Book ■ U 4- COFSRIGHT DEPOSm LESBIA AND OTHER POEMS WORKS BY ARTHUR SYMONS CITIES (Illustrated) CITIES OF ITALY INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF BROWNING (New Edition) PLAYS, ACTING AND MUSIC THE ROMANTIC MOVEMENT IN ENGLISH POETRY SPIRITUAL ADVENTURES STUDIES IN PROSE AND VERSE STUDIES IN SEVEN ARTS WILLIAM BLAKE FIGURES OF SEVERAL CENTURIES COLOUR STUDIES IN PARIS (Illustrated) THE SYMBOLIST MOVEMENT IN LITERATURE (Revised and Enlarged Edition) STUDIES IN THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY L E S B I A AND OTHER POEMS BY ARTHUR SYMONS AUTHOK OF "studies IN SEVEN ARTS," "COLOUR STUDIES IN PARIS," ETC. NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 681 FIFTH AVENUE Copyright, 1920, BY E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY AU Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America ©CI.A570965 ^^'2 -6 mu CONTENTS I. LESBIA PAGB The Vampire 1 The Rings 2 Her Name 3 Vain Prayer . , 5 VuE Du Lac 6 Accomplishment 7 Vanitas 8 Aria 9 Colloquies: i. Pride 10 ii. The Waiting Face 11 In Suffering 12 Dreams 13 Rome 14 Dreams in Rome 15 Magic . 16 By the Fountain 17 On Life and Love 18 The Storm 19 The Heart 20 Sonnet 21 Lamia 22 The Gift 23 V VI CONTENTS II. INTERMEZZO FAOB Nmi Pattb-en-l'air 27 Prologxte: before the Theatre 29 At a Music Hall 31 Love and Art 32 New Year's Eve 34 Stella Maligna 36 CoRRUPTio Optimi Pessima ....... 41 The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins ... 42 Helen and Faustus 51 Helen 59 A Song for Helen 61 Song 62 III. BIRDS IN THE NIGHT Music 65 The Gypsy's Song 66 A Drinking Song 68 Song for Iseult 69 The Curlew 70 Old Bones 71 The Agate 73 In the Woods 74 Dust 75 Song 76 The Adder 77 Salome 79 The Flames op Hell 81 Epithalamium 84 Pierrot 85 CONTENTS VU FAOB Dante in Hell 87 Sonnet 88 Sonnet 89 Deirdrb 90 The Hotjr 91 The Old Gypsy 92 The Jew 94 Night at Hampstead 95 To A Grey Dress 96 The Floods and the Ashes 97 Cleopatra 98 Banishment 99 In Regent's Park 100 To the Dead 102 Happiness 103 A Song Against Sorrow 104 The Owl 105 The Song op the Poppies 106 Song 108 Song op the Fire 109 The Rose and the Rain 110 A Vision op Kings Ill The Cross 112 IV. SILHOUETTES A Death in the Forest 115 In the Cathedral op Barcelona 117 Barcelona 118 Pantorbo 119 Madrid 120 In the Prado 121 Vlll CONTENTS PAOB At Bordbatjx 122 Night at Arles 123 Rome 124 In the Campagna 125 At the Three Fountains ....... 126 Vestigia: i. Roman Medallion ....... 127 ii. Roman Medallion 128 Hymn to God 129 Hymn to the Sea 131 Hymn to Air 134 Hymn to Beauty 137 The Human Face 140 Notte Veneziano 141 I LESBIA (To Lesbia.) THE YAMPIEE Intolerable woman, where's the name For your insane complexity of shame? Vampire ! white bloodless creature of the night, Whose lust of blood has blanched her chill veins white, Veins fed with moonlight over dead men's tombs; Whose eyes remember many martyrdoms. So that their depths, whose depth cannot be found. Are shadowed pools in which a soul lies drowned; Who would fain have pity, but she may not rest Till she have sucked a man's heart from his breast, And drained his life-blood from him, vein by vein, And seen his eyes grow brighter for the pain, And his lips sigh her name with his last breath. As the man swoons ecstatically on death. THE RINGS I know you by the voices of your rings : Unhappy and inevitable things Cry to me in their shining silence; each Has its own fatal and particular speech. There is a ring with rubies that I hate: You wear it often, and it lies in wait Like an assassin, shooting fire at me When your pale finger seeks it lingeringly. Two rings I watch for, hoping, half in dread, To see the one ; but if I see instead. Worn on the third left finger, and alone, A certain old poor ring with a blue stone, I pity first myself, as lovers do. Then I forget all else, and pity you. HEE NAME still the same Subtle and melancholy flame. That winds about the soul, and spires About the body of desires. And is both life and death at heart ! Love comes and goes, the years depart, But we abide; we on our ways Conduct the visionary days That seem to lead us; and we seem As dreamers moving through a dream. Who know the path we are to tread. 1 loved you once, and we have said. Each to the other, words that bind Soul unto soul, mind unto mind. Because they are not said in speech. Afterward there remained to each That other word, said best in tears ; Then shadowy and silent years; And now I hear your name again. And all the years have been in vain. Have we not waited for this hour As slaves await their day of power? 3 4 LE8BIA We have both triumphed; I behold Your brightening path that shines with gold From where I meditate in peace. What is it, then, in this release. That sets us free to set us thus Where all we have is nought to us. Seen now with one another's eyes? We have been wise, and yet too wise, Too wise, and yet not wise enough. And this is the revenge of love; Chequered and led in chains, he feels His Kingship, at our chariot- wheels ; He knows us, conquerors though we be. Still slaves, and in his slavery. VAIN PRAYER I have prayed once, as tired men pray for sleep. That I might close the wakeful lids that keep The watch of Memory, watching on a grave. I have prayed once for this, only to have Not joy, nor love, only oblivion; For love, that was the joy of life is gone. And, going, has left a shadow in its place, Which is the shadow of joy's averted face. I have prayed once, and yet, for all my pain, I have rejoiced that I have prayed in vain. It is incredible that such desires Should die so meanly. God has not lit his fires To be puffed out by any dusty breath. That never lived which can accept of death. VUE DU LAC Once, in this tempest of my life, I have been folded from the strife Of winds that war upon my ways. In the warm quiet of these bays. Once I have heard, with you far hence, The abiding sea's indifference Murmur continually on. Being content to be alone. And I have once endured the peace Of an endurable release. Where tranquil hours have wrought for me A respite from your memory. Once and once only; you demand My heart, too Joyful at your hand (Since from calm ways you call it home) To suffer the old martyrdom. ACCOMPLISHMENT Why is it, since I made you thus, I have no peace in that I made ? Since our desire has come to us Why is it I am half afraid To look on this that I have made? I laughed to flight Love's innocence, I bade a wiser love be ours, Subtler in secret, to the sense, I spoiled of all but poisonous flowers The perfumed garden that was ours. And now the poison-heavy breeze Searches the corners of my brain. And airs of unavailing peace Mock me in memory, and in vain Innocent odours haunt my brain. I would that you and I could be Once more what you and I have been; Give back your innocence to me. And banish all that went between. All you have been, all I have been ! VANITAS I met you at the parting of the ways, And I have lingered with you certain days. Over a little grave I had set a stone : I had buried love, and I was all alone. The roadway of the unforgotten past Ended; the road in front lay vague and vast. I met you at the parting of the ways. And I have lingered with you certain days. Because you took my hand in both your hands, I think there may be help in other lands. Because you laid your face against my face, I wonder if hope lives in any place. Because you laid my head upon your breast, I know the earth holds yet a little rest. AEIA There's a tune turns, turns in my head. And I hear it beat to the sound of my feet For that was the tune we used to walk to In the days that are over and dead. Another tune turns under and over. And it turns my brain as I think again Of the days that are dead, and the ways she walks now. To the self-same tune, with her lover. COLLOQUIES : L PEIDE you may still be proud, my Soul replied To the disconsolate questioning Of eyes dejected from some hoped-for thing: You cannot live, poor fool, without your pride. A woman passed you in the street to-day. She was the fairest woman in the street, I watched your eyes and her eyes meet, And in her eyes she carried you away. 10 11. THE WAITING FACE I said to my friend's friend: Why do his eyes Seem to be waiting for a thing we see not? Why do they look before as if they waited ? And he replied to me : His soul is waiting : It waits for Life that has gone by for ever, It waits for Life to turn upon her pathway. I said to my friend's friend : Why do his eyes Seem to be listening to a thing we hear not? Why do they look aside as if they listened? And he replied to me : His soul is listening : It listens to the steps of Death behind him. The feet of Death that turn not from his pathway. 11 IN SUFFERING Lightly I wrote of leaden-footed hours, But never knew how heavier far than lead Is the unhurrying and unceasing tread When sleepless suffering longs for dawn, yet cowers Into a terrified and huddled thing. As, listening to the passing of those feet, It waits and hates the dawn that can but greet With its own face the face of suffering. But now, alas ! but now at last I know How long a day is and how long a night When measured out in minutes, one by one ; And half forget how short a while ago I dared await, without a wild affright, Eeluctant dark and the delaying sun. 12 DEEAMS Tired out with grieving over love. Love once so kind, so cruel grown, I wake into an alien day Of mere oblivion. The white dawn gathers, aching white: Surely I had ill dreams last night? For, lying drowsily awake, Desiring only to forget, Remembered joys return in grief. Kisses remembered yet. Her lips on mine, her lips now mine No more, or now no more divine. Breathed on and dimmed, that face still haunts The mirror of my memory; Her face — but ah, it is these tears That hide her face from me- Oh Memory, from my heart removt Even the memory of love ! 13 ROME I set all Rome between us : with what joy I set The wonder of the world against my world's de- light. Rome, that hast conquered worlds, with intellec- tual might Capture my heart, and teach my memory to for- get! 14 DEEAMS IN ROME To dream oi love, and, waking, to remember you : As though, being dead, one dreamed of heaven, and woke in hell. At night my lovely dreams forget the old farewell : Ah ! wake not, by his side, lest you remember too ! 15 MAGIC If I go to the ends of the Earth, shall I find her there, The woman I loved and who loved me and left me alone ? If I go to the hell of men's hatred, shall I find her hair Scented as Satan's, who jibes at God on His throne ? If I find my way across the passionate Sea, And sail in a sailing ship that the sea-wave clips, Shall I hear her laugh as the winds laugh, laugh- ing at me? Never on Earth nor in Hell shall her lips touch my lips. 16 BY THE FOUNTAIN" I remember so well when we crept down the stair From the room we had loved in, made bright With the light in the room and the night in her hair Into the heart of the night. The light of the night was not utterly gone Nor the light that shone on the stair : With no moon in the sky, by the Fountain alone With the heart of the night in her hair. 17 ON LIFE AND LOVE Now until all the world is over There's but one Love and there's but one Lover, Or two at most, that I can discover. For as no love can be counted nor told In letters of gold — gold can miscarry There's no use at all for such lovers to marry. So is it now, so was it of old. Now the face of a woman to a man is fairer Fairer than hell or than heaven above To a soul that's all afire with love, And cares not to think if Satan snare her. If heaven's above and hell is under The earth we tread on, while the light lingers, We two shall never be rent asunder. See, I hold her hand in my fingers You, that have seen her not, know not her wonder. 18 THE STOEM You will not come out of the Storm? The door is opened wide. The wind howls wildly, inside all is warm. I cannot step outside. I know you would not come to me if I died. You whose body is warm. For you no more shall the door be opened wide. For you the wind and storm. 19 THE HEAET Why are you next to my heart? You were once you, I was I. Then did you make me start, Then, when you used to lie? Gone you are and your truth, And a mere thing makes me start. Why did you give me your youth When you were next to my heart? 201 SONNET Since all's not over, and the stars depart, And you are here who go from me to-night, Shall either of us ask the other's heart Why love was ours, and why I used to write Songs of our passion that you always kept Out of your mother's sight, not out of yours, That when you woke at nights or when you slept Were part of you, and seeing what one en- dures Has been so and so must be till we pass What's called the Exit upon every Stage, As you when your dance was over: will the glass Of Memory, that has shown in every Age Faces of lovers loving, leave no trace Of ours, that on the Stage met face to face? 21 LAMIA She is the very Lamia of my soul. Does she not bite subtly? Yea, she leaves one whole Eed spot, here in my side, where most I feel The snake untrodden by the woman's heel. And she as Lamia veritably trod, With snake's feet and snake's wings, the ground when God Planted the Tree of Evil and of Good. Is she not in the blood that feeds my blood? Where did she bite most cruelly? Near the heart. O Lamia, Lamia, will you never depart? 22 THE GIFT You, most uiilikely of all things, To have met after all my wanderings. What gift was given me, what gift of grace. To have seen again your passionate face, Nor nights nor days have bereft me of. To have seen those eyes where some tragical love Flown from Eternity found its nest? Gone all the ardours that heaved your breast When you lay in my arms and I kissed you close And your mouth on my mouth was the mystical rose? Lesbia you were, Lesbia you are not. Come, Ashes of love, and find for yourselves a home. 23 II INTERMEZZO (To THE Memory op Charles Baudelaire) NINI PATTE-EN-L'AIR (Casino de Paris) The gold Casino's Spring parterre Flowers with the Spring, this golden week; Glady, Toloche, Valtesse, are there; But all eyes turn as one to seek The drawers of Nini Patte-en-1'air. Surprising, sunset-coloured lace, In billowy clouds of gold and red, They whirl and flash before one's face; The little heel above her head Points an ironical grimace. And mark the experimental eyes. The naughty eloquence of feet. The appeal of subtly quivering thighs. The insinuations indiscreet Of pirouetting draperies. What exquisite indecency. Select, supreme, severe, an art! The art of knowing how to be 27 28 INTERMEZZO Part lewd, aesthetical in part. And fin de siecle essentially. The Maenad of the Decadence, Collectedly extravagant. Her learned fury wakes the sense That, fainting, needs for excitant This science of concupiscence. PEOLOGUE: BEFORE THE THEATRE The play, who should praise? Praise rather the actors who play! Would you not say, as you watch, that we lived our parts. You who sit and watch our playing to-day. We of each other, and almost our hearts to our hearts. And almost, I fancy, the Author himself as well? He gave us our words in his story, but could he have dreamed We should take for our own the story he set us to tell. And be, for our moment, the thing that we need but have seemed? I swear to you, first-born and last of my heart's one love. That I love you not; you who love me believe me; and you Sob in my ears that you cannot hate me enough, And I go on my way, and I say to my heart : It is true! 29 30 INTERMEZZO And to you, friend, who are tender and loving and wise. And a friend out of all to be loved, but by other men, I swear that I love you, calling my soul to my eyes, And alas! my friend, you always believe me then. How well we play our parts ! Do you ever guess, You as you sit on the footlights' fortunate side, That we, we haply falter with weariness. And haply the cheeks are pale that the blush- paints hide. And haply we crave to be gone from out of your sight. And to say to the Author: our master and friend. Dear Author, let us off for a night, one night ! Then we will come back, and play our parts to the end! AT A MUSIC-HALL The loud, oppressive orchestra. Panting its sultry music out. Is as the voice of heat without, And, throbbing hotly, pulses "Ah, The wind upon the woods without!" The glittering ballet curves and winds Bewildering broideries of heat; I feel the weariness of feet. And how the footlights' mirror blinds The aching eyeballs soaked with heat. Here in the stalls I sit and sigh For the renewal of the sea; I hear the cool waves calling me, Where wave to cool wave makes reply On the Mediterranean sea. 31 LOVE AND AET The sun went indistinguishably down Over the murky town, Night droops about the houses heavily; The Temple gateways gape and frown, But, as I enter, strangely, comes to me The odour of patchouli. Ah, there she flits before me, whose gay scent Betrays the way she went; A corner intercepts her, she is gone; And as I follow, indolent. My visiting mind, with her to muse upon, Kuns curiously on. I seem to hear her mount the narrow stair. Creaking, for all her care; And now a door flies open, just above, And now she laughs, to see him there, His arms about her, and both babble of The lonsense-verse of love. 32 LOVE AND AKT 33 I enter and forget them, for to-night I have my verse to write; That love-song, I have yet to pare and trim. So should it be? or — God! the light In that revealing casement-square grows dim: He kisses her, and I but write of him! NEW YEAR'S EVE I strolled in the midnight homeward along the Strand, And I heard the bells ring out for the new-born year. And the tavern's light and the church's on either hand, Shone, and the sound of a voice was in my ear. Feeble, vibrating, faint as the voice of night. Out of the darkness came the caressing voice; And the church's light on the left, and the light on the right, Shone, and the voice on the right said : "Make your choice!" And I saw in a dream the hours of the years to be. Tossed like foam from the billowy bells on high ; And I heard their voices, like the sound of the sea. Call to me out of the future: I heard them cry: 34 NEW year's eve 35 "We, the hours of the year that to-night hath born, Hold in our hands the gifts of the year to-night : Choose, for the choice is yours ere the night be morn; Choose, for the choice is yours ere the dark be light." Then I saw that the church loomed up like a wall of cloud And the tavern window glowed like a ball of fire. And I heard the caressing voice that spake aloud The will of my flesh and the whisper of my desire. STELLA MALIGNA I STELLAE FIGUEA Her beauty has the serpent's undulant grace. The rhythm and flow of softly fluctuant line; And in the stealthy contours of her face. And in her eyes, the charm is serpentine. Her eyes have gleams that shine implacably, A glitter cold and sharp as swords; they smile Subtly as Vivien by the cloven tree On Merlin growing careless of her guile. Her face in smiling wakes strange memories. Memories of death and old forgotten woe; Her eyes are pools where many a drowned hope lies. They shine above the dead who sleep below. The very charm of death is in her look, The fascination of all delicate deaths Of mortals who in easeful ways forsook The taking of so many weary breaths. 36 STELLA MALIGNA 37 Her beauty is the mask of spectral nights; She smiles, and tells no secret. Lips so red Are roses for a garden of delights, Surely, and never any garden-bed, Flushed with a ruddier fragrance: — ^what of dreams ! Only shake loose the perfume of thy hair. And let me bathe in those delirious streams, Stella, and I intoxicate despair! II LATJS STELLAE Thy beauty is a garden planted With tropic flowers of poisonous breath. Where, in the odorous air enchanted, Naught blossoms but the flowers of Death. There pale insatiate shadows creep. Sated, yet still unsatiated; Nor dost thou fear, so calm they sleep. The resurrection of the dead. Spells of Thessalian sorceresses. Philtres in magic moonlights brewed. Herbs plucked in ancient wildernesses Of noon-tide deepened solitude, 38 INTERMEZZO Pale witchcraft of the earlier world. Thy subtle poison mocks, whose cup. Sparkling and delicately impearled, Once drained, shall drain all reason up. They who drink deep of that sweet poison Put by the wholesome fruits of earth ; They pine where ineffectual foison Makes sorer their inveterate dearth. Thy tresses are an odorous bower Deep-scented as, in seas afar. The blue and burning noontide hour Wakes on the shores of Malabar. Is not thy voice the voice of Lethe? ' Is not thy kiss remembered well Where over thee and underneath thee The vague mists wrap the ways to hell? The charm and terror of thine eyes Whisper: there may be, even so. Airs of remembered Paradise On brows of angels now in woe. STELLA MALIGNA 39 in STELLAE ANIMA CLAMAT She sat before her mirror, and she gazed Deep into eyes that gazed at her again. Oh, what sad ghosts her mournful memory raised Ghosts of the days that pass and are in vain. She saw her youth, her youth that passed ; she saw The lovers for whose hearts she played and won. She saw her beauty hold the world in awe, Triumphing over all beneath the sun. She saw her slain revive, the tombless dead. Dead souls that dwell in mortal bodies yet. She heard the maledictions that they said Before a bar of judgment ever set. These were her lovers; she to them had been The Bosa mystica — rose passion-pale! The poison ^neath the petals slept unseen; For she was beautiful, and man is frail. These all rose up against her in her past; All these she took no thought of; but her pride The mirror vanquished: "Youth is fleeting fast. And I have never tasted love V she cried. 40 INTERMEZZO "0 God, that I might yet before all goes Once more be loved, and once, the last and first, Love! I have been, yet never plucked, the rose; And I have quenched, yet never felt, that thirst "Whereby we put on immortality. Is it too late I find it? must the sod Press down this body that is all of me. And shall not Love survive it, who is God?" Thus, counselled of her mirror, will she lay Sure snares, as Lilith wove her golden hair; And someone coming softly by the way Shall suddenly be taken unaware. Alas for him ! for it were better much That he had never yet begun to be. If, when she loved for play, her love was such, A^hat, when she loves for love's sake, shall it be ? COEEUPTIO OPTIMI PESSTMA (On a drawing). The smoky locks that twist about that brow In anguish of rebellion, are the same That bore the laurel, when the mouth's acclaim (Wide with unspeakable woes and cursings now) Woes heard among the sons of God, whose vow Is ever toward the Highest. What strong shame Has burnt upon this visage like a flame Afire upon a temple, — strong to bow The columns of its strength, and blacken all The sacred writing on the pictured wall. And lay the altar low and ruinous? Where, when the fire has had its will, there lies Of all once holiest underneath the skies, A heap, a ruin, black and hideous. 41 THE da:n^ce of the seven deadly SINS A large and empty room, with a door on the right and an open fireplace on the left. On each side of the fireplace sit an old Man and Woman representing the Body and the Soul; The Man holds an hour-glass in his hand. The Woman a staff, with which she stirs the fire of logs. The Soul brother Body, we are old. What is this numb and trembling cold That sets us shaking like thin boughs ? Is it not winter in the House? Sit closer to the fire and stir The logs till they are cheerfuUer, And put a warmth into our knees; And think no more of memories. When we were younger, and could feel The blood in use from head to heel. 42 DANCE OF THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS 43 The Body Soul, my sister, is it you That now I must give answer to? You who of old when I was sick Would heal me by some heavenly trick. And set before me when I would The meat of dreams to be my food? Have you forgotten with our youth That what we will for truth is truth. And that the flames have always been A mirror where our eyes have seen The dancers of those ecstasies That were to our first opening eyes Immortal spirits, exultant flames. Names with the seven unspoken names? The Soul 1 can call up those dancers. The Body Call The dancers up, and let them all Dance the old way, and let them each Speak the old way, or some new speech. Call up the dancers. 44 INTERMEZZO The Soul All is vain. We live^ and living is the pain "We die of while we live. This earth Was made in some celestial mirth Not for our pleasure. I who seem But to remember in a dream Some sleep bewildered thoroughfare, Dream not, remember, and despair. The Body Dream always, and remember not. I, if I dreamed, have yet forgot Even the sleep. One hour I hold An hour-glass sifting sands of gold. Call in the dancers, for they give Bonds to the moment fugitive. Wings to the moment slow to pass; Shake out the sands in the hour-glass, Sister, Soul, call back to-night My dancers, spirits of delight! The door opens and the Stage-Manager, in a medicBval dress, comes in and goes up to the front of the stage and says: DANCE OF THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS 45 Here, to the Soul's and Body's eyes, Out of the flames seven spirits rise; Now the first spirit, Lust, begins The Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins. While he is speaking the door again opens and a Draped Figure Enters. The Stage- Manager retires to the right hand side of the stage, and stands watching every move- ment. The Draped Figure, after a few steps in a slow dance movement, stands behind The Body and The Soul, unseen by them, looking into the fire as if into a mirror, and speaks. He is Lust. Each Sin dances in turn. The Soul Body, is it true that I Gave to the Worm the vrings to fly? Sloth Enters and SpeaTcs The Soul Body, this spirit whose slow feet Scarce stir the tiniest flame to beat, Has surely drunk out of your veins This slave's quiescence in its chains; 1 have no part nor lot therein. 46 INTERMEZZO The Body Thereby is Sloth the less a sin. Avarice Enters and Speaks The Body This burdened spirit is of both. This busy Kinswoman of Sloth, This curb upon our speed, this guest Beneath the table at the feast. Who, sated, like a dog would hoard The bones he snatches from the board. Gluttony Enters and Speaks The Body This sacred spirit of excess Speaks wisdom in its wantonness. Sister, my Soul, know all fruits That grow with earth about their roots. And there is nothing more divine Than I have tasted in earth's wine; Yet, filled and drunken, I have sighe i, Unsated and unsatisfied, For those far fruits of Paradise, The heavenly orchard of your eyes. Anger Enters and Speaks DANCE OF THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS 47 The Soul Body, my kind enemy, This is the voice that speaks in me When, for the love of that delight Which is your presence day and night, 1 pour my anger for your good Over you, like a searching flood. Body, it is late; the sands Sink through the hour-glass in your hands. And where the fiery dancers are The word's last ashes slowly char, And I am cold again. The voice Of Anger is a foolish noise, A foolish and unfriendly thing, Body, not worth remembering. Pride Enters and Speahs The Soul We, too, Body, have been proud; The Body Yea, as a dead man of his shroud. The Soul I, even as Pride, have lifted up The one intoxicating cup Of all the knowledge of the world. 48 INTERMEZZO The Body And I, as Pride, have snatched and hurled The cup of Knowledge in the dust, With hands of force and feet of lust. Envy Enters and Speaks Envy My name is Envy among men. I am the eyes of love, and when The lover looks upon the eyes That casket all his Paradise, I am the longing greed of him. And my desire makes bright the dim Eeflection of all lovely things With covetous imaginings, And of unlovely things I make Things lovely for my longing's sake. I am desire of good, desire Of beauty, I alone inspire Perfecting thirsts that emulate Each last draught of the ultimate. I know no measure, nothing is Unsought by my swift avarice. That would unyoke the shining seven Pleiades from the shafts of heaven, DANCE OF THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS 49 Unanchor the moon's crescent boat, Eavish the song from the bird's throat, And from all mortal sweets distil The elixir of the impossible. Man knows me not; he calls my name Envy, not knowing what I am. I speak all tongues; also I speak The learning all the ages seek. Some capture, and all leave behind; I take the earth into my mind. Unto my heart I gather love. I lust not, nor sloth — heavy move, No miser nor no wine-bibber. Nor is my tongue hasty to stir. Nor my eyes proud; but I am wise As the snake's tongue, the woman's eye. The Body Dancers, I tire of you. I tire Of all desire save one desire. The Soul Dancers, I tire of you. I tire Of all desire save one desire: That I were free of you. Mine eyes Are heavy with your mockeries. 50 INTERMEZZO Dancers, I am more tired than you. When shall the dance be danced all through? The fire is nearly dead; and one By one the last sands fall ; the sun Will meet the darkness on its way. Body, is it nearly day? The Body Would it were that last day of days ! The Stage-Managek comes forward to the front of the Stage and says: Does not each morning that decays To midnight end the world as well. In the world's day, as that farewell When, at the ultimate judgment-stroke. Heaven too shall vanish in pale smoke? HELEN AND FAUSTUS The famous Faustus is not dead. I tell you that his spirit lied. His body burst his coffin-lead The third day after he had died. So in the Legend it is said, Also that Knowledge was his Bride. Some say he perished in his pride. But I say no. The books he read Were part and parcel of his soul But he was made to be unwise. What weight has wisdom when the skies Hid from this learned man the hole Into the which he had to stumble? The Devils in Hell are never humble. II The Devil tempted him. He came Winged, wordless, into Faustus' room, And in his eyes the infernal flame Shone, and he lighted up the gloom. 51 52 INTERMEZZO Now Faustus heard another name That was not his. Senses consume Themselves as, with her intense perfume. The word was Helen. Hot with shame The Wizard's visage was drawn in As if he saw a certain thing And not of his imagining That danced in the air, that painted Sin After the old inevitable fashion When Lilith gave the snake her passion. Ill Here where I write the Sea-gulls shout That have the spirits of the storm In their winged bodies, ringed about With beauty more than woman's; warm In winter when the wolves are out. Ood gave them an inhuman face No Satan ever can deform. To Faustus the eternal Doubt Came and the colours of the World Were changed and purple turned to blood In the magic circle where he stood, And then a venomous Serpent curled Into no hideous shape but loathing All other than his painted clothing. HELEN AND FAUSTUS 53 17 Now Helen's spirit was a bird And she an nntired Wanderer To whom all loveless words unheard Were subtle to the sense of her; She, kissed by Paris, for a word That stung like salt. ISTone lovelier Drew in her breath, none lovelier Drew in her breath, when she was stirred By all that world of Sea and Stone On her lone island, where the Sea Shook her imagination furiously. She loved no beauty save her own, And, as she walked in that white city, iMen said of her: "She has no pity." itove was not ever for her enough. She felt no throbbing in her heart At the mere utterance of Love. She nothing had but Beauty. Art To her was less than woven stuff Her Asian-maids wove; she, apart. Waited for visions to depart No Asian moons had knowledge of. She knew the turning of the Wheel 54 INTERMEZZO Of Destiny might bruise her heel As slaves do when they slay a snake. Knew she that flames may be fain to steal Their own flames and make Troy to reel And simply for her's, Helen's, sake? VI I have forgotten Faustus. He Has dropt in fear his magic book Because the buzzing of a bee Attracts him with its strange rebuke. Then suddenly in irony His conjuring-wand from out its nook Falls. Satan's eyes have changed their look. Now, as a wind-blown tapestry Shakes and the paintings on it change Their aspects, and the very dust Stirs on the floor, it seems most strange That he, now in the spirit's toil, Should have the sense in him to spoil The Architecture of his Lust. VII Suddenly the Arch-Demon spoke. "Faustus, I come to you from HeU. Some souls are burdened by the yoke HELEN AND FAUSTUS 55 Of chastisement irrevocable. There Arctino cries 'Souls to sell!' Writhes in imagination to invoke Some scandalous and obscene joke. He sees gigantic serpents swell Bigger than ever; and he, lithe Still, loves to see them as they writhe. Soon all his merriment is over. A woman comes and laughs at him Showing seductiveness of limb She showed on earth to her last lover. VIII "I come to bargain for your soul. Your Soul, whole-fashioned for your Sin Which has not fathomed yet the whole Of Evil that is compassed in A virgin-martyr's aureole. There are many doors that open in One Hell to which souls may not win Unless they enter, shoal by shoal, Past even your imagining Of the immensity of your Fall. You might as well ask a naked wall As ask of me this only thing: 'When shall I fall in the Pits of Evil?' Where there's no God, there's no Devil !" 56 INTERMEZZO IX Then something sinister takes place All of a sudden. The hour-glass Stops dropping silent grains; a race Of shadows, mocking shadows pass; The ceiling like a drunk ship sways; No minute passes as it was; The floor heaves up, the floor turns grass; And on the spirit of Faustus weighs As the eternity of a verse The condemnation that shall capture The intimate limits of his flesh Irrevocably now in Satan's mesh, And unimaginably worse Than the sinful body's ultimate rapture. Down the blown valleys of the Sea He shudders and the race begins Of waters heaving heavily Over his head and something spins A devil's web that arrogantly Sets water-rats to shake their shins And all the flesh that is his skin's Is changed immensely. Is this he HELEN" AND FAUSTUS 57 That in his utter anguish craves More than the immunity of slaves That desire nothing but damnation? All's lost. See how a madman raves Hurled this and that way by the waves Down the long way to Annihilation ! XI He rises shaken out of sleep And sees no spirit there but one Whose eyes are fathomless and deep As the sea's depths when day has won Its way from night. Steep after steep Rises, he sees her eyes : nay, none, None lovelier ever saw the sun Out of the fiery ocean leap. Her eyes have known Eternity, Her mouth that smiles not is most cruel. And all her body is a wonder. Hades she haunts, has heard Hell thunder. What is more cruel than a jewel That flames, laughs, lightens furiously? XII As from the bowl one spills the wine And then one overturns the bowl, Helen's long laughing eyes divine 58 INTERMEZZO Shine as the symbol of her soul. Now Faustus wavers, mad, malign. She turns upon him with the whole Of her white purity, love's goal. "Faustus, you never shall be mine. It is so long since I have been dead I know not why I breathe the air For in the grave there is no sighing. To have slept for centuries in one bed God knows I had reason to be fair: God knows if there's an end of dying." XIII The famous Faustus is not dead. Now, as for Helen, has she gone Back to the eternity of her bed That she alone has slept upon? The world goes on; over her head Men pass and women: she, ever alone, Lies, lonelier than any stone. I would that all the words she said Were written; these, alas, are lost. Her, not the uncounted years destroy If she were angry as a ghost. What would the wind say and the frost. For she the gate of Death has crossed, Of all that remains of Helen and Troy? HELEN That heavenly Helen, whose hot lips The felon's heart of Paris close, A city's hell, a hell of seven ships. Hell of men's hearts, in her alcove Sees shapes of saffron, shapes of mauve, Move, wave, until the inevitable Stings of desire as serpents' stings Give her the after-taste of hell. See how the soul within her springs From the woven robe that to her clings. About a body made too fair For any woman to endure: That beauty and that heavy hair. Those eyes that many passions lure, That flesh so pure to the impure. The impure that mock her in the streets And follow her to the market-place. Helen of the sensual heats The blood gives when the sun's disgrace Sheds all his heat, now over Thrace, Now over Argos, will you not, Now that the dark falls and the gloom 59 60 INTERMEZZO Of night begins, begin to plot With me in your close-scented room More than the odour of your perfume Can give to any man but one, One, your last lover? See the fire Of sunset's over and the sun Descends: the moon has her desire. This hour our Destiny has spun A web that might unweave the sun. A SONG FOE HELEN" how her tide did burn Against the sun's heat, Now in a little urn, Hushed her heart's beat, Helen's most piteous dust Must come to nought! Nothing but love and lust Left, and our thought. 61 SONG A song for Helen who shall sing That adores Helen as his breath And holds the world a trivial thing Beside the majesty of Death? Her beauty wrought the world no wrong, Men's souls she fastened in her snare: Who now shall sing an idle song Into the void imperishable air? 62 Ill BIRDS IN THE NIGHT (To Iris) MUSIC Music for joy : Joy waits on sadness to be sweet; Music is sad, And waits on gladness to complete The unimaginable joy where joy and sor- row meet. Music for love. When love lies dreaming of delight; Music when love Shines upward on an angel's flight; And for all happy lovers music, music day and night. Bid music cease. When love is said, when love would weep ; Music is sad, For her exultant voices keep Endless desire, infinite sorrow, but not hope nor sleep. 65 THE GYPSY'S SONG The Gypsy said : I'm here to thrive, The earth he is my bed, But as for coming here to wive. The Devil strike me dead! I've had enough of Concubines, To last for ever so long; There's always taverns for drinking wines — Let's end the night with a song. We loves to jiv along the roads. We and our Caravans, And when we comes on hopping toads Chais lift their hands like fans. We always loves to light a fire Near by the gorse and sedge; It smokes and then it rises higher: Liz leans against the hedge. We always loves of the air its scent And all the winds that pass, 66 THE gypsy's song 67 And then we fix with thorns our Tent — Smoke scars the greenest grass. Now if I wishes for anything In hell or up above The blood^s on fire for wandering And the heart in me bums for love. A DEINKING SONG I give you my lips to drink, I give you in truth Less than you choose to think In your wild youth Of how wine is lifted up. One's song is sung, And that your mouth's the cup And that you're young. 08 SONG FOE ISEULT The Heart cries for light And the soul for Desire In the midst of the Night In the heart of the Fire. They cry for all things That are and that were. Desire alone brings All the night in her hair To me as I sit And gaze on the fire. Finite and infinite Are the Gods of the Fire! THE CUELEW Thrice have I heard the Curlew cry. Thrice, as the ominous bird of night And as the sea-foam was scattered high And the naked dancers in the sky Had given over dancing, and an evil eye Shone like hell's fire, and the angel of light Had folded his wings, not as the wings Of the wind-blown sea-gulls that laugh as they fly And hide in their hidden hearts such things As they alone know of, I was aware Of a sudden heat and a change in the air And the opening somewhere of a door That opened on nothing, but out of it shone — Transverse on the sea-waves' shifting floor — A light more strange than when night is come And the new dawn burns. Lo and it turns, Turns on itself, and the sea's floor burns. And the very space before me is thinned. And the thing that looms there, is it not I? Thrice have I heard the Curlew cry And thrice I have cried with the voice of the wind. 70 OLD BONES He'll never make old bones, At least I think not; He'll sit on the ancient stones, At least he shall drink not Of wounds that are worse than moans; But if he shall sink not Under a woman's burden he'll live on Under a toad-like stone, And, as far as he can prove it. Shall try to love it. Being more utterly inhuman Than any woman God ever made out of clay. The stone's image shall vanish away And the woman at his side Shall be one of the images Made by the evil ones Out of the ruins of moons and suns, Not out of the whirling tide Of the imaginary seas ; She shall be no man's bride. None shall bend at her knees. 71 72 BIRDS IN THE NIGHT And, before the world turns over And tries to sleep. This love-drunken man shall be her lover, Blood between them shall leap — Blood shall cry out for blood, And down from the mountains steep There shall be blood on the flood, Men's blood under the stones; And, as long as the world shall sleep, He'll never make old bones. THE AGATE I cut an agate for a stone And this I put into a cleft And I was with the wind alone And nothing else of me was left, But what in cutting it I had lost. Now had one lost the wind and rain One had no reason, even a ghost Has much more reasoning than men. And still I wander on alone And there's a something in my mind. Of having cut an agate-stone That jogs at me from far behind And makes me more uneasy than one Who having not counted up the time Knows that the deed he has not done Counts for an agate in his crime. 73 IN THE WOODS I have made a beautiful fire : I am in haste to be gone. The winds and the woods had the sound of a lyre. And my feet were tangled by many a briar, And the sun went out and the moon mounted higher. And the tall thick grasses I trod upon Were soft and sweet to my rapid feet, And the man I walked with was one Who loved nature much more than I did. For myself, being proud, whatever my pride did. That I forgot in the simple pleasure Of being very much at my leisure; So that, in the very heart of the wood A bird's voice sang to my blood. 74 DUST There is a demon in the mind And an evil wind that blows behind The dust of the world in one heap to bind. He follows ns as the moon the sun — He says, "What have I done? I have done The deed that I dare not think upon." We fly from him to the arms of sleep, And sleep refuses sleep. We steep Our senses in the dust that's a-heap. 75 SONG When there's a noise among the dead That perished in the night Enough to waken in their bed Slim girls with heels that smite A man's bare flesh, heels with their heels, And bodies side by side, It's awful to think what a dead man feels With Death for his only bride. 76 THE ADDEE If anything on earth be found To root our feet upon the ground It must be one Thing and one single thing alone : A glass of wine That makes the sun much less divine And makes the subtle moon to wain And casts the slayer from the skin. After the solace of our verse The next thing is the Art to curse Someone we hate. "0 Adder at my garden gate That have your passions night by night. Please me and bite Before the sun has fallen low Mine enemy and not your foe." At which mine Adder ceased to glide And glared at me in sullen pride And lifted up His head that does not care to stoop, 77 78 BIEDS IN THE NIGHT And said to me: "Nay, not thine ancient enemy, For he is less than anything Less than the least — ^to deserve my sting. "The poison that I hide within This sinful thing that is my skin. From evil sprung. Surges into my cloven tongue. The Devil made Me out of some unholy shade; But, as you see I suck this root. The Devil has no cloven foot. "Once in the Garden of God I trod. When Satan was mine only God; And, by these stings The Devil knows if I had wings. There Lilith grew Out of a drop of poisoned dew; And, by her blood, by which I fell, Beware of the Garden-Gate of Hell!" SALOME When Salome lifting up In her painted hands the cup, Symbol of her virginhood, Her perverse, pure eyes malign See, instead of signs of wine. Frantic, to her vision, blood. One foot twisted in advance In the rhythm of the dance Beats upon the perfumed floor. Now a sound upon her jars Like the sound of iron bars. Like the clashing of a door. The winds tangle round her waist. On her lips she feels the taste. Taste forbidden to her lips. What is this that she drinks in? Is it that the House of Sin Her imagination grips? Morbid ardour in her grows, In her cheek no colour glows, 79 80 BIRDS IN THE NIGHT Heat of anguish in her stirs: What is this she sees in space, Hanging in mid-air, a face. Lifeless, sinister as hers? Stung by sterile stings of drouth All the hotness of her mouth Makes her aching senses thirst For that thing that cannot be: Hate of her Virginity, Seizes on her. She, the Accursed! Shaken as the snakes in grass Byes her wan Herodias, Daughter of a King of Kings. Herod, writhing on his throne, Feels her fingers to the bone Clutching at his jewelled rings. THE FLAMES OF HELL These women had gold hair about their brows While they were living: now the worm feels that, Feeding upon their flesh. They shall rise up, Not till that day, when God shall call for them; But they shall rise. women that have sinned, Shall God have pity? God shall not have pity. There is much gold hair that the flames of hell Shall take fast hold on. Bodies are not white For heaven, where the blood shall wash them clean : These women's bodies are too white; sweet scents Burn fiercely; there's a fragrant pile for hell. mystery of beauty, and this flesh God hath no part in ! yet so beautiful. Man born of woman, born under the law, Conceived in sin, sins most of all in this. And takes damnation on him with a kiss. And these lips rotted into dust ! Graves hide The end of women's beauty; a kind friend. Close and discreet; but we'll not think of that. Paris would loathe his Helen could he see her, But Paris too is dust. I'm breathing yet, 81 82 BIRDS IN THE NIGHT Although I haunt the tombs ; and are there not Women, with golden hair about their brO.ws, This side the mould ? and they are calling me. They smile, their eyes are as a light, I run, I would embrace them, and drink down at once Death, and the second Death. I am sick. Sick toward the ending, and mine eyes draw in Distempered visions. But this kills me. Come, Women my flesh and spirit tremble for ; Delay no longer, delay not, see, I call to you, I stretch my hands, come, come, I can not do without you — ^It is vain This violence of passion leaves me faint. Dead women, be my brides once more. Not Death Shall be more amorous of you; not the clods Clip you with closer arms. Mine, mine, all mine. And there is all this beauty underground, And there their worm dieth not, nor is the flame Quenched, but these fair women that have sinned Shall have their portion in the burning lake. And so live beautiful for ever. God, Have this much pity, let men look across The great gulf hewn of nether air, that holds A void of footless darkness, let them see Pale, with their branch of barren palm, their robes Glimmering in the brighter light than day. THE FLAMES OP HELL 83 Those saints, their rivals : grant them this, God ! They, beautiful for ever, shall rejoice Even in the flames of hell, despising still Those women who are haggard even in heaven ! EPITHALAMIUM Sister, the bride-bed waits; sister for thee; The bride-bed waits for thee and me. Sisterly hours together, hand in hand. Beat out an epithalamy : Love and the night, come softly, hand in hand I Love and the night, come swiftly, hand in hand. That we may reach the longed for land, night of love, before the dark be dead. Or the pale morning understand Why the moon faints and why the stars lie dead. Sister, the moon shalL faint, the stars lie dead, Sister, above our marriage-bed. The fruitless stars, the chaste and sterile moon, While we, in maiden nuptial wed. Taunt with her single maidenhood the moon. Sister, sister maiden, maiden moon. The joy, the aching joy to swoon Into thine arms, into thine arms to die ! Sweet bride, thy maiden bridegroom, soon Into the rapture of thine arms to die! 84 PIEEEOT I that am Pierrot, pray you pity me ! To be so young, so old in misery : See me, and how the winter of my grief Wastes me, and how I whiten like a leaf. And how, like a lost child, lost and afraid, I seek the shadow, I that am a shade, I that have loved a moonbeam, nor have won Any Diana to Endymion. Pity me, for I have but loved too well The hope of the too fair impossible. Ah, it is she, she, Columbine ! again I see her, and I woo her, and in vain. She lures me with her beckoning finger-tips ; How her eyes shine for me, and how lier lips Bloom for me, roses, roses, red and rich! She v/aves to me the white arms of a witch Over the world : I follow, I forget All, but she'll love me yet, she'll love me yet! No, I shall never, never call you mine. Escaping and eternal Columbine. Once Watteau knew you, a Marquise; you played 85 86 BIEDS IN THE NIGHT A pastoral of love in masquerade. King Louis turned his head to see you pass, Superbly, at Versailles, upon the grass, And I, poor Pierrot, turned my head away: You did not see the tears I wept that day. Later, you woke from sleep when Deburau Found me in Paris, fifty years ago. I beat my wings against the footlights' glare. You were an actress, and I sought you there; And I adored you for your rouge, the grace Of your fictitious and diviner face; But some one bought you. Last, a silhouette. You mocked me in the magic of Willette, Flittingly fin-de-siecle and feline at The hostel guarded by a Sable Cat. Columbine of the ages! if to-day I find you, in no masquerade array. But here, and now: oh! somewhere, surely, here. You hide until the moment: nay, appear! Nay, but I see you : is it you, divine. Or you, perchance diviner. Columbine? I will go seek you, moonbeam, once again, And if I seek you, must it be in vain? Kind friends, I think 'tis she : and if 'tis she, I, that am Pierrot, pray you pity me I DANTE m HELL Wlien Dante Alighieri entered that hollow place Hell and saw wild whirls of confused smoke Like glaring tapers round a painted face And found himself among such evil folk God had condemned — for where in heaven a space For such as these? — and saw under the yoke Of shameful sins, the inevitable disgrace The earth endured ere the first woman spoke One word to the man she loved not; then his eyes Darkened a little, and as Virgil came Nearer to him, the whole sense of that impure Air and its heat and its intolerable flame Tortured his vision, and he felt the obscure Desire of an unenviable Paradise. 87 SONNET Divine Water loved by ^schylus. Who, God in Man, created Tragedy Out of void Chaos' aching agony. And, out of the anguish of Prometheus Gave to the Fire-Bringer who rules over us More than Zeus gave man, fire-fledged Sorcery And a bewitched life over the Caspian Sea, Loveless, but adored by the winds perilous That toss the sea-waves into hostile storms; Seeing in midnights more prodigious forms. And in the noon's heats hell's insanities; And for his heart, that seat of ancient wrongs, The winged Oceanides and their scented songs : Last, God-created Aristophanes. 88 SONNET Why is it that you use your fascination Of fatal beauty that has power to ensnare Even the serpents in their violation Of all that's sane in webs of woven hair And set them into deeds of vile sedition As rebels round a city mutinous That fall into the folds of their perdition And are for that more subtly poisonous? Simply that you are impelled by an obsession To do all evil and to do no good. As a pure virgin in her first confession Lets out the secret of her innocent blood, Nor sees in the hidden monk behind the grate A conscience-'stricken face consumed witjh hate. 89 DEIEDBE There was much crying in the wind Late last night As of the crying of a soul that had sinned And longed for the light. But I have seen to-day With John in a cafe a child Who seemed so tragic, that play Was lost to her, never she smiled. Adorable, passionate, Loveless, the child in her chair. Casting her eyes down, sat— The Sun might have envied her hair. She had taken my hand, then turned Her eyes on me, pure as the sky. If ever a man's heart to her yearned, Mine did, I know not why. 90 THE HOUE You miglit put a little life Into this sullen hour. The world is sick of strife: Why all this lust for power ? Each minute some man dies; Dead men rise never again. The cold and cruel skies Look down upon the slain. 91 THE OLD GYPSY She is too old to see again The age of threescore years and ten; She is as hale as an old tree, Straight as its shrivelled stem, and dark And full of wrinkles as its bark; Children and grandchildren has she, Fourteen they are and forty-three, And sixty years has she been wed, And never slept in any bed Under a roof of tile or slate. And never will, alive or dead. And whether death come soon or late. Her hands are heavy with gold rings. She has three rings of heavy gold On every finger, earrings old Of gold, and gold and orange things For kerchiefs and head-coverings. Her voice is gentle as a bird's. And there is savour in her words, For she, although with stealth she hoards The private speech her people have. Knows well the depth of every lav. 92 THE OLD GYPSY 93 Her eyes are secret, and her mouth A gentle and grave hypocrite; She reads the heart of age and youth. Seeing, not understanding it. And tells for money half the truth; But in her ancient soul there lies. Deeper than she can ever look. The roots laid open like a book Of earth and of our destinies. THE JEW A poor old man, a crossing-sweeper, stands Bent on his broom that sweeps a foot of way; A fat, furred Jew with jewels on his hands Passes the crossing-sweeper twice a day. His eyes are swollen with covetonsness and fat, His fingers swell about his jewelled rings; Into the old man's stained and battered hat A penny, once a month or so, he flings. The old man, who is humble, poor, and wise. Takes up the penny and says Thank you. Sir; And the kind Jew, to purify his eyes. Rivets them back upon his rings and fur. 94 NIGHT AT HAMPSTEAD The damp and sweet breath of the night ! Lean out of the window, your cheek on the ivy, My cheek on your cheek, my dear and delight ! Look up now, the stars overhead ! Look yonder, the gas where it trembles reflected. Three flames on the glass with its socket of lead. See there, where the leaves of the trees. Black shadows that droop on the wall and its whiteness, Weave the dark into lace that flaps loose in the breeze. See the trees, the great trees by the house. The trees where the light is the ghost of the day- light. And the trees with the night tangled fast in their boughs. Dream on then, my dear and delight! The breath of the world pulses faint in the city. Here is the damp and sweet breath of the night. 95 TO A GEEY DEESS (There's a flutter of grey through the trees: Ah, the exquisite curves of her dress as she passes Fleet with her feet in the path where the grass is! I see not her face, I but see The swift re-appearance, the flitting persis- tence ■ There! — of that flutter of grey in the distance. It has flickered and fluttered away: What a teasing regret she has left in my day- dream. And what dreams of delight are the dreams that one may dream ! It was only a flutter of grey; But the vaguest of raiment impossible chances Has set my heart beating the way of old dances. 96 THE FLOODS AND THE ASHES Love that hath eaten ashes, and hath mingled weeping Into his drink and bread; That hath been in cities fallen, a sentinel keeping Watch where a host has fled ; Love that hath watched by night when every man was sleeping. How have men called thee dead? The floods have lifted up, Love our Lord, their voices, The floods lift up their waves; Thou that art mightier than many waters' noises Shall from the deep sea-graves Lift up alive the soul that in thy love rejoices, liove that is lord and saves. 97 CLEOPATRA Your eyes have drunk Eternity : They haunt me in oblivious hours, And follow me among the flowers; Your eyes hold fast the mystery Of other memories than ours. Within your immemorial eyes There sits the cruelty of Time In its indifference sublime; Empty, and infinitely wise. Your eyes out-reach the bounds of Time. I gaze into your endless gaze, I lose myself as in a sea; I love myself, content to be A stream that all its nights and days Lives but to die into the sea. BANISHMENT That you should live, be blithe and well. When I am dead and in my grave, It seems a thing incredible If Death be not a lying knave. My life began with yours, and now In my sad dark oblivion I shall not know how long or how I am to leave you to go on. I shall be somewhere, I suppose. For nothing that began can end : What is it worth to be a rose And not to recognise one's friend? What if the love that makes my soul . A thing identical with you Should lose in some vast selfless whole That single self we came into? How could I, being that speechless thing, Cry out, or in the rose's scent Of inmost ardour breathe and bring You news out of my banishment? 99 IN REGENT'S PARK Is it the chilly winter grass That seems as green as if to lay A carpet for the spring to pass? Is it a gladness in the day That wakes this joy upon my way? Is it that idly I observe The misty trees, the water's white? For all my body is a nerve Strung for the fingers of delight. And earth is musical with light. Dear, once we wandered in this park, Strangers together, side by side. At the grey falling of the dark; And now, how many leagues divide Otir feet, and how the world is wide I And yet to-day, though you are far And I am lonely, how my soul Leaps out to find you where you are, Because a word has put the whole Of life into a dream's control ! 100 IN" regent's park 101 Love that makes wisdom foolish, makes The folly of the lover wise. Who out of dreams of beauty wakes To see the world with subtler eyes. And turns delight to Paradise. Blind love, that brings the gift of sight, Makes and unmakes the world anew; I see all beauty in the light Of my imaginings of you: All's beauty, since a dream came true! TO THE DEAD Is there a waking sorrow in the grave? Is it not over, all that holds from sleep? No more the heavy-footed hours shall creep, No more in vain man's longing heart shall crave. The long suspense is over; earth that gave Calls back the gift — Ah, who should strive to keep? Dust over dust, a little narrow heap Holds all we love — Ah, who should strive to save? Peace, peace is yours, dead, and yours alone. What peace hath man, unstable man, whosa breath Serves but in vain to winnow fruitless chaff? Yet will he ever seek, who ne'er hath known The flying phantom Peace, till lastly Death Writes in that word the final Epitaph. 102 HAPPINESS Happiness, too warm and deep, Shuts the eyes of love asleep, Love that v?atching for the thief Is only kept awake by grief. Fear not grief : take grief for a crutch ; But fear to be happy overmuch. The heart beats like a passing bell : All is not well, when all is too well ! And the heart that watches, watches less When it's well afloat upon happiness. 108 A SONG AGAINST SOEROW Only there must be no ending! If yonr heart's afraid of winter, . Where an open door is standing Go yonr ways and do not enter. If you enter I retain you For the soft and stormy weather. And we watch the world together While you hold me, while I chain you. Time's a stream and love is fleeting, And to-day is soon to-morrow. And the hours grow tired repeating Joy but not repeating sorrow. What's the message Time is sending? 'Closes fade and daylight closes. Lovers' joys are like the roses"; Only, there must be no ending! 104 THE OWL I heard the hooting of the White Owl, Not as far off as the sea, And in the sultry passion of the night I knew not what came to me ; Only the voice of an inhuman thing Thrilled in my ears. And I stood lonely, listening, As if from the eternal yeats The Owls had hooted, as if the Owls had sinned And had eaten some insane root, The moon, the night, the mystery of the wind, Myself, and the White Owl's hoot. 105 THE SONG OF THE POPPIES It is a great thing to be born, A greater thing to live. Eed and black poppies, you are torn Out of the heart of darkness ; scent That I breathe is poisonous. For my scent are you meant Things forgotten to forgive? Leaf with leaf has grandeur and I think that you understand Why it is you have to live, Flame without shame, luxurious. Dragging at the roots of us. Eudely rooted from the soil. For you face me in my room. Dazing me with your perfume. Not one breath of air to soil Your beauty stranger than all things. For you are the Kings of Kings In the region of the flowers. In the halls of Hades you Counted the enchanted hours For ravished Proserpine his bride, 108 THE SONG OF THE POPPIES 107 Where the black-winged raven flew By the sullen Styx's side. Earth cries out of her acrid womb, As she sees you : Can I forgive All that glory of your life, I that am neither maid nor wife, I that know not night from morn? It is a great thing to be born, A greater thing to live. SONG My silks I put away Into a scented room Where the night-moths can play With their own perfume. And then away I went But left a lovely cloth To perfume with its scent The perfumed moth. 108 SONG OF THE FIEE There is a great passion in the Fire That glows with glamour and flames Into colours more fierce than Fame's And the Song of the fire is the song of its desire. The fire eats the heart of the wood Until into ashes it turns And the wood burns and the fire burns And the fire's blood drinks the wood's blood. 109 THE ROSE AND THE RAIN Her rose fell off in the rain And I picked it out of the mud. The scene was Madrid in Spain, And why did it touch my blood? She knew (what nobody knows)' What was the reason in Spain That I never gave back her rose, That she followed me back in the rain. 110 A VISION OF KINGS Kings have cast down their crowns for this One word of the Unattainable. The very Slaves of the Abyss Are named by this. Hell is not Hell, Nor is God only in Heaven alone: Silent in Heaven is God's name. So, as time's measured by a stone And all the stars are mocked by flame And the world moves always and the Sun Shines and the moon fades out in turn And all that we have ever done Shall, somehow, as the world might, bum: So, all the Fate that falls on Kings Shall fail as fails each period. And the beginning and the end of things Move somewhere out of sight of God. Ill THE CEOSS When Jesus Christ was crucified A sudden darkness fell. The hearts in the three Maries cried : He hath gone down to Hell! And then again the darkness broke And still the Cross was there. Satan behind the Cross like smoke Tossed in the wind his hair. Over their heads a vulture swung. One heard the gallows creak, And still nailed on His Cross there hung Christ and His eyes did speak. Then Satan turned his back in spite. His shadow transverse fell. Judas Iscariot, hot as night. Gaped like the mouth of Hell. 112 IV SILHOUETTES (To Jose Maria de Elizando) A DEATH m THE FOREST The wind is loud among the trees to-night, It sweeps the heavens where the stars are white I know : it is the angel with the sword. Ah, not the woman, not the woman. Lord! The wind is loud, I hear it in my brain, I hear the rushing voices of the rain. Hers in the rain, and his that once implored. Ah, not the woman, not the woman. Lord ! Hands in the trees, hands in the flowing grass, They wave to catch my spirit as I pass. I have no hope to pass the ghastly ford. Ah, not the woman, not the woman. Lord! I see her tresses, floating down the wind: Her eyes are bright : it is for these I sinned. We sinned, and I have had my own reward. Ah, not the woman, not the woman, Lord! She has a little mouth, a little chin: God made her to be beautiful in sin, God made her perfectly, to be adored. Ah, not the woman, not the woman, Lord ! 115 116 SILHOUETTES We sinned, but it is I who pay the price: I say that she shall dwell in Paradise. For me the feast in hell is on the board. Ah, not the woman, not the woman, Lord! IN THE CATHEDEAL AT BAECELONA Out of the sun a sudden shade. The shadow of the wings of God, As if the Holy Dove had laid Dim quiet on the holy sod. What cool, what infinite repose! Behold the nearer heaven on high, And, through the window of the rose, Purple and gold and rose, the sky. 117 BARCELONA The white and brown of fifty masts Chequer the depths of blue below, Where in the harbour, to and fro. The little white sails go. A mule mounts slowly up the hill, A red-capped peasant, half-asleep, Nods on his back; the small black sheep In slow procession creep. Far as to where the moimtains meet The sky that gently silvers down The roofs and windows of the town Swarm grey and white and brown. Filmy and blue the sky above, A burning blue the depths below, Where in the harbour, to and fro. The little white sails go. 118 PANTOEBO Salvator Eosa piled those rocks, Thus wildly, under that wild light, Or else fantastic Nature mocks His finite with her infinite. Grey ruinous heights that rise in towers, That fall in gorges down the steep. Stark trees that never feel the showers, And rocky torrents buried deep. Tormented wrathful ghosts of hills That bear the scars of ancient woes. And chafe beneath the doom that fills Their hollows with a loathed repose. 119 MADRID A beggar smoking a cigar. Here at the corner of the street. Strums feebly on an old guitar. He strums an air half sad, half sweet. An air of laughter and of cries. Here at the corner of the street. The beggar lifts his sightless eyes While the pathetic music thrills The air with laughter and with cries. Rattling the plate that never fills A woman reaches piteous hands While the pathetic music thrills. Wrapt in his cloak the beggar stands. Impassive, while the wife implores A woman reaching piteous hands. 120 IN THE PEADO The black mantilla drapes with grace The lustrous blackness of her hair, And to the pallor of her face Gives that bewitching air. Her closed fan rests against her cheek Just where the dimple might have been ; She turns her head, and seems to seek Her subjects, proudly, like a queen. I see the lady of my dream: 'Tis she, I am not here in vain. Her body's rhythm, and the gleam Her eyes are lit with — this is Spain ! 121 BOEDEAUX The dull persistence of the rain, Long melancholy streets, the vain Desire, the hopeless wandering; Here every woman has a face Inexorably commonplace, Ennui is over everything. Hour after leaden hour goes by, I watch the leaden-coloured sky, I watch the rain still fall and fall. Women and gaiety and flowers When they are ours, why, all is ours ! Here Ennui is the lord of all. 122 NIGHT AT AELES Down the deserted street A figure black from head to feet, Save where a lifted skirt betrays A gleam of whiteness, strays. The moonlight, softly shed Upon her veiled and stately head, Lays all its ardour of repose About her as she goes. No woman queenlier stept. Nor goddess, since Diana slept Beside her sisters, when the gods Perished from their abodes. 123 EOMB Here, at the summit of this sacred wood, I seem to be half-way from Eome to heaven. Eternal as the world, I see the seven Hills of the world's desire, that have withstood The lust of Kings, God's jealous fatherhood. The snare of ancient beauty that was given Back to the world for the world's woe, and even The Barbarian's insolent and destroying brood. The clouds wander above me, and beneath The vague Campagna wanders desolate; I see the roofs, the turrets and the dome. And the pale air seems to exhale like breath The melancholy and most delicate And haughty and remembering soul of Eome. 124 IN THE CAMPAGNA Love dies not but it sleeps: Here, where the peace of Eome, Passing all knowledge, keeps My heart within its home, I have known that repose Which only slumber knows. Here where my feet are set Upon the asphodels, I can for once forge The world contains aught else But these, the grass, the seven Hills, and the opal heaven. Peace nestles from the sky In these soft veils of air; Bid love prepare to die. Which is mine only care. If he his breath still keeps, Hush, be content: love sleeps. 125 AT THE THEEE FOUNTAINS Here, where God lives among the trees, Where birds and monks the whole day sing His praises in a pleasant ease, heart, might we not find a home. Here, after all our wandering? These gates are closed, even on Kome. Sonls of the twilight wander here; Here, in the garden of that death Which was for love's sake, need we fear How sharp with bitter joy might be Love's lingering, last, longed-for breath, Shut in upon eternity? 126 VESTIGIA. I. ROMAN MEDALLION" Ah ! if you knew how vain are these delicious tears ! How little so divine and desultory a thing As this hour's love, alas, will seem, remembering These tears, this hour, and this hour's love, in other years ! The chaplet of white fading roses, one by one, Petal from petal falling on some pensive day; Noontide upon the shining beach, while on the bay A fisher's boat came slowly drifting with the sun; Yes, and the vase of precious porcelain that you broke ; The day you lost that ring, the day you bought this gem: You will remember these things, and, ah yes, with them The day that your heart answered mine before it spoke. 127 II. EOMAN" MEDALLION To Lena in Naples Let me not promise to remember you Because you have been either fair or kind; Are there not many kind fair women who Have filled and who have faded from my mind? And yet I think that when in days to be I think of Naples and these April days, Something of you will wander back to me Along the undiscoverable ways. Ah, what ? That we have seen some Carmen die, Or some spectacular burial of the Christ, You may remember, if ou will; but I. The satin of your ears, your cheeks' fine silk, And that your mouth was like a melon sliced, And that your neck tasted as fresh as milk. 128 HYMN TO GOD I Father of Energy, Pattern of Beauty, uncreated Light, Fire of the flaming deep, most awful height Of Air, and endless motion of the Sea, True centre of the Earth, Imagination's Immovable foundations, Wings of the Wind, and thought out-reaching Thought, Health of the spirit, the sole Music wrought Out of the spheres' once jangled harmony. And, lastly. Love; Thou, who dost secretly and sweetly move Through all created things. Hear while thy mighty creatures cry to thee, Veiling their proud eyes with their wings. II Thy creatures, that have wandered from that line Thou sett'st them out of Chaos, that have gone About their many businesses, not Thine, Saying let my will, not Thy will be done; 129 130 SILHOUETTES Idolatrous, themselves deeming divine, Bowing down each to the other for a sign, Working for Thee in evil ways that run Quite round the circle of Thy pure design. Yet swerve not from the centre; these in vain Seek liberty, and pull against a chain, They draw but nearer Thee in the rebound; Wings have they, yet are rooted to the ground, Where Thou art; though unrooted they should fly, There art Thou also: hear Thy creatures cry. HYMN TO THE SEA When I remember, going listlessly Through the long, loud, bright tumult of the street, The sea, There comes a silence into the dull air Thick with resounding blows As of a battle where vile armies meet; And I am suddenly aware As of a cleansing wind blown suddenly From somewhere far beyond the mild and sweet Half-human regions of the rose, A wind that has no message to repeat. That calls, and no man knows What voice is calling in the sea. II I never loved the earth, that like a mother Talks to her children in a voice they know, Drawing her children close to one another And whispering old tales of long ago. I have no human love for man, my brother, 132 SILHOUETTES My dreams are not as his dreams, and I go A lonely way alone. I go alone to the uneompassionate sea ; I hear no private sorrow in its moan ; There are no tears In its bright, sorrowless crying, and from me The glittering friend I talk with never hears A whimpering for human sympathy. Ill Call to me, call by night. Let me come out into the moonless dark. I see a vague shape growing slowly white Out of the night, and, hark! The soft plunge of the breakers on the sand, And the sharp shriek Of the resisting pebbles, as a hand Clutches the land. And then unclasps, and, indolently weak. Scatters the spoils it only seems to seek. Call to me out of the night. In the irresistible, old, unknown way; Say nothing ; what is there to say ? Is there a word for delight ? I see the darkness moving, like a cloud With rims of gusty light; I hear an inarticulate voice crying aloud. HYMN TO THE SEA 133 IV Unknown spirit that calls To the mysterious spirit housed in walls Of the body, and desiring liberty. Free spirit, promising Nothing but to be free. Call me this wandering And always restless guest That will not be at home within my breast, This never satisfied, Fluctuant, foster-brother of the tide; Call subtly, and release The secret of the waves' unresting peace. To set my eager spirit, if not free. Into some comparable activity. Call to me mostly when I seem To move through silken tangles of a dream Forgetting what wild seabird spirit in me Cries out for liberty. Call to me, till, returning to my mind In the loud city streets, busy with men, There come cool silence, and the night, and then. Borne inward to me, overflowing me. The breath of a salt wind And the voice of the sea. HYMN TO AIR I Because the ways of breath Belong not to the soul. Which may not even control How it shall come on death ; Therefore, beholding thus What secret and wise care Silently follows us. Let the soul praise the air ! II Shadow of life in me, August familiar, dear Companion ever near Whose form I may not see; I, when alone I walk With men walking, or trees, With this enchanter talk Of older things than these. Ill This breath that enters in To warm and purify 134 HYMIT TO AIR 135 The source of life which I Deem all my own within, Has felt the earth reel round From outer space that lies Somewhere beneath the ground, Somewhere above the skies. IV This humble unseen friend Whom I go elbowing, — What if it bid take wing And in the spirit ascend Where foot hath never trod, Where bird hath never come. Where man may look on God And his thought find a home? Joy wraps me round in air. On mountain-heights I drink Eapture, until I think My being everywhere Into the universe; I laugh with divine mirth To see the pretty, fierce Babe-scramblings of the earth. 136 SILHOUETTES VI Yet, day by day more sure, This mercy, which I praise. Silently all my ways Doth follow, and endure, Buffeted, to control The ceaseless watch of death: I praise thee with my soul. Delicate air, for breath. HYMN TO BEAUTY There is a tyrannous lord and taskmaster Whom men call Beauty. To be born his slave Is to be sleepless and a wanderer Always by day and night, and not to have The promise of much quiet in the grave. The colours of the world are in a plot To snatch my spirit from me through the eyes; They dance before me in a weedy knot Of woodland broideries. They lean to catch me from the woven skies, Woo me in light, and half Tempt with the sea's immeasurable laugh. Beauty is too much with me: I would live A free man, not a fugitive, Be for an interval The hourglass of the hours of sun and shower. And for one hour reel with the drowsy oxen in the stall Nothing at all. 137 138 SILHOUETTES Only, it may not be; For the avenging Beauty follows me, And whips me from my sloth And goads me on to some new adoration. I cannot walk through any city street Where labour hardly elbows by starvation. But I must meet The inhuman Beauty both In subtly wasted cheeks and in the spilth Of the enriching gutter's plague-green filth. Beauty is poured Out of the vats of darkness ; Beauty runs Through leakages of suns. And scatters in the splinters of the seas. This naked wall is high enough to hoard Legions of beauty in its crevices. Enough for the immortal soul to endure; And the immortal sky is not more pure. Nor God More empty of defect, than this brown clod. infinite And endless spirit of the world's disguise. Spirit of lies. Beauty, the very light Wherein we see, the sight We see by, and the thing we seem to see, HYMN TO BEAUTY 139 Either give me Humility to be indeed content With that which thou hast lent. And grace to take it simply as my right. Or power not less divine Than thine, That I may make a world and call it mine. THE HUMAN" FACE To imagine God with a human face Is the utmost human disgrace; For since the Spirit of Evil trod Earth, none has seen the image of God. I speak not of Jesus, he was a child, God in Man, therefore was undefiled; For in the Virgin Mary's womb. He leapt, so small in so little a room; And, as he greatened span by span, Never was there a lovelier man. Never one more loved by a woman: For being human he was inhuman. By the Jews He was Crucified And still the Jews say that he died : But I say no ; for from evil to worse Evil the Jews are given for a curse Miserly souls and unbelief. Judas, who hanged himself, wa^ a Thief. 140 NOTTE VENEZIANO I slept in Venice. The bright windy day Merged into night, along the Zattere, Over the long Guidecca luminous. The night was bright and windy ; and 't was thus I fell asleep and let the moonlight fall Across my face, and scatter on the wall ; And thus I came into the moonlight spell. I dreamed; and in my dream a darkness fell Upon the land and water, and the night Poured like a flood across the infinite. Then, as I dreamed, the billowy darkness broke At some soft, slow, insinuating stroke. And lo ! a little core of light began To waken softly, and its rays outran. And, by insensible degrees, increased Into the semblance of a phantom East; And the whole night gathered and overflowed. Flood upon flood, until a shining road Of level water lay out endlessly Into the outer reaches of the sea. I floated forth lightly upon it, and Suddenly, round me, there was no more land, 141 142 SILHOUETTES But rioting from the depths of the sea's caves, The shining floor broke into hollow waves, And rocked the house about me, and drove me on Into the night of waters. Land was gone. The whole live Earth shrank like a startled snail Into the shell of heaped-up waters, pale As moonlight in the moonlight, and now curled Under and over and round about the world. And the waves drew me, and the treacherous night Into the circle of its infinite Would fain have sucked me, and I saw the moon Laughing an evil laugh, and the stars swoon Into an ecstasy of merriment. Then, knowing I was wholly lost, I sent A great cry shouting up into the sky. And leapt upright, and with an echoing cry Over my head I heard the waters hiss; And I fell slowly down the sheer abyss, Age after endless age of such intense And unimaginably sharp suspense. That soul and body parted at the stroke; And with the utter anguish I awoke. And saw the night grow softly into day Outside my windows on the Zattere.