His Lady of the Sonnets

by Robert Winkworth Norwood

XXX

My Lady of the Sonnets, one word more,
The last; and, after, let the silence fall.
Our year is ended, and things great and small
Glow with its glory; could we live it o'er,
What would we scatter from its precious store
Of pearl, chalcedony, and topaz—all
The many-jewelled moments that we call
Love's treasure—we who had not loved before!

Into that treasure plunge we both our hands,
The while we laugh, and love, and live again.
What rainbow-splendours and what golden sands
Fall from our fingers! ... Now let come the pain
And steal the shadow, moan the wintry sea;
Locked is the casket: in your hands the key!

ANTONY TO CLEOPATRA,
AFTER ACTIUM

I

Day is all drenched with heavy rain of tears;
The silences of joy are lost in sound
Of sorrow; for I weep the wasted years—
Wasted as wine poured out upon the ground
From beakers brimming red for thirsty lips.
Hushed are the trumpets that will call no more;
Lonely and vast the spaces of the sea
Where oft my mariners have flashed the oar
And ploughed deep furrows with my scarlet ships—
Eager and ready for the fight, and free.

II

Egypt! My Egypt! Actium, and thou
The glory and the wonder of the world,
Titles and place, all that I had are now
Rolled up within a sphere of flame and hurled
Into the gulfs of doom; quaking of earth,
And thunder, as of gods deriding, fill
The darkness and the void of those abysses:
Yet in my anger and my anguish still
Hath Love his ancient way, stirring to birth
Dreams of the lost, dead days, thy lips and kisses.

III