Betrayal

Joy fills my eyes, remembering your hair, with tears,
        And these tears roll and shine;
Into my thoughts are woven a dark night with raindrops
        And the rolling and shining of love songs.

From the Hindustani of Mir Taqui (eighteenth century).

Come away, the clouds are high,
Put the flashing needles by.
Many days are not to spare,
Or to waste, my fairest fair!
All is ready. Come to-day,
For the nightingale her lay,
When she findeth that the whole
Of her love, and all her soul,
Cannot forth of her sweet throat,
Sobs the while she draws her breath,
And the bravery of her note
In a few days altereth.

Come, ere she despond, and see
In a silent ecstasy
Chestnuts heave for hours and hours
All the glory of their flowers
To the melting blue above,
That broods over them like love.
Leave the garden walls, where blow
Apple-blossoms pink, and low
Ordered beds of tulips fine.
Seek the blossoms made divine
With a scent that is their soul.
These are soulless. Bring the whit...

In spreading mantle to my chin conceald,

I trod the rocky path, so steep and grey,

Then to the wintry plain I bent my way
Uneasily, to flight my bosom steel'd.

But sudden was the newborn day reveal'd:

A maiden came, in heavenly bright array,

Like the fair creatures of the poet's lay
In realms of song. My yearning heart was heal'd.

Yet turn'd I thence, till she had onward pass'd,

While closer still the folds to draw I tried,

As though with heat self-kindled to grow warm;

But follow'd her. She stood. The die was cast!

No more within my mantle could I hide;

I threw it off, she lay within mine arm.

But in the Wine-presses the human grapes sing not nor dance:
They howl and writhe in shoals of torment, in fierce flames consuming,
In chains of iron and in dungeons circled with ceaseless fires,
In pits and dens and shades of death, in shapes of torment and woe:
The plates and screws and racks and saws and cords and fires and cisterns
The cruel joys of Luvah's Daughters, lacerating with knives
And whips their victims, and the deadly sport of Luvah's Sons.

They dance around the dying and they drink the howl and groan,
They catch the shrieks in cups of gold, they hand them to one another:
These are the sports of love, and these the sweet delights of amorous play,
Tears of the grape, the death sweat of the cluster, the last sigh
Of the mild youth who listens to the luring songs of...

Dian, that faine would cheare her friend the Night,
Shewes her oft, at the full, her fairest face,
Bringing with her those starry Nymphs, whose chace
From heau'nly standing hits each mortall wight.
But ah, poore Night, in loue with Phoebus light,
And endlesly dispairing of his grace,
Her selfe, to shewe no other ioy hath place;
Sylent and sad, in mourning weedes doth dight.
Euen so (alas) a lady, Dians peere,
With choise delights and rarest company
Would faine driue cloudes from out my heauy cheere;
But, wo is me, though Ioy her selfe were she,
Shee could not shew my blind braine waies of ioy,
While I despaire my sunnes sight to enioy.

Poor restless dove, I pity thee;
And when I hear thy plaintive moan,
I mourn for thy captivity,
And in thy woes forget mine own.

To see thee stand prepared to fly,
And flap those useless wings of thine,
And gaze into the distant sky,
Would melt a harder heart than mine.

In vain ­ in vain! Thou canst not rise:
Thy prison roof confines thee there;
Its slender wires delude thine eyes,
And quench thy longings with despair.

Oh, thou wert made to wander free
In sunny mead and shady grove,
And, far beyond the rolling sea,
In distant climes, at will to rove!

Yet, hadst thou but one gentle mate
Thy little drooping heart to cheer,
And share with thee thy captive state,
Thou couldst be happy even there.

Yes, even there, i...

Somno mollior unda


I
Dawn is dim on the dark soft water,
Soft and passionate, dark and sweet.
Love's own self was the deep sea's daughter,
Fair and flawless from face to feet,
Hailed of all when the world was golden,
Loved of lovers whose names beholden
Thrill men's eyes as with light of olden
Days more glad than their flight was fleet.
So they sang: but for men that love her,
Souls that hear not her word in vain,
Earth beside her and heaven above her
Seem but shadows that wax and wane.
Softer than sleep's are the sea's caresses,
Kinder than love's that betrays and blesses,
Blither than spring's when her flowerful tresses
Shake forth sunlight and shine with rain.
All the strength of the waves that perish
Swells beneath me and ...

How beautiful the Queen of Night, on high
Her way pursuing among scattered clouds,
Where, ever and anon, her head she shrouds
Hidden from view in dense obscurity.
But look, and to the watchful eye
A brightening edge will indicate that soon
We shall behold the struggling Moon
Break forth, again to walk the clear blue sky.

,,
    Lissom and jimp and slim,
Calling me - calling me over the heather,
    'Neath the beech boughs dusk and dim.

I have followed a lady this night,
    Followed her far and lone,
Fox and adder and weasel know
    The ways that we have gone.

I sit at my supper 'mid honest faces,
    And crumble my crust and say
Naught in the long-drawn drawl of the voices
    Talking the hours away.

I'll go to my chamber under the gable,
    And the moon will lift her light
In at my lattice from over the moorland
    Hollow and still and bright.

And I know she will shine on a lady of witchcraft,
    Gladness and grief to see,
Who has taken my heart with her nimble fingers,
    Calls in my dreams to me;

Who has led me a dance...

Lais when young, and all her charms in flower,
    Lais, whose beauty was the fateful light
    That led great ships to anchor in the night
And bring their priceless cargoes to her bower,
Lais yet found her cup of sweet turned sour.
    Great Plato's pupil, from his lofty height,
    Zenocrates, unmoved, had seen the white
Sweet wonder of her, and defied her power.

She snared the world in nets of subtle wiles:
    The proud, the famed, all clamoured at her gate;
    Dictators plead, inside her portico;
Wisdom sought madness, in her favouring smiles;
    Now was she made the laughing-stock of fate:
    One loosed her clinging arms, and bade her go.

Good morrow to the day so fair;
Good morning, sir, to you;
Good morrow to mine own torn hair,
Bedabbled with the dew.

Good morning to this primrose too;
Good morrow to each maid;
That will with flowers the tomb bestrew
Wherein my Love is laid.

Ah!woe is me, woe, woe is me,
Alack and well-a-day!
For pity, sir, find out that bee,
Which bore my Love away.

I'll seek him in your bonnet brave;
I'll seek him in your eyes;
Nay, now I think they've made his grave
I' th' bed of strawberries.

I'll seek him there; I know, ere this,
The cold, cold earth doth shake him;
But I will go, or send a kiss
By you, sir, to awake him.

Pray hurt him not; though he be dead,
He knows well who do love him;
And who with green tu...

Cean duv deelish, beside the sea
I stand and stretch my hands to thee
            Across the world.
The riderless horses race to shore
With thundering hoofs and shuddering, hoar,
            Blown manes uncurled.

Cean duv deelish, I cry to thee
Beyond the world, beneath the sea,
            Thou being dead.
Where hast thou hidden from the beat
Of crushing hoofs and tearing feet
            Thy dear black head?

Cean duv deelish, ’tis hard to pray
With breaking heart from day to day,
            And no reply;
When the passionate challenge of sky is cast
In the teeth of the sea and an angry blast
            Goes by.

God bless the woman, whoever she be,
From the tossing waves will recover thee
            And lashing wind.

Fairest, when by the rules of palmistry
You took my hand to try if you could guess
By lines therein if any wight there be
Ordain'd to make me know some happiness;
I wish'd that those characters could explain,
Whom I will never wrong with hope to win;
Or that by them a copy might be ta'en,
By you alone what thoughts I have within.
But since the hand of Nature did not set
(As providently loath to have it known)
The means to find that hidden alphabet.
Mine eyes shall be th' interpreters alone:
By them conceive my thoughts, and tell me, fair,
If now you see her that doth love me there.

When the voices of children are heard on the green,
And laughing is heard on the hill,
My heart is at rest within my breast,
And everything else is still.
"Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,
And the dews of night arise;
Come, come, leave off play, and let us away,
Till the morning appears in the skies."

"No, no, let us play, for it is yet day,
And we cannot go to sleep;
Besides, in the sky the little birds fly,
And the hills are all covered with sheep."
"Well, well, go and play till the light fades away,
And then go home to bed."
The little ones leaped, and shouted, and laughed,
And all the hills echoed.

        I.

Oh, to see in the night in a May moon's light
A nymph from siren caves,
With a crown of pearl, sea-gems in each curl
Dance down white, star-stained waves!
Oh, to list in the gloam by the pearly foam
Of a sad, far-sounding shore
The strain of the shell of an ocean belle
From caves where the waters roar!
With a hollow shell drift up in the moon
To sigh in my ears this ocean tune: -


        II.

"Wilt follow, wilt follow to caverns hollow,
That echo the tumbling spry?
Wilt follow thy queen to islands green,
Vague islands of witchery?
O follow, follow to grottoes hollow,
And isles in a purple sea,
Where rich roses twine and the lush woodbine
Weaves a musky canopy!"


        III.

Oh, to flo...

If one proves weak who you fancied strong,
    Or false who you fancied true,
Just ease the smart of your wounded heart
    By the thought that it is not you!

If many forget a promise made,
    And your faith falls into the dust,
Then look meanwhile in your mirror and smile,
    And say, 'I am one to trust!'

If you search in vain for an ageing face
    Unharrowed by fretful fears,
Then make right now (and keep) a vow
    To grow in grace with the years.

If you lose your faith in the word of man
    As you go from the port of youth,
Just say as you sail, 'I will not fail
    To keep to the course of truth!'

For this is the way, and the only way -
    At least so it seems to me.
IT IS UP TO YOU, TO BE, AND DO,
    WHAT YOU ...

I asked if I should pray.
But the Brahmin said,
"pray for nothing, say
Every night in bed,
""I have been a king,
I have been a slave,
Nor is there anything.
Fool, rascal, knave,
That I have not been,
And yet upon my breast
A myriad heads have lain.'''
That he might Set at rest
A boy's turbulent days
Mohini Chatterjee
Spoke these, or words like these,
I add in commentary,
"Old lovers yet may have
All that time denied --
Grave is heaped on grave
That they be satisfied --
Over the blackened earth
The old troops parade,
Birth is heaped on Birth
That such cannonade
May thunder time away,
Birth-hour and death-hour meet,
Or, as great sages say,
Men dance on deathless feet.'

Brother belov'd if health shall smile again,
Upon this wasted form and fever'd cheek:
If e'er returning vigour bid these weak
And languid limbs their gladsome strength regain,
Well may thy brow the placid glow retain
Of sweet content and thy pleas'd eye may speak
The conscious self applause, but should I seek
To utter what this heart can feel, Ah! vain
Were the attempt! Yet kindest friends while o'er
My couch ye bend, and watch with tenderness
The being whom your cares could e'en restore,
From the cold grasp of Death, say can you guess
The feelings which these lips can ne'er express;
Feelings, deep fix'd in grateful memory's store.