("Oui, ce front, ce sourire.")

[Bk. V. xxii., November, 1825.]


That brow, that smile, that cheek so fair,
Beseem my child, who weeps and plays:
A heavenly spirit guards her ways,
From whom she stole that mixture rare.
Through all her features shining mild,
The poet sees an angel there,
The father sees a child.

And by their flame so pure and bright,
We see how lately those sweet eyes
Have wandered down from Paradise,
And still are lingering in its light.

All earthly things are but a shade
Through which she looks at things above,
And sees the holy Mother-maid,
Athwart her mother's glance of love.

She seems celestial songs to hear,
And virgin souls are whispering near.
Till by her radiant smile deceived,

The past is such a curious creature,
To look her in the face
A transport may reward us,
Or a disgrace.

Unarmed if any meet her,
I charge him, fly!
Her rusty ammunition
Might yet reply!

When on thy pillow lying,

Half listen, I implore,
And at my lute's soft sighing,

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

For at my lute's soft sighing

The stars their blessings pour
On feelings never-dying;

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

Those feelings never-dying

My spirit aid to soar
From earthly conflicts trying;

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

From earthly conflicts trying

Thou driv'st me to this shore;
Through thee I'm thither flying,

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

Through thee I'm hither flying,

Thou wilt not list before
In slumbers thou art lying:

Sleep on! what wouldst thou more?

A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by,
One after one; the sound of rain, and bees
Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas,
Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky;
I have thought of all by turns, and yet do lie
Sleepless! and soon the small birds' melodies
Must hear, first uttered from my orchard trees;
And the first cuckoo's melancholy cry.
Even thus last night, and two nights more, I lay,
And could not win thee, Sleep! by any stealth:
So do not let me wear to-night away:
Without Thee what is all the morning's wealth?
Come, blessed barrier between day and day,
Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!

So, the three Court-ladies began
Their trial of who judged best
In esteeming the love of a man:
Who preferred with most reason was thereby confessed
Boy-Cupid’s exemplary catcher and cager;
An Abbé crossed legs to decide on the wager.

First the Duchesse: “Mine for me,
Who were it but God’s for Him,
And the King’s for who but he?
Both faithful and loyal, one grace more shall brim
His cup with perfection: a lady’s true lover,
He holds, save his God and his king, none above her.”

“I require”, outspoke the Marquise,
“Pure thoughts, ay, but also fine deeds:
Play the paladin must he, to please
My whim, and, to prove my knight’s service exceeds
Your saint’s and your loyalist’s praying and kneeling,
Show wounds, each wide mouth to my mercy appealing.”...

When roses cease to bloom, dear,
And violets are done,
When bumble-bees in solemn flight
Have passed beyond the sun,

The hand that paused to gather
Upon this summer's day
Will idle lie, in Auburn, --
Then take my flower, pray!

When by the brook his strain

Cupid is fluting,
And on the neighboring plain

Mayors disputing,
There turns the ear ere long,

Loving and tender,
Yet to the noise a song

Soon must surrender.
Loud then the flute-notes glad

Sound 'mid war's thunder;
If I grow raving mad,

Is it a wonder?
Flutes sing and trumpets bray,

Waxing yet stronger;
If, then, my senses stray,

Wonder no longer.

"Conquer the gloomy night of thy sorrow, for the morning greets
thee with laughter.
Rise and clothe thyself with noble pride,
Break loose from the tyranny of grief.
Thou standest alone among men,
Thy song is like a pearl in beauty."


So spake my friend. 'T is well!
The billows of the stormy sea which overwhelmed my soul, -
These I subdue; I quake not
Before the bow and arrow of destiny.
I endured with patience when he deceitfully lied to me
With his treacherous smile.


Yea, boldly I defy Fate,
I cringe not to envious Fortune.
I mock the towering floods.
My brave heart does not shrink -
This heart of mine, that, albeit young in years,
Is none the less rich in deep, keen-eyed experience.

Solomon Ben Judah Gabirol (Died Betwe...

Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten,
Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold.
Let it be forgotten forever and ever,
Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.

If anyone asks, say it was forgotten
Long and long ago,
As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall
In a long-forgotten snow.

I

Thou sit'st among the sunny silences
Of terraced hills and woodland galleries,
Thou utterance of all calm melodies,
Thou lutanist of Earth's most affluent lute, -
Where no false note intrudes
To mar the silent music, - branch and root, -
Charming the fields ripe, orchards and deep woods,
To song similitudes
Of flower and seed and fruit.

II

Oft have I seen thee, in some sensuous air,
Bewitch the broad wheat-acres everywhere
To imitated gold of thy deep hair:
The peach, by thy red lips' delicious trouble,
Blown into gradual dyes
Of crimson; and beheld thy magic double -
Dark-blue with fervid influence of thine eyes -
The grapes' rotundities,
Bubble by purple bubble.

III

Deliberate uttered into life intense...

Goddess, I do love a girl,
Ruby-lipp'd and tooth'd with pearl;
If so be I may but prove
Lucky in this maid I love,
I will promise there shall be
Myrtles offer'd up to thee.

"O! charming May!"
That's what they say.
The saying is not new, -
The saying is not true; -
O! May!

Bare fields and icebound streams,
Sunshine in fitful gleams,
May smile
Beguile,
And dispel poets' dreams.

Was ever May so gay
As what the poets say?
If so,
We know,
We live not in their day.

A cosy coat and wrap,
You may not find mishap -
Propo
You know
When comes the next cold snap.

A heavy woollen scarf,
Strong boots that reach the calf, -
Away we go
Through snow and slush and wet, -
And can we once forget
'Tis May? Oh, no!

Best is the old advice
Which we so oft despise,
"Cast not a clout
Till May goes out."
May like a maiden, lies.

A Maypole dance. -...

The Day was dying; his breath
Wavered away in a hectic gleam;
And I said, if Life's a dream, and Death
And Love and all are dreams - I'll dream.

A mist came over the bay
Like as a dream would over an eye.
The mist was white and the dream was grey
And both contained a human cry,

The burthen whereof was "Love",
And it filled both mist and dream with pain,
And the hills below and the skies above
Were touched and uttered it back again.

The mist broke: down the rift
A kind ray shot from a holy star.
Then my dream did waver and break and lift -
Through it, O Love, shone thy face, afar.

So Boyhood sets: comes Youth,
A painful night of mists and dreams;
That broods till Love's exquisite truth,
The star of a morn-clear manhood, be...

I Leave thee, beauteous Italy! no more
From the high terraces, at even-tide,
To look supine into thy depths of sky,
Thy golden moon between the cliff and me,
Or thy dark spires of fretted cypresses            
Bordering the channel of the milky way.
Fiesole and Valdarno must be dreams
Hereafter, and my own lost Affrico
Murmur to me but in the poet’s song.
I did believe (what have I not believ’d?),            
Weary with age, but unoppress’d by pain,
To close in thy soft clime my quiet day
And rest my bones in the mimosa’s shade.
Hope! Hope! few ever cherish’d thee so little;
Few are the heads thou hast so rarely rais’d;            
But thou didst promise this, and all was well.
For we are fond of thinking where to lie
When every pulse hath ceas’d, when th...

Let us, though late, at last, my Silvia, wed;
And loving lie in one devoted bed.
Thy watch may stand, my minutes fly post haste;
No sound calls back the year that once is past.
Then, sweetest Silvia, let's no longer stay;
True love, we know, precipitates delay.
Away with doubts, all scruples hence remove!
No man, at one time, can be wise, and love.

In Provence, to his Lady, Azalis de Mercoeur in Anjou

The gray dawn finds me thinking still
Of thee who hadst my thoughts all night;
Of thee, who art my lute's sweet skill,
And of my soul the only light;
My star of song to whom I turn
My face and for whose love I yearn.

Thou dost not know thy troubadour
Lies sick to death; no longer sings:
That this alone may work his cure
To feel thy white hand, weighed with rings,
Smoothed softly through his heavy hair,
Or resting with the old love there.

To feel thy warm cheek laid to his;
Thy bosom fluttering with love;
Then on his eyes and lips thy kiss
Thy kiss alone were all enough
To heal his heart, to cure his soul,
And make his mind and body whole.

The drought, these three month...

Sing soft, ye pretty birds, while Cælia sleeps,
And gentle gales play gently with the leaves;
Learn of the neighbour brooks, whose silent deeps
Would teach him fear, that her soft sleep bereaves
Mine oaten reed, devoted to her praise,
(A theme that would befit the Delphian lyre)
Give way, that I in silence may admire.
Is not her sleep like that of innocents,
Sweet as herself; and is she not more fair,
Almost in death, than are the ornaments
Of fruitful trees, which newly budding are?
She is, and tell it, Truth, when she shall lie
And sleep for ever, for she cannot die.

O all ye fair ladies with your colours and your graces,
And your eyes clear in flame of candle and hearth,
Toward the dark of this old window lift not up your smiling faces,
Where a Shade stands forlorn from the cold of the earth.

God knows I could not rest for one I still was thinking of;
Like a rose sheathed in beauty her spirit was to me;
Now out of unforgottenness a bitter draught I'm drinking of,
'Tis sad of such beauty unremembered to be.

Men all all shades, O Woman. - Winds wist not of the way they blow.
Apart from your kindness, life's at best but a snare.
Though a tongue now past praise this bitter thing doth say, I know
What solitude means, and how, homeless, I fare.

Strange, strange, are ye all - except in beauty shared with her -
Since I seek on...