University of Virginia Library

TIME'S WHISPERINGS

(1879–1880)

YOUTH'S MEADOWS

Youth's meadows all were bountiful with gold;
The sweet seas all were laughing in their glee,
Responsive on the beach the breakers rolled.
Assiduous sang the birds in every tree
Chanting the wedding, love, of you and me;
For through the realms of nature was it told,
Yea, signalized through earth eternally
And through the azure heavens wide and free,
And o'er the yellow furze-crowned breezy wold
Where hand in hand we wandered, love, of old,
Brushing the heather-sprays that reached the knee
Luxuriant. The clouds parted, fold on fold,
To let our marriage-pinions glisten through
The utmost resonant heights of arduous blue.

THE UTMOST RESONANT HEIGHTS

Yea, all the resonant heights of ether parted,
We joined the angels in their glittering throng,
Not two, but one—one-souled, one-lipped, one-hearted,
We passed their gleaming myriad bands among;
And through our souls the heavenly music rung,
And through our ears the heavenly message sped
Tender, and round about our hearts it clung;
The gentle whisper of the gentle dead:
It was as if a nightingale had sung,
It was as if some golden word was said;
The stars our hastening onward footsteps led—
Then up the sudden white moon-glory sprung,
And in those heavenly halls we slept and dreamed,
While white upon me thy moon-whiteness gleamed.

THY WHITENESS

TWO SPIRITS

SONG

ARE WE FORGOTTEN?

MY SONG

Yea, what shall be the ending of my song?
Oh, listening lady, what wilt thou bestow
Upon thy minstrel pale and worn, but strong,
With thoughts that burn, and eager lips that glow—
What fair reward shall I, thy singer, know,
Now that long years have listened to my voice
And heard thy praises through my numbers flow?
Dost thou not gladden, dost not thou rejoice?
Must death, with bosom colder than the snow,
Wait and be sole obedient bride to me,
And wilt thou ever turn aside and flee,
As through our separate lives, with footstep slow
We pace, uncertain what rewards may wait
Beyond death's bitter unresponsive gate?

SUMMERS HAVE PASSED

Summers have passed—yea, many a glowing morn,
And many a moonlit wonderful soft night
Since thou wast from my eager longing torn;
Yea, since that day full many a rosebud bright
Hath bloomed amid the fields of our delight,
And the great golden stars have glimmered down
On many passions as they reached their height.
How many loves have granted love's sweet crown,
While love's old petals withered yet and brown
Remain for me—no hand but thine can give
Bloom to the leaves that darken 'neath thy frown,
Bloom, and the splendid power to bud and live
With laughing new-born lustre, and divine
Perfume more sweet than rain-kissed eglantine.

THE SAME

THY KISS

STRANGE

How passing strange to think, when we are dead
The cruel heedless flowers will bloom the same—
White roses, yellow roses, roses red—
Amid the meads through which we silent came,
When passion burned throughout us like a flame;
The ferns, the grass, the creamy meadow-sweet,
Will cluster, knowing not reproach or shame,
Around the passage of new lovers' feet,
And the rich sun will gladden these with heat,
Not recking how beneath their tread we lie;—
Their faces just as glad a morn will meet
As we met, equal azure in the sky:
And yet with us the dream no more abides—
Crowning fresh lovers, garlanding new brides.

ONCE

Once through a sacred mist of golden sleep
Your spirit like a pure sweet angel came,
And wrapped me in an ecstasy so deep,
That gone was every sorrow, every shame,
Swept far for ever by thine onset's flame;
But now the long days widen out before me,
And perhaps no summer bearing one white rose
Will ever bend with fragrant plumage o'er me,
But alway shall I dwell 'mid rains and snows.
A decade of my life will ere long close:
Ten years and more have passed since I beheld
Thy sweet face—still its beauty round me glows,
And still the fire of passion, vast, unquelled,
Urges me on towards lands no mortal knows.

THE COMING DECADE

What shall the coming stormy decade bring?
Yea, even the long months of the coming year?
What flowers for me shall shine in fields of spring,
Or gladden golden August or the clear
June days?—doth any triumph hasten near?—
Or is my victory pressed between Death's hands,
And will Death's footstep only bring it here?
Oh, whispers reach me from far unseen lands,
Wherein full many a poet-victor stands
Crowned, glad, divine, triumphant—yea, the singing
Of many voices lifts me; there expands
Blue sky before my gaze, a message bringing
That bids me wait in peace the final morn
When I shall pass beyond earth's spears, earth's scorn.

I AM NOT CAREFUL

I am not careful whether I retain
The suffrage and the praise the crowd bestow:
My eyes are set beyond earth's valley and plain,
On meads of pure delight they cannot know.
Art is my mistress, and her hands of snow
Shall crown me; if I aught deserve of crowning:
Shall lift me far above these regions low.
Oh, never may the present judge me, drowning
The judgments that from lips of poets flow!
My song is written for lovers, and for skies
And seas and stars and glad suns as they rise;
To cheer the feet that through the future go.
Oh, heedless am I of the present time—
I look from its mere vales towards mounts sublime.

THE SNOW-CAPPED MOUNTAINS

Yea, towards God's snow-capped mountains do I raise
Mine eyes and towards God's temples lift my voice:
The endless beauty of my love I praise,
That she too in my singing may rejoice,
Finding immortal pleasure in my lays.
Oh, beautiful her face beneath the bays
Smiles, when I lift the circlet from mine head;
Forgetting for a season all the ways
Of song—the paths of suffering fiery-red
Through which my thorn-pierced footsteps have been led,
And all the lonely nights and grievous days—
When I forgetting these gaze up instead
And watch the amorous tender leaves grow green
Touching the unfurrowed forehead of my queen.

GREEN AND WHITE

SONG

THOU CANST NOT ESCAPE

Oh, thou canst not escape! my songs pervade
The distance lying between us, and they fill
The sunny plain, the fields, the leafy shade.
They ripple to thee in the rippling rill,
They call unto thee from the gleaming hill;
They laughing claim thee as mine own for ever
In spite of all that time can work of ill.
They cluster round thee, to forsake thee never;
Their plumes in the hazy air of August quiver;
They follow thee throughout the silent deep
Unfathomed dim abodes of awful sleep,
O'er tides of resonant sea and tides of river:
Yea, one day they shall hold thee in strong hands,
And bear thee forth a captive towards strange lands.

TEN YEARS

Ten years—ten years! What is it but a dream?
A long strange dream of blossoms and of frost,
Blue skies and thunder, summer and a gleam
Of heaven and love at times, as quickly lost
As found—swift backward on black pain-waves tossed.
Oh, what are ten years but one mortal spray
Of meadow-sweet flung white against the tomb
That gathers all sweet petals, pure perfume,
Into its hollow arms from day to day,
Laughing as with cold teeth pale bloom from bloom
It severs, and the thin films faint away
Into death's desolate nefarious gloom,
Joining the prisoners sweet in long array
Whom year by year he gathers—to consume.

YET IN TEN YEARS

Yet in ten years a high work may be done,
Labour accomplished that shall put to shame
The swift departure of the vanquished sun,
When the red waves receive on crests of flame
The lingering arrows its last efforts aim.
For in ten years the meadow-sweet immortal
Of song may crown and robe one much-loved name;
Yea, and the wings of song may through death's portal
Bear, living and triumphant, one flower-form,
Still beautiful and white, still breathing, warm.
In ten years, sweetheart, I have set thee high
In many hearts, so that thou shalt not die;
And lifted thee above the flickering breeze
Of earth, and spurned for thee death's vengeful seas.

A FLOWER UNTO MANY

Thou dost not know the numberless sweet hearts
To whom the gentle knowledge of thee came
Through the soft messages my song imparts:
Thou dost not know how many gold-tipped darts,
Winged, beautiful, abundant, bright with flame,
My soul, on fire with loving thee, doth aim
Against the steel-bound cuirass of the world,
That so it might be pierced with utter shame,
In that it has not known and loved of old
The name that I from height to height have hurled.
There is not any flower, with heart of gold,
But hath in darkness of the summer night
Whispered the name I've whispered, with delight,—
And 'mid high spirits' converse is it told.

THINE ENGLISH EYES

IF, AFTER DEATH

If, after death, my singing may be heard
Within the land of Shelley and of Keats—
The land that shook at vast-souled Milton's word,
The land that every morn its Shakespeare greets
Smiling and proud—if this my land repeats
My lady's name, my song, when I am dead
Crowned am I then for ever—yea, the red
Sunset of death as life eternal falls
Beaming around me, summons in its walls
My spirit glad beyond all mortal measure
Then at the great sweet death-voice as it calls;
Yea, if one song my land shall love and treasure,
Then am I deathless in the high domain
Whereover the dead deathless singers reign.

THROUGH THE FAR-OFF GATES

Oh, wilt thou meet one day within the halls
Of heaven the golden-haired supreme delight,
Whose voice through Spenser's song to the ages calls?
Wilt thou, my lady of the sea-glance bright,
Take 'mid those heavenly bowers thy place by right,
Borne on the wide waves of my fearless singing
Through time's vain-struggling armies clothed in night?
To-day thy soft arms unto me are clinging,
And in mine ears thy silver laugh is ringing,
Lifted I am in spirit beyond all measure;
Lo! through the far-off gold gates I am bringing
A new-born heaven-august impassioned treasure;
I set my love, my lady of song, my bride,
In heaven, at Dante's Beatrice's side.

THE MEADOW-SWEET SOUL

SONG

HIGH THOUGHTS

High thoughts and soaring impulse hath the age,
Our age, our age of passion and of song:
Fierce warfare with untruth its warriors wage,
Pitiless battle with each hoary wrong
That sits miscrowned, with impious sceptre strong.
A rose thou art, and I the rose's singer,
Yet will I with a spear-shaft supple and long
Amid the tilters at the tourney linger,
Then sweep again my harp with boisterous finger,
Strengthened by battle 'mid the echoing lists—
Of battle's red bloom I will be the bringer,
Yea, let my helm flame through the century's mists,
The helm of one who, unlike patient Keats,
Loved best where most the storm of battle beats.

LEAVING THE BOWER OF LOVE

Leaving the bower of love, I seek the scene
Where thought's mailed servants in their stout array
Drive with straight swords the opposing clouds between:
Oh, at the dawning of a stormy day
That breaks tempestuous over wastes of grey
We are living—yet within high thought's domain
Are there not many gracious words to say?
What if the singer's robe with sanguine stain
Be wet, voice hoarsened from the battle-rain,
Shall he not find more rest and sweeter after
When to his heart thy white form he doth strain,
Thou image of white soft peace, and hears thy laughter
Ringing high up towards many a gold hall-rafter
In love's delicious, bloodless, spotless fane?

REVOLUTION

When blood-red Revolution in the air
Waveth her banner—when thought's streams flow deep
Waking, loud-resonant, from their summer sleep—
When all the age one wide unrest doth share—
When the Republic's lions from their lair
Emerge, and with their roar make cowards creep,—
When vast ideas like cataracts overleap
The common bounds, and down the hill-sides tear:
Then is love sweet? Yea, sweeter than of old,
When love's each whisper turned life's tides to gold!
Yea, after battle softer is the rose
Beside the wayside as the victor goes,
Stiff, wearied, bleeding, wounded, towards his home,
His lips yet crusted with red battle-foam.

FLOWERS OF THOUGHT

Pale flowers of thought upon thy forehead white,
Mixed with love's lustrous blossoms, I would set:
Not only passion's rich bloom, and the light
Of lilies of soft dreams, and mignonette,
And ferns with the earliest purest dewdrops wet;
Not only these, but flowers of highest labour
Won where the swiftest-wingéd tempests fret
The rocky hills, and smite with countless sabre
The snow-fields and blue pinnacles of the ice—
Where thunder hath the lonely moon for neighbour
And not one faintest beat of valley-tabour
Throbs up on dim mist-pinions as they rise—
Wonderful gentians from thought's furthest mountains
My soul would bring, and drops from star-kissed fountains.

MY ROSE OF THE VALLEY

Wilt thou, my Rose o' the valley, my divine
Sweet tender soft-lipped quiet valley-rose,
Around thy brows for wreaths the high mists twine,
And with me pierce the fathomless far snows,
Testing a land no previous lover knows?
Yea, shall we leave the trodden lower valleys
And towards the land the rising sun-flame shows
Turn sure swift steps, and thread its icy alleys,
And brave the passes whence the north wind sallies
With pure delicious cold untrammelled breath,
Where with the mountain-peaks his brides he dallies,
Whose kissing lips to mortal brides are death.
Yea, shall I kiss thee with the north wind's mouth,
Rather than amorous dull lips of the south?

THE UTMOST HEIGHTS

Art thou so strong, O lady of the vale,
That thou canst dare the utmost heights with me
And the utmost blue-grey mountain-peaks assail,
Thy foot not trembling, nor thine heart nor knee,
Thy spirit longing not to turn nor flee?
Oh, wilt thou through the iron passes follow
Making their rocky upright sheer sides ring,
Not fearing lest their awful black gulfs swallow
The gentle laugh that like a flower doth cling
To their precipitous steeps, and the sweet thing
Be no more heard amid the endless hollow
Grim laughless palace of the pale ice-king—
Canst thou, O rose of valley-passion, dare
With me to tempt this rose-embittering air?

THE SOUTH-WEST WIND

Yea, for thou art the fragrant south-west wind,
Its gentle whisper in the summer trees,
Its gentle rustle of the sultry blind
Of summer—what doest thou on mounts that freeze,
Yea, what hast thou, my sweet, to do with these
High rocks that scorn and choke thy summer laughter?
If thou dost venture from thy green calm leas
Then of a surety thy step Death stalks after,
And soon will tremulous shudders shake thy knees
And dissolution thy white body seize:
O south-west wind of mine be wise, nor follow
Thy singer upward when the white mists swallow
His fast-receding form—not all Apollo
Hath shod with sandals stormier than the breeze.

WEDDED WINDS

Pour thou thy breath along the rose-hung lanes,
Sweet west wind—pass through fragrant Italy—
Yea, linger over many a perfumed sea
Whose waves the deathless southern sunset stains.
But as for me where the high north wind reigns
I'll reign, and with keen tides of purest breath
Sweep over ice-bound lands and frozen plains
Where all is silent in consummate death:—
But join thou unto mine thy fragrant hand,
And I will with thee seek thy southern land,—
Yea, thou shalt melt and bless my iron-bound north,
And I with thee through flowers will sally forth,
Brace, not destroy, thy southern sweetest rose,
While thou shalt shrink not from, but melt, my snows.

TOGETHER

SONG

THE FLOWERS OF ANCIENT WORLDS

I.

The flowers of ancient worlds whereof we see
No traces, have not died nor wholly past:
They flung their perfume on the wide free blast
While living—then they fled from vale and lea
And their sweet tender fragrant spirits were cast
Into the tender women-souls whom we
Behold and worship; not one long-lost rose
But in the sweet mouth of some woman blows:
Not one dear blossom in some far land hilly
But now shines forth white-handed—yet a lily.
They are not changed—save only that they bloom
Sweeter, and with a lovelier soft calm,
And all the world, for one small vale, perfume;
One woman hath rose-lips, a lily-palm
Another—and the crocus-crown of gold
Shines forth in bright locks, splendid as of old.

II.

III.

Yea, who could tell thou wast a woman then?
Not thine own sister-flowers of sister-sweetness
But not the same divine white flower-completeness,
For moulded thou wast to be loved of men,
Yea, to be followed with all passionate fleetness.
Was it God who watched, and marked thy holy meetness
To spring forth budlike, tenderly expanding,
Into a woman's shape, superb, commanding,
Bearing the old same fragrance in her limbs,
The flowerlike scent whereat the dazed sense swims,—
Yea, suddenly, is the shapely flower-stem standing
Human, alive for aye, with breath that dims
All watching eyes—so sweet it is—with tears,
And voice like flowing ripples in all ears?

IV.

For, sweet, there is not any woman like thee!
They are not flowers, these common shapes around,
Nor sprang they sudden from enchanted ground.
Oh, how the old playful breeze, as if to strike thee,
Charged, then withdrew with gentle rustling sound
When thou within green Paradise wast bound,
Not dreaming of thy coming days of earth,
Or of these clinging songs, so firmly wound
About thy temples—knowing not of thy birth
That was to be, nor of thy woman-worth—
Dreaming instead that thou wast but a flower
Whose gentle wings for ever should abide
Within that far sequestered silent bower,
Never becoming mortal's blossom-bride.

V.

Now, therefore, all my triumph is the greater
In that for me this splendid bud hath bent:
The greater, grander triumph cometh later,
With more within it of divine content.
What though the former blue clear heavens were rent
With thunder, and the forked lightning flew
Like angry wings of vengeful angels sent
Sudden adown the piteous shuddering blue?
What though the old glad skies of peaceful hue
Be gone for ever—yet, in front sublime
Delight waits, nobler than delights we knew
In early struggling days of love and rhyme.
For him who tarries, him who patient waits,
Bound open at the last heaven's inmost gates!

VI.

And then the old strange sleep that brought thy splendour,
O gracious woman-blossom-heart, so near,
Again shall brood with wings snow-soft and tender
About me, and thy whisper in my ear
Shall bid all dark clouds from my spirit clear;
Again the old unutterable wonder
On angel-pinions through the cloven sheer
Abysses nourishing the latent thunder,
Soft, shall descend. I shall say, “Thou art here:”
And all the immense heaped clouds shall part in sunder,
All dark wet mists that made earth's valleys drear,
And the great heavenly peaks shall flash out yonder.
Again through vistas of enchanted sleep
I shall be borne, gliding from deep to deep.

VII.

For have I not through troublous seasons waited,
Soothing my lonely spirit with my song,
A warrior worn with fight, a bard belated,
Weary with woes, a tempest-wingéd throng,
And endless adverse foam-crowned surges strong?
Have I not wandered through the forests dreary,
Seeking the bud that to me did belong—
The blossom that I loved within the eerie
Old forest-walls before life, wingless, weary,
Fell like a robe upon us, and we knew
The stifling vales of earth for the vast airy
High meads, we sped on spotless pinions through
Ages before, at fateful birth, we died,
Life severing me from my celestial bride.

VIII.

IX.

For long enough on earth I've waited sighing,
Cold, lonely, weary—nursing my sad heart
In silence and in misery, apart,
Fainting for lack of thee—enduring, dying.
Now unto me come, winged at length and flying:
Tarry no more, now these songs smite thine ear.
O love, thy new-found subtle pinions trying,
Seek me, and with the old voice silver-clear
Say unto me, “Lost sweetheart, I am here!
Thou hast done enough—now let us rest and sleep,
Forgetting all the past, its every fear,
Its every horror—plunging in the deep
Of God's eternal passion-breakered sea
That waits to swallow and mingle you and me.”

THOU WAST A BLOSSOM

SONG

ALL DREAMS

[All dreams of splendid music and of love]

All dreams of splendid music and of love
Shall be summed up, sweet gracious lady, in thee:
All hopes of youth, all visions from above,
All power of song, all strength of purity,
All wonder of soft moonlight on the sea
And majesty of noontide, and the calm
And bounty of unutterable night;
The ripple of the slow tide's evening psalm,
And the great glory of the wakening light;
The countless golden crowns whose starry might
Pervades the utmost heavens, and the pure winds
That churn the seething waters into white;—
All these wide realms of Nature thou dost sway;
The waters woo thee, and the storms obey.

II.

Thou bring'st me thus the strange unspoken power
Of all the universe. I hear its song
From star and stormy blast, from sun and flower,
From ripples of the lake, and from the strong
And white-lipped breakers, as one gleaming throng
They pour their serried might upon the beach;
Yet loving these, I do mine own no wrong,
For far past Nature unto her I reach,
Hearing the sweet streams in her silver speech,
And marking in her bosom the white bloom
Of every perfect rosebud—yea of each
The intense enthralling mystical perfume:
She owneth Nature, and her breath pervades
The avenues of lime and hawthorn glades.

III.

Thee knowing thus, I pass beyond the gaze
Of Nature and of all the world around,
And tread with thee the unseen heavenly ways,
And hear the unseen heavenly harp-strings sound
No more by earthly chains impeded, bound.
Thou art the power behind the natural veil
Of things—upon the night thy locks unwound
Stream forth, and I pursue thy figure pale
As slow from star to star thy pinions sail
Along the impurpled dark, and I can dream
So sweetly of thee that my dreams avail
To bring thee towards me, and thy kisses seem
To rest upon my lips this very night,
Warm and impassioned, dew-soft, violet-light.

IV.

Yea, after all these lingering lonely years,
These years while thou hast waited far away,
How great a thing, how sweet a thing appears,
That this sweet night with me thy soul doth stay,
And thou art tender, nor dost answer “Nay”
To the immemorial and untold desire
Denied through many a night and many a day;—
Now with redoubled passionate fierce fire
I wait thee, flinging from mine awestruck lyre
At length the glad sounds of a marriage hymn;
No more the words are tearful and aspire,
Now rather as a robe thine every limb,
Thine hair, thy lips, thy soul, thy perfect face,
They wrap themselves round swiftly, and embrace.

V.

VI.

“Yea, now I come, love, to be thine for ever:
No more to part, but through the wondrous night
To touch thee with my lips, too fond to sever,
Once having touched, and with my sacred white
Glory of womanhood thy pure delight
To be—see how the stars in sacred gladness
Share now our joy with countless glances bright!
Cast off thy past immeasurable sadness!
And reach thine hand forth and take tender hold
Of mine hand, husband—husband from of old;
And lead me into regions never seen
Of mortals, where we rule as king and queen:
Cling to me—burn throughout me with thy face,
And strong keen lips on mine no less keen place!”

VII.

VIII.

Still, for the heart of woman giveth peace,
Peace in the end, and blessing, not sharp woe.
The days of passionate fierce seeking cease,
Wherein our pierced feet wandered to and fro,
Seeking her beauty whom at length we know
Eternally our own; the trodden places
Now far behind us redden at the glow
Of morning, as the red sun's chariot races
Along the arch of sky, and hot-wheeled chases
The white-wheeled timorous chariot of the moon:
Now watch we, smiling, in each other's faces
A light that shall be deathless glory soon
When, spirits eternal, we become a part
Of God's own deathless passionate sweet heart.

GOLD-WINGED SPIRITS

SONG