THE great effulgence of the early days
Of one first summer, whose bright joys, it seems,
Have been to all my songs their golden themes;
The rose leaves gathered from the faded ways
I wandered in when they were all a-blaze
With living flowers and flame of the sunbeams;
And, more than all, that ending of my dreams
Divinely, in a dream-like thing,—the face
Of one belovèd lady once possest
In one long kiss that made my whole life burn:
What of all these remains to me?—At best,
A heap of fragrant ashes now, that turn
My heavy heart into a funeral urn
Which I have buried deep within my breast.
SERAPHITUS.
ALAS! that we should not have known,
For all his strange ethereal calm,
And thoughts so little like our own
And presence like a shed-forth balm,
He was some Spirit from a zone
Of light, and ecstasy, and psalm,
Radiant and near about God’s throne:
Now he hath flown!
The heaven did cleave on him alway;
And for what thing he chose to dwell
In a mere tenement of clay
With mortal seeming—who can tell?
But there in some unearthly way
He wrought, and, with an inner spell,
Miraculously did array
That house of clay.
The very walls were in some sort
Made beautiful, with many a fresque
Or carven filigree of Thought,
Now seen a clear and statuesque
Accomplishment of dreams—now sought
Through many a lovely arabesque
And metaphor, that seemed to sport
With what it taught.
Most bright and marvellously fair
Those things did seem to all mankind;
And some indeed, with no cold stare
Beholding them, could lift their mind
Through sweet transfigurement to share
Their inward light: the rest were blind,
And wondered much, yet had small care
Whence such things were.
And, day by day, he did invent
—As though nought golden were enough,
In manner of an ornament—
Some high chivalrous deed, above
All price, whereof the element
Was the most stainless ore of Love;
A boundless store of it he spent
With lavishment.
And when therewith that house became
All in a strange sort glorified;
For through whole beauty, as of flame,
Those things, resplendent far and wide,
Did draw unto them great acclaim;
Lo, many a man there was who tried
With base alloys to do the same,
And gat men’s shame.
But all about that house he set
A wondrous flowering thing—his speech,
That without ceasing did beget
Such fair unearthly blossoms, each
Seemed from some paradise, and wet
As with an angel’s tears, and each
Gave forth some long perfume to let
No man forget.
A new delicious music erred
For ever through the devious ways
Tangled with blooming of each word;
As though in that enchanted maze
Some sweet and most celestial bird
Were caught, and, hid from every gaze,
Did there pour forth such song as stirred
All men who heard.