 | Love-Songs |  |
113
TO KEATS.
I
O crowned immortalWho through the portal
Of life didst pass to a deathless tomb,
Where art thou singing
And thine hands bringing
Immortals blossoms of grander bloom
Than those that awoke
At thy swift harp-stroke
Ere our earth failed thee and rang thy doom?
II
What dreams surroundedThy young soul bounded
And barred on all sides as thou didst sing
Of cowslip and daisy
And spring morns hazy,
Soft-brooding ever with young white wing
Above our meadows,
And through time's shadows
Moving, a song-god, an uncrowned king?
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III
What dreams we know not,Which thy songs show not,
Filled thy young spirit and smote thine heart
With stroke as of oars
Nigh musical shores,
Some with sweet pleasure and some with smart?
What thoughts supreme
In a flash, in a dream,
Of love, of life, of thine own fair Art?
IV
Ne'er wast thou wingless,But alway stingless,
Pure alway, gentle and tender and high:
A poet indeed
With thine heart for a creed
And thy temple the uttermost deep blue sky,
And the sound of the sea
For hymnal to thee,
And the voice of the breeze for thy soul's own sigh.
V
The stars were thine ownAnd thy locks were blown
By the wind of the night as a spirit indeed
Of friendliest greeting;
Thy heart swift-beating
Went traversing valley and dingle and mead,
Finding in each
Songs sweeter than speech
Of the birds who sang to thee, tuned thy reed.
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VI
Greek-souled, Greek-eyed,Thy spirit espied
Things hidden from all of us, given to thee
For balm and delight;
Full oft through the night
Or the tangle of leaves 'mid the boughs of a tree
Came nymphs new-risen
For thee from their prison,
And mermaids shone in the gulfs of the sea.
VII
The dead idealTo thee was real;
And real life gave thee one strange sweet dream:
Thou diedst crying
On one, far-flying
In spirit to where our white waves gleam
From Italy's shore;
One loved as of yore,
And sought while launched upon death's still stream.
VIII
What hast thou now,Keats? visited how
Is the heaven-high spirit by love's glance bright?
What tresses are fair
In the summer-soft air,
More summer-soft ever for pulse of the flight
Of song-woven pinions
Which flood the dominions
Of death with torrents of golden light?
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IX
Hath thy kiss lightedSoft and invited
On dear lips redder than lips of queens
Who make this earth to us
Gracious in mirth, to us
Bringing the glory of all sweet scenes?
Whom hast thou wedded,
White-souled, gold-headed?
What breast above thee with rapture leans?
X
Oh, are they fairer,Those queens, and rarer
In passionate beauty than flowers below
Loved and proclaimed of us?
Are they ashamed of us?
Seek they for singers whose lips they know
In heaven, and we hear not,
Worship, revere not,—
Scorn they the passions our songs bestow?
XI
Hath love the splendour,The dear glow tender,
In heaven that crowns us toiling and tired?
Hast thou Keats fashioned
New lyrics impassioned,
By love of celestial sweet eyes fired?
Now is thy song
As soft and more strong,
By the women of deathland sought and inspired?
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XII
Oh are they sweetWith lily-clear feet,
And lips like the scent of the first May rose
In a shower at morn;
And their laugh is it born
In the high pure air where no frail foot goes,
But only the singer's
Firm step that lingers
Gentian-like 'mid the untouched snows?
XIII
Thy dreams now are blessed,Thy soul is at rest
Having passed from the earth where never a bard
Hath trodden save sadly,
Endlessly, madly,
To struggle in fate's steel bondage hard,
Till sweet death came
And her plumage of flame
Left the prison-barriers crushed and charred.
XIV
Then comes the sky,The night wind's sigh,
The sense of release and the leaves of the trees
Tenderly dancing
And gold stars glancing
O'er billows of limitless fetterless seas,
And the terrible gladness,
Transfiguring sadness,
Of visions of moonlit and measureless leas.
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XV
One day to each of us,Close, within reach of us,
Comes the waft of the rose-like breath
Of the passionate bride
For whom we have sighed,
Yea, the passionate exquisite bosom of death,
And the lips of the night
Soft, flower-light,
And the word that the night's mouth whispering saith.
XVI
Then shall we seeThe kingdom of thee,
Keats? all thy treasure uncounted, untold?
Thy brides in the sky
And thine ecstasy high,
And thy laughter as tender and clear as of old,
And thy singing supreme,
Like love's through a dream,
Rich from thy god's mouth moulded of gold.
XVII
Or hast thou foundAnd conquered and bound
Some sweet flower-singer as soft and as young
In heaven, and chained her,
Loved and retained her
For ever while ever thy glad lips sung
Perfect, divine to her,
Sweet line by line to her—
Wonderful honeyed decoys of thy tongue?
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XVIII
Oh, is she listening,The soft eyes glistening
At all the magic of thy fond strain?
Now no more lonely
Thou art but only
Alone with one in the love-god's fane:
Rested at last
With sorrow in the past
Dead, while the flowers of the past remain.
XIX
Through the soft June light,Summer clear moonlight,
Conquering spirits, I cry to your land:
Crown us at last too,
Suffering the blast too
Of sorrow; stretch down a white strong hand
To singers who need
Your presence indeed,
Who yet uncrowned on the dim earth stand.
XX
O bride of KeatsWhose heart now beats
For the singer whose spirit knows pain no more,
Remember that we
'Mid the waves of the sea
Of time yet struggle,—hear thou the roar
Of the breakers: oh aid
Till we too have made
The ultimate haven, the sorrowless shore!
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