The Poetical Works of Ernest Christopher Dowson :: :: University of Virginia Library

The Poetical Works of Ernest Christopher Dowson

Edited, with an introduction, by Desmond Flower

Dowson, Ernest Christopher (1867-1900)

PART I LYRICAL POETRY

VERSES

DECORATIONS:

HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED POEMS

HITHERTO UNCOLLECTED POEMS

II.

PART II DRAMATIC AND EPIC POETRY

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I. PART I LYRICAL POETRY

VERSES

IN PREFACE: FOR ADELAIDE

To you, who are my verses, as on some very future day, if you ever care to read them, you will understand, would it not be somewhat trivial to dedicate any one verse, as I may do, in all humility, to my friends? Trivial, too, perhaps, only to name you even here? Trivial, presumptuous? For I need not write your name for you at least to know that this and all my work is made for you in the first place, and I need not to be reminded by my critics that I have no silver tongue such as were fit to praise you. So for once you shall go indedicate, if not quite anonymous; and I will only commend my little book to you in sentences far beyond my poor compass which will help you perhaps to be kind to it:

‘Votre personne, vos moindres mouvements me semblaient avoir dans le monde une importance extra-humaine. Mon cœur comme de la poussière se soulevait derrière vos pas. Vous me faisiez l'effet d'un clair-de-lune par une nuit d'été, quand tout est parfums, ombres douces, blancheurs, infini; et les délices de la chair et de l'âme étaient contenues pour moi dans votre nom que je me répétais en tachant de le baiser sur mes lèvres.

‘Quelquefois vos paroles me reviennent comme un écho lointain, comme le son d'une cloche apporté par le vent; et il me semble que vous êtes là quand je lis des passages de l'amour dans les livres.... Tout ce qu'on y blâme d'exagéré, vous me l'avez fait ressentir.’

Pont-Aven, Finistère, 1896.

Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam.

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.
They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.

A CORONAL

With His songs and Her days to His Lady and to Love

Violets and leaves of vine,
Into a frail, fair wreath
We gather and entwine:
A wreath for Love to wear,
Fragrant as his own breath,
To crown his brow divine,
All day till night is near.
Violets and leaves of vine
We gather and entwine.

Violets and leaves of vine
For Love that lives a day,
We gather and entwine.
All day till Love is dead,
Till eve falls, cold and gray,
These blossoms, yours and mine,
Love wears upon his head.
Violets and leaves of vine
We gather and entwine.

Violets and leaves of vine,
For Love when poor Love dies
We gather and entwine.
This wreath that lives a day
Over his pale, cold eyes,
Kissed shut by Proserpine,
At set of sun we lay:
Violets and leaves of vine
We gather and entwine.

NUNS OF THE PERPETUAL ADORATION

For The Countess Sobieska von Platt

Calm, sad, secure; behind high convent walls,
These watch the sacred lamp, these watch and pray:
And it is one with them when evening falls,
And one with them the cold return of day.

These heed not time; their nights and days they make
Into a long, returning rosary,
Whereon their lives are threaded for Christ's sake:
Meekness and vigilance and chastity.

A vowed patrol, in silent companies,
Life-long they keep before the living Christ:
In the dim church, their prayers and penances
Are fragrant incense to the Sacrificed.

Outside, the world is wild and passionate;
Man's weary laughter and his sick despair
Entreat at their impenetrable gate:
They heed no voices in their dream of prayer.

They saw the glory of the world displayed;
They saw the bitter of it, and the sweet;
They knew the roses of the world should fade,
And be trod under by the hurrying feet.

Therefore they rather put away desire,
And crossed their hands and came to sanctuary;
And veiled their heads and put on coarse attire:
Because their comeliness was vanity.

And there they rest; they have serene insight
Of the illuminating dawn to be:
Mary's sweet Star dispels for them the night,
The proper darkness of humanity.

Calm, sad, secure; with faces worn and mild:
Surely their choice of vigil is the best?
Yea! for our roses fade, the world is wild;
But there, beside the altar, there, is rest.

VILLANELLE OF SUNSET

Come hither, Child! and rest:
This is the end of day,
Behold the weary West!

Sleep rounds with equal zest
Man's toil and children's play:
Come hither, Child! and rest.

My white bird, seek thy nest,
Thy drooping head down lay:
Behold the weary West!

Now are the flowers confest
Of slumber: sleep, as they!
Come hither, Child! and rest.

Now eve is manifest,
And homeward lies our way:
Behold the weary West!

Tired flower! upon my breast,
I would wear thee alway:
Come hither, Child! and rest;
Behold, the weary West!

MY LADY APRIL

For Léopold Nelken

Dew on her robe and on her tangled hair;
Twin dewdrops for her eyes; behold her pass,
With dainty step brushing the young, green grass,
The while she trills some high, fantastic air,
Full of all feathered sweetness: she is fair,
And all her flower-like beauty, as a glass,
Mirrors out hope and love: and still, alas!
Traces of tears her languid lashes wear.
Say, doth she weep for very wantonness?
Or is it that she dimly doth foresee
Across her youth the joys grow less and less,
The burden of the days that are to be:
Autumn and withered leaves and vanity,
And winter bringing end in barrenness.

TO ONE IN BEDLAM

For Henry Davray

With delicate, mad hands, behind his sordid bars,
Surely he hath his posies, which they tear and twine;
Those scentless wisps of straw, that miserably line
His strait, caged universe, whereat the dull world stares,

Pedant and pitiful. O, how his rapt gaze wars
With their stupidity! Know they what dreams divine
Lift his long, laughing reveries like enchaunted wine,
And make his melancholy germane to the stars'?

O lamentable brother! if those pity thee,
Am I not fain of all thy lone eyes promise me;
Half a fool's kingdom, far from men who sow and reap,
All their days, vanity? Better than mortal flowers,
Thy moon-kissed roses seem: better than love or sleep,
The star-crowned solitude of thine oblivious hours!

AD DOMNULAM SUAM

Little lady of my heart!
Just a little longer,
Love me: we will pass and part,
Ere this love grow stronger.

I have loved thee, Child! too well,
To do aught but leave thee:
Nay! my lips should never tell
Any tale, to grieve thee.

Little lady of my heart!
Just a little longer,
I may love thee: we will part,
Ere my love grow stronger.

Soon thou leavest fairy-land;
Darker grow thy tresses:
Soon no more of hand in hand;
Soon no more caresses!

Little lady of my heart!
Just a little longer,
Be a child: then, we will part,
Ere this love grow stronger.

AMOR UMBRATILIS

A gift of Silence, sweet!
Who may not ever hear:
To lay down at your unobservant feet,
Is all the gift I bear.

I have no songs to sing,
That you should heed or know:
I have no lilies, in full hands, to fling
Across the path you go.

I cast my flowers away,
Blossoms unmeet for you!
The garland I have gathered in my day:
My rosemary and rue.

I watch you pass and pass,
Serene and cold: I lay
My lips upon your trodden, daisied grass,
And turn my life away.

Yea, for I cast you, sweet!
This one gift, you shall take:
Like ointment, on your unobservant feet,
My silence, for your sake.

AMOR PROFANUS

For Gabriel de Lautrec

Beyond the pale of memory,
In some mysterious dusky grove;
A place of shadows utterly,
Where never coos the turtle-dove,
A world forgotten of the sun:
I dreamed we met when day was done,
And marvelled at our ancient love.

Met there by chance, long kept apart,
We wandered, through the darkling glades;
And that old language of the heart
We sought to speak: alas! poor shades!
Over our pallid lips had run
The waters of oblivion,
Which crown all loves of men or maids.

In vain we stammered: from afar
Our old desire shone cold and dead:
That time was distant as a star,
When eyes were bright and lips were red.
And still we went with downcast eye
And no delight in being nigh,
Poor shadows most uncomforted.

Ah, Lalage! while life is ours,
Hoard not thy beauty rose and white,
But pluck the pretty, fleeting flowers
That deck our little path of light:
For all too soon we twain shall tread
The bitter pastures of the dead:
Estranged, sad spectres of the night.

VILLANELLE OF MARGUERITES

For Miss Eugénie Magnus

‘A little, passionately, not at all?’
She casts the snowy petals on the air:
And what care we how many petals fall!

Nay, wherefore seek the seasons to forestall?
It is but playing, and she will not care,
A little, passionately, not at all!

She would not answer us if we should call
Across the years: her visions are too fair;
And what care we how many petals fall!

She knows us not, nor recks if she enthrall
With voice and eyes and fashion of her hair,
A little, passionately, not at all!

Knee-deep she goes in meadow grasses tall,
Kissed by the daisies that her fingers tear:
And what care we how many petals fall!

We pass and go: but she shall not recall
What men we were, nor all she made us bear:
‘A little, passionately, not at all!’
And what care we how many petals fall!

YVONNE OF BRITTANY

For Marmaduke Langdale

In your mother's apple-orchard,
Just a year ago, last spring:
Do you remember, Yvonne!
The dear trees lavishing
Rain of their starry blossoms
To make you a coronet?
Do you ever remember, Yvonne?
As I remember yet.

In your mother's apple-orchard,
When the world was left behind:
You were shy, so shy, Yvonne!
But your eyes were calm and kind.
We spoke of the apple harvest,
When the cider press is set,
And such-like trifles, Yvonne!
That doubtless you forget.

In the still, soft Breton twilight,
We were silent; words were few,
Till your mother came out chiding,
For the grass was bright with dew:
But I know your heart was beating,
Like a fluttered, frightened dove.
Do you ever remember, Yvonne?
That first faint flush of love?

In the fulness of midsummer,
When the apple-bloom was shed,
Oh, brave was your surrender,
Though shy the words you said.
I was glad, so glad, Yvonne!
To have led you home at last;
Do you ever remember, Yvonne!
How swiftly the days passed?

In your mother's apple-orchard
It is grown too dark to stray,
There is none to chide you, Yvonne!
You are over far away.
There is dew on your grave grass, Yvonne!
But your feet it shall not wet:
No, you never remember, Yvonne!
And I shall soon forget.

BENEDICTIO DOMINI

For Selwyn Image

Without, the sullen noises of the street!
The voice of London, inarticulate,
Hoarse and blaspheming, surges in to meet
The silent blessing of the Immaculate.

Dark is the church, and dim the worshippers,
Hushed with bowed heads as though by some old spell,
While through the incense-laden air there stirs
The admonition of a silver bell.

Dark is the church, save where the altar stands,
Dressed like a bride, illustrious with light,
Where one old priest exalts with tremulous hands
The one true solace of man's fallen plight.

Strange silence here: without, the sounding street
Heralds the world's swift passage to the fire:
O Benediction, perfect and complete!
When shall men cease to suffer and desire?

GROWTH

I watched the glory of her childhood change,
Half-sorrowful to find the child I knew,
(Loved long ago in lily-time)
Become a maid, mysterious and strange,
With fair, pure eyes—dear eyes, but not the eyes I knew
Of old, in the olden time!

Till on my doubting soul the ancient good
Of her dear childhood in the new disguise
Dawned, and I hastened to adore
The glory of her waking maidenhood,
And found the old tenderness within her deepening eyes,
But kinder than before.

AD MANUS PUELLAE

For Leonard Smithers

I was always a lover of ladies' hands!
Or ever mine heart came here to tryst,
For the sake of your carved white hands' commands;
The tapering fingers, the dainty wrist;
The hands of a girl were what I kissed.

I remember an hand like a fleur-de-lys
When it slid from its silken sheath, her glove;
With its odours passing ambergris:
And that was the empty husk of a love.
Oh, how shall I kiss your hands enough?

They are pale with the pallor of ivories;
But they blush to the tips like a curled sea-shell:
What treasure, in kingly treasuries,
Of gold, and spice for the thurible,
Is sweet as her hands to hoard and tell?

I know not the way from your finger-tips,
Nor how I shall gain the higher lands,
The citadel of your sacred lips:
I am captive still of my pleasant bands,
The hands of a girl, and most your hands.

FLOS LUNAE

For Yvanhoé Rambosson

I would not alter thy cold eyes,
Nor trouble the calm fount of speech
With aught of passion or surprise.
The heart of thee I cannot reach:
I would not alter thy cold eyes!

I would not alter thy cold eyes;
Nor have thee smile, nor make thee weep:
Though all my life droops down and dies,
Desiring thee, desiring sleep,
I would not alter thy cold eyes.

I would not alter thy cold eyes;
I would not change thee if I might,
To whom my prayers for incense rise,
Daughter of dreams! my moon of night!
I would not alter thy cold eyes.

I would not alter thy cold eyes,
With trouble of the human heart:
Within their glance my spirit lies,
A frozen thing, alone, apart;
I would not alter thy cold eyes.

NON SUM QUALIS ERAM BONAE SUB REGNO CYNARAE

Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine
There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed
Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;
And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat,
Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay;
Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
When I awoke and found the dawn was gray:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,
But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,
Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;
And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea hungry for the lips of my desire:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

VANITAS

For Vincent O'Sullivan

Beyond the need of weeping,
Beyond the reach of hands,
May she be quietly sleeping,
In what dim nebulous lands?
Ah, she who understands!

The long, long winter weather,
These many years and days,
Since she, and Death, together,
Left me the wearier ways:
And now, these tardy bays!

The crown and victor's token:
How are they worth to-day?
The one word left unspoken,
It were late now to say:
But cast the palm away!

For once, ah once, to meet her,
Drop laurel from tired hands:
Her cypress were the sweeter,
In her oblivious lands:
Haply she understands!

Yet, crossed that weary river,
In some ulterior land,
Or anywhere, or ever,
Will she stretch out a hand?
And will she understand?

EXILE

For Conal Holmes O'Connell O'Riordan

By the sad waters of separation
Where we have wandered by divers ways,
I have but the shadow and imitation
Of the old memorial days.

In music I have no consolation,
No roses are pale enough for me;
The sound of the waters of separation
Surpasseth roses and melody.

By the sad waters of separation
Dimly I hear from an hidden place
The sigh of mine ancient adoration:
Hardly can I remember your face.

If you be dead, no proclamation
Sprang to me over the waste, gray sea:
Living, the waters of separation
Sever for ever your soul from me.

No man knoweth our desolation;
Memory pales of the old delight;
While the sad waters of separation
Bear us on to the ultimate night.

SPLEEN

For Arthur Symons

I was not sorrowful, I could not weep,
And all my memories were put to sleep.

I watched the river grow more white and strange,
All day till evening I watched it change.

All day till evening I watched the rain
Beat wearily upon the window pane.

I was not sorrowful, but only tired
Of everything that ever I desired.

Her lips, her eyes, all day became to me
The shadow of a shadow utterly.

All day mine hunger for her heart became
Oblivion, until the evening came,

And left me sorrowful, inclined to weep,
With all my memories that could not sleep.

O MORS! QUAM AMARA EST MEMORIA TUA HOMINI PACEM HABENTI IN SUBSTANTIIS SUIS

Exceeding sorrow
Consumeth my sad heart!
Because to-morrow
We must depart,
Now is exceeding sorrow
All my part!

Give over playing,
Cast thy viol away:
Merely laying
Thine head my way:
Prithee, give over playing,
Grave or gay.

Be no word spoken;
Weep nothing:let a pale
Silence, unbroken
Silence prevail!
Prithee, be no word spoken,
Lest I fail!

Forget to-morrow!
Weep nothing: only lay
In silent sorrow
Thine head my way:
Let us forget to-morrow,
This one day!

[You would have understood me, had you waited]

Ah, dans ces mornes séjours
Les jamais sont les toujours.
Paul Verlaine

You would have understood me, had you waited;
I could have loved you, dear! as well as he:
Had we not been impatient, dear! and fated
Always to disagree.

What is the use of speech? Silence were fitter:
Lest we should still be wishing things unsaid.
Though all the words we ever spake were bitter,
Shall I reproach you dead?

Nay, let this earth, your portion, likewise cover
All the old anger, setting us apart:
Always, in all, in truth was I your lover;
Always, I held your heart.

I have met other women who were tender,
As you were cold, dear! with a grace as rare.
Think you, I turned to them, or made surrender,
I who had found you fair?

Had we been patient, dear! ah, had you waited,
I had fought death for you, better than he:
But from the very first, dear! we were fated
Always to disagree.

Late, late, I come to you, now death discloses
Love that in life was not to be our part:
On your low lying mound between the roses,
Sadly I cast my heart.

I would not waken you: nay! this is fitter;
Death and the darkness give you unto me;
Here we who loved so, were so cold and bitter,
Hardly can disagree.

APRIL LOVE

For Arthur Cecil Hillier

We have walked in Love's land a little way,
We have learnt his lesson a little while,
And shall we not part at the end of day,
With a sigh, a smile?

A little while in the shine of the sun,
We were twined together, joined lips, forgot
How the shadows fall when the day is done,
And when Love is not.

We have made no vows—there will none be broke,
Our love was free as the wind on the hill,
There was no word said we need wish unspoke,
We have wrought no ill.

So shall we not part at the end of day,
Who have loved and lingered a little while,
Join lips for the last time, go our way,
With a sigh, a smile?

VAIN HOPE

Sometimes, to solace my sad heart, I say,
Though late it be, though lily-time be past,
Though all the summer skies be overcast,
Haply I will go down to her, some day,
And cast my rests of life before her feet,
That she may have her will of me, being so sweet,
And none gainsay!

So might she look on me with pitying eyes,
And lay calm hands of healing on my head:
‘Because of thy long pains be comforted;
For I, even I, am Love: sad soul, arise!’
So, for her graciousness, I might at last
Gaze on the very face of Love, and hold Him fast
In no disguise.

Haply, I said, she will take pity on me,
Though late I come, long after lily-time,
With burden of waste days and drifted rhyme:
Her kind, calm eyes, down drooping maidenly,
Shall change, grow soft: there yet is time, meseems,
I said, for solace; though I know these things are dreams
And may not be!

VAIN RESOLVES

I said: ‘There is an end of my desire:
Now have I sown, and I have harvested,
And these are ashes of an ancient fire,
Which, verily, shall not be quickened.
Now will I take me to a place of peace,
Forget mine heart's desire;
In solitude and prayer, work out my soul's release.

I shall forget her eyes, how cold they were;
Forget her voice, how soft it was and low,
With all my singing that she did not hear,
And all my service that she did not know.
I shall not hold the merest memory
Of any days that were,
Within those solitudes where I will fasten me.’

And once she passed, and once she raised her eyes,
And smiled for courtesy, and nothing said:
And suddenly the old flame did uprise,
And all my dead desire was quickened.
Yea! as it hath been, it shall ever be,
Most passionless, pure eyes!
Which never shall grow soft, nor change, nor pity me.

A REQUIEM

For John Gray

Neobule, being tired,
Far too tired to laugh or weep,
From the hours, rosy and gray,
Hid her golden face away.
Neobule, fain of sleep,
Slept at last as she desired!

Neobule! is it well,
That you haunt the hollow lands,
Where the poor, dead people stray,
Ghostly, pitiful and gray,
Plucking, with their spectral hands,
Scentless blooms of asphodel?

Neobule, tired to death
Of the flowers that I threw
On her flower-like, fair feet,
Sighed for blossoms not so sweet,
Lunar roses pale and blue,
Lilies of the world beneath.

Neobule! ah, too tired
Of the dreams and days above!
Where the poor, dead people stray,
Ghostly, pitiful and gray,
Out of life and out of love,
Sleeps the sleep which she desired.

BEATA SOLITUDO

For Sam. Smith

What land of Silence,
Where pale stars shine
On apple-blossom
And dew-drenched vine,
Is yours and mine?

The silent valley
That we will find,
Where all the voices
Of humankind
Are left behind.

There all forgetting,
Forgotten quite,
We will repose us,
With our delight
Hid out of sight.

The world forsaken,
And out of mind
Honour and labour,
We shall not find
The stars unkind.

And men shall travail,
And laugh and weep;
But we have vistas
Of gods asleep,
With dreams as deep.

A land of Silence,
Where pale stars shine
On apple-blossoms
And dew-drenched vine,
Be yours and mine!

TERRE PROMISE

For Herbert P. Horne

Even now the fragrant darkness of her hair
Had brushed my cheek; and once, in passing by,
Her hand upon my hand lay tranquilly:
What things unspoken trembled in the air!

Always I know, how little severs me
From mine heart's country, that is yet so far;
And must I lean and long across a bar,
That half a word would shatter utterly?

Ah might it be, that just by touch of hand,
Or speaking silence, shall the barrier fall;
And she shall pass, with no vain words at all,
But droop into mine arms, and understand!

AUTUMNAL

For Alexander Teixeira de Mattos

Pale amber sunlight falls across
The reddening October trees,
That hardly sway before a breeze
As soft as summer: summer's loss
Seems little, dear! on days like these!

Let misty autumn be our part!
The twilight of the year is sweet:
Where shadow and the darkness meet
Our love, a twilight of the heart
Eludes a little time's deceit.

Are we not better and at home
In dreamful Autumn, we who deem
No harvest joy is worth a dream?
A little while and night shall come,
A little while, then, let us dream.

Beyond the pearl'd horizons lie
Winter and night: awaiting these
We garner this poor hour of ease,
Until love turn from us and die
Beneath the drear November trees.

IN TEMPORE SENECTUTIS

When I am old,
And sadly steal apart,
Into the dark and cold,
Friend of my heart!
Remember, if you can,
Not him who lingers, but that other man,
Who loved and sang, and had a beating heart,—
When I am old!

When I am old,
And all Love's ancient fire
Be tremulous and cold:
My soul's desire!
Remember, if you may,
Nothing of you and me but yesterday,
When heart on heart we bid the years conspire
To make us old.

When I am old,
And every star above
Be pitiless and cold:
My life's one love!
Forbid me not to go:
Remember nought of us but long ago,
And not at last, how love and pity strove
When I grew old!

VILLANELLE OF HIS LADY'S TREASURES

I took her dainty eyes, as well
As silken tendrils of her hair:
And so I made a Villanelle!

I took her voice, a silver bell,
As clear as song, as soft as prayer;
I took her dainty eyes as well.

It may be, said I, who can tell,
These things shall be my less despair?
And so I made a Villanelle!

I took her whiteness virginal
And from her cheek two roses rare:
I took her dainty eyes as well.

I said: ‘It may be possible
Her image from my heart to tear!’
And so I made a Villanelle.

I stole her laugh, most musical:
I wrought it in with artful care;
I took her dainty eyes as well;
And so I made a Villanelle.

GRAY NIGHTS

For Charles Sayle

Awhile we wandered (thus it is I dream!)
Through a long, sandy track of No Man's Land,
Where only poppies grew among the sand,
The which we, plucking, cast with scant esteem,
And ever sadlier, into the sad stream,
Which followed us, as we went, hand in hand,
Under the estrangèd stars, a road unplanned,
Seeing all things in the shadow of a dream.
And ever sadlier, as the stars expired,
We found the poppies rarer, till thine eyes
Grown all my light, to light me were too tired,
And at their darkening, that no surmise
Might haunt me of the lost days we desired,
After them all I flung those memories!

VESPERAL

For Hubert Crackanthorpe

Strange grows the river on the sunless evenings!
The river comforts me, grown spectral, vague and dumb:
Long was the day; at last the consoling shadows come:
Sufficient fo the day are the day's evil things!

Labour and longing and despair the long day brings;
Patient till evening men watch the sun go west;
Deferred, expected night at last brings sleep and rest:
Sufficient for the day are the day's evil things!

At last the tranquil Angelus of evening rings
Night's curtain down for comfort and oblivion
Of all the vanities observèd by the sun:
Sufficient for the day are the day's evil things!

So, some time, when the last of all our evenings
Crowneth memorially the last of all our days,
Not loth to take his poppies man goes down and says,
‘Sufficient for the day were the day's evil things!’

THE GARDEN OF SHADOW

Love heeds no more the sighing of the wind
Against the perfect flowers: thy garden's close
Is grown a wilderness, where none shall find
One strayed, last petal of one last year's rose.

O bright, bright hair! O mouth like a ripe fruit!
Can famine be so nigh to harvesting?
Love, that was songful, with a broken lute
In grass of graveyards goeth murmuring.

Let the wind blow against the perfect flowers,
And all thy garden change and glow with spring:
Love is grown blind with no more count of hours,
Nor part in seed-time nor in harvesting.

SOLI CANTARE PERITI ARCADES

For Aubrey Beardsley

Oh, I would live in a dairy,
And its Colin I would be,
And many a rustic fairy
Should churn the milk with me.

Or the fields should be my pleasure,
And my flocks should follow me,
Piping a frolic measure
For Joan or Marjorie.

For the town is black and weary,
And I hate the London street;
But the country ways are cheery,
And country lanes are sweet.

Good luck to you, Paris ladies!
Ye are over fine and nice,
I know where the country maid is,
Who needs not asking twice.

Ye are brave in your silks and satins,
As ye mince about the Town;
But her feet go free in pattens,
If she wear a russet gown.

If she be not queen nor goddess
She shall milk my brown-eyed herds,
And the breasts beneath her boddice
Are whiter than her curds.

So I will live in a dairy,
And its Colin I will be,
And it's Joan that I will marry,
Or, haply, Marjorie.

ON THE BIRTH OF A FRIEND'S CHILD

For Victor and Nellie Plarr

Mark the day white, on which the Fates have smiled:
Eugenio and Egeria have a child.
On whom abundant grace kind Jove imparts
If she but copy either parent's parts.
Then, Muses! long devoted to her race,
Grant her Egeria's virtues and her face;
Nor stop your bounty there, but add to it
Eugenio's learning and Eugenio's wit.

EXTREME UNCTION

For Lionel Johnson

Upon the eyes, the lips, the feet,
On all the passages of sense,
The atoning oil is spread with sweet
Renewal of lost innocence.

The feet, that lately ran so fast
To meet desire, are soothly sealed;
The eyes, that were so often cast
On vanity, are touched and healed.

From troublous sights and sounds set free;
In such a twilight hour of breath,
Shall one retrace his life, or see,
Through shadows, the true face of death?

Vials of mercy! Sacring oils!
I know not where nor when I come,
Nor through what wanderings and toils,
To crave of you Viaticum.

Yet, when the walls of flesh grow weak,
In such an hour, it well may be,
Through mist and darkness, light will break,
And each anointed sense will see.

AMANTIUM IRAE

When this, our rose, is faded,
And these, our days, are done,
In lands profoundly shaded
From tempest and from sun:
Ah, once more come together,
Shall we forgive the past,
And safe from worldly weather
Possess our souls at last?

Or in our place of shadows
Shall still we stretch an hand
To green, remembered meadows,
Of that old pleasant land?
And vainly there foregathered,
Shall we regret the sun?
The rose of love, ungathered?
The bay, we have not won?

Ah, child! the world's dark marges
May lead to Nevermore,
The stately funeral barges
Sail for an unknown shore,
And love we vow to-morrow,
And pride we serve to-day:
What if they both should borrow
Sad hues of yesterday?

Our pride! Ah, should we miss it,
Or will it serve at last?
Our anger, if we kiss it,
Is like a sorrow past.
While roses deck the garden,
While yet the sun is high,
Doff sorry pride for pardon,
Or ever love go by.

IMPENITENTIA ULTIMA

For Robert Harborough Sherard

Before my light goes out for ever if God should give me a choice of graces,
I would not reck of length of days, nor crave for things to be;
But cry:‘One day of the great lost days, one face of all the faces,
Grant me to see and touch once more and nothing more to see.

For, Lord, I was free of all Thy flowers, but I chose the world's sad roses,
And that is why my feet are torn and mine eyes are blind with sweat,
But at Thy terrible judgement-seat, when this my tired life closes,
I am ready to reap whereof I sowed, and pay my righteous debt.

But once before the sand is run and the silver thread is broken,
Give me a grace and cast aside the veil of dolorous years,
Grant me one hour of all mine hours, and let me see for a token
Her pure and pitiful eyes shine out, and bathe her feet with tears.’

Her pitiful hands should calm, and her hair stream down and blind me,
Out of the sight of night, and out of the reach of fear,
And her eyes should be my light whilst the sun went out behind me,
And the viols in her voice be the last sound in mine ear.

Before the ruining waters fall and my life be carried under,
And Thine anger cleave me through as a child cuts down a flower,
I will praise Thee, Lord, in Hell, while my limbs are racked asunder,
For the last sad sight of her face and the little grace of an hour.

A VALEDICTION

If we must part,
Then let it be like this;
Not heart on heart,
Nor with the useless anguish of a kiss;
But touch mine hand and say:
‘Until to-morrow or some other day,
If we must part.’

Words are so weak
When love hath been so strong:
Let silence speak:
‘Life is a little while, and love is long;
A time to sow and reap,
And after harvest a long time to sleep,
But words are weak.’

SAPIENTIA LUNAE

For André Lebey

The wisdom of the world said unto me:
‘Go forth and run, the race is to the brave;
Perchance some honour tarrieth for thee!’
‘As tarrieth,’ I said, ‘for sure, the grave.’
For I had pondered on a rune of roses,
Which to her votaries the moon discloses.

The wisdom of the world said: ‘There are bays:
Go forth and run, for victory is good,
After the stress of the laborious days.’
‘Yet,’ said I, ‘shall I be the worms’ sweet food,
As I went musing on a rune of roses,
Which in her hour, the pale, soft moon discloses.

Then said my voices: ‘Wherefore strive or run,
On dusty highways ever, a vain race?
The long night cometh, starless, void of sun,
What light shall serve thee like her golden face?’
For I had pondered on a rune of roses,
And knew some secrets which the moon discloses.

‘Yea,’ said I, ‘for her eyes are pure and sweet
As lilies, and the fragrance of her hair
Is many laurels; and it is not meet
To run for shadows when the prize is here;’
And I went reading in that rune of roses
Which to her votaries the moon discloses.

[Cease smiling, Dear! a little while be sad]

Dum nos fata sinunt, oculos satiemus Amore. Propertius

Cease smiling, Dear! a little while be sad,
Here in the silence, under the wan moon;
Sweet are thine eyes, but how can I be glad,
Knowing they change so soon?

For Love's sake, Dear, be silent! Cover me
In the deep darkness of thy falling hair:
Fear is upon me and the memory
Of what is all men's share.

O could this moment be perpetuate!
Must we grow old, and leaden-eyed and gray,
And taste no more the wild and passionate
Love sorrows of to-day?

Grown old, and faded, Sweet! and past desire,
Let memory die, lest there be too much ruth,
Remembering the old, extinguished fire
Of our divine, lost youth.

O red pomegranate of thy perfect mouth!
My lips' life-fruitage, might I taste and die,
Here in thy garden, where the scented south
Wind chastens agony;

Reap death from thy live lips in one long kiss,
And look my last into thine eyes and rest:
What sweets had life to me sweeter than this
Swift dying on thy breast?

Or, if that may not be, for Love's sake, Dear!
Keep silence still, and dream that we shall lie,
Red mouth to mouth, entwined, and always hear
The south wind's melody,

Here in thy garden, through the sighing boughs,
Beyond the reach of time and chance and change,
And bitter life and death, and broken vows,
That sadden and estrange.

SERAPHITA

Come not before me now, O visionary face!
Me tempest-tost, and borne along life's passionate sea;
Troublous and dark and stormy though my passage be;
Not here and now may we commingle or embrace,
Lest the loud anguish of the waters should efface
The bright illumination of thy memory,
Which dominates the night: rest, far away from me,
In the serenity of thine abiding-place!

But when the storm is highest, and the thunders blare,
And sea and sky are riven, O moon of all my night!
Stoop down but once in pity of my great despair,
And let thine hand, though over late to help, alight
But once upon my pale eyes and my drowning hair,
Before the great waves conquer in the last vain fight.

EPIGRAM

Because I am idolatrous and have besought,
With grievous supplication and consuming prayer,
The admirable image that my dreams have wrought
Out of her swan's neck and her dark, abundant hair:
The jealous gods, who brook no worship save their own,
Turned my live idol marble and her heart to stone.

QUID NON SPEREMUS, AMANTES?

For Arthur Moore

Why is there in the least touch of her hands
More grace than other women's lips bestow,
If love is but a slave in fleshly bands
Of flesh to flesh, wherever love may go?

Why choose vain grief and heavy-hearted hours
For her lost voice, and dear remembered hair,
If love may cull his honey from all flowers,
And girls grow thick as violets, everywhere?

Nay! She is gone, and all things fall apart;
Or she is cold, and vainly have we prayed;
And broken is the summer's splendid heart,
And hope within a deep, dark grave is laid.

As man aspires and falls, yet a soul springs
Out of his agony of flesh at last,
So love that flesh enthralls, shall rise on wings
Soul-centred, when the rule of flesh is past.

Then, most High Love, or wreathed with myrtle sprays,
Or crownless and forlorn, nor less a star,
Thee may I serve and follow, all my days,
Whose thorns are sweet as never roses are!

CHANSON SANS PAROLES

In the deep violet air,
Not a leaf is stirred;
There is no sound heard,
But afar, the rare
Trilled voice of a bird.

Is the wood's dim heart,
And the fragrant pine,
Incense, and a shrine
Of her coming? Apart,
I wait for a sign.

What the sudden hush said,
She will hear, and forsake,
Swift, for my sake,
Her green, grassy bed:
She will hear and awake!

She will hearken and glide,
From her place of deep rest,
Dove-eyed, with the breast
Of a dove, to my side:
The pines bow their crest.

I wait for a sign:
The leaves to be waved,
The tall tree-tops laved
In a flood of sunshine,
This world to be saved!

In the deep violet air,
Not a leaf is stirred;
There is no sound heard,
But afar, the rare
Trilled voice of a bird.

DECORATIONS:

IN VERSE AND PROSE

BEYOND

Love's aftermath! I think the time is now
That we must gather in, alone, apart
The saddest crop of all the crops that grow,
Love's aftermath.
Ah, sweet,—sweet yesterday, the tears that start
Can not put back the dial; this is, I trow,
Our harvesting! Thy kisses chill my heart,
Our lips are cold; averted eyes avow
The twilight of poor love: we can but part,
Dumbly and sadly, reaping as we sow,
Love's aftermath.

IN VERSE

DE AMORE

Shall one be sorrowful because of love,
Which hath no earthly crown,
Which lives and dies, unknown?
Because no words of his shall ever move
Her maiden heart to own
Him lord and destined master of her own:
Is Love so weak a thing as this,
Who can not lie awake,
Solely for his own sake,
For lack of the dear hands to hold, the lips to kiss,
A mere heart-ache?

Nay, though love's victories be great and sweet,
Nor vain and foolish toys,
His crowned, earthly joys,
Is there no comfort then in love's defeat?
Because he shall defer,
For some short span of years all part in her,
Submitting to forego
The certain peace which happier lovers know;
Because he shall be utterly disowned,
Nor length of service bring
Her least awakening:
Foiled, frustrate and alone, misunderstood, discrowned,
Is Love less King?

Grows not the world to him a fairer place,
How far soever his days
Pass from his lady's ways,
From mere encounter with her golden face?
Though all his sighing be vain,
Shall he be heavy-hearted and complain?
Is she not still a star,
Deeply to be desired, worshipped afar,
A beacon-light to aid
From bitter-sweet delights, Love's masquerade?
Though he lose many things,
Though much he miss:
The heart upon his heart, the hand that clings,
The memorable first kiss;
Love that is love at all,
Needs not an earthly coronal;
Love is himself his own exceeding great reward,
A mighty lord!

Lord over life and all the ways of breath,
Mighty and strong to save
From the devouring grave;
Yea, whose dominion doth out-tyrant death,
Thou who art life and death in one,
The night, the sun;
Who art, when all things seem:
Foiled, frustrate and forlorn, rejected of to-day,
Go with me all my way,
And let me not blaspheme.

THE DEAD CHILD

Sleep on, dear, now
The last sleep and the best,
And on thy brow,
And on thy quiet breast,
Violets I throw.

Thy scanty years
Were mine a little while;
Life had no fears
To trouble thy brief smile
With toil or tears.

Lie still, and be
For evermore a child!
Not grudgingly,
Whom life has not defiled,
I render thee.

Slumber so deep,
No man would rashly wake;
I hardly weep,
Fain only, for thy sake,
To share thy sleep.

Yes, to be dead,
Dead, here with thee to-day,—
When all is said
'Twere good by thee to lay
My weary head.

The very best!
Ah, child so tired of play,
I stand confessed:
I want to come thy way,
And share thy rest.

CARTHUSIANS

Through what long heaviness, assayed in what strange fire,
Have these white monks been brought into the way of peace,
Despising the world's wisdom and the world's desire,
Which from the body of this death bring no release?

Within their austere walls no voices penetrate;
A sacred silence only, as of death, obtains;
Nothing finds entry here of loud or passionate;
This quiet is the exceeding profit of their pains.

From many lands they came, in divers fiery ways;
Each knew at last the vanity of earthly joys;
And one was crowned with thorns, and one was crowned with bays,
And each was tired at last of the world's foolish noise.

It was not theirs with Dominic to preach God's holy wrath,
They were too stern to bear sweet Francis' gentle sway;
Theirs was a higher calling and a steeper path,
To dwell alone with Christ, to meditate and pray.

A cloistered company, they are companionless,
None knoweth here the secret of his brother's heart:
They are but come together for more loneliness,
Whose bond is solitude and silence all their part.

O beatific life! Who is there shall gainsay,
Your great refusal's victory, your little loss,
Deserting vanity for the more perfect way,
The sweeter service of the most dolorous Cross.

Ye shall prevail at last! Surely ye shall prevail!
Your silence and austerity shall win at last:
Desire and mirth, the world's ephemeral lights shall fail,
The sweet star of your queen is never overcast.

We fling up flowers and laugh, we laugh across the wine;
With wine we dull our souls and careful strains of art;
Our cups are polished skulls round which the roses twine:
None dares to look at Death who leers and lurks apart.

Move on, white company, whom that has not sufficed!
Our viols cease, our wine is death, our roses fail:
Pray for our heedlessness, O dwellers with the Christ!
Though the world fall apart, surely ye shall prevail.

THE THREE WITCHES

All the moon-shed nights are over,
And the days of gray and dun;
There is neither may nor clover,
And the day and night are one.

Not an hamlet, not a city
Meets our strained and tearless eyes;
In the plain without a pity,
Where the wan grass droops and dies.

We shall wander through the meaning
Of a day and see no light,
For our lichened arms are leaning
On the ends of endless night.

We, the children of Astarte,
Dear abortions of the moon,
In a gay and silent party,
We are riding to you soon.

Burning ramparts, ever burning!
To the flame which never dies
We are yearning, yearning, yearning,
With our gay and tearless eyes.

In the plain without a pity,
(Not an hamlet, not a city)
Where the wan grass droops and dies.

VILLANELLE OF THE POET'S ROAD

Wine and woman and song,
Three things garnish our way:
Yet is day over long.

Lest we do our youth wrong,
Gather them while we may:
Wine and woman and song.

Three things render us strong,
Vine leaves, kisses and bay;
Yet is day over long.

Unto us they belong,
Us the bitter and gay,
Wine and woman and song.

We, as we pass along,
Are sad that they will not stay;
Yet is day over long.

Fruits and flowers among,
What is better than they:
Wine and woman and song?
Yet is day over long.

VILLANELLE OF ACHERON

By the pale marge of Acheron,
Methinks we shall pass restfully,
Beyond the scope of any sun.

There all men hie them one by one,
Far from the stress of earth and sea,
By the pale marge of Acheron.

'Tis well when life and love is done,
'Tis very well at last to be,
Beyond the scope of any sun.

No busy voices there shall stun
Our ears: the stream flows silently
By the pale marge of Acheron.

There is the crown of labour won,
The sleep of immortality,
Beyond the scope of any sun.

Life, of thy gifts I will have none,
My queen is that Persephone,
By the pale marge of Acheron,
Beyond the scope of any sun.

SAINT GERMAIN-EN-LAYE

(1887-1895)

Through the green boughs I hardly saw thy face,
They twined so close: the sun was in mine eyes;
And now the sullen trees in sombre lace
Stand bare beneath the sinister, sad skies.

O sun and summer! Say in what far night,
The gold and green, the glory of thine head,
Of bough and branch have fallen? Oh, the white
Gaunt ghosts that flutter where thy feet have sped,

Across the terrace that is desolate,
And rang then with thy laughter, ghost of thee,
That holds its shroud up with most delicate,
Dead fingers, and behind the ghost of me,

Tripping fantastic with a mouth that jeers
At roseal flowers of youth the turbid streams
Toss in derision down the barren years
To death the host of all our golden dreams.

AFTER PAUL VERLAINE

I

Il pleut doucement sur la ville. Rimbaud

Tears fall within mine heart,
As rain upon the town:
Whence does this languor start,
Possessing all mine heart?

O sweet fall of the rain
Upon the earth and roofs!
Unto an heart in pain,
O music of the rain!

Tears that have no reason
Fall in my sorry heart:
What! there was no treason?
This grief hath no reason.

Nay! the more desolate,
Because, I know not why,
(Neither for love nor hate)
Mine heart is desolate.

II Colloque Sentimental

Into the lonely park all frozen fast,
Awhile ago there were two forms who passed.

Lo, are their lips fallen and their eyes dead,
Hardly shall a man hear the words they said.

Into the lonely park, all frozen fast,
There came two shadows who recall the past.

‘Dost thou remember our old ecstasy?’—
‘Wherefore should I possess that memory?’—

‘Doth thine heart beat at my sole name alway?
Still dost thou see my soul in visions?’ ‘Nay!’—

‘They were fair days of joy unspeakable,
Whereon our lips were joined?’—‘I cannot tell.’—

‘Were not the heavens blue, was not hope high?’—
‘Hope has fled vanquished down the darkling sky.’—

So through the barren oats they wanderèd,
And the night only heard the words they said.

III Spleen

Around were all the roses red,
The ivy all around was black.

Dear, so thou only move thine head,
Shall all mine old despairs awake!

Too blue, too tender was the sky,
The air too soft, too green the sea.

Always I fear, I know not why,
Some lamentable flight from thee.

I am so tired of holly-sprays
And weary of the bright box-tree,

Of all the endless country ways;
Of everything alas! save thee.

IV

The sky is up above the roof
So blue, so soft!
A tree there, up above the roof,
Swayeth aloft.

A bell within that sky we see,
Chimes low and faint:
A bird upon that tree we see,
Maketh complaint.

Dear God! is not the life up there,
Simple and sweet?
How peacefully are borne up there
Sounds of the street!

What hast thou done, who comest here,
To weep alway?
Where hast thou laid, who comest here,
Thy youth away?

TO HIS MISTRESS

There comes an end to summer,
To spring showers and hoar rime;
His mumming to each mummer
Has somewhere end in time,
And since life ends and laughter,
And leaves fall and tears dry,
Who shall call love immortal,
When all that is must die?

Nay, sweet, let's leave unspoken
The vows the fates gainsay,
For all vows made are broken,
We love but while we may.
Let's kiss when kissing pleases,
And part when kisses pall,
Perchance, this time to-morrow,
We shall not love at all.

You ask my love completest,
As strong next year as now,
The devil take you, sweetest,
Ere I make aught such vow.
Life is a masque that changes,
A fig for constancy!
No love at all were better,
Than love which is not free.

JADIS

Erewhile, before the world was old,
When violets grew and celandine,
In Cupid's train we were enrolled:
Erewhile!
Your little hands were clasped in mine,
Your head all ruddy and sun-gold
Lay on my breast which was your shrine,
And all the tale of love was told:
Ah, God, that sweet things should decline,
And fires fade out which were not cold,
Erewhile.

IN A BRETON CEMETERY

They sleep well here,
These fisher-folk who passed their anxious days
In fierce Atlantic ways;
And found not there,
Beneath the long curled wave,
So quiet a grave.

And they sleep well
These peasant-folk, who told their lives away,
From day to market-day,
As one should tell,
With patient industry,
Some sad old rosary.

And now night falls,
Me, tempest-tost, and driven from pillar to post,
A poor worn ghost,
This quiet pasture calls;
And dear dead people with pale hands
Beckon me to their lands.

TO WILLIAM THEODORE PETERS ON HIS RENAISSANCE CLOAK

The cherry-coloured velvet of your cloak
Time hath not soiled: its fair embroideries
Gleam as when centuries ago they spoke
To what bright gallant of Her Daintiness,
Whose slender fingers, long since dust and dead,
For love or courtesy embroidered
The cherry-coloured velvet of this cloak.

Ah! cunning flowers of silk and silver thread,
That mock mortality! the broidering dame,
The page they decked, the kings and courts are dead:
Gone the age beautiful; Lorenzo's name,
The Borgia's pride are but an empty sound;
But lustrous still upon their velvet ground,
Time spares these flowers of silk and silver thread.

Gone is that age of pageant and of pride:
Yet don your cloak, and haply it shall seem,
The curtain of old time is set aside;
As through the sadder coloured throng you gleam;
We see once more fair dame and gallant gay,
The glamour and the grace of yesterday:
The elder, brighter age of pomp and pride.

THE SEA-CHANGE

Where river and ocean meet in a great tempestuous frown,
Beyond the bar, where on the dunes the white-capped rollers break;
Above, one windmill stands forlorn on the arid, grassy down:
I will set my sail on a stormy day and cross the bar and seek
That I have sought and never found, the exquisite one crown,
Which crowns one day with all its calm the passionate and the weak.

When the mad winds ar unreined, wilt thou not storm, my sea?
(I have ever loved thee so, I have ever done thee wrong
In drear terrestrial ways.) When I trust myself to thee
With a last great hope, arise and sing thine ultimate, great song
Sung to so many better men, O sing at last to me,
That which when once a man has heard, he heeds not over long.

I will bend my sail when the great day comes; thy kisses on my face
Shall seal all things that are old, outworn; and anger and regret
Shall fade as the dreams and days shall fade, and in thy salt embrace,
When thy fierce caresses blind mine eyes and my limbs grow stark and set,
All that I know in all my mind shall no more have a place:
The weary ways of men and one woman I shall forget.

Point du Pouldu

DREGS

The fire is out, and spent the warmth thereof,
(This is the end of every song man sings!)
The golden wine is drunk, the dregs remain,
Bitter as wormwood and as salt as pain;
And health and hope have gone the way of love
Into the drear oblivion of lost things.
Ghosts go along with us until the end;
This was a mistress, this, perhaps, a friend.
With pale, indifferent eyes, we sit and wait
For the dropt curtain and the closing gate:
This is the end of all the songs man sings.

A SONG

All that a man may pray,
Have I not prayed to thee?
What were praise left to say,
Has not been said by me,
O, ma mie?

Yet thine eyes and thine heart,
Always were dumb to me:
Only to be my part,
Sorrow has come from thee,
O, ma mie?

Where shall I seek and hide
My grief away with me?
Lest my bitter tears should chide,
Bring brief dismay to thee,
O, ma mie?

More than a man may pray,
Have I not prayed to thee?
What were praise left to say,
Has not been said by me,
O, ma mie?

BRETON AFTERNOON

Here, where the breath of the scented-gorse floats through the sun-stained air,
On a steep hill-side, on a grassy ledge, I have lain hours long and heard
Only the faint breeze pass in a whisper like a prayer,
And the river ripple by and the distant call of a bird.

On the lone hill-side, in the gold sunshine, I will hush me and repose,
And the world fades into a dream and a spell is cast on me;
And what was all the strife about, for the myrtle or the rose,
And why have I wept for a white girl's paleness passing ivory!

Out of the tumult of angry tongues, in a land alone, apart,
In a perfumed dream-land set betwixt the bounds of life and death,
Here will I lie while the clouds fly by and delve an hole where my heart
May sleep deep down with the gorse above and red, red earth beneath.

Sleep and be quiet for an afternoon, till the rose-white angelus
Softly steals my way from the village under the hill:
Mother of God, O Misericord, look down in pity on us,
The weak and blind who stand in our light and wreak ourselves such ill.

VENITE DESCENDAMUS

Let be at last; give over words and sighing,
Vainly were all things said:
Better at last to find a place for lying,
Only dead.

Silence were best, with songs and sighing over;
Now be the music mute;
Now let the dead, red leaves of autumn cover
A vain lute.

Silence is best: for ever and for ever,
We will go down and sleep,
Somewhere beyond her ken, where she need never
Come to weep.

Let be at last: colder she grows and colder;
Sleep and the night were best;
Lying at last where we can not behold her,
We may rest.

TRANSITION

A little while to walk with thee, dear child;
To lean on thee my weak and weary head;
Then evening comes: the winter sky is wild,
The leafless trees are black, the leaves long dead.

A little while to hold thee and to stand,
By harvest-fields of bending golden corn:
Then the predestined silence, and thine hand,
Lost in the night, long and weary and forlorn.

A little while to love thee, scarcely time
To love thee well enough; then time to part,
To fare through wintry fields alone and climb
The frozen hills, not knowing where thou art.

Short summer-time and then, my heart's desire,
The winter and the darkness: one by one
The roses fall, the pale roses expire
Beneath the slow decadence of the sun.

EXCHANGES

All that I had I brought,
Little enough I know;
A poor rhyme roughly wrought,
A rose to match thy snow:
All that I had I brought.

Little enough I sought:
But a word compassionate,
A passing glance, or thought,
For me outside the gate:
Little enough I sought.

Little enough I found:
All that you had, perchance!
With the dead leaves on the ground,
I dance the devil's dance.
All that you had I found.

TO A LADY ASKING FOOLISH QUESTIONS

Why am I sorry, Chloe? Because the moon is far:
And who am I to be straigtened in a little earthly star?

Because thy face is fair? And what if it had not been,
The fairest face of all is the face I have not seen.

Because the land is cold, and however I scheme and plot,
I can not find a ferry to the land where I am not.

Because thy lips are red and thy breasts upbraid the snow?
(There is neither white nor red in the pleasance where I go.)

Because thy lips grow pale and thy breasts grow dun and fall?
I go where the wind blows, Chloe, and am not sorry at all.

RONDEAU

Ah, Manon, say, why is it we
Are one and all so fain of thee?
Thy rich red beauty debonnaire
In very truth is not more fair,
Than the shy grace and purity
That clothe the maiden maidenly;
Her gray eyes shine more tenderly
And not less bright than thine her hair,
Ah, Manon, say!
Expound, I pray, the mystery
Why wine-stained lip and languid eye,
And most unsaintly Maenad air,
Should move us more than all the rare
White roses of virginity?
Ah, Manon, say!

MORITURA

A song of the setting sun!
The sky in the west is red,
And the day is all but done:
While yonder up overhead,
All too soon,
There rises, so cold, the cynic moon.

A song of a winter day!
The wind of the north doth blow,
From a sky that's chill and gray,
On fields where no crops now grow,
Fields long shorn
Of bearded barley and golden corn.

A song of an old, old man!
His hairs are white and his gaze,
Long bleared in his visage wan,
With its weight of yesterdays,
Joylessly
He stands and mumbles and looks at me.

A song of a faded flower!
'Twas plucked in the tender bud,
And fair and fresh for an hour,
In a lady's hair it stood.
Now, ah, now,
Faded it lies in the dust and low.

LIBERA ME

Goddess the laughter-loving, Aphrodite befriend!
Long have I served thine altars, serve me now at the end,
Let me have peace of thee, truce of thee, golden one, send.

Heart of my heart have I offered thee, pain of my pain,
Yielding my life for the love of thee into thy chain;
Lady and goddess be merciful, loose me again.

All things I had that were fairest, my dearest and best,
Fed the fierce flames on thine altar: ah, surely, my breast
Shrined thee alone among goddesses, spurning the rest.

Blossom of youth thou hast plucked of me, flower of my days;
Stinted I nought in thine honouring, walked in thy ways,
Song of my soul pouring out to thee, all in thy praise.

Fierce was the flame while it lasted, and strong was thy wine,
Meet for immortals that die not, for throats such as thine,
Too fierce for bodies of mortals, too potent for mine.

Blossom and bloom hast thou taken, now render to me
Ashes of life that remain to me, few though they be,
Truce of the love of thee, Cyprian, let me go free.

Goddess, the laughter-loving, Aphrodite, restore
Life to the limbs of me, liberty, hold me no more
Having the first-fruits and flower of me, cast me the core.

TO A LOST LOVE

I seek no more to bridge the gulf that lies
Betwixt our separate ways;
For vainly my heart prays,
Hope droops her head and dies;
I see the sad, tired answer in your eyes.

I did not heed, and yet the stars were clear;
Dreaming that love could mate
Lives grown so separate;—
But at the best, my dear,
I see we should not have been very near.

I knew the end before the end was nigh:
The stars have grown so plain;
Vainly I sigh, in vain
For things that come to some,
But unto you and me will never come.

100

WISDOM

Love wine and beauty and the spring,
While wine is red and spring is here,
And through the almond blossoms ring
The dove-like voices of thy Dear.

Love wine and spring and beauty while
The wine hath flavour and spring masks
Her treachery in so soft a smile
That none may think of toil and tasks.

But when spring goes on hurrying feet,
Look not thy sorrow in the eyes,
And bless thy freedom from thy sweet:
This is the wisdom of the wise.

101

IN SPRING

See how the trees and the osiers lithe
Are green bedecked and the woods are blithe,
The meadows have donned their cape of flowers
The air is soft with the sweet May showers,
And the birds make melody:
But the spring of the soul, the spring of the soul,
Cometh no more for you or for me.

The lazy hum of the busy bees
Murmureth through the almond trees;
The jonquil flaunteth a gay, blonde head,
The primrose peeps from a mossy bed,
And the violets scent the lane.
But the flowers of the soul, the flowers of the soul,
For you and for me bloom never again.

102

A LAST WORD

Let us go hence: the night is now at hand;
The day is overworn, the birds all flown;
And we have reaped the crops the gods have sown;
Despair and death; deep darkness o'er the land,
Broods like an owl; we cannot understand
Laughter or tears, for we have only known
Surpassing vanity: vain things alone
Have driven our perverse and aimless band.
Let us go hence, somewhither strange and cold,
To Hollow Lands where just men and unjust
Find end of labour, where's rest for the old,
Freedom to all from love and fear and lust.
Twine our torn hands! O pray the earth enfold
Our life-sick hearts and turn them into dust.

113

HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED POEMS

115

TO CYNARA

Ah take these songs my love, long time forgiven,
Songs thou shalt never see,
Yet let them stand as a token that I am shriven,
As thou by me?

The wrong is old, perchance could I approach thee,
Eye speak to eye, who knows?—
It should fade as a mist—ah well, I cannot reproach thee—
He reaps who sows.

Thou lovedst me once and I am still thy lover
Fain of thee as of old
Fain of thy lips and thy locks that did ever hover
Twixt brown and gold

Ay woe is me

116

A MOSAIC

Dreams, dreams of a day gone by!
(Blue skies and the sunny south)
A fair small face and a rosebud mouth,
(O Love, my Love and Italy!)
As the moist fresh rain in a time of drouth,
She came, my Love, as a child to me.

Grey olives and sparkling sea
Shine bright through the clear calm air—
Of gleaming gold is her waving hair—
(O Love, my Love and Italy!)
When the world was young and the earth was fair,
She came, my Love, as a child to me.

Dreams, dreams of a day gone by!
(Grey eyes and a sunny smile)
Pure and a maiden and free from guile,
(O Love, my Love and Italy!)
In a dream she came and a little while
Tarried and went as a child from me.

White horses out on the sea,
Mist on the hills and a drizzling rain,
The wind wails loud like a soul in pain:—
(O Love, my Love and Italy!)
I called her long yet I call in vain,
Who came and went as a child from me.

117

REQUIEM

Encircle her head with a clustering wreath
Of lilies and roses and woodland flowers,
That she loved to pluck from garden and heath
When the Earth smelt fresh of sweet May showers,
And no sombre shade of sorrow had laid
A pitiless hand on her sunny hours.

Bring cowslips and violets and redolent may,
And daffodowndillies all yellow clad,
With the pale primrose, but never a spray
Of sorrowing yew or cypress sad
To shadow the grace of her peaceful face,
With aught that is gloomy or dull or grey.

For her life was a garden and she the pale
Queen lily that ruled all that fair emprise.
So weave her of flowers a maiden veil,
That Death may not see her dear grey eyes,
And hold her for aye, in his hut of clay,
Where no sun shines and the stars never rise.

Then one last long kiss on her beautiful hair,
And one last long look at her shapely head,—
Soft—turn away and shed never a tear,
For the purest soul that ever sped,
From a world of dust to her rest we trust—
Nay—what is life that ye weep for the dead?

118

POTNIA THEA

When the voice of the gods hath spoken,
The uttered word remains,
The Parcae's web unbroken,
Its pristine strength retains.

Tho' the Cronian Zeus be dethronèd
And desolate his shrines,
Anangkè still star-crownèd,
Her fateful threads entwines.

Tho the goddess, the Cytherean,
No longer with the Loves
Flits o'er the blue Aegean
To hallowed Paphos' groves.

And Athênê has ceased enfolding
The city of her heart,
Its denizens beholding
The Delian barque depart,

Still the iconoclastic ages
Touch not the veilèd dame
Whom husbandmen and sages
Avouch by different name.

119

The Olympian queen's forgotten,
Hephaestus' fires are cold,
The sons of Zeus begotten,
The heroes rest untold.

Not a sound on the steep Cithaeron,
Where once the Maenad's choir,
Adored the mighty Bromian,
With dithyrambic fire.

Still the throne of Anangkè resteth
Above the reach of years;
Her crape-crowned sceptre breasteth
The ages without fears.

And when dynasties have been changed
Of earths and gods and men,
The goddess unestrangèd
Shall be found ruling then.

120

RONDEAU

Could you forget, put out of mind,
The vows you made, O most unkind?
The sweet love songs, the fair and frail
Lip utterance without avail,
The pleasure that you used to find,
Or said you found when passion blind,
I kissed the hand that you resigned,
Not all unwilling, maiden pale.
Tho' you forget!
Where once our sunny paths entwined
There bloweth now the wintry wind:—
Ah dreamt we then time would assail,
Our trust and troth or love could fail,
In those old days that lie behind,
That you forget?

121

RONDEAU

In Autumn when the leaf is sere,
In that still season of the year,
Shall we not meet once more we twain,
Who parted in the Spring of pain?
With eyes of passion long grown clear,
When youth is gone and Winter near,
May we not meet once more my dear,
Touch hands, forgive and part again,
In Autumn?
Tho' bitter anger still doth blear,
The glory of the days that were,

In rare still hours are you not fain
To cry a truce to dear disdain,
In Autumn?

122

SONNETS

in memoriam. H.C. ob. Feb. 24, 1886

I have no heart to wish thee back again
To this sick earth, poor friend, who may have found,
Beneath the kind cold shelter of the ground
That calm memorial light that with much pain,
Thou lost in thy last years and sought in vain.
Nay it is better thus! thy life is crowned
Tho' but in death with peace—no jarring sound
Shall ever break the sleep wherein thou'rt lain.
Yet when I mournfully recall to mind
The fragrant summer days I spent with thee
In such calm unison and how thy kind
Unruffled cheerfulness would oftimes free
My mind from brooding thought I look behind
And fall before the shrine of memory.

123

NOVALIS

It has grown evening around me while I was looking into the red of morning. NOVALIS.

Ay—even so—fixt was that ardent gaze
Upon the East—his eagle eyes broad scanned
The vault of heaven and all the outlying land,
Shadowed in rose and amber neath the rays
Born of the rising sun,—a day of days
Was dawning for him mystical and grand,
His budding hopes the morning soft breeze fanned,
The future lay enwrapped in golden haze.
A moment—and the loveliness is gone!
Faded the glamour of morning from his sight,
Faded the quivering radiance that shone
On sea and shore and clothed the hills in light.
A sombre shade of evening settled down
And in the gathering gloom he stood alone.

124

OF A LITTLE GIRL

(I)

When life doth languish midst the bitter wrong
That riots everywhere, when all hopes fail,
And comfort is most weak and doubt most strong,
And friends are false and woman's troth proves frail,
And all thy soul for very life-sickness
Doth long to end, there yet is one sweet thing,
One fresh oasis in the wilderness
Of this sad world whereunto thou shalt cling
As to salvation—a child's tender love.
Ah do not doubt it—all things die and wane,
Save this alone; this only lasts above,
The lingering rule of weariness and pain,
This love alone is stingless and can calm
Life's fitful fever with its healing balm.

125

(II)

Was it at even, with the casement thrown
Wide to the summer air, I sat and thought,
Of that ideal which I ever sought,
But fruitlessly—and so was fain to moan—
‘Ah weariness of waiting thus alone,
With vanity of living all distraught,
To find upon the earth nor peace nor aught
Lovely or pure, whence all things sweet have gone.’
And then one passed the dark'ning road along
And lit it with her childhood, that I felt
Passion and bitterness like snowflakes melt
Before the sun, and into praise and song
From the despair wherein it long had dwelt
My life burst flower-like and my soul grew strong.

126

(III)

The music in a name, who can conceive,
Who may define? Ah child thou dost not know
How many a time when my life's lamp burns low
And hope's light flickers—thou wouldst not believe
How thy dear treasured name will oft relieve
My sinking heart, how sweetly soft and low
My lips will frame it loath to let it go,
And kiss it quietly till I cease to grieve.
It is mine amulet, wrought rich and rare
With lovely fantasies, it is a charm
That whispered gently guardeth me from harm,
It is my ritual, my mystic prayer,
And in the hush of night thro' lattice bars
I see it written in the lonely stars.

127

(IV)

Even as a child whose eager fingers snatch
An ocean shell and hold it to his ear,
With wondering, awe-struck eyes is hushed to catch
The murmurous music of its coilèd sphere;
Whispers of wind and wave, soul-stirring songs
Of storm-tossed ships and all the mystery
That to the illimitable sea belongs,
Stream to him from its tiny cavity.
As such an one with reverent awe I hold
Thy tender hand, and in those pure grey eyes,
That sweet child face, those tumbled curls of gold,
And in thy smiles and loving, soft replies
I find the whole of love—hear full and low
Its mystic ocean's tremulous ebb and flow.

128

(V)

When it is over—when the final fight
Has been out-fought and the last moisty clod
Rattles upon my coffin, when the sod
Seals me for ever in that land of night
Whence joy and pain have ta'en impartial flight,
And the old lanes my feet so oft have trod
Know me no more but all men toil and plod
Over my head, my name forgotten quite.
Wilt thou sometimes—not often—God forfend
That thought of me should chase away thy smile
Or dull thy gladness, yet once in a while
Dream of a day departed and a friend
Who placed above the world and Fortune's prize
The love that centred in thy childish eyes.

129

(VI)

For the last time, perhaps for weary years
Perhaps for ever, I have looked upon
Thy fair fair face;—those grey eyes that have shone
Such comfort on me when the foul fiend fear's
Gaunt haggard laugh would mock me and hot tears
For very loathing of my life rain down,
That trusting smile the one thing sweet I've known
I' the bitterness of life—all disappears.
Farewell, dear saint, I leave thee and I lay
No tax upon thy memory though God knows
This sobbing sea that sadly ebbs and flows
Shall not more surely each returning day
Cling to the callous shore than I in thee
Behold my drear life's dearest memory.

130

(VII)

So—it is finished and I cannot weep
Nor rave nor utter moan, life is too strong
For my weak will, it carries me along
On its fierce current till I fain would creep
Into some cavern still and fall asleep
And sleeping die, or melt like a sad song
Into the winds—I care not to hold long
This dreary life where pain alone is deep.
O child, my child, forgive me, I am vain,
Unworthy of thy love, I will not task
Even thy pity, who have ta'en a mask
And shall not show my living face again,
Until the end of all things joy and pain
Has given me more than now I dare to ask.

131

(VIII) EPILOGUE

[Let us go hence: the night is now at hand;
The day is overworn, the birds all flown;
And we have reaped the crops the gods have sown;
Despair and death; deep darkness o'er the land,
Broods like an owl; we cannot understand
Laughter or tears, for we have only known
Surpassing vanity: vain things alone
Have driven our perverse and aimless band.
Let us go hence, somewhither strange and cold,
To Hollow Lands where just men and unjust
Find end of labour, where's rest for the old,
Freedom to all from love and fear and lust.
Twine our torn hands! O pray the earth enfold
Our life-sick hearts and turn them into dust.]

132

LA JEUNESSE N'A QU'UN TEMPS

Swiftly passes youth away
Night is coming, fades the day,
All things turn to sombre grey.

Pass the cup and drink, friends, deep
Roses upon roses heap,
Soon it will be time to sleep.

Man, poor man, is born to die,
Love and all things fair will fly
Fill the cup and drain it dry.

Make ye merry, while ye may;
Snatch the sweetness of the day,
Pluck life's pleasures while they stay

When our youth has taken flight,
When the day is lost in night,
There can be no more delight.

Here's a glass to memory
Here's to death and vanity,
Here's a glass to you and me.

133

SONG OF THE XIXTH CENTURY

O send us light!
More light, more light and fuller clearer day,
We mortals moan and shudder at the night,
And ever still the shadows grow more grey,
The stars less bright.

O give us faith—
In God, Man, anything to rise and break
The mists of doubt, we cry, but like a wraith
It still eludes our grasp and no rays streak
The dark of Death.

O give us rest!
We all unrestful sigh, we ask not joy
Who stand with tearless eyes by life opprest,—
Joy turns to pain and love and sorrow cloy,
But Peace is best.

134

A LULLABY

Sleep soundly, my pretty child,
Sleep, sleep on
And all things fearful and all things wild
Far, far from thy pillow begone,
Dream of the morrow,
Thou shalt not wake to weep
Unknowing of sorrow,
O sleep, my little one, dream and sleep.

Sleep softly, my darling sleep!
Soon, too soon
Dawneth the day when thou canst weep,
Weep, wail for the joy that is flown,
Wearily yearning,
For love that is passed away,
For peace unreturning.

135

SPLEEN

In the dull dark days of our life
We wander without a goal;
And the plague of living and strife
Eats worm-like into our soul

To the tune of sighing and tears,
A weary purposeless band,
For the destined desolate years,
We fare thro' the Hopeless land.

On our lips are signs as of fire,
Our eyes are wild with despair,
We are burnt with a fierce desire
For that we know not nor care.

136

With loathing of life that is past,
With horror of days to be,
We shiver like leaves in the blast,
Neath the breath of memory

In the tearing fangs of remorse
We are fain to fall in the mire,
And wallowing seek for the source,
Of the Lethe we desire.

Yet still are we troubled and torn,
By ennui, spleen and regret,
Whatever the depths of our scorn,
We cannot hope to forget.

O man, poor pitiful worm,
Foul nature's filthiest spawn,
As the helmless ship in a storm
So thou from the day thou art born

137

AFTER MANY YEARS

Sleep on dear now!
With thy golden hair that flows
On thy calm, thy icy brow
And thy close shut eyes, I trow
The sounds of my song cannot move thee now.
As they moved thee little in life—God knows.

Time was of old,
I did lull thee on my knee,
And thy locks of rippling gold
Streamed on my arm that did enfold,
And rocked thee to sleep who wast not so cold,
As thou liest now in Death's mystery.

How many years
Have waned since that distant day,
Seen dim thro' a mist of tears?
How many cycles of years?
Answer me, child, for I have my fears
That it was not real but part of a play.

Is it a dream
To see thee so calm and cold,
Who when I knew thee did seem
Never more still than the stream?
Or is it part real and partly a dream
Or a dream or in part the days of old?

138

Have I grown grey?
Or can it be I am dead.
And in spite of all they say,
And all I myself have said,
It is not all done with the very dead,
When the light of this life is worn away?

Nay it is true!
And I cannot doubt dear heart,
That this is really you.
'Tis too sad not to be true
And I mind me now it was this I knew
When the high gods had it that we should part.

You pay no heed,
And I will not linger long
For I trow you have no need
Still to be lulled by my song.
Now you sleep so sound and will sleep so long
You can do without me in very deed.

139

PRAETERITA

O childish forms and faces
That live in memorie's shrine;
O pleasant paths and places
That small feet trod with mine,
The old days that are dying
Soft melodies are sighing
Of something that is lying,
Pale in the past behind

The laughter that rejoices
Responds not to our quest,
The tender children's voices,
Are long time hushed to rest,
And all the stress of ages,
And all the love of sages
Can not return the pages
That life has once down pressed.

Before us dawns the vista
Of all our days to be,
But shall we find, my sister,
The charm that used to be
We know now to our sorrow,
The sad and strange to morrow,
Can never never borrow
The old time mystery.

140

When you and I did wander
On straying childish feet,
Before us lying yonder
The hills so strange and sweet;
When life was in the dawning,
The fair and golden morning
Sent unto us no warning
To stay the years' deceit.

The golden light has faded
That met our dazzled eyes,
The purple hills are shaded,
And leaden clouds arise;
And spring of childhood's gladness
And youth's brief summer madness
Has yielded to the sadness
Of dull autumnal skies.

141

ADIOS!

My sweet child-love, farewell!
My little tender flower
Who comforted me long and well,
In many a hope-deserted hour,
I bid thee now farewell.

The years shall come and go
And thro' thy village home,
The rippling streamlet still shall flow,
While far away my footsteps roam,
Who bid thee now farewell.

O sweet, O saintly face,
And innocent grey eyes,
That shone with such pathetic grace,
Wherein such dreamy wisdom lies,
I bid you now farewell.

Flow on, dear life in peace,
In peace and purity,
And all my life I shall not cease,
To hold thee shrined in memory,
Who bid thee now farewell.

142

SERAPHITA—SERAPHITUS

I seek for thee, I call thee, O my darling
In the land of wild unrest,
Very fain I were to see thee and to hold thee
And be pillowed on thy breast.

All my early hopes and faiths have long time failed me,
And this life of ours doth seem
In the deathless sleep that hems the world on both sides
But an evil passing dream

Yet I long for thee, thou one form pure and perfect,
In the seething obscene throng,
Just to hold thee for one instant and to know thee,
Then to part and pass along.

It would help me on the dreary path before me,
On the road thro Life to Death,
To have met thee once, belovèd, ere I hie me
To my home the earth beneath.

Somewhere tho' I know thee not, I know thou dwellest,
Somewhere on the earth, my queen,
Thou art sitting waiting for me fond and faithful,
Tho' a whole world flow between.

And I send these songs out to thee from the shadows,
And I call to thee and cling,
Who are shrinèd tho' perchance I never find thee,
In whatever song I sing.

143

IT IS FINISHED

The pure grey eyes are closèd now,
They shall not look on yours again;
Upon that pale and perfect brow,
There stays no sign of grief or pain.

The little face is white and cold,
The parted lips give forth no breath,
The grape-like curls of sun-bleached gold,
Are clammy with the dews of death.

Speak to her and she will not hear,
Caress her, but she will not move,
No longer feels she hope or fear,
No longer knows she hate or love.

Ah dream no false or futile dreams,
Nor lull thyself on fantasy,
That death is other than it seems,
Or leads to immortality.

She will not speak to thee again,
Tho' thy whole soul in tears be shed,
For tears and prayers are all in vain,
She is but dead, she is but dead!

144

ERE I GO HENCE

Ere I go hence and am no longer seen,
Ere I go hence into the dark of death,
And leave my body and my vital breath,
While over me the grass grows dank and green,
Let me behold thee, let me once again
Press thy fair palm, my fairest without stain,
Ere I go hence.

Ere I go hence and leave this upper light,
Ere I go hence into the deathless sleep
That lies beyond the land, where cold and deep,
The stream of Lethe flows thro' endless night,
Let me once more, my sweet child love, behold
Thy pure grey eyes, thy tresses of bright gold—
Ere I go hence.

Ere I go hence and cast away all pain,
Ere I go hence and falter and forget
The fever and the madness and regret
That make all life, all love so passing vain—
O my heart's darling, let me hear once more
The music of thy step upon the floor,
Ere I go hence.

145

TRANSIT GLORIA

A gleam thro' the darkness
Of years and of days,
A transient lifting
Of misery's haze!

A sound of soft music,
A momentary lull,
Of this foul gnawing ennui,
Then all things grow dull.

A rift in life's shadow,
Brief even as vain,
The madness of pleasure,
The sadness of pain.

A dream of hope crownèd
In days of despair;
A vision of beauty
In Vanity Fair.

Like sweet children's voices,
To one usèd long,
To harsh-laughing harlots'
Lascivious song.

Like snow-drops in winter,
Like soft summer rain,
Like sleep to the weary
And harassed by pain.

146

Like long cherished memories,
Death-white with regret,
Too sad to remember,
Too sweet to forget.

Dreams of what might have been,
Ere terrors were rife,
A pause in the passion,
The fever of life.

A verdant oasis,
With all around sand,
A gush of blue violets,
The touch of a hand.

A meeting, a parting,
For aeons and years;
A smile changing quickly
To passionate tears.

Ah gone is the phantom
Of hope and delight,
And faded the vision
In infinite night.

Life's wave bears me onward
A rudderless bark;
Somewhere in the future,
Death looms in the dark.

147

The current flows faster,
Loud waileth the wind;
All sweet things and faces
Fade fainter behind.

The end cometh surely,
And each weary wave
Brings nearer and nearer,
The haven, the grave.

And soon from her labour,
Tired mem'ry will cease
And infinite slumber
Bring infinite peace.

'Twas but for a moment
This rift thro' the days,
This transient lifting
Of misery's haze.

148

SONNET

TO NATURE

MORITURI TE SALUTANT

Thou unclean harpy, odorous of despair,
I offer up no praises on the shrine
Of thy wild beauty; thou art not divine,
Nor reverent at all thy tranquil air;
I know thee, evil one, and I am ware
Of all thy vileness;—never song of mine
Shall swell the shameful triumphs that are thine
Thou shalt not cajole me of ev'n one prayer.
O false, foul mother who to sate thy lust,
Insatiate of misery doth consume
The lives that thou hast fashioned out of dust,
Who feedest on the children of thy womb,
Thy beauty cannot conquer our distrust,
Thy tenderness is crueller than a tomb.

149

AWAKENING

We have dreamt dreams but now they are long over,
Dreams of a life the other side of death;
Drop down the curtain on the play completed,
The farce of life is finished with the breath.

We have believed the beautiful, false stories,
Fed on the faiths that after childhood fail,
Now to our eyes the universe appeareth
A vessel rudderless without a sail.

Man, in a world but fair in semblance only
Veiling in light its secret of disgust,
Is he not far of all vile things the vilest,
He, the foul spawn of Nature's filthy lust?

Man with his hopes and pitiful illusions,
Is he not pitiful, grotesque, forlorn?
White with desire for that life cannot proffer,
Must we not weep that ever we were born?

Is there one happy? Can there be one happy?
Nay, for the only good we can attain,
Death our dull goal, the senseless sleep for ever
Puts alike end to pleasure and to pain.

150

There shall we rest, but shall not ever know it,
Shall not have love nor knowledge, nor delight,
Only shall feel the fevered life fall from us,
Sleepers unwitting in an endless night.

151

LULLABY

Blow soft thou summer wind,
Rough be not nor unkind,
Whisper outside the room,
Where in the peaceful gloom,
My darling lies a-sleeping.
Let thy soft lullabies
Shut the dear innocent eyes
Of my child who lies a-sleeping.
Stream on ye pale moon-beams,
Light up her childish dreams,
Flow round her small white bed
Halo her golden head—
My darling lies a-sleeping.
Let her repose be sound,
Wrap her in peace around,
My child who lies a-sleeping.

Hush, hush, thou unkind life,
Tumid and full of strife,
Let her sleep tranquilly,
Let her white childhood be,
My sweet who lies a-sleeping.
Save her soft eyes from tears
And the bitter love of years,—
My child who lies a-sleeping.

152

THE OLD YEAR

We stand at the end of the old year,
On the threshold of the new,
And we turn to the old year dying,
And shrink from the strange and new;
Ah, all fair children, welcome
The strong, young year that is born,
For us, who are no more children,
Who have little to do with morn,
We will sit, old year, in the firelight,
And see the last of you.

There you lie, with your sick, scarred visage,
Who were once so fair to see,
And the death-dew clings to your forehead,
And your breath draws painfully:—
In accents low you tell us,
How there is one end to all,
How love endures for a season,
How mirth departs in the fall—
As the day is, so the tomorrow,
As it has been, it shall be.

153

Where are they, the loves and passions
Of the old, sad year that dies?
They are dead, they are gone, forgotten
More swift than the summer skies;—
The tears, the song, the laughter,—
Ah say, were they worth regret?
Old year, is it kind or cruel,
That we wander and forget
The good and the ill we gather
From every year that dies?

Nay we wish thee well, we forgive thee,
And ywis that this is true,—
There are fairer days in the old years
Than ever dawn in the new!
What if we find fresh faces
In the young new year that dawns,
A guerdon of joy or sorrow,
A crown of laurel or thorns,—
There are sweeter things in the old years
Than ever come with the new.

154

THE NEW YEAR

The bells ring out, the year is born,
And shall we hope or shall we mourn?
Shall we embrace the young, new year,
Or shall we turn back lingering eyes,
To the low bier,
Where in his pall the old year lies?

What shall he bring to men who weep,
To men who laugh and men who sleep,
So very weary of the sun?
Shall one of these men ever gain,
Ah even one,
His heart's desire nor find it vain?

Hope not, fear not: he only bears
The message of the elder years!
A little love, a little pain!
To some a sweet or idle dream,
To some again,
The sleep wherein we do not dream.

Ah sweet, my child, and yet mine own,
Though I must wander on alone,
Love me a little, clasp me still
With thy soft hands, and I will bear
For good or ill
The burden of the coming year.

155

FROM THE ICELANDIC

Long time ago, I vowed to the Sea,
My destined wife,
My one desire, I will give thee my life
To hold of me:
For others the green, the daedal earth
My joy, my sorrow, my tears, my mirth
Be thine O Sea!

They called me fickle, they called me cold,
My human loves—
Cried: ‘His fancy moves as the salt sea moves’,
Who were not told,
How thy bitter kisses held my heart,
Sealed thine forever and set apart
My bride, my Sea!

O changeful one! I cried to the Sea,
O changeless one!
I forget me all things beneath the Sun,
When rocked by thee.
Thine anger woos me, thy tempests thrill,
For am I not thine, to do thy will
O Sea, my Sea?

156

And now thou art risen to prove my vows,
My wooing done,
I was ever thy lover—, shall I shun
To be thy spouse?
Was it not this that I knew before,
Waited and yearned for, when I swore
To wed the Sea?

So!—comfort me, cool me, shed thy breath,
Spare no embrace;
Ah lean thy brow over me, shroud my face,
Kiss me to Death;
I am one with thee, O most sweet, held fast,
Made thine for ever, thy spouse at last,
O Sea, my Sea!

157

LOVE'S EPILOGUE

When summer dies
There's an end of singing;
Dumb tears are springing
To wistful eyes,
At the death of summer
When the swallow flies,
His swift course winging
To softer skies.

Ev'n so, most sweet,
Is song time departed,
And we are parted,
As was most meet,
At the death of summer,
At the year's defeat,
To cry sad hearted,
That love is fleet.

Now all is said,
It were ill to tarry,
With tears to harry,
Love that is dead.
In the chill of autumn,
When the leaves are shed,
His corse we carry,
To earth, his bed.

158

Ah, look not there,
To where Love reposes!
Till tired life closes,
Be fain! Beware!
In the chill of autumn,—
Ah, forget thee where
With rue and roses,
Thou hid'st Love's bier

159

RONDEAU

Hélène

You loved me once! I charge you, sweet,
Leave me this last, one faith—in spite
Of broken vows and time's deceit,
You loved me once!
What tho' I sit in utter night
And hear the swift, departing feet
Of young desires that take their flight,
And mourn that love should be so fleet,
And weep that you should prove so light,
The time has been I was complete,—
You loved me once!

160

ROUNDEL

To Hélène

The golden hours! Ah, prithee, art not fain
Sometimes to drop a tear for their dead sake,
Who were so fair, to yearn for them again,
The golden hours?
Could I forget them? Not though I should take
Of Lethe and Nepenthe for my pain;
I shall remember, sleeping and awake,
While life is life, my love and thy disdain—
Nay, though I die, methinks, I shall not slake
The thirst wherewith my soul recalls in vain
The golden hours!

161

RONDEL

Ah, dear child, in whose kiss
Is healing of my pain,
Since life has given me this,
I will no more complain.
My heart to life, ywis,
Thy clinging hands enchain,
Ah, dear child in whose kiss,
Is healing of my pain.
Love me—I shall not miss
Old loves that did but stain,
Thy blue eyes teach me bliss,—
I am not all in vain,
Ah, dear child, in whose kiss
Is healing of my pain.

162

Discedam, explebo numerum, reddarque tenebris, I decus, i, nostrum; melioribus utere fatis.

Because my life is an unworthy thing
Outworn and mildewed, I am dismayed,
I dare not give it thee, O child! O maid!
Too late divined, too sweet for me to sing:
Surely, my barren days I may not bring,
But rather giftless come, lest any shade
Or prescience of autumn should be laid
Upon thy fair life in its blossoming.
Yet would I give thee all, who stand aside,
Giving thee naught: yea! gladly lie down dead
That haply coming, where the roads divide
On lilies still thy tender feet might tread,
In daisied ways of innocence abide,
Until thy tale of days is reckoned.

163

AGAINST MY LADY BURTON:

ON HER BURNING THE LAST WRITING OF HER DEAD HUSBAND

‘To save his soul’, whom narrowly she loved
She did this deed of everlasting shame,
For devils' laughter; and was soulless proved
Heaping dishonour on her scholar's name.
Her lean distrust awoke when he was dead;
Dead, hardly cold; whose life was worn away
In scholarship's high service; from his head
She lightly tore his ultimate crown of bay.
His masterpiece, the ripe fruit of his age,
In art's despite she gave the hungry flame;
Smiled at the death of each laborious page,
Which she read only by the light of shame.
Dying he trusted her: him dead she paid
Most womanly, destroying his life's prize:
So Judas decently his Lord betrayed
With deep dishonour wrought in love's disguise.
With deep dishonour, for her jealous heart
His whole life's work, with light excuse put by
For love of him, or haply, hating art.
Oh Love be this, let us curse Love and die.
Nay! Love forgive: could such a craven thing
Love anywhere? but let her name pass down
Dishonoured through the ages, who did fling
To the rank scented mob a sage's crown,
And offered Fame, Love, Honour, mincingly
To her one God—sterile Propriety!

164

THE REQUITAL

Because I am idolatrous, and have besought,
With grievous supplication, and consuming prayer,
The admirable image; that my dreams have wrought,
Out of her swan's neck and her dark, abundant hair;
The jealous gods that brook no worship save their own,
Turn my live idol marble, and her heart—a stone!

165

A LETTER FROM M.M. VERSIFIED OUT OF POOR PROSE INTO CATCHPENNY VERSE!

Dear Sir! would you be popular,
Then never mention Greek!
Be arrogant and insular,
Dear Sir, would you be popular:
Cut classics; and for guiding star,
Read Birrell once a week.
Dear Sir! would you be popular,
Then never mention Greek.

Lionel Johnson.

166

[In the days of the good, gay people]

In the days of the good, gay people,
Of the little folk in green,
The Moon shone clear in Fairyland,
Or ever the world was seen.

[As his own Arthur fared across the mere]

In vein we cross the seas change lands,
In search of that we know not
[OMITTED]

HITHERTO UNCOLLECTED POEMS

169

THE PASSING OF TENNYSON

As his own Arthur fared across the mere,
With the grave Queen, past knowledge of the throng,
Serene and calm, rebuking grief and tear,
Departs this prince of song.

Whom the gods love Death doth not cleave nor smite,
But like an angel, with soft trailing wing,
He gathers them upon the hush of night,
With voice and beckoning.

The moonlight falling on that august head
Smoothed out the mark of time's defiling hand,
And hushed the voice of mourning round his bed—
‘He goes to his own land’.

Beyond the ramparts of the world where stray
The laureled few o'er fields Elysian,
He joins his elders of the lyre and bay,
Led by the Mantuan.

We mourn him not, but sigh with Bedivere,
Not perished be the sword he bore so long,
Excalibur, whom none is left to wear—
His magic brand of song.

170

FANTASIE TRISTE

To my first love
Loved all above;
In late spring;
Pansies, pansies
Such strange fancies
Was all I had to bring.

To my last love
Loved all above:
At evening
Of autumn
One chrysanthemum
Is all I have to bring.

O first, be last
In a dim past!
With the dead flowers
And the strayed hours
There are no flowers left to bring
There are no songs left to sing
Let be at last.