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

NAY, I am tired of kisses: let us sit
Awhile, that I may look into thine eyes
And watch the fair full dawning of desire
Flower out to passion. Nay, I prithee, rest;
I would not have thee kiss me yet awhile,
Lest the one sweetness mar the memory,
Sweeter than life, of that which went before.

Dear, dost thou love me? Nay, sweet, answer not.
'Tis but a lovers' litany, that needs
Responsion but as some half drowsy drone
Of Aves humming through the silver sound
Of the thrilled pipes, when the full hymn floats up
And all the incense shrivels up the nave;
An asking of a thing that is too sure
To need assurance, ay, that takes affright

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And doubts, if one be careful to assure.

How long a season is it since we met
And looked upon and knew each all to each
And the world turning on our dual selves?
How long, my love? These few, short, golden years,
A whisper of the wind through orange groves,
Lit with the lamps of months and days and hours,
All fed with some sweet perfumed oil of praise,
Burnt to our love? Or else these many lives,
These long, full, dreamy, interfluent lives
Of termless time, that flow beside the years,
Around, between, before and after them,
Eking our pauses of unfilled accords
With complements of strange, sweet harmony.
Tell me, fair lord! Or rather, tell me not:
I will not have thee speak nor break the spell
That, like a flower, sits on thy happy lips,
Holding the silence with a scent of peace.
I will speak for thee, with thy hand in mine,
Nestling, a dove laid in a dove's white breast,
And thine eyes sacring me thy best belov'd,
With that full benediction of calm peace
That I do live by. I have never known
So whole an environment of content,
So golden an investiture of peace
And confidence as this that is on me
To-day; I have a sweetness at my heart,
An autumn glory of accomplished hope,
As of a soul that, with its whole wish won,
Sees Death come walking to it over flowers
And smiles for gladness of perfected peace
And pity of the sad condemned to live.
And to such folk, 'tis said, comes memory,
A fair young child, and takes them by the hand
And leads them, blithe and crowned with mystic palms,
Along the backward ways; and there they note
The by-gone landmarks overgrown with flowers

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Of fair fulfilment and the rude wild wastes,
Where erst they wandered, sighing to the winds
And casting seeds of longing and despair,
Of hope and love and dole on every side,
Clad like a bride with many-coloured robes
Of blooms imperial. So it is with me;
For thus it seems full bliss doth mimic death,
Being alike fruition. Sit, my love,
And I will sing to thee some sweet sad song,
To spite our happiness; or, soothlier,
I will e'en tell thee yet once more again
The story of my life and how I grew
And fashioned forth myself, expecting thee;
Yet once again, of all these many times;
For, in my thought, each time I tell it thee,
I do once more reconquer me thy love,
Seeing it is to me like some fair fire,
That lights the backward and the forward ways,
Upon some travelled highway. Hearken, then.

I do remember, when I was a child,
A little, pale-faced child with eyes all wide
With the new wonder of the mystic world,
My thoughts were ever strained toward some mist
Of hope unformed, that should, in days to come,
Flower forth to wish. I was scarce fain to sport
And laugh and frolic as my fellows were,
Uncareful of the hopes the future held;
Nay, I was ever seeking for myself
The strange and solemn mysteries of things
Common and everpresent, yet unknown.
I could not touch another playmate's hand
Nor look into another's round void eyes,
The laughing, tearful eyes of infancy,
But something, that I comprehended not,
Stole through my veins and caused the sudden blood
Invade my visage and the nerves of life
Thrill as a harp thrills to the passing touch

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Of the pale sprites that wander down the winds
Of night. I would build palaces of dreams
About some idle, vain, unanswering thing,
Twine wreaths of strange affection round the brows
Of some rough, careless mate, that half endured
And half repelled my timorous caress.
Or, failing these, I made some flighty goat,
Some silly kindly sheep my heart's delight
And loved the unresponsive world in it,
Decking its coyness with my childish toys,
Ribbons and beads and such like foolish gear. [OMITTED]

V. Les Contes Drôlatiques de Balzac, “La Belle Imperia Mariée.”