Love Beatified.
Love, slain by us and buried yesterday,
Rose up again, nor in his grave would stay.
On his earth-stainèd brow and sightless eyes
Still shone the splendours of our Paradise.
Hushed was each dissonance, every fault made clean,
And joys alone I saw, that might have been.
It never seemed our Love could shew so fair
As that dead Presence, shrined in glory there.
I would not have our Love to live again,
And blend each pleasure with his greater pain.--
Oh better far this blessèd death, and rest!
Dead Love I clasp, I cherish to my breast
And ever shall, for this I know is best!
Morning, Noon and Night.
I love thee when the gates of eastern light
Are opened by the Morning-star, aflame;
I love thee when the rose-red heavens proclaim
The coming of their lord, to mortal sight,
And cloudless, when from his imperial height
He looks in glory down. I breathe thy name
With thoughts of love, when drowsy Noon the same
Poised, equal distance holds, twixt dawn and night.
I love thee when the West begins to glow,
And when the restless winds lie still in heaven;
I love thee when the deep’ning shadows fall,
As comes with Tyrian dye, soft, purple even;
But when, from out the waters, rises slow
The noiseless Night, I love thee best of all.
Dante.
Thou’rt but a pensive, dreaming Boy, when first
To thy sad eyne the sight of Love appears
With blessèd Beatrice. Nine circling years
Name thee the wounded Lover, whose sweet thirst
Is never sated, nor whose fever less.
At Campaldino thou’rt the mailèd Knight;
Savage to spur thy City on toward right
Thou’rt driven, its scape-goat, to the wilderness.
There, in the stranger’s house whose stairs are pain
To mount, whose bread is bitter to thy mouth,
Dawns thy Great Vision, mid thy soul’s last drouth;
And, past Hell’s flame and Purgatory’s round,
Greets thee thy love most gentle, once again,
Thou frowning Florentine with laurels crowned!
Love’s Blindness.
“O Love, my Love, thou canst not know how sweet,
How dear thou art!”--“Naught would I know, save this
That thou wilt ever yearn to share my kiss!
So being, I reck not whether years be fleet
Or endless!”--“But thou canst not see thy face
As others see thee! Thy deep eyes that greet
Their lucent-mirrored glimmerings, melt and meet
In glory there, to blind themselves a space!”
“Hush, O my heart! Thy vain hyperbole
Means naught; but take in both thy hands and turn
To thee this face of mine, and kiss my brow,
And after that mine eyes which cannot see
But only feel thy lips that thrill, and now
My mouth, and now--O God! thy kisses burn!”
Hesperides.
I
Now once again the angry sun
Wheels up the heaven his tireless way;
Once more we strangling herds of men
Wake to our labours never-done,
Rise up to toil another day.
Down flares the heat on town and street,
Wide-warping pillar, span and plinth;
Once more my burning, wearied eyes
Within this monstrous labyrinth
Meet the mad heat that stifles me,
And O, my baffled spirit flies
In dreams to thy green wood and thee,
To thee!... To thee!...