Nor may we follow to that loftier air
Olympians breathe. Take heart, and enter where
A lighter love-lord takes a heatless sun,
Oblivious of tangled webs ill-spun
By ancient wearied weavers, for it may be
His guidance leads to lovers of such as we
And hearts so credulous as to be won.
Cry _Kismet!_ Put away vain memories
Of all old sorrows and of all old joys,
And learn that life is never quite amiss
So long as unreflective girls and boys
Remember that young lips were meant to kiss,
And hold that laughter is a seemly noise.
XIII
So, let us laugh.... How quaint that even I
Was once a fool such as each fool bemocks,
Burlesques and shames! how droll a paradox
It is that we meet calmly! nor deny
That I in an old time dared to be I,
And you in that same season dared be you,
When commonly we wooed (as others do,
And we do not, now) dreams which do not die,--
But take new life, with new idolaters.
Among our juniors; and in naught are kin
To our time-tempered blood which, drowsing, stirs
A little, recollecting with what din
And ardor we assailed stark barriers
Proved obdurate ere we were locked therein.
XIV
So, let us laugh,--lest vain rememberings
Breed, as of old, some rude bucolic cry
Of awkward anguishes, of dreams that die
Without decorum, of Love lacking wings
Yet striving you-ward in his flounderings
Eternally,--as now, even when I lie
As I lie now, who know that you and I
Exist and heed not lesser happenings.
I was. I am. I will be. Eh, no doubt
For some sufficient cause, I drift, defer,
Equivocate, dream, hazard, grow more stout,
Age, am no longer Love’s idolater,--
And yet I could and would not live without
Your faith that heartens and your doubts which spur.
XV
Nightly I mark and praise, or great or small.
Such stars as proudly struggle one by one
To heaven’s highest place, as Procyon,
Antares, Naös, Tejat and Nibal
Attain supremacy, and proudly fall,
Still glorious, and glitter, and are gone
So very soon;--whilst steadfast and alone
Polaris gleams, and is not changed at all.
Daily I find some gallant dream that ranges
The heights of heaven; and as others do,
I serve my dream until my dream estranges
Its errant bondage, and I note anew
That nothing dims, nor shakes, nor mars, nor changes.
Fond faith in you and in my love of you.
AND THEREFORE PRAISE I EVEN THE MOST HIGH
LORD CHANCE,--THAT, BEING OF KIN WITH SETEBOS,
IN ORDERING LIFE’S LABOR, STRIFE AND LOSS,
ORDAINED THAT YOU BE YOU, AND I BE I.
78
GARDEN-SONG
“_Adieu, nous n’irons plus aux champs_”
--CHARLES GARNIER.
Farewell to Fields and Butterflies
And levities of Yester-year!
For we espy, and hold more dear,
The Wicket of our Destinies.
Whereby we enter, once for all,
A Garden which such Fruit doth yield
As, tasted once, no more Afield
We fare where Youth holds carnival.
Farewell, fair Fields, none found amiss
When laughter was a frequent noise
And golden-hearted girls and boys
Appraised the mouth they meant to kiss.
Farewell, farewell! but for a space
We, being young, Afield might stray,
That in our Garden nod and say,
_Afield is no unpleasant place_.
79
THE CAVERN OF PHIGALIA
(_Adytum of Demeter Melænis_)
I enter,
Proud and erect:
I take my fill of delight
Imperiously, irrationally.
And none punishes.
--Not yet.
But in three months
And in three months
And in three more months,
The avenger comes forth
And mocks me
By being as I am,
Visibly,
And by being foredoomed
To do as I have done,
Inevitably.
80
AT PARTING
_Thus then I end my calendar
Of ancient loves more light than air;--
And now Lad’s Love, that led afar
In April fields that were so fair,
Is fled, and I no longer share
Sedate unutterable days
With Heart’s Desire, nor ever praise
Félise, or mirror forth the lures
Of Stella’s eyes nor Sylvia’s,
Yet love for each loved lass endures._
_Chloris is wedded, and Ettarre
Forgets; Yolande loves otherwhere,
And worms long since made bold to mar
The lips of Dorothy and fare
Mid Florimel’s bright ruined hair;
And time obscures that roseate haze
Which glorified hushed woodland ways
When Phyllis came, as time obscures
That faith which once was Phyllida’s,--
Yet love for each loved lass endures._
_That boy is dead as Schariar,
Tiglath-pileser, or Clotaire,
Who once of love got many a scar.
And his loved lasses past compare?--
None is alive now anywhere.
Each is transmuted nowadays
Into a stranger, and displays
No whit of love’s investitures.
I let these women go their ways,
Yet love for each loved lass endures._
_Heart o’ My Heart, thine be the praise
If aught of good in me betrays
Thy tutelage--whose love matures
Unmarred in these more wistful days,--
Yet love for each loved lass endures._
EXPLICIT
Transcriber’s note:
Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but
minor inconsistencies and archaic forms have been retained as printed.