Caprices :: :: University of Virginia Library

The curtain on the grouping dancers falls,
The heaven of colour has vanished from our eyes;
Stirred in our seats we wait with vague surmise
What haply comes that pleases or that palls.

Touched on the stand the thrice-struck baton calls,
Once more I watch the unfolding curtain rise,
I hear the exultant violins premise
The well-known tune that thrills me and enthralls.

Then trembling in my joy I see you flash
Before the footlights to the cymbals' clash,
With laughing lips, swift feet, and brilliant glance,

You, fair as heaven and as a rainbow bright,
You, queen of song and empress of the dance,
Flower of mine eyes, my love, my heart's delight!

TRANCE

Ah! Press thy heart to mine and lay
Thy lips upon my lips and heed
No whit the griefs that rose to-day
Nor those the dawn is sure to lead.

Take thou my life to make or break:
What matter so my soul may know
Another trembles for its sake?
Such love new years will not bestow.

Here in our kisses life has end;
All time can give no more than this;
Ah, might we swooning deathwards blend
Our spirits in one perfect kiss!

SATIETY

I weary of the heat of hell,
The perfumed palace of thy love;
I need the cliff, the bubbling well,
The wind-swept grass, the blue above.

I weary of the panting dawn
That finds mine arms encircling thee;
I seek the silent mountain lawn,
The waking murmur of the sea.

I weary of the tangled hair,
The kiss, the passionate clasp, the sigh;
I pass into the keen sweet air,
The vague immensity of sky.

SENTIMENTALISM

I love—and you, if you remember well—
These long autumnal twilights faintly shed
That slowly die while slow the vesper bell
Shakes solemn notes across the river's bed.

Do you as I in chill forsaken hours
Find blown from gardens of your memory
Strange faded fragrance of ungathered flowers,
And with their scents remember wistfully

Soft steps that passed between the resting herds,
Along dim meads beneath the silent sky,
Light touch of hands or lips, light whispered words
That I shall not forget until I die?

GOING UPSTAIRS

Apair of unknown ladies of the stage
Who spend their time in laughing all day long
And coming home at midnight oft prolong
With friends a revel till the dawn is sage;

A gentleman accustomed to assuage
His passion at the piano with a song
While caring little if the notes are wrong,
Who seems to earn a handsome weekly wage;

A broken-down French noble and a clerk,
An ancient lady, nervous, lean and worn;
I pass them all while stumbling in the dark,

And lo! the little room, where overborne
With hunger and fatigue and luck's delay
I slumber till the fruitless, hopeless day.

A MOMENT

I found in flowers my love asleep
Where scents and shadows fell most deep:
I wonder if my love would weep
To know I found her laid asleep.

I kissed her eyelids as she lay,
She did not wake or turn away;
To her what bird or bee shall say
I kissed her eyelids as she lay?

LOVE'S COMEDY

To Arthur Bartleet

I

He waits at her door in the midnight;
A light in her window gleams,
A square in the dim great houses
That fairer than fancy seems.

But the days of his love are over,
They have passed to the past and in vain
He waits for her now in the silence
And the first faint fall of the rain.

II

He wandered through the lonely London night,
Her old sweet words of love rang in his ears,
Her breasts and arms were firebrands in his sight
To sere his soul as red-hot iron seres.

The days of love more sweet that they were dead,
The rose-red hours of passion slaying sleep,
The voice and face whereon his life had fed,
These burned before his eyes that could not weep.

III

They dined and in their talk heard languidly
The band that played light songs and tunes the while;
His love on some new lover's arm goes by....
He bows and gives a slight ironic smile,

Then to his friend relates that love of his,
Her merits and her lack of heart or brain,
While moralizing on the foolish bliss
Bought with a little gold, a little pain.

SONG IN SPRING

April has whispered to the rose,
O flower, thy heart is deep and red,
Till evening let me lean my head
Between thy petals that unclose.

I murmured to my soul's delight,
Sweet love, thy heart is red and deep,
O take me in thine arms to sleep
Within thy bosom all the night!

AT THE END

It was because of sunlight and the bland
Blue heaven and the divine delight of day—
Our glad May morning in the dancing Strand!—
That we alas! met, loved and went astray.

For with the flowers our hearts reflower and claim
For ills gone by a momentary bliss,
And in the Spring love burns us like a flame,
And all things seem less worthy than a kiss.

And so, my dear, we murmur and deceive,
And nothing rests for us but to forget;
Kiss, laugh or weep, what matter so we leave
Our poor tired love to die without regret?

A VAIN DESIRE

Dear, did you know how sweet to me
Was every glance of yours, how sweet
The laugh that lights your face with glee,
The passing murmur of your feet,

And seeing perchance with grief how vain
The love that makes you sadly dear
Did grant for my unuttered pain
A whispered word, a smile, a tear

Dropt like a star from Paradise,
Then might I bless my weary state,
Though you behold me from the skies
And I on earth am desolate.

IN THE BALL-ROOM

Here where the swaying dancers float,
The heady perfume swimming round
Your slender arms and virginal throat
Thrills me though riper loves abound.

The passionate eyes and lids of her
Whose face gleams white in many a fold
Of coiling wondrous sombre hair,
The blue eyes in the wreath of gold,

These turn to me in vain, who prize
You more than all the loves and lyres,
For from your unfilled corsage rise
The perfumes that my soul desires.

Ah might I dance for ever, bent
Toward your bosom's clouded gleam,
And let the lilies' acrid scent
Withhold me in the world of dream!

ON THE EMBANKMENT

Amist on the darkened river
Falls: in the rippled stream
The yellow lights shake and quiver,
The red lights quiver and gleam.

For us in the maze of error,
More weak than the wind-swept foam,
The lights in the stream's dark mirror
Seem lights of a perfect home.

The tranquil river is going
Down to the tranquil sea,
And ah that its waves were flowing
Silently over me!

ENVY

To Charles Hiatt

“Making dead wood more blest than living lips”

If you and I could change, O violin,
If you in silence listened in my stead,
While I with brown light wooden body and head
Were clasped between her throat and rounded chin,
Then were I blest indeed: and she might win
From me such songs of love and sadness wed
That from her lids would tears of joy be shed
And all her soul meet mine shut close within.

So the gods laugh at Fate's ironic jest:
That I from far must gaze on her and sigh,
Whilst thou, rude block, by tender hands caressed,
By her breath touched, by her light fingers pressed,
Morose and heedless, sullenly may lie
How near the sweet white blossoms of her breast!

REMINISCENCE

Alone we walked along the ruffled sand
One evening after sunset while the glow
Of green and orange lingered in the sky:
The sea far out at ebb grew duskily
Fainter, a long thin line of misty snow,
A languid murmur only: why your hand
Fell into mine, I think we shall not know.

Was it the sweetness of the place that made
You fear the passing of the pleasant hour,
And pray for help as though it were for me
To stay for us that twilight by the sea?
Ah could we see again those heavens in flower!
Yet in my soul these memories will not fade,
Not though your face has lost its former power.

PALM SUNDAY

The clouds of incense mounting in the air,
The heavy fervent smell,
Palm-branches waving by the altar-stair,
While we redeemed from hell,

We knelt together humbly, she and I,
Before the red-stained East,
To seek for mercy from our sin, as high
The purple-vestured priest

Held up the chalice to the face of God,
And a long silence fell,
Three times and as the wine became God's blood
Thrice rang the smitten bell.

Then like two slaves regaining liberty,
When the long mass was done,
With prayer and sadness left behind us, we
Emerged into the sun,

Forgot what hearts had felt or eyes had seen
And gave ourselves to mark
Friends' faces as we talked and strolled between
The toilettes of Hyde Park.

THE RELIC

You left behind you, sweet my sweet,
A bunch of violets sadly blue
That girls can sell you in the street
For all my memory of you.

In the crepuscule's dying gleam
Love's tears and kisses vainly pass:
Our days have faded like a dream,
And like a dream our nights, alas!

There is slight memory of grief,
And on the soul dead pleasure lies
As lightly as a fallen leaf;

But with the faded flowers your eyes
Return, and from the withered sheaf
The ghosts of buried joys arise!

INSCRIPTION

To Selwyn Image

If, passer-by, who idly stand and read,
If thou bereft of love shouldst haply lead
Thy sorrow through these old forgotten graves,

And deem that I sleep well who lie beneath
These withered flowers and faded ivy wreath,
Without the soul that aches, the heart that craves,

Be glad, O traveller, of thy happy hours!
Thou hast the sunlight and renascent flowers,
And life is sweet and time may bring delight;

But I must yearn among the silent dead
For even the life of grasses on my head,
So sad it is, the shadow of the night.

THE MODERN SIREN

She knelt on an easy chair,
Neither too chaste nor wise,
And laid her cheek on the vair;

She, dressed in an antique guise
With her throat and her arms half bare,
Laughed with her mouth and eyes.

It was only a laugh that came
In the hush of the heated night,
In the dream of the shaded light;
But it stung my flesh like a flame.

The flesh is never too tame
Nor the curb of the soul too tight;
I caught from her lips delight
In the kiss more sweet for her shame.

MORNING

To Lord Alfred Douglas

In the fresh sunlight how the bay
Laughs, leaps and shines!
How softly now the breezes stray
Among the pines!

Silence: a murmur scarcely heard
Comes from the land;
The cry of some o'erpassing bird,
And on the sand

A baby's laughter as the foam
Runs round its feet:
My heart, on earth is any home
So calm, so sweet?

This restfulness, this happy calm
That fill mine eyes
With tears... O God, is this Thy balm
For agonies?

Have pity, O God, on me who fall
So low, so mean...
Pierce not mine aching heart with all
That might have been!

IN THE SEASON

To Charles Kains-Jackson

Her insolent carriage shines down Rotten Row,
Her beauty shaded from the sun of June
Outblazes even the dazzling afternoon;
Her heart is hard and hot with triumph; though
Her eyelids droop too languid to bestow
A glance upon the crowd that drives or stands,
She feels the reins of conquest in her hands,
Exulting in the senses' overthrow.

The champing horses bear her down the mile,
And as all eyes go after her a smile
Dawns and is gone upon the clear-cut face:

She leans back on the cushions to recall
The night's long list of dinner, theatre, ball,
In languors of premeditated grace.

THE OLD LORETTE

To C. K. J.

The wind beats on her bitterly: the rain
Has soaked her tatters to the wrinkled skin,
Though deafened by the crowd's unceasing din
Scarce now she feels the bite of outward pain,
She torn by racking memories that remain
Of riotous days, of splendid nights of sin,
The beauty, dead how long! that once could win
All wealth and love and kisses and champagne.

The cabs ring by beneath the lines of light,
New joys and faces flash before her sight,
While she, the hag whom all men named the fair,
Besplashed with mud, bedraggled, stands apart
Remembering with dull agony of heart
The days gone by and O the joys that were!

A SUMMER NIGHT

The sultry heaviness of the burning night
Choked us with longing for the future day,
As bathed in sweat and feigning love we lay
Embraced beneath the jet of feeble light.

At length the birds began and their delight
Mocked us. They sang, while we could only pray
For respite as with infinite delay
The skies beyond the chimney-tops grew bright.

The shafts of sunlight entered and the rain
Of kisses ended with the need to feign,
Sundered the arms that strained, the lips that clove.

With useless words we parted. Through the street
That echoed in the silence to my feet,
I bore the memories of our night of love.

LE PIANO QUE BAISE....

[_]

From the French of Paul Verlaine

The piano over which a light hand strays
Shines vaguely in the evening grey and rose,
While as with rustling of a wing that plays,
An ancient air most weak and charming flows
Discreetly and as though heart-broken goes
Throughout the boudoir where her memory stays.

What is the sudden lull so quickly born
That slowly sways my poor heart of despair?
What wouldst thou then of me, sweet song forlorn?
What wouldst thou, vague refrain so finely drawn
To die so soon towards the window-square
Half-opening upon the tiny lawn?

[_]

Romances sans Paroles

L'ESPOIR LUIT....

[_]

From the French of Paul Verlaine

Hope glistens like a straw within the stable.
Why fearest thou the drunken wasp's mad flight?
Always through chinks the sunbeam dances bright.
Why sleep'st thou not, with elbows on the table?

Pale soul, here is iced water from the well,
Drink it and sleep. Thou see'st I rest with thee,
And I will sway thy dreams and drowsily
Thy lips will murmur to the cradle's spell.

Noon strikes. Withdraw, for pity's sake, Madame.
He sleeps. And then a woman's steps alarm
The sleep of those whom fate bids weep alone.

Noon strikes. The room is sweet with sprinkled rain.
Hope shines as in a hollow shines a stone.
When will September's roses flower again?

[_]

Sagesse

ALLÉGORIE

[_]

From the French of Paul Verlaine

Despotic and discoloured and obeyed,
Summer, a king who tortures lazily,
Stretches himself within the white-hot sky
And yawns. The labourer slumbers in the shade.

The skylark sings not, resting in the glade:
No cloud or breath or aught that comes between
Yon azure so implacably serene
Where of the silence is the stillness made.

The cicales in the heavy torpor sleep:
The half-dried rivulets no longer leap
Along their narrow course that pebbles strow:

Incessantly rotating in the air
Gleam shining moires that glistening ebb and flow...
Yellow and black, wasps hover here and there.

[_]

Jadis et Naguère

IN THE COUNTRY

To Norman Gale

In the morning all the trees
Sway and rustle: all the birds
Chirp and warble to the breeze.

Deep in meadow-grass the herds
Pasture and the brook that flees
Laughs as though with joyous words.

Lightly flights of swallows fret
The serenity of blue:
Here the stile is where we met,

Here alas we said adieu.
All is sweet and glad, and yet,
Dearest, I am far from you!

THE ELDORADO

“Cueillez dès aujourd'hui les roses de la vie”

Aviolin and tired piano grind
A tinkling valse whereto in couples turn
Some girls whose cheeks in rouge and powder burn,
Some men whose like one is not glad to find.

Inside, the fumes of gas and stifled heat,
Tired men and hopeless women and the tune
That wearies us: outside, the waning moon,
The rain-washed freshness of the silent street,

The chirp of early sparrows, and the play
Of brightening shadows on dim roof and wall,
Could one but see beyond the curtains' pall
And the drawn blinds that hide from us the day.

I and my partner of the wretched night,
Awaiting the releasing stroke of dawn,
Drink by a bar and infinitely yawn.
O gather ye the roses of delight!

TO A SICILIAN BOY

Love, I adore the contours of thy shape,
Thine exquisite breasts and arms adorable;
The wonders of thy heavenly throat compel
Such fire of love as even my dreams escape:
I love thee as the sea-foam loves the cape,
Or as the shore the sea's enchanting spell:
In sweets the blossoms of thy mouth excel
The tenderest bloom of peach or purple grape.

I love thee, sweet! Kiss me, again, again!
Thy kisses soothe me as tired earth the rain;
Between thine arms I find mine only bliss:
Ah let me in thy bosom still enjoy
Oblivion of the past, divinest boy,
And the dull ennui of a woman's kiss!

L'ÉTERNEL FÉMININ

Lilith or Eve, I was before the flood,
And Eden grew the palace of my sin
Wherewith I stirred the lust that slumbered in
The then unquickened furnace of man's blood;
Kissing my mouth he saw that ill was good,
Lust was Love's brother, Vice to Virtue kin;
God gave into my hand all things to win;
Between him and man's captive soul I stood.

So still I reign, for still I weave a snare
With the hot snakes of my lascivious hair,
Chain with my arms his body and fulfil
His soul with poison that my lips distil;
For God is with me, God who for my right
Of old took arms against the Sodomite!

ILLUSIONS

In summer when the heaths were brown,
Love led us lightly to and fro
By sandy beach and sloping down,

And idling with us watched below
The sea-wall of the little town
The grey-green Channel ebb and flow.

But many a love and many a year
Divide us since we went to climb
The breezy cliffs and deemed sublime
The sea's long music in our ear.

And though dead love is worth a tear,
It seems but barely worth the time
To put the memory in rhyme,
It was so long ago, my dear!

ODOUR

So vague, so sweet a long regret!
So sweet, so vague a dead perfume
That lingers lest regret forget,
A memory from an old-world tomb
Where vainly sunshine gleams and vainly raindrops fret,
And dying summer's wind-breath goes
So lightly over petals of the fallen rose.

Autumnal starlight, scents of hay
Beneath the full September moon,
And then, ah then! the sighing tune
That fades and yet is fain to stay:
Ah! weep for pleasures dead too soon,
While like the love-song of an ancient day
The distant music of the perfume dies away!

FRANGIPANI

Perfume! That lingerest round the throat,
Between the breasts and in the hair
I kiss, and risest up to float
About the room, a southern note
Of sultry isles and swooning air,

Thou leavest on the languid skin
Outworn with nights of amorous toil,
A spice of health that blossoms in
Hot lands that tropic fragrance win
From marvellous flowers and scented oil.

Thou bring'st from far away to me
The savour of spice and southern palm,
Of naked wild-foot girls that flee
By sunlit fountains and the calm
Low murmur of a burning sea.

OPOPONAX

Blonde perfume of the painted girl!
You where the heated dancers whirl
In mazes of the midnight ball
Or in the glittering music-hall,
Uplift your rich and cloying scent
Until the banal blandishment
Of whispers and inviting eyes
Seems tempting even to the wise.
But here your honeyed vapours bring
To me in solitude the ring
Of certain voices and the glance
Of eyelids fluttered in the dance
That once I knew: and bring again
The memories of ancient pain,
Of burning day and rose-red night...
Till I forget them in delight
Of your superb luxurious fume
About the scented curtained room.

NEVERMORE

Nevermore, my dear, oh nevermore
Shall we see the faces of old days,
Never laugh as blithely as before.

Fools we were to catch at straws and strays
While the season proffered all its store!
We went wandering on divided ways.

Such a harvest of abundant grain
We had gathered had we once been wise!
Then we laughed but now alas our eyes
Weep above the love ourselves have slain.

Could it be once more! The old refrain
Rings between our long regretful sighs,
And the echo, nevermore, replies
Nellie, to our hearts that ache with pain.

NOTHING

There's a murmur on the hillside
And there's laughter on the sea,
But the day that brings forth gladness
Brings my sorrow unto me.

All along the sunny beaches
Laughs the world beside the sea,
But the laughter is with others
And the sorrow rests with me.

A RENDEZVOUS

I wonder will she come; the day
Is black with thunderclouds; the rain
Threatens, but ah can aught delay
My love from me again?

Slowly the keen long minutes pass.
Hope's wings grow feebler and my heart
Beats duller. Lo! the clouds amass
And the warm rain-drops start.

Thunder rolls heavily like a drum;
My tears for this sad hope that shone
Mix with the rain. She has not come,
And the weary day wears on.

EXPECTATION

Come while the afternoon of May
Is sweet with many a lilac-spray,
Come while the sparrows chirping fare
From branch to branch across the square.

Come like the dawn and bring to me
The fresh winds of an open sea,
Come like the stars of night and bear
All consolation in thine hair.

Bring me release from ancient pain,
Bring me the hopes of joy found vain,
Bring me thy sweetness of the dove,
Come, sweet, and bring thyself and love!

A BALLET-DANCER

“You the dancer and I the dreamer”
A.S.

She dances in the limelight with the throng
That circle, turn and turn again ablaze
With gold and purple in an endless maze,
As violin and trumpet-note prolong
The tune that maddens toward the close. Among
The mingled hues of costumes, the displays
Of varied tights and bodices, my gaze
Follows the face, the form for which I long.

Sometimes she lifts to me her face's flower,
And then across the footlights and the crowd
I catch the smile that speaks to me aloud
With expectation of the blissful hour,
When she at length may sleep within mine arms
Free from the stage's toil and day's alarms!

IN SUMMER

The blown spray of the breaking wave
That glistens through your gleaming hair
Shines underneath the blue less fair
Thou your white limbs the billows lave.

O bather in the August sun,
To me stretched on the burning sand
Your beauty naked on the strand
Its magic mission has begun.

I envy even the moment's bliss
Of each wave making towards the shore,
For ere its curling waters roar
It folds your body in a kiss.

O form now hidden in the sea,
Now as the wave recedes left bare,
O flower of flesh, O beauty rare,
Yield up thy pagan grace to me!

PLEIN AIR

To Oscar Wilde

Purple and white the pansies shone.
Tall stocks that stained the garden walk
With crimson, heard our amorous talk
And blushed to know that she was won.

The golden mirth of sunflowers eyed
Her bosom and mauve heliotrope
Shed balmy breaths of scent in hope
Of her virginity untied.

So when the moon rose in the south
And trailed about the shadowy vine
I felt her breasts pant under mine
And her breath sobbing in my mouth.

TRISTESSE

To Gleeson White

Summer lies heavily on the land:
Beyond the garden and the trees

I watch the burning skies expand.
I long for distant sands and seas.

I long for glancing lines of foam
That glisten on the shifting green,

For southward lie the downs we clomb,
The beaches where our feet have been.

Remembering all, my sad heart weeps
To watch the sun, the sky so blue,

Sweet, for all night and day it keeps
The heavy grief of losing you.

VANITY

Nellie, your hair of night, your eyes
Haunt me so far away,
Where are our words of love, our sighs,
Our kisses where are they?

The life that once was ours, the light
Of love, say not that they
Have gone for ever in the night,
Have wholly passed away!

AT NIGHT

In the wild heaven the wan moon weeps
From eyelids fringed with drifting cloud,
And on the pebbles inward sweeps
The tide and moans aloud.

The face of night is sered and blind,
The rough sea cannot sleep;
Weep all thy tears, O rain-drenched wind,
For one who may not weep!

A MOOD

To Arthur Symons

The tide was weary as it came
Towards the shore this autumn eve:
It caught the sun's descending flame
And sighed and seemed too faint to grieve
Because the summer hasted to be gone
And all the days were done.

The sea heaved languidly and rolled
Its purple breakers on the sand;
An infinite sadness manifold
Fell on the deep and quiet land;
The seamews rested on the dipping foam
And had no thought of home.

The poppies shivered as the breeze
Went by and fell before it passed,
And from the cliff I heard the sea's
Faint requiem, the first and last,
Above the tomb of pleasures that were sped
And with the year lay dead.

One with the season's languor, I
Lay long to watch the changing flight
Of colours in the dreary sky
Until the advent of the night,
While banks of cloud above the sea-line rose
And sorrow found repose.