THE WHITE PEACOCK
Here where the sunlight
Floodeth the garden,
Where the pomegranate
Reareth its glory
Of gorgeous blossom;
Where the oleanders
Dream through the noontides;
And, like surf o' the sea
Round cliffs of basalt,
The thick magnolias
In billowy masses
Front the sombre green of the ilexes:
Here where the heat lies
Pale blue in the hollows,
Where blue are the shadows
On the fronds of the cactus,
Where pale blue the gleaming
Of fir and cypress,
With the cones upon them
Amber or glowing with virgin gold:
Here where the honey-flower
Makes the heat fragrant,
As though from the gardens
Of Gulistan,
Where the bulbul singeth
Through a mist of roses
A breath were borne:
Here where the dream-flowers,
The cream-white poppies
Silently waver,
And where the Scirocco,
Faint in the hollows,
Foldeth his soft white wings in the sunlight,
And lieth sleeping
Deep in the heart of
A sea of white violets:
Here, as the breath, as the soul of this beauty,
Moveth in silence, and dreamlike, and slowly,
White as a snow-drift in mountain-valleys
When softly upon it the gold light lingers:
White as the foam o' the sea that is driven
O'er billows of azure agleam with sun-yellow:
Cream-white and soft as the breasts of a girl,
Moves the White Peacock, as though through the noontide
A dream of the moonlight were real for a moment.
Dim on the beautiful fan that he spreadeth,
Foldeth and spreadeth abroad in the sunlight,
Dim on the cream-white are blue adumbrations,
Shadows so pale in their delicate blueness
That visions they seem as of vanishing violets,
The fragrant white violets veined with azure,
Pale, pale as the breath of blue smoke in far woodlands.
Here, as the breath, as the soul of this beauty,
White as the cloud through the heats of the noontide
Moves the White Peacock.
William Sharp
AT ISOLA BELLA
Once at Isola Bella,
With sunset in the sky,
We stood on the topmost terrace—
You and I.
Around us Lago Maggiore,
Incomparably fair,
Gave back the hues of heaven
To the Italian air.
Then up the marble terrace
Below the cypress trees
Came a flock of milk-white peacocks
With fans spread to the breeze.
Rose-pink on each outspread feather,
Rose-pink upon the crest,—
Never were birds in plumage
So ravishingly drest!
Wherever we walked they followed,
Stately at our feet,
No picture so enchanting
Will any hour repeat.
And here in the murky city
Those milk-white peacocks seem
To follow and follow me ever
Like ghosts of a haunting dream.