"Golden Eyes"
Oh Amber Eyes, oh Golden Eyes!
Oh Eyes so softly gay!
Wherein swift fancies fall and rise,
Grow dark and fade away.
Eyes like a little limpid pool
That holds a sunset sky,
While on its surface, calm and cool,
Blue water lilies lie.
Oh Tender Eyes, oh Wistful Eyes,
You smiled on me one day,
And all my life, in glad surprise,
Leapt up and pleaded "Stay!"
Alas, oh cruel, starlike eyes,
So grave and yet so gay,
You went to lighten other skies,
Smiled once and passed away.
Oh, you whom I name "Golden Eyes,"
Perhaps I used to know
Your beauty under other skies
In lives lived long ago.
Perhaps I rowed with galley slaves,
Whose labour never ceased,
To bring across Phoenician waves
Your treasure from the East.
Maybe you were an Emperor then
And I a favourite slave;
Some youth, whom from the lions' den
You vainly tried to save!
Maybe I reigned, a mighty King,
The early nations knew,
And you were some slight captive thing,
Some maiden whom I slew.
Perhaps, adrift on desert shores
Beside some shipwrecked prow,
I gladly gave my life for yours.
Would I might give it now!
Or on some sacrificial stone
Strange Gods we satisfied,
Perhaps you stooped and left a throne
To kiss me ere I died.
Perhaps, still further back than this,
In times ere men were men,
You granted me a moment's bliss
In some dark desert den,
When, with your amber eyes alight
With iridescent flame,
And fierce desire for love's delight,
Towards my lair you came
Ah laughing, ever-brilliant eyes,
These things men may not know,
But something in your radiance lies,
That, centuries ago,
Lit up my life in one wild blaze
Of infinite desire
To revel in your golden rays,
Or in your light expire.
If this, oh Strange Ringed Eyes, be true,
That through all changing lives
This longing love I have for you
Eternally survives,
May I not sometimes dare to dream
In some far time to be
Your softly golden eyes may gleam
Responsively on me?
Ah gentle, subtly changing eyes,
You smiled on me one day,
And all my life in glad surprise
Leaped up, imploring "Stay!"
Alas, alas, oh Golden Eyes,
So cruel and so gay,
You went to shine in other skies,
Smiled once and passed away.
Kotri, by the River
At Kotri, by the river, when the evening's sun is low,
The waving palm trees quiver, the golden waters glow,
The shining ripples shiver, descending to the sea;
At Kotri, by the river, she used to wait for me.
So young, she was, and slender, so pale with wistful eyes
As luminous and tender as Kotri's twilight skies.
Her face broke into flowers, red flowers at the mouth,
Her voice,—she sang for hours like bulbuls in the south.
We sat beside the water through burning summer days,
And many things I taught her of Life and all its ways
Of Love, man's loveliest duty, of Passion's reckless pain,
Of Youth, whose transient beauty comes once, but not again.
She lay and laughed and listened beside the water's edge.
The glancing river glistened and glinted through the sedge.
Green parrots flew above her and, as the daylight died,
Her young arms drew her lover more closely to her side.
Oh days so warm and golden! oh nights so cool and still!
When Love would not be holden, and Pleasure had his will.
Days, when in after leisure, content to rest we lay,
Nights, when her lips' soft pressure drained all my life away.
And while we sat together, beneath the Babul trees,
The fragrant, sultry weather cooled by the river breeze,
If passion faltered ever, and left the senses free,
We heard the tireless river decending to the sea.
I know not where she wandered, or went in after days,
Or if her youth she squandered in Love's more doubtful ways.
Perhaps, beside the river, she died, still young and fair;
Perchance the grasses quiver above her slumber there.
At Kotri, by the river, maybe I too shall sleep
The sleep that lasts for ever, too deep for dreams; too deep.
Maybe among the shingle and sand of floods to be
Her dust and mine may mingle and float away to sea.
Ah Kotri, by the river, when evening's sun is low,
Your faint reflections quiver, your golden ripples glow.
You knew, oh Kotri river, that love which could not last.
For me your palms still shiver with passions of the past.
Farewell
Farewell, Aziz, it was not mine to fold you
Against my heart for any length of days.
I had no loveliness, alas, to hold you,
No siren voice, no charm that lovers praise.
Yet, in the midst of grief and desolation,
Solace I my despairing soul with this:
Once, for my life's eternal consolation,
You lent my lips your loveliness to kiss.
Ah, that one night! I think Love's very essence
Distilled itself from out my joy and pain,
Like tropical trees, whose fervid inflorescence
Glows, gleams, and dies, never to bloom again.
Often I marvel how I met the morning
With living eyes after that night with you,
Ah, how I cursed the wan, white light for dawning,
And mourned the paling stars, as each withdrew!
Yet I, even I, who am less than dust before you,
Less than the lowest lintel of your door,
Was given one breathless midnight, to adore you.
Fate, having granted this, can give no more!