Orchids :: :: University of Virginia Library

Orange and purple, shot with white and mauve,
Such in a greenhouse wet with tropic heat
One sees these delicate flowers whose parents throve
In some Pacific island's hot retreat.

Their ardent colours that betray the rank
Fierce hotbed of corruption whence they rose
Please eyes that long for stranger sweets than prank
Wild meadow-blooms and what the garden shows.

Exotic flowers! How great is my delight
To watch your petals curiously wrought,
To lie among your splendours day and night
Lost in a subtle dream of subtler thought.

Bathed in your clamorous orchestra of hues,
The palette of your perfumes, let me sleep
While your mesmeric presences diffuse
Weird dreams: and then bizarre sweet rhymes shall creep

Forth from my brain and slowly form and make
Sweet poems as a weaving spider spins,
A shrine of loves that laugh and swoon and ache,
A temple of coloured sorrows and perfumed sins!

I
A DANCER

You look so quaintly comic, dear,
A spangled Harlequin, who dance
In wig and wings that gleam and glance,
That I could watch you half a year.

So oddly charming, you appear
A princess of a child's romance,
A fairy born above mischance
In some divinely distant sphere.

You lightly come and lightly go
With jingling bells and cap askew,
And ah! my heart goes out to you

While in the footlights' dazzling glow
You for some happy moments seem
The gracious phantom of a dream!

II
IN THE TARANTELLA

A change! And now you seem to be
A stray from some enchanted land
That erst on some hot southern sand
Danced to the music of the sea.

Your feet in sandals patter free
As air for all the leathern band
That binds your shapely ankles and
Climbs exquisitely to your knee.

You surely in some life before
Danced on the blue Italian shore;
For English here with English girls

You keep the laughter of the south
Upon the radiance of your mouth
And Baian sunlight on your curls!

HER PHOTOGRAPH

I can fancy, love, you speak,
I can almost hear you laugh,
As I trace your plaintive face
In your silent photograph.

Even so you dance to-night
In the ballet's wheel and whirl
With a red cap on your head
As a southern fisher-girl.

In the hall you dance and here
I pursue a stupid rhyme,
Just to make my heart-strings ache
And to kill the length of time,

Till I meet you and we stroll
Homeward with the stars above.
Dearest! Will you care or hear
When I tell you of my love?

AT THE STAGE-DOOR

Down the passage where the gas
Vainly struggles with the wind
Straggling groups of women pass.

This one stamping chilly toes
Waits for one who lags behind.
That one takes an arm and goes.

Silhouettes of youth and age,
How denuded of the grace
Late so radiant on the stage!

Let them go! I wait for her:
Then I see the well-known face
Shining over marten-fur.

We take arms and march away,
Happy in our meeting here
After all the stupid day,

Free from work and free as light,
You and I together, dear,
In the happy chilly night!

GIFTS

It is but little I can bring,
My lady, I who only sing,
For gifts you slumber dreaming of.
I can but give you love for love.

Others may bring you gems to wear
Agleam on wrist and throat and hair.
I can but give a rhyme, my dear,
A kiss—and now and then a tear!

LA FLEUR DU JARDIN D'ICI BAS

To George Ellwanger

O dour of women faintly wrought
In folds of silken bodices
That hide the fain and supple throat!

Nor musk nor heliotrope it is,
Nor scent of violet-powder caught
Within the soft skin's crevices.

O perfume headier than wine
When in my circling arms you lie!
How perfect with restraint laid by
And womanhood grown infantine!

O perfume magic and divine
That sways my swooning senses when
My chin rests on your breast, and then
Your lips creep slowly down to mine!

THE CONQUEST OF SENSE

I love to watch your colour go,
Your eyes and mouth's red-jewelled cup
Swoon, and your very heart break up
Beneath my kisses, so.

You like a violin give forth
Such music of triumphant flesh
As well might call afresh
The loveless angels back to earth.

Your soul, if soul you have, flies hence:
Regret and shame are vain to pierce
Your spirit swooning in the fierce
Hysteria of sense.

Though you be but a doll or flower,
You wake to live beneath my kiss,
And I possess your soul in this
Sense-stricken body for an hour!

WHITE LILIES

Flowers rare and sweet I sent, whose delicate white
Should, grouping at her corsage, interlace
Their purity with her corrupted grace,
With the full throat and mouth of my delight.

Evil design! To see the pale flowers slight
The beauty of the worn and powdered face,
Mingling their costly virtue with the trace
Of ancient loves that live in time's despite.

How soon they died, poor blossoms! at her throat
Ere of the last valse died the last sad note:
No more than love of her meant to endure,

For all the savour of her lips, the spice
Of her frail spirit steeped in cultured vice,
Gracefully bad and delicately impure!

SONNET MACABRE

I love you for the grief that lurks within
Your languid spirit, and because you wear
Corruption with a vague and childish air,
And with your beauty know the depths of sin;

Because shame cuts and holds you like a gin,
And virtue dies in you slain by despair,
Since evil has you tangled in its snare
And triumphs on the soul good cannot win.

I love you since you know remorse and tears,
And in your troubled loveliness appears
The spot of ancient crimes that writhe and hiss:

I love you for your hands that calm and bless,
The perfume of your sad and slow caress,
The avid poison of your subtle kiss.

TO SALOME AT SAINT JAMES'S

Princess of dancing and of mirth,
Pleased with a trinket or a gown,
Eternal as eternal earth,
You dance the centuries down.

Yes! You, my plaything, slight and light,
Capricious, petulant and proud,
With whom I sit and sup to-night
Among the tawdry crowd,

Are she whose swift and sandalled feet
And postured girlish beauty won
A pagan prize, for you unmeet,
The head of Baptist John.

And after ages, when you sit,
A princess less in birth than power,
Freed from the theatre's fume and heat
To kill an idle hour,

Here in the babbling room a-gleam
With scarlet lips and naked arms,
And such rich jewels as beseem
The painted damsel's charms,

Even now your tired and subtle face
Bears record of the wondrous time
When from your limbs' lascivious grace
Sprang forth your splendid crime.

And though none deem it true of those
Who watch you in our banal age
Like some stray fairy glide and pose
Upon a London stage,

Yet I to whom your swift caprice
Turns for the moment ardent eyes
Have seen the strength of love release
Your sleeping memories.

I too am servant to your glance,
I too am bent beneath your sway,
My wonder! My desire! who dance
Men's heads and hearts away.

Sweet arbitress of love and death,
Unchanging on time's changing sands,
You hold more lightly than a breath
The world between your hands!

CHANSONETTE

Could a flower replace
Every kiss of ours
Then the world and space
Were a bed of flowers.

Foolish flowers and vain
Bruised by many fears!
They would have for rain
My unnumbered tears.

FINIS

Ah! you and I are not so far
From luckless fortune, now it seems,
Sweet lips, for all our foolish dreams
Of joy beneath a favouring star.

Joy was: and fortune changes. Chance
That brought us somehow heart to heart
Now bids us once touch lips and part.
I go to work and you to dance.

Ah, best and dearest love that yet
Made sweeter life's unfriended way,
It must be many a weary day
Ere you and I forget, forget!

Time conquers even a memory,
But this alone he cannot do—
Bring back such love again to you,
Such lips and loveliness to me!

IMPRESSION

Five bourgeois faces as the reeling train
Plunged headlong into darkness and the damp,
Glared in the dull light of the yellow lamp,
Five faces not indicative of brain.

Three slept and one stared at the window-pane;
One read a book and rose at times to stamp
A foot that seemed uneasy with the cramp.
The wheels ground out a foolish song's refrain.

And though each time the tune came round anew
I sped a furlong further, love, from you,
I could not sorrow then for love's eclipse.

For still it seemed that you were with me there,
Still that I held you closely, stroked your hair,
And felt your kisses tremble on my lips.

EPILOGUE

Time was glad to part
Friend from friend.
Still you have my heart
Till the end.

Loves that he could rive
Yet shall Time
Keep perforce alive
In a rhyme.

With the world shall live
Love and you,
Lucy. Let us give
Time his due!

ETCHINGS

I
ON THE FOURTH FLOOR

Four papered walls that once perhaps were white
In some dark backward and abysm of time,
Where rubbed-out flowers indefinitely climb
Towards a cobwebbed ceiling black as night;
A tipsy table shaking in affright
Beneath its load of blotted prose and rhyme,
And then the small cracked window dim with grime
That lets in draughts more easily than light;
The mournful ghosts of two unhappy chairs,
And O a lamp that infinitely smells!
This, with a tenor-singer's daylong yells
And noisy footsteps on the creaking stairs,
This, high among the chimneys and the dome
Of London's fogs and rain-clouds—this is home!

II
IN THE BAR

A hand that twists the broidered veil
Above the drooping flower-red mouth
Upon the straight and delicate nose,
And, gloveless, one, snow-white and frail,
Whereon a glittering emerald glows
That lifts a tumbler to your mouth:

Soft eyes that throw a languid glance
Across the golden blazing bar,
And leave a weary smile with me:
Ah, who can tell the ways of chance,
Or why to-night divided we
Exchange bored smiles across the bar?

But age who sits beside you knows
His worth, and by the right of gold
Is claimant of your charms to-night;
While youth takes up a distant pose
And watches you from far in flight
Before the majesty of gold.

Clatter and babbling voices, and
Cabs rattling by the open door:
Most commonplace, but even here
Despair can sere and hate can brand,
Now when you rise and disappear
Beside your partner through the door!

III
AT THE EMPIRE

The low and soft luxurious promenade,
Electric-light, pile-carpet, the device
Of gilded mirrors that repeat you thrice;
The crowd that lounges, strolls from yard to yard;

The calm and brilliant Circes who retard
Your passage with the skirts and rouge that spice
The changeless programme of insipid vice,
And stun you with a languid strange regard;

Ah! what are these, the perfume and the glow,
The ballet that coruscates down below,
The glittering songstress and the comic stars,

Ah! what are these, although we sit withdrawn
Above our sparkling tumblers and cigars,
To us so like to perish with a yawn?

IV
UNE PASSADE

Night's hours ticked slowly by, and made
A tune to our delight,
Till when the dark went nigh to fade
We went into the night;

And in the silence watched aflower
Far in the East withdrawn
The faint blue light of that long hour
That goes before the dawn.

So in the darkness standing we
Parted to live and die.
None knows the love that grew to be
Between us, you and I.

None knows: and you and I forget—
The world is full of din.
Only in God's book lingers yet
The record of our sin.

RENCONTRE

Could I not leave upon your face
The print of lips, on the divine
Soft throat and bosom's interspace
Where once my kisses found a shrine?

I should have sealed you for my own,
On lip or chin or tender cheek,
One night, when powerless and alone
You lay, too faint to see or speak.

This were a marvel to the wise:
That of the visions I recall
In your light laughing face and eyes
There lives no memory at all.

HOTHOUSE FLOWERS

I hate the flower of wood or common field.
I cannot love the primrose nor regret
The death of any shrinking violet,
Nor even the cultured garden's banal yield.

The silver lips of lilies virginal,
The full deep bosom of the enchanted rose
Please less than flowers glass-hid from frosts and snows
For whom an alien heat makes festival.

I love those flowers reared by man's careful art,
Of heady scents and colours: strong of heart
Or weak that die beneath the touch or knife,

Some rich as sin and some as virtue pale,
And some as subtly infamous and frail
As she whose love still eats my soul and life.

Ερος δ' αυτε . . .

Crimson nor yellow roses, nor
The savour of the mounting sea
Are worth the perfume I adore
That clings to thee.

The languid-headed lilies tire,
The changeless waters weary me.
I ache with passionate desire
Of thine and thee.

There are but these things in the world—
Thy mouth of fire,
Thy breasts, thy hands, thy hair upcurled,
And my desire!

HESPERIDES ET ULTRA

Snared in your low-cut corsage, belle Marquise,
Your breasts that tremble to a laugh or sigh
Seem azure doves that couch prepared to fly
From amorous hands of lovers hot to seize
Or scare them from their vain securities:
Seem full moons fallen from an empty sky,
Or mellow apples for the teeth to try,
Or pearls a diver gropes for under seas.

But if on earth aught live that may incite
The sense to visions of more sweet delight
Than these smooth wonders of your perfumed throat,
It is the small light foot that to and fro
Swings idly and enticingly below
The frou-frou of your skirt and petticoat.

ON TIPTOE

A long the corridor I heard
Her naked feet come like a bird:
Through hush and darkness far and near
The rustle of her skirts grew clear.

The door creaked open, closed again:
Her breath fell on my face, and then
Her lips closed on my lips' delight,
Silently in the silent night.

NOCTURNE

Leave then thy kisses, cease, let be:
For fairer flowers and fancies keep
Their watch amid the paths of sleep.
I weary of thy love and thee.

On dusky meadows of the sea
The faint stars worn with watching cower,
And slow and sombre-blue the hour
Comes onward of the dawn to be.

Ah love, thy lips curved like a lyre!
What ails it us to strive and strain?
For though ten times desire be slain
There lives again a new desire.

Yea, though our hearts went nigh to swoon
With stress of amorous arms and lips,
Love would revive, as from eclipse
Resurgent springs a fierier moon.

Have not my myriad kisses fed
Upon thy body from thy sweet
White eyelids to thy whiter feet,
Nor I nor thou been satiated?

Not till the same death part us two,
Making thy lover one with thee,
Canst thou be wholly filled with me,
Or I possess thee through and through.

Sleep and the odour of thy breasts
Shall lull me, and thy loosened hair,
Till morning's golden touch make fair
The waves' innumerable crests.

AESTAS

Ah, summer days and dreams and summer song
Pass lightly, lightly sleep and linger long
That I may watch, here where the long downs fall
The roses' red and yellow carnival,
And there with foam-lines ruffled by the breeze
Far out, the radiance of the dancing seas.
O pleasure thus to live and lie and be
A palpitating part of earth and sea,
As though I were a flower or useless weed,
Or some tall grass's light and floating seed,
Rejoicing only since the sun is bright,
And by the heat half-maddened to delight.
I could indeed, lying in the feathered grass,
Dream that I lay nigh some Arcadian pass
And heard dove's wings winnow the molten air,
While with hot fingers in my crispèd hair
Some long dark woman hot with lust and whims
Stretched at my side her wealth of naked limbs,
And I, her wet warm arms clasped close between,
With slow deep kisses lipped her sun-browned skin,
Her soft moist breasts and subtle amorous throat,
The while swart Pan upon his mellow oat
Fluted through rushes round him and above
The praise of youth and summer and light love.

ASLEEP

Lids closed and pale with parted lips she lay.
Black on white pillows spread her hair unbound.
Awake, I watched her sleeping face and found
Its beauty perfect in the breaking day.

Ah then I knew that Love had passed away,
Alas! though with the entering sun that crowned
With light the beauty that mine arms enwound
Came too the morning music of the bay.

I wept that Love had been and was no more,
That never shower nor sunlight should restore
The beauty that was dead thenceforth to me,

While radiant in the outburst of the dawn,
Fresh as the wind that swept the mountain lawn
Green April wantoned on the noisy sea.

TUBEROSE

Cool flower! that to my heated lips
Hast clung through half an amorous hour,
I love thee and thy honey drips!
White, languid, heady-scented flower!

My mistress plucked thee from the lulled
Heat of her odorous alcove.
I know the smooth white hands that culled
Thy stem, white messenger of love!

But ah! what missive comes with thee,
My tender bloom, my welcome guest?
In secret dost thou bear to me
The languid fragrance of her breast?

Haply among thy honeyed whirls
A fervent kiss alone abides:
And yet in these enchanted curls
Perchance some traitor poison hides.

Dear poison, send thy deadliest breath
Subtly about me as I lie,
That none may part from me in death
The murderous flower by whom I die!

TANNHAUSER

Orgy of ill and triumph of the sense,
And she the dominant and insatiable
Black Venus of the nether gulfs of hell,
And her caresses fierce and swift and dense:
And he the knight triumphant in offence,
Snared in the toils of evil and the spell
Of murderous hair and kisses that compel,
And in the glory of impenitence.

But hark! again the pilgrims' stately song
Mounts from the bursting trombones that prolong
The hymn victorious over sin and death,
Rejoicing with thee where the sunbeams live,
Maid who canst love and canst for love forgive,
O far-seen phantom of Elizabeth!

SONGS TO ELIZABETH

I
Ave Maris Stella

Star of the chaste inviolable sea,
I set my heart and lips to sing to thee.
Out of the cavern of my sin and pain
My soul turns toward thee, star, my star, again.
O sweet as comes the cool first wind of dawn
Across grey sea and shadowy cliffside lawn,
O sweet as breaks the faint first gleam of light
On eyelids watching with the weary night,
The memory of thy presence comes to bless
My soul bowed down with infinite weariness,
Chaste star, sweet star, star perfect and divine,
Too far from me not to be wholly mine,
Too near to me not to be very far,
My lamp, my love, my muse, my song, my star!

II

[O star above the sunset's purple wave]

O star above the sunset's purple wave,
It had been thine to heal, to spare, to save.
My heart was thine, my soul was one with thee,
Grown virginal in thy virginity.
Thy fingers with the cool sweet touch of flowers
Had healed me from the devastated hours.
Thy words had cleansed me and thy love had made
A port where Love had anchored unafraid.
But strength and love and skill in song and rhyme
Shake not the edict of unshaken Time.
I would have given thee love, alas! a name
To set thee foremost in the ranks of fame
And life could life have bidden thy spirit live.
Ah sweet, but what thou hadst thou wouldst not give!

III

[As when the prayers and chants have passed away]

As when the prayers and chants have passed away,
At mass, when nave and chancel dim are dense
With purple fumes of cloud-like curled incense,
One bows before the altar's sovereign sway
And wanders forth into the garish day,
Waking as after slumber from the tense
And strange delight of the exalted sense
Unto the dull world's hurry and delay:

So you being gone out of my life and soul,
Gold censer on whose breath my life was fed!
Monstrance that held of old love's sacred bread!
I am as one that runs without a goal,
The course I go that once foretold my gain
Being now most flat, unprofitable and vain.

IV
O du mein holder Abendstern

My star of eve above the silent dell,
To thee and her, white twins of love, farewell.
Help and a haven from o'ermastering love
In you I sought who were so far above:
Too far, alas! for while ye slowly fade
My heart again Her snakes and lips invade.
I feel Her arms and form about me pressed,
The stinging of Her kisses in my breast.
O heavenly stars, that shine on earth and wave
Ye could not answer to my soul and save.
Yet while ye watch the land and tranquil sea,
A little longer, stars, remember me,
For with my last farewell, I lose and leave
The heaven ye gain, O stars of silent eve!

MODERN FRIENDS

The old world knelt before Saint Peter's chair—
The saint whose faith the Church as on a stone
Firm-set from storm and tempest stands upon—
Praying for the intercession of his prayer:
Or laid its aching sorrows and despair
Before the altars of Saints Paul or John,
That they might plead for absolution
With God and He forgive them and forbear.

The saint we worship nowadays, the friend
That in our bosom leans to sting and rend,—
An adder metamorphosed to a dove,—
Is he the gutters spit upon and hiss,
The red-haired traitor of the putrid kiss,
Saint Judas with his smiles and words of love.

A LOVER'S CONSOLATION

Among the garden walks of Proserpine,
Love, I will wait for you until your eyes
Are wearied of the sad monotonous skies,
And till you have drained the last cup of life's wine.
You bade me wait since to this love of mine
Might no responsive love within you rise.
I waited long: and now being one who dies,
Go hence to linger at a duskier shrine.

I had no will but yours; I gave to you
My life, albeit for all that I could do
You would not have me call you more than friend.
Of this I am glad—that while we drew life's breath
We trod the same sad earth, and after death
Shall be united in a common end.

SONG

[Was my love so slight a thing]

Was my love so slight a thing,
Only a pebble at your feet,
Or a faded rose we fling
To the river or the street?

Nought but peace I wish you, though
For my wearier heart I pray
You may some day learn to know
What it was you cast away!

BRYNHILDR

The flames leap forth about thee as thine eyes
Close and thy soul is lost in slumbers deep.
Thee shall the fierce strange fires in safety keep,
For no chance traveller here an helpless prize.
For none whom fear hath touched thy beauty lies.
Who knows not fear alone these flames shall leap,
His voice alone shall break thy magic sleep,
His kiss alone shall bid thee awake and rise.

Valkyr art thou no longer, and no more
Deep draughts of wine shalt thou for Wotan pour;
No more among thy sisters shalt thou ride
Shouting thy war-song o'er strong warriors dead.
Here shalt thou sleep until, the time being sped,
Love's lips shall wake thee, O Siegfried's destined bride!

SIEGFRIED

“Leuchtende Liebe
Lachender Tod.”

Miraculous boy, reared in the forests deep,
The bear thy playmate and the wolf thy friend,
Whose arms alone could forge anew and mend
Thy sire's great sword, and slay with one full sweep
The poisonous Worm coiled round his sacred keep:
Thy boyhood touches on its glorious end,
For where the flame-ringed mountain peaks ascend
Behold the Valkyr maiden laid asleep.

Boy, ignorant of fear and of desire,
Thus far the wood-bird led thee through the fire.
Thou hast accomplished all that Wotan saith.
Thy mighty life hath found its goal in this,
O Siegfried! in Brynhildr's rapturous kiss
Of waking Love that shines and laughs at death!

A MINOR CHORD

I shudder from your beauty. Hour by hour
I dread the time that comes and will not spare
The colourless strange yellow of your hair,
More fain than lips of lovers to devour
That thin wide mouth of yours, a sanguine flower,
A joy, a dream, a wonder and a snare!
That comes to shake into the driving air
Green leaf and pink bud from thine apple-bower.

I know that even as Autumn ere he goes
Spares neither lily nor rayonnant rose,
So time shall spoil and scatter shred by shred
Your face's worn white beauty hard and cold,
Shall wholly ruin your hair's sweet pallid gold,
And waste your mouth's fierce strip of poppied red.

LYRIC

There is no truth like this—
Love flies when youth has flown.
The lips of youth alone
Are worth a kiss.

Turn thy full lips' red flame
To mine, that thirst: give way
For youth's sweet sake—and lay
On Love the blame!

THE MIRROR TO THE BEAUTY

Fair face with curved lips bursting amorous-red!
Grow never old nor faded! I who scan
The tall limbs white desired by many a man,
Would flash not back the glint of thy bright head
Wert thou discrowned of youth for ever fled:
Nay, rather, when his hungering kisses span
Thy throat, like some love-murdered courtesan,
Fall in thy youth and regal beauty dead.

Not in my green and tranquil lake shall show
Thy gold-red hair grown faded, or thy face
Beseamed by time's dread wrinkles set arow,
For I have seen your nude limbs' sinuous grace
Flower-red with passion at his step below,
And of your love the fiery first embrace!

CE QUE N'EST PAS VRAI

Out of the crowd of women I
Have known and long have let go by,
It is alone your memory
That comes in hours of grief to me.

When eyes are blind and lips are dumb,
Your sweet and sad soul seems to come
Across the vague and distant years
To touch my brow, to stay my tears.

THE PAINTER

Sweet, couldst thou give thy soul of love to me,
No gift, save what the world of men who live
Could render in return, were mine to give:
No gift save one—art's immortality.
And this were light and vain as love to thee,
Whose soul is sweet and useless as a flower,
Seeing that you deem the moment and the hour
Coequal with the eternal sun and sea.

Ah love! this is most sad, to dream that you,
(Your small red mouth, your eyes of tender blue,
Your perfect body without spot or blame!)
Must die and be forgotten as you forget
All things that I weep after and regret—
Since losing love I will not give you fame.

HER FAULT

Dawn leads the sun, the winter spring;
Night brings the stars, the dew.
No night or day will ever bring
My love again to you.

No god can bid one vanished day,
One joy, one dream, return,
Alas! and we, ah wellaway!
Forget even while we yearn.

The same lips weary one to kiss,
The same words lose their spell.
You should have known the end was this:
You loved too much, too well!

SEA-SCAPE

The strong wind on the unsheltered down
Shook loose her fluttering hair;
The very sun seemed glad to crown
The head of one so fair.

The Channel sang beneath blue skies
Its sounding song, and she,
With love's light laughter in her eyes,
Made earth as heaven for me.

SWIMMING SONG

The broad green rollers lift and glide
Beneath our hearts as, side by side,
We breast them blithely, blithely swim
Toward the far horizon's rim.

The murmur of the land recedes,
The land of grief that aches and needs;
We only as we fall and rise
Drink deep the splendour of the skies.

O far blue heaven above our head,
O near green sea about us spread,
What joy so full, since time began,
Could earth, our mother, give to man?

Your bright face through the water peers
And laughs. “What need have men for tears?”
We say. The land is far and dim,
The world is Summer's, and we swim.

Your bright face peers and laughs. The sweet
Same joy fulfils us, hands and feet:
The same sea's salt wet lips kiss ours:
We feel the same enraptured hours.

Out yonder! where our distant home,
Beckons us from the crests of foam!
Out yonder through the roller's mirth!
What part was ever ours with earth?

Your white limbs flash, your red lips gleam:
Love seems life's best and holiest dream;
Nought comes between us here, and I
Could wish not otherwise to die.

With sea beneath us, heaven above,
Life holds but laughter, joy and love;
No trammels bind us now, and we
Are freer than the birds are free.

Your face seems sweeter here, your hair,
Wet from the sea's salt lips, more fair,
Your limbs that move and gleam and shine,
Hellenic, pagan, half-divine.

If I should catch you now, make fast
Your hands with mine, about you cast
My limbs, and through the untroubled waves
Draw you down to the sea's deep graves!

Ah, sweet! God's gift is good enough,
God's gift of freedom, life and love—
Though but for this brief hour are we
Alone upon the eternal sea!

TO A PIANIST

Your delicate fingers on the keyboard make
The riotous notes beat swift as driving rain
With thunder in its pauses, and constrain
The spirit of music's inmost heart to awake.
Once more, once more, bid rise and swoon and ache
This song of Schumann's filled with tremulous pain,
Rapture and peace and joy that soars again
In fierce delight of love for love's own sake!

How vain, in sight of yours, seems this my art!
For could I play, or paint you, I could deem
My art not wholly worthless of its theme:
But I who lack all things that else might move
Your inmost eyes to read my longing heart—
I can but fill a sonnet with my love!

HOPE

Somewhere, some day—I pray the day be soon!—
Shall I lie dead, perchance when this green floor
Of chequered grass beneath the sycamore
Is burnt up by the fierce September noon:
Some midnight when the sea's wan waters croon
Their lullaby to the enchanted shore,—
An ebb-tide with its vague and muffled roar
Past where the wet sands glisten to the moon.
Then shalt thou gain at length thy great desire,
O heart of mine, O heart of tears and fire!
Thy life is troublous as the changing foam.
Then shalt thou lie at peace and solemn rest,
Calm in the attainment of thy life's long quest,
The haven of thy wish, thine only home.

A LITANY

Virgin, whose sweet side within
Jesus entered without sin,
Hear our cry to thee.

Mary, whose fair eyes have known
Tears man weepeth all alone,
Hear our cry to thee.

Star, that shining far away
Lighteth the lone wanderer's way,
Hear our cry to thee.

Golden house, that maketh home
For the traveller that hath none,
Hear our cry to thee.

Mother, who being pure and mild
Hath the whole sad world for child,
Hear our cry to thee.

Mother, though we stray like sheep,
Yet because we weep and weep,
Hear our cry to thee.

Mother, since so greatly we
Need thine aid and thy pity,
Hear our cry to thee.

AVE MARIS STELLA

Star of the sea, be thou my star
Here or on wilder seas afar;
Point out my way, O favouring guide,
Between fierce winds and waters wide.

Thee has the sailor from his prow
Hailed often as I hail thee now;
As thou hast guided him, guide me
Across a stranger, bitterer sea.

He, giving thanks to God, has praised
Thy beam when, like a curtain raised,
The night his worn eyes vainly scanned
Lifted and dawn gave sight of land.

O favour thou my shifting helm,
Lest leaping rollers overwhelm
My bark, that made of mortal breath
Puts out across the sea of Death.

Save thee I have no light, no star:
The winds of sorrow howl, and far
The furious breakers leap and fight
Beneath impenetrable night.

Alone thou shinest forth to show
The hope of dreams man may not know:
O heavenly star, guide even me
To haven and home beyond the sea!

SPES ET FIDES

Star of the ocean, at whose shrine
I seek with glad heart the divine
Sweet grace God grants to us who live,
Pray Him to heal us and forgive.

Lo! ruined now my roses lie,
My orchids fade and fall and die.
Alone the lilies live nor fade
That I before thy feet have laid.

Our Lady, through the paths of sin
No rest or joy was ours to win.
Regret and grief and bitterer tears
Pursued us through the ashen years.

As over that grey sleeping sea
Thy face from heaven once shined on me,
And turned the footsteps of my life,
Guiding my soul to peace from strife,

So ever in my heart do thou
Reign, Mother, as thou reignest now,
And light my pathway from above,
O Queen of Heaven, O Star of Love!

A RONDEL OF ADIEU

Sweet Muse who led my life astray,
Wove round my heart a spell,
What need to leave me now and say
Farewell?

Whilst in my heart you dwelt, how well
Sped song and roundelay!
But who can fate foretell?

My lips that sang no longer may,
Alas! since you rebel.
And so for ever and a day
Farewell!

FINIS