From Calpe and the cliffs of Herakles!
No! thou art Helen, and none other one!
It was for thee that young Sarpedon died,
And Memnon's
manhood was
untimely spent;
It was for thee gold-crested Hector tried
With Thetis' child that evil race to run,
In the last year of thy beleaguerment;
Ay! even now the glory of thy fame
Burns in those fields of trampled asphodel,
Where the high lords whom Ilion knew so well
Clash
ghostly shields, and call upon thy name.
Where hast thou been? in that enchanted land
Whose slumbering vales
forlorn Calypso knew,
Where never mower rose at break of day
But all unswathed the trammelling grasses grew,
And the sad
shepherd saw the tall corn stand
Till summer's red had changed to withered grey?
Didst thou lie there by some Lethaean stream
Deep brooding on thine ancient memory,
The crash of broken spears, the fiery gleam
From shivered helm, the Grecian battle-cry?
Nay, thou wert
hidden in that hollow hill
With one who is forgotten utterly,
That discrowned Queen men call the Erycine;
Hidden away that never mightst thou see
The face of Her, before whose mouldering shrine
To-day at Rome the silent nations kneel;
Who gat from Love no
joyous gladdening,
But only Love's
intolerable pain,
Only a sword to
pierce her heart in twain,
Only the
bitterness of child-bearing.
The lotus-leaves which heal the wounds of Death
Lie in thy hand; O, be thou kind to me,
While yet I know the summer of my days;
For hardly can my
tremulous lips draw breath
To fill the silver
trumpet with thy praise,
So bowed am I before thy mystery;
So bowed and broken on Love's terrible wheel,
That I have lost all hope and heart to sing,
Yet care I not what ruin time may bring
If in thy
temple thou wilt let me kneel.
Alas, alas, thou wilt not tarry here,
But, like that bird, the servant of the sun,
Who flies before the north wind and the night,
So wilt thou fly our evil land and drear,
Back to the tower of thine old delight,
And the red lips of young Euphorion;
Nor shall I ever see thy face again,
But in this
poisonous garden-close must stay,
Crowning my brows with the thorn-crown of pain,
Till all my loveless life shall pass away.
O Helen! Helen! Helen! yet a while,
Yet for a little while, O, tarry here,
Till the dawn cometh and the shadows flee!
For in the gladsome
sunlight of thy smile
Of heaven or hell I have no thought or fear,
Seeing I know no other god but thee:
No other god save him, before whose feet
In nets of gold the tired planets move,
The incarnate spirit of
spiritual love
Who in thy body holds his
joyous seat.
Thou wert not born as common women are!
But, girt with silver splendour of the foam,
Didst from the depths of
sapphire seas arise!
And at thy coming some
immortal star,
Bearded with flame, blazed in the Eastern skies,
And waked the
shepherds on thine island-home.
Thou shalt not die: no asps of Egypt creep
Close at thy heels to taint the
delicate air;
No sullen-blooming poppies stain thy hair,
Those
scarlet heralds of
eternal sleep.
Lily of love, pure and inviolate!
Tower of ivory! red rose of fire!
Thou hast come down our darkness to illume:
For we, close-caught in the wide nets of Fate,
Wearied with
waiting for the World's Desire,
Aimlessly wandered in the House of gloom,
Aimlessly sought some slumberous anodyne
For wasted lives, for lingering wretchedness,
Till we
beheld thy re-arisen shrine,
And the white glory of thy loveliness.
Poem: The Burden Of Itys
This English Thames is holier far than Rome,
Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea
Breaking across the
woodland, with the foam
Of meadow-sweet and white anemone
To fleck their blue waves, - God is likelier there
Than
hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear!
Those
violet-gleaming butterflies that take
Yon
creamy lily for their pavilion
Are monsignores, and where the rushes shake
A lazy pike lies basking in the sun,
His eyes half shut, - he is some mitred old
Bishop in PARTIBUS! look at those gaudy scales all green and gold.
The wind the
restless prisoner of the trees
Does well for Palaestrina, one would say
The
mighty master's hands were on the keys
Of the Maria organ, which they play
When early on some
sapphire Easter morn
In a high
litter red as blood or sin the Pope is borne
From his dark House out to the Balcony
Above the
bronze gates and the
crowded square,
Whose very fountains seem for ecstasy
To toss their silver lances in the air,
And stretching out weak hands to East and West
In vain sends peace to peaceless lands, to
restless nations rest.
Is not yon lingering orange after-glow
That stays to vex the moon more fair than all
Rome's lordliest pageants! strange, a year ago
I knelt before some
crimson Cardinal
Who bare the Host across the Esquiline,
And now - those common poppies in the wheat seem twice as fine.
The blue-green beanfields yonder,
tremulousWith the last
shower, sweeter
perfume bring
Through this cool evening than the odorous
Flame-jewelled censers the young deacons swing,
When the grey
priest unlocks the curtained shrine,
And makes God's body from the common fruit of corn and vine.
Poor Fra Giovanni bawling at the mass
Were out of tune now, for a small brown bird
Sings
overhead, and through the long cool grass
I see that throbbing
throat which once I heard
On starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady,
Once where the white and
crescent sand of Salamis meets sea.
Sweet is the
swallow twittering on the eaves
At
daybreak, when the mower whets his scythe,
And stock-doves murmur, and the
milkmaid leaves
Her little
lonely bed, and carols blithe
To see the heavy-lowing cattle wait
Stretching their huge and dripping mouths across the
farmyard gate.
And sweet the hops upon the Kentish leas,
And sweet the wind that lifts the new-mown hay,
And sweet the
fretful swarms of grumbling bees
That round and round the
linden blossoms play;
And sweet the
heifer breathing in the stall,
And the green bursting figs that hang upon the red-brick wall,
And sweet to hear the
cuckoo mock the spring
While the last
violet loiters by the well,
And sweet to hear the
shepherd Daphnis sing
The song of Linus through a sunny dell
Of warm Arcadia where the corn is gold
And the slight lithe-limbed reapers dance about the wattled fold.
And sweet with young Lycoris to recline
In some Illyrian
valley far away,
Where canopied on herbs amaracine
We too might waste the summer-tranced day
Matching our reeds in sportive rivalry,
While far beneath us frets the troubled
purple of the sea.
But sweeter far if silver-sandalled foot
Of some long-
hidden God should ever tread
The Nuneham meadows, if with reeded flute
Pressed to his lips some Faun might raise his head
By the green water-flags, ah! sweet indeed
To see the
heavenlyherdsman call his white-fleeced flock to feed.
Then sing to me thou tuneful chorister,
Though what thou sing'st be thine own requiem!
Tell me thy tale thou
hapless chronicler
Of thine own tragedies! do not contemn
These
unfamiliar haunts, this English field,
For many a lovely coronal our northern isle can yield
Which Grecian meadows know not, many a rose
Which all day long in vales AEolian
A lad might seek in vain for over-grows
Our hedges like a
wanton courtesan
Unthrifty of its beauty; lilies too
Ilissos never mirrored star our streams, and cockles blue
Dot the green wheat which, though they are the signs
For
swallows going south, would never spread
Their azure tents between the Attic vines;
Even that little weed of
ragged red,
Which bids the robin pipe, in Arcady
Would be a trespasser, and many an unsung elegy
Sleeps in the reeds that
fringe our winding Thames
Which to awake were sweeter ravishment
Than ever Syrinx wept for; diadems
Of brown bee-studded orchids which were meant
For Cytheraea's brows are
hidden here
Unknown to Cytheraea, and by yonder pasturing steer
There is a tiny yellow daffodil,
The
butterfly can see it from afar,
Although one summer evening's dew could fill
Its little cup twice over ere the star
Had called the lazy
shepherd to his fold
And be no
prodigal; each leaf is flecked with spotted gold
As if Jove's
gorgeous leman Danae
Hot from his gilded arms had stooped to kiss
The trembling petals, or young Mercury
Low-flying to the dusky ford of Dis
Had with one
feather of his pinions
Just brushed them! the slight stem which bears the burden of its
suns
Is hardly thicker than the gossamer,
Or poor Arachne's silver
tapestry, -
Men say it bloomed upon the sepulchre
Of One I
sometime worshipped, but to me
It seems to bring diviner memories
Of faun-loved Heliconian glades and blue nymph-haunted seas,
Of an untrodden vale at Tempe where
On the clear river's marge Narcissus lies,
The
tangle of the forest in his hair,
The silence of the
woodland in his eyes,