Love

The Muse said, Let us sing a little song
    Wherein no hint of wrong,
No echo of the great world need, or pain,
    Shall mar the strain.
Lock fast the swinging portal of thy heart;
    Keep sympathy apart.
Sing of the sunset, of the dawn, the sea;
    Of any thing or nothing, so there be
No purpose to thy art.
    Yea, let us make, art for Art's sake.
And sing no more unto the hearts of men,
    But for the critic's pen.
With songs that are but words, sweet sounding words,
    Like joyous jargon of the birds.
Tune now thy lyre, O Poet, and sing on.
    Sing of

The Dawn

The Virgin Night, all languorous with dreams
    Of her beloved Darkness, rose in fear,
    Feeling the presence of another near.
Outside her curtained casement...

When I was young I longed for Love,
And held his glory far above
All other earthly things. I cried:
"Come, Love, dear Love, with me abide;"
And with my subtlest art I wooed,
And eagerly the wight pursued.
But Love was gay and Love was shy,
He laughed at me and passed me by.

Well, I grew old and I grew gray,
When Wealth came wending down my way.
I took his golden hand with glee,
And comrades from that day were we.
Then Love came back with doleful face,
And prayed that I would give him place.
But, though his eyes with tears were dim,
I turned my back and laughed at him.

        When my blood flows calm as a purling river,
    When my heart is asleep and my brain has sway,
        It is then that I vow we must part forever,
    That I will forget you, and put you away
        Out of my life, as a dream is banished
    Out of the mind when the dreamer awakes;
        That I know it will be, when the spell has vanished,
    Better for both of our sakes.

        When the court of the mind is ruled by Reason,
    I know it is wiser for us to part;
        But Love is a spy who is plotting treason,
    In league with that warm, red rebel, the Heart.
        They whisper to me that the King is cruel,
    That his reign is wicked, his law a sin;
        And every word they utter is fuel
    To the flame that smoulders within.
<...

("O douleur! j'ai voulu savoir.")

[XXXIV. i., October, 183-.]


I have wished in the grief of my heart to know
If the vase yet treasured that nectar so clear,
And to see what this beautiful valley could show
Of all that was once to my soul most dear.
In how short a span doth all Nature change,
How quickly she smoothes with her hand serene -
And how rarely she snaps, in her ceaseless range,
The links that bound our hearts to the scene.

Our beautiful bowers are all laid waste;
The fir is felled that our names once bore;
Our rows of roses, by urchins' haste,
Are destroyed where they leap the barrier o'er.
The fount is walled in where, at noonday pride,
She so gayly drank, from the wood descending;
In her fairy hand was transformed the...

Love at the lips was touch
As sweet as I could bear;
And once that seemed too much;
I lived on air

That crossed me from sweet things,
The flow of was it musk
From hidden grapevine springs
Downhill at dusk?

I had the swirl and ache
From sprays of honeysuckle
That when they're gathered shake
Dew on the knuckle.

I craved strong sweets, but those
Seemed strong when I was young;
The petal of the rose
It was that stung.

Now no joy but lacks salt,
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain

Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove.

When stiff and sore and scarred
I take away my hand
From leaning on it har...

"Hey, rose, just born
Twin to a thorn;
Was't so with you, O Love and Scorn?

"Sweet eyes that smiled,
Now wet and wild;
O Eye and Tear - mother and child.

"Well: Love and Pain
Be kinsfolk twain:
Yet would, Oh would I could love again."

'Love, while you were away there came to me -
    From whence I cannot tell -
A plaintive lady pale and passionless,
Who bent her eyes upon me critically,
And weighed me with a wearing wistfulness,
    As if she knew me well."

"I saw no lady of that wistful sort
    As I came riding home.
Perhaps she was some dame the Fates constrain
By memories sadder than she can support,
Or by unhappy vacancy of brain,
    To leave her roof and roam?"

"Ah, but she knew me. And before this time
    I have seen her, lending ear
To my light outdoor words, and pondering each,
Her frail white finger swayed in pantomime,
As if she fain would close with me in speech,
    And yet would not come near.

"And once I saw her beckoning with her hand
    A...

Anna-Marie, love, up is the sun,
Anna-Marie, love, morn is begun,
Mists are dispersing, love, birds singing free,
Up in the morning, love, Anna-Marie.
Anna-Marie, love, up in the morn,
The hunter is winding blithe sounds on his horn,
The echo rings merry from rock and from tree,
‘Tis time to arouse thee, love, Anna-Marie.

WAMBA.

O Tybalt, love, Tybalt, awake me not yet,
Around my soft pillow while softer dreams flit,
For what are the joys that in waking we prove,
Compared with these visions, O, Tybalt, my love?
Let the birds to the rise of the mist carol shrill,
Let the hunter blow out his loud horn on the hill,
Softer sounds, softer pleasures, in slumber I prove,
But think not I dreamt of thee, Tybalt, my love.

Ah! not now, when desire burns, and the wind calls, and the suns of spring
Light-foot dance in the woods, whisper of life, woo me to wayfaring;
Ah! not now should you come, now when the road beckons, and good friends call,
Where are songs to be sung, fights to be fought, yea! and the best of all,
Love, on myriad lips fairer than yours, kisses you could not give! . . .
Dearest, why should I mourn, whimper, and whine, I that have yet to live?
Sorrow will I forget, tears for the best, love on the lips of you,
Now, when dawn in the blood wakes, and the sun laughs up the eastern blue;
I'll forget and be glad!
Only at length, dear, when the great day ends,
When love dies with the last light, and the last song has been sung, and friends
All are perished, and gloom strides on the heaven: then...

You must be very old, Sir Giles,
    I said; he said: Yea, very old!
Whereat the mournfullest of smiles
    Creased his dry skin with many a fold.

They hammer'd out my basnet point
    Into a round salade, he said,
The basnet being quite out of joint,
    Natheless the salade rasps my head.

He gazed at the great fire awhile:
    And you are getting old, Sir John;
(He said this with that cunning smile
    That was most sad) we both wear on;

Knights come to court and look at me,
    With eyebrows up; except my lord,
And my dear lady, none I see
    That know the ways of my old sword.

(My lady! at that word no pang
    Stopp'd all my blood). But tell me, John,
Is it quite true that Pagans hang
    So thick about the east, th...

There's blood between us, love, my love,
There's father's blood, there's brother's blood;
And blood's a bar I cannot pass:
I choose the stairs that mount above,
Stair after golden skyward stair,
To city and to sea of glass.
My lily feet are soiled with mud,
With scarlet mud which tells a tale
Of hope that was, of guilt that was,
Of love that shall not yet avail;
Alas, my heart, if I could bare
My heart, this selfsame stain is there:
I seek the sea of glass and fire
To wash the spot, to burn the snare;
Lo, stairs are meant to lift us higher:
Mount with me, mount the kindled stair.

    Your eyes look earthward, mine look up.
I see the far-off city grand,
Beyond the hills a watered land,
Beyond the gulf a gleaming strand
Of mansions wher...

The sea gives her shells to the shingle,
The earth gives her streams to the sea;
They are many, but my gift is single,
My verses, the firstfruits of me.
Let the wind take the green and the grey leaf,
Cast forth without fruit upon air;
Take rose-leaf and vine-leaf and bay-leaf
Blown loose from the hair.

The night shakes them round me in legions,
Dawn drives them before her like dreams;
Time sheds them like snows on strange regions,
Swept shoreward on infinite streams;
Leaves pallid and sombre and ruddy,
Dead fruits of the fugitive years;
Some stained as with wine and made bloody,
And some as with tears.

Some scattered in seven years’ traces,
As they fell from the boy that was then;
Long left among idle green places,
Or gathered but no...

If it so befalls that the midnight hovers
In mist no moonlight breaks,
The leagues of the years my spirit covers,
And my self myself forsakes.

And I live in a land of stars and flowers,
White cliffs by a silvery sea;
And the pearly points of her opal towers
From the mountains beckon me.

And I think that I know that I hear her calling
From a casement bathed with light -
Through music of waters in waters falling
Mid palms from a mountain height.

And I feel that I think my love's awaited
By the romance of her charms;
That her feet are early and mine belated
In a world that chains my arms.

But I break my chains and the rest is easy -
In the shadow of the rose,
Snow-white, that blooms in her garden breezy,
We meet and no one k...

When I was young long, long ago
I dreamed myself among the flowers;
And fancy drew the picture so,
They seemed like Fairies in their bowers.

The rose was still a rose, you know
But yet a maid. What could I do?
You surely would not have me go,
When rosy maidens seem to woo?

My heart was gay, and 'mid the throng
I sported for an hour or two;
We danced the flowery paths along,
And did as youthful lovers do.

But sports must cease, and so I dreamed
To part with these, my fairy flowers
But oh, how very hard it seemed
To say good-by 'mid such sweet bowers!

And one fair Maid of modest air
Gazed on me with her eye of blue;
I saw the tear-drop gathering there
How could I say to her, Adieu!

I fondly gave my hand and heart...

'There is a pleasure in poetic pains
Which only Poets know'; 'twas rightly said;
Whom could the Muses else allure to tread
Their smoothest paths, to wear their lightest chains?
When happiest Fancy has inspired the strains,
How oft the malice of one luckless word
Pursues the Enthusiast to the social board,
Haunts him belated on the silent plains!
Yet he repines not, if his thought stand clear,
At last, of hindrance and obscurity,
Fresh as the star that crowns the brow of morn;
Bright, speckless, as a softly-moulded tear
The moment it has left the virgin's eye,
Or rain-drop lingering on the pointed thorn.

In your arms was still delight,
Quiet as a street at night;
And thoughts of you, I do remember,
Were green leaves in a darkened chamber,
Were dark clouds in a moonless sky.
Love, in you, went passing by,
Penetrative, remote, and rare,
Like a bird in the wide air,
And, as the bird, it left no trace
In the heaven of your face.
In your stupidity I found
The sweet hush after a sweet sound.
All about you was the light
That dims the greying end of night;
Desire was the unrisen sun,
Joy the day not yet begun,
With tree whispering to tree,
Without wind, quietly.
Wisdom slept within your hair,
And Long-Suffering was there,
And, in the flowing of your dress,
Undiscerning Tenderness.
And when you thought, it seemed to me,
Infinitely, an...

In the mildest, greenest grove
Blest by sprite or fairy,
Where the melting echoes rove,
Voices sweet and airy;
    Where the streams
    Drink the beams
    Of the Sun,
    As they run
    Riverward
    Through the sward,
A shepherd went astray -
E'en gods have lost their way.

Every bird had sought its nest,
And each flower-spirit
Dreamed of that delicious rest
Mortals ne'er inherit;
    Through the trees
    Swept the breeze,
    Bringing airs
    Unawares
    Through the grove,
    Until love
Came down upon his heart,
Refusing to depart.

Hungrily he quaffed the strain,
Sweeter still, and clearer,
Drenched with music's mellow rain,
Nearer - nearer - dearer!

    Chains of sound
...

Rare of-spring of my thoughts, my dearest Loue,
Begot by fancy on sweet hope exhortiue,
In whom all purenes with perfection stroue,
Hurt in the Embryon makes my ioyes abhortiue.
And you, my sighes, Symtomas of my woe,
The dolefull Anthems of my endelesse care,
Lyke idle Ecchoes euer answering; so,
The mournfull accents of my loues dispayre.
And thou, Conceite, the shadow of my blisse,
Declyning with the setting of my sunne,
Springing with that, and fading straight with this,
Now hast thou end, and now thou wast begun:
    Now was thy pryme, and loe! is now thy waine;
    Now wast thou borne, now in thy cradle slayne.