SONNETS (1870-1882)
SONNET I
BEAUTY'S SPLENDOUR
For those who once have marvelled at her splendour
And known it no alternative remains,—
For ever doomed to suffer endless pains,
Or else in emptiness their souls surrender
That Beauty in a vision may engender
The new-born power of singing endless strains.
A wave of mounting melody most tender
From sweet rose-scented subtle mouth she rains
Upon them: they must echo it, or never
Win rest, or cushioned couch, or conscious ease;
Their souls from Beauty they will not dissever;
The stern-eyed Goddess they cannot appease
Save by a manful choice to sing for ever
All that, and nothing save what, she shall please.
1870.
SONNET II
THE LOVE OF THE FUTURE
The loves of men as yet are icy floes,
Imperfect, shapeless, in tumultuous motion,
Rolled aimlessly about the mad mid-ocean:
With shocks that shatter and with blinding blows,
Heart-pangs of agony, convulsive throes,
Abandonment of being, death-devotion,
A death that strangles every previous notion,
Harmoniously the glittering ice-berg rose.
I stand beyond the future, and I see
Rise passion-pinnacled the crystal palace,
Awful with unimagined purity;
A frozen rainbow, an inverted chalice,
A dream-encircled dream of what shall be
When labourer love has drained the world of malice.
1870.
SONNET III
CONFESSION OF MY FAITH
I.
Love, thou art sweet, but thou art not for me:
Only to love thee more than other men
Is mine, a fleeting vision now and then
Of garments passing rapidly to see,
But never in thine arms alas! to be,
Never to hold thee in a close embrace
And only see the eyes and not the face,
So near that all things else are forced to flee
Save the expression of the life—to die
Ten thousand deaths ecstatic in a kiss,
Low at annihilation's feet to lie
Unconscious in abandonment of bliss—
The lovers who are capable of this
By fate are left for loss of it to sigh.
1870.
SONNET IV
CONFESSION OF MY FAITH
II.
Love crowns the careless men who seek her not
With hand capricious, but she leaveth those
Who loyally the first her service chose
With tears the path of every day to blot;
She leaveth them, it seemeth, quite forgot;
The current of her favour onward flows
And over heads of former victims goes
In haste to fertilize some other spot.
But, O my brothers, let us yet be true,
And though she slays us, gives us no relief,
Yet notwithstanding let us be the chief
Of those who on the earth are found to do
Her work, and prominently bring to view
The lineaments that smite us low with grief.
1870.
SONNET V
THE CHASE OF BEAUTY
We follow her fast, we follow her through the gloom,
We follow her through the gladsome glare of day,
And through the evening shadows sad we stray,
We are ready to follow her even to the tomb
If only light of eyes of hers may loom
From out the dark and dance across the way
Paved with the bones of poet-heroes—they
Whose hearts the passionate constant fires consume.
We follow her hard—she glances round at times,
But once or twice in a thousand years or so,
And sets some singer's being in a glow,
And burns from out his soul a rage of rhymes
That ring perhaps some twenty centuries' chimes
And through the mouths of men for ages go.
1870.
SONNET VI
THE PURPLE WINGS
If on my shoulders never shall be seen
The puissant purple fluttering of the wings
Wherewith the poet beateth as he sings
The high celestial atmospheric sheen,
If I may never say the thing I mean,
And only half an ear my audience brings,
And misdirected are my ambitious slings,
And no Goliath blazing eyes between
My stone hits full—at least she lets me die,
Queen Beauty, as my gentle brother died
Who lies on the Italian mountain-side,
In one long passion of an outpoured sigh
That seemeth tremblingly to wonder why
The kiss of satisfaction is denied.
1870.
SONNET VII
THE WAKING OF BEAUTY
Take courage, friends, for she hath but been sleeping
These eighteen centuries underneath the snow;
She whom we loved and worshipped long ago
In Hellas, for whose face we have been weeping,
And long look-out the sons of men are keeping,
Shall burn upon us with her early glow
Of sweetest rosy gladness; we shall know
Her resurrection—we who have been reaping
The bitter harvest of her absent shame.
From end to end of our awakened earth
Shall roll upon the wings of morning mirth
The great reverberation of her name,
And she shall rule the ages, she the same
To whom the foam of Grecian waves gave birth.
1870.
SONNET VIII
POESY
I.
Sweet Poesy, I love thee; as a bride
Plays with a lover's locks and crowns his hair
With kisses, finding him exceeding fair,
So do thou prattle, sweet one, by my side,
And let me on thy gentle converse glide
As softly as a swallow on the air;
Be kind to me, let me some secrets share;
Thou knowest for how long my soul hath sighed
After thy Beauty, shall I not attain
One day the inner vision of thy face?
Are all a poet's passionate pleadings vain?
—I care for nothing else if but thy grace
Be present, making summer of each place,
Wringing a melody out of every pain.
1870.
SONNET IX
POESY
II.
Let us be joinéd hand in hand and go
Along the secret dim mysterious shore
Where wave succeedeth wave for evermore,
Each following each with an incessant flow
Of music most bewitching,—let us row
Beside strange banks with a half-sleepy oar
Under a moon of magic, and explore
The world together, say, shall it be so?
The glamour of the mornings and the nights
Of sacred summer we will make our own,
My Poesy,—the laughter of the dawn,
The music from the heart of midday drawn,
All lusty loves ecstatic and delights,
And, best of all for me, thy silvery tone!
1870.
SONNET X
“PRAISE BEAUTY!”
I.
Praise Beauty! So say I—although the seas
Of loss of being choke the effort down,
And universes armed against me frown,
I stand upright and speak the thing I please,
Not bending feeble supplication knees
To any petty bully of the town,
Be he philosopher or sage or clown,
Whether his glances petrify or freeze.
Praise Beauty! and if Beauty loves me not,
And never on my brow may cool be laid
Aught sweeter than the sorry cypress shade,
Nor pointed tips of bay-leaves touch the spot
With inward brain-desires and panting hot,
Yet unto Beauty be my tribute paid!
1870.
SONNET XI
“PRAISE BEAUTY!”
II.
Ah! sweet one, why thus lure us on by day,
And send us flying phantom dreams by night
That lips may smart for unattained delight?
Why, treacherous, teach our vehement tongues to pray
Just to annihilate us with a “Nay,”
A cold still countenance after smiles so bright?
Sweet, thou wast rosy once, why now be white?
Thou who didst hasten towards us, why delay?
Why tarry thus the backward lingering wheels
Of Beauty's chariot harnessed to the sun,
And swift by rights as dawn's approach begun,
Or echoes following hard triumphant peals
When all the brain brimful of rapture reels
With melodies that beat and burst and stun?
1870.
SONNET XII
THE ROSE OF NIGHT
“She kept me awake, as a tune of Mozart's might do.”
—Keats
And
she kept me awake, but not the same
The vision, or the phantasy of sound
That kept my sleepless senses still unbound
And all my heart encircled by a flame,
But rather as if some splendid flower came
Waving a magic mist of perfume round,
And occupied my being itself, and wound
About me with a most imperious claim,
Coloured as is a choice kaleidoscope;
And ever and anon the clouds would rise,
And, as a moon, would beam before my eyes
That, far from closing, ever wider ope,
The form that to the craving clasp of hope
Pursuing, she retreating still denies.
1871.
SONNET XIII
A HORROR AND A CALM
“Sweet, gather me some clover”—and he stepped
Over the stile into the crimson field,
And she with a green hedge behind for shield
Leaned back and waited, dreamed and smiled and slept,
The while he wandered onward far, and leapt
To seize another flower fairer still;
But, on a sudden, came a cold sharp thrill
Across him, and a horror grew and crept
With slimy sickening feet throughout his brain,
The sense that she was gone—he hurried back,
And let the grasses fall upon the track,
And with his eyes stretched wide in eager pain
Met—that full tender hazel glance again!
Of flowers of love they did not find a lack.
1871.
SONNET XIV
A MARRIAGE PRAYER
O tender Mother on high that hast the four
Clear winds for breath, be gracious unto these;
That hers may mix the savour of the seas
Of Italy, and scents from every shore
Thy sweet South West wind sweeps her odours o'er;
That his may bear the banners of the breeze
That rides where the pure keen blue glaciers freeze
And Alpine heights ascend for evermore.
O Mother, mingle in their meeting breath
Thine own soul gathered from the East and West
And North and South, and extreme peaks of death
And passes of new life,—and bare thy breast
That either soul may nestle safe therein,
And let its melted snow-wreaths cleanse from sin.
1871.
SONNET XV
LOVE'S RELIEF
Each rain-shower is an evidence to the air
Of the relief of heaven, and each storm
Of sobs the pressure of God's bosom warm,—
A token sent our spirits to prepare
For a closer tenderness, a joy more rare,
A weeping purer and more clear and sweet,
Deliverance after yet more fervent heat,
A trouble greater than our souls could bear.
Just as a husband weeps upon the breast
Of his wife, and in that holy shower of rain
The thunder-clouds and copper skies of pain
Expand, and sob their terror into rest,
Till he sleeps as calmly in that quiet nest
As a child who wakes to smile and sleep again.
1871.
SONNET XVI
THINE HANDS
Thine hands do smite me like the perfect chords
Of music, every finger brings a tune;
They draw me like the drawing of the moon,
They thrill my heart like beautiful sharp swords,
Or as God's sweet unerring touch rewards
His heroes; they pervade me like a stream
Of honeyed influence, or as a dream
The milk-white bosom of the night affords.
Oh, that my heaven may be the ceaseless rain
Of swords and soft flowers clustered in thy hands,
Or as the ceaseless music that expands
From these, the founts of music, when they strain
Above me, touching me; and do retain
The sweetness of the women of all lands.
1873.
SONNET XVII
WHITE AND BLACK
A most sweet vision holds my spirit now,
And Music adds its magic (for before
My dreams were silent as a moonless shore
At midnight, or a vessel's midnight prow).
Over a woman's stately marble brow
A pure cascade of coal-black hair doth pour:—
The black-brown tresses that I loved of yore,
Darkened by contrast of her body of snow.
Ah! lady, goddess, is it not enough
To overcome me with thy body of white
Surrounded with that mist of tresses black,
As the moon rides serene upon the rough
Dark breakers of invulnerable night?—
Must eyes and fiery mouth pursue my track?
1873.
SONNET XVIII
YEARNING AND ITS MUSIC-ANSWER
I.
The Beauty of Woman
Who shall possess the whole of any flower,—
Both petals, leaves, and fragrance that abides
In the sweet golden core where God resides,
Casting that fragrance forth with lavish power?
Man doth possess a woman for an hour:—
Upon her ample bosom's roseate tides
Softly and sweetly for a month he rides;
Then winter shakes the rose-leaves from his bower.
How shall we grasp in one excessive bliss
The beauty and fragrance that the world has seen,
Even from the rose-red blossom of Eve's kiss
To the rare laughter of the Egyptian queen,
Enclosing, sacred shuddering palms atween,
The imperial pure significance of this?
1874.
SONNET XIX
YEARNING AND ITS MUSIC-ANSWER
II.
The Musical Blending
There is a love beyond the love we hold
In earthly grasp of over-eager hand,—
A love that bloometh in another land,
With petals of divine untarnished gold.
When from the shuddering organ notes are rolled
Conveying hints we fail to understand,
Or when with slender moonlight on the sand
A distant horn blends pæans clear and bold:—
When music at these seasons wakes in us
Some glimpse of evanescent heavenly fire,
We learn that love is consummated thus!
Yea, woman's hands in heaven are a lyre,
And all her snow-white body a stream of sound
Whereby we are caught; close-chained, caressed, close-bound.
1874.
SONNET XX
PSYCHE'S ZONE
As Love bestowed on Psyche a bright snake
To twist in belted beauty round her waist,
That so she might be kept for ever chaste,
And every prying hand might tremble and shake,—
So have I given my Lady a zone to take
And round her beating side to wind and clasp;
A rustling girdle of song doth grip and grasp
The far-off heart that quivers for song's sake.
Intrude not, any wandering lover, lest
This serpent that around her body fair
In tortuous coils of gleaming colours hangs
Should strike you with irreparable fangs:—
Leave unto me her snow-white body and breast;
Leave unto me her red lips and brown hair.
1874.
SONNET XXI
PURSUIT AND CAPTURE
Is there a sweeter thing than when one feels
The breast of Love brought closely to one's own,
So that each sigh or softly-murmured moan
Is caught and changed to laughter's silver peals?
Yea, this is sweeter—that the world conceals
No love for ever, though she flee away
Through woods and endless forests fierce and grey;
Beware! the avenging Love is at thine heels.
In some sequestered glade of that wild wood
The pale pursuer is upon thee, sweet;
Love's angered advent thou shalt not elude,—
Turn rather, soft-eyed, that approach to meet!
He treadeth after thee with footstep rude,
And pauseth not for poisonous swamps, or heat.
1874.
SONNET XXII
AN EMBODIED MUSIC
Thou art indeed the very spirit of song:
Thou art in truth the essence of fair sound.
All chants upon thy rose-red lips abound;
When thou dost speak, it is as music strong
And sweet and clear: I hear one dream-tune long
Whene'er I hear, see, worship, watch for thee,—
The spirit of gracious speech descends on me,
And through me thoughts float, in one white-winged throng.
O lady fair, thou art the spirit of singing;
A sweet embodied music,—nought besides.
Lo! through thy white white body the pure tides
Of universal sound are softly ringing,
Delighting, dazzling, changing fast, and bringing
My soul towards some fair rest that God provides.
1876.
SONNET XXIII
“THOU SHALT DRAW ME”
Thou shalt draw me: it shall be changed at last.
I am the stronger now—I have to draw
Thy soul by some magnetic simple law
Towards mine, till every idol is downcast.
Then when thy spirit is wholly free from flaw,
Thou shalt draw me; my work will then be past:
Thou shalt allure by thine own yearning vast
My spirit; and it shall follow, pale with awe.
My ecstasy shall then at last begin,—
My cup of glorious pleasure shall be full,—
As into silver waters soft and cool
That purge with many a lovely surge from sin
I joyous then shall plunge: thy great desire
Shall clothe me, as in measureless white fire.
1876.
SONNET XXIV
DAY BY DAY
As day by day the void doth greater grow
Between thee and the world, 'tween thee and friends;
As life's wide wintry landscape now extends
Before thee, its chill meadows deep with snow;
As, silently, thou pacest to and fro,
Revolving in thy spirit silent ends;
As over thee the eternal azure bends,
Like love's skies stooping o'er thee long ago;
When things are thus,—when thou dost yearn to hear
Some word from thine own country, where the air
Of softest love once lifted thy brown hair,
Some note of recompence, some sound of cheer,—
Remember then that, in Art's sunny lands,
Thou hast for ever one who understands.
1876.
SONNET XXV
“GRECIAN AND ENGLISH”
Am I a pagan? Am I set at nought
Because I worship here in English air
The goddess whom Keats' fancy found so fair,—
The gold-haired Venus whom his genius brought
Hither, sweet queen of songs and amorous thought?
No more need blue-bell weep or rose despair:
Though Greece she loved, she did not linger there;
Drawn Westward ever, the land of Keats she sought.
Her light of beauty is upon our hills:
She haunts our Isis, and her soft eyes shine
On sun-kissed ripples of our Northern rills,
And her white limbs repose 'neath birch and pine,
And our grey waves with marvellous foot she thrills,
Grecian and English,—and as both divine.
1881.
SONNET XXVI
“ANGER IS OFTTIMES HOLY”
[_]
Suggested by Keble's poem regretting the disuse of excommunication
in the Church of England.
“Il faut que le poëte, aux semences fécondes,
Soit comme ces forêts vertes, fraîches, profondes,
Pleines de chants, amour du vent et du rayon,
Charmantes, où, soudain, l' on rencontre un lion.”
Victor Hugo, Les Contemplations.
Anger is ofttimes holy. Half the worth
Of song lies in the singer's sudden sword,
Along which burns the anger of the Lord
To smite “the high priests and rulers” of the earth.
A thing most holy was Elijah's mirth,—
The awful mocking gibes his lips outpoured
Midmost the palsied powerless priestly horde
Who shrieked in vain round their stone altars' girth.
Great anger at small anger is no crime:
So when we open Keble's page and lo!
We find a malediction in his rhyme
And spite's stream foaming in weak overflow
We volley back the curse of Man and Time,
And render scourge for scourge and blow for blow.
1882.
SONNET XXVII
“BORN OUT OF DUE TIME”
If I be born too late, and if for me
Beside the sea-wave still white Venus stands
With tenderest witchery in soft outstretched hands,—
If still along the moonlight-dimpled sea
I hear far sounds as of the silver glee
Of sea-nymphs making for the weed-flecked strands,—
If summer beckons me from balmier lands,
Why must ye, O ye people, turn from me?
Oh, worship ye your gods, and leave me mine!
Think ye that never ripples shone so fair
As those of Galilee? A sweeter air
Trembles along the blue waves' creamy line
And lifts the tresses of dark groves of pine
Whereby the old gods' passionate temples were!
1882.
SONNET XXVIII
MY GIFT
Ah! what gifts have I?—Here I try to sing:
The roses mock at all my similes;
The mavis, casting sweet notes on the breeze,
Mocks me; the leafage mocks me in the spring,
And the high eagle with triumphant wing
Mocks me,—and the sheer music of the seas
Mocks me, and the broad laughter of the trees
And all the silvery mirth of everything.
Yet one gift have I which I yield to none:
One supreme sense which doth my being fill:
One passionate instinct stronger than the sun:
One changeless masterful marked bent of will:—
The beauty of Woman doth my spirit thrill
As never it thrilled a singer yet,—not one.
1882.
