To Lord Alfred Douglas.
With faces bright, as ruddy corn,
Touched by the sunlight of the morn;
With rippling hair; and gleaming eyes,
Wherein a sea of passion lies;
Hair waving back, and eyes that gleam
With deep delight of dream on dream;
With full lips, curving into song;
With shapely limbs, upright and strong:
The youths on holy service throng.
Vested in white, upon their brows
Are wreaths fresh twined from dewy boughs
And flowers they strow along the way,
Still dewy from the birth of day.
So, to each reverend altar come,
They stand in adoration: some
Swing up gold censers; till the air
Is blue and sweet, with smoke of rare
Spices, that fetched from Egypt were.
In voices of calm, choral tone,
Praise they each God, with praise his own:
As children of the Gods, is seen
Their glad solemnity of mien:
So fair a spirit of the skies
Is in their going: and their eyes
Look out upon the peopled earth,
As theirs were some diviner birth:
And clear and courtly is their mirth.
Lights of the labouring world, they seem:
Or, to the tired, like some fresh stream.
Their dignity of perfect youth
Compels devotion, as doth truth:
So right seems all, they do, they are.
Old age looks wistful, from afar,
To watch their beauty, as they go,
Radiant and free, in ordered row;
And fairer, in the watching, grow.
Fair though it be, to watch unclose
The nestling glories of a rose,
Depth on rich depth, soft fold on fold:
Though fairer be it, to behold
Stately and sceptral lilies break
To beauty, and to sweetness wake:
Yet fairer still, to see and sing,
One fair thing is, one matchless thing:
Youth, in its perfect blossoming.
The magic of a golden grace
Brings fire and sweetness on each face:
Till, from their passage, every heart
Takes fire, and sweetness in the smart:
Till virtue lives, for all who own
Their majesty, in them alone:
Till careless hearts, and idle, take
Delight in living, for their sake;
Worship their footsteps, and awake.
Beside the tremulous, blue sea,
Clear at sunset, they love to be:
And they are rarely sad, but then.
For sorrow touches them, as men,
Looking upon the calm of things,
That pass, and wake rememberings
Of holy and of ancient awe;
The charm of immemorial Law:
What we see now, the great dead saw!
Upon a morn of storm, a swan,
Breasting the cold stream, cold and wan,
Throws back his neck in snowy length
Between his snowy wings of strength:
Against him the swift river flows,
The proudlier he against it goes,
King of the waters! For his pride
Bears him upon a mightier tide:
May death not be by youth defied?
But the red sun is gone: and gleams
Of delicate moonlight waken dreams,
Dreams, and the mysteries of peace:
Shall this fair darkness ever cease?
Here is no drear, no fearful Power,
But life grows fuller with each hour,
Full of the silence, that is best:
Earth lies, with soothed and quiet breast,
Beneath the guardian stars, at rest.