Cornell University Library 
 PR 5527.K5 1913 
 
 Knave of hearts. 1894-1908. 
 
 3 1924 013 557 131 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013557131 
 
KNAVE OF HEARTS. 
 
NEW VOLUMES OF POETRT 
 THE DAFFODIL FIELDS, by John Mase- 
 
 FIELD. 3s 6d net 
 DAUBER, by John Masefield. 3s 6d net 
 
 RHYMES OF A ROUSEABOUT, by W. 
 
 Monro Anderson. 3s 6d net 
 
 APHRODITE AND OTHER POEMS, by 
 
 John Helston. s^ net 
 
 AUGURIES, by Laurence Binyon. 3s 6d net 
 
 THE BIRD OF TIME, by Sarojini Naidu. 
 With portrait of Author, and Introduction by 
 Edmund Gosse. 53 net 
 
 THE POETICAL WORKS OF EDMUND 
 
 GOSSE. 5s net 
 
 MOODS, SONGS AND DOGGERELS, by 
 John Galsworthy. 5s net 
 
 THE LURE OF THE SEA, by J. E. Patter- 
 son. 5s net 
 
 WILLIAM HEINEMANN, 21 BEDFORD ST.,W.C. 
 
KNAVE OF HEARTS. 1894-1908. 
 BY ARTHUR SYMONS. 
 
 LONDON : WILLIAM HEINEMANN. 
 
 1913- H 
 
^5qs^6 
 
 Copyright. 
 
TO RHODA. 
 
Tou praise in me the verse that brings 
 A savour only life can give : 
 This book is what I thought of things 
 'Before I had begun to live. 
 
Life, the dice, has dropt Into idle hands to be tossed : 
 Luckless hand, give me luck, before the game has been lost ! 
 Life as a game of cards is shuffled with queens and kings : 
 Knave of hearts, be my friend, for you are the mover of things ! 
 
Contents 
 
 The Brother of a Weed : 
 
 p. I, 
 
 The Picture : p. 6. 
 
 Unattained Delight : p. 8. 
 
 Beauty's Strangeness : p. 9. 
 
 Love in Action : p. 10. 
 
 The Wind : p. 11. 
 
 The Streets : p. 12. 
 
 Fear: p. 13. 
 
 The Spirit and the Bride : 
 
 p. 14. 
 
 The Twelve - Thorned 
 
 Crown : p. 15. 
 
 Lesbia in Old Age : p. 1 6. 
 
 Hallucination: p. 18. 
 
 The Snake-Soul : p. 20. 
 
 The Serpent : p. 2 1 . 
 
 For Le Penseur of Rodin : 
 
 p. 22. 
 
 On three Drawings of 
 
 Rodin : p. 23. 
 
 The Mystery of Judas and 
 
 Satan : p, 24. 
 
 The Dialogue of the Soul 
 
 and Body : p. 25. 
 
 Japan : p. 27. 
 
 Tanagra : p. 28. 
 
 Tristan's Song: p. 29. 
 
 At the Morgue : p. 30. 
 
 Villa Borghese : p. 31. 
 At Sant' Onofrio : p. 32. 
 Grey Hours : Naples : 
 
 P- 33- 
 
 Stormy Night : Naples : 
 
 P- 34- 
 
 Easter Night : Naples : 
 
 P- 35- 
 
 Venice Minuet : p. 36. 
 
 Venice : p. 38. 
 
 Nerves of Night : p. 39. 
 
 Song : p. 40. 
 
 Caution for all Lovers : 
 
 p. 41. 
 
 A Song of Love and Time : 
 
 p. 42. 
 
 Roses : p. 43. 
 
 Fauvette : p. 44. 
 
 Peau d'Espagne : p. 46. 
 
 The Lovely Worm of 
 
 Hell : p. 47. 
 
 After the Sacrifice : p. 48. 
 
 In the Strand : p. 49. 
 
 On Reading of Women 
 
 Rioting for their Rights : 
 
 p. 50. 
 
 Bal Masqu^ : p. 5 1 . 
 
 Faint Love : p. 52. 
 
 The Tarot Cards : p. 53. 
 
London : Midnight : p. 54. 
 
 To My Mother : p. 55- 
 
 The New Life : p. 56. 
 
 Summer in Spring : p. 57. 
 
 Song: p. 58. 
 
 Song to the Bride : p. 59. 
 
 Regret : p. 60. 
 
 The Windmill : p. 61. 
 
 Nero : Two Dramatic 
 
 Scenes : p. 62. 
 
 From Villon : p. 75. 
 
 From Andr6 Ch6nier : 
 
 EMgies : p. 77. 
 
 From Paul Verlaine : F6tes 
 
 Galantes. 
 
 I. Clair de Lune : 
 
 p. 80. 
 II. Pantomime : p. 
 81. 
 
 III. Sur I'Herbe : 
 p. 82. 
 
 IV. L'A116e : p. 83. 
 V. A La Promenade : 
 
 p. 84. 
 VI. Dans la Grotte : 
 
 p. 85. 
 VII. Les Ing6nus : 
 
 p. 86. 
 VIII. Cortege : p. 87. 
 IX. Les Coquillages : 
 p. 88. 
 
 X. En Patinant : 
 p. 89. 
 XI. Fantoches : p. 92. 
 XII. Cythfere : p. 93. 
 
 XIII. En Bateau : p. 94. 
 
 XIV. Le Faune : p. 95. 
 XV. Mandoline: p. 96. 
 
 XVI. AClymfene:p. 97. 
 XVII. Lettre : p. 98. 
 XVIII. Les Indolents : 
 p. 100. 
 XIX. Colombine : p. 
 
 lOI. 
 
 XX. L' Amour par 
 Terre : p. 103. 
 XXI. En Sourdine : p. 
 
 104. 
 XXII. CoUoque Senti- 
 mental : p. 105. 
 From Pofemes Saturniens. 
 I. Soleils Couchants, 
 
 p. 106. 
 II. Chanson d'Automne: 
 
 p. 107. 
 III. Femme et Chatte : 
 p. 108. 
 From La Bonne Chanson : 
 p. 109 
 From 
 
 Paroles : p. 1 1 1 
 Spleen : p. 118. 
 
 Romances 
 P- 
 
 sans 
 
Streets : p. 119. From Chansons pour EUe : 
 
 From Jadis et Naguire. p. 130. 
 
 I. Art Po6tique : p. 120. From Epigrammes: p. 131. 
 
 11, Mezzetin Chantant : From Catullus : 
 
 p. 122. Chiefly concerning Lesbia : 
 
 From Sagesse : p. 123. p. 132. 
 
 From Parallelement : Attis : 159. 
 Impression Fausse : p. 129. 
 
The Brother of a Weed. 
 I. 
 
 I have shut up my soul with vehemence 
 Against the world, and opened every sense 
 That I may take, but not for love or price. 
 The world's best gold and frankincense and spice. 
 I have delighted in all visible things 
 And built the world of my imaginings 
 Out of the splendour of the day and night, 
 And I have never wondered that my sight 
 Should serve me for my pleasure, or that aught 
 Beyond the lonely mirror of my thought 
 Lived, and desired me. I have walked as one 
 Who dreams himself the master of the sun. 
 And that the seasons are as seraphim 
 And in the months and stars bow down to him. 
 
11. 
 
 And I have been of all men loneliest, 
 
 And my chill soul has withered in my breast 
 
 With pride and no content and loneliness. 
 
 And I have said : T® make our sorrow less 
 
 Is there not pity in the heart of flowers, 
 
 Or joy in wings of birds that might be ours ? 
 
 Is there a beast that lives, and will not move 
 
 Toward our poor love with a more lovely love ? 
 
 And might not our proud hopeless sorrow pass 
 
 If we became as humble at the grass ? 
 
 I will get down from my sick throne where I 
 
 Dreamed that the seasons of the earth and sky, 
 
 The leash of months and stars, were mine to lead, 
 
 And pray to be the brother of a weed. 
 
III. 
 
 I am beginning to find out that there 
 
 Are beings to be pitied everywhere. 
 
 Thus when I hear, at night, an orphaned sheep 
 
 Crying as a child cries, how can I sleep ? 
 
 Yet the night-birds are happy, or I seem 
 
 To hear them in the hollow of a dream, 
 
 Whispering to each other in the trees. 
 
 And through the window comes a leaping breeze 
 
 That has the sea-salt in it. When I hear 
 
 Crying of oxen, that, in deadly fear. 
 
 Rough men, with cruel dogs about them, drive 
 
 Into the torture-house of death alive. 
 
 How can I sit under a tree and read 
 
 A happy idle book, and take no heed ? 
 
IV. 
 
 Why is not sorrow kinder to all these 
 
 That have short lives and yet so little ease ? 
 
 Life is but anxious fear to lambs and hens, 
 
 And even the birds are enemies of men's 
 
 Because they rob a cherry-tree ; the mole 
 
 Cannot be left in quiet in his hole 
 
 Though he is softer than a velvet gown ; 
 
 The caterpillar is soon trodden down 
 
 Under a boot's ignorant heel, though he 
 
 Is woven finer than old tapestry. 
 
 The worm is close and busy and discreet. 
 
 The foe of no man living : no man's feet 
 
 Spare him, if he but crawl into the sun. 
 
 Who can be happy, while these things are done ? 
 
V. 
 
 Why are the roses filled with such a heat, 
 And are so gaudy and riotously sweet, 
 When any wind may snap them from the stem 
 Or any little green worm canker them ? 
 Why is the dawn-delivered butterfly 
 So arrogant, knowing he has to die 
 Before another dawn has waked his brother ? 
 Why do the dragon-flies outshoot each other 
 With such an ardour, knowing that the noon 
 Will put away his shining arrows soon ? 
 Why is the seed that, having got to corn. 
 Must come to bread, so eager to be born ? 
 Why is it that the joy of living gives 
 Forgetflilness to everything that lives ? 
 
The Picture. 
 
 O, If I did not love you with a love 
 
 Older than sight, this should have been enough 
 
 Seen once, and in a picture, so, to dream 
 
 A lifetime over ; for a thing you seem 
 
 Made of the wilfulness of all delight, 
 
 Happy as singing, grave with joy : the light 
 
 Soars from your shoulder to envelop you, 
 
 Wing-like, and the desire of flight shines through. 
 
 I would have lived, for your sake, in a sleep. 
 
 Shut from all outer faces, nestling deep 
 
 In the dim heart of dreams your secret face. 
 
 Time would have waked me at our meeting-place 
 
 Before the years of the world were at an end, 
 
 Because I waited. Now, O love, O friend. 
 
 My help, my hope, my more than memory. 
 
 There is one thing time cannot take from me : 
 
 That I have known you, not in dreams, but warm 
 
 With life and wild with love, and felt the storm 
 
 Of pulses panting to your finger-tips. 
 
 And heard your heart beat naked at my lips. 
 
 Have 1 not hungered, have I not been fed. 
 
 For love's sal^e, love, with that immaculate bread 
 
 Which is the heavenlier manna of my drouth, 
 
 Your body, sweet as manna to the mouth 
 
 Which now gives God thanksgiving without shame ? 
 
 O flame of love, and light within the flame. 
 
 And pure in body and soul as that desire 
 
 Which is in heaven the light, on earth the fire. 
 
 Come, for your picture calls to me, O come 
 
Ere longing lapse into a martyrdom ; 
 Come, in what darkest veil you please, or white 
 Beyond all whiteness in your body's light ; 
 And bid me kneel and kiss your feet, or give 
 My body and soul at last their leave to live. 
 Yet, of all gifts, I dare desire, you pour 
 Yet freelier forth, I will not love you more ; 
 Nor, if your will withhold me happiness, 
 I will not, for I cannot, love you less. 
 
Unattained Delight. 
 
 unattained, imaginable delight. 
 
 To be the arms of rest to you all night, 
 
 All the long, swift, uncounted, endless hours ! 
 
 And for this heaven past hoping to be ours 
 
 Simply as sleep, and for kind sleep to come 
 
 To both our breathings, like a quiet home ! 
 
 Scarce I dare think, for fear, of happiness. 
 
 Lest being known, I find it to be less 
 
 Than that I dreamed ; and scarcely I dare dream 
 
 Even of sleep, lest that too, coming, seem 
 
 Less than perfection of an ecstasy. 
 
 1 call my flying thoughts all back to me^. 
 Soothing their wings, and murmuring sOft words 
 To still them, all my flying thoughts lite birds. 
 I wait, veiling my eyelids ; I control 
 
 Even hope, and the impatience of the soul. 
 
Beauty's Strangeness. 
 
 The world is full of you : I wander in vain ; 
 
 I cannot lose you : for you come again, 
 
 Here in deep eyes, and there in wandering hair, 
 
 Or mournful cheeks ; and always you are there 
 
 When 1 begin to dream of some escape 
 
 From dreams of you : for aU dreams take your shape. 
 
 You will not lose me : know, and be consoled. 
 
 If you desire, as you desired of old. 
 
 Still to be loved when you have ceased to love. 
 
 These eyes remember, and those see you move 
 
 Wherever beauty's strangeness comes to keep 
 
 My weary hope from the relief of sleep. 
 
Love in Action. 
 
 How could, how should I tell you of 
 
 That first beginning of our love 
 
 In action ? rather let me tell 
 
 How Eve was formed or Adam fell. 
 
 A mighty adoration came 
 
 Out of a smile to be a flame, 
 
 AAd the first breathings of desire 
 
 Were quickly blown into a fire 
 
 That took on both our bodies such 
 
 An intimate hold it seemed to touch 
 
 The soul of either to the quick, 
 
 And christen our vows catholic. 
 
 Then, the beginning being over. 
 
 There was no more but love and lover, 
 
 And of that eternal minute 
 
 Know but that life and death were in it. 
 
 Only, that being passed, I seem 
 
 Half to remember from a dream 
 
 Her panting breath across my eyes 
 
 And the whole amorous breast of sighs. 
 
 Her damp cheek and abandoned hair. 
 
 And mouth relaxed to that despair 
 
 Which is the shipwreck of each sense 
 
 In overflooding indolence ; 
 
 And, in no dream, but even as one 
 
 Who wakes out of oblivion. 
 
 The quieting of aching throes. 
 
 Into a rapture of repose. 
 
 When eyes re-open and lips close. 
 
The Wind. 
 
 Last night, lying awake, I heard the wind 
 
 Going down the leafy valley to the sea. 
 
 And tearing at the thatch with many hands. 
 
 And I lay still, knowing that you were there, 
 
 Dreaming kind dreams that laugh themselves awake 
 
 With morning ; and I felt the irresistible 
 
 Enemy, the wind of multitude, the hands 
 
 That tear and batter at my rest, and drag 
 
 My soul out of its lonely hiding-place. 
 
 Go by ; and I lay still, knowing you were there, 
 
 And hearing in the dark your tranquil breath 
 
 Evenly through the tumult ; and your peace 
 
 Has never brought more strength to me than when 
 
 Last night, lying awake, I heard the wind. 
 
 II 
 
The Streets. 
 
 I loved the streets because 
 I feared myself and sought 
 In the crowd's hurry a pause 
 And sanctuary from thought. 
 
 My sanctuary is such 
 Now that I dwell with love 
 I cannot have too much 
 Of self or thought enough. 
 
 And my tired pilgrim feet 
 Have no more need to roam : 
 Why seek in every street 
 That face which is my home .'' 
 
 12 
 
Fear. 
 
 My love makes me afraid. 
 For when I am alone, 
 My fate being my own, 
 I have all myself in aid. 
 
 But with yourself you bring 
 Fear, and he will not quit 
 So dear and exquisite 
 And perishable a thing. 
 
 The certainty that held 
 Before my breast a targe. 
 Now you are in my charge 
 Shrivels, and is dispelled. 
 
 I cast about you arms 
 Weak with solicitude 
 That were in solitude 
 Invulnerable to harms. 
 
 And I go wondering 
 If fear will ever quit 
 So dear and exquisite 
 And such a priceless thing. 
 
The Spirit and the Bride. 
 
 If, when the Spirit and the Bride say Come ! 
 I yet be found lingering by the way, 
 Even as I linger while it is to-day. 
 Wait thou, my God ! although I journey from 
 My home on earth and from thy other home, 
 I will remember at the last, and say : 
 Thou who wast near when I was far away. 
 Take me : the Spirit and the Bride say Come ! 
 
 Thou hast held me in the hollow of thy hand. 
 
 And I have fought against thy power ; thou hast kept 
 
 Thy watch over my spirit while it slept. 
 
 Dreaming against thy wisdom ; I have planned 
 
 Ways of escape, but thou has overswept. 
 
 Like loving water, all my dykes of sand. 
 
The Twelve-Thorned Crown. 
 
 Wounded for our transgression, she must bear 
 The crucifying, and the twelve-thorned crown. 
 And lay her secret pride shamefully down. 
 That man may live, who is her lord and heir, 
 Son of her travail, father of her pains. 
 For his delight a bleeding sacrifice ; 
 Nor will those wounds wounded but once suffice : 
 She suffers, but the twelve-thorned crown remains. 
 
 Woman, when in the sacrament I take 
 
 The bread, your body, and the wine, your kiss, 
 
 1 bid my body and soul remember this. 
 
 And humble themselves proudly for your sake, 
 
 And for the sacred blood that you have shed. 
 
 And for the shame those innocent pangs yet bring 
 
 I do adore the crown of suffering 
 
 That sets a crown of glory on your head. 
 
Lesbia in Old Age. 
 
 You see these shrunken arms, this chin, 
 
 A sharp bone wrapped about with rags 
 
 Of scrawled and wrinkled parchment skin ; 
 
 This neck now puckered into bags 
 
 Was seamless satin at the first ; 
 
 And this dry broken mouth a cup 
 
 Filled up with wine for all men's thirst ; 
 
 This sodden hair was lifted up 
 
 In coils that as a crown were curled 
 
 About a brow that once was low. 
 
 As any woman's in the world ; 
 
 And these two eyes of smouldering tow 
 
 That scarcely light me to this hearth 
 
 Were as two torches shaken out 
 
 To be a flame upon the earth. 
 
 What is it that he said about 
 
 Beauty I stole, to be my own, 
 
 All beauty's beauty ? Look at this : 
 
 Finger by finger, to the bone. 
 
 His lips and teeth would bite and kiss 
 
 These joints of these abhorred hands, 
 
 These cheeks that were not always thus ; 
 
 What was it that he said of sands 
 
 And stars that could not count for us 
 
 Our kisses ? Let us love and love, 
 
 My Lesbia ; yes, and I shall live, 
 
 A hungering, thirsting shadow of 
 
 That love I gave and could not give. 
 
 I gave him pleasure, and I sold 
 
 16 
 
To him and all men ; he is dead, 
 And I am infamous and old, 
 And yet I am not quieted. 
 Take off your curses from my soul 
 Can not Catullus pity me 
 Although my name upon his scroll 
 Has brought him immortality ? 
 
 17 
 
Hallucination. 
 
 Why is it that I see 
 Her burning web of hair ? 
 It burns and strangles me. 
 No, there is nothing there 
 But sunlight and cool air. 
 
 And yet I feel i\, soft 
 
 And warm ; and now the wind 
 
 Brandishes it aloft. 
 
 But is it round my mind 
 
 Or round my body twined ? 
 
 I have a deadly fear 
 When I but think upon 
 That evil heart in her 
 Which for more power has gone 
 Into her hair alone. 
 
 She has an angel's face, 
 He will not enter there ; 
 But for his hiding-place. 
 His fortress and his lair. 
 Has gone into her hair. 
 
 There the beast laughs and sits 
 And twines his' web to mesh 
 The soul into the wits, 
 The heart out of the flesh : 
 He twines his web afresh. 
 15 
 
And I shall never know 
 If this too shining thing 
 The wind blows to and fro, 
 Mocking and comforting, 
 Is any living thing. 
 
 I know that I desire 
 With rapture and despair 
 To snatch the web of fire 
 Burning out of the air 
 And perish in her hair. 
 
 19 
 
The Snake-Soul. 
 
 Miriam and I slept head by head, 
 
 Each alone in the harem bed ; 
 
 Wife though she was whom the Emir had wed, 
 
 He had taken a Jewess in her stead. 
 
 Miriam, when her soul was awake, 
 Had the dead eyes of a snake ; 
 Miriam's body would sway and take 
 The secret sliding ways of a snake. 
 
 I who had tended her in her pride, 
 I lay in the bed at her bedside ; 
 She never spoke and she never sighed 
 But lay as dead as if she had died. 
 
 Not a breath in her mouth would wake 
 That coiled slumber of the snake : 
 Where had her soul gone forth to take 
 Hate with poison of the snake ? 
 
 There was a cry, deathly wild. 
 
 And Miriam wakened up and smiled, 
 
 Cold, and quiet as a child : 
 
 I only knew that Miriam smiled. 
 
 Voices cried through the door : " Awake : 
 Her heart is bitten through by a snake ! " 
 " Let them come and let them take, 
 Here," Miriam said, " the snake ! " 
 
 20 
 
The Serpent. 
 
 To Sarojini Naidu. 
 
 What is it, Helen, to be wise. 
 What is it to have everything, 
 When some old secret in your eyes 
 Kings and wise men are questioning ? 
 Wisdom is heavy as a crown. 
 And kings desire to lay that down. 
 
 Is it the serpent, Lilith's spouse. 
 That before good and evil were 
 Guarded the apple in the boughs 
 For Eve to take, and after her 
 All women that like Eve will take 
 And eat their sustenance from the snake 
 
 Is it the serpent that looks through 
 Those eyes of death and wantonness ? 
 Wise men and kings, beholding you. 
 Shrink up to dust and nothingness. 
 Is it the serpent in yoixr eyes 
 That is still lord in paradise ? 
 
 21 
 
For Le Penseur of Rodin. 
 
 (To be erected in Paris before the Pantheon.) 
 
 Out of the eternal bronze and mortal breath, 
 And to the glory of man, me Rodin wrought ; 
 Before the gates of glory and of death 
 I bear the burden of the pride of thought. 
 
 22 
 
On Three Drawings of Rodin. 
 
 Here are four women : look into each face. 
 The first one of the four is but a dream, 
 And she is Beauty ; next to her there seem 
 To lie two spawns of Satan in embrace. 
 And lastly Life, with a tremendous gesture, 
 Turns, and prepares to cast aside her vesture. 
 
 This is the triptych of three unknown things : 
 The dream, and the descent into deep hell. 
 And out of hell the fair ascent of wings. 
 These are three secrets which one man can tell 
 Because no wind of heaven shall efface 
 The smoke of hell from his effulgent face. 
 
 23 
 
The Mystery of Judas and Satan. 
 
 {Scaena. Suspendo in oleastro Judas. Apparet 
 Sathanas.) ^ 
 
 Satan. 
 
 Judas, wherefore hangest thou 
 
 On this pale wild olive bough .? 
 
 Judas. 
 
 Many hundred years have I 
 
 Hung there ; but I may not die. 
 
 Satan. 
 
 Thy bought soul give back to me 
 
 For thy ransom from the tree. 
 
 Judas. 
 
 Leave me, Satan ; get thee gone, 
 
 That my soul may thirst alone. 
 
 Satan. 
 
 Judas I will quench its drouth : 
 
 Pass it through thine aching mouth. 
 
 Judas. 
 
 Never shall this soul accurst 
 
 From its flaming prison burst 
 
 Through the lips sealed up with drouth 
 
 That kissed Jesus on the mouth. 
 
 [Repente Sathanas infumo exspirat. 
 24 
 
The Dialogue of the Soul and Body. 
 
 The Soul. 
 
 Sinful Body, now repent : 
 For one moment thou art lent 
 To me, the Soul, to occupy : 
 Body, repent before thou die ! 
 
 The Body. 
 
 I the Body thee permit 
 As a guest to enter it ; 
 I the Master am and I 
 Mine own house do occupy. 
 
 If thou wouldst not have me sin, 
 
 Soul, why didst thou enter in ? 
 
 If I would a while carouse 
 
 Thou canst not shut me from my house. 
 
 If for my desire I bring 
 Some fair unreluctant thing 
 Who, being without guile, 
 Pleasureth me a certain while. 
 
 Thou, the Soul, must neighbour her. 
 And to her presence not demur ; 
 For She and She and She is spouse. 
 Ever welcome in my house. 
 
 25 
 
One fair chamber and one bed 
 Where we nightly so re-wed ; 
 Nakedness with nakedness 
 Casting off the body's dress. 
 
 Fearful, fair and fond delights, 
 Lustful dawns and wanton nights. 
 Every dear forbidden thing 
 The mind can to the body bring, 
 
 Each several rapture when the flesh 
 Wakes and dies and wakes afresh, 
 Ever joying in the glory 
 Of those that know Love's Purgatory. 
 
 Bitter, chiding Soul, forgive 
 The Body that it thus do live. 
 
 26 
 
Japan. 
 
 To Yone Noguchi, 
 
 The butterfly. 
 The frailest of things, 
 Has colours that dye 
 With jewels its wings. 
 
 It is a flower, 
 A mist, a breath ; 
 Its life of an hour 
 Rejoices in death. 
 
 There went forth a word, 
 And the winged bright Japan 
 Had the heart of a sword 
 With the soul of a fan. 
 
 27 
 
Tanagra. 
 
 To Cavalieri dancing. 
 
 Tell me, Tanagra, who made 
 
 Out of clay so sweet a thing ? 
 
 Are you the immortal shade 
 
 Of a man's imagining ? 
 
 In your incarnation meet 
 
 All things fair and all things fleet. 
 
 Arrow from Diana's bow, 
 Atalanta's feet of fire, 
 Some one made you long ago, 
 Made you out of his desire. 
 Waken from the sleep of clay 
 And rise and dance the world away. 
 
 28 
 
Tristan's Song. 
 
 If this be love I die, 
 I die of hoping love, 
 That will not hence remove, 
 Nor will not all deny. 
 
 His sharp and bitter dart 
 Is fast within my side ; 
 Come, my old courage, hide 
 Thy death within thy heart. 
 
 I will not shrink although 
 This death in love there be : 
 She whom I love is she 
 Who is through love my foe. 
 
 29 
 
At the Morgue. 
 
 I am afraid of death to-day, 
 
 For I have seen the dead. 
 
 Where, in the Morgue, they lie in bed. 
 
 And one dead man was laughing as he lay. 
 
 And that still laughter seemed to tell, 
 With its inaudible breath, 
 Of some ridiculous subterfuge of death, 
 Some afterthought of heaven or hell, 
 
 The last and the lost mystery. 
 Which, being known, had bred 
 Such cynic laughter in the dead, 
 A laughter that outlived mortality. 
 
 Ah, mortal to mere mortal breath, 
 
 This ultimate farce of things : 
 
 To have heard the laughter from the wings. 
 
 The coulisses of the comedy of death ! 
 
 30 
 
Villa Borghese. 
 
 In this dim alley of the ilexes 
 
 I walk in a delicious loneliness. 
 
 The plaintive water of the fountain drips 
 
 Like silence speaking out of a God's lips, 
 
 And like chill silence visible, I see 
 
 A faint smoke breathing upward mistily 
 
 Where dead leaves rise in incense, their sweet death, 
 
 Toward the frail life of dying leaves. The breath 
 
 Of that decay which is more delicate 
 
 Than the white breath of spring, the lonely state 
 
 Of lilies breathing in a quiet place. 
 
 Sweetens the air. I feel against my face, 
 
 Moist, stealthy, blown from where the leaves are thinned, 
 
 The kisses of the winter, in pale wind. 
 
 31 
 
At Sant' Onofrio. 
 
 To the Princess Doria. 
 
 Our Lady of the violets, 
 That grew among the woods of heaven, 
 Before they pined to be your eyes, 
 Grown human in the sharp regrets 
 That shine as sweetly as the seven 
 Swords of Our Lady of the skies ; 
 
 Princess, I see you stand to-day 
 Smiling among your pallid folk 
 That on God's service come and go ; 
 Beholding, as from far away, 
 The sins of Rome go up like smoke, 
 Silent at Sant' Onofrio. 
 
 32 
 
Grey Hours : Naples. 
 
 There are some hours when I seem so indifferent ; all things 
 
 fade 
 
 To an indifferent greyness, like that grey of the sky ; 
 
 Always at evening-ends, on grey days ; and I know not why. 
 
 But life, and art, and love, and death, are the shade of a 
 
 shade. 
 
 Then, in those hours, I hear old voices murmur aloud. 
 
 And memory forgoes desire, too weary at heart for regret ; 
 
 Dreams come with beckoning fingers, and I forget to forget ; 
 
 The world as a cloud drifts by, or I drift by as a cloud. 
 
 33 
 
Stormy Night : Naples. 
 
 The night was loud with wind, and the wind shone 
 With heavy feet trampling the dust-grey sea ; 
 The hill of fire obscure continually 
 Flowered to a rose, that flickered, and was gone. 
 
 All night I heard the wind go to and fro. 
 Scattering the petals of that rose of flame ; 
 With dawn a new rose wonderfully came, 
 I heard the dust-grey waters come and go. 
 
 All night those voices moaned about my mind 
 (O vain desire ! desire of vain repose !) 
 The wind that was in terror of that rose. 
 The sea that was in terror of the wind. 
 
 34 
 
Easter Night : Naples. 
 
 To-night I pity all poor human souls 
 For being human. This miraculous night, 
 When the white-clouded full moon aureoles 
 A space of shining water with pure light, 
 
 This Paschal night after the mandolins, 
 The organs, and the incense, and the wine. 
 The day of the redemption of man's sins. 
 This joyous day, and of aU days divine. 
 
 Why is it that I see a long white host 
 
 Of bubbles floating on an idle breath. 
 
 And those bright colours that bedeck them most 
 
 Beckoning nearest to their soaring death ? 
 
 35 
 
Venice. 
 
 Minuet : The Masque of the Ghosts. 
 
 The coloured dancing shadows creep 
 Like ghosts from a mysterious street ; 
 And Venice wakens out of sleep 
 At the sound of their feet. 
 
 Here Pulcinello solemn stands, 
 And the pale patient Pierrot shakes 
 His shivering shanks and starving hands. 
 And Columbine awakes. 
 
 She has forgotten him, and gay. 
 Runs past him towards the colonnades 
 Where the immortal masquers stay, 
 Unhappy shades. 
 
 Their aching hearts beneath their masks 
 Palpitate like caught butterflies ; 
 They move in their appointed tasks 
 With disappointed eyes. 
 
 The music of a minuet 
 
 Beckons to their unwilling feet ; 
 
 The light loves, they would fain forget, 
 
 The stately measures slowly beat. 
 
 36 
 
Dear disappointed shades of joy 
 That lived merrily without thought, 
 Your hearts are turned into a toy 
 To be tossed and caught. 
 
 Venice, the. tyrant of the years, 
 Commands you to perpetuate, 
 With listless feet and weary tears, 
 The sunken splendours of her state. 
 
 37 
 
Venice. 
 
 Water and marble and that silentness 
 Which is not broken by a wheel or hoof ; 
 A city like a water-lily, less 
 Seen than reflected, palace wall and roof. 
 In the unfruitful waters motionless, 
 Without one living grass's green reproof ; 
 A city without joy or weariness. 
 Itself beholding, from itself aloof. 
 
 38 
 
Nerves of Night. 
 
 The stealthy and irresistible clouds are alone 
 
 With earth and sky ; hark, twilight flutterings, 
 
 The hurry and sigh of the bat's demure dim wings ; 
 
 See, a star that shakes through a cloud, and is gone. 
 
 Now there is silence, and only light enough 
 
 To see the dark by ; hush, in the trembling grass. 
 
 The breathing of night ; nay, hush, what tremors pass 
 
 Through the nerves of night to the trembling stars above ? 
 
 39 
 
Song. 
 
 Think of nothing but the day : 
 Yesterday is dead and gone, 
 And to-morrow will not stay 
 Longer than another one. 
 
 Why should Time, that cannot mar 
 One triumphant rose's scent, 
 Stint our joys, because they are 
 Blossoms, fair not permanent ? 
 
 Any joy like any flower 
 Has its instant blossoming : 
 How can even Time have power 
 Over either perfect thing ? 
 
 40 
 
Caution for all Lovers. 
 
 "When I made love to you the other day, 
 And you were kind because the sky was blue, 
 How was it I remembered what to say ? 
 You, when to come in answer to your cue ? 
 
 I but repeat out of a tattered scrip 
 The words an author, long forgotten, wrote ; 
 And you out of his stage-directions quote 
 The kisses that I find upon your lip. 
 
A Song of Love and Time. 
 
 Nothing in the world is sUre, 
 Do not be afraid of love : 
 The earth's waters shall remove, 
 The earth's hills shall not endure. 
 
 Why should love hurt over-long ? 
 Time the strength of love shall break. 
 Of a little sorrow make 
 Endless pleasure in a song. 
 
 How should love outlast a rhyme .'' 
 Helen died, the deathless Greek. 
 Time is strong and love is weak : 
 Do not be afraid of time. 
 
 42 
 
Roses. 
 
 There is a perfumed garden that I know, 
 
 A garden all of winding white-rose ways, 
 
 Where only roses blow. 
 
 Where only memory strays ; 
 
 And down whose delicate pale alleys, 
 
 And warm delicious valleys, 
 
 I have oft wandered for enchanted days : 
 
 There is a perfumed garden where my heart would go. 
 
 Within the white-rose garden that I love 
 
 There are two roses that I love the best. 
 
 Set in the midst thereof : 
 
 White roses are the rest. 
 
 And each cool dewy blossom that uncloses 
 
 Is redder than red roses. 
 
 Within the white-rose garden of her breast 
 
 To kiss the rosy-petalled roses that I love ! 
 
 43 
 
Fauvette. 
 
 Shall we remember both, Fauvette, 
 With all the memories of both, 
 A certain memory one were loth 
 To faricy either should forget ? 
 
 You danced like any Sainte Nitouche, 
 In that incredible quadrille ; 
 Your virgin cheeks without a mouche 
 Blushed at the lifting of a frill. 
 
 And through your grave and steady eyes 
 No conscious, curious tremors ran 
 Of naughty knowledge, nor surprise 
 At all the naughtiness of man. 
 
 But after, when we must have had 
 That little converse I recall. 
 When I was mystically mad. 
 And you a wholesome animal, 
 
 Well, though your cheeks without a mouche 
 Could scarcely boast of blushes still. 
 And that prim air of Sainte Nitouche 
 Had left you with the last quadrille, 
 
 At least you wondered then ! your eyes. 
 Those grave and steady eyes, began 
 To open in extreme surprise 
 At the extravagance of man. 
 44 
 
Ah, you were sane and I was mad ; 
 Were it not better, after all. 
 To have left the soul apart, and had 
 The savour of the animal ? 
 
 Who knows ? Except that one were loth 
 
 To fancy either could forget 
 
 A certain memory of both. 
 
 Both should remember long, Fauvette. 
 
 45 
 
Peau d'Espagne. 
 
 Insinuating monotone, 
 
 Why is it that you come to vex, 
 
 With your one word, a heart half grown 
 
 Forgetful of you, scent of sex ? 
 
 With that warm overcoming breath 
 You flow about me like the sea, 
 And down to some delicious death 
 Your waves are swift to hurry me. 
 
 It is the death of her desire ; 
 The prelude of sleep-heavy sighs. 
 The pulling ecstasy of fire, 
 The wet lips and the closing eyes. 
 
 And, Peau d'Espagne, I breathe again, 
 But, in this ultimate eclipse 
 Of the world's light, I breathe in vain. 
 The flower's heart of the unseen lips. 
 
 Peau d'Espagne, scent of sex, that brings 
 To mind those ways wherein I went. 
 Perhaps I might forget these things 
 But for that infamy, your scent ! 
 
 46 
 
The Lovely Worm of Hell. 
 
 The malady of love is in my bones, 
 It burns me to the marrow like a fire, 
 And I desire the death of my desire. 
 
 There is a little tongue of fire that moans 
 Shudderingly in every leaping vein. 
 And my pain longs for an acuter pain. 
 
 Beauty of woman, savour of her kiss. 
 The mystery of love that turns to be 
 The bite of an eternal cruelty. 
 
 Did God send woman unto man for this, 
 
 That he, ere death, should know in her full well 
 
 The torment of the lovely worm of hell ? 
 
 47 
 
After the Sacrifice. 
 
 So the child turned upon her homeward way 
 
 Beneath the dying day. 
 
 She and her dead, the death that never dies. 
 
 The memory in her eyes 
 
 Fought with the drowning and unfathomed dread 
 
 Whose waves engulfed her head. 
 
 She moved across a dream of some red night 
 
 That ached against her sight, 
 
 And if the night were past, or yet to come. 
 
 She knew not, going home. 
 
 She only saw her mother, and her hold 
 
 Was harder on the gold. 
 
 She clutched it and the memory of it came 
 
 About her like a flame. 
 
 And so she made her solitary way 
 
 Home, 'neath the dying day : 
 
 Only the agony of tears unwept 
 
 Beneath her eyelids slept. 
 
 48 
 
In the Strand. 
 
 With eyes and hands and voice convulsively 
 She craves the bestial wages. In her face 
 What now is left of woman ? whose lost place 
 Is filled with greed's last eating agony. 
 She lives to be rejected and abhorred, 
 Like a dread thing forgotten. One by one 
 She hails the passers, whispers blindly ; none 
 Heeds now the voice that had not once implored 
 Those alms in vain. The hour has struck for her, 
 And now damnation is scarce possible 
 Here on the earth : it waits for her in hell. 
 God ! to be spurned of the last wayfarer 
 That haunts a dark street after midnight ! Now 
 Shame's last disgrace is hot upon her brow. 
 
 49 
 
On Reading of Women Rioting 
 for their Rights. 
 
 What is this unimaginable desire 
 
 In women's heads ? Would you come down again 
 
 From where you are, to be no more than men ? 
 
 Why is it that you call it getting higher 
 
 To slip with each step deeper into the mire ? 
 
 You would be even as men are ? Is it then 
 
 So clean a thing to be a citizen 
 
 And take a dirty daily wage for hire ? 
 
 Man has long since laid up his soul in pawn, 
 And lent his body out for a machine ; 
 He has long since forgot that he has been 
 The master, not the servant, of the dawn : 
 But now the woman fights for leave to ply 
 A friendly muckrake with him in his sty. 
 
 so 
 
Bal Masque. 
 
 Is it an Arabian Night ? 
 Here's a turbanj|i|ith such pearls 
 As none but vt^ree Circassian girls 
 Wear in some sullen Sultan's sight. 
 Yet, below us, brief and bright, 
 What is this living wheel that twirls 
 With what flounces and what curls 
 To weave the painted web of light ? 
 
 All the world's a dream or doubt. 
 Tie our senses to a swing ; 
 Who is it that pulls the string 
 Mounts us high or casts us out ? 
 Lord and lady, lass and lout. 
 Still the puppets sway and sing : 
 What is there in anything 
 To be glad or sad about ? 
 
 SI 
 
Faint Love. 
 
 (For a Fan by Charles Conder.) 
 
 Beauty I love, yet more than this I love 
 Beautiful things ; and, more than love, delight ; 
 Colours that faint ; dim echo far above 
 The crystal sound, and shadow beyond sight. 
 
 For I am tired with youth and happiness 
 As other men are tired with age and grief ; 
 This is to me a longer weariness : 
 Sadly I ask of each sad mask's relief 
 
 For gardens where I know not if I find 
 Autumn or spring about the shadowy fruit, 
 And if it is the sighing of the wind 
 Or if it is the sighing of the lute. 
 
 S2 
 
The Tarot Cards. 
 
 The Tarot cards that rule our fates 
 Slip through her hands like shaken sands ; 
 Her charmed sight upon them waits, 
 She holds the future in her hands ; 
 Her fingers can unlatch the gates 
 That open on forbidden lands. 
 
 Under the golden kerchief lies 
 The mischief of the East ; she sees 
 Beyond our eyesight with her eyes 
 That are the moons of sorceries ; 
 The soul before them lives and dies 
 Through countless immortalities. 
 
 The shaken cards upon the grass, 
 Like signs of good and evil things, 
 Through her obedient fingers pass. 
 Crowned devils and bright purple kings. 
 Sad forms in hell, and Sathanas 
 Rejoicing in his serpent-stings. 
 
 Rise up from the accursed pool. 
 Lest the grass wither where you lie ; 
 Fold up the Tarot cards that rule 
 Our fates, and put your witchcraft by : 
 Only a madman or a fool 
 Would will to know his hour to die. 
 
 53 
 
London : Midnight. 
 
 I hear, in my watch ticking, the vast noise 
 
 Of Time's hurrying and indifferent and inarticulate voice ; 
 
 I hear, in my heart beating, the loud beat 
 
 As of the passing of innumerable feet ; 
 
 And afar and away, without, like a faint sea. 
 
 The sighing of the city is borne to me 
 
 Out of the dumb, listening night ; 
 
 And the injmeasurable patience and the infinite 
 
 Weariness of the world's sorrow rise and cry 
 
 Out of the silence up to the silent sky 
 
 In that low voice of the city. 
 
 So passionately and so intolerably crying for pity. 
 
 That I wonder at the voice of Time, indifferent, apart. 
 
 And at the lonely and sorrowful and indifferent voice of my 
 
 heart. 
 
 54 
 
To my Mother. 
 
 When I bethink me how my life goes by, 
 How gaily idle, what a painted thing, 
 In revelry, and mirth, and wantoning, 
 Desiring but the moments as they fly. 
 And those fleet pleasures that are born to die 
 Even at the instant of their blossoming ; 
 How of myself myself would fain be king. 
 Yet what a sport of Fortune's winds am I ; 
 
 Then, Mother, I recall that blessed load, 
 
 Half prayers, half hopes, you bore : to have a son 
 
 Steadfast in honour, stablished in the faith. 
 
 His life a calm preparedness for death. 
 
 See, Mother, this is all that I have done 
 
 With life you gave me to give back to God. 
 
 55 
 
The New Life. 
 
 I have loved, and I must love no more. 
 Poor fool, my heart, thou canst not enter twice. 
 Not twice nor by another door. 
 
 The only Paradise. 
 
 — Yet what is this that brims me up again 
 To the forgotten limits of delight .'' 
 ' — Thy fancy : it is fond and vain. 
 Yet this is infinite. 
 
 ' — If this be love, thou hast not loved till now. 
 
 — Have I not loved i" — Thou sayest. — Yea, and died. 
 
 — Was it not love that died, not thou .'' 
 
 — Thou knowest if love abide. 
 
 — Tell me thyself, then, what hath come to thee. 
 — I know not ; but I heard a voice that said 
 Arise ! and I arose ; and see, 
 
 1 live, who had been dead ! 
 
 56 
 
Summer in Spring. 
 
 When summer, come before its hour, 
 With heady draughts of ripe July 
 Drugs the wild April, young in flower, 
 And suns reel drunken in the sky ; 
 
 These lovely useless London days 
 In which the sunshine, warm in vain. 
 Is thickened into hateful haze 
 Or spilt upon the streets, like rain : 
 
 To think how, far on fields of green. 
 The winds are happy in the grass. 
 And the first bees begin to glean 
 The honey of the hours that pass ! 
 
 57 
 
Song. 
 
 Why did 1 pick a nut in the wood 
 That had a bittter core ? 
 Now I will go into the wood 
 No more. 
 
 Only if they come to you and say, 
 Come, nutting-time is now ? 
 I will not tell them of the bitter nut 
 That hangs for me on a bough. 
 
 S8 
 
Song to the Bride. 
 
 How fair and how pleasant art thou, 
 
 O love, for delights ! 
 
 As the apple upon the bough 
 
 Thy sweetness invites. 
 
 A fountain of gardens, a well 
 
 Of water alone ; 
 
 A pomegranate fruit and the smell 
 
 Of Lebanon. 
 
 Awake, O North wind, and blow 
 
 On my garden,- O South ! 
 
 What spices are there that outflow 
 
 From the kiss of her mouth f 
 
 O vineyard, she is thy vine : 
 
 What are aloes and myrrh .'' 
 
 Her love is much better than wine : 
 
 What is like unto her ? 
 
 59 
 
Regret. 
 
 Why is it that my heart is asleep, and no dreams wake, 
 
 And my thoughts like smoke in the wind are scattered and 
 
 shake, 
 
 And there is no pain in my heart where it ought to ache ? 
 
 I have forgotten what it was to weep or carouse ; 
 
 The lamps are lighted, the curtains drawn, in the house ; 
 
 I have forgotten the crying of birds, the shaking of boughs. 
 
 Be content, my heart ; forget these things ; they are vain. 
 What dream once dreamed can ever be dreamed again ? 
 What is better for a heart than to sleep and be out of pain ? 
 
 60 
 
The Windmill. 
 
 The day is enough for delight ; 
 "Why, as I lie on the grass, 
 And watch the clouds as they pass. 
 Do I reason of wrong and right ? 
 
 Only to be, and the breath 
 
 I take is all that I need, 
 
 Were I but as the flower and weed 
 
 That live without thought of death. 
 
 But death and right and wrong, 
 As the windmill turns on the hill 
 Turn like a burden still 
 That I cannot cast out of my song. 
 
 61 
 
Nero. 
 
 Two Dramatic Scenes. 
 
 I. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 I am tired of talking with so wise a man, 
 
 And my kind folly waits. Leave us alone. 
 
 Seneca. 
 
 I would go quicker if I were not old. 
 
 [Goes- out slowly. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 Do you hear, Acte .? he is old and wise ; 
 Foolish old men forget that they were young, 
 But Seneca remembers. Kiss me, child, 
 And tell me what you think of. 
 
 Acte. 
 Nothing now. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 A moment since .? 
 
 Acte. 
 
 Your mother. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 What of her .? 
 
 62 
 
ACTE. 
 
 1 fear the queen your mother, for her eyes 
 Are like a cat's eyes, made out of green fire, 
 And frighten me. When I was in my home 
 In Smjn-na, where tall ships from far-off seas . . 
 
 Nero. 
 
 Tell me of Smyrna : the East waits for me, 
 
 I am to be the King of all the East. 
 
 Are there not wildernesses, groves of palms, 
 
 Camels, and pools of water ? 
 
 AcTE. 
 
 There is light. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 I hunger for a kingdom in the sun ; 
 
 Rome is too narrow ; Rome grows old, I want 
 
 A great white ancient city always young. 
 
 I must break down the barriers of these hills. 
 
 ACTE. 
 
 No, no. I know you would not leave your hills. 
 So gentle I could stroke them with my hand. 
 For all the Asian deserts. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 You have come 
 
 Out of a boundless land to be a slave, 
 
 Yet you love Rome. 
 
 63 
 
ACTE. 
 
 I love to be a slave. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 Why do you fear my mother ? 
 
 AcTE. 
 
 For her eyes. 
 
 In Smyrna we fear all that have green eyes. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 You do not fear Octavia ? 
 
 AcTE. 
 
 She is grave 
 
 And gentle, though she will not look on me ; 
 
 She is, as I am, humble in her heart ; 
 
 I would not have you love her : no, and yet 
 
 I would die to make her happy. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 You would die 
 
 To make Octavia happy ? If you died 
 
 You would make Octavia happy. 
 
 AcTE. 
 
 Do you think, 
 
 I do not think her, so unkind ; but then 
 
 She loves you. It is hard not to be loved. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 You love me, Acte ? 
 
 64 
 
ACTE. 
 
 As I love the light, 
 
 Nero. 
 
 Child, child, if I had not been made a King, 
 
 Or if I were my master, and a King, 
 
 If they would let me, Burrhus, Seneca, 
 
 My mother, all my masters, by all the gods, 
 
 I think that I could love you well enough, 
 
 Acte! 
 
 AcTE. 
 
 I am your slave. I am content. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 When I shall have my kingdom in the East, 
 You shall sit down beside me on a throne ; 
 We'll rule the world with songs ; I mean to rule 
 The world with songs, because I was made King, 
 And there's no King can make a poet, and I 
 Was born that poets may be Kings of Kings. 
 
 Acte. 
 
 When you shall have your kingdom in the East 
 I shall be still your slave, but you will love 
 The woman whom I know you are to love. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 What do you say ? What woman ? 
 
 Acte. 
 
 Otho knows. 
 6S 
 
Nero, 
 
 Otho ? And what should Otho know of love ? 
 
 ACTE. 
 
 He loves. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 Ay, surely, there is not a day 
 
 But Otho loves, and not a morrow morning 
 
 But Otho's out of love. My small bright bird, 
 
 My bird of Asia, come, I'll make for you 
 
 A song about my kingdom in the East 
 
 And Acte in a city of minarets 
 
 Under a palm-tree's shadow by a well. 
 
 Acte. 
 
 Do not make songs about me : if you speak 
 
 It must be truth ; but songs are never true. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 I will put all the East into the song, 
 
 And this warm Asian heart, and all this white 
 
 And strange and supple and soft April flesh. 
 
 [^He walks up and down, not looking at her. 
 
 Acte. 
 
 He does not see me. Can it be that men 
 Forget the thing itself they think upon 
 With thinking on it .'' 
 
Nero. 
 
 " Little Asian heart ..." 
 
 [yis he reaches the other end of the stage^ Agrippina 
 enters^ near where Act's, is. She looks at A.ct^, and 
 points scornfully to the door. Acte bows submissively ^ 
 and goes out., unseen by Nero. 
 
 Agrippina. 
 Nero ! 
 
 Nero. 
 
 Ah, mother ! 
 
 Agrippina. 
 
 Is it a new song ? 
 
 Or are your wits in labour of a speech 
 
 Seneca need not write for you .? 
 
 Nero. 
 
 A song. 
 
 But was not Acte here .'' 
 
 Agrippina. 
 
 Songs and a slave ? 
 
 Is this my son, is this the King I made .'' 
 
 A King of slaves and songs ! 
 
 Nero. 
 
 By your good leave, 
 
 A King able to stand alone, good mother. 
 
 Agrippina. 
 
 Men mock your name already. 
 
 67 
 
Nero. 
 
 Seneca 
 
 Or Pallas ? When you gave me for a guide 
 
 The wisest man in the world, I learnt to go 
 
 To Seneca for wisdom. Did I do wrong ? 
 
 He tells me that Apollo is a god, 
 
 And slaves are merely human. 
 
 Agrippina. 
 
 He bears with you 
 
 That he may rule you. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 Do you bear with me, 
 
 Mother, if you would rule me ! 
 
 Agrippina. 
 
 Have I not 
 
 Borne you and must I bear with you ? O my child, 
 
 Ask of me what you will, but cast away 
 
 These rags that shame your manhood in men's eyes. 
 
 Would you have my knees, must I beseech of you .'' 
 
 Nero. 
 
 Mother, you have given answer in my name 
 To magistrates and Kings ; ambassadors 
 Have sued to you for audience ; you have sat 
 On the level of my throne . . . 
 
 Agrippina. 
 I gave it you. 
 68 
 
Nero. 
 
 What you have given me, that I hold for mine, 
 
 Not to be held lightly, nor given back 
 
 Even to the giver. When you gave me power 
 
 You gave me power to use it. 
 
 Agrippina. 
 
 Now I know 
 
 What manner of man-child is this, and why 
 
 His feet were so precipitate to be gone. 
 
 Even at the birth, and to have done with me. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 Mother, I am your son, I am the man 
 
 You made me. 
 
 Agrippina. 
 
 What I have stooped to for your sake 
 
 I will not speak against you. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 Pallas speaks 
 
 More than is seemly. Pallas was a slave. 
 
 And had accounts to render : let him look to them. 
 
 Agrippina. 
 
 What has not this man done for you, and done 
 For my sake ! Do you mock me from the throne 
 With how 1 thrust you to it ? I have pawned 
 My beauty, parcelled it, let out my wits 
 69 
 
On leave to fools, down even to that crowned fool 
 ClaudiuSj that was my husband : I have done all 
 For an ungrateful and unnatural son 
 Who gibes me from his footstool. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 Mother, not so. 
 Hear me • . . 
 
 Agrippina. 
 
 When, yesterday, you sent me some 
 Certain rich jewels with a robe of state 
 Staled among empress' wardrobes, was it then 
 To rob me of the rest of them : all are mine. 
 For I have given you all ! 
 
 Nero. 
 
 And all are yours : 
 
 Ask but the keeper of my treasury, 
 
 Claudius of Smyrna. 
 
 Agrippina. 
 Pallas ? 
 
 Nero. 
 
 Swears himself 
 
 To-morrow out of office. 
 
 Agrippina. 
 
 This is an end 
 
 Of peace between us : look on me no more 
 
 As on a mother, no, but as a judge 
 
 70 
 
Betwixt a crowned usurper and the heir 
 To his dead father's kingdom. Britannicus 
 Was yesterday a child, to-day a man ; 
 What he shall be to-morrow I will not say ; 
 What he should be, who knows not ? I did well. 
 The just gods helping, to protect that life 
 Which now may right the empire. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 Will you not 
 
 Go to the camp, proclaim the boy, outswear 
 
 The gods, and cry " Germanicus " ? 
 
 Agrippina. 
 
 Not in vain 
 
 Would I his daughter name Germanicus 
 
 To those brave hearts that loved him. Who would heed 
 
 Burrhus' unsworded stump, or hear the pale 
 
 Seneca's pedant tongue ? 
 
 Nero. 
 
 You speak the truth ; 
 
 You warn me, not too late ; nor I too soon. 
 
 Perhaps, have taken thought. For this I thank you. 
 
 To-night, after the feast, we'll talk again. 
 
 And you shall give me counsel. Until then 
 
 No word of discord, for we sup together. 
 
 And it were best seem friends. If we be so 
 
 It were the better. 
 
 Agrippina. 
 
 Do you threaten me ? 
 
 71 
 
II. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 So many years dead, and not quiet yet ! 
 She wakes me, Tigellinus, many nights. 
 Comes to my bedside, rather like a mother 
 Than like an angry ghost, and kisses me 
 Down even to the bottom of a dream. 
 
 Tigellinus. 
 
 My lord, that's very well : she loves you still. 
 
 Or else the dead forget. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 If she forgot, 
 
 That were the best ; but she remembers ; why, 
 
 Her kisses are all hoarded from my lips, 
 
 And come again to plague me. Do you think 
 
 Some of the dead, that were not, as she was. 
 
 Immortally full of life, do these forget .'' 
 
 Tigellinus. 
 Surely, my lord. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 Octavia will not come. 
 
 She wept in dying, did she not ? 
 
 Tigellinus. 
 Bitterly. 
 
 72 
 
Nero. 
 
 She could not die for cold ; not all her veins 
 Had enough blood to die with. Now, I am sure 
 She will not wake again. Where is Poppaea ? 
 
 TlGELLINUS. 
 
 The Empress waits your orders. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 My entreaties, 
 
 Perhaps my knees. 
 
 TlGELLINUS. 
 
 She is very proud, my lord. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 You think so, Tigellinus ? 
 
 TlGELLINUS. 
 
 Aye, my lord. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 She has whipped you from her presence ? 
 
 TlGELLINUS. 
 
 No, my lord. 
 
 Nero. 
 
 Whipped you with words, crucified you with her eyes ? 
 
 TlGELLINUS. 
 
 Indeed no less, my lord. 
 
 73 
 
Nero, 
 
 That's my brave lass ! 
 
 It joys me even to think of it. Proud, you say ? 
 
 She shall be throned with Isis : I forget, 
 
 I spat upon her statue yesterday : 
 
 Throned over Isis. Were it not very well 
 
 That she should have a temple, like her child. 
 
 Having given a goddess birth ? 
 
 TiGELLINUS. 
 
 Give Rome, my lord, 
 
 A temple more, it counts a chariot-race, 
 
 Or half a play with blood in it. 
 
 Nero, 
 Dead, dead ! 
 
 TiGELLINUS, 
 
 Who is dead, Caesar ? 
 
 Nero. 
 
 Why should my child die 
 
 And my slave's brat grow up and be a whore ? 
 
 The gods forsake me : I am sick at heart ; 
 
 All that I love is snatched out of my heart. 
 
 74 
 
From Villon. 
 
 No, I am not, as others are. 
 
 Child of the angels, with a wreath 
 
 Of planets or of any star. 
 
 My father's dead, and lies beneath 
 
 The churchyard stone : God rest his breath ! 
 
 I know that my poor old mother 
 
 (And she too knows) must come to death. 
 
 And that her son must follow her. 
 
 I know that rich and poor and all. 
 Foolish and wise, and priest and lay. 
 Mean folk and noble, great and small. 
 High and low, fair and foul, and they 
 That wear rich clothing on the way, 
 Being of whatever stock or stem. 
 And are coiffed newly every day, 
 Death shall take every one of them. 
 
 Paris and Helen are both dead. 
 Whoever dies, dies with much pain ; 
 For when his wind and breath are sped 
 His gall breaks on his heart, and then 
 He sweats, God knows that sweat of men ! 
 Then shall he pray against his doom 
 Child, brother, sister, all in vain : 
 None will be surety in his room. 
 75 
 
Death makes him tremble and turn pale, 
 His veins stretch and his nose fall in, 
 His flesh grow moist and his neck swell. 
 Joints and nerves lengthen and wax thin ; 
 Body of woman, that hath been 
 Soft, tender, precious, smooth and even, 
 Must thou be spoiled in bone and skin ? 
 Yes, or else go alive to heaven. 
 
 76 
 
From Andre Chenier : Elegies. 
 I. 
 
 Every man has his sorrows ; yet each still 
 
 Hides under a calm forehead his own ill. 
 
 Each pities but himself. Each in his grief 
 
 Envies his neighbour : he too seeks relief ; 
 
 For one man's pain is of no other known : 
 
 They hide their sorrows as he hides his own ; 
 
 And each, with tears and aching heart, can sigh : 
 
 All other men are happy, but not I. 
 
 They are unhappy all. They, desolate. 
 
 Cry against heaven and bid heaven change their fate. 
 
 Their fate is changed ; they soon, with fresh tears know 
 
 They have but changed one for another woe. 
 
 n 
 
II. 
 
 A white nymph wandering in the woods by night 
 Spies a swift satyr, and pretends a flight ; 
 She runs, and running feigns to call him back ! 
 The goat-foot, following on her flying track. 
 Falls down and flounders in a stagnant pool : 
 Whereat they, while he whimpers, mock the fool. 
 
III. 
 
 Well, I would have it so. I should have known 
 How many times I made her will hiy own. 
 For once, at least, I should have let her be, 
 And waited, till I made her come to me. 
 No. I forget what fretful cries last night 
 Drove me to bitter silence and to flight ; 
 This morning, O weak easy heart, I long 
 To have her back, yet do her pride no wrong. 
 
 I fly to her, take all her wrongs, but she 
 Whom I would pardon will not pardon me. 
 I it is who am false, unjust, and seek 
 To show my horrid strength where she is weak. 
 And floods and tempest come, ajid tears that flow 
 Obediently, as she would have them go. 
 And I, to have some peace, must own defeat. 
 Kneel down, and take her pardon at her feet. 
 
 79 
 
From Paul Verlaine : Fetes Galantes. 
 I. Clair de Lune. 
 
 Your soul is a sealed garden, and there go 
 With masque and bergamasque fair companies 
 Playing on lutes and dancing and as though 
 Sad under their fantastic fripperies. 
 
 Though they in minor keys go carolling 
 Of love the conqueror and of life the boon 
 They seem to doubt the happiness they sing 
 And the song melts into the light of the moon, 
 
 The sad light of the moon, so lovely fair 
 That all the birds dream in the leafy shade 
 And the slim fountains sob into the air 
 Among the marble statues in the glade. 
 
 80 
 
II. Pantomime. 
 
 Pierrot, no sentimental swain, 
 
 Washes a pat6 down again 
 
 With furtive flagons, white and red. 
 
 Cassandre, with demure content. 
 Greets with a tear of sentiment 
 His nephew disinherited. 
 
 That blackguard of a Harlequin 
 Pirouettes, and plots to win 
 His Columbine that flits and flies. 
 
 Columbine dreams, and starts to find 
 A sad heart sighing in the wind. 
 And in her heart a voice that sighs. 
 
 8i 
 
III. Surl'Herbe. 
 
 The Abb6 wanders. — Marquis, now 
 Set straight your periwig, and speak ! 
 — This Cyprus wine is heavenly, how 
 Much less, Camargo, than your cheek ! 
 
 — My goddess . . . — Do, mi, sol, la, si. 
 — Abb6, such treason who'll forgive you ? 
 — May I die, ladies, if there be 
 A star in heaven I will not give you ! 
 
 — I'd be my lady's lapdog ; then . , . 
 — Shepherdess, kiss your shepherd soon, 
 Shepherd, come kiss . . . — Well, gentlemen ? 
 — Do, mi, so. — Hey, good-night, good moon ! 
 
 82 
 
IV. L'All^e. 
 
 As in the age of shepherd king and queen, 
 Painted and frail amid her nodding bows, 
 Under the sombre branches and between 
 The green and mossy garden-ways she goes. 
 With little mincing airs one keeps to pet 
 A darling and provoking perroquet. 
 Her long-trained robe is blue, the fan she holds 
 With fluent fingers girt with heavy rings, 
 So vaguely hints of vague erotic things 
 That her eye smiles, musing among its folds. 
 — Blonde too, a tiny nose, a rosy mouth. 
 Artful as that sly patch that makes more sly. 
 In her divine unconscious pride of youth. 
 The slightly simpering sparkle of the eye. 
 
 83 
 
V. A la Promenade. 
 
 The sky so pale, and the trees, such frail things, 
 Seem as if smiling on our bright array 
 That flits so light and gay upon the way 
 With indolent airs and fluttering as of wings. 
 
 The fountain wrinkles under a faint wind. 
 And all the sifted sunlight falling through 
 The lime-trees of the shadowy avenue 
 Comes to us blue and shadowy-pale and thinned. 
 
 Faultlessly fickle, and yet fond enough, 
 With fond hearts not too tender to be free. 
 We wander whispering deliciously. 
 And every lover leads a lady-love. 
 
 Whose imperceptible and roguish hand 
 Darts now and then a dainty tap, the lip 
 Revenges on an extreme finger-tip. 
 The tip of the left little finger, and, 
 
 The deed being so excessive and uncouth, 
 A duly freezing look deals punishment. 
 That in the instant of the act is blent 
 With a shy pity pouting in the mouth. 
 
 84 
 
VI. Dans la Grotte. 
 
 Stay, let me die, since I am true, 
 
 For my distress will not delay, 
 
 And the Hyrcanian tigress ravening for prey 
 
 Is as a little lamb to you. 
 
 Yes, here within, cruel Clymene, 
 
 This steel which in how many wars 
 
 How many a Cyrus slew, or Scipio, now prepares 
 
 To end my life and end my pain. 
 
 But nay, what need of steel have I 
 
 To haste my passage to the shades ? 
 
 Did not Love pierce my heart, beyond all mortal aids, 
 
 With the first arrow of your eye ? 
 
 8S 
 
VII. Les Ingenus. 
 
 High heels and long skirts intercepting them, 
 So that, according to the wind or way, 
 An ankle peeped and vanished as in play ; 
 And well we loved the malice of the game. 
 
 Sometimes an insect with its jealous sting 
 Some fair one's whiter neck disquieted. 
 From which the gleams of sudden whiteness shed 
 Met in our eyes a frolic welcoming. 
 
 The stealthy autumn evening faded out. 
 And the fair creatures dreaming by our side 
 Words of such subtle savour to us sighed 
 That since that time our souls tremble and doubt. 
 
 86 
 
VIII. Cortege. 
 
 A silver-vested monkey trips 
 And pirouettes before the face 
 Of one who twists a kerchief's lace 
 Between her well-gloved finger-tips. 
 
 A little negro, a red elf. 
 Carries her drooping train, and holds 
 At arm's-length all the heavy folds. 
 Watching each fold displace itself. 
 
 The monkey never lets his eyes 
 Wander from the fair woman's breast, 
 White wonder that to be possessed 
 Would call a god out of the skies. 
 
 Sometimes the little negro seems 
 To lift his sumptuous burden up 
 Higher than need be, in the hope 
 Of seeing what all night he dreams. 
 
 She goes by corridor and stair, 
 Still to the insolent appeals 
 Of her familiar animals 
 Indifferent or unaware. 
 
 87 
 
IX. Les Coquillages 
 
 Each shell incrusted in the grot 
 Where we two loved each other well 
 An aspect of its own has got. 
 
 The purple of a purple shell 
 
 Is our souls' colour when they make 
 
 Our burning heart's blood visible. 
 
 This pallid shell affects to take 
 
 Thy languors, when thy love-tired eyes 
 
 Rebuke me for my mockery's sake. 
 
 This counterfeits the harmonies 
 Of thy pink ear, and this might be 
 Thy plump short nape with rosy dyes. 
 
 But one, among these, troubled me. 
 
X. En Patinant. 
 
 Wc were the victims, you and I, 
 Madame, of mutual self deceits ; 
 And that which set our brains awry 
 May well have been the summer heats. 
 
 And the spring too, if I recall, 
 Contributed to spoil our play. 
 And yet its share, I think, was small 
 In leading you and me astray. 
 
 For air in springtime is so fresh 
 That rose-buds Love has surely meant 
 To match the roses of the flesh 
 Have odours almost innocent ; 
 
 And even the lilies that outpour 
 Their biting odours where the sun 
 Is new in heaven, do but the more 
 Enliven and enlighten one, 
 
 So stealthily the zephyr blows 
 A mocking breath that renders back 
 The heart's rest and the soul's repose 
 And the flower's aphrodisiac. 
 
 And the five senses, peeping out. 
 Take up their station at the feast. 
 But, being by themselves, without 
 Troubling the reason in the least. 
 89 
 
That was the time of azure skies, 
 (Madame, do you remember it ?) 
 And sonnets to my lady's eyes. 
 And cautious kisses not too sweet. 
 
 Free from all passion's idle pother, 
 Full of mere kindliness, how long, 
 How well we liked not loved each other, 
 Without one rapture or one wrong ! 
 
 Ah, happy hours ! But summer came : 
 Farewell, fresh breezes of the spring ! 
 A wind of pleasure like a flame 
 Leapt on our senses wondering. 
 
 Strange flowers, fair crimson-hearted flowers. 
 Poured their ripe odours over us, 
 And evil voices of the hours 
 Whispered above us in the boughs. 
 
 We yielded to it all, ah me ! 
 What vertigo of fools held fast 
 Our senses in its ecstasy 
 Until the heat of summer passed ? 
 
 There were vain tears and vainer laughter. 
 And hands indefinitely pressed. 
 Moist sadnesses, and swoonings after. 
 And what vague void within the breast ? 
 90 
 
But autumn came to our relief, 
 Its light grown cold, its gusts grown rough, 
 Came to remind us, sharp and brief. 
 That we had wantoned long enough. 
 
 And led^us quickly to recover 
 The elegance demanded of 
 Every quite irreproachable lover 
 And every seemly lady-love. 
 
 Now it is winter, and, alas. 
 
 Our backers tremble for their stakcx^ 
 
 Already other sledges pass 
 
 And leave us toiling in their wake. 
 
 Put both your hands into your muff, 
 Sit back, now, steady ! off we go. 
 Fanchon will tell us soon enough 
 Whatever news there is to know. 
 
 91 
 
XI. Fantoches. 
 
 Scaramouche waves a threatening hand 
 
 To Pulcinella, and they stand, 
 
 Two shadows, black against the moon. 
 
 The old doctor of Bologna pries 
 For simples with impassive eyes. 
 And mutters o'er a magic rune. 
 
 The while his daughter, scarce half-dressed. 
 Glides slyly 'neath the trees, in quest 
 Of her bold pirate lover's sail ; 
 
 Her pirate from the Spanish main. 
 Whose passion thrills her in the pain 
 Of the loud languorous nightingale. 
 
 92 
 
XII. Cyth^re, 
 
 By favourable breezes fanned, 
 A trellised harbour is at hand 
 To shield us from the summer airs ; 
 
 The scent of roses, fainting sweet, 
 
 Afloat upon the summer heat, 
 
 Blends with the perfume that she wears. 
 
 True to the promise her eyes gave. 
 She ventures all, and her mouth rains 
 A dainty fever through my veins ; 
 
 And, Love fulfilling all things, save 
 Hunger, we 'scape, with sweets and ices, 
 The folly of Love's sacrifices. 
 
 93 
 
XIII. En Bateau. 
 
 The shepherd's star with trembling glint 
 Drops in black water ; at the hint 
 The pilot fumbles for his flint. 
 
 Now is the time or never, sirs. 
 No hand that wanders wisely errs : 
 I touch a hand, and is it hers ? 
 
 The knightly Atys strikes the strings, 
 And to the faithless Chloris flings 
 A look that speaks of many things. 
 
 The abb6 has absolved again 
 Egl6, the viscount all in vain 
 Has given his hasty heart the rein. 
 
 Meanwhile the moon is up and streams 
 Upon the skiff that flies and seems 
 To float upon a tide of dreams. 
 
 94 
 
XIV. Le Faune. 
 
 An aged faun of old red clay 
 Laughs from the grassy bowling-green, 
 Foretelling doubtless some decay 
 Of mortal moments so serene 
 
 That lead us lightly on our way 
 (Love's piteous pilgrims have we been !) 
 To this last hour that runs away 
 Dancing to the tambourine. 
 
 95 
 
XV. Mandoline. 
 
 The singers of serenades 
 Whisper their faded vows 
 Unto fair listening maids 
 Under the singing boughs. 
 
 Tircis, Aminte, are there, 
 Clitandre has waited long, 
 And Damis for manjr a fair 
 Tyrant makes many a song. 
 
 Their short vests, silken and bright, 
 Their long pale silken trains, 
 Their elegance of delight. 
 Twine soft blue silken chains. 
 
 And the mandolines and they, 
 Faintlier breathing, swoon 
 Into the rose and grey 
 Ecstasy of the moon. 
 
 96 
 
XVI. A Clym^ne. 
 
 Mystical strains unheard, 
 A song without a word, 
 Dearest, because thine eyes, 
 Pale as the skies. 
 
 Because thy voice, remote 
 As the far clouds that float 
 Veiling for me the whole 
 Heaven of the soul. 
 
 Because the stately scent 
 Of thy swan's whiteness, blertt 
 With the white lily's bloom 
 Of thy perfume. 
 
 Ah ! because thy dear love, 
 The music breathed above 
 By angels halo-crowned, 
 Odoiir and sound. 
 
 Hath, in my subtle heart. 
 With some mysterious art 
 Transposed thy harmony, 
 So let it be ! 
 
 97 
 
XVII. Lettre. 
 
 Far from your sight removed by thankless cares 
 
 (The gpds are witness when a lover swears) 
 
 I languish and I die, Madame, as still 
 
 My use is, which I punctually fulfil, 
 
 And go, through heavy-hearted woes conveyed. 
 
 Attended ever by your lovely shade. 
 
 By day in thought, by night in dreams of hell, 
 
 And day and night, Madame, adorable ! 
 
 So that at length my dwindling body lost 
 
 In very soul, I too become a ghost, 
 
 I too, and in the lamentable stress 
 
 Of vain desires remembering happiness. 
 
 Remembered kisses, now, alas, unfelt, 
 
 My shadow shall into your shadow melt. 
 
 Meanwhile, dearest, your most obedient slave. 
 
 How docs the sweet society behave. 
 
 Thy cat, thy dog, thy parrot ? and is she 
 
 Still, as of old, the black-eyed Silvanie 
 
 (I had loved black eyes if thine had not been blue) 
 
 Who ogled me at moments, palsambleu ! 
 
 Thy tender friend and thy sweet confidant ? 
 
 One dream there is, Madame, long wont to haunt 
 
 This too impatient heart : to pour the earth 
 
 And all its treasures (of how little worth !) 
 
 Before your feet as tokens of a love 
 
 Equal to the most famous flames that move 
 
 The hearts of men to conquer all but death. 
 
 98 
 
Cleopatra was less loved, yes, on my faith, 
 By Antony or Caesar than you are, 
 Madame, by me, who truly would by far 
 Out-do the deeds of Caesar for a smile, 
 O Cleopatra, queen of word and wile. 
 Or, for a kiss, take flight with Antony, 
 
 With this, farewell, dear, and no more from me ; 
 How can the time it takes to read it, quite 
 Be worth the trouble that it took to write ? 
 
 99 
 
XVIII. Les Indolents. 
 
 Bah ! spite of Fate, that says us nay, 
 Suppose we die together, eh ? 
 — A rare conclusion you discover 
 
 — What's rare is good. Let us die so. 
 
 Like lovers in Boccaccio. 
 
 — Ha ! ha ! ha ! you fantastic lover ! 
 
 — Nay, not fantastic. If you will. 
 Fond, surely irreproachable. 
 Suppose, then, that we die together .■' 
 
 — Good sir, your jests are fitlier told 
 Than when you speak of love or gold. 
 Why speak at all, in this glad weather .'' 
 
 Whereat, behold them once again, 
 
 Tircis beside his Dorimfene, 
 
 Not far from two blithe rustic rovers. 
 
 For some caprice of idle breath 
 
 Deferring a delicious death. 
 
 Ha ! ha ! ha ! what fantastic lovers ! 
 
 100 
 
XIX. Colombine. 
 
 The foolish Leander, 
 Cape-covered Cassander, 
 And which 
 Is Pierrot ? 'tis he 
 With the hop of a flea 
 Leaps the ditch ; 
 
 And Harlequin who 
 
 Rehearses anew 
 
 His sly task, 
 
 With his dress that's a wonder, 
 
 And eyes shining under 
 
 His mask ; 
 
 Mi, sol, mi, fa, do ! 
 
 How gaily they go, 
 
 And they sing 
 
 And they laugh and they twirl 
 
 Round the feet of a girl 
 
 Like the Spring, 
 
 Whose eyes are as green 
 As a cat's are, and keen 
 As its claws. 
 
 And her eyes without frown 
 Bid all new-comers : Down 
 With your paws ! 
 
 JOI 
 
On they go with the force 
 Of the stars in their course, 
 And the speed : 
 O tell me toward what 
 Disaster unthought, 
 "Without heed 
 
 The implacable fair, 
 
 A rose in her hair. 
 
 Holding up 
 
 Her skirts as she runs 
 
 Leads this dance of the dunce 
 
 And the dupe ? 
 
 102 
 
XX. L' Amour par Terre. 
 
 The other night a sudden wind laid low 
 The Love, shooting an arrow at a mark, 
 In the mysterious corner of the park, 
 Whose smile disquieted us long ago. 
 
 The wind has overthrown him, and above 
 His scattered dust, how sad it is to spell 
 The artist's name still faintly visible 
 Upon the pedestal without its Love, 
 
 How sad it is to see the pedestal 
 Still standing ! as in dream I seem to hear 
 Prophetic voices whisper in my ear 
 The lonely and despairing end of all. 
 
 How sad it is ! Why, even you have found 
 A tear for it, although your frivolous eye 
 Laughs at the gold and purple butterfly 
 Poised on the piteous litter on the ground. 
 
 103 
 
XXI. En Sourdine. 
 
 Calm where twilight leaves have stilled 
 With their shadow light and sound, 
 Let our silent love be filled 
 "With a silence as profound. 
 
 Let our ravished senses blend 
 Heart and spirit, thine and mine. 
 With vague languors that descend 
 From the branches of the pine. 
 
 Close thine eyes against the day. 
 Fold thine arms across thy breast, 
 And for ever turn away 
 All desire of all but rest. 
 
 Let the lulling breaths that pass 
 In soft wrinkles at thy feet, 
 Tossing all the tawny grass, 
 This and only this repeat. 
 
 And when solemn evening 
 Dims the forest's dusky air. 
 Then the nightingale shall sing 
 The delight of our despair. 
 
 104 
 
XXII. Colloque Sentimental. ^ 
 
 In the old park, solitary and vast, 
 
 Over the frozen ground two forms once passed. 
 
 Their lips were languid and their eyes were dead. 
 And hardly could be heard the words they said. 
 
 In the old park, solitary and vast, 
 
 Two ghosts once met to summon up the past. 
 
 — Do you remember our old ecstasy ? 
 
 — Why would you bring it back again to me ? 
 
 — Do you still dream as you dreamed long ago ? 
 Does your heart beat to my heart's beating ? — No. 
 
 — Ah, those old days, what joys have those days seen 
 When your lips met my lips ! — It may have been. 
 
 — How blue the sky was, and our hope how light ! 
 — Hope has flown helpless back into the night. 
 
 They walked through weeds withered and grasses dead. 
 And only the night heard the words they said. 
 
 los 
 
From Po^mes Saturniens. 
 I. Soleils Couchants. 
 
 Pale dawn delicately 
 Over earth has spun 
 The sad melancholy 
 Of the setting sun. 
 Sad melancholy 
 Brings oblivion 
 In sad songs to me 
 With the setting sun. 
 And the strangest dreams, 
 Dreams like suns that set 
 On the banks of the streams, 
 Ghost and glory met, 
 To my sense it seems, 
 Pass, and without let, 
 Like great suns that set 
 On the banks of streams. 
 
 io6 
 
II. Chanson d'Automne. 
 
 When a sighing begins 
 In the violins 
 Of the autumn-song, 
 My heart is drowned 
 In the slow sound 
 Languorous and long. 
 
 Pale as with pain, 
 Breath fails me when 
 The hour tolls deep. 
 My thoughts recover 
 The days that are over. 
 And I weep. 
 
 And I go 
 
 Where the winds know. 
 
 Broken and brief. 
 
 To and fro, 
 
 As the winds blow 
 
 A dead leaf. 
 
 107 
 
III. Femme et Chatte, 
 
 They were at play, she and her cat, 
 And it was marvellous to mark 
 The white paw and the white hand pat 
 Each other in the deepening dark. 
 
 The stealthy little lady hid 
 Under her mittens' silken sheath 
 Her deadly agate nails that thrid 
 The silk-like dagger-points of death. 
 
 The cat purred primly and drew in 
 Her claws that were of steel filed thin : 
 The devil was in it all the same. 
 
 And in the boudoir, while a shout 
 
 Of laughter in the air rang out. 
 
 Four sparks of phosphor shone like flame. 
 
 io8 
 
From La Bonne Chanson. 
 I. 
 
 The white moon sits 
 And seems to brood 
 Where a swift voice flits 
 From each branch in the wood 
 That the tree-tops cover. . . . 
 
 O lover, my lover ! 
 
 The pool in the meadows 
 Like a looking-glass 
 Casts back the shadows 
 That over it pass 
 Of the willow-bower. . . . 
 
 Let us dream : 'tis the hour. . . . 
 
 A tender and vast 
 
 Lull of content 
 
 Like a cloud is cast 
 
 From the firmament 
 
 Where one planet is bright. . . . 
 
 "Tis the hour of delight. 
 
 109 
 
II. 
 
 The fireside, the lamp's little narrow light ; 
 
 The dream with head on hand, and the delight 
 
 Of eyes that lose themselves in loving looks ; 
 
 The hour of steaming tea and of shut books ; 
 
 The solace to know evening almost gone ; 
 
 The dainty weariness of waiting on 
 
 The nuptial shadow and night's softest bliss ; 
 
 Ah, it is this that without respite, this 
 
 That without stay, my tender fancy seeks, 
 
 Mad with the months and fiorious with the weeks. 
 
 iia 
 
From Romances sans Paroles. 
 I. 
 
 'Tis the ecstasy of repose, 
 
 'Tis love when tired lids close, 
 
 'Tis the wood's long shuddering 
 
 In the embrace of the wind, 
 
 'Tis, where grey boughs are thinned. 
 
 Little voices that sing. 
 
 O fresh and frail is the sound 
 That twitters above, around. 
 Like the sweet tiny sigh 
 That lies in the shaken grass ; 
 Or the sound when waters pass 
 And the pebbles shrink and cry. 
 
 What soul is this that complains 
 
 Over the sleeping plains, 
 
 And what is it that it saith .'' 
 
 Is it mine, is it thine, 
 
 This lowly hymn I divine 
 
 In the warm night, low as a breath } 
 
 III 
 
Jt- 
 
 I divine, through the veil of a murmuring", 
 The subtle contour of voices gone, 
 And I see, in the glimmering lights that sing, 
 The promise, pale love, of a future dawn. 
 
 And my soiU and my heart in trouble 
 What are they but an eye that sees. 
 As through a mist an eye sees double. 
 Airs forgotten of songs like these ? 
 
 O to die of no other dying, 
 Love, than this that computes the showers 
 Of old hours and of new hours flying : 
 O to die of the swing of the hours ! 
 
 112 
 
Jll. 
 
 Tears in my heart that weeps, 
 Like the rain upon the town. 
 What drowsy languor steeps 
 In tears my heart that weeps ? 
 
 O sweet sound of the rain 
 On earth and on the roofs ! 
 For a heart's weary pain 
 O the song of the rain ! 
 
 Vain tears, vain tears, my heart ! 
 What, none hath done thee wrong ? 
 Tears without reason start 
 From my disheartened heart. 
 
 This is the weariest woe, 
 O heart, of love and hate 
 Too weary, not to know 
 Why thou hast all this woe. 
 
 113 
 
IV. 
 
 A frail hand in the rose-grey evening 
 Kisses the shining keys that hardly stir, 
 While, with the light, small flutter of a wing, 
 And old song, like an old tired wanderer. 
 Goes very softly, as if trembling. 
 About the room long redolent of Her. 
 
 What lullaby is this that comes again 
 
 To dandle my poor being with its breath ? 
 
 What wouldst thou have of me, gay laughing strain ? 
 
 What hadst thou, desultory faint refrain 
 
 That now into the garden to thy death 
 
 Floatcst through the half-opened window-pane ? 
 
 114 
 
V. 
 
 sad, sad was my soul, alas ! 
 
 For a woman, a woman's sake it was. 
 
 1 have had no comfort since that day. 
 Although my heart went its way, 
 
 Although my heart and my soul went 
 From the woman into banishment. 
 
 I have had no comfort since that day, 
 Although my heart went its way. 
 
 And my heart, being sore in me, 
 Said to my soul : How can this be. 
 
 How can this be or have been thus, 
 This proud, sad banishment of us ? 
 
 My soul said to my heart : Do I 
 Know what snare we are tangled by, 
 
 Seeing that, banished, we know not whether 
 We are divided or together ? 
 
 "S 
 
VI. 
 
 Wearily the plain's 
 Endless length expands ; 
 The snow shines like grains 
 Of the shifting sands. 
 
 Light of day is none, 
 Brazen is the sky ; 
 Overhead the moon 
 Seems to live and die. 
 
 Where the woods are seen, 
 Grey the oak-trees lift 
 Through the vaporous screen 
 Like the clouds that drift. 
 
 Light of day is none, • 
 Brazen is the sky ; 
 Overhead the moon 
 Seems to live and die. 
 
 Broken-winded crow. 
 And you, lean wolves, when 
 The sharp north-winds blow. 
 What do you do then ? 
 
 Wearily the plain's 
 Endless length expands ; 
 The snow shines like'grains 
 Of the shifting sands. 
 ii6 
 
VII. 
 
 There's a flight of green and red 
 In the hurry of hills and rails, 
 Through the shadowy twilight shed 
 By the lamps as daylight pales. 
 
 Dim gold light flushes to blood 
 In humble hollows far down ; 
 Birds sing low from a wood 
 Of barren trees without crown. 
 
 Scarcely more to be felt 
 Than that autumn is gone ; 
 Languors, lulled in me, melt 
 In the still air's monotone. 
 
 117 
 
VIII. Spleen. 
 
 The roses were all red, 
 The ivy was all black,: 
 Dear, if you turn your head. 
 All my despairs come back. 
 
 The sky was too blue, too kind. 
 The sea too green, and the air 
 Too calm : and I know in my mind 
 I shall wake and not find you there. 
 
 I am tired of the box-tree's shine 
 And the holly's, that never will pass, 
 And the plain's unending line, 
 And of all but you, alas ! 
 
 ii8 
 
IX. Streets. 
 
 Dance the jig ! 
 
 I loved best her pretty eyes 
 
 Clearer than stars in any skies, 
 
 1 loved her eyes for their dear lies. 
 
 Dance the jig ! 
 
 And ah ! the ways, the ways she had 
 
 Of driving a poor lover mad : 
 
 It made a man's heart sad and glad. 
 
 Dance the jig 
 
 But now I find the old kisses shed 
 From her flower-moUth a rarer red 
 Now that her heart to mine is dead. 
 
 Dance the jig ! 
 
 And I recall, now I recall 
 
 Old days and hours, and ever shaU, 
 
 And that is best, and best of all. 
 
 Dance the jig ! 
 
 119 
 
From Jadis et Nagu^re. 
 / 1. Art Po^tique. 
 
 Music first and foremost of all ! 
 Choose your measure of odd not even, 
 Let it melt in the air of heaven. 
 Pose not, poise not, but rise and fall. 
 
 Choose your words, but think not whether 
 Each to other of old belong : 
 What so dear as the dim grey song 
 Where clear and vague are joined together ? 
 
 'Tis veils of beauty for beautiful eyes, 
 'Tis the trembling light of the naked noon, 
 'Tis a medley of blue and gold, the moon 
 And stars in the cool of autumn skies. 
 
 Let every shape of its shade be born ; 
 Colour, away ! come to me, shade ! 
 Only of shade can the marriage be made 
 Of dream with dream and of flute with horn. 
 
 Shun the Point, lest death with it come. 
 Unholy laughter and cruel wit 
 (For the eyes of the angels weep at it) 
 And all the garbage of scullery-scum. 
 
 Take Eloquence, and wring the neck of him ! 
 
 You had better, by force, from time to time, 
 
 Put a little sense in the head of Rhyme : 
 
 If you watch him not, you will be at the beck of him. 
 
 120 
 
O, who shall tell us the wrongs of Rhyme ? 
 What witless savage or what deaf boy- 
 Has made for us this twopenny toy 
 Whose bells ring hollow and out of time ? 
 
 Music always and music still ! 
 
 Let your verse be the wandering thing 
 
 That flutters in flight from a soul on the wing 
 
 Towards other skies at a new whim's will. 
 
 Let your verse be the luck of the lure 
 Afloat on the winds that at morning hint 
 Of the odours of thyme and the savour of mint 
 And all the rest is literature. 
 
[I. Mczzetin Chantant. 
 
 Go, and with never a care 
 But the care to keep happiness ! 
 Crumple a silken dress 
 And snatch a song in the air. 
 
 Hear the moral of all the wise 
 In a world where happy folly 
 Is wiser than melancholy : 
 Forget the hour as it flies ! 
 
 The one thing needful on earth, it 
 Is not to be whimpering. 
 Is life after all a thing 
 Real enough to be worth it ? 
 
 122 
 
From Sagesse. 
 I. 
 
 The little hands that once were mine, 
 The hands I loved, the lovely hands. 
 After the roadways and the strands. 
 And realms and kingdoms once divine, 
 
 And mortal loss of all that seems 
 Lost with the old sad pagan things. 
 Royal as in the days of kings 
 The dear hands open to me dreams. 
 
 Hands of dream, hands of holy flame 
 Upon my soul in blessing laid. 
 What is it that these hands have said 
 That my soul hears and swoons to them ? 
 
 Is it a phantom, this pure sight 
 Of mother's love made tenderer, 
 Of spirit with spirit linked to share 
 The mutual kinship of delight ? 
 
 Good sorrow, dear remorse, and yc. 
 Blest dreams, O hands ordained of heaven 
 To tell me if I am forgiven. 
 Make but the sign that pardons me ! 
 
 123 
 
II. 
 
 O my God, thou hast wounded me with love, 
 
 Behold the wound, that is still vibrating, 
 
 O my God, thou hast wounded me with love. 
 
 O my God, thy fear hath fallen upon me. 
 Behold the burn is there, and it throbs aloud, 
 O my God, thy fear hath fallen upon me. 
 
 O my God, I have known that all is vile 
 And that thy glory hath stationed itself in me, 
 O my God, I have known that all is vile. 
 
 Drown my soul in floods, floods of thy wine. 
 Mingle my life with the body of thy bread, 
 Drown my soul in floods, floods of thy wine. 
 
 Take my blood, that I have not poured out. 
 Take my flesh, unworthy of suffering. 
 Take my blood, that I have not poured out. 
 
 Take my brow, that has only learned to blush. 
 To be the footstool of thine adorable feet. 
 Take my brow, that has only learned to blush. 
 
 Take my hands, because they have laboured not 
 For coals of fire and for rare frankincense. 
 Take my hands, because they have laboured not. 
 124 
 
Take my heart, that has beaten for vain things, 
 
 To throb under the thorns of Calvary, 
 
 Take my heart, that has beaten for vain things. 
 
 Take my feet, frivolous travellers, 
 
 That they may run to the crying of thy grace, 
 
 Take my feet, frivolous travdlers. 
 
 Take my voice, a harsh and a lying noise, 
 For the reproaches of thy Penitence, 
 Take my voice, a harsh and a lying noise. 
 
 Take mine eyes, luminaries of deceit, 
 
 That they may be extinguished in the tears of prayer. 
 
 Take mine eyes, luminaries of deceit. 
 
 Alas, thou, God of pardon and promises. 
 What is the pit of mine ingratitude, 
 Alas, thou, God of pardon and promises. 
 
 God of terror and God of holiness, 
 Alas, my sinfulness is a black abyss, 
 God of terror and God of holiness. 
 
 Thou, God of peace, of joy and delight. 
 All my tears, all my ignorances. 
 Thou, God of peace, of joy and delight. 
 
 Thou, O God, knowest all this, all this, 
 How poor I am, poorer than any man, 
 Thou, O God, knowest all this, all this. 
 
 And what I have, my God, I give to thee. 
 
 I2S 
 
III. 
 
 Slumber dark and deep 
 Falls across my life ; 
 I will put to sleep 
 Hope, desire, and strife. 
 
 All things pass away, 
 Good and evil seem 
 To my soul to-day 
 Nothing but a dream ; 
 
 I a cradle laid 
 
 In a hollow cave, 
 
 By a great hand swayed : 
 
 Silence, like the grave. 
 
 126 
 
IV. 
 
 The body's sadness and the languor thereof 
 
 Melt and bow me with pity till I could weep, 
 
 Ah ! when the dark hours break it down in sleep 
 
 And the bedclothes score the skin and the hot hands move ; 
 
 Alert for a little with the fever of day, 
 
 Damp still with the heavy sweat of the night that has 
 
 thinned. 
 
 Like a bird that trembles on a roof in the wind : 
 
 And the feet that are sorrowful because of the way, 
 
 And the breast that a hand has scarred with a double blow, 
 And the mouth that as an open wound is red, 
 And the flesh that shivers and is a painted show. 
 And the eyes, poor eyes so lovely with tears unshed 
 For the sorrow of seeing this also over and done : 
 Sad body, how weak and how punished under the sun ! 
 
 127 
 
V. 
 
 Fairer is the sea 
 Than the minster high, 
 Faithful nurse is she, 
 And last lullaby. 
 And the Virgin prays 
 Over the sea's ways. 
 
 Gifts of grief and guerdons 
 From her bounty come. 
 And I hear her pardons 
 Chide her angers home ; 
 Nothing in her is 
 Unforgivingness. 
 
 She is piteous. 
 She the perilous ! 
 Friendly things to us 
 The wave sings to us : 
 You whose hope is past, 
 Here is peace at last. 
 
 And beneath the skies, 
 Brighter-hued than they. 
 She has azure dyes. 
 Rose and green and grey. 
 Better is the sea 
 Than all fair things or we. 
 
 128 
 
From Parall^lement : Impression Fausse. 
 
 Little lady mouse, 
 
 Black upon the grey of light ; 
 
 Little lady mouse, 
 
 Grey upon the night. 
 
 Now they ring the bell, 
 All good prisoners slumber deep ; 
 Now they ring the bell, 
 Nothing now but sleep. 
 
 Only pleasant dreams. 
 Love's enough for thinking of ; 
 Only pleasant dreams. 
 Long live love ! 
 
 Moonlight over all. 
 Someone snoring heavily ; 
 Moonlight over all 
 In reality. 
 
 Now there comes a cloud. 
 It is dark as midnight here ; 
 Now there comes a cloud. 
 Dawn begins to peer. 
 
 Little lady mouse. 
 Rosy in a ray oi^blue, 
 Little lady mouse : 
 Up now, all of you ! 
 129 
 
From Chansons pour Elle. 
 
 You believe that there may be 
 Luck in strangers in the tea : 
 I believe only in your eyes. 
 
 You believe in fairy-tales, 
 
 Days one wins and days one fails : 
 
 I believe only in your lies. 
 
 You believe in heavenly powers, 
 In some saint to whom one prays 
 Or in some Ave that one says. 
 
 I believe only in the hours. 
 
 Coloured with the rosy lights 
 
 You rain for me on sleepless nights. 
 
 And so firmly I receive 
 These for truth, that I believe 
 That only for your sake 1 live. 
 
 130 
 
From Epigrammes. 
 
 When we go together, if I may see her again, 
 Into the dark wood and the rain ; 
 
 When we are drunken with air and the sun's delight 
 At the brink of the river of light ; 
 
 When we are homeless at last, for a moment's space 
 Without city or abiding-place ; 
 
 And if the slow good -will of the world still seem 
 To cradle us in a dream ; 
 
 Then, let us sleep the last sleep with no leave-taking, 
 And God will see to the waking. 
 
 131 
 
From Catullus : Chiefly concerning Lcsbia. 
 I. 
 
 I liken him unto a god, 
 Or if so be it a higher thing, 
 Who sits and gazes on thy face, 
 Looking and listening 
 
 To thy sweet laughter. Whereas I, 
 With senses ravished if I come 
 So near as to behold thy face, 
 Swoon, and my tongue is numb. 
 
 And a thin fire through all my limbs 
 Races, and both my ears are stopped 
 With a great sound that rings, and dark 
 Is upon daylight dropped. 
 
 But thou, Catullus, know that ease 
 Wrongs thee : put off thy idleness. 
 Older and happier states and kings 
 Have perished for no less. 
 
 132 
 
II. 
 
 Sparrow, darling of my dear, 
 
 She will play with you, and hide you 
 
 In her bosom, and confide you 
 
 Her forefinger without fear. 
 
 Nay, will tease you till you bite. 
 
 When it pleases her, my bright 
 
 Shining lady of delight. 
 
 With some dear thing to be playing. 
 
 That (if I her sense discover) 
 
 Love's full ardours being over. 
 
 She may find some after-staying 
 
 Of the heart-ache : would that I 
 
 Might "play with you like her, and part 
 
 With all the sorrows of my heart. 
 
 133 
 
III. 
 
 Graces, let your tears be shed, 
 Loves, and mortals lovelier. 
 For my lady's sparrow dead. 
 The dead darling of my dear. 
 Dearer than her eyes to her ; 
 He was sweet as the honey-cell. 
 And his mistress he knew well 
 As a girl her very mother. 
 In her breast he would nest. 
 Hopping there and hopping here. 
 He would pipe unto no other, 
 Who now goes the darksome way : 
 Whence none come again, they say. 
 But on you, ye shades of night, 
 All fair things in darkness steeping. 
 Curses ! you have snatched away 
 A lovely sparrow, my delight. 
 Hapless sparrow ! from my keeping. 
 Through you my lady's eyes of light 
 Are heavy now and red with weeping. 
 
 »34 
 
V. 
 
 Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love : 
 
 Old men's sayings are for old men wise enough : 
 
 Give them a farthing for the price of the stuff. 
 
 Suns may set and suns upon earth arise : 
 
 As for us, when for us the brief light dies, 
 
 There is only night, and an everlasting sleeping. 
 
 Give me a thousand kisses, then ; be heaping 
 
 A hundred upon a thousand, then a second hundred 
 
 Upon another thousand, and another hundred ; 
 
 Then, when the number has up to a myriad mounted. 
 
 Let us lose the reckoning, lest our love should be counted. 
 
 And we or another envying us should guess 
 
 How many kisses make up our happiness. 
 
 I3S 
 
XCII. 
 
 Lesbia speaks nothing but evil about me, they say. 
 Well, what of that ? May I perish if love does not move her. 
 What is the proof ? That I backbite Lesbia all day 
 Myself : may 1 perish, gods ! if I do not love her. 
 
 I3<= 
 
VII. 
 
 What, Lesbia, can you ask if any 
 Kisses of yours could be too many ? 
 How many are the sands that lie 
 All perfume to the Libyan sky, 
 From where old Battus' ashes dwell 
 To Jove's parched desert oracle ? 
 How many a star unsleeping hovers, 
 On still nights, over stealthy lovers ? 
 Shall kisses such as all or any 
 For your mad lover be too many ? 
 O let no count of envy reach them. 
 Nor no wicked tongue bewitch them. 
 
 137 
 
 (^, 
 
XIII. 
 
 You shall sup with me, FabuUus, if all is well, you 
 Shall sup with me like a prince ; but let me tell you 
 That you'll have to bring the wherewithal of the feast 
 And the wine and the salt and a girl or two at least, 
 And laughteir for every man in the lees of the cup. 
 These, if you bring, as I say, dear fellow, we'll sup 
 Like princes ; but Catullus' lean purse is lined 
 With nothing, alas, but spider's webs, you'll find. 
 Yet take in return love's very honey of love. 
 Or, if love itself be not dainty and sweet enough, 
 I will give you some perfume here in the house already. 
 For the Loves and the Graces gave it to my lady ; 
 When that you have only breathed I can hear you cry : 
 " Make me all nose, O gods, or let me die ! " 
 
 138 
 
XLIII. 
 
 Hail, although of nose not neat, 
 Black of eyes nor trim of feet. 
 Long of fingers, dry of mouth. 
 Nor too dainty-tongued, forsooth. 
 Mistress of no better man 
 Than a bankrupt Formian. 
 Does your province not declare you 
 Beautiful ? and even compare you 
 With my Lesbia ? O disgraced 
 Age, incapable of taste ! 
 
 139 
 
LXXXVI. 
 
 Quintia is beautiful, many will tell you : to me 
 
 She is white, she is straight, she is tall : to all this I agree. 
 
 But does this make her beautiful ? though she be found 
 
 without fault. 
 
 Can you find in the whole of her body the least pinch ot 
 
 salt ? 
 
 But Lesbia is beautiful : hers is the secret alone 
 
 To steal from all beauty its beauty, and make it her own. 
 
 140 
 
LXXXIII. 
 
 When her husband is with us Lesbia speaks harshly to me, 
 
 "Whereat the fool of a man is filled to the brim with glee. 
 
 Ass, don't you see ? were she silent, and could she forget 
 
 all about me 
 
 Then were she heart-whole to you ; but, now to nag and 
 
 flout me 
 
 Isn't to merely remember ; but what is the worst of the lot. 
 
 She is angry, and that is a sign she is burning and boiling 
 
 hot. 
 
 141 
 
XLVIII. 
 
 Your honeyed eyes, Juventius, 
 
 If you would let one kiss, 
 
 Three hundred thousand would to us 
 
 Seem nothing much amiss : 
 
 Could all earth's ears of corn eclipse 
 
 That heavenly harvest of the lips ? 
 
 142 
 
CIV. 
 
 What, I speak evil ? I never can speak well enough of her, 
 My life, who is dearer to me than the sight of my eyes. 
 I could not ; nor would, if I could not but be so in love 
 with her : 
 But Tappo and you make such monsters of minikin lies. 
 
 H3 
 
XCVI. 
 
 If living sorrows any boon 
 Unto the silent grave can give 
 When sad remembrances revive 
 Old loves and friendships fugitive, 
 She sorrows less she died so soon 
 Than joys your love is still alive. 
 
 144 
 
GI. 
 
 Wandering many waters and many lands, 
 I come, my brother, to do sad rites as of old ; 
 See, I bring you the death-gift in my hands. 
 Hear, I speak to you, speak to the ashes cold. 
 All that fortune has left me in place of you, 
 Alas, poor brother, bereft of innocent breath ! 
 Yet, as our sires before us have done, I do, 
 I bring the same sad gifts, an offering for death. 
 Take them, that they of a brother's tears may tell ; 
 And now for all time, brother, hail and farewell. 
 
 MS 
 
LXX. 
 
 A woman says that no wooer but I could move her ; 
 Not Jove, if he came a-wooing, would be to her mind. 
 She says it : but let what a woman says to her lover 
 Be written in running water and told to the wind. 
 
 146 
 
LXXXV. 
 
 I hate and I love : you ask me how one can do it ? 
 
 I know not : I know that it hurts : I am going through it. 
 
 14-7 
 
XXVII. 
 
 No weak wine shall wet the lip 
 Fill a stronger bowl for her, 
 Drunken as a drunken pip, 
 Who's our Lady lawgiver. 
 Water, plague of wine, avaunt 
 To some stoic-bellied haunt ; 
 Bacchus' brew is all we want. 
 
 148 
 
evil. 
 
 If a wishcd-for thing and a thing past hoping for 
 
 Should come to a man, will he welcome it not the more ? 
 
 Therefore to me more welcome it is than gold 
 
 .That Lesbia brings me back my desire of old, 
 
 My desire past hoping for, her own self, back. 
 
 O mark the day with white in the almanac ! 
 
 What happier man is alive, or what can bi;ing 
 
 To a man, whoever he be, a more wished-for thing ? 
 
 149 
 
CIX. 
 
 This pleasant love, my life, between us two, 
 
 You promise me shall be perpetual. 
 
 Great gods, take thought to keep her promise true, 
 
 First on the lips, but inly most of all ; 
 
 And grant how long soever our lives run 
 
 This holy bond of friendship shall go on. 
 
 ISO 
 
LXXXII. 
 
 Friend, would you have CatuUus's eyes in debt, 
 
 Or whatever is dearer to him than his eyes ? 
 
 Seek not to take from him that which is dearer yet 
 
 Than his eyes, or whatever is dearer to him than his eyes. 
 
 151 
 
LXXIII. 
 
 Cease to do good to any man, or be 
 
 The thought to find him grateful, far from thee. 
 
 All men are thankless : none a favour takes 
 
 But of the gift a grief and burden makes. 
 
 I find no claws so sharp to turn and rend 
 
 As his who was my one and only friend. 
 
 152 
 
LXXII. 
 
 Lesbia, you swore to me once you were known, save 
 
 Catullus, of no man, 
 
 Not for a God out of heaven would the bond of your love 
 
 be forgot : 
 
 Then was my love for you not as a man's mere love for a 
 
 woman 
 
 But as a father's love for children himself has begot. 
 
 Now, I know you ; and now, though I burn for you 
 
 still past all reason. 
 
 Somewhat lighter a thing and cheaper a thing you seem. 
 
 How can that be ? do you ask. Because to a lovef 
 
 such treason 
 
 Wakes in the heart desire, kills in the soul esteem. 
 
 IS3 
 
LX. 
 
 Who gave you birth ? a Libyan lioness 
 Or Scylla barking from her nether womb ? 
 That thus you mock a suppliant in distress 
 Who cries to you from off the edge of doom ? 
 O entire monster of hard-heartedness ! ' 
 
 154 
 
LXXVI. 
 
 If there is any pleasure to any man in the thought 
 
 He has been pious to men, truly a friend to a friend, 
 
 Broken no sacred pledges, nor in no compact sought 
 
 To take the name of the gods in vain for a treacherous end, 
 
 Joys enough for a lifetime you shall earn, if any can, 
 
 Catullus, out of the love given you back by none ; 
 
 For whatever a man can do or say for a man. 
 
 Surely that you have said, surely that you have done. 
 
 This was all of it lent to a thankless heart, and is lost : 
 
 Why are you sorry at all or troubled in mind for this ? 
 
 Set your soul firm ; withdraw yourself from out of his 
 
 coast ; 
 
 "Why seek grief for yourself, as if of the gods it is ? 
 
 Hard it is to put by of a sudden a love grown strong, 
 
 Hard, it is, but a gain indeed that has to be got : 
 
 This is the one safe way, although the way may be long, 
 
 This you have got to do, whether you can or not. 
 
 Gods, if pity is yours, or if ever ye gave 
 
 Grace to a wretch that lay in the very moment of death. 
 
 Look on me in my anguish, and give release, if I have 
 
 Purely lived in my life, from this plague of pestilent breath. 
 
 Ah ! this torpor that creeps like a poison from vein to vein 
 
 Every joy that was once a joy from my heart has chased : 
 
 Now I ask no longer that she should love me again. 
 
 Or, what never could be, that she would choose to be chaste. 
 
 Let me be well again, and from this foul malady free : 
 
 Render to me, O gods, the reward of piety. 
 
 ^S 
 
LXXXVII. 
 
 No woman could say that a man had loved her better 
 
 Than I, my Lesbia, have loved you, my loveliest. 
 
 There was never a bond more strictly kept to the letter 
 
 Than the bond I made that you should be loved the best. 
 
 Now is my mind so distracted by what they tell of you, 
 
 So lost in allegiance to your unworthiness. 
 
 If you came to be honest again I could never think well of 
 
 you, 
 
 But do what you would, I never could love you less. 
 
 156 
 
LVIII. 
 
 Caelius, Lesbia mine, that Lesbia, that 
 Lesbia whom Catullus for love did rate 
 Higher than all himself and than all things, stands 
 Now at the cross-roads and the alleys, to wait 
 For the lords of Rome, with public lips and hands. 
 
 iS7 
 
VIII. 
 
 Miserable Catullus, put an end of this folly : 
 
 Let all things dead be over and ended wholly. 
 
 Once the sun was bright and the light was fair, 
 
 And there was a woman to love, and she waited there. 
 
 And never a woman was better loved than she. 
 
 Surely the sun was bright and fair to see, 
 
 And merrily then the hours of love went by 
 
 When nothing that you desired would she deny. 
 
 Now the woman, desiring no more, denies : 
 
 You too, deny, nor follow her as she flies. 
 
 Be miserable no more, for all is vain : 
 
 Set your soul steadfast and harden your heart again. 
 
 Farewell : Catullus has hardened his heart again, 
 
 He will not follow nor cry to you now in vain. 
 
 No, it is you that shall weep, as you lie alone. 
 
 And no man cries at your gate, and the night goes on. 
 
 What shall remain to you then ? who shall come to your call ? 
 
 Who shall call you fair ? nay, whom shall you love at all ? 
 
 Who shall have you for his ? whose lips shall you bite and 
 
 kiss ? 
 
 But you, Catullus, harden your heart at this. 
 
 158 
 
LXIII. Attis. 
 
 Over ocean Attis sailing in a swift ship charioted 
 When he reached the Phrygian forests, and with rash foot 
 violently 
 
 Trod the dark and shadowy regions of the goddess, wood- 
 garlanded. 
 
 And with ravening madness ravished, and his reason abandon- 
 ing him, 
 
 Seized a pointed flint and sundered from his flesh his virility. 
 . Then in all his limbs realising his manhood irrevocable, 
 Seeing earth with blood besprinkled, with fresh blood, the 
 blood of him. 
 
 In his snow-white hands he snatches the light tambourine 
 suddenly. 
 
 Tambourine that thou, Cybele, madest, mother, for thy 
 mysteries, 
 
 And, between his tender fingers the hide's hollow agitating. 
 Stricken through with trembling shudders, thus sings to his 
 companions : 
 
 " Corybantes, all together, up, on to the woods of Cybele ; 
 All together, on, ye wandering herds of Dindymus' shep- 
 herdess. 
 
 Ye that seeking foreign shores, and, in an exile voluntary, 
 Following me and guided by me, on my ways my companions. 
 Having overcome the rapid main and the floods' savagery, 
 And in passing hate of Venus having overcome the man in 
 you. 
 
 Now your mistress' heart gladden ye with the speed of courses 
 precipitate. 
 Slow delay be cast behind you, follow all together, follow me, 
 
 IS9 
 
To the Phrygian home of Cybele, Phrygian woods, the 
 goddess's, 
 
 Where the cymbals utter their voices to the tambourines 
 echoing, 
 
 Where the curved reed makes grave music for the Phrygian 
 flute-player, 
 
 Where the Maenads toss together wild heads ivy-filleted. 
 Where with piercing ululations the sacred signs are agitated, 
 Where in wonted wake the wandering cohort follows the 
 deity, 
 
 Thither meet it is we hasten, thither with dances swift-footed." 
 Scarcely had the would-be woman Attis ceased to his followers 
 When at once the Corybantes shrieked, and their tongues 
 palpitated. 
 
 And their tambourines re-bellowed, and their cymbals crackled 
 hollowly. 
 
 And the chorus swiftly leaping rushed towards Ida's summits 
 verdurous. 
 
 Whereat Attis, raging, wavering, goes unsteadily, breath 
 forsaking him, 
 
 Tambourining through the dark woods the tumultuous 
 company. 
 
 As, the yoke's weight shouldered off it, surges the heifer 
 untamable. 
 
 Him their leader all the Bacchantes follow with feet 
 precipitate ; 
 
 But no sooner Cybele's threshold touched, together lan- 
 guorously 
 
 Fall in sleep, tired out with journeying, and without Cere's 
 sustenance. 
 
 Sluggish slumber shuts their eyelids in a languor hesitating. 
 From their souls the raging madness passes away in quietude. 
 i6o 
 
But, when the golden-visaged sun with bright eyes illu- 
 minated 
 
 Cloudless ether and the solid earth and ocean tumultuous, 
 And with sounding hoofs of morning trampled night's 
 shadows away. 
 
 Then did Sleep with flying footsteps remove from Attis 
 awakening 
 
 And divine Pasithea took him back to her bosom tremulous. 
 Then awakening out of quiet suddenly without delirium 
 All at once his deed returning comes again to his memory, 
 And himself he sees, and where, and without what now 
 abidingly. 
 
 And with mind at ebb and flow he turns him seaward and, 
 surveying it. 
 
 All the mighty vast of ocean, through eyes weeping inces- 
 santly. 
 
 He his fatherland addresses with sad cryings dejectedly : 
 " Fatherland, O my mother ! fatherland the begetter of me, 
 Have I, wretch above all wretched, cast thee off as a 
 runagate 
 
 Slave his master, and on Ida sought these groves, this icy 
 dwelling-place 
 
 Of the snow and savage region of the wild beasts' 
 sovereignty ? 
 
 Where, O where and in what region shall my thoughts 
 imagine thee, fatherland ? 
 
 Still the light within my eyelids longs for thee, turning 
 thitherward. 
 
 When my mind a little season scatters these pangs 
 ravaging me. 
 
 Am I then condemned for ever to these distant woods, 
 abandoning 
 
 l6l L 
 
Fatherland and friends and chattels and the forefathers 
 of me, 
 
 These abandoning, forum, race-course, wrestling-place, and 
 gymnasium ? 
 
 Miserable, ah miserable soul lamenting herself perpetually ! 
 For what form of bodily feature is there that I had it not ? 
 I a woman ! I adolescent, I a stripling, I all but a man, 
 I the seemliest at the wrestling, at the gymnasium I the 
 flower of them ? 
 
 Once my doors were thronged, my thresholds warm with 
 footprints uncountable. 
 
 Once my dwelling was with flowery wreaths and tokens 
 engarlanded. 
 
 When I used to leave my chamber, and the rising sun arose 
 with me. 
 
 I a priestess of the gods now, and a waiting-woman of 
 Cybele ? 
 
 I a Maenad, I this remnant left of a man emasculate ? 
 I inhabit the cold green places, Ida's summit snow- 
 garmented ? 
 
 I beneath the heights of Phrygian mountains scatter my 
 life away. 
 
 Where the woodland-haunting hind is and the wild-boar 
 wood-wandering ? 
 
 Now, now the deed I sorrow for ; now, now I repent of it." 
 Scarcely from the rosy lips the sound had gone and, flitting 
 rapidly 
 
 To both the ears of the gods the new rumour communicated, 
 When the lions from the traces of her chariot-yoke unhar- 
 nessing 
 
 Cybele thus spake, and stung with words the left flock- 
 terrifier : 
 162 
 
" Go," she cries, " and with the fury of thy going, my 
 fierce minister. 
 
 Let a madness harry, a madness drive him to my wood- 
 fastnesses 
 
 Who desires to be delivered from my intolerable slavery. 
 Go thou, beat thy flanks with thy tail, and endure thy own 
 blows lashing thee, 
 
 Roar, roar till all the region round resounds with thy 
 bellowing, 
 
 Toss they brawny neck and toss abroad they fierce mane 
 rutilant." 
 
 Thus spake the pitiless goddess, with her hands the yoke 
 untrammelling. 
 
 Whereat, loosed, the beast to swiftness in his fury lashing 
 himself. 
 
 Rushes, roars, and breaks the thickets all in pieces with his 
 galloping. 
 
 Then he, coming to the sea-wet margin where the foam 
 whitens it. 
 
 Seeing there the tender Attis, where the flood curdles 
 luminous. 
 
 Rushes on him : he in terror flies, the savage woods envelop 
 him ; 
 
 Who his whole life long inhabits them, the goddess's 
 waiting-woman. 
 
 Goddess, mighty goddess, Cybele, lady goddess ot Din- 
 dymus. 
 
 Keep, mistress, all thy fury far, far from my dwelling-place, 
 Others urge thou headlong, others with thy madness 
 intoxicate. 
 
 163 
 
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