As delicate gorgeous rains of dusky gold
Heavy white lilies, Love importunate
Besets the soul,—as that wild Splendour told
Pale Danaë her haughty heavenly fate.
Not speared in burning points but spun in strands
My senses: drowsily burning webs are they
That veil me head to foot. While on mine hands
And hair and lids thy kisses die away
Through all my being their strange echoes thrill
And from the body's flowery mysticism
I draw the last white honey. What is thine ill?
What wouldst thou more of that great symbolism?
Beyond this ultimate moment nothing lies
But moonless cold and darkness. Ah! be wise!
VIII
THE ACCUSATION
Mere night! The unconsenting Soul stands by,
A moaning protestant. "Ah, not for this,
And not for this, through rose and thorn was I
Drawn to surrender and the bridal-kiss.
Annunciations lit with jewelled wings
Of sudden angels mid the lilies tall,
Proud prothalamia chaunting enraptured things,—
O sumptuous fables, why so prodigal
Of masque and music, of dreams like foam-white swans
On lakes of hyacinthus? Must Love seek
Great allies, Beauty sound her arrière-bans
That all her splendours betray us to this bleak
Simplicity whereto blind satyrs run?"—
The irony seems old, old as the sun.
IX
THE MEDIEVAL MIRROR-CASES
I
Rondels of old French ivory to-day
(Poor perished beauty's deathless mirror-cases!)
Reveal to me the delicate amorous play
Of reed-like flowering folk with pointed faces.
Lovers ride hawking; over chess delight;
The Castle of Ladies renders up its keys,
Its roses all being flung; a gracious knight
Kneels to his garlander mid orchard-trees.
Passionate pilgrims, do ye keep so fast
Your dream of miracles and heights? Ah, shent
And sore-bewildered shall ye couch at last
In bitter beds of disillusionment.
In the Black Orchard the foul raven grieves
White Love, on some Montfauçon of the thieves.