2.
WHEN Cleopatra saw ’twas time to yield
Even that love, to smite nor be afraid,
Since love shared loss,—yea, when the thing was sealed,
And all the trust of Antony betrayed;
And when, before his eyes and in full sight
Of the still striving ships, that gleaming line
Of galleys decked for no rude field of fight
Fled fair and unashamed in the sunshine;
Then, surely, he fell down as one but blind
Through sudden fallen darkness, even to grope
If haply some least broken he might find
Of all the broken ends of life and hope.
Well, out of all his fates now was there none
But Death, the utter end; and for no sake,
Save for some last love-look beneath the sun,
Had he delayed that end of all to take!
But now, because love—armed indeed of him
With utter rule of all his destinies—
Had chosen even to slay him for a whim,
And the mere remnant was none else than his,
And since, for sure, the sorest way of death
Were but to die not falling at the feet
Of that one woman who with look or breath
Could change it if she would and make it sweet;
He chose before all fame he might have caught
With death in foremost fighting, now to cling
Upon her steps who at this last had wrought
His death-wound shameful with a lover’s sting.
O how the memories seemed to throb and start
Welling from out the unstanched past!—seemed nigh
Already opening there in all his heart
The canker wound wherewith he was to die!
And so, though she were quite estranged, and now
He held no costlier gift to win her with;
Yet, following, he would find her, and, somehow,
Lay in her hands that latest gift—his death:
For now all piteously his heart relied
On a mere hope of love dwindled to this—
To fall some fair waste moment at her side
And feel perhaps a tear or even a kiss;
Since surely, in some waste of day or night,
He thought, the face of love out of the Past,
With look of his, should rise up in her sight
And make some kind of pleading at the last.
Therefore, when all the heavy heated day
Of rowing on the waters was nigh done,
And like a track of sweetness past away
Waned on the wave the last track of the sun,
At length with scarce a sound or warning cry,
Save of the rowers ceasing from the oar,
He reached her side and prayed her pass not by;
Yea, prayed her bear him yet a little more.
But truly this well-nigh availed to move
Her—Cleopatra—with remorse for all:
She knew not of such pardon, e’en from love;
Nor craved to look upon his utter fall.
And, first, when it was told her how he came
And sought to reach the galley where she was,
She faltered for a while with fear and shame,
And bade them scarce give way to let him pass:
Only at length he showed them the plain sight
How he was broken and so soon to die;
Then they fell back all grieved and gave him right,
And scarce believed the man was Antony.
And yet he could not speak; but lay forlorn
Crouched up about the gilded quivering prow,
Three days, from morn to night and night to morn,
As one whom a sore burden boweth low.
Harshly the sea-sounds taunted him at will,
And seemed in mocking choruses combined;
Each bitter inward thought was uttered shrill
On shrieking tongues of many a thwart-blown wind.
And where with onward beak the galley clave
Full many a silver mouth in the blue mere,
The turned up whitened lips of every wave
Rang out a bitter cadence on his ear.
But first awhile his thoughts were taking leave
Sadly of Rome, and all the pageant days;
For now at length he saw and would believe
The end of triumphs and the end of praise.
And now he did survey, apart from wrath,
The various fates of men both great and small;
How little reign or glory any hath;
And how one end comes quickly upon all;
And thought if love had been—had been quite love,
One little thing in each man’s life for bliss,
Then had the grief been paid with sweet enough
And a lost crown forgotten for a kiss;
While now, as though men played with fall and rise
Of mere base monies of the common mart,
To-day they strove for love as for a prize,
To-morrow compassed fame with every art;
And one who should but half trust any face
Of seeming fame, or follow love too well,
To set his heart a moment in love’s place—
That man should fall,—yea, even as he fell.
And he thought how, since the first fate began,
The lot of every one hath been so cast:
One woman bears and brings him up a man,
Another woman slays him at the last;
While all so hardly leaguered are men’s ways
And love so sharp a snare for them contrives,
The fleeting span of one fair woman’s days
Sufficeth many heroes’ loves and lives!
—But now, when he had thought all this and more,
He lay there and yet moved not from his place;
The love of her was in him like a sore,
And he lived waiting to behold her face.
At length they drew nigh to a land by name
Tænarus; and the third day, at its eve,
In guise of one who mourneth the Queen came
Weeping, and prayed him rise up and forgive.
V.
THE DAUGHTER OF HERODIAS.
MY heart is heavy for each goodly man
Whom crownéd woman or sweet courtezan
Hath slain or brought to greater shames than death.
But now, O Daughter of Herodias!
I weep for him, of whom the story saith,
Thou didst procure his bitter fate:—Alas,
He seems so fair!—May thy curse never pass!
Where art thou writhing? Herod’s palace-floor
Has fallen through: there shalt thou dance no more;
And Herod is a worm now. In thy place,
—Salome, Viper!—do thy coils yet keep
That woman’s flesh they bore with such a grace?
Have thine eyes still the love-lure hidden deep,
The ornament of tears, they could not weep?
Thou wast quite perfect in the splendid guile
Of woman’s beauty; thou hadst the whole smile
That can dishonour heroes, and recal
Fair saints prepared for heaven back to hell:
And He, whose unlived glory thou mad’st fall
All beautiful and spotless, at thy spell,
Was great and fit for thee by whom he fell.
O, is it now sufficing sweet to thee—
Through all the long uncounted years that see
The undistinguished lost ones waste away—
To twine thee, biting, on those locks that bleed,
As bled they through thy fingers on that day?
Or hast thou, all unhallowed, some fierce need
Thy soul on his anointed grace to feed?
Or hast thou, rather, for that serpent’s task
Thou didst accomplish in thy woman-mask,
Some perfect inconceivable reward
Of serpent’s slimy pleasure?—all the thing
Thou didst beseech thy master, who is Lord
Of those accursèd hosts that creep and sting,
To give thee for the spoil thou shouldest bring?
He was a goodly spoil for thee to win!
—Men’s souls and lives were wholly dark with sin;
And so God’s world was changed with wars and gold,
No part of it was holy; save, maybe,
The desert and the ocean as of old:—
But such a spotless way of life had he,
His soul was as the desert or the sea.
I think he had not heard of the far towns;
Nor of the deeds of men, nor of kings’ crowns;
Before the thought of God took hold of him,
As he was sitting dreaming in the calm
Of one first noon, upon the desert’s rim,
Beneath the tall fair shadows of the palm,
All overcome with some strange inward balm.
But then, so wonderful and lovely seemed
That thought, he straight became as though he dreamed
A vast thing false and fair, which day and night
Absorbed him in some rapture—very high
Above the common swayings of delight
And general yearnings, that quite occupy
Men’s passions, and suffice them till they die:
Yea, soon as it had entered him—that thought
Of God—he felt that he was being wrought
All holy: more and more it filled his heart;
And seemed, indeed, a spirit of pure flame
Set burning in his soul’s most inward part.
And from the Lord’s great wilderness there came
A mighty voice calling on him by name.
He numbered not the changes of the year,
The days, the nights, and he forgot all fear
Of death: each day he thought there should have been
A shining ladder set for him to climb
Athwart some opening in the heavens, e’en
To God’s eternity, and see, sublime—
His face whose shadow passing fills all time.
But he walked through the ancient wilderness.
O, there the prints of feet were numberless
And holy all about him! And quite plain
He saw each spot an angel silvershod
Had lit upon; where Jacob too had lain
The place seemed fresh,—and, bright and lately trod,
A long track showed where Enoch walked with God.
And often, while the sacred darkness trailed
Along the mountains smitten and unveiled
By rending lightnings,—over all the noise
Of thunders and the earth that quaked and bowed
From its foundations—he could hear the voice
Of great Elias prophesying loud
To Him whose face was covered by a cloud.
Already he was shown so perfectly
The awful mystic grace and sanctity
Of all the earth, there was no part his feet
With sandal covering might dare to tread;
Because that in it he was sure to meet
The fair sword-bearing angels, or some dread
Eternal prophet numbered with the dead.
So he believed that he should purify
His body, till the sin of it should die,
And the unfailing spirit and great word
Of One—who is too bright to be beheld,
And in his speech too fearful to be heard
By mortal man—should come down and be held
In him as in those holy ones of eld.
And to believe in this was rapture more
Than any that the thought of living bore
To tempt him: so the pleasant days of youth
Were but the days of striving and of prayer;
And all the beauty of those days, forsooth,
He counted as an evil or a snare,
And would have left it in the desert there.
Ah, spite of all the scourges that had bit
So fiercely his fair body, branding it
With many a painful over-written vow
Of perfect sanctity—what man shall say
How often, weak with groanings, he would bow
Before the angels of the place, and pray
That all his body might consume away?
For through whole bitter days it seemed in vain
That all the mighty desert had no stain
Of sin around him; that the burning breaths
Went forth from the eternal One, and rolled
For ever through it, filling it with deaths,
And plagues, and fires; that he did behold
The earthquakes and the wonders manifold:
It seemed in vain that all the place was bright
Ineffably with that unfading light
No man who worketh evil can abide;
That he could see too with his open eyes
Fair troops of deathless ones, and those that died
In martyrdoms, or went up to the skies
In fiery cars—walk there with no disguise;—
It seemed in vain that he was there alone
With no man’s sin to tempt him but his own;—
Since in his body he did bear about
A seeming endless sin he could not quell
With the most sharp coercement, nor cast out
Through any might of prayer. O, who can tell—
Save God—how often in despair he fell?
The very stones seemed purer far than he;
And every naked rock and every tree
Looked great and calm, composed in one long thought
Of holiness; each bird and creeping thing
Rejoiced in bearing some bright sign that taught
The legend of an ancient minist’ring
To some fair saint of old there sojourning.
Yea, all the dumb things and the creatures there
Were grand, and some way sanctified; most fair
The very lions stood, and had no shame
Before the angels; and what time were poured
The floods of the Lord’s anger forth, they came
Quite nigh the lightnings of the Mount and roared
Among the roaring thunders of the Lord:
Yet He—while in him day by day, divine,
The clear inspirèd thought went on to shine,
And heaven was opening every radiant door
Upon his spirit—He, in that fair dress
Of weak humanity his senses bore,
Did feel scarce worthy to be there, and less
Than any dweller in the wilderness.
Wherefore his limbs were galled with many a stone;
And often he had wrestled all alone
With their fair beauty, conquering the pride
And various pleasure of them with some quick
And hard inflicted pain that might abide,—
Assailing all the sense with constant prick
Until the lust or pride fell faint and sick.
Natheless there grew and stayed upon his face
The wonderful unconquerable grace
Of a young man made beautiful with love;
Because the thought of God was wholly spread
Like love upon it; and still fair above
All crownèd heads of kings remained his head
Whereon the halo of the Lord was shed.
Ah, how long was it, since the first red rush
Of that surpassing thought made his cheek blush
With pleasure, as he sat—a tender child—
And wondered at the desert, and the long
Rough prickly paths that led out to the wild
Where all the men of God, holy and strong,
Had dwelt and purified themselves—how long?—
Before he rose up from his knees one day,
And felt that he was purified as they;
That he had trodden out the sin at last,
And that the light was filling him within?
How many of the months and years had past
Uncounted?—But the place he was born in
No longer knew him: no man was his kin.
O then it was a most sweet, holy will
That came upon him, making his soul thrill
With joy indeed, and with a perfect trust,—
For he soon thought of men and of the king
All tempted in the world, with gold and lust,
And women there, and every fatal thing,
And none to save their souls from perishing—
And so he vowed that he would go forth straight
From God there in the desert, with the great
Unearthliness upon him, and adjure
The nations of the whole world with his voice;
Until they should resist each pleasant lure
Of gold and woman, and make such a choice
As his, that they might evermore rejoice.
Thus beautiful and good was He, at length,
Who came before King Herod in his strength,
And shouted to him with a great command
To purify himself, and put away
That unclean woman set at his right hand;
And after all to bow himself and pray,
And be in terror of the Judgment Day!
He never had seen houses like to that
Fair-columned, cedar-builded one where sat
King Herod. Flawless cedar was each beam,
Wrought o’er with flaming brass: along the wall
Great brazen images of beasts did gleam,
With wondrous flower-works and palm trees tall;
And folded purples hung about it all.
He never had beheld so many thrones,
As those of ivory and precious stones
Whereon the noble company was raised
About the king:—he never had seen gems
So costly, nor so wonderful as blazed
Upon their many crowns and diadems,
And trailed upon their garments’ trodden hems:
But he had seen in mighty Lebanon
The cedars no man’s axe hath lit upon;
And he had often worshipped, falling down
In dazzling temples opened straight to him,
Where One who had great lightnings for His crown
Was suddenly made present, vast and dim
Through crowded pinions of the Cherubim!
Wherefore he had no fear to stand and shout
To all men in the place, and there to flout
Those fair and fearful women who were seen
Quite triumphing in that work of their smile
To shame a goodly king. And he cast, e’en
A sudden awe that undid for a while
The made-up shameless visages of guile.
And when Herodias—that many times
Polluted one, assured now in all crimes
Past fear or turning—when she, her fierce tongue
Thrice forked with indignation, hotly spoke
Quick wild beseeching words, wherewith she clung
To Herod, praying him by some death-stroke
To do her vengeance there before all folk—
Ah, spite of every urging that her hate
Did put into her lips,—so fair and great
Seemed that accuser standing weaponless,
Yet wholly terrible with his bright speech
As ’twere some sword of flaming holiness,
That no man dared to join her and beseech
His death; but dread came somehow upon each.
For he was surely terrible to see
So plainly sinless, so divinely free
To judge them; being in a perfect youth,
Yet walking like an angel in a man
Reproving all men with inspired truth.
And Herod himself spoke not, but began
To tremble: through his soul the warning ran.
—Then that Salome did put off the shame
Of her mere virgin girlhood, and became
A woman! Then she did at once essay
Her beauty’s magic, and unfold the wings
Of her enchanted feet,—to have men say
She slew him—born indeed for wondrous things.
Her dance was fit to ruin saints or kings.
O, her new beauty was above all praise!
She came with dancing in shy devious ways,
And while she danced she sang.
The virgin bandlet of her forehead brake,
Her hair came round her like a shining snake;
To loving her men’s hearts within them sprang
The while she danced and sang.
Her long black hair danced round her like a snake
Allured to each charmed movement she did make;
Her voice came strangely sweet;
She sang, “O, Herod, wilt thou look on me—
Have I no beauty thy heart cares to see?”
And what her voice did sing her dancing feet
Seemed ever to repeat.
She sang, “O, Herod, wilt thou look on me?
What sweet I have, I have it all for thee;”
And through the dance and song
She freed and floated on the air her arms
Above dim veils that hid her bosom’s charms:
The passion of her singing was so strong
It drew all hearts along.
Her sweet arms were unfolded on the air,
They seemed like floating flowers the most fair—
White lilies the most choice;
And in the gradual bending of her hand
There lurked a grace that no man could withstand;
Yea, none knew whether hands, or feet, or voice,
Most made his heart rejoice.
The veils fell round her like thin coiling mists
Shot through by topaz suns, and amethysts,
And rubies she had on;
And out of them her jewelled body came,
And seemed to all quite like a slender flame
That curled and glided, and that burnt and shone
Most fair to look upon.
Then she began, on that well-polished floor,
Whose stones seemed taking radiance more and more
From steps too bright to see,
A certain measure that was like some spell
Of winding magic, wherein heaven and hell
Were joined to lull men’s souls eternally
In some mid ecstasy:
For it was so inexplicably wrought
Of soft alternate motions, that she taught
Each sweeping supple limb,
And in such intricate and wondrous ways
With bendings of her body, that the praise
Lost breath upon men’s lips, and all grew dim
Save her so bright and slim.
And through the swift mesh’d serpents of her hair
That lash’d and leapt on each place white and fair
Of bosom or of arm,
And through the blazing of the numberless
And whirling jewelled fires of her dress,
Her perfect face no passion could disarm
Of its reposeful charm.
Her head oft drooped as in some languid death
Beneath brim tastes of joy, and her rich breath
Heaved faintly from her breast;
Her long eyes, opened fervently and wide,
Did seem with endless rapture to abide
In some fair trance through which the soul possest
Love, ecstasy, and rest.
But lo—while each man fixed his eyes on her,
And was himself quite fillèd with the stir
His heart did make within—
The place was full of devils everywhere:
They came in from the desert and the air;
They came from all the palaces of sin,
And each heart they were in:
They lurked beneath the purples, and did crawl
Or crouch in unseen corners of the hall,
Among the brass and gold;
They climbed the brazen pillars till they lined
The chamber fair; and one went up behind
The throne of Herod—fearful to behold—
The Serpent king of old.
Yea, too, before those blinded men there went
Some even to Salome; and they lent
Strange charms she did not shun.
She stretched her hand forth, and inclined her ear;
She knew those men would neither see nor hear:
A devil did support her head, and one
Her steps’ light fabric spun.
O, then her voice with singing all unveiled,
In no trained timid accents, straight assailed
King Herod’s open heart:
The amorous supplication wove and wound
Soft deadly sins about it; the words found
Fair traitor thoughts there,—singing snakes did dart
Their poison in each part.
She sang, “O look on me, and look on Love:
We three are here together, and above—
What heaven may there be?
None for thine heart without this spell of mine,
Yea, this my beauty, yea, these limbs that shine
And make thy senses shudder; and for me,
No heaven without thee!
“O, all the passion in me on this day
Rises into one song to sweep away
The breakers of Love’s bond;
For is it not a pleasant bond indeed,
And made of all the flowers in life’s mead?
And is not Love a master fair and fond?
And is not Death beyond?
“O, who are these that will adjure thee, King,
To put away this tender flower-thing,
This love that is thy bliss?
Dost thou think thou canst live indeed, and dare
The joyless remnant of pale days, the bare
Hard tomb, and feed through cold eternities
Thy heart without one kiss?
“Dost thou think empty prayers shall glad thy lips
Kept red and living with perpetual sips
Of Love’s rich cup of wine?
That thy fair body shall not fall away,
And waste among the worms that bitter day
Thou hast no lover round thy neck to twine
Fond arms like these of mine?
“I say they are no prophets,—very deaths,
And plagues, and rottenness, do use their breaths
Who speak against delight;
Pale distant slayers of humanity
Have tainted them, and sent them forth to try
Weak lures to make man give up joyous right
Of days for empty night.
“I tell thee, in their wilderness shall be
No herbs enough for food for them and thee,
No rock to give thee drink;
I tell thee, all their heavens are a cheat,
Or but a mirage to betray thy feet,
And draw thee quicker to some grave’s dread brink
Where thou shalt fall and sink.
“Turn rather unto me, and hear my voice
Against these desert howlings, and rejoice:
Now surely do I crave
To treble this my beauty, and embalm
My words with deathless thrill, singing the psalm
Of pleasure to thee, King,—so I may save
Thy fair days from this grave.
“Yea, now of all my beauty will I strive
With these mad prophesiers till I drive
Their ravings from thine ear:
Against their rudeness I will set my grace,
My softness, and the magic of my face;
And spite of all their curses thou shalt hear
And let my voice draw near:
“Against their loud revilings I will try
The long low-speaking pleadings of my sigh,
All my heart’s tender way;
Against their deserts—here, before thine eyes
My love shall open thee a paradise,
Where, if thou comest, thou shalt surely stay
And seek no better way:
“And rather than these haters of thy joy
Should anyhow allure thee to destroy
Thy heart’s prosperity,—
O, I will throw my woman’s arms entwined
About thy body; ere thy lips can find
One word of yielding, I will kiss them dry:
—And failing, let me die!
“But look on me, for it is in my soul
To make the measure of thy glory whole—
With many goodly things
To crown thee, yea, with pleasure and with love,
Till there shall scarcely be a name above
King Herod’s, in the mouth of one who sings
The fame of mighty kings:
“For see how great and fair a realm is this—
My untried love—the never conquered bliss
All hoarded in my breast;
My beauty and my love were jewels meet
To make the glory of a king complete,
And I,—O thou of kingship half-possest—
Can crown thee with the rest!
“I stand before thee—on my head the crown
Of all thou lackest yet in thy renown—
Ah, King, take this of me!
And in my hand I bear a brimming cup
That sparkles; to thine eyes I hold it up:
A royal draught of life-long pleasure—see,
The wine is fit for thee!
“Ah, wilt thou pass me? Wilt thou let me give
Thy fair life to some meaner man to live?
Nay, here—if I am sweet—
Thou shalt not. I will save thee with the sight
Of all my sweetness, save thee with the might
And charm of all my singing lips’ deceit,
Or with my dancing feet.
“I have indeed some power. A lure lies
Within my tender lips—behind my eyes—
Concealed in all my way;
And while I seem entreating, I compel,
Yea, while I do but plead, I use a spell—
Ah secretly—but surely. Who are they
That ever turn away?
“Now, thou hast barely seen bright glittering
The gilded cup of pleasures that I swung
Before thy reeling gaze,—
The deep beginnings of sweet drunkenness
Are in thy heart already, more or less,
And on thy soul deliciously there preys
A thirst no joy allays.
“Dost thou not feel, each time my long hair sweeps
The glowing floor, how through thy being creeps
A vague yet sweet desire?—
How writhes in every sense a tiny snake
Of pleasure biting till it seems to wake
A fever of sharp lusts that never tire,
Unquenchable as fire?
“Is there not wrought a madness in thy brain
Each time my thin veils part and close again—
Each time their flying ring
Is seen a moment’s space encircling me
With filmy changes—each time, rapidly
Rolled down, their cloud-like gauzes billowing
About my limbs they fling?
“Ah, seek not in this moment some cold will;
Attend to no false pratings that would kill
Thy heart, and make thee fall:
But now a little lean to me, and fear
My charming. Ah, thy fame to me is dear!
Some wound of mine, when me thou couldst not call,
Might slay thee after all.
“For even while I sing, the unseen grace
Of Love descending hath filled all this place
With most strong prevalence;
His miracle is raging in the breasts
Of all these men, and mightily he rests
On me and thee. His power is too intense,
No curse shall drive him hence.
“—O, Love, invisible, eternal God,
In whose delicious ways all men have trod,
This day Thou truly hast
My heart: thy inspiration fills my tongue
With great angelic madness; I have sung
Set words that in my bosom thou hast cast—
Thine am I to the last!
“My feet are like two liquid flames that leap
For joy at thee; I feel thy spirit sweep—
Yea, like a southern wind—
Through all the enchanted fibres of my soul;
I am a harp o’er which thy vast breaths roll,
And one day thou shalt break me: none shall find
A wreck of me behind.
“And now all palpitating, O I pray
Thy utmost passion while I cry—away
With all Love’s enemies!
A man—borne up between the closing wings
Of two eternities of unknown things,
May catch this seraph charmer as he flies,
And hold him till he dies;
“And yet some bitter ones, whom coming night
Hath wholly entered, grudge man this small right
Of joy, and seek to fill
His rushing moment with the monstrous hiss
Of shapeless terrors, poisoning the bliss
Brief nestled in his bosom—merely till
Forced out by its death chill!
“What voice is this the envious wilderness
Hath sent among us foully to distress
And haunt our lives with fear?
What vulture, shrieking on the scent of death—
What yelping jackal—what insidious breath
Of pestilence hath ventured to draw near,
And enter even here?
“No kindred flesh of fair humanity
Yon fiend hath, seeking through lives doomed to die
Death’s foretaste to infuse:
His body is but raised up from the slain
Unburied thousands that long years have lain
About the desert: Death himself doth choose
His pale disguise to use.
“But, even though he be from some new God,
He shall not turn us who love’s ways have trod,
Nor make us break love’s vow.
Nay, rather, if a single beauty dwells
In me, if in that beauty there be spells
To win my will of any man—O thou,
King Herod, hear me now!—
“Let it be for his ruin! Ah, let me,
With all in me thou countest fair to see,
Procure this and no more!
If yet, with tender prevalence, my voice
May ask a thing of thee—this is my choice,
Though thou wouldst buy my sweets with all thy store—
This all I sell them for.
“Yea, are there lures of softness in my eyes?
My eyes are—for his death. Is my heart’s prize
A seeming fair reward?
My virgin heart is—for his blood here shed;
Its passion—for the falling of his head;
And on that man my kiss shall be outpoured
Who slays him with the sword!”
Invisible—in supernatural haze,
Of shapes that seem not shapes to human gaze—
The devils were half awed as they did stand
Around her; each one in his separate hell
All inwardly was forced to praise her well:
And every man was fain to lose his hand
Or do all that sweet woman might command.
There was a tumult.—Cloven foot and scale
Of fiend with iron heel and coat of mail
Were rolled and hustled in the rage to slay
That fair young Saviour: when they murdered him
And brought his head, still beautiful—though dim
And drenched with blood—the aureole did play
Above it, slowly vanishing away.
I weep to think of him and his fair light
So quenched—of him thrust into some long night
Of unaccomplishment so soon, alas!
And Thou, who on that ancient palace floor
Didst dance, where dost thou writhe now evermore—
Salome, Daughter of Herodias?
O woman-viper—may thy curse ne’er pass!
VI
HELEN.
AFTER long years of all that too sweet sin
That held her ever in the far strange land,
She felt her heart was stricken, felt begin
Great strokes of sorrow smiting like a hand.
She turned away from all the long delight
Which had so filled and blinded all the past;
The sweet sin rose up bitter in the night
And turned the love to sickness at the last.
She and her lover in their goodly halls
Gazed on each other no more the old way;
About the face of each clung shadowy palls
Of sadness all unchanged through many a day.
And now, along the fair courts marble-floored,
Each met the looks of other all aghast
With rueful thoughts unstanched yet ne’er outpoured;
And their trailed robes touched mournful as they passed.
Into the lonely paths of Ida sweet
For sorrow, dark and very sweet with leaves,
Came Helen: weary at her bosom beat
The sad thoughts all the summer noons and eves.
Strange: as her eyes sought where the sea was held
Gathered into dim distances of blue,
Down in her heart a dim Past she beheld,
Wherein were memories like an ocean too.
And strange, there, long up-pent, the memories stirred
Like waves long rolling: in her heart at length
All the fair time from which her years had erred
Came up against her now with all its strength.
Back from the earliest love-time there was sent
A tide of all the long untasted sweet
Of days forgotten, summers that were spent,
And eves when love and lover used to meet;
And heavy wafts of perfume that was known
E’en from those dark familiar laurel trees
That hid where love and lover were alone
Rolled back upon the heart with sore disease:
And from the early home there came no less
Than the reproach of each remembered gaze
Of friends, and want of all the happiness
They gave her in their simple Spartan ways.
And now her heart strove, longing, to divine
The several thoughts of her they had devised
In separate years that passed by with no sign;
Yea, to have known their pain she would have prized:
For now when toward them her heart was wrought
Quite weak, and from no tenderness forbore,
They seemed all strong against her, with hard thought
And faces turning from her evermore.
And with the vision of them so deceived
Came piteous memories of the waning face
Of the Old man who sat all shamed and grieved
Lonely beside the hearth’s familiar place.
Before her soon in very semblance gleamed
The Spartan homestead there unaltered, plain,
With all the household things; yea, till she dreamed
All were yet to begin that way again,
And Menelaus the next golden morn
Were still to come for her with wedlock blest,
As though not all deserted and forlorn
He strayed—the lone man without love or rest.
But most she yearned between her fear and love,
To see him now—divining what was due
To wrath and sorrowing to change and move
His features from the fashion that she knew:
For now the first time after all those years
The face seemed anyhow her way to seek;
—But turned upon her now with all its tears
And vengeance of reproach at length to wreak;
—And seemed to hold her through her love come back,
Unforeseen, and how come, she could not tell;
So that the wrath of it, the grief could rack
Her heart,—yet her heart craved therewith to dwell.
He was her husband—it should ever seem;
And that home, surely it was still her home;
And years since some long voyage or a dream;
And now no more the heart was fain to roam:
Nay, but was true to where it felt begin
Love and the rosy ecstasies so brief;
And that was surely love and the rest sin,
That all delight and all the other grief.
And now though none should render her heart’s right
In any fair place where she used to sit,
She would have prayed for a mere alien’s sight
Of all it was so little pain to quit:
Just to draw near, some silent hour, alone,
Unheralded, unwelcomed, and behold
Her husband and remember him her own,
And be quite near him only as of old:
And perchance, for some grief that was exprest
Plainly upon his face, she might have dared
To enter in, and after all been blest
Some remnant of his pity to have shared.
—Alas, too surely, for long years, all thought
And love of her had perished from his heart;
Until on all her memory were wrought
Dishonour, and with him she had no part;
—And this the while, so held of alien joys,
She spared no thought for him and for his pain,
Nor fancied the least echo of his voice
Sent forth a thousand times to her in vain;
When, might-be many a time, his earnest grief
Sent it so truly seeking her quite near,
Vainly it fell on some dumb flower or leaf
Beside her, never cherished in her ear.
And she thought how one day—she heeding nought—
The last voice on the fruitless air was borne
And died almost a taunt, and the last thought
Of her was changed to hate or utter scorn.
And she thought how since that time, day by day,
The man had learnt to live without her need,
And been quite happy perhaps many a way,
All without loving her or taking heed.
And that which was the great woe had scarce grown
In any gradual way; but with a burst
Her life was torn apart from peace, and thrown
Far from the love that seemed its own at first
All for a mere girl’s fancy too—a whim
For foreign faces and some ruddier south,
And no real choice to die away from him
Who won the truest troth in love and youth.
Now it was bitter to be quite outcast,
And bitter—when this thought of dying crost
Her heart—to reach him no more at the last
Than in mere rumour, as of one long lost.
She looked upon the great sea rolled between
Herself and Lacedæmon: but the Past,
The sins and all the falseness that had been
Seemed like an ocean deeper and more vast.
VII.
A TROTH FOR ETERNITY.
—SO, Woman! I possess you. Yes, at length.
Once wholly and for ever you are mine!
That cursèd burden on my memory,
Your whole past life’s betrayal—let it go:
Ay, let it perish, and, for me at least,
Let life begin this moment, though we die
But three hours hence!
Is this your little voice
My Love, enthralling, winning my whole faith
With mere increasing sweetness in its tones,
Dissolving, exorcising, as it used,
Ah too infallibly, the phantom thing,
The doubt, the dread within me? ah, my Sweet,
Is this once more your voice assuring me—
With some rare music rather than one word
Of those fair whispered oaths of constancy;
Yea, till, as ever, I am come to smile
And glory in you, and believe you pure—
All mine, for ever, past a change in thought?
But no! It is the little voice of the Steel
Here safe against my breast and fairly hid:
The Steel is singing to me, very low,
A tender song entrancing me;—O joy!
The Steel says you will ne’er escape me more;
You will be true to me; you will be mine;
No man shall touch you after me; no face,
However strangely fair, shall have the art
To draw one look from you, to charm and rouse
That wondrous little snake of treachery
That was for ever lurking for me—sure
To spring upon me out of the least look
Or promise, safe to be curled up beneath
The simplest seeming offering in your hand.
Yes, ’tis a thing at length as good as this
The steel is singing to me: did you hear,
You should but love it—since it pleads so well
It makes me put whole faith in you once more.
For now three days and nights indeed—while I,
Contending for you with the love I gave
Against the curse I owed you, raged and thought
It was my madness—O this little voice
Was striving with me, singing all the time,
Upon a low sweet soothing tune, strange words
Of promise that seemed like the distant taunts
Of all my past beliefs, and that I sought
To cover with my curses; till, last night,
My soul grew faint with hearing them—how sweet,
How full of good they were. Then I fell still,
Yea, stunned, and with my head upon the ground;
And through the shut bleared darkness of my eyes,
I seemed to see the room about me lit
And fearful, and the Sword from off the wall
Unscabbarded before me in the midst,
Most terrible and living, and in light—
Just like a great archangel with the glare
Of burning expiations full on him.
O then my soul did call upon the Steel;
And the Steel heard and swore to me. My soul
Tore forth the hidden-rooted love of thee,
Thy treasured words—each one a cruel worm
That gnaws me through for ever, thy fair face
From the first inmost shrine, thy early kiss,
Thy separate falsenesses, all my despair,
My utter helplessness—and flung them down,
The very writhing entrails of my life
Become one inward horror to be borne
No longer. And there came about me, loud,
The mocking of a thousand impious tongues,
That seemed to clash and rattle hideously
From ancient hollow sepulchres of men
Long buried and forgotten; for my love
Their gibe was, for my faith, for my despair,
For my long blindness: and at last I knew,
And, understanding, called with a great voice
Upon the Steel: and the Steel heard me there,
And swore to me—for you and me and God!
Sing on, O little voice: She cannot hear;
There is a pact between us.
Now I stand
And feel her eyes’ soft element within,
Upon, around me, melting away life
Into these few full throbbing moments.—Lo!
Her tears again—her disavowal clean
Of any thought of falseness. Lo! her words—
I might have lived beside her all these days
In perfect joy; words, blandishments and tears
Already staggering me with their old might
Of coiling fascinations; and one tear
A drop that, falling straight into my heart,
Fills it too full for speaking a long time
The ready thing of pardon and of love.
See! am I Lord here?—This fair sight of Her,
Working the whole impassioned prodigy
As ’twere of all her beauty, just to win
Me this time and, at any cost, be queen
Of this one present, as of many pasts—
Hath ever it been fairer, more complete?
Who else hath had her more and called her his
Than here I have her calling herself mine?
I would indeed he might draw near just now,
Yea, void of feigning, in some wonted way,
And feel a cold look from her plant him there
Outside the circle where this molten love
Of her whole smile is showered upon me,
And know her no more his now than mine then.
But what do I here with a thought like this?
Those men I deemed my rivals—what are they
To me now? Why I could put them to shame
And taunt them now myself for insolent
Pretenders who have never known what ’tis
To conquer love.—Ay, what compared with me
Seem all the famous lovers of great queens
Or splendid cruel mistresses, whose woes—
Deceived, betrayed, reviled—have made them shine
With some bright share of every age’s tears?
What but mere fools? weak sufferers of wrong
From creatures whom they held in their own hands?
Or passionless, or lacking any strength
To seize their fair worlds passing them so nigh
Rather than linger in some sickly trail
Of sweetness left behind and die of shame?
O all ye Messalinas of old time—
Ye Helens, Cleopatras, ye Dalilahs,
Ye Maries, ye Lucrezias, Catharines—
Fair crowned or uncrowned—courtezans alike
Who played with men a calculated game—
Your moves their heart-wounds, deaths and ruins—sure
Of your inconstancy and their soft loves,
Had I been lover in the stead of them,
Methinks the histories of you had been changed,
And some of your worst falsenesses redeemed
By flawless faithfulness to one last love.
But now I am content, I have love here;
And I thank God for love—yea, is it sweet?
Yea, is it best of all his gifts to man?
—I see her splendid smile there—feel her arms
Already coming round me!—Who but I
Can answer? Who but I have had it whole
Like this? (The Steel is singing to me now,
Still hidden in my breast—a low sweet song.)
Ah, this time there is no doubt! ’tis all true:
Her arms may fold me—fondle me, and I
May wholly yield myself to their caress
Quite sure it leaves no atom in reserve
For any other after me. And lo,
She is right worthy of a greater one
Than all the lovers that have ever loved
And, trembling, lost their women and themselves:
For splendour—such as stains for me and turns
My eyes disgusted from the vaunted white
Of many a bosom impudently bared—
Is in that bosom closely veiled, whose veils
I may undo—yea now, and with these hands;
It is my right. And then, O joy, to know
That this, so much more wonderful than those,
Shall ne’er be seen by anyone but me!
(Ah, sing on little voice!) But, as I said,
—Yes, she is worthy!—Come to me, my Sweet:
You have the greatest beauty God has made.
I think that. Let me kiss your forehead once,
Twice, thrice, and say it is diviner white,
And hallowed with a brighter radiant grace
Than Cleopatra’s was, and swear therewith
I kiss it with a passion greater far
Than Antony’s was: yea, let me write there
This thing in kisses that none can efface.
“Ah, you believe me now, dear love?” she says:
Yes: I say yes. (Sing on! ’Twas you sang: yes;
You bade me answer so. I trust you most.)
“Dear Love, let us go lie upon that bed.
I should delight to know it just the grave,
So I might keep this faith and happiness,
That yours—this mine—both safe for evermore,
So I might lie down sure that no mischance,
No doubt, no calumny, could come to change
Me—yours, you—mine, and peace for evermore.”
She says this, and she leads me by the hand.
Her head is like a lily drooping down.
—My passion! Yea I will not baulk thee now:
I need not: for I feel that what I am
Is something more than man, that conquers man.
What is it? I know not: a flame, a thought;
But cold, but calm, unalterable, pure,
As far above the fume of the base lust
That dulls and levels all men, as, perhaps,
Was that strange flame or thought that made Man first
And Woman then to bring the man to nought,
Which fate I, who indeed am not a god,
Who am not Hercules, nor Samson, no,
Nor Antony—which fate I yet will change.
Nay, passion, rather I will urge thee on;
For I shall be above thee all the time
A cold impartial watcher, hard to foil,
Attentive that thou gettest all thine own
Not tampered with—lest, in some little thing,
Thou art betrayed, or with a semblance served,
Yea, for a blind fool as thou ever wert.
—O take thy fill of looking on this snow
In which thy heart finds such delicious death;
Do out thine utmost revel on the bloom
Of this rare flower’s beauty, now at full;
Whose summer is just perfected to-night
And laid before thee, heightened with the tint
Of first mysterious sadness, like a touch
Of far-off autumns. Do not shun that mouth:
For there, indeed, a thing most dainty-sweet—
The last kiss that was sown a precious seed
By Love at the beginning—waits for thee,
The fullest, the most perfect of them all.
The earth will never fashion forth, and Love
Will never with his summer paint again
So beautiful a flower.
I am clasped
With such arms as I would might hold me so
For evermore in heaven. All around,
The strange unearthly fragrance of her hair
Is coming up, and, with an element
Divine as some transparent rosy cloud,
Enwrapping both of us; ay, and, as though—
A very cloud of magic—it had borne
Us, lifted far away from thought, and life,
And days, and earthliness—we seem to voyage
Through most ethereal atmospheres, and seas
Upon whose soft sustaining waves we drift,
And draw no sound from either distant shore
Of ending or beginning: and the bliss,
Unspeakable and perfect, that we feel
Seems making and remaking evermore
Our souls through this eternity.
Alas!
One little thread—I strive in vain to break—
Is holding me: a memory, a thought,
The pricking of a half-numbed wound through sleep,
The constant teazing of a wingéd thing,
The bitterness wherewith some ceaseless fang
Of life gnaws through, and breaks our dream of it—
Some such pursues and racks me. But ’tis well:
I know the dream is mine to make my own;
I know what dragon guards this paradise,
And with what paltry lies he fools mankind.
Ah, how the universe must jeer to see
All men so smoothly cheated of their own!—
And when I slay this dragon, I have all.
I cannot stir now. Many a knotted tress
Is on me, like a thousand-threaded chain
Twined many times about my limbs. I dream
No more: I feel her small and gliding hands
Seek mine; and while the burning rapid words
Her full heart furnishes hiss in mine ear,
My sight is peering blindly through the dark
Of her vast hair—a cavernous abyss
Of blackness traversed by mad shooting sparks
Or fearful gleams of blood.—What things she says!
“—Let this be as it were my bridal night,
If you doubt all the Past. I am yours now;
Take this for the beginning, and trust me;
I will be yours for ever,—not a look,
A word, a thought shall e’er dishonour you.”—
And, if I had not heard this very thing
Before, once, twice, innumerable times,
I should not plunge as I do now, my head
Still deeper in the fathomless dark hair,
And see tears falling from me—as it seems—
To fall on through a drear eternity.
But, hark, another voice! Whence comes it?—Whence?
From here, beneath the pillow; yes, ’tis harsh
And not like hers; but speaks a sweet thing—this:
I swear for Her it shall be so: trust Me!
Ah, yes—my Love, my own, I answer you;
I part with all the Past, forgive, deny,
Refuse to see it. All my soul is yours;
I never loved a moment in this world,
But what was love was wholly meant for you.
Yea, even before I saw you as you are,
Or knew your name, the vaguest breaths of love
Were but sent forward to me from the days
When you should come, preparing me for you.
I know in truth there never was a time
Wherein I saw no part of you—nor sign
To love you by; for all my sun, my light,
My flowers, my world would be the saddest blank,
The day you were not; you have these in you,
And are yourself in them; and, on the day
You go, you take them all away with you;
And so ’twas you I saw when I saw them
And said:—“That Lady mine shall have a head
Like yonder drooping lily on whose white
The summer’s breath may never set a stain;
And She shall have a heaven for her hair
As deep, and dark, and splendid, as the one
I dream beneath; and She shall have such eyes
As ever seem to me those still blue lakes
I come on in the twilight of the woods
And find wide open under the thick fringe
Of violets—that fascinate me so
With gazing on me; yes, and, for her smile,
She shall but use that magic of the sun
That so transfigures all the day with light,
And gives my heart already such a thrill
As if She smiled at me:”—my Love, ’twas you
I saw then, dreamed of, waited for; ’twas you;
My heart attests it, looking on you now.—
So this of mine is such a perfect love
You see, it could not change nor turn away;—
It is the only love God made for you,
As you He made for me and from the first
Revealed to me. Therefore it cannot be
That you are false to me,—that I no way
Can save and keep you mine—you whom He gave
To me for ever, to be brought as mine
Before Him at the last. My precious one,
You are all worthy of me—are my crown
Untarnished, perfect, for you have not sinned;
’Tis I have sinned,—not being strong at once
To save both pure in you. Did not your lips
Completely make you mine of your own will?
Did you not swear yourself to me at first,
Yea, in God’s name, before him? So that I—
Yes, I, have let you, all against your heart,
Be brought to do sad things you would have shunned;
Because I had the way, and used it not,
To keep you from them.—Ah, I curse myself!
—My own, my Love!—those gentle words of yours,
Those promises—repeat them; yes, once more:
You will be mine; you are mine; yes, my Love,
I do believe you now; I may, I can—
(For that sings under the pillow; believe Me!—)
I bless and kiss you for them all.
She sleeps.
The Steel is singing to me now; its voice
Creeps through and through;—go on, she cannot hear—
The things it sings are death and love; ay, love
That death keeps true;—She sleeps, she cannot hear.
There is no sort of madness in my brain;
But rather a great strength, a calm, as though
A more than human spirit dwelt with mine.
And yet I do perceive that, since last night,
My eyes have been bewildered with the glare
Of mighty blades and swords that seem to whirl
And strike around me, and transform the world
With an exceeding splendour cold and bare;
A thousand films are as it were cut through;
And all the beauty, supernatural
And real of things seems only to endure.
The Steel is an immense magician: yes—
Love, Beauty, Life—a touch can change them all
And make them wholly fit for me and great.
See now where it is gleaming through her hair!
’Tis like a fair barbaric ornament
Ablaze with glancing points of diamonds
Stuck in and out between the writhing black.
Or, rather, ’tis as fearful and as bright
As some fierce snake of azure lightning curled
Sinister under the dark mass of night,
That ever, with his sudden forkéd flash
Piercing some crevice, doth illumine it.
I could be gazing on this sight for hours.
O, Woman!—you are greatest in the world:
You have all fairest things; all joy is yours
To give and take away; you have all love;
Your beauty is to man’s heart as the sun
That doles out day and night to the whole earth;
You have strange gifts of passion and sweet words:
In truth you are right splendid,—and well fit,
I think, to be the leman of a god;
But all too fair, and yet not good enough,
To be the spouse and helpmate of one man.
—For this: there is a serpent in you hid;
It dwells in the invisible of thought,
Or crouches in some corner of your heart,
Or is engendered in the ardent flame
Of your quick passions,—where, it matters not;
But never doth it cease so to distil
Its wily poison into all you are
Or do or feel, it makes you turn and stab
Where most you thought to love,—it sets your lips
In league with falsehood to betray your heart,
Puts plotting in your heart against your lips.
You cannot will your heart to any man
But you must seek, for very wantonness—
As tempts the snake within you—just the straight
Betrayal of that man—his love, his faith,
As though you had not willed yourself at first:
And if you did not this somehow, your life
Would seem to you a nipped and withered thing,
Your beauty good for nought. You are made so.
—Therefore, my Love, I will not let you wake.
Nay—though you are so pure now and have sworn—
Lest you betray me as you did last time,
And times before that, having sworn as now.
But you are mine—my beautiful, my own!
And your lips said it while your heart beat here
Against mine—thrilling with a thought of me;
Your looks were almost piteous with a prayer
That I—that God would save you. Shall your mouth,
The chaste, the holy one that I have kissed
Be desecrate once more? Shall your own arms
Embrace and hug the very shame of you?
Shall this, your heart that made you mine, be false
—Go once more seeking out adulteries?
Not so: I strike the holy steel in it.
—It was the only way to keep her mine.
(1867.)
O WOMAN whose familiar face I hold
In my most sacred thought as in a shrine,
Who in my memories art become divine—
Dost thou remember now those years of old
When out of all thine own life thou didst mould
This life and breathe thy heart in this of mine,
Winning, for faith in that fair work of thine,
To rest and be in heaven?—Alas, behold!—
Another woman coming after thee
Hath had small pity,—with a wanton kiss
Hath quite consumed my heart and ruined this
The life that was thy work: O, Mother, see;
Thou hast lived all in vain, done all amiss;
Come down from heaven again, and die with me!
DEATH.
I CLOSE my eyes and see the inward things:
The strange averted spectre of my soul
Is sitting undivulged, angelic, whole,
Beside the dim internal flood that brings
Mysterious thought or dreams or murmurings,
From the immense Unknown: beneath him roll
The urging formless waves beyond control
And darkened by the vague foreshadowings
As heretofore; yea, for He hath not stirred.
Too weak was that my life, too poor each word
To lure my soul from all it waiteth for:
—I am with God who holds His purpose still
And maketh and remaketh evermore;
I am with God and waiting for His will.
THE FOUNTAIN OF TEARS.
IF you go over desert and mountain,
Far into the country of sorrow,
To-day and to-night and to-morrow,
And maybe for months and for years;
You shall come, with a heart that is bursting
For trouble and toiling and thirsting,
You shall certainly come to the fountain
At length,—to the Fountain of Tears.
Very peaceful the place is, and solely
For piteous lamenting and sighing,
And those who come living or dying
Alike from their hopes and their fears;
Full of cypress-like shadows the place is,
And statues that cover their faces:
But out of the gloom springs the holy
And beautiful Fountain of Tears.
And it flows and it flows with a motion
So gentle and lovely and listless,
And murmurs a tune so resistless
To him who hath suffered and hears—
You shall surely—without a word spoken,
Kneel down there and know your heart broken,
And yield to the long curb’d emotion
That day by the Fountain of Tears.
For it grows and it grows, as though leaping
Up higher the more one is thinking;
And ever its tunes go on sinking
More poignantly into the ears:
Yea, so blesséd and good seems that fountain,
Reached after dry desert and mountain,
You shall fall down at length in your weeping
And bathe your sad face in the tears.
Then, alas! while you lie there a season,
And sob between living and dying,
And give up the land you were trying
To find mid your hopes and your fears;
—O the world shall come up and pass o’er you;
Strong men shall not stay to care for you,
Nor wonder indeed for what reason
Your way should seem harder than theirs.
But perhaps, while you lie, never lifting
Your cheek from the wet leaves it presses,
Nor caring to raise your wet tresses.
And look how the cold world appears,—
O perhaps the mere silences round you—
All things in that place grief hath found you,
Yea, e’en to the clouds o’er you drifting,
May soothe you somewhat through your tears.
You may feel, when a falling leaf brushes
Your face, as though some one had kissed you;
Or think at least some one who missed you
Hath sent you a thought,—if that cheers;
Or a bird’s little song, faint and broken,
May pass for a tender word spoken:
—Enough, while around you there rushes
That life-drowning torrent of tears.
And the tears shall flow faster and faster,
Brim over, and baffle resistance,
And roll down bleared roads to each distance
Of past desolation and years;
Till they cover the place of each sorrow,
And leave you no Past and no morrow:
For what man is able to master
And stem the great Fountain of Tears?
But the floods of the tears meet and gather;
The sound of them all grows like thunder:
—O into what bosom, I wonder,
Is poured the whole sorrow of years?
For Eternity only seems keeping
Account of the great human weeping:
May God then, the Maker and Father—
May He find a place for the tears!
LOVE AFTER DEATH.
THERE is an earthly glimmer in the Tomb:
And, healed in their own tears and with long sleep,
My eyes unclose and feel no need to weep;
But, in the corner of the narrow room,
Behold Love’s spirit standeth, with the bloom
That things made deathless by Death’s self may keep.
O what a change! for now his looks are deep,
And a long patient smile he can assume:
While Memory, in some soft low monotone,
Is pouring like an oil into mine ear
The tale of a most short and hollow bliss,
That I once throbbed indeed to call my own,
Holding it hardly between joy and fear,—
And how that broke, and how it came to this.
SOWN SEED.
I WANDERED dreaming through a mead;
And it was sowing-season there;
As one who sows and takes no heed
I cast my dreams upon the air:
And each dream was a golden seed
That in my life some flower should bear.
—O sowing-season bright and gay,
To have you back I am most fain!
O sowing season find some way
To bring me here each golden grain
I cast upon the air that day,
That I may sow them all again.
For some, that fairest should have been,
About the world they have been tost
And borne no flowers that I have seen;
And some have taken wing and crost
The sea, or through the blue serene
Gone up to heaven and been lost.
O, sowing season, come once more,
Bring back each golden seed to me!
For one, indeed, grew up and bore
No flower of gladness, good to see—
A thing to look upon right sore
—A grief that in my life should be.
One other truly did beget
Some blossom of the June that fell
In May; and one, a violet
Whose death upon my heart doth dwell;
The last seed hath not blossomed yet:
Come back and bring this one as well.
—What! the whole sudden summer? Yea;
The last one hath come up a rose!
O sowing season, you may stay;
It is in my Love’s heart it grows;
And she hath shown it me to-day:
I keep this one and give up those.
A DISCORD.
IT came to pass upon a summer’s day,
When from the flowers indeed my soul had caught
Fresh bloom, and turned their richness into thought,
That—having made my footsteps free to stray—
They brought me wandering by some sudden way
Back to the bloomless city, and athwart
The doleful streets and many a closed-up court
That prisoned here and there a spent noon-ray.
O how most bitterly upon me broke
The sight of all the summerless lost folk!—
For verily their music and their gladness
Could only seem to me like so much sadness,
Beside the inward rhapsody of art
And flowers and Chopin-echoes at my heart.
GALANTERIE.
O ANGEL, that in some unmeasured region
Keepest the store of beauteous things unsaid!
Once more do thou take even from their legion
Verse of the sweetest, verse no man hath read;
And go with that—saying thou art from me—
Unto my Love wherever she may be;
And speak therewith all tender things and fair
Touching the beauty of her eyes and hair,
Her hands, her feet—all of Her thou may’st see,
E’en to the jewels she shall chance to wear.
As to her eyes, I think thou shalt have reason
Setting the azure of them far above
God’s blue of heaven; yea, who shall know thy treason
But I who teach it thee and She my love?
And therefore, fear thou nowise to express,
Touching her hair, how much its every tress
Doth shine above all gold that the sun yields
And the fair colour of the harvest fields:
But scarce shalt thou be slow to praise, I guess,
Soon as thou know’st what spell her beauty wields.
And, if so be she cease that she is doing,
And give thee welcome for thy verses’ sake,
Do thou with some most tender sort of wooing
Engage her hand, and cause it to forsake
Its silken task or pastime on the lute;
For of its beauty thou shouldst not be mute,
But celebrate it soon in such a strain
Thenceforward it shall be no longer fain
To do its lightest toil: so for thy suit
My Lady’s whole attendance thou shalt gain.
Then, howsoe’er thou dost behold that wonder,
The rare imperial foot of Her my queen;
—Yea, if thou may’st but glimpse it nestled under
The broidered border of her robe, or e’en
If haply, some unguarded hour of rest,
Thou hast such bliss as I have never possest,
To see that spotless Lady all reclined
And through dim tumbled veils with thine eye find
Her spirit-slender foot,—then do thy best,
And be thou neither faint of heart nor blind!
But so with every spell of piteous pleading,
And the full magic that was wont of old
To fill my verse and charm all men to heeding,
Frame thou thy praise of that thou dost behold—
That her most matchless foot shall even start
Out of its languishment and take my part,
To bring my Love not otherwhere than here,
To me, and to the place where she is dear:
Go now and do this, if thou still hast art;
And I shall wait the while in love and fear.
THE GLORIOUS LADY.
“La gloriosa donna della mia mente.”
Dante.