. . . . . . . . . . .
The pansies, too, are dead, the violet-varied,
Mariana!
The raven-dyed and fire-fretted pansies,
To memory married;
That from the grass, like forms in old romances,
Raised fairy faces:
All dead they lie, the violet-velvet pansies,
In many places,
Mariana!
The pansies, too, are dead, the violet-varied.
Oh, hateful, hateful are the hours that pass,
The lonely hours of the lonesome nights!
No pansy scatters heart’s-ease through the grass,
That autumn sorrow blights,
The heart’s-ease that was hers of old that happier made her nights.
Oh, barren, barren is her life, alas!
Its youth and beauty, all life has,
And barren all delights—
She lays her face against the withered grass,
The rain-wet grass, the autumn grass,
And thinks, the long, long nights,
Of one who will not come again whatever comes to pass.
CIRCE
The pillared portals of her home once rose from out the sea;
Its casements burnt with green sea-fire of ocean mystery;
And all its halls of love were full of mermaid melody.
Its battlements of beauty were a pharos from afar,
To lure the wandering seamen like a constellated star:—
Life may question: death is silent: will it answer where they are?
It is enough to know that once between the golden goals
Of dreams and deeds their vessel steered to music of citoles,
And reached the Siren island where they pledged and lost their souls.
It is enough to know that once love led them with a lute—
To taste the honey of her soul and of her flesh the fruit;
Between the soul and flesh she changed each man into a brute.
It is enough to know that love once sate them at a feast—
Her word was bread and oil to them, her kiss was wine at least;
Between the word and kiss she changed each man into a beast.
The marble now is vanished where the columned wonder rose;
The billow beats complaining there, a heart of many woes;
The sea-wind sings uncertain things of what the Siren knows.