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NINE FE H 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER POEMS 
 
NINEVEH 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER 
 POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE SYLVESTER 
 VIERECK 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 
 
 1907 
 
LIBRAHY of CONGRESS 
 Two C»D»es Rectived 
 MAY 7 1907 
 lepynftrt Entry 
 
 ClASS ^Cl XXc, No. 
 
 7^ 
 
 J 2^ / ^ ^ 
 
 COPY B. 
 
 
 Copyright, 1907, by 
 
 MOFFAT, YARD & COMPANY 
 New York 
 
 Published April, 19(fi 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
To 
 Richard L,e Gallienne 
 
NOTE 
 
 The author desires to express his obligation 
 to his frieiids, Mr. William Ellery Leonard and 
 Mr. Ludwig Lewisohn^ for their permission to 
 reprint in the present collection their respective 
 versions of * ^ Priiice Carjiival ' * a7td ' The Scar- 
 let Flower. ' ' Nor can he send forth this book 
 without a word of gratitude to his other friends ^ 
 especially Mrs. Els a Barker, Mr. A. I. du P. 
 Coleman and Mr. Richard Le Gallienne , for help- 
 ful suggestio7i and geiierous assistance. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 SALUTATION 
 
 The Suppliant .... 3 
 
 Prayer . . . . .4 
 
 Premonition . . . . .5 
 
 NINEVEH 
 
 The Empire City . . • . ii 
 
 Nineveh ..... i5 
 
 THE BOOK OF IDOLS 
 
 To * * * . . . . .33 
 
 The Dumb Idol .... 34 
 
 Kakodaimon . . . . .38 
 
 Prince Carnival .... 40 
 
 The Smile of the Sphinx . . .42 
 
 When Idols Fall .... 47 
 
 The Sphinx . . . . .50 
 
 A BALLAD OF SIN . . . .57 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 GOLGOTHA 
 
 Confession 
 
 Provocatio Ad Maria m 
 Before the Cross 
 
 65 
 67 
 69 
 
 THE GARDEN OF PASSION 
 
 Spring .... 
 
 7Z 
 
 A Spring Blessing 
 
 • 75 
 
 Love's Silence 
 
 78 
 
 Redeemed .... 
 
 • 79 
 
 Love Triumphant 
 
 81 
 
 Sunset ..... 
 
 . 84 
 
 The Scarlet Flower 
 
 85 
 
 Mr. W. H. . . ' . 
 
 . 87 
 
 For Antinous in His Old Age 
 
 88 
 
 To Sleep .... 
 
 . 89 
 
 Prayer of Souls in Need . 
 
 90 
 
 Resurrection 
 
 . 91 
 
 The Ballad of Nun and Knight . 
 
 92 
 
 Love in Dreamland 
 
 . 94 
 
 Friendship 
 
 96 
 
 Wasted Songs .... 
 
 . 97 
 
 Lord Eros .... 
 
 98 
 
 At Cross-Roads 
 
 . 99 
 
 Autumn .... 
 
 too 
 
 Love Cruel .... 
 
 . 102 
 
 Silentium Poet^ 
 
 103 
 
 The Last Chord 
 
 . 104 
 
 A Leave Taking 
 
 105 
 
CONTENTS xi 
 
 THE GARDEN OF PASSION {Continued) 
 
 Southern Summer .... io6 
 
 Love's Quest ..... 107 
 
 IN THE AGORA 
 
 To A Defeated Candidate . . .111 
 
 Heine IN New York . . . .112 
 
 The New Colossus in 1907 . . .113 
 
 MALE AND FEMALE CREATED HE 
 THEM 
 
 AlOGYNE . . . . .117 
 
 AiANDER . . . . .121 
 
 THE MAGIC CITY 
 
 A Poet's Creed . . . .127 
 
 To Swinburne . . . .128 
 
 Charles Baudelaire . . . 129 
 
 The Poet . . . . .131 
 
 Consolation .... 132 
 
 Hadrian . . . . .133 
 
 Art .... . .137 
 
 The Magic City .... 142 
 
 THE HAUNTED HOUSE . , .149 
 
 THE THREE SPHINXES . . .153 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The spkndid heritage of two languages has 
 fallen to me from a German father and an 
 American mother. My ears have listened to the 
 music of two worlds. Many of the poems In 
 the present collection were written In the lan- 
 guage In which they are here presented. Oth- 
 ers were originally composed In German and 
 rewritten In English. The latter are as metals 
 transmuted by verbal alchemy and, with the ex- 
 ception of two, In no sense translations. I can- 
 not, therefore, claim, for any part of my work, 
 the Indulgence commonly granted to painstak- 
 ing translators by benevolent critics. Each of 
 my poems must be judged by whatever intrinsic 
 value it may possess. It must also be judged as 
 a whole. It must not be viewed from one nar- 
 row angle of vision — moral, aesthetic, or philo- 
 sophic. The truth, I take It, has many sides. 
 Art, like life, is Janus-faced. In fact, it has 
 many faces. The hopelessly Puritanical attitude 
 which has found Its most characteristic utterance, 
 xiii 
 
xiv PREFACE 
 
 and — It was to be hoped — its extinction, in the 
 pitiful voice of Robert Buchanan, Is no more 
 absurd than the affectation of those who, pro- 
 claiming their disclpleship to art for art's sake, 
 in reality crown pose with the diadem of emo- 
 tion, and upon the throne of beauty set technique. 
 The question arises: Is there any positive test 
 of literary achievement? Matthew Arnold's 
 definitions, set forth in his introduction to 
 Ward's "English Poets," are suggestive, if un- 
 satisfactory. In every poet's work we discover 
 single poems, which, by common consent, out- 
 shine their companions without necessarily ex- 
 celling In earnestness of purpose or verbal 
 beauty, rhythmic splendour or originality of con- 
 ception. They throb with a mysterious vitality 
 which, while it may elude definition, Is unmis- 
 takably felt. Arnold's "touch-stones" of poetry 
 fall under this category; likewise Leigh Hunt's 
 "Jenny Kissed Me," Rossetti's "Blessed Damo- 
 zel," Markham's "Man with the Hoe," Poe's 
 "Raven," and Oscar Wilde's "Ballad of Read- 
 ing Gaol." I have purposely chosen dissimilar 
 examples. The pieces have, however, one qual- 
 ity In common, which, for lack of a better name, 
 I should like to term finality of expression. That 
 Is, they solve without a remainder the equation 
 between thought and utterance. They express. 
 
PREFACE XV 
 
 with supreme aptitude, finally and for all time, 
 some mundane experience, some note in the in- 
 finite scale. No latter poet can add to them, or 
 detract. Their impressiveness is enduring, their 
 vitality ultimate. The measure of a poet's art 
 is the frequency with which he attains or, at 
 least, approaches finality of expression. 
 
 Form and content in poetry are co-ordinate. 
 In order to achieve finality it is essential that 
 the metric coat shall fit exactly. Existing conven- 
 tional forms, like ready-made garments, may at 
 times fulfil the requirements; frequently they 
 will not. It then behooves a poet to modify 
 them or, better still, to create new forms inti- 
 mately adapted to the exigencies of the occasion. 
 Though the instinctive sureness of Milton's 
 touch enabled him to set aside traditional restric- 
 tions, the eighteenth century crushed freedom 
 within form so effectually that, in spite of the 
 romantic revival, our poets have not, as a rule, 
 followed in his steps. Thought is now stretched 
 out, now mangled upon the Procrustean bed of 
 conventional music. Men have forgotten that 
 rhyme and metre are only means to an end. In 
 art, at least, the end justifies the means. The 
 poet's ear, not the number of feet, Is the plenl- 
 potent arbiter of form, and the melodious Im- 
 pressiveness of a poem as a whole, the final cri- 
 
xvi. PREFACE 
 
 terion of poetic technique. The poet of the future 
 will be an impressionist. By unheard-of devices 
 he will wrest new music from the language, and 
 raise a crop of roses from gardens hitherto neg- 
 lected and sterile. He will also utilise, not re- 
 pudiate, the resources already at hand, and put 
 to a nobler and broader application the sonant 
 heirloom of the past. It is the freedom of Pindar 
 for which I plead, not the freedom of Whitman. 
 I plead for this freedom, not only in the ode, but 
 in all poetry. Thus form will not be overthrown, 
 but more firmly and exquisitely established. Not 
 the line or stanza, but the whole poem will be 
 the unit of the new poetry, and each poem will 
 possess a rhythmic individuality unique to itself. 
 In the majority of my own poems I made con- 
 cession to time-honoured canons. Then, instinc- 
 tively, at first, I began to strive for a rhythmic 
 speech more flexible, and, if possible, more mu- 
 sical. In ''A Ballad of Sin" and "The Smile of 
 the Sphinx" I was groping for the new form. 
 In *'Kakodaimon" I came nearer to it, and in 
 ^'A Spring Blessing," "Art," "The Magic City" 
 and "The Three Sphinxes" my efforts are most 
 consciously directed and most fully developed. If 
 I am right, I have extended the borderland of 
 poetry into the domain of music on the one side, 
 into that of the intellect on the other. The new 
 
PREFACE 
 
 XVll. 
 
 form, new in that it has never before been con- 
 sciously applied, brings into play hidden possi- 
 bilities of speech, and enables the authentic poet 
 to multiply rhymes and rhythmic effects without 
 straining the sense. The lyre, henceforth obey- 
 ing only a master-hand, will slip from the grasp 
 of the tyro, and poetry become once more the 
 vehicle of great thought. The lyrist who fully 
 adopts the new form and its practically limitless 
 resources will accomplish for poetry what Wag- 
 ner has accomplished for music. Along the lines 
 here indicated lies the poetry of to-morrow. 
 
 George Sylvester Viereck. 
 
SALUTATION 
 
THE SUPPLIANT 
 
 Beyond the sea a land of heroes lies, 
 
 Of fairy heaths and rivers, mountains steep, 
 O'ergrown with vine — her memory I shall 
 keep 
 
 Most dear^ her heritage most dearly prize. 
 
 But lo, a lad, I left her, and mine eyes 
 Fell on the sea-girt mistress of the deep, 
 What time my hoy^s heart heard as in a sleep 
 
 The choral walls of rhythmic beauty rise, 
 
 O lyric England, thee I call mine own; 
 
 With lyre and lute and wreath I come to 
 
 thee; 
 The realm is thine of song and of the sea. 
 And thy mouth^s speech is heard from zone to 
 zone: 
 Turn not in scorn thine ivied brow from me. 
 Who am a suppliant kneeling at thy throne! 
 
PRAYER 
 
 / stood upon the threshold; musical 
 
 Reverberant footsteps ghostlike came and 
 
 went, 
 And my lips trembled as magnificent 
 
 ' Before me rose a vision of that hall 
 
 Whereof great Milton is the mighty wall, 
 Shakespeare the dome with incense redolent, 
 Each latter singer precious ornament, 
 
 And Holy Writ the groundwork, bearing all. 
 
 **Lord'^ sobbed I, ''take Thy splendid gift of 
 youth 
 For the one boon that I have craved so long: 
 Mould Thou my stammering accents and un- 
 couth, 
 With awful music raise and make rne strong; 
 A living martyr of Thy vocal truth, 
 
 A resonant column in the House of SongP' 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 PREMONITION 
 
 This ts my singing season, and the dearth 
 Of music ended; I am pregnant thus 
 With sound and colour, and melodious 
 
 Mine unborn poems clamour after birth. 
 
 Perchance, arising from the tuneless earth 
 To bring sweet gifts of cadence unto us, 
 Some vocal brother to Theocritus 
 
 Inspires my lips with his diviner worth. 
 
 Or yet, some ghostly elder singer* s breath 
 Is floating to me, and strange voices ring 
 
 On my soul's ear with sound that quickeneth: 
 ^^Build now or never,** say they, and they 
 bring 
 
 The premonition of an early death 
 
 That bids me hasten with my harvesting. 
 
NINEVEH 
 
PRELUDE 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 THE EMPIRE CITY 
 
 Huge steel-ribbed monsters rise Into the air 
 Her Babylonian towers, while on high 
 Like gilt-scaled serpents glide the swift trains 
 
 by, 
 
 Or, underfoot, creep to their secret lair. 
 
 A thousand lights are jewels in her hair, 
 The sea her girdle, and her crown the sky, 
 Her life-blood throbs, the fevered pulses fly, 
 
 I Immense, defiant, breathless she stands there 
 
 And ever listens in the ceaseless din, 
 
 Waiting for him, her lover who shall come, 
 Whose singing lips shall boldly claim their 
 own 
 x^nd render sonant what in her was dumb : 
 The splendour and the madness and the sin. 
 
 Her dreams in iron and her thoughts of 
 stone. 
 
 II 
 
NINEVEH 
 
 O Nineveh, thy realm Is set 
 Upon a base of rock and steel 
 
 From where the under-rlvers fret 
 High up to where the planets reel. 
 
 Clad In a blazing coat of mall, 
 
 Above the gables of the town 
 Huge dragons with a monstrous trail 
 
 Have pillared pathways up and down. 
 
 And In the bowels of the deep 
 
 Where no man sees the gladdening sun. 
 All night without the balm of sleep 
 
 The human tide rolls on and on. 
 
 15 
 
1 6 NINEVEH 
 
 The Hudson's mighty waters lave 
 In stern caress thy granite shore, 
 
 And to thy port the sal*: sea wave 
 Brings oil and wine and precious ore. 
 
 Yet If the ocean In Its might 
 
 Should rise confounding stream and bay, 
 The stain of one delirious night 
 
 Not all the tides can wash away. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 17 
 
 Thick pours the smoke of thousand fires, 
 Life throbs and beats relentlessly — 
 
 But lo, above the stately spires 
 Two lemans : Death and Leprosy. 
 
 What fruit shall spring from such embrace? 
 
 Ah, even thou wouldst quake to hear ! 
 He bends to kiss her loathsome face, 
 
 She laughs — and whispers in his ear. 
 
 Sit not too proudly on thy throne, 
 Think on thy sisters, them that fell; 
 
 Not all the hosts of Babylon 
 
 Could save her from the jaws of hell. 
 
II 
 
Through the long alleys of the park 
 On noiseless wheels and delicate springs, 
 
 Glide painted women fair and dark, 
 
 Bedecked with silks and jewelled things. 
 
 In peacock splendour goes the rout 
 
 With shrill, loud laughter of the mad — 
 
 Red lips to suck thy life-blood out, 
 And eyes too weary to be sad! 
 
 Their feet go down to shameful death. 
 They flaunt the livery of their wrong. 
 
 Their beauty is of Ashtoreth, 
 
 Her strength it is that makes them strong. 
 
 21 
 
22 NINEVEH 
 
 Behold thy virgin daughters, how 
 
 They know the smile a wanton wears ; 
 
 And oh ! on many a boyish brow 
 
 The blood-red brand of murder flares. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 23 
 
 See, through the crowded streets they fly, 
 Like doves before the gathering storm. 
 
 They cannot rest, for ceaselessly 
 
 In every heart there dwells a worm. 
 
 They sing in mimic joy, and crown 
 Their temples to the flutes of sin; 
 
 But no sweet noise shall ever drown 
 The whisper of the worm within. 
 
24 NINEVEH 
 
 They revel In the gilded line 
 
 Of lampllt halls to charm the night, 
 But think you that the crimson wine 
 
 Can veil the horror from theit- sight? 
 
 Ah, no — their staring eyes are led 
 To where it lurks with hideous leer: 
 
 Therefore the women flush so red, 
 And all the men are white with fear. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 25 
 
 As in a mansion vowed to lust, 
 
 Where wantons with their guests make free, 
 'Tis thus thou humblest in the dust 
 
 Thy queenly body, Nineveh! 
 
 Thy course is downward; 'tis the road 
 To sins that even where disgrace 
 
 And shameful pleasure walk abroad 
 Dare not unmask their shrouded face 1 
 
 Surely at last shall come the day 
 When these that dance so merrily 
 
 Shall watch with terrible faces gray 
 Thy doom draw near, O Nineveh I 
 
Ill 
 
I, too, the fatal harvest gained 
 
 Of them that sow with seed of fire 
 
 In passion's garden — I have drained 
 The goblet of thy sick desire. 
 
 I from thy love had bitter bliss, 
 And ever in my memory stir 
 
 The after-savours of thy kiss — 
 The taste of aloes and of myrrh. 
 
 And yet I love thee, love unblessed 
 The poison of thy wanton's art ; 
 
 Though thou be sister to the Pest 
 In thy great hands I lay my heart I 
 
 And when thy body Titan-strong 
 Writhes on its giant couch of sin. 
 
 Yea, though upon the trembling throng 
 The very vault of Heaven fall in ; 
 
 And though the palace of thy feasts 
 Sink crumbling In a fiery sea — 
 
 I, like the last of Baal's priests, 
 Will share thy doom, O Nineveh. 
 
 29 
 
THE BOOK OF IDOLS 
 
TO 
 
 The flowers I plucked, with youthful freedom 
 straying 
 
 Through fields with dreamy poppies sown, 
 I bring, a priest sad scornful homage paying 
 
 Before an idol-throne ! 
 
 If careless you should please to turn the pages 
 In which my soul its growth can trace, 
 
 'Twill bring, the memory of those early stages, 
 A smile across your face. 
 
 And if some day the shadows come to linger, 
 And care press down your diadem. 
 
 Bethink you sometimes of the boyish singer 
 That kissed your mantle's hem. 
 
 You took my all when youth was free for 
 roving, 
 
 Youth that so short a space endures: 
 Then take these gifts of hating and of loving. 
 
 These songs — for they are yours ! 
 
 33 
 
34 NINEVEH 
 
 THE DUMB IDOL 
 
 ". . . . Upon a golden throne sate a gleam- 
 ing idoL And it had a soul , . . But those 
 who came thither knew it not. And they 
 were not to know it. For it was the awful 
 punishment of this dumb idol that it had a 
 soul and might not reveal it, if it would not 
 suffer the torments of the lost. Then both 
 Heaven and Hell lamented its immeasur- 
 able sorrow which neither could assuage, 
 because it was too deep for the light and 
 too deep for the darkness!* 
 
 — Old Legend. 
 
 Far, far away, within a lonely vale 
 
 There stands a temple old — so old and gray, 
 
 Unwarmed by rays of sunshine; only pale 
 Cold moonbeams o'er it play. 
 
 Yet nearer draw and see what crimson flood 
 Of light streams through the windows : never 
 rose 
 
 Could flush so deep a red, but that high Blood 
 For sin that ever flows. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 35 
 
 Around the altar, deep In silent prayer, 
 The faithful kneel beside the ivory shrine 
 
 That still enfolds, with all the ancient care, 
 An Image once divine. 
 
 A king draws near in purple robes of state, 
 Bearing the sceptre of his sovereignty; 
 
 A bishop comes, and all around him wait 
 His priests full reverently. 
 
 So as the years go by, they come to plead 
 Before the altar, happier to return. 
 
 But for the poor dumb Idol 'tis decreed 
 No light of hope shall burn. 
 
 It looks not down upon the kneeling throng; 
 
 But from Its staring stony eyes there go 
 Great waves of torturing anguish, not less 
 strong 
 
 For being silent woe. 
 
 Ah, deeper woe than ever man has known, 
 Ah, ceaseless longing that no sacrifice 
 
 Ever assuages — there above the throne 
 Poor pleading, helpless eyes I 
 
36 NINEVEH 
 
 At times It seems the features cold and set 
 Some gentler thought of passing hope would 
 tell; 
 
 And one could fancy that a tear made wet 
 The cheeks immovable. 
 
 Yet, clasped like some strange book of sorcery, 
 Those lips can never speak. The curse must 
 come 
 
 That sterner godheads have pronounced on thee, 
 Sad idol pale and dumb ! 
 
 Full many a Christ has trod the long steep way 
 Unto all souls God's mercy to impart; 
 
 Surely the sad-eyed Nazarene shall lay 
 His hand upon thy heart? 
 
 His grace is shed abroad from rise of sun 
 Unto the furthest islands of the west: 
 
 Shalt thou, when all the healing work is done. 
 Thou only, not be blest? 
 
 Slow cycles roll against time's timeless reef, 
 (The eyes of Mary shine with mercy mild I) 
 
 But still the idol stands in silent grief, 
 Helpless, unreconciled. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 37 
 
 Thus shall It wait, speechless for evermore, 
 Until at last the fateful trumpet call, 
 
 And all the lands and all the oceans o'er, 
 The Dusk of Idols falll 
 
38 NINEVEH 
 
 KAKODAIMON 
 
 The mockery of thy lips adored, 
 Thy lovely languid head 
 Enwreathed with poppies red 
 Is my loadstone : 
 Because thou art cruel, therefore be my Lord, 
 Kakodaimon ! 
 
 Thy glorious body, unto me made known, 
 
 Is like a stately fane of alabaster 
 Where in procession, to thy praise alone, 
 'Mid torches' glimmer and organ's pealing tone, 
 Pass scarlet Sin, and Shame, and black 
 Disaster, 
 Kakodaimon ! 
 
 Then blaze the windows bright 
 With weird unearthly light; 
 The outer throng fall prostrate at the sight. 
 But guess not whence it is. 
 Nor hear the scornful hiss 
 
 Of thy contempt upon their offerings 
 
 blown, 
 Kakodaimon I 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 39 
 
 Ah, but I know, and yet I have not gone — 
 Stand boldly fronting this my destiny, 
 That my reward must my damnation be. 
 To wait in silence for the dread decree 
 
 And find no mercy at Jehovah's throne, 
 Kakodaimon I 
 
 Thine is the blame If o'er my head shall roll 
 His thunderous wrath: yet if one spake 
 
 "Disown 
 Thy love, or bid farewell to Mary's Son!" 
 I should not grasp the priest's absolving stole. 
 But, choosing, at thy worshipped feet lie 
 prone, 
 O splendid evil genius of my soul. 
 Kakodaimon ! 
 
40 NINEVEH 
 
 PRINCE CARNIVAL 
 
 Jingling bells and cracking whip, 
 Laughter and jest on every lip ! — 
 Thou drew'st thy gorgeous mantle tight- 
 But lo ! I marked and knew at sight. 
 
 In all this dazzling mirth the best, 
 A golden star upon thy breast, 
 The kingly sceptre in thy hand, 
 Thou gazest on thy fairyland. 
 
 Yet as thou tak'st the golden wine, 
 A glory round thy head will shine ; 
 Then all will know along the hall 
 That it is thou^ — Prince Carnival ! 
 
 A shout goes up from row to row. 
 
 The viols scrape and trumpets blow. 
 
 The quick hand swings the whip with art- 
 
 Thy laughter masters every heart. 
 
 But as into thine eyes I peep, 
 There looks on me a woe so deep — 
 Unutterable and hidden all. 
 Unhappy Prince of Carnival. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 41 
 
 *TIs but a mask, this jesting parti 
 Mankind's eternal pain thou art ! 
 Once in the year, like storm long pent, 
 Forth bursts thy heart-sick merriment. 
 
 An inward fire feverishly 
 Tortures and goads the blood in thee, 
 That on the moment thou dost forget 
 How poor, how sick thy heart is yet. 
 
 Therefore my heart it burns for thee, 
 Thou beautiful prince of faery. 
 And oh, my love, my Prince, is great — 
 As boundless as impassionate. 
 
 It is the deepest of all things 
 
 How man unto his sorrow clings — 
 
 His breast's own pain, supreme through all; 
 
 So I love thee, Prince Carnival. 
 
42 NINEVEH 
 
 THE SMILE OF THE SPHINX 
 
 And one day of late a dream oppressed me . . . 
 And In dreams through the long streets I 
 
 wandered 
 (Through the streets with many footsteps 
 
 throbbing!) 
 And a burden lay upon my heart, 
 And my weary eyelids sadly quivered, 
 And a sob rose choking In my throat, 
 And the shadow of some rare disaster 
 Weighed upon the houses of the town. 
 And encircled by the sombre shadows, 
 Sombre men with tortured faces walked 
 (Pallid men with weary tortured faces!) 
 Through the streets unending to and fro. 
 Midnight sounded solemn from the tower, 
 And the stillness trembled as It smote . . . 
 Further went I on the wonted pathway 
 Further . . . further . . through the dark- 
 ling night. 
 Dark foreboding seized upon my heart- 
 strings ...'*' 
 Yet no swifter would I tread the path, 
 The appalling, vaguely-boded tidings 
 Later, somewhat later, to discover. 
 Nightly pilgrims of the monster-city 
 Stared behind me dimly wondering. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 43 
 
 And a woman, dark of hair and feature, 
 With the gleaming of rapacious teeth, 
 And her scarlet feather ever nodding, 
 Seemed to smile . . . 
 
 Yet I went still onward, undeterred. 
 
 Ever onward, ever, ever onward, 
 
 Onward, onward through the darkling town. 
 
 And at last I came where stands thy dwelling ; 
 Ever slower grew my lagging footsteps, 
 Ever slower . . . 
 
 Then my eyes beheld the sombre hangings ; 
 They beheld the heavy mourning symbol 
 That men hang upon their dreary doorways 
 When a dead man slumbers in the house . . . 
 
 Slowly I ascended the steep stairway, 
 Pressed upon the bell with trembling fingers, 
 And the heart rose leaden in my throat. 
 
 Footsteps . . . 
 
 And a woman with sad tear-stained eyes 
 (Pallid wom.an with sad tear-stained eyes!) 
 Set thy door wide open at my summons. 
 Neither spoke a word: I knew already 
 What for me within the house was waiting. 
 
44 NINEVEH 
 
 But she beckoned and I followed her. 
 Slow and silent then the stairs we mounted, 
 Till I stood before thy chamber door, 
 Where a breath of incense and of roses 
 Sweetly, sadly floated out to meet me, 
 And an icy shudder filled my veins . . . 
 
 On the bed half hid by fragrant blossoms, 
 
 As in prayer thine hands so gently folded. 
 
 Thou wast sleeping. Softly I came nearer 
 
 One last kiss upon thy mouth to press. 
 
 But upon thy pallid, silent features 
 
 Was a smile ... a weird and ghostly smile, 
 
 Was a pallid, a mysterious smile. 
 
 Past explaining, strange as thou wert strange. 
 
 And it seemed as though thou wouldst have 
 
 spoken. 
 Given the hidden meaning of the riddle 
 That the riddle of thine own existence, 
 That the riddle of all riddles is — 
 When too soon the icy hand of Death 
 Came and sealed for evermore thy lips. 
 And the hour-hand of the quaint old timepiece 
 That had vexed me with its solemn ticking 
 When of old within the room I tarried 
 Stood at twelve ... I shuddered . . . and I 
 
 knew. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 45 
 
 But the pallid woman now was speaking 
 (Ah, so pale, and eyes with grief so heavy!) 
 Seeing how I stood in helpless sorrow: 
 *Tes, at twelve it was . . . when failed the 
 
 light, 
 And throughout the house a tremour passed, 
 And a dark and sorrow-bringing angel 
 Stirred the heavy air with noiseless pinions, 
 And I heard a long, despairing struggle, 
 Then a fall (ah, dull and heavy fall!) . . , 
 Then a cry ( ah, such a cry ! ) . . . And then 
 Death, a shadow, brooded on the bed." 
 
 And again I looked upon thy face. 
 
 And again I saw the same mysterious 
 
 Pallid smile upon thy quiet features, 
 
 And remembered how one night of June 
 
 I had seen it . . . flickering ... on thy lips. 
 
 And anew I went into the night 
 From the house bedraped with signs of mourn- 
 ing, 
 And the woman with the weary voice 
 (Pallid woman with wan tearful eyelids!) 
 And the clock, its hands at twelve arrested. 
 And the bed where Death kept solemn vigil, 
 And the couch upon which one lay dead 
 Who was dear upon this earth to me. 
 
46 NINEVEH 
 
 Ah, but still forever I am seeking 
 For the answer to the darksome riddle, 
 That Death's hand with icy touch has closed. 
 And that now eternity keeps locked. 
 
 And w^herever my sad footsteps wander, 
 Evermore I see that pallid smile. 
 See upon thy lips the hopeless riddle 
 Past explaining, strange as thou wert strange. 
 That the riddle of all riddles is 1 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 47 
 
 WHEN IDOLS FALL 
 
 Foul night-birds brood In fearsome throng 
 
 About the path that I must tread: 
 Thou art not what I thought thee long, 
 
 And oh, I would that I were dead I 
 Less bitter was the gall they ran 
 
 To offer Christ upon the tree, 
 Or the salt tears He shed for man, 
 
 Deserted In Gethsemane. 
 
 For thou wast all the god I had 
 
 While months on months were born and died, 
 Thy lips' sweet fragrance made me glad 
 
 As holy bells at eventide. 
 Aye, for thy sake, my god on earth, 
 
 I joyed to suffer all I could. 
 And counted as of lesser worth 
 
 The chalice of the Saviour's blood! 
 
 Entranced I knelt before thy shrine 
 
 And filled love's chalice, I thy priest; 
 With flowers as crimson as the wine 
 
 I decked our altar for the feast. 
 I gave thee more than love may give. 
 
 First-fruits of song, truth, honour — all I 
 Too much I loved thee : I must live 
 
 To see God's awful justice fall. 
 
48 NINEVEH 
 
 I bleed beneath a wound the years 
 
 That heal all sorrow shall not heal; 
 O barren waste, O fruitless tears! 
 
 I gave thee mine eternal weal. 
 My idol crumbled in the dust 
 
 (Ah, that I lived that day to see!) 
 There came a sudden piercing thrust, 
 
 And all my life was dead in me! 
 
 Thou spak'st a single hideous word, 
 
 And that one word became the knoll 
 Of all that made life dear, and blurred 
 
 The lines of good within my soul. 
 Better the plague-spots ringed me round. 
 
 The hangman gave the fatal sign. 
 Than that such monstrous word should sound 
 
 From lips that once I held divine ! 
 
 A veil of darkness hid the sun. 
 
 Night fell, and stars from heaven were hurled, 
 For when this fearful thing was done, 
 
 It spelt the ruin of a world. 
 The string whose music won my bays 
 
 Snapped with a blinding thrill of pain; 
 Through all the everlasting days 
 
 I shall not hear its note again. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 49 
 
 Amidst the gloom I grope for song; 
 
 The fires die out that passion fed: 
 Thou art not what I thought thee long, 
 
 And oh ! I would that I were dead! 
 Yet worse than all the pain of loss, 
 
 The smile that seals a traitor's will, 
 Is this : that knowing gold for dross, 
 
 I cannot choose but love thee still I 
 
50 NINEVEH 
 
 THE SPHINX 
 I 
 
 Within a sultry deceit land, 
 
 Where neither flowers nor shadows are, 
 Hid to the breast in shifting sand 
 
 There stands an image secular. 
 
 Where Pharaoh's sceptre gave the laws, 
 The thing that held me captive rests, 
 
 Strange compound of a panther's claws 
 And of a woman's rounded breasts. 
 
 Thus stood she when the princess found 
 
 The infant in his secret bed; 
 Thus, when the young Bithynian wound 
 
 The death-wreath for his golden head. 
 
 And monarchs came with her to dwell 
 On whom mad dreams had laid their ban, 
 
 From whose imperial shoulders fell 
 The purple cloak of Hadrian. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 51 
 
 II 
 
 O strange beyond the strangest fears 
 And hopes and ancient questionings, 
 
 That I who am so young In years 
 
 Have loved the oldest of all things! 
 
52 NINEVEH 
 
 III 
 
 Ah, fount of pleasure salt with tears, 
 Storehouse of cunning, well of guile ! 
 
 Love of my boyhood's troubled years, 
 Gray silent Sphinx beside the Nile I 
 
 No hoard of silver I possessed. 
 
 No purple brought from Tyrian mart, 
 
 So, as love's guerdon, from my breast 
 With fevered hand I tore the heart. 
 
 Thy granite flanks upon the gift 
 Closed with a mighty fluttering. 
 
 Then first within thee rose the swift 
 Pulsation of a living thing. 
 
 And I forgot beneath thy spell 
 
 Mine was the life within thee grown, 
 
 And mine the heart that leapt and fell 
 Illusory in thy breast of stone. 
 
 Mine was the folly, mine the tears 
 That wept the ending of my dream. 
 
 Love of my boyhood's troubled years. 
 Gray silent Sphinx beside the stream ! 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 53 
 
 IV 
 
 O wanderer, stay where life Is sweet, 
 And jubilant earth is glad of May, 
 
 Disturb not with incautious feet 
 The mystery of an elder day. 
 
 When we have sighed to fold our hands 
 And join the Pharaohs in the tomb. 
 
 She still shall stare across the sands 
 And hearken for the crack of doom! 
 
A BALLAD OF SIN 
 
A BALLAD OF SIN 
 
 In dreams on a far-off shore I lay 
 
 (Dreams that were full of dread), 
 Where the purple clouds of a dying day 
 
 Shadowed a sea of red — 
 Shadowed a sea as red as the blood 
 Of one that was slain In his lustlhood, 
 A sea as red as a lover's blood 
 Struck down in his amorous lustlhood. 
 
 A silver shallop glides to and fro, 
 
 Over the ghostly crimson sea, 
 
 (Over the ghostly crimson sea 
 I watch Its oars as they come and go) ; 
 The wavelets quiver and gleam : 
 
 No sounds are there that the silence break, 
 
 But astern in the shallop's silvery wake 
 Strange circles swirl in the stream. 
 
 The moon shines down on the ghostly night. 
 But pale and dim is Its faint, far light. 
 And now to the Island the boat draws near 
 
 (My veins run cold with fear!). 
 And the shadows spring to the magic shore^ — 
 57 
 
58 NINEVEH 
 
 For each has known of a bliss before, 
 A sinful, sorrowful bliss before. 
 
 Of God and of man forbidden; 
 And each Is wrapped In a robe of state, 
 These In the moonlight that come so late 
 (Where the quivering, shivering moonbeams 
 mate) 
 
 To their tryst on the Island hidden. 
 
 Go further Into the mystic shore 
 
 And see a castle rise, 
 
 A spirlt-castle rise, 
 And a flood of light from the windows pour, 
 From all the shimmering windows pour, 
 
 And colour the moonlit skies ; 
 
 And hark to the magic melodies 
 
 (The ringing, singing melodies) 
 That float o'er the waves as red as the blood 
 Of a lover slain In his lustlhood. 
 
 The song goes deep to the Inmost soul — 
 Its notes o'er the silent waters roll 
 
 In the heavy languorous pleading 
 Of a wanton will to which the grave 
 Never a moment of respite gave 
 
 And hearts that with love are bleeding. 
 (O ancient song of passionate dole. 
 Whose notes o'er the silent waters roll 
 
 In heavy languorous pleading!) 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 59 
 
 I am drawn by Its might (there is none to save !) 
 
 To the midst of the castle hall; 
 And there, escaped from the cold, cold grave, 
 
 Sin holds Its bacchanal 
 (Aye, there, escaped from the cold, cold grave, 
 
 Lust holds Its bacchanal) — 
 And 'neath the flickering candle-light 
 The dance of the shadows has reached its 
 height ! 
 
 They must renew, as the midnight chimes, 
 
 The kisses that a thousand times, 
 
 A thousand times and in far-off climes, 
 
 Have died on their lips enchanted: 
 The flowers that gleam In their tossing hair 
 Are painted like flowers that otherwhere 
 (Thousand times and In far-off climes) 
 
 Long ages ago were planted. 
 Heaven had no hand In the pageantry 
 Of the wondrous scene that was shown to me ! 
 
 With songs of pleasure they tread the measure, 
 
 That throng so pale and wan — 
 These that of old for sinful pleasure 
 
 Through the gates of hell have gone. 
 Yet tossed forever on passion's flood 
 Come sailing over the sea of blood. 
 
6o NINEVEH 
 
 The queen of Egypt there I saw, 
 Tiberius and Caligula, 
 
 In silks and purples flaunting; 
 Aholibah, Alaciel, 
 And she whose love came straight from hell 
 
 Were there, and boldly vaunting 
 Her skill in transport lubricous. 
 The shameless wife of Claudius. 
 
 With bliss that Is bitter, pain that is sweet 
 
 Shudders each ghostly form, 
 And stirred alone by their flying feet 
 
 The scented air grows warm. 
 Madly the dancers revel and sway 
 In the dazzling colours that round them play. 
 
 The fire that heaven has kindled dies 
 
 When the joys of sight from the straining eyes 
 
 Death's endless night shall sever; 
 All vainly mounts the aspiring flame. 
 Each love that has a noble aim 
 
 Bears death at its heart forever; 
 And only the love that flaunts in red 
 Lives on when all things else are dead. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 6i 
 
 For only the love that flaunts in red 
 
 A shadow of bliss can save, 
 And here in the night, though life be sped, 
 
 Comes back from the cold, dark grave. 
 By sin's old tyrannous longings led 
 
 Comes back from the cold, dark grave — 
 O'er waves as red as a lover's blood 
 Struck down in his amorous lustihood 1 
 
 O evil love In whose tossing hair 
 
 The fires of infamous longings glow. 
 
 We, too, shall not win sleep from care — 
 Where heaven's high army hears 
 The anthems of Its spheres. 
 
 Nor where majestic Lucifer, 
 
 In burning vesture fronts his Foe — 
 
 Condemned like them, sans hopes and fears 
 Sans laughter or the gifts of tears. 
 
 Monotonously round to go 
 
 In endless pleasure's endless woe. 
 
GOLGOTHA 
 
CONFESSION 
 
 I KNOW of an odorous palm-forest 
 
 Filled with mysterious murmurlngs, 
 Where In the glow of the crimson west 
 
 A brilliant song-bird sobs and sings. 
 There Is that In the note of the strange bright 
 bird 
 
 Makes heavy the heart within the breast; 
 And whoso this evil song has heard 
 
 Forever forfeits his peace and rest. 
 
 But I know too of a wood In the north 
 
 With a heavenly perfume all Its own, 
 Where the nightingales long ere dawn pour 
 forth 
 
 A ravishing flood of the purest tone. 
 The wanderer breathes once more and smiles 
 
 As he comes in its soothing shade to sit — 
 For the air that blows through Its cool green 
 aisles 
 
 Is no fierce blast from the stifling pit. 
 
 A ripe fruit hangs in the sultry place, 
 
 For whose savour a man counts all but loss, 
 
 Forgetting even his mother's face 
 
 And the bleeding Head upon the cross. 
 
 In the cool green moss of the northern wood 
 There blooms a flower of marvellous hue 
 6s 
 
66 NINEVEH 
 
 That speaks to the soul of naught but good, 
 And tells of a world where all Is new. 
 
 A witch-woman dwells In the palm-grove's heat 
 
 That Is pale as the ghastly face of Death, 
 But a red robe wraps her from head to feet, 
 
 And through red, red lips comes her fevered 
 breath. 
 Her kisses burn where they close and cling 
 
 Like pain of longing or fire of hell, 
 And he that thrills with their adder-stIng 
 
 For them Is ready his soul to sell. 
 
 In the northern wood stands a slender maid 
 
 With eyes that are blue as God's own sky — 
 Nor is she in scarlet robe arrayed, 
 
 But wrapped in her virginal purity. 
 *'I have no part in the fires of sin," 
 
 So runs her song, "for my name Is Level" 
 Yet he who looks in her eyes shall win 
 
 A glimpse of the height of heaven above. 
 
 But I have walked where the sorceress dwells, 
 
 Where poisoned blooms make the senses reel, 
 And I have yielded me to her spells, 
 
 And lost forever my soul's true weal. 
 For me noi flower of good shall grow 
 
 In the ruined garden where hope lies dead — 
 And I need but look in your eyes to know 
 
 The bliss my sin has forfeited! 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 67 
 
 PROVOCATIO AD MARIAM 
 
 O Mary I Mother Mary! have mercy on my 
 
 pain, 
 And quench the fire of hot desire that flames 
 
 in every vein I 
 
 O Mary! Mother Mary! commend me to thy 
 
 Son, 
 And tell Him that I perish before my course Is 
 
 run. 
 
 PooT helpless creatures we that walk where 
 
 night and darkness frown, 
 And so not mine the fault, not mine the might 
 
 that drags me down. 
 
 O Mary! Mother Mary! heed thou my sup- 
 pliant plea 
 
 And say to God the Father a word of grace for 
 me. 
 
 Before Him lies the mighty book in which with 
 Iron pen 
 
 Are graven deep, while angels weep, the 'shame- 
 ful sins of men. 
 
 O Mary! Mother Mary! think of thine own 
 sweet Child, 
 
68 NINEVEH 
 
 For whom thine eyes shed tears of blood, O 
 Virgin undefiled. 
 
 I too am nailed unto the cross — unto a cross of 
 
 ill; 
 The nails that hold me are the joys for which 
 
 I hunger still. 
 
 Give me no sop of gall, but pour the wine thy 
 
 Son hath blessed, 
 Wash off the stains of sin, and quench the fire 
 
 within my breast ! 
 
 The incense cloud shall rise for thee, the sacred 
 
 tapers burn. 
 If thou upon my sore distress a favouring eye 
 
 wilt turn! 
 
 But Mary, Mother Mary, heeds neither prayer 
 nor vow, 
 
 Only my heart's wild beating breaks on the still- 
 ness now. 
 
 O Mary ! Mother Mary, hear ! the tides of ruin 
 
 swell ; 
 My feet are sinking in the sands about the 
 
 mouth of hell! 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 69 
 
 BEFORE THE CROSS 
 
 Long have I struggled with my pain 
 
 And sought for peace and rest, 
 To still the madness in my brain, 
 
 The tumult in my breast. 
 There is no hope unless Thou heed 
 
 My abject misery — 
 Pale God that on the Cross dost bleed 
 
 I turn at last to Thee! 
 
 I walked where poisonous plants abound; 
 
 In search of wisdom high 
 I stood before the Sphinx — and found 
 
 No answer to my cry. 
 Since truth refused her to my will, 
 
 I plucked in petulant wrath, 
 With reckless hand, the flowers of ill 
 
 That grew about my path. 
 
 Then sin drew nigh in woman's guise 
 
 And wrecked my hopes of peace. 
 Her body's joy was all my prize. 
 
 Her clasp my only ease: 
 And so to kiss her mouth I yearned 
 
 That seemed so soft and fresh — 
 But knew what thing she was when burned 
 
 The brand upon my flesh I 
 
70 NINEVEH 
 
 Aye, 'twas a leper I caressed — 
 
 (Beneath the heavy weight 
 Of guilt, O Lord, I sink oppressed!) 
 
 And I was reprobate! 
 The good, the pure that I had known, 
 
 They passed me with a frown; 
 I dared not stand where from the throne 
 
 The Face of God looks down. 
 
 Out of the depths of misery 
 
 Thy goodness I entreat; 
 Like some poor hunted beast I fly 
 
 To cast me at Thy feet. 
 Roses of blood I bring to Thee, 
 
 A heart that craves for grace — 
 O Jesus of Gethsemane, 
 
 Turn not from me Thy face! 
 
 And though the Sphinx her mystery weird 
 
 Still offers as of yore. 
 And poisoned flowers their head have reared 
 
 About the senses' door. 
 No riddle has a stranger sound 
 
 Than this which tells for sooth 
 That peace In humble faith is found, 
 
 In God alone the truth! 
 
THE GARDEN OF PASSION 
 
SPRING 
 
 For Peter Pan 
 
 Spring came carolling through the land, 
 Roses and laughter on every hand; 
 But I was gazing with steadfast eye 
 Where Christ was nailed on high. 
 
 Hawthorn blossoms were white and gay, 
 Promise of fruit in the laden spray — 
 Only the tree of the Cross bare naught 
 Save the ruin that death had wrought ! 
 
 Spring passed on, and a breath of bloom 
 Swept through the casement, filled the room. 
 
 I cried In a sudden agony: 
 
 "Lord Jesus, set me free! 
 
 "See, I am young, and the blood Is hot. 
 Longing for what I compass not — 
 
 Love, and sunshine, and fond delight 
 
 In beauty warm and white. 
 
 "Lord, Thy Cross Is a heavy load. 
 Thorny and steep the upward road- 
 Lord, from the woods astir I hear 
 Laughter and joyous cheer. 
 
 "Far be It from me, Lord, to scorn 
 The bitter anguish that Thou hast borne : 
 But redder his mouth in its youthful pride 
 Than the spear-wound in Thy side ! 
 73 
 
74 NINEVEH 
 
 "Ah, see how his hair like soft-spun gold 
 Falls curling over his raiment's fold, 
 
 And his laughing eyes look out with glee 
 
 The great wide world to see ! 
 
 "I thrill at his music silvery sweet, 
 And I long to follow his dancing feet: 
 
 For lo ! where they fall the flowers are born — 
 
 And hearts no more forlorn! 
 
 "My soul goes out to him since the hour 
 He passed me by in his winsome power, 
 
 And my blood is stirred by his witchery — 
 
 Prince Jesus, set me free!" 
 
 Bowed to my prayer the wounded Head, 
 Died in the west the sunset red — 
 
 And a slow, slow drop of blood ran down 
 
 From under the thorny crown. 
 
 Strange, in the years that have gone, the Cross 
 Had grown so dear to me that its loss 
 
 Went to my heart with a thrill of pain — 
 
 I had half turned back again ! 
 
 O sweet Lord Spring, I am free at last 
 To follow wherever thy feet have passed, 
 
 Over the dales and over the rills 
 
 To the gladsome Grecian hills ! 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 75 
 
 A SPRING BLESSING 
 
 Spring's blessing be upon you, dear ! 
 
 Such Is the prayer most meet for one 
 Whose eyes look up so starry-clear — 
 
 With all his flowerets new-begun 
 Still may he bless your pathway, dear, 
 
 Who weaves his golden threads around 
 Your heart and mine together bound : 
 Because your eyes are starry-clear — 
 Spring's blessing be upon you, dear! 
 
 Spring's blessing be upon you, child. 
 
 When all the earth with longing swells, 
 And lilies ring their silver bells 
 For joy that he Is nigh. 
 
 And open wide, their lord to greet, 
 Adoring humbly at his feet 
 (Ah, spring has come, and spring is 
 sweet!) 
 Their Inmost pageantry. 
 And all the earth with love Is wild — 
 Spring's blessing be upon you, child! 
 
76 NINEVEH 
 
 Spring's blessing be upon you, child, 
 And may the song of nightingales 
 Re-echo from the wooded dales — 
 
 Like women's arms so soft and mild, 
 
 And as deep crimson roses wild, 
 
 (Such is the song of the nightingales, 
 And sad as tears of one that wails 
 
 Where love's high temple Is defiled) ; 
 
 Spring's blessing be upon you, child! 
 
 Spring's blessing be upon your ways, 
 
 Before in life's distracting maze 
 
 We fall on hopeless evil days! 
 
 True, summer comes more richly warm 
 And fraught with wilder passion's storm 
 
 Of torturing blisses; 
 But golden gleams spring's youthful form. 
 More sweet his kisses ; 
 
 Soft breezes sing their roundelays — 
 
 Spring's blessing be upon your ways! 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 77 
 
 Spring's blessing be upon you, dear I 
 His hair Is decked with flowery cheer; 
 Upon his brow the diadem 
 
 Shines out by right of youth Immortal; 
 His might brings glad release to them 
 
 That were condemned without the portal 
 Of hope to live in sickening fear; 
 Spring's blessing be upon you, dear! 
 
 Spring's blessing be upon you, child! 
 And never may the wine-cup hold 
 One drop of bitter questioning. 
 May Death In spring-time find you, child — 
 But Love shall toss his locks of gold 
 And make all life an endless spring, 
 And fate and he be reconciled: 
 Spring's blessing be upon you, child! 
 
78 NINEVEH 
 
 LOVE'S SILENCE 
 
 On crimson wings of passionate desire 
 I traversed gardens of a tropic clime 
 
 To pluck love's strangest blossoms, and my lyr 
 Tuning, I caught each heart-throb in a rhyme 
 
 'me. 
 
 But now thy lashes burn me, and my head 
 Is all confused with bitter love of thee; 
 
 Yet never have I sung thy praise, or said 
 How very pleasant was thy love to me. 
 
 I hush the songs that rise in me by day, 
 That rise by day and in the depth of night, 
 
 Lest — as a tiny bird that flies away 
 
 By some child's laughter taken with affright- 
 
 At sound of lute-strings stirring in the wind, 
 Love, half afraid, unfold his pinions fleet, 
 
 And only leave upon the lawn behind 
 
 The perfumed Imprint of his sandalled feet. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 79 
 
 REDEEMED 
 
 Slow failed the twilight in my room, 
 That none might witness my dismay, 
 
 But, wide-awake amidst the gloom, 
 I dreamed beyond the close of day. 
 
 There was a tumult in my soul, 
 And yet I knew not what I sought : 
 
 Toward a strange and hidden goal 
 I groped with fingers fever-fraught. 
 
 Then reared the ancient foe of good 
 His serpent's crest: I strove no more, 
 
 But rose and went until I stood 
 Where sin set wide its open door. 
 
 The air is thick as incense-wreaths 
 That waver in the candles' gleam. 
 
 But what is this that softly breathes 
 Upon my brow as in a dream? 
 
8o NINEVEH 
 
 A fairy vision of surprise 
 
 Toward my couch you seemed to glide 
 There was no need to raise my eyes 
 
 To know that you were by my side. 
 
 And when your slender fingers strayed 
 In pity o'er my burning face, 
 
 The foul enchantment was afraid 
 And fled defeated from the place. 
 
 And when your mouth so soft and red 
 Clung to me, soothing where it fell, 
 
 With one light touch my pain was sped, 
 I was redeemed from depths of hell! 
 
 Then drooped above me — and dismay 
 Beside the gate no longer stood — 
 
 iWhIte blossoms from a laden spray, 
 The wonder of your womanhood I 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 8i 
 
 LOVE TRIUMPHANT 
 
 Your body's treasures are mine to-day, 
 Though bitter as gall be their savour still; 
 
 From head to foot shall my kisses play, 
 
 Till naught Is kept from their sovereign will ! 
 
 The voice of my need supreme must guide 
 My passionate love to Its destined goal; 
 
 My feverish fingers shall seek and glide 
 Until at the last I hold the soul. 
 
 My hot strong hands will no veil endure 
 That shadows your radiant nakedness; 
 
 Lay bare each beauty, conceal no lure, 
 Leave naught to hinder my fond caress I 
 
 Young blood beats onward, unchecked by shame, 
 When passion's harvest is ripe to reap; 
 
 For who shall speak with the raging flame, 
 Or stay the cataract in Its leap? 
 
 My armies have stormed at your city's gate — 
 I have conquered you, hold you. Might Is 
 right 
 
 With the beasts of the wild that celebrate 
 In the jungle their primal marriage night. 
 
82 NINEVEH 
 
 You too are moved by the selfsame power, 
 Your quick breath tells In its shuddering fall: 
 
 There Is naught so strong as love this hour — 
 Call It god or beast, it Is lord of all I 
 
 The god In me and the beast In me 
 And all deep things come up to light; 
 
 And I would barter my soul to be 
 The prize of love for a single night. 
 
 One long, long night of supreme desire, 
 One long, long night of riot and rage ; 
 
 For you are the sea and I the fire, 
 
 And old as the world Is the war we wage. 
 
 The old, old strife of woman and man 
 That ever has been, and still shall be 
 
 Until the day when the vaulted span 
 Shall sink a wreck In the whelming sea. 
 
 Once fed, no longer the wolf-pack raves : 
 But love can never of madness tire. 
 
 And I must drown In your passion's waves. 
 And you consume In my hot desire. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 83 
 
 This the law of the flowering south, 
 
 Of the snow-clad north where the world is 
 white . . . 
 
 You shall faint and fall as I crush your mouth 
 Beneath a conqueror's ruthless might! 
 
 My life is poured in the stream of yours, 
 But fire and flood were not meant to mate : 
 
 We shall never be one while the world 
 endures — 
 And the meaning of love at the last is hate I 
 
 My soul is drunk with your maddening charms; 
 
 You have taken all — I have naught to lose. 
 About me tighten your slender arms 
 
 With the very grip of the hangman's noose. 
 
 So let us struggle, both flame and flood, 
 Let love and hate and sense have play 
 
 Till the slow dawn rises bathed in blood, 
 And you and I are dead ere day! 
 
84 NINEVEH 
 
 SUNSET. 
 
 With amber light the sinking day 
 
 Has tinged the stream below the town, 
 Before the pageant fades away, 
 
 And night's black wings come swooping 
 down. 
 The wind has heaped the clouds from far 
 
 And rounded them like maiden's breasts. 
 And out beyond the harbour bar 
 
 A violet shadow softly rests. 
 
 Thus drifting down the stream, I caught 
 
 Far-blown a murmurous refrain, 
 ,(You know It well, dear!), and I thought 
 
 With kindness of the past again. 
 So may your memories, too, be fraught 
 
 With no regret, or hate, or pain. 
 May all the bitterness be naught. 
 
 And all the sweet of love remain. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 85 
 
 THE SCARLET FLOWER 
 
 It was in the days, In the days of the roses, 
 When under your kisses my sorrow was sped, 
 
 Now autumn blossoms the field encloses. 
 
 And autumn blossoms enwreath our head — 
 And Love and rejoicing and May are dead. 
 
 And the world Is windy and waste and wide : 
 The days of the roses have long since fled^ 
 
 And the scarlet flower of love has died. 
 
 Once thought I your lips with unperlshing kisses 
 To kiss, that as mantles of queens are red, 
 
 Once thought I no love In the world as this is, 
 O beautiful love, O dream that is dead — 
 But the wlnd^s In the tree tops, the leaves are 
 all shed. 
 
 They are borne down the terrible mountain side ; 
 All sweet things flee as our summer has fled. 
 
 And the scarlet flower of love has died. 
 
86 NINEVEH 
 
 We two of the honey of love have eaten, 
 
 Have drunk deep draughts of the gold 
 sunshine, 
 But the key of the grove we were wont to meet 
 In, 
 Where bloomed that flower as red as wine. 
 Is lost in some mystical land divine — 
 No refuge our love has, no place to abide : 
 In our grove dwells the autumn, *mid wood- 
 land and vine — 
 And the scarlet flower of love has died. 
 
 Uenvoi 
 
 Nor fairy nor elf-queen can alter our fate, 
 The magical word is forever denied; 
 
 The past Is dead, and the charm too late. 
 And the scarlet flower of love has died. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 87 
 
 MR. W. H. 
 
 ^^To Mr. W. H., the onlie begetter of the ensu- 
 ing sonnetsJ^ 
 ^Inscription to Shakespeare's Sonnets. 
 
 I SOMETIMES dream and dreaming long 
 For thee, strange boy whose golden head 
 With blossoms of unending song 
 Was garlanded. 
 
 Sad, surely, and contemptuous 
 And smiling thou beheld'st the game 
 Of life, as once Antlnous 
 His splendid shame. 
 
 A softer light was in thine eyes 
 Than any that the moonbeam paints, 
 Or in some dead queen's hair that lies 
 Or blessed saint's. 
 
 And yet, perchance thou hadst no art, 
 Nor depth, nor subtlety, — a boy 
 To whom a poet's singing heart 
 Was but a toy. 
 
88 NINEVEH 
 
 FOR ANTINOUS IN HIS OLD AGE 
 
 Snows In thy hair and wrinkles on thy brow, 
 The years have strewn the ashes on thy face ; 
 Of all things wretched, wanting most In 
 grace, 
 
 Of all things sad, the saddest thing art thou. 
 
 Now has thy boyish smile become a leer, 
 Thy lips are swollen and thy vision blinks. 
 And In thy heart, more ancient than the 
 Sphinx, 
 
 Abide alone the memory and the tear. 
 
 O lovely lad reborn In many a land. 
 
 Of Shakespeare loved and Michelangelo! 
 Not thine this age's crown of sorrow, and 
 Thou shouldst have died these many years 
 ago, 
 
 Not grown Into a spectre of the past. 
 To be a thing of horror at the last. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 89 
 
 TO SLEEP 
 
 O GENTLE sleep, turn not thine eyes away, 
 But place thy finger on my brow and take 
 All burthens from me and all dreams that 
 ache; 
 
 Upon mine eyes a cooling balsam lay, 
 
 Seeing I am aweary of the day. 
 
 But now thy lips are ashen and they quake — 
 What spectral vision seest thou that can 
 shake 
 
 Thy sweet composure and thy heart dismay? 
 
 Perhaps the eyes of wicked murder gleam 
 Upon my bedside, or some monstrous dream 
 Would bring such fearsome guilt upon the 
 head 
 Of my unvigilant soul as might arouse 
 The Borgian snake from her envenomed bed, 
 And startle Nero In his Golden House! 
 
90 NINEVEH 
 
 PRAYER OF SOULS IN NEED 
 
 Lord of good pilots, kindly Father, hear us 
 And teach our feet to walk Thy ways of pain ; 
 
 Lo, once again the awful head of Eros 
 Rises from seas of passion, and again 
 
 The hand to which love's unblessed power is 
 given 
 Raising, he hurls a life against the shoal. 
 And smiling marks adrift 'twixt Hell and 
 Heaven 
 The shipwreck of a soul ! 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 91 
 
 RESURRECTION 
 
 Away, away, ghost of my dead desire, 
 Stir not again the ashes In my breast. 
 
 Of all my loves I had made one great fire. 
 And burned thine Image even as the rest! 
 
 Now from his grave Love casts the covering, 
 And once again there rises through the night, 
 
 Like sudden water from a perished springy 
 The murdered music of my slain delight! 
 
92 NINEVEH 
 
 THE BALLAD OF NUN AND KNIGHT 
 
 She speaks: 
 
 I DREAMED a dream of how the red sun fell, 
 And on the plain beyond the city spread 
 A joyous crowd, by Love and Laughter led; 
 
 When sudden came, but faintly audible, 
 
 A leper's voice, and then the warning bell : 
 Then passion paled — seized with a speechless 
 
 dread. 
 They tarried not to spit at him, but fled, 
 
 As if that beggar were a thing from hell. 
 
 And so if once our love were known, O sweet! 
 The veriest harlot, roaming through the street, 
 Would rather make the gutter her abode. 
 
 And share the leper's bed without a sigh, 
 Than touch our hand, but praying thank her 
 God 
 That she is not even as thou and L 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 93 
 
 He speaks i 
 
 Full well I know that with its craggy rim 
 The cup of wrath awaits us and the Doom, 
 O Bride of Christ, thou for the love of whom 
 
 To all hell's torches these mine eyes were dim : 
 
 Is He not Lord of all the Seraphim? 
 
 His all the gardens and all fruit the womb 
 Of earth shall bear? — I took one little bloom. 
 
 Faithful to me, thou brokest faith with Him. 
 
 Yet though all saints turn from us, and hell's gin 
 Close fast upon us, and the red flames dwell 
 
 On your gold hair, and where your mouth has 
 been. 
 Lovers shall know and sing of us, and tell 
 
 How that our love was greater than our sin, 
 And tears of pity reach the heart of hell. 
 
94 NINEVEH 
 
 LOVE IN DREAMLAND 
 
 White cloud-wonders waver and wander, 
 White mists rising and falling yonder 
 Are like chill fingers laid upon my heart; 
 
 Ever the nightingale's plaint grows fonder- 
 Can it be true that you and I must part? 
 
 Red, red roses hang in a cluster, 
 Red lips glow in the wine-cup's lustre; 
 
 Stay me, before I go, with wine and bread ! 
 Round me an army of shadows muster 
 
 And weave a veil of darkness for my head. 
 
 Will o' the wisp before me flying. 
 Pale sad faces like faint flames dying — 
 
 I walk alone beside a spectral mere; 
 Ghostly voices about me crying 
 
 Fill every crevice of my soul with fear! 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 95 
 
 Lights of error and mists of terror, 
 
 On I go by the paths of error; 
 Far bells ring out In solemn warning tone. 
 
 I look. In the moonlight's magic mirror, 
 And doubt the world's existence and my own. 
 
 Voice of the sea in its anguished groaning, 
 Old woods that never can cease from moan- 
 
 The song that rings and sings o'er hill and dale, 
 
 False enchantments are all Intoning — 
 I am a dream and you Its shadow pale. 
 
 White cloud-wonders are soaring and sweep- 
 ing- 
 Far away you are waiting, sleeping. 
 
 No passing madness now my vision mars: 
 Our love is safe in the fairies' keeping, 
 
 Our kingdom set in worlds beyond the stars I 
 
96 NINEVEH 
 
 FRIENDSHIP 
 
 Lo, in my hour of need I called on thee, 
 
 Asking thy friendship's none too heavy toll ; 
 
 Comrades were we when I was glad and 
 whole, 
 And yet thou cam'st not, and at last I see 
 Twain are the ways of friendship, and there be 
 
 One that laughs with us o'er the fragrant 
 bowl. 
 
 And one that wanders with the troubled soul 
 In the great silence of Gethsemane. 
 
 I can forgive, and while glad days abound 
 Thou shalt be with me; but when Autumn 
 flings 
 The rose-leaf and the wine-cup to the ground. 
 Then would I call upon the heart that 
 hears 
 With intimate love the depth of Human 
 things. 
 
 The eye that knows the sanctity of tears. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 97 
 
 WASTED SONGS 
 
 For your dear sake I worked my own soul 
 wrong, 
 Yea, gave you all my splendid roses, wet 
 With dew of my heart's blood, O sweet, and 
 set. 
 Upon your brow a diadem of song. 
 
 These boons you blandly took — as though they 
 were 
 A thing as fleeting as the thin sea-foam, 
 Or any gift of fruit or honey-comb — 
 With the light smile of those who do not 
 care . . . 
 
98 NINEVEH 
 
 LORD EROS 
 
 What man Is strong to bind and hold 
 The eagle in his proud estate, 
 
 Or from Love's treacherous fairy-gold 
 To weave his woof of fate? 
 
 Lord Eros is no gentle god, 
 Nor human folly smiles upon, 
 
 His are the scourges and the rod 
 Without oblivion. 
 
 We deemed him but a winsome boy, 
 Until he clutched us by the throat; 
 
 We dallied with him, and the toy 
 Became a sword that smote. 
 
 The Book of Love is closed and sealed 
 With iron signet, and the night 
 
 Has smothered with her agate shield 
 The torches of delight. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 99 
 
 AT CROSS-ROADS 
 
 Prater, ave atque vale, — Catullus. 
 
 One singing road we travelled both together, 
 
 All day long side by side; 
 Now that the night is falling on the heather, 
 
 Our ways divide. 
 
 If thou choose one path, I shall choose the 
 other — 
 
 The whither, who can tell? 
 But ere we part I call to thee : My brother, 
 
 Hail and farewell ! 
 
100 NINEVEH 
 
 AUTUMN 
 
 Youth's first flush has left you ; yet 'tis sweet to 
 rest 
 
 Close against your beating heart — ^never maid- 
 en's breast 
 
 Made a softer pillow for my aching brow, 
 
 Never swifter coursed the blood through my 
 veins than now ! 
 
 Like an elder sister's, calm and mild your gaze, 
 Finding gentle pardon for a boy's impetuous 
 
 ways. 
 *'ChIld!" you call me, chide my freedom with a 
 
 smile 
 Yet I hear your heart-beats, know you love me 
 
 all the while! 
 
AND OTHER POEMS loi 
 
 Fate has used me kindly, granted to my prayer 
 Deeper In life's eyes to look than boyhood else 
 
 may dare — 
 Unafraid to face Its current sweeping strong: 
 Gods and women with their love reward the 
 
 poet's song. 
 
 Calm autumnal beauty, still I wish you well, 
 Still I pray no breath of harm may touch you 
 
 with Its spell. 
 'Twas In you that first I knew how morn and 
 
 eve could meet, 
 Death's majestic sadness, life's transport wildly 
 
 sweet I 
 
I02 NINEVEH 
 
 LOVE CRUEL 
 
 Right true it is that once love's bacchanal 
 Had spent itself, and the devouring sea 
 Of passion slept, that unrelentingly 
 
 I heaped upon you bitterness, and all 
 
 That sears the heart and kills it, yea the gall 
 Poured down your throat, until you looked at 
 
 me 
 With sad wan smile that was a silent plea, 
 
 Craving deliverance from the cruel thrall. 
 
 Right true it is I harass you with fears, 
 
 With sudden mood, indifference, sharp 
 surprise : 
 I love you best, O sweetest, when the tears 
 Moisten the perfect crystal of your eyes. 
 And from their depths, as from mysterious 
 meres, 
 The blinding mists of utter anguish rise. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 103 
 
 SILENTIUM POETiE 
 
 Here In the dusk your lips against my face 
 Cling close and sigh — you tremble In my 
 
 arms, 
 Make glad my heart with indescribable 
 charms, 
 And all my manhood hungers for your grace. 
 Yet I recall how friendship's light embrace 
 Awoke In me the soul divine that sings; 
 The lyre that when Apollo touched the 
 strings 
 Found voice, but faintly Venus' hand obeys. 
 
 What time I trod the path Catullus went. 
 
 Where Shakespeare paced, before but still in 
 view. 
 My every heart-beat was a burst of song : 
 But now a woman's tresses redolent 
 Entwine about my fingers, and a new 
 
 Strange dumbness does my sacred calling 
 wrong 1 
 
104 NINEVEH 
 
 THE LAST CHORD 
 
 Wearily I leaned my head 
 
 Against your shoulder; not a word 
 Was heard 
 
 Or said. 
 
 As fragile fingers clutching anxiously 
 
 Call forth no answer from the silent urn, 
 
 So from the valley of deep mystery 
 No dead love shall return. 
 
 We were right glad at last to part, 
 And very wise — 
 
 But, when with sudden start 
 
 You felt in me the tears of pity rise, 
 A gleam of hate came to your eyes. 
 
 And there was murder in your heart! 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 105 
 
 A LEAVE-TAKING 
 
 The heavy gang-chains clatter, and the boat 
 Groans grievously like to some stricken knight, 
 
 A sudden yearning rises In my throat, 
 
 And unshed tears half veil you from my sight. 
 
 Your love was like an incense-bearing vase 
 That I have shattered, playing carelessly, 
 
 Seeing that dearer than my Lady's grace 
 The lay of sainted poets was to me. 
 
 As we have loved, so let us part from love, 
 And I shall walk into the outer night 
 
 Singing, at heart the sweet remembrance of 
 Those violet-scented hours of delight. 
 
io6 NINEVEH 
 
 SOUTHERN SUMMER 
 
 Unrestful rest and aching drowsiness, 
 Never a leaf to stir in tree or grass, 
 The sands of time pass slowHer through the 
 glass, 
 
 And in its brilliant, many-colored dress 
 
 The valley lies, all dumb and motionless. 
 As if the angel of the Lord did pass 
 Leaving behind no trace of life. Alas, 
 
 This is a summer of great weariness I 
 
 For I must wither in this tropic fire, 
 
 These sickly fruits and blossoms I must dread. 
 And on my heart has seized a great desire 
 
 For the swift winds that lash my Northern 
 home, 
 Where brave men are of fair-haired women 
 bred. 
 Where heroes love and where the Vikings 
 roam. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 107 
 
 LOVE'S QUEST 
 
 I HAVE sought Love, and sought him every- 
 where ; 
 Once in a wood I saw his gleaming hair 
 
 Flash from afar, but drawing nearer found 
 A startled satyr leaping from his lair. 
 
IN THE AGORA 
 
TO A DEFEATED CANDIDATE 
 
 Surely we stumble toward an evil day, 
 For us of late Is freedom's path too steep, 
 Her words perverted In our mouths; we keep 
 
 Our bondage willing, aye, endure the sway 
 
 Of trickster's hands and redder hands that slay: 
 Yet this no season to lament or weep, 
 But to arise and with tempestuous sweep 
 
 Hurl the false Idols from their seat of clay. 
 
 Thou whom the people's voice acclaims their 
 
 own, 
 Thou their defender, shalt approach the throne 
 Of the blind goddess with the awful rod, 
 
 And she will know thee victor without flaw, 
 Or else set Guile above the shrine of God, 
 And break in twain the tablets of the Law. 
 
 II I 
 
112 NINEVEH 
 
 HEINE 
 
 {Professor Herter's Heine Fountain, received 
 by the City of New York, after it had been re- 
 fused by well-nigh every important German com- 
 munity, has twice been injured; once by malice, 
 and once through accident. Finally it was pro- 
 posed to remove it from its present site to make 
 room for a useless street.) 
 
 Nor life nor death had any peace for thee, 
 Seeing thy mother cast thee forth, a prey 
 To wind and water, till we bade thee stay 
 
 And rest, a pilgrim weary of the sea. 
 
 But now it seems that on thine effigy 
 
 Thy very host an impious hand would lay^ 
 Go then and wander, praising on thy way 
 
 The proud Republic's hospitality! 
 
 Yet oft with us wreathed brow must suffer 
 
 wrong, 
 
 The sad Enchanter of the land of Weir 
 
 Is still uncrowned, unreverenced, and we fear 
 
 The Lords of Gold above the Lords of Song. 
 
 Were it not strange, then, should we honour 
 
 more 
 The sweet-mouthed singer of a foreign shore ? 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 113 
 
 THE NEW COLOSSUS IN 1907 
 
 Behold the myriads at the gate 
 
 Who from the Old World saw thy light, 
 Thy hand is strong to bless or smite 
 
 These pilgrims, and thy "yea" is fate. 
 
 They as our fathers come from far; 
 
 From shores where blazes Dante's sun, 
 
 And from the bleak dominion 
 Where fall the lashes of the Czar. 
 
 Their strong untiring arms have hewn 
 A path o'er Alpine mountain-crest, 
 Them England nurtured at her breast, 
 
 And over them rose Erin's moon. 
 
 Yet though their necks for menial toil 
 Are bent to build our empire, they 
 Shall bear within no distant day 
 
 Strong sons and daughters of this soil. 
 
 But now we need their labour; mute 
 Our engines lie in barren rest. 
 And in our gardens south and west 
 
 Ungarnered rots the mellow fruit 
 
114 NINEVEH 
 
 And the white cotton. We are shorn 
 Of many gifts of priceless worth; 
 The yellow gold cries from the earth 
 
 And from our fields the yellow corn. 
 
 They shall reap wealth from ore and coal 
 Such as no Eastern king beheld, 
 And build the Iron roads that weld 
 
 Our nation In one splendid whole. 
 
 Not only bent on distant quest 
 
 In tropic skies, thou shalt at length 
 Bethink thee of thy native strength, 
 
 Young Titan of the boundless West! 
 
 Within the compass God has set, 
 
 Between these shores from main to main, 
 Thou hast new victories to gain, 
 
 And thou hast worlds to conquer yet! 
 
MALE AND FEMALE CREATED 
 HE THEM 
 
AIOGYNE 
 
 We are alone — are quite alone 
 
 Beneath the heavy canopy, 
 Only the crimson light, far-thrown 
 
 From the dim lamp gleams, fitfully. 
 Now passion's rites have all been paid; 
 
 Lean back in silence, gently, thus, 
 Until my dreaming eyes have strayed 
 Above your beauty luminous. 
 
 The sinuous glory of your hair, 
 
 The chiselled marble of your breast. 
 And, but for soft-showered rose-leaves bare, 
 
 Each secret nook where love may rest. 
 I gaze in silence : you have stilled 
 
 The hunger of my soul's disease. 
 Your body Is with wonders filled. 
 
 And you creation's masterpiece. 
 
 O mystery, O miracle. 
 
 Shall I extol your love or rue? 
 For you are heaven, and you are hell, 
 
 And God and beast are both in you. 
 You stood beside the Cross of shame 
 
 When wavering manhood failed and fled — 
 And yet I know you for the same 
 
 That tempted Satan to her bed ! 
 
ii8 NINEVEH 
 
 So short your memory, Magdalene? 
 
 Think you no longer of the day 
 His word went through you like the keen 
 
 Sharp sword of judgment, and you lay 
 Before His feet with unbound hair 
 
 Who cleansed you of your leprosy, 
 And made a woman's womb to bear 
 
 The Godhead's awful majesty? 
 
 But ah ! the fever in your breast 
 
 Craved not alone such holy grace ; 
 Sin was your raiment, and your quest 
 
 Was evil, and your purpose base. 
 Your kisses taught our primal sire 
 
 The meaning and the might of lust, 
 O Lilith, half enchantress dire. 
 
 Half monster coiling in the dust. 
 
 Vultures that wheel where carrion lies. 
 
 All vices followed in your train, 
 As vermin round the God of Flies; 
 
 Of fruit proscribed your lips were fain. 
 Strange fires of lust would leap and war 
 
 Beneath your bosom's ivory. 
 The white bull trembled when from far 
 
 He heard your step, Paslphae ! 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 119 
 
 In MItylene's mountain glades 
 
 You breathed soft music on the pale 
 Breast-blossoms of your Lesbian maids, 
 
 O sweet-mouthed Sappho, and the bale 
 Of barren passion held you thrall , 
 
 And in far Syria turned your heart 
 To brown-limbed lads upon the wall 
 
 Imprisoned by the painter's art. 
 
 And grisly tales the Nile could tell 
 
 Of boys that dreamed a maddening dream, 
 And how a lifeless body fell 
 
 Each night Into the silent stream. 
 To-day, amid the sullen sands 
 
 Where once was Isis' temple vast. 
 The Sphinx your dreadful Image stands, 
 
 Eternal symbol of your past! 
 
 When Rome's Imperial crown adorned 
 
 Your head, still sin was law to you : 
 No meanest slave's embrace you scorned. 
 
 The very streets your orgies knew. 
 Practiced In every wanton wile. 
 
 Your heart a lazar-house Impure, 
 You made the name Faustina vile — 
 
 The serpent was your paramour! 
 
I20 NINEVEH 
 
 With mystic dye your tresses stained, 
 
 You watched to death the Baptist pass, 
 And with your boon damnation gained, 
 
 O daughter of Herodlas! 
 And when the road to Calvary 
 
 For you the Incarnate Saviour trod. 
 You grieved not that He went to die 
 
 But spat upon the face of God ! 
 
 Long years have passed, the softly-curved 
 
 Sweet lips have kissed full many a lord; 
 But Sin, the master you have served, 
 
 Grants endless youth for your reward. 
 Eternal Woman ! Good nor 111 
 
 Has left Its stamp on charms like these : 
 Your body Is a wonder still, 
 
 And you creation's masterpiece I 
 
 Away with visions that recall 
 
 Your nameless lust, your stranger woes. 
 For whiter than the first snowfall 
 
 Your Immemorial beauty glows. 
 Lean back In all your loveliness 
 
 Soft-bedded where red roses bleed: 
 A fool who would your secret guess, 
 
 And who has guessed It — poor Indeed ! 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 121 
 
 AIANDER 
 
 The proud free glance, the thinker's mighty 
 
 brow, 
 The curling locks and supple, slender limbs, 
 The eye that speaks dominion, victor's smile — 
 All these I know. By them I hail thee Man, 
 Lord of the earth. Thou art the woman's slave. 
 And yet her master . . . 
 
 I know thee when about thy sunburnt thighs 
 Thou swing'st the tawny skin a tiger wore 
 Till thy rude weapon dashed him to the ground. 
 I know thee also when thy shoulders bear 
 The purple mantle of an emperor, 
 Stained with the blood of thousand tiny lives; 
 The golden sandals clasped upon thy feet; 
 Thy hair made rich with spikenard, and thy 
 
 brow 
 Graced with the gifts that mutual east and west 
 Conspire to offer to their sovereign lord. 
 
 I know thee too in lust's relentless rage, 
 Dragging the chosen woman to thy lair. 
 To frame upon her body at thy will 
 Sons in thine image, strong of loin as thou : 
 And when, the bearer of thy father's sins, 
 Within the portals of the House of Shame 
 
122 NINEVEH 
 
 Monstrous delight thy passion seeks to find 
 In futile quest, and Nature pitiful 
 Will not transmit unto the future's womb 
 Thy weakened generation . . . 
 
 Image of God I know thee — God thyself. 
 Walking the world on India's sun-parched plains 
 Thy name was Rama ; thou in desert sands 
 Of Araby didst dream thy wondrous dream; 
 The cradles of all races thou hast seen — 
 Thou Zarathustra — thou the Son of Man ! 
 I know the wounds of hands and feet and 
 
 side . . . 
 Ah, and I know the ring about thy neck 
 Of ruddy curls ! Say, Judas, in thine ear 
 Make they sweet music still, the silver coins. 
 As on the day the temple's veil was rent? 
 
 So, in the far-stretched background of all time 
 I watch thy progress through the sounding 
 
 years — 
 AVielding the sceptre here, and there the lyre, 
 The lord or servant of thy master-passion. 
 Pure or polluted, fool or nobly wise. 
 And this it is that justifies the whole, 
 This is thy greatness : thou hast stumbled oft. 
 And straying often fallen. Yet all the while. 
 Wandering the stony wilderness of life, 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 123 
 
 Thine eyes were fixed upon the steadfast star 
 That far-off stands above the Promised Land. 
 
 Rough Is the road, beset by mocking heavens 
 And false Illusory hells — the strong, the weak 
 Alike by dancing fires are led astray, 
 And poisoned flowers bloom rankly on the path. 
 Self In the guise of selfishness approached. 
 Frailty In garment of a god benign ; 
 Pleasure with lying accents 'T am sin" 
 Proclaimed, and vice, "I am bold action" cried; 
 "I am contentment," spoke the belly full, 
 And the applause of groundlings, "I am fame." 
 
 And so It came that only here and there 
 In all the years a strong, unerring one 
 Plucked boldly at the flowers of brief delight. 
 Yet by the dust of tumult unconfused 
 Pressed on to reach the goal ; the strong man's 
 
 goal : 
 To rule and to enjoy, to hold command 
 Over both things and spirits, to enjoy 
 All pleasant sounds and all sweet gifts, yet strive 
 Untiring, ever upward to that sun 
 Which no world-master's blind despotic will, 
 But his own hand, with more than Titan 
 
 strength. 
 Unto the utmost firmament has flung. 
 
THE MAGIC CITY 
 
A POET'S CREED 
 
 "Assuage the tempests In thy heart that toss, 
 
 For now thy verse has a rebellious ring; 
 
 Unto the people as a gift to bring 
 Transmute thy gold into the common dross !" 
 Nay, all who sang and singing bare the cross, 
 
 Villon and Byron heard the selfsame thing; 
 
 Yet had they heeded, had they ceased to sing, 
 Were not the earth the poorer for their loss ? 
 
 Stand back In silence, as with trembling awe 
 
 Upon the masters of high song I call : 
 What though my heart be stained with many a 
 flaw. 
 What though my blind steps stumble, and I 
 fall: 
 There Is no god save Beauty, and no law 
 Save that of Numbers richly musical. 
 
 127 
 
128 NINEVEH 
 
 TO SWINBURNE. 
 
 Eloquent master, thy melodious rage 
 
 Our latter song may not aspire to reach! 
 
 Our eyes beheld the magic of thy speech 
 Conjure the love-queens of a perished age, 
 Yea, clothe with life their spectral forms, and 
 wage, 
 
 When the sight stung thee, war with Heaven 
 for each: 
 
 Only the rolling anthem of the beach 
 Could break the spell and end thy vassalage. 
 
 The sea, thy true love, taught thy lyric tongue 
 The mighty music of her mutiny: 
 
 Thy voice as hers the ages shall prolong. 
 
 And, praising numbers, men shall ask of 
 thee: 
 
 *'Is it the sea that thunders in his song, 
 Or is It his song reverberates In the sea ?" 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 129 
 
 CHARLES BAUDELAIRE 
 
 Like a heart stabbed through with the sword 
 of woe, 
 
 The sun suffuses the sky with blood 
 And bathes the land In a crimson glow, 
 
 With the colour of sin In a rushing flood. 
 I gaze on a pale, pale face afar 
 
 Agleam In the light of the dying day, 
 But whiter and colder than snow-wreaths are 
 
 That the clouds on the Alpine fir-trees lay. 
 
 And a mouth as red as the wine that flows 
 
 Where a monarch feasts with his warriors 
 brave — 
 So glowing a red had never the rose 
 
 With Its roots set deep In a murderer's grave, 
 Whose Impious hand was raised to kill 
 
 The mother that bore him, and then knew 
 how 
 He must live his life 'neath the curse of 111, 
 
 With the brand of Cain on his burning brow. 
 
 And floating, fluttering round It fell 
 Long locks like a regal robe of state, 
 
 And ever enmeshed In their magic spell 
 Great captive Titans humbly wait. 
 
1 30 NINEVEH 
 
 And eyes so deep that they seem to know 
 All depths yet reached since the world 
 began — 
 
 Aye, deep as the bottomless pit they go, 
 Or the wayward, wandering heart of man. 
 
 I heard a song, and I had no choice 
 
 But to listen as Into my heart It stole . . . 
 Strange loves that speak with a siren voice. 
 
 And lusts that rot both body and soul. 
 Ah, never again since it entered In 
 
 Have I known the peace of a moment's rest — 
 For there is a note in this song of sin 
 
 That wakes an echo within my breast. 
 
 You have travelled far Into love's demesne; 
 
 You have pierced to the heart of the riddle of 
 things : 
 Your soul is an altar on which unseen 
 
 Burns the mystic flame that has scorched my 
 wings. 
 You that sing of sin as but she has sung 
 
 That lived before passion was bound by fear, 
 In the Grecian land when the lyre was young, 
 
 Brother and master, I hail you here! 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 131 
 
 THE POET 
 
 Albeit my song Is like a driven blade 
 And I am first In all your minstrel wars, 
 I cannot break the elemental bars : 
 
 When stood the sun still while I sang, or stayed 
 
 His chariot In a cloud to give me shade? 
 Nor shall my passion swerve the calendars 
 Or melt the cold Indifference of the stars 
 
 Before whose light the Muse^s lamp must fade. 
 
 What though my strain stir all hearts and sur- 
 pass 
 Great Dante's music drawn from blood and 
 tears? 
 All I have wrought and praying wrought 
 so well, 
 Is In the Iron chorus of the spheres 
 No more than beating of a sounding brass, 
 Or empty tinkle of a jester's bell. 
 
132 NINEVEH 
 
 CONSOLATION 
 
 TO RICHARD WATSON GILDER 
 
 The sun-god in his robe of gold 
 That trails the argent clouds upon, 
 
 One day shall be a story told, 
 And hidden in oblivion. 
 
 The thunder of his chariot 
 
 Seems but as playing on a lute 
 
 To the Most High, who careth not 
 If all the starry mouths be mute. 
 
 Yea, when the cosmic cycles ring 
 
 No more around the Central Throne, 
 
 Shall not the Void beyond Him sing 
 His praise in monstrous monotone? 
 
 The earth and her constellate peers 
 Are fleeting as an evening chime, 
 
 And the irrevocable years 
 
 Roll down the cataract of time. 
 
 Yet are we not all dust; the night. 
 By Love's own breath made exquisite, 
 
 Shall for a space in passion's might 
 Conjoin us with the Infinite. 
 
 And though the planets falling reel 
 We shall escape the primal curse, 
 
 And in immortal numbers feel 
 The heart-beat of the Universe. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 133 
 
 HADRIAN 
 
 How pale, how wan, my Caesar, Is thy smile, 
 Grey with the ashes of the heart's desire. 
 Shall not thy slave with sweet pleasaunce 
 
 beguile 
 The hosts of care that to thy hurt conspire? 
 
 Shall shimmering silks before thy throne be 
 
 spread 
 From the far sands where patient camels 
 
 plod? 
 Or black-robed seers draw nigh, who long 
 
 have read 
 The secret lines that cross the face of God? 
 
 Shall steaming blood thine anguish drive away. 
 When In the arena's madness and Its din 
 Huge bright-eyed tigers crouch upon the 
 
 prey, 
 Or groan beneath the poisoned javelin? 
 
 Nay, wilt thou scourge the arrogant sea with 
 
 chains, 
 And make thy footstool of an ocean's 
 
 might? 
 Lo, at thy nod the storm-tossed ship regains 
 The friendly shore, or sinks from human 
 
 sight. 
 
134 NINEVEH 
 
 Wilt thou, perfumed and burning as the fire, 
 The grape's red blood from jewelled 
 
 chalice drain? 
 Till drunken gladness to the gods aspire. 
 Shall vine-wreathed Bacchus revel with his 
 
 train ? 
 Far kingdoms sent unto thy regal seat, 
 
 The falriest maids with lucent step and 
 
 glance. 
 That at thy bidding shall with naked feet 
 Swing in the maze of bacchanalian dance! 
 
 Or, shall the slave-boy from the Lydlan land 
 With sound of lute-string charm thine ear, 
 
 and thou 
 The minstrel raising, feel a lily hand 
 Soft as the snow upon thine aching brow? 
 
 But the pale Caesar sadly smiled and drear, 
 
 "Enough," he said, and yet again: 
 
 "Enough, 
 The purple fades, the laurel soon grows 
 
 sere. 
 Death lays his finger on the lips of love. 
 
 "Thy words, O slave, ring hollow as the tomb; 
 Like evil damps, thine incense too shall 
 
 pass. 
 One thing alone escapes the general doom : 
 Love's haloed image In art's magic glass! 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 135 
 
 "Wounds past all cure are burning In my breast, 
 Beauty's last kiss on lips that perish thus, 
 Bring, that at last my weary heart find 
 
 rest, 
 The marble statue of Antinous. 
 
 "I care not now for any earthly toy, 
 
 Life's zenith lies behind me many a 
 
 mile . . . 
 White lotus-blossoms bury all my joy. 
 And all my realm and all my self the Nile. 
 
 "His face was heavenly transport to mine eyes, 
 Sweet was his breath, as scented winds that 
 
 blow 
 O'er fields of purple hyacinths and rise 
 In the glad May-time from the floral snow. 
 
 "Approach in silence; holy is the ground 
 
 Where beauty's feet have trod the desolate 
 
 earth. 
 Bow to the slave that freed my soul, and 
 
 bound 
 My love with loving to his greater worth. 
 
 "Throughout all time shall sound his far lauda- 
 tions. 
 From sea to land and on from land to sea, 
 I, even I, imperial lord of nations. 
 Before this shrine in worship bend the knee. 
 
136 NINEVEH 
 
 "Antlnous, thy beauty is not dead — 
 
 Thou llv*st in realms of marble and of 
 
 song!" 
 And wearily the pallid Caesar's head 
 Sank on his breast. Then silence deep and 
 
 long. 
 
 But where to Beauty sacrifice is given 
 
 We too shall kneel to worship and adore, 
 Whether its star resplendent rose in heaven 
 From Grecian hill or Galilean shore. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 137 
 
 ART 
 
 All-embracing 
 Eternal art, 
 
 That of the dust a handful takest, 
 And by thy touch a spirit makest, 
 In reverent praising 
 
 Of thy perfection I would bear my part; 
 Thou alone art beauty, thou life's inmost 
 heart I 
 
 Thou hast redeemed me, 
 Thou set me free, 
 
 Broken the lifeless matter's prisoning shell, 
 Let my soul forth 
 To seek what beseemed me 
 
 And in the splendour of God's face to 
 dwell. 
 
 For Nature works with other powers. 
 Draws from predestined seed the flowers. 
 And all things from their substance due ; 
 But thou, the source of endless light, 
 Dost out of nothing by thy might 
 Create a world where all Is new. 
 
138 NINEVEH 
 
 While Nature's careful tutelage 
 Confines us in a narrow cage — 
 
 The single life is but a drop of rain 
 That falls in summer showers 
 
 In ceaseless round to be absorbed again 
 Into the vast inane, 
 
 An insignificant atom, that the gale 
 Scatters its blast before, — 
 Art gives us mighty wings to soar, 
 With eagle sweep the infinite heights to 
 scale, 
 
 Storm at the gates 
 
 Of heaven's high fortress barred. 
 Though time and space and all the fates 
 Stood vainly on their guard. 
 
 Its gift is freedom — space to move, 
 Our latent powers to prove, 
 
 Towards an imperishable goal to strive, 
 Self-conscious and alive I 
 
 Looking backward through the misty ages 
 
 Over the record of man's changeful way, 
 Sudden I behold upon the pages 
 Of the ancient book a gleam of day. 
 Amid the broadening light 
 A new creation springs to sight. 
 Behold! the mists of chaos clear, 
 And art is here I 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 139 
 
 Confusion yields to order; beauty's curves, 
 Fixed fitst In marble, art preserves. 
 Night no longer glooms upon the way. 
 Colours gleam and flash where dawns the day; 
 Already from the lyre uncouth 
 Speak faltering accents of eternal truth. 
 
 Upon the scene a sightless minstrel stands 
 
 Who Illon sings: 
 From Hellas and the Latlan lands 
 The resonant echo rings. 
 Higher still and higher 
 Mounts the sacred fire, 
 
 And welling from her tuneful throat 
 Hear Sappho's fond complaining note 
 Far o'er the Lesbian waters float; 
 Blessing with love or blasting in his ire, 
 Catullus grasps the lyre! 
 
 Nor poesy alone 
 
 Delights us with its mystic tone. 
 
 For lo ! from out the deep arise 
 The pillared glories of the Parthenon : 
 The sculptor's eyes 
 Unsealed behold, his hands devise, 
 Types of undying beauty, and in stone 
 Hold the white vision of the boy 
 Whose lustrous beauty was an emperor's 
 joy. 
 
I40 NINEVEK 
 
 Thus onward still 
 I trace the proud creative will; 
 I see the heaven-inspired throng 
 Press further in its purpose strong, 
 
 Watch Raphael ply his brush, and know 
 The mind of Michelangelo ! 
 
 Flung out by art's divinest discontent, 
 New stars adorn the firmament, 
 Great Shakespeare's glory burns, 
 And Goethe In his orbit turns 
 Above the deep horizon line 
 Where Wagner's rising light will 
 shine. 
 
 Adown the stream my fancy sweeps, 
 Where stately temples crown the steeps. 
 I sail through purple seas 
 With strange illumined argosies; 
 Flames of kindling supernal, 
 Flowers of beauty eternal 
 Burst on the eye; 
 And dimly in a vista I descry 
 
 Pale, ghostlike souls of men that stray 
 Through some mysterious dream- 
 land's avenues 
 And know not whether life or 
 death to choose. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 141 
 
 Half seen through veils of shifting smoke 
 Delicate fairy forms 
 
 And phantoms come In hovering swarms; 
 Shapes that never were on earth 
 And never shall have mortal birth 
 Art's magic spells evoke! 
 
 No longer blinded by its majesty 
 We gaze upon the sunrise In the sea — 
 No more poor helpless drops of rain, 
 
 Or atoms that the summer gales 
 Drive scurrying on amain : 
 
 Now have we strength that avails 
 To mount where the planets wheel, 
 
 Trampling beneath our feet 
 The clouds of air, to feel, 
 
 Free from the bounds that ag- 
 grieved, 
 The world-heart's rhythmic beat — 
 And all this deliverance 
 Art has achieved. 
 
142 NINEVEH 
 
 THE MAGIC CITY 
 
 Who knows where Babylon's forgotten kings 
 
 Now keep their state? 
 Laid to their rest 'neath purple coverings, 
 
 They meet the common fate. 
 
 No traces that abide 
 
 Of all the Chrlsts who bled upon the Cross 
 Ere Jesus died, 
 
 And by the Ganges sought the gain of loss : 
 Behold their priestly mantle's dye 
 Has faded, and their day gone by. 
 
 The witching girls with eyes so crystal-clear 
 And honeyed tresses bright, 
 Full many a fool's delight 
 And his heart's all; 
 These with the snows of yester-year 
 Not Villon's cry shall wake to light, 
 Asleep beyond recall. 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 143 
 
 The tables of the law are broken; 
 
 The flocks are feeding on the grass that grows 
 About each sculptured token 
 
 Of ancient empire, and the wild wind blows, 
 
 Yet, though the spell of death and ruin lord 
 The earth, above all mortal woes 
 
 Deathless, triumphant sounds the poet's 
 word, 
 Clothed with thought's flame, and 
 through the storm-fraught night. 
 Blazes like a mighty sword 
 Leaping to the fight. 
 
 Through the clang of battle, and the crash 
 Of worlds that to destruction fall. 
 Song rings out like silver trumpets' call, 
 Or, heard though all, 
 
 Harmonious still, great chords consenting clash. 
 
 Never is melody silent on earth ; 
 
 Faint, far-away, but forever rings the sound of 
 
 Its mirth. 
 Not even the sun is eternal, but immortal, O 
 Homer, thy birth ! 
 And still the listening years 
 
 Repeat her lyric name, 
 Who wove song's deathless garland from her 
 tears 
 And from her shame. 
 
144 NINEVEH 
 
 And raised by music's might 
 
 — High walls in battlemented line — 
 A magic city dawns before my sight : 
 
 Golden temples rear their haughty heads 
 
 on high 
 Domes like new suns blazing seem to span 
 the sky. 
 
 I enter In, and straying stand at length 
 
 Amazed before a vast cathedral's door. 
 Immense it rises there, in conscious strength 
 That many a tempest bore. 
 
 On the threshold swift I pause: 
 Sound of ghostly footsteps awes 
 My eager feet that would an entrance 
 win, 
 Bids me kneel and murmur low 
 Prayers of reverence, as I know 
 What holy thoughts, what wisdom dwell 
 therein. 
 
 This Is the home of high Teutonic speech 
 Where beauty's sacred fire forever glows. 
 Upon the Edda's broad foundation rose 
 
 The soaring columns vaulted each to each, 
 
AND O THER POEMS 1 45 
 
 And Goethe, Shakespeare, Ibsen reach 
 Their spans across the hall: 
 And over all 
 
 A dome that holds the light, 
 The Over-Man, whose message mystical 
 Bade us be bold and laugh and seize 
 
 delight. 
 Before he vanished Into endless night 
 At Zarathustra's call ! 
 
 Of song Is made the painted windows' sheen, 
 The lustre of the lamps. 
 
 The tapestries shot with gold : 
 On each his own design some singer stamps. 
 The very stones have voices, that pro- 
 claim 
 The Magic City and uphold 
 Her deathless fame. 
 
 The Holy of Holies Is this place; 
 Some hanging that the wall may grace 
 
 To weave with care. 
 Or with the smoking censer pace, 
 
 Or do least service In that blessed throng 
 Is to claim kinship with God's saints and wear 
 The martyr's crown of song. 
 
THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
THE HAUNTED HOUSE 
 
 I LAY beside you ... on your lips the while 
 Hovered, most strange ... the mirage of a 
 
 smile, 
 Such as a minstrel lover might have seen 
 Upon the visage of some antique queen — 
 Flickering like flame, half choked by wind and 
 
 dust. 
 Weary of all things saving song and lust. 
 
 How many days and years and lovers' lies 
 Gave you your knowledge ? You are very wise 
 And tired, yet insatiate to the last. 
 These things I thought, but said not; and there 
 
 passed 
 Before my vision in voluptuous quest. 
 The pageant of the lovers who possessed 
 Your soul and body even as I possess, 
 Who marked your passion in its nakedness 
 And all your love-sins when your love was new. 
 
 They saw as I your quivering breast, and drew 
 Nearer to the consuming flame that burns 
 Deep to the marrow of my bone, and turns 
 My heart to love even as theirs who knew 
 From head to girdle each sweet curve of you, 
 Each little way of loving. No caress. 
 But apes the part of former loves. Ah yes, 
 149 
 
I50 NINEVEH 
 
 Even thus your hand toyed in the locks of him 
 Who came before me. Was he fair of limb 
 Or very dark? What matter, with such lures 
 You snared the heart of all your paramours I 
 
 To-night I feel the presence of the others, 
 
 Your lovers were they and are now my brothers 
 
 And I have nothing that has not been theirs, 
 
 No single bloom the tree of passion bears 
 
 They have not plucked. Beloved, can it be? 
 
 Is there no gift that you reserve for me — 
 
 No loving kindness or no subtle sin. 
 
 No secret shrine that none has entered in, 
 
 Whither no mocking memories pursue 
 
 Love's wistful pilgrim ? I am weary too, 
 
 With weariness of all your lovers, and when 
 
 I follow in the ways of other men, 
 
 I know each spot of your sweet body is 
 
 A cross, the tombstone of some perished kiss. 
 
 With all its beauty and its faultless grace 
 Your body, dearest, is a haunted place. 
 When I did yield to passion's swift demand, 
 One of your lovers touched me with his hand. 
 And in the pang of amorous delight 
 I hear strange voices calling through the night 
 
THE THREE SPHINXES 
 
AND O THER POEMS 1 5 3 
 
 THE THREE SPHINXES 
 
 Before the Image older than the world, 
 
 Or 111 or good, 
 By Titan hand Into the desert hurled. 
 In the Egyptian sunset musing stood — 
 Long having travelled by fantastic roads 
 Where In deep sands the tremulous foot- 
 step sinks — 
 The oldest and the youngest of the gods. 
 Saying: 
 "Upon my life has fallen thy shadow, 
 O Sphinx!" 
 
 Replied the Sphinx: **0 son of Aphrodite, 
 Shall wisdom teach thee how the soul Is won. 
 
 Or the hot sands be balsam on thy lids ? 
 Behold approach from Thebes and Babylon, 
 Huge birds grotesque against the falling 
 gloom. 
 My far-come younger sisters." And a mighty 
 Thunder of pinions shook the pyramids, 
 And made the mummies mumble In their 
 tomb. 
 
154 NINEVEH 
 
 The three stern sisters of the mystery 
 
 Enduring and miraculously wrought 
 In granite and in porphyry, 
 
 Then, holding concourse in the desert, 
 spake 
 With the great sound of billows on the sea 
 
 That rumble as they break: 
 "Thou, Eros, art the eternal riddle, we 
 
 Are but in stone the semblance of thy 
 thought." 
 
 Limbed like the panther, featured like a man, 
 The wisest of the Sphinxes thus began. 
 
 That still had waited where the river steams 
 And winds the caravan : 
 "In my brain's cavern seven cubits span 
 Dwell visions splendorous 
 
 Of the great lords of song and thought 
 and might. 
 Who in the large eyes of Antinous 
 
 Have read the Deeper Light. 
 Upon my lashes gleams 
 
 Still Shakespeare's rhythmic tear; 
 Here Plato musing dreamed his dreams 
 Of spirit-passion; David here 
 In the long night-watch sang of Jonathan." 
 
AND O THER POEMS 1 5 5 
 
 Then rose the winged Theban, figure dual 
 
 Of maid and Hon strangely wed; 
 *'I am the blood that tingles, and the jewel 
 Of all the world's desire adorns my head — 
 The lithe-limbed youths that fell for Hel- 
 en's sake 
 Have died for me, 
 The lads that wake 
 To ripeness curse me as they ache 
 Beneath my tyranny. 
 My mandates sweet and cruel 
 
 Nor prayer nor penance shall revoke : 
 I am the flame, men's bodies are the fuel, 
 Men's souls the smoke." 
 
 The pinioned Sphinx of Babylon, 
 
 Human in naught, Lord Eros thus addressed : 
 ^'Wherever men have spat thy face upon 
 Or sought strange pleasure In unholy quest, 
 My breath had made them mad. 
 I am the dream that Nero's mother had 
 
 Ere burned his natal star. 
 I am the ghastly vision of de Sade: 
 Astarte and Priapus wage 
 
 War for my beauty monstrous, bar- 
 ren, bare; 
 The Cretan knew me and from far 
 My Image fell upon the crimson page 
 Of Swinburne and of Baudelaire." 
 
156 NINEVEH 
 
 The silence shivered as In tearless woe 
 
 When they had done, the Foam-begotten 
 broke 
 Across his knee the sceptre and the bow : 
 "The empyrean is beyond your reach, 
 Your substance earth of earth, 
 
 And ever she that called on Plato's 
 name 
 Bears soilure of a mortal birth 
 
 The triple mirror are you of my 
 shame 
 Half-beast are two, one wholly beast, in 
 each 
 Is something bestial, and your wings' winds 
 choke 
 
 Within my heart the unadulterate 
 flame." 
 
 But the three Sphinxes mighty murmuring 
 Thus answer made: "O Love, 
 Turn thou thy wrath above. 
 Where round God's throne the cosmic sunsets 
 fling 
 The light that shall not fade. 
 
 Beneath his feet the countless aeons roll, 
 His slow relentless purpose knows the 
 goal 
 Of things, and joining flesh and spirit made 
 A beast the mansion of the soul.'* 
 
AND OTHER POEMS 157 
 
 And lo, the spring's breath faded from Love's 
 charm, 
 The sunshine from his hair, 
 And in his arm 
 
 The arrows turned to rods. 
 
 He heeded not the silent years that 
 
 crawl 
 Like uncouth spiders. Weary, cynical, 
 Self-conscious, disenchanted stood he there, 
 The oldest and the saddest of the gods. 
 
18 
 

 
 
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