Betrayal

I

O mother, I am sick of love,
I cannot laugh nor lift my head,
My bitter dreams have broken me,
I would my love were dead.

"Drink of the draught I brew for thee,
Thou shalt have quiet in its stead."

II

Where is the silver in the rain,
Where is the music in the sea,
Where is the bird that sang all day
To break my heart with melody?

"The night thou badst Love fly away,
He hid them all from thee."

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know’st thy estimate,
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent back again is swerving.
Thy self thou gav’st, thy own worth then not knowing,
Or me to whom thou gav’st it, else mistaking;
So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on better judgement making.
Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,
In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.

Not under foreign skies
Nor under foreign wings protected -
I shared all this with my own people
There, where misfortune had abandoned us.
[1961]

INSTEAD OF A PREFACE

During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, I
spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in
Leningrad. One day, somehow, someone 'picked me out'.
On that occasion there was a woman standing behind me,
her lips blue with cold, who, of course, had never in
her life heard my name. Jolted out of the torpor
characteristic of all of us, she said into my ear
(everyone whispered there) - 'Could one ever describe
this?' And I answered - 'I can.' It was then that
something like a smile slid across what had previously
been just a face.
[The 1st of April in the year 1957. Leningr...

HE.

Canst thou give, oh fair and matchless maiden,

'Neath the shadow of the lindens yonder,

Where I'd fain one moment cease to wander,
Food and drink to one so heavy laden?

SHE.

Wouldst thou find refreshment, traveller weary,

Bread, ripe fruit and cream to meet thy wishes,

None but Nature's plain and homely dishes,
Near the spring may soothe thy wanderings dreary.

HE.

Dreams of old acquaintance now pass through me,

Ne'er-forgotten queen of hours of blisses.

Likenesses I've often found, but this is
One that quite a marvel seemeth to me!

SHE.

Travellers often wonder beyond measure,

But their wonder soon see cause to smother;

Fair and dark are often like each other...

Johnny, sweetheart, can you be true
To all those famous vows you've made,
Will you love me as I love you
Until we both in earth are laid?
Or shall the old wives nod and say
His love was only for a day:
    The mood goes by,
    His fancies fly,
And Mary's left to sigh.

Mary, alas, you've hit the truth,
And I with grief can but admit
Hot-blooded haste controls my youth,
My idle fancies veer and flit
From flower to flower, from tree to tree,
And when the moment catches me,
    Oh, love goes by
    Away I fly
And leave my girl to sigh.

Could you but now foretell the day,
Johnny, when this sad thing must be,
When light and gay you'll turn away
And laugh and break the heart in me?
For like a nut for true love's sake
My...

Here, in this other world, they come and go
With easy dream-like movements to and fro.
They stare through lovely eyes, yet do not seek
An answering gaze, or that a man should speak.
Had I a load of gold, and should I come
Bribing their friendship, and to buy a home,
They would stare harder and would slightly frown:
I am a stranger from the distant town.

Oh, with what patience I have tried to win
The favour of the hostess of the Inn!
Have I not offered toast on frothing toast
Looking toward the melancholy host;
Praised the old wall-eyed mare to please the groom;
Laughed to the laughing maid and fetched her broom;
Stood in the background not to interfere
When the cool ancients frolicked at their beer;
Talked only in my turn, and made no claim
For reco...

        As to some lovely temple, tenantless
        Long since, that once was sweet with shivering brass,
        Knowing well its altars ruined and the grass
        Grown up between the stones, yet from excess
        Of grief hard driven, or great loneliness,
        The worshiper returns, and those who pass
        Marvel him crying on a name that was,--
        So is it now with me in my distress.
        Your body was a temple to Delight;
        Cold are its ashes whence the breath is fled,
        Yet here one time your spirit was wont to move;
        Here might I hope to find you day or night,
        And here I come to look for you, my love,
        Even now, foolishly, knowing you are dead.

I am that Adam who, with Snake for guest,
Hid anguished eyes upon Eve's piteous breast.
I am that Adam who, with broken wings,
Fled from the Seraph's brazen trumpetings.
Betrayed and fugitive, I still must roam
A world where sin, and beauty, whisper of Home.

Oh, from wide circuit, shall at length I see
Pure daybreak lighten again on Eden's tree?
Loosed from remorse and hope and love's distress,
Enrobe me again in my lost nakedness?
No more with wordless grief a loved one grieve,
But to Heaven's nothingness re-welcome Eve?

        So you're going to give up flirtation, my dear,
            And lead a life sober and quiet?
        There, there, I don't doubt the intention's sincere.
            But wait till occasion shall try it.
                    Is Ramsay engaged?
                    Now, don't look enraged!
            You like him, I know don't deny it!

        What! Give up flirtation? Change dimples for frowns
            Why, Nell, what's the use? You're so pretty,
        That your beauty all sense of your wickedness drowns
            When, some time, in country or city,
                    Your fate comes at last.
                    We'll forgive all the past,
            And think of you only with pity.

        Indeed! so "you feel for the woes of my sex!"
 ...

High on his Patmos of the Southern Seas
Our northern dreamer sleeps,
Strange stars above him, and above his grave
Strange leaves and wings their tropic splendours wave,
While, far beneath, mile after shimmering mile,
The great Pacific, with its faery deeps,
Smiles all day long its silken secret smile.

Son of a race nomadic, finding still
Its home in regions furthest from its home,
Ranging untired the borders of the world,
And resting but to roam;
Loved of his land, and making all his boast
The birthright of the blood from which he came,
Heir to those lights that guard the Scottish coast,
And caring only for a filial fame;
Proud, if a poet, he was Scotsman most,
And bore a Scottish name.

Death, that long sought our poet, finds at last,
Dea...

Dear child! how radiant on thy mother's knee,
With merry-making eyes and jocund smiles,
Thou gazest at the painted tiles,
Whose figures grace,
With many a grotesque form and face.
The ancient chimney of thy nursery!
The lady with the gay macaw,
The dancing girl, the grave bashaw
With bearded lip and chin;
And, leaning idly o'er his gate,
Beneath the imperial fan of state,
The Chinese mandarin.

With what a look of proud command
Thou shakest in thy little hand
The coral rattle with its silver bells,
Making a merry tune!
Thousands of years in Indian seas
That coral grew, by slow degrees,
Until some deadly and wild monsoon
Dashed it on Coromandel's sand!
Those silver bells
Reposed of yore,
As shapeless ore,
Far down in the ...

    I

    When I was a boy there was a friend of mine:
    We thought ourselves warriors and grown folk swine,
    Stupid old animals who never understood
    And never had an impulse and said "you must be good."

    We slank like stoats and fled like foxes,
    We put cigarettes in the pillar-boxes,
    Lighted cigarettes and letters all aflame,
    O the surprise when the postman came!

    We stole eggs and apples and made fine hay
    In people's houses when people were away,
    We broke street lamps and away we ran,
    Then I was a boy but now I am a man.

    Now I am a man and don't have any fun,
    I hardly ever shout and I never, never run,
    And I don't care if he's dead that friend of mine,
    For then I was a boy and now...

While not a leaf seems faded; while the fields,
With ripening harvest prodigally fair,
In brightest sunshine bask; this nipping air,
Sent from some distant clime where Winter wields
His icy scimitar, a foretaste yields
Of bitter change, and bids the flowers beware;
And whispers to the silent birds, "Prepare
Against the threatening foe your trustiest shields."
For me, who under kindlier laws belong
To Nature's tuneful quire, this rustling dry
Through leaves yet green, and yon crystalline sky,
Announce a season potent to renew,
'Mid frost and snow, the instinctive joys of song,
And nobler cares than listless summer knew.

"Old man, upon the green hillside,
With yellow flowers besprinkled o'er,
How long in silence wilt thou bide
At this low stone door?

"I stoop: within 'tis dark and still;
But shadowy paths methinks there be,
And lead they far into the hill?"
"Traveller, come and see."

"'Tis dark, 'tis cold, and hung with gloom;
I care not now within to stay;
For thee and me is scarcely room,
I will hence away."

"Not so, not so, thou youthful guest,
Thy foot shall issue forth no more:
Behold the chamber of thy rest,
And the closing door!"

"O, have I 'scaped the whistling ball,
And striven on smoky fields of fight,
And scaled the 'leaguered city's wall
In the dangerous night;

"And borne my life unharméd still
Through foaming ...

        Not with libations, but with shouts and laughter
        We drenched the altars of Love's sacred grove,
        Shaking to earth green fruits, impatient after
        The launching of the colored moths of Love.
        Love's proper myrtle and his mother's zone
        We bound about our irreligious brows,
        And fettered him with garlands of our own,
        And spread a banquet in his frugal house.
        Not yet the god has spoken; but I fear
        Though we should break our bodies in his flame,
        And pour our blood upon his altar, here
        Henceforward is a grove without a name,
        A pasture to the shaggy goats of Pan,
        Whence flee forever a woman and a man.

The Elements respect their Maker's seal!
Still Like the scathed pine tree's height,
Braving the tempests of the night
Have I 'scaped the flickering flame.
Like the scathed pine, which a monument stands
Of faded grandeur, which the brands
Of the tempest-shaken air
Have riven on the desolate heath;
Yet it stands majestic even in death,
And rears its wild form there.

The greenhouse is my summer seat;
My shrubs displaced from that retreat
Enjoy’d the open air;
Two goldfinches, whose sprightly song
Had been their mutual solace long,
Lived happy prisoners there.


They sang as blithe as finches sing,
That flutter loose on golden wing,
And frolic where they list;
Strangers to liberty, ‘tis true,
But that delight they never knew,
And therefore never miss’d.


But nature works in every breast,
With force not easily suppress’d;
And Dick felt some desires,
That, after many an effort vain,
Instructed him at length to gain
A pass between his wires.


The open windows seem’d to invite
The freeman to a farewell flight;
But Tom was still confined;
And Dick, although his way was cle...

Belovèd, I would tell a ghostly thing
That hides beneath the simple name of Spring;
Wild beyond hope the news - the dead return,
The shapes that slept, their breath a frozen mist,
Ascend from out sarcophagus and urn,
Lips that were dust new redden to be kissed,
Fires that were quenched re-burn.

The gardens of Adonis bloom again,
Proserpina may hold the lad no more,
That in her arms the winter through hath lain;
Up flings he from the hollow-sounding door,
Where Love hath bruised her rosy breast in vain:
Ah! through their tears - the happy April rain -
They, like two stars aflame, together run,
Then lift immortal faces in the sun.

A faint far music steals from underground,
And to the spirit's ear there comes the sound,
The whisper vague, and rus...