The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

by Richard Le Gallienne

VII

A BALLAD OF TOO MUCH BEAUTY

There is too much beauty upon this earth
For lonely men to bear,
Too many eyes, too enchanted skies,
Too many things too fair;
And the man who would live the life of a man
Must turn his eyes away—if he can.

He must not look at the dawning day,
Or watch the rising moon;
From the little feet, so white, so fleet,
He must turn his eyes away;
And the flowers and the faces he must pass by
With stern self-sacrificing eye.

For beauty and duty are strangers forever,
Work and wonder ever apart,
And the laws of life eternally sever
The ways of the brain from the ways of the heart;
Be it flower or pearl, or the face of a girl,
Or the ways of the waters as they swirl.

Lo! beauty is sorrow, and sorrowful men
Have no heart to look on the face of the sky,
Or hear the remorseful voice of the sea,
Or the song of the wandering wind in the tree,
Or even watch a butterfly.

SPRING IN THE PARIS CATACOMBS

I saw strange bones to-day in Paris town,
Deep in the quarried dark, while over-head
The roar of glad and busy things went by—
Over our heads—
So many heads—
Deep down, deep down—
Those strange old bones deep down in Paris town:
Heads where no longer dwell—
Yet who shall tell!—
Such thoughts as those
That make a rose
Of a maid's cheek,

Filling it with such bloom—
All fearless of the unsuspected doom—
As flood wild April with such hushing breath
That Death himself believes no more in Death.

Yea! I went down
Out of the chestnuts and the girl-filled town,
Only a yard or two beneath the street,
Haunted a little while by little feet,
Going, did they but know, the self-same way
As all those bones as white as the white May
That roofs the orchards overhead with bloom.

Perhaps I only dreamed,
And yet to me it seemed
That those old bones talked strangely each to each,
Chattering together in forgotten speech—

Speaking of Her
That was so very fair,
Telling of Him
So strong
He is a song
Up there in the far day, where even yet
Fools sing of fates and faces
Even fools cannot forget.

Faces went by, as haughty as of old,
Wearing upon their heads the unminted gold
That flowers in blackness only,
And sad lips smiled softly, softly,
Knowing well it was too late
Even for Fate.

Yet one shape that I never can forget
Waved a wild sceptre at me, ruling yet
An empire gone where all empires must go,
Melting away as simply as the snow;
Yet no one heeded the flower of his menace,
As little heeded him as that One Face
That suddenly I saw go wandering by,
And saying as she went—"I—still—am—I!"

And the dry bones thereat
Rattled together, laughing, gossipping
Together in the gloom
That dared not sing,
The little trivial gossip of the tomb—
Ah! just as long ago, in their dry way,
They mocked at fairy faces and strong eyes
That of their foolish loving make us wise.

Paris: May, 1913.

A FACE IN A BOOK

In an old book I found her face
Writ by a dead man long ago—
I found, and then I lost the place;
So nothing but her face I know,
And her soft name writ fair below.

Even if she lived I cannot learn,
Or but a dead man's dream she were;
Page after yellow page I turn,
But cannot come again to her,
Although I know she must be there.

On other books of other men,
Far in the night, year-long, I pore,
Hoping to find her face again,
Too fair a face to see no more—
And 'twas so soft a name she bore.

Sometimes I think the book was Youth,
And the dead man that wrote it I,
The face was Beauty, the name Truth—
And thus, with an unseeing eye,
I pass the long-sought image by.

TIME, BEAUTY'S FRIEND

"Is she still beautiful?" I asked of one
Who of the unforgotten faces told
That for long years I had not looked upon—
"Beautiful still—but she is growing old";
And for a space I sorrowed, thinking on
That face of April gold.

Then up the summer night the moon arose,
Glassing her sacred beauty in the sea,
That ever at her feet in silver flows;
And with her rising came a thought to me—
How ever old and ever young she grows,
And still more lovely she.

Thereat I smiled, thinking on lovely things
That dateless and immortal beauty wear,
Whereof the song immortal tireless sings,
And Time but touches to make lovelier;
On Beauty sempiternal as the Spring's—
So old are all things fair.

Then for that face I cast aside my fears,
For changing Time is Beauty's changeless friend,
That never reaches but for ever nears,
Tireless the old perfections to transcend,
Fairness more fair to fashion with the years,
And loveliest to end.

YOUNG LOVE

Young love, all rainbows in the lane,
Brushed by the honeysuckle vines,
Scattered the wild rose in a dream:
A sweeter thing his arm entwines.

Ah, redder lips than any rose!
Ah, sweeter breath than any bee
Sucks from the heart of any flower;
Ah, bosom like the Summer sea!

A fairy creature made of dew
And moonrise and the songs of birds,
And laughter like the running brook,
And little soft, heart-broken words.

Haunted as marble in the moon,
Her whiteness lies on young love's breast.
And living frankincense and myrrh
Her lips that on his lips are pressed.

Her eyes are lost within his eyes,
His eyes in hers are fathoms deep;
Death is not stiller than these twain
That smile as in a magic sleep.

I heard him say as they went by,
Two human flowers in the dew:
"Darling, ah, God, if you should die,
You know, that moment I die, too."

I heard her say: "I could not live
An hour without you"; heard her say:
"My life is in your hands to keep,
To keep, or just to throw away."

I heard him say: "For just us two
The world was made, the stars above
Move in their orbits, to this end:
That you and I should meet and love."

I heard her say: "And God himself
Has us in keeping, heart to heart;
In his great book our names are writ—
The Book of Those that Never Part."

"How strange it is!" I heard him say;
"How strange!" and yet again, "How strange!
To meet at last, and know this love
Of ours can never fade or change."

"How strange to think that you are mine,
Each little hair of your dear head,
And no one else's in the world—
How strange it is!" the woman said.

* * * * *

I stand aside to let them pass,
My Autumn face they never see;
Their eyes are on the rising sun,
But 'tis the setting sun for me.

For me no wild rose in the lane,
But only sad autumnal flowers,
And falling shadows and old sighs,
And melancholy drift of hours!