Good luck is the gayest of all gay girls,
Long in one place she will not stay,
Back from your brow she strokes the curls,
Kisses you quick and flies away.
But Madame Bad Luck soberly comes
And stays,--no fancy has she for flitting,--
Snatches of true love-songs she hums,
And sits by your bed, and brings her knitting.
L'Amour du Mensonge.
After Charles Baudelaire.
When I behold thee, O my indolent love,
To the sound of ringing brazen melodies,
Through garish halls harmoniously move,
Scattering a scornful light from languid eyes;
When I see, smitten by the blazing lights,
Thy pale front, beauteous in its bloodless glow
As the faint fires that deck the Northern nights,
And eyes that draw me wheresoever I go;
I say, She is fair, too coldly strange for speech;
A crown of memories, her calm brow above,
Shines; and her heart is like a bruised red peach,
Ripe as her body for intelligent love.
Art thou late fruit of spicy savor and scent?
A funeral vase awaiting tearful showers?
An Eastern odor, waste and oasis blent?
A silken cushion or a bank of flowers?
I know there are eyes of melancholy sheen
To which no passionate secrets e'er were given;
Shrines where no god or saint has ever been,
As deep and empty as the vault of Heaven.
But what care I if this be all pretense?
'T will serve a heart that seeks for truth no more,
All one thy folly or indifference,--
Hail, lovely mask, thy beauty I adore!
Amor Mysticus.
From the Spanish of Sor Marcela de Carpio.
Let them say to my Lover
That here I lie!
The thing of His pleasure,
His slave am I.
Say that I seek Him
Only for love,
And welcome are tortures
My passion to prove.
Love giving gifts
Is suspicious and cold;
I have all, my Belovèd,
When Thee I hold.
Hope and devotion
The good may gain;
I am but worthy
Of passion and pain.
So noble a Lord
None serves in vain,
For the pay of my love
Is my love's sweet pain.
I love Thee, to love Thee,--
No more I desire;
By faith is nourished
My love's strong fire.
I kiss Thy hands
When I feel their blows;
In the place of caresses
Thou givest me woes.
But in Thy chastising
Is joy and peace.
O Master and Love,
Let Thy blows not cease.
Thy beauty, Belovèd,
With scorn is rife,
But I know that Thou lovest me
Better than life.
And because Thou lovest me,
Lover of mine,
Death can but make me
Utterly Thine.
I die with longing
Thy face to see;
Oh! sweet is the anguish
Of death to me!