Poems Lyrical and Dramatic :: :: University of Virginia Library

In midst of gardens of gold fruit
An ample palace burned with gold,
Garnished and of a gracious mould,
But with an evil-tongued repute.
O'er it fantastic, manifold,
In plates of burnished silver sheathed,
Flashing abroad a far salute,
Up rose the fretted taper spires,
Whose silver chimes were never mute;
And in the sumptuous chambers breathed,
And through the pillared galleries rolled
Rich savours of bruised cassia-root;
The courts and closes rang with lyres
The pleasaunce with the flute.

222

II

And round by reed-encinctured shores,
Upon the lotus-mantled lakes,
Threading green isles of scented brakes
Bright galleys swept with gilded oars;
And breaking into pulpy flakes
The branches bowed with orange globes
Of rough rich rind and blood-red cores
That deepened to a purple hue
And burst with little golden spores;
And all about in scarlet robes
The rush-flowers raised, like crested snakes,
Their tasselled plumes o'er mossy floors:
And round the almond-blossom flew
The humming-birds by scores.

III

The great magnolias shed on air
The heavy perfume of a kiss;
The white and purple clematis
Hung o'er the balustrade their fair
Rich tangles, and the vine-trellis

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Groaned with the weight of clustered grapes;
But sickly lilies, wan with care,
And smelling of love's fragrant prime,
Opened their bosoms pale and bare,
Whom with soft languorous bended shapes
The faint forgetful flowers of Dis
Bade barter grief for calm despair,
Which Sleep and Death, twin sons of Time,
Twist in the world-sick hair.

IV

Within, on couches rare, inlaid
With rich mosaic blazonry
In sandal-wood and ivory,
Amid a rosy tinted shade,
And curtained with fair tapestry,
Bright girls lay panting with their dreams,
On whose globed eyes white eyelids weighed,
Transparent waxen lotus-leaves,
And on each black or amber braid
Of their curled hair, with doubtful gleams,
Like stars caught in a gauzy sky
'Mid trammelling clouds by storms affrayed,

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(The meshes huntress Dian weaves),
The light of diamonds played.

V

A flesh-coloured pale glory drowned
The cherubs on the painted roof;
And, sea-green flowered with gold-shot woof,
The damask hangings whispered round;
And from recesses more aloof
Soft viols aching with desire
Prolonged a sad delicious sound,
Voluptuous melancholy notes,
That round the soul like silence wound;
And statues, at whose sight the fire
Of youth might blaze without reproof,
Stood with eyes bent upon the ground,
Goddesses with white breasts and throats,
Maidens with zone unbound.

VI

It was a place where wandering men,
Sick of the shipwrecked hopes of life,
Weary of pride, and pain, and strife,
Might find a haven scorned till then;
Forswearing joys of child and wife,

225

And glory, and the bays of song,
To sleep and never wake again;
Leaving the mountain's beckoning snow
To wallow in the flowery glen;
Leaving to memories of wrong
Love's fruitful fields with briars rife
For barren lust's trim flower-garden,
Content with sterile seed to sow
The unfurrowed fruitless fen.

VII

Content that, all things being so,
At least one refuge yet remains,
One island 'mid life's arid plains,
Where lotus and the Upas grow,
Where men may draw through languorous veins,
The deep delicious frozen sleep,
That chills with a deceitful glow,
And checks with unrelaxing ice
The sluggish life-blood's ebb and flow;
Content the corn-flower's wraith to keep
Amid the wreck of golden grains
Waste years in garners frail bestow;
Content that fair forms yet entice,
When all the old loves go.

226

VIII

There bards relaxed in affluent ease
Their lutes of fragile shell unslung,
And, leaned against the pillars, sung
Songs luscious as the fainting breeze
That swoons the peach-tree blooms among,
Delicious praise of love and wine,
That hung about the sculptured frieze,
Where youths and maidens dance about
The vintage-press with naked knees,
That echoed like the booming brine
On coral-girdled islands flung,
Or whispered like sand-kissing seas,
And sobbed with stray gusts in and out
The scented orange-trees.

IX

Their voices ring from hall to hall,
And ravishing refrains repeat
The melancholy cadence sweet;
As echoes when far voices call,
The listener from the hillside greet;
Or as some murmuring stream runs on
From waterfall to waterfall;

227

Or as, when soft-toned organs blow,
Long dome-wrapt echoes cloy and pall;
And so shut out from air and sun,
Amid the aromatic heat,
They pass sweet days in willing thrall,
And round white shoulders careless flow
Their locks ambrosial.

X

There on a throne voluptuous-wise,
In brow and temples like a queen,
But whose full parted lips between
Slips many a wave of ebbing sighs,
Lo Sappho, sorrowful-serene,
Triumphing o'er love's vanquished throes,
Like a young charioteer who flies
Swifter than sound, or light, or thought,
With face whereon no passion lies
To break its marble stern repose,
Holding in check the fiery teen
Of steeds that rush with frantic cries;
And sweet Catullus there I caught
Kissing his Lesbia's eyes.

228

XI

And Cupids fluttering drowsy plumes
Bear wine in chalices of pearl,
And let the golden smoke-wreaths curl
From censers charged with rich perfumes;
And many a ministering girl
Welcomes with silver-sided bath
The new-come guest in marble rooms
Dripping and full of plashy sound,
And with uplifted lamp illumes
O'er Persian spoils his purple path,
Which others for his feet unfurl
The choicest work of Orient looms;
And from a myriad dolphins round
The powdered water fumes.

XII

And round about their sisters white
Pour scented torrents over him;
And with their taper fingers slim
And yielding waists that tempt delight,
Lure him across the marble brim;
And stroke his golden curling head,
Or let their feet dip out of sight,

229

Seated themselves upon the brink.
He all the while stands pale with fright,
Or burning to an angry red,
Feeling the air grow faint and dim
Where spray and incense fumes unite,
Then opes his rosy mouth to drink,
And spreads his arms like wings for flight.

XIII

Alas! no more from such close charms
Shall he return, the strong, the fleet;
The race-course shall forget his feet,
The tawny stream forget his arms;
And he shall shun the olive's sweet
More than the poison of the snake;
And dread the trumpet's loud alarms
More than the deadlier woman's voice,
And less the kiss that slowly warms
With fires no seas shall ever slake,
Than the flame's quick devouring heat
That spares the soul the body harms;
Yet not all evil deems the choice
Of one whom Venus thus disarms.