 | The Poetical Works of John Payne |  |
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SONNETS.
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INTROIT.
THIS is the House of Dreams. Whoso is fainTo enter in this shadow-land of mine,
He must forget the utter Summer's shine
And all the daylight ways of hand and brain:
Here is the white moon ever on the wane
And here the air is sad with many a sign
Of haunting myst'ries; here the golden wine
Of June falls never nor the silver rain
Of hawthorns hueless with the joy of Spring;
But many a mirage of pale memories
Curtains the sunless aisles: upon the breeze
A music of waste sighs doth float and sing
And in the shadow of the sad-flowered trees,
The ghosts of men's desire walk wandering.
AD DANTEM.
TO thee, my master, thee, my shining one,Whose solitary face, immovable,
Burning athwart the midmost glooms of Hell,
Calls up stern shadows of the things undone,—
To thee, immortal, shining like the sun
In the blue heart of Heaven's clearest bell,
Circled with radiances ineffable,—
These pale sad flowers I bring,—how hardly won
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How hardly and how wearily God knows!
These at thy feet I lay, whose hues confess
Thy mighty shade, so haply they may shine
With some pale reflex of that light divine
Which ripples round thine own supernal rose.
TROPIC FLOWER.
AS I went walking in the air one day—Sadly enough—a thought laid hold on me
With flower-soft hands and would not set me free.
It was, meseemed, as if a rose of May
Blew suddenly against a wintry way
Of snow and barren boughs; for I could see
No cause why such a lovely light should be
In my dull soul, nor how my heart's dismay
Should have lent life to any pleasant thing.
But, with remembering, presently I knew
That this was but the scarlet flowering
Of some most bitter aloe-root that grew
In my sick soul an hundred years and drew
All my lost summers to its single Spring.
HAUNTED LIFE.
HOW shall I 'scape the presence of this death?Sleeping, the Dream-God folds me in his wings;
And with the grey pale day comes Thought and brings
With him the sad enchantments of the breath
Of some dumb ghost-world that envelopeth
My narrow life with many-woven rings
Of imminent mystery. The viewless things
Are thick and tyrannous on me, a sheath
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The wraiths of things long dead and things undone,
Memories and forecasts, lives that yet shall be
Or might be compassed, with such strangling bands
They bind me, that this world beneath the sun
Fails from my grasp and life is death to me.
HESPERIA.
MY dream is of a city in the West,Built with fair colours, still and sad as flowers
That wear the blazon of the autumn hours,
Set by the side of some wide wave's unrest;
And there the sun-filled calm is unimprest,
Save by a flutter as of silver showers,
Rain-rippled on dim Paradisal bowers,
And some far tune of bells chimed softliest.
About the still clear streets my love-thoughts go,
A many-coloured throng, some pale as pearl,
Some bright as the gold brow-locks of a girl:
And midst them, where the saddest memories teem,
My veiled hope wanders, musingly and slow,
And hears the sad sea murmur like a dream.
WINTER ROSES.
I SOUGHT thee when the world was full of flower,
O wide-winged love! and seeking, found thee not.
In vain the linnets sang, the lilies got
Them robes of silver and the roses' shower
Of blossom tapestried each fragrant hour;
The skies were idly blue; the glad heats wrought
Their summer sorcery of flowers for nought;
The autumn brought the bridal year its dower
Of jewelled fruits and sunlight-coloured corn.
But for my part I took no heed of them,
Wandering, grave-eyed, along the meadows' hem,
Following my dream, unfriended and apart,
Sad in the noon-day, joyless in the morn,
Mirroring all things in my empty heart.
O wide-winged love! and seeking, found thee not.
In vain the linnets sang, the lilies got
Them robes of silver and the roses' shower
Of blossom tapestried each fragrant hour;
The skies were idly blue; the glad heats wrought
Their summer sorcery of flowers for nought;
The autumn brought the bridal year its dower
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But for my part I took no heed of them,
Wandering, grave-eyed, along the meadows' hem,
Following my dream, unfriended and apart,
Sad in the noon-day, joyless in the morn,
Mirroring all things in my empty heart.
And as I went and communed with my pain,
Unknowing all the glories of the day
And all the radiance of the stars' array
For lack of love, the hope began to wane
Within my breast and to myself, “In vain,
In vain, sad soul,” I said, “thou dost essay
The weary path of years and Life's waste way
Of lengthening memories! If Love were fain
To turn his wings to thee-ward and to tread
Thy way with equal feet, he would forego
His fair intent, seeing thy stern wan face
And thy sad eyes that fill the fields with woe,
And marvel in himself how one should trace
Life's path with feet that linger for the dead.”
Unknowing all the glories of the day
And all the radiance of the stars' array
For lack of love, the hope began to wane
Within my breast and to myself, “In vain,
In vain, sad soul,” I said, “thou dost essay
The weary path of years and Life's waste way
Of lengthening memories! If Love were fain
To turn his wings to thee-ward and to tread
Thy way with equal feet, he would forego
His fair intent, seeing thy stern wan face
And thy sad eyes that fill the fields with woe,
And marvel in himself how one should trace
Life's path with feet that linger for the dead.”
Lo! for I said, Love loveth allegresse
And fair wise joyance in all pleasant things:
It likes him not that in the waverings
Of saddened fancy one should seek to press
His grapes of heaven, that in the loneliness
Of deathward thought a man should bind his wings
And prison all his rare sweet wanderings
Within a labyrinth of deep duresse,
Hoarding his wine up in strange poison-flowers
And sucking bitters from his passionate sweets.
Lo! for Love walketh in the pleasant hours
Of life and passeth by the lonely seats
Of delicate sadness, where the veilèd powers
Do weave strange dreams, far from the noontide heats.
And fair wise joyance in all pleasant things:
It likes him not that in the waverings
Of saddened fancy one should seek to press
His grapes of heaven, that in the loneliness
Of deathward thought a man should bind his wings
And prison all his rare sweet wanderings
Within a labyrinth of deep duresse,
Hoarding his wine up in strange poison-flowers
And sucking bitters from his passionate sweets.
Lo! for Love walketh in the pleasant hours
Of life and passeth by the lonely seats
Of delicate sadness, where the veilèd powers
Do weave strange dreams, far from the noontide heats.
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And yet, methinks, I had made sacrifice
To pleasant Love with many a faint sweet thing,
Done homage to him with much flowering
Of tender dreams and many a rare device
Of songs, half sad, half joyous, to suffice
For such rude pastoral rounds as shepherds sing,
When the winged arrow bites them. Offering
Of many flowers of night and many a spice
Of tropic forests, darkening to their deep
Of delicate shade for horror of the sun,
I would have made him: all the flowers that sleep
Within the wilder solitudes of thought,
All faint-hued fancies that the day do shun,
Loving, to thee, O Love! these had I brought.
To pleasant Love with many a faint sweet thing,
Done homage to him with much flowering
Of tender dreams and many a rare device
Of songs, half sad, half joyous, to suffice
For such rude pastoral rounds as shepherds sing,
When the winged arrow bites them. Offering
Of many flowers of night and many a spice
Of tropic forests, darkening to their deep
Of delicate shade for horror of the sun,
I would have made him: all the flowers that sleep
Within the wilder solitudes of thought,
All faint-hued fancies that the day do shun,
Loving, to thee, O Love! these had I brought.
Methinks thou didst not well my prayers to scorn,
O tyrant Love, that never pardoneth!
I with my songs the victor over Death
Had laurelled thee; and all the shades forlorn
Should for thine hour of triumphing have worn
Thy hues of noon; and eke thy linnets' breath
Should have rung resonant—as one that saith,
‘The dim night passeth: welcome in the morn!’
—Athwart the woods and fastnesses of grief.
Now dost thou wear for crownal flowers of day,
Glad myrtles and the passionate-petalled rose:
Me serving, I had crowned thee with a sheaf
Of lilies silver with their blanching woes
And violets dropping with the tears of May.
O tyrant Love, that never pardoneth!
I with my songs the victor over Death
Had laurelled thee; and all the shades forlorn
Should for thine hour of triumphing have worn
Thy hues of noon; and eke thy linnets' breath
Should have rung resonant—as one that saith,
‘The dim night passeth: welcome in the morn!’
—Athwart the woods and fastnesses of grief.
Now dost thou wear for crownal flowers of day,
Glad myrtles and the passionate-petalled rose:
Me serving, I had crowned thee with a sheaf
Of lilies silver with their blanching woes
And violets dropping with the tears of May.
Thus with myself devising, did I pass
Along the summer meadows and the woods
Aflame with autumn's many-blazoned moods:
And now the rime did jewel all the grass
And on the plains the silver snows did mass
Within the hollows. Over all the floods
The winter brooded, as a spell-work broods,
And the ice-sleep compelled the river's glass.
Then did my heart take comfort from the time:
The dim white woodlands held more hope for me
Within the cloisters of their leafless aisles
Than all the summer's gold; the speechless rime
Was grateful to me and the pale sky's smiles
Stirred all my wintry soul to harmony.
Along the summer meadows and the woods
Aflame with autumn's many-blazoned moods:
And now the rime did jewel all the grass
And on the plains the silver snows did mass
Within the hollows. Over all the floods
The winter brooded, as a spell-work broods,
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Then did my heart take comfort from the time:
The dim white woodlands held more hope for me
Within the cloisters of their leafless aisles
Than all the summer's gold; the speechless rime
Was grateful to me and the pale sky's smiles
Stirred all my wintry soul to harmony.
Then, as I strayed among the silent ways,
Much comforted from all my old despite,
Love came to me across that world of white,
With drooping wings and winter-saddened gaze;
And as I looked on him with still amaze,
He took my hand within his palms of light
And with full many a promise of delight,
Prevailed on me that I should work his praise.
But I, “My heart has all forgot the songs
Of summer and the full-toned autumn-lays:
I have no memory of the jewelled throngs,
That blew for thee about the August ways:
My soul is dumb with winter. Let me rest:
Love has no empery in this sad breast.”
Much comforted from all my old despite,
Love came to me across that world of white,
With drooping wings and winter-saddened gaze;
And as I looked on him with still amaze,
He took my hand within his palms of light
And with full many a promise of delight,
Prevailed on me that I should work his praise.
But I, “My heart has all forgot the songs
Of summer and the full-toned autumn-lays:
I have no memory of the jewelled throngs,
That blew for thee about the August ways:
My soul is dumb with winter. Let me rest:
Love has no empery in this sad breast.”
Nay, (but he said,) the summer's songs are sweet,
When June is golden; and the autumn's tide
Befits full harmonies. Whilst these abide,
The songs of joyance gracious are and meet:
But when the winter comes, with silver feet
A-walking in the snows, one lays aside
The passionate descants that glorified
The goodlier hours; and then the heart doth greet,
With doubled ease, the tender plaining notes
Of shy and suffering souls, that have in vain
Sought flying favour in the joy that floats
About the summer; and the altar-flame
Of love burns brightlier for their offered pain
Who spared to love, until life's winter came.
When June is golden; and the autumn's tide
Befits full harmonies. Whilst these abide,
The songs of joyance gracious are and meet:
But when the winter comes, with silver feet
A-walking in the snows, one lays aside
The passionate descants that glorified
The goodlier hours; and then the heart doth greet,
With doubled ease, the tender plaining notes
Of shy and suffering souls, that have in vain
Sought flying favour in the joy that floats
About the summer; and the altar-flame
Of love burns brightlier for their offered pain
Who spared to love, until life's winter came.
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So he with softest words prevailed on me:
And I, with heart half-glad, half-wearying,
Did at his hest address myself to sing,
Holding his hand as link of fealty.
Singing of all the strange delights that be
In sad sweet musing and the illumining
That Love doth pour upon each sombre thing,
Among the dreaming trees I went. And he
The while retraced my visions in the air,
Colouring my dreams with all his magic light
And murmuring o'er the songs that I did sing,
With a new added accent of delight.
So, hand in hand, along the woodways bare
We went, nor wearied for the tardy Spring.
And I, with heart half-glad, half-wearying,
Did at his hest address myself to sing,
Holding his hand as link of fealty.
Singing of all the strange delights that be
In sad sweet musing and the illumining
That Love doth pour upon each sombre thing,
Among the dreaming trees I went. And he
The while retraced my visions in the air,
Colouring my dreams with all his magic light
And murmuring o'er the songs that I did sing,
With a new added accent of delight.
So, hand in hand, along the woodways bare
We went, nor wearied for the tardy Spring.
DORIC MODE.
SEEK, then, no more to sweep the unwilling stringsTo tempest nor to harrow up the skies
With the void passion of Titanic sighs;
Thou shalt not scale the heaven on thunderous wings
Of resonant prayer. The terror of sweet things
Mounts up, sure-winged, to where the whirlwind dies,
Unechoed; and the eternal harmonies
Are stirred more surely, when the poet sings
Bird-softly, bent above the low-voiced lute.
Thunders lie low; the middle air is mute
To their reverberance; but, when there rings
Through heaven the cadence of the Dorian flute,
The great gods hearken from their sojournings
And life flowers forth with immemorial Springs.
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THE GARDEN OF ADONIS.
THERE lies a garden in the westward hills,Compassed about with walls of mystery
And girt with an inviolable sea
Of silentness; and there no linnet trills:
But, in the witchery of peace that fills
The voiceless lawns, sleep unawakeningly
The sweet lost dreams, that there englamoured be
And may not pass those thrice-enchanted sills.
There have I laid my wounded love to sleep
And heal its dole among the unstirred dells;
And thence, methinks, when many a gradual sweep
Of years has purged life's passion in the wells
Of restfulness, my soul its flower shall reap,
Made whole and fair with many mystic spells.
SOVRAN SORROW.
DEATH came to me and took me by the hand,What time the earth had girt her first with Spring
And all the meadows put on blossoming.
“Come forth,” said he, “and see my flowers expand:”
And forth we passed into the pleasant land.
And as we went, the small birds all did sing
And all the flowers praised Death in everything.
Then, as I looked, amazed, to see the brand
And sign of that his dreadful sovranty,
Behold, a crown of holiest sorrowing
Flamed on the angel's brow; and unto me,
Knee-bent for reverence, these words did ring
Most softly, “Lo! he ruleth all that be,
Seeing he sorrows more than anything.”
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FRANCOIS RABELAIS.
MASTER, whose glad face lightens through the years,Awful and fair with laughter against wrong,
We that have loved thee loyally and long,
Laid heart to thine with laughter and with tears,
Glorying to see thee with thy golden spears
Smite through, Apollo-like, the Python-throng
Of woes, and no less pitiful than strong,
Salve with thy smile the dolours and the fears,
Fain would we have thy presence once again,
In these our tragic times of doubt and stress,
To purge the air with ridicule; ay, fain
Would we behold, athwart the mist that seals
Our toil-gray skies, thy brow's strong sunniness,
The visage of a god that laughs and heals.
EVOCATION.
METHINKS in some far sunset-coloured place
Of dreams and flowers, the stress of my desire
Must have grown up to flowerage of fire
And snow in a fair maiden's dream-filled face
And pearly limbs, washed round with all the grace
Of Spring-tide thought; a lady like a lyre
For the harmonious waftings that aspire
From all things amorous of her being's trace.
I picture her to me,—my love of dreams,—
Pacing the gold shore of that magic land,
Pensive and fair with many a half-filled thought;
And to each pulse of my strained soul, meseems,
Her essence answers, as to wafts wind-brought
Of charms cast out from some far wizard's hand.
Of dreams and flowers, the stress of my desire
Must have grown up to flowerage of fire
And snow in a fair maiden's dream-filled face
And pearly limbs, washed round with all the grace
Of Spring-tide thought; a lady like a lyre
For the harmonious waftings that aspire
From all things amorous of her being's trace.
I picture her to me,—my love of dreams,—
Pacing the gold shore of that magic land,
Pensive and fair with many a half-filled thought;
And to each pulse of my strained soul, meseems,
Her essence answers, as to wafts wind-brought
Of charms cast out from some far wizard's hand.
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How many times, sweetheart, how many times
I have made running rivers of my sighs,
Poured out my yearning into melodies
Of love, that on the torrent of my rhymes
My thought might voyage to those golden climes
Of mystery, jewelled o'er with sapphire skies,
Where thy feet walk and make life Paradise!
And unto thee, mayhap, as 'twere the chimes
Of some far dream-bell fluttering the air,
The echo of my great desire has won,
Like to a sigh of spirits far away;
And thou, with some still sadness filled and fair,
Hast for a dream-space stood and watched the sun
And the clear colours fading from the day.
I have made running rivers of my sighs,
Poured out my yearning into melodies
Of love, that on the torrent of my rhymes
My thought might voyage to those golden climes
Of mystery, jewelled o'er with sapphire skies,
Where thy feet walk and make life Paradise!
And unto thee, mayhap, as 'twere the chimes
Of some far dream-bell fluttering the air,
The echo of my great desire has won,
Like to a sigh of spirits far away;
And thou, with some still sadness filled and fair,
Hast for a dream-space stood and watched the sun
And the clear colours fading from the day.
ROCOCO.
STRAIGHT and swift the swallows flyTo the sojourn of the sun;
All the golden year is done,
All the flower-time flitted by;
Through the boughs the witch-winds sigh:
But heart's summer is begun;
Life and love at last are one;
Love-lights glitter in the sky.
Summer-days were soon outrun,
With the setting of the sun;
Love's delight is never done.
Let the turn-coat roses die;
We are lovers, Love and I:
In Love's lips my roses lie.
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LIFE UNLIVED.
HOW many months, how many a weary yearMy soul had stood upon that brink of days,
Straining dim eyes into the treacherous haze
For signs of life's beginning. Far and near
The grey mist floated, like a shadow-mere,
Beyond hope's bounds; and in the lapsing ways,
Pale phantoms flitted, seeming to my gaze
The portents of the coming hope and fear.
“Surely,” I said, “life shall rise up at last,
Shall sweep me by with pageant and delight!”
But, as I spoke, the waste shook with a blast
Of cries and clamours of a mighty fight;
Then all was still. Upon me fell the night
And a voice whispered to me, “Life is past.”
BELPHOEBE.
SHE may not give thee love nor any hate:Her life is calm and senseless as the flowers
That fall around her in such scented showers:
Snow-calm, she standeth in the present's gate,
Unmindful if the world is wound with fate
About her life, knowing not hope nor doubt
Nor any yearning for the things without.
Her days are folded in a flowerful state,
A charm of lily-snows and jasmine-sweets.
It irks her nothing if the pale god broods
Above the haunts of toil or sorrow beats
With leaden wing: she knoweth not the goods
Nor ills of men, standing where summer meets
With Spring upon the marges of the woods.
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ON LECONTE DE LISLE'S PROSE TRANSLATION OF HOMER.
THERE is a legend of the northland fells,Fabling that in the middle mountain-caves,
Soundless and dumb, a mighty music waves,
Frozen into silence by eternal spells,
Till some fair hero pierce the mist that dwells
Above the music's mystery-hearted graves.
Then shall the song soar with a noise of glaives
To-smitten and the trumpet's silver swells
Rehearse the glories of the ancient time.
So hast thou, poet from the tropic isles,—
Coming, breast-armoured with the gold sun's smiles,
Into our Northland,—set old Homer free
From all the tangling coil of modern rhyme
And loosed the sheer song on us like a sea.
AFTER LONG YEARS.
THE memories of summer are not dead,The roses and the bird-songs and the sun:
Though autumn shadow all the skies with dun
And all the golden year be overspread
With shrouding snows, yet roses have been red,
Linnets have sung and June has gilt the day;
And Springtide, peering through the winter's grey,
Calls up pale phantasms of the glories fled,
Primroses budding through the scarce-thawed rime,
A memory and a foreshadowing.
So with these firstlings of my second Spring,
March-prophecies of summer-tided rhyme,
After long years I bring as offering
To the pale memories of that pleasant time.
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FATAL ATTAINMENT.
HAPLY, my hope shall find me unawares,Fall on me from a thunder-smitten sky,
As Spring-light changed to lightning-flash; and I,—
Bent to some gross dull web of clinging cares,
Having forgot the aim of all my prayers
But for that second,—see the thing on high
And knowing it for awful and so nigh,
Lose heart to grasp it or to mount the stairs
Of light let down to lift me heavenward.
So all my soul shall shrink into a sigh
Of impotence; and with its sense outpoured
Into one unrelenting ecstacy
Of yearning for the mirage golden-shored,
My life shall fold its frail faint wings and die.
JACOB AND THE ANGEL.
SHALL he not bless me? Will he never speakThose words of proud concession, “Let me go:
For the day breaketh?” Wearily and slow
The shrouded hours troop past across the peak,
Eastering; and I, with hands grown all too weak
And strength that would have failed me long ago,
But for the set soul, strain to overthrow
The instant God.—Alas! 'tis I that speak—
Not Jacob—I that in this night of days
Do wrestle with the angel Art, till breath
And gladness fail me. Yet the stern soul stays
And will not loose him till he bless me; ay,
Even though the night defer my victory
Until the day break on the dawn of death.
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SIBYL.
THIS is the glamour of the world antique:The thyme-scents of Hymettus fill the air
And in the grass narcissus-cups are fair.
The full brook wanders through the ferns to seek
The amber haunts of bees and on the peak
Of the soft hill, against the gold-marged sky,
She stands, a dream from out the days gone by.
Entreat her not. Indeed, she will not speak.
Her eyes are full of dreams and in her ears
There is the rustle of immortal wings;
And ever and anon the slow breeze bears
The mystic murmur of the songs she sings.
Entreat her not: she sees thee not nor hears
Aught but the sights and sounds of bygone Springs.
LONG DESIRE.
SURELY the world is sad with my sick hope.There comes no stirring in the air for Spring,
No sweep of wings nor any blossoming
Of leaf-buds, red against the grey cloud-scope.
The mocking sunlight falls athwart the slope
Of the pale flowerless fields, as if to find
Some faint flower-trace, mayhap remained behind
Of the past happy time. And I, I grope
For aye amongst the ashes of old bliss,
Seeking some unpaled spark wherewith to light
The torch of Hope, that well-nigh faded is
Within my breast, if haply from the height
Of heaven should come, on wings of memories,
Some soft-plumed angel of the old delight.
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ON THE BORDERS OF THE NIGHT.
THE imminent fulness of the days to come;
The nameless terror of the half-seen hills,
Whereo'er the storm broods and the thunder fills
The dreadful palaces of Space and Doom;
The long-drawn silences; the mists that loom
Across the sun-break and the radiant sills
Of morning; these it is that blunt the wills
Of wingless men and weigh them to the tomb
With unspent souls and lives that have outcast
No seed of hope upon the fields of day:
So that they wander in a lightless way,
Hand-lifting ever; “Will it come at last,
(If God live), that fair Present, purged away
From the black Future and the bitter Past?”
The nameless terror of the half-seen hills,
Whereo'er the storm broods and the thunder fills
The dreadful palaces of Space and Doom;
The long-drawn silences; the mists that loom
Across the sun-break and the radiant sills
Of morning; these it is that blunt the wills
Of wingless men and weigh them to the tomb
With unspent souls and lives that have outcast
No seed of hope upon the fields of day:
So that they wander in a lightless way,
Hand-lifting ever; “Will it come at last,
(If God live), that fair Present, purged away
From the black Future and the bitter Past?”
Ay, will it come? Alas, alas! the night
Flies low and swift along the greying West.
Which of our dreams shall fare the swiftliest?
Our hopes of Life to flower in the light
Of full mid-Present or the noiseless flight
Of that sad angel of the sorely-prest,
That brings the balsams and the wine of rest?
The “must” of sleep comes hard upon the “might”
Of action, filling up the hollow years
And the blank days left flowerless for the time
When the rent cloud shall certify our fears
Or crown our hopes of heaven, as it nears
With flame-lined flanks or crests up which there climb
Rain-mists that drop with all the hoarded tears.
Flies low and swift along the greying West.
Which of our dreams shall fare the swiftliest?
Our hopes of Life to flower in the light
Of full mid-Present or the noiseless flight
Of that sad angel of the sorely-prest,
That brings the balsams and the wine of rest?
The “must” of sleep comes hard upon the “might”
Of action, filling up the hollow years
And the blank days left flowerless for the time
When the rent cloud shall certify our fears
Or crown our hopes of heaven, as it nears
With flame-lined flanks or crests up which there climb
Rain-mists that drop with all the hoarded tears.
Lo! if the sleep came, haply it were well.
How should we face it, if it came too near,
Too full and bright on us for eyes to bear,
That terrible glory of the Invisible,
A splendour like a fire, ineffable,
More dreadful than the thunder, all too fair,
Too wholly perfect in the kindling air
Of upper heaven? Or if there befell
To us the other fortune, the sheer sight
Of all the glooms of Fate and Fear and Hell,
The full abysmal presence of the Night,
The night unsanctified by any bell
Of starlit heavens, blotting out Life's light
With rays of darkness unendurable?
How should we face it, if it came too near,
Too full and bright on us for eyes to bear,
That terrible glory of the Invisible,
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More dreadful than the thunder, all too fair,
Too wholly perfect in the kindling air
Of upper heaven? Or if there befell
To us the other fortune, the sheer sight
Of all the glooms of Fate and Fear and Hell,
The full abysmal presence of the Night,
The night unsanctified by any bell
Of starlit heavens, blotting out Life's light
With rays of darkness unendurable?
Sure, it were well for us to lay life down
And sleep the undawning slumber of the dead;
Whilst over us the appointed levins sped
And the bolts broke upon the mountains brown;
Uncareful if the middle air were strown
With the blue flowers of day or sunset's red
Of coming thunder-blasts,—if night were spread,
A lurid vault of storm-clouds all wind-blown
Into the furnace of the wrath to come,
Or else a dome of many-coloured light.
Sleep should be whole for us and kindly gloom,
Unstirred by any pain or love-delight;
A kind child-slumber in its mother's womb;
An overfolding of the wings of Night.
And sleep the undawning slumber of the dead;
Whilst over us the appointed levins sped
And the bolts broke upon the mountains brown;
Uncareful if the middle air were strown
With the blue flowers of day or sunset's red
Of coming thunder-blasts,—if night were spread,
A lurid vault of storm-clouds all wind-blown
Into the furnace of the wrath to come,
Or else a dome of many-coloured light.
Sleep should be whole for us and kindly gloom,
Unstirred by any pain or love-delight;
A kind child-slumber in its mother's womb;
An overfolding of the wings of Night.
Peace! for the shadow draws on us apace,
Hiding the unattained and painful years:
Peace! for the storm-wind fades from off our ears
And out of heaven the grey veil spreads a space
Of friendly shade before the upbraiding face
Of that To-be which never, never nears.
Night shall assoil us of our hopes and fears
And our tired sense drink slumber and the grace
Of stillness, solacing the restless souls.
Let us link hands and sleep, unsorrowing
For all the undone hopes, the unwon goals.
Haply, some day, from out our wearying—
Healed with the years—a new fair life shall spring.
Till then, sleep sweet beneath the grassy knolls!
Hiding the unattained and painful years:
Peace! for the storm-wind fades from off our ears
And out of heaven the grey veil spreads a space
Of friendly shade before the upbraiding face
Of that To-be which never, never nears.
Night shall assoil us of our hopes and fears
And our tired sense drink slumber and the grace
Of stillness, solacing the restless souls.
Let us link hands and sleep, unsorrowing
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Haply, some day, from out our wearying—
Healed with the years—a new fair life shall spring.
Till then, sleep sweet beneath the grassy knolls!
FEMME FELLAH DE LANDELLE.
O THOU that hold'st the desert in thine eyes,With that long look into the world of dreams,
As of deep yearning for the distant streams
Of some green oasis that haply lies
Beyond the torrid glow of Orient skies
In the blue distance! I have known thee long
In that dim dreamland, where the fluted song
Of nightingales is mixed with dulcet sighs
Of scented winds and balm of mystic flowers;
And in the white warm moonlight, all bestrewn
About the trellised woodways and the bowers
Vine-clustered, I have often known the tune
Of birds swell sweetlier and the hurrying hours
Halt, as thy face grew clear beneath the moon.
PROJECTED SHADOWS.
AH, memory! ah, ruthless memory!Shall I not have one hour unfilled for thee?
Why wilt thou thus usurp the days to be,
Unsatisfied with all thy realms that lie
Behind the Present? Why o'ercloud the sky,
Glad with gold star-scripts of Futurity?
Hast thou not made the fleeting hours for me
Sunless enough, but thou must flicker by
The shrouding years and hovering on the verge
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Of all my pleasant creatures of delight,
Won with much wrestling from the haggard night,
And in their stead paint up a sky of storms
And the stern Fury sworded with the scourge?
AZALEAS.
SHE hath no knowledge of the things that stir
This modern life of men to toil and stress:
Her life is folded in the loveliness
Of its sweet self. Around and over her,
Flower-petals hover; scents of rose and myrrh
Cloister her in from all the worldly ways.
Life flows about her, like her pale robe's haze
Or the blue vapour round a thurifer,
Folding her being in an equal dream,
Wherein the birds sing ever, where the flowers
Renew Spring's gladness with the new sun's beam
And all the year is peaceful in the hours,
Heedless of all the weary shapes that seem
And wander in this sad wan life of ours.
This modern life of men to toil and stress:
Her life is folded in the loveliness
Of its sweet self. Around and over her,
Flower-petals hover; scents of rose and myrrh
Cloister her in from all the worldly ways.
Life flows about her, like her pale robe's haze
Or the blue vapour round a thurifer,
Folding her being in an equal dream,
Wherein the birds sing ever, where the flowers
Renew Spring's gladness with the new sun's beam
And all the year is peaceful in the hours,
Heedless of all the weary shapes that seem
And wander in this sad wan life of ours.
Fair as an alabaster vase she stands,
Wherein the unchecked soul is luminous
And glorifies its peaceful dwelling-house;
Gathering the forspent blossoms with her hands
Into the dainty cup, with azure bands
Enwound; for all the things she cherisheth
Are lovely as herself, even in death,
And glitter with the glory of the lands
Beyond the ken of man, where Venus waits
And Eros sleeps beside Adonis' bed,
Low-laid in lilies, where the dreamland's gates
Enclose all loveliest things that men deem dead,
Until the weary span of years be sped,
That shall reclothe them with their pristine states.
Wherein the unchecked soul is luminous
And glorifies its peaceful dwelling-house;
Gathering the forspent blossoms with her hands
Into the dainty cup, with azure bands
Enwound; for all the things she cherisheth
Are lovely as herself, even in death,
And glitter with the glory of the lands
Beyond the ken of man, where Venus waits
And Eros sleeps beside Adonis' bed,
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Enclose all loveliest things that men deem dead,
Until the weary span of years be sped,
That shall reclothe them with their pristine states.
Dim flowers of dreams, white maiden of a dream,
She knoweth not that we are kin to her:
She heareth not the clamour and the stir
Of joyless men about her gates. The stream
Wakes her with babbling and the gold sun's beam
Beckons her forth into the budded day.
Standing upon the marble silver-grey,
Blush-white in myrtle-green and orange-gleam,
She strokes her doves and sees the swans adown
The ripples waver in the brooklet's glass:
Then, folding in her hands her broidered gown,
She wanders, smiling, through the jewelled grass,
Plucking the violets from their moss-deeps brown;
And all things smile to her as she doth pass.
She knoweth not that we are kin to her:
She heareth not the clamour and the stir
Of joyless men about her gates. The stream
Wakes her with babbling and the gold sun's beam
Beckons her forth into the budded day.
Standing upon the marble silver-grey,
Blush-white in myrtle-green and orange-gleam,
She strokes her doves and sees the swans adown
The ripples waver in the brooklet's glass:
Then, folding in her hands her broidered gown,
She wanders, smiling, through the jewelled grass,
Plucking the violets from their moss-deeps brown;
And all things smile to her as she doth pass.
BRIDE-NIGHT.
SWEET summer, if thy roses knew the songThe linnet sang in that dear dream of old,
Flooding the night with ripples of song-gold,
What while two lovers did their bliss prolong,
They would have garnered it from earthly wrong
Within their golden hearts, folded it up
Deep in the scented purple of their cup,
Against the harsh world's griefs and the sad throng
Of love-destroying cares; and holding so
Within their hearts that essence of all bliss,
They would have felt its magic pierce and glow
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All hue had left them for that lovely woe,
As lovers pale upon a lingering kiss.
FLITTING HOPE.
FAIR angel, I have sought thee many a day,Through many mingling ways of smiles and tears,
And watched thy shadow flutter through the years.
Ay, evermore, the outline cool and grey
Of thy soft pinions on the landscape lay,
Softening the mocking sunlight and the spears
Of the cold silver moon; and still, with ears
Eager and strained, I listened for the sway
Of thy wide wings across the trembling air.
Ah! never to my sight thy presence came,
Nor in the midnight nor the noonday's flame;
But on the ecstasy of my despair,
Worn down to silence, falls the shade the same,
A far faint angel with outfluttering hair.
LOVE'S EPITAPH.
BRING wreaths and crown the golden hours!Pile up the scented snows of Spring!
If Love be dead of sorrow's sting,
Shall we make dark this day of ours,
This day of scents and silver showers
And lilts of linnets on the wing?
Sing out and let the shadow ring
And all the grave run o'er with flowers!
If Love, you say, indeed be dead,
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Spring is as sweet as aye and red
And sweet as ever is the rose;
He was so fickle, Love! Who knows?
He might arise and mock our grief.
INDIAN ISLE.
I FOUND in dreams a dwelling of delightAnd did possess it with my soul's desire:
An island, cinctured with the radiant fire
Of orient noons and girt about with white
Of wave-washed reefs, wherein there slumbered bright,
Ah! dream-bright bays. that brought the blue sky nigher
Down to my wish; and many a flower-sheathed spire
Of mystic splendid trees bare up that height
Of imminent azure, flowered above the earth.
There, for my spirit's ease, my hope I laid,
To dwell within that golden-hearted shade
And drink the splendour of the things that be,
Renewing ever with the new sun's birth
And rounded with the slumber of the sea.
SIREN.
A DREAM came to me in the winter night,A dream of flowers and songs and summer skies,
Made beautiful with bloom of memories;
And as I fed my long-divorcèd sight
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I saw therein a white sad face arise
And gold hair fluttered with a wind of sighs.
“Ah, mocking dream,” I said, “that dost incite
My hope, that sleeps at last, to rise again
And seek anew the ways where Life is strong—
Knowing it should but weary there in vain—
My hope that in the lily-fields full long
Of peaceful Death to dreamless rest is lain!”
And the dream ended like a broken song.
NIRWANA.
I WANDER in the halls of memory,Death-dumb and rounded with a web of dreams;
And for long fervour of desire, meseems
My soul is parted from the things that be
And the glad forms of life. Upon a sea
Of fluctuant imaginings, that gleams
With phosphorescent moony-coloured beams
Of lurid fancy, all my days do flee,
Seeking for aye some pale and shadowy land
Of sweet and delicate sadness, wearying
To be poured out like wine into some spring
Of wishless being, welling through the sand
Of some sun-consecrated sojourning
Of souls come back into the Maker's hand.
SLEEPERS AND ONE THAT WATCHES.
WILL the day never dawn? The dim stars weep
Great tears of silver on the pall of night
And the sad moon, for weariness grown white,
Crawls like a mourner up the Eastern steep.
I strain my eyes for morning, while these sleep;
Dreaming of women, this one with the lips
Half-parted, haply,—that in the eclipse
Of a child-slumber, dreamless, folded deep,
Eyes sealed, as though the hand of sleep strewed flowers
Upon their lids, and mouth a fresh-dewed rose,
Wet with the kisses of the night. The hours
Are very heavy on my soul, that knows
No rest: for pinions of the unseen powers
Winnow the wind in every breath that blows.
Great tears of silver on the pall of night
And the sad moon, for weariness grown white,
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I strain my eyes for morning, while these sleep;
Dreaming of women, this one with the lips
Half-parted, haply,—that in the eclipse
Of a child-slumber, dreamless, folded deep,
Eyes sealed, as though the hand of sleep strewed flowers
Upon their lids, and mouth a fresh-dewed rose,
Wet with the kisses of the night. The hours
Are very heavy on my soul, that knows
No rest: for pinions of the unseen powers
Winnow the wind in every breath that blows.
Surely, a lance-point glittered in the West;
Some trumpet thundered out its voice of doom.
But no: my eyes are hazy with the gloom.
'Twas but the moon-rays glancing on the crest
Of the tall corn; some bittern from her nest
Roused by a snake: for, see, the twain sleep on
And nothing stirs their slumber, Oh for one
Sweet hour of falling through the deeps of rest,
Within that lake of sleep, the dreamy-shored!
One little hour of overlidded eyes
And folded palms! Ah me! the terror lies
Upon my soul; I may not loose my sword,
Lest I should wake beneath flame-girdled skies
And tremble to the thunders of the Lord.
Some trumpet thundered out its voice of doom.
But no: my eyes are hazy with the gloom.
'Twas but the moon-rays glancing on the crest
Of the tall corn; some bittern from her nest
Roused by a snake: for, see, the twain sleep on
And nothing stirs their slumber, Oh for one
Sweet hour of falling through the deeps of rest,
Within that lake of sleep, the dreamy-shored!
One little hour of overlidded eyes
And folded palms! Ah me! the terror lies
Upon my soul; I may not loose my sword,
Lest I should wake beneath flame-girdled skies
And tremble to the thunders of the Lord.
The blackness teems with shapes of fearful things;
Weird faces glare at me from out the night
And eyes that glitter with the lurid light
Of lust and all the horror that it brings.
The air is stressful with the pulse of wings;
And what time clouds obscure the constant star
That overlooks my vigil from afar,
Strange voices tempt me with dread whisperings;
Dank hands clasp mine and breathings stir my hair,
That are no mortal's, wooing me to leap
Over the hill-crest, through the swarthy air,
Into the hollow night and thence to reap
The wonder and the weirdness hidden there.
Ah God! the day comes not; and still these sleep.
Weird faces glare at me from out the night
And eyes that glitter with the lurid light
Of lust and all the horror that it brings.
The air is stressful with the pulse of wings;
And what time clouds obscure the constant star
That overlooks my vigil from afar,
Strange voices tempt me with dread whisperings;
Dank hands clasp mine and breathings stir my hair,
That are no mortal's, wooing me to leap
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Into the hollow night and thence to reap
The wonder and the weirdness hidden there.
Ah God! the day comes not; and still these sleep.
ALTISIDORA.
IN the mid-wood I strayed; and as I went,I saw a lady sitting all alone
Upon a bank with primroses o'ergrown,
With tear-stained eyes and tresses all to-rent.
“Sweetheart,” said I, “is all thy joy forspent
And all the stir of Spring unfelt for thee,
That thou dost linger here so wearily,
Flouting the flowers with sorrow and lament?”
And she, “Is Spring then blossomed on the lands?
Methought the world wore winter with my soul
And these pale flowers, dim-set in weft green bands,
Blew but as wraiths of the bright host that stands
Within the summer-gardens winter stole,
To mock my sorrow with his flowerful hands.”
LONELY THOUGHT.
THE thoughts grow up and blossom in my breast;And some do mock the sun-gold and the blue
Of June-clear heavens, some the angry hue
Of stormful sundowns blazoned in the West;
And others (fairest these and deadliest)
Hive in their cups a scented poison-dew,
Some honey-sweet and bitter some as rue.
And all spring up and die, alike unblest.
But in the secret cloisters of my soul
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Undying, and athwart the tree-shade cool
Sends up a blended breath of peace and dole:
And round the flower strange birds do flit and throng,
Sacring the silence with a low, clear song.
WESTERING HOPE.
THE dainty dream of dawn had swooned awayAnd all the golden chains of noon opprest
The pleasance of the woods. Upon the breast
Of Spring Life slumbered and the innocent day
Linked hands and garlands with the fair mid-May.
So for awhile, meseemed, the long unrest
Died down to sleep within me; peace outprest
Her wine of balms upon me; and I lay
Unmemoried, deep-bowered in a nest
Of dreams, whose perfumes misted up the way
Of Past and Future, till the soft day's wane
Piled towers of sunset on the blue hills' crest.
Then all my grief came back and once again
My soul stretched out sad hands toward the West.
SILENTIA LUNÆ.
IT seemed to me, this night of many nights,What time the moon lay full on wood and lea,
That over all my life there spread one sea
Of pearl; and thereupon the mirrored lights
Of the soft stars shone out like petal-whites
Of gold-heart lilies, floating waveringly
Upon the clear moon-silences. Ah me!
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Of old, that we have steeped our love by-past
In the white peace of night, that we have cast
Our twinned souls out with kisses and with tears
Upon the flooding moon,—that haply we
Should with joined hands yet rescue from the sea
Some sweetness of the irrevocable years?
IGNIS FATUUS.
MY soul is like some pale phantasmal light,That flickers o'er a marsh of mystery
And with its baleful phosphorescency
Stretches long hands of blue into the night.
It may not give the fair world to men's sight
Nor rescue back the lovely things that be
Out of the shrouding gloom; but, from the sea
Of dreams, the shadowy armies infinite
Of the Invisibles flock forth to it
And many a wraith of worlds fantastical
Breaks into lurid lapses, stretching through
The interambient glooms, with many a hall
And cloister, grey with flitting ghosts and lit
With many a witch's torch of livid blue.
BEATRICE.
SWEET, I have sung of thee in many modes,If haply singing I might ease my pain;
And still the unwearying Fates bring me again
Back by the flowery and the thorny roads
To the old goal-point: still my soul forebodes
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And in my Occident the sunset's gold
Grows dim and sad above the lost abodes.
Dear, had I loved thee less or loved life more,
Had had more hope in men, in love less faith,
I should not now be seeking, as of yore,
For the faint sadness of dream-violets' breath;
I should not now be weaving, o'er and o'er,
These bitter melodies of Love and Death.
MAY MEMORIES.
THE Spring was very glad upon the hills;
The sweet pale wind-flowers waited in the grass;
And the white lilies, in the river's glass,
Floated and fell, with the delight that fills
The May-time. So I stood upon the sills
Of Faërie (for such to me the wood
And all the glamours folded in its flood
Of greenery were) thinking the joy, that kills
March-sadness in the flowers, might make me whole.
But, as I went, the crocus-flames did borrow
White lights and sad, as sombre as my soul:
Ah me! (the linnet sang) sweet love, sweet sorrow!
A golden evening and a sad to-morrow!
Spring could not hold from mocking at my dole.
The sweet pale wind-flowers waited in the grass;
And the white lilies, in the river's glass,
Floated and fell, with the delight that fills
The May-time. So I stood upon the sills
Of Faërie (for such to me the wood
And all the glamours folded in its flood
Of greenery were) thinking the joy, that kills
March-sadness in the flowers, might make me whole.
But, as I went, the crocus-flames did borrow
White lights and sad, as sombre as my soul:
Ah me! (the linnet sang) sweet love, sweet sorrow!
A golden evening and a sad to-morrow!
Spring could not hold from mocking at my dole.
Life unfulfilled! The windy scents tha shook
The pink-blown glory of the apple-trees,
The surge of song that hung upon the breeze,
The pale eyes of the primrose-stars, that took
Faint heart to peer into the painted book
Flower-writ by Spring upon the wide-waved leas;
These all made moan to me of my unease:
And as I pulled the cresses in the brook,
The thin slow water lapsed against my hand,
With some faint cadence of blithe murmuring
Broken to sadness. Over all the land,
As I drew near, the linnets ceased their song,
Saying (meseemed), “What wight goes thus in Spring,
Songless and sad, the dreamy day along?”
The pink-blown glory of the apple-trees,
The surge of song that hung upon the breeze,
The pale eyes of the primrose-stars, that took
Faint heart to peer into the painted book
Flower-writ by Spring upon the wide-waved leas;
These all made moan to me of my unease:
And as I pulled the cresses in the brook,
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With some faint cadence of blithe murmuring
Broken to sadness. Over all the land,
As I drew near, the linnets ceased their song,
Saying (meseemed), “What wight goes thus in Spring,
Songless and sad, the dreamy day along?”
My feet turned back into the well-worn ways,
Hollowed between the tree-marge and the rill;
And as I went, old memories did fill
My soul with longing for the bygone days.
The lush scents from the grey-pearled hawthorn maze,
The birds' and breezes' babble and the stream's
Brought back to me the songs I made in dreams,
In the old days long dead; the bright sweet lays,
Hymning high valour in the world's despite;
The long untroubled lapses of swift song,
Brimming with ecstasy the luminous night,
As a thrush, piping, fills it; sweet and strong
And pure as ripples of the fresh sun's light,
Falling the glad wide ways and aisles along.
Hollowed between the tree-marge and the rill;
And as I went, old memories did fill
My soul with longing for the bygone days.
The lush scents from the grey-pearled hawthorn maze,
The birds' and breezes' babble and the stream's
Brought back to me the songs I made in dreams,
In the old days long dead; the bright sweet lays,
Hymning high valour in the world's despite;
The long untroubled lapses of swift song,
Brimming with ecstasy the luminous night,
As a thrush, piping, fills it; sweet and strong
And pure as ripples of the fresh sun's light,
Falling the glad wide ways and aisles along.
There walked for me along the flower-hung glades
The shadowy figures of the world of song
Of my pure youth, a white and rosy throng
Of fair tall queens and lily-drooping maids,
Shadowing pink cheeks with hyacinthine braids
And feathered gold of many-glancing locks.
The mailed knights clash'd together in the shocks
Of clamorous war and through the spangled shades,
The mystic echoes of old questing went.
There was no thing in all that dream untold
For me, upon the woods with hawthorn sprent,
Of the old life; and in the primrose-gold,
The new came back to me with dreariment,
In memories of the love that long lies cold.
The shadowy figures of the world of song
Of my pure youth, a white and rosy throng
Of fair tall queens and lily-drooping maids,
Shadowing pink cheeks with hyacinthine braids
And feathered gold of many-glancing locks.
The mailed knights clash'd together in the shocks
Of clamorous war and through the spangled shades,
The mystic echoes of old questing went.
There was no thing in all that dream untold
For me, upon the woods with hawthorn sprent,
Of the old life; and in the primrose-gold,
The new came back to me with dreariment,
In memories of the love that long lies cold.
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OUTSTRETCHED HANDS.
IS there no sweetness save of ripened fruit?Lies all men's gladness in fulfilled desire?
Is no flame blander than fruition's fire,
That with swift flowerage burns away its root?
Life passes by, and still my heart is mute.
Day follows night; and yet the sky no nigher
Leans to my hope. Shall all my days expire
And all my soul grow grey with the pursuit?
Shall life waste alway in this torrid blast
Of unstayed passion? Oh! it cannot be
But that some day the spirit shall have cast
Its slough of lusts, that in some luminous sea
Surely a man's desire shall purgèd be,
Surely the early peace come back at last.
ANGEL DEATH.
LO! I have made an end of many things,Singing; yet never have I sung to thee,
Belovèd angel, that by Life's sad sea
Standest star-crowned, whilst all the dusk air rings
With the quick spirit-pulse of viewless wings:
No voice of mine has lifted litany
To thee with song, no hand of mine set free
The soul of praise that slumbers in the strings.
For am I not to thee as one (in this)
That lingers by some shining water-deeps,
When the slow tide sings in its moon-stilled sleeps,
Until his heart-strings catch its harmonies
And his life pulses to the time it keeps:
And yet thereof no thing he speaks, ywis.
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BURIED CITIES.
IF one should wander, in a boat of dreams,Upon the charmèd ocean of the Past,
Peering, with paddling hands and eyes down-cast,
Into the amethystine deeps, meseems
He should see many wonders, by the beams
Of backward memory; the phantoms vast
And awful of the cities of the past
Uplooming through the deeps with sudden gleams
Of glancing towers and jewel-wroughten spires;
And therein too there should be visible,
Methinks, about the streets strange flitting fires,
Wearing his hopes' soul-semblance; and the spell
Should be sung round with silver sound of lyres
And the sad song of some far golden bell.
EXIT.
THIS is my House of Dreams—a house of shade,Built with the fleeting visions of the night:
Here have I set my youth and all its white
Sad mem'ries—in this dwelling that I made
With idle rhyme, as lonely fancy bade.
If any wonder at the strange sad might
The God of Visions holds upon my sight
And set himself my weak song to upbraid
For all the wailing notes therein that teem,
I pray him of his favour that to lands
Of sunnier clime he wend; for things that seem
Are here the things of life and give commands
To living; for a dream is on my hands
And on my life the shadow of a dream.
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WITH A COPY OF THE DIVINA COMMEDIA.
FRIEND, in this book I proffer thee hereby,The angelic voice of him my song obeys,
The well-nigh God and master of my lays,
With various speech, of matters rare and high,
That harpnotes now, now thunder doth outvie,
Discourseth in his verses passing praise.
This treasured work of all who bear the bays,
A poet, to thee, poet, offer I,
That evermore a pledge betwixt us twain
Of friendship and to boot a sign it may
Be of the common travel in the Way
Of our two souls, that various of strain
More than in heaven benighted star and star,
But none the less conjoined in variance are.
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SUNFLOWER SOUL.
LIKE as the sunflower lifts up to the sunIts star of summer, in the noontide heat,
Following the sacred circuit of his feet,
What while toward the house of Night they run;
Nor when the glad Day's glory is fordone
And the sun ceases from the starry street,
It leaves to turn to his celestial seat,
Seeking his face behind the shadows dun;
Even so my heart, from out these darkening days,
Whose little light is sad for winter's breath,
Strains upward still, with song and prayer and praise,
Ensuing ever, through the gathering haze,
Those twin suns of our darkness, Love and Death,
That rule the backward and the forward ways.
WITH A COPY OF HENRY VAUGHAN'S SACRED POEMS.
LAY down thy burden at this gate and knock.What if the world without be dark and drear?
For there be fountains of refreshment here
Sweeter than all the runnels of the rock.
Hark! even to thy hand upon the lock
A wilding warble answers, loud and clear,
That falls as fain upon the heart of fear
As shepherds' songs unto the folded flock.
This is the quiet wood-church of the soul.
Be thankful, heart, to him betimes that stole,
Some Easter morning, through the golden door—
Haply ajar for early prayer to rise—
And brought thee back from that song-flowered shore
These haunting harmonies of Paradise.
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J. B. COROT.
Died 22nd February, 1875.
BEFORE the earliest violet he died,Who loved the new green and the stress of Spring
So tenderly. He knew that March must bring
The primrose by the brook and all the wide
Green spaces of the forest glorified
With scent and singing, when each passing wing
Would call him and each burst of blossoming:
He knew he could not die in the Spring-tide.
Yet he was weary, for his task was done
And sleep seemed sweet unto the tiréd eyes:
Weary! for many a year he had seen the sun
Arise; so in the season of the snows
He put off life—ere Spring could interpose
To hold him back—and went where Gautier lies.
ALOE-BLOSSOM.
LIFE stayed for me within a breach of days,Sundered athwart the grey and rocky years:
Above, the day was dim to me for fears
And memories of the many-chasmed ways
Through which my feet had struggled. At amaze,
Silent I stood and listened with wide ears,
As for the coming of some Fate that nears
At last across the moon-mist and the haze.
The haggard earth lay speechless at my feet;
But, as I waited, suddenly there came
Within me as the flowering of a flame;
And like the mystic bud that bursts to meet
Its hundredth Spring with thunder and acclaim,
Love flowered upon me, terrible and sweet.
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DREAM-LIFE.
IT seems to me sometimes that I am deadAnd watch the live world in its ceaseless stream
Pass by me through the pauses of a dream.
The dawn breaks blue on them, the sunset's red
Burns on their smiles and on the tears they shed;
The moonlight floods them with its silver gleam:
To me they are as ghosts that do but seem;
Their grief is strange to me, their gladness dread.
Life lapses, like a vision dim and grey,
Before my sight, a cloud-wrack in the sky.
Since I am dead I can no longer die:
Ah, can it be this doom is laid on me,
To see the tired world slowly pass away
Nor die, but live on everlastingly?
AD ZOÏLOS.
CHIDE me who will for that my song is sadAnd all my fancy follows on the wave
That bears our little being to the grave!
When did it fail that those—whose lives were glad
For lack of light and want of virtue had
To know the mystery and the hair-hung glaive
That shadow all our life so seeming brave—
The accusing wail of those that weep forbad?
Peace, triflers! Peace, dull ears and heedless eyne!
Yet haply Time unto your foolish fears
Shall yield a mocking áccord and the years,
Falling full-fated on these days of mine,
Crush from the grapes of grief a bitter wine
Of laughters, sadder than the saddest tears.
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INDIAN SUMMER.
I SAID, “The time of grief is overpast:
The mists of morning hold the plains no more;
The flowers of Spring are dead; the woods that wore
The silver suits of Summer o'er them cast
Are stripped and bare before the wintry blast.
Is it for thee to weary and implore
The ruthless Gods, to beat against their door
For ever and for ever to the last?
Rise and be strong; yonder the new life lies.
Who knows but haply, past the sand-hills traced
Bounding the prospect, Destiny have placed
A sunny land of flowers and sapphire skies,
For balm of hearts and cure of loves laid waste?
Up, and leave weeping to a woman's eyes!”
The mists of morning hold the plains no more;
The flowers of Spring are dead; the woods that wore
The silver suits of Summer o'er them cast
Are stripped and bare before the wintry blast.
Is it for thee to weary and implore
The ruthless Gods, to beat against their door
For ever and for ever to the last?
Rise and be strong; yonder the new life lies.
Who knows but haply, past the sand-hills traced
Bounding the prospect, Destiny have placed
A sunny land of flowers and sapphire skies,
For balm of hearts and cure of loves laid waste?
Up, and leave weeping to a woman's eyes!”
Then turned I sadly to the olden signs
By which I had so long lived lingering;
The faded woods, the birds long ceased to sing,
The withered grapes dried on the withered vines
And the thin rill that through the time-worn lines
Of grey-leaved herbs fled, faintly murmuring
Its ghostly memories of the songs of Spring,
Weird whispers of the wind among the pines.
Farewell I bade them all, with heart as sad
Well-nigh as when Love left me long ago,
And turned into the distance. Long I had
Their murmur in my ears, as long and slow
The melancholy way did spread and wind
That left the memories of youth behind.
By which I had so long lived lingering;
The faded woods, the birds long ceased to sing,
The withered grapes dried on the withered vines
And the thin rill that through the time-worn lines
Of grey-leaved herbs fled, faintly murmuring
Its ghostly memories of the songs of Spring,
Weird whispers of the wind among the pines.
Farewell I bade them all, with heart as sad
Well-nigh as when Love left me long ago,
And turned into the distance. Long I had
Their murmur in my ears, as long and slow
The melancholy way did spread and wind
That left the memories of youth behind.
At last a new land opened on my view:
No phantom of the dear dead Spring of old
It was, but a fair land of Autumn gold
And corn-fields sloping to a sea of blue:
And I looked down upon its face and knew
The Autumn land of which my heart had told,
The land where Love at last should be consoled
And balm flower forth among Life's leaves of rue.
A sunset-land it was; and long and sweet,
The shadows of the setting lay on it:
And through the long fair valleys there did flit
Strange birds with pale gold wings, that did repeat
The loveliest songs whereof men aye had wit;
And over all the legend “Peace” was writ.
No phantom of the dear dead Spring of old
It was, but a fair land of Autumn gold
And corn-fields sloping to a sea of blue:
178
The Autumn land of which my heart had told,
The land where Love at last should be consoled
And balm flower forth among Life's leaves of rue.
A sunset-land it was; and long and sweet,
The shadows of the setting lay on it:
And through the long fair valleys there did flit
Strange birds with pale gold wings, that did repeat
The loveliest songs whereof men aye had wit;
And over all the legend “Peace” was writ.
And as I gazed on it, my heart was filled
With rapture of the sudden cease of pain:
And in my spirit, ever and again,
There rang the golden legend, sweet and stilled
With speech of birds; and in the pauses rilled
Fair fountains through the green peace of the plain,
That with the tinkle of their golden rain
Made carol to the songs the linnets trilled;
Whilst, over all, the waves upon the shore
Throbbed with a music, sad but very sweet,
That had in it the melodies of yore,
Softened, as when the angels do repeat,
In heaven, to souls in rapture of new birth,
The names that they have sadly borne on earth.
With rapture of the sudden cease of pain:
And in my spirit, ever and again,
There rang the golden legend, sweet and stilled
With speech of birds; and in the pauses rilled
Fair fountains through the green peace of the plain,
That with the tinkle of their golden rain
Made carol to the songs the linnets trilled;
Whilst, over all, the waves upon the shore
Throbbed with a music, sad but very sweet,
That had in it the melodies of yore,
Softened, as when the angels do repeat,
In heaven, to souls in rapture of new birth,
The names that they have sadly borne on earth.
FADED LOVE.
FAREWELL, sweetheart! Farewell, our golden days!So runs the cadence, ringing out the tune
Of sighs and kisses: for the tale of June
Is told and all the length of flowered ways
Fades in the distance, as the new life lays
Its hand upon the strings and all too soon
Breaks the brief song of birds and flowers and moon
179
—A white-robed figure, with sad eyes that hold
A far-off dream of never-travelled ways;
Wan with white lips and hands as pale and cold
As woven garlands of long-vanished Mays,
And the sun's memory halo-like above
Its head.—It is the wraith of faded Love.
SAD SUMMER.
AH Summer, lady of the flowered lands,When shall thy lovely looks bring back to me,
—To me who strain into the grey sad sea
Of dreams unsatisfied and with stretched hands
Implore the stern sky and the changeless sands
For some faint sign of that which was to be
So perfect and so fair a life to see,—
The time of songs and season of flower-bands?
At least, for guerdon of full many a lay
In praise of thee and of thy youngling Spring,
What time my lips were yet attuned to sing,
Let not thy roses redden in my way
Too flauntingly nor all thy golden day
Insult my silence with too glad a ring.
THE LAST OF THE GODS.
THE world is worn with many weary years;
The day is dim for long desire of death;
Life languishes amid its burning breath
Of nights and days, of barren hopes and fears,
Of joys that sing in vain to listless ears.
For Love and Spring are dead for lack of faith
And in the bird-songs goes a voice that saith,
“Who shall absolve us of this life of tears?”
Ah, who indeed? Who shall avail to save
Our souls that wither on the wrecks of life?
Is any strong among the Gods men crave
Enough to take again the gifts He gave,
To draw death like a dream upon our strife
And soothe the sick world to its grateful grave?
The day is dim for long desire of death;
Life languishes amid its burning breath
Of nights and days, of barren hopes and fears,
Of joys that sing in vain to listless ears.
For Love and Spring are dead for lack of faith
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“Who shall absolve us of this life of tears?”
Ah, who indeed? Who shall avail to save
Our souls that wither on the wrecks of life?
Is any strong among the Gods men crave
Enough to take again the gifts He gave,
To draw death like a dream upon our strife
And soothe the sick world to its grateful grave?
Nay, who shall hope, when God Himself implores,
With piteous hands, the unremorseful sleep,—
When Gods and men, from one abysmal deep
Of loveless life, lift hands toward the shores
Of the unnearing rest—through Time, that roars
With wave on wave of years to come—and weep
In undistinguished anguish, as they keep
Life's hopeless vigil at Death's stirless doors?
Lo! of all Gods that men have knelt unto,—
Of all the dread Immortals fierce and fair,
That men have painted on the vault of blue,—
There is but one remains, of all that were.
DEATH hath put on their crowns; and to Him sue
Mortals and Gods in parity of prayer.
With piteous hands, the unremorseful sleep,—
When Gods and men, from one abysmal deep
Of loveless life, lift hands toward the shores
Of the unnearing rest—through Time, that roars
With wave on wave of years to come—and weep
In undistinguished anguish, as they keep
Life's hopeless vigil at Death's stirless doors?
Lo! of all Gods that men have knelt unto,—
Of all the dread Immortals fierce and fair,
That men have painted on the vault of blue,—
There is but one remains, of all that were.
DEATH hath put on their crowns; and to Him sue
Mortals and Gods in parity of prayer.
182
ENGLAND'S HOPE.
(KITCHENER OF KHARTOUM.)
WHELP of the lion-breed of Wellington;Careless to fit the date unto the deed
Or trumpet forth, that all who run may read,
His valiant worth to every mother's son;
In the lost field, as in the victory won,
Steadfast alike, unrecking whose the meed,
So but the achievement of his country's need
And honour saved attend on duty done:
Diluting action not with vain debate;
Contemptuous of Fortune's good and ill;
Not blown about, as is the unstable soul,
Hither and thither with each shift of fate,
But constant as the compass to the pole,
Fast founded on th'unconquerable will.
Nov. 1900.
SARVARTHASIDDHA-BUDDHA.
THE desert of the unaccomplished years
Fills the round compass of our careful eyes
And still, from age to age, the same suns rise
And life troops past, a masque of smiles and tears:
The same void hopes vie with the same vain fears
And in the grey sad circuit of the skies,
To the monotonous music of our sighs,
We plod toward the goal that never nears.
Ah, who shall solve us of the dreary days,
The unlived life and the tormenting dreams,
That on the happy blank of easeful night
Paint evermore for us the backward ways
And the old mirage, with its cheating streams,
And urge us back into the unwon fight?
Fills the round compass of our careful eyes
And still, from age to age, the same suns rise
And life troops past, a masque of smiles and tears:
The same void hopes vie with the same vain fears
And in the grey sad circuit of the skies,
To the monotonous music of our sighs,
We plod toward the goal that never nears.
183
The unlived life and the tormenting dreams,
That on the happy blank of easeful night
Paint evermore for us the backward ways
And the old mirage, with its cheating streams,
And urge us back into the unwon fight?
We turn for comfort to the wise of old,
For tidings of the land that lies ahead,
The land to which their firmer feet have led,
Hymning its shores of amethyst and gold.
We ask; the answer comes back stern and cold;
“Gird up your loins! Rest is not for the dead.
“Beyond the graveyard and the evening-red,
“New lives and ever yet new lives unfold.”
—Ye speak in vain. If rest be not from life,
What reck we of new worlds and clearer air,
Of brighter suns and skies of deeper blue,
If life and all its weariness be there?
Is there no sage of all we turn unto
Will guide us to the guerdon of our strife?
For tidings of the land that lies ahead,
The land to which their firmer feet have led,
Hymning its shores of amethyst and gold.
We ask; the answer comes back stern and cold;
“Gird up your loins! Rest is not for the dead.
“Beyond the graveyard and the evening-red,
“New lives and ever yet new lives unfold.”
—Ye speak in vain. If rest be not from life,
What reck we of new worlds and clearer air,
Of brighter suns and skies of deeper blue,
If life and all its weariness be there?
Is there no sage of all we turn unto
Will guide us to the guerdon of our strife?
Yes, there is one: for the sad sons of man,
That languish in the deserts, travail-worn,
Five times five hundred years ago was born,
Under those Orient skies, from whence began
All light, a saviour from the triple ban
Of birth and death and life renewed forlorn.
Third of the Christs he came to those who mourn:
Prometheus, Hercules had led the van.
His scriptures were the forest and the fen:
From the dead flower he learnt and the spent night
The lesson of the eternal nothingness,
How what is best is ceasing from the light
And putting off life's raiment of duresse,
And taught it to the weary race of men.
That languish in the deserts, travail-worn,
Five times five hundred years ago was born,
Under those Orient skies, from whence began
All light, a saviour from the triple ban
Of birth and death and life renewed forlorn.
Third of the Christs he came to those who mourn:
Prometheus, Hercules had led the van.
His scriptures were the forest and the fen:
From the dead flower he learnt and the spent night
The lesson of the eternal nothingness,
How what is best is ceasing from the light
And putting off life's raiment of duresse,
And taught it to the weary race of men.
184
He did not mock the battle-broken soul
With promise of vain heavens beyond the tomb,
As who should think to break the boding gloom
Of stormful skies, uplifting to the pole
Gilt suns and tinsel stars. Unto their dole,
Who batten on life's galls, he knew no doom
Is dread as that which in death's darkling womb
Rewrites life's endless and accurséd scroll.
Wherefore he taught that to abstain is best,
Seeing that to those, who have their hope in nought,
Peace quicklier comes and that eternal rest,
Wherein enspheréd thou, Siddartha, art,
Chief of the high sad souls that sit apart,
Throned in their incommunicable thought.
With promise of vain heavens beyond the tomb,
As who should think to break the boding gloom
Of stormful skies, uplifting to the pole
Gilt suns and tinsel stars. Unto their dole,
Who batten on life's galls, he knew no doom
Is dread as that which in death's darkling womb
Rewrites life's endless and accurséd scroll.
Wherefore he taught that to abstain is best,
Seeing that to those, who have their hope in nought,
Peace quicklier comes and that eternal rest,
Wherein enspheréd thou, Siddartha, art,
Chief of the high sad souls that sit apart,
Throned in their incommunicable thought.
OMAR KHEYYAM.
O THOU, the Orient morning's nightingale,That, from the darkness of the Long Ago,
Thy note of unpropitiable woe
Cast'st out upon the Time-travérsing gale,
—Its burden still Life's lamentable tale,
Too late come hither and too soon to go,
Whence brought and whither bounden none doth know
Nor why thrust forth into this world of wail,—
We, thy sad brethren of the Western lands,
Sons of the Secret of this latter day,
We, who have sailed with thee the sea of tears,
Have trod with thee the BLOOD-DEVOURING WAY,
We, thy soul's mates, with thee join hearts and hands
Across the abysses of eight hundred years.
185
FROM BOCCACCIO.
TO PETRARCH DEAD.
NOW, dear my lord, unto those realms of lightThou'rt mounted, whither looketh still to fare
Each soul of God elect unto that share,
On its departure from this world of spite;
Now art thou where full oft the longing spright
Drew thee, with Laura to commune whilere:
Now art thou come whereas my lovely fair
Fiammetta sitteth with her in God's sight.
Yea, with Sennuccio , Cino , Dante, thou
Assured of ease enternal dwellest now,
Things seeing our intelligence above.
Oh, in this world if I was dear to thee,
Draw thou me straight to thee, where I may see,
Joyful, her face who fired me first with love.
Sennuccio del Bene, a fourteenth-century Florentine poet and a friend of Petrarch, who celebrated him in his verse.
TO HIS OWN SOUL, EXHORTING IT TO REPENTANCE.
TURN, turn thee, weary soul: nay, hearken me.Turn thee and note where thou hast run astray,
The course of idle lusts ensuing aye,
And in the fosse thy feet enmired thou'lt see.
Wake, ere thou fall! What dost thou? Presently
Return to Him, Him who the true allay
To who will giv'th and from the sore affray
186
Return thee unto Him and thy last years
Yield, at the least, unto His will and gree,
Mourning the ills done in the days bygone.
Let the late season waken not thy fears;
He will accept thee, doing unto thee
That which He did erst with the last hired one.
OF THREE DAMSELS IN A MEADOW.
ABOUT a well-spring, in a little mead,Of tender grasses full and flow'rets fair,
There sat three youngling angels, as it were
Their loves recounting; and for each, indeed,
Her sweet face shaded, 'gainst the noontide need,
A spray of green, that bound her golden hair;
Whilst, in and out by turns, a frolic air
The two clear colours blended at its heed.
And one, after a little, thus heard I
Say to her mates, “Lo, if by chance there lit
The lovers of each one of us hereby,
Should we flee hence for fear of quiet sit?”
Whereto the twain made answer, “Who should fly
From such a fortune sure were scant of wit.”
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