The boy's first kiss, the hyacinth's first bell,
The man's last
passion, and the last red spear
That from the lily leaps, the asphodel
Which will not let its blossoms blow for fear
Of too much beauty, and the timid shame
Of the young
bridegroom at his lover's eyes, - these with the same
One sacrament are
consecrate, the earth
Not we alone hath
passions hymeneal,
The yellow buttercups that shake for mirth
At
daybreak know a pleasure not less real
Than we do, when in some fresh-blossoming wood,
We draw the spring into our hearts, and feel that life is good.
So when men bury us beneath the yew
Thy
crimson-stained mouth a rose will be,
And thy soft eyes lush bluebells dimmed with dew,
And when the white narcissus wantonly
Kisses the wind its
playmate some faint joy
Will
thrill our dust, and we will be again fond maid and boy.
And thus without life's
conscious torturing pain
In some sweet flower we will feel the sun,
And from the linnet's
throat will sing again,
And as two gorgeous-mailed snakes will run
Over our graves, or as two tigers creep
Through the hot
jungle where the yellow-eyed huge lions sleep
And give them battle! How my heart leaps up
To think of that grand living after death
In beast and bird and flower, when this cup,
Being filled too full of spirit, bursts for breath,
And with the pale leaves of some autumn day
The soul earth's earliest
conqueror becomes earth's last great
prey.
O think of it! We shall inform ourselves
Into all sensuous life, the goat-foot Faun,
The Centaur, or the merry bright-eyed Elves
That leave their dancing rings to spite the dawn
Upon the meadows, shall not be more near
Than you and I to nature's mysteries, for we shall hear
The thrush's heart beat, and the daisies grow,
And the wan snowdrop sighing for the sun
On sunless days in winter, we shall know
By whom the silver gossamer is spun,
Who paints the diapered fritillaries,
On what wide wings from shivering pine to pine the eagle flies.
Ay! had we never loved at all, who knows
If yonder
daffodil had lured the bee
Into its gilded womb, or any rose
Had hung with
crimson lamps its little tree!
Methinks no leaf would ever bud in spring,
But for the lovers' lips that kiss, the poets' lips that sing.
Is the light vanished from our golden sun,
Or is this daedal-fashioned earth less fair,
That we are nature's heritors, and one
With every pulse of life that beats the air?
Rather new suns across the sky shall pass,
New splendour come unto the flower, new glory to the grass.
And we two lovers shall not sit afar,
Critics of nature, but the
joyous sea
Shall be our
raiment, and the bearded star
Shoot arrows at our pleasure! We shall be
Part of the
mightyuniversal whole,
And through all aeons mix and
mingle with the Kosmic Soul!
We shall be notes in that great Symphony
Whose
cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres,
And all the live World's throbbing heart shall be
One with our heart; the stealthy creeping years
Have lost their terrors now, we shall not die,
The Universe itself shall be our Immortality.
Poem: Impression - Le Reveillon
The sky is laced with fitful red,
The circling mists and shadows flee,
The dawn is rising from the sea,
Like a white lady from her bed.
And jagged
brazen arrows fall
Athwart the feathers of the night,
And a long wave of yellow light
Breaks
silently on tower and hall,
And spreading wide across the wold
Wakes into
flight some fluttering bird,
And all the
chestnut tops are stirred,
And all the branches streaked with gold.
Poem: At Verona
How steep the stairs within Kings' houses are
For exile-wearied feet as mine to tread,
And O how salt and bitter is the bread
Which falls from this Hound's table, - better far
That I had died in the red ways of war,
Or that the gate of Florence bare my head,
Than to live thus, by all things comraded
Which seek the
essence of my soul to mar.
'Curse God and die: what better hope than this?
He hath forgotten thee in all the bliss
Of his gold city, and
eternal day' -
Nay peace: behind my prison's blinded bars
I do possess what none can take away
My love, and all the glory of the stars.
Poem: Apologia
Is it thy will that I should wax and wane,
Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey,
And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain
Whose brightest threads are each a wasted day?
Is it thy will - Love that I love so well -
That my Soul's House should be a tortured spot
Wherein, like evil paramours, must dwell
The quenchless flame, the worm that dieth not?
Nay, if it be thy will I shall endure,
And sell
ambition at the common mart,
And let dull
failure be my vestiture,
And sorrow dig its grave within my heart.
Perchance it may be better so - at least
I have not made my heart a heart of stone,
Nor starved my
boyhood of its
goodly feast,
Nor walked where Beauty is a thing unknown.
Many a man hath done so; sought to fence
In straitened bonds the soul that should be free,
Trodden the dusty road of common sense,
While all the forest sang of liberty,
Not marking how the spotted hawk in
flightPassed on wide
pinion through the lofty air,
To where some steep untrodden mountain height
Caught the last tresses of the Sun God's hair.
Or how the little flower he trod upon,
The daisy, that white-feathered
shield of gold,
Followed with
wistful eyes the wandering sun
Content if once its leaves were aureoled.
But surely it is something to have been
The best
beloved for a little while,
To have walked hand in hand with Love, and seen
His
purple wings flit once across thy smile.
Ay! though the gorged asp of
passion feed
On my boy's heart, yet have I burst the bars,
Stood face to face with Beauty, known indeed
The Love which moves the Sun and all the stars!
Poem: Quia Multum Amavi
Dear Heart, I think the young im
passioned priest
When first he takes from out the
hidden shrine
His God imprisoned in the Eucharist,
And eats the bread, and drinks the
dreadful wine,
Feels not such awful wonder as I felt
When first my
smitten eyes beat full on thee,
And all night long before thy feet I knelt
Till thou wert wearied of Idolatry.
Ah! hadst thou liked me less and loved me more,
Through all those summer days of joy and rain,
I had not now been sorrow's heritor,
Or stood a lackey in the House of Pain.
Yet, though
remorse, youth's white-faced seneschal,
Tread on my heels with all his retinue,
I am most glad I loved thee - think of all
The suns that go to make one speedwell blue!
Poem: Silentium Amoris
As often-times the too
resplendent sun
Hurries the pallid and
reluctant moon
Back to her sombre cave, ere she hath won
A single
ballad from the nightingale,
So doth thy Beauty make my lips to fail,
And all my sweetest singing out of tune.
And as at dawn across the level mead
On wings
impetuous some wind will come,
And with its too harsh kisses break the reed
Which was its only
instrument of song,
So my too stormy
passions work me wrong,
And for
excess of Love my Love is dumb.
But surely unto Thee mine eyes did show
Why I am silent, and my lute unstrung;
Else it were better we should part, and go,
Thou to some lips of sweeter melody,
And I to nurse the
barren memory
Of unkissed kisses, and songs never sung.
Poem: Her Voice
The wild bee reels from bough to bough
With his furry coat and his gauzy wing,
Now in a lily-cup, and now
Setting a jacinth bell a-swing,
In his wandering;
Sit closer love: it was here I trow
I made that vow,
Swore that two lives should be like one
As long as the sea-gull loved the sea,
As long as the sunflower sought the sun, -
It shall be, I said, for eternity
'Twixt you and me!
Dear friend, those times are over and done;
Love's web is spun.
Look
upward where the
poplar trees
Sway and sway in the summer air,
Here in the
valley never a breeze
Scatters the thistledown, but there
Great winds blow fair
From the
mighty murmuring mystical seas,
And the wave-lashed leas.
Look
upward where the white gull screams,
What does it see that we do not see?
Is that a star? or the lamp that gleams
On some
outward voyaging argosy, -
Ah! can it be
We have lived our lives in a land of dreams!
How sad it seems.
Sweet, there is nothing left to say
But this, that love is never lost,
Keen winter stabs the breasts of May
Whose
crimson roses burst his frost,