Dirge for Aoine and other poems by Nora Chesson [i.e. Nora Hopper] |
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JANUARY |
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| II. |
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| III. |
| IV. |
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| VI. |
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| IX. |
| X. |
| XI. |
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 | Dirge for Aoine and other poems |  |
ix
JANUARY
I am a mighty Hunter—a Hunter before the Lord;
The lean white bears they know me and come and go at my word.
The Northern Lights are my dancing girls; the Hunter Star 's my mate,
And we talk o' nights of Diana dead, and the Gaul-folk at the gate.
The lean white bears they know me and come and go at my word.
The Northern Lights are my dancing girls; the Hunter Star 's my mate,
And we talk o' nights of Diana dead, and the Gaul-folk at the gate.
Oh golden head of Diana dead, if I came on your sleep one day
And looked on you till passion grew and reason fled away,
If I should kneel from your lips to steal, what would your blue eyes do?
No arrows smite like your eyes' cold light, as well Orion knew.
And looked on you till passion grew and reason fled away,
If I should kneel from your lips to steal, what would your blue eyes do?
No arrows smite like your eyes' cold light, as well Orion knew.
Oh sweet and stern, would you only turn, sighing amid your sleep,
And dream again of some battle-plain and fire on some towered keep,
And never dream you were kissed of him who walks in the endless snow,
And may not sleep, though the dark be deep, till the Judgment Day doth glow?
And dream again of some battle-plain and fire on some towered keep,
And never dream you were kissed of him who walks in the endless snow,
And may not sleep, though the dark be deep, till the Judgment Day doth glow?
x
O stern and sweet, if I kissed your feet, would you wake and smile to foreknow
Another life as estranged from strife as joy is estranged from woe?
But 'tis best to sleep since the night is deep on Egypt and Greece and Rome
And the dust is shed upon Hera's head, and Venus has passed in foam.
Another life as estranged from strife as joy is estranged from woe?
But 'tis best to sleep since the night is deep on Egypt and Greece and Rome
And the dust is shed upon Hera's head, and Venus has passed in foam.
Diana being silent now as any in the host
Of mortals who to Hades have by Charon's ferry crost,
Remembrance is not better than a deathless rose that I
See bloom in token of the sun upon the evening sky.
Of mortals who to Hades have by Charon's ferry crost,
Remembrance is not better than a deathless rose that I
See bloom in token of the sun upon the evening sky.
My servant, Wind, ere Fate did find herself too old to play,
All unafraid 'twixt sun and shade, kissed half her gloom away,
And gardens green he hath entered in, but counsel close keeps he,
And what he knows of the rose, the rose, he will not sing to me.
All unafraid 'twixt sun and shade, kissed half her gloom away,
And gardens green he hath entered in, but counsel close keeps he,
And what he knows of the rose, the rose, he will not sing to me.
You have sung, God wot, of a hunter's lot, of bears in the ice-caves green,
Of silent lips and of goodly ships that are not but have been.
You have made a song of my north wind strong, of the track of my feet in the snow,
But of strife that's mine and of life that's mine, what word do you rhymers know?
Of silent lips and of goodly ships that are not but have been.
xi
But of strife that's mine and of life that's mine, what word do you rhymers know?
You have painted me with a face before and a face that looketh back,
But I go as a man to battle goes, and I turn not on my track.
The stars 'twixt man and will of man their will may interpose:
I do their Maker's pleasure for my own upon the snows.
But I go as a man to battle goes, and I turn not on my track.
The stars 'twixt man and will of man their will may interpose:
I do their Maker's pleasure for my own upon the snows.
| Dirge for Aoine and other poems | |