Yet I had lost
for he said,
“the rose, the lover’s gift,
is loved of love,”
he said it,
“loved of love;”
I waited, even as he spoke,
to see the room filled with a light,
as when in winter
the embers catch in a wind
when a room is dank;
so it would be filled, I thought,
our room with a light
when he said
(and he said it first,)
“the rose, the lover’s delight,
is loved of love,”
but the light was the same.
Then he caught,
seeing the fire in my eyes,
my fire, my fever, perhaps,
for he leaned
with the purple wine
stained on his sleeve,
and said this:
“did you ever think
a girl’s mouth
caught in a kiss,
is a lily that laughs?”
I had not.
I saw it now
as men must see it forever afterwards;
no poet could write again,
“the red-lily,
a girl’s laugh caught in a kiss;”
it was his to pour in the vat
from which all poets dip and quaff,
for poets are brothers in this.
So I saw the fire in his eyes,
it was almost my fire,
(he was younger,)
I saw the face so white,
my heart beat,
it was almost my phrase;
I said, “surprise the muses,
take them by surprise;
it is late,
rather it is dawn-rise,
those ladies sleep, the nine,
our own king’s mistresses.”
A name to rhyme,
flowers to bring to a name,
what was one girl faint and shy,
with eyes like the myrtle,
(I said: “her underlids
are rather like myrtle,”)
to vie with the nine?
Let him take the name,
he had the rhymes,
“the rose, loved of love,
the lily, a mouth that laughs,”
he had the gift,
“the scented crocus,
the purple hyacinth,”
what was one girl to the nine?
He said:
“I will make her a wreath;”
he said:
“I will write it thus:
I will bring you the lily that laughs,
I will twine
with soft narcissus, the myrtle,
sweet crocus, white violet,
the purple hyacinth, and last,
the rose, loved-of-love,
that these may drip on your hair
the less soft flowers,
may mingle sweet with the sweet
of Heliodora’s locks,
myrrh-curled.”
(He wrote myrrh-curled,
I think, the first.)
I said:
“they sleep, the nine,”
when he shouted swift and passionate:
“that for the nine!
above the hills
the sun is about to wake,
and to-day white violets
shine beside white lilies
adrift on the mountain side;
to-day the narcissus opens
that loves the rain.”