TO BEATRICE
TWENTY SONNETS
I.
THE PROGRESS OF PASSION
Ah me, how I love Womanhood! the wonder,
The dream-delight, that round their being clings,—
The eyes that shatter, and the touch that stings:—
The power that lives in lightning and in thunder,
That flies from out the storm-cloud torn asunder,
Resides, believe me, in these fairy things,
In daintiest maiden fair that sits and sings;
Clasp palms,—the electric shock shall rush from under.
For me the wonder wanes not, but increases:
A stern belief I'm holding as mine own,—
That only in the bud, in broken pieces,
Has love of man and woman yet been known;
That time it is, when earthly passion ceases,
To hurl the planet from her central throne.
1870.
II.
UNDIVIDED SERVICE
We have to give her eyes, and hearts, and hands,
Sweet poet-brothers, lovers of my soul;
We have to crown her with the living whole
Of power that each in his degree commands.
Silent and smiling before each she stands,
Ready to lay cool palms upon his brow
If only he will swear allegiance now,
Renouncing love of home, and life, and lands,
Renouncing popularity and praise
And great laudation of most petty minds
And all the vulgar hubbub of the ways;—
The man that doth this thing most surely finds
The earth as fresh as when, drawing up the blinds,
Upon a rain-washed summer morn we gaze.
1870.
III.
WHITE
White, when I saw you last, with eyes as clear
As ocean in the summer over sand,
Your face was,—when I pressed your cold sweet hand.
I did not know it was the last time, dear,
And so another sonnet-pressure here
I send,—the last wave washed upon the strand,—
Last cry from darkness towards the sunlit land,—
Last petal of the last rose of the year.
The last long wailing of a harpsichord,—
Last struggle, last spent sobbing, of a flute,—
Last broken iridescence of a lute,—
Last gleam and snapping of a singer's sword;
Last surge of passion round about you poured;
Last sunset-lustre on love's golden fruit.
1871.
IV.
GOD'S SCORN
Beautiful scorn of God! as gently poured
Upon the sinner as a summer dew,
Yet having power to penetrate him through
With swift incision of a two-edged sword;—
Thou sweet and subtle terror of the Lord,
Having a woman's face, and just as tender
In the end to every soured and frail offender
As is a maiden in her mute award
Of final free forgiveness to her lover,—
As beautiful as are her tearful eyes
When lashes and the red lids gently rise
Peace and her vanished anger to discover,—
We dread thee not, for, storms and shadows over,
Comes summer, and the blue caress of skies.
1871.
V.
“BICÉ”
Not “Beatricé,” rather “Bicé”:—I
Was ignorant of Dante's heart until
The soft diminutive my heart did thrill
With tender lips and a caressing sigh.
For Beatricé might a warrior die,—
For Bicé it was that Dante lived to fill
The ages with a voice, and stamp his will,
Regnant, on all Italian destiny.
For Bicé the stern eyes were large with light
And stern lips softly luminous with song;
For her, like some melodious eagle's flight,
His deathless wingéd poem passed along
The clouds, before all listening peoples' sight:—
For her the eternal toil-worn hands waxed strong.
1871.
VI.
SAD SONNETS
Sad sonnets written while a wild hope lasted,
I kiss your eyes, and give you subtle wings,
That towards the distance of blue previous things
Your plumes may hasten: while I fought and fasted
And triumphed, these were written,—now, dismasted,
Around my soul the white foam-fever clings,
And in my ears the chant sonorous rings
Of waves that break the ship's hull bent and blasted.
But these were written while a hope remained,—
Wild, unfledged, a young eaglet in a dream,—
And while as yet a madman's eyes were strained
Through mists wherein strange answering glances gleam;
Written before the soft red sweet lips spoke,
By the strong heart that loved them,—till it broke.
1871.
VII.
“WHAT HAS BEEN, IS”
What has been, is. I have lost my rose, and yet
I know that, if a rose-bloom God there be,
That rose of his sweet nurture I shall see
And with the former love my lids be wet,—
And that the wings of passion-fed regret
Shall part, and glisten into air, and flee;—
And that she shall be tender unto me,
And that these eyes shall meet the eyes I met
On that far seashore in the sweet old days
In some rose-haunted nook of heaven again.
Be it how it may, no other hand can raise
My forehead in the grasses of wan pain
Sunk deep,—and, if for ever I remain
Alive, no other woman will I praise.
1871.
VIII.
DIVINELY “VICTRIX”
I dreamed my love was aged and infirm,
An autumn rose with desolated leaves;
But now my waking truer sight perceives
Its beauty is but as a crimson germ.
The winds that shook my blossom for a term
Depart,—and, having cleansed away the brown
And faded petals, leave my flower's crown
Divinely “victrix” over winter's worm.
Over the past I run a rapid eye—
Over the tuneful work that I have done,—
And, where I thought love's silver waves were dry,
Behold a golden streamlet just begun;
See, for a perished moon, a mounting sun;
For grey despondent clouds, a fervid sky!
1871.
IX.
ONE NIGHT
One night she came,—like a strange dream-born flower,—
And sprinkled many a petal on the floor,
And stood between me and the close-shut door,
Awful in her excess of maiden power.
And even as a green delightful bower
The chamber was;—her softness seemed to steep
My spirit in wondrous depths of magic sleep,
And time fell dead,—hour floated after hour.
Then force immortal lifted either soul,
And hand in hand through dark wild solitudes
And green recesses of moon-lighted woods
We wandered; for some fairy seemed to roll
The yielding walls aside,—and sorrows stole
Away like ghosts with white averted hoods.
1871.
X.
OLD POEMS
Old poems lay before me,—and I knew
Again the floating dreams of early days
Which led me captive underneath the blaze
Of summer, when the sea was wide and blue
In front,—the cliff beneath me,—and when you
Walked as a queen along those windy ways,
And held towards me a sweet crown of bays
Wet with Youth's crystal sinless globes of dew.
Now for the morning the calm sunset shines
Before me,—and the sun's remorseless eye
Is red between tall pillars of black pines
Wherethrough I have to travel by and bye;
Marching alone through their imposing lines,
Dim, vast, and imperturbable, and high.
Dec. 24, 1871.
XI.
ONE BY ONE
The loves depart and vanish, one by one,
Like women gathering up receding gowns
And smiling into night,—and their gold crowns
Are as the stormy setting of a sun
Over whose shuddering face the damp clouds run,
And finger and distress him till he drowns;
And their red roses like short flowers on downs,
And their gold garments even as cobwebs spun,
And their gold tresses as the horrid locks
Of some dispersed and slippery cold weed
Clinging in brown flat coils upon the rocks,
And kisses only as the floating seed
The thistle gives to air,—and as coarse stocks
The blossoms where our passions used to feed.
Dec. 24, 1871.
XII.
A GREEN ARCADE
My spirit revelled in a green arcade
And felt the motion and the bloom of flowers,—
The feathery cool despondence of the shade,
The joy of rivulets in summer showers,
And the inner sense of passion's secret bowers:
And then there came a maiden and she said,
“I dwell beyond the immortal blue-tipped towers
And valleys tenanted by the extreme dead
Where the perpetual swift sun's rays are red,
And, long before the mystery of birth,
These eyes that shine like emeralds in my head
Flashed upon thine with laughter and quick mirth;—
Before thy first infantine whisper fell,
I was thine immemorial Isobelle.”
1872.
XIII.
FROM SPRING TO AUTUMN
My love was lost: 'twas in the early spring,—
But so divine a sunset-flame attended
The loss of that immeasurable thing
That even with autumn the sweet colours blended,
And at cold Christmas snows were hardly ended,
Illuminating the void current year
And every leaf and flower and fruit suspended
Within its grasp;—so, on an evening clear,
A crimson sunset brings the distance near
And through long minutes its sweet bloom pervades
The woods, till like a cold and crystal tear
The silver moon streams lightly o'er the shades,—
And then the last red flame of sunset goes,
Like the last heavenly petal of a rose.
1872.
XIV.
BEYOND THE ETERNAL HILLS
But surely, far beyond the eternal hills
And the slow river that pale men revere
More than earth's quiet violet-girdled rills,
Shall love and all things doubtful be made clear.
Earth's autumn, red and solemn and austere,
Shall blossom into green May-scented spring,
And the opening of a green eternal year
Arouse the happy praise of everything;—
Then shall the hills and heaven's copses ring
With notes of throstles that were broken-hearted,
And whistle of nightingales too weak to sing
When love and all love's music had departed;
Then shall the faces of our passions shine
Like angels in a golden endless line.
1872.
XV.
FINAL RESURRECTION
I know that yet again my love shall rise
And spurn the timid shadows and the gloom,
Bursting the bars of the unavailing tomb
And seeking birdlike the eternal skies.
Then shall I know the truth of each surmise,—
And every faint remotest intuition
Shall shine before me in an open vision,
When the close roof of life no more denies.
Beyond the extreme blue haze of sunset hills
There lies a recompence for every soul,—
A recompence for even extremest ills:—
Beyond those mountain-tops my Lady stole,
And from behind those barriers, when she wills,
She shall appear,—to make the enfeebled whole.
1874.
XVI.
THE TRUE PURE POSSESSION
The true possession is the holy sense
Of love and of ecstatic victory.
Such true possession, love, was given to me:—
A glory of triumph tenderly intense.
A passion without envy or offence
Was mine,—and that clear passion's blest reward
Was the achievement of a golden sword
That severed all the barriers dark and dense.
One night when thou wast reading of my love,
My yearning drew thee,—and thy spirit came,
Like a white-winged and golden-crested dove,
With plumage touched by passion as by flame:
And that night all the road between us lay
Open as meadows where glad children play.
1875.
XVII.
THE BURNING GLARE
No friend shall follow and face the burning glare
Of thought, in those fierce realms towards which I lead:
No lesser love shall triumph, or succeed
In breathing that divine sun-stricken air.
Yet well and tenderly my sweet shall fare;—
She shall not thirst,—her white foot shall not bleed,—
She shall not pant for brook or flowery mead:
Love is enough,—and Love's fount shall be there.
Love's silver waters tender and divine
Shall spring around us at this staff of mine,—
The stroke of this my living staff of song:
So, through the parched-up desert as we go,
Sweet brooks of recompence shall round us flow,
And never one day's journey shall seem long.
1876.
XVIII.
STILL SWEETER THINGS
Although the flower of fancy is most sweet,
There are still better sweeter things to come,—
The beauty of a rose in perfect bloom;
Not fancied, real; not partial, complete.
Passion, made fact, transcends the ideal heat
Of passion,—as one summer day's perfume
Of countless flowers could utterly consume
Spring-scents of months, not in themselves unmeet.
Beyond the glorious dream I see the fact
More glorious,—mark the joy more glorious still
Than any sweet hope falling short of act,
With nought to lift it but the dreamer's will,—
And that too often pained, distorted, racked
By suffering,—towards the heaven it fails to fill.
1876.
XIX.
REAL JOYS
No vision, sweet but formless, shall be mine:
No vision, pale and bloodless, in the end.
Thine own bright soul the Lord of Love shall send
With mine own spirit to mingle and combine,
Forming one spirit imperishable, divine,
Serene, superb, ecstatic. Friend from friend
Must sever,—but our wedded hearts shall blend
Till all my thoughts and hopes are one with thine.
The real undreamed-of joys of thine embrace,
And all the glory of thy passionate face,
I then shall win: and pass beyond regret.
I tarry for that ultimate high grace
Which round me robes of victory shall place,
And on my forehead starry triumph set.
1876.
XX.
INVINCIBLE
Because I know that I can reach thee quite
And draw thy heart to my heart by a word,—
Because thy sun-compelling glance of light,
Tender for me, thy secret hath averred,—
Because the winds and the eternal night
Brow-wreathed with stars, our passion's voice have heard,—
Because the old strange dream is ever bright
And valid, though the months and years have erred,—
Because God, when he gives, will give with might,
In that so long our rapture he deferred,—
Because two meetings have sunk out of sight,
But time himself shall tremble at our third:—
Because this is the truth, our souls defy
Grief's serried spears and death's malignity.
1876.
