Death

    Over my window in pencillings white,
Stealthily traced in the silence of night -
Traced with a pencil as viewless as air,
By an artist unseen, when the star-beams were fair,
Came wonderful pictures, so life-like and true
That I'm filled with amaze as the marvel I view.

    Like, and yet unlike the things I have seen, -
Feathery ferns in the forest-depths green,
Delicate mosses that hide from the light,
Snow-drops, and lilies, and hyacinths white,
Fringes, and feathers, and half-opened flowers,
Closely-twined branches of dim, cedar bowers -
Strange, that one hand should so deftly combine
Such numberless charms in so quaint a design!

    O wondrous creations of silence and night!
I watch as ye fade in the clear morning light, -
As ye melt into te...

What magic shall solve us the secret
Of beauty that's born for an hour?
That gleams like the flight of an egret,
Or burns like the scent of a flower,
With death for a dower?

What leaps in the bosk but a satyr?
What pipes on the wind but a faun?
Or laughs in the waters that scatter,
But limbs of a nymph who is gone,
When we walk in the dawn?

What sings on the hills but a fairy?
Or sighs in the fields but a sprite?
What breathes through the leaves but the airy
Soft spirits of shadow and light,
When we walk in the night?

Behold how the world-heart is eager
To draw us and hold us and claim!
Through truths of the dreams that beleaguer
Her soul she makes ours the same,
And death but a name.

So highest poets, painters, owe to Thee
Their being and disciples; none were there,
Hadst Thou not been; Thou art the centre where
The Truth did find an infinite form; and she
Left not the earth again, but made it be
One of her robing rooms, where she doth wear
All forms of revelation. Artists bear
Tapers in acolyte humility.
O Poet! Painter! soul of all! thy art
Went forth in making artists. Pictures? No;
But painters, who in love should ever show
To earnest men glad secrets from God's heart.
So, in the desert, grass and wild flowers start,
When through the sand the living waters go.

(From the French of Stéphane Mallarmé.)


I would immortalize these nymphs: so bright
Their sunlit colouring, so airy light,
It floats like drowsing down. Loved I a dream?
My doubts, born of oblivious darkness, seem
A subtle tracery of branches grown
The tree's true self - proving that I have known
No triumph, but the shadow of a rose.
But think. These nymphs, their loveliness ... suppose
They bodied forth your senses' fabulous thirst?
Illusion! which the blue eyes of the first,
As cold and chaste as is the weeping spring,
Beget: the other, sighing, passioning,
Is she the wind, warm in your fleece at noon?
No, through this quiet, when a weary swoon
Crushes and chokes the latest faint essay
Of morning, cool against the encroaching day,
There is n...

No more upon my bosom rest thee,
Too often have my hands caressed thee,
        My lips thou knowest well, too well;
Lean to my heart no more thine ear
My spirit's living truth to hear
        It has no more to tell.

In what dark night, in what strange night,
Burnt to the butt the candle's light
        That lit our room so long?
I do not know, I thought I knew
How love could be both sweet and true:
        I also thought it strong.

Where has the flame departed? Where,
Amid the empty waste of air,
        Is that which dwelt with us?
Was it a fancy? Did we make
Only a show for dead love's sake,
        It being so piteous?

No more against my bosom press thee,
Seek no more that my hands caress thee,
        Leave the sad li...

Let mirth and joy a season reign
    And sorrow flee away
Sadness were perfect sin it is
    My Anne's natal day

And now a birthday rhyme for her
    This sister of my own
Accept the song then for my sake
    Sister and only one

So long we've lived together here
    Our hopes and fears the same
Like two of autumn's last grown leaves
    Last of our race and name

The past we know its grief and joy
    Its pleasure and its pain
But know not what may happen ere
    Your birthday comes again

Shall we be cradled in the deep
    Beneath the briny wave?
Or shall the white deer lightly bound
    Over my forest grave?

Or living yet divided far
    With lands and seas between
And sorrow reigning in the hearts

"Sunshine on de medders,
Greenness on de way;
Dat 's de blessed reason
I sing all de day."
Look hyeah! Whut you axin'?
Whut meks me so merry?
'Spect to see me sighin'
W'en hit's wa'm in Febawary?

'Long de stake an' rider
Seen a robin set;
W'y hit 'mence a-thawin',
Groun' is monst'ous wet.
Den you stan' dah wond'rin',
Lookin' skeert an' stary;
I's a right to caper
W'en hit's wa'm in Febawary.

Missis gone a-drivin',
Mastah gone to shoot;
Ev'ry da'ky lazin'
In de sun to boot.
Qua'tah 's moughty pleasant,
Hangin' 'roun' my Mary;
Cou'tin' boun' to prospah
W'en hit's wa'm in Febawary.

Cidah look so pu'ty
Po'in' f'om de jug--
Don' you see it's happy?
Hyeah it laffin'--glug?
Now's de time fu...

    The stars are all watching;
    God's angel is catching
At thy skirts in the darkness deep!
    Gold hinges grating,
    The mighty dead waiting,
Why dost thou sleep?

    Years without number,
    Ages of slumber,
Stiff in the track of the infinite One!
    Dead, can I think it?
    Dropt like a trinket,
A thing whose uses are done!

    White wings are crossing,
    Glad waves are tossing,
The earth flames out in crimson and green
    Spring is appearing,
    Summer is nearing--
Where hast thou been?

    Down in some cavern,
    Death's sleepy tavern,
Housing, carousing with spectres of night?
    There is my right hand!
    Grasp it full tight and
Spring to the light.

    Wonder, oh, wonder!<...

    Gray clouds my heaven have covered o'er;
        My sea ebbs fast, no more to flow;
    Ghastly and dry, my desert shore
        Parched, bare, unsightly things doth show.

    'Tis thou, Lord, cloudest up my sky;
        Stillest the heart-throb of my sea;
    Tellest the sad wind not to sigh,
        Yea, life itself to wait for thee!

    Lord, here I am, empty enough!
        My music but a soundless moan!
    Blind hope, of all my household stuff,
        Leaves me, blind hope, not quite alone!

    Shall hope too go, that I may trust
        Purely in thee, and spite of all?
    Then turn my very heart to dust--
        On thee, on thee, I yet will call.

    List! list! his wind among the pines
        Hark! hark! that rushi...

    On -
    Thro' the gleaming gray
    I ran to the storm and clang -
    To the red, red hill where the great tree swayed -
    And scattered bells like autumn leaves.
    How the red bells rang!
    My breath within my breast
    Was held like a diver's breath -
    The leaves were tangled locks of gray -
    The boughs of the tree were white and gray,
    Shaped like scythes of Death.
    The boughs of the tree would sweep and sway -
    Sway like scythes of Death.
    But it was beautiful!
    I knew that all was well.
    A thousand bells from a thousand boughs
    Each moment bloomed and fell.
    On the hill of the wind-swept tree
    There were no bells asleep;
    They sang beneath my trailing wings
    Like rivers sweet and stee...

    I'm home at last. How long were you asleep?
    I startled you. The time? It's midnight past.
    Put on your slippers and your robe, my dear,
    And make some coffee for me - what a night!
    Yes, tell you? I shall tell you everything.
    I must tell someone, and a wife should know
    The workings of a governor's mind - no one
    Could guess what turned the scale to save this man
    Who would have died to-morrow, but for me.
    That's fine. This coffee helps me. As I said
    This night has been a trial. Well, you know
    I told these lawyers they could come at eight,
    And so they came. A seasoned lawyer one,
    The other young and radical, both full
    Of sentiment of some sort. And there you sit,
    And do not say a word of disapproval.
  ...

I found her out there
On a slope few see,
That falls westwardly
To the salt-edged air,
Where the ocean breaks
On the purple strand,
And the hurricane shakes
The solid land.

I brought her here,
And have laid her to rest
In a noiseless nest
No sea beats near.
She will never be stirred
In her loamy cell
By the waves long heard
And loved so well.

So she does not sleep
By those haunted heights
The Atlantic smites
And the blind gales sweep,
Whence she often would gaze
At Dundagel's far head,
While the dipping blaze
Dyed her face fire-red;

And would sigh at the tale
Of sunk Lyonnesse,
As a wind-tugged tress
Flapped her cheek like a flail;
Or listen at whiles
With a thought-bound brow

Io son sì stanco sotto 'l fascio antico.

HE CONFESSES HIS ERRORS, AND THROWS HIMSELF ON THE MERCY OF GOD.


    Evil by custom, as by nature frail,
I am so wearied with the long disgrace,
That much I dread my fainting in the race
Should let th' original enemy prevail.
Once an Eternal Friend, that heard my cries,
Came to my rescue, glorious in his might,
Arm'd with all-conquering love, then took his flight,
That I in vain pursued Him with my eyes.
But his dear words, yet sounding, sweetly say,
"O ye that faint with travel, see the way!
Hopeless of other refuge, come to me."
What grace, what kindness, or what destiny
Will give me wings, as the fair-feather'd dove,
To raise me hence and seek my rest above?

BASIL KENNET.

Standing aloof in giant ignorance,
Of thee I hear and of the Cyclades,
As one who sits ashore and longs perchance
To visit dolphin-coral in deep seas.
So thou wast blind; but then the veil was rent,
For Jove uncurtain'd Heaven to let thee live,
And Neptune made for thee a spumy tent,
And Pan made sing for thee his forest-hive;
Aye on the shores of darkness there is light,
And precipices show untrodden green
There is a budding morrow in the midnight,
There is a triple sight in blindness keen;
Such seeing hadst thou, as it once befel
To Dian, Queen of Earth, and Heaven, and Hell.

Draw not away thy hands, my love,
With wind alone the branches move,
And though the leaves be scant above
The Autumn shall not shame us.

Say; Let the world wax cold and drear,
What is the worst of all the year
But life, and what can hurt us, dear,
Or death, and who shall blame us?

Ah, when the summer comes again
How shall we say, we sowed in vain?
The root was joy, the stem was pain,
The ear a nameless blending.

The root is dead and gone, my love,
The stem's a rod our truth to prove;
The ear is stored for nought to move
Till heaven and earth have ending.

Ellen, you were thoughtless once
Of beauty or of grace,
Simple and homely in attire,
Careless of form and face;
Then whence this change? and wherefore now
So often smooth your hair?
And wherefore deck your youthful form
With such unwearied care?

Tell us, and cease to tire our ears
With that familiar strain,
Why will you play those simple tunes
So often, o'er again?
'Indeed, dear friends, I can but say
That childhood's thoughts are gone;
Each year its own new feelings brings,
And years move swiftly on:

'And for these little simple airs,
I love to play them o'er
So much, I dare not promise, now,
To play them never more.'
I answered, and it was enough;
They turned them to depart;
They could not read my secret thoughts,

In this old garden, fair, I walk to-day
Heart-charmed with all the beauty of the scene:
The rich, luxuriant grasses' cooling green,
The wall's environ, ivy-decked and gray,
The waving branches with the wind at play,
The slight and tremulous blooms that show between,
Sweet all: and yet my yearning heart doth lean
Toward Love's Egyptian fleshpots far away.

Beside the wall, the slim Laburnum grows
And flings its golden flow'rs to every breeze.
But e'en among such soothing sights as these,
I pant and nurse my soul-devouring woes.
Of all the longings that our hearts wot of,
There is no hunger like the want of love!

I love the naked ages long ago
When statues were gilded by Apollo,
When men and women of agility
Could play without lies and anxiety,
And the sky lovingly caressed their spines,
As it exercised its noble machine.
Fertile Cybele, mother of nature, then,
Would not place on her daughters a burden,
But, she-wolf sharing her heart with the people,
Would feed creation from her brown nipples.
Men, elegant and strong, would have the right
To be proud to have beauty named their king;
Virgin fruit free of blemish and cracking,
Whose flesh smooth and firm would summon a bite!
The Poet today, when he would convey
This native grandeur, would not be swept away
By man free and woman natural,
But would feel darkness envelop his soul
Before this black tableau full of...