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 | Collected poems of Herman Melville |  |
295
1. PART I
AS THEY FELL
AMOROSO
Rosamond, my Rosamond
Of roses is the rose;
Her bloom belongs to summer,
Nor less in winter glows,
When, mossed in furs all cosey,
We speed it o'er the snows
By ice-bound streams enchanted,
While red Arcturus, he
A huntsman ever ruddy,
Sees a ruddier star by me.
Of roses is the rose;
Her bloom belongs to summer,
Nor less in winter glows,
When, mossed in furs all cosey,
We speed it o'er the snows
By ice-bound streams enchanted,
While red Arcturus, he
A huntsman ever ruddy,
Sees a ruddier star by me.
O Rosamond, Rose Rosamond,
Is yonder Dian's reign?
Look, the icicles despond
Chill drooping from the fane!
But Rosamond, Rose Rosamond,
In us, a plighted pair,
First makes with flame a bond,—
One purity they share.
To feel your cheek like ice,
While snug the furs inclose—
This is spousal love's device
This is Arctic Paradise,
And wooing in the snows!
Rosamond, my Rosamond,
Rose Rosamond, Moss-Rose!
Is yonder Dian's reign?
Look, the icicles despond
Chill drooping from the fane!
But Rosamond, Rose Rosamond,
In us, a plighted pair,
First makes with flame a bond,—
One purity they share.
To feel your cheek like ice,
While snug the furs inclose—
This is spousal love's device
This is Arctic Paradise,
And wooing in the snows!
Rosamond, my Rosamond,
Rose Rosamond, Moss-Rose!
296
HEARTH-ROSES
The Sugar-Maple embers in bed
Here fended in Garden of Fire,
Like the Roses yield musk,
Like the Roses are Red,
Like the Roses expire
Lamented when low;
But, excelling the flower,
Are odorous in ashes
As e'en in their glow.
Here fended in Garden of Fire,
Like the Roses yield musk,
Like the Roses are Red,
Like the Roses expire
Lamented when low;
But, excelling the flower,
Are odorous in ashes
As e'en in their glow.
Ah, Love, when life closes,
Dying the death of the just,
May we vie with Hearth-Roses,
Smelling sweet in our dust.
Dying the death of the just,
May we vie with Hearth-Roses,
Smelling sweet in our dust.
UNDER THE GROUND
Between a garden and old tomb
Disused, a foot-path threads the clover;
And there I met the gardener's boy
Bearing some dewy chaplets over.
Disused, a foot-path threads the clover;
And there I met the gardener's boy
Bearing some dewy chaplets over.
I marvelled, for I just had passed
The charnel vault and shunned its gloom:
“Stay, whither wend you, laden thus;
Roses! you would not these inhume?”
The charnel vault and shunned its gloom:
“Stay, whither wend you, laden thus;
Roses! you would not these inhume?”
297
“Yea, for against the bridal hour
My Master fain would keep their bloom;
A charm in the dank o'the vault there is,
Yea, we the rose entomb.”
My Master fain would keep their bloom;
A charm in the dank o'the vault there is,
Yea, we the rose entomb.”
THE AMBUSCADE
Meek crossing of the bosom's lawnAverted revery veil-like drawn,
Well beseem thee, nor obtrude
The cloister of thy virginhood.
And yet, white nun, that seemly dress
Of purity pale passionless,
A May-snow is; for fleeting term,
Custodian of love's slumbering germ—
Nay, nurtures it, till time disclose
How frost fed Amor's burning rose.
THE NEW ROSICRUCIANS
To us, disciples of the Order
Whose rose-vine twines the Cross,
Who have drained the rose's chalice
Never heeding gain or loss;
For all the preacher's din
There is no mortal sin—
No, none to us but Malice!
Whose rose-vine twines the Cross,
Who have drained the rose's chalice
Never heeding gain or loss;
For all the preacher's din
There is no mortal sin—
No, none to us but Malice!
Exempt from that, in blest recline
We let life's billows toss;
If sorrow come, anew we twine
The Rose-Vine round the Cross.
We let life's billows toss;
If sorrow come, anew we twine
The Rose-Vine round the Cross.
298
THE VIAL OF ATTAR
Lesbia's lover when bereaved
In pagan times of yore
Ere the gladsome tidings ran
Of reunion evermore,
He wended from the pyre
Now hopeless in return—
Ah, the vial hot with tears
For the ashes cold in urn!
In pagan times of yore
Ere the gladsome tidings ran
Of reunion evermore,
He wended from the pyre
Now hopeless in return—
Ah, the vial hot with tears
For the ashes cold in urn!
But I, the Rose's lover,
When my belovèd goes
Followed by the Asters
Toward the sepulchre of snows,
Then, solaced by the Vial,
Less grieve I for the Tomb,
Not widowed of the fragrance
If parted from the bloom—
Parted from the bloom
That was but for a day;
When my belovèd goes
Followed by the Asters
Toward the sepulchre of snows,
Then, solaced by the Vial,
Less grieve I for the Tomb,
Not widowed of the fragrance
If parted from the bloom—
Parted from the bloom
That was but for a day;
Rose! I dally with thy doom:
The solace will not stay!
There is nothing like the bloom;
And the Attar poignant minds me
Of the bloom that's passed away.
The solace will not stay!
There is nothing like the bloom;
And the Attar poignant minds me
Of the bloom that's passed away.
299
ROSE WINDOW
The preacher took from Solomon's Song
Four words for text with mystery rife—
The Rose of Sharon,—figuring Him
The Resurrection and the Life;
And, pointing many an urn in view,
How honied a homily he drew.
Four words for text with mystery rife—
The Rose of Sharon,—figuring Him
The Resurrection and the Life;
And, pointing many an urn in view,
How honied a homily he drew.
There, in the slumberous afternoon,
Through minster gray, in lullaby rolled
The brimmed metheglin charged with swoon.
Drowsy, my decorous hands I fold
Till sleep overtakes with dream for boon.
Through minster gray, in lullaby rolled
The brimmed metheglin charged with swoon.
Drowsy, my decorous hands I fold
Till sleep overtakes with dream for boon.
I saw an Angel with a Rose
Come out of Morning's garden-gate,
And lamp-like hold the Rose aloft,
He entered a sepulchral Strait.
I followed. And I saw the Rose
Shed dappled down upon the dead;
The shrouds and mort-cloths all were lit
To plaids and chequered tartans red.
Come out of Morning's garden-gate,
And lamp-like hold the Rose aloft,
He entered a sepulchral Strait.
I followed. And I saw the Rose
Shed dappled down upon the dead;
The shrouds and mort-cloths all were lit
To plaids and chequered tartans red.
I woke, the great Rose-Window high,
A mullioned wheel in gable set,
Suffused with rich and soft in dye
Where Iris and Aurora met;
Aslant in sheaf of rays it threw
From all its foliate round of panes
Transfiguring light on dingy stains,
While danced the motes in dusty pew.
A mullioned wheel in gable set,
Suffused with rich and soft in dye
Where Iris and Aurora met;
Aslant in sheaf of rays it threw
From all its foliate round of panes
Transfiguring light on dingy stains,
While danced the motes in dusty pew.
300
ROSARY BEADS
1
THE ACCEPTED TIME
Adore the Roses; nor delayUntil the rose-fane fall,
Or ever their censers cease to sway:
“To-day!” the rose-priests call.
2
WITHOUT PRICE
Have the Roses. Needs no pelfThe blooms to buy,
Nor any rose-bed to thyself
Thy skill to try:
But live up to the Rose's light,
Thy meat shall turn to roses red,
Thy bread to roses white.
3
GRAIN BY GRAIN
Grain by grain the Desert driftsAgainst the Garden-Land:
Hedge well thy Roses, head the stealth
Of ever-creeping Land.
301
THE DEVOTION OF THE FLOWERS TO THEIR LADY
[_]
Attributed to Clement Drouon, monk, a Provençal of noble birth in the 11th century. In earlier life a troubadour, a devotee of Love and the Rose, but eventually, like some others of his stamp in that age, for an unrevealed cause retiring from the gay circles where he had long been a caressed favorite and ultimately disappearing from the world in a monastery.
TO OUR QUEEN
O Queen, we are loyal: shall sad ones forget?
We are natives of Eden—
Sharing its memory with you, and your handmaidens yet.
We are natives of Eden—
Sharing its memory with you, and your handmaidens yet.
You bravely dissemble with looks that beguile
Musing mortals to murmur
Reproachful “So festal, O Flower, we but weary the while?
Musing mortals to murmur
Reproachful “So festal, O Flower, we but weary the while?
What nothing has happened? no event to make wan,
Begetting things hateful—
Old age, decay, and the sorrows, devourers of man?”
Begetting things hateful—
Old age, decay, and the sorrows, devourers of man?”
They marvel and marvel how came you so bright,
Whence the splendor, the joyance—
Florid revel of joyance, the Cypress in sight!
Whence the splendor, the joyance—
Florid revel of joyance, the Cypress in sight!
Scarce you would poor Adam upbraid that his fall
Like a land-slide by waters
Rolled an out-spreading impulse disordering all;
Like a land-slide by waters
Rolled an out-spreading impulse disordering all;
302
That the Angel indignant, with eyes that foreran
The betrayed generations,
Cast out the flowers wherewith Eve decked her nuptials with man.
The betrayed generations,
Cast out the flowers wherewith Eve decked her nuptials with man.
Ah, exile is exile, tho' spiced be the sod,
In Shushan we languish—
Languish with the secret desire for the garden of God.
In Shushan we languish—
Languish with the secret desire for the garden of God.
But all of us yet—
We the Lilies whose palor is passion,
We the Pansies that muse nor forget—
In harbinger airs how we freshen,
When, clad in the amice of gray silver-hemmed,
Meek coming in twilight and dew,
The Day-Spring, with pale priestly hand and begemmed,
Touches, and coronates you:—
Breathing, O daughter of far descent,
Banished, yet blessed in banishment,
Whereto is appointed a term;
Flower, voucher of Paradise, visible pledge,
Rose, attesting it spite of the Worm.
We the Lilies whose palor is passion,
We the Pansies that muse nor forget—
In harbinger airs how we freshen,
When, clad in the amice of gray silver-hemmed,
Meek coming in twilight and dew,
The Day-Spring, with pale priestly hand and begemmed,
Touches, and coronates you:—
Breathing, O daughter of far descent,
Banished, yet blessed in banishment,
Whereto is appointed a term;
Flower, voucher of Paradise, visible pledge,
Rose, attesting it spite of the Worm.
| Collected poems of Herman Melville | |