I
Love dwelled with me with music on her lips;
Beauty has quickened me to passion; prayer
Has cried from me before I was aware
When grief was scourging me with scarlet whips.
The gods gave me to follies false and fair;
Made me the object of immortal quips,
But I am recompensed with comradeships
That gods themselves would be content to share.
The time of play has been, of wisdom, is;
Yet who can say which is the truly wise?
Enough that I have stayed Love with a kiss,
That Beauty has found welcome in my eyes;
Though the long poplar path leads dark before,
Up to the white inevitable door.
II
Invoking not the worship of the crowd
As Hadrian divulged Antinous
Would I denote Thy sanctity, not thus
Should Love's deep litany be cried aloud.
There is a mountain set apart for us
Where I have hid Thy soul as in a cloud,
And there I dedicate as I have vowed
My secret voice,—all else were impious.
Remote and undiscovered, rest secure
Where I have set Thee up, that I may keep
My faith of God-in-Thee unblent and pure;
That I may be at one with Thee in sleep;
That waking as a mortal, I may leap
Into immortal dreams where love is sure.
III
And yet think not that I desire to seal
Your earthly beauty from the eyes of praise,
The Soul I worship hath its holy-days,
But being God is manifestly real.
The flesh resplendent in a lover's gaze
Hath too its triumph; the divine ideal
Is dual and can wonderfully reveal
Itself in dust enriched by subtle ways.
You are no shadow, for in you combine
Earth-music and a spirit's sanctity,
And both are exquisite, and both are mine…
For holier men a Beatrice, for me
The joyous sense of your reality,
Not half so saintly,—but far more divine.
IV
With the young god who out of death creates
The flame of life made manifest in spring,
Let us go forth at day's awakening,
The first to open wide the garden gates.
And resting where the blowing seasons sing,
Await the voice of god who consecrates
The pallid hands of the autumnal fates
That beckon from the dusk, dream-harvesting.
When comes the grey god, eager to destroy
Our garnered hoard of wisdom and of joy,
Fear not that phantom, desolate and stark,
For the young god, the all-creating boy,
Will come and find us sleeping in the dark,
And from two deaths, bring forth life's single spark.
V
O it was gay! the wilderness was floral,
The sea a bath of wine to the laughing swimmer;
Dawn was a flaming fan; dusk was a glimmer
Like undersea where sly dreams haunt the coral.
The garden sang of fame when the golden shimmer
Of sun glowed on the proud leaves of the laurel,—
But time and love fought out their ancient quarrel;
The songs are fainter now; the lights are dimmer.
For it is over, over, and the spring
Is not quite spring to you who sit alone;
A paradise entire has taken wing;
Love and her merry company are gone
The way of all delight and lyric measures,
And the lone miser mourns his vanished treasures.
VI
The snow is thawing on the hanging eaves,
The buds unroll upon the basking limb,
And hidden birds are practising a hymn
To sing when petals fall among the leaves.
And yet in life there is an interim
So dull that stagnant loneliness bereaves
Beauty of tenderness, and hope deceives
Until the eyes grow sceptical and dim.
I know I have no right to solitude
When every friendly grove is loud with calls
From bird to mating bird, and all the wood
Is throbbing with the voice of waterfalls,
But merry song and liquid interlude
Ring in my heart like mirth in empty halls.
VII
So ends the day with beauty in the west,
Bending in holy peace above the land;
It is not needful that we understand;
Oblivion is ours, and that is best.
Oblivion of battles that command
Our wan reluctance, and a starless rest
Borne on in tideless twilight, where all quest
Ends in the pressure of a quiet hand.
There is no morrow to this final dream
That paints the past so wonderfully fair;
No rising sun shall desecrate that gleam
Of fragile colour hanging on the air.
Enshrined in sunset are all things that seem
Happy and beautiful; and Thou art there.
VIII
Across the evening calm I faintly hear
The melody you loved; a violin
Sings through the listening air, far-off and thin,
The infinite music of our happy year.
The soul's dim gates are broken to let in
That gush of memories, and you are near,
Poised on the shadowy threshold whence appear
The prospects of the dreams we strove to win.
Rise wistfully, and fall away, and pass,
Frail music of impossible delight,
Steal into silence over the dark grass,
Dreams of the inner caverns of the night.
Strange that in those few hesitating bars
Are life and death, the orbits of the stars.
IX
Calmer than mirrored waters after rain,
Calmer than all the swaying tides of sleep,
Profounder than the stony eyes that keep
Afternoon vigil on the ruined plain;
So drift they by, the cloudy forms that creep
In stealthy whiteness through the windless grain;
The twilight ebbs, and washed in the long rain,
I am their shepherd, pasturing my sheep.
They can not change; they can but wander here;
That is their destiny and also mine;
The fuel that I was, the flames they were,
Are vanished down the lost horizon line.
Likewise the stars have died; the silence hears
Only the footfall of the pastured years.
X
I stood like some worn image carved of stone
Amid the thoughtful sands of eventide;
When rolling back the grey, there opened wide
The unsuspected gates of the Unknown.
Long hours I stood, amazed and deified,
Beside that singing shore; that shining zone,
Myself like God, triumphantly alone,
"And is this then the shore of death?" I cried.
A wind blew down from the tremendous sky,
Fraught with a whisper fainter than a breath,
Fanning my spirit with exalted wonder;
But the great doors swung to with rumbling thunder;
One more the winged faith had passed me by,
Like unto melody, like unto death.
XI
Through the deep night the leaves speak, tree to tree.
Where are the stars? the frantic clouds ride high,
The swelling gusts of wind blow down the sky,
Shaking the thoughts from the leaves, garrulously.
Through the deep night, articulate to me,
They question your untimely passing-by;
Your spring is still in flower, must you fly
Windswept so soon down lanes of memory?
Through the deep night the trees recount the past,
The lovers that have long ago gone hence,
And whom you joined ere love had reached her prime.
Chill with an early autumn's immanence,
Through the dark night plunges the sudden blast,
Sweeping the young leaves down before their time.
XII
I walked the hollow pavements of the town,
Lost in the vast entirety of night,
The moon was cankered with a greyish blight,
And half her face was gathered in a frown.
A hooded watchman passed me, and his gown
Was dyed so black it made the darkness white,
He turned upon my face his curious light,
And whispered as he wandered up and down.
Then there were curling lanes and then a hill,
And sentry stars that guard the Absolute,
And spectral feet that followed me, until
The vapours rose, and somewhere in the mute
And hesitating dawn, a single flute
Piped once again the grey, and then was still.
XIII
In tireless march I move from sphere to sphere.
I turn not back nor pause; my feet are drawn
By shining power. Master soul or pawn,
I know not which I am; I only hear
The faint insistent world voice murmuring on
Its pivot in another atmosphere;
All else is silence, the pervading year
Blows wanly through my senses and is gone.
O You who met me on the sunny lawn
Of yesteryear, to be my true companion,
And bade me lead you with me from the dawn
Into the shades of my predestined canon,
How is it that I find myself alone
Here in this desolate and starry zone?
XIV
A while you shared my path and solitude,
A while you ate the bread of loneliness,
And satisfied yourself with a caress
Or with a careless overflow of mood.
And then you left me suddenly, to press
Into the world again, and seek your food
Among the mortals whom you understood,
Instead of learning in the wilderness.
Now you return to where you fled from me,
And find me gone. You call me from afar,
And call in vain; I can not turn to see
You loveliness, beloved as you are.
Inexorably I move from sphere to sphere,
Nor wait for any soul, however dear.
XV
There is a void that reason can not face,
Nor wisdom comprehend, nor sweating will
Diminish, nor the rain of April fill,
And I am weary of this wan grimace.
Behold I touch the garments of all ill
And do not wash my hands; a dusty place
Unprobed by light becomes a loud mill race
That swirls together straw and daffodil.
It is untrue that vigil can not trace
The orbits which upon our births distil
The filtered dew of fate; I saw the hill
That I must climb, and gauged the upward pace;
And now upon the night's worn window sill,
I wait and smile. Hail, Judas, full of grace.
XVI
The mirrors of all ages are the eyes
Of some remembering god, wherein are sealed
The beauties of the world, the April field,
Young faces, blowing hair, and autumn skies.
The mirrors of the world shall break, and yield
To life again what never really dies;
The forms and colours of earth's pageantries,
Unwithered and undimmed, shall be revealed.
And in that moment silence shall unfold
Forgotten songs that she has held interred,
The ocean rising on the shores of gold,
Flecked with white laughter and love's lyric word;
All happy music that the world has heard;
All beauty that eternal eyes behold.
XVII
We sat in silence till the twilight fell,
And then beyond the vague and purple arc
Where sky and ocean merge, a summons. "Hark!
Clear notes like water falling in a well,
Can you not hear?" "No, but a sudden dark
Seems to enfold me, lonely and terrible."
Out of the sunset, a black caravel
Drew near, and then I knew I should embark.
I saw it tack against the fading skies,
I heard its keel slide crunching up the sand,
Then turned, and read, deep in the other's eyes,
The pain of one who can not understand.
Dusk deepened over the insurging seas,
And loose sails crackled in the rising breeze.
XVIII
He clung to me, his young face dark with woe,
And as the mournful music of the tide
Monotonously sang, he stood and cried,
A silhouette against the afterglow.
I said, "The boat has spread her pinions wide;
The stars and wind come forth together. Go
Back to our ivy-haunted portico,
And place my seat as always at your side."
And so I stepped aboard and left him there.
Farewell; the rhythmic somnolence of oars;
Star-misty vastness; swiftly moving air;
Then distant lights on undiscovered shores.
This I remember, standing by the sea,
But where was that dark land, and who were we?