FAIRY SONG
I can live in a golden fruit
Whose core is hung with honey;
I can swing on golden wing
In elfin ceremony—
But oh! for the power
To open as a flower
When the air is sunny!
A YOUNG GIRL’S LOVE
The season is less stubborn now;
Over the youngling world we see
A white sky full of scudding blue,
A white wind that runneth as a child
Touching most delicately the new
Sweet buds, and having touched and smiled,
Goes to seek out some pale anemone,
And wreathe with maiden flowers her fragile brow.
A YOUNG MAN’S LOVE
If I were your sister I’d lie with you the night-long
To feel your bosom’s beating;
If I were your brother I’d wake you with a day-song
And give a kiss as greeting;
If I were your mother I’d hold you as a shut flower
When the dark comes creeping;
If I were your father I’d enter at the dawn-hour
To look upon you, sleeping.
What is there left over
For me, who am your lover?
SONG
A cup full of star-shine
That glowed as an ember,
(Oh, star of my delight!)
With smiles I do remember
And words forgotten quite,
A cup full of star-shine
I drank with you to-night.
A cup full of sea-sound
That was as summer thunder—
(Oh sea of my delight!)
With love that lay under
Seven heavens bright,
A cup full of sea-sound
I drank with you to-night.
SONG
(After an old English tune)
I will bring thee a silver crown.
I will bring thee an ell of vair,
Cloth of gold and ermine rare
To make thee a gown.
Thou hast brought me a marble frown.
Thou hast brought me a cold, cold stare,
Heart of lead and wry despair,
And a mad-man’s swown.
I will bring thee a leaden crown,
Cloth of Raines in thirty-fold!
I will bring thee a bed on the wold
To lay thee down.
Thou hast brought me out of the town
To the earth upturned where the bell is tolled—
Fires of hell and the river’s cold
My sorrows drown!
TRISTAN AND ISOLDE
The sea is here, it hath not any shore,
Nor moves with moving of wind-driven waves
Which, undulant and writhing—naked slaves
To the uneasy wanderer of heaven’s floor,
Bow sullen backs beneath their master’s store
He brought with viewless hands from broken graves—
The sea is here, and in its silent caves
Moves not, tho the wind clamors more and more.
The sea is here, an infinite undertone;
But lo! upon its surface I descry
Two floating bubbles, wonderfully blown
Toward each other, flame-like from the sky—
Meet—melt with lyric splendor into one—
Then, wind-prick’d, vanish—o’er the Sea, a cry!
PALINURUS
Starlight: with deep and quiet breathing slept
The southern sea. The white-wing’d ship that bore
The good Aeneas from his Dido’s shore
Ghostlike, with rippling furrows, onward crept,
And only faithful Palinurus kept
The midnight watch—but ah, the magic bough,
The opiate dew that dript upon his brow,
The vacant post, the friends who waking wept.
The gods demand their victims; who shall know
What failures Time and Circumstance compel?
Yet, if such doom were mine, I would ’twere so
That they would mark my absence thus: “How well
Even unto the last he struggled, lo!
He tore the rudder with him when he fell!”
THE DERELICT
I cannot remember whither I was bound—
I cannot remember why I was found
Moving without a sound
Moving in mystery—
Derelict, derelict,
Over the sea!
I too carry a cargo in my hold,
Underneath sea-water and green with mold—
I cannot remember how old!
For terrible it is to be
Derelict, derelict,
Over the sea!
Feebler ships weather bravely into port;
Running a course that is safe and short—
My voyage is another sort;
No master guideth me—
Derelict, derelict,
Over the sea!
Nights have shadow’d me with phantom stride—
Stars have peer’d at me, eerie-eyed—
Goblin lights and magic tide
Keep me company,
Derelict, derelict,
Over the sea!
Setting suns have rowell’d me with crimson’d heel—
Winds have flung laughter, peal after peal—
But they shall not know that I feel
Mute in my agony—
Derelict, derelict,
Over the sea!
Rudderless, by ways uncharted blown—
Some day shall waken to find me gone—
What matter? I have drifted alone
Ever—alone—yet free—
Derelict, derelict,
Over the sea!
THE SQUIRE OF DAMES TO HIS LADY
Why should our meeting borrow
A sense of shame or sorrow
That each must go his way?
Love liketh no fetter
Therefore our roads were better
If you go yours to-morrow,
And I go mine to-day.
I hold you for a minute—
You’d catch the hour and pin it—
But if I held you longer
Would you have more assurance
In days of richer durance,
Life with more rapture in it,
Passion more wise and stronger?
The Daughter of Illusion
Hath made our love seem fusion
Of two strange things in one—
But loving hath not taught her
That strange as fire to water,
Love becomes bleak intrusion
When all the glamor’s gone.
You say I’ve brought you sorrow
And pay not debts I borrow—
But mirth is what’s to pay!
So part our paths in laughter,
And, since your heart is softer,
You go your way to-morrow—
And I’ll go mine to-day.
GAS-LIGHT HEROICS
With this night’s carousal
We will close the portal
On our poor espousal—
Sacrament and housel
For a love too mortal!
With this gay delaying
We’ll delay yet longer—
Care not what the saying
Of the World—that braying
Evil tattle-monger!
Pleasure has as thunder
Scorched and jangled thru me;
Now I’ll sit and wonder
At the day-star yonder
And your face, grown gloomy.
You are known as “Lily”
And they mock your gender;
Is it but a silly
Fancy, you seem stilly
Lily-souled and tender?
Underneath the bitter
Mockery of color,
Underneath the titter
Is there something fitter?
Something finer, fuller?
Something (can I hear it
In your secret eyes?)
When I come too near it
Like a frightened spirit
Running from the skies?
Girl, you know that glow meant
Dawn’s thin lips of scarlet—
Bubble of life’s foment
Stay your soul a moment!
. . . . . .
Bah! You’re drunk, you harlot!