I only keep for thee out here--

AN EPIC OF WOMEN

AND

OTHER POEMS.

BY

ARTHUR W. E. O’SHAUGHNESSY.

LONDON:

JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, PICCADILLY.

1870.

I Dedicate this Book

TO MY FRIEND,

JOHN PAYNE.

TENTS.

PAGE

EXILE 9

A NEGLECTED HARP 13

THREE FLOWERS OF MODERN GREECE

I. IANOULA 17

II. THE FAIR MAID AND THE SUN 20

III. THE CYPRESS 23

A PRECIOUS URN 25

SERAPHITUS 26

THE LOVER 34

A WHISPER FROM THE GRAVE 46

BISCLAVARET 55

THOUGHT 65

THE STORY OF THE KING 66

PALM FLOWERS 71

AN EPIC OF WOMEN.

I. CREATION 81

II. THE WIFE OF HEPHÆSTUS 86

III. CLEOPATRA, 1 93

IV. CLEOPATRA, 2 98

V. THE DAUGHTER OF HERODIAS 105

VI. HELEN 133

VII. A TROTH FOR ETERNITY 141

SONNET (1867) 162

DEATH 165

THE FOUNTAIN OF TEARS 166

LOVE AFTER DEATH 170

SOWN SEED 171

A DISCORD 174

GALANTERIE 175

THE GLORIOUS LADY 178

LOST BLISSES 190

THE SPECTRE OF THE PAST 192

A FADING FACE 203

THE HEART’S QUESTIONS 204

(Chopin’s Nocturne, Op. 15, No. 3.)

BARCAROLLE 207

THE MINER: BALLAD 211

A WASTED LAND 214

CHARMED MOMENTS 217

(Chopin’s Nocturne, Op. 37, No. 1.)

A LIFE-TOMB 219

THE SLAVE OF APOLLO 221

THE POET’S GRAVE 227

[Illustration]

EXILE.

Des voluptés intérieures

Le sourire mystérieux.

VICTOR HUGO.

A common folk I walk among;

I speak dull things in their own tongue:

But all the while within I hear

A song I do not sing for fear--

How sweet, how different a thing!

And when I come where none are near

I open all my heart and sing.

I am made one with these indeed,

And give them all the love they need--

Such love as they would have of me:

But in my heart--ah, let it be!--

I think of it when none is nigh--

There is a love they shall not see;

For it I live--for it will die.

And oft-times, though I share their joys,

And seem to praise them with my voice,

Do I not celebrate my own,

Ay, down in some far inward zone

Of thoughts in which they have no part?

Do I not feel--ah, quite alone

With all the secret of my heart?

O when the shroud of night is spread

On these, as Death is on the dead,

So that no sight of them shall mar

The blessèd rapture of a star--

Then I draw forth those thoughts at will;

And like the stars those bright thoughts are;

And boundless seems the heart they fill:

For every one is as a link;

And I enchain them as I think;

Till present, and remembered bliss,

And better, worlds on after this,

I have--led on from each to each

Athwart the limitless abyss--

In some surpassing sphere I reach.

I draw a veil across my face

Before I come back to the place

And dull obscurity of these;

I hide my face, and no man sees;

I learn to smile a lighter smile,

And change, and look just what they please.

It is but for a little while.

I go with them; and in their sight

I would not scorn their little light,

Nor mock the things they hold divine;

But when I kneel before the shrine

Of some base deity of theirs,

I pray all inwardly to mine,

And send my soul up with my prayers:

For I--ah, to myself I say--

I have a heaven though far away;

And there my Love went long ago,

With all the things my heart loves so;

And there my songs fly, every one:

And I shall find them there I know

When this sad pilgrimage is done.

A NEGLECTED HARP.

O hushed and shrouded room!

O silence that enchains!

O me--of many melodies

The cold and voiceless tomb;

What sweet impassioned strains,

What fair unearthly things,

Sealed up in frozen cadences,

Are aching in my strings!

Each time the setting sun,

At eve when all is still,

Doth reach a pale faint finger in

To touch them one by one;

O what an inward thrill

Of music makes them swell!

The prisoned song-pulse beats within

And almost breaks the spell.

Each time the ghostly moon

Among the shadows gleams,

And leads them in a mournful dance

To some mysterious tune;

O then, indeed, it seems

Strange muffled tones repeat

The wail within me, and perchance

The measure of the feet.

But often when the ring

Of some sweet voice is near,

Or past me the light garments brush

Soft as a spirit’s wing,--

O, more than I can bear,

I feel, intense, the throb

Of some rich inward music gush

That comes out in a sob.

For am I not--alas,

The quick days come and go--

A weak and songless instrument

Through which the song-breaths pass?

I would a heart might know,

I would a hand might free

These wondrous melodies up-pent

And languishing in me.

* * * * *

A sharp strange music smote

The night.--In yon recess

The shrouded harp from all its strings

Gave forth a piercing note:

With that long bitterness

The stricken air still aches;

’Twas like the one true word that sings

Some poet whose heart breaks.

[Illustration]

THREE FLOWERS OF MODERN GREECE.

I.

IANOULA.

O sisters! fairly have ye to rejoice,

Who of your weakness wed

With lordly might: yea, now I praise your choice.

As the vine clingeth with fair fingers spread

Over some dark tree-stem,

So on your goodly husbands with no dread

Ye cling, and your fair fingers hold on them.

For godlike stature, and unchanging brow

Broad as the heaven above,

Yea, for fair mighty looks ye chose, I trow;

And prided you to see, in strivings rough,

Dauntless, their strong arms raised;

And little loth were ye to give your love

To husbands such as these whom all men praised.

But I, indeed, of many wooers, took

None such for boast or stay,

But a pale lover with a sweet sad look:

The smile he wed me with was like some ray

Shining on dust of death;

And Death stood near him on my wedding day,

And blanched his forehead with a fatal breath.

I loved to feel his weak arm lean on mine,

Yea, and to give him rest,

Bidding his pale and languid face recline

Softly upon my shoulder or my breast,--

Thinking, alas, how sweet

To hold his spirit in my arms so press’d,

That even Death’s hard omens I might cheat.

I found his drooping hand the warmest place

Here where my warm heart is;

I said, “Dear love, what thoughts are in thy face?

Has Death as fair a bosom, then, as this?”

--O sisters, do not start!

His cold lips answered with a fainting kiss,

And his hand struck its death chill to my heart.

II.

THE FAIR MAID AND THE SUN.

O sons of men, that toil, and love with tears!

Know ye, O sons of men, the maid who dwells

Between the two seas at the Dardanelles?

Her face hath charmed away the change of years,

And all the world is fillèd with her spells.

No task is hers for ever, but the play

Of setting forth her beauty day by day:

There in your midst, O sons of men that toil,

She laughs the long eternity away.

The chains about her neck are many-pearled,

Rare gems are those round which her hair is curled;

She hath all flesh for captive, and for spoil,

The fruit of all the labour of the world.

She getteth up and maketh herself bare,

And letteth down the wonder of her hair

Before the sun; the heavy golden locks

Fall in the hollow of her shoulders fair.

She taketh from the lands, as she may please,

All jewels, and all corals from the seas;

She layeth them in rows upon the rocks;

Laugheth, and bringeth fairer ones than these.

Five are the goodly necklaces that deck

The place between her bosom and her neck;

She passeth many a bracelet o’er her hands;

And, seeing she is white without a fleck,

And, seeing she is fairer than the tide,

And of a beauty no man can abide--

Proudly she standeth as a goddess stands,

And mocketh at the sun and sea for pride:

And to the sea she saith: “O silver sea,

Fair art thou, but thou art not fair like me;

Open thy white-toothed dimpled mouths and try;

They laugh not the soft way I laugh at thee.”

And to the sun she saith: “O golden sun,

Fierce is thy burning till the day is done;

But thou shalt burn mere grass and leaves, while I

Shall burn the hearts of men up everyone.”

O fair and dreadful is the maid who dwells

Between the two seas at the Dardanelles:

As fair and dread as in the ancient years;

And still the world is fillèd with her spells,

O sons of men, that toil, and love with tears!

III.

THE CYPRESS.

O Ivory bird, that shakest thy wan plumes,

And dost forget the sweetness of thy throat

For a most strange and melancholy note--

That wilt forsake the summer and the blooms

And go to winter in a place remote!

The country where thou goest, Ivory bird!

It hath no pleasant nesting-place for thee;

There are no skies nor flowers fair to see,

Nor any shade at noon--as I have heard--

But the black shadow of the Cypress tree.

Cypress tree, it groweth on a mound;

And sickly are the flowers it hath of May,

Full of a false and subtle spell are they;

For whoso breathes the scent of them around,

He shall not see the happy Summer day.

In June, it bringeth forth, O Ivory bird!

A winter berry, bitter as the sea;

And whoso eateth of it, woe is he--

He shall fall pale, and sleep--as I have heard--

Long in the shadow of the Cypress tree.

A PRECIOUS URN.

The great effulgence of the early days

Of one first summer, whose bright joys, it seems,

Have been to all my songs their golden themes;

The rose leaves gathered from the faded ways

I wandered in when they were all a-blaze

With living flowers and flame of the sunbeams;

And, more than all, that ending of my dreams

Divinely, in a dream-like thing,--the face

Of one belovèd lady once possest

In one long kiss that made my whole life burn:

What of all these remains to me?--At best,

A heap of fragrant ashes now, that turn

My heavy heart into a funeral urn

Which I have buried deep within my breast.

SERAPHITUS.

Alas! that we should not have known,

For all his strange ethereal calm,

And thoughts so little like our own

And presence like a shed-forth balm,

He was some Spirit from a zone

Of light, and ecstasy, and psalm,

Radiant and near about God’s throne:

Now he hath flown!

The heaven did cleave on him alway;

And for what thing he chose to dwell

In a mere tenement of clay

With mortal seeming--who can tell?

But there in some unearthly way

He wrought, and, with an inner spell,

Miraculously did array

That house of clay.

The very walls were in some sort

Made beautiful, with many a fresque

Or carven filigree of Thought,

Now seen a clear and statuesque

Accomplishment of dreams--now sought

Through many a lovely arabesque

And metaphor, that seemed to sport

With what it taught.

Most bright and marvellously fair

Those things did seem to all mankind;

And some indeed, with no cold stare

Beholding them, could lift their mind

Through sweet transfigurement to share

Their inward light: the rest were blind,

And wondered much, yet had small care

Whence such things were.

And, day by day, he did invent

--As though nought golden were enough,

In manner of an ornament--

Some high chivalrous deed, above

All price, whereof the element

Was the most stainless ore of Love;

A boundless store of it he spent

With lavishment.

And when therewith that house became

All in a strange sort glorified;

For through whole beauty, as of flame,

Those things, resplendent far and wide,

Did draw unto them great acclaim;

Lo, many a man there was who tried

With base alloys to do the same,

And gat men’s shame.

But all about that house he set

A wondrous flowering thing--his speech,

That without ceasing did beget

Such fair unearthly blossoms, each

Seemed from some paradise, and wet

As with an angel’s tears, and each

Gave forth some long perfume to let

No man forget.

A new delicious music erred

For ever through the devious ways

Tangled with blooming of each word;

As though in that enchanted maze

Some sweet and most celestial bird

Were caught, and, hid from every gaze,

Did there pour forth such song as stirred

All men who heard.

Before him was perpetual birth

Of flowers whereof, aye, more and more,

The world begetteth a sad dearth;

And those rare balms man searcheth for,

Fair ecstasy, and the soul’s mirth:

Half grudgingly the angels bore

That one should waste on a lost earth

Things of such worth.

It may be, with a strange delight,

After an age of gazing through

That mirror of things infinite

That well nigh burns the veil of blue

Drawn down between it and our sight--

It may be, with a joy all new,

He sought the darkness and the light

Of day and night.

It may be, that, upon some wave

Which through the incense-laden skies

Scarce forced its ripple, there once clave

A thin earth-fragrance--in such wise

It smote his sense and made him crave

For that strange sweet: maybe, likewise,

The leaves their subtle perfume gave

Up from some grave:

And pleasant did it seem to heap

About the heart dim spells that lull

Profoundly between death and sleep,

To feel mid earthly soothings, dull

And sweet, upon the whole sense creep

The dream--life-long and wonderful,

That hath all souls of men to keep

Lest they should weep.

But often, when there seemed to fall

Bright shadows of half-blindness, thin,

And like fine films wrought over all

The flashing sights of Heaven within;

While that fair perishable wall

Of flesh so barred and shut him in

That scarce a silver spirit-call

Reached him at all--

O then the Earth failed not to bring,

Indeed through many a day and eve--

The strength of all her flowering

About him; nor forgot to weave,

With soft perpetual murmuring,

Her spells, that such a sweet way grieve,

And hold the heart to each fair thing,

Yea, with a sting:

And, sometimes, with strange prevalence

He felt those dim enchantments float

Most soothingly upon his sense;

While faint in memory remote,

Brought down the heart knew not from whence,

The thought of heaven within him smote--

And many a yearning did commence

Vague and intense--

Fair part of that unknown disease

Of dull material love, whereby

The luring flower-semblances

Of earthliness and death would try

To bind his heart beyond release

To each fair mortal sympathy,

That Death at length might wholly seize

Him with all these.

And, surely, on some shining bed

Of flowers in full summer’s gleam;

Or when the autumn time had shed

Its wealth of perfume and its dream

On some rich eve--no thing of dread

To all his spirit did it seem,

To dream on, feeling sweet earth spread

Over his head.

* * * * *

But, one long twilight--hushed and dim--

The blue unfathomable clime

Of heaven seemed wholly to o’erbrim

With presence of the Lord--sublime;

And voices of the Seraphim

Fell through the ether like a chime:

He rose: his past way seemed to him

Like a child’s whim.

THE LOVER.

I was not with the rest at play;

My brothers laughed in joyous mood:

But I--I wandered far away

Into the fair and silent wood;

And with the trees and flowers I stood,

As dumb and full of dreams as they:

--For One it seemed my whole heart knew,

Or One my heart had known long since,

Was peeping at me through the dew;

And with bright laughter seemed to woo

My beauty, like a Fairy prince.

Oh, what a soft enchantment filled

The lonely paths and places dim!

It was as though the whole wood thrilled,

And a dumb joy, because of him,

Weighed down the lilies tall and slim,

And made the roses blush, and stilled

The great wild voices in half fear:

It was as though his smile did hold

All things in trances manifold;

And in each place as he drew near

The leaves were touched and turned to gold.

And well I seemed to know, the while,

It was for me and for my sake,

He wrought that magic with his smile,

And set the unseen spells to make

The lonely ways I loved to take

So full of sweetness, to beguile

My heart and keep me there for hours;

And sometimes I was sure he lay

Beside me hid among the flowers,

Or climbed above me, and in play

Shook down the white tree-bloom in showers.

But more and more he seemed to seek

My heart: till, dreaming of all this,

I thought one day to hear him speak,

Or feel, indeed, his sudden kiss

Bind me to some great unknown bliss:

Then there would stay upon my cheek

Full many a light and honied stain,

That told indeed how I had lain

Deep in the flowery banks all day;

And round me too there would remain

Some strange wood-blossom’s scent alway.

’Twas not the bright and fond deceit

Of that first summer,--whose great bloom

Quite overcame me with its sweet,

And seemed to fill me and consume

My very brain with its perfume;--

’Twas no false spell made my heart beat

With such a joy to be alone

With all the bloom and all the scent:

It was a thing I dared not own,

Already whispered there and known,

Already with my whole life blent.

It was this secret, vast, sublime,

Too full of wonder to be told--

Whose extreme rapture from that time

Doth ever more and more enfold

My spirit, like a robe of gold,

Or, as it were, the magic clime

Of some fair heaven about me shed--

Wherein are songs of unseen birds,

And whispers of delicious words

More sweet than any man hath said

Of all the living or the dead.

--O, the incomparable love

Of him, my Lover!--O, to tell

Its way and measure were above

The throbbing chords of speech that swell

Within me!--Doth it not excel

All other, sung or written of?

Yea now, O all ye fair mankind--

Consider well the gracious line

Of those your lovers; call to mind

Their love of you, and ye shall find

Not one among them all like mine.

It seems as though, from calm to calm,

A whole fair age had passed me by,

Since first this Lover, through a charm

Of flowers, wooed so tenderly,

I had no fear of drawing nigh,

Nor knew, indeed, that--with an arm

Closed round and holding me--he led

My eager way from sight to sight

Of all the summer magic--right

To where himself had surely spread

Some pleasant snare for my delight.

And now, in an eternal sphere,

Beneath one flooding look of his--

Wherein, all beautiful and dear,

That endless melting gold that is

His love, with flawless memories

Grows ever richer and more clear--

My life seems held, as some faint star

Beneath its sun: and through the far

Celestial distances for miles,

To where vast mirage futures are,

I trace the gilding of his smiles.

And, in the long enthralling dream,

That, ever--through each purer zone

Of love translating me--doth seem

To bring my spirit near his own,

I hear the veiled angelic tone

Of many voices; as I deem,

Assuring me of something sweet,

And strange, and wondrous, and intense;

Which thing they evermore repeat

In fair half parables, from whence

I draw a vague all-blissful sense.

For, one by one, e’en as I rise,

And feel the pure Ethereal

Refining all before my eyes:

Whole beauteous worlds material

Are seen to enter gradual

The great transparent paradise

Of this my dream; and, all revealed,

To break upon me more and more

Their inward singing souls, and yield

A wondrous secret half concealed

In all their loveliness before.

And so, when, through unmeasured days,

The far effulgence of the sea

Is holding me in long amaze,

And stealing with strange ecstasy

My heart all opened silently;--

There reach me, from among the sprays,

Ineffable faint words that sing

Within me,--how, for me alone,

One who is lover--who is King,

Hath dropt, as ’twere a precious stone,

That sea--a symbol of his throne.

And now, indeed, some precious time

It hath,--all inexpressible!

All rapture!--yea, through many a rhyme

Of wordless speech made fairly well,

And beauteous worlds’ whole visible

Unbosomings of love sublime--

It hath some blessèd while become

Familiar, how all things take part

For him to whose love I am come,

And in their ways--not weak nor dumb--

Are ever calling on my heart.

And, through the long charmed solitude

Of throbbing moments, whose strong link

Is one delicious hope pursued

From trance to trance, the while I think

And know myself upon the brink

Of His eternal kiss,--endued

With part of him, the very wind

Hath power to ravish me in sips

Or long mad wooings that unbind

My hair,--wherein I truly find

The magic of his unseen lips.

And, so almighty is the thrill

I feel at many a faintest breath

Or stir of sound--as ’twere a rill

Of joy traversing me, or death

Dissolving all that hindereth

My thought from power to fulfil

Some new embodiment of bliss,--

I do consume with the immense

Delight as of some secret kiss,

And am become like one whose sense

Is used with raptures too intense!

O like some soft insidious breath,

Whose first invasion winneth quite

To all its madness or its death

The heart, resisting not the might

And poison of its new delight,--

E’en so is this that entereth

In whispers, or through subtly wrought

Enchantment snaring every thought;

Yea, by the whole mysterious pore

Of life,--this joy surpassing aught

That heart of man hath known before.

And, though, indeed, a hapless end

Of damning ruin were but sure,

Yet could I none of me defend

From such a sweet and perfect lure;

But must, as long as they endure,

To all these sorceries still lend

My heart; believing how I stand

Nigh some unearthly bliss that lies

Dissembled all before my eyes;--

Do I not see a radiant Hand

Transmuting earth, and air, and skies?

--And is not the great language mute

The stars’ deep looks are wont to melt

Upon my soul, the very suit

Of this unearthly wooer--felt

So clearly pleading--I have knelt

Full oft, most dreading to pollute

The holy rapture with a sigh?

And doth not every accent nigh

Consume each Past to a thin shred;

While endless visions glorify

My sight, and haloes touch my head?

Yea, mystic consummation! yea,

O Wondrous suitor,--whosoe’er

Thou art; that in such mighty way,

In distant realms, athwart the air

And lands and seas, with all things fair,

Hast wooed me even till this day;--

It seems thou drawest near to me;

Or I, indeed, so nigh to thee,

I catch rare breaths of a delight

From thy most glorious country, see

Its distant glow upon some height.

At times there is vouchsafed me, e’en

Some sign that certainly foretells

Of thee at hand: so I have seen--

Caught by no earthly clash of bells--

A gleam of silver citadels;

Distant, and radiant with such sheen

As only on high virgin snows,

Or from the diamond one knows;

Displayed a moment, without shroud,

Eclipsing all the night’s fair shows

From some dim pinnacle of cloud:

Or, through a calm hushed interval

Of most charmed thinking, there hath passed,

And with no rumour or footfall,

A troop of blonde ones who surpassed

All tales of loveliness amassed

In my child’s dreamland; costumed all

As for a bridal; who did shine

With such a splendour on each face,

And light upon the garments fine,

I knew them surely of a race

That dwells in that fair realm of thine.

O thou my Destiny! O thou

My own--my very Love--my Lord!

Whom from the first day until now

My heart, divining, hath adored

So perfectly it hath abhorred

The tie of each frail human vow--

O I would whisper in thine ear--

Yea, may I not, once, in the clear

Pure night, when, only, silver shod

The angels walk?--thy name, I fear

And love, and tremble saying--GOD!

[Illustration]

A WHISPER FROM THE GRAVE.

My life points with a radiant hand,

Along a golden ray of sun

That lights some distant promised land,

A fair way for my feet to run:

My Death stands heavily in gloom,

And digs a soft bed in the tomb

Where I may sleep when all is done.

The flowers take hold upon my feet;

Fair fingers beckon me along;

I find Life’s promises so sweet

Each thought within me turns to song:

But Death stands digging for me--lest

Some day I need a little rest,

And come to think the way too long.

O seems there not beneath each rose

A face?--the blush comes burning through;

And eyes my heart already knows

Are filling themselves from the blue,

Above the world; and One, whose hair

Holds all my sun, is coming, fair,

And must bring heaven if all be true:

And now I have face, hair, and eyes;

And lo, the Woman that these make

Is more than flower, and sun, and skies!

Her slender fingers seem to take

My whole fair life, as ’twere a bowl,

Wherein she pours me forth her soul,

And bids me drink it for her sake.

Methinks the world becomes an isle;

And there--immortal, as it seems--

I gaze upon her face, whose smile

Flows round the world in golden streams:

Ah, Death is digging for me deep,

Lest some day I should need to sleep

And solace me with other dreams!

But now I feel as though a kiss

Of hers should ever give me birth

In some new heaven of life-long bliss;

And heedlessly, athwart my mirth,

I see Death digging day by day

A grave; and, very far away,

I hear the falling of the earth.

Ho there, if thou wilt wait for me

Thou Death!--I say--keep in thy shade;

Crouch down behind the willow tree,

Lest thou shouldst make my love afraid;

If thou hast aught with me, pale friend,

Some flitting leaf its sigh shall lend

To tell me when the grave is made!

And lo, e’en while I now rejoice,

Encircled by my love’s fair arm,

There cometh up to me a voice,

Yea, through the fragrance and the charm;

Quite like some sigh the forest heaves

Quite soft--a murmur of dead leaves,

And not a voice that bodeth harm:

O lover, fear not--have thou joy;

For life and love are in thy hands:

I seek in no wise to destroy

The peace thou hast, nor make the sands

Run quicker through thy pleasant span;

Blest art thou above many a man,

And fair is She who with thee stands:

I only keep for thee out here--

O far away, as thou hast said,

Among the willow trees--a clear

Soft space for slumber, and a bed;

That after all, if life be vain,

And love turn at the last to pain,

Thou mayst have ease when thou art dead.

O grieve not: back to thy love’s lips

Let her embrace thee more and more,

Consume that sweet of hers in sips:

I only wait till it is o’er;

For fear thou’lt weary of her kiss,

And come to need a bed like this

Where none shall kiss thee evermore.

Believe each pleasant muttered vow

She makes to thee, and see with ease

Each promised heaven before thee now;

I only think, if one of these

Should fail thee--O thou wouldst need then

To come away right far from men,

And weep beneath the willow trees.

And, therefore, have I made this place,

Where thou shouldst come on that hard day,

Full of a sad and weary grace;

For here the drear wind hath its way

With grass, and flowers, and withered tree--

As sorrow shall that day with thee,

If it should happen as I say.

And, therefore, have I kept the ground,

As ’twere quite holy, year by year;

The great wind lowers to a sound

Of sighing as it passes near;

And seldom doth a man intrude

Upon the hallowed solitude,

And never but to shed a tear.

So, if it be thou come, alas,

For sake of sorrow long and deep,

I--Death, the flowers, and leaves, and grass--

Thy grief-fellows, do mourn and weep:

Or if thou come, with life’s whole need

To rest a life-long space indeed,

I too and they do guard thy sleep.

Moreover, sometimes, while all we

Have kept the grave with heaviness,

The weary place hath seemed to be

Not barren of all blessedness:

Spent sunbeams rest them here at noon,

And grieving spirits from the moon

Walk here at night in shining dress.

And there is gazing down on all

Some great and love-like eye of blue,

Wherefrom, at times, there seem to fall

Strange looks that soothe the place quite through;

As though indeed, if all love’s sweet

And all life’s good should prove a cheat,

They knew some heaven that might be true.

--It is a tender voice like this

That comes to me in accents fair:

Well; and through much of love and bliss,

It seemeth not a thing quite bare

Of comfort, e’en to be possest

Of that one spot of earth for rest,

Among the willow trees down there.

[Illustration]

BISCLAVARET.

Bisclaveret ad nun en Bretan,

Garwall l’apelent li Norman.

Jadis le poët-hum oïr,

E souvent suleit avenir,

Humes plusurs Garwall devindrent

E es boscages meisun tindrent.

MARIE DE FRANCE: _Lais_.

_In either mood, to bless or curse,_

_God bringeth forth the breath of man;_

_No angel sire, no woman nurse_

_Shall change the work that God began:_

_One spirit shall be like a star,_

_He shall delight to honour one;_

_Another spirit he shall mar;_

_None shall undo what God hath done._

The weaker holier season wanes;

Night comes with darkness and with sins;

And, in all forests, hills, and plains,

A keener, fiercer life begins.

And, sitting by the low hearth fires,

I start and shiver fearfully;

For thoughts all strange and new desires

Of distant things take hold on me;

And many a feint of touch or sound

Assails me, and my senses leap

As in pursuit of false things found

And lost in some dim path of sleep.

But, momently, there seems restored

A triple strength of life and pain;

I thrill, as though a wine were poured

Upon the pore of every vein:

I burn--as though keen wine were shed

On all the sunken flames of sense--

Yea, till the red flame grows more red,

And all the burning more intense,

And, sloughing weaker lives grown wan

With needs of sleep and weariness,

I quit the hallowed haunts of man

And seek the mighty wilderness.

--Now over intervening waste

Of lowland drear, and barren wold,

I scour, and ne’er assuage my haste,

Inflamed with yearnings manifold;

Drinking a distant sound that seems

To come around me like a flood;

While all the track of moonlight gleams

Before me like a streak of blood;

And bitter stifling scents are past

A-dying on the night behind,

And sudden piercing stings are cast

Against me in the tainted wind.

And lo, afar, the gradual stir,

And rising of the stray wild leaves;

The swaying pine, and shivering fir,

And windy sound that moans and heaves

In first fits, till with utter throes

The whole wild forest lolls about:

And all the fiercer clamour grows,

And all the moan becomes a shout;

And mountains near and mountains far

Breathe freely: and the mingled roar

Is as of floods beneath some star

Of storms, when shore cries unto shore.

But soon, from every hidden lair

Beyond the forest tracts, in thick

Wild coverts, or in deserts bare,

Behold They come--renewed and quick--

The splendid fearful herds that stray

By midnight, when tempestuous moons

Light them to many a shadowy prey,

And earth beneath the thunder swoons.

--O who at any time hath seen

Sight all so fearful and so fair,

Unstricken at his heart with keen

Whole envy in that hour to share

Their unknown curse and all the strength

Of the wild thirsts and lusts they know,

The sharp joys sating them at length,

The new and greater lusts that grow?

But who of mortals shall rehearse

How fair and dreadfully they stand,

Each marked with an eternal curse,

Alien from every kin and land?

--Along the bright and blasted heights

Loudly their cloven footsteps ring!

Full on their fronts the lightning smites,

And falls like some dazed baffled thing.

Now through the mountain clouds they break,

With many a crest high-antlered, reared

Athwart the storm: now they outshake

Fierce locks or manes, glossy and weird,

That sweep with sharp perpetual sound

The arid heights where the snows drift,

And drag the slain pines to the ground,

And all into the whirlwind lift

The heavy sinking slopes of shade

From hidden hills of monstrous girth,

Till new unearthly lights have flayed

The draping darkness from the earth.

Henceforth what hiding-place shall hide

All hallowed spirits that in form

Of mortal stand beneath the wide

And wandering pale eye of the storm?

The beadsman in his lonely cell

Hath cast one boding timorous look

Toward the heights; then loud and well,

--Kneeling before the open book--

All night he prayeth in one breath,

Nor spareth now his sins to own:

And through his prayer he shuddereth

To hear how loud the forests groan.

For all abroad the lightnings reign,

And rally, with their lurid spell,

The multitudinous campaign

Of hosts not yet made fast in hell:

And us indeed no common arm,

Nor magic of the dark may smite,

But, through all elements of harm,

Across the strange fields of the night--

Enrolled with the whole giant host

Of shadowy, cloud-outstripping things

Whose vengeful spells are uppermost,

And convoyed by unmeasured wings,

We foil the thin dust of fatigue

With bright-shod phantom feet that dare

All pathless places and the league

Of the light shifting soils of air;

And loud, mid fearful echoings,

Our throats, aroused with hell’s own thirst,

Outbay the eternal trumpetings;

The while, all impious and accurst,

Revealed and perfected at length

In whole and dire transfigurement,

With miracle of growing strength

We win upon a keen warm scent.

Before us each cloud fastness breaks;

And o’er slant inward wastes of light,

And past the moving mirage lakes,

And on within the Lord’s own sight--

We hunt the chosen of the Lord;

And cease not, in wild course elate,

Until we see the flaming sword

And Gabriel before His gate!

O many a fair and noble prey

Falls bitterly beneath our chase;

And no man till the judgment day,

Hath power to give these burial place;

But down in many a stricken home

About the world, for these they mourn;

And seek them yet through Christendom

In all the lands where they were born.

And oft, when Hell’s dread prevalence

Is past, and once more to the earth

In chains of narrowed human sense

We turn,--around our place of birth,

We hear the new and piercing wail;

And, through the haunted day’s long glare,

In fearful lassitudes turn pale

With thought of all the curse we bear.

But, for long seasons of the moon,

When the whole giant earth, stretched low,

Seems straightening in a silent swoon

Beneath the close grip of the snow,

We well nigh cheat the hideous spells

That force our souls resistless back,

With languorous torments worse than hell’s

To the frail body’s fleshly rack:

And with our brotherhood the storms,

Whose mighty revelry unchains

The avalanches, and deforms

The ancient mountains and the plains,--

We hold high orgies of the things,

Strange and accursèd of all flesh,

Whereto the quick sense ever brings

The sharp forbidden thrill afresh.

And far away, among our kin,

Already they account our place

With all the slain ones, and begin

The Masses for our soul’s full grace.

THOUGHT.

There is no place at all by night or day,

Where I--who am of that hard tyrant Thought

The slave--can find security in aught,

But He, almighty, reaching me, doth lay

His hand upon me there, so rough a way

Assaulting me,--however I am caught,

Walking or standing still--that for support

I sometimes lean on anything I may:

Then when he hath me, ease is none from him

Till he do out his strength with me; cold sweat

Comes o’er my body and on every limb;

My arm falls weak as from a fierce embrace;

And, ere he leaveth me, he will have set

A great eternal mark upon my face.

THE STORY OF THE KING.

This is the story of the King:

Was he not great in everything?

He built him dwelling-places three:

In one of them his Youth should be;

To make it fair for many a feast

He conquered the whole East;

He brought delight from every land,

And gold from many a river’s strand,

And all things precious he could find

In Perse, or utmost Ind.

There, brazen guarded were the doors;

And o’er the many painted floors

The captive women came and went;

Or, with bright ornament,

Sat in the pillared places gay,

And feasted with him every day,

And fed him with their rosy kiss:

O there he had all bliss!

Then afterward, when he did hear

There was none like him anywhere,

He would behold the sight so sweet

Of all men at his feet:

And, since he heard that certainly

Not like a man was he to die,

For all his lust that palace vast

It seemed too small at last.

Therefore, another house he made,

So wide that it might hold arrayed

The thousands peers of his domain

And last his godlike reign;

And here he was a goodly span,

While before him came every man

To kneel and worship in his sight:

O there he had all might!

And yet, most surely, it befel

He tired of this house as well:

Was it too mighty after all?

Or still perhaps too small?

Strangely in all men’s wonderment,

He left it for a tenement

He had all builded in one year:

Now he is dwelling there.

He took full little of his gold;

And of his pleasures manifold

He had but a small heed, they say,

That day he went away:

--O, the new dwelling he hath found

Is but a man’s grave in the ground,

And taketh up but one man’s space

In the burial place.

And now, indeed, that he is dead,

The nations have they no more dread?

Lo, is not this the King they swore

To worship evermore?

Will no one Love of his come near

And kiss him where he lieth there,

And warm his freezing lips again?

--Is this then all his reign?

He must have longed ere this to rise

And be again in all men’s eyes;

For the place where he dwelleth now

Lonely it is I trow:

But, just to stand in his own hall

And feel the warmth there once for all--

O would he not give crowns of gold?

For the place is so cold!

But over him a tomb doth stand,

The costliest in all the land;

And of the glory that he bore

It telleth evermore.--

So these three dwellings he hath had,

And mighty he hath been and glad,

O hath he not been sad as well?

Perhaps--but who can tell?

This is the story of the King:

Was he not great in everything?

PALM FLOWERS.

In a land of the sun’s blessing,

Where the passion-flower grows,

My heart keeps all worth possessing;

And the way there no man knows.

--Unknown wonder of new beauty!

There my Love lives all for me;

To love me is her whole duty,

Just as I would have it be.

All the perfumes and perfections

Of that clime have met with grace

In her body, and complexions

Of its flowers are on her face.

All soft tints of flowers most vernal,

Tints that make each other fade:

In her eyes they are eternal,

Set in some mysterious shade.

Full of dreams are the abysses

Of the night beneath her hair;

But an open dawn of kisses

Is her mouth: O she is fair.

And she has so sweet a fashion

With her languid loving eyes,

That she stirs my soul with passion,

And renews my breath with sighs.

Now she twines her hair in tresses

With some long red lustrous vine;

Now she weaves strange glossy dresses

From the leafy fabrics fine:

And upon her neck there mingle

Corals and quaint serpent charms,

And bright beaded sea-shells jingle

Set in circlets round her arms.

There--in solitudes sweet smelling,

Where the mighty Banyan stands,

I and she have found a dwelling

Shadowed by its giant hands:

All around our banyan bowers

Shine the reddening palm-tree ranks,

And the wild rare forest flowers

Crowded on high purple banks.

Through the long enchanted weather

--Ere the swollen fruits yet fall,

While red love-birds sit together

In thick green, and voices call

From the hidden forest places,

And are answered with strange shout

By the folk whose myriad faces

All day long are peeping out

From shy loopholes all above us

In the leafy hollows green,

--While all creatures seem to love us,

And the lofty boughs are seen

Gilded and for ever haunted

By the far ethereal smiles--

Through the long bright time enchanted,

In those solitudes for miles,

I and She--at heart possessing

Rhapsodies of tender thought--

Wander, till our thoughts too pressing

Into new sweet words are wrought.

And at length, with full hearts sinking

Back to silence and the maze

Of immeasurable thinking,

In those inward forest ways,

We recline on mossy couches,

Vanquished by mysterious calms,

All beneath the soothing touches

Of the feather-leaved fan-palms.

Strangely, with a mighty hushing,

Falls the sudden hour of noon;

When the flowers droop with blushing,

And a deep miraculous swoon

Seems subduing the whole forest;

Or some distant joyous rite

Draws away each bright-hued chorist:

Then we yield with long delight

Each to each, our souls deep thirsting;

And no sound at all is nigh,

Save from time to time the bursting

Of some fire-fed fruit on high.

Then with sudden overshrouding

Of impenetrable wings,

Comes the darkness and the crowding

Mysteries of the unseen things.

O how happy are we lovers

In weak wanderings hand in hand!--

Whom the immense palm forest covers

In that strange enchanted land;

Whom its thousand sights stupendous

Hold in breathless charmed suspense;

Whom its hidden sounds tremendous

And its throbbing hues intense

And the mystery of each glaring

Flower o’erwhelm with wonder dim;--

We, who see all things preparing

Some Great Spirit’s world for him!

Under pomps and splendid glamour

Of the night skies limitless;

Through the weird and growing clamour

Of the swaying wilderness;

Through each shock of sound that shivers

The serene palms to their height,

By white rolling tongues of rivers

Launched with foam athwart the night;

Lost and safe amid such wonders,

We prolong our human bliss;

Drown the terrors of the thunders

In the rapture of our kiss.

By some moon-haunted savanna,

In thick scented mid-air bowers

Draped about with some liana,

O what passionate nights are ours!

O’er our heads the squadron dances

Of the fire-fly wheel and poise;

And dim phantoms charm our trances,

And link’d dreams prolong our joys--

Till around us creeps the early

Sweet discordance of the dawn,

And the moonlight pales, and pearly

Haloes settle round the morn;

And from remnants of the hoary

Mists, where now the sunshine glows,

Starts at length in crimson glory

Some bright flock of flamingoes.

* * * * *

O that land where the suns linger

And the passion-flowers grow

Is the land for me the Singer:

There I made me, years ago,

Many a golden habitation,

Full of things most fair to see;

And the fond imagination

Of my heart dwells there with me.

Now, farewell, all shameful sorrow!

Farewell, troublous world of men!

I shall meet you on some morrow,

But forget you quite till then.

AN EPIC OF WOMEN.

I.

CREATION.

Nam non in hac ærumnosa miseriarum valle, in qua ad

laborem ceteri mortales nascimur, producta est.

BOCCACCIO: DE CLARIS MULIERIBUS.

And God said, “Let us make a thing most fair,--

A Woman with gold hair, and eyes all blue:”

He took from the sun gold and made her hair,

And for her eyes He took His heaven’s own hue.

He sought in every precious place and store,

And gathered all sweet essences that are

In all the bodies: so He made one more

Her body, the most beautiful by far.

Pure coral with pure pearl engendering,

Bore Her the fairest flower of the sea;

And for the wonder of that new-made thing

God ceaséd then, and nothing more made He.

So the beginning of her was this way:

Full of sea savours, beautiful and good,

Made of sun, sky, and sea,--more fair than they--

On the green margin of the sea she stood.

The coral colour lasted in her veins,

Made her lips rosy like a sea-shell’s rims;

The purple stained her cheeks with splendid stains,

And the pearl’s colour clung upon her limbs.

She took her golden hair between her hands;

The faded gold and amber of the seas

Dropped from it in a shower upon the sands;

The crispéd hair enwrapped her like a fleece;

And through the threads of it the sun lost gold,

And fell all pale upon her throat and breast

With play of lights and tracings manifold:

But the whole heaven shone full upon the rest.

Her curvéd shapes of shoulder and of limb,

Wrought fairly round or dwindling delicate,

Were carven in some substance made to dim

With whiteness all things carven or create.

And every sort of fairness that was yet

In work of man or God was perfected

Upon that work her bosom, where were set

In snows two wondrous jewelries of red.

The sun and sea made haloes of a light

Most soft and glimmering, and wreathed her close

Round all her wondrous shapes, and kept her bright

In a fair mystery of pearl and rose.

The waves fell fawning all about her there

Down to her ancles; then, with kissing sweet,

Slackened and waned away in love and fear

From the bright presence of her new-formed feet.

The green-gray mists were gathering away

In distant hollows underneath the sun

Behind the round sea; and upon that day

The work of all the world-making was done.

The world beheld, and hailed her, form and face;

The ocean spray, the sunlight, the pure blue

Of heaven beheld and wondered at her grace;

And God looked out of heaven and wondered too.

And ere a man could see her with desire,

Himself looked on her so, and loved her first,

And came upon her in a mist, like fire,

And of her beauty quenched his god-like thirst.

He touched her wholly with his naked soul,

At once sufficing all the new-made sense

For ever: so the Giver Himself stole

The gift, and left indeed no recompense.

All lavishly at first He did entreat

His leman; yea, the world of things create

He rolled like any jewel at her feet,

And of her changeful whim He made a fate.

He feasted her with ease and idle food

Of gods, and taught her lusts to fill the whole

Of life; withal He gave her nothing good,

And left her as He made her--without soul.

And lo, when he had held her for a season

In His own pleasure-palaces above,

He gave her unto man; this is the reason

She is so fair to see, so false to love.

II.

THE WIFE OF HEPHÆSTUS.

He was not fair to look on as a god--

Her husband whom God gave her; for his face,

Not as the golden face of Phœbus glowed;

Nor in his body was there light or grace;

But he was rugged-seeming; all his brows

Were changed and smeared with the great human toil;

His limbs all gnarled and knotted as the boughs

And limbs of mighty oaks are: many a soil

Was on his skin, coarse-coloured as a bark;

Yea, he was shorn of beauty from the birth;

But strong, and of a mighty soul to work

With Fate and all the iron of the earth.

Thereto he had a heart even to love

That woman whom God gave him; and his part

Of fate had been quite blest--ay, sweet enough,

Having her beautiful and whole of heart.

But when he knew she was quite false and vain,

He slew her not because she was so fair;

Yea, spite of all the rest, had rather slain

Himself, than lost the looking on her hair.

For then the labouring days had seemed to last

Longer than ever: all had been too sore,

Not to be borne as erst,--the world so vast--

Vaster than ever it had seemed before!

But, when he knew it, heavily the ire--

Darkly the sorrow of it wrought on him;

The hollows of his eyes were filled with fire;

The fruitless sweat was dried upon each limb:

Raging he went, and full of lust to kill:

O he was fillèd with a great despair;

But added labour unto labour still,

And slew her not because she was so fair.

In all of life was nothing that atoned

For that hard fate: in hearing of all heaven,

About the iron mountain world he groaned;

But no return of pitying was given.

The iron echoes in a mighty blast

Flung up his voice toward the sweet abodes

In the blue heaven: his pain was known at last

In every palace of the painless gods.

He had no part but wholly to upbraid

Them,--meters of his evil measured fate,

Who first made fair, then spoiled the thing they made,

And mingled all their gifts with love and hate.

Yet he was moved at length some way to win

Vengeance, and all at once, on her and Him--

That god with whom she rather chose to sin

Than with a man to love: when earth was dim--

Full of unearthly shadows in the night,

He came upon those lovers unaware;

And fairly caught them locked in their delight:

Limb over limb he bound them in a snare.

For first with all his craft he did invent

A curious toil of meshes, strongly set

With supple fibrous thread and branches bent:

Full tightly they were bounden in that net.

Yet, not until with many a growing gray

And change that wrought among the shifting shade,

Day--softly changing all things--warned away

Their loves and sins, knew they the fate they had.

And when they were but striving to undo

Delicious bonds of love that needs no chain,

Then were they held:--though love had let them go

A stronger bond than love’s bade them remain.

And, spite of many a throe of sudden strength,

And all their tortuous striving to be free;

Yea, they were held:--till the sun came at length,

And all the gods came out of heaven to see.

For there they saw and knew Him from afar,

Vanquished and in no honourable plight,

No less a god than Ares god of war,

Ares the red and royal in all fight;

But now quite shorn indeed of arms and fame,

Spoiled of his helm and harness of each limb;

Yea, quite inglorious and brought to shame

For a mere love, with such rude stratagem!

The golden peals of god-like laughter brake

And rang down beautiful beneath the sun;

For well they saw, indeed, for whose fair sake

Their brother was so fallen and undone.

Phœbus himself, with many a secret pride

Of love--unshamed in any of his loves--

Leant on his golden bow, and laughed aside,

And made some fair light saying that still moves

From lips to lips at all the mirthful feasts

Of them above who have eternal rights

To joys and loves, and wine that never wastes,

And life never to end their days or nights.

And well they knew Hephæstus where, hard by,

He stood, inglorious, daring all their eyes:

The gods all beautiful--they laughed on high

At him, his woes and all his blasphemies.

But surely never was there such a play

For mirth of idle gods!--Nor such a shame

Ever become of love, as on that day

In sight of all the gods their love became!

Who were betrayed so,--in whatever sin

Lips could with lips, face could with face commit,

Yea lips or limbs of lovers could begin,--

That they were bound and kept quite close in it:

For vainly in the meshes of that snare

They strove, with shuddering limbs and starting cries,

Entangled more with many a mesh of hair

Caught in the manifold intricacies!

So She was found indeed most beautiful,

Yet full of shame and false in all she was;

So before gods who make and gods who rule,

And him her husband, she was found, alas!

Yet, after all, Hephæstus--he, her lord--

For all that sin, her death he would not have;

But, for his love’s sake and great Phœbus’ word,

Loosed her, and made her free, and all forgave.

III.

CLEOPATRA.

1.

Cleopatra Egyptia femina fuit, totius orbis fabula.

She made a feast for great Marc Antony:

Her galley was arrayed in gold and light;

That evening, in the purple sea and sky,

It shone green-golden like a chrysolite.