Ben mi credea passar mio tempo omai.

HE CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT SEEING HER, BUT WOULD NOT DIE THAT HE MAY STILL LOVE HER.


    As pass'd the years which I have left behind,
To pass my future years I fondly thought,
Amid old studies, with desires the same;
But, from my lady since I fail to find
The accustom'd aid, the work himself has wrought
Let Love regard my tempter who became;
Yet scarce I feel the shame
That, at my age, he makes me thus a thief
Of that bewitching light
For which my life is steep'd in cureless grief;
In youth I better might
Have ta'en the part which now I needs must take,
For less dishonour boyish errors make.

Those sweet eyes whence alone my life had health
Were ever of their high and heavenly charms
So kind ...

High on a mountain of enamell'd head,
Such as the drowsy shepherd on his bed
Of giant pasturage lying at his ease,
Raising his heavy eyelid, starts and sees
With many a mutter'd "hope to be forgiven"
What time the moon is quadrated in Heaven,
Of rosy head that, towering far away
Into the sunlit ether, caught the ray
Of sunken suns at eve, at noon of night,
While the moon danc'd with the fair stranger light,
Uprear'd upon such height arose a pile
Of gorgeous columns on th' unburthen'd air,
Flashing from Parian marble that twin smile
Far down upon the wave that sparkled there,
And nursled the young mountain in its lair.
Of molten stars their pavement, such as fall
Thro' the ebon air, besilvering the pall
Of their own dissolution, while they die,
Adorni...

They say there's a high windless world and strange,
Out of the wash of days and temporal tide,
Where Faith and Good, Wisdom and Truth abide,
'Aeterna corpora', subject to no change.
There the sure suns of these pale shadows move;
There stand the immortal ensigns of our war;
Our melting flesh fixed Beauty there, a star,
And perishing hearts, imperishable Love. . . .

Dear, we know only that we sigh, kiss, smile;
Each kiss lasts but the kissing; and grief goes over;
Love has no habitation but the heart.
Poor straws! on the dark flood we catch awhile,
Cling, and are borne into the night apart.
The laugh dies with the lips, 'Love' with the lover.

I

The curtains now are drawn,
And the spindrift strikes the glass,
Blown up the jagged pass
By the surly salt sou'-west,
And the sneering glare is gone
Behind the yonder crest,
While she sings to me:
"O the dream that thou art my Love, be it thine,
And the dream that I am thy Love, be it mine,
And death may come, but loving is divine."

II

I stand here in the rain,
With its smite upon her stone,
And the grasses that have grown
Over women, children, men,
And their texts that "Life is vain";
But I hear the notes as when
Once she sang to me:
"O the dream that thou art my Love, be it thine,
And the dream that I am thy Love, be it mine,
And death may come, but loving is divine."

It all comes back as the end draws near;
All comes back like a tale of old!
Shall I tell you all? Will you lend an ear?
You, with your face so stern and cold;
You, who have found me dying here ...

Lady Leona's villa at Verne -
You have walked its terraces, where the fount
And statue gleam and the fluted urn;
Its world-old elms, that are avenues gaunt
Of shadow and flame when the West is a-burn.

'T is a lonely region of tarns and trees,
And hollow hills that circle the West;
Haunted of rooks and the far-off sea's
Immemorial vague unrest;
A land of sorrowful memories.

A gray sad land, where the wind has its will,
And the sun its way with the fruits and flowers;
Where ever the one all night is shrill,
And ever the other all day brings ...

I.

"Did they dare, did they dare, to slay Eoghan Ruadh O'Neill?"
"Yes, they slew with poison him they feared to meet with steel."
"May God wither up their hearts! May their blood cease to flow!
May they walk in living death, who poisoned Eoghan Ruadh!"


II.

"Though it break my heart to hear, say again the bitter words.
From Derry, against Cromwell, he marched to measure swords:
But the weapon of the Sacsanach met him on his way,
And he died at Cloch Uachtar,[2] upon St. Leonard's day.


III.

"Wail, wail ye for the Mighty One! Wail, wail ye for the Dead!
Quench the hearth, and hold the breath--with ashes strew the head.
How tenderly we loved him! How deeply we deplore!
Holy Saviour! but to think we shall never see him mor...

Unconscious on thy lap I lay,
A spiritual thing,
Stirless until the yet unlooked-for day
Of human birth
Should call me from thy starry twilight, Earth.
And did thy bosom rock and clear voice sing?
I know not--now no more a spiritual thing.
Nor then thy breathed Adieu
I rightly knew.

--Until those human kind arms caught
And nursed my head
Upon her breast who from the twilight brought
This stranger me.
Mother, it were yet happiness to be
Within your arms; but now that you are dead
Your memory sleeps in mine; so mine is comforted,
Though I breathed dear Adieu
Unheard by you.

And I have gathered to my breast
Wife, mistress, child,
Affections insecure but tenderest
Of all that clutch
Man's heart with their "Too little!" and...

MUKDEN, MARCH 6TH, 1905

    Ye that with me have fought and failed and fought
        To the last desperate trench of battle's crest,
    Not yet to sleep, not yet; our work is nought;
        On that last trench the fate of all may rest,
    Draw near, my friends; and let your thoughts be high;
        Great hearts are glad when it is time to give;
    Life is no life to him that dares not die,
        And death no death to him that dares to live.

    Draw near together; none be last or first;
        We are no longer names, but one desire;
    With the same burning of the soul we thirst,
        And the same wine to-night shall quench our fire.
    Drink! to our fathers who begot us men,
        To the dead voices that are never dumb;
    Then to the ...

(IN MEMORY OF A PUPIL)


            Thou art but gone before -
            Gone to that unknown shore
Toward which my feet are journeying swiftly on
            Thou hast but laid thy head
            First with the dreamless dead,
I, too, shall come, and share thy rest anon.

            Methinks 'twas sweet to die,
            Ere childhood's purity
Had been polluted by sin's withering breath;
            Ere Care's pale, haggard mien
            Thy laughing eye had seen,
Or thou hadst wept beside the bed of death!

            We weep - yet thou art blest!
            We mourn - but thou'rt at rest!
Well may we weep, yet, lost one, not for thee!
            Not that thy race is run,
            Thy brief life-journey...

Slow boiling up, on the horizon's brim,
Huge clouds arise, mountainous, dark and grim,
Sluggish and slow upon the air they ride,
As pitch-black ships o'er the blue ocean glide;
Curling and hovering o'er the gloomy south,
As curls the sulphur from the cannon's mouth.
More grizly in the sun the tempest comes,
And through the wood with threatened vengeance hums,
Hissing more loud and loud among the trees:--
The frighted wild-wind trembles to a breeze,
Just turns the leaf in terrifying sighs,
Bows to the spirit of the storm, and dies.
In wild pulsations beats the heart of fear,
At the low rumbling thunder creeping near.
The poplar leaf now resteth on its tree;
And the mill-sail, once twirling rapidly,
Lagging and lagging till each breeze had dropt,
Abruptly n...

A little dreaming by the way,
A little toiling day by day;
A little pain, a little strife,
A little joy,--and that is life.

A little short-lived summer's morn,
When joy seems all so newly born,
When one day's sky is blue above,
And one bird sings,--and that is love.

A little sickening of the years,
The tribute of a few hot tears
Two folded hands, the failing breath,
And peace at last,--and that is death.

Just dreaming, loving, dying so,
The actors in the drama go--
A flitting picture on a wall,
Love, Death, the themes; but is that all?

White as white butterflies that each one dons
    Her face their wide white wings to shade withal,
Many moon-daisies throng the water-spring.
    While couched in rising barley titlarks call,
And bees alit upon their martagons
    Do hang a-murmuring, a-murmuring.

They chide, it may be, alien tribes that flew
    And rifled their best blossom, counted on
And dreamed on in the hive ere dangerous dew
    That clogs bee-wings had dried; but when outshone
Long shafts of gold (made all for them) of power
To charm it away, those thieves had sucked the flower.

Now must they go; a-murmuring they go,
    And little thrushes twitter in the nest;
The world is made for them, and even so
    The clouds are; they have seen no stars, the breast
Of their soft moth...

Now lonely is the wood:
    No flower now lingers, none!
The virgin sisterhood
    Of roses, all are gone;
Now Autumn sheds her latest leaf;
And in my heart is grief.

Ah me, for all earth rears,
    The appointed bound is placed!
After a thousand years
    The great oak falls at last:
And thou, more lovely, canst not stay,
Sweet rose, beyond thy day.

Our life is not the life
    Of roses and of leaves;
Else wherefore this deep strife,
    This pain, our soul conceives?
The fall of ev'n such short-lived things
To us some sorrow brings.

And yet, plant, bird, and fly
    Feel no such hidden fire.
Happy they live; and die
    Happy, with no desire.
They in their brief life have fulfill'd
All Nature in them will'...

To Victor Hugo


Orpheus, the night is full of tears and cries,
And hardly for the storm and ruin shed
Can even thine eyes be certain of her head
Who never passed out of thy spirit’s eyes,
But stood and shone before them in such wise
As when with love her lips and hands were fed,
And with mute mouth out of the dusty dead
Strove to make answer when thou bad’st her rise.

Yet viper-stricken must her lifeblood feel
The fang that stung her sleeping, the foul germ
Even when she wakes of hell’s most poisonous worm,
Though now it writhe beneath her wounded heel.
Turn yet, she will not fade nor fly from thee;
Wait, and see hell yield up Eurydice.

SPAIN.


I.

It is a lie, their Priests, their Pope,
Their Saints, their . . . all they fear or hope
Are lies, and lies, there! through my door
And ceiling, there! and walls and floor,
There, lies, they lie, shall still be hurled
Till spite of them I reach the world!

II.

You think Priests just and holy men!
Before they put me in this den
I was a human creature too,
With flesh and blood like one of you,
A girl that laughed in beauty’s pride
Like lilies in your world outside.

III.

I had a lover, shame avaunt!
This poor wrenched body, grim and gaunt,
Was kissed all over till it burned,
By lips the truest, love e’er turned
His heart’s own tint: one night they kissed
My soul out in a burning mis...

They leave us - artists, singers, all
When London calls aloud,
Commanding to her Festival
The gifted crowd.

She sits beside the ship-choked Thames,
Sad, weary, cruel, grand;
Her crown imperial gleams with gems
From many a land.

From overseas, and far away,
Come crowded ships and ships
Grim-faced she gazes on them; yea,
With scornful lips.

The garden of the earth is wide;
Its rarest blooms she picks
To deck her board, this haggard-eyed
Imperatrix.

Sad, sad is she, and yearns for mirth;
With voice of golden guile
She lures men from the ends of earth
To make her smile.

The student of wild human ways
In wild new lands; the sage
With new great thoughts; the bard whose lays
Bring youth to age;

In the prison-house of the dark
    I lay with open eyes,
And pale beyond the pale windows
    I saw the dawn rise.
From past the bounds of space
    Where earthly vapours climb,
There stirred the voice I shall not hear
    On this side Time.
There is one death for the body,
    And one death for the heart,
And one prayer for the hope of the end,
    When some links part.
Christ, from uncounted leagues,
Beyond the sun and moon,
Strike with the sword of Thine own pity -
    Bring the dawn soon.

When I am buried, all my thoughts and acts
Will be reduced to lists of dates and facts,
And long before this wandering flesh is rotten
The dates which made me will be all forgotten;
And none will know the gleam there used to be
About the feast days freshly kept by me,
But men will call the golden hour of bliss
'About this time,' or 'shortly after this.'

Men do not heed the rungs by which men climb
Those glittering steps, those milestones upon time,
Those tombstones of dead selves, those hours of birth,
Those moments of the soul in years of earth.
They mark the height achieved, the main result,
The power of freedom in the perished cult,
The power of boredom in the dead man's deeds
Not the bright moments of the sprinkled seeds.

By many waters and on ...