Cornell University Library 
 PR 5527.13 1899 
 
 Images of good and evil 
 
 3 1924 013 557 115 
 
The original of tliis 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/cu31 92401 35571 1 5 
 
IMAGES OF GOOD 
 AND EVIL 
 
IMAGES OF 
 GOOD AND EVIL 
 
 BY 
 
 ARTHUR SYMONS 
 
 LONDON 
 
 WILLIAM HEINEMANN 
 
 1899 
 
 T 
 
|\.\«t.iV5o\ 
 
 All rights^ including translation, reserved 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 The Dance of the Seven Sins : p. i. 
 The Lover of the Queen of Sheba : p. 30. 
 The Dance of the Daughters of Herodias : p. 42. 
 The Chimaera : p. 49. 
 The Old Women : p. 57. 
 The Unloved : p. 60. 
 The Beggars : p. 63. 
 The Two Blind Men : p. 66. 
 Divisions on a Ground : p. 68. 
 From Stdphane Mallarm6 : 
 i. H^rodiade : p. 76. 
 
 ii. Sigh : p. 80. 
 
 iii. Sea-Wind : 81. 
 Souls in the Balance : 
 
 i. To Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows : p. 83. 
 
 ii. Stella Maligna : p. 87. 
 
 iii. The Pale Woman : p. 90. 
 v 
 
iv. Mater Lilium : p. 91. 
 
 V. The Dogs : p. 93. 
 
 vi. Sponsa Dei : p. 96. 
 vii. Rosa Flammea : p. 99, 
 viii. Laus Virginitatis : p. 102. 
 
 ix. The Rapture : p. 105. 
 
 X. To a Gitana Dancing : p. 107. 
 From the "Antigone" of Sophocles : p. no. 
 On an Air of Rameau : p. 1 13. 
 Airs for the Lute : p. 114. 
 Modern Beauty: p. 118. 
 From San Juan de la Cruz : 
 
 i. The Obscure Night of the Soul : p. I20. 
 
 ii. O Flame of Living Love : p. 123. 
 From Santa Teresa : Four Songs : p. 125. 
 Laus Mortis : p. 130. 
 To Night: p. 133. 
 Montserrat : p. 134. 
 At Tarragona : p, 135. 
 At Toledo : p. 137. 
 Old Age : p. 139. 
 Opals: p. 140. 
 Rubies : p. 141. 
 Degrees of Love : p. 142. 
 
 VI 
 
The Price : p. 143. 
 An Ending : p. 144. 
 In Ireland : 
 
 i. On Inishmaan : p. 145. 
 ii. By the Pool at the Third Rosses : p. 146. 
 iii. By Lough-na-Gar (Rain) : p. 148. 
 iv. By Lough-na-Gar (Green Light) : p. 149. 
 
 V. In the Wood of Finvara : p. 150. 
 Spain : p. 151. 
 Venetian Night: p. 153. 
 Dreams in Rome : p. 155. 
 Palm Sunday (Naples) : p. 156. 
 The Coming of Spring (Madrid) : p, 157. 
 September Idyl (Cham6ane) : p. 159. 
 Haschisch : p. 161. 
 Parsifal : p. 162. 
 
 From "La Vida es Sueno" of Calderon : p. 163. 
 The Last Memory : p, 165. 
 Toys : p. 167. 
 Perfect Grief: p. 168. 
 The Dream : p. 169. 
 Weariness : p. 1 70. 
 Wind on the Sea : p* 172. 
 A Tune: p. 173. 
 
The One Face: p. 174. 
 The Last Pity : p. 176. 
 Wanderer's Song : p. 178. 
 Epilogue : p. 180. 
 
 vui 
 
THE DANCE OF THE SEVEN SINS 
 
 The Body 
 y^ALL in the dancers. 
 
 The Soul 
 
 All is vain. 
 We live, and living is the pain 
 We die of wrhile we live. The earth 
 Was made in some celestial mirth, 
 Not for our pleasure. I, who seem 
 To have some memory of a dream, 
 I know not when, I know not where, 
 Dream not, remember, and despair. 
 
 The Body 
 
 Dream always, and remember not. 
 I, if I dreamed, have yet forgot 
 Even the sleep. This hour I hold, 
 A sand-glass dropping sands of gold. 
 Call in the dancers, for they give 
 Bonds to the moment fugitive, 
 Wings to the moment slow to pass ; 
 I shake the hours in the hour-glass. 
 
Bid the hours dance with you to-night, 
 My dancers, spirits of delight ! 
 
 Lust 
 
 I give to man, who is the dust, 
 
 Life, and his breath : he calls me Lust. 
 
 I am Love's elder ; Love was born 
 
 To be the world's delight and scorn. 
 
 That man might veil, his sight being dim. 
 
 My own infinity in him. 
 
 Yet without me, that swiftly move 
 
 In all things, the indwelling love 
 
 Were as a song without a voice j 
 
 By me the utmost heavens rejoice 
 
 At the achievement, in pure fire. 
 
 Of their own uttermost desire. 
 
 I am in man that flame of flames 
 
 He names by God's most sacred names. 
 
 Being creation, and from thence 
 
 A sleepless, vast omnipotence, 
 
 And an eternal fatherhood. 
 
 Without me nothing is seen good. 
 
 Nothing seen great, nor is there gained 
 
 The hope of aught to be attained, 
 
Nor that fine, fiery speed of thought 
 By which the ends of the world are brought 
 Together in a wish. I give 
 More than life holds to all who live, 
 Being that desire which grants men strength 
 To endure with joy the utmost length 
 Of an intolerable way. 
 Night follows night, day follows day, 
 And, if I lead, hope flies with me 
 Across the white hills of the sea, 
 Across the wavering green lands. 
 I hold within my subtle hands 
 The promise of all worlds ; there come 
 To conquest and to martyrdom 
 At my indifferent, swift feet 
 All lovers, who astonished meet : 
 The pale saint, famishing for God, 
 The pallid virgin who has trod 
 The way not of virginity 
 Unto some alien ecstasy ; 
 A shepherd with his shepherdess ; 
 Kings, who have loved the purple less 
 Than some grey rags about the hem 
 Of a beggar-maid that passed by them j 
 3 
 
"Tortured and torturer, the smile 
 ' Still gasping in their lips the while 
 Their fingers quiver ; and the proud 
 Lover whom love's hard bond allowed 
 Not even the release of speech. 
 I, to all these, am all in each, 
 Though most deny me, few receive 
 The half of all I have to give. 
 -Aspire unto my Calvary ; 
 Few are there that have come thereby. 
 These are my saints, my own, my sons, 
 ■Chosen among my chosen ones 
 To be my priests serving the fire 
 Which on mine altars is desire 
 Of the impossible, the breath 
 Of a seven times renascent deuth 
 Of those delights ineiFable, 
 Which, beyond utmost heaven, are hell. 
 "Come near : these things are mysteries : 
 Come near, who with the spirit's eyes 
 Dare to behold, and can refine 
 ^our senses to that crystalline 
 Ardour of the pure fire of love. 
 Where, beyond hell enjoyed, above 
 4 
 
Heaven's ample, utmost lack forgiven, 
 
 Heaven over heaven, there is yet heaven.. 
 
 It was the lust of God, fulfilled 
 
 With joys enjoyed, that bade him build 
 
 The wanton palace of the earth. 
 
 And of that memorable mirth 
 
 Which shook the stars upon that day 
 
 Some broken echoes drift our way 
 
 In any laughter of the grape. 
 
 How can Infinity escape 
 
 The horror of infinity, 
 
 If not by lust that there shall be 
 
 Some new, untried, most finite thing 
 
 Enjoyed without remembering 
 
 That all things else, being enjoyed. 
 
 Have perfectly filled full that void 
 
 Which is infinity possessed ? 
 
 So, for those seven days, God had rest,„ 
 
 In that seven times delightful toil. 
 
 Creation, from the serpent's coil 
 
 Of his own wisdom binding him. 
 
 Have I not been God's seraphim ? 
 
Sloth 
 These garlands tire me : I am Sloth. 
 See, in my hair these roses, both 
 The bracelets heavy on my wrists, 
 The languor of these amethysts 
 Chained to my ears with chains of gold, 
 The Tyrian webs whose downy fold 
 Droops on my bosom like dull sleep. 
 Let me but slumber : for I keep 
 The keys of that unwavering realm 
 Whose gates not Time shall overwhelm, 
 Whose shadowy temples no God may. 
 Though younger born, behold decay. 
 Come near, O sons of men, come near. 
 Come without hope, come without fear, 
 I am that happiness you dread ; 
 Within the curtains of my bed 
 A twilight moves with happy sighs. 
 And dreams shall cover your closed eyes 
 Softer than darkness ; plumy wings 
 Swifter than thoughts of hapless things. 
 And fragrant with the breath of peace. 
 Come, let these subtle hands release 
 Your foreheads tightened with the cords 
 e 
 
Of wrinkled wisdom ; O grey lords 
 Of Time's inherited disgrace, 
 Come, make this heart your dwelling-place. 
 My lips are warm, because I drowse 
 All day within a pleasant house ; 
 Wandering odours come and go, 
 They are the souls of flowers that grow 
 Too faint with ecstasy to live ; 
 And sounds more frail and fugitive 
 Than rose-leaf dropping rainy tears 
 On rose-leaf, fill with delicate fears 
 The silence listening round my feet. 
 To me this moment is more sweet 
 Than any moment I have tired 
 My soul with having once desired, 
 Or any moment yet to be. 
 Delight being infinity. 
 I have no will to be more wise, 
 To be more comely in men's eyes. 
 To be more loved of one who may 
 Love more than he who loves to-day. 
 Or to love more than now I love. 
 I cross my folded arms above 
 A heart that in remembering 
 7 
 
Remembers no unquiet thing ; 
 
 A heart fulfilled with the intense 
 
 Acceptance of that indolence 
 
 Which God the seventh day understood, 
 
 Proclainijng all things very good. 
 
 Love me, and I am satisfied 
 
 To be the soul's delighted bride. 
 
 To all love's ardours virginal. 
 
 Love me, or love me not at all. 
 
 And I am well content at heart 
 
 To sleep in some soft place apart, 
 
 Lonely as in a garden-close 
 
 Slumbers the solitary rose. 
 
 I am the wine within the cup. 
 
 Body and soul have I drained up, 
 
 Unbounded, unconsumed, and void. 
 
 Myself within myself enjoyed. 
 
 Being myself that loneliness 
 
 Which is the pain of beauty, less 
 
 Than beauty's vast, presumptuous mirth 
 
 Shaken like a flag above the earth. 
 
Avarice 
 I hoard the moments love lets slip, 
 The dregs that any feaster's lip 
 Rejects within the cup of life, 
 The shadows of the fleeting strife 
 Of colours, and the echoing 
 Of every half-unuttered thing ; 
 The faint dust shaken from the feet 
 Of Joy's forerunners in the street, 
 The knowledge dropt, some heedless day, 
 By Wisdom passing on her way. 
 The vows that lovers in a kiss 
 Have perjured : I am Avarice. 
 Always I walk with downcast eyes. 
 Lest, looking at the empty skies. 
 Wherein no treasure may be found, 
 I pass some poor thing on the ground. 
 My robes are ample, fold on fold. 
 That I may gather in, and hold, 
 And let not one escape from me, 
 All treasures of earth's treasury. 
 Also I walk with lingering pace. 
 Since, when mine eyes behold the grace 
 And glory whereof earth is full, 
 9 
 
And how the world is beautiful, 
 Infinitely, and everywhere, 
 Then my desire is as the air 
 £mbracing all things that exist. 
 All kisses that all lips have kissed 
 JVly lips are covetous that none 
 Escape them ; fondly, one by one, 
 My heart remembers every word 
 Of love that ever lover heard. 
 And hearkening I shall hoard away 
 All words that lovers shall yet say, 
 5aying to myself: All these are mine. 
 -Gold too I love : two things divine 
 Among all delicate things I hold, 
 •Gold even as love, love even as gold. 
 Neither of them the fairer thing. 
 JBut always, in my bargaining, 
 I would fain buy, and never sell. 
 It irks me, howsoever well 
 I bargain, to make bargain of 
 A pale and timid word of love 
 JFor any jewel of pure gold j 
 The little timid word may hold 
 j[Who knows ? ) in its infinity 
 
The small dust that may haply be 
 
 Dust of imperishable earth. 
 
 I think, within the whole world's girth, 
 
 There is no beauty I can pass, 
 
 For anything that ever was 
 
 May yet be mine : but for that thought 
 
 All beauty were to me as nought. 
 
 I love to follow, stride for stride, 
 
 The footsteps of my sister Pride, 
 
 For Pride with both hands flings away 
 
 Unhandled treasures. On her way 
 
 I follow Anger also : she 
 
 With one hand scatters heedlessly 
 
 The gifts that all her lovers give, 
 
 But spoilt and broken. I shall live 
 
 To old age, for my both hands cling 
 
 To Life for all her hurrying. 
 
 Only one thing on earth I dread. 
 
 The grave ; for in that narrow bed 
 
 But little treasure-room afford 
 
 The gaps 'twixt board and coffin-board. 
 
 I shall go down into that pit 
 
 Despoiled, for at the door of it, 
 
 Life, standing up against the sun. 
 
Shall take my treasures one by one, 
 
 Leaving me only, for my part, 
 
 A little love within my heart, 
 
 A little wisdom in my brain : 
 
 The worms of these shall have their gain ; 
 
 When these have had their gain of me 
 
 Where then shall all my treasures be ? 
 
 Gluttony 
 
 My robes were coloured in the lees 
 
 Of those first Roman vintages 
 
 That crushed the whole world's glory up 
 
 Into one Imperial cup, 
 
 The later heavens with dew empearled. 
 
 I drink the glory of the world, 
 
 As an ox drains a small pool dry : 
 
 So passes the world's glory by. 
 
 And as an ox makes haste to eat 
 
 The meadow-grass beneath his feet, 
 
 I eat the glory that may pass 
 
 With the world's life and death of grass. 
 
 All flesh is grass : shall I assuage 
 
 My hunger with the pasturage 
 
 Of all earth's valleys, or my thirst 
 
With every rock-born stream that burst 
 Each cloud-barred, starry mountain-gate ? 
 Surely the valleys shall not sate 
 My hunger, nor the rainy hills 
 The thirst that like the salt sea fills 
 My longing to its hollow shore. 
 I thirst immortally for more 
 Than mortal fruits ; if I could take 
 The world as a ripe fruit, and slake 
 All thirsts at once, have I not dreamed 
 Of other, unknown fruits that seemed 
 More delicate than this gross fruit 
 Whereof the graveyards know the root ? 
 O fruit of dreams, my teeth have met, 
 Only in dreams, in your red, wet, 
 Martyred, and ever bleeding heart ! 
 When shall I find you, and what part 
 Of your bewildering ecstasy 
 Possess ? and what, possessing me, 
 Shall wholly from my sight remove 
 The intolerable fruit of love ? 
 This is the fruit that God, in wrath. 
 Planted upon a garden-path 
 Where man and woman walked in peace ; 
 13 
 
And of this fruit the sad increase 
 Shall end not till the whole world end ; 
 For with the apple did God send 
 The hot desire of it, and then 
 The cold rejection, and again 
 Search, and entreaty, and despair ; 
 This apple hovers in the air 
 Before the lips oi all that live ; 
 I have desired it, and would give 
 Desire of every earthly wine 
 That has, in any hour, been mine. 
 For this that hAs and has not been. 
 Often the apple will be green. 
 Often it will be yellowing 
 Unto a late, sad, rotten thing ; 
 And always, as it was before, 
 It will be bitter at the core. 
 And bitter in the skin. Yet, taste 
 This fruit of Eden in the waste 
 Of a spoilt world that but for it 
 Would have been wholly exquisite. 
 O priceless and forbidden joy, 
 That is the loved and loathed alloy 
 In every cup of earth can those 
 14 
 
Enchanted fruits of dream compose 
 A subtler flavour even in dreams ? 
 Grapes of an ecstasy virhich seems 
 The ecstasy that souls may have 
 In some wild heaven beyond the grave» 
 Is yours a subtler wine than this 
 Of earth's poor vineyard, wine that is 
 So sweet to taste, so good to give 
 The intoxicating lust to live. 
 And, its so brief desire being had. 
 Leaves the delighted flesh so sad ? 
 
 Anger 
 
 My robes are red with blood ; my name 
 Is Anger. The delicious flame 
 Which burns within me shall not die 
 Till the last lover has put by 
 The last kiss ; for it is the fire 
 Of love, which with extreme desire 
 Burns out the heart that love has lit 
 With the extreme desire of it. 
 I love so ardently, I know 
 Not love from hate, not joy from woe. 
 I, when I love, am wroth awhile 
 15 
 
With love's delight, if that can smile, 
 With love's desire, that can abate, 
 With this most pure and passionate 
 Moment of moments, if that last 
 Less than to measure all the past 
 And all the future. I am sad 
 Only for this, that I have had 
 No other hatred so intense 
 In justice and magnificence 
 As that self-hatred vi^hich I press 
 Against my own unvt^orthiness. 
 Could I so dear a hatred prove. 
 That rapture would out-rapture love. 
 I walk on many a steep path. 
 Yet without weariness ; my wrath, 
 That strives against all mortal strife, 
 Is as a well-spring of new life. 
 I sharpen in the lover's heart 
 Desire, and when the pointed dart 
 Has flown, and quivers, turn afresh 
 The barb in the delighted flesh : 
 The flesh cries out and thanks me. I 
 In hearts am also jealousy. 
 Which is love's anger against love 
 i6 
 
For love's sake. It is I who move 
 The hearts of men that they refuse 
 Sought gifts, and women, that they choose 
 What they desire not. Love becomes, 
 Without me, as a rich man's crumbs 
 Unto a poor man ; Love with me 
 Is the rich man's satiety 
 Of his spread feast. I am in these 
 Mother of madness, the disease 
 That proud men die of ; and in those 
 Mother of wisdom. There arose 
 Many, by me, that have gone far. 
 And, for a perilous pilgrim star. 
 Have left their hamlets in the vale, 
 And have found kingdoms. Mine the tale 
 Of those who, having overturned 
 Kingdoms, and unto ruins burned 
 Strong cities, have sat down thereon. 
 Forgetting to lay stone on stone 
 That they might build, and wall about, 
 Mightier cities. I cry out, 
 In glory, on the topmost towers 
 Of the world, exulting that the hours 
 Of the world are numbered ; and my voice 
 17 B 
 
Is louder than the confluent noise 
 
 Of the four winds that hurry forth 
 
 From South and East and West and North. 
 
 Come hither, all that are the slaves 
 
 Of any bondage : of the graves 
 
 Wherein the dead bury their dead, 
 
 Or of youth's bubbling fountain-head ; 
 
 Come hither, bondslaves of content, 
 
 You, bondslaves of that indolent 
 
 Languor of love too satisfied ; 
 
 Drink of the spirit of my pride, 
 
 And I will free you of your chains, 
 
 Yea, I will light within your ,veins 
 
 An inextinguishable fire 
 
 Which shall consume even that desire 
 
 Of bondage. Who shall set me free. 
 
 Lastly, of mine own slavery .? 
 
 Pride 
 
 I wear the purple : I am Pride. 
 By me Love sits at God's right side. 
 Equal with God ; by me Love comes 
 Unto the many martyrdoms 
 Of fierce and unforgiven desire. 
 i8 
 
My spirit in Satan was that fire 
 Which lit the flaming brand he hurled 
 Into the darkness of the world, 
 Where men groped dimly after God j 
 By me the beggar in the road, 
 Loving and being loved again. 
 Laughs in his rags against the rain. 
 Crying : Is it a little thing 
 To be the equal of a king ; 
 Can I have more than all I want ? 
 I teach the little reed to vaunt 
 Its rippling, twilit, secret voice. 
 The wind's breath and the water's noise^ 
 Against the oak's great voice that forms 
 The eternal battle-cry of storms. 
 I teach the oak, being great and old, 
 To scorn, and as a moth's flight hold. 
 The wandering kingdoms of the clouds. 
 I hide from kings' eyes their own shroudsy 
 Whispering : Though the beggar die. 
 Kings have their immortality ! 
 I teach the dreamer to despise 
 Thrones for their brief mortalities. 
 I am that voice which is the faint, 
 19 
 
Pirst, far-ofF sin within the saint, 
 When of his humbleness he first 
 Takes thought ; and I become that thirst 
 Which makes him drunken with his own 
 Humbleness, and so casts him down 
 _From the last painful stair that waits 
 His triumphing feet at heaven's gates. 
 1 am the only tempter heard 
 By Chastity ; I speak the word 
 Which in her confident heart she hears, 
 A whisper in her guarded ears : 
 For others let temptation be 
 Temptation, not for Chastity ! 
 By me all lovers make their boast, 
 Contemning the eternal host 
 Of glories that have filled the earth 
 Since the first conqueror had birth, 
 And that eternity of peace 
 W^hich the assembled heavens release 
 To angels that have conquered it. 
 Beside the one brief infinite 
 Moment of earth and heaven's eclipse 
 When in that silence they join lips, 
 Closing their eyes. I too have sought, 
 
 20 
 
In other's eyes, some grace unthought. 
 
 Only to see, as in a glass. 
 
 Mine own unchanging image pass ; 
 
 I have seen no one yet more fair, 
 
 Greater or subtler anywhere, 
 
 Than I am. When I love, being Pride^ 
 
 I raise my lover to my side. 
 
 And I have never loved in vain. 
 
 Who loves me never loves again. 
 
 Nor have I, being Pride, forgot 
 
 A lover. Praise delights me not. 
 
 Nor mine own mirror : I am I. 
 
 To know me is to satisfy 
 
 Knowledge ; to love me is to know 
 
 Wisdom. Far ofF, dreams come and go ^ 
 
 But I, that seek upon the earth 
 
 Nothing that had not mortal birth, 
 
 That bow not, on the ways of sin. 
 
 To aught I have not found within. 
 
 Dream never : we must kneel to dreams_ 
 
 These are, if that be true which seems 
 
 To have been written on their wings. 
 
 The messengers of foreign kings. 
 
Lying 
 I speak all tongues ; also I speak 
 The learning all the ages seek, 
 Some capture, and all leave behind ; 
 But I have cast out of my mind 
 Wisdom, and out of my heart love. 
 J lust not, nor sloth-heavy move, 
 Not covetous, no wine-bibber. 
 Nor is my tongue hasty to stir. 
 Nor mine eyes proud ; but I am wise 
 As the snake's tongue, the woman's eyes. 
 -All men believe me ; me alone 
 All men believe ; to each his own 
 Desire I speak, in his own way. 
 To him who loves but love, I say : 
 I love you ; to the vain : In truth, 
 I find you beautiful, O youth; 
 And to the timid : You are strong. 
 Behold these jewels, how the long 
 Slow silken raiment folds and drifts : 
 'These gems, this raiment, are the gifts 
 Of all my lovers and my friends. 
 When at God's feet the sinner bends, 
 .laying, I repent ; 1 am his thought, 
 
His speech, although he knows it not. 
 And when at the beloved's feet 
 The lover sighs : I love you, sweet, 
 I never loved, not ever may. 
 Love any one but you ; I say. 
 Word before word, each word for both. 
 When Lust says : I am life ; when Sloth : 
 I am content ; when Avarice : 
 I seek where any beauty is ; 
 When Gluttony : My mortal thirst 
 Upon immortal fruit was nursed ; 
 When Anger : I refine like fire ; 
 When Pride : No praise do I desire ; 
 'Tis I who speak in each, 'tis I 
 Through whom these lordly voices lie, 
 Since (lest man know me and condemn) 
 I speak my will to him through them. 
 Who is there that shall say for me 
 That all things are but vanity ? 
 
 The Body 
 I am the bondslave of these slaves. 
 
 23 
 
The Sins 
 
 O tyrant of the many graves, 
 It is to you that we are bound ! 
 For you, for you, all we have found 
 New service, bondage ever new ; 
 We have brought all our gifts to you. 
 We have made pleasure of our pains, 
 And you have laid these many chains 
 Upon our hands, our feet, our souls. 
 But for this bondage that controls 
 Our will with that omnipotence 
 Which not our spirits, though intense 
 In their own ardour, can revoke. 
 We had been free ; and as sweet smoke 
 Had not our liberal glories gone 
 Up to the borders of God's throne. 
 Pure as the savour of his breath. 
 But for you. Body of our death ? 
 
 The Soul 
 Why do you crucify me afresh ? 
 
 24 
 
The Sins 
 O tyrant, sorer than the flesh, 
 Whose tyranny outlives the morn 
 Of resurrection, we have borne 
 From you a heavier slavery, 
 From you, by whom we might be free ! 
 You gave us spiritual eyes 
 That we might sin, and oe more wise 
 In sinning ; thought, that we might find 
 A subtler craft within the mind ; 
 Wings, that we might be strong to bear 
 Our burdens through the accomplice air, 
 Not tiring of them ; sense of good. 
 That virtue, being understood. 
 Might be our yoke-fellow ; the sight 
 Of beauty, that at last we might, 
 For you, O Soul, bring both within 
 Your domination, to be sin ! 
 
 The Body 
 Dancers, I tire of you. I tire 
 Of all desire save one desire : 
 That I were free of you. My brows 
 Are weary of this golden house, 
 25 
 
My brain is weary of your feet, 
 
 That loiter where they once were fleet, 
 
 Yet cease not. Cease ! for I behold 
 
 No beauty, as I did of old, 
 
 In any of your posturing : 
 
 You are as some forgotten thing. 
 
 And yet I saw you long ago 
 
 As those brave joys that come and go 
 
 In youth's rebellion of delight 
 
 Against old custom ; in my sight 
 
 You were the spirits made perfect of 
 
 Virtues that sinned from love of love ; 
 
 Immortal was each countenance, 
 
 Your dance was as the starry dance 
 
 Of the seven planets. Now I see 
 
 A wheel turn on an axle-tree, 
 
 A beggar's cloak that the wind shook ; 
 
 Your painted faces are a book 
 
 Scrawled by the fingers of a child ; 
 
 How is it I was so beguiled. 
 
 What was it that I loved you for, 
 
 false ones, whom I now abhor 
 Even as I did adore you once ? 
 
 1 would I could put back the sun's 
 
 26 
 
Dark hand upon the dial ! Alas, 
 
 It is too late, and I must pass 
 
 The interval, until all ends, 
 
 With you, whom I have chosen for friends. 
 
 Chosen for my friends I knovf not how. 
 
 Would that the dance were over now ! 
 
 The Soul 
 
 Dancers, I tire of you, I tire 
 Of all desire save one desire : 
 That I were free of you. Mine eyes 
 Are heavy with the mockeries 
 Of your eternal vanity ; 
 Your motions know not melody, 
 As your souls know not. You advance 
 As waves do, and your tangled dance 
 Scatters as leaves blown down the wind. 
 I find no grace in you, I find 
 Vanity, your illusions vain ; 
 And though I have thus long been fain 
 To endure you for the Body's sake. 
 And seeking from myself to make 
 Some moment's folly of escape, 
 Yet have I seen each soft-veiled shape 
 27 
 
In its ungirded nakedness, 
 
 Each painted face a white distress 
 
 Under the smile ; astray, the beat 
 
 Of hurrying and unanswering feet. 
 
 And that you know not why you go 
 
 Your wandering ways : but who shall know 
 
 Save one that silent in the wings 
 
 Stands, and beholds your wanderings. 
 
 Who set the measure that you mar ? 
 
 Have I not seen you as you are 
 
 Always, and have I once admired 
 
 Your beauty ? I am very tired, 
 
 Dancers, I am more tired than you. 
 
 When shall the dance be all danced through ?' 
 
 I see the lights grow dimmer ; one 
 
 By one the lights go out ; the sun 
 
 Will meet the darkness on its way. 
 
 Is it near morning ? 
 
 The Stage-Manager 
 It is day. 
 The Soul 
 Would it were that last day of days \ 
 
 28 
 
The Stage-Mamager 
 
 It is. Each morning that decays 
 To midnight ends the world a^well, 
 For the world's day, as that farewell 
 When, at the ultimate judgment-stroke, 
 Heaven too shall vanish in pale smoke. 
 
 39 
 
THE LOVER OF THE QUEEN OF 
 SHEBA To Saronni 
 
 A Youth of Sheba The Queen of Sheba 
 The Herald King Solomon 
 
 The Youth 
 
 I LIVE before the Moon of Queens, 
 I live and die before her sweet, 
 White, secret, wise, indiiFerent feet ; 
 And love, that is my life-blood, means 
 No more to her than summer heat 
 Or sudden sweetness of the flowers. 
 O colder than the icy moon, 
 That hides and dreams all day, to swoon 
 At night among the starry hours 
 When the pale night is at its noon ! 
 She, the one whiteness of the earth. 
 For whom the ardent valley grows 
 A flame, an odour, and the rose. 
 Finds in the world but wisdom worth 
 The trouble of the soul's repose. 
 Kings from the West, Kings from the East, 
 Have poured out gold, incense, and myrrh 
 30 
 
In tribute at the feet of her, 
 
 To whom the word of sage or priest 
 
 Is more than these, and lovelier 
 
 Than battles reddening the plain, 
 
 Or cities washed with smoking waves. 
 
 Or far-ofF continents of slaves 
 
 Bound captive to her anklet chain. 
 
 Or conquest of uncounted graves. 
 
 Kings from the East, Kings from the West, 
 
 Have come and gone, and no man yet 
 
 Has found the frozen amulet 
 
 That seals her heart within her breast. 
 
 The Herald 
 
 Room for the Queen of Sheba, let 
 The hearts and knees of all men bow ! 
 
 The Queen of Sheba 
 
 gazer of the stars, draw near, 
 
 1 have a tiding for thine ear, 
 
 Now all things are accomplished, now 
 The master of the world is here : 
 Mine eyes have looked on Solomon. 
 
The Youth 
 May the Queen prosper in all things ! 
 
 The Queen of Sheba 
 
 The wisdom of the King of Kings 
 
 Is as his God's pavilion, 
 
 Pure gold, and veiled by seraph's wings. 
 
 Else were it brighter than white light : 
 
 As in a tender sea I bathe 
 
 In brightness, and its waves enswathe 
 
 My inmost spirit with delight. 
 
 The Youth 
 Be all things even as the Queen saith ! 
 
 The Queen of Sheba 
 
 I have unburdened all my soul. 
 And he has filled my soul with his ; 
 There is none wiser than he is. 
 His soul has opened to the whole 
 World's wisdom, as to happiness. 
 And wisdom blossoms like a flower 
 That need but blossom to be fair ; 
 And as the crown upon his hair 
 32 
 
His pure magnificence of power 
 Garlands his going everywhere. 
 
 The Youth 
 
 The Queen is wiser than all men ; 
 
 Why should the Queen of Queens bow down 
 
 To any wisdom, when the crown 
 
 Of wisdom is her own, and when 
 
 The soul of wisdom is her own ? 
 
 The Queen of Sheba 
 
 I am a child before this man, 
 
 I have but played with toys, and fought 
 
 With shadows, and my little thought 
 
 Shrivels before him to a span. 
 
 And all I am is less than nought. 
 
 The Youth 
 
 Madam, the Kings of all the earth 
 Have been accounted in your eyes 
 Even as a little dust of spice, 
 A little fragrant moment's worth j 
 Yet these, although they were not wise, 
 Madam, these loved you with a love 
 
 33 c 
 
That was a shield and buckler flung 
 About your life, a banner hung 
 Upon the topmost towers thereof ; 
 And these were mighty, and these young. 
 And all had died for you, and all 
 Had lived for you, and all had been, 
 Being Kings, the servants of the Queen. 
 Shall Solomon attend your call, 
 Shall he, a slave with slaves, be seen ? 
 
 The Queen of Sheba 
 
 O youth that speakest these brave words, 
 Hast thou loved any? 
 
 The Youth 
 
 Madam, yea. 
 
 The Queen of Sheba 
 
 And did thy will choose out thy way, 
 And didst thou love for flocks and herds. 
 And didst thou love who loved thee, say ? 
 
 The Youth 
 
 Madam, I loved but for love's sake. 
 34 
 
The Queen of Sheba 
 Happily ? 
 
 The Youth 
 Happily ; in vain. 
 
 The Queen of Sheba 
 Wouldst thou be free of love again ? 
 
 The Youth 
 
 O Queen, how^ gladly would I take 
 Into my heart a tenfold pain ! 
 
 The Queen of Sheba 
 Thou lovest well. I would love well. 
 
 The Herald 
 
 Room for the King of Israel, bow 
 Your hearts and knees before him now ; 
 Room for the King of Israel ! 
 
 The Queen of Sheba 
 
 King of the Kings of earth, hail thou ! 
 35 
 
King Solomon 
 O Queen, in Sheba hast thou found 
 
 Among the groves of spice and myrrh 
 "The honeyed wisdom lovelier 
 
 Upon thy moving lips than sound 
 Of psaltery or dulcimer ? 
 
 The Queen of Sheba 
 •O King, I have given up my youth 
 To wisdom, I have sought to find 
 The secret influences that bind 
 iStar unto star, the grains of truth 
 'Shredded in sand beneath the wind. 
 The secret dropping in the rain. 
 The secret hushed among the reeds 
 And huddled in the heart of weeds ; 
 _And I have called across the plain 
 "Wise men whose words are more than deeds, 
 And I have listened to their speech, 
 JVnd talked with those Arabians 
 "Whose memory is more than man's. 
 And read with them the books that teach 
 The lore of the Egyptians. 
 ^nd I have given up for this 
 36 
 
The joy of love, and all the spring. 
 And all the garden blossoming 
 With scents of simple happiness, 
 And every sweet unthoughtful thing- 
 I have given up the joys of life 
 That I might find its secret j lo, 
 I have attained not even to know 
 Why, when thou comest near, the strife- 
 That comes and goes and will not go 
 Out of my heart is strangely stilled. 
 O King, my wisdom unto thine 
 Is as a shadow, and no more mine ; 
 Thou in whom wisdom is fulfilled. 
 Canst thou the word of life divine l 
 
 KiNG Solomon 
 
 O Queen, I also have inquired. 
 And sought out wisdom patiently,. 
 And if in all the world there be 
 More wisdom yet to be desired. 
 Wisdom is weariness to me. 
 For wisdom, being attained, but sh©wss^ 
 That all things are but shadows cast 
 On running water, swiftly past, 
 37 
 
And as the shadow of the rose 
 That withers in the mirror glassed. 
 What shall it profit me to have been 
 Yesterday happy, if to-day 
 I am sad, and where is yesterday ? 
 What shall it profit me, O Queen, 
 When I am dead, and laid away 
 Under the earth, to have been wise, 
 To have lived long and ruled with might, 
 When all the ancient weight of night 
 Is as a burden on mine eyes. 
 And all the world is full of light ? 
 There is one secret unto all : 
 Though life be fair or life forlorn, 
 Though men bow down to. thee or scorn, 
 Howe'er fate fill the interval, 
 'Tis better not to have been born. 
 
 The Oueen of Sheba 
 
 O King, how then may we that live. 
 Best use the interval that waits 
 Between the closed and open gates ? 
 How may we best, O King, forgive 
 Jor this sad gift the unfriendly fates ? 
 38 
 
King Solomon 
 Queen, we may love. 
 
 The Queen of Sheba 
 
 As life, illusion ? 
 
 Yet is not love. 
 
 King Solomon 
 
 Even so deep. 
 That this enchants into its sleep 
 Even them that know the secret of 
 The enchanted slumber that they keep. 
 Love only of illusions brings 
 The present to the present hour j 
 Wisdom and wealth and state and power 
 Promise the future, whose slow wings. 
 When we have reached it, do but shower 
 A little' travelling dust on us 
 While groping in the dust we bowj 
 Love only is the eternal now, 
 Being of our frailty^piteous. 
 When thou art I, and I am thou. 
 Time is no more ; the heavy world, 
 As we among the lilies, we 
 39 
 
Under the vine and almond tree, 
 Wake to that slumber, might be hurled 
 Into the void eternity, 
 And we not know. Beloved, come 
 Into the garden dim with spice ; 
 Let us forget that we are wise, 
 And wisdom, though it be the sum 
 Of all but love, is love's disguise. 
 Let us forget all else that is, 
 Save this, that joy is ours to know, 
 A moment, ere he turn and go. 
 And that joy's moment, love, is this. 
 
 The Queen of Sheba 
 Beloved, be it even so. 
 
 The Youth 
 
 He who has found all wisdom out 
 Is yet too wise to find out love ; 
 His wisdom and the pride thereof 
 Is as a cloud folded about 
 The brightness of the sun above. 
 He does not know that love is breath 
 A man but breathes because he must ; 
 4? 
 
A breath, a bondage, and a trust. 
 
 That know^ not time, that knows not deaths 
 
 That knows not love which is but lust, 
 
 Nor love which is but vain desire. 
 
 He, who is wisdom, does not see 
 
 It is from all eternity 
 
 Man loves that love which shall not tire 
 
 When heaven and earth have ceased to be. 
 
 She, for his moment, loves not him, 
 
 But wisdom ; let him love, not her. 
 
 But love ; I, waiting lonelier 
 
 Than even of old, watch out the dim 
 
 And shadowy days, that without stir 
 
 Into the dusk of years descend ; 
 
 I wait, till heaven and earth being gone. 
 
 She comes to me to be my own 
 
 Until this love come to an end. 
 
 Bow down to me, O Solomon ! 
 
 41 
 
THE DANCE OF THE DAUGHTERS 
 OF HERODIAS 
 
 IS it the petals falling from the rose ? 
 For in the silence I can hear a sound 
 Nearer than mine own heart-beat, such a word 
 As roses murmur, blown by a great wind. 
 I see a pale and windy multitude 
 Beaten about the air, as if the smoke 
 Of incense kindled into visible life 
 Shadowy and invisible presences j 
 And, in the cloudy darkness, I can see 
 The thin white feet of many women dancing, 
 And in their hands ... I see it is the dance 
 Of the daughters of Herodias ; each of them 
 Carries a beautiful platter in her hand. 
 Smiling, because she holds against her heart 
 The secret lips and the unresting brow 
 Some John the Baptist's head makes lament- 
 able ; 
 Smiling as innocently as if she carried 
 A wet red quartered melon on a dish. 
 For they are stupid, and they do not know 
 That they are slaying the messenger of God. 
 42 
 
Here is Salome. She is a young tree 
 Swaying in the wind ; her arms are slender 
 
 branches, 
 And the heavy summer leafage of her hair 
 Stirs as if rustling in a silent wind ; 
 Her narrow feet are rooted in the ground, 
 But, when the dim wind passes over her, 
 Rustlingly she awakens, as if life 
 Thrilled in her body to its finger-tips. 
 Her little breasts arise as if a thought 
 Beckoned, her body quivers ; and she leans 
 Forward, as if she followed, her wide eyes 
 Swim open, her lips seek ; and now she leans 
 Backward, and her half-parted lips are moist. 
 And her eyelashes mingle. The gold coins 
 Tinkle like httle bells about her waist, 
 Her golden anklets clash once, and are mute. 
 The eyes of the blue-lidded turquoises. 
 The astonished rubies, waked from dreams of 
 
 fire. 
 The emeralds coloured like the under-sea. 
 Pale chrysoprase and flaming crysolite. 
 The topaz twofold, twofold sardonyx. 
 Open, from sleeping long between her breasts; 
 43 
 
And those two carbuncles, which are the eyes 
 Of the gold serpent nestling in her hair, 
 Shoot starry fire ; the bracelets of wrought 
 
 gold 
 Mingle with bracelets of carved ivory 
 Upon her drooping wrists. Herodias smiles. 
 But the grey face of Herod withers up. 
 As if it dropped to ashes ; the parched tongue 
 Labours to moisten his still-thirsting lips ; 
 The rings upon his wrinkled fingers strike, 
 Ring against ring, between his knees. And 
 
 she, 
 Salome, has forgotten everything. 
 But that the wind of dancing in her blood 
 Exults, crying a strange, awakening song ; 
 And Herod has forgotten everything, 
 He has forgotten he is old and wise. 
 He does not hear the double-handed sword 
 Scrape on the pavement, as Herodias beckons 
 The headsman, from behind him, to come 
 
 forth. 
 
 They dance, the daughters of Herodias, 
 With their eternal, white, unfaltering feet, 
 44 
 
And always, when they dance, for their delight. 
 
 Always a man's head falls because of them. 
 
 Yet they desire not death, they would not slay 
 
 Body or soul, no, not to do them pleasure : 
 
 They desire love, and the desire of, men ; 
 
 And they are the eternal enemy. 
 
 They know that they are weak and beautiful. 
 
 And that their weakness makes them beautiful. 
 
 For pity, and because man's heart is weak. 
 
 To pity woman is an evil thing ; 
 
 She will avenge upon you all your tears, 
 
 She would not that a man should pity her. 
 
 B ut to be loved by one of these beloved 
 
 Is poison sweeter than the cup of sleep 
 
 At midnight : death, or sorrow worse than 
 
 death. 
 Or that forgetfulness, drowning the soul, 
 Shall heal you of it, but no other thing : 
 For they are the eternal enemy. 
 They do not understand that in the world 
 There grows between the sunlight and the 
 
 grass 
 Anything save themselves desirable. 
 It seems to them that the swift eyes of men 
 45 
 
Are made but to be mirrors, not to see 
 Far-off, disastrous, unattainable things. 
 " For are not we," they say, " the end of all ? 
 Why should you look beyond us ? If you look 
 Into the night, you will find nothing there : 
 We also have gazed often at the stars. 
 We, we alone among all beautiful things. 
 We only are real : for the rest are dreams. 
 Why will you follow after wandering dreams 
 When we await you ? And you can but dream 
 Of us, and in our image fashion them ! " 
 They do not know that they but speak in sleep. 
 Speaking vain words as sleepers do ; that dreams 
 Are fairer and more real than they are ; 
 That all this tossing of our freighted lives 
 Is but the restless shadow of a dream ; 
 That the whole world, and we that walk in it. 
 Sun, moon, and stars, and the unageing sea. 
 And all the happy h"umble life of plants, 
 And the unthoughtful eager life of beasts. 
 And all our loves, and birth, and death, are all 
 Shadows, and a rejoicing spectacle 
 Dreamed out of utter darkness and the void 
 By that first, last, eternal soul of things, 
 46 
 
The shadow of whose brightness fashions us. 
 That, for the day of our eternity. 
 It may behold itself as in a mirror. 
 Shapes on a mirror, perishable shapes, 
 Fleeting, and without substance, or abode 
 In a fixed place, or knowledge of ourselves. 
 Poor, fleeting, fretful, little arrogant shapes ; 
 Let us dream on, forgetting that we dream ! 
 
 They dance, the daughters of Herodias, 
 Everywhere in the world, and I behold 
 Their rosy-petalled feet upon the air 
 Falling and falling in a cadence soft 
 As thoughts of beauty sleeping. Where they 
 
 pass. 
 The wisdom which is wiser than things known. 
 The beauty which is fairer than things seen, 
 Dreams which are nearer to eternity 
 Than that most mortal tumult of the blood 
 Which wars on itself in loving, droop and die. 
 But they smile innocently, and dance on. 
 Having no thought but this unslumbering 
 
 thought : 
 "Am I not beautiful? Shall I not be loved?" 
 47 
 
Be patient, for they will not understand, 
 Not till the end of time will they put by 
 The weaving of slow steps about men's hearts. 
 They shall be beautiful, they shall be loved. 
 And though a man's head falls because of them 
 Whenever they have danced his soul asleep, 
 It is not well that they should suffer wrong ; 
 For beauty is still beauty, though it slay, 
 And love is love, although it love to death. 
 Pale, windy, and ecstatic multitude 
 Beaten about this mortal air with winds 
 Of an all but immortal passion, borne 
 Upon the flight of thoughts that drooped their 
 
 wings 
 Into the cloud and twilight for your sake, 
 Yours is the beauty of your own desire. 
 And it shall wither only with that love 
 Which gave it being. Dance in the desolate 
 
 air. 
 Dance always, daughters of Herodias, 
 With your eternal, white, unfaltering feet, 
 But dance, I pray you, so that I from far 
 May hear your dancing fainter than the drift 
 Of the last petals falling from the rose. 
 48 
 
THE CHIlVtAERA 
 
 I DREAMED that the Chimaera came, 
 A wandering angel, white with flame 
 From some cloud's height or moonless deep. 
 And bent above me in the sleep 
 We dream in cradles, mused, and smiled 
 Subtly, and said to me : " O child. 
 Born under Venus, to be love's. 
 Under the Moon, that whitely moves. 
 Chaste and inconstant, over heaven ; 
 Child, who to Herschel has been given. 
 The star of strange desire, all these 
 Are busy with your destinies. 
 You shall desire immortal things. 
 And, in too swift imaginings, 
 Tire out desire, who has but wings. 
 You shall desire love, you shall track 
 The young God home ; then, shrinking back. 
 Like Psyche from his naked face, 
 Desert him at the meeting-place. 
 You shall desire fame, yet despise 
 The bent knees, the insolent cries 
 And loud hands of the multitude. 
 
 49 D 
 
You shall desire joy's daily food 
 And hope's unalterable home, 
 Yet refuse peace. And there shall come 
 Every desire you have implored, 
 And shall kneel dovirn, saying Lord, Lord, 
 And wait your pleasure. But you, tired 
 Of all desires you have desired. 
 Shall say, I know you not, and thrust 
 'Scornfully back into the dust 
 These servitors importunate. 
 Then, from the silence where I wait, 
 A blind old madness shall return, 
 And shall lay hold on you, and burn 
 Your veins with bitter life ; for this 
 Kings have lost kingdoms in a kiss. 
 And wise men kingdoms of the mind. 
 And have gone forth, naked and blind. 
 With dancing and with insane mirth. 
 Into the waste ways of the earth. 
 You shall seek out the Cloven Hill, 
 Where the wide gates are open still, 
 The tables set, nor have they ceased. 
 The feasters feasting at the ftast. 
 Then shall that dusk of shadowy air 
 50 
 
(Because for you one light is there) 
 Blossom in white-rose flame for you, 
 Andjthe old sun and air and dew 
 And freshness of the world, and change 
 Of seasons and cool stars, grow strange ; 
 Then, suddenly, you shall be hurled, 
 Forth from thence, back into the world. 
 Then shall your veins, remembering 
 That sweet, intolerable thing 
 Which shook their pulses with its breath. 
 Desire the shadow of that death ; 
 And it shall not be given you back. 
 Then shall you seek the hidden track 
 A mist has covered rrom your eyes 
 Since like a veil about you lies 
 The bright imprisonment of day. 
 Child, child, you shall not find the way." 
 
 Chimaera, I have been among 
 The loving people, who yet throng 
 The twilight about Tannhauser ; 
 And I have seen the face of her 
 Whose sorrow, older than that grace 
 51 
 
Which in her face is Beauty's face, 
 Fights in her battled soul for God. 
 And the earth, knowing I have trod 
 Ways not its ways, those ways not meet, 
 Sets all its stones against my feet. 
 Let me return, Chimaera ! Still 
 I seek for the accursed hill. 
 The most fair gate of Hell. Some day, 
 Chimaera, I shall find the way! 
 
 Ah, if I might but find it not ! 
 Are there not other ways forgot 
 Which lead to other lands than this 
 Of the immeasurable abyss ? 
 I would that I could one day close 
 Mine eyes in some divine repose ; 
 That I could shape to my control 
 A palace for my restless soul. 
 With dreams of order I would build. 
 My comely palace should be filled 
 With dreams of colour and bright sound. 
 And twilight should enfold it round. 
 Setting a veil against the sun. 
 52 
 
Then, like mute servants, one by one, 
 Dreams should bring in to me, and lay 
 Before my feet, and bear away. 
 Beautiful things of earth, but changed. 
 Made pallid, delicate, estranged 
 From the gold light, the glittering air. 
 There should my soul find refuge, there 
 Life and my dream of life be one. 
 Too late ! The music has begun 
 Which calls me in the air j there floats 
 A sound of voices, the virild notes 
 (Is it in air, is it from earth ?) 
 Which were the wine-song of our mirth. 
 They call me if a moment's peace 
 Rock memory to sleep ; then cease. 
 
 Chimaera, I will strive no more. 
 All things, as they have been before. 
 Shall be, until the end of days. 
 Nor shall our crying change the ways 
 Our feet must walk in. I will strive 
 No more, content to be alive. 
 Hoping no hopes, accepting all, 
 53 
 
Quiet behind the prison-wall 
 Which with thine own self shuts me in. 
 Why strive in vain ? why not begin 
 To make my prison fair to see, 
 And half forget my slavery ? 
 Shall not the universal stars 
 Visit me through my prison-bars ? 
 But it is you, Chimaera, you, 
 Whose low continual whisper through 
 Those prison-bars the whole day long 
 Comes to me, rtiurmuring : "Up, be strong. 
 Cast ofF your chains, come forth, behold 
 A way of roses and of gold ; 
 Winter is over, and the spring 
 In the world's heart is blossoming ; 
 It is the time of lilies. Come ! " 
 O impotent voice abhorred, be dumb ! 
 Why is it that I cannot find 
 Bounds to my ardours unconfined, 
 Why, empty of sin and void of grace. 
 Do I behold only my face 
 In the white mirror of the world, 
 Vainly, and without respite, hurled 
 Like the torn winds about the void ; 
 54 
 
Why thirsting still for unenjoyed 
 Delights and undiscovered springs. 
 Desiring in all mortal things 
 To hear and hold and taste and see 
 Mortal impossibility ? 
 All men, not wholly drowned in life. 
 Suffer the rapture and the strife 
 Of their Chimaera : some men chain 
 That airy monster of the brain, 
 And he is Ariel to them ; some 
 Endure his bondage. Yet there come. 
 To all these, phantoms of release, 
 Even these possess the secret peace 
 Which is both memory and hope. 
 But I have rendered all things up ; 
 White angel, wandering from afar, 
 I know you now, the thing you are, 
 I know I am myself mine own 
 Chimaera, chained, famished, alone. 
 Whose anger heartens him afresh 
 To feed upon his very flesh, 
 Till anguish bid delight to pause ; 
 And I must suffer him because 
 Until the hour when God shall send 
 55 
 
Suddenly the reluctant end 
 He with my breath must draw his breath. 
 O bondslave, bondslave unto death, 
 Might I but hope that death should free 
 This self from its eternity ! 
 
 36 
 
THE OLD WOMEN 
 
 THEY pass upon their old, tremulous feet, 
 Creeping with little satchels down the 
 
 street. 
 And they remember, many years ago. 
 Passing that way in silks. They wander, slow 
 And solitary, through the city ways, 
 And they alone remember those old days 
 Men have forgotten. In their shaking heads 
 A dancer of old carnivals yet treads 
 The measure of past waltzes, and they see 
 The candles lit again, the patchouli 
 Sweeten the air, and the warm cloud of musk 
 Enchant the passing of the passionate dusk. 
 Then you will see a light begin to creep 
 Under the earthen eyelids, dimmed with sleep, 
 And a new tremor, happy and uncouth. 
 Jerking about the corners of the mouth. 
 Then the old head drops down again, and 
 
 shakes, ' 
 
 Muttering. 
 
 Sometimes, when the swift gaslight wakes 
 The dreams and fever of the sleepless town, 
 57 
 
A shaking huddled thing in a black gown 
 Will steal at midnight, carrying with her 
 Violet little bags of lavender, 
 Into the tap-room full of noisy light ; 
 Or, at the crowded earlier hour of night, 
 Sidle, with matches, up to some who stand 
 About a stage-door, and, with furtive hand. 
 Appealing : " I too was a dancer, when 
 Your fathers would have been young gentle- 
 men ! " 
 And sometimes, out of some lean ancient 
 
 throat, 
 A broken voice, with here and there a note 
 Of unspoilt crystal, suddenly will arise 
 Into the night, while a cracked fiddle cries 
 Pantingly after ; and you know she sings 
 The passing of light, famous, passing things. 
 And sometimes, in the hours past midnight, 
 
 reels 
 Out of an alley upon staggering heels. 
 Or into the dark keeping of the stones 
 About a doorway, a vague thing of bones 
 And draggled hair. 
 
 And all these have been loved, 
 58 
 
And not one ruinous body has not moved 
 The heart of man's desire, nor has not seemed 
 Immortal in the eyes of one who dreamed 
 The dream that men call love. This is the end 
 Of much fair flesh ; it is for this you tend 
 Your delicate bodies many careful years, 
 To be this thing of laughter and of tears. 
 To be this living judgment of the dead. 
 An old grey woman with a shaking head. 
 
 59 
 
THE UNLOVED 
 
 THESE are the women whom no man has 
 loved. 
 Year after year, day after day has moved. 
 These hearts with many longings, and with 
 
 tears. 
 And with content ; they have received the 
 
 years 
 With empty hands, expecting no good thing ; 
 Life has passed by their doors, not entering. 
 In solitude, and without vain desire. 
 They have warmed themselves beside a lonely 
 
 fire ; 
 And, without scorn, beheld as in a glass 
 The blown and painted leaves of Beauty 
 
 pass. 
 Their souls have been made fragrant with the 
 
 spice 
 Of costly virtues lit for sacrifice ; 
 They have accepted Life, the unpaid debt, 
 And looked for no vain day of reckoning. 
 
 Yet 
 They too in certain windless summer hours 
 60 
 
Have felt the stir of dreams, and dreamed the 
 
 powers 
 And the exemptions and the miracles 
 And the cruelty of Beauty. Citadels 
 Of many-walled and deeply-moated hearts 
 Have suddenly surrendered to the arts 
 Of so compelling magic ; entering, 
 They have esteemed it but a little thing 
 To have won so great a conquest ; and with 
 
 haste 
 They have cast down, and utterly laid waste, 
 Tower upon tower, and sapped their roots with 
 
 flame ; 
 And passed on that eternity of shame 
 Which is the way of Beauty on the earth. 
 And they have shaken laughter from its mirth, 
 To be a sound of trumpets and of horns 
 Crying the battle-cry of those red morns 
 Against a sky of triumph. 
 
 On some nights 
 Of delicate Springtide, when the hesitant lights 
 Begin to fade, and glimmer, and grow warm, 
 And all the softening air is quick with storm, 
 And the ardours of the young year, entering in, 
 6i 
 
Flush the grey earth with buds ; when trees 
 
 begin 
 To feel a trouble mounting from their roots, 
 And all their green life blossoming into shoots, 
 They too, in some obscurej unblossoming 
 
 strife. 
 Have felt the stirring of the sap of life. 
 And they have wept, with bowed heads ; in the 
 
 street 
 They hear the twittering of little feet, 
 The rocking of the cradles in their hearts. 
 
 This is a mood, and, as a mood, departs 
 With the dried tears ; and they resume the tale 
 Of the dropt stitches ; these must never fail 
 For a dream's sake ; nor, for a memory, 
 The telling of a patient rosary. 
 
 62 
 
THE BEGGARS 
 
 IT is the beggars who possess the earth. 
 Kings on their throne have but the 
 narrow girth 
 Of some poor known dominion ; these possess 
 All the unknown, and that vast happiness 
 Of the uncertainty of human things. 
 Wandering on eternal wanderings, 
 They know the world j and tasting but the 
 
 bread 
 Of charity, know man; and, strangely led 
 By some vague, certain, and appointed hand. 
 Know fate ; and being lonely, understand 
 Some little of the thing without a name 
 That sits by the roadside and talks with them. 
 When they are silent ; for the soul is shy 
 If more than its own shadow loiter by. 
 They and the birds are old acquaintances. 
 Knowing the dawn together ; theirs it is 
 To settle on the dusty land like crows, 
 The ragged vagabonds of the air; who knows 
 How they too shall be fed, day after day. 
 And surer than the birds, for are not they 
 63 
 
The prodigal sons of God, our piteous 
 Aliens, outcast and accusing us? 
 Do they not ask of us their own, and wait, 
 Humbly, among the dogs about the gate. 
 While we are feasting? They will wait till 
 
 night : , 
 
 Who shall wait longer? 
 
 Dim, shadowy, white, 
 The highway calls ; they follow till it ends, 
 And all the way they walk among their 
 
 friends, 
 Sun, wind, and rain, their tearful sister rain. 
 Their brother windi Forest and hill and plain 
 Know them and are forgotten. Grey and 
 
 old. 
 Their feet begin to linger, brown arms fold 
 The heavy peace of earth about their heart, 
 And soon, and without trouble, they depart 
 On the last journey. 
 
 As the beggar lies. 
 With naked face, remembering the skies, 
 I think he only wonders : Shall I find 
 A good road still, a hayrick to my mind, 
 A tavern now and then upon the road? 
 64 
 
He has been earth's guest ; he goes ; the old 
 abode 
 
 Drops to the old horizon, the old way 
 
 Of yesterday and every yesterday. 
 
 We, heavy laden, miserably proud 
 
 Because our hands ache and our backs are- 
 bowed 
 
 With dusty treasures, have so much to quit : 
 
 He, nothing, nor the memory of it. 
 
 O, the one happiness, when, out of breath. 
 
 Our feet slip, and we stumble upon death ! 
 
 65 
 
THE TWO BLIND MEN 
 
 {From the Neapolitan of Salvatore di Giacomo) 
 
 TELL me one thing. Have you, within 
 your brain, 
 The face of anybody in the world 
 You saw, before you never saw again ? 
 
 — Ah yes; and you? — No, brother, I have 
 
 none. 
 I was born blind. So, for my sins, God 
 
 willed 
 Before my life had even been begun. 
 
 — Speak not of God! How many times I 
 
 prayed, 
 Brother, you cannot think how many times, 
 And now his darkness over me is laid. 
 
 — But in the street, now, does the sun shine 
 
 there ? 
 And what is the sun like? — The sun's of gold, 
 And it is like my Serafina's hair. 
 66 
 
— Who is your Serafina ? Some one who'll 
 Come here to see you sometimes? — ^Yes, 
 
 sometimes. 
 — And . . . she is beautiful? — Yes, beautiful. 
 
 Then he who had been blind when he was 
 
 born 
 Sighed. And the other blind man sighed, and 
 
 hid 
 His face between his hands, as one forlorn. 
 
 The first said: Do not weep; have I not 
 
 known 
 The mother of the body that I bear, 
 Have I not known her by her voice alone? 
 
 And both were silent. And about them 
 
 rolled 
 The perfume of the garden, and the sun 
 Shone in the sky, the sun that is of gold. 
 
 67 
 
DIVISIONS ON A GROUND 
 
 I 
 
 BELOVED, there is a sorrow in the world 
 Too aged to remember its own birth, 
 A grey, old, weary, and immortal sorrow. 
 The sorrow of our love is as a breath 
 Sighed heavily by a sleeper in a dream ; 
 But this great sorrow of the world endures. 
 Sleepless, the alternation of the stars, 
 Beholding death, and crying upon death. 
 Sad with old age, and weary of the sun, 
 And deathless ; and shall not be wearier 
 When time has rusted your bright hair's fine 
 
 gold. 
 Think what a little sorrow have we had 
 Who have seen beauty with the eyes of love, 
 Who have seen knowledge, wisdom, evil and 
 
 good. 
 With the eyes of beauty, having felt the flame 
 Cleanse, sacrifice, illuminate us with joy !• 
 ^ Think on all lovers who have never met, 
 Wandering in the exile of the world. 
 Remembering they know not what, some voice, 
 68 
 
Unheard and yet remembered, some dear face 
 Which shines beyond a cloud and waits for 
 
 them. 
 Think then how little sorrow we have had ! 
 All the uncomely evil of the earth 
 Has passed us by ; sorrow has been no clown 
 Forcing our gates with riotous mirth, but 
 
 grave 
 As the unwilling herald of a king. 
 And we, have we not willed that this should 
 
 be. 
 Somewhere, when naked soul by naked soul 
 The fashioner of the world arraigns his work, 
 Bidding each living thing behold, and choose. 
 Beholding, his own lot ; have we not willed 
 That all this should be thus, willing our fate ? 
 
 blind, old, weary sorrow of the world, 
 Receive my pity, though from this day forth 
 
 1 have said farewell to joy ! I have within 
 A memory which is more than happiness ; 
 
 I have seen the glory, and am henceforth blind 
 That I may feast on sight. Alas for those 
 On whom no unendurable glory shone, 
 Blind from the birth, who labour and behold 
 69 
 
No shining on the sea or in the sky 
 When the long day is over, but endure 
 The weight of that old sorrow of the world 
 Which beauty cannot lift from tired men. 
 
 II 
 
 The sorrowful, who have loved, I pity not ; 
 But those, not having loved, who do rejoice 
 To have escaped the cruelty of love, 
 I pity, as I pity the unborn. 
 Love is, indeed, as life is, full of care, 
 The tyrant of the soul, the death of peace, 
 Rash father and blind parricide of joy; 
 And it were better never to have been, 
 If slothful ease, calm hours, are all of life, 
 Than to have chosen such a bedfellow. 
 Yet, if not rest, but rapture, and to attain 
 The wisdom that is silence in the stars 
 When the great morning-song is quieted. 
 Be more of life than these, and worth the pain 
 Of living, then choose love, although he bring 
 Mountainous griefs, griefs that have made men 
 mad. 
 
 70 
 
Be sorrowful, al! ye that have not loved, 
 Bow down, be sorrowful exceedingly, 
 Cover your heads from the embracing air. 
 And from the eye of the sun, lest ye be 
 
 shamed ; 
 Earth would be naked of you ; ye have knowrb 
 Only to hide from living : life rejects 
 The burden of your uncompanioned days. 
 This is of all things saddest in the world, 
 Not that men love, not that men die for -love,, 
 B ut that they dare be cowards of their joy. 
 Even unto death ; who, dying without love, 
 Drop into narrow graves to shiver there 
 Among the winds of time, till time's last wind 
 Cleanse off the poor, lonely, and finite dust 
 From earth made ready for eternity. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Let me hear music, for I am not sad, 
 But half in love with sadness. To dream so. 
 And dream, and so forget the dream, and so 
 Dream I am dreaming ! This old little voice. 
 Which pants and flutters in the clavichord, 
 71 
 
Has the bird's wings in it, and women's tears, 
 The dust has drunken long ago, and sighs 
 As of a voiceless crying of old love 
 That died and never spoke ; and then the soul 
 Of one who sought for wisdom ; and these 
 
 cry 
 Out of the disappointment of the grave. 
 And something, in the old and little voice. 
 Calls from so farther off than far away, 
 I tremble, hearing it, lest it draw me forth. 
 This flickering self, desiring to be gone, 
 Into the boundless and abrupt abyss 
 Whereat begins infinity ; and there 
 This flickering self wander eternally 
 Among the soulless, uncreated winds 
 Which storm against the barriers of the world. 
 But most I hear the pleading and sad voice 
 Of beauty, sad because it cannot speak 
 Out of harsh stones and out of evil noise. 
 And out of thwarted faces, and the gleam 
 Of things corrupted, and all ruinous things. 
 This is the voice that cries, and would be 
 
 heard, 
 
 And can but speak in music. Venerable 
 72 
 
And ageless Beauty of the world, whose breath 
 
 Is life in all things, I have seen thy form 
 
 In cloud, and grass, and wave, and glory of 
 
 man. 
 Flawless, but I have heard thy very voice 
 Here only, here only human, and here sad 
 Only of all thy voices upon earth. 
 
 IV 
 
 Who shall deliver us from too much love ? 
 There is an evil thing within the world. 
 Mother of hatred, mother of cruelties. 
 The sunderer of hearts ; and this is love. 
 I, if mine enemy hunger, give him food. 
 And, if mine enemy thirst, give him to drink j 
 This is a little and an easy thing. 
 But, if I heap the dish with only love, 
 In any charity, for love's sake alone. 
 Fate shall not hold me guiltless of that deed. 
 For sorrow goes with it, and bitter joy. 
 And memory, and the desire of love. 
 And aching of remembering hearts remem- 
 bered. 
 
 73 
 
There is an evil thing within the heart : 
 Grief shall not master it nor any fear, 
 Nor any knowledge, nor desire of right ; 
 Love in the heart shall shine within the 
 
 eyes, 
 Giving itself in gift, withholding nothing ; 
 And where the man gives shall the woman 
 
 take, 
 And where the woman gives the man shall 
 
 take, 
 Not counting gifts, giving and taking all. 
 Ruinously, a plague upon the earth. 
 O giver of this love, give man to see 
 The glory of thine intolerable gift. 
 Or snatch again out of his passionate hands. 
 Out of his passionate and childish hands. 
 That beautiful and sharp and fragile thing, 
 Love, that he makes so deadly and his toy ! 
 
 V 
 
 There is a woman whom I love and hate : 
 There is no other woman in the world : 
 Not in her life shall I have any peace. 
 74 
 
There is a woman whom I love and hate : 
 I have not praised her : she is beautiful : 
 Others have praised her : she has seen my 
 
 heart : 
 She looked, and laughed, and looked, and went 
 
 away. 
 
 There is a woman whom I hate and love : 
 This is my sorrow : she has bound my neck 
 Within the noose of her long hairs, and bound 
 My soul within the halter of her dreams. 
 And fastened down my heart into one place. 
 Like a rat nailed upon a granary door ; 
 And she has gone a farther way than death. 
 
 There is a vvoman whom I love and hate : 
 Not in her life shall I have any peace : 
 Death, hear me not, when I desire her death ! 
 
 73 
 
FROM STEPHANE MALLARME 
 
 I 
 HERODIADE 
 
 HiRODIADE 
 
 TO mine own self I am a wilderness. 
 You know it, amethyst gardens num- 
 berless 
 Enfolded in the flaming, subtle deep. 
 Strange gold, that through the red earth's heavy 
 
 sleep 
 Has cherished ancient brightness like a dream, 
 Stones whence mine eyes, pure jewels, have 
 
 their gleam 
 Of icy and melodious radiance, you, 
 Metals, which into my young tresses drew 
 A fatal splendour and their manifold grace ! 
 Thou, woman, born into these evil days 
 Disastrous to the cavern sibylline. 
 Who speakest, prophesying not of one divine. 
 But of a mortal, if from that close sheath. 
 My robes, rustle the wild enchanted breath 
 In the white quiver of my nakedness, 
 76 
 
If the warm air of summer, O prophetess 
 (And woman's body obeys that ancient claim), 
 Behold me in my shivering starry shame, 
 I die ! 
 
 The horror of my virginity 
 Delights me, and I would envelop me 
 In the terror of my tresses, that, by nighi. 
 Inviolate reptile, I might feel the white 
 And glimmering radiance of thy frozen 
 
 fire, 
 Thou that art chaste and diest of desire. 
 White night of ice and of the cruel snow ! 
 
 Eternal sister, my lone sister, lo 
 My dreams uplifted before thee ! now, apart, 
 So rare a crystal is my dreaming heart, 
 I live in a monotonous land alone. 
 And all about me lives but in mine own 
 Image, the idolatrous mirror of my pride. 
 Mirroring this Herodiade diamond-eyed. 
 I am indeed alone, O charm and curse ! 
 
 Nurse i 
 
 O lady, would you die then ? 
 77 
 
H^RODIADE 
 
 No, poor nurse ; 
 Be calm, and leave me ; prithee, pardon me. 
 But, ere thou go, close to the casement ; see 
 How the seraphical blue in the dim glass 
 
 smiles, 
 But I abhor the blue of the sky ! 
 
 Yet miles 
 On miles of rocking waves ! Know'st not a 
 
 land 
 Where, in the pestilent sky, men see the hand 
 Of Venus, and her shadow in dark leaves ? 
 Thither I go. 
 
 Light thou the wax that grieves 
 In the swift flame, and sheds an alien tear 
 Over the vain gold ; wilt not say in mere 
 Childishness ? 
 
 Nurse 
 
 Now? 
 
 H^RODIADE 
 
 Farewell. You lie, O flower 
 Of these chill lips ! 
 
 78 
 
I wait the unknown hour. 
 Or, deaf to your crying and that hour supreme, 
 Utter the lamentation of the dream 
 Of childhood seeing fell apart in sighs 
 The icy chaplet of its reveries. 
 
 79 
 
II 
 
 SIGH 
 
 MY soul, calm sister, towards thy brow, 
 whereon scarce grieves 
 An autumn strewn already with its russet 
 
 leaves. 
 And towards the wandering sky of thine 
 
 angelic eyes. 
 Mounts, as in melancholy gardens may arise 
 Some faithful fountain sighing whitely towards 
 
 the blue ! 
 Towards the blue pale and pure that sad 
 
 October knew. 
 When, in those depths, it mirrored languors 
 
 infinite. 
 And agonising leaves upon the waters white, 
 Windily drifting, traced a furrow cold and dun, 
 Where, in one long last ray, lingered the 
 
 yellow sun. 
 
 80 
 
Ill 
 
 SEA-WIND 
 HE flesh is sad, alas ! and all the books 
 
 T 
 
 J. are read 
 
 Flight, only flight ! I feel that birds are wild 
 
 to tread 
 The floor of unknown foam, and to attain the 
 
 skies ! 
 Nought, neither ancient gardens mirrored in 
 
 the eyes. 
 Shall hold this heart that bathes in waters its 
 
 delight, 
 
 nights ! nor yet my waking lamp, whose 
 
 lonely light 
 Shadows the vacant paper, whiteness profits 
 
 best. 
 Nor the young wife who rocks her baby on 
 
 her breast. 
 
 1 will depart ! O steamer, swaying rope and 
 
 spar. 
 Lift anchor for exotic lands that lie afar ! 
 A weariness, outworn by cruel hopes, still 
 
 clings 
 
 8l F 
 
To the last farewell handkerchief's last beckon- 
 
 ings ! 
 And are not these, the masts inviting storms, 
 
 not these 
 That an awakening wind bends over wrecking 
 
 seas. 
 Lost, not a sail, a sail, a flowering isle, ere 
 
 long ? 
 But, O my heart, heir thou, hear thou the 
 
 sailors' song ! 
 
 82 
 
SOULS IN THE BALANCE 
 
 I 
 
 TO OUR LADY OF THE SEVEN 
 SORROWS 
 
 E 
 
 ADY of the seven sorrows which are 
 
 love, 
 
 What sacrificial way- 
 First led your feet to those remoter heights 
 Which, for the uttermost delights 
 Of martyrs and Love's saints, are set above 
 The stations of the passion of our day ? 
 Seven sorrows unto you has been desire 
 Since first your cheek grew pale. 
 And your astonished breath would fail. 
 And your eyes deepened into smouldering 
 
 fire ; 
 Seven sorrows from a child. 
 Nor has the soul which in you pants and rises 
 At any time been reconciled 
 With love and love's intolerable disguises. 
 In the child's morning-hour 
 You woke, and knew not the immortal power 
 83 
 
Which in your ignorant veins was as the 
 
 breeze 
 Troubling the waters of a little lake 
 And crying in the nests among the trees. 
 Fear bid you, trembling, wake, 
 And listen to the voice which seemed to shake 
 Bewildering prophecies 
 Unto the empty audience of the air. 
 The child, grown older, heard that voice again. 
 Nor heard that voice in vain. 
 You smiled, with a new meaning in your eyes, 
 As of some new, delightful care 
 Which made you suddenly more wise. 
 Older, and to yourself more fair. 
 Then silence came about your lips, and laid 
 That tremulous shadow there. 
 Whereby the sorrows mark you for their own. 
 You woke and were afraid to be alone, 
 And full of some strange joy to be afraid. 
 
 First love, the hour it came, 
 
 You seemed to have remembered j and you 
 
 knew 
 What a smoke-thwarted flame 
 84 
 
Love's torch is, and the jewel of love's faith 
 
 How flawed, and by how many a name 
 
 The immortal comes to mortals, and how death 
 
 Is the first breath that love, made mortal, drew. 
 
 Therefore, not without tears. 
 
 And penitence, and a reluctant rapture, 
 
 All love's and not your lover's capture. 
 
 Not without sure, foreseeing fears 
 
 Of the unavoidable dedication of your years. 
 
 You entered on the way. 
 
 The way that was to be. 
 
 Mortal, and pitiful, yet immortally 
 Predestinate to that illustrious grief 
 Whose extreme anguish is its own relief, 
 Lady of the seven sorrows, who shall say 
 The ardours of that way ? 
 Men have looked up and seen you pass, and 
 
 bowed 
 Into the dust to kiss your weary feet ; 
 And you have passed, and they have cursed 
 
 aloud 
 With dusty mouths to find the dust not sweet. 
 You have passed by ; your eyes 
 83 
 
Unalterably open in a dream, 
 
 Seeing alone the gleam 
 
 Of a far, mortal, azure paradise 
 
 Which your ecstatic fear is to attain. 
 
 Sometimes you linger, when men cry to you, 
 
 Linger as in a dream, 
 
 Linger in vain, 
 
 Having but shared, as they would have you do. 
 
 Some ecstasy of pain. 
 
 Therefore you shall be neither blessed nor 
 
 cursed, 
 But pardoned, for you know not what you do; 
 And of all punishments the worst 
 Of punishments for you is to be you. 
 Go, neither blessed nor cursed : 
 We, all we too who suffer of you, throng 
 To make a royal passage for your feet. 
 When, in a dream, ere long. 
 They shall go sorrowfully up the street. 
 You will pass by and not remember us. 
 We shall be strange as any last year's mirth ; 
 It is not thus, so lightly, O not thus 
 You carry the seven sorrows of the earth. 
 86 
 
M 
 
 II 
 
 STELLA MALIGNA 
 
 Y little slave ! 
 
 Wouldst thou escape me ? Only in 
 the grave. 
 
 I wrill be poison to thee, honey-sweet, 
 
 And, my poison having tasted. 
 
 Thou shalt be delicately wasted, 
 
 Yet shalt thou live by that delicious death 
 
 Thou hast drunken from my breath. 
 
 Thou didst with my kisses eat. 
 
 I will be thy desire, and thou shalt flee me. 
 
 Thy enemy, and thou shalt seek : 
 
 My strength is to be weak. 
 
 And if through tears, not through thy tears, 
 
 thou see me, 
 Beware, for of my kisses if thou tire. 
 Not of my tears. 
 
 Not of my tears shalt thou put off desire 
 Before the end of years. 
 
 What wouldst thou of me, little slave ? my 
 heart ? 
 
 87 
 
Nay, be content, here are mine arms around 
 
 thee. 
 Be thou content that I have found thee, 
 And that I shall not suffer thee depart. 
 Ask nothing more of me. 
 Have I not given thee more than thou canst 
 
 measure ? 
 Take thou thy fill of pleasure. 
 Exult that thou art mine : think what it is 
 To be without my kiss ; 
 Not to have known me is to know not love. 
 Think, to have known me not ! 
 Heart may indeed from heart remove, 
 Body by body may not be forgot. 
 Thou hast been mine : ask nothing more of me : 
 My heart is not for thee. 
 
 Child, leave me then my heart ; 
 I hold it in a folded peace apart, 
 I hold it for mine own. 
 There, in the quietness of dreams, it broods 
 Above untroubled moods. 
 No man hath been so near me as to have 
 known. 
 
 8S 
 
The rest is. thine : ah, take 
 The gift I have to give, my body, lent 
 For thy unsatisfied content, 
 For thy insatiable desire's compelling, 
 And let me for my pleasure make 
 For my owrn heart a lonely dwelling. 
 Thou wrilt not ? Thou wilt summon sorrow 
 From morrow unto endless morrow ? 
 Thou wilt endure unto the uttermost ? 
 Ah ! little slave, my slave, 
 Thou shalt endure until desire be lost 
 In the achievement of the grave. 
 Thou shalt endure, and I, in dreams, behold. 
 Within my paradise of gold. 
 Thy heart's blood flowering for my peace ; 
 And thy passion shall release 
 The secret light that in the lily glows. 
 The miracle of the secret rose. 
 
 89 
 
I 
 
 III 
 
 THE PALE WOMAN 
 
 SPOKE to the pale and heavy-lidded 
 woman, and said : 
 O pale and heavy-lidded woman, why is your 
 
 cheek 
 Pale as the dead, and what are your eyes afraid 
 
 lest they spealc ? 
 And the woman answered me : I am pale as 
 
 the dead. 
 For the dead have loved me, and I dream of 
 
 the dead. 
 
 But I see in the eyes of the living, as a living 
 
 fire. 
 The thing that my soul in triumph tells me I 
 
 have forgot ; 
 And therefore mine eyelids are heavy, and I 
 
 raise them not. 
 For always I see in the eyes of men the old 
 
 desire. 
 And I fear lest they see that I desire their desire. 
 
 go 
 
IV 
 MATER LILIUM 
 
 IN the remembering hours of night, 
 When the fierce-hearted winds complain, 
 The trouble comes into my sight, 
 And the voices come again, 
 And the voices come again. 
 
 I see the tall white lilies bloom, 
 (Mother of lilies, pity me !) 
 The voice of lilies in the room 
 ( Mother of lilies, pity me ! ) 
 Crying, crying silently. 
 
 The voice of lilies is your voice, 
 White lily of the world's desire ; 
 And yours, and yours the lily's choice, 
 To consume whitely, as by fire. 
 Flawless, flaming, fire in fire. 
 
 O lily of the world's despair, 
 And born to be the world's delight, 
 Is it enough to have been fair, 
 91 
 
To have been pure, to have been white, 
 As a lily in God's sight ? 
 
 When the dark hours begin to wake, 
 And the unslackening winds go by. 
 There comes a trouble, for your sake : 
 
 is it you, O is it I, 
 Crying the eternal cry ? 
 
 1 see the phantom lilies wave, 
 I hear their voices calling me ; 
 O you, that are too pure to save, 
 Immaculate eternally, 
 
 Mother of lilies, pity me ! 
 
 ga 
 
V 
 THE DOGS 
 
 MY desires are upon me like dogs, I beat 
 them back, 
 Yet they yelp upon my track ; 
 And I know that my soul one day shall lie at 
 
 their feet, 
 And my soul be these dogs' meat. 
 
 My soul walks robed in white where the saints 
 
 sing psalms. 
 Among the lilies and palms. 
 Beholding the face of God through the radiant 
 
 bars 
 Of the mystical gate of stars ; 
 The robes of my soul are whiter than snow, 
 
 she sings 
 Praise of immortal things ; 
 Yet still she listens, still, in the night, she 
 
 hears 
 The dogs' yelp in her ears. 
 
 93 
 
Most High ! I will pray, look down through 
 
 the seven 
 Passionate veils of heaven, 
 Out of eternal peace, where the world's 
 
 desire 
 Enfolds thee in veils of fire ; 
 Holy of Holies, the immaculate Lamb, 
 Behold me, the thing I am ! 
 I, the redeemed of thy blood, the bought with 
 
 a price. 
 The reward of thy sacrifice, 
 I, who walk with thy saints in a robe of 
 
 white, 
 And who worship thee day and night. 
 Behold me, the thing I am, and do thou beat 
 
 back 
 These feet that burn on my track ! 
 
 1 have prayed, God has heard j I have prayed 
 
 to him, he has heard ; 
 But he has not spoken a word ; 
 My soul walks robed in white among lilies and 
 
 palms. 
 And she hears the triumphing psalms ; 
 94 
 
But louder than all, by day and by night, she 
 
 hears 
 The dogs' yelp in her ears ; 
 And I know that my soul one day shall lie at 
 
 their feet, 
 
 And my soul be these dogs' meat. 
 
 9S 
 
VI 
 
 SPONSA DEI 
 
 JESUS CHRIST, I have longed with my 
 whole heart for thee, 
 O come to me and be the bridegroom of thy 
 
 bride ; 
 In thy eternal presence give me to abide 
 Till mortal years have put on immortality. 
 O I have longed with an intolerable desire 
 For the indwelling ecstasy of the great breath. 
 For that immortal death which shall annihilate 
 
 death 
 And burn up hell with thy consuming kiss of 
 
 fire. 
 All night because of thee, Christ, I have lain 
 
 awake, 
 Night after night I have lain awake in my 
 
 white bed ; 
 The pillow is as seething fire beneath my head. 
 The sheets as swathing fire, all night, Christ, 
 
 for thy sake. 
 Night after night I have waited for thee, all 
 
 night long, 
 
 96 
 
Mystical bridegroom of this flesh that pants to 
 
 close 
 The aching arms of love's desire in love's 
 
 repose 
 About thy conscious presence felt : O Lord, 
 
 how long ? 
 I have grown faint with over-much desire, and 
 
 pale 
 With vigils over-much, my flesh forsakes my 
 
 bones : 
 Suffering love of Christ, if that in thee 
 
 atones 
 For suffering sin in us, let not thy mercies 
 
 fail; 
 For I have suffered. Lord, upon thy very 
 
 cross, 
 I bear upon my brow, my hands, my feet, my 
 
 side. 
 The burning wounds thou didst endure when 
 
 crucified. 
 And for this gain I do account all things but 
 
 loss. 
 Jesus Christ, I have waited for thy coming : 
 
 come ! 
 
 97 o 
 
Possess this waiting body no man hath 
 possessed ; 
 
 Let me but feel thy kiss of Hre upon my 
 breast 
 
 Lick up the dust of this consuming martyr- 
 dom ! 
 
 98 
 
VII 
 ROSA FLAMMEA 
 
 BEAUTIFUL demon, O veil those eyes 
 of fire. 
 Cover your breasts that are v/hiter than milk, 
 
 and ruddy 
 With dewy buds of the magical rose, your 
 
 body, 
 Veil your lips from the shining of my desire ! 
 As a rose growing up from hell you waver 
 
 before me, 
 Shaking an odorous breath that is fire within ; 
 The Lord Christ may not pardon me this sweet 
 
 sin, 
 But the scent of the rose that is rooted in hell 
 
 steals o'er me. 
 O Lord Christ, I am lost, I am lost, I am lost ! 
 Her eyes are as stars in a pool and their spell is 
 
 on me; 
 She lifts her unsearchable lids, chill fire is upon 
 
 me, 
 It shudders through every vein, and my brain 
 
 is tossed 
 
 99 
 
As the leaves of a tree when the wind coils 
 
 under and over ; 
 She smiles, and I hear the heart beat in my 
 
 side; 
 She lifts her hands, and I swirl in a clutching 
 
 tide; 
 But shall my soul not burn in flame if I love 
 
 her? 
 She shall veil those eyes, those lips, ah ! that 
 
 breast. 
 Demon seeking my soul, I do adjure thee, 
 In the name of him for whose tempted sake I 
 
 endure thee, 
 Trouble my sight no more : lost soul, be at 
 
 rest ! 
 She smiles, and the air grows into a mist of 
 
 spices, 
 Frankincense, cinnamon, labdanum, and myrrh 
 Rise in sweet smoke about the feet of her 
 Before whom the sweets of the world are as 
 
 sacrifices. 
 Cinnamon, frankincense, labdanum, and myrrh 
 Smoke in the air, the fume of them closes 
 round me ; 
 
 100 
 
Help, ere the waves of the flood of odours have 
 
 drowned me, 
 Help, ere it be too late ! There has no help 
 
 come, 
 And I feel that the rose of the pit begins to 
 
 blossom 
 Into the likeness of a lost soul on fire. 
 And the soul that was mine is emptied of all 
 
 but desire 
 Of the rose of her lips and the roses of her 
 
 bosom. 
 Ah ' she smiles the great smile, the immortal 
 
 shame : 
 Her mouth to my mouth, though hell be the 
 
 price hereafter ! . . . 
 I hear in the whirling winds her windy laughter. 
 And my soul for this shall whirl in the winds 
 
 of flame. 
 
T 
 
 VIII 
 LAUS VIRGINITATIS 
 
 HE mirror of men's eyes delights me 
 less, 
 
 mirror, than the friend I find in thee j 
 Thou lovest, as I love, my loveliness. 
 Thou givest my beauty back to me. 
 
 1 to myself suffice ; why should I tire 
 
 The heart with roaming that would rest at 
 
 home ? 
 Myself the limit to my own desire, 
 I have no desire to roam. 
 
 I hear the maidens crying in the hills : 
 "Come up among the bleak and perilous ways, 
 Come up and follow after Love, who fills 
 The hollows of our nights and days ; 
 
 " Love the deliverer, who is desolate. 
 And saves from desolation j the divine 
 Out of great suffering j Love, compassionate, 
 Who is thy bread and wine, 
 
" O soul, that faints in following after him." 
 I hear ; but what is Love that I should tread 
 Hard ways among the perilous passes dim, 
 Who need no succouring wine and bread ? 
 
 Enough it is to dream, enough to abide 
 Here where the loud world's echoes fall remote, 
 Untroubled, unawakened, satisfied ; 
 As water-lilies float 
 
 Lonely upon a shadow-sheltered pool. 
 Dreaming of their own whiteness ; even so, 
 I dwell within a nest of shadows cool, 
 And watch the vague hours come and go. 
 
 They come and go, but I my own delight 
 Remain, and I desire no change in aught : 
 Might I escape indifferent Time's despite. 
 That ruins all he wrought ! 
 
 This dainty body formed so curiously. 
 So delicately and wonderfully made. 
 Mine own, that none hath ever shared with me. 
 Mine own, and for myself arrayed ; 
 103 
 
All this that I have loved and not another, 
 My one desire's delight, this, shall Time bring 
 Where Beauty hath the abhorred worm for 
 
 brother. 
 The dust for covering ? 
 
 At least I bear it virgin to the grave. 
 Pure, and apart, and rare, and casketed ; 
 What, living, was mine own and no man's 
 
 slave. 
 Shall be mine own when I am dead. 
 
 But thou, my friend, my mirror, dost possess 
 The shadow of myself that smiles in thee. 
 And thou dost give, with thine own loveliness. 
 My beauty back to me. 
 
 104 
 
IX 
 THE RAPTURE 
 
 I DRANK your flesh, and when the soul 
 brimmed up 
 In that sufficing cup. 
 
 Then, slowly, steadfastly, I drank your soul ; 
 Thus I possessed you whole ; 
 And then I saw you, white, and vague, and 
 
 warm. 
 And happy, as that storm 
 Enveloped you in its delirious peace, 
 And fearing but release. 
 Perfectly glad to be so lost and found. 
 And without wonder drowned 
 In little shuddering quick waves of bliss ; 
 Then I, beholding this 
 More wonderingly than a little lake 
 That the white moon should make 
 Her nest among its waters, being free 
 Of the whole land and sea. 
 Remembered, in that utmost pause, that heaven 
 Is to each angel given 
 As wholly as to Michael or the Lord, 
 los 
 
And of the saints' reward 
 
 There is no first or last, supreme delight 
 
 Being one and infinite. 
 
 Then I was quieted, and had no fear 
 
 That such a thing, so dear 
 
 And so incredible, being thus divine. 
 
 Should be, and should be mine. 
 
 And should not suddenly vanish away^ 
 
 Now, as the lonely day 
 
 Forgets the night, and calls the world from 
 
 dreams. 
 This, too, with daylight, seems 
 A thing that might be dreaming j for my soul 
 Seems to possess you whole, 
 And every nerve remembers : can it be 
 This young delight is old as memory ? 
 
 io6 
 
X 
 
 TO A GITANA DANCING 
 (Seville) 
 
 B 
 
 ECAUSE you are fair as souls of the lost 
 
 are feir, 
 
 And your eyelids laugh with desire, and your 
 
 laughing feet 
 Are winged with desire, and your hands are 
 
 wanton, and sweet 
 Is the promise of love in your lips, and the rose 
 
 in your hair 
 Sweet, un&ded, a promise sweet to he 
 
 sought. 
 And the maze you tread is as old as the world 
 
 is old. 
 Therefore you hold me, body and soul, in your 
 
 hold. 
 And time, as you dance, is not, and the world 
 
 is as nought. 
 You dance, and I know the desire of all flesh, 
 
 and the pain 
 Of all longing of body for body ; you beckon, 
 
 repel, 
 
 107 
 
Entreat, and entice, and bewilder, and build 
 
 up the spell. 
 Link by link, with deliberate steps, of a flower- 
 soft chain. 
 You laugh, and I know the despair, and you 
 
 smile, and I know 
 The delight of your love, and the flower in 
 
 your hair is a star. 
 It brightens, I follow ; it fades, and I see it afer ; 
 You pause : I awake ; have I dreamt ? was it 
 
 longer ago 
 Than a dream that I saw you smile ? for you 
 
 turn, you turn. 
 As a startled beast in the toils : it is you that 
 
 entreat, 
 Desperate, hating the coils that have festened 
 
 your feet, 
 The desire you desired that has come ; and 
 
 your lips now yearn. 
 And your hands now ache, and your feet faint 
 
 for love. 
 Longing has taken hold even on you. 
 You, the witch of desire; and you pause, and 
 
 anew 
 
 loS 
 
Your stillness moves, and you pause, and your 
 
 hands move. 
 Time, as you dance, is as nought, and the 
 
 moments seem 
 Swift as eternity ; time is at end, for you close 
 Eyes and lips and hands in sudden repose j 
 You smile : was it all no longer ago than a 
 
 dream ? 
 
 109 
 
FROM THE "ANTIGONE" OF 
 SOPHOCLES 
 
 Chorus of Old Men 
 
 EROS invincible, 
 Eros, that ravishest the spoils of men, 
 That keepest watch upon the maiden's cheek, 
 Roaming the seas and among pastoral folk ! 
 Thee none of the immortals can escape. 
 And none of mortals living but a day, 
 And he that finds thee presently goes mad. 
 
 Thou turnest just men's thoughts to thoughts 
 
 of wrong, 
 And kinsman against kinsman dost set up. 
 The clear light of a lovely woman's eyes 
 Rules, and outmasters the eternal laws. 
 Unconquerable Aphrodite laughs at all. 
 And I too am now hurried beyond the 
 
 bounds. 
 Nor can I stay the sources of my tears. 
 Seeing towards the bride-bed that gives rest to 
 
 all 
 Advance Antigone. 
 
Antigone 
 
 See me, O citizens of my fatherland, 
 Set forth on my last way, and look my last 
 Upon the sunlight I shall see no more. 
 For Hades, that gives rest to all, now leads 
 Me living to the shores of Acheron, 
 Unwedded ; nor shall any sing for me 
 The bride-song, being bride to Acheron. 
 
 Chorus 
 
 Illustrious thou, and with praise, 
 Goest toward the secret places of the dead, 
 Not wasted with a sickness, finding not 
 The wages of the sword, but willingly. 
 Sole among mortals, unto Hades living. 
 
 Antigone 
 
 Yet I have heard, of old, 
 
 Of that sad ending of the Phrygian guest, 
 
 Tantalus' daughter, upon Sipyle ; 
 
 How the stone sprouted to envelop her 
 
 Like tightening ivy; and the rains, men say. 
 
 Cease not about her, wasting, nor the snows 
 
 Cease ever, but her weeping eyelids bathe 
 
Her neck in tears. Me too, most like to her, 
 A God shall put to sleep. 
 
 Chorus 
 
 She was a goddess and the child of gods, 
 And we are mortals and the seed of mortals j 
 Yet is it glorious, dying, to have endured 
 A fate so godlike, living and in death. 
 
 Antigone 
 
 Ah me, they mock me ! By my fethers' gods. 
 Why do ye taunt me ere I be yet gone 
 Out of your sight ? O city, and ye her sons 
 Mighty in wealth, and thou, O fount of 
 
 Dirce, 
 And grove of many-charioted Thebes, 
 Ye, ye at least, be witnesses for me. 
 How, all unwept of friends, and by what laws, 
 I go to find a stony prison indeed 
 In this unparalleled tomb. Ah, hapless one. 
 Homeless among the living and the dead ! 
 
ON AN AIR OF RAMEAU 
 
 To Arnold DolmeUch 
 
 A MELANCHOLY desire of ancient 
 things 
 Floats like a faded perfume out of the wires ; 
 Pallid lovers, what unforgotten desires, 
 Whispered once, are retold in your 
 whisperings ? 
 
 Roses, roses, and lilies with hearts of gold, 
 These you plucked for her, these she wore in 
 
 her breast J 
 Only Rameau's music remembers the rest. 
 The death of roses over a heart grown cold. 
 
 But these sighs ? Can ghosts then sigh from 
 
 the tomb? 
 Life then wept for you, sighed for you, chilled 
 
 your breath? 
 It is the melancholy of ancient death 
 The harpsichord dreams of, sighing in the 
 
 room. 
 
 "3 
 
AIRS FOR THE LUTE 
 
 To Madame Elodie Dolmetsch 
 
 WHEN the sobbing lute complains, 
 Grieving for an ancient sorrow, 
 This poor sorrow that remains 
 Fain would borrow. 
 To give pleading unto sorrow. 
 Those uncapturable strains. 
 
 All, that hands upon the lute 
 Helped the voices to declare. 
 Voices mute 
 
 But for this, might I not share, 
 If, alas, I could but suit 
 Hand and voice unto the lute ? 
 
 114 
 
II 
 
 IF time so sweetly 
 On true according viols make 
 Her own completely 
 The lawless laws of turn and shake ; 
 
 How should I doubt then 
 
 Love, being tuned unto your mood, 
 
 Should bring about then 
 
 True time and measure of your blood? 
 
 "5 
 
Ill 
 
 WHY are you sorrowful in dreams ? 
 I am sad in the night ; 
 The hours till morning are white, 
 I hear the hours' flight 
 All night in dreams. 
 
 Why do you send me your dreams ? 
 For an old love's sake ; 
 I dream if I sleep or wake, 
 And shall but one heart ache. 
 For the sake of dreams ? 
 
 Pray that we sleep without dreams ! 
 Ah, love, the only way 
 To put sorrow away. 
 Night or day, night or day. 
 From the way of dreams ! 
 
 ii6 
 
IV 
 
 STRANGE, to remember tears F 
 Yet I know that I wept ; 
 And those hopes and those fears, 
 Strange, were as real as tears ! 
 
 What's this delicate pain. 
 Twilight-coloured and grey ? 
 Odour-hke through my brain 
 Steals a shadowy pain. 
 
 What's this joy in the air ? 
 Musical as the leaves, 
 When the white winds are there. 
 Faint joy breathes in the air. 
 
MODERN BEAUTY 
 
 I AM the torch, she saith, and what to 
 me 
 If the moth die of me ? I am the flame 
 Of Beauty, and I burn that all may see 
 Beauty, and I have neither joy nor shame. 
 But live with that clear life of perfect fire 
 Which is to men the death of their desire. 
 
 I am Yseult and Helen, I have seen 
 
 Troy burn, and the most loving knight lie 
 
 dead. 
 The world has been my mirror, time has 
 
 been 
 My breath upon the glass j and men have 
 
 said) 
 Age after age, in rapture and despair. 
 Love's poor few words, before mine image 
 
 there. 
 
 I live, and am immortal j in mine eyes 
 The sorrow of the world, and on my lips 
 The joy of life, mingle to make me wise ; 
 
 ii8 
 
/ 
 
 Yet now the day is darkened with eclipse ; 
 Who is there lives for beauty? Still 
 
 am I 
 The torch, but where's the moth that still 
 
 dares die ? 
 
 119 
 
FROM SAN JUAN DE LA CRUZ 
 
 I 
 
 THE OBSCURE NIGHT OF THE SOUL 
 
 UPON an obscure night. 
 Fevered with love in love's anxiety, 
 (O hapless-happy plight !) 
 I went, none seeing me. 
 Forth from my house where all things quiet be. 
 
 By night, secure from sight. 
 
 And by the secret stair, disguisedly, 
 
 (O hapless-happy plight !) 
 
 By night, and privily. 
 
 Forth from my house where all things quiet be. 
 
 Blest night of wandering. 
 In secret, where by none might I be spied, 
 Nor I see anything ; 
 Without a light or guide. 
 Save that which in my heart burnt in my 
 side. 
 
That light did lead me on, 
 
 More surely than the shining of noontide, 
 
 Where well I knew that one 
 
 Did for my coming bide ; 
 
 Where he abode might none but he abide. 
 
 O night that didst lead thus, 
 
 O night more lovely than the dawn of light, 
 
 O night that broughtest us, 
 
 Lover to lover's sight, 
 
 Lover with loved in marriage of delight ! 
 
 Upon my flowery breast. 
 
 Wholly for him, and save himself for none. 
 
 There did I give sweet rest 
 
 To my beloved one j 
 
 The fanning of the cedars breathed thereon. 
 
 When the first moving air 
 
 Blew from the tower, and waved his locks aside. 
 
 His hand, with gentle care, 
 
 Did wound me in the side, 
 
 And in my body all my senses died. 
 
All things I then forgot, 
 
 My cheek on him who for my coming came ; 
 
 Ail ceased, and I was not. 
 
 Leaving my cares and shame 
 
 Among the lilies, and forgetting them. 
 
II 
 
 O FLAME OF LIVING LOVE 
 
 O FLAME of living love, 
 That dost eternally 
 Pierce through my soul writh so consuming 
 
 heat, 
 Since there's no help above. 
 Make thou an end of me. 
 And break the bond of this encounter sweet. 
 
 O burn that burns to heal ! 
 
 O more than pleasant wound ! 
 
 And O soft hand, O touch most delicate, 
 
 That dost new life reveal, 
 
 That dost in grace abound. 
 
 And, slaying, dost from death to life translate ! 
 
 O lamps of fire that shined 
 With so intense a light. 
 That those deep caverns where the senses live. 
 Which were obscure and blind, 
 Now with strange glories bright. 
 Both heat and light to his beloved give ! 
 123 
 
With how benign intent 
 
 Rememberest thou my breast, 
 
 Where thou alone abidest secretly ; 
 
 And in thy sweet ascent, 
 
 With glory and good possessed. 
 
 How delicately thou teachest love to me ! 
 
 124 
 
FROM SANTA TERESA 
 
 IF, Lord, thy love for me is strong 
 As this which binds me unto thee, 
 What holds me from thee, Lord, so long. 
 What holds thee. Lord, so long from me ? 
 
 O soul, what then desirest thou ? 
 
 — Lord, I would see thee, who thus choose 
 
 thee. 
 What fears can yet assail thee now ? 
 — All that I fear is but to lose thee. 
 
 Love's whole possession I entreat. 
 Lord, make my soul thine own abode, 
 And I will build a nest so sweet 
 It may not be too poor for God. 
 
 A soul in God hidden from sin. 
 What more desires for thee remain. 
 Save but to love, and love again. 
 And, all on flame with love within, 
 Love on, and turn to love again ? 
 123 
 
II 
 
 LET mine eyes see thee, 
 -> Sweet Jesus of Nazareth, 
 Let mine eyes see thee, 
 And then see death. 
 
 Let them see that care 
 Roses and jessamine ; 
 Seeing thy face most fair. 
 All blossoms are therein. 
 Flower of seraphin. 
 Sweet Jesus of Nazareth, 
 Let mine eyes see thee, 
 And then see death. 
 
 Nothing I require 
 Where my Jesus is ; 
 Anguish all desire, 
 Saving only this ; 
 All my help is his. 
 He only succoureth. 
 Let mine eyes see thee. 
 Sweet Jesus of Nazareth, 
 Let mine eyes see thee. 
 And then see death. 
 
 126 
 
Ill 
 
 SHEPHERD, shepherd, hark that calling ! 
 Angels they are, and the day is dawning. 
 
 What is this ding-dong. 
 
 Or loud singing is it ? 
 
 Come, Bras, now the day is here. 
 
 The shepherdess we'll visit. 
 
 Shepherd, shepherd, hark that calling ! 
 
 Angels they are, and the day is dawning. 
 
 O is this the Alcalde's daughter. 
 
 Or some lady come from far ? 
 
 She is the daughter of God the Father, 
 
 And she shines like a star. 
 
 Shepherd, shepherd, hark that calling ! 
 
 Angels they are, and the day is dawning. 
 
 127 
 
IV 
 
 TO-DAY a shepherd and our kin, 
 O Gil, to ransom us is sent. 
 And he is God Omnipotent. 
 
 For us hath he cast down the pride 
 And prison walls of Satanas ; 
 But he is of the kin of Bras, 
 Of Menga, also of Llorent. 
 O is not God Omnipotent ? 
 
 If he is God, how then is he 
 Come hither, and here crucified ? 
 — With his dying sin also died, 
 Enduring death the innocent. 
 Gil, how is God Omnipotent ! 
 
 Why, I have seen him born, pardie, 
 And of a most sweet shepherdess. 
 — ^If he is God, how can he be 
 With such poor folk as these content ? 
 — Seest not he is Omnipotent ? 
 128 
 
Give over idle parleying, 
 And let us serve him, you and I, 
 And since he came on earth to die. 
 Let us die with him too, Llorent ; 
 For he is God Omnipotent. 
 
 129 
 
LAUS MORTIS 
 
 I BRING to thee, for love, white roses, 
 delicate Death ! 
 White lilies of the valley, dropping gentle 
 
 tears, 
 The white camellia, the seal of perfect 
 
 years, 
 The misty white azalea, flickering as a 
 
 breath. 
 White flowers I bring, and all the flowers I 
 
 bring for thee, 
 Discreet and comforting Death ! for those 
 
 pale hands of thine ; 
 O hands that I have fled, soft hands now laid 
 
 on mine. 
 Softer than these white flowers of life, thy 
 
 hands to me, 
 Most comfortable Death, mother of many 
 
 dreams. 
 And gatherer or many dreams of men, 
 Dreams that come desolately flying back again. 
 With soiled and quivering wings, from undis- 
 covered streams. 
 130 
 
I have been fearful of thee, mother, all life 
 
 long, 
 For I have loved a warm, alluring, treacherous 
 
 bride, 
 Life, and she loved thee not ; to hold me from 
 
 thy side, 
 She closed her arms about my heart, to do thee 
 
 wrong. 
 
 gay and bitter bride of such divine desires. 
 Too fiercely passionate Life, that wast so 
 
 prodigal 
 Of thine eternal moments, at the end of all 
 Take my forgiveness : I have passed through 
 
 all thy fires. 
 Nothing can hurt me now, and having gained 
 
 and lost 
 All things, and having loved, and having done 
 
 with life, 
 
 1 come back to thy arms, mother, and now all 
 
 strife 
 
 Ceases; and every homeward-flying dream, 
 wind-tossed. 
 
 My soul that looks upon thy face and under- 
 stands, 
 
 iji 
 
My throbbing heart that at thy touch is 
 
 quieted, 
 And all that once desired, and all desire now 
 
 dead, 
 Are gathered to the peace and twilight of thy 
 
 hands. 
 
 132 
 
TO NIGHT 
 
 I HAVE loved wind and light, 
 And the bright sea, 
 But, holy and most secret Night, 
 Not as I love and have loved thee. 
 
 God, like all highest things, 
 
 Hides light in shade, 
 
 And in the night his visitings 
 
 To sleep and dreams are clearliest made. 
 
 Love, that knows all things well. 
 Loves the night best; 
 Joys whereof daylight dares not tell 
 Are his, and the diviner rest. 
 
 And Life, whom day shows plain 
 His prison-bars. 
 
 Feels the close walls and the hard chain 
 Fade when the darkness brings the stars. 
 
 133 
 
MONTSERRAT 
 
 PEACE waits among the hills ; 
 I have drunk peace, 
 Here, where the blue air fills 
 The great cup of the hills. 
 And fills with peace. 
 
 Between the earth and sky, 
 I have seen the earth 
 Like a dark cloud go by, 
 And fade out of the sky; 
 There was no more earth. 
 
 Here, where the Holy Graal 
 Brought secret light 
 Once, from beyond the veil, 
 I, seeing no Holy Graal, 
 Sec divine light. 
 
 Light fills the hills with God, 
 Wind with his breath, 
 And here, in his abode. 
 Light, wind, and air praise God, 
 And this poor breath. 
 134 
 
AT TARRAGONA 
 
 IF I could know but when and why 
 This piece of thoughtless dust 
 
 begins 
 To think, and straightway I am I, 
 And these bright hopes and these brave 
 
 sins. 
 That have been freer than the air. 
 Circle their freedom with my span ; 
 If I could know but why this care 
 Is mine and not the care or man ; 
 Why, thus unwilling, I rejoice. 
 And will the good I do not do. 
 And with the same particular voice 
 Speak the old folly and the new ; 
 If I could know, seeing my soul 
 A white ship with a bending sail. 
 Rudderless, and without a goal. 
 Fly seaward, humble to the gale. 
 Why, knowing not from whence I 
 
 came. 
 Nor why I seek I know not what, 
 I bear this heavy, separate name, 
 133 
 
While winds and waters bear it not ; 
 And why the unlimited earth delights 
 In life, not knowing breath from breath, 
 While I, that count my days and nights. 
 Fear thought in life, and life in death. 
 
 136 
 
AT TOLEDO 
 
 THE little stones chuckle among the 
 fields: 
 "We are so small: God will not think 
 
 of us; 
 We are so old already, we have seen 
 So many generations blunt their ploughs, 
 Tilling the fields we lie in; and we dream 
 Of our first sleep among the ancient hills." 
 The grass laughs, thinking: "I am born 
 
 and die, 
 And born and die, and know not birth or 
 
 death, 
 Only the going on of the green earth." 
 The rivers pass and pass, and are the same. 
 And I, who see the beauty of the world, 
 Pass, and am not the same, or know it 
 
 not, 
 And know the world no more. O is not 
 
 this 
 Some horrible conspiracy of things. 
 That I have known and loved and lingered 
 
 with 
 
 137 
 
All my days through, and now they turn like 
 
 hosts 
 Who have grown tired of a delaying guest ? 
 They cast me out from their eternity : 
 God is in league with their forgetfulness. 
 
 138 
 
OLD AGE 
 
 IT may be, when this city of the nine gates 
 Is broken down by ruinous old age, 
 And no one upon any pilgrimage 
 Comes knocking, no one for an audience 
 
 waits, 
 And no bright foraging troop of bandit moods 
 Rides out on the brave folly of any guest. 
 But weariness, the restless shadow of rest, 
 Hoveringly upon the city broods ; 
 It may be, then, that those remembering 
 And sleepless watchers on the crumbling 
 
 towers 
 Shall lose the count of the disastrous hours 
 Which God may have grown tired of 
 
 reckoning. 
 
 139 
 
OPALS 
 
 1% ^ Y soul is like this cloudy, flaming opal 
 
 The fields of earth are in it, green and glim- 
 mering. 
 The waves of the blue sky, night's purple 
 
 flower of noon. 
 The vanishing cold scintillations of the moon. 
 And the red heart that is a flame within a 
 
 flame. 
 And as the opal dies, and is re-born the same, 
 And all the fire that is its life-blood seems to 
 
 dart 
 Through the veined variable intricacies of its 
 
 heart, 
 And ever wandering ever wanders back again. 
 So must my swift soul constant to itself 
 
 remain. 
 Opal, have I not been as variable as you ? 
 But, cloudy opal flaming green and red and 
 
 blue. 
 Are you not ever constant in your varying, 
 Even as my soul, O captive opal of my ring? 
 140 
 
RUBIES 
 
 THERE are nine rubies in this Indian 
 
 And every blood-red ruby is a part 
 Of the nine-petalled rose that is my heart, 
 The elaborate rose of my own feshioning. 
 Not out or any garden have I sought 
 The rose that is more brief than dawn or dew : 
 Stones of the flame and ice, I Hnd in you 
 The image of the heart that I have wrought. 
 For you are cold and burn as though with fire, 
 For you are hard, yet veil soft depths below, 
 And each divided ruby seems to glow 
 With the brief passion of its own desire. 
 Rose of my heart, shall this too be the same? 
 For, when one light catches the wandering 
 
 rays. 
 They rush together in one consuming blaze 
 Of indivisible and ecstatic flame. 
 
 141 
 
DEGREES OF LOVE 
 
 WHEN your eyes opened to mine eyes, 
 Without desire, without surprise, 
 I knew your soul awoke to see 
 All, dreams foretold, but could not be. 
 Yet loving love, not loving me. 
 
 When your eyes drooped before mine eyes, 
 As though some secret made them wise. 
 Some wisdom veiled them secretly, 
 I knew your heart began to be 
 In love with love, in love with me. 
 
 When your eyes tawned against mine eyes. 
 With beaten hunger, and with cries. 
 In bitter pride's humility. 
 Love, wholly mine, had come to be 
 Hatred of love for loving me. 
 
 142 
 
THE PRICE 
 
 PITY all faithless women who have loved 
 None knows 
 How much it hurts a woman to do wrong to 
 
 love. 
 The mother who has felt the child within her 
 
 move, 
 Shall she forget her child, and those ecstatic 
 throes ? 
 
 Then pity faithless women who have loved. 
 
 These have 
 Murdered within them something born out of 
 
 their pain. 
 These mothers of the child whom they have 
 
 loved and slain 
 May not so much as lay the child within a 
 
 grave. 
 
 143 
 
AN ENDING 
 
 I WILL go my ways from the city, and 
 then, maybe, 
 My heart shall forget one woman's voice, and 
 
 her lips ; 
 I will arise, and set my face to the sea. 
 Among stranger-folk and in the wandering ships. 
 
 The world is great, and the bounds of it who 
 
 shall set ? 
 It may be I shall find, somewhere in the world 
 
 I shall find, 
 A land that my feet may abide in ; then I shall 
 
 rorget 
 The woman I loved, and the years that are 
 
 left behind. 
 
 But, if the ends of the world are not wide 
 
 enough 
 To out-weary my heart, and to find for my 
 
 heart some fold, 
 I will go back to the city, and her I love, 
 And look on her face, and remember the days 
 
 of old. 
 
 144 
 
IN IRELAND 
 
 I 
 
 ON INISHMAAN 
 (isles of Aran) 
 
 IN the twilight of the year, 
 Here, about these twilight ways. 
 When the grey moth night drew near, 
 Fluttering on a faint flying, 
 I would linger out the day's 
 Delicate and moth-grey dying. 
 
 Grey, and faint with sleep, the sea 
 Should enfold me, and release, 
 Some old peace to dwell with me. 
 I would quiet the long crying 
 Of my heart with mournful peace, 
 The grey sea's, in its low sighing. 
 
 145 
 
II 
 
 BY THE POOL AT THE THIRD 
 ROSSES 
 
 IHE ARD the sighing pf the reeds 
 In the grey pool in the green land, 
 The sea-wind in the long reeds sighing 
 Between the green hill and the sand. 
 
 I heard the sighing of the reeds 
 Day after day, night after night ; 
 I heard the whirring wild ducks flying, 
 I saw the sea-gull's wheeling flight. 
 
 I heard the sighing of the reeds 
 Night after night, day after day, 
 And I forgot old age, and dying. 
 And youth that loves, and love's decay. 
 
 I heard the sighing of the reeds 
 At noontide and at evening. 
 And some old dream I had forgotten 
 I seemed to be remembering. 
 
 146 
 
I hear the sighing of the reeds : 
 Is it in vain, is it in vain 
 That some old peace I had forgotten 
 Is crying to come back again ? 
 
 147 
 
Ill 
 
 BY LOUGH-NA-GAR 
 
 (rain) 
 
 INTO a land of wandering rain 
 I have fled from a voice that follows me 
 still 
 To the lonely cabin under the hill ; 
 It cries to me out of the windless rain, 
 And at night I hear it crying again. 
 
 All day the rain is on the lake, 
 
 All night the rain drips from the thatch ; 
 
 I stand at the cabin door and watch 
 
 The drifting rain beat on the lake, 
 
 And the foam-white ripples gather and break. 
 
 The woods are veiled with the rains all day, 
 The woods crouch under the rains all night, 
 And the rainy torrents cry from the height ; 
 I hear in the rain, night and day, 
 A voice crying from far away. 
 
 148 
 
IV 
 
 BY LOUGH-NA-GAR 
 
 (green light) 
 
 THE light of the world is of gold, 
 But the light of the green earth fills 
 The nestling heart of the hills ; 
 And the world's hours are old, 
 And the world's thoughts are a dream. 
 Here, in the ancient place 
 Of peace, where old sorrows seem 
 As the half-forgotten face 
 Of flower-bright cities of gold 
 That blossom beyond the height 
 Seems in the earth-green light 
 That is old as the earth is old. 
 
 149 
 
V 
 IN THE WOOD OF FINVARA 
 
 I HAVE grown tired of sorrow and human 
 tears ; 
 Life is a dream in the night, a fear among 
 
 fears, 
 A naked runner lost in a storm of spears. 
 
 I have grown tired of rapture and love's desire; 
 Love is a flaming heart, and its flames aspire 
 Till they cloud the soul in the smoke of a 
 windy fire. 
 
 I would wash the dust of the world in a soft 
 
 green flood : 
 Here, between sea and sea, in the fairy wood, 
 I have found a delicate, wave-green solitude. 
 
 Here, in the fairy wood, between sea and sea, 
 I have heard the song of a fairy bird in a tree, 
 And the peace that is not in the world has 
 flown to me. 
 
 150 
 
SPAIN 
 
 To yosefa 
 
 JOSEFA, when you sing. 
 With clapping hands, the sorrows of 
 your Spain, 
 And all the bright-shawled ring 
 Laugh and clap hands again, 
 I think how all the sorrows were in vain. 
 
 The footlights flicker and spire 
 In tongues of flame before your tiny feet. 
 My warm-eyed gipsy, higher. 
 And in your eyes they meet 
 More than their light, more than their golden 
 heat. 
 
 You sing of Spain, and all 
 
 Clap hands for Spain and you, and for the 
 
 song; 
 One dances, and the hall 
 Rings like a beaten gong 
 With louder- handed clamours of the throng* 
 151 
 
Spain, that with dancing mirth 
 Tripped lightly to the precipice, and fell 
 Until she felt the earth. 
 Suddenly, and knew well 
 That to have fallen through dreams is to touch 
 hell; 
 
 Spain, brilliantly arrayed, 
 Decked for disaster, on disaster hurled, 
 Here, as in masquerade. 
 Mimes, to amuse the world, 
 Her ruin, a dancer rouged and draped and 
 curled. 
 
 Mother of chivalry. 
 
 Mother of many sorrows borne for God, 
 
 Spain of the saints, is she 
 
 A slave beneath the rod, 
 
 A merry slave, and in her own abode ? 
 
 She, who once found, has lost 
 A world beyond the waters, and she stands 
 Paying the priceless cost, 
 Lightly, with lives for lands. 
 Flowers in her hair, castanets in her hands. 
 152 
 
VENETIAN NIGHT 
 
 H 
 
 'ER eyes in the darkness shone, in the 
 twilight shed 
 By the gondola bent like the darkness over her 
 
 head. 
 Softly the gondola rocked, lights came and 
 
 went; 
 A white glove shone as her black fan lifted and 
 
 leant 
 Where the silk of her dress, the blue of a 
 
 bittern's wing. 
 Rustled against my knee, and, murmuring 
 The sweet slow hesitant English of a child. 
 Her voice was articulate laughter, her soul 
 
 smiled. 
 Softly the gondola rocked, lights came and 
 
 went; 
 From the sleeping houses a shadow of slumber 
 
 leant 
 Over our heads like a wing, and the dim 
 
 lagoon. 
 Rustling with silence, slumbered under the 
 
 moon. 
 
 153 
 
Softly the gondola rocked, and a pale light came 
 Over the waters, mild as a silver flame ; 
 She lay back, thrilling with smiles, in the twi- 
 light shed 
 By the gondola bent like the darkness over her 
 
 head ; 
 I saw her eyes shine subtly, then close awhile: 
 I remember her silence, and, in the night, her 
 smile. 
 
 154 
 
DREAMS IN ROME 
 
 WHAT is it that sings a sleepy tune in 
 my head ? 
 Some faint old unforgotten moon that is dead ? 
 I will arise, for the dreams are about my bed. 
 
 O is it in vain, is it in vain I have come ? 
 Dark was the road in coming, and white the 
 
 foam. 
 Is there no rest for me here ? are there dreams 
 
 in Rome ? 
 
 I5S 
 
PALM SUNDAY (NAPLES) 
 
 BECAUSE it is the day of Palms, 
 Carry a palm for me, 
 Carry a palm in Santa Chiara, 
 And I will watch the sea ; 
 There are no palms in Santa Chiara 
 To-day or any day for me. 
 
 I sit and watch the little sail 
 
 Lean side-ways on the sea, 
 
 The sea is blue from here to Sorrento, 
 
 And the sea-wind comes to me. 
 
 And I see the white clouds lift from Sorrento 
 
 And the dark sail lean upon the sea. 
 
 I have grown tired of all these things, 
 And what is left for me ? 
 I have no place in Santa Chiara, 
 There is no peace upon the sea ; 
 But carry a palm in Santa Chiara, 
 Carry a palm for me. 
 
 136 
 
THE COMING OF SPRING (MADRID) 
 
 SPRING is come back, and the little voices 
 are calling, 
 The birds are calling, the little green buds on 
 
 the trees, 
 A song in the street, and an old and sleepy 
 
 tune ; 
 All the sounds of the spring are falling, 
 
 filing. 
 Gentle as rain, on my heart, and I hear all 
 
 these 
 As a sick man hears men talk from the heart 
 
 of a swoon. 
 
 The clamours of spring are the same old 
 
 delicate noises. 
 The earth renews its magical youth at a 
 
 breath. 
 And the whole world whispers a well-known, 
 
 secret thing ; 
 And I hear, but the meaning has faded out of 
 
 the voices ; 
 
 157 
 
Something has died in my heart : is it death or 
 
 sleep ? 
 I know not, but I have forgotten the meaning 
 
 of spring. 
 
 158 
 
SEPTEMBER IDYL (IN THE HAM- 
 MOCK : CHAM£ANE) 
 
 A SKY of green and gold, tremulous, 
 delicate. 
 Starred with pale blue, and bright with little 
 
 voices ; wind 
 Lifting the golden outer fringe, autumn has 
 
 thinned ; 
 A yellow leaf drops rustling, and another : wait, 
 The leaves begin to whisper, and the voices 
 
 cease : 
 I hear the silence ; but a voice flutters again, 
 A little, fluting voice, soft, piercing, as the 
 
 rain ; 
 I close mine eyes, and all my body sways with 
 
 peace. 
 Delicate, tremulous, seen under eyelids closed. 
 The sky of green and gold sways over me, and 
 
 seems 
 To fill the languid soul with the desire of 
 
 dreams ; 
 But the sky fades, and only inner eyelids, 
 
 rosed 
 
 159 
 
With filtered sunlight falling, shadow as they 
 pass 
 
 Not even dreams ; until a trailing hand per- 
 ceives, 
 
 Sudden, the earth again, in the crisp touch of 
 leaves, 
 
 And the arresting slender fingers of the grass. 
 
 i6o 
 
HASCHISCH 
 
 BEHIND the door, beyond the light, 
 Who is it waits there in the night ? 
 When he has entered he will stand, 
 Imposing with his silent hand 
 Some silent thing upon the night. 
 
 Behold the image of my fear. 
 O rise not, move not, come not near ! 
 That moment, when you turned your face, 
 A demon seemed to leap through space ; 
 His gesture strangled me with fear. 
 
 And yet I am the lord of all. 
 And this brave world magnifical, 
 Veiled in so variable a mist 
 It may be rose or amethyst, 
 Demands me for the lord of all ! 
 
 Who said the world is but a mood 
 In the eternal thought of God ? 
 I know it, real though it seem. 
 The phantom of a haschisch dream 
 In that insomnia which is God, 
 
 l6l L 
 
PARSIFAL 
 
 ROSE of the garden's roses, what pale wind 
 Has scattered those flushed petals in an 
 hour, 
 And the close leaves of all the alleys thinned, 
 What re-awakening wind, 
 O sad enchantress banished to a flower ? 
 
 Parsifal has out-blushed the roses : dead 
 Is all the garden of the world's delight. 
 And every rose of joy has drooped its head, 
 And for sweet shame is dead ; 
 Sweet joy being shameful in the pure fool's 
 sight. 
 
 162 
 
FROM «LA VIDA ES SUENO" OF 
 CALDERON 
 
 WE live, while we see the sun, 
 Where life and dreams are as one ; 
 And living has taught me this, 
 Man dreams the life that is his, 
 Until his living is done. 
 The King dreams he is King, and he lives 
 In the deceit of a King, 
 Commanding and governing ; 
 And all the praise he receives 
 Is written in wind, and leaves 
 A little dust on the way 
 When death ends all with a breath. 
 Where then is the gain of a throne, 
 That shall perish and not be known 
 In the other dream that is death ? 
 Dreams the rich man of riches and fears, 
 The fears that his riches breed ; 
 The poor man dreams of his need. 
 And all his sorrows and tears ; 
 Dreams he that prospers with years, 
 Dreams he that feigns and foregoes, 
 163 
 
Dreams he that rails on his foes ; 
 
 And in all the world, I see, 
 
 Man dreams whatever he be, 
 
 And his own dream no man knows. 
 
 And I too dream, and behold, 
 
 I dream I am bound with chains, 
 
 And I dreamed that these present pains 
 
 Were fortunate ways of old. 
 
 What is life ? a tale that is told j 
 
 What is life ? a frenzy extreme, 
 
 A shadow of things that seem ; 
 
 And the greatest good is but small. 
 
 That all life is a dream to all, 
 
 And that dreams themselves are a dream. 
 
THE LAST MEMORY 
 
 WHEN I am old, and think of the 
 old days, 
 And warm my hands before a little blaze. 
 Having forgotten love, hope, fear, desire, 
 I shall see, smiling out of the pale fire, 
 One face, mysterious and exquisite ; 
 And I shall gaze, and ponder over it. 
 Wondering, was it Leonardo wrought 
 That stealthy ardency, where passionate 
 
 thought 
 Burns inward, a revealing flame, and glows 
 To the last ecstasy, which is repose ? 
 Was it Bronzino, those Borghese eyes ? 
 And, musing thus among my memories, 
 O unforgotten ! you will come to seem. 
 As pictures do, remembered, some old 
 
 dream. 
 And I shall think of you as something 
 
 strange, 
 
 And beautiful, and full of helpless change. 
 
 Which I beheld and carried in my heart j 
 
 But you, I loved, will have become a part 
 
 165 
 
Of the eternal mystery, and love 
 Like a dim pain ; and I shall bend above 
 My little fire, and shiver, being coldj 
 When you are no more young, and I am 
 old. 
 
 i66 
 
TOYS 
 
 I HAVE laid you away as we lay 
 The toys of a little dead child, 
 You know you are safe in my heart ; 
 You know I haVe set you apart 
 In my heart, and hid you away. 
 Because joy that prattled and smiled 
 In the heart becomes grief to the heart. 
 Laying its youth away 
 With the toys of a little dead child. 
 
 167 
 
PERFECT GRIEF 
 
 THE wandering, wise, outcast sons 
 Of Pharaoh, the dark roofless ones, 
 Taught me this wisdom : If Death come, 
 And take thy dear one, be thou dumb. 
 Nor gratify with suppliant breath 
 The attentive insolence of Death. 
 Suffer thy dear one to depart 
 In silence ; silent in thy heart. 
 From this forth, be thy dear one's name. 
 So I, that would not put to shame 
 So dear a memory dead, repeat 
 No more the sweet name once too sweet, 
 Nor, from that buried name, remove 
 The haughty silence of my love. 
 
THE DREAM 
 
 OIF the world I make 
 , With these eyes be a dream, 
 And Love, that is life, but seem 
 To choose a shade from a shade. 
 Then let me wake ! 
 I have loved, not Love, but a pale. 
 Mortal woman, and made 
 The whole world for her sake ; 
 Let the sight of mine eyes feil. 
 And the whole world fade : 
 I have dreamed : let me wake ! 
 
 169 
 
WEARINESS 
 
 I 
 
 THERE are grey hours when I drink of 
 indiiFerence ; all things fade 
 Into the grey of a twilight that covers my 
 
 soul with its sky ; 
 Scarcely I know that this shade is the world, 
 
 or this burden is I ; 
 And life, and art, and love, and death, are the 
 shades of a shade. 
 
 Then, in those hours, I hear old voices murmur 
 
 aloud. 
 And memory tires of the hopelessly hoping 
 
 desire, her regret ; 
 I hear the remembering voices, and I forget to 
 
 forget ; 
 The world as a cloud drifts by, or I drift by as 
 
 a cloud. 
 
 170 
 
II 
 
 I am weary at heart, yet not weary with 
 
 sorrow, nor weary with pain : 
 I would that an eager sorrow returned to me 
 
 out of the deep ; 
 I could fold my hands in the morning, lie 
 
 down on my bed again : 
 
 Sorrow, angel of Joy, re-awaken my heart 
 
 from its sleep ! 
 
 1 am wearier than the old, when they sit and 
 
 smile in the sun, 
 Dreaming of sorrowful things, grown happy 
 
 and dim to their sight ; 
 But I dream in the morning, my daylight is 
 
 over, my day's work done : 
 r am old at heart, for my sorrow is sleepy, 
 
 and nods before night. 
 
 171 
 
WIND ON THE SEA 
 
 THE loneliness of the sea is in my heart, 
 And the wind is not more lonely than 
 this grey mind. 
 I have thought far thoughts, I have loved, I 
 
 have loved, and I find 
 Love gone, thought wreary, and I, alas, left 
 behind. 
 
 The loneliness of my heart is in the sea, 
 
 And my mind is not more lonely than this 
 
 grey wind. 
 Who shall stay the feet of the sea, or bind 
 The wings of the wind ? only the feet of 
 
 mankind 
 Grow old in the place of their sorrow, and 
 
 bitter is the heart 
 That may not wander as the wind or return as 
 
 the sea. 
 
 172 
 
A TUNE 
 
 A FOOLISH rhythm turns in my idle 
 head 
 As a wind-mill turns in the wind on an empty 
 
 sky. 
 Why is it when love, which men call death- 
 less, is dead, 
 That memory, men call fugitive, will not die ? 
 Is love not dead ? yet I hear that tune if I lie 
 Dreaming awake in the night on my lonely 
 
 bed, 
 And an old thought turns with the old tune in 
 
 my head 
 As a wind-mill turns in the wind on an empty 
 sky. 
 
 173 
 
THE ONE FACE 
 
 FAIR faces come again, 
 As at sunsetting 
 The stars without number ; 
 Or as dreams dreamed in vain 
 To a heart forgetting 
 Come back with slumber. 
 
 Love covered both mine eyes 
 In a sweet twilight 
 With his two hands folded j 
 Foolish to be most wise, 
 In the light of thy light 
 See as my soul did ! 
 
 O Love, that, seeing all, 
 
 Sweetly dost cover 
 
 The eyes of thy loved ones. 
 
 Let me no more recall 
 
 The dim hours over 
 
 And the one face loved once ! 
 
 174 
 
But, having long been blind, 
 
 To behold those graces 
 
 I have lost with love now, 
 
 Let me behold and find 
 
 If all fair feces 
 
 In the world are enough now ! 
 
 175 
 
THE LAST PITY 
 
 NOW I have seen your face. 
 My tears are all for you. 
 Where are the lonely grace, 
 The pride, the lovely ways I knew ? 
 
 The flower that blossomed fair 
 
 When winds and clouds arrayed 
 
 The shadows of the air, 
 
 Plucked, though with jealous care, must fade. 
 
 And in your wintry eyes. 
 With re-awakenings moved 
 A moment, I surprise 
 Nostalgia of the skies they loved. 
 
 Old sorrows I have borne 
 
 In patience for your sake. 
 
 Not without help of scorn : 
 
 From dreams, now twice forlorn, I wake. 
 
 176 
 
I hear the old sorrows call, 
 Now, from your heart alone ; 
 And scorn's relief recall 
 With pity which is all your own. 
 
 177 
 
WANDERER'S SONG 
 
 I HAVE had enough of women, and enough 
 of love. 
 But the land waits, and the sea waits, and day 
 
 and night is enough ; 
 Give me a long white road, and the grey wide 
 
 path of the sea. 
 And the wind's will and the bird's will, and the 
 heart-ache still in me. 
 
 Why should I seek out sorrow, and give gold 
 
 for strife ? 
 I have loved much and wept much, but tears 
 
 and love are not life j 
 The grass calls to my heart, and the foam to 
 
 my blood cries up. 
 And the sun shines and the road shines, and the 
 
 wine's in the cup. 
 
 I have had enough of wisdom, and enough of 
 
 mirth. 
 For the way's one and the end's one, and it's 
 
 soon to the ends of the earth ; 
 
 178 
 
And it's then good-night and to bed, and if 
 
 heels or heart ache, 
 Well, it's sound sleep and long sleep, and sleep 
 
 too deep to wake. 
 
 179 
 
EPILOGUE 
 
 O LITTLE waking hour of life out of 
 sleep ! 
 When I consider the many million years 
 I was not yet, and the many million years 
 I shall not be, it is easy to think of the sleep 
 I shall sleep for the second time without hopes 
 
 or fears. 
 Surely my sleep for the million years was deep ? 
 I remember no dreams from the million years, 
 
 and it seems 
 I may sleep for as many million years without 
 
 dreams. 
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson <S^ Co, 
 London <5^ Edinburgh 
 
By THE SAME WRITER 
 
 VERSE 
 
 DAYS AND NIGHTS (Out of Print) 
 SILHOUETTES {Out of Print) 
 LONDON NIGHTS 
 AMORIS VICTIMA 
 
 PROSE 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF 
 BROWNING 
 
 STUDIES IN TWO LITERATURES 
 
 AUBREY BEARDSLEY: AN ESSAY {Illus- 
 trated) 
 
 THE SYMBOLIST MOVEMENT IN LITER- 
 ATURE 
 
 CITIES {In Preparation)