On wings impetuous some wind will come,

  And with its too harsh kisses break the reed

  Which was its only instrument of song,

  So my too stormy passions work me wrong,

  And for excess of Love my Love is dumb.

  But surely unto thee mine eyes did show

  Why I am silent, and my lute unstrung;

  Else it were better we should part, and go,

  Thou to some lips of sweeter melody,

  And I to nurse the barren memory

  Of unkissed kisses, and songs never sung.

  Her Voice

  The wild bee reels from bough to bough

  With his furry coat and his gauzy wing.

  Now in a lily-cup, and now

  Setting a jacinth bell a-swing,

  In his wandering;

  Sit closer love: it was here I trow

  I made that vow,

  Swore that two lives should be like one

  As long as the sea-gull loved the sea,

  As long as the sunflower sought the sun —

  It shall be, I said, for eternity

  ‘Twixt you and me!

  Dear friend, those times are over and done,

  Love’s web is spun.

  Look upward where the poplar trees

  Sway and sway in the summer air,

  Here in the valley never a breeze

  Scatters the thistledowns, but there

  Great winds blow fair

  From the mighty murmuring mystical seas,

  And the wave-lashed leas.

  Look upward where the white gull screams

  What does it see that we do not see?

  Is that a star? or the lamp that gleams

  On some outward voyaging argosy, —

  Ah! can it be

  We have lived our lives in land of dreams!

  How sad it seems.

  Sweet, there is nothing left to say

  But this, that love is never lost.

  Keen winter stabs the breasts of May

  Whose crimson roses burst his frost,

  Ships tempest-tossed

  Will find a harbour in some bay,

  And so we may.

  And there is nothing left to do

  But to kiss once again, and part,

  Nay, there is nothing we should rue,

  I have my beauty, — you your Art.

  Nay, do not start,

  One world was not enough for two

  Like me and you.

  My Voice

  Within this restless, hurried, modern world

  We took our heart’s full pleasure — You and I,

  And now the white sails of our ship are furled,

  And spent the lading of our argosy.

  Wherefore my cheeks before their time are wan,

  For very weeping is my gladness fled

  Sorrow hath paled my lip’s vermilion,

  And Ruin draws the curtains of my bed.

  But all this crowded life has been to thee

  No more than lyre, or lute, or subtle spell

  Of viols, or the music of the sea

  That sleeps, a mimic echo, in the shell.

  Taedium Vitae

  To stab my youth with desperate knife, to wear

  This paltry age’s gaudy livery,

  To let each base hand filch my treasury,

  To mesh my soul within a woman’s hair,

  And be mere Fortune’s lackeyed groom, — I swear,

  I love it not! these things are less to me

  Than the thin foam that frets upon the sea,

  Less than the thistle-down of summer air

  Which hath no seed: better to stand aloof

  Far from these slanderous fools who mock my life

  Knowing me not, better the lowliest roof

  Fit for the meanest hind to sojourn in,

  Than to go back to that hoarse cave of strife

  Where my white soul first kissed the mouth of sin.

  The Garden of Eros

  It is full summer now, the heart of June,

  Not yet the sun-burnt reapers are a-stir

  Upon the upland meadow where too soon

  Rich autumn time, the season’s usurer,

  Will lend his hoarded gold to all the trees,

  And see his treasure scattered by the wild and spendthrift breeze.

  Too soon indeed! yet here the daffodil,

  That love-child of the Spring, has lingered on

  To vex the rose with jealousy, and still

  The harebell spreads her azure pavilion,

  And like a strayed and wandering reveller

  Abandoned of its brothers, whom long since June’s messenger

  The missel-thrush has frighted from the glade,

  One pale narcissus loiters fearfully

  Close to a shadowy nook, where half afraid

  Of their own loveliness some violets lie

  That will not look the gold sun in the face

  For fear of too much splendour, — ah! methinks it is a place

  Which should be trodden by Persephone

  When wearied of the flowerless fields of Dis!

  Or danced on by the lads of Arcady!

  The hidden secret of eternal bliss

  Known to the Grecian here a man might find,

  Ah! you and I may find it now if Love and Sleep be kind.

  There are the flowers which mourning Herakles

  Strewed on the tomb of Hylas, columbine,

  Its white doves all a-flutter where the breeze

  Kissed them too harshly, the small celandine,

  That yellow-kirtled chorister of eve,

  And lilac lady’s-smock, — but let them bloom alone and leave

  Yon spired holly-hock red-crocketed

  To sway its silent chimes, else must the bee,

  Its little bell-ringer, go seek instead

  Some other pleasaunce; the anemone

  That weeps at daybreak, like a silly girl

  Before her love, and hardly lets the butterflies unfurl

  Their painted wings beside it, — bid it pine

  In pale virginity; the winter snow

  Will suit it better than those lips of thine

  Whose fires would but scorch it, rather go

  And pluck that amorous flower which blooms alone,

  Fed by the pander wind with dust of kisses not its own.

  The trumpet-mouths of red convolvulus

  So dear to maidens, creamery meadow-sweet

  Whiter than Juno’s throat and odorous

  As all Arabia, hyacinths the feet

  Of Huntress Dian would be loath to mar

  For any dappled fawn, — pluck these, and those fond flowers which are

  Fairer than what Queen Venus trod upon

  Beneath the pines of Ida, eucharis,

  That morning star which does not dread the sun,

  And budding marjoram which but to kiss

  Would sweeten Cytheraea’s lips and make

  Adonis jealous, — these for thy head, — and for thy girdle take

  Yon curving spray of purple clematis

  Whose gorgeous dye outflames the Tyrian King,

  And fox-gloves with their nodding chalices,

  But that one narciss which the startled Spring

  Let from her kirtle fall when first she heard

  In her own woods the wild tempestuous song of summer’s bird,

  Ah! leave it for a subtle memory

  Of those sweet tremulous days of rain and sun,

  When April laughed between her tears to see

  The early primrose with shy footsteps run

  From the gnarled oak-tree roots till all the wold,

  Spite of its brown and trampled leaves, grew bright with shimmering gold.

  Nay, pluck it too, it is not half so sweet

  As thou thyself, my soul’s idolatry!

  And when thou art a-wearied at thy feet

  Shall oxlips weave their brightest tapestry,

  For thee the woodbine shall forget its pride

  And veil its tangled whorls, and thou shalt walk on daisies pied.

  And I will cut a reed by yonder spring

  And make the wood-gods jealous, and old Pan

  Wonder what young intruder dares to sing

  In these still haunts, where never foot of man

  Should tread at evening, lest he chance to spy

  The marble limbs of Artemis and all her company.

  And I will tell you why the jacinth wears

  Such dread embroidery of dolorous moan,

  And why the hapless nightingale forbears

  To sing her song at noon, but weeps alone

  When the fleet swallow sleeps, and rich men feast,

  And why the laurel trembles when she sees the lightening east.

  And I will sing how sad Proserpina

  Unto a grave and gloomy Lord was wed,

  And lure the silver-breasted Helena

  Back from the lotus meadows of the dead,

  So shalt thou see that awful loveliness

  For which two mighty Hosts met fearfully in war’s abyss!

  And then I’ll pipe to thee that Grecian tale

  How Cynthia loves the lad Endymion,

  And hidden in a gray and misty veil

  Hies to the cliffs of Latmos, once the Sun

  Leaps from his ocean bed, in fruitless chase

  Of those pale flying feet which fade away in his embrace.

  And if my flute can breathe sweet melody,

  We may behold Her face who long ago

  Dwelt among men by the Aegean sea,

  And whose sad house with pillaged portico

  And friezeless wall and columns toppled down

  Looms o’er the ruins of that fair and violet-cinctured town.

  Spirit of Beauty! tarry still a-while,

  They are not dead, thine ancient votaries,

  Some few there are to whom thy radiant smile

  Is better than a thousand victories,

  Though all the nobly slain of Waterloo

  Rise up in wrath against them! tarry still, there are a few,

  Who for thy sake would give their manlihood

  And consecrate their being, I at least

  Have done so, made thy lips my daily food,

  And in thy temples found a goodlier feast

  Than this starved age can give me, spite of all

  Its new-found creeds so skeptical and so dogmatical.

  Here not Cephissos, not Ilissos flows,

  The woods of white Colonos are not here,

  On our bleak hills the olive never blows,

  No simple priest conducts his lowing steer

  Up the steep marble way, nor through the town

  Do laughing maidens bear to thee the crocus-flowered gown.

  Yet tarry! for the boy who loved thee best,

  Whose very name should be a memory

  To make thee linger, sleeps in silent rest

  Beneath the Roman walls, and melody

  Still mourns her sweetest lyre, none can play

  The lute of Adonais, with his lips Song passed away.

  Nay, when Keats died the Muses still had left

  One silver voice to sing his threnody,

  But ah! too soon of it we were bereft

  When on that riven night and stormy sea

  Panthea claimed her singer as her own,

  And slew the mouth that praised her; since which time we walk alone,

  Save for that fiery heart, that morning star

  Of re-arisen England, whose clear eye

  Saw from our tottering throne and waste of war

  The grand Greek limbs of young Democracy

  Rise mightily like Hesperus and bring

  The great Republic! him at least thy love hath taught to sing,

  And he hath been thee at Thessaly,

  And seen white Atalanta fleet of foot

  In passionless and fierce virginity

  Hunting the tusked boar, his honeyed lute

  Hath pierced the cavern of the hollow hill,

  And Venus laughs to the one knee will bow before her still.

  And he hath kissed the one of Proserpine,

  And sung the Galilaean’s requiem,

  That wounded forehead dashed with blood and wine

  He hath discrowned, the Ancient Gods in him

  Have found their last, most ardent worshipper,

  And the Sign grows gray and dim before its conqueror

  Spirit of Beauty! tarry with us still,

  It is not quenched the torch of poesy,

  The star that shook above the Eastern hill

  Holds unassailed its argent armory

  From all the gathering gloom and fretful fight —

  O tarry with us still! for through the long and common night,

  Morris, our sweet and simple Chaucer’s child,

  Dear heritor of Spenser’s tuneful reed,

  With soft and sylvan pipe has oft beguiled

  The weary soul of man in troublous need,

  And from the far and flowerless fields of ice

  Has brought fair flowers meet to make an earthly paradise.

  We know them all, Gudrun the strong man’s bride,

  Aslaug and Olafson we know them all,

  How giant Grettir fought and Sigurd died,

  And what enchantment held the king in thrall

  When lonely Brynhild wrestled with the powers

  That war against all passion, ah! how oft through summer hours,

  Long listless summer hours when the noon

  Being enamored of a damask rose

  Forgets to journey westward, till the moon

  The pale usurper of its tribute grows

  From a thin sickle to a silver shield

  And chides its loitering car — how oft, in some cool grassy field

  Far from the cricket-ground and noisy eight

  At Bagley, where the rustling bluebells come

  Almost before the blackbird finds a mate

  And overstay the swallow, and the hum

  Of many murmuring bees flits through the leaves,

  Have I lain poring on the dreamy tales his fancy weaves,

  And through their unreal woes and mimic pain

  Wept for myself, and so was purified,

  And in their simple mirth grew glad again;

  For as I sailed upon that pictured tide

  The strength and splendour of the storm was mine

  Without the storm’s red ruin, for the singer is divine.

  The little laugh of water falling down

  Is not so musical, the clammy gold

  Close hoarded in the tiny waxen town

  Has less of sweetness in it, and the old

  Half-withered reeds that waved in Arcady

  Touched by his lips break forth again to fresher harmony.

  Spirit of Beauty tarry yet a-while!

  Although the cheating merchants of the mart

  With iron roads profane our lovely isle,

  And break on whirring wheels the limbs of Art,

  Ay! though the crowded factories beget

  The blind-worm Ignorance that slays the soul, O tarry yet!

  For One at least there is, — He bears his name

  From Dante and the seraph Gabriel, —

  Whose double laurels burn with deathless flame

  To light thine altar; He too loves thee well

  Who saw old Merlin lured in Vivien’s snare,

  And the white feet of angels coming down the golden stair,

  Loves thee so well, that all the world for him

  A gorgeous-colored vestiture must wear,

  And Sorrow take a purple diadem,

  Or else be no more Sorrow, and Despair

  Gild its own thorns, and Pain, like Adon, be

  Even in anguish beautiful; — such is the empery

  Which painters hold, and such the heritage

  This gentle, solemn Spirit doth possess,

  Being a better mirror of his age

  In all his pity, love, and weariness,

  Than those who can but copy common things,

  And leave the soul unpainted with its mighty questionings.

  But they are few, and all romance has flown,

  And men can prophesy about the sun,

  And lecture on his arrows — how, alone,

  Through a waste void the soulless atoms run,

  How from each tree its weeping nymph has fled,

  And that no more ‘mid English reeds a Naiad shows her head.

  Methinks these new actaeons boast too soon

  That they have spied on beauty; what if we

  Have analysed the rainbow, robbed the moon

  Of her most ancient, chastest mystery,

  Shall I, the last Endymion, lose all hope

  Because rude eyes peer at my mistress through a telescope!

  What profit if this scientific age

  Burst through our gates with all its retinue

  Of modern miracles! Can it assuage

  One lover’s breaking heart? what can it do

  To make one life more beautiful, one day

  More god-like in its period? but now the Age of Clay

  Returns in horrid cycle, and the earth

  Hath borne again a noisy progeny

  Of ignorant Titans, whose ungodly birth

  Hurls them against the august hierarchy

  Which sat upon Olympus, to the Dust

  They have appealed, and to that barren arbiter they must

  Repair for judgment, let them, if they can,

  From Natural Warfare and insensate Chance,

  Create the new ideal rule for man!

  Methinks that was not my inheritance;

  For I was nurtured otherwise, my soul

  Passes from higher heights of life to a more supreme goal.

  Lo! while we spake the earth did turn away

  Her visage from the God, and Hecate’s boat

  Rose silver-laden, till the jealous day

  Blew all its torches out: I did not note

  The waning hours, to young Endymions

  Time’s palsied fingers count in vain his rosary of suns! —

 

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