 | Songs of summer |  |
VIII.
1.
Nevermore? The dream was idle! Even slumber can deceive,If it meant not, (still deceiving!) that I nevermore can grieve:
But perchance I heard it wrongly, as I drifted from the shore;
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With your hand in mine, I think so; from your kisses, dear, I know it;
Sleeping in your fond embraces will assure, and set the seal:
If there be a deeper knowledge, I am willing to forego it,
Deeper raptures, I renounce them, so divine are those I feel!
2.
Every moment of existence since we met comes up before me;Waves of dim remembered feeling, seas of memory sweeping o'er me:
By the sea, as now, my darling! by the very sea that lies
Pallid in the moonlight yonder, with the wonder in its eyes;
In this very bridal chamber did we lift, as now, the veil,
And reveal our inmost natures, both so beautiful and pale!
When I said “my youth is wasted,” when I moaned “my manhood dies!”
When I wept “I love you, lady!” and awaited your replies,
You but clutched my hand the closer, you but seized me by the arm,
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(Were you thinking of the ocean? were you tramping in the sand?)
But I understood the gesture, my heart clenched you like a hand;
Clenched you with a hand of iron, either to possess you there,
Or to plunge you in the ocean of its old and new despair!
Then I rose and paced the chamber, scarcely knowing where I trod,
Very daring in my curses, very humble in my prayers;
Now a demon, now a god,
And you paced with like emotion in my footsteps unawares!
3.
Past the night in troubled visions, came the morn, but came as calmAs the Sabbath days in Eden, and we walked along the shore;
Silent where the solemn ocean poured his everlasting psalm,
But our spirits talked the more!
And at noon in summer quiet at your feet I read my songs,
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And you praised me, gave me, sweetest, what to Poesy belongs—
Kisses, where the crown should be!
Now my nature fell before you, in prostration new and sweet,
Kissed the hem of your white garment, and your spirit's whiter feet;
Then rose up like one in frenzy, in the fever-throbs of pain,
And devoured you with its glances, in a passionate disdain!
Love? and wherefore? what the end? Hands may meet, and thoughts may blend,
But our lives are separated: there's a yawning gulf between;
Yet I know not, youth is flying: you are wasting, I am dying;
Loving, what should intervene?
Lay your head upon my bosom, where a falling kiss may find it;
Knit your fingers now in mine, love, and in silentness remain;
If I suffer, never mind it,
Be you happy, fool your fancy; we can both be wise again!
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Lift your face, and let me kiss it, from your brow and cheek so pale,
Wandering to your mouth, belovéd, where I hang with stifled breath;
Draining all its hoard of sweetness, till in utter bliss I fail,
Dropping from you, nigh to Death!
4.
But that morning when we parted—ah! what agony and pain!Worlds on worlds would never tempt me to be tortured so again!
Still within this very chamber, where yon window clips the moon,
(But the sky was bright with sunlight, and the air was warm with June!)
There we stood that fatal morning, with such horrid aches of heart,
Bent on parting, but unwilling, nay, unable, love, to part,
Till I tore you from my bosom, flung you off, I know not where,
Rushing in the mocking sunlight, and the curséd, curséd air,
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Growing from my heart in mountains till they overtopped the skies!
Then the dull reaction followed, settling on my barren brain,
Like a dreary day in autumn on a weary waste of plain:
Every thing was shrouded to me: Joy herself, on such a day,
Must have come to me like Sorrow, in her livery of gray!
5.
What will now become of me? You are yonder by the seaPining, (are you not, belovéd) I am in the sea of men;
You have friends, a stately birth: I am all alone on earth;
Leagues, and poverty between us, will you think of me again?
Everywhere, in Art and Nature, you diffuse your soul around;
In the books I read no longer, blurring all the misty lines;
In the heavenly sea of music freighted with a richer sound;
In the sunlight, in the moonlight, and in every star that shines:
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Rushing through the fiery darkness, in a cloud of whitest light;
And mine arms strike out like lightnings, to embrace you, and consume,
But I only grasp the night!
Yet methinks, such links have bound you, and so far my passion flies,
You must feel my arms around you, and must see my burning eyes!
6.
Yes, and when, as now, the moonlight through the snowy curtain falls,Creeps upon the tufted carpet in a diamond slab of panes,
Sleeps amid the lilac shadows waving on the dreamy walls,
Still my soul with you remains!
Bends above you as you slumber in your chastity apart,
Smooths the tresses from your forehead, lifts the cross from off your breast,
And lies down upon your heart,
In a perfect, perfect rest!
Else within my little chamber, in a dream, I see you stand,
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Gliding to my warm embraces, in my loving breast you creep,
Till I wake, and find you vanished in the Paradise of Sleep!
Sleeping, you rejoin me soon:
We are dead, are spirits only; climb the viewless rounds of air;
Full to heaven your brow is lifted, like the crescent of the moon,
While your eyes are yearning earthward through the shadows of your hair!
And you kiss my tearful eyelids as we climb the starry deep,
For I fall in utter sorrow, dear one, on your neck, and weep!
7.
Oh! what letters passed between us, and what subtle thrills they woke!Had we not fulfilled them wholly, why, our very hearts had broke!
For myself, they were my being, and to-night I had not been,
Save but for your letters, sweetest, and the sweetest love therein!
Kisses on the superscription, fingers trembling in the seal,
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Even the simple writing thrilled me, made my dazzled senses reel,
While I slowly wrung its meaning, never at the moment clear:
Hanging on the lightest phrases, as a lover only can,
Sounding all the deeps of feeling, I grew more and more a man!
Daily, hourly to the eastward, to the margin of the sea,
Did I breathe divinest kisses, did I send my soul to thee;
And my kisses met their sisters, your dear kisses, everywhere,
Nay, myself, I seemed to meet them, felt your warm lips pursed in air!
8.
But that night, can I forget it? that delicious night in spring,When we pledged our hands, so hopeless, where our hearts were pledged before,
When we gave ourselves, undaunted, to each other, evermore,
Into Love's serene dominions soaring as with angel wing!
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Round us buzzed the idle talkers, o'er us blazed the chandeliers;
There was nothing to the seeming in our interchange of hands,
But it cancelled all the sorrow of our separated years!
Flushed with passion and ambition, when I left you there alone,
Through the silent city moving, in the sleeping streets apart,
Reddest roses bloomed before me, over me the morning shone,
Marching to the stately music of my own triumphant heart:
Splendors on my brow and face,
Heaven itself rose up before me, as the great world dipped in space!
9.
Then our hours of stolen sweetness, with their maddening incompleteness;Both so loath and yet so eager, souls of mingled snow and fire;
Each its cup of passion filling, then in dust the nectar spilling,
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Often in my little chamber at your feet I knelt in prayer,
With my claspéd hands imploring, till you raised me from your feet;
Then I hid within your bosom, and unlooped your falling hair,
While your arms were locked around me, till I felt their pulses beat!
With a kiss upon my eyelids, and a mist within my eyes,
Fixed on yours in steeping passion, I returned your sweet embrace;
And my heart leaped up within me in a sudden storm of sighs,
And I poured a rain of kisses on your brow, and eyes, and face!
Then, your white throat in my fingers, and a tingling in their tips,
Wild with love I fastened on you, and I grew around your lips;
Every atom of my body felt the hunger of my heart,
I was mad to crush, and kill you, and to tear your limbs apart!
10.
But all this, the joy and glory of my glad exulting spirit,223
In the chapel, hand in hand,
Each the vast “I will!” responding where the blessed God might hear it!
Nor was that, although it raised us to the very gates of light,
Half so lofty, and so holy, as our wedded love to night;
Sitting in the happy silence, with our hands together prest,
I caress you, wife, and bless you, as you lie upon my breast;
Dreaming in our bridal chamber, in the sainted moon asleep,
With the starry spaces o'er us, and before the listening deep,
Till we turn to God above,
And demand a benediction—“Father! love us, for we love!”
| Songs of summer | |