The Poetical Works of John Payne :: :: University of Virginia Library

I SOUGHT thee when the world was full of flower,
O wide-winged love! and seeking, found thee not.
In vain the linnets sang, the lilies got
Them robes of silver and the roses' shower
Of blossom tapestried each fragrant hour;
The skies were idly blue; the glad heats wrought
Their summer sorcery of flowers for nought;
The autumn brought the bridal year its dower

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Of jewelled fruits and sunlight-coloured corn.
But for my part I took no heed of them,
Wandering, grave-eyed, along the meadows' hem,
Following my dream, unfriended and apart,
Sad in the noon-day, joyless in the morn,
Mirroring all things in my empty heart.

And as I went and communed with my pain,
Unknowing all the glories of the day
And all the radiance of the stars' array
For lack of love, the hope began to wane
Within my breast and to myself, “In vain,
In vain, sad soul,” I said, “thou dost essay
The weary path of years and Life's waste way
Of lengthening memories! If Love were fain
To turn his wings to thee-ward and to tread
Thy way with equal feet, he would forego
His fair intent, seeing thy stern wan face
And thy sad eyes that fill the fields with woe,
And marvel in himself how one should trace
Life's path with feet that linger for the dead.”

Lo! for I said, Love loveth allegresse
And fair wise joyance in all pleasant things:
It likes him not that in the waverings
Of saddened fancy one should seek to press
His grapes of heaven, that in the loneliness
Of deathward thought a man should bind his wings
And prison all his rare sweet wanderings
Within a labyrinth of deep duresse,
Hoarding his wine up in strange poison-flowers
And sucking bitters from his passionate sweets.
Lo! for Love walketh in the pleasant hours
Of life and passeth by the lonely seats
Of delicate sadness, where the veilèd powers
Do weave strange dreams, far from the noontide heats.

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And yet, methinks, I had made sacrifice
To pleasant Love with many a faint sweet thing,
Done homage to him with much flowering
Of tender dreams and many a rare device
Of songs, half sad, half joyous, to suffice
For such rude pastoral rounds as shepherds sing,
When the winged arrow bites them. Offering
Of many flowers of night and many a spice
Of tropic forests, darkening to their deep
Of delicate shade for horror of the sun,
I would have made him: all the flowers that sleep
Within the wilder solitudes of thought,
All faint-hued fancies that the day do shun,
Loving, to thee, O Love! these had I brought.

Methinks thou didst not well my prayers to scorn,
O tyrant Love, that never pardoneth!
I with my songs the victor over Death
Had laurelled thee; and all the shades forlorn
Should for thine hour of triumphing have worn
Thy hues of noon; and eke thy linnets' breath
Should have rung resonant—as one that saith,
‘The dim night passeth: welcome in the morn!’
—Athwart the woods and fastnesses of grief.
Now dost thou wear for crownal flowers of day,
Glad myrtles and the passionate-petalled rose:
Me serving, I had crowned thee with a sheaf
Of lilies silver with their blanching woes
And violets dropping with the tears of May.

Thus with myself devising, did I pass
Along the summer meadows and the woods
Aflame with autumn's many-blazoned moods:
And now the rime did jewel all the grass
And on the plains the silver snows did mass
Within the hollows. Over all the floods
The winter brooded, as a spell-work broods,

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And the ice-sleep compelled the river's glass.
Then did my heart take comfort from the time:
The dim white woodlands held more hope for me
Within the cloisters of their leafless aisles
Than all the summer's gold; the speechless rime
Was grateful to me and the pale sky's smiles
Stirred all my wintry soul to harmony.

Then, as I strayed among the silent ways,
Much comforted from all my old despite,
Love came to me across that world of white,
With drooping wings and winter-saddened gaze;
And as I looked on him with still amaze,
He took my hand within his palms of light
And with full many a promise of delight,
Prevailed on me that I should work his praise.
But I, “My heart has all forgot the songs
Of summer and the full-toned autumn-lays:
I have no memory of the jewelled throngs,
That blew for thee about the August ways:
My soul is dumb with winter. Let me rest:
Love has no empery in this sad breast.”

Nay, (but he said,) the summer's songs are sweet,
When June is golden; and the autumn's tide
Befits full harmonies. Whilst these abide,
The songs of joyance gracious are and meet:
But when the winter comes, with silver feet
A-walking in the snows, one lays aside
The passionate descants that glorified
The goodlier hours; and then the heart doth greet,
With doubled ease, the tender plaining notes
Of shy and suffering souls, that have in vain
Sought flying favour in the joy that floats
About the summer; and the altar-flame
Of love burns brightlier for their offered pain
Who spared to love, until life's winter came.

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So he with softest words prevailed on me:
And I, with heart half-glad, half-wearying,
Did at his hest address myself to sing,
Holding his hand as link of fealty.
Singing of all the strange delights that be
In sad sweet musing and the illumining
That Love doth pour upon each sombre thing,
Among the dreaming trees I went. And he
The while retraced my visions in the air,
Colouring my dreams with all his magic light
And murmuring o'er the songs that I did sing,
With a new added accent of delight.
So, hand in hand, along the woodways bare
We went, nor wearied for the tardy Spring.