Rose Leaf and Apple Leaf

by Rennell Rodd

SONGS
LONG AFTER
I see your white arras gliding,
In music o'er the keys,
Long drooping lashes hiding
A blue like summer seas:
The sweet lips wide asunder,
That tremble as you sing,
I could not choose but wonder,
You seemed so fair a thing.
For all these long years after
The dream has never died,
I still can hear your laughter,
Still see you at my side;
One lily hiding under
The waves of golden hair;
I could not choose but wonder,
You were so strangely fair.
I keep the flower you braided
Among those waves of gold,
The leaves are sere and faded,
And like our love grown old.
Our lives have lain asunder,
The years are long, and yet,
I could not choose but wonder.
I cannot quite forget.
1880.
"WHERE THE RHONE GOES DOWN TO THE SEA"
A sweet still night of the vintage time,
Where the Rhone goes down to the sea;
The distant sound of a midnight chime
Comes over the wave to me.
Only the hills and the stars o'erhead
Bring back dreams of the days long dead,
While the Rhone goes down to the sea.
The years are long, and the world is wide,
And we all went down to the sea;
The ripples splash as we onward glide,
And I dream they are here with me—
All lost friends whom we all loved so,
In the old mad life of long ago,
Who all went down to the sea.
So we passed in the golden days
With the summer down to the sea.
They wander still over weary ways,
And come not again to me.
I am here alone with the night wind's sigh,
The fading stars, and a dream gone by,
And the Rhone going down to the sea.
1880.
A SONG OF AUTUMN
All through the golden weather
Until the autumn fell,
Our lives went by together
So wildly and so well.—
But autumn's wind uncloses
The heart of all your flowers,
I think as with the roses,
So hath it been with ours.
Like some divided river
Your ways and mine will be,
—To drift apart for ever,
For ever till the sea.
And yet for one word spoken,
One whisper of regret,
The dream had not been broken
And love were with us yet.
1880.
"Ερωτοϛ" Ανδοϛ
The autumn wind goes sighing
Through the quivering aspen tree,
The swallows will be flying
Toward their summer sea;
The grapes begin to sweeten
On the trellised vine above,
And on my brows have beaten
The little wings of love.
Oh wind if you should meet her
You will whisper all I sing!
Oh swallow fly to greet her,
And bring me word in spring!
1881.

---

ATALANTA
Wait not along the shore, they will not come;
The suns go down beyond the windy seas,
Those weary sails shall never wing them home
O'er this white foam;
No voice from these
On any landward wind that dies among the trees.
Gone south, it may be, rudderless, astray,
Gone where the winds and ocean currents bore,
Out of all tracks along the sea's highway
This many a day,
To some far shore
Where never wild seas break, or any fierce winds roar.
For there are lands ye never recked of yet
Between the blue of stormless sea and sky,
Beyond where any suns of yours have set,
Or these waves fret;
And loud winds die
In cloudless summertide, where those far islands lie.
They will not come! for on the coral shore
The good ship lies, by little waves caressed,
All stormy ways and wanderings are o'er,
No more, no more!
But long sweet rest,
In cool green meadow-lands, that lie along the West.
Or if beneath far fathom depths of waves
She lies heeled over by the slow tide's sweep,
Deep down where never any swift sea raves,
Through ocean caves,
A dreaming deep
Of softly gliding forms, a glimmering world of sleep.
Then have they passed beyond the outer gate
Through death to knowledge of all things, and so
From out the silence of their unknown fate
They bid us wait,
Who only know
That twixt their loves and ours the great seas ebb and flow.
THE DAISY
With little white leaves in the grasses,
Spread wide for the smile of the sun,
It waits till the daylight passes,
And closes them one by one.
I have asked why it closed at even,
And I know what it wished to say:
There are stars all night in the heaven,
And I am the star of day.
1881.
"WHEN I AM DEAD"
When I am dead, my spirit
Shall wander far and free,
Through realms the dead inherit
Of earth and sky and sea;
Through morning dawn and gloaming,
By midnight moons at will,
By shores where the waves are foaming,
By seas where the waves are still.
I, following late behind you,
In wingless sleepless flight,
Will wander till I find you,
In sunshine or twilight;
With silent kiss for greeting
On lips and eyes and head,
In that strange after-meeting
Shall love be perfected.
We shall lie in summer breezes
And pass where whirlwinds go,
And the Northern blast that freezes
Shall bear us with the snow.
We shall stand above the thunder,
And watch the lightnings hurled
At the misty mountains under,
Of the dim forsaken world.
We shall find our footsteps' traces,
And passing hand in hand
By old familiar places,
We shall laugh, and understand.
1881.
AFTER HEINE
The leaves are falling, falling,
The yellow treetops wave,
Ah, all delight and beauty
Is drawing to the grave.
About the wood's crest flicker
The wan sun's laggard rays,
They are the parting kisses
Of fleeting summer days.
Meseems I should be shedding
The heart's-tears from my eyes,
The day will keep recalling
The time of our good-byes:
I knew that you were dying
And I must pass away,
Oh I was the waning summer,
And you were the wood's decay.
1881.
"THOSE DAYS ARE LONG DEPARTED"
Those days are long departed,
Gone where the dead dreams are,
Since we two children started
To look for the morning star.
We asked our way of the swallow
In his language that we knew,
We were sad we could not follow
So swift the blue bird flew.
We set our wherry drifting
Between the poplar trees,
And the banks of meadows shifting
Were the shores of unknown seas.
We talked of the white snow prairies
That lie by the Northern lights,
And of woodlands where the fairies
Are seen in the moonlit nights.
Till one long day was over
And we grew too tired to roam,
And through the corn and clover
We slowly wandered home.
Ah child! with love and laughter
We had journeyed out so far;
We who went in the big years after
To look for another star;
But I go unbefriended
Through wind and rain and foam,—
One day was hardly ended
When the angel took you home.
1881.
A STAR-DREAM
There was a night when you and I
Looked up from where we lay,
When we were children, and the sky
Was not so far away.
We looked toward the deep dark blue
Beyond our window bars,
And into all our dreaming drew
The spirit of the stars.
We did not see the world asleep—
We were already there!
We did not find the way so steep
To climb that starry stair.
And faint at first and fitfully,
Then sweet and shrill and near,
We heard the eternal harmony
That only angels hear;
And many a hue of many a gem
We found for you to wear,
And many a shining diadem
To bind about your hair;
We saw beneath us faint and far
The little cloudlets strewn,
And I became a wandering star,
And you became my moon.
Ah! have you found our starry skies?
Where are you all the years?
Oh, moon of many memories!
Oh, star of many tears!
1881.
AFTER HEINE
Beautiful fisherman's daughter,
Steer in your bark to the land!
Come down to me over the water
And talk to me hand in hand!
Lay here on my heart those tresses,
For look, what have you to fear
Who are bold with the sea's caresses
Every day in the year?
My heart is at one with the deep
In its storm, in its ebb and flow,
And ah! There are pearls asleep
In cavernous depths below.
1880.
AFTER HEINE
How the mirrored moonbeams quiver
On the waters' fall and rise,
Yet the moon serene as ever
Wanders through the quiet skies.
Like the mirrored moonlight's fretting
Are the dreams I have of you,
For my heart will beat, forgetting
You are ever calm and true.
ENDYMION
She came upon me in the middle day,
Bowed o'er the waters of a mountain mere;
Where dimly mirrored in the ripple's play
I saw some fair thing near.
I saw the waters lapping round her feet,
The widening rings spread, follow out and die,
I saw the mirror and the mirrored meet,
And heard a voice hard by.
So I, Endymion, who lay bathing there,
Half-hidden in the coolness of the lake,
Looked up and swept away my long wild hair,
And knew a goddess spake;
A form white limbed and peerless, far above
The very fairest of imagined things,
The perfect vision of a dream of love
Stepped through the water-rings;
That breathed soft names and drew me to her arms,
White arms and clinging in a long caress,
And won me willing, by the magic charms
Of perfect loveliness:
Till on my breast a throbbing bosom lies;
The dim hills waver and the dark woods roll,
For all the longing of two glorious eyes
Takes hold upon my soul.
Then only when the sudden darkness fell
Upon the silver of the mountain mere,
And through the pine trees of the slanting dell,
The moon rose cold and clear,
I seemed alone upon the dewy shore,—
For she had left me as she came unwarned;—
And fell from sighing into sleep, before
The summer morning dawned.
What wonder now I find no maiden fair
Who dwells between these mountains and the seas?
And go unloving and unloved, or ere
I turn to such as these.
What wonder if the light of those wide eyes
Makes other eyes seem cold; for that loud laughter
Lost love has nothing left but sighs
For all the time hereafter.
Yet better so, far better, no regret
Can touch my heart for that sweet memory's sake,
But only sighing for the sun that set
Behind the summer lake.
* * * * * * * * *
But yestermorn it was, the second night
Comes softly stealing over yon blue steep;
The world grows silent in the fading light,
There is no joy but sleep.
—I cannot bear her fair face in the skies
Beyond the drowsy waving of the trees,—
A soft breeze kisses round my heavy eyes,
A restful summer breeze.
What means this dreamless apathy of sleep?
—A mist steals over the dim lake, the shore,
Until my closing eyes forget to weep—
Oh, let me wake no more!
DISILLUSION
Ah! what would youth be doing
To hoist his crimson sails,
To leave the wood-doves cooing,
The song of nightingales;
To leave this woodland quiet
For murmuring winds at strife,
For waves that foam and riot
About the seas of life?
From still bays silver sanded
Wild currents hasten down,
To rocks where ships are stranded
And eddies where men drown.
Far out, by hills surrounded,
Is the golden haven gate,
And all beyond unbounded
Are shoreless seas of fate.
They steer for those far highlands
Across the summer tide,
And dream of fairy islands
Upon the further side.
They only see the sunlight,
The flashing of gold bars,
But the other side is moonlight
And glimmer of pale stars.
They will not heed the warning
Blown back on every wind,
For hope is born with morning,
The secret is behind.
Whirled through in wild confusion
They pass the narrow strait,
To the sea of disillusion
That lies beyond the gate.
REQUIESCAT
He had the poet's eyes,
—Sing to him sleeping,—
Sweet grace of low replies,
—Why are we weeping?
He had the gentle ways,
—Fair dreams befall him!—
Beauty through all his days,
—Then why recall him?—
That which in him was fair
Still shall be ours:
Yet, yet my heart lies there
Under the flowers.
1881.
IN CHARTRES CATHEDRAL
Through yonder windows stained and old
Four level rays of red and gold
Strike down the twilight dim,
Four lifted heads are aureoled
Of the sculptured cherubim,
And soft like sounds on faint winds blown
Of voices dying far away,
The organ's dreamy undertone,
The murmur while they pray;
And I sit here alone alone
And have no word to say;
Cling closer shadows, darker yet,
And heart be happy to forget.
And now, the mystic silence—and they kneel
A young priest lifts a star of gold,—
And then the sudden organ peal!
Ave and Ave! and the music rolled
Along the carven wonder of the choir
Thrilled canopy and spire,
Up till the echoes mingled with the song;
And now a boy's flute note that rings
Shrill sweet and long,
Ave and Ave, louder and more loud
Rises the strain he sings,
Upon the angel's wings!
Right up to God!
And you that sit there in the lowliest place,
With lips that hardly dare to move,
You with the old sad furrowed face
Dream on your dream of love!
For you, glide down the music's swell
The folding arms of peace,
For me wild thoughts, I dare not tell
Desires that never cease.
For you the calm, the angel's breast
Whose dim foreknowledge is at rest;
For me the beat of broken wings
The old unanswered questionings.
HIC JACET
Did you play here child
The whole spring through
And smiled and smiled
And never knew?—
Where the shade is cool
And the grass grows deep,
One that was beautiful
Lies in his sleep.
Ah no child, never
Will he arise,
The sleep was for ever
That closed his eyes.
And his bed is strewn
Deep underground,
He was tired so soon,
And now sleeps sound.
When the first birds sing
We can hear them, dear,
And in early spring
There are snowdrops here.
For the flowers love him
That lies below,
And ever above him
The daisies grow.
"Shall we look down deep
Where he hides away?
Shall we find him asleep?"
Yes child, some day.
But his palace gate
Is so hard to see,
We two must wait
For the angel's key.
AT TIBER MOUTH
The low plains stretch to the west with a glimmer of rustling weeds,
Where the waves of a golden river wind home by the marshy meads;
And the strong wind born of the sea grows faint with a sickly breath,
As it stays in the fretting rushes and blows on the dews of death.
We came to the silent city, in the glare of the noontide heat,
When the sound of a whisper rang through the length of the lonely street;
No tree in the clefted ruin, no echo of song nor sound,
But the dust of a world forgotten lay under the barren ground.
There are shrines under these green hillocks to the beautiful gods that
sleep,
Where they prayed in the stormy season for lives gone out on the deep;
And here in the grave street sculptured, old record of loves and tears,
By the dust of the nameless slave, forgotten a thousand years.
Not ever again at even shall ship sail in on the breeze,
Where the hulls of their gilded galleys came home from a hundred seas,
For the marsh plants grow in her haven, the marsh birds breed in her bay,
And a mile to the shoreless westward the water has passed away.
But the sea-folk gathering rushes come up from the windy shore,
So the song that the years have silenced grows musical there once more;
And now and again unburied, like some still voice from the dead,
They light on the fallen shoulder and the lines of a marble head.
But we went from the sorrowful city and wandered away at will,
And thought of the breathing marble and the words that are music still.
How full were their lives that laboured, in their fetterless strength
and far
From the ways that our feet have chosen as the sunlight is from the star,
They clung to the chance and promise that once while the years are free
Look over our life's horizon as the sun looks over the sea,
But we wait for a day that dawns not, and cry for unclouded skies,
And while we are deep in dreaming the light that was o'er us dies;
We know not what of the present we shall stretch out our hand to save
Who sing of the life we long for, and not of the life we have;
And yet if the chance were with us to gather the days misspent,
Should we change the old resting-places, the wandering ways we went?
They were strong, but the years are stronger; they are grown but a name
that thrills,
And the wreck of their marble glory lies ghost-like over their hills.
So a shadow fell o'er our dreaming for the weary heart of the past,
For the seed that the years have scattered, to reap so little at last.
And we went to the sea-shore forest, through a long colonnade of pines,
Where the skies peep in and the sea, with a flitting of silver lines.
And we came on an open place in the green deep heart of the wood
Where I think in the years forgotten an altar of Faunus stood;
From a spring in the long dark grasses two rivulets rise and run
By the length of their sandy borders where the snake lies coiled in
the sun.
And the stars of the white narcissus lie over the grass like snow,
And beyond in the shadowy places the crimson cyclamens grow;
Far up from their wave home yonder the sea-winds murmuring pass,
The branches quiver and creak and the lizard starts in the grass.
And we lay in the untrod moss and pillowed our cheeks with flowers,
While the sun went over our heads, and we took no count of the hours;
From the end of the waving branches and under the cloudless blue
Like sunbeams chained for a banner the thread-like gossamers flew.
And the joy of the woods came o'er us, and we felt that our world was
young
With the gladness of years unspent and the sorrow of life unsung.
So we passed with a sound of singing along to the seaward way,
Where the sails of the fishermen folk came homeward over the bay;
For a cloud grew over the forest and darkened the sea-god's shrine,
And the hills of the silent city were only a ruby line.
But the sun stood still on the waves as we passed from the fading shores,
And shone on our boat's red bulwarks and the golden blades of the oars,
And it seemed as we steered for the sunset that we passed through a
twilight sea,
From the gloom of a world forgotten to the light of a world to be.
ROME, 1881.

---

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

"It is fair to accept the statement of his [Wilde's] own ground, in his preface to the decorative verse of his friend Rennell Rodd, though one doubts whether Gautier would not have dubbed the twain joints brodeurs, rather than jeunes guerriers, du drapeau romantique. The apostles of our Lord were filled, like them, with a 'passionate ambition to go forth into far and fair lands with some message for the nations and some mission for the world.' But not until many centuries had passed were their texts illuminated to the extent displayed by Mr. Rodd and his printer, with their resources of India-paper, apple-green tissue, vellum, and all the rarities desired by those who die of a rose in aromatic pain. Yet the verse of Rose Leaf and Apple Leaf is not so effeminate as one would suppose."

E.C. STEDMAN

Victorian Poets. (1889,) pp. 467-8.

---

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE