Poems with Fables in Prose :: :: University of Virginia Library

But at last the lady pale, so pale,
Who never could take rest,
She stept down from the bed of kings
And rode to south and west.
From the lightly-faithful bed of kings
She rode, they say, and drest
In her white silken wedding-gown
Alone through many a drowsy town;
Hardly she drew the rein by night
For the fire within her breast.

About the peak'd and stormy towers
At the corners of her keep
Had marched a music old and proud
For the waking of her sleep,
But the rousing voice she listened for
Was the sea's against the steep.

“Take him away, your nimble hawk
That comes again to hand!
Bring me the bird that shows the pass
Into a blither land,
And the tune I never heard before
Is the tune I understand!

“O where shall I now pin my faith
Who greatly have believed?
And whither shall I fly, my heart,
That so hath been deceived?
It does no good to speak aloud,
Save to the wind, save to the cloud!

“Make room, thou southland mountain-top,
Make room for my disdain!
Make room, Ægean-breathing Dawn!
Cypress above the plain,
I will inhabit silence; then
I shall begin to reign.

“I had a cousin—a mad king—
Why mad? He had a play
Played out for him, and him alone.

I'll have, ‘The Death of Day!’
The boards are bare, the footlights lit,
The house fills, tier on tier,
The vasty arch bedazzles. . . . Now
Among the oaks and deer,
With every grass-blade lustred through,
What tragic gods I hear!

“As Muse I'll listen. My thick hair
Night-heavy, my sole crown,
Falls round me like a close despair
And veils me on the throne.
See! The Players change as quick as kings!—
The eve-mist changes. So
I'll waver with unstable things,
And go with things that go!

“I will go wander like a wave
And lash me to the mast,
And sail by many a siren cave
Till peril's charm be past.
I'll wash this gaze in gaze of flowers
In some Greek olive glen,
And listen till I find my soul
In places far from men.

“O the world's ill, if even I
Whose whimsies none resist—
Who, satiate with all-yieldingness,
Can change lands as I list,

Yet find Death sweetest of all tales
Of Life the rhapsodist!
If I too sharp-set find the yoke
Of earth's monotony,
Then for these poor and common folk
What must it be, what must it be?

“I will forget them. I am wronged.
How can I give them ease?
I will forget them—play the Muse
Of all bright ironies.
Since what I asked the gods refuse,
I will have Glory's kiss!
Failure that's great—among great things
At least deny not this!

“Now for the prey I cannot kill,
The hound that comes not back,
The horse I cannot break at will,
And a leap to end the track!
My soul it shall be hunting still
Though the night it may be black.

“I am a queen, and round a queen
Rumour hath ever rung;
But rather than such honour grant
Me, Glory, to die young,
Full of the passion thou didst plant,
Sure that I could have shaped the chant
Woman hath never sung!

“Blood of grapes stretch me not to drink,
But juices more sublime!
I'll see the world's green acre shrink
While life is at the prime!
I'll lift my horse up on the brink
As he had wings to climb,
And pledge thee, Glory, ere I sink
Into the night of time!”