The graces marked the hour, when thou
Didst leave thine ante-natal rest,
Without a cry to heave a breast
Which never ached from then till now.
That vivid soul then first unsealed
Would be, they knew, a torch to wave
Within a chill and dusky cave
Whose crystals else were unrevealed.
That fine small mouth they wreathed so well
In rosy curves, would rouse to arms
A troop then bound in slumber-charms;
Such notes they gave the magic shell.
Those straying fingerlets, that clutched
At good and bad, they so did glove,
That they might pick the flowers of love,
Unscathed, from every briar they touched.
The bounteous sisters did ordain,
That thou one day with jest and whim
Should'st rain thy merriment on him
Whose life, when thou wert born, was pain.
For haply on that night they spied
A sickly student at his books,
Who having basked in loving looks
Was freezing into barren pride.
His squalid discontent they saw,
And, for that he had worshipped them
With incense and with anadem,
They willed his wintry world should thaw;
And at thy cradle did decree
That fifteen years should pass, and thou
Should'st breathe upon that pallid brow
Favonian airs of mirth and glee.
A NEW YEAR'S DAY
Our planet runs through liquid space,
And sweeps us with her in the race;
And wrinkles gather on my face,
And Hebe bloom on thine:
Our sun with his encircling spheres
Around the central sun careers;
And unto thee with mustering years
Come hopes which I resign.
'Twere sweet for me to keep thee still
Reclining halfway up the hill;
But time will not obey the will,
And onward thou must climb:
'Twere sweet to pause on this descent,
To wait for thee and pitch my tent,
But march I must with shoulders bent,
Yet farther from my prime.
I shall not tread thy battle-field,
Nor see the blazon on thy shield;
Take thou the sword I could not wield,
And leave me, and forget
Be fairer, braver, more admired;
So win what feeble hearts desired;
Then leave thine arms, when thou art tired,
To some one nobler yet.
A CRUISE
Your princely progress is begun;
And pillowed on the bounding deck
You break with dark brown hair a sun
That falls transfigured on your neck.
Sail on, and charm sun, wind, and sea.
Oh! might that love-light rest on me!
Vacantly lingering with the hours,
The sacred hours that still remain
From that rich month of fruits and flowers
Which brought you near me once again,
By thoughts of you, though roses die,
I strive to make it still July.
Soft waves are strown beneath your prow,
Like carpets for a victor's feet;
You call slow zephyrs to your brow,
In listless luxury complete:
Love, the true Halcyon, guides your ship;
Oh, might his pinion touch my lip!
I by the shrunken river stroll;
And changed, since I was left alone,
With tangled weed and rising shoal,
The loss I mourn he seems to own:
This is, how base soe'er his sloth,
This is the stream that bore us both.
For you shall granite peaks uprise
As old and scornful as your race,
And fringed with firths of lucent dyes
The jewelled beach your limbs embrace.
Oh bather, may those Western gems
Remind you of my lilied Thames.
I too have seen the castled West,
Her Cornish creeks, her Breton ports,
Her caves by knees of hermits pressed,
Her fairy islets bright with quartz:
And dearer now each well-known scene,
For what shall be than what hath been.
Obeisance of kind strangers' eyes,
Triumphant cannons' measured roar,
Doffed plumes, and martial courtesies,
Shall greet you on the Norman shore.
Oh, that I were a stranger too,
To win that first sweet glance from you.
I was a stranger once: and soon
Beyond desire, above belief,
Thy soul was as a crescent moon,
A bud expanding leaf by leaf.
I'd pray thee now to close, to wane,
So that 'twere all to do again.
A SEPARATION
I may not touch the hand I saw
So nimbly weave the violet chain;
I may not see my artist draw
That southward-sloping lawn again.
But joy brimmed over when we met,
Nor can I mourn our parting yet.
Though he lies sick and far away,
I play with those that still are here,
Not honouring him the less, for they
To me by loving him are dear:
They share, they soothe my fond regret,
Since neither they nor I forget.
His sweet strong heart so nobly beat
With scorn and pity, mirth and zeal,
That vibrant hearts of ours repeat
What they with him were wont to feel;
Still quiring in that higher key,
Till he take up the melody.
If there be any music here,
I trust it will not fail, like notes
Of May-birds, when the warning year
Abates their summer-wearied throats.
Shame on us, if we drudge once more
As dull and tuneless as before.
Without him I was weak and coarse,
My soul went droning through the hours,
His goodness stirred a latent force
That drew from others kindred powers.
Nor they nor I could think me base,
When with their prince I had found grace.
His influence crowns me, like a cloud
Steeped in the light of a lost sun:
I reign, for willing knees are bowed
And light behests are gladly done:
So Rome obeyed the lover-king,
Who drank at pure Egeria's spring.
Such honour doth my mind perplex:
For, who is this, I ask, that dares
With manhood's wounds, and virtue's wrecks,
And tangled creeds, and subtle cares,
Affront the look, or speak the name
Of one who from Elysium came.
And yet, though withered and forlorn,
I had renounced what man desires,
I'd thought some poet might be born
To string my lute with silver wires;
At least in brighter days to come
Such men as I would not lie dumb.
I saw the Sibyl's finger rest
On fate's unturned imagined page,
Believed her promise, and was blest
With dreams of that heroic age.
She sent me, ere my hope was cold,
One of the race that she foretold.
His fellows time will bring, and they,
In manifold affections free,
Shall scatter pleasures day by day
Like blossoms rained from windy tree.
So let that garden bloom; and I,
Content with one such flower, will die.