BOOK I_Poetical Works of Robert Bridges, Volume 2

ELEGY

Clear and gentle stream!

Known and loved so long

That hast heard the song,

And the idle dream

Of my boyish day;

While I once again

Down thy margin stray,

In the selfsame strain

Still my voice is spent,

With my old lament

And my idle dream,

Clear and gentle stream!

Where my old seat was

Here again I sit,

Where the long boughs knit

Over stream and grass

A translucent eaves:

Where back eddies play

Shipwreck with the leaves,

And the proud swans stray,

Sailing one by one

Out of stream and sun,

And the fish lie cool

In their chosen pool.

Many an afternoon

Of the summer day

Dreaming here I lay;

And I know how soon,

Idly at its hour,

First the deep bell hums

From the minster tower,

And then evening comes,

Creeping up the glade,

With her lengthening shade,

And the tardy boon,

Of her brightening moon.

Clear and gentle stream!

Ere again I go

Where thou dost not flow,

Well does it beseem

Thee to hear again

Once my youthful song,

That familiar strain

Silent now so long:

Be as I content

With my old lament

And my idle dream,

Clear and gentle stream.

ELEGY

The wood is bare: a river-mist is steeping

The trees that winter’s chill of life bereaves:

Only their stiffened boughs break silence, weeping

Over their fallen leaves;

That lie upon the dank earth brown and rotten,

Miry and matted in the soaking wet:

Forgotten with the spring, that is forgotten

By them that can forget.

Yet it was here we walked when ferns were springing,

And through the mossy bank shot bud and blade:—

Here found in summer, when the birds were singing,

A green and pleasant shade.

’Twas here we loved in sunnier days and greener;

And now, in this disconsolate decay,

I come to see her where I most have seen her,

And touch the happier day.

For on this path, at every turn and corner,

The fancy of her figure on me falls:

Yet walks she with the slow step of a mourner,

Nor hears my voice that calls.

So through my heart there winds a track of feeling,

A path of memory, that is all her own:

Whereto her phantom beauty ever stealing

Haunts the sad spot alone.

About her steps the trunks are bare, the branches

Drip heavy tears upon her downcast head;

And bleed unseen wounds that no sun staunches,

For the year’s sun is dead.

And dead leaves wrap the fruits that summer planted:

And birds that love the South have taken wing.

The wanderer, loitering o’er the scene enchanted,

Weeps, and despairs of spring.

Poor withered rose and dry,

Skeleton of a rose,

Risen to testify

To love’s sad close:

Treasured for love’s sweet sake,

That of joy past

Thou might’st again awake

Memory at last.

Yet is thy perfume sweet;

Thy petals red

Yet tell of summer heat,

And the gay bed:

Yet, yet recall the glow

Of the gazing sun,

When at thy bush we two

Joined hands in one.

But, rose, thou hast not seen,

Thou hast not wept

The change that passed between,

Whilst thou hast slept.

To me thou seemest yet

The dead dream’s thrall:

While I live and forget

Dream, truth and all.

Thou art more fresh than I,

Rose, sweet and red:

Salt on my pale cheeks lie

The tears I shed.

THE CLIFF-TOP

The cliff-top has a carpet

Of lilac, gold and green:

The blue sky bounds the ocean

The white clouds scud between.

A flock of gulls are wheeling

And wailing round my seat;

Above my head the heaven,

The sea beneath my feet.

THE OCEAN.

Were I a cloud I’d gather

My skirts up in the air,

And fly I well know whither,

And rest I well know where.

As pointed the star surely,

The legend tells of old,

Where the wise kings might offer

Myrrh, frankincense, and gold;

Above the house I’d hover

Where dwells my love, and wait

Till haply I might spy her

Throw back the garden-gate.

There in the summer evening

I would bedeck the moon;

I would float down and screen her

From the sun’s rays at noon;

And if her flowers should languish,

Or wither in the drought,

Upon her tall white lilies

I’d pour my heart’s blood out:

So if she wore one only,

And shook not out the rain,

Were I a cloud, O cloudlet,

I had not lived in vain.

[_A cloud speaks._

A CLOUD.

But were I thou, O ocean,

I would not chafe and fret

As thou, because a limit

To thy desires is set.

I would be blue, and gentle,

Patient, and calm, and see

If my smiles might not tempt her,

My love, to come to me.

I’d make my depths transparent,

And still, that she should lean

O’er the boat’s edge to ponder

The sights that swam between.

I would command strange creatures,

Of bright hue and quick fin,

To stir the water near her,

And tempt her bare arm in.

I’d teach her spend the summer

With me: and I can tell,

That, were I thou, O ocean,

My love should love me well.

* * * * *

But on the mad cloud scudded,

The breeze it blew so stiff;

And the sad ocean bellowed,

And pounded at the cliff.

I heard a linnet courting

His lady in the spring:

His mates were idly sporting,

Nor stayed to hear him sing

His song of love.—

I fear my speech distorting

His tender love.

The phrases of his pleading

Were full of young delight;

And she that gave him heeding

Interpreted aright

His gay, sweet notes,—

So sadly marred in the reading,—

His tender notes.

And when he ceased, the hearer

Awaited the refrain,

Till swiftly perching nearer

He sang his song again,

His pretty song:—

Would that my verse spake clearer

His tender song!

Ye happy, airy creatures!

That in the merry spring

Think not of what misfeatures

Or cares the year may bring;

But unto love

Resign your simple natures,

To tender love.

Dear lady, when thou frownest,

And my true love despisest,

And all thy vows disownest

That sealed my venture wisest;

I think thy pride’s displeasure

Neglects a matchless treasure

Exceeding price and measure.

But when again thou smilest,

And love for love returnest,

And fear with joy beguilest,

And takest truth in earnest;

Then, though I sheer adore thee,

The sum of my love for thee

Seems poor, scant, and unworthy.

I will not let thee go.

Ends all our month-long love in this?

Can it be summed up so,

Quit in a single kiss?

I will not let thee go.

If thy words’ breath could scare thy deeds,

As the soft south can blow

And toss the feathered seeds,

Then might I let thee go.

I will not let thee go.

Had not the great sun seen, I might;

Or were he reckoned slow

To bring the false to light,

Then might I let thee go.

I will not let thee go.

The stars that crowd the summer skies

Have watched us so below

With all their million eyes,

I dare not let thee go.

I will not let thee go.

Have we not chid the changeful moon,

Now rising late, and now

Because she set too soon,

And shall I let thee go?

I will not let thee go.

Have not the young flowers been content,

Plucked ere their buds could blow,

To seal our sacrament?

I cannot let thee go.

I will not let thee go.

I hold thee by too many bands:

Thou sayest farewell, and lo!

I have thee by the hands,

And will not let thee go.

I found to-day out walking

The flower my love loves best.

What, when I stooped to pluck it,

Could dare my hand arrest?

Was it a snake lay curling

About the root’s thick crown?

Or did some hidden bramble

Tear my hand reaching down?

There was no snake uncurling,

And no thorn wounded me;

’Twas my heart checked me, sighing

She is beyond the sea.

A poppy grows upon the shore,

Bursts her twin cup in summer late:

Her leaves are glaucous-green and hoar,

Her petals yellow, delicate.

Oft to her cousins turns her thought,

In wonder if they care that she

Is fed with spray for dew, and caught

By every gale that sweeps the sea.

She has no lovers like the red,

That dances with the noble corn:

Her blossoms on the waves are shed,

Where she stands shivering and forlorn.

Sometimes when my lady sits by me

My rapture’s so great, that I tear

My mind from the thought that she’s nigh me,

And strive to forget that she’s there.

And sometimes when she is away

Her absence so sorely does try me,

That I shut to my eyes, and assay

To think she is there sitting by me.

Long are the hours the sun is above,

But when evening comes I go home to my love.

I’m away the daylight hours and more,

Yet she comes not down to open the door.

She does not meet me upon the stair,—

She sits in my chamber and waits for me there.

As I enter the room she does not move:

I always walk straight up to my love;

And she lets me take my wonted place

At her side, and gaze in her dear dear face.

There as I sit, from her head thrown back

Her hair falls straight in a shadow black.

Aching and hot as my tired eyes be,

She is all that I wish to see.

And in my wearied and toil-dinned ear,

She says all things that I wish to hear.

Dusky and duskier grows the room,

Yet I see her best in the darker gloom.

When the winter eves are early and cold,

The firelight hours are a dream of gold.

And so I sit here night by night,

In rest and enjoyment of love’s delight.

But a knock at the door, a step on the stair

Will startle, alas, my love from her chair.

If a stranger comes she will not stay:

At the first alarm she is off and away.

And he wonders, my guest, usurping her throne,

That I sit so much by myself alone.

Who has not walked upon the shore,

And who does not the morning know,

The day the angry gale is o’er,

The hour the wind has ceased to blow?

The horses of the strong south-west

Are pastured round his tropic tent,

Careless how long the ocean’s breast

Sob on and sigh for passion spent.

The frightened birds, that fled inland

To house in rock and tower and tree,

Are gathering on the peaceful strand,

To tempt again the sunny sea;

Whereon the timid ships steal out

And laugh to find their foe asleep,

That lately scattered them about,

And drave them to the fold like sheep.

The snow-white clouds he northward chased

Break into phalanx, line, and band:

All one way to the south they haste,

The south, their pleasant fatherland.

From distant hills their shadows creep,

Arrive in turn and mount the lea,

And flit across the downs, and leap

Sheer off the cliff upon the sea;

And sail and sail far out of sight.

But still I watch their fleecy trains,

That piling all the south with light,

Dapple in France the fertile plains.

I made another song,

In likeness of my love:

And sang it all day long,

Around, beneath, above;

I told my secret out,

That none might be in doubt.

I sang it to the sky,

That veiled his face to hear

How far her azure eye

Outdoes his splendid sphere;

But at her eyelids’ name

His white clouds fled for shame.

I told it to the trees,

And to the flowers confest,

And said not one of these

Is like my lily drest;

Nor spathe nor petal dared

Vie with her body bared.

I shouted to the sea,

That set his waves a-prance;

Her floating hair is free,

Free are her feet to dance;

And for thy wrath, I swear

Her frown is more to fear.

And as in happy mood

I walked and sang alone,

At eve beside the wood

I met my love, my own:

And sang to her the song

I had sung all day long.

ELEGY

ON A LADY, WHOM GRIEF FOR THE DEATH OF HER

BETROTHED KILLED

Assemble, all ye maidens, at the door,

And all ye loves, assemble; far and wide

Proclaim the bridal, that proclaimed before

Has been deferred to this late eventide:

For on this night the bride,

The days of her betrothal over,

Leaves the parental hearth for evermore;

To-night the bride goes forth to meet her lover.

Reach down the wedding vesture, that has lain

Yet all unvisited, the silken gown:

Bring out the bracelets, and the golden chain

Her dearer friends provided: sere and brown

Bring out the festal crown,

And set it on her forehead lightly:

Though it be withered, twine no wreath again;

This only is the crown she can wear rightly.

Cloke her in ermine, for the night is cold,

And wrap her warmly, for the night is long,

In pious hands the flaming torches hold,

While her attendants, chosen from among

Her faithful virgin throng,

May lay her in her cedar litter,

Decking her coverlet with sprigs of gold,

Roses, and lilies white that best befit her.

Sound flute and tabor, that the bridal be

Not without music, nor with these alone;

But let the viol lead the melody,

With lesser intervals, and plaintive moan

Of sinking semitone;

And, all in choir, the virgin voices

Rest not from singing in skilled harmony

The song that aye the bridegroom’s ear rejoices.

Let the priests go before, arrayed in white,

And let the dark-stoled minstrels follow slow,

Next they that bear her, honoured on this night,

And then the maidens, in a double row,

Each singing soft and low,

And each on high a torch upstaying:

Unto her lover lead her forth with light,

With music, and with singing, and with praying.

’Twas at this sheltering hour he nightly came,

And found her trusty window open wide,

And knew the signal of the timorous flame,

That long the restless curtain would not hide

Her form that stood beside;

As scarce she dared to be delighted,

Listening to that sweet tale, that is no shame

To faithful lovers, that their hearts have plighted.

But now for many days the dewy grass

Has shown no markings of his feet at morn:

And watching she has seen no shadow pass

The moonlit walk, and heard no music borne

Upon her ear forlorn.

In vain has she looked out to greet him;

He has not come, he will not come, alas!

So let us bear her out where she must meet him.

Now to the river bank the priests are come:

The bark is ready to receive its freight:

Let some prepare her place therein, and some

Embark the litter with its slender weight:

The rest stand by in state,

And sing her a safe passage over;

While she is oared across to her new home,

Into the arms of her expectant lover.

And thou, O lover, that art on the watch,

Where, on the banks of the forgetful streams,

The pale indifferent ghosts wander, and snatch

The sweeter moments of their broken dreams,—

Thou, when the torchlight gleams,

When thou shalt see the slow procession,

And when thine ears the fitful music catch,

Rejoice, for thou art near to thy possession.

RONDEAU

His poisoned shafts, that fresh he dips

In juice of plants that no bee sips,

He takes, and with his bow renown’d

Goes out upon his hunting ground,

Hanging his quiver at his hips.

He draws them one by one, and clips

Their heads between his finger-tips,

And looses with a twanging sound

His poisoned shafts.

But if a maiden with her lips

Suck from the wound the blood that drips,

And drink the poison from the wound,

The simple remedy is found

That of their deadly terror strips

His poisoned shafts.

TRIOLET

When first we met we did not guess

That Love would prove so hard a master;

Of more than common friendliness

When first we met we did not guess.

Who could foretell this sore distress,

This irretrievable disaster

When first we met?—We did not guess

That Love would prove so hard a master.

TRIOLET

All women born are so perverse

No man need boast their love possessing.

If nought seem better, nothing’s worse:

All women born are so perverse.

From Adam’s wife, that proved a curse

Though God had made her for a blessing,

All women born are so perverse

No man need boast their love possessing.

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