 | The Collected Poems of Lord De Tabley |  |
A FAREWELL
Our love is dust: the rainbow mist is torn:
The old pulse beats, the old eye sees the true:
The mirage withers and the sand remains.
Our love is worn, and strange thy languid lips,
Thy cold arm burns not on my neck, and smooth
Those very accents as a frozen marge
Whereby the dead flower blackens into dust.
Come, we have loved; 'tis something: let it pass.
Shall this endure in man whose breath is change
To build itself a careless citadel
Safe in the teeth of years, when all things fail
Before them? It is something to enjoy
And own the power to taste this sweet of change
Nor curse its fading, faded. I accept
The limit of the illusion with no tear,
And, freely gone, I close the door, nor stir
One beck to lure it backwards.
The old pulse beats, the old eye sees the true:
The mirage withers and the sand remains.
Our love is worn, and strange thy languid lips,
Thy cold arm burns not on my neck, and smooth
Those very accents as a frozen marge
Whereby the dead flower blackens into dust.
Come, we have loved; 'tis something: let it pass.
Shall this endure in man whose breath is change
To build itself a careless citadel
Safe in the teeth of years, when all things fail
Before them? It is something to enjoy
And own the power to taste this sweet of change
Nor curse its fading, faded. I accept
The limit of the illusion with no tear,
And, freely gone, I close the door, nor stir
One beck to lure it backwards.
Strange and sweet
Its coming breathed of distant fields: its voice
Thro' tremulous meadows with a child's soft hand
Led where the crowded Iris of their floor
Burst out in burning spring: a mist, a touch,
My sense in deep blooms melted out to sleep;
And there I dream'd thee lovely and this love
Eternal. Till the windy seeds of hail
Flapt me awake; I shuddered: a black wind
Search'd bitter clouds for tempest, greenless flats
Whence the last herb had starved in blistering shale,
A jumbled quarry where the very dust
Held frozen-caked in shelf and cups of crag.
Its coming breathed of distant fields: its voice
Thro' tremulous meadows with a child's soft hand
Led where the crowded Iris of their floor
Burst out in burning spring: a mist, a touch,
My sense in deep blooms melted out to sleep;
And there I dream'd thee lovely and this love
27
Flapt me awake; I shuddered: a black wind
Search'd bitter clouds for tempest, greenless flats
Whence the last herb had starved in blistering shale,
A jumbled quarry where the very dust
Held frozen-caked in shelf and cups of crag.
Come, we have much to breathe for: deed and days
Have music still, and life yet moves our veins:
And though the garland rose hereafter hang
Dishonoured and dispetalled: if our touch
Be not to any hand, no lip to ours,—
This world will turn although we say farewell.
Have music still, and life yet moves our veins:
And though the garland rose hereafter hang
Dishonoured and dispetalled: if our touch
Be not to any hand, no lip to ours,—
This world will turn although we say farewell.
| The Collected Poems of Lord De Tabley | |