The Poetical Works of John Payne :: :: University of Virginia Library

I KNOW not whence it was, nor how it came,
That I should dream again the sad old dream,
That the recurrent years should bear the same
Sun-brightened bubbles to my life's dull stream.
So sad and sweet it was, both life and death
Did mingle in the perfume of its flowers;
It was compounded of the Spring's sweet breath
And of the gusty winter's snow-white hours.
The tender cadence of the soft May-wind
Fanned lovingly the misty winter air;
The old enchanted Mährchen-blooms combined
With chill frost-flowers to make it sad and fair.
Armida's garden was it for my feet,
Its air with magical delights was rife:
'Twas death to me, and yet so living sweet,
I welcomed death that was more fair than life.

252

‘Surely, the bitterness of death is past!’
I said, when once that weary dream was o'er;
‘Surely, the corpse of memory at last
Will rest in peace and trouble me no more!’
And so I buried sadly my dead love,
Laid it to sleep beneath the sands of Time.
It was no phœnix, but a wounded dove,
(I thought,) and would live only in my rhyme.
Alas! God's essence could not lightly die!
Its life was quickened by no mortal breath;
It rose again and filled my life's gray sky
With all the cold wan loveliness of death.
This phantom is it, whose persistence mars
The tender beauty of the summer hours,
Whose image blots from me the kindling stars
And saddens all the splendour of the flowers.

The months slid swiftly down the year's decline,
The flowers went drooping to their autumn tomb;
The dying leaves did, dolphin-like, outshine
With gold and red the summer's lavish bloom.
Springtide and summer did my grief assain
With primrose-blooms and rose-embalsamed air;
With dying summer seemed to die my pain
And for awhile the cruel foe did spare.
But all too soon I found the ancient fire
Slept only 'neath the rose and jasmine blooms:
It needed but a breath of dead desire
To stir old memories in their flowery tombs.
For one light flower-touch of thy white white hand,
One glance from out thy blue blue eye again,
Could call the dead Spring from the shadow-land
And bid relive for me the vanished pain.

Ah me, Madonna! we too have our hearts,
(Strange, seems it not?) and lose them sometimes, too!
Ay, and they break too, spite of all our arts!

253

‘'Tis true, 'tis pity! Pity 'tis, 'tis true!’
If I should say in earnest what in jest
So oft I've told you in an idle song,
Would you not treat it lightly as the rest
And deem it fancy? Yet you would be wrong;
For it is true, my sweet, as God is true,
I have no heart, no soul, that is not thine:
For it is true, as that the heavens are blue,
My heart's blood throbbed within the passionate line.
If stars give light, my love is star and moon;
If June bear roses, love is my heart's June.

If life be sleep and love the balm of death
And faith and beauty be but hour-long dreams;
If hoping faint, as faints the night-flowers' breath,
And pass away upon the years' cold streams;
If dreams be ghast with long-dead hopes and fears
And pale sad phantasms dim the glass of time;
If the unceasing rivulet of the years
Run no more lucent with the gold of rhyme;
If all Spring-blooms be chalices of woe
And all June-sweets with winter's breath be rife,
Ice-flowers shall mock for me the summer's glow;
If Love be Death, then Death shall be my life:
Sweet Death, sweet enemy, welcome to my breast;
For, pressing thee, I see, beyond thee, rest.

It is the old complaint we rhymers bear—
Half-known in heaven, wholly strange to earth—
The banquets of the Immortals now to share
And now to wake unto our mortal dearth.
Our souls a twofold burden must sustain;
And so, although we have no twofold joy,
Our double life is marred with double pain,
Our brightest hopes are dulled with earth's alloy.

254

We must have both—both love and fame—and strive
The golden chariot of the god of Day
Along the star-emblazoned track to drive,
With one immortal steed and one of clay.
Poor Phaëtons! no wonder that we fail,
Who would alike in earth and heaven prevail!

O tender beauty of the fleeting years,
O gilding glory of the sweet sad Past,
God's most effectual healing, that endears
To us our bitterest memories at last!
O exquisite strange magic, by whose powers
We live in an immortal wonderland,
Framed in the mist-screen of the fading hours,
A golden image in a mould of sand!
The memory of past loving gilds our lives;
New flower-times blossom from the brief annoy;
The olden beauty through a mist revives,
A faint sweet image of the ancient joy.
The fitful sunheat of the youthful sky
Mellows to sweetness as the years go by.

I would not have that love of ours revive,
(If I could backward tread the years again,)
Much as I prized it: life could scarce survive
A second access of the old sweet pain.
I would not, if I could; and in this strife
I cannot; for our man's heart has but room
For one short life: and Love itself is life
And can have but one summer and one bloom.
Is it so short, this love and life of ours?
Short in its sweetness, in its sadness long;
And yet we find, among its fleeting hours,
Some that are perfect as a linnet's song.
Dear, it was brief and left the sweeter peace:
The thought of true love lives, though loving cease.