Are the accents of your luring
More melodious than of yore?
Are those frail forms more enduring
Than the charms Ulysses bore?
That we sought you with rejoicings,
Till at evening we descry
At a pause of Siren voicings
These vexed branches and this howling sky?...
. . . . . . . . . .
Oh, your pardon! The uncouthness
Of that primal age is gone,
And the skin of dazzling smoothness
Screens not now a heart of stone.
Love has flushed those cruel faces;
And those slackened arms forego
The delight of death-embraces,
And yon whitening bone-mounds do not grow.
“Ah!” you say; “the large appearance
Of man’s labor is but vain,
And we plead as stanch adherence
Due to pleasure as to pain.”
Pointing to earth’s careworn creatures,
“Come,” you murmur with a sigh:
“Ah! we own diviner features,
Loftier bearing, and a prouder eye.
“Come,” you say, “the hours were dreary;
Life without love does not fade;
Vain it wastes, and we grew weary
In the slumbrous cedarn shade.
Round our hearts with long caresses,
With low sighings, Silence stole,
And her load of steaming tresses
Weighed, like Ossa, on the aery soul.
“Come,” you say, “the soul is fainting
Till she search and learn her own,
And the wisdom of man’s painting
Leaves her riddle half unknown.
Come,” you say, “the brain is seeking,
While the princely heart is dead;
Yet this gleaned, when gods were speaking,
Rarer secrets than the toiling head.
“Come,” you say, “opinion trembles,
Judgment shifts, convictions go;
Life dries up, the heart dissembles:
Only, what we feel, we know.
Hath your wisdom known emotions?
Will it weep our burning tears?
Hath it drunk of our love-potions
Crowning moments with the weight of years?”
I am dumb. Alas! too soon all
Man’s grave reasons disappear!
Yet, I think, at God’s tribunal
Some large answer you shall hear.
But for me, my thoughts are straying
Where at sunrise, through your vines,
On these lawns I saw you playing,
Hanging garlands on your odorous pines;
When your showering locks inwound you,
And your heavenly eyes shone through;
When the pine-boughs yielded round you,
And your brows were starred with dew;
And immortal forms, to meet you,
Down the statued alleys came,
And through golden horns, to greet you,
Blew such music as a god may frame.
Yes, I muse! And if the dawning
Into daylight never grew,
If the glistering wings of morning
On the dry noon shook their dew,
If the fits of joy were longer,
Or the day were sooner done,
Or, perhaps, if hope were stronger,
No weak nursling of an earthly sun ...
Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens,
Dusk the hall with yew!