Where
peacocks
nod and flaunt up and down the terrace,
Furling and unfurling their scores of sightless eyes,
To and fro among the leaves and buds and flowers and berries
Maiden Milly strolls and pauses, smiles and sighs.
Furling and unfurling their scores of sightless eyes,
To and fro among the leaves and buds and flowers and berries
Maiden Milly strolls and pauses, smiles and sighs.
Christina Rossetti
.
.
cotanto
amante;" Laura, celebrated by a great though an inferior bard,--have
alike paid the exceptional penalty of exceptional honor,
and have come down to us resplendent with charms, but (at
least, to my apprehension) scant of attractiveness.
These heroines of world-wide fame were preceded by a bevy
of unnamed ladies "donne innominate" sung by a school of
less conspicuous poets; and in that land and that period which
gave simultaneous birth to Catholics, to Albigenses, and to
Troubadours, one can imagine many a lady as sharing her
lover's poetic aptitude, while the barrier between them might
be one held sacred by both, yet not such as to render mutual
love incompatible with mutual honor.
Had such a lady spoken for herself, the portrait left us might
have appeared more tender, if less dignified, than any drawn
even by a devoted friend. Or had the Great Poetess of our
own day and nation only been unhappy instead of happy, her
circumstances would have invited her to bequeath to us, in
lieu of the "Portuguese Sonnets," an inimitable "donna innominata"
drawn not from fancy but from feeling, and worthy
to occupy a niche beside Beatrice and Laura.
1.
"Lo di che han detto a' dolci amici addio. "--Dante.
"Amor, con quanto sforzo oggi mi vinci! "--Petrarca.
Come back to me, who wait and watch for you:--
Or come not yet, for it is over then,
And long it is before you come again,
So far between my pleasures are and few.
While, when you come not, what I do I do
Thinking "Now when he comes," my sweetest "when:"
For one man is my world of all the men
This wide world holds; O love, my world is you.
Howbeit, to meet you grows almost a pang
Because the pang of parting comes so soon;
My hope hangs waning, waxing, like a moon
Between the heavenly days on which we meet:
Ah me, but where are now the songs I sang
When life was sweet because you called them sweet?
2.
"Era gia l'ora che volge il desio. "--Dante.
"Ricorro al tempo ch' io vi vidi prima. "--Petrarca.
I wish I could remember that first day,
First hour, first moment of your meeting me,
If bright or dim the season, it might be
Summer or Winter for aught I can say;
So unrecorded did it slip away,
So blind was I to see and to foresee,
So dull to mark the budding of my tree
That would not blossom yet for many a May.
If only I could recollect it, such
A day of days! I let it come and go
As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow;
It seemed to mean so little, meant so much;
If only now I could recall that touch,
First touch of hand in hand--Did one but know!
3.
"O ombre vane, fuor che ne l'aspetto! "--Dante.
"Immaginata guida la conduce. "--Petrarca.
I dream of you to wake: would that I might
Dream of you and not wake but slumber on;
Nor find with dreams the dear companion gone,
As Summer ended Summer birds take flight.
In happy dreams I hold you full in sight,
I blush again who waking look so wan;
Brighter than sunniest day that ever shone,
In happy dreams your smile makes day of night.
Thus only in a dream we are at one,
Thus only in a dream we give and take
The faith that maketh rich who take or give;
If thus to sleep is sweeter than to wake,
To die were surely sweeter than to live,
Though there be nothing new beneath the sun.
4.
"Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda. "--Dante.
"Ogni altra cosa, ogni pensier va fore,
E sol ivi con voi rimansi amore. "--Petrarca.
I loved you first: but afterwards your love
Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song
As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.
Which owes the other most? my love was long,
And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;
I loved and guessed at you, you construed me
And loved me for what might or might not be--
Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.
For verily love knows not "mine" or "thine;"
With separate "I" and "thou" free love has done,
For one is both and both are one in love:
Rich love knows nought of "thine that is not mine;"
Both have the strength and both the length thereof,
Both of us of the love which makes us one.
5.
"Amor che a nulla amato amar perdona. "--Dante.
"Amor m'addusse in si gioiosa spene. "--Petrarca.
O my heart's heart, and you who are to me
More than myself myself, God be with you,
Keep you in strong obedience leal and true
To Him whose noble service setteth free,
Give you all good we see or can foresee,
Make your joys many and your sorrows few,
Bless you in what you bear and what you do,
Yea, perfect you as He would have you be.
So much for you; but what for me, dear friend?
To love you without stint and all I can
To-day, to-morrow, world without an end;
To love you much and yet to love you more,
As Jordan at his flood sweeps either shore;
Since woman is the helpmeet made for man.
6.
"Or puoi la quantitate
Comprender de l'amor che a te mi scalda. "--Dante.
"Non vo' che da tal nodo amor mi scioglia. "--Petrarca.
Trust me, I have not earned your dear rebuke,
I love, as you would have me, God the most;
Would lose not Him, but you, must one be lost,
Nor with Lot's wife cast back a faithless look
Unready to forego what I forsook;
This say I, having counted up the cost,
This, though I be the feeblest of God's host,
The sorriest sheep Christ shepherds with His crook,
Yet while I love my God the most, I deem
That I can never love you overmuch;
I love Him more, so let me love you too;
Yea, as I apprehend it, love is such
I cannot love you if I love not Him,
I cannot love Him if I love not you.
7.
"Qui primavera sempre ed ogni frutto. "--Dante.
"Ragionando con meco ed io con lui. "--Petrarca.
"Love me, for I love you"--and answer me,
"Love me, for I love you"--so shall we stand
As happy equals in the flowering land
Of love, that knows not a dividing sea.
Love builds the house on rock and not on sand,
Love laughs what while the winds rave desperately;
And who hath found love's citadel unmanned?
And who hath held in bonds love's liberty?
My heart's a coward though my words are brave--
We meet so seldom, yet we surely part
So often; there's a problem for your art!
Still I find comfort in his Book, who saith,
Though jealousy be cruel as the grave,
And death be strong, yet love is strong as death.
8.
"Come dicesse a Dio: D'altro non calme. "--Dante.
"Spero trovar pieta non che perdono. "--Petrarca.
"I, if I perish, perish"--Esther spake:
And bride of life or death she made her fair
In all the lustre of her perfumed hair
And smiles that kindle longing but to slake.
She put on pomp of loveliness, to take
Her husband through his eyes at unaware;
She spread abroad her beauty for a snare,
Harmless as doves and subtle as a snake.
She trapped him with one mesh of silken hair,
She vanquished him by wisdom of her wit,
And built her people's house that it should stand:--
If I might take my life so in my hand,
And for my love to Love put up my prayer,
And for love's sake by Love be granted it!
9.
"O dignitosa coscienza e netta! "--Dante.
"Spirto piu acceso di virtuti ardenti. "--Petrarca.
Thinking of you, and all that was, and all
That might have been and now can never be,
I feel your honored excellence, and see
Myself unworthy of the happier call:
For woe is me who walk so apt to fall,
So apt to shrink afraid, so apt to flee,
Apt to lie down and die (ah, woe is me! )
Faithless and hopeless turning to the wall.
And yet not hopeless quite nor faithless quite,
Because not loveless; love may toil all night,
But take at morning; wrestle till the break
Of day, but then wield power with God and man:--
So take I heart of grace as best I can,
Ready to spend and be spent for your sake.
10.
"Con miglior corso e con migliore stella. "--Dante.
"La vita fugge e non s'arresta un' ora. "--Petrarca.
Time flies, hope flags, life plies a wearied wing;
Death following hard on life gains ground apace;
Faith runs with each and rears an eager face,
Outruns the rest, makes light of everything,
Spurns earth, and still finds breath to pray and sing;
While love ahead of all uplifts his praise,
Still asks for grace and still gives thanks for grace,
Content with all day brings and night will bring.
Life wanes; and when love folds his wings above
Tired hope, and less we feel his conscious pulse,
Let us go fall asleep, dear friend, in peace:
A little while, and age and sorrow cease;
A little while, and life reborn annuls
Loss and decay and death, and all is love.
11.
"Vien dietro a me e lascia dir le genti. "--Dante.
"Contando i casi della vita nostra. "--Petrarca.
Many in aftertimes will say of you
"He loved her"--while of me what will they say?
Not that I loved you more than just in play,
For fashion's sake as idle women do.
Even let them prate; who know not what we knew
Of love and parting in exceeding pain,
Of parting hopeless here to meet again,
Hopeless on earth, and heaven is out of view.
But by my heart of love laid bare to you,
My love that you can make not void nor vain,
Love that foregoes you but to claim anew
Beyond this passage of the gate of death,
I charge you at the Judgment make it plain
My love of you was life and not a breath.
12.
"Amor, che ne la mente mi ragiona. "--Dante.
"Amor vien nel bel viso di costei. "--Petrarca.
If there be any one can take my place
And make you happy whom I grieve to grieve,
Think not that I can grudge it, but believe
I do commend you to that nobler grace,
That readier wit than mine, that sweeter face;
Yea, since your riches make me rich, conceive
I too am crowned, while bridal crowns I weave,
And thread the bridal dance with jocund pace.
For if I did not love you, it might be
That I should grudge you some one dear delight;
But since the heart is yours that was mine own,
Your pleasure is my pleasure, right my right,
Your honorable freedom makes me free,
And you companioned I am not alone.
13.
"E drizzeremo gli occhi al Primo Amore. "--Dante.
"Ma trovo peso non da le mie braccia. "--Petrarca.
If I could trust mine own self with your fate,
Shall I not rather trust it in God's hand?
Without Whose Will one lily doth not stand,
Nor sparrow fall at his appointed date;
Who numbereth the innumerable sand,
Who weighs the wind and water with a weight,
To Whom the world is neither small nor great,
Whose knowledge foreknew every plan we planned.
Searching my heart for all that touches you,
I find there only love and love's goodwill
Helpless to help and impotent to do,
Of understanding dull, of sight most dim;
And therefore I commend you back to Him
Whose love your love's capacity can fill.
14.
"E la Sua Volontade e nostra pace. "--Dante.
"Sol con questi pensier, con altre chiome. "--Petrarca.
Youth gone, and beauty gone if ever there
Dwelt beauty in so poor a face as this;
Youth gone and beauty, what remains of bliss?
I will not bind fresh roses in my hair,
To shame a cheek at best but little fair,--
Leave youth his roses, who can bear a thorn,--
I will not seek for blossoms anywhere,
Except such common flowers as blow with corn.
Youth gone and beauty gone, what doth remain?
The longing of a heart pent up forlorn,
A silent heart whose silence loves and longs;
The silence of a heart which sang its songs
While youth and beauty made a summer morn,
Silence of love that cannot sing again.
"LUSCIOUS AND SORROWFUL. "
Beautiful, tender, wasting away for sorrow;
Thus to-day; and how shall it be with thee to-morrow?
Beautiful, tender--what else?
A hope tells.
Beautiful, tender, keeping the jubilee
In the land of home together, past death and sea;
No more change or death, no more
Salt sea-shore.
DE PROFUNDIS.
Oh why is heaven built so far,
Oh why is earth set so remote?
I cannot reach the nearest star
That hangs afloat.
I would not care to reach the moon,
One round monotonous of change;
Yet even she repeats her tune
Beyond my range.
I never watch the scattered fire
Of stars, or sun's far-trailing train,
But all my heart is one desire,
And all in vain:
For I am bound with fleshly bands,
Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope;
I strain my heart, I stretch my hands,
And catch at hope.
TEMPUS FUGIT.
Lovely Spring,
A brief sweet thing,
Is swift on the wing;
Gracious Summer,
A slow sweet comer,
Hastens past;
Autumn while sweet
Is all incomplete
With a moaning blast,--
Nothing can last,
Can be cleaved unto,
Can be dwelt upon;
It is hurried through,
It is come and gone,
Undone it cannot be done,
It is ever to do,
Ever old, ever new,
Ever waxing old
And lapsing to Winter cold.
GOLDEN GLORIES.
The buttercup is like a golden cup,
The marigold is like a golden frill,
The daisy with a golden eye looks up,
And golden spreads the flag beside the rill,
And gay and golden nods the daffodil,
The gorsey common swells a golden sea,
The cowslip hangs a head of golden tips,
And golden drips the honey which the bee
Sucks from sweet hearts of flowers and stores and sips.
JOHNNY.
FOUNDED ON AN ANECDOTE OF THE FIRST FRENCH REVOLUTION.
Johnny had a golden head
Like a golden mop in blow,
Right and left his curls would spread
In a glory and a glow,
And they framed his honest face
Like stray sunbeams out of place.
Long and thick, they half could hide
How threadbare his patched jacket hung;
They used to be his Mother's pride;
She praised them with a tender tongue,
And stroked them with a loving finger
That smoothed and stroked and loved to linger.
On a doorstep Johnny sat,
Up and down the street looked he;
Johnny did not own a hat,
Hot or cold tho' days might be;
Johnny did not own a boot
To cover up his muddy foot.
Johnny's face was pale and thin,
Pale with hunger and with crying;
For his Mother lay within,
Talked and tossed and seemed a-dying,
While Johnny racked his brains to think
How to get her help and drink,
Get her physic, get her tea,
Get her bread and something nice;
Not a penny piece had he,
And scarce a shilling might suffice;
No wonder that his soul was sad,
When not one penny piece he had.
As he sat there thinking, moping,
Because his Mother's wants were many,
Wishing much but scarcely hoping
To earn a shilling or a penny,
A friendly neighbor passed him by
And questioned him: Why did he cry?
Alas! his trouble soon was told:
He did not cry for cold or hunger,
Though he was hungry both and cold;
He only felt more weak and younger,
Because he wished so to be old
And apt at earning pence or gold.
Kindly that neighbor was, but poor,
Scant coin had he to give or lend;
And well he guessed there needed more
Than pence or shillings to befriend
The helpless woman in her strait,
So much loved, yet so desolate.
One way he saw, and only one:
He would--he could not--give the advice,
And yet he must: the widow's son
Had curls of gold would fetch their price;
Long curls which might be clipped, and sold
For silver, or perhaps for gold.
Our Johnny, when he understood
Which shop it was that purchased hair,
Ran off as briskly as he could,
And in a trice stood cropped and bare,
Too short of hair to fill a locket,
But jingling money in his pocket.
Precious money--tea and bread,
Physic, ease, for Mother dear,
Better than a golden head:
Yet our hero dropped one tear
When he spied himself close shorn,
Barer much than lamb new born.
His Mother throve upon the money,
Ate and revived and kissed her son:
But oh! when she perceived her Johnny,
And understood what he had done
All and only for her sake,
She sobbed as if her heart must break.
"HOLLOW-SOUNDING AND MYSTERIOUS. "
There's no replying
To the Wind's sighing,
Telling, foretelling,
Dying, undying,
Dwindling and swelling,
Complaining, droning,
Whistling and moaning,
Ever beginning,
Ending, repeating,
Hinting and dinning,
Lagging and fleeting--
We've no replying
Living or dying
To the Wind's sighing.
What are you telling,
Variable Wind-tone?
What would be teaching,
O sinking, swelling,
Desolate Wind-moan?
Ever for ever
Teaching and preaching,
Never, ah never
Making us wiser--
The earliest riser
Catches no meaning,
The last who hearkens
Garners no gleaning
Of wisdom's treasure,
While the world darkens:--
Living or dying,
In pain, in pleasure,
We've no replying
To wordless flying
Wind's sighing.
MAIDEN MAY.
Maiden May sat in her bower,
In her blush rose bower in flower,
Sweet of scent;
Sat and dreamed away an hour,
Half content, half uncontent.
"Why should rose blossoms be born,
Tender blossoms, on a thorn
Though so sweet?
Never a thorn besets the corn
Scentless in its strength complete.
"Why are roses all so frail,
At the mercy of the gale,
Of a breath?
Yet so sweet and perfect pale,
Still so sweet in life and death. "
Maiden May sat in her bower,
In her blush rose bower in flower,
Where a linnet
Made one bristling branch the tower
For her nest and young ones in it.
"Gay and clear the linnet trills;
Yet the skylark only, thrills
Heaven and earth
When he breasts the height, and fills
Height and depth with song and mirth.
"Nightingales which yield to night
Solitary strange delight,
Reign alone:
But the lark for all his height
Fills no solitary throne;
"While he sings, a hundred sing;
Wing their flight below his wing
Yet in flight;
Each a lovely joyful thing
To the measure of its delight.
"Why then should a lark be reckoned
One alone, without a second
Near his throne?
He in skyward flight unslackened,
In his music, not alone. "
Maiden May sat in her bower;
Her own face was like a flower
Of the prime,
Half in sunshine, half in shower,
In the year's most tender time.
Her own thoughts in silent song
Musically flowed along,
Wise, unwise,
Wistful, wondering, weak or strong:
As brook shallows sink or rise.
Other thoughts another day,
Maiden May, will surge and sway
Round your heart;
Wake, and plead, and turn at bay,
Wisdom part, and folly part.
Time not far remote will borrow
Other joys, another sorrow,
All for you;
Not to-day, and yet to-morrow
Reasoning false and reasoning true.
Wherefore greatest? Wherefore least?
Hearts that starve and hearts that feast?
You and I?
Stammering Oracles have ceased,
And the whole earth stands at "why? "
Underneath all things that be
Lies an unsolved mystery;
Over all
Spreads a veil impenetrably,
Spreads a dense unlifted pall.
Mystery of mysteries:
_This_ creation hears and sees
High and low--
Vanity of vanities:
_This_ we test and _this_ we know.
Maiden May, the days of flowering
Nurse you now in sweet embowering,
Sunny days;
Bright with rainbows all the showering,
Bright with blossoms all the ways.
Close the inlet of your bower,
Close it close with thorn and flower,
Maiden May;
Lengthen out the shortening hour,--
Morrows are not as to-day.
Stay to-day which wanes too soon,
Stay the sun and stay the moon,
Stay your youth;
Bask you in the actual noon,
Rest you in the present truth.
Let to-day suffice to-day:
For itself to-morrow may
Fetch its loss;
Aim and stumble, say its say,
Watch and pray and bear its cross.
TILL TO-MORROW.
Long have I longed, till I am tired
Of longing and desire;
Farewell my points in vain desired,
My dying fire;
Farewell all things that die and fail and tire.
Springtide and youth and useless pleasure
And all my useless scheming,
My hopes of unattainable treasure,
Dreams not worth dreaming,
Glow-worms that gleam but yield no warmth in gleaming,
Farewell all shows that fade in showing:
My wish and joy stand over
Until to-morrow; Heaven is glowing
Through cloudy cover,
Beyond all clouds loves me my Heavenly Lover.
DEATH-WATCHES.
The Spring spreads one green lap of flowers
Which Autumn buries at the fall,
No chilling showers of Autumn hours
Can stay them or recall;
Winds sing a dirge, while earth lays out of sight
Her garment of delight.
The cloven East brings forth the sun,
The cloven West doth bury him
What time his gorgeous race is run
And all the world grows dim;
A funeral moon is lit in heaven's hollow,
And pale the star-lights follow.
TOUCHING "NEVER. "
Because you never yet have loved me, dear,
Think you you never can nor ever will?
Surely while life remains hope lingers still,
Hope the last blossom of life's dying year.
Because the season and mine age grow sere,
Shall never Spring bring forth her daffodil,
Shall never sweeter Summer feast her fill
Of roses with the nightingales they hear?
If you had loved me, I not loving you,
If you had urged me with the tender plea
Of what our unknown years to come might do
(Eternal years, if Time should count too few),
I would have owned the point you pressed on me,
Was possible, or probable, or true.
BRANDONS BOTH.
Oh fair Milly Brandon, a young maid, a fair maid!
All her curls are yellow and her eyes are blue,
And her cheeks were rosy red till a secret care made
Hollow whiteness of their brightness as a care will do.
Still she tends her flowers, but not as in the old days,
Still she sings her songs, but not the songs of old:
If now it be high Summer her days seem brief and cold days,
If now it be high Summer her nights are long and cold.
If you have a secret keep it, pure maid Milly;
Life is filled with troubles and the world with scorn;
And pity without love is at best times hard and chilly,
Chilling sore and stinging sore a heart forlorn.
Walter Brandon, do you guess Milly Brandon's secret?
Many things you know, but not everything,
With your locks like raven's plumage, and eyes like an egret,
And a laugh that is music, and such a voice to sing.
Nelly Knollys, she is fair, but she is not fairer
Than fairest Milly Brandon was before she turned so pale:
Oh, but Nelly's dearer if she be not rarer,
She need not keep a secret or blush behind a veil.
Beyond the first green hills, beyond the nearest valleys,
Nelly dwells at home beneath her mother's eyes:
Her home is neat and homely, not a cot and not a palace,
Just the home where love sets up his happiest memories.
Milly has no mother; and sad beyond another
Is she whose blessed mother is vanished out of call:
Truly comfort beyond comfort is stored up in a mother
Who bears with all, and hopes through all, and loves us all.
Where peacocks nod and flaunt up and down the terrace,
Furling and unfurling their scores of sightless eyes,
To and fro among the leaves and buds and flowers and berries
Maiden Milly strolls and pauses, smiles and sighs.
On the hedged-in terrace of her father's palace
She may stroll and muse alone, may smile or sigh alone,
Letting thoughts and eyes go wandering over hills and valleys
To-day her father's, and one day to be all her own.
If her thoughts go coursing down lowlands and up highlands,
It is because the startled game are leaping from their lair;
If her thoughts dart homeward to the reedy river islands,
It is because the waterfowl rise startled here or there.
At length a footfall on the steps: she turns, composed and steady,
All the long-descended greatness of her father's house
Lifting up her head; and there stands Walter keen and ready
For hunting or for hawking, a flush upon his brows.
"Good-morrow, fair cousin. " "Good-morrow, fairest cousin:
The sun has started on his course, and I must start to-day.
If you have done me one good turn you've done me many a dozen,
And I shall often think of you, think of you away. "
"Over hill and hollow what quarry will you follow,
Or what fish will you angle for beside the river's edge?
There's cloud upon the hill-top and there 's mist deep down the hollow,
And fog among the rushes and the rustling sedge. "
"I shall speed well enough be it hunting or hawking,
Or casting a bait towards the shyest daintiest fin.
But I kiss your hands, my cousin; I must not loiter talking,
For nothing comes of nothing, and I'm fain to seek and win. "
"Here's a thorny rose: will you wear it an hour,
Till the petals drop apart still fresh and pink and sweet?
Till the petals drop from the drooping perished flower,
And only the graceless thorns are left of it. "
"Nay, I have another rose sprung in another garden,
Another rose which sweetens all the world for me.
Be you a tenderer mistress and be you a warier warden
Of your rose, as sweet as mine, and full as fair to see. "
"Nay, a bud once plucked there is no reviving,
Nor is it worth your wearing now, nor worth indeed my own;
The dead to the dead, and the living to the living.
It's time I go within, for it's time now you were gone. "
"Good-bye, Milly Brandon, I shall not forget you,
Though it be good-bye between us for ever from to-day;
I could almost wish to-day that I had never met you,
And I'm true to you in this one word that I say. "
"Good-bye, Walter. I can guess which thornless rose you covet;
Long may it bloom and prolong its sunny morn:
Yet as for my one thorny rose, I do not cease to love it,
And if it is no more a flower I love it as a thorn. "
A LIFE'S PARALLELS.
Never on this side of the grave again,
On this side of the river,
On this side of the garner of the grain,
Never,--
Ever while time flows on and on and on,
That narrow noiseless river,
Ever while corn bows heavy-headed, wan,
Ever,--
Never despairing, often fainting, ruing,
But looking back, ah never!
Faint yet pursuing, faint yet still pursuing
Ever.
AT LAST.
Many have sung of love a root of bane:
While to my mind a root of balm it is,
For love at length breeds love; sufficient bliss
For life and death and rising up again.
Surely when light of Heaven makes all things plain,
Love will grow plain with all its mysteries;
Nor shall we need to fetch from over seas
Wisdom or wealth or pleasure safe from pain.
Love in our borders, love within our heart,
Love all in all, we then shall bide at rest,
Ended for ever life's unending quest,
Ended for ever effort, change and fear:
Love all in all;--no more that better part
Purchased, but at the cost of all things here.
GOLDEN SILENCES.
There is silence that saith, "Ah me! "
There is silence that nothing saith;
One the silence of life forlorn,
One the silence of death;
One is, and the other shall be.
One we know and have known for long,
One we know not, but we shall know,
All we who have ever been born;
Even so, be it so,--
There is silence, despite a song.
Sowing day is a silent day,
Resting night is a silent night;
But whoso reaps the ripened corn
Shall shout in his delight,
While silences vanish away.
IN THE WILLOW SHADE.
I sat beneath a willow tree,
Where water falls and calls;
While fancies upon fancies solaced me,
Some true, and some were false.
Who set their heart upon a hope
That never comes to pass,
Droop in the end like fading heliotrope,
The sun's wan looking-glass.
Who set their will upon a whim
Clung to through good and ill,
Are wrecked alike whether they sink or swim,
Or hit or miss their will.
All things are vain that wax and wane,
For which we waste our breath;
Love only doth not wane and is not vain,
Love only outlives death.
A singing lark rose toward the sky,
Circling he sang amain;
He sang, a speck scarce visible sky-high,
And then he sank again.
A second like a sunlit spark
Flashed singing up his track;
But never overtook that foremost lark,
And songless fluttered back.
A hovering melody of birds
Haunted the air above;
They clearly sang contentment without words,
And youth and joy and love.
O silvery weeping willow tree
With all leaves shivering,
Have you no purpose but to shadow me
Beside this rippled spring?
On this first fleeting day of Spring,
For Winter is gone by,
And every bird on every quivering wing
Floats in a sunny sky;
On this first Summer-like soft day,
While sunshine steeps the air,
And every cloud has gat itself away,
And birds sing everywhere.
Have you no purpose in the world
But thus to shadow me
With all your tender drooping twigs unfurled,
O weeping willow tree?
With all your tremulous leaves outspread
Betwixt me and the sun,
While here I loiter on a mossy bed
With half my work undone;
My work undone, that should be done
At once with all my might;
For after the long day and lingering sun
Comes the unworking night.
This day is lapsing on its way,
Is lapsing out of sight;
And after all the chances of the day
Comes the resourceless night.
The weeping-willow shook its head
And stretched its shadow long;
The west grew crimson, the sun smouldered red,
The birds forbore a song.
Slow wind sighed through the willow leaves,
The ripple made a moan,
The world drooped murmuring like a thing that grieves;
And then I felt alone.
I rose to go, and felt the chill,
And shivered as I went;
Yet shivering wondered, and I wonder still,
What more that willow meant;
That silvery weeping-willow tree
With all leaves shivering,
Which spent one long day overshadowing me
Beside a spring in Spring.
FLUTTERED WINGS.
The splendor of the kindling day,
The splendor of the setting sun,
These move my soul to wend its way,
And have done
With all we grasp and toil amongst and say.
The paling roses of a cloud,
The fading bow that arches space,
These woo my fancy toward my shroud;
Toward the place
Of faces veiled, and heads discrowned and bowed.
The nation of the awful stars,
The wandering star whose blaze is brief,
These make me beat against the bars
Of my grief;
My tedious grief, twin to the life it mars.
O fretted heart tossed to and fro,
So fain to flee, so fain to rest!
All glories that are high or low,
East or west,
Grow dim to thee who art so fain to go.
A FISHER-WIFE.
The soonest mended, nothing said;
And help may rise from east or west;
But my two hands are lumps of lead,
My heart sits leaden in my breast.
O north wind swoop not from the north,
O south wind linger in the south,
Oh come not raving raging forth,
To bring my heart into my mouth;
For I've a husband out at sea,
Afloat on feeble planks of wood;
He does not know what fear may be;
I would have told him if I could.
I would have locked him in my arms,
I would have hid him in my heart;
For oh! the waves are fraught with harms,
And he and I so far apart.
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
Why has Spring one syllable less
Than any its fellow season?
There may be some other reason,
And I'm merely making a guess;
But surely it hoards such wealth
Of happiness, hope and health,
Sunshine and musical sound,
It may spare a foot from its name
Yet all the same
Superabound.
Soft-named Summer,
Most welcome comer,
Brings almost everything
Over which we dream or sing
Or sigh;
But then Summer wends its way,
To-morrow,--to-day,--
Good-bye!
Autumn,--the slow name lingers,
While we likewise flag;
It silences many singers;
Its slow days drag,
Yet hasten at speed
To leave us in chilly need
For Winter to strip indeed.
In all-lack Winter,
Dull of sense and of sound,
We huddle and shiver
Beside our splinter
Of crackling pine,
Snow in sky and snow on ground.
Winter and cold
Can't last for ever!
To-day, to-morrow, the sun will shine;
When we are old,
But some still are young,
Singing the song
Which others have sung,
Ringing the bells
Which others have rung,--
Even so!
We ourselves, who else?
We ourselves long
Long ago.
MARIANA.
Not for me marring or making,
Not for me giving or taking;
I love my Love and he loves not me,
I love my Love and my heart is breaking.
Sweet is Spring in its lovely showing,
Sweet the violet veiled in blowing,
Sweet it is to love and be loved;
Ah, sweet knowledge beyond my knowing!
Who sighs for love sighs but for pleasure,
Who wastes for love hoards up a treasure;
Sweet to be loved and take no count,
Sweet it is to love without measure.
Sweet my Love whom I loved to try for,
Sweet my Love whom I love and sigh for,
Will you once love me and sigh for me,
You my Love whom I love and die for?
MEMENTO MORI.
Poor the pleasure
Doled out by measure,
Sweet though it be, while brief
As falling of the leaf;
Poor is pleasure
By weight and measure.
Sweet the sorrow
Which ends to-morrow;
Sharp though it be and sore,
It ends for evermore:
Zest of sorrow,
What ends to-morrow.
"ONE FOOT ON SEA, AND ONE ON SHORE. "
"Oh tell me once and tell me twice
And tell me thrice to make it plain,
When we who part this weary day,
When we who part shall meet again. "
"When windflowers blossom on the sea
And fishes skim along the plain,
Then we who part this weary day,
Then you and I shall meet again. "
"Yet tell me once before we part,
Why need we part who part in pain?
If flowers must blossom on the sea,
Why, we shall never meet again.
"My cheeks are paler than a rose,
My tears are salter than the main,
My heart is like a lump of ice
If we must never meet again. "
"Oh weep or laugh, but let me be,
And live or die, for all's in vain;
For life's in vain since we must part,
And parting must not meet again
"Till windflowers blossom on the sea,
And fishes skim along the plain;
Pale rose of roses let me be,
Your breaking heart breaks mine again. "
BUDS AND BABIES.
A million buds are born that never blow,
That sweet with promise lift a pretty head
To blush and wither on a barren bed
And leave no fruit to show.
Sweet, unfulfilled. Yet have I understood
One joy, by their fragility made plain:
Nothing was ever beautiful in vain,
Or all in vain was good.
BOY JOHNNY.
"If you'll busk you as a bride
And make ready,
It's I will wed you with a ring,
O fair lady. "
"Shall I busk me as a bride,
I so bonny,
For you to wed me with a ring,
O boy Johnny? "
"When you've busked you as a bride
And made ready,
Who else is there to marry you,
O fair lady? "
"I will find my lover out,
I so bonny,
And you shall bear my wedding-train,
O boy Johnny. "
FREAKS OF FASHION.
Such a hubbub in the nests,
Such a bustle and squeak!
Nestlings, guiltless of a feather,
Learning just to speak,
Ask--"And how about the fashions? "
From a cavernous beak.
Perched on bushes, perched on hedges,
Perched on firm hahas,
Perched on anything that holds them,
Gay papas and grave mammas
Teach the knowledge-thirsty nestlings:
Hear the gay papas.
Robin says: "A scarlet waistcoat
Will be all the wear,
Snug, and also cheerful-looking
For the frostiest air,
Comfortable for the chest too
When one comes to plume and pair. "
"Neat gray hoods will be in vogue,"
Quoth a Jackdaw: "Glossy gray,
Setting close, yet setting easy,
Nothing fly-away;
Suited to our misty mornings,
_A la negligee_. "
Flushing salmon, flushing sulphur,
Haughty Cockatoos
Answer--"Hoods may do for mornings,
But for evenings choose
High head-dresses, curved like crescents,
Such as well-bred persons use. "
"Top-knots, yes; yet more essential
Still, a train or tail,"
Screamed the Peacock: "Gemmed and lustrous
Not too stiff, and not too frail;
Those are best which rearrange as
Fans, and spread or trail. "
Spoke the Swan, entrenched behind
An inimitable neck:
"After all, there's nothing sweeter
For the lawn or lake
Than simple white, if fine and flaky
And absolutely free from speck. "
"Yellow," hinted a Canary,
"Warmer, not less _distingue_. "
"Peach color," put in a Lory,
"Cannot look _outre_. "
"All the colors are in fashion,
And are right," the Parrots say.
"Very well. But do contrast
Tints harmonious,"
Piped a Blackbird, justly proud
Of bill aurigerous;
"Half the world may learn a lesson
As to that from us. "
Then a Stork took up the word:
"Aim at height and _chic_:
Not high heels, they're common; somehow,
Stilted legs, not thick,
Nor yet thin:" he just glanced downward
And snapped to his beak.
Here a rustling and a whirring,
As of fans outspread,
Hinted that mammas felt anxious
Lest the next thing said
Might prove less than quite judicious,
Or even underbred.
So a mother Auk resumed
The broken thread of speech:
"Let colors sort themselves, my dears,
Yellow, or red, or peach;
The main points, as it seems to me,
We mothers have to teach,
"Are form and texture, elegance,
An air reserved, sublime;
The mode of wearing what we wear
With due regard to month and clime.
But now, let's all compose ourselves,
It's almost breakfast-time. "
A hubbub, a squeak, a bustle!
Who cares to chatter or sing
With delightful breakfast coming?
Yet they whisper under the wing:
"So we may wear whatever we like,
Anything, everything! "
AN OCTOBER GARDEN.
In my Autumn garden I was fain
To mourn among my scattered roses;
Alas for that last rosebud which uncloses
To Autumn's languid sun and rain
When all the world is on the wane!
Which has not felt the sweet constraint of June,
Nor heard the nightingale in tune.
Broad-faced asters by my garden walk,
You are but coarse compared with roses:
More choice, more dear that rosebud which uncloses
Faint-scented, pinched, upon its stalk,
That least and last which cold winds balk;
A rose it is though least and last of all,
A rose to me though at the fall.
"SUMMER IS ENDED. "
To think that this meaningless thing was ever a rose
Scentless, colorless, _this! _
Will it ever be thus (who knows? )
Thus with our bliss,
If we wait till the close?
Though we care not to wait for the end, there comes the end
Sooner, later, at last,
Which nothing can mar, nothing mend:
An end locked fast,
Bent we cannot re-bend.
PASSING AND GLASSING.
All things that pass
Are woman's looking-glass;
They show her how her bloom must fade,
And she herself be laid
With withered roses in the shade;
With withered roses and the fallen peach,
Unlovely, out of reach
Of summer joy that was.
All things that pass
Are woman's tiring-glass;
The faded lavender is sweet,
Sweet the dead violet
Culled and laid by and cared for yet;
The dried-up violets and dried lavender
Still sweet, may comfort her,
Nor need she cry Alas!
All things that pass
Are wisdom's looking-glass;
Being full of hope and fear, and still
Brimful of good or ill,
According to our work and will;
For there is nothing new beneath the sun;
Our doings have been done,
And that which shall be was.
"I WILL ARISE. "
Weary and weak,--accept my weariness;
Weary and weak and downcast in my soul,
With hope growing less and less,
And with the goal
Distant and dim,--accept my sore distress.
I thought to reach the goal so long ago,
At outset of the race I dreamed of rest,
Not knowing what now I know
Of breathless haste,
Of long-drawn straining effort across the waste.
One only thing I knew, Thy love of me;
One only thing I know, Thy sacred same
Love of me full and free,
A craving flame
Of selfless love of me which burns in Thee.
How can I think of thee, and yet grow chill;
Of Thee, and yet grow cold and nigh to death?
Re-energize my will,
Rebuild my faith;
I will arise and run, Thou giving me breath.
I will arise, repenting and in pain;
I will arise, and smite upon my breast
And turn to Thee again;
Thou choosest best,
Lead me along the road Thou makest plain.
Lead me a little way, and carry me
A little way, and listen to my sighs,
And store my tears with Thee,
And deign replies
To feeble prayers;--O Lord, I will arise.
A PRODIGAL SON.
Does that lamp still burn in my Father's house,
Which he kindled the night I went away?
I turned once beneath the cedar boughs,
And marked it gleam with a golden ray;
Did he think to light me home some day?
Hungry here with the crunching swine,
Hungry harvest have I to reap;
In a dream I count my Father's kine,
I hear the tinkling bells of his sheep,
I watch his lambs that browse and leap.
There is plenty of bread at home,
His servants have bread enough and to spare;
The purple wine-fat froths with foam,
Oil and spices make sweet the air,
While I perish hungry and bare.
Rich and blessed those servants, rather
Than I who see not my Father's face!
I will arise and go to my Father:--
"Fallen from sonship, beggared of grace,
Grant me, Father, a servant's place. "
SOEUR LOUISE DE LA MISERICORDE.
(1674. )
I have desired, and I have been desired;
But now the days are over of desire,
Now dust and dying embers mock my fire;
Where is the hire for which my life was hired?
Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
Longing and love, pangs of a perished pleasure,
Longing and love, a disenkindled fire,
And memory a bottomless gulf of mire,
And love a fount of tears outrunning measure;
Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
Now from my heart, love's deathbed, trickles, trickles,
Drop by drop slowly, drop by drop of fire,
The dross of life, of love, of spent desire;
Alas, my rose of life gone all to prickles,--
Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
Oh vanity of vanities, desire;
Stunting my hope which might have strained up higher,
Turning my garden plot to barren mire;
Oh death-struck love, oh disenkindled fire,
Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
AN "IMMURATA" SISTER.
Life flows down to death; we cannot bind
That current that it should not flee:
Life flows down to death, as rivers find
The inevitable sea.
Men work and think, but women feel;
And so (for I'm a woman, I)
And so I should be glad to die
And cease from impotence of zeal,
And cease from hope, and cease from dread,
And cease from yearnings without gain,
And cease from all this world of pain,
And be at peace among the dead.
Hearts that die, by death renew their youth,
Lightened of this life that doubts and dies;
Silent and contented, while the Truth
Unveiled makes them wise.
Why should I seek and never find
That something which I have not had?
Fair and unutterably sad
The world hath sought time out of mind;
The world hath sought and I have sought,--
Ah, empty world and empty I!
For we have spent our strength for nought,
And soon it will be time to die.
Sparks fly upward toward their fount of fire,
Kindling, flashing, hovering:--
Kindle, flash, my soul; mount higher and higher,
Thou whole burnt-offering!
"IF THOU SAYEST, BEHOLD, WE KNEW IT NOT. "
--Proverbs xxiv. 11, 12.
1.
I have done I know not what,--what have I done?
My brother's blood, my brother's soul, doth cry:
And I find no defence, find no reply,
No courage more to run this race I run
Not knowing what I have done, have left undone;
Ah me, these awful unknown hours that fly
Fruitless it may be, fleeting fruitless by
Rank with death-savor underneath the sun.
For what avails it that I did not know
The deed I did? what profits me the plea
That had I known I had not wronged him so?
Lord Jesus Christ, my God, him pity Thou;
Lord, if it may be, pity also me:
In judgment pity, and in death, and now.
2.
Thou Who hast borne all burdens, bear our load,
Bear Thou our load whatever load it be;
Our guilt, our shame, our helpless misery,
Bear Thou Who only canst, O God my God.
Seek us and find us, for we cannot Thee
Or seek or find or hold or cleave unto:
We cannot do or undo; Lord, undo
Our self-undoing, for Thine is the key
Of all we are not though we might have been.
Dear Lord, if ever mercy moved Thy mind,
If so be love of us can move Thee yet,
If still the nail-prints in Thy Hands are seen,
Remember us,--yea, how shouldst Thou forget?
Remember us for good, and seek, and find.
3.
Each soul I might have succored, may have slain,
All souls shall face me at the last Appeal,
That great last moment poised for woe or weal,
That final moment for man's bliss or bane.
Vanity of vanities, yea all is vain
Which then will not avail or help or heal:
Disfeatured faces, worn-out knees that kneel,
Will more avail than strength or beauty then.
Lord, by Thy Passion,--when Thy Face was marred
In sight of earth and hell tumultuous,
And Thy heart failed in Thee like melting wax,
And Thy Blood dropped more precious than the nard,--
Lord, for Thy sake, not ours, supply our lacks,
For Thine own sake, not ours, Christ, pity us.
THE THREAD OF LIFE.
1.
The irresponsive silence of the land,
The irresponsive sounding of the sea,
Speak both one message of one sense to me:--
Aloof, aloof, we stand aloof, so stand
Thou too aloof bound with the flawless band
Of inner solitude; we bind not thee;
But who from thy self-chain shall set thee free?
What heart shall touch thy heart? what hand thy hand? --
And I am sometimes proud and sometimes meek,
And sometimes I remember days of old
When fellowship seemed not so far to seek
And all the world and I seemed much less cold,
And at the rainbow's foot lay surely gold,
And hope felt strong and life itself not weak.
2.
Thus am I mine own prison. Everything
Around me free and sunny and at ease:
Or if in shadow, in a shade of trees
Which the sun kisses, where the gay birds sing
And where all winds make various murmuring;
Where bees are found, with honey for the bees;
Where sounds are music, and where silences
Are music of an unlike fashioning.
Then gaze I at the merrymaking crew,
And smile a moment and a moment sigh
Thinking: Why can I not rejoice with you?
But soon I put the foolish fancy by:
I am not what I have nor what I do;
But what I was I am, I am even I.
3.
Therefore myself is that one only thing
I hold to use or waste, to keep or give;
My sole possession every day I live,
And still mine own despite Time's winnowing.
Ever mine own, while moons and seasons bring
From crudeness ripeness mellow and sanative;
Ever mine own, till Death shall ply his sieve;
And still mine own, when saints break grave and sing.
And this myself as king unto my King
I give, to Him Who gave Himself for me;
Who gives Himself to me, and bids me sing
A sweet new song of His redeemed set free;
He bids me sing: O death, where is thy sting?
And sing: O grave, where is thy victory?
AN OLD-WORLD THICKET.
. . . "Una selva oscura. "--Dante.
Awake or sleeping (for I know not which)
I was or was not mazed within a wood
Where every mother-bird brought up her brood
Safe in some leafy niche
Of oak or ash, of cypress or of beech,
Of silvery aspen trembling delicately,
Of plane or warmer-tinted sycamore,
Of elm that dies in secret from the core,
Of ivy weak and free,
Of pines, of all green lofty things that be.
Such birds they seemed as challenged each desire;
Like spots of azure heaven upon the wing,
Like downy emeralds that alight and sing,
Like actual coals on fire,
Like anything they seemed, and everything.
Such mirth they made, such warblings and such chat
With tongue of music in a well-tuned beak,
They seemed to speak more wisdom than we speak,
To make our music flat
And all our subtlest reasonings wild or weak.
amante;" Laura, celebrated by a great though an inferior bard,--have
alike paid the exceptional penalty of exceptional honor,
and have come down to us resplendent with charms, but (at
least, to my apprehension) scant of attractiveness.
These heroines of world-wide fame were preceded by a bevy
of unnamed ladies "donne innominate" sung by a school of
less conspicuous poets; and in that land and that period which
gave simultaneous birth to Catholics, to Albigenses, and to
Troubadours, one can imagine many a lady as sharing her
lover's poetic aptitude, while the barrier between them might
be one held sacred by both, yet not such as to render mutual
love incompatible with mutual honor.
Had such a lady spoken for herself, the portrait left us might
have appeared more tender, if less dignified, than any drawn
even by a devoted friend. Or had the Great Poetess of our
own day and nation only been unhappy instead of happy, her
circumstances would have invited her to bequeath to us, in
lieu of the "Portuguese Sonnets," an inimitable "donna innominata"
drawn not from fancy but from feeling, and worthy
to occupy a niche beside Beatrice and Laura.
1.
"Lo di che han detto a' dolci amici addio. "--Dante.
"Amor, con quanto sforzo oggi mi vinci! "--Petrarca.
Come back to me, who wait and watch for you:--
Or come not yet, for it is over then,
And long it is before you come again,
So far between my pleasures are and few.
While, when you come not, what I do I do
Thinking "Now when he comes," my sweetest "when:"
For one man is my world of all the men
This wide world holds; O love, my world is you.
Howbeit, to meet you grows almost a pang
Because the pang of parting comes so soon;
My hope hangs waning, waxing, like a moon
Between the heavenly days on which we meet:
Ah me, but where are now the songs I sang
When life was sweet because you called them sweet?
2.
"Era gia l'ora che volge il desio. "--Dante.
"Ricorro al tempo ch' io vi vidi prima. "--Petrarca.
I wish I could remember that first day,
First hour, first moment of your meeting me,
If bright or dim the season, it might be
Summer or Winter for aught I can say;
So unrecorded did it slip away,
So blind was I to see and to foresee,
So dull to mark the budding of my tree
That would not blossom yet for many a May.
If only I could recollect it, such
A day of days! I let it come and go
As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow;
It seemed to mean so little, meant so much;
If only now I could recall that touch,
First touch of hand in hand--Did one but know!
3.
"O ombre vane, fuor che ne l'aspetto! "--Dante.
"Immaginata guida la conduce. "--Petrarca.
I dream of you to wake: would that I might
Dream of you and not wake but slumber on;
Nor find with dreams the dear companion gone,
As Summer ended Summer birds take flight.
In happy dreams I hold you full in sight,
I blush again who waking look so wan;
Brighter than sunniest day that ever shone,
In happy dreams your smile makes day of night.
Thus only in a dream we are at one,
Thus only in a dream we give and take
The faith that maketh rich who take or give;
If thus to sleep is sweeter than to wake,
To die were surely sweeter than to live,
Though there be nothing new beneath the sun.
4.
"Poca favilla gran fiamma seconda. "--Dante.
"Ogni altra cosa, ogni pensier va fore,
E sol ivi con voi rimansi amore. "--Petrarca.
I loved you first: but afterwards your love
Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song
As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.
Which owes the other most? my love was long,
And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;
I loved and guessed at you, you construed me
And loved me for what might or might not be--
Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.
For verily love knows not "mine" or "thine;"
With separate "I" and "thou" free love has done,
For one is both and both are one in love:
Rich love knows nought of "thine that is not mine;"
Both have the strength and both the length thereof,
Both of us of the love which makes us one.
5.
"Amor che a nulla amato amar perdona. "--Dante.
"Amor m'addusse in si gioiosa spene. "--Petrarca.
O my heart's heart, and you who are to me
More than myself myself, God be with you,
Keep you in strong obedience leal and true
To Him whose noble service setteth free,
Give you all good we see or can foresee,
Make your joys many and your sorrows few,
Bless you in what you bear and what you do,
Yea, perfect you as He would have you be.
So much for you; but what for me, dear friend?
To love you without stint and all I can
To-day, to-morrow, world without an end;
To love you much and yet to love you more,
As Jordan at his flood sweeps either shore;
Since woman is the helpmeet made for man.
6.
"Or puoi la quantitate
Comprender de l'amor che a te mi scalda. "--Dante.
"Non vo' che da tal nodo amor mi scioglia. "--Petrarca.
Trust me, I have not earned your dear rebuke,
I love, as you would have me, God the most;
Would lose not Him, but you, must one be lost,
Nor with Lot's wife cast back a faithless look
Unready to forego what I forsook;
This say I, having counted up the cost,
This, though I be the feeblest of God's host,
The sorriest sheep Christ shepherds with His crook,
Yet while I love my God the most, I deem
That I can never love you overmuch;
I love Him more, so let me love you too;
Yea, as I apprehend it, love is such
I cannot love you if I love not Him,
I cannot love Him if I love not you.
7.
"Qui primavera sempre ed ogni frutto. "--Dante.
"Ragionando con meco ed io con lui. "--Petrarca.
"Love me, for I love you"--and answer me,
"Love me, for I love you"--so shall we stand
As happy equals in the flowering land
Of love, that knows not a dividing sea.
Love builds the house on rock and not on sand,
Love laughs what while the winds rave desperately;
And who hath found love's citadel unmanned?
And who hath held in bonds love's liberty?
My heart's a coward though my words are brave--
We meet so seldom, yet we surely part
So often; there's a problem for your art!
Still I find comfort in his Book, who saith,
Though jealousy be cruel as the grave,
And death be strong, yet love is strong as death.
8.
"Come dicesse a Dio: D'altro non calme. "--Dante.
"Spero trovar pieta non che perdono. "--Petrarca.
"I, if I perish, perish"--Esther spake:
And bride of life or death she made her fair
In all the lustre of her perfumed hair
And smiles that kindle longing but to slake.
She put on pomp of loveliness, to take
Her husband through his eyes at unaware;
She spread abroad her beauty for a snare,
Harmless as doves and subtle as a snake.
She trapped him with one mesh of silken hair,
She vanquished him by wisdom of her wit,
And built her people's house that it should stand:--
If I might take my life so in my hand,
And for my love to Love put up my prayer,
And for love's sake by Love be granted it!
9.
"O dignitosa coscienza e netta! "--Dante.
"Spirto piu acceso di virtuti ardenti. "--Petrarca.
Thinking of you, and all that was, and all
That might have been and now can never be,
I feel your honored excellence, and see
Myself unworthy of the happier call:
For woe is me who walk so apt to fall,
So apt to shrink afraid, so apt to flee,
Apt to lie down and die (ah, woe is me! )
Faithless and hopeless turning to the wall.
And yet not hopeless quite nor faithless quite,
Because not loveless; love may toil all night,
But take at morning; wrestle till the break
Of day, but then wield power with God and man:--
So take I heart of grace as best I can,
Ready to spend and be spent for your sake.
10.
"Con miglior corso e con migliore stella. "--Dante.
"La vita fugge e non s'arresta un' ora. "--Petrarca.
Time flies, hope flags, life plies a wearied wing;
Death following hard on life gains ground apace;
Faith runs with each and rears an eager face,
Outruns the rest, makes light of everything,
Spurns earth, and still finds breath to pray and sing;
While love ahead of all uplifts his praise,
Still asks for grace and still gives thanks for grace,
Content with all day brings and night will bring.
Life wanes; and when love folds his wings above
Tired hope, and less we feel his conscious pulse,
Let us go fall asleep, dear friend, in peace:
A little while, and age and sorrow cease;
A little while, and life reborn annuls
Loss and decay and death, and all is love.
11.
"Vien dietro a me e lascia dir le genti. "--Dante.
"Contando i casi della vita nostra. "--Petrarca.
Many in aftertimes will say of you
"He loved her"--while of me what will they say?
Not that I loved you more than just in play,
For fashion's sake as idle women do.
Even let them prate; who know not what we knew
Of love and parting in exceeding pain,
Of parting hopeless here to meet again,
Hopeless on earth, and heaven is out of view.
But by my heart of love laid bare to you,
My love that you can make not void nor vain,
Love that foregoes you but to claim anew
Beyond this passage of the gate of death,
I charge you at the Judgment make it plain
My love of you was life and not a breath.
12.
"Amor, che ne la mente mi ragiona. "--Dante.
"Amor vien nel bel viso di costei. "--Petrarca.
If there be any one can take my place
And make you happy whom I grieve to grieve,
Think not that I can grudge it, but believe
I do commend you to that nobler grace,
That readier wit than mine, that sweeter face;
Yea, since your riches make me rich, conceive
I too am crowned, while bridal crowns I weave,
And thread the bridal dance with jocund pace.
For if I did not love you, it might be
That I should grudge you some one dear delight;
But since the heart is yours that was mine own,
Your pleasure is my pleasure, right my right,
Your honorable freedom makes me free,
And you companioned I am not alone.
13.
"E drizzeremo gli occhi al Primo Amore. "--Dante.
"Ma trovo peso non da le mie braccia. "--Petrarca.
If I could trust mine own self with your fate,
Shall I not rather trust it in God's hand?
Without Whose Will one lily doth not stand,
Nor sparrow fall at his appointed date;
Who numbereth the innumerable sand,
Who weighs the wind and water with a weight,
To Whom the world is neither small nor great,
Whose knowledge foreknew every plan we planned.
Searching my heart for all that touches you,
I find there only love and love's goodwill
Helpless to help and impotent to do,
Of understanding dull, of sight most dim;
And therefore I commend you back to Him
Whose love your love's capacity can fill.
14.
"E la Sua Volontade e nostra pace. "--Dante.
"Sol con questi pensier, con altre chiome. "--Petrarca.
Youth gone, and beauty gone if ever there
Dwelt beauty in so poor a face as this;
Youth gone and beauty, what remains of bliss?
I will not bind fresh roses in my hair,
To shame a cheek at best but little fair,--
Leave youth his roses, who can bear a thorn,--
I will not seek for blossoms anywhere,
Except such common flowers as blow with corn.
Youth gone and beauty gone, what doth remain?
The longing of a heart pent up forlorn,
A silent heart whose silence loves and longs;
The silence of a heart which sang its songs
While youth and beauty made a summer morn,
Silence of love that cannot sing again.
"LUSCIOUS AND SORROWFUL. "
Beautiful, tender, wasting away for sorrow;
Thus to-day; and how shall it be with thee to-morrow?
Beautiful, tender--what else?
A hope tells.
Beautiful, tender, keeping the jubilee
In the land of home together, past death and sea;
No more change or death, no more
Salt sea-shore.
DE PROFUNDIS.
Oh why is heaven built so far,
Oh why is earth set so remote?
I cannot reach the nearest star
That hangs afloat.
I would not care to reach the moon,
One round monotonous of change;
Yet even she repeats her tune
Beyond my range.
I never watch the scattered fire
Of stars, or sun's far-trailing train,
But all my heart is one desire,
And all in vain:
For I am bound with fleshly bands,
Joy, beauty, lie beyond my scope;
I strain my heart, I stretch my hands,
And catch at hope.
TEMPUS FUGIT.
Lovely Spring,
A brief sweet thing,
Is swift on the wing;
Gracious Summer,
A slow sweet comer,
Hastens past;
Autumn while sweet
Is all incomplete
With a moaning blast,--
Nothing can last,
Can be cleaved unto,
Can be dwelt upon;
It is hurried through,
It is come and gone,
Undone it cannot be done,
It is ever to do,
Ever old, ever new,
Ever waxing old
And lapsing to Winter cold.
GOLDEN GLORIES.
The buttercup is like a golden cup,
The marigold is like a golden frill,
The daisy with a golden eye looks up,
And golden spreads the flag beside the rill,
And gay and golden nods the daffodil,
The gorsey common swells a golden sea,
The cowslip hangs a head of golden tips,
And golden drips the honey which the bee
Sucks from sweet hearts of flowers and stores and sips.
JOHNNY.
FOUNDED ON AN ANECDOTE OF THE FIRST FRENCH REVOLUTION.
Johnny had a golden head
Like a golden mop in blow,
Right and left his curls would spread
In a glory and a glow,
And they framed his honest face
Like stray sunbeams out of place.
Long and thick, they half could hide
How threadbare his patched jacket hung;
They used to be his Mother's pride;
She praised them with a tender tongue,
And stroked them with a loving finger
That smoothed and stroked and loved to linger.
On a doorstep Johnny sat,
Up and down the street looked he;
Johnny did not own a hat,
Hot or cold tho' days might be;
Johnny did not own a boot
To cover up his muddy foot.
Johnny's face was pale and thin,
Pale with hunger and with crying;
For his Mother lay within,
Talked and tossed and seemed a-dying,
While Johnny racked his brains to think
How to get her help and drink,
Get her physic, get her tea,
Get her bread and something nice;
Not a penny piece had he,
And scarce a shilling might suffice;
No wonder that his soul was sad,
When not one penny piece he had.
As he sat there thinking, moping,
Because his Mother's wants were many,
Wishing much but scarcely hoping
To earn a shilling or a penny,
A friendly neighbor passed him by
And questioned him: Why did he cry?
Alas! his trouble soon was told:
He did not cry for cold or hunger,
Though he was hungry both and cold;
He only felt more weak and younger,
Because he wished so to be old
And apt at earning pence or gold.
Kindly that neighbor was, but poor,
Scant coin had he to give or lend;
And well he guessed there needed more
Than pence or shillings to befriend
The helpless woman in her strait,
So much loved, yet so desolate.
One way he saw, and only one:
He would--he could not--give the advice,
And yet he must: the widow's son
Had curls of gold would fetch their price;
Long curls which might be clipped, and sold
For silver, or perhaps for gold.
Our Johnny, when he understood
Which shop it was that purchased hair,
Ran off as briskly as he could,
And in a trice stood cropped and bare,
Too short of hair to fill a locket,
But jingling money in his pocket.
Precious money--tea and bread,
Physic, ease, for Mother dear,
Better than a golden head:
Yet our hero dropped one tear
When he spied himself close shorn,
Barer much than lamb new born.
His Mother throve upon the money,
Ate and revived and kissed her son:
But oh! when she perceived her Johnny,
And understood what he had done
All and only for her sake,
She sobbed as if her heart must break.
"HOLLOW-SOUNDING AND MYSTERIOUS. "
There's no replying
To the Wind's sighing,
Telling, foretelling,
Dying, undying,
Dwindling and swelling,
Complaining, droning,
Whistling and moaning,
Ever beginning,
Ending, repeating,
Hinting and dinning,
Lagging and fleeting--
We've no replying
Living or dying
To the Wind's sighing.
What are you telling,
Variable Wind-tone?
What would be teaching,
O sinking, swelling,
Desolate Wind-moan?
Ever for ever
Teaching and preaching,
Never, ah never
Making us wiser--
The earliest riser
Catches no meaning,
The last who hearkens
Garners no gleaning
Of wisdom's treasure,
While the world darkens:--
Living or dying,
In pain, in pleasure,
We've no replying
To wordless flying
Wind's sighing.
MAIDEN MAY.
Maiden May sat in her bower,
In her blush rose bower in flower,
Sweet of scent;
Sat and dreamed away an hour,
Half content, half uncontent.
"Why should rose blossoms be born,
Tender blossoms, on a thorn
Though so sweet?
Never a thorn besets the corn
Scentless in its strength complete.
"Why are roses all so frail,
At the mercy of the gale,
Of a breath?
Yet so sweet and perfect pale,
Still so sweet in life and death. "
Maiden May sat in her bower,
In her blush rose bower in flower,
Where a linnet
Made one bristling branch the tower
For her nest and young ones in it.
"Gay and clear the linnet trills;
Yet the skylark only, thrills
Heaven and earth
When he breasts the height, and fills
Height and depth with song and mirth.
"Nightingales which yield to night
Solitary strange delight,
Reign alone:
But the lark for all his height
Fills no solitary throne;
"While he sings, a hundred sing;
Wing their flight below his wing
Yet in flight;
Each a lovely joyful thing
To the measure of its delight.
"Why then should a lark be reckoned
One alone, without a second
Near his throne?
He in skyward flight unslackened,
In his music, not alone. "
Maiden May sat in her bower;
Her own face was like a flower
Of the prime,
Half in sunshine, half in shower,
In the year's most tender time.
Her own thoughts in silent song
Musically flowed along,
Wise, unwise,
Wistful, wondering, weak or strong:
As brook shallows sink or rise.
Other thoughts another day,
Maiden May, will surge and sway
Round your heart;
Wake, and plead, and turn at bay,
Wisdom part, and folly part.
Time not far remote will borrow
Other joys, another sorrow,
All for you;
Not to-day, and yet to-morrow
Reasoning false and reasoning true.
Wherefore greatest? Wherefore least?
Hearts that starve and hearts that feast?
You and I?
Stammering Oracles have ceased,
And the whole earth stands at "why? "
Underneath all things that be
Lies an unsolved mystery;
Over all
Spreads a veil impenetrably,
Spreads a dense unlifted pall.
Mystery of mysteries:
_This_ creation hears and sees
High and low--
Vanity of vanities:
_This_ we test and _this_ we know.
Maiden May, the days of flowering
Nurse you now in sweet embowering,
Sunny days;
Bright with rainbows all the showering,
Bright with blossoms all the ways.
Close the inlet of your bower,
Close it close with thorn and flower,
Maiden May;
Lengthen out the shortening hour,--
Morrows are not as to-day.
Stay to-day which wanes too soon,
Stay the sun and stay the moon,
Stay your youth;
Bask you in the actual noon,
Rest you in the present truth.
Let to-day suffice to-day:
For itself to-morrow may
Fetch its loss;
Aim and stumble, say its say,
Watch and pray and bear its cross.
TILL TO-MORROW.
Long have I longed, till I am tired
Of longing and desire;
Farewell my points in vain desired,
My dying fire;
Farewell all things that die and fail and tire.
Springtide and youth and useless pleasure
And all my useless scheming,
My hopes of unattainable treasure,
Dreams not worth dreaming,
Glow-worms that gleam but yield no warmth in gleaming,
Farewell all shows that fade in showing:
My wish and joy stand over
Until to-morrow; Heaven is glowing
Through cloudy cover,
Beyond all clouds loves me my Heavenly Lover.
DEATH-WATCHES.
The Spring spreads one green lap of flowers
Which Autumn buries at the fall,
No chilling showers of Autumn hours
Can stay them or recall;
Winds sing a dirge, while earth lays out of sight
Her garment of delight.
The cloven East brings forth the sun,
The cloven West doth bury him
What time his gorgeous race is run
And all the world grows dim;
A funeral moon is lit in heaven's hollow,
And pale the star-lights follow.
TOUCHING "NEVER. "
Because you never yet have loved me, dear,
Think you you never can nor ever will?
Surely while life remains hope lingers still,
Hope the last blossom of life's dying year.
Because the season and mine age grow sere,
Shall never Spring bring forth her daffodil,
Shall never sweeter Summer feast her fill
Of roses with the nightingales they hear?
If you had loved me, I not loving you,
If you had urged me with the tender plea
Of what our unknown years to come might do
(Eternal years, if Time should count too few),
I would have owned the point you pressed on me,
Was possible, or probable, or true.
BRANDONS BOTH.
Oh fair Milly Brandon, a young maid, a fair maid!
All her curls are yellow and her eyes are blue,
And her cheeks were rosy red till a secret care made
Hollow whiteness of their brightness as a care will do.
Still she tends her flowers, but not as in the old days,
Still she sings her songs, but not the songs of old:
If now it be high Summer her days seem brief and cold days,
If now it be high Summer her nights are long and cold.
If you have a secret keep it, pure maid Milly;
Life is filled with troubles and the world with scorn;
And pity without love is at best times hard and chilly,
Chilling sore and stinging sore a heart forlorn.
Walter Brandon, do you guess Milly Brandon's secret?
Many things you know, but not everything,
With your locks like raven's plumage, and eyes like an egret,
And a laugh that is music, and such a voice to sing.
Nelly Knollys, she is fair, but she is not fairer
Than fairest Milly Brandon was before she turned so pale:
Oh, but Nelly's dearer if she be not rarer,
She need not keep a secret or blush behind a veil.
Beyond the first green hills, beyond the nearest valleys,
Nelly dwells at home beneath her mother's eyes:
Her home is neat and homely, not a cot and not a palace,
Just the home where love sets up his happiest memories.
Milly has no mother; and sad beyond another
Is she whose blessed mother is vanished out of call:
Truly comfort beyond comfort is stored up in a mother
Who bears with all, and hopes through all, and loves us all.
Where peacocks nod and flaunt up and down the terrace,
Furling and unfurling their scores of sightless eyes,
To and fro among the leaves and buds and flowers and berries
Maiden Milly strolls and pauses, smiles and sighs.
On the hedged-in terrace of her father's palace
She may stroll and muse alone, may smile or sigh alone,
Letting thoughts and eyes go wandering over hills and valleys
To-day her father's, and one day to be all her own.
If her thoughts go coursing down lowlands and up highlands,
It is because the startled game are leaping from their lair;
If her thoughts dart homeward to the reedy river islands,
It is because the waterfowl rise startled here or there.
At length a footfall on the steps: she turns, composed and steady,
All the long-descended greatness of her father's house
Lifting up her head; and there stands Walter keen and ready
For hunting or for hawking, a flush upon his brows.
"Good-morrow, fair cousin. " "Good-morrow, fairest cousin:
The sun has started on his course, and I must start to-day.
If you have done me one good turn you've done me many a dozen,
And I shall often think of you, think of you away. "
"Over hill and hollow what quarry will you follow,
Or what fish will you angle for beside the river's edge?
There's cloud upon the hill-top and there 's mist deep down the hollow,
And fog among the rushes and the rustling sedge. "
"I shall speed well enough be it hunting or hawking,
Or casting a bait towards the shyest daintiest fin.
But I kiss your hands, my cousin; I must not loiter talking,
For nothing comes of nothing, and I'm fain to seek and win. "
"Here's a thorny rose: will you wear it an hour,
Till the petals drop apart still fresh and pink and sweet?
Till the petals drop from the drooping perished flower,
And only the graceless thorns are left of it. "
"Nay, I have another rose sprung in another garden,
Another rose which sweetens all the world for me.
Be you a tenderer mistress and be you a warier warden
Of your rose, as sweet as mine, and full as fair to see. "
"Nay, a bud once plucked there is no reviving,
Nor is it worth your wearing now, nor worth indeed my own;
The dead to the dead, and the living to the living.
It's time I go within, for it's time now you were gone. "
"Good-bye, Milly Brandon, I shall not forget you,
Though it be good-bye between us for ever from to-day;
I could almost wish to-day that I had never met you,
And I'm true to you in this one word that I say. "
"Good-bye, Walter. I can guess which thornless rose you covet;
Long may it bloom and prolong its sunny morn:
Yet as for my one thorny rose, I do not cease to love it,
And if it is no more a flower I love it as a thorn. "
A LIFE'S PARALLELS.
Never on this side of the grave again,
On this side of the river,
On this side of the garner of the grain,
Never,--
Ever while time flows on and on and on,
That narrow noiseless river,
Ever while corn bows heavy-headed, wan,
Ever,--
Never despairing, often fainting, ruing,
But looking back, ah never!
Faint yet pursuing, faint yet still pursuing
Ever.
AT LAST.
Many have sung of love a root of bane:
While to my mind a root of balm it is,
For love at length breeds love; sufficient bliss
For life and death and rising up again.
Surely when light of Heaven makes all things plain,
Love will grow plain with all its mysteries;
Nor shall we need to fetch from over seas
Wisdom or wealth or pleasure safe from pain.
Love in our borders, love within our heart,
Love all in all, we then shall bide at rest,
Ended for ever life's unending quest,
Ended for ever effort, change and fear:
Love all in all;--no more that better part
Purchased, but at the cost of all things here.
GOLDEN SILENCES.
There is silence that saith, "Ah me! "
There is silence that nothing saith;
One the silence of life forlorn,
One the silence of death;
One is, and the other shall be.
One we know and have known for long,
One we know not, but we shall know,
All we who have ever been born;
Even so, be it so,--
There is silence, despite a song.
Sowing day is a silent day,
Resting night is a silent night;
But whoso reaps the ripened corn
Shall shout in his delight,
While silences vanish away.
IN THE WILLOW SHADE.
I sat beneath a willow tree,
Where water falls and calls;
While fancies upon fancies solaced me,
Some true, and some were false.
Who set their heart upon a hope
That never comes to pass,
Droop in the end like fading heliotrope,
The sun's wan looking-glass.
Who set their will upon a whim
Clung to through good and ill,
Are wrecked alike whether they sink or swim,
Or hit or miss their will.
All things are vain that wax and wane,
For which we waste our breath;
Love only doth not wane and is not vain,
Love only outlives death.
A singing lark rose toward the sky,
Circling he sang amain;
He sang, a speck scarce visible sky-high,
And then he sank again.
A second like a sunlit spark
Flashed singing up his track;
But never overtook that foremost lark,
And songless fluttered back.
A hovering melody of birds
Haunted the air above;
They clearly sang contentment without words,
And youth and joy and love.
O silvery weeping willow tree
With all leaves shivering,
Have you no purpose but to shadow me
Beside this rippled spring?
On this first fleeting day of Spring,
For Winter is gone by,
And every bird on every quivering wing
Floats in a sunny sky;
On this first Summer-like soft day,
While sunshine steeps the air,
And every cloud has gat itself away,
And birds sing everywhere.
Have you no purpose in the world
But thus to shadow me
With all your tender drooping twigs unfurled,
O weeping willow tree?
With all your tremulous leaves outspread
Betwixt me and the sun,
While here I loiter on a mossy bed
With half my work undone;
My work undone, that should be done
At once with all my might;
For after the long day and lingering sun
Comes the unworking night.
This day is lapsing on its way,
Is lapsing out of sight;
And after all the chances of the day
Comes the resourceless night.
The weeping-willow shook its head
And stretched its shadow long;
The west grew crimson, the sun smouldered red,
The birds forbore a song.
Slow wind sighed through the willow leaves,
The ripple made a moan,
The world drooped murmuring like a thing that grieves;
And then I felt alone.
I rose to go, and felt the chill,
And shivered as I went;
Yet shivering wondered, and I wonder still,
What more that willow meant;
That silvery weeping-willow tree
With all leaves shivering,
Which spent one long day overshadowing me
Beside a spring in Spring.
FLUTTERED WINGS.
The splendor of the kindling day,
The splendor of the setting sun,
These move my soul to wend its way,
And have done
With all we grasp and toil amongst and say.
The paling roses of a cloud,
The fading bow that arches space,
These woo my fancy toward my shroud;
Toward the place
Of faces veiled, and heads discrowned and bowed.
The nation of the awful stars,
The wandering star whose blaze is brief,
These make me beat against the bars
Of my grief;
My tedious grief, twin to the life it mars.
O fretted heart tossed to and fro,
So fain to flee, so fain to rest!
All glories that are high or low,
East or west,
Grow dim to thee who art so fain to go.
A FISHER-WIFE.
The soonest mended, nothing said;
And help may rise from east or west;
But my two hands are lumps of lead,
My heart sits leaden in my breast.
O north wind swoop not from the north,
O south wind linger in the south,
Oh come not raving raging forth,
To bring my heart into my mouth;
For I've a husband out at sea,
Afloat on feeble planks of wood;
He does not know what fear may be;
I would have told him if I could.
I would have locked him in my arms,
I would have hid him in my heart;
For oh! the waves are fraught with harms,
And he and I so far apart.
WHAT'S IN A NAME?
Why has Spring one syllable less
Than any its fellow season?
There may be some other reason,
And I'm merely making a guess;
But surely it hoards such wealth
Of happiness, hope and health,
Sunshine and musical sound,
It may spare a foot from its name
Yet all the same
Superabound.
Soft-named Summer,
Most welcome comer,
Brings almost everything
Over which we dream or sing
Or sigh;
But then Summer wends its way,
To-morrow,--to-day,--
Good-bye!
Autumn,--the slow name lingers,
While we likewise flag;
It silences many singers;
Its slow days drag,
Yet hasten at speed
To leave us in chilly need
For Winter to strip indeed.
In all-lack Winter,
Dull of sense and of sound,
We huddle and shiver
Beside our splinter
Of crackling pine,
Snow in sky and snow on ground.
Winter and cold
Can't last for ever!
To-day, to-morrow, the sun will shine;
When we are old,
But some still are young,
Singing the song
Which others have sung,
Ringing the bells
Which others have rung,--
Even so!
We ourselves, who else?
We ourselves long
Long ago.
MARIANA.
Not for me marring or making,
Not for me giving or taking;
I love my Love and he loves not me,
I love my Love and my heart is breaking.
Sweet is Spring in its lovely showing,
Sweet the violet veiled in blowing,
Sweet it is to love and be loved;
Ah, sweet knowledge beyond my knowing!
Who sighs for love sighs but for pleasure,
Who wastes for love hoards up a treasure;
Sweet to be loved and take no count,
Sweet it is to love without measure.
Sweet my Love whom I loved to try for,
Sweet my Love whom I love and sigh for,
Will you once love me and sigh for me,
You my Love whom I love and die for?
MEMENTO MORI.
Poor the pleasure
Doled out by measure,
Sweet though it be, while brief
As falling of the leaf;
Poor is pleasure
By weight and measure.
Sweet the sorrow
Which ends to-morrow;
Sharp though it be and sore,
It ends for evermore:
Zest of sorrow,
What ends to-morrow.
"ONE FOOT ON SEA, AND ONE ON SHORE. "
"Oh tell me once and tell me twice
And tell me thrice to make it plain,
When we who part this weary day,
When we who part shall meet again. "
"When windflowers blossom on the sea
And fishes skim along the plain,
Then we who part this weary day,
Then you and I shall meet again. "
"Yet tell me once before we part,
Why need we part who part in pain?
If flowers must blossom on the sea,
Why, we shall never meet again.
"My cheeks are paler than a rose,
My tears are salter than the main,
My heart is like a lump of ice
If we must never meet again. "
"Oh weep or laugh, but let me be,
And live or die, for all's in vain;
For life's in vain since we must part,
And parting must not meet again
"Till windflowers blossom on the sea,
And fishes skim along the plain;
Pale rose of roses let me be,
Your breaking heart breaks mine again. "
BUDS AND BABIES.
A million buds are born that never blow,
That sweet with promise lift a pretty head
To blush and wither on a barren bed
And leave no fruit to show.
Sweet, unfulfilled. Yet have I understood
One joy, by their fragility made plain:
Nothing was ever beautiful in vain,
Or all in vain was good.
BOY JOHNNY.
"If you'll busk you as a bride
And make ready,
It's I will wed you with a ring,
O fair lady. "
"Shall I busk me as a bride,
I so bonny,
For you to wed me with a ring,
O boy Johnny? "
"When you've busked you as a bride
And made ready,
Who else is there to marry you,
O fair lady? "
"I will find my lover out,
I so bonny,
And you shall bear my wedding-train,
O boy Johnny. "
FREAKS OF FASHION.
Such a hubbub in the nests,
Such a bustle and squeak!
Nestlings, guiltless of a feather,
Learning just to speak,
Ask--"And how about the fashions? "
From a cavernous beak.
Perched on bushes, perched on hedges,
Perched on firm hahas,
Perched on anything that holds them,
Gay papas and grave mammas
Teach the knowledge-thirsty nestlings:
Hear the gay papas.
Robin says: "A scarlet waistcoat
Will be all the wear,
Snug, and also cheerful-looking
For the frostiest air,
Comfortable for the chest too
When one comes to plume and pair. "
"Neat gray hoods will be in vogue,"
Quoth a Jackdaw: "Glossy gray,
Setting close, yet setting easy,
Nothing fly-away;
Suited to our misty mornings,
_A la negligee_. "
Flushing salmon, flushing sulphur,
Haughty Cockatoos
Answer--"Hoods may do for mornings,
But for evenings choose
High head-dresses, curved like crescents,
Such as well-bred persons use. "
"Top-knots, yes; yet more essential
Still, a train or tail,"
Screamed the Peacock: "Gemmed and lustrous
Not too stiff, and not too frail;
Those are best which rearrange as
Fans, and spread or trail. "
Spoke the Swan, entrenched behind
An inimitable neck:
"After all, there's nothing sweeter
For the lawn or lake
Than simple white, if fine and flaky
And absolutely free from speck. "
"Yellow," hinted a Canary,
"Warmer, not less _distingue_. "
"Peach color," put in a Lory,
"Cannot look _outre_. "
"All the colors are in fashion,
And are right," the Parrots say.
"Very well. But do contrast
Tints harmonious,"
Piped a Blackbird, justly proud
Of bill aurigerous;
"Half the world may learn a lesson
As to that from us. "
Then a Stork took up the word:
"Aim at height and _chic_:
Not high heels, they're common; somehow,
Stilted legs, not thick,
Nor yet thin:" he just glanced downward
And snapped to his beak.
Here a rustling and a whirring,
As of fans outspread,
Hinted that mammas felt anxious
Lest the next thing said
Might prove less than quite judicious,
Or even underbred.
So a mother Auk resumed
The broken thread of speech:
"Let colors sort themselves, my dears,
Yellow, or red, or peach;
The main points, as it seems to me,
We mothers have to teach,
"Are form and texture, elegance,
An air reserved, sublime;
The mode of wearing what we wear
With due regard to month and clime.
But now, let's all compose ourselves,
It's almost breakfast-time. "
A hubbub, a squeak, a bustle!
Who cares to chatter or sing
With delightful breakfast coming?
Yet they whisper under the wing:
"So we may wear whatever we like,
Anything, everything! "
AN OCTOBER GARDEN.
In my Autumn garden I was fain
To mourn among my scattered roses;
Alas for that last rosebud which uncloses
To Autumn's languid sun and rain
When all the world is on the wane!
Which has not felt the sweet constraint of June,
Nor heard the nightingale in tune.
Broad-faced asters by my garden walk,
You are but coarse compared with roses:
More choice, more dear that rosebud which uncloses
Faint-scented, pinched, upon its stalk,
That least and last which cold winds balk;
A rose it is though least and last of all,
A rose to me though at the fall.
"SUMMER IS ENDED. "
To think that this meaningless thing was ever a rose
Scentless, colorless, _this! _
Will it ever be thus (who knows? )
Thus with our bliss,
If we wait till the close?
Though we care not to wait for the end, there comes the end
Sooner, later, at last,
Which nothing can mar, nothing mend:
An end locked fast,
Bent we cannot re-bend.
PASSING AND GLASSING.
All things that pass
Are woman's looking-glass;
They show her how her bloom must fade,
And she herself be laid
With withered roses in the shade;
With withered roses and the fallen peach,
Unlovely, out of reach
Of summer joy that was.
All things that pass
Are woman's tiring-glass;
The faded lavender is sweet,
Sweet the dead violet
Culled and laid by and cared for yet;
The dried-up violets and dried lavender
Still sweet, may comfort her,
Nor need she cry Alas!
All things that pass
Are wisdom's looking-glass;
Being full of hope and fear, and still
Brimful of good or ill,
According to our work and will;
For there is nothing new beneath the sun;
Our doings have been done,
And that which shall be was.
"I WILL ARISE. "
Weary and weak,--accept my weariness;
Weary and weak and downcast in my soul,
With hope growing less and less,
And with the goal
Distant and dim,--accept my sore distress.
I thought to reach the goal so long ago,
At outset of the race I dreamed of rest,
Not knowing what now I know
Of breathless haste,
Of long-drawn straining effort across the waste.
One only thing I knew, Thy love of me;
One only thing I know, Thy sacred same
Love of me full and free,
A craving flame
Of selfless love of me which burns in Thee.
How can I think of thee, and yet grow chill;
Of Thee, and yet grow cold and nigh to death?
Re-energize my will,
Rebuild my faith;
I will arise and run, Thou giving me breath.
I will arise, repenting and in pain;
I will arise, and smite upon my breast
And turn to Thee again;
Thou choosest best,
Lead me along the road Thou makest plain.
Lead me a little way, and carry me
A little way, and listen to my sighs,
And store my tears with Thee,
And deign replies
To feeble prayers;--O Lord, I will arise.
A PRODIGAL SON.
Does that lamp still burn in my Father's house,
Which he kindled the night I went away?
I turned once beneath the cedar boughs,
And marked it gleam with a golden ray;
Did he think to light me home some day?
Hungry here with the crunching swine,
Hungry harvest have I to reap;
In a dream I count my Father's kine,
I hear the tinkling bells of his sheep,
I watch his lambs that browse and leap.
There is plenty of bread at home,
His servants have bread enough and to spare;
The purple wine-fat froths with foam,
Oil and spices make sweet the air,
While I perish hungry and bare.
Rich and blessed those servants, rather
Than I who see not my Father's face!
I will arise and go to my Father:--
"Fallen from sonship, beggared of grace,
Grant me, Father, a servant's place. "
SOEUR LOUISE DE LA MISERICORDE.
(1674. )
I have desired, and I have been desired;
But now the days are over of desire,
Now dust and dying embers mock my fire;
Where is the hire for which my life was hired?
Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
Longing and love, pangs of a perished pleasure,
Longing and love, a disenkindled fire,
And memory a bottomless gulf of mire,
And love a fount of tears outrunning measure;
Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
Now from my heart, love's deathbed, trickles, trickles,
Drop by drop slowly, drop by drop of fire,
The dross of life, of love, of spent desire;
Alas, my rose of life gone all to prickles,--
Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
Oh vanity of vanities, desire;
Stunting my hope which might have strained up higher,
Turning my garden plot to barren mire;
Oh death-struck love, oh disenkindled fire,
Oh vanity of vanities, desire!
AN "IMMURATA" SISTER.
Life flows down to death; we cannot bind
That current that it should not flee:
Life flows down to death, as rivers find
The inevitable sea.
Men work and think, but women feel;
And so (for I'm a woman, I)
And so I should be glad to die
And cease from impotence of zeal,
And cease from hope, and cease from dread,
And cease from yearnings without gain,
And cease from all this world of pain,
And be at peace among the dead.
Hearts that die, by death renew their youth,
Lightened of this life that doubts and dies;
Silent and contented, while the Truth
Unveiled makes them wise.
Why should I seek and never find
That something which I have not had?
Fair and unutterably sad
The world hath sought time out of mind;
The world hath sought and I have sought,--
Ah, empty world and empty I!
For we have spent our strength for nought,
And soon it will be time to die.
Sparks fly upward toward their fount of fire,
Kindling, flashing, hovering:--
Kindle, flash, my soul; mount higher and higher,
Thou whole burnt-offering!
"IF THOU SAYEST, BEHOLD, WE KNEW IT NOT. "
--Proverbs xxiv. 11, 12.
1.
I have done I know not what,--what have I done?
My brother's blood, my brother's soul, doth cry:
And I find no defence, find no reply,
No courage more to run this race I run
Not knowing what I have done, have left undone;
Ah me, these awful unknown hours that fly
Fruitless it may be, fleeting fruitless by
Rank with death-savor underneath the sun.
For what avails it that I did not know
The deed I did? what profits me the plea
That had I known I had not wronged him so?
Lord Jesus Christ, my God, him pity Thou;
Lord, if it may be, pity also me:
In judgment pity, and in death, and now.
2.
Thou Who hast borne all burdens, bear our load,
Bear Thou our load whatever load it be;
Our guilt, our shame, our helpless misery,
Bear Thou Who only canst, O God my God.
Seek us and find us, for we cannot Thee
Or seek or find or hold or cleave unto:
We cannot do or undo; Lord, undo
Our self-undoing, for Thine is the key
Of all we are not though we might have been.
Dear Lord, if ever mercy moved Thy mind,
If so be love of us can move Thee yet,
If still the nail-prints in Thy Hands are seen,
Remember us,--yea, how shouldst Thou forget?
Remember us for good, and seek, and find.
3.
Each soul I might have succored, may have slain,
All souls shall face me at the last Appeal,
That great last moment poised for woe or weal,
That final moment for man's bliss or bane.
Vanity of vanities, yea all is vain
Which then will not avail or help or heal:
Disfeatured faces, worn-out knees that kneel,
Will more avail than strength or beauty then.
Lord, by Thy Passion,--when Thy Face was marred
In sight of earth and hell tumultuous,
And Thy heart failed in Thee like melting wax,
And Thy Blood dropped more precious than the nard,--
Lord, for Thy sake, not ours, supply our lacks,
For Thine own sake, not ours, Christ, pity us.
THE THREAD OF LIFE.
1.
The irresponsive silence of the land,
The irresponsive sounding of the sea,
Speak both one message of one sense to me:--
Aloof, aloof, we stand aloof, so stand
Thou too aloof bound with the flawless band
Of inner solitude; we bind not thee;
But who from thy self-chain shall set thee free?
What heart shall touch thy heart? what hand thy hand? --
And I am sometimes proud and sometimes meek,
And sometimes I remember days of old
When fellowship seemed not so far to seek
And all the world and I seemed much less cold,
And at the rainbow's foot lay surely gold,
And hope felt strong and life itself not weak.
2.
Thus am I mine own prison. Everything
Around me free and sunny and at ease:
Or if in shadow, in a shade of trees
Which the sun kisses, where the gay birds sing
And where all winds make various murmuring;
Where bees are found, with honey for the bees;
Where sounds are music, and where silences
Are music of an unlike fashioning.
Then gaze I at the merrymaking crew,
And smile a moment and a moment sigh
Thinking: Why can I not rejoice with you?
But soon I put the foolish fancy by:
I am not what I have nor what I do;
But what I was I am, I am even I.
3.
Therefore myself is that one only thing
I hold to use or waste, to keep or give;
My sole possession every day I live,
And still mine own despite Time's winnowing.
Ever mine own, while moons and seasons bring
From crudeness ripeness mellow and sanative;
Ever mine own, till Death shall ply his sieve;
And still mine own, when saints break grave and sing.
And this myself as king unto my King
I give, to Him Who gave Himself for me;
Who gives Himself to me, and bids me sing
A sweet new song of His redeemed set free;
He bids me sing: O death, where is thy sting?
And sing: O grave, where is thy victory?
AN OLD-WORLD THICKET.
. . . "Una selva oscura. "--Dante.
Awake or sleeping (for I know not which)
I was or was not mazed within a wood
Where every mother-bird brought up her brood
Safe in some leafy niche
Of oak or ash, of cypress or of beech,
Of silvery aspen trembling delicately,
Of plane or warmer-tinted sycamore,
Of elm that dies in secret from the core,
Of ivy weak and free,
Of pines, of all green lofty things that be.
Such birds they seemed as challenged each desire;
Like spots of azure heaven upon the wing,
Like downy emeralds that alight and sing,
Like actual coals on fire,
Like anything they seemed, and everything.
Such mirth they made, such warblings and such chat
With tongue of music in a well-tuned beak,
They seemed to speak more wisdom than we speak,
To make our music flat
And all our subtlest reasonings wild or weak.
