Ships tempest-tossed
Will find a harbour in some bay,
And so we may.
And there is nothing left to do
But to kiss once again, and part,
Nay, there is nothing we should rue,
I have my beauty, - you your Art,
Nay, do not start,
One world was not enough for two
Like me and you.
Poem: My Voice
Within this
restless,
hurried, modern world
We took our hearts' full pleasure - You and I,
And now the white sails of our ship are furled,
And spent the lading of our argosy.
Wherefore my cheeks before their time are wan,
For very
weeping is my
gladness fled,
Sorrow has paled my young mouth's vermilion,
And Ruin draws the curtains of my bed.
But all this
crowded life has been to thee
No more than lyre, or lute, or subtle spell
Of viols, or the music of the sea
That sleeps, a mimic echo, in the shell.
Poem: Taedium Vitae
To stab my youth with
desperateknives, to wear
This paltry age's gaudy
livery,
To let each base hand filch my treasury,
To mesh my soul within a woman's hair,
And be mere Fortune's lackeyed groom, - I swear
I love it not! these things are less to me
Than the thin foam that frets upon the sea,
Less than the thistledown of summer air
Which hath no seed: better to stand aloof
Far from these slanderous fools who mock my life
Knowing me not, better the lowliest roof
Fit for the meanest hind to
sojourn in,
Than to go back to that
hoarse cave of strife
Where my white soul first kissed the mouth of sin.
Poem: Humanitad
It is full winter now: the trees are bare,
Save where the cattle
huddle from the cold
Beneath the pine, for it doth never wear
The autumn's gaudy
livery whose gold
Her
jealous brother pilfers, but is true
To the green
doublet; bitter is the wind, as though it blew
From Saturn's cave; a few thin wisps of hay
Lie on the sharp black hedges, where the wain
Dragged the sweet pillage of a summer's day
From the low meadows up the narrow lane;
Upon the half-thawed snow the bleating sheep
Press close against the hurdles, and the shivering house-dogs creep
From the shut
stable to the
frozen stream
And back again disconsolate, and miss
The bawling
shepherds and the noisy team;
And
overhead in circling listlessness
The cawing rooks whirl round the frosted stack,
Or crowd the dripping boughs; and in the fen the ice-pools crack
Where the gaunt bittern stalks among the reeds
And flaps his wings, and stretches back his neck,
And hoots to see the moon; across the meads
Limps the poor frightened hare, a little speck;
And a stray seamew with its
fretful cry
Flits like a sudden drift of snow against the dull grey sky.
Full winter: and the lusty goodman brings
His load of faggots from the
chilly byre,
And stamps his feet upon the
hearth, and flings
The sappy billets on the waning fire,
And laughs to see the sudden lightening scare
His children at their play, and yet, - the spring is in the air;
Already the slim crocus stirs the snow,
And soon yon blanched fields will bloom again
With nodding cowslips for some lad to mow,
For with the first warm kisses of the rain
The winter's icy sorrow breaks to tears,
And the brown thrushes mate, and with bright eyes the
rabbit peers
From the dark
warren where the fir-cones lie,
And treads one snowdrop under foot, and runs
Over the mossy knoll, and blackbirds fly
Across our path at evening, and the suns
Stay longer with us; ah! how good to see
Grass-girdled spring in all her joy of laughing greenery
Dance through the hedges till the early rose,
(That sweet
repentance of the
thorny briar!)
Burst from its sheathed
emerald and disclose
The little quivering disk of golden fire
Which the bees know so well, for with it come
Pale boy's-love, sops-in-wine, and daffadillies all in bloom.
Then up and down the field the sower goes,
While close behind the laughing younker scares
With
shrilly whoop the black and thievish crows,
And then the chestnut-tree its glory wears,
And on the grass the
creamyblossom falls
In odorous
excess, and faint half-whispered madrigals
Steal from the bluebells' nodding carillons
Each breezy morn, and then white jessamine,
That star of its own heaven, snap-dragons
With lolling
crimson tongues, and eglantine
In dusty velvets clad usurp the bed
And
woodland empery, and when the lingering rose hath shed
Red leaf by leaf its folded panoply,
And pansies closed their purple-lidded eyes,
Chrysanthemums from gilded argosy
Unload their gaudy scentless merchandise,
And violets getting overbold withdraw
From their shy nooks, and
scarlet berries dot the leafless haw.
O happy field! and O
thrice happy tree!
Soon will your queen in daisy-flowered smock
And crown of flower-de-luce trip down the lea,
Soon will the lazy
shepherds drive their flock
Back to the
pasture by the pool, and soon
Through the green leaves will float the hum of murmuring bees at
noon.
Soon will the glade be bright with bellamour,
The flower which wantons love, and those sweet nuns
Vale-lilies in their snowy vestiture
Will tell their beaded pearls, and carnations
With mitred dusky leaves will scent the wind,
And straggling traveller's-joy each hedge with yellow stars will
bind.
Dear bride of Nature and most
bounteous spring,
That canst give increase to the sweet-breath'd kine,
And to the kid its little horns, and bring
The soft and silky
blossoms to the vine,
Where is that old nepenthe which of yore
Man got from poppy root and glossy-berried mandragore!
There was a time when any common bird
Could make me sing in
unison, a time
When all the strings of
boyish life were stirred
To quick
response or more melodious rhyme
By every forest idyll; - do I change?
Or rather doth some evil thing through thy fair pleasaunce range?
Nay, nay, thou art the same: 'tis I who seek
To vex with sighs thy simple solitude,
And because fruitless tears bedew my cheek
Would have thee weep with me in brotherhood;
Fool! shall each wronged and
restless spirit dare
To taint such wine with the salt
poison of own despair!
Thou art the same: 'tis I whose
wretched soul
Takes
discontent to be its paramour,
And gives its kingdom to the rude control
Of what should be its servitor, - for sure
Wisdom is somewhere, though the stormy sea
Contain it not, and the huge deep answer ''Tis not in me.'
To burn with one clear flame, to stand erect
In natural honour, not to bend the knee
In profitless prostrations whose effect
Is by itself condemned, what alchemy
Can teach me this? what herb Medea brewed
Will bring the unexultant peace of
essence not subdued?
The minor chord which ends the harmony,
And for its answering brother waits in vain
Sobbing for incompleted melody,
Dies a swan's death; but I the heir of pain,
A silent Memnon with blank lidless eyes,
Wait for the light and music of those suns which never rise.
The quenched-out torch, the
lonely cypress-gloom,
The little dust stored in the narrow urn,
The gentle XAIPE of the Attic tomb, -
Were not these better far than to return
To my old fitful
restless malady,
Or spend my days within the voiceless cave of misery?
Nay! for
perchance that poppy-crowned god
Is like the watcher by a sick man's bed
Who talks of sleep but gives it not; his rod
Hath lost its
virtue, and, when all is said,
Death is too rude, too
obvious a key
To solve one single secret in a life's philosophy.
And Love! that noble
madness, whose august
And inextinguishable might can slay
The soul with honeyed drugs, - alas! I must
From such sweet ruin play the runaway,
Although too
constant memory never can
Forget the
arched splendour of those brows Olympian
Which for a little season made my youth
So soft a swoon of
exquisite indolence
That all the chiding of more
prudent Truth
Seemed the thin voice of
jealousy, - O hence
Thou huntress deadlier than Artemis!
Go seek some other quarry! for of thy too
perilous bliss.
My lips have drunk enough, - no more, no more, -
Though Love himself should turn his gilded prow
Back to the troubled waters of this shore
Where I am wrecked and stranded, even now
The
chariot wheels of
passion sweep too near,
Hence! Hence! I pass unto a life more
barren, more austere.
More
barren - ay, those arms will never lean
Down through the trellised vines and draw my soul
In sweet
reluctance through the tangled green;
Some other head must wear that aureole,
For I am hers who loves not any man
Whose white and stainless bosom bears the sign Gorgonian.
Let Venus go and chuck her
dainty page,
And kiss his mouth, and toss his curly hair,
With net and spear and
hunting equipage
Let young Adonis to his tryst repair,
But me her fond and subtle-fashioned spell
Delights no more, though I could win her dearest citadel.
Ay, though I were that laughing
shepherd boy
Who from Mount Ida saw the little cloud
Pass over Tenedos and lofty Troy
And knew the coming of the Queen, and bowed