PAN-WORSHIP
AND OTHER POEMS

PAN-WORSHIP
AND OTHER POEMS

BY
ELEANOR FARJEON
LONDON
ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET, W.
1908

TO MY FATHER

CONTENTS

PAN-WORSHIP

In Arcady there lies a crystal spring

Ring'd all about with green melodious reeds

Swaying seal'd music up and down the wind.

Here on its time-defacèd pedestal

The image of a half-forgotten God

Crumbles to its complete oblivion.

The faithful and invariable earth

Tilts at the shrine her sacrificial cup,

Spilling libations from the brim that runs

The golden nectar of her daffodils

And rivulets of summer-breathing flow'rs.

O evanescent temples built of man

To deities he honoured and dethroned!

Earth shoots a trail of her eternal vine

To crown the head that men have ceased to honour.

Beneath the coronal of leaf and lichen

The mocking smile upon the lips derides

Pan's lost dominion; but the pointed ears

Are keen and prick'd with old remember'd sounds.

All my breast aches with longing for the past!

Thou God of stone, I have a craving in me

For knowledge of thee as thou wert in old

Enchanted twilights in Arcadia.

Arcadia! it is the very music

Of the first spring-tide rippling its first wave

Over the naked, laughing baby world ...

Come again, thou sparkling spring-tide, come again,

Rush in and flood this autumn from my soul!

These waters welling at a dead God's shrine,

These happy waters bubbling limpid kisses,

Even with such bright and eager lips made wet

The hem of the earth's garment in the days

When earth was youthful and the Gods of Greece

In starry constellation crowned Olympus.

What drifting mists have veil'd the Olympian fires?

What of the Gods of Greece? and what of Greece?

O virgin Greece, standing with naked feet

In the morning dews of the world against the light

Of an infant dawn! old Greece, ever-young Greece,

The pagan in my blood, the instinct in me

That yearns back, back to nature-worship, cries

Aloud to thee! I would stoop to kiss those feet,

Sweet white wet feet washed with the earth's first dews:—

And leaning ear to grass I would re-catch

Echoes of footsteps sounding down dim ages

For ever the music once they made on thee:

The flaming step of the young Apollo when,

With limbs like light and golden locks toss'd back

On a smooth ivory shoulder, he avenged

His mother's wrongs on Python: the dreaming step

Of Hylas in the woods of Mysia

Leading to sleep beneath sweet sylvan waters:

The laughing step of untrammell'd Atalanta

Spurning the ground before her golden capture:

Child-Proserpina stepping like a flower,

And the singing step of Syrinx fleeing—what?

If thou couldst speak, neglected, sneering stone,

Thou wouldst know how to answer me. Wilt thou

Not speak?... How still it is!... The noise of the world

Is shut about with silence!... If I kneel,

Bend and adore, make sacrifice to thee,

If to thy long-deserted fane I bring

Tribute of milk and honey—then if I snap

That loveliest pipe of all at the spring's margin

And let the song of Syrinx from its hollow,

Nay, even the nymph's sweet self—O Pan, old Pan,

Shall I not see thee stirring in the stone,

Crack thy confinement, leap forth—be again?

I can believe it, master of bright streams,

Lord of green woodlands, king of sun-spread plains

And star-splashed hills and valleys drenched in moonlight!

And I shall see again a dance of Dryads

And airy shapes of Oreads circling free

To shy sweet pipings of fantastic fauns

And lustier-breathing satyrs ... God of Nature,

Thrice hailing thee by name with boisterous lungs

I will thrill thee back from the dead ages, thus:

Pan! Pan! O Pan! bring back thy reign again

Upon the earth!...

Numb pointed ears, ye hear

Only the wash and whisper of far waters,

The pale green waters of thin distant Springs

Under the pale green light of distant moons

Washing upon the shores of the old, old world

With a foam of flowers, a foam of whispering flowers....

VAGRANT SONGS

I

But yesterday the winds of March

Bent back the barren branches of the larch ...

But O! to-day

The bareness from the earth is swept away.

Deep through my swelling breast I hear

The wild call of the gipsy time o' year—

O, Vagrant Spring,

Brother o' mine, I'm for the gipsying!

The greening earth I stand upon

Tingles my feet: Brother, we must begone!

Younger and younger,

All my heart cries aloud with Wander-Hunger

II

Of troubles know I none,

Of pleasures know I many—

I rove beneath the sun

Without a single penny.

A king might envy long

The fare my board adorning—

Upon a throstle's song

I broke my fast this morning;

My lunch, a girl's quick smile,

As I'm a living sinner;

She walked with me a mile ...

I kissed her for my dinner.

Of troubles know I none,

Of pleasures know I many—

I fare beneath the sun

Without a single penny!

III

O, how she laughs with me,

Eats with me, quaffs with me,

Smiles to me, sighs to me,

Questions, replies to me,

Answers my every mood,

Finds good what I find good,

Earth, the green Mother!

Where shall man live and die

Having my treasury

Which never gold could buy—

Water and air and sky

And Earth's great sympathy—

Save he do live as I?

Join with me, Brother!

If you be sickening

Here's for your quickening!

Here at the heart of it

You shall be part of it,

And the good smell of rain

Shall make you whole again—

Join with me, Brother!

Here the life-sap runs green,

Here the life-ways are clean,

Here just one bird that sings

Re-starts your sluggish springs,

Here under moon and sun

You, I and She are one,

Earth, the green Mother!

IV

I lay me on the ground

Under the dark,

And Heaven's purple arc

Drew its deep curtains round

My weary head and shut away the sound.

The golden star-lights crept

Over the hill ...

I lay so very still

I heard them as they stepped ...

"Sleep!" breathed the Earth. Upon her breast I slept.

V

I'll stay one night beneath your roof,

And longer I will stay for no man,

And as for love, I'm loving-proof—

Turn by your eyes, White Woman.

The Wander-fever's in my blood,

I have no time for simple loving—

The hot Earth is in roving mood,

And I too must be roving.

If I should love you ... soon, ah, soon

I'd break your heart to go a-roaming,

And chasing shadows of the moon

Think never once of homing.

Why will you wring my breast with tears?

Tears will not quench the Wander-fever.

Why will you fill my soul with fears

When I will go for ever?

I whom the Earth's green passions move

Have put away all passions human ...

I will not love!... I dare not love ...

Turn by your eyes, White Woman.

VI

I went far and cold

Over upland wold

Where the story of spring's breathing

Scarcely yet was told.

Shifting monotone

Of the pale wind's moan

Through my hair at dusk went wreathing,

And I walked alone.

Far below and far

Where the homesteads are

One small ruddy candle twinkled,

Warmer than a star.

When the day was gone,

Softly one by one

Homing-lights the valley sprinkled ...

And I wandered on.

KING LAURIN'S GARDEN

(A Styrian Peasant-Girl Dreams at her Wheel)

King Laurin has a garden of roses

Where warm sweet odours do idly flow

Wave upon wave through the charmèd air ...

It is sin to wish for the garden of roses

In the heart of wild mountains where no men go.

Laurin is king of a rosy garden.

The lure of the roses is rare, O rare!

They tremble and brighten and throb and glow ...

I may not think of King Laurin's garden.

A danger, they tell me, for maids is there.

There are four high gates to the garden of roses,

For the treasure of bloom a golden guard,

A precious cup for the rose-wine red.

O the golden gates of the garden of roses!

They are bright and beautiful, tall and barred.

There is no strong wall round the rosy garden;

From gate to gate runs a woven thread,

Yellow and silken and fine, for ward.

Who snaps the ward of the rosy garden

With his hand and his foot shall he pay, 'tis said.

Laurin who rules the garden of roses

Is an elf-king, therefore he has no soul.

(The good priest shudders at Laurin's name.)

Poor soulless elf of the garden of roses!

Shall I pray for King Laurin at Vesper-toll?

They say no prayers in the rosy garden

Where life is the flash of a fragrant flame

Like the heart of a flower on fire: the whole

Of forbidden sweet is the rosy garden

I may not think of and feel no shame.

For in King Laurin's garden of roses

Waking thought shall be stilled asleep,

And the still heart dream itself half-awake ...

O the soft, soft dreams of the garden of roses!

They creep ... (I look not) ... but they steal and creep.

Laurin the king of the rosy garden

Has a magic girdle that none can break.

It makes the pulse of his life to leap

With twelve men's strength. In the rosy garden

He is feared and feared for the girdle's sake.

Laurin the king of the garden of roses

Has a magic crown where strange birds so sing

That resistance and doubt by their song once kissed

Melt into trance. In the garden of roses

He is loved and loved for his crowned bird-ring.

Laurin the king of the rosy garden

Has a magic cloak the colour of mist,

And he goes invisibly wandering

Far from the bourne of the rosy garden

Like a cloud of pearl and of amethyst.

He seeks a bride for his garden of roses,

For the soulless spirit a human girl ...

(The priest bids me wear my cross and pray) ...

He will bear her back to his garden of roses

In the mist of his magic grey-and-pearl.

Kunhild was borne to the rosy garden,

The sister of Dietrich of Bern, one day.

A fair green mead and a cloud's dim swirl,

And Kunhild awoke in the rosy garden ...

But she stood by a linden-tree first, they say.

* * * * *

King Laurin has a garden of roses

Full of warm odours ... I'll sit and spin

As my Mother bids me ... O wine-red glow

Of half-waked dreams in the garden of roses ...

Spin, wheel!... fine thread, bright like silk, and thin.

A grey mist steals from the rosy garden

In the heart of wild mountains where no men go ...

To think of the garden they say is sin—

I'll dream no more of King Laurin's garden ...

See! in our meadow green lindens grow....

THE MYSTERIOUS FOREST

I stood on the verge of the mysterious forest,

Sunlight lay behind me on the meadows,

But all the world of the mysterious forest

Was a world of wraiths and shadows.

The dim trees beckoned, beckoned with their branches,

I said: "The sun's behind me on the meadows."

A dim voice calling, calling through the branches

From the world of wraiths and shadows.

I saw a pale young Queen, her eyes were mournful,

Steal ghostwise ... is the sun yet on the meadows?...

More phantoms passed and all their eyes were mournful

In the world of wraiths and shadows.

I see a blue light in the mysterious forest,

The cold night lies behind me on the meadows.

The branches beckon in the mysterious forest ...

They beckon, beckon, beckon, call and beckon

From the world of wraiths and shadows.

THE OLD GREY QUEEN

The Princess looked from the old grey tower;

She was a-weary of being there.

She wore no crown but her own gold hair,

And the old grey Queen had shut her there,

She was so like a flower.

"The young King's-Son comes over the sea

From the West," said the Queen who was grey and old.

"In an unlit hall were not grey as gold?

In an unlit hall what are young and old?

We'll greet i' the dark," said she.

The Princess looked from the old grey tower ...

Lo! a milk-white sail on the sunlit ocean.

Fluttered her heart to its fluttering motion,

And the King's-Son looked from the golden ocean ...

She was so like a flower.

"Why do the grey seas break and boom?

And why is the starless dusk so grey?

And why does the young King's-Son delay?

Shall I," said the Queen who was old and grey,

"Sit all night i' the gloom?"

The grey seas broke on an empty tower

Like pain that knocks on an empty breast.

Lo! a milk-white sail that flew the crest

Of Love and of Youth met breast to breast

Melted away in the golden West....

The old grey Queen beat her empty breast:

"She was so like a flower."

THE QUEST

A Knight rides forth upon a Quest,

And his young Squire follows after;

The Knight's eyes dwell on a star's white crest,

And the Squire's eyes dwell on laughter.

"What of the Quest that claims our swords?"

The young Squire asks his master.

The Knight says, "'Tis too high for words,"

And they speed their horses faster.

A beggar hails them: "Alms! alms, Sir Knight,

Or loose my life with your dagger!"

The Knight sees only a star's white light,

And the Squire's purse pays the beggar.

A sturdy robber the highroad bars:

"Sir Knight, our debts we'll settle!"

The Knight hears only the song of stars,

And the Squire's blade wins the battle.

A lady looks from a castle wall:

"Sir Knight, in pity stay thee!

Untrammel me who lie here in thrall,

And I in love will pay thee."

The Knight is set on a goal heaven-high

Where a silver star is risen,

And the young Squire it is springs by

To free the maid from prison.

"Take, good Sir Knight, my pleasure and pride,

The meed of valiant striving!

Here wait the lips of your glad bride

Whose name is Joy-of-Living."

Starward, starward the rapt Knight goes,

The star's true image missing.

The lady laughs like a lovely rose

And the Squire's lips do the kissing.

"What, boy, are you my love doth woo?

What's he that would not woo it?"

"He's John-a-Dreams-o'-Dering-do,

And I'm Dick-up-an'-Do-it."

THE UNSPOKEN WORD

THE MAN'S SIDE

Two years I have lived in a dream

And have dared not to end it—

Owned wealth in a measure supreme

And been fearful to spend it.

You, woman of beauty and love

In such noble wise fashioned,

Are my dreams and my rich treasure-trove.

I am shamed that, impassioned,

In secret I levy demands

Upon more than you've given—

Crave yourself, heart and soul, eyes and hands,

Which in sum make up heaven.

Unconscious of aught, through these days

You have let me be near you,

Knowing not how your thousand sweet ways

Only serve to endear you

To all in your orbit who move,

In such innocence wronging

As friendship what really is love

And unsatisfied longing.

Yet, your friendship—to be just your friend—

So caps love in another,

That I would my love, burned to its end,

In its own smoke might smother,

Lest I in an outbreak one day

Ask of friendship aught stronger—

When you may forbid me to say

Even "friend" any longer.

So I come in the old way and go,

While my heart's quickened beatings

Are hidden, and you never know

What I glean from our meetings;

How a word, a look even, which seems

So unconsciously meted,

Builds new dreams on the wreckage of dreams

That were never completed.

You once dropped a flower—did not see

That I hid in my bosom

What was more than Golconda to me,

And to you a bruised blossom.

Ten seconds I once held your hand

While you pulled from the river

A lily. Could you understand

Why my own hand should quiver?

Small matters these things you account

Who so lightly diffuse them,

But to all my life's joy they amount—

And my fear is, to lose them.

One day, when your eyes are still kind

And your voice is still tender,

I shall slip the control of my mind,

All my future surrender,

Obeying the primal desire

To fall down and adore you,

And outpour in one instant of fire

All the love I have for you.

'Twill be death, and far worse, at your feet

When my lips cease to blunder

And I look up your dear eyes to meet

Overrunning with wonder.

Thereafter—what? Nothing, I fear—

Even dreams will have vanished

When I by my act from your sphere

Shall for ever be banished.

Dear, that is the moment I dread—

When you hear my confession,

When the word I withhold has been said

And my love finds expression;

But till then (and God knows how I seek

To postpone and postpone it),

Till my love grows too strong, lips too weak

To much longer disown it,

I shall come, if I may, day by day,

My small gleanings to gather,

While you think of me—how shall we say?

As a brother or father;

And you never will guess, till you learn

From a heart brimming over,

That I've met you at every turn

As a passionate lover.

THE WOMAN'S SIDE

How long will you hold back, belov'd? How long

Leave the supreme, the final word unspoken?

The barrier of silence hold unbroken?

Men—you, too, being a man—have called you strong,

A doer of big deeds, great acts. But they are wrong.

You lack in courage. I, being woman, know

How often woman shapes man's enterprises,

Cloaking her work in manifold disguises

Lest he should chafe too large a debt to owe—

Strikes every blow up to the very hundredth blow

That shall at last resolve, achieve, complete

The foregone nine-and-ninety. This, grown wiser,

She leaves with him for fear he should despise her.

He wins the credit for the final feat—

Thought of his triumph, not hers, made all her toiling sweet.

Belov'd, how long before you understand?

Why, I have known two years you were my lover,

That all my being to yours was given over!

The thing your heart most yearns for lies at hand

Awaiting only this, that you shall make demand.

Have I not worked for all betwixt us two

Since first I saw your love spring into being,

And you became too faint of heart for seeing

That the one peach you longed to garner grew,

Ripened, and mellowed here only for you, for you?

You would have drawn abashed from out my life

Had I permitted; it became my mission

To bring the golden moment to fruition

Through, ah, how many hours of wistful strife

With you, who guessed not, even, the tender struggle rife

Between us. When I met you with a smile,

"Love's not for me," you thought, "yet while she kindly

Still looks and speaks, I'll stay." And went thus blindly

Taking for innocence what sprang from guile

That I might hold you by me just a little while.

The day I dropped a flower upon the path,

Did you not know it was the thing I aimed for

When you behind me loitered (somewhat lamed for

A good excuse), secured it free from scath

And hid it close, to reap therefrom love's aftermath

In hours when I was absent? Why, I meant,

Belov'd, that you should have this one flower-treasure

(Stolen, you thought!) out of my heart's full measure—

Meant that your solitary nights be spent

Cheek to its petals pressed where all my love lay pent.

And then, the day you helped me from the boat,

"It is but chance," you thought, "I hold her fingers

In mine past custom's limit, while she lingers

To cull the waterlily there afloat."

It was not chance, belov'd. And still you would not note.

I have done all a woman may do, dear,

With eyes and hands and tones of voice have spoken,

In all but words have given you the token

And seal of love. What is it then you fear?

Can you not take one step, the goal being now so near?

Just the last word to utter, just the last

Step to be taken—it is very little!

Can you believe Love's structure is so brittle?

All I have builded in these two years past

Fall tottering at one word? It is of stronger cast.

You would not have me speak. That part is yours.

My share is finished and I wait for you now.

The time to act has come—what will you do now?

Dear, even I'd say the word that all ensures

But that were more than love itself of love endures.

I had to spend my strength when you were weak,

Be guide along the road from its beginning

To the last barrier. Am I worth the winning?

But you must turn the key. It will not creak.

Beloved, I am waiting still ... will you not speak?

IN THE OCULIST'S ANTEROOM

I

Not to be able to see!...

Almost as well not be.

And that man in there in his single hand

Holds all God's light,

Or just so much, you understand,

As may be drunk in by another's sight—

Dear God, will he give the light to me?

Or will a fathomless night

Drop its veil across the sight

Of my straining eyes, to become mere husks

Whence the kernel slips,

Knowing none of God's dawns and only God's dusks ...

That man has them all at his finger-tips.

Dear God! will he clear the dusk from the light?

II

He has spoken. The man with his cold voice has spoken.

The seal of suspense lies here shattered and broken,

And I know ... And I know

What the coming years hold which an hour since were dumb to me—

God! how precious the jewel of your light has become to me

Where's my hat? Let me go.

LITTLE DREAM-BROTHER.

Little dream-brother that died

When I was not a year out of heaven,

I heard you when you tried

To come to me yestereven.

As I lay in bed

Midway 'twixt nothingness and waking,

I heard the window shaking

And the beat of wings upon the pane.

"It is not the rain,

But my little dream-brother out there," I said.

I turned in bed:

"Come in, little dream-brother."

"I can only come in by the gates of sleep

And by no other.

Through the niche of the tiniest dream I can creep—

Sleep, sister, do sleep," you said.

And so through the night we waited—

You on the window-threshold there

In the wet windy weather,

And I abed—with breath bated,

Just to catch the first moment of sleep unaware

And fly kissing together.

But sleep would not come till seven,

When the shivering day

Looked up all chilly and grey.

"Creep into bed,

Little dream-brother, under my arm

And I'll keep you warm."

But you shook your head:

"It's bed-time in heaven,

Sister. Goodbye," you said.

There was not a whole year between you

And me, little dream-brother.

I cannot remember even to have seen you ...

And now I might be your mother.

FAUST AND MARGARET

"Devil," he said, "Love's Heaven—

Shall man not therefor lose his soul?"

* * * * *

"God," she whispered, "is Love Heaven?

Is Heaven a place of dole?"

(And so she gave his Heaven to the man

Because the man did crave it.

And so because she never asked Hell's ban

He gave it.)

"Devil!" he said, "Love's Hell!

Man's wild-beast-thirst, how slake it?

Take the tenderest thing, thus—thus!

Passion-torture it a spell,

And break it!"

* * * * *

"God," she whispered, "Love is Heaven.

Love's not what Love is made for us,

But what we make it."

(And so her dead soul found what it had given,

And what he builded, there his damned soul ended....

And do you think that either Hell or Heaven

These sinners' suffering-on-earth amended?)

DREAM-SHIPS

I set my dream-ships floating

Upon the tides of sleep.

Beneath whose moving waters

Unfathomed currents creep;

And one was made of roses

With flowering mast and spars,

And one was made of music,

And one was made of stars:

One was all joy and sorrow

Made from my own heart-strings,

And one was like a cradle

With sails like angels' wings.

O little ships that wander

All lonely on the deep,

And only come to haven

Upon the tides of sleep.

THE MORAL

The youth cried in anguish: "God,

My life is bowed down beneath

Its woe! I am no mere clod—

There's fire in my blood and breath.

"You, Who made me of flesh, not stone,

Of quivering tissues—dare

You leave me to face alone

A grief past my strength to bear?

"Life might be veriest heaven,

Life can be veriest hell—

In Your hands rests what is given.

God, I hold You responsible!"

Then the man who was growing grey

Observed: "In an idle mood

God blew bubbles one day

And loosed the glistening brood

On the welkin, one by one—

Myriads of worlds they sped:

There were planets and moon and sun,

And one was the globe we tread."

Then the Spirit that Nullifies,

Men term Death, asked: "How long?" (One fears

God shrugged.) "While I blink my eyes—

Shall we say a billion years?"

* * * * *

The youth on the fable broke,

And scorn in his accents ran:

"What is all this to me? I spoke

To God of Myself, old man."

COLOUR-TONES

I

A visionary filmy sheen

Scarce palpable of silver-green

Limns barren furrow and bare branch.

One month more, and the welcoming

Gates o' the world will open wide

To let the full deep vernal tide

Sweep overland, an avalanche

Of green, absorbing in its rush

This silver-misty verdure ... Hush!

This is the old earth's dream of Spring.

II

In Cobham woods the bluebells run

Celestial rillets, streams and rivers,

Or else a purple lake they lie,

Or little azure pool;

The blue flood shimmers in the sun

Or under the wind's breathing shivers,

While drops cerulean-tincted spill

Among the grass. Then very still

The dim sweet waters grow and cool

Like shadows of the sky.

III

The yellow light of daffodils

The lawns beneath the fruit-trees fills,

The yellow light of early spring

Swims in the shining upper air,

And all about the fragrant fair

Blossoming boughs of sunlit white

Like clouds of heavenly incense swing

'Twixt yellow light and yellow light.

FROM AN OLD GARDEN

OUTSIDE

Trees have grown to the edge of the gate

Where grey-bearded lichens cling;

The greenwoods stand in a ring,

Holding the garden-pearl in their centre

A jewel inviolate.

Heart of mine, shall we enter?

There is a charm of sleep in the air,

Weft of Time's humming loom.

There in the green half-gloom

I think some intangible spirit hovers ...

They say the dim wraiths dwell there

Of countless, long-dead lovers.

Warp of sleep and woof of love:

The flush of a live rose glows

By the pallid death of the rose,

A song next the hush that stilled its numbers:

Such is the web Time wove.

Dare we disturb their slumbers?

We stand on the outskirts, you and I—

Shall we not venture in?

They will condone the sin,

Those dim, dead lovers, will smile and pardon,

For our honeymoon hangs in the sky.

Heart of mine, into the garden!

INSIDE

You and I here!

Shut the gate behind us.

Nothing to fear

And none to find us.

We are all the world, dear!

'Tis a cloister of dreams,

This dear old garden;

The sundial seems

To stand as their warden.

How Love's star gleams!

We'll sup on the rose,

Our tent is this willow—

Lie close, Love, close!

There's grass for our pillow.

How Love's star glows!

You and I here

And the world behind us!

Nothing to fear

And none to find us—

Shut the gate, dear.

FLOW'R AND SONG

Song and flow'r and flow'r and song,

So soothed the summer drifts along:

Within our hearts a flow'r

Unfolding hour by hour,

While a song half-conscious slips

Over my dear one's lips.

Flow'r and song and song and flow'r,

So filled runs by each swift, sweet hour:

Close to my breast you twine

Your flow'r-lips laid on mine,

And I catch before we part

The song-beats of your heart.

Flow'r and song in our garden-close

Like wedded lovers have grown one word.

I could weave you a wreath from the notes of that bird,

And pluck you a song from the heart of this rose.

DWELLERS IN THE GARDEN

Who dwelt here of old?

Hush! If I lift from the misty years

The veil of dead smiles and forgotten tears,

I think I can picture a little maid

Crowned with plaits of gold,

Passing alone down each green arcade

While the sundial told

In silence its hours of shine and shade.

Young she was as the peep of dawn,

And as a year-old dappled fawn

Was shy and tender and innocent.

And all her days were in waiting spent

Amongst her flowers in a day-dream she

Builded herself. So continuously

In waiting and waiting the days went by—

We know what she waited, love, you and I.

The flowers had nothing to teach to her—

In her sleep she could hear the grasses stir,

She had secrets with every rose in the place,

The lilies kept smiles for her lily-face,

She could think their thoughts and utter their speech,

Had a sister's tender look for each,

And knew why the trailing clematis

Dropped on the sundial a purple kiss—

As surely as we know why, she knew.

And so in her house of dreams she grew,

And so the star-lighted nights slipped by.

We know what she waited for—you and I—

Who dwelt here of old.

There's her tale half-told.

What more to unfold?

When he came at last did they ride away,

Or, day succeeding each happy day,

Did they stay with two heartfuls of love to brim

The garden wherein she had waited him?

Well, this I know. If they stayed or went,

After their term of life was spent

They returned to roam by her lily-pond,

On to the rosery set beyond,

Haunt her favourite paths and nooks,

Re-read the fairy-tales which her books,

The flowers, had yielded her in such store

When he was the hero of all their lore.

Hand in hand they go as of old,

He brave and bold,

She crowned with gold.

Ah, love, they are neither the first nor last!

For all of those, having loved and passed,

In spirit come back when their dust is cold,

Who dwelt here of old.

A ROSE-SONG

Oh, what a realm, what a riot of roses!

Here we stand

Right in the heart of a great rose-land!

Over our head the blossom-world closes,

Under our feet—

Walls, ceil and carpet are flowery-sweet.

Snowy and crimson and pink and golden

Twine and trail,

Vivid as life is, as death is, pale.

Here they bloom as they bloomed in olden

Days when we

Were unborn shades, and the shades that be

Had right in these grounds to resent intrusion.

Now you and I

Jealously cherish our privacy.

How came these roses by their profusion,

Tier on tier

Of bloom on bloom running uncurb'd here?

I think I can guess what they would answer,

Whence they came,

Pallid petal and flower of flame,

Inscribed with such lore as the old romancer

Of Italy

Left the world to make love-songs by.

We are born, these pink roses say, of kisses,

Dye of the blush.

What though time's passage their soft lisp hush?

The seeds were scattered of lovers' blisses,

And year by year

We renew their tender caresses here.

We are born of joy, say these petals yellow,

Tinge of delight.

What though love's sunshine be lapped in night?

We, sprung from its seeds, rich-toned and mellow,

Perpetuate

The days when the orbit of love waxed great.

We are born, these red ones say, of passion,

Flush of the heart.

What though the sound of love's steps depart?

The seeds were sown, and we in this fashion

Immortalize

Remembrance thereof in the heart's own dyes.

We are born, say these snow-white blooms, of the spirit,

Children of death.

What is the ceasing of mere life-breath?

Love is sustained by its own pure merit,

Its memory

Renewed and renewed to infinity.

Belov'd, we are adding to these rose-bowers.

When we have passed

Here our hearts' treasure will lie amassed.

Pink, gold, crimson and snowy flowers,

Thus and thus,

To the limit of time will bloom for us.

BY THE FOUNTAIN

Come down, dear, to the fountain's pool with me,

And help me guess how long since last it tinkled

And trickled out thin streams of minstrelsy—

How long since last the grass with pearls it sprinkled.

It was yet young the day it fell asleep,

For time has left its glassy face unwrinkled.

Ah, could we where the shadows lie most deep

Peering discern the dear forgotten faces

Of girls who o'er the brink were wont to peep,

With shy eyes seeking in the depths the graces

Made dear and lovely to them by love's praise.

Can all have passed away and left no traces?

They dreamed, as we too dream, through summer days,

And hid their white thoughts in such water-lilies

As float here now. Flowers do not change their ways.

Ah, love, to-day the lucent water still is

As tho' no rosy finger-tips had dipped

And dabbled it, and hushed the fountain's rill is.

Their feet across the velvet greensward tripped,

Their bosoms pressed the crumbling grey-stone basin,

They fed the ruddy goldfish laughing-lipped ...

Is not one left? Look, look! I seem to trace in

The murky deeps some shape of hoary carp—

Too late! for now I only see your face in

The water, smiling questions. He was sharp,

That king-fish, but I caught his gold crown's glimmer ...

Oh, fountain, tune again for us your harp,

Fling through the air for us your diamond shimmer

Of spray. Two new young lovers seek your shrine.

Those loves of old with years grow fainter, dimmer,

But ours is warm and living and divine,

And time has not yet breathed upon its lustre,

And I am hers and she is all of mine!

And here we kneel where once old loves would muster,

Shut in the lilies one new secret up,

And add her image to the beauty-cluster

Of those whose eyes lie mirrored in your cup.

TIME AND LOVE

Old sundial, you stand here for Time:

For Love, the vine that round your base

Its tendrils twines, and dares to climb

And lay one flower-capped spray in grace

Without the asking on your cold

Unsmiling and unfrowning face.

Yet, sundial, even Time may mould.

In years to come the foot shall stumble

Upon your shattered ruins where

This vine will flourish still, as rare,

As fresh, as fragrant as of old.

Love will not crumble.

Kisses have worn your stones away,

Lov'd lips you did not pulse beneath;

Dropt tears have hastened your decay

And brought you one step nigher death;

And you have heard, unthrilled, unmoved,

The music of Love's golden breath

And seen the light in eyes that loved.

You think you hold the core and kernel

Of all the world beneath your crust,

Old dial? But when you lie in dust,

This vine will bloom, strong, green, and proved.

Love is eternal.

RIFLED FLOWERS

Why is the lily's cheek waxen with grief?

A brown-and-gold thief

Dived down to her core

And burgled her store.

Bowed with her sweetness she saw him depart,

But her soul was too pure to complain.

Dear, drop a kiss in her heart

And make the sweet lily all honey again.

Why does the fox-glove droop low, bell and leaf?

A silver-winged thief

Who delved in her pollen

With gold powder swollen

Fled in new blossoms her wealth to disburse

And left her not one yellow grain.

Sweet, blow a kiss in her purse

And fill the dear fox-glove with treasure again.

FAIRY-TIME

Lie very still, love, where I fold

You close: the clocks strike fairy-time.

The thin, sweet tinkle of their chime

Is like a thread of gold

Woven through the heart of night

For our delight.

And following the elfin call

Faint noises, half-tones, rise and fall—

The whirr and flit of fairy wings

Pass and re-pass,

And we can hear among the grass

Musicians tune their buzzing strings,

And small feet tapping on the ground

The measures of a fairy round.

Out of the roses stream wee elves,

Sweet peas are fairies in themselves,

And myriad water-sprites

From dreaming water-lilies rise,

Such glistening, ephemeral mites,

Flashing like spray across our eyes.

Watch how all whirl, dissolve, and mix

Again, foot it so daintily,

Play such quaint, pretty tricks—

Some on wild moths go riding by,

Breaking them in with rein and bit

Of gossamer: some lurk and flit,

Making pretence at hide and-seek

Behind the daisies, laugh and peek

Like children: disregarding rules,

Play leap-frog with the spotted stools

Of fungus, each night newly-sprung

For them to sport among ...

Suddenly all grow hushed with awe—

Come closer, dear!

The voice of one who broke the law