Part 23
Help me to hold it! First it left The yellowing fennel, run to seed There, branching from the brickwork's cleft, Some old tomb's ruin: yonder weed Took up the floating weft,
Where one small orange cup amassed Five beetles, - blind and green they grope Among the honey-meal: and last, Everywhere on the grassy slope I traced it. Hold it fast!
The champaign with its endless fleece Of feathery grasses everywhere! Silence and passion, joy and peace, And everlasting wash of air - Rome's ghost since her decease.
Such life here, through such lengths of hours, Such miracles performed in play, Such primal naked forms of flowers, Such letting Nature have her way While Heaven looks from its towers!
How say you? Let us, O my dove, Let us be unashamed of soul, As earth lies bare to heaven above! How is it under our control To love or not to love?
I would that you were all to me, You that are just so much, no more. Nor yours, nor mine - nor slave nor free! Where does the fault lie? What the core Of the wound, since wound must be?
I would I could adopt your will, See with your eyes, and set my heart Beating by yours, and drink my fill At your soul's springs, - your part, my part In life, for good and ill.
No. I yearn upward, touch you close, Then stand away. I kiss your cheek, Catch your soul's warmth, - I pluck the rose And love it more than tongue can speak - Then the good minute goes.
Already how am I so far Out of that minute? Must I go Still like the thistle-ball, no bar, Onward, whenever light winds blow, Fixed by no friendly star?
Just when I seemed about to learn! Where is the thread now? Off again! The old trick! Only I discern - Infinite passion, and the pain Of finite hearts that yearn.
Robert Browning [1812-1889]
ONE WAY OF LOVE
All June I bound the rose in sheaves. Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves And strew them where Pauline may pass. She will not turn aside? Alas! Let them lie. Suppose they die? The chance was they might take her eye.
How many a month I strove to suit These stubborn fingers to the lute! To-day I venture all I know. She will not hear my music? So! Break the string; fold music's wing: Suppose Pauline had bade me sing!
My whole life long I learned to love. This hour my utmost art I prove And speak my passion - heaven or hell? She will not give me heaven? 'Tis well! Lose who may - I still can say, Those who win heaven, blest are they!
Robert Browning [1812-1889]
"NEVER THE TIME AND THE PLACE"
Never the time and the place And the loved one all together! This path - how soft to pace! This May - what magic weather! Where is the loved one's face? In a dream that loved one's face meets mine, But the house is narrow, the place is bleak Where, outside, rain and wind combine With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak, With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek, With a malice that marks each word, each sign! O enemy sly and serpentine, Uncoil thee from the waking man! Do I hold the Past Thus firm and fast Yet doubt if the Future hold I can? This path so soft to pace shall lead Through the magic of May to herself indeed! Or narrow if needs the house must be, Outside are the storms and strangers: we - Oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she, - I and she!
Robert Browning [1812-1889]
SONG From "The Saint's Tragedy"
Oh! that we two were Maying Down the stream of the soft spring breeze; Like children with violets playing In the shade of the whispering trees.
Oh! that we two sat dreaming On the sward of some sheep-trimmed down, Watching the white mist steaming Over river and mead and town.
Oh! that we two lay sleeping In our nest in the churchyard sod, With our limbs at rest on the quiet earth's breast, And our souls at home with God!
Charles Kingsley [1819-1875]
FOR HE HAD GREAT POSSESSIONS
Ah! marvel not if when I come to die And follow Death the way my fancies went Year after fading year, the last mad sky Finds me impenitent; For though my heart went doubting through the night, With many a backward glance at heaven's face, Yet found I many treasures of delight Within this pleasant place.
I shall not grieve because the girls were fair And kinder than the world, nor shall I weep Because with crying lips and clinging hair They stole away my sleep. For lacking this I might not yet have known How high the heart could climb, or waking seen The mountains bare their silver breasts of stone From their chaste robes of green.
Though it were all a sin, within the mirth And pain of life I found a song above Our songs, in her who scattered on the earth Her glad largesse of love; And though she held some dream that was not ours In some far place that was not for our feet, Where blew across the gladder, madder flowers A wind more bitter-sweet.
Ah! who shall hearten when the music stops, For joy of silence? While they dreamed above She showed me love upon the mountain tops And in the valleys, love. And while the wise found heaven with their charts And lore of souls, she made an earth for me More sweet than all, and from our beating hearts She called the pulsing sea.
So marvel not if in the days when death Shall make my body mine, I do not cry For hours and treasure lost, but with my breath Praise my mortality. For lo! this place is fair, and losing all That I have won and dreamed beneath her kiss, I would not see the light of morning fall On any world but this.
Richard Middleton [1882-1911]
WINDLE-STRAWS
She kissed me on the forehead, She spoke not any word, The silence flowed between us, And I nor spoke nor stirred.
So hopeless for my sake it was, So full of ruth, so sweet, My whole heart rose and blessed her, - Then died before her feet.
Edward Dowden [1843-1913]
JESSIE
When Jessie comes with her soft breast, And yields the golden keys, Then is it as if God caressed Twin babes upon His knees - Twin babes that, each to other pressed, Just feel the Father's arms, wherewith they both are blessed,
But when I think if we must part, And all this personal dream be fled - O then my heart! O then my useless heart! Would God that thou wert dead - A clod insensible to joys and ills - A stone remote in some bleak gully of the hills!
Thomas Edward Brown [1830-1897]
THE CHESS-BOARD
My little love, do you remember, Ere we were grown so sadly wise, Those evenings in the bleak December, Curtained warm from the snowy weather, When you and I played chess together, Checkmated by each other's eyes?
Ah! still I see your soft white hand Hovering warm o'er Queen and Knight; Brave Pawns in valiant battle stand; The double Castles guard the wings; The Bishop, bent on distant things, Moves, sliding, through the fight.
Our fingers touch; our glances meet, And falter; falls your golden hair Against my cheek; your bosom sweet Is heaving. Down the field, your Queen Rides slow, her soldiery all between, And checks me unaware.
Ah me! the little battle's done: Dispersed is all its chivalry. Full many a move, since then, have we 'Mid Life's perplexing chequers made, And many a game with Fortune played; - What is it we have won? This, this at least, - if this alone:
That never, never, never more, As in those old still nights of yore (Ere we were grown so sadly wise), Can you and I shut out the skies, Shut out the world and wintry weather, And, eyes exchanging warmth with eyes, Play chess, as then we played together!
Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton [1831-1891]
AUX ITALIENS
At Paris it was, at the Opera there; - And she looked like a queen in a book that night, With the wreath of pearl in her raven hair, And the brooch on her breast, so bright.
Of all the operas that Verdi wrote, The best, to my taste, is the Trovatore; And Mario can soothe with a tenor note The souls in Purgatory.
The moon on the tower slept soft as snow: And who was not thrilled in the strangest way, As we heard him sing, while the gas burned low, "Non ti scordar di me"?
The Emperor there, in his box of state, Looked grave, as if he had just then seen The red flag wave from the city-gate Where his eagles in bronze had been.
The Empress, too, had a tear in her eye. You'd have said that her fancy had gone back again, For one moment, under the old blue sky, To the old glad life in Spain.
Well! there in our front-row box we sat, Together, my bride-betrothed and I; My gaze was fixed on my opera-hat, And hers on the stage hard by.
And both were silent, and both were sad. Like a queen she leaned on her full white arm, With that regal, indolent air she had; So confident of her charm!
I have not a doubt she was thinking then Of her former lord, good soul that he was! Who died the richest and roundest of men, The Marquis of Carabas.
I hope that, to get to the kingdom of heaven, Through a needle's eye he had not to pass. I wish him well, for the jointure given To my lady of Carabas.
Meanwhile, I was thinking of my first love, As I had not been thinking of aught for years, Till over my eyes there began to move Something that felt like tears.
I thought of the dress that she wore last time, When we stood, 'neath the cypress-trees, together, In that lost land, in that soft clime, In the crimson evening weather;
Of that muslin dress (for the eve was hot), And her warm white neck in its golden chain, And her full, soft hair, just tied in a knot, And falling loose again;
And the jasmine-flower in her fair young breast, (O the faint, sweet smell of that jasmine-flower!) And the one bird singing alone to his nest, And the one star over the tower.
I thought of our little quarrels and strife, And the letter that brought me back my ring. And it all seemed then, in the waste of life, Such a very little thing!
For I thought of her grave below the hill, Which the sentinel cypress-tree stands over; And I thought . . . "were she only living still, How I could forgive her, and love her!"
And I swear, as I thought of her thus, in that hour, And of how, after all, old things were best, That I smelt the smell of that jasmine-flower Which she used to wear in her breast.
It smelt so faint, and it smelt so sweet, It made me creep, and it made me cold! Like the scent that steals from the crumbling sheet Where a mummy is half unrolled.
And I turned, and looked. She was sitting there In a dim box, over the stage; and dressed In that muslin dress with that full soft hair, And that jasmine in her breast!
I was here; and she was there; And the glittering horseshoe curved between: - From my bride-betrothed, with her raven hair, And her sumptuous scornful mien,
To my early love, with her eyes downcast, And over her primrose face the shade (In short from the Future back to the Past). There was but a step to be made.
To my early love from my future bride One moment I looked. Then I stole to the door, I traversed the passage; and down at her side I was sitting, a moment more.
My thinking of her, or the music's strain, Or something which never will be expressed, Had brought her back from the grave again, With the jasmine in her breast.
She is not dead, and she is not wed! But she loves me now, and she loved me then! And the very first word that her sweet lips said, My heart grew youthful again.
The Marchioness there, of Carabas, She is wealthy, and young, and handsome still, And but for her . . . well, we'll let that pass, She may marry whomever she will.
But I will marry my own first love, With her primrose face: for old things are best, And the flower in her bosom, I prize it above The brooch in my lady's breast.
The world is filled with folly and sin, And Love must cling where it can, I say: For Beauty is easy enough to win; But one isn't loved every day.
And I think, in the lives of most women and men, There's a moment when all would go smooth and even, If only the dead could find out when To come back, and be forgiven.
But O the smell of that jasmine-flower! And O that music! and O the way That voice rang out from the donjon tower, Non ti scordar di me, Non ti scordar di me!
Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton [1831-1891]
SONG
I saw the day's white rapture Die in the sunset's flame, But all her shining beauty Lives like a deathless name.
Our lamps of joy are wasted, Gone is Love's hallowed light; But you and I remember Through every starlit night.
Charles Hanson Towne [1877-
THE LONELY ROAD
I think thou waitest, Love, beyond the Gate - Eager, with wind-stirred ripples in thy hair; I have not found thee, and the hour is late, And harsh the weight I bear.
Far have I sought, and flung my wealth of years Like a young traveler, gay at careless inns - See how the wine-stain whitens 'neath the tears My burden wins!
And wilt thou know me, Love, with bended back, Or wilt thou scorn me, in so drear a guise? I have a wealth of sorrows in my pack, One lonely prize -
Thy dream - and dross of sin. . . . O, dim the fields - I may not find thee in so dark a land - Yet I await what hope the turning yields And beg with empty hand.
Kenneth Rand [1891-
EVENSONG
Beauty calls and gives no warning, Shadows rise and wander on the day. In the twilight, in the quiet evening, We shall rise and smile and go away. Over the flaming leaves Freezes the sky. It is the season grieves, Not you, not I. All our spring-times, all our summers, We have kept the longing warm within. Now we leave the after-comers To attain the dreams we did not win. Oh, we have wakened, Sweet, and had our birth, And that's the end of earth; And we have toiled and smiled and kept the light, And that's the end of night.
Ridgely Torrence [1875-
THE NYMPH'S SONG TO HYLAS From "The Life and Death of Jason"
I know a little garden-close Set thick with lily and red rose, Where I would wander if I might From dewy dawn to dewy night, And have one with me wandering.
And though within it no birds sing, And though no pillared house is there, And though the apple boughs are bare Of fruit and blossom, would to God, Her feet upon the green grass trod, And I beheld them as before!
There comes a murmur from the shore, And in the close two fair streams are, Drawn from the purple hills afar, Drawn down unto the restless sea; Dark hills whose heath-bloom feeds no bee, Dark shore no ship has ever seen, Tormented by the billows green, Whose murmur comes unceasingly Unto the place for which I cry.
For which I cry both day and night, For which I let slip all delight, Whereby I grow both deaf and blind, Careless to win, unskilled to find, And quick to lose what all men seek.
Yet tottering as I am, and weak, Still have I left a little breath To seek within the jaws of death An entrance to that happy place; To seek the unforgotten face Once seen, once kissed, once reft from me Anigh the murmuring of the sea.
William Morris [1834-1896]
NO AND YES
If I could choose my paradise, And please myself with choice of bliss, Then I would have your soft blue eyes And rosy little mouth to kiss! Your lips, as smooth and tender, child, As rose-leaves in a coppice wild.
If fate bade choose some sweet unrest, To weave my troubled life a snare, Then I would say "her maiden breast And golden ripple of her hair"; And weep amid those tresses, child, Contented to be thus beguiled.
Thomas Ashe [1836-1889]
LOVE IN DREAMS
Love hath his poppy-wreath, Not Night alone. I laid my head beneath Love's lilied throne: Then to my sleep he brought This anodyne - The flower of many a thought And fancy fine: A form, a face, no more; Fairer than truth; A dream from death's pale shore; The soul of youth: A dream so dear, so deep, All dreams above, That still I pray to sleep - Bring Love back, Love!
John Addington Symonds [1840-1893]
"A LITTLE WHILE I FAIN WOULD LINGER YET"
A little while (my life is almost set!) I fain would pause along the downward way, Musing an hour in this sad sunset-ray, While, Sweet! our eyes with tender tears are wet: A little hour I fain would linger yet.
A little while I fain would linger yet, All for love's sake, for love that cannot tire; Though fervid youth be dead, with youth's desire, And hope has faded to a vague regret, A little while I fain would linger yet.
A little while I fain would linger here: Behold! who knows what strange, mysterious bars 'Twixt souls that love may rise in other stars? Nor can love deem the face of death is fair: A little while I still would linger here.
A little while I yearn to hold thee fast, Hand locked in hand, and loyal heart to heart; (O pitying Christ! those woeful words, "We part!") So, ere the darkness fall, the light be past, A little while I fain would hold thee fast.
A little while, when light and twilight meet, - Behind, our broken years; before, the deep Weird wonder of the last unfathomed sleep, - A little while I still would clasp thee, Sweet, A little while, when night and twilight meet.
A little while I fain would linger here; Behold! who knows what soul-dividing bars Earth's faithful loves may part in other stars? Nor can love deem the face of death is fair: A little while I still would linger here.
Paul Hamilton Hayne [1830-1886]
SONG
I made another garden, yea, For my new Love: I left the dead rose where it lay And set the new above. Why did my Summer not begin? Why did my heart not haste? My old Love came and walked therein, And laid the garden waste.
She entered with her weary smile, Just as of old; She looked around a little while And shivered with the cold: Her passing touch was death to all, Her passing look a blight; She made the white rose-petals fall, And turned the red rose white.
Her pale robe clinging to the grass Seemed like a snake That bit the grass and ground, alas! And a sad trail did make. She went up slowly to the gate, And there, just as of yore, She turned back at the last to wait And say farewell once more.
Arthur O'Shaughnessy [1844-1881]
SONG
Has summer come without the rose, Or left the bird behind? Is the blue changed above thee, O world! or am I blind? Will you change every flower that grows, Or only change this spot, Where she who said, I love thee, Now says, I love thee not?
The skies seemed true above thee, The rose true on the tree; The bird seemed true the summer through, But all proved false to me. World! is there one good thing in you, Life, love, or death - or what? Since lips that sang, I love thee, Have said, I love thee not?
I think the sun's kiss will scarce fall Into one flower's gold cup; I think the bird will miss me, And give the summer up. O sweet place! desolate in tall Wild grass, have you forgot How her lips loved to kiss me, Now that they kiss me not?
Be false or fair above me, Come back with any face, Summer! - do I care what you do? You cannot change one place - The grass, the leaves, the earth, the dew, The grave I make the spot - Here, where she used to love me, Here, where she loves me not.
Arthur O'Shaughnessy [1844-1881]
AFTER
A little time for laughter, A little time to sing, A little time to kiss and cling, And no more kissing after.
A little while for scheming Love's unperfected schemes; A little time for golden dreams, Then no more any dreaming.
A little while 'twas given To me to have thy love; Now, like a ghost, alone I move About a ruined heaven.
A little time for speaking Things sweet to say and hear; A time to seek, and find thee near, Then no more any seeking.
A little time for saying Words the heart breaks to say; A short sharp time wherein to pray, Then no more need of praying;
But long, long years to weep in, And comprehend the whole Great grief that desolates the soul, And eternity to sleep in.
Philip Bourke Marston [1850-1887]
AFTER SUMMER
We'll not weep for summer over, - No, not we: Strew above his head the clover, - Let him be!
Other eyes may weep his dying, Shed their tears There upon him, where he's lying With his peers.
Unto some of them he proffered Gifts most sweet; For our hearts a grave he offered, - Was this meet?
All our fond hopes, praying, perished In his wrath, - All the lovely dreams we cherished Strewed his path.
Shall we in our tombs, I wonder, Far apart, Sundered wide as seas can sunder Heart from heart,
Dream at all of all the sorrows That were ours, - Bitter nights, more bitter morrows; Poison-flowers
Summer gathered, as in madness, Saying, "See, These are yours, in place of gladness, - Gifts from me"?
Nay, the rest that will be ours Is supreme, - And below the poppy flowers Steals no dream.
Philip Bourke Marston [1850-1887]
ROCOCO
Take hand and part with laughter; Touch lips and part with tears; Once more and no more after, Whatever comes with years. We twain shall not remeasure The ways that left us twain; Nor crush the lees of pleasure From sanguine grapes of pain.
We twain once well in sunder, What will the mad gods do For hate with me, I wonder, Or what for love with you? Forget them till November, And dream there's April yet, Forget that I remember, And dream that I forget.
Time found our tired love sleeping, And kissed away his breath; But what should we do weeping, Though light love sleep to death? We have drained his lips at leisure, Till there's not left to drain A single sob of pleasure, A single pulse of pain.