University of Virginia Library

This is the fair witch Circe, queen divine,
The daughter of the Sun: her charming wand
Rests on her ivory shoulder at command:
She holds a chalice of enchanted wine,
The sweet wine sweeter from the rosy hand.
She sits within a grove of gray wych-elms,
And sings across the waves with siren breath,
To call her lovers in from twilight realms,
To crowd their foolish sails for love and death.
And near the rocking breakers, drear and dread,
She hath a lordly palace of delight,
And a rich chamber where her couch is spread
With gems like orient sunrise, flashing light;
Ruby and opal, sard and sardonyx
In soft effulgence mix;
Beryl and chrysolite
Beam on her brow by night:
Her drowsy lips are kissed
By rays of amethyst.

A loom is in her chamber, purple-flecked
A giant web expands, whereon is wrought
Nature in all her colours, fancy-caught;
Above that web two Cupids rosy-necked,
Almost alive in tinted Parian rock,
Mingle their locks together, each gauzed wing
Trembles and fans with light aërial shock.
As when two bees within one peony swing,
These brother Loves embrace,
Rosed with the shadow of the rose's face.
With fragrant mouths they seem to interbreathe,
And there is passion in their lips of stone,
That gives the icy marble living grace,
And flushes underneath:
As on the snow-cloud grows
The dawn's red undertone,
When lisping zephyr blows.

And on each image from a flickering fire
Of cedar logs and bay-wood heaped behind
Reddens the flame and shimmers at its spire.
But of those Loves is neither sculptured blind.
One holds a rose—that means long love desire:
One holds an asphodel—that means reward.
And on their brows is coral-berried yew,
An emblem harsh and hard,
That means—ah, well a day,—
For lovers false and lovers true,
Sleep and its cloudy pinions, silvering
The folded hands and sharpened faces gray,
Sleep on her raven wing:
Sleep that no magic flower can charm away,
Or make us rise again,
The ruined sons of Care:
The slain of Love, the slain
Of the huge hooks and arrows of Despair.
O asphodel, Elysian asphodel,
Bedding Adonis in his wounded pain,
Flower of the heroes' dell,—
Dead lovers these of thine,
My Circe fine,
They are beyond thy sway
Into a deeper day
Past, unremembered wrecks of vain desire,
And broken lutes of passion's golden lyre.
Thy might is ended where the grave begins,
And thy innocuous spells
Fall by the margin of the sea of sins,
Done with as empty shells.
Dead, ay, and done with, not thy beauty's beam
Can make these men arise:
Their feet are tangled in the nets of dream,
They cross the stream of sighs.
Canst thou put breath between those wasted lips
That hold the boatman's toll,
The ferry-coin, where uncouth Charon ships
The Lethe-sailing soul?
They end and thou abidest: in a shroud
They pass to dust. New victims find thee fair:
Into thy net new shoals of tunnies crowd,
New moths fall burning from thy radiant hair.
These creatures of a day acclaim thee queen,
And for their span of time exalt thy power;
All nature lies before thee, fresh and green,
My locust to devour.
Siren of blood and tears, the road to thee
Is paved with bramble hooks that rend the feet,
Thy crystal breast is paradise to see,
Beyond all breath of roses thou art sweet.
Thy brows, more lovely than the rainbow, are
Woven with many a star
Of the delicious deadly asphodel,
That in thy tresses braided shines afar,
When thou dost weave thy spell:
Stern as Medea in her dragon car,
Or as Canidia fell:
Or cruel as Medusa's sculptured face,
Set on a targe of war.
But other days thou wearest childish grace
By contrast to ensnare,
Aping the startled fawn, whom bugles scare,
Blown in the dewy glade.
Or in some new disguise,
To allure deluded eyes,
Thou art the shrinking violet, half afraid,
That, in rathe April born,
Where icy winds complain,
Hardly unfolds her petals to the morn
Between the rainbow and the weep of rain.

What blind one, wearing eyes and wanting brain,
Wilt thou, pale Circe conquer with thy spell?
To whom are kisses given,
Until he holds thee beautiful as heaven,
Golden as gold, too sweet for words to tell.
And all his soul is in thy roseleaf hands,
Where thou a queen dost sit in soft repose,
Watching the radiant lands.
Thy shrine of Love is there
A charnel masked with rose,
Love guards the entrance fair,
Ringed round with rainbow glows.
'Tis Love disguised as Death
Sits masked in iris ray,
And under his rose wreath
The scanty locks grow gray.
His eyes are hollow dim,
As a glow-worm on a grave,
He is great, O kneel to him:
Great to slay, and great to save.
Beneath the altar floors
The poisoned adder waits.
Behind the agate doors,
And round the burnished gates
The mighty pythons coil.
And toads unsanctified
The precinct pavement soil,
And in the garlands hide.
The altar burns; in rubied cup divine,
From perfumed chalice shed,
Pour out the glow of thy enchanted wine,
Wine for the lovers, who have loved thee dear,
And come to wed:
A cup of consolation, deep and clear,
They need no second tasting: they are dead.

In saffron-coloured pride
For Hymen art thou clad,
My Circe, sweeter bride
Ne'er made a bridegroom glad.
Or draped in Fortune's robe,
Ruler of blood and breath,
Thy wheel directs the globe,
O Fortune, which art Death!
Thy paradise embowers
Faint Acherusian flowers,
The warlock's charms of might,
Dwale, henbane, aconite
From gardens of despair,
To be as orange blossom in thy hair,
Sweet deadly rose;
Altar of Love wrapt round with hemlock band,
To whom exultant goes
Thy victim and thy bridegroom: to whose hand
Death shall divide his posies, as the bride
Divides her kisses bland,
In maiden pride.
Death shall assign the coral apples small,
The blooms of violet hue
And central orange anther, whence bees fall
Drowsy with poisoned dew,
This is the nightshade, and its night is drear.
It apes the honest ivy in its leaves,
And in its grapelets mocks the clusters clear,
That shade the brow of Bacchus; when he weaves
Some drowsy nymph in tendril curls of vine;
What better bloom divine
Could drape our Circe for her couch attired,
And veil her gentle breast,
An Ariadne of all men desired,
But only god-caressed:
As she lies sparkling in her nuptial glory:
What tho' its leaves behind
With fang-froth yet be hoary,
Are not all lovers blind?
'Tis but the cuckoo's kiss,
Which bathes the clematis,
Or the ragged robin often,
When east winds begin to soften.

And who art thou, enchantress, serpent fell,
Lamia, whose dazzling eyes
Draw as with cords the nations to thy spell
To perish? Thou, who slayest with love-sighs
Thy foolish lovers: fast as summer flies
Drop in a cup of mead or hydromel,
Or tangle in the web Arachne ties.
O loveless vengeance, masked in Love's attire,
O hate, that stealest Passion's sweetest lyre.
Vampire, whose beauty ripens on much death,
Siren, whose throne is built with bones beneath;
Blaspheming, soiling, and degrading him
The ineffable, the crown, the ray
Of all things; in whose absence heaven is dim,
Love, at whose effluence utmost earth is gay,
And the gray fountains flow,
And the rathe lilies blow;
Love lays his emerald mantle on the hills,
Love pours his rich blood in the mountain rills:
He bathes in sunset colours the flushed sea,
Mighty and lord is he.
What dire Plutonian birth
On this bewildered earth
Gave breath and empire, baleful queen, to thee?
Wild pæan shook the Eblis halls of fire,
When thou wert born: old woes,
Shadows and phantoms of outwept desire,
Long dead, from charnels rose.
Love on thy cradle smiled, a babe divine,
And watched thy infant breath,
Love bitter as Despair and sweet as wine,
Love bitter-sweet as Death.
Time guided thee a daughter of delight
Upon thy beaming way:
And hung thy hair with jewels, as the night
Is spangled with star-ray.
Time made thee lovelier than all paradise,
A drop of god's own dew,
Distilled into a rainbow from blue ice,
Where falcon never flew.
The vital pomp of may-time and of morn
Shall glitter in her eyes.
Princes shall sell their honour for her scorn,
And wreck their realms with sighs.
If she lament, the languid lilies stain,
If she deplore, rust gathers on the rose.
If she bewail, in sympathetic pain
Night weeping rings with philomela's woes.
The stars attend her dreams
And bathe her with repose,
She lies in silver beams
A flushed unopened rose.