·THE·CITY·OF·LOVE·
ABOUT the time when garlanded green May
At Summer’s threshold casts her blossom crown,
Time bore me on his wingèd wheels away,
Out of the joyless city where I lay,
From smoke-dimmed streets whose dusky skies disown
The day-god’s glorious face, serene that shows
This day of days, to reign in his fair house,
Cloud-built, and white, and interspaced with blue,
Above the green earth’s fields that I did pass,
Bearing ungathered harvests in their grass
Of star-bright flowers, and every magic hue
Born of the hours, and of the kindling zone
Sun-cast o’er wandering mead and upland lone,
That now on every hand mine eyes did fill,
As went the wheel whirl’d with the fiery will.
And always, as the changeful landscape spread
Mead beyond mead, and furrow’d ridge and tree,
And traversed road, and bridge, and woodland lea;
Me seemèd as a chart my life to see,
What was, and is, and that which is to be,
As dark and bright the region’s face I read.
Nor yet I stay’d at all, but still with Time
Fled by, and onward many leagues, until,
About the height of day the wheel was still,
About the hour it was ere noon should chime,
And I look’d forth and saw dim-pointed spires,
Like flames, arising from a golden mead
Which burn’d with all the yellow crowded fires
Of shining cups that fill the fields of May:
Whereby a city fair mine eyes had heed,
Verged round with bowery close, and willows grey
Shading the silent water’s secret way,
Girdling the quiet town with cluster’d reed.
Thence rose no surge of men, or sound of strife,
But smoothly glode the even hours of life,
Told by the sweet-tongued bells in tuneful towers;
And in the streets there moved the breath of flowers,
And incense, such as riseth after showers
Upon deep gardens, hiding in their bowers
The inmost heart of sweetness.
Still my way
Drew on, between high-window’d walls and old,
That to the street an ancient story told,
With solemn mien unto Life’s changing day,
In restless ebb and flow, as sea-waves play
About the feet of lonely cliff’s; tho’ now
Even these I pass’d, as fleeting things and vain,
For all my heart a strange consuming pain
Possess’d, in thought of what I hoped to gain
Fill’d with an exquisite fire, wherein did show
All things as dross, or gold of fairest vein:
As, since the gate of Love had oped for me,
I lived in hell or heavenly ecstasy.
But all things on this day had good import,
For even now I went to Love’s high court,
To greet my heart’s dear queen, where she did dwell
In this his holy city, where the streets
Seem’d gold, or like the burnish’d path which meets
The sun’s bright porch across the shining sea;
So in Love’s glory shone my way to me.
Until before her gate the splendour fell.
Robed in sweet grace and crowned with her hair,
I met my queen, upon her palace stair,
And near I was to fall and worship there,
As to her hand I brought a golden gift,
Which she, my gracious sovereign, counted well,
And me unto her highest grace did lift,
Making me rich above all kingly state.
For side by side within her house we sate,
Or ’neath the azure canopy of heaven,
And every hour and every day, of seven,
Brought unto our feet their separate joy.
And every day the plenteous feast was spread
Before my grateful heart, and eyes, and lips
That drank the wine of Love and broke his bread,
And drew my soul delight thro’ honey sips
From the sweet source of sweet which may not cloy.
Then from Love’s banquet, rising, my beloved
Forth led me in the bond of her dear hand,
That we in his glad courts might understand
Fresh joyance; and thro’ all his realm we moved.
Adown the golden street my lady led,
Where pass’d us, to and fro, Love’s votaries—
The searchers of his book, within whose eyes
Was writ his name, whose chanting lips had said
His prayers and orisons within the shrines,
Dim-window’d, strange, and still with sacred air,
Stirr’d by the wings of singing spirits fair,
When the sweet anthem lifteth or declines,
In organ waves that sweep along the lines
Of the soul’s shore, to break upon and die,
Soft on the soothed borders, silently.
We passéd by the door and enter’d in,
For in Love’s holy place we sought to win
High ecstasy whereon our souls might climb
Even to the utmost gate of golden bliss,
And know within the sanctuary of this,
Our dear inheritance in God’s good time.
Love’s service done, forth streamed from their place
His choristers and singing boys, attired
In white raiment, shining where they quired;
And after them we went with silent pace,
And towards the groves of pleasure turn’d our face,
Whence by green quietude of cloister’d stone,
And shadow’d courts that kept themselves alone,
And ’neath the carven boughs that interlace;
Until we came beneath the fairer roof
Of curtain’d leaves, light spread, of greenest woof,
Glowing between the stoney window fret,
As shines such light of paradise men get,
Dark-barr’d by care which holdeth them aloof
And binds their souls within life’s twisted net.
But enter’d we the joyful Eden gate,
Where talk the trees of summer, and of green
More glorious than May’s bright head doth screen
Whereas she hideth from the flaming state,
When the all regal sun would penetrate,
Seeking dominion in the realm of shade,
Where now we thought to find sweet pleasure laid,
And take her sleeping, while the hours should wait.
Yea! hidden in the odorous aisles of May;
Whose fragrance fans the air which faints away,
There, in a labyrinth of leaves I caught her—
Whereby soft willows kiss the silent water—
I caught her, and I kiss’d, tho’ she did pray
Release, and said: “Thou canst not hold Time’s daughter.”
But her I held, nor let her thence depart
Till I had won her favourable grace;
And after oft we saw her fleeting face
Laugh through the leaves, and in our kindled heart
Were glad exceedingly, nor thought to part,
Content a little while in each fair place
To know a sweet above all flowery space.
My faint tongue faltereth when I would tell
What doors of joy we pass’d, what sights to seek,
But Love’s day endeth, and his holy week,
Whose dear appointed feasts we kept full well;
Seeking Love’s face at morn and eventide,
Tho’ oft it was too bright to look upon,
Shining above the splendour of the sun,
A burning flame when day’s dim fire had died.
And now, the last of days, it came to pass
I with my Love, upon a space of grass,
Sate by a water which the willows kept
And silently the stream beneath them swept,
Secret as time, and still, and staying not;
Fair fell the sun thro’ glancing leaves above,
And fair on us did shine the sun of Love,
As one brief hour together we forgot
All earthly things in that enchanted plot—
The world of strife, and evil-favour’d care,
And misery whose voice was silent there:
Even so, a little while, our blissful lot.
A little while—but soon the end befel,
For Time, a sudden shadow, on us fell,
And loud above I heard his hateful bell
Clang in the tower to ring our sweet day’s knell.
Thence was I torn from my dear Love away,
And, as a dream, I lost upon that day
My hold of joy, and slipp’d adown, adown.
Nor knew I more until I woke again
Unto the endless world with all its pain—
The sea-wide city, and the sad refrain
Of hungry waves that now my song would drown.
