Death

So were mine eyes inebriate with view
Of the vast multitude, whom various wounds
Disfigur'd, that they long'd to stay and weep.

But Virgil rous'd me: "What yet gazest on?
Wherefore doth fasten yet thy sight below
Among the maim'd and miserable shades?
Thou hast not shewn in any chasm beside
This weakness. Know, if thou wouldst number them
That two and twenty miles the valley winds
Its circuit, and already is the moon
Beneath our feet: the time permitted now
Is short, and more not seen remains to see."

"If thou," I straight replied, "hadst weigh'd the cause
For which I look'd, thou hadst perchance excus'd
The tarrying still." My leader part pursu'd
His way, the while I follow'd, answering him,
And adding thus: "Within that cave I deem,
Whereon ...

Oh, worthy of belief I hold it was,
Virgil, your legend in those strange three lines!
No question, that adventure came to pass
One black night in Arcadia: yes, the pines,
Mountains and valleys mingling made one mass
Of black with void black heaven: the earth's confines,
The sky's embrace, below, above, around,
All hardened into black without a bound.

Fill up a swart stone chalice to the brim
With fresh-squeezed yet fast-thickening poppy-juice:
See how the sluggish jelly, late a-swim,
Turns marble to the touch of who would loose
The solid smooth, grown jet from rim to rim,
By turning round the bowl! So night can fuse
Earth with her all-comprising sky. No less,
Light, the least spark, shows air and emptiness.

And thus it proved when, diving into spac...

VITTORIA COLONNA, on the death of her hushand, the Marchese di Pescara, retired to her castle at Ischia (Inarime), and there wrote the Ode upon his death, which gained her the title of Divine.

Once more, once more, Inarime,
    I see thy purple hills!--once more
I hear the billows of the bay
    Wash the white pebbles on thy shore.

High o'er the sea-surge and the sands,
    Like a great galleon wrecked and cast
Ashore by storms, thy castle stands,
    A mouldering landmark of the Past.

Upon its terrace-walk I see
    A phantom gliding to and fro;
It is Colonna,--it is she
    Who lived and loved so long ago.

Pescara's beautiful young wife,
    The type of perfect womanhood,
Whose life was love, the life of life,
    That time and change...

Here by the baring bough
Raking up leaves,
Often I ponder how
Springtime deceives, -
I, an old woman now,
Raking up leaves.

Here in the avenue
Raking up leaves,
Lords' ladies pass in view,
Until one heaves
Sighs at life's russet hue,
Raking up leaves!

Just as my shape you see
Raking up leaves,
I saw, when fresh and free,
Those memory weaves
Into grey ghosts by me,
Raking up leaves.

Yet, Dear, though one may sigh,
Raking up leaves,
New leaves will dance on high -
Earth never grieves! -
Will not, when missed am I
Raking up leaves.

1901.

I


Teach me the secret of thy loveliness,
That, being made wise, I may aspire to be
As beautiful in thought, and so express
Immortal truths to earth's mortality;
Though to my soul ability be less
Than 't is to thee, O sweet anemone.


II


Teach me the secret of thy innocence,
That in simplicity I may grow wise;
Asking from Art no other recompense
Than the approval of her own just eyes;
So may I rise to some fair eminence,
Though less than thine, O cousin of the skies.


III


Teach me these things; through whose high knowledge, I,--
When Death hath poured oblivion through my veins,
And brought me home, as all are brought, to lie
In that vast house, common to serfs and Thanes,--
I shall not die,...

Hearken, oh hearken! let your souls behind you
Turn, gently moved!
Our voices feel along the Dread to find you,
O lost, beloved!
Through the thick-shielded and strong-marshalled angels,
They press and pierce:
Our requiems follow fast on our evangels,
Voice throbs in verse.
We are but orphaned spirits left in Eden
A time ago:
God gave us golden cups, and we were bidden
To feed you so.
But now our right hand hath no cup remaining,
No work to do,
The mystic hydromel is spilt, and staining
The whole earth through.
Most ineradicable stains, for showing
(Not interfused!)
That brighter colours were the world’s foregoing,
Than shall be used.
Hearken, oh hearken! ye shall hearken surely
For years and years,
The noise beside you, dripping c...

Sleep bonny babby, thi grondad is near,
Noa harm can touch thee, sleep withaat fear;
Innocent craytur, soa helpless an waik,
Grondad wod give up his life for thy sake,
Sleep little beauty,
Angels thee keep,
Grondad is watchin,
Sleep, beauty, sleep.

Through the thick mist of past years aw luk back,
Vainly aw try to discover the track
Buried, alas! for no trace can aw see,
Ov the way aw once trod when as sinless as thee,
Sleep little beauty,
Angels thee keep,
Grondad is watchin,
Sleep, beauty, sleep.

Smilin in slumber, - dreamin ov bliss,
Feelin in fancy a fond mother's kiss;
Richer bi far nor a king on his throne,
Fearlessly facing a future unknown.
Sleep little beauty,
Angels thee keep,
Grondad is watchin,
Sleep, ...

The western wind is blowing fair
Across the dark AEgean sea,
And at the secret marble stair
My Tyrian galley waits for thee.
Come down! the purple sail is spread,
The watchman sleeps within the town,
O leave thy lily-flowered bed,
O Lady mine come down, come down!

She will not come, I know her well,
Of lover's vows she hath no care,
And little good a man can tell
Of one so cruel and so fair.
True love is but a woman's toy,
They never know the lover's pain,
And I who loved as loves a boy
Must love in vain, must love in vain.

O noble pilot, tell me true,
Is that the sheen of golden hair?
Or is it but the tangled dew
That binds the passion-flowers there?
Good sailor come and tell me now
Is that my Lady's lily hand?
Or is ...

A cold, uninterrupted rain,
That washed each southern window-pane,
And made a river of the road;
A sea of mist that overflowed
The house, the barns, the gilded vane,
And drowned the upland and the plain,
Through which the oak-trees, broad and high,
Like phantom ships went drifting by;
And, hidden behind a watery screen,
The sun unseen, or only seen
As a faint pallor in the sky;--
Thus cold and colorless and gray,
The morn of that autumnal day,
As if reluctant to begin,
Dawned on the silent Sudbury Inn,
And all the guests that in it lay.

Full late they slept.    They did not hear
The challenge of Sir Chanticleer,
Who on the empty threshing-floor,
Disdainful of the rain outside,
Was strutting with a martial stride,
As if upon his t...

More towers must yet be built, more towers destroyed,
Great rocks hoisted in air;
And he must seek his bread in high pale sunlight
With gulls about him, and clouds just over his eyes . . .
And so he did not mention his dream of falling
But drank his coffee in silence, and heard in his ears
That horrible whistle of wind, and felt his breath
Sucked out of him, and saw the tower flash by
And the small tree swell beneath him . . .
He patted his boy on the head, and kissed his wife,
Looked quickly around the room, to remember it,
And so went out . . . For once, he forgot his pail.

Something had changed, but it was not the street,
The street was just the same, it was himself.
Puddles flashed in the sun. In the pawn-shop door
The same old black cat winked green ambe...

Cover me with your everlasting arms,
    Ye guardian giants of this solitude!
    From the ill-sight of men, and from the rude,
Tumultuous din of yon wide world's alarms!
Oh, knit your mighty limbs around, above,
    And close me in for ever! let me dwell
    With the wood spirits, in the darkest cell
That ever with your verdant locks ye wove.
    The air is full of countless voices, joined
    In one eternal hymn; the whispering wind,
    The shuddering leaves, the hidden water-springs,
    The work-song of the bees, whose honeyed wings
    Hang in the golden tresses of the lime,
    Or buried lie in purple beds of thyme.

Euroka, go over the tops of the hill,
For the Death-clouds have passed us to-day,
And we’ll cry in the dark for the foot-falls still,
And the tracks which are fading away!
Let them yell to their lubras, the Bulginbah dogs,
And say how our brothers were slain,
We shall wipe out our grief in the blood of their chief,
And twenty more dead on the plain
On the blood-spattered spurs of the plain!
But the low winds sigh,
And the dead leaves fly,
Where our warriors lie,
In the dingoes’ den in the white-cedar glen
On the banks of the gloomy Urara!
Urara! Urara!
On the banks of the gloomy Urara!

The Wallaroos grope through the tufts of the grass,
And crawl to their coverts for fear;
But we’ll sit in the ashes and let them pass
Where the boomerangs s...

Welcome, dear Heart, and a most kind good-morrow;
The day is gloomy, but our looks shall shine: -
Flowers I have none to give thee, but I borrow
Their sweetness in a verse to speak for thine.

Here are red roses, gather'd at thy cheeks, -
The white were all too happy to look white:
For love the rose, for faith the lily speaks;
It withers in false hands, but here 'tis bright!

Dost love sweet Hyacinth? Its scented leaf
Curls manifold, - all love's delights blow double:
'Tis said this flow'ret is inscribed with grief, -
But let that hint of a forgotten trouble.

I pluck'd the Primrose at night's dewy noon;
Like Hope, it show'd its blossoms in the night; -
'Twas, like Endymion, watching for the Moon!
And here are Sun-flowers, amorous of light!

On your midnight pallet lying
Listen, and undo the door:
Lads that waste the light in sighing
In the dark should sigh no more;
Night should ease a lover's sorrow;
Therefore, since I go to-morrow;
Pity me before.

In the land to which I travel,
The far dwelling, let me say-
Once, if here the couch is gravel,
In a kinder bed I lay,
And the breast the darnel smothers
Rested once upon another's
When it was not clay.

THE APPARITION OF HIS, MISTRESS,
CALLING HIM TO ELYSIUM

DESUNT NONNULLA

Come then, and like two doves with silvery wings,
Let our souls fly to th' shades, wherever springs
Sit smiling in the meads; where balm and oil,
Roses and cassia, crown the untill'd soil;
Where no disease reigns, or infection comes
To blast the air, but amber-gris and gums.
This, that, and ev'ry thicket doth transpire
More sweet than storax from the hallow'd fire;
Where ev'ry tree a wealthy issue bears
Of fragrant apples, blushing plums, or pears;
And all the shrubs, with sparkling spangles, shew
Like morning sun-shine, tinselling the dew.
Here in green meadows sits eternal May,
Purfling the margents, while perpetual day
So double-gilds the air, as that no night
Can ...

For the mountains' hoarse greetings came hollow
From stormy wind-chasms and caves,
And I heard their wild cataracts wallow
Huge bulks in long spasms of waves,
And that Demon said, "Lo! you must follow!
And our path is o'er myriads of graves."

Then I felt that the black earth was porous
And rotten with worms and with bones;
And I knew that the ground that now bore us
Was cadaverous with Death's skeletons;
And I saw horrid eyes, heard sonorous
And dolorous gnashings and groans.

But the night of the tempest and thunder,
The might of the terrible skies,
And the fire of Hell that, - coiled under
The hollow Earth, - smoulders and sighs,
And the laughter of stars and their wonder
Mingled and mixed in its eyes.

And we clomb - and the moon o...

I'd watched the sorrow of the evening sky,
And smelt the sea, and earth, and the warm clover,
And heard the waves, and the seagull's mocking cry.

And in them all was only the old cry,
That song they always sing, "The best is over!
You may remember now, and think, and sigh,
O silly lover!"
And I was tired and sick that all was over,
And because I,
For all my thinking, never could recover
One moment of the good hours that were over.
And I was sorry and sick, and wished to die.

Then from the sad west turning wearily,
I saw the pines against the white north sky,
Very beautiful, and still, and bending over
Their sharp black heads against a quiet sky.
And there was peace in them; and I
Was happy, and forgot to play the lover,
And laughed, and d...

I

The Sphinx

The spires of sand spring up at every gust
That bids them dance and scatter and lays them low:
He sits impassive, as the ages flow
And bear superbly the mirage of lust.
The moonbright steel he has witnessed redden and rust,
He has seen storm-proud deep-rooted empires grow,
And watched victorious gods flash forth and go;
And still before him spins the aspiring dust.
What has he seen in that hoar-centuried land
More strange and dreadful in its long delight
Of vain hope-haunted ever-starting quest
Than I can follow across this burning sand
Wherefrom the dizzying phantoms take their flight
Within the compass of a wanderer’s breast?


II

Nicholson Museum: Exhibit 32

The curious look and pass, be...