The Poetical Works of George Barlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

Thine eyes are set upon the dancing-girls before thee:
I only gaze at thee. Then far beyond and o'er thee
My soul-gaze travels far.
I see the moment when thou wilt be crowned with roses
And violets of young love, just when my journey closes
Where flowerless sea-waves watch each flowerless star.

This is the charm and yet the pang,—the gulf betwixt us.
The sorceress, I trow, whose cunning cold hand mixed us
The magic draught we drink
Mixed in it honey and gall. For thee the flowing honey,
So sweet and clear and fresh and bright and golden-sunny;
For me the dark gall when the thick dregs sink.

Thou gazest at the Stage. My fixed looks travel theeward.
Just as a swimmer who makes strong gallant headway seaward
Plunges within the breast
Of some white warm soft wave, my whole soul in thy beauty
Revels and plunges deep,—and clasps the peerless booty,
And in its loveliness finds perfect rest.

Thou art glad at the lights and music. I am gladder
At thee than at all lights and music, and a madder
And wilder tide doth dart
Throughout my veins and nerves, through watching thee, than floweth
Throughout the brain to which the strong red fierce wine goeth;
Thou dost intoxicate both head and heart.

II. AND YET

And yet it seems to me that something of paternal
Desire within my soul is guardian to thy vernal
Sweet soft days full of leaf:—
And that, if thou didst pass beyond my sight, and, sinning,
Didst mar the fairy life that thou art now beginning,
A sword would pierce me of eternal grief.

There is a love that hath within it nought but passion.
But there are souls who love in nobler sunnier fashion,
With far more starlike will.
There is a love that bends, with something of a mother
Within its yearning deep, and somewhat of a brother,
Above the heart wild love might wound or kill.

Oh, if my doom is this,—that I must see thee turning
From the true road, and know that even God's own yearning
Could hardly stay thy feet;—
If I am doomed to watch the girlish soft eyes harden,
Just as a man who sees a rosebud in his garden
Rusted and withered by the wind and sleet;—

If I am doomed to watch the fairy brown bright glances
That I have loved, God knows!—fling conscious cunning lances
Against the shields of men;—
If as thou growest in years thou hast to lose that tender
And nameless charm that now with more than mortal splendour
Doth clothe thy spirit often and again;—

If I must see all this and feel the cold sword sinking
Within my heart, yet bear in silence, without shrinking,
The utmost keen deep pang;
Yet may I know that I, according to my measure,
Lifted and never sank thy white soul's priceless treasure,
And loved thee purely, as I purely sang.

May never a bud of thine through me be wind-tossed roughly!
Thou art not made of harsh coarse clay, nor fashioned toughly
As some thy sisters are:
Thou wast not made to hear rude merriment and laughter;
Surely thou hast before thee some divine hereafter;
Grow starlike, having soft eyes like a star.

No man can grow a woman as he groweth roses.
Nay, God himself at times from the long task reposes,
And weary he turns, and sighs.
Thine own path thou must take.—And I thy swift-winged swallow
May be forbidden for years thy summer laugh to follow
And the dear summer sunshine in thine eyes.

God's hand is over both.—Because I love thee dearly
A pitiless sword may pierce my soul,—I see it clearly,—
I know my risk full well.
Yet were there a thousand swords in front, or blazing trenches,
Mine would not be the eye or hand or heart that blenches,—
If I could save thee just one shadow of hell.

Oct. 5, 1882.

III. “PERHAPS A DREAM IT IS”

Perhaps a dream it is,—but far too sweet for breaking.
Give me another month to dream on without waking,
Or even another day!
What are the sweetest things but dreams? What is the summer
But just a gorgeous dream to every blossom-comer
That laughs encircled in the clasp of May!

The real nights are the nights when, golden, beyond number,
Star-thoughts and starlike eyes pervade and haunt our slumber:
The real days are the days
When over and round about us sunny Love is gleaming:—
False days and nights are those that have no heart for dreaming,—
When no thoughts thrill our stormy souls to lays.

IV. “THINK WHAT IT IS TO ME”

Think what it is to me with life's black tempest blowing
Still through my hair, and still the weary rain-drops flowing
Adown my face and hands,
To meet thee full of summer,—and full of morning sweetness!
Think how it rounds my life to passionate completeness,
And brings me visions of green laughing lands!

And thou art linked to me,—for thou dost love the rivers,
And the deep woods wherein the chequered sunlight quivers
Through maze of leaf on leaf:
And thy feet have not feared the pathways of the mountains,
And thou hast caught the laugh of far-off silvery fountains;
Thou hast kissed pleasure,—as I have kissed grief.

Think what it is to me, after long years of bondage,
Again with thee to see the light wind kiss the frondage
And the free sunlight dance!

Think what it is to be in the green woods embowered,
And for a season short of risen life empowered
To watch thy sweet face smile, thy dark eyes glance.

My song,—I know it well,—hath death's wild wail within it;
It is not all a chant of lark or thrush or linnet;
Strange sounds along it leap:
It is not fit for thee: it is not bright or cheery;
But full of moorland sound, and sound of storm, and eerie,
And haunted by the moaning of the deep.

Yet have I loved thee so that if I sang hereafter
Never again, meseems one ripple of thy laughter
Through this my song would ring:
So I have poured my soul along the singing measure
That something in it of thee the singer's deathless treasure
May to the mortal notes, death-conquering, cling.

Just as a man imprisoned for years in dungeon gloomy
Plunges his every sense in rapture at the roomy
First large sight of the sea,
So I for years in chains and far from joy and daylight
Hail,—as he hails the sea's divine expanse of grey light,—
The chainless sight and touch and sound of thee.

V. “AND SHALL I THEN COMPLAIN?”

And shall I then complain if thou, the sea-wind meeting,
Dost sigh for flowers and woods and the soft warm wind fleeting
Along the forest-glades?
I sitting close by thee am like the midnight olden
Watching the young sun, full of gorgeous mirth and golden,
Gild one by one the green groves' colonnades!

Behind me stretch long leagues of weary desert marches:
Before thee open out gay miles of forest-arches:
Life is to thee quite new.
I lived before the flood, and saw the ancient cities,
And sang amid the white weird walls old strange love-ditties,
And watched with young wide eyes the old cloudless blue.

While thou dost yearn for life, and softly sighest after
The thyme on river-banks, I yearn for the great laughter
That through the lips of death
Sallies. While thou dost pluck wherever bright green hill is
The stems of hare-bells blue and sisterly white lilies,
I pant to meet the far sea's flowerless breath.

And yet thou art mine! thou art mine! Because my whole soul sorrows
To think how little part in thy bright golden morrows
Of sunny life have I:
Because I have loved thee not with selfish soulless yearning,
But with the sea's deep love, and with the sinless burning
Passion of stars and hills, and of the sky:

Because I have loved thee thus,—where'er thy pathway leadeth,
As through the vales of flowers thy happy young foot speedeth,
I follow; I follow amain:
And when the darkness comes and other loves are failing,
And, watching death's grim sea, thou feelest doubt assailing,
Call thou for me. Thou shalt not call in vain.

Then looking in my face it may be thou shalt, growing
At last to larger life, behold the strong love glowing
Within me, and shalt rise,
And meet the sea's wide glance, triumphal, strong, and tearless,
And my glance, and love's glance, soul-virginal and fearless,
With equal kindred deep impassioned eyes.