings the stars into the street +And builds that shining ladder for our feet, +Dwells in no mystic Abora aloof, +But shares the shelter of the common roof; +He learns great metres from the thunderous hum, +And all his songs pulse to the human beat. + +But I am Corydon, I am not he, +Though I no more that Corydon shall be +To make a sugared comfit of my song. +So now I go, go back to Thestylis-- +How her poor eyes will laugh again for this! +Go back to Thestylis, and no more roam +In melancholy meadows mad to sing, +But teach our little home itself to sing. +Yea, Corydon, now cast thy pipe away--- +See, how it floats upon the stream, and see +There it has gone, and now--away! away! +But O! my pipe, how sweet thou wert to me! + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of English Poems, by Richard Le Gallienne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH POEMS *** + +***** This file should be named 10913-8.txt or 10913-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/9/1/10913/ + +Produced by Brendan Lane, carol david and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: English Poems + +Author: Richard Le Gallienne + +Release Date: February 2, 2004 [EBook #10913] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH POEMS *** + + + + +Produced by Brendan Lane, carol david and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + + + + +ENGLISH +POEMS + +By + +Richard Le Gallienne + +London: John Lane at The Bodley Head in Vigo Street. + +Boston: Copland & Day +69 Cornhill. + +A.D. 1895. + + +_First Edition + September 1892 + +Second Edition + October 1892 + +Third Edition + January 1894 + +Fourth Edition + Revised April 1895_ + + + +To Sissie Le Gallienne + + + + + +EPISTLE DEDICATORY + +_Dear Sister: Hear the conclusion of the whole matter. You dream like +mad, you love like tinder, you aspire like a star-struck moth--for what? +That you may hive little lyrics, and sell to a publisher for thirty +pieces of silver. + +Hard by us here is a 'bee-farm.' It always reminds me of a publisher's. +The bee has loved a thousand flowers, through a hundred afternoons, he +has filled little sacred cells with the gold of his stolen kisses--for +what? That the whole should be wrenched away and sold at so much 'the +comb'--as though it were a hair-comb. 'Mummy is become merchandise ... +and Pharaoh is sold for balsams.' + +Can we ever forget those old mornings when we rose with the lark, and, +while the earliest sunlight slanted through the sleeping house, stole to +the little bookclad study to read--Heaven bless us!--you, perhaps, Mary +Wollstonecraft, and I, Livy, in a Froben folio of 1531!! + +Will you accept these old verses in memory of those old mornings? Ah, +then came in the sweet o' the year. + +Yours now as then_, + +R. Le G. + +May 14th, 1892. + +CONTENTS + + +_Epistle Dedicatory, + +To the Reader_, + + +I. PAOLO AND FRANCESCA, + +II. YOUNG LOVE-- + + i. Preludes, + + ii. Prelude--'I make this rhyme,' + + iii. 'But, Song, arise thee on a greater wing,' + + iv. Once, + + v. The Two Daffodils, + + vi. 'Why did she marry him?' + + vii. The Lamp and the Star, + + viii. Orbits, + + ix. Never--Ever, + + x. Love's Poor, + + xi. Comfort of Dante, + + xii. A Lost Hour, + + xiii. Met once more, + + xiv. A June Lily, + + xv. Regret + + xvi. Love Afar + + xvii. Canst thou be true across so many miles? + +_Postscript_ + + +III. COR CORDIUM-- + +To my Wife, Mildred + +The Destined Maid: a Prayer + +With some old Love Verses + +In a copy of Mr. Swinburne's _Tristram_ + +Comfort at Parting + +Happy Letter + +Primrose and Violet + +'Juliet and her Romeo,' + +In her Diary + +Two Parables + +A Love Letter + +In the Night + +The Constant Lover + +The Wonder-Child + + +IV. MISCELLANEOUS-- + +The House of Venus + +Satiety + +What of the Darkness? + +Ad Cimmerios + +Old Love Letters + +Death in a London Lodging + +Time Flies + +So soon Tired + +Autumn + +A Frost Fancy + +The World is Wide + +Saint Charles! + +Good-Night + +Beatrice + +A Child's Evensong + +An Epitaph on a Goldfish + +Beauty Accurst + +To a Dead Friend + +Sunset in the City + +The City in Moonlight + + +V. OF POETS AND POETRY-- + +Inscriptions + +The Decadent to his Soul + +To a Poet + +The Passionate Reader to his Poet + +Matthew Arnold + +'Tennyson' at the Farm + +'The Desk's Dry Wood,' + +A Library in a Garden + +On the Morals of Poets + +Faery Gold + +All Sung + +Corydon's Farewell to his Pipe + + + + +ENGLISH POEMS + +TO THE READER + +_Art was a palace once, things great and fair, +And strong and holy, found a temple there: +Now 'tis a lazar-house of leprous men. +O shall me hear an English song again! +Still English larks mount in the merry morn, +An English May still brings an English thorn, +Still English daisies up and down the grass, +Still English love for English lad and lass-- +Yet youngsters blush to sing an English song!_ + +_Thou nightingale that for six hundred years +Sang to the world--O art thou husht at last! +For, not of thee this new voice in our ears, +Music of France that once was of the spheres; +And not of thee these strange green flowers that spring +From daisy roots and seemed to bear a sting_. + +_Thou Helicon of numbers 'undefiled,' +Forgive that 'neath the shadow of thy name, +England, I bring a song of little fame; +Not as one worthy but as loving thee, +Not as a singer, only as a child_. + + + +PAOLO AND FRANCESCA + + +To R.K. Leather +(July 16th, 1892.) + +PAOLO AND FRANCESCA + + It happened in that great Italian land + Where every bosom heateth with a star-- + At Rimini, anigh that crumbling strand + The Adriatic filcheth near and far-- + In that same past where Dante's dream-days are, + That one Francesca gave her youthful gold + Unto an aged carle to bolt and bar; + Though all the love which great young hearts can hold, +How could she give that love unto a miser old? + + Nay! but young Paolo was the happy lad, + A youth of dreaming eye yet dauntless foot, + Who all Francesca's wealth of loving had; + One brave to scale a wall and steal the fruit, + Nor fear because some dotard owned the root; + Yea! one who wore his love like sword on thigh + And kept not all his valour for his lute; + One who could dare as well as sing and sigh. +Ah! then were hearts to love, but they are long gone by. + + Ye lily-wives so happy in the nest, + Whose joy within the gates of duty springs, + Blame not Love's poor, who, if they would be blest, + Must steal what comes to you with marriage rings: + Ye pity the poor lark whose scarce-tried wings + Faint in the net, while still the morning air + With brown free throats of all his brethren sings, + And can it be ye will not pity her, +Whose youth is as a lark all lost to singing there? + + In opportunity of dear-bought joy + Rich were this twain, for old Lanciotto, he + Who was her lord, was brother of her boy, + And in one home together dwelt the three, + With brothers two beside; and he and she + Sat at one board together, in one fane + Their voices rose upon one hymn, ah me! + Beneath one roof each night their limbs had lain, +As now in death they share the one eternal pain. + + As much as common men can love a flower + Unto Lanciotto was Francesca dear, + 'Tis not on such Love wields his jealous power; + And therefore Paolo moved him not to fear, + Though he so green with youth and he so sere. + Nor yet indeed was wrong, the hidden thing + Grew at each heart, unknown of each, a year,-- + Two eggs still silent in the nest through spring, +May draws so near to June, and not yet time to sing! + + Yet oft, indeed, through days that gave no sign + Had but Francesca turned about and read + Paolo's bright eyes that only dared to shine + On the dear gold that glorified her head; + Ere all the light had from their circles fled + And the grey Honour darkened all his face: + They had not come to June and nothing said, + Day followed day with such an even pace, +Nor night succeeded night and left no starry trace. + + Or, surely, had the flower Paolo pressed + In some sweet volume when he put it by. + Told how his mistress drew it to her breast + And called upon his name when none was nigh; + Had but the scarf he kissed with piteous cry + But breathed again its secret unto her, + Or had but one of every little sigh + Each left for each been love's true messenger: +They surely had not kept that winter all the year. + + Yea! love lay hushed and waiting like a seed, + Some laggard of the season still abed + Though the sun calls and gentle zephyrs plead, + And Hope that waited long must deem it dead; + Yet lo! to-morrow sees its shining head + Singing at dawn 'mid all the garden throng: + Ah, had it known, it had been earlier sped-- + Was it for fear of day it slept so long, +Or were its dreams of singing sweeter than the song? + + But what poor flower can symbol all the might + And all the magnitude, great Love, of thee? + Ah, is there aught can image thee aright + In earth or heaven, how great or fair it be? + We watch the acorn grow into the tree, + We watch the patient spark surprise the mine, + But what are oaks to thy Ygdrasil-tree? + What the mad mine's convulsive strength to thine, +That wrecks a world but bids heaven's soaring steeples shine? + + A god that hath no earthly metaphor, + A blinding word that hath no earthly rhyme, + Love! we can only call and no name more; + As the great lonely thunder rolls sublime, + As the great sun doth solitary climb, + And we have but themselves to know them by, + Just so Love stands a stranger amid Time: + The god is there, the great voice speaks on high, +We pray, 'What art thou, Lord?' but win us no reply. + + So in the dark grew Love, but feared to flower, + Dreamed to himself, but never spake a word, + Burned like a prisoned fire from hour to hour, + Sang his dear song like an unheeded bird; + Waiting the summoning voice so long unheard, + Waiting with weary eyes the gracious sign + To bring his rose, and tell the dream he dared, + The tremulous moment when the star should shine, +And each should ask of each, and each should answer + --'Thine.' + + Winter to-day, but lo! to-morrow spring! + They waited long, but oh at last it came, + Came in a silver hush at evening; + Francesca toyed with threads upon a frame, + Hard by young Paolo read of knight and dame + That long ago had loved and passed away: + He had no other way to tell his flame, + She dare not listen any other way-- +But even that was bliss to lovers poor as they. + + The world grew sweet with wonder in the west + The while he read and while she listened there, + And many a dream from out its silken nest + Stole like a curling incense through the air; + Yet looked she not on him, nor did he dare: + But when the lovers kissed in Paradise + His voice sank and he turned his gaze on her, + Like a young bird that flutters ere it flies,-- +And lo! a shining angel called him from her eyes. + + Then from the silence sprang a kiss like flame, + And they hung lost together; while around + The world was changed, no more to be the same + Meadow or sky, no little flower or sound + Again the same, for earth grew holy ground: + While in the silence of the mounting moon + Infinite love throbbed in the straining bound + Of that great kiss, the long-delaying boon, +Granted indeed at last, but ended, ah! so soon. + + As the great sobbing fulness of the sea + Fills to the throat some void and aching cave, + Till all its hollows tremble silently, + Pressed with sweet weight of softly-lapping wave: + So kissed those mighty lovers glad and brave. + And as a sky from which the sun has gone + Trembles all night with all the stars he gave + A firmament of memories of the sun,-- +So thrilled and thrilled each life when that great kiss was done. + + But coward shame that had no word to say + In passion's hour, with sudden icy clang + Slew the bright morn, and through the tarnished day + An iron bell from light to darkness rang: + She shut her ears because a throstle sang, + She dare not hear the little innocent bird, + And a white flower made her poor head to hang-- + To be so white! once she was white as curd, +But now--'Alack!' 'Alack!' She speaks no other word. + + The pearly line on yonder hills afar + Within the dawn, when mounts the lark and sings + By the great angel of the morning star,-- + That was his love, and all free fair fresh things + That move and glitter while the daylight springs: + To thus know love, and yet to spoil love thus! + To lose the dream--O silly beating wings-- + Great dream so splendid and miraculous: +O Lord, O Lord, have mercy, have mercy upon us. + + She turned her mind upon the holy ones + Whose love lost here was love in heaven tenfold, + She thought of Lucy, that most blessed of nuns + Who sent her blue eyes on a plate of gold + To him who wooed her daily for her love-- + 'Mine eyes!' 'Mine eyes!' 'Here,--go in peace, they are!' + But ever love came through the midnight grove, + Young Love, with wild eyes watching from afar, +And called and called and called until the morning star. + + Ah, poor Francesca, 'tis not such as thou + That up the stony steeps of heaven climb; + Take thou thy heaven with thy Paolo now-- + Sweet saint of sin, saint of a deathless rhyme, + Song shall defend thee at the bar of Time, + Dante shall set thy fair young glowing face + On the dark background of his theme sublime, + And Thou and He in your superb disgrace +Still on that golden wind of passion shall embrace. + + * * * * * + + So love this twain, but whither have they passed? + Ah me, that dark must always follow day, + That Love's last kiss is surely kissed at last, + Howe'er so wildly the poor lips may pray: + Merciful God, is there no other way? + And pen, O must thou of the ending write, + The hour Lanciotto found them where they lay, + Folded together, weary with delight, +Within the sumptuous petals of the rose of night. + + Yea, for Lanciotto found them: many an hour + Ere their dear joy had run its doomed date, + Had they, in silken nook and blossomed bower, + All unsuspect the blessed apple ate, + Who now must grind its core predestinate. + Kiss, kiss, poor losing lovers, nor deny + One little tremor of its bliss, for Fate + Cometh upon you, and the dark is nigh +Where all, unkissed, unkissing, learn at length to lie. + + Bent on some journey of the state's concern + They deemed him, and indeed he rode thereon + But questioned Paolo--'What if he return!' + 'Nay, love, indeed he is securely gone + As thou art surely here, beloved one, + He went ere sundown, and our moon is here-- + A fear, love, in this heart that yet knew none!' + How could he fright that little velvet ear +With last night's dream and all its ghostly fear! + + So did he yield him to her eager breast, + And half forgot, but could not quite forget, + No sweetest kiss could put that fear to rest, + And all its haggard vision chilled him yet; + Their warder moon in nameless trouble set, + There seemed a traitor echo in the place, + A moaning wind that moaned for lovers met, + And once above her head's deep sunk embrace +He saw--Death at the window with his yellow face. + + Had that same dream caught old Lanciotto's reins, + Bent in a weary huddle on his steed, + In darkling haste along the blindfold lanes, + Making a clattering halt in all that speed:-- + 'Fool! fool!' he cried, 'O dotard fool, indeed, + So ho! they wanton while the old man rides,' + And on the night flashed pictures of the deed. + 'Come!'--and he dug his charger's panting sides, +And all the homeward dark tore by in roaring tides. + + As some great lord of acres when a thief + Steals from his park some flower he never sees, + Calls it a lily fair beyond belief, + Prisons the wretch, and fines before he frees; + Such jealous madness did Lanciotto seize: + All in an instant is Francesca dear, + He claims the wife he never cared to please, + All in an instant seems his castle near,-- +And those poor lovers sleep, forgot at last their fear. + + His horse left steaming at his journey's end, + Up through his palace stairs with springing tread + He strode; the silence met him like a friend, + Fain to dissuade him from that deed of dread, + Making a breeze about his burning head, + Laying large hands of comfort on his soul; + Within the ashes of his cheek burned red + A long-shut rose of youth, as to the goal +Of death he sped, as once to love's own tryst he stole. + + He caught a sound as of a rose's breath, + He caught another breath of deeper lung, + Rose-leaves and oak-leaves on the wind of death; + He drew aside the arras where they clung + In the dim light, so lovely and so young-- + They lay in sin as in a cradle there, + Twin babes that in one bosom nestling hung: + Even Lanciotto paused, ah, will he spare? +Who could not quite forgive a wrong that is so fair! + + The grave old clock ticked somewhere in the gloom, + A dozen waiting seconds rose and fell + Ere his pale dagger flickered in the room, + Then quenched its corpse-light in their bosoms' swell-- + 'Thus, dears, I mate you evermore in hell.' + Their blood ran warm about them and they sighed + For the mad smiter did his work too well, + Just drew together softly and so died, +Fell very still and strange, and moved not side by side. + + Yea, moved not, though two hours he watched the twain + And heard their blood drip drip upon the floor, + Twice with stern voice he spake to them again, + And then, a little tenderly, once more,-- + 'Thus, dears, in hell I mate you evermore.' + And when the curious fingers of the day + Unravelled all the dark, and morning wore, + And the young light played round them where they lay, +The souls were many leagues upon the hellward way. + + + + +YOUNG LOVE + +N.B.--_This sequence of poems has appeared in former +editions under the title of 'Love Platonic_.' + + +I + +1 +Surely at last, O Lady, the sweet moon + That bringeth in the happy singing weather +Groweth to pearly queendom, and full soon + Shall Love and Song go hand in hand together; +For all the pain that all too long hath waited + In deep dumb darkness shall have speech at last, +And the bright babe Death gave the Love he mated + Shall leap to light and kiss the weeping past. + +For all the silver morning is a-glimmer + With gleaming spears of great Apollo's host, +And the night fadeth like a spent out swimmer + Hurled from the headlands of some shining coast. +O, happy soul, thy mouth at last is singing, + Drunken with wine of morning's azure deep, +Sing on, my soul, the world beneath thee swinging, + A bough of song above a sea of sleep. + +2 +Who is the lady I sing? + Ah, how can I tell thee her praise +For whom all my life's but the string + Of a rosary painful of days; + +Which I count with a curious smile + As a miser who hoardeth his gain, +Though, a madhearted spendthrift the while, + I but gather to waste again. + +Yea, I pluck from the tree of the years, + As a country maid greedy of flowers, +Each day brimming over with tears, + And I scatter like petals its hours; + +And I trample them under my feet + In a frenzy of cloven-hoofed swine, +And the breath of their dying is sweet, + And the blood of their hearts is as wine. + +O, I throw me low down on the ground + And I bury my face in their death, +And only I rise at the sound + Of a wind as it scattereth, + +As it scattereth sweetly the dried + Leaves withered and brittle and sere +Of days of old years that have died-- + And, O, it is sweet in my ear + +And I rise me and build me a pyre + Of the whispering skeleton things, +And my heart laugheth low with the fire, + Laugheth high with the flame as it springs; + +And above in the flickering glare + I mark me the boughs of my tree, +My tree of the years, growing bare. + Growing bare with the scant days to be. + +Then I turn to my beads and I pray + For the axe at the root of the tree-- +Last flower, last bead--ah! last day + That shall part me, my darling, from thee! + +And I pray for the knife on the string + Of this rosary painful of days: +But who is the Lady I sing? + Ah, how can I tell thee her praise! + + +II + +I make this rhyme of my lady and me +To give me ease of my misery, +Of my lady and me I make this rhyme +For lovers in the after-time. +And I weave its warp from day to day +In a golden loom deep hid away +In my secret heart, where no one goes +But my lady's self, and--no one knows. + +With bended head all day I pore +On a joyless task, and yet before +My eyes all day, through each weary hour, +Breathes my lady's face like a dewy flower. +Like rain it comes through the dusty air, +Like sun on the meadows to think of her; +O sweet as violets in early spring +The flower-girls to the city bring, +O, healing-bright to wintry eyes +As primrose-gold 'neath northern skies-- +But O for fit thing to compare +With the joy I have in the thought of her! +So all day long doth her holy face +Bring fragrance to the barren place, +And whensoe'er it comes nearest me, +My loom it weaveth busily. + +Some days there be when the loom is still +And my soul is sad as an autumn hill, +But how to tell the blessed time +When my heart is one glowing prayer of rhyme! +Think on the humming afternoon +Within some busy wood in June, +When nettle patches, drunk with the sun, +Are fiery outposts of the shade; +While gnats keep up a dizzy reel, +And the grasshopper, perched upon his blade, +Loud drones his fairy threshing-wheel:-- +Hour when some poet-wit might feign +The drowsy tune of the throbbing air +The weaving of the gossamer +In secret nooks of wood and lane-- +The gossamer, silk night-robes of the flowers, +Fluttered apart by amorous morning hours. +Yea, as the weaving of the gossamer, +If truly that the mystic golden boom, +Is the strange rapture of my hidden loom, +As I sit in the light of the thought of her; +And it weaveth, weaveth, day by day, +This parti-coloured roundelay; +Weaving for ease of misery, +Weaving this rhyme of my lady and me, +Weaving, weaving this warp of rhyme +For lovers in the after-time. + +My lady, lover, may never be mine +In the same sweet way that thine is thine, +My lady and I may never stand +By the holy altar hand in hand, +My lady and I may never rest +Through the golden midnight breast to breast, +Nor share long days of happy light +Sweet moving in each other's sight: +Yea, even must we ever miss +The honey of the chastest kiss. + + +III + +But, Song, arise thee on a greater wing, +Nor twitter robin-like of love, nor sing +A pretty dalliance with grief--but try +Some metre like a sky, +Wherein to set +Stars that may linger yet +When I, thy master, shall have come to die. + Twitter and tweet + Thy carollings + Of little things, + Of fair and sweet; + For it is meet, + O robin red! + That little theme + Hath little song, + That little head + Hath little dream, + And long. +But we have starry business, such a grief +As Autumn's, dead by some forgotten sheaf, +While all the distance echoes of the wain; +Grief as an ocean's for some sudden isle +Of living green that stayed with it a while, + Then to oblivious deluge plunged again! +Grief as of Alps that yearn but never reach, + Grief as of Death for Life, of Night for Day: +Such grief, O Song, how hast thou strength to teach, + How hope to make assay? + + +IV + +ONCE + +Once we met, and then there came +Like a Pentecostal flame, + A word; +And I said not, +Only thought, + She heard! +All I never say but sing, +Worshipping; +Wrapt in the hidden tongue +Of an ambiguous song. + +How we met what need to say? + When or where, +Years ago or yesterday, + Here or there. +All the song is--once we met, + She and I; +Once, but never to forget, + Till we die. + +All the song is that we meet + Never now-- +'Hast thou yet forgotten, sweet?' + 'Love, hast thou?' + + +V + +THE DAY OF THE TWO DAFFODILS + +'The daffodils are fine this year,' I said; +'O yes, but see my crocuses,' said she. +And so we entered in and sat at talk +Within a little parlour bowered about +With garden-noises, filled with garden scent, +As some sweet sea-shell rings with pearly chimes +And sighs out fragrance of its mother's breast. + +We sat at talk, and all the afternoon +Whispered about in changing silences +Of flush and sudden light and gathering shade, +As though some Maestro drew out organ stops +Somewhere in heaven. As two within a boat +On the wide sea we sat at talk, the hours +Lapping unheeded round us as the waves. +And as such two will ofttimes pause in speech, +Gaze at high heaven and draw deep to their hearts +The infinite azure, then meet eyes again +And flash it to each other; without words +First, and then with voice trembling as trumpets +Tremble with fierce breath, voice cadenced too +As deep as the deep sea, Aeolian voice, +Voice of star-spaces, and the pine-wood's voice +In dewy mornings, Life's own awful voice: +So did We talk, gazing with God's own eyes +Into Life's deeps--ah, how they throbbed with stars! +And were we not ourselves like pulsing suns +Who, once an aeon met within the void, +So fiery close, forget how far away +Each orbit sweeps, and dream a little space +Of fiery wedding. So our hearts made answering +Lightnings all that afternoon through purple mists +Of riddled speech; and when at last the sun, +Our sentinel, made sign beneath the trees +Of coming night, and we arose and passed +Across the threshold to the flowers again, +We knew a presence walking in the grove, +And a voice speaking through the evening's cool +Unknown before: though Love had wrought no wrong, +His rune was spoken, and another rhyme +Writ in his poem by the master Life. + +'Pray, pluck me some,' I said. She brought me two, +For daffodils were very fine that year,-- +O very fine, but daffodils no more. + + +VI + +WHY DID SHE MARRY HIM? + +Why did she marry him? Ah, say why! + How was her fancy caught? +What was the dream that he drew her by, + Or was she only bought? +Gave she her gold for a girlish whim, + A freak of a foolish mood? +Or was it some will, like a snake in him, + Lay a charm upon her blood? + +Love of his limbs, was it that, think you? + Body of bullock build, +Sap in the bones, and spring in the thew, + A lusty youth unspilled? +But is it so that a maid is won, + Such a maiden maid as she? +Her face like a lily all white in the sun, + For such mere male as he! +Ah, why do the fields with their white and gold + To Farmer Clod belong, +Who though he hath reaped and stacked and sold + Hath never heard their song? +Nay, seek not an answer, comfort ye, + The poet heard their call, +And so, dear Love, will I comfort me-- + He hath thy lease, that's all. + + +VII + +THE LAMP AND THE STAR + +Yea, let me be 'thy bachelere,' + 'Tis sweeter than thy lord; +How should I envy him, my dear, + The lamp upon his board. +Still make his little circle bright +With boon of dear domestic light, + While I afar, +Watching his windows in the night, + Worship a star +For which he hath no bolt or bar. + Yea, dear, + Thy 'bachelere.' + + +VIII + +ORBITS + +Two stars once on their lonely way + Met in the heavenly height, +And they dreamed a dream they might shine alway + With undivided light; +Melt into one with a breathless throe, + And beam as one in the night. + +And each forgot in the dream so strange + How desolately far +Swept on each path, for who shall change + The orbit of a star? +Yea, all was a dream, and they still must go + As lonely as they are. + + +IX + +NEVER--EVER + +My mouth to thy mouth + Ah never, ah never! +My breast from thy breast + Eternities sever; +But my soul to thy soul + For ever and ever. + + +X + +LOVE'S POOR + +Yea, love, I know, and I would have it thus, +I know that not for us +Is springtide Passion with his fire and flowers, +I know this love of ours +Lives not, nor yet may live, +By the dear food that lips and hands can give. +Not, Love, that we in some high dream despise +The common lover's common Paradise; +Ah, God, if Thou and I +But one short hour their blessedness might try, +How could we poor ones teach +Those happy ones who half forget them rich: +For if we thus endure, +'Tis only, love, because we are so poor. + + +XI + +COMFORT OF DANTE + +Down where the unconquered river still flows on, + One strong free thing within a prison's heart, + I drew me with my sacred grief apart, +That it might look that spacious joy upon: +And as I mused, lo! Dante walked with me, + And his face spake of the high peace of pain +Till all my grief glowed in me throbbingly + As in some lily's heart might glow the rain. + +So like a star I listened, till mine eye + Caught that lone land across the water-way + Wherein my lady breathed,--now breathing is-- +'O Dante,' then I said, 'she more than I + Should know thy comfort, go to _her_, I pray.' + 'Nay!' answered he, 'for she hath Beatrice.' + + +XII + +A LOST HOUR + +God gave us an hour for our tears, +One hour out of all the years, +For all the years were another's gold, +Given in a cruel troth of old. + +And how did we spend his boon? + That sweet miraculous flower + Born to die in an hour, +Late born to die so soon. + +Did we watch it with breathless breath + By slow degrees unfold? + Did we taste the innermost heart of it + The honey of each sweet part of it? + Suck all its hidden gold +To the very dregs of its death? + +Nay, this is all we did with our hour-- +We tore it to pieces, that precious flower; +Like any daisy, with listless mirth, +We shed its petals upon the earth; +And, children-like, when it all was done, +We cried unto God for another one. + + +XIII + +MET ONCE MORE + +O Lady, I have looked on thee once more, +Thou too hast looked on me, as thou hadst said, +And though the joy was pain, the pain was bliss, +Bliss that more happy lovers well may miss: +Captives feast richly on a little bread, +So are we very rich who are so poor. + + +XIV + +A JUNE LILY + +[_The poet dramatises his Lady's loneliness_] + +Alone! once more alone! how like a tomb +My little parlour sounds which only now +Yearned like some holy chancel with his voice. +So still! so empty! Surely one might fear +The walls should meet in ruinous collapse +That held no more his music. Yet they stand +Firm in a foolish firmness, meaningless +As frescoed sepulchre some Pharaoh built +But never came to sleep in; built, indeed, +For--that grey moth to flit in like a ghost! + +Alone! another feast-day come and gone, +Watched through the weeks as in my garden there +I watch a seedling grow from blade to bud +Impatient for its blossom. So this day +Has bloomed at last, and we have plucked its flower +And shared its sweetness, and once more the time +Is as that stalk from which but now I plucked +Its last June-lily as a parting sign. +Yea, but he seemed to love it! yet if he +But craved it in deceit of tenderness +To make my heart glow brighter with a lie! +Will it indeed be cherished as he said, +Or will he keep it near his book a while, +And when grown rank forget it in his glass, +And leave it for the maid who dusts his room +To clear away and cast upon the heap? +Or, may be, will he bury it away +In some old drawer with other mummy-flowers? + +Nay, but I wrong thee, dear one, thinking so. +My boy, my love, my poet! Nay, I know +Thy lonely room, tomb-like to thee as mine, +Tomb-like as tomb of some returning ghost +Seems only bright about my lily-flower. +And, mayhap, while I wrong thee thus in thought +Thou bendest o'er it, feigning for some ease +Of parted ache conceits of poet-wit +On petal and on stamen--let me try! +If lilies be alike thine is as this, +I wonder if thy reading tallies too. + +Six petals with a dewdrop in their heart, +Six pure brave years, an ivory cup of tears; +Six pearly-pillared stamens golden-crowned +Growing from out the dewdrop, and a seventh +Soaring alone trilobed and mystic green; +Six pearl-bright years aflower with gold of joy, +Sprung from the heart of those brave tear-fed years: +But what that seventh single stamen is +My little wit must leave for thee to tell. + +But neither poet nor a sibyl thou! +What brave conceit had he, my poet, built; +No jugglery of numbers that mean nought, +That can mean nought for ever, unto us. + + +XV + +REGRET + +One asked of regret, + And I made reply: +To have held the bird, + And let it fly; +To have seen the star + For a moment nigh, +And lost it + Through a slothful eye; +To have plucked the flower + And cast it by; +To have one only hope-- + To die. + + +XVI + +LOVE AFAR + +Love, art thou lonely to-day? + Lost love that I never see, +Love that, come noon or come night, + Comes never to me; +Love that I used to meet + In the hidden past, in the land +Of forbidden sweet. + +Love! do you never miss +The old light in the days? +Does a hand +Come and touch thee at whiles +Like the wand of old smiles, +Like the breath of old bliss? +Or hast thou forgot, +And is all as if not? + +What was it we swore? + 'Evermore! + I and Thou,' +Ah, but Fate held the pen + And wrote N + Just before: + So that now, +See, it stands, +Our seals and our hands, + 'I and Thou, + Nevermore!' + +We said 'It is best!' +And then, dear, I went +And returned not again. +Forgive that I stir, +Like a breath in thy hair, +The old pain, +'Twas unmeant. +I will strive, I will wrest +Iron peace--it _is_ best. + +But, O for thy hand + Just to hold for a space, +For a moment to stand + In the light of thy face; +Translate Then to Now, +To hear 'Is it Thou?' + And reply + 'It is I!' +Then, then I could rest, +Ah, then I could wait + Long and late. + + +XVII + +Canst thou be true across so many miles, + So many days that keep us still apart? +Ah, canst thou live upon remembered smiles, + And ask no warmer comfort for thy heart? + +I call thy name right up into the sky, + Dear name, O surely she shall hear and hark! +Nay, though I toss it singing up so high, + It drops again, like yon returning lark. + +O be a dove, dear name, and find her breast, + There croon and croodle all the lonely day; +Go tell her that I love her still the best, + So many days, so many miles, away. + + +_POSTSCRIPT_ + +_So sang young Love in high and holy dream + Of a white Love that hath no earthly taint, +So rapt within his vision he did seem + Less like a boyish singer than a saint. + +Ah, Boy, it is a dream for life too high, + It is a bird that hath no feet for earth: +Strange wings, strange eyes, go seek another sky + And find thy fellows of an equal birth. + +For many a body-sweet material thing, + What canst thou give us half so dear as these? +We would not soar amid the stars to sing, + Warm and content amid the nested trees. + +Young Seraph, go and lake thy song to heaven, + We would not grow unhappy with our lot, +Leave us the simple love the earth hath given-- + Sing where thou wilt, so that we hear thee not_. + + + + +COR CORDIUM + + +TO MY WIFE, MILDRED + +_Dear wife, there is no word in all my songs +But unto thee belongs: +Though I indeed before our true day came +Mistook thy star in many a wandering flame, +Singing to thee in many a fair disguise, +Calling to thee in many another's name, +Before I knew thine everlasting eyes. + +Faces that fled me like a hunted fawn +I followed singing, deeming it was Thou, +Seeking this face that on our pillow now +Glimmers behind thy golden hair like dawn, +And, like a setting moon, within my breast +Sinks down each night to rest. + +Moon follows moon before the great moon flowers, +Moon of the wild wild honey that is ours; +Long must the tree strive up in leaf and root, +Before it bear the golden-hearted fruit: +And shall great Love at once perfected spring, +Nor grow by steps like any other thing?_ + + +COR CORDIUM + +_The lawless love that would not be denied, +The love that waited, and in waiting died, +The love that met and mated, satisfied. + +Ah, love, 'twas good to climb forbidden walls, +Who would not follow where his Juliet calls? +'Twas good to try and love the angel's way, +With starry souls untainted of the clay; +But, best the love where earth and heaven meet, +The god made flesh and dwelling in us, sweet._ + +(October 22, 1891.) + + +THE DESTINED MAID: A PRAYER + +_(Chant Royal)_ + +O MIGHTY Queen, our Lady of the fire, + The light, the music, and the honey, all +Blent in one Power, one passionate Desire + Man calleth Love--'Sweet love,' the blessed + call--: +I come a sad-eyed suppliant to thy knee, +If thou hast pity, pity grant to me; + If thou hast bounty, here a heart I bring + For all that bounty 'thirst and hungering. +O Lady, save thy grace, there is no way + For me, I know, but lonely sorrowing-- +Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray! + +I lay in darkness, face down in the mire, + And prayed that darkness might become my + pall; +The rabble rout roared round me like some quire + Of filthy animals primordial; +My heart seemed like a toad eternally +Prisoned in stone, ugly and sad as he; + Sweet sunlight seemed a dream, a mythic thing, + And life some beldam's dotard gossiping. +Then, Lady, I bethought me of thy sway, + And hoped again, rose up this prayer to wing-- +Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray! + +Lady, I bear no high resounding lyre + To hymn thy glory, and thy foes appal +With thunderous splendour of my rhythmic ire; + A little lute I lightly touch and small +My skill thereon: yet, Lady, if it be +I ever woke ear-winning melody, + 'Twas for thy praise I sought the throbbing string, + Thy praise alone--for all my worshipping +Is at thy shrine, thou knowest, day by day, + Then shall it be in vain my plaint to sing?-- +Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray! + +Yea! why of all men should this sorrow dire + Unto thy servant bitterly befall? +For, Lady, thou dost know I ne'er did tire + Of thy sweet sacraments and ritual; +In morning meadows I have knelt to thee, +In noontide woodlands hearkened hushedly + Thy heart's warm beat in sacred slumbering, +And in the spaces of the night heard ring +Thy voice in answer to the spheral lay: +Now 'neath thy throne my suppliant life I fling-- +Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray! + +I ask no maid for all men to admire, + Mere body's beauty hath in me no thrall, +And noble birth, and sumptuous attire, + Are gauds I crave not--yet shall have withal, +With a sweet difference, in my heart's own She, +Whom words speak not but eyes know when they + see. + Beauty beyond all glass's mirroring, + And dream and glory hers for garmenting; +Her birth--O Lady, wilt thou say me nay?-- + Of thine own womb, of thine own nurturing-- +Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray! + + +ENVOI + +Sweet Queen who sittest at the heart of spring, +My life is thine, barren or blossoming; + 'Tis thine to flush it gold or leave it grey: +And so unto thy garment's hem I cling-- + Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray. + +(_January_ 13, 1888.) + + +WITH SOME OLD LOVE VERSES + +Dear Heart, this is my book of boyish song, + The changing story of the wandering quest + That found at last its ending in thy breast-- +The love it sought and sang astray so long +With wild young heart and happy eager tongue. + Much meant it all to me to seek and sing, + Ah, Love, but how much more to-day to bring +This 'rhyme that first of all he made when young.' + +Take it and love it, 'tis the prophecy + For whose poor silver thou hast given me gold; + Yea! those old faces for an hour seemed fair + Only because some hints of Thee they were: + Judge then, if I so loved weak types of old, +How good, dear Heart, the perfect gift of Thee. + + +IN A COPY OF MR. SWINBURNE'S +_TRISTRAM OF LYONESSE_ + +Dear Heart, what thing may symbolise for us + A love like ours, what gift, whate'er it be, + Hold more significance 'twixt thee and me +Than paltry words a truth miraculous; +Or the poor signs that in astronomy + Tell giant splendours in their gleaming might: + Yet love would still give such, as in delight +To mock their impotence--so this for thee. + +This song for thee! our sweetest honeycomb + Of lovesome thought and passion-hearted rhyme, + Builded of gold and kisses and desire, + By that wild poet who so many a time + Our hungering lips have blessed, until a fire +Burnt speech up and the wordless hour had come. + + +COMFORT AT PARTING + +O little Heart, +So much I see +Thy hidden smart, +So much I long +To sing some song +To comfort thee. + +For, little Heart, +Indeed, indeed, +The hour to part +Makes cruel speed; +Yet, dear, think thou +How even now, +With happy haste, +With eager feet, +The hour when we +Again shall meet +Cometh across the waste. + + +HAPPY LETTER + +Fly, little note, +And know no rest +Till warm you lie +Within that nest +Which is her breast; +Though why to thee +Such joy should be +Who carest not, +While I must wait +Here desolate, +I cannot wot. +O what I 'd do +To come with you! + + +PRIMROSE AND VIOLET + +Primrose and Violet-- +May they help thee to forget +All that love should not remember, +Sweet as meadows after rain +When the sun has come again, +As woods awakened from December. +How they wash the soul from stain! +How they set the spirit free! +Take them, dear, and pray for me. + + +'JULIET AND HER ROMEO' + +_(With Mr. Dicksee's Picture)_ + +Take 'this of Juliet and her Romeo,' + Dear Heart of mine, for though yon budding sky +Yearns o'er Verona, and so long ago + That kiss was kissed; yet surely Thou and I, +Surely it is, whom morning tears apart, + As ruthless men tear tendrilled ivy down: + Is not Verona warm within thy gown, +And Mantua all the world save where thou art? + +O happy grace of lovers of old time, + Living to love like gods, and dead to live + Symbols and saints for us who follow them; + Even bitter Death must sweets to lovers give: + See how they wear their tears for diadem, +Throned on the star of an unshaken rhyme. + + +IN HER DIARY + +Go, little book, and be the looking-glass + Of her dear soul, +The mirror of her moments as they pass, + Keeping the whole; +Wherein she still may look on yesterday + To-day to cheer, +And towards To-morrow pass upon her way + Without a fear. +For yesterday hath never won a crown, + However fair, +But that To-day a better for its own + Might win and wear; +And yesterday hath never joyed a joy, + However sweet, +That this To-day or that To-morrow too + May not repeat. +Think too, To-day is trustee for to-morrow, + And present pain +That's bravely borne shall ease the future sorrow + Nor cry in vain +'Spare us To-day, To-morrow bring the rod,' + For then again +To-morrow from To-morrow still shall borrow, + A little ease to gain: +But bear to-day whate'er To-day may bring, +'Tis the one way to make To-morrow sing. + + + + +PARABLES + + +I + +Dear Love, you ask if I be true, + If other women move +The heart that only beats for you + With pulses all of love. + +Out in the chilly dew one morn + I plucked a wild sweet rose, +A little silver bud new-born + And longing to unclose. + +I took it, loving new-born things, + I knew my heart was warm, +'O little silver rose, come in + And shelter from the storm.' + +And soon, against my body pressed, + I felt its petals part, +And, looking down within my breast + I saw its golden heart. + +O such a golden heart it has, + Your eyes may never see, +To others it is always shut, + It opens but for me. + +But that is why you see me pass + The honeysuckle there, +And leave the lilies in the grass, + Although they be so fair; + +Why the strange orchid half-accurst-- + Circe of flowers she grows-- +Can tempt me not: see! in my heart, + Silver and gold, my rose. + + +II + +Deep in a hidden lane we were, + My little love and I; +When lo! as we stood kissing there-- + A flower against the sky! + +Frail as a tear its beauty hung-- + O spare it, little hand. +But innocence like its, alas! + Desire may not withstand. + +And so I clambered up the bank + And threw the blossom down, +But we were sadder for its sake + As we walked back to town. + + +A LOVE-LETTER + +Darling little woman, just a little line, + Just a little silver word +For that dear gold of thine, + Only a whisper you have so often heard: + +Only such a whisper as hidden in a shell + Holds a little breath of all the mighty sea, +But think what a little of all its depth and swell, + And think what a little is this little note of me. + +'Darling, I love thee, that is all I live for'-- + There is the whisper stealing from the shell, +But here is the ocean, O so deep and boundless, + And each little wave with its whisper as well. + + +IN THE NIGHT + + 'Kiss me, dear Love!'-- +But there was none to hear, + Only the darkness round about my bed + And hollow silence, for thy face had fled, +Though in my dreaming it had come so near. + +I slept again and it came back to me, + Burning within the hollow arch of night + Like some fair flame of sacrificial light, +And all my soul sprang up to mix with thee-- + 'Kiss me, my love! +Ah, Love, thy face how fair!' +So did I cry, but still thou wert not there. + + +THE CONSTANT LOVER + +I see fair women all the day, + They pass and pass--and go; +I almost dream that they are shades + Within a shadow-show. + +Their beauty lays no hand on me, + They talk--- I hear no word; +I ask my eyes if they have seen, + My ears if they have heard. + +For why--within the north countree + A little maid, I know, +Is waiting through the days for me, + Drear days so long and slow. + + +THE WONDER-CHILD + +'Our little babe,' each said, 'shall be +Like unto thee'--'Like unto _thee_!' + 'Her mother's'--'Nay, his father's'--'eyes,' + 'Dear curls like thine'--but each replies, +'As thine, all thine, and nought of me.' + +What sweet solemnity to see +The little life upon thy knee, + And whisper as so soft it lies,-- + 'Our little babe!' + +For, whether it be he or she, +A David or a Dorothy, + 'As mother fair,' or 'father wise,' + Both when it's 'good,' and when it cries, +One thing is certain,--it will be + _Our_ little babe. + + + + +MISCELLANEOUS + + +THE HOUSE OF VENUS + +Not that Queen Venus of adulterous fame, +Whose love was lust's insatiable flame-- +Not hers the house I would be singer in +Whose loose-lipped servants seek a weary sin: +But mine the Venus of that morning flood +With all the dawn's young passion in her blood, +With great blue eyes and unpressed bosom sweet. +Her would I sing, and of the shy retreat +Where Love first kissed her wondering maidenhood, +And He and She first stood, with eyes afraid, +In the most golden House that God has made. + + +SATIETY + +The heart of the rose--how sweet + Its fragrance to drain, + Till the greedy brain + Reels and grows faint + With the garnered scent, +Reels as a dream on its silver feet. + +Sweet thus to drain--then to sleep: + For, beware how you stay + Till the joy pass away, + And the jaded brain + Seeketh fragrance in vain, +And hates what it may not reap. + + +WHAT OF THE DARKNESS? + +What of the darkness? Is it very fair? +Are there great calms and find ye silence there? +Like soft-shut lilies all your faces glow +With some strange peace our faces never know, +With some great faith our faces never dare. +Dwells it in Darkness? Do you find it there? + +Is it a Bosom where tired heads may lie? +Is it a Mouth to kiss our weeping dry? +Is it a Hand to still the pulse's leap? +Is it a Voice that holds the runes of sleep? +Day shows us not such comfort anywhere. +Dwells it in Darkness? Do you find it there? + +Out of the Day's deceiving light we call, +Day that shows man so great and God so small, +That hides the stars and magnifies the grass; +O is the Darkness too a lying glass, +Or, undistracted, do you find truth there? +What of the Darkness? Is it very fair? + + +AD CIMMERIOS + +(_A Prefatory Sonnet for_ SANTA LUCIA_, the Misses Hodgkin's +Magazine for the Blind)_ + +We, deeming day-light fair, and loving well + Its forms and dyes, and all the motley play + Of lives that win their colour from the day, +Are fain some wonder of it all to tell +To you that in that elder kingdom dwell + Of Ancient Night, and thus we make assay + Day to translate to Darkness, so to say, +To talk Cimmerian for a little spell. + +Yet, as we write, may we not doubt lest ye + Should smile on us, as once our fathers smiled, + When we made vaunt of joys they knew no more; +Knowing great dreams young eyes can never see, + Dwelling in peace unguessed of any child-- + Will ye smile thus upon our daylight lore? + + +OLD LOVE-LETTERS + +You ask and I send. It is well, yea! best: + A lily hangs dead on its stalk, ah me! +A dream hangs dead on a life it blest. + Shall it flaunt its death where sad eyes may see + In the cold dank wind of our memory? +Shall we watch it rot like an empty nest? + Love's ghost, poor pitiful mockery-- +Bury these shreds and behold it shall rest. + +And shall life fail if one dream be sped? + For loss of one bloom shall the lily pass? + Nay, bury these deep round the roots, for so + In soil of old dreams do the new dreams grow, + New 'Hail' is begot of the old 'Alas.' +See, here are our letters, so sweet--so dead. + + +DEATH IN A LONDON LODGING + +'Yes, Sir, she's gone at last--'twas only five minutes ago +We heard her sigh from her corner,--she sat in the kitchen, you know: +We were all just busy on breakfast, John cleaning the boots, and I +Had just gone into the larder--but you could have heard that sigh +Right up in the garret, sir, for it seemed to pass one by +Like a puff of wind--may be 'twas her soul, who knows-- +And we all looked up and ran to her--just in time to see her head +Was sinking down on her bosom and "she's gone at last," I said.' + +So Mrs. Pownceby, meeting on the stairs +Her second-floor lodger, me, bound citywards, +Told of her sister's death, doing her best +To match her face's colour with the news: +While I in listening made a running gloss +Beneath her speech of all she left unsaid. + As--'in the kitchen,' _rather in the way,_ +_Poor thing_; 'busy on breakfast,' _awkward time_, +_Indeed, for one must live and lodgers' meals_, +_You know, must be attended to what comes_-- +(Or goes, I added for her) _yes! indeed_. +'"She's gone at last," I said,' _and better perhaps_, +_For what had life for her but suffering?_ +_And then, we're only poor, sir, John and I_, +_And she indeed was somewhat of a strain_: +_O! yes, it's for the best for all of us_. +And still beneath all else methought I read +'_What will the lodgers think, having the dead_ +_Within the house! how inconvenient!_' + +What did the lodgers think? Well, I replied +In grief's set phrase, but 'the first floor,' +I fancy, frowned at first, as though indeed +Landladies' sisters had no right to die +And taint the air for nervous lodger folk; +Then smoothed his brow out into decency, +And said, 'how sad!' and presently inquired +The day of burial, ending with the hope +His lunch would not be late like yesterday. +The maiden-lady living near the roof +Quoted Isaiah may be, or perhaps Job-- +How the Lord gives, and likewise takes away, +And how exceeding blessed is the Lord!-- +For she has pious features; while downstairs +Two 'medicals'--both 'decent' lads enough-- +Hearkened the story out like gentlemen, +And said the right thing--almost looked it too! +Though all the while within them laughed a sea +Of student mirth, which for full half an hour +They stifled well, but then could hold no more, +As soon their mad piano testified: +While in the kitchen dinner was toward +With hiss and bubble from the cooking stove, +And now a laugh from John ran up the stairs, +And a voice called aloud--of boiling pans. + +'So soon,' reflected I, 'the waters of life +Close o'er the sunken head!' Reflected _I_, +Not that in truth I was more pitiful +To the poor dead than those about me were, +Nay, but a trick of thinking much on Life +And Death i' the piece giveth each little strand +More deep significance--love for the whole +Must make us tender for the parts, methinks, +As in some souls the equal law holds true, +Sorrow for one makes sorrow for the world. +A fallen leaf or a dead flower indeed +Has made me just as sad, or some poor bee +Dead in the early summer--what's the odds? +Death was at '48,' and yet what sign? +Who seemed to know? who could have known that called? +For not a blind was lower than its wont-- +'The lodgers would not like them down,' you know-- +And in all rooms, save one, the boisterous life +Blazed like the fires within the several grates-- +Save one where lay the poor dead silent thing, +A closest chill as who hath sat at night +With love beside the ingle knows the ashes +In the morning. + + Death was at '48,' +Yet Life and Love and Sunlight were there too. +I ate and slept, and morning came at length +And brought my Lady's letter to my bed: +Thrice read and thirty kisses, came a thought, +As the sweet morning laughed about the room +Of the poor face downstairs, the sunshine there +Playing about it like a wakeful child +Whose weary mother sleepeth in the dawn, +Pressing soft fingers round about the eyes +To make them open, then with laughing shout +Making a gambol all her body's length +Ah me! poor eyes that never open more! +And mine as blithe to meet the morning's glance +As thirsty lips to close on thirsty lips! +Poor limbs no sun could ever warm again! +And mine so eager for the coming day! + + +TIME FLIES + +On drives the road--another mile! and still +Time's horses gallop down the lessening hill +O why such haste, with nothing at the end! +Fain are we all, grim driver, to descend +And stretch with lingering feet the little way +That yet is ours--O stop thy horses, pray! + +Yet, sister dear, if we indeed had grace +To win from Time one lasting halting-place, +Which out of all life's valleys would we choose, +And, choosing--which with willingness would lose? +Would we as children be content to stay, +Because the children are as birds all day; + +Or would we still as youngling lovers kiss, +Fearing the ardours of the greater bliss? +The maid be still a maid and never know +Why mothers love their little blossoms so +Or can the mother be content her bud +Shall never open out of babyhood? + +Ah yes, Time flies because we fain would fly, +It is such ardent souls as you and I, +Greedy of living, give his wings to him-- +And now we grumble that he uses them! + + +SO SOON TIRED! + + Am I so soon grown tired?--yet this old sky + Can open still each morn so blue an eye, + This great old river still through nights and days + Run like a happy boy to holidays, + This sun be still a bridegroom, though long wed, + And still those stars go singing up the night, + Glad as yon lark there splashing in the light: + Are these old things indeed unwearied, +Yet I, so soon grown tired, would creep away to bed! + + +AUTUMN + +The year grows still again, the surging wake + Of full-sailed summer folds its furrows up, + As after passing of an argosy + Old Silence settles back upon the sea, + And ocean grows as placid as a cup. + Spring, the young morn, and Summer, the strong noon, +Have dreamed and done and died for Autumn's sake: + Autumn that finds not for a loss so dear + Solace in stack and garner hers too soon-- + Autumn, the faithful widow of the year. + +Autumn, a poet once so full of song, + Wise in all rhymes of blossom and of bud, +Hath lost the early magic of his tongue, + And hath no passion in his failing blood. +Hear ye no sound of sobbing in the air? + 'Tis his. Low bending in a secret lane, +Late blooms of second childhood in his hair, + He tries old magic, like a dotard mage; + Tries spell and spell, to weep and try again: +Yet not a daisy hears, and everywhere + The hedgerow rattles like an empty cage. + +He hath no pleasure in his silken skies, + Nor delicate ardours of the yellow land; +Yea, dead, for all its gold, the woodland lies, + And all the throats of music filled with sand. +Neither to him across the stubble field + May stack nor garner any comfort bring, + Who loveth more this jasmine he hath made, + The little tender rhyme he yet can sing, +Than yesterday, with all its pompous yield, + Or all its shaken laurels on his head. + + +A FROST FANCY + +Summer gone, +Winter here; +Ways are white, +Skies are clear. +And the sun +A ruddy boy +All day sliding, +While at night +The stars appear +Like skaters gliding +On a mere. + + +THE WORLD IS WIDE + +The world is wide--around yon court, + Where dirty little children play, +Another world of street on street + Grows wide and wider every day. + +And round the town for endless miles + A great strange land of green is spread-- +O wide the world, O weary-wide, + But it is wider overhead. + +For could you mount yon glittering stairs + And on their topmost turret stand,-- +Still endless shining courts and squares, + And lanes of lamps on every hand. + +And, might you tread those starry streets + To where those long perspectives bend, +O you would cast you down and die-- + Street upon street, world without end. + + +SAINT CHARLES + +'"Saint Charles," said Thackeray to me, thirty years ago, putting one of +Charles Lamb's letters to his forehead.'--LETTERS OF EDWARD FITZGERALD. + +Saint Charles! ah yes, let other men +Love Elia for his antic pen, +And watch with dilettante eyes +His page for every quaint surprise, +Curious of _caviare_ phrase. +Yea; these who will not also praise? +We surely must, but which is more +The motley that his sorrow wore, +Or the great heart whose valorous beat +Upheld his brave unfaltering feet +Along the narrow path he chose, +And followed faithful to the close? + +Yea, Elia, thank thee for thy wit, +How poor our laughter, lacking it! +For all thy gillyflowers of speech +Gramercy, Elia; but most rich +Are we, most holpen, when we meet +Thee and thy Bridget in the street, +Upon that tearful errand set-- +So often trod, so patient yet! + + +GOOD-NIGHT + +(AFTER THE NORWEGIAN OF ROSENCRANTZ JOHNSEN) + +Midnight, and through the blind the moonlight stealing + On silver feet across the sleeping room, +Ah, moonlight, what is this thou art revealing-- + Her breast, a great sweet lily in the gloom. + +It is their bed, white little isle of bliss + In the dark wilderness of midnight sea,-- +Hush! 'tis their hearts still beating from the kiss, + The warm dark kiss that only night may see. + +Their cheeks still burn, they close and nestle yet, + Ere, with faint breath, they falter out good-night, +Her hand in his upon the coverlet + Lies in the silver pathway of the light. + +(LILLEHAMMER, _August_ 22, 1892.) + + +BEATRICE + +(FOR THE BEATRICE CELEBRATION, 1890) + +Nine mystic revolutions of the spheres + Since Dante's birth, and lo! a star new-born + Shining in heaven: and like a lark at morn +Springing to meet it, straight in all men's ears, +A strange new song, which through the listening years + Grew deep as lonely sobbing from the thorn + Rising at eve, shot through with bitter scorn, +Full-throated with the ecstasy of tears. + +Long since that star arose, that song upsprang, + That shine and sing in heaven above us yet; + Since thy white childhood, glorious Beatrice, + Dawned like a blessed angel upon his: + Thy star it was that did his song beget, +Star shining for us still because he sang. + + +A CHILD'S EVENSONG + +The sun is weary, for he ran + So far and fast to-day; +The birds are weary, for who sang + So many songs as they? +The bees and butterflies at last + Are tired out, for just think too +How many gardens through the day + Their little wings have fluttered through. + And so, as all tired people do, +They've gone to lay their sleepy heads +Deep deep in warm and happy beds. +The sun has shut his golden eye +And gone to sleep beneath the sky, +The birds and butterflies and bees +Have all crept into flowers and trees, +And all lie quiet, still as mice, +Till morning comes--like father's voice. + +So Geoffrey, Owen, Phyllis, you +Must sleep away till morning too. +Close little eyes, down little heads, +And sleep--sleep--sleep in happy beds. + + +AN EPITAPH ON A GOLDFISH + +(WITH APOLOGIES TO ARIEL) + +Five inches deep Sir Goldfish lies, + Here last September was he laid, +Poppies these that were his eyes, + Of fish-bones were these bluebells made. +His fins of gold that to and fro +Waved and waved so long ago, +Still as petals wave and wave +To and fro above his grave. +Hearken too! for so his knell +Tolls all day each tiny bell. + + +BEAUTY ACCURST + +I am so fair that wheresoe'er I wend + Men yearn with strange desire to kiss my face, +Stretch out their hands to touch me as I pass, + And women follow me from place to place. + +A poet writing honey of his dear + Leaves the wet page,--ah! leaves it long to dry. +The bride forgets it is her marriage-morn, + The bridegroom too forgets as I go by. + +Within the street where my strange feet shall stray + All markets hush and traffickers forget, +In my gold head forget their meaner gold, + The poor man grows unmindful of his debt. + +Two lovers kissing in a secret place, + Should I draw nigh,--will never kiss again; +I come between the king and his desire, + And where I am all loving else is vain. + +Lo! when I walk along the woodland way + Strange creatures leer at me with uncouth love, +And from the grass reach upward to my breast, + And to my mouth lean from the boughs above. + +The sleepy kine move round me in desire + And press their oozy lips upon my hair, +Toads kiss my feet and creatures of the mire, + The snails will leave their shells to watch me there. + +But all this worship, what is it to me? + I smite the ox and crush the toad in death: +I only know I am so very fair, + And that the world was made to give me breath. + +I only wait the hour when God shall rise + Up from the star where he so long hath sat, +And bow before the wonder of my eyes + And set _me_ there--I am so fair as that. + + +TO A DEAD FRIEND + +And is it true indeed, and must you go, + Set out alone across that moorland track, +No love avail, though we have loved you so, + No voice have any power to call you back? +And losing hands stretch after you in vain, + And all our eyes grow empty for your lack, +Nor hands, nor eyes, know aught of you again. + +Dear friend, I shed no tear while yet you stayed, + Nor vexed your soul with unavailing word, +But you are gone, and now can all be said, + And tear and sigh too surely fall unheard. +So long I kept for you an undimmed eye, + Surely for grief this hour may well be spared, +Though could you know I still must keep it dry. + +For what can tears avail you? the spring rain + That softly pelts the lattice, as with flowers, +Will of its tears a daisied counterpane + Weave for your rest, and all its sound of showers +Makes of its sobbing low a cradle song: + All tears avail but these salt tears of ours, +These tears alone 'tis idle to prolong. + +Yet must we shed them, barren though they be, + Though bloom nor burden answer as they flow, +Though no sun shines that our sad eyes can see + To throw across their fall hope's radiant bow. +Poor selfish tears! we weep them not for him, + 'Tis our own sorrow that we pity so, +'Tis our own loss that leaves our eyes so dim. + + +SUNSET IN THE CITY + +Above the town a monstrous wheel is turning, + With glowing spokes of red, +Low in the west its fiery axle burning; + And, lost amid the spaces overhead, +A vague white moth, the moon, is fluttering. + +Above the town an azure sea is flowing, + 'Mid long peninsulas of shining sand, +From opal unto pearl the moon is growing, + Dropped like a shell upon the changing strand. + +Within the town the streets grow strange and haunted, + And, dark against the western lakes of green, +The buildings change to temples, and unwonted + Shadows and sounds creep in where day has been. + +Within the town, the lamps of sin are flaring, + Poor foolish men that know not what ye are! +Tired traffic still upon his feet is faring-- + Two lovers meet and kiss and watch a star. + + +THE CITY IN MOONLIGHT + +Dear city in the moonlight dreaming, + How changed and lovely is your face; +Where is the sordid busy scheming + That filled all day the market-place? + +Was it but fancy that a rabble + Of money-changers bought and sold, +Filling with sacrilegious babble + This temple-court of solemn gold? + +Ah no, poor captive-slave of Croesus, + His bond-maid all the toiling day, +You, like some hunted child of Jesus, + Steal out beneath the moon to pray. + + + + +OF POETS AND POETRY + +To James Ashcroft Noble, + +Poet and Critic, a small acknowledgment of much +unforgotten kindness + + + +INSCRIPTIONS + +Poet, a truce to your song! + Have you heard the heart sing? + Like a brook among trees, + Like the humming of bees, + Like the ripple of wine: +Had you heard, would you stay +Blowing bubbles so long? +You have ears for the spheres-- + Have you heard the heart sing? + + * * * * * + +Have you loved the good books of the world,-- + And written none? +Have you loved the great poet,-- + And burnt your little rhyme? +'O be my friend, and teach me to be thine.' + + * * * * * + +By many hands the work of God is done, +Swart toil, pale thought, flushed dream, he spurneth none: +Yea! and the weaver of a little rhyme +Is seen his worker in his own full time. + + +THE DECADENT TO HIS SOUL + +The Decadent was speaking to his soul-- +Poor useless thing, he said, +Why did God burden me with such as thou? +The body were enough, +The body gives me all. + +The soul's a sort of sentimental wife +That prays and whimpers of the higher life, +Objects to latch-keys, and bewails the old, +The dear old days, of passion and of dream, +When life was a blank canvas, yet untouched +Of the great painter Sin. + +Yet, little soul, thou hast fine eyes, +And knowest fine airy motions, +Hast a voice-- +Why wilt thou so devote them to the church? + +His face grew strangely sweet-- +As when a toad smiles. +He dreamed of a new sin: +An incest 'twixt the body and the soul. + +He drugged his soul, and in a house of sin +She played all she remembered out of heaven +For him to kiss and clip by. +He took a little harlot in his hands, +And she made all his veins like boiling oil, +Then that grave organ made them cool again. + +Then from that day, he used his soul +As bitters to the over dulcet sins, +As olives to the fatness of the feast-- +She made those dear heart-breaking ecstasies +Of minor chords amid the Phrygian flutes, +She sauced his sins with splendid memories, +Starry regrets and infinite hopes and fears; +His holy youth and his first love +Made pearly background to strange-coloured vice. + +Sin is no sin when virtue is forgot. +It is so good in sin to keep in sight +The white hills whence we fell, to measure by-- +To say I was so high, so white, so pure, +And am so low, so blood-stained and so base; +I revel here amid the sweet sweet mire +And yonder are the hills of morning flowers; +So high, so low; so lost and with me yet; +To stretch the octave 'twixt the dream and deed, +Ah, that's the thrill! +To dream so well, to do so ill,-- +There comes the bitter-sweet that makes the sin. + +First drink the stars, then grunt amid the mire, +So shall the mire have something of the stars, +And the high stars be fragrant of the mire. + +The Decadent was speaking to his soul-- +Dear witch, I said the body was enough. +How young, how simple as a suckling child! +And then I dreamed--'an incest 'twixt the body and the soul:' +Let's wed, I thought, the seraph with the dog, +And wait the purple thing that shall be born. + +And now look round--seest thou this bloom? +Seven petals and each petal seven dyes, +The stem is gilded and the root in blood: +That came of thee. +Yea, all my flowers were single save for thee. +I pluck seven fruits from off a single tree, +I pluck seven flowers from off a single stem, +I light my palace with the seven stars, +And eat strange dishes to Gregorian chants: +All thanks to thee. + +But the soul wept with hollow hectic face, +Captive in that lupanar of a man. + +And I who passed by heard and wept for both,-- +The man was once an apple-cheek dear lad, +The soul was once an angel up in heaven. + +O let the body be a healthy beast, +And keep the soul a singing soaring bird; +But lure thou not the soul from out the sky +To pipe unto the body in the sty. + + +TO A POET + +As one, the secret lover of a queen, + Watches her move within the people's eye, + Hears their poor chatter as she passes by, +And smiles to think of what his eyes have seen; +The little room where love did 'shut them in,' + The fragrant couch whereon they twain did lie, + And rests his hand where on his heart doth die +A bruised daffodil of last night's sin: + +So, Poet, as I read your rhyme once more + Here where a thousand eyes may read it too, + I smile your own sweet secret smile at those + Who deem the outer petals of the rose + The rose's heart--I, who through grace of you, +Have known it for my own so long before. + + +THE PASSIONATE READER TO HIS POET + +Doth it not thrill thee, Poet, + Dead and dust though thou art, +To feel how I press thy singing + Close to my heart?-- + +Take it at night to my pillow, + Kiss it before I sleep, +And again when the delicate morning + Beginneth to peep? + +See how I bathe thy pages + Here in the light of the sun, +Through thy leaves, as a wind among roses, + The breezes shall run. + +Feel how I take thy poem + And bury within it my face, +As I pressed it last night in the heart of + a flower, + Or deep in a dearer place. + +Think, as I love thee, Poet, + A thousand love beside, +Dear women love to press thee too + Against a sweeter side. + +Art thou not happy, Poet? + I sometimes dream that I +For such a fragrant fame as thine + Would gladly sing and die. + +Say, wilt thou change thy glory + For this same youth of mine? +And I will give my days i' the sun + For that great song of thine. + + +MATTHEW ARNOLD + +(DIED, APRIL 15, 1888) + +Within that wood where thine own scholar strays, + O! Poet, thou art passed, and at its bound + Hollow and sere we cry, yet win no sound +But the dark muttering of the forest maze +We may not tread, nor pierce with any gaze; + And hardly love dare whisper thou hast found + That restful moonlit slope of pastoral ground +Set in dark dingles of the songful ways. + +Gone! they have called our shepherd from the hill, + Passed is the sunny sadness of his song, + That song which sang of sight and yet was brave + To lay the ghosts of seeing, subtly strong + To wean from tears and from the troughs to save; +And who shall teach us now that he is still! + + +'TENNYSON' AT THE FARM + +(TO L. AND H.H.) + +O you that dwell 'mid farm and fold, + Yet keep so quick undulled a heart, +I send you here that book of gold, + So loved so long; +The fairest art, + The sweetest English song. + +And often in the far-off town, + When summer sits with open door, +I'll dream I see you set it down + Beside the churn, + +Whose round shall slacken more and more, + Till you forget to turn. + +And I shall smile that you forget, + And Dad will scold--but never mind! +Butter is good, but better yet, + Think such as we, +To leave the farm and fold behind, + And follow such as he. + + +'THE DESK'S DRY WOOD' + +(TO JAMES WELCH) + +Dear Desk, Farewell! I spoke you oft +In phrases neither sweet nor soft, +But at the end I come to see +That thou a friend hast been to me, + No flatterer but very friend. +For who shall teach so well again +The blessed lesson-book of pain, +The truth that souls that would aspire +Must bravely face the scourge and fire, + If they would conquer in the end? +Two days! +Shall I not hug thee very close? +Two days, +And then we part upon our ways. +Ah me! +Who shall possess thee after me? +O pray he be no enemy to poesy, +To gentle maid or gentle dream. + +How have we dreamed together, I and thou, +Sweet dreams that like some incense wrapt us round +The last new book, the last new love, +The last new trysting-ground. +How many queens have ruled and passed +Since first we met; how thick and fast +The letters used to come at first, how thin at last; +Then ceased, and winter for a space! +Until another hand +Brought spring into the land, +And went the seasons' pace. + +And now, Dear Desk, thou knowest for how long time +I have no queen but song: +Yea, thou hast seen the last love fade, and now +Behold the last of many a secret rhyme! + + +A LIBRARY IN A GARDEN + +'A Library in a garden! The phrase seems to contain the whole felicity +of man.'--Mr. EDMUND GOSSE in _Gossip in a Library_. + +A world of books amid a world of green, +Sweet song without, sweet song again within +Flowers in the garden, in the folios too: +O happy Bookman, let me live with you! + + +ON THE MORALS OF POETS + +One says he is immoral, and points out + Warm sin in ruddy specks upon his soul: +Bigot, one folly of the man you flout + Is more to God than thy lean life is whole. + + +FAERY GOLD + +(TO MRS. PERCY DEARMER) + +A poet hungered, as well he might-- +Not a morsel since yesternight! +And sad he grew--good reason why-- +For the poet had nought wherewith to buy. + +'Are not two sparrows sold,' he cried, +'Sold for a farthing? and,' he sighed, +As he pushed his morning post away, +'Are not two sonnets more than they?' + +Yet store of gold, great store had he,-- +Of the gold that is known as 'faery.' +He had the gold of his burning dreams, +He had his golden rhymes--in reams, +He had the strings of his golden lyre, +And his own was that golden west on fire. + +But the poet knew his world too well +To dream that such would buy or sell. +He had his poets, 'pure gold,' he said, +But the man at the bookstall shook his head, +And offered a grudging half-a-crown +For the five the poet had brought him down. + +Ah, what a world we are in! we sigh, +Where a lunch costs more than a Keats can buy, +And even Shakespeare's hallowed line +Falls short of the requisite sum to dine. + +Yet other gold had the poet got, +For see from that grey-blue Gouda pot +Three golden tulips spouting flame-- +From his love, from his love, this morn, they came. +His love he loved even more than fame. + +Three golden tulips thrice more fair +Than other golden tulips were-- +'And yet,' he smiled as he took one up, +And feasted on its yellow cup,-- +'I wonder how many eggs you'd buy! +By Bacchus, I've half a mind to try! +'One golden bloom for one golden yolk-- +Nay, on my word, sir, I mean no joke-- +Gold for gold is fair dealing, sir.' +Think of the grocer gaping there! + +Or the baker, if I went and said, +--'This tulip for a loaf of bread, +God's beauty for your kneaded grain;' + +Or the vintner--'For this flower of mine +A flagon, pray, of yellow wine, +And you shall keep the change for gain.' + +Ah me, on what a different earth +I and these fellows had our birth, +Strange that these golden things should be +For them so poor, so rich for me.' + +Ended his sigh, the poet searched his shelf-- +Seeking another poet to feed himself; +Then sadly went, and, full of shame and grief, +Sold his last Swinburne for a plate of beef. + +Thus poets too, to fill the hungry maw, +Must eat each other--'tis the eternal law. + + +ALL SUNG + +What shall I sing when all is sung, + And every tale is told, +And in the world is nothing young + That was not long since old? + +Why should I fret unwilling ears + With old things sung anew, +While voices from the old dead years + Still go on singing too? + +A dead man singing of his maid + Makes all my rhymes in vain, +Yet his poor lips must fade and fade, + And mine shall kiss again. + +Why should I strive through weary moons + To make my music true? +Only the dead men knew the tunes + The live world dances to. + + +CORYDON'S FAREWELL TO HIS PIPE + +Yea, it is best, dear friends, who have so oft +Fed full my ears with praises sweet and soft, +Sweeter and softer than my song should win, +Too sweet and soft--I must not listen more, +Lest its dear perilous honey make me mad, +And once again an overweening lad +Presume against Apollo. Nay, no more! +'Tis not to pipes like mine sing stars at morn, +Nor stars at night dance in their solemn dance: +Nay, stars! why tell of stars? the very thrush +Putteth my daintiest cunning to the blush +And boasteth him the hedgerow laureate. +Yea, dimmest daisies lost amid the grass, +One might have deemed blessed us for looking at, +Would rather choose,--yea, so it is, alas!-- +The meanest bird that from its tiny throat +Droppeth the pearl of one monotonous note, +Than any music I can bring to pass. + +So, let me go: for, while I linger here, +Piping these dainty ditties for your ear, +To win that dearer honey for my own, +Daylong my Thestylis doth sit alone, +Weeping, mayhap, because the gods have given +Song but not sheep--the rarer gift of heaven; +And little Phyllis solitary grows, +And little Corydon unheeded goes. + +Sheep are the shepherd's business,--let me go,-- +Piping his pastime when the sun is low: +But I, alas! the other order keep, +Piping my business, and forgot my sheep. + +My song that once was as a little sweet +Savouring the daily bread we all must eat, +Lo! it has come to be my only food: +And, as a lover of the Indian weed +Steals to a self-indulgent solitude, +To draw the dreamy sweetness from its root, +So from the strong blithe world of valorous deed +I steal away to suck this singing weed; +And while the morning gathers up its strength, +And while the noonday runneth on in might, +Until the shadows and the evening light +Come and awake me with a fear at length, +Prone in some hankering covert hid away, +Fain am I still my piping to prolong, +And for the largess of a bounteous day +Dare pay my maker with a paltry song. + +Welcome the song that like a trumpet high +Lifts the tired head of battle with its cry, +Welcome the song that from its morning heights +Cheers jaded markets with the health of fields, +Brings down the stars to mock the city lights. +Or up to heaven a shining ladder builds. +But not to me belongeth such a grace, +And, were it mine, 'tis not in amorous shade +To river music that such song is made: +The song that moves the battle on awoke +To the stern rhythm of the swordsman's stroke, +The song that fans the city's weary face +Sprang not afar from out some leafy place, +But bubbled spring-like in its dingiest lane +From out a heart that shared the city's pain; +And he who brings the stars into the street +And builds that shining ladder for our feet, +Dwells in no mystic Abora aloof, +But shares the shelter of the common roof; +He learns great metres from the thunderous hum, +And all his songs pulse to the human beat. + +But I am Corydon, I am not he, +Though I no more that Corydon shall be +To make a sugared comfit of my song. +So now I go, go back to Thestylis-- +How her poor eyes will laugh again for this! +Go back to Thestylis, and no more roam +In melancholy meadows mad to sing, +But teach our little home itself to sing. +Yea, Corydon, now cast thy pipe away--- +See, how it floats upon the stream, and see +There it has gone, and now--away! away! +But O! my pipe, how sweet thou wert to me! + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of English Poems, by Richard Le Gallienne + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ENGLISH POEMS *** + +***** This file should be named 10913.txt or 10913.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/0/9/1/10913/ + +Produced by Brendan Lane, carol david and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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