The collected poems of Arthur Edward Waite in two volumes ... With a Portrait |
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The King Speaks
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 | The collected poems of Arthur Edward Waite |  |
The King Speaks
As I walk'd in the moonlight, that garden I found
By strange sorcery compass'd within and around;
Where the voices are muffled, the vistas are blurr'd,
Dense incense makes faint the enamouring word,
And enfolds broider'd vestments or far-flashing gems
Of pontiff's tiaras and king's diadems.
The cups of the tall-springing lilies confuse
With white maidens' faces, moist-eyed, while the dews
Shine ghostlike and pallid on mist-breathing grass,
Where pearl-sprinkled sandals fall light as they pass.
The maid's trailing garments glide softly and raise
Such light stir as June in her slumberous days
Permits to low zephyrs, with pauses between
Lest they wanton too long with the leaf's silver sheen:
Some cooing dove murmurs in languorous elms
Of the dream and the dreamer in reverie's realms.
By strange sorcery compass'd within and around;
Where the voices are muffled, the vistas are blurr'd,
Dense incense makes faint the enamouring word,
And enfolds broider'd vestments or far-flashing gems
Of pontiff's tiaras and king's diadems.
The cups of the tall-springing lilies confuse
With white maidens' faces, moist-eyed, while the dews
Shine ghostlike and pallid on mist-breathing grass,
Where pearl-sprinkled sandals fall light as they pass.
The maid's trailing garments glide softly and raise
Such light stir as June in her slumberous days
Permits to low zephyrs, with pauses between
Lest they wanton too long with the leaf's silver sheen:
Some cooing dove murmurs in languorous elms
Of the dream and the dreamer in reverie's realms.
O willow-sweet maidens! What maidens are these,
Curd-white in the moonlight and honey-lipp'd breeze?
Old voices grow faint, from the summit they fall;
Your measures enchant me, I come at your call.
O faint grow the tocsin, the trumpet, the drum!
Enswathe me, enclose me; white maidens, I come!
Curd-white in the moonlight and honey-lipp'd breeze?
Old voices grow faint, from the summit they fall;
Your measures enchant me, I come at your call.
O faint grow the tocsin, the trumpet, the drum!
Enswathe me, enclose me; white maidens, I come!
Ah, stay me with lilies, sweet press of your faces,
The nearness and warmth of your mystic embraces,
Dissolving the sacred, inviolate state
Which I shared with the dwellers outside of your gate!
By a superincession fantastical, sweet,
I am merged in the maids of this shadow'd retreat;
They are I, I am they, neither many nor one,
As the light and the warmth from the fount of the sun.
The nearness and warmth of your mystic embraces,
Dissolving the sacred, inviolate state
Which I shared with the dwellers outside of your gate!
By a superincession fantastical, sweet,
I am merged in the maids of this shadow'd retreat;
They are I, I am they, neither many nor one,
As the light and the warmth from the fount of the sun.
| The collected poems of Arthur Edward Waite | |