IPS 3501 .R52 1914 I Copy 1 ..■V. m- 5^ Class j£S_^ii54 CopyiightK" ::. \ COFVRIGHT DEPOSIT POEMS POEMS BY WALTER CONRAD ARENSBERG BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 1914 Tt)3rot •^^t^lA- COPYRIGHT, I914, BY WALTER CONRAD ARENSBERG ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published April 1Q14 APR 15 1914 A^ (DCI,A371367 TO MY MOTHER CONTENTS To One who Reads i In Memory of F. C. G. 3 A Vow 6 To Little M. A. on her Birthday .... 8 Jardin du Luxembourg 12 Avenue de l'Opera 13 On the Train 15 The Moons of All Time 16 A Fountain at Frascati 17 Serenade 18 Night 19 Among the Fields .21 To A Skylark in the Campagna ..... 23 A Poppy 25 Eclogue 27 Expectancy 29 A Ballade to my Lady Moonlight . . . .30 Until To-morrow 32 Romanticism 33 r vii 1 A Prayer 35 Dream-Tryst 36 Above the Sea 37 Night Song 39 Interior 40 The Return 42 Venus of Melos 43 Autumn Wind 44 Quest 45 Confidences 47 My Lady's Tomb 48 Weariness 49 For a Picture by Leonardo da Vinci ... 50 Slumber Song 52 Chryseis . . 53 The Wild Rose 55 During Music 56 Seaward • . . .58 Nocturne 59 The Grave 60 Sonnets Time's Losses I 61 Time's Losses II .62 On a Macedonian Tomb .- 63 The End of the Story . . . , . .64 [ viii ] At Parting . . . . . ' , . . .65 The Sleeping Beauty 66 "Music to Hear" . . . ■ . . . .67 For a Picture of a Saint 68 To One whose Love was Service .... 69 A Face 70 The Pieta of Michel Angelo ... . . .71 Atalanta 72 In the Home of Life 73 When I am Old 74 The Nightingales 75 Quatrains The Poet - , . 76 The Masterpiece 77 Youth 78 Time in a Garden . . , . . . \ , . 79 The Rhone at Avignon .80 On a Certain Irregularity . .'..'. 81 To A Deserted Litter of Puppies .... 82 To A Goaded Sheep . . . ..,.'. 83 A Franciscan . . . . . . . .84 Tribute . . ' 85 Out of Doors . ' 86 About an Allegory 87 Tristan and Iseult of the White Hands ... 88 [ i^ 1 TRANSLATIONS Sonnet. From Rons ard . . . . . . • 95 Sonnet. From Du Bellay . . . . . .96 Upon a Dead Woman. From De Musset . ~ . .97 Meditation. From Baudelaire . ■ . . . .99 Complaint of Lord Pierrot. From Jules Laf argue . 100 Conceits. From Jules Laf argue 102 Sea Wind. From Mallarme 104 What Silk in Scents. From Mallarme . . . .105 Musette. From Murger 106 After Three Years. From Verlaine . , . .109 Nevermore. From Verlaine . . . . . .110 My Familiar Dream. From Verlaine . . . ,111 Languor. From Verlaine 112 Oh Heavy, Heavy was my Mind. From Verlaine , . 113 Cydalises. From Gerard de Nerval 115 Delphica. From Gerard de Nerval 1 16 Mignon's Song. From Goethe 117 Song. From Heine .119 To Zante. From Ugo Foscolo 120 On the Death of a Brother. From Ugo Foscolo ■■ , 121 POEMS POEMS TO ONE WHO READS What is it, that with all thy tears Thou weep'st that loss of Guinevere's, When she who lay with Lancelot Lies now with Death and knows it not ? What is it that for Helen won Away from withered Ilion Thou weep'st when thirty centuries Have taken her love and given peace ? What is it when on windy wings Into thine eyes Francesca brings. As to her Ark from Dante's book. Dove-like, so faint, so far a look ? What is it ? Ah, it is the thing. Yea, this alone, for which did sing The poet who for Beatrice In death could do no more than this : [ ^ ] To make thee weep and so let live The spirits who are fugitive From the old life eternally A while within the heart of thee. [ 2 ] IN MEMORY OF F. C. G. Eager and unaware Of the obscure descent, Singing a song he went Down the long lonely stair That builds upon the sands Whence no man's eyes divine The void of the sea-line Broken by other lands. The songs he used to sing, First heard them he alone As some sad undertone Of daylight darkening. As some unquiet breath Of life that swept among The fragile rushes sprung In sudden waves of death. [ 3 ] Passionate little tunes, That bore on changing streams The sailing of his dreams, Under the suns and moons Of all his human moods, Still in your silver flow His visions come and go. And his brief passion broods. So soon his years went by. He sang, and ceased to sing. The while his years were spring. He had no time to die — No time upon the quest Of all the fervor furled In the unopened world. No time, no time for rest. He sought the shapes of sense As seeks the worshipper Mystically the myrrh And holy frankincense, [ 4 ] For forms that wing the air Toward the diviner things, And lift upon their wings A voice of burning prayer. Wherefore a long regret, However he be blest In the far fields of rest. Will hunt and haunt him yet, His mutilated day, And the malign caprice That bade his being cease Midway upon the way. Ere in one wide control Of mood and intellect He well might reerect His world a perfect whole. Ere in the crucible Of passion he might fuse. Pure for his spirit's use, The world that he loved well. [ 5 ] A VOW All the night till day be born Like a flower upon a thorn, Like a moon upon a lake, Like the eyes that you awake, I will watch for your sweet sake ! All the day till night shall rise Like a blindness on the skies. Like the ice upon the brook. Like a death in some sad book. Like Leander's drowning look, I will hide you in a hollow Where the years alone may follow; In the heart of such a land That the seas shall have to stand At the circle of its strand ; [ 6 ] In the inner heart of me I will keep you utterly ; Kinder than the love of brothers, Kinder, crueller than a mother's. In a love that brooks no others ! There shall need no other face For the flowering of that place. There shall need no other glass For the sands of time to pass, There shall be but one Alas, — Be it only that you stay All the night and all the day, Be it only that you cling Closer till you lift a wing For the final fluttering. [ 7 ] TO LITTLE M. A. ON HER BIRTHDAY Baby born On a morn, With a weeping And a sleeping First you tested Life, and rested. So the trial Broke the vial Where the years Keep their tears ! And you learn Where to turn — Life is best On a breast ! [ 8 ] Just the blossom Of a bosom, Just the mouth Of a drouth, Just the I Of a cry, Little baby, Not a May-be Or a Never In Forever Lights your way From to-day ! Not a suture Knits the future To a past All unglassed [ 9 ] In the skies Of your eyes! Thoughtless brow, Is the Now, Is the Real Your Ideal — Just to be Momently ? Or have you Something new Still to fashion Out of passion ? . From a mother's To another's Bosom laid. Unafraid, [ ^o ] Will you give Leave to live, Ere you go — From the throe Out of breath — Back to death ? [ " ] JARDIN DU LUXEMBOURG Winter wind in autumn blows ; Autumn days are grown too chilly For Godivas of the rose Or the raiment of the lily. Rouged — and not so very well — Come the dahlias now to harden All the soft and true pastel Of the once ungathered garden. Even the nursery maids have flown From the hurricane that drenches Gods and goddesses in stone And the God-forsaken benches. Like cocottes along the grass, Dauntlessly the dahlias hearken For the steps that never pass While the hours of daytime darken. [ «2 ] AVENUE DE L'OPERA Watch her experimental blufF Of letting drop her ermine muff — Chemically, because she waits For masculine precipitates ; Incredulous and credulous That she should get ihe drop on us, Apologetic for the ruse. As though she might be thought to use A trick too easy to be fair, Like magic or a mere Lord's Prayer ! But really, now, she is too sweet To flower upon the trodden street. Too full of honey and too frail To flaunt at the deflowering male. Too full of faith in what her sense Knows better than experience. Yes, too cocksure, and still too chaste To dream of any aftertaste [ »3 ] Of apples that are grown for food, Of fruit God grew and saw was good. She lacks, I think, the brains to be Accomplice of her Destiny ; And if she has the luck to find A fellow who is not unkind. She '11 have a laugh ... so never mind ! [ H ] ON THE TRAIN O GLAD release into the sea-deep night! O swift and sure extinction of the light Of Paris waning to a starry dust Of lamps that lubricate its life and lust, Of lamps that look at what the walls exhume Of the still starved cadavers of a tomb That grudges even the grace unto its dead To let them rot without the need of bread ! The light is out. O sad, O hopeless flight Into the dim, illimitable night, Into the shadowy hollow of the world ! Fatally and impenetrably furled In Paris and the Past, the flowers of days Are now all trodden on those darkened ways, The flowers that once were scattered in the street To pave it, ah, for what escaped feet ! [ »5 ] THE MOONS OF ALL TIME Where are the moons that in all olden night Have bloomed along the shoreland of the sky, Stately as lilies, single, still, and white, Unhastening to open and to die ? Where are the moons upon what aimless flight, That from their garden while the wind is high Another breaks and bubbles toward the height. Blown loose among the stars that wander by ? [ i6 ] A FOUNTAIN AT FRASCATI The drooping of the fountain to its pool, A silver willow weeping in the night, Is like a wraith that haunts for lost delight The mirror that it once made beautiful. I hear the dropping moments in the spray . . The stealthy hours desert the solitude. Wherein is waiting, waiting to be wooed. The wraith of hushed love that passed away. [ »7 ] SERENADE Be still, be still — you have dreamed awhile. The moon and the stars are not for you, And on the face is not the smile That you are whispering to. The world is waiting at your eyes. You sleep too long, awake, awake ! You have been happy — now be wise. And watch the bubbles break ! [ i8 ] NIGHT From utter dark to utter Dark on the wing, The stars are all a-flutter With westering ! What wakens out of heaven, What farther peace, Arcturus and the seven Pale Pleiades ? And slips the moon her mooring From out the bay . . . What in the world is luring The moon away ? Horizon past horizon, Is there a quest ? What is the road it lies on, West beyond west ? [ 19 ] Hollow above the hollow Of star-far dome, What way is there to follow Home ? AMONG THE FIELDS Ere the day darken, dear, Ere the day die. Bow down and hearken, dear, Out of the sky. Lonely I wander, dear, Under the sun. Wilt thou be yonder, dear. When days are done ? Out of the grave of thee Up through His portal, What did God save of thee For the immortal ? "■ What hath He made of thee, More to be blest ? What of the braid of thee. What of the breast ? [ ^» ] Oh, when I come to thee With the old word, Will it be dumb to thee Then, or be heard ? Thou who did' St evenly Share in the old, Will it be heavenly Then to withhold ? Spirit who bore to me Love of a woman. Be as of yore to me Heavenly human ! TO A SKYLARK IN THE CAMPAGNA Thou art so far, Bird of the singing wings Or singing star, That by thy lightenings Of song alone I trace thy sunny track To the Unknown, And I would call thee back ! Come unto me, And I will build a nest Of memory. And I will give thee rest. Yea, though thou roam Deathward with all the world. My heart 's a home Where wings will not be furled, [ 23 ] A home my heart Where memory shall shrine The deathless part Of this mad flight of thine ! But from my call To thee who art so far, Bird that let'st fall Star after falling star Of voice afire, Still on the flight begun Thou mountest higher. Up to the endless sun ! C 24 ] A POPPY Flame of the swooned heat Of sun-blazed air, Now burning in her wheat Of golden hair, O poppy with thy fruit Of dream and doom, Plucked for thy passionate mute Appeal of bloom, Has she the power to reckon Toward what wild ways She lifted thee to beckon Above her face ? Or is it for the red Of just a flower She crowns upon her head Seductive power? [ ^5 ] Out of her virgin trance Thy blood-red call And languid petulance Are bacchanal ! [ ^6 ] ECLOGUE Within the woodland secrecies Of languorous glades that meekly lie Released from the embracing trees, Uncovered underneath the sky, While I was all alone and heard. Faint as an echo when it dies, The melancholy cuckoo bird Keep calling for her own replies. In dream I saw Neaera there. Lying asleep among the grapes, Her face deep nested in her hair . .^ , And all the while a satyr gapes ! With eyes that are too timid sad And open lips that meditate The pastures of her breast unclad. He hears his heart — until, too late ! [ -7 ] She has drained out her summer sleep, Her sunshine languor melts away, And ere her eyes dream-heavy peep, He loses all his heart to stay! But oftener in other mood I wander to the wood alone. And in a chosen solitude Unto myself I make my moan Of dreams that never come to flower. And of those flowers that are forlorn, Like morning-glories, in the hour That takes away the hour of morn. Oh then when I have wept apart The flowers of dream so nearly dead, I am enlightened in my heart And delicately comforted. And see that the unhuman tryst There with the living solitude Is sweeter than Neaera kissed Within the secret of the wood. [ 28 ] EXPECTANCY Dream, drudge, and then the years to wait ! My heart is listening at its gate Forever for the feet of Fate. And while the seasons cloud and clear, " Is Fate far off, or is Fate near. Or passed ? " I ask — I cannot hear; Until my heart reads in the Laws : " In the beginning as it was, So shall it be without a pause ! " Until my heart in secret says : " Along the drifting level ways Of Time there are no different days ! " For lo ! without a trumpet blast. The mute dead march of Fate at last Is coming still and long is passed. [ 29 ] A BALLADE TO MY LADY MOONLIGHT I KNOW not how thou cam'st to rise, Moon of my nights, and waken me From slumber that was death's disguise — No power on earth could set me free. Ah, but the power was heavenly. The power of love in thee enshrined — Or if it is a lunacy. Beloved, do not call me blind ! There was no word of dim moonrise, No early flush of birth to be Along the east. I closed my eyes On skies as dark as the dark sea. The darkness was a mystery Wherethrough there was no way to wind, Till with thy light thou mad'st me see. Beloved, do not call me blind ! [ 30 ] Moon of my nights, on sapphire skies No morning star gives light like thee, Nor comes to birth in blossom-wise Out of the east on mere or lea So like a lily perfectly. The stars before thee and behind. When thou art shining, fade and flee. Beloved, do not call me blind ! Listen, my Moonlight, to my plea ! Because I have not half defined Thy beauties in these stanzas three, Beloved, do not call me blind ! [ 31 ] UNTIL TO-MORROW Until to-morrow or some other day, To-morrow's morrow far and far away, I wander with bewildered heart and feet. Lost on the hills of separation, sweet. Beyond the hills of separation, sweet, Your arms will hold me when at last we meet And will you whisper, then, that I may stay Until to-morrow or some other day ? [ 32 ] ROMANTICISM I WATCHED the window of the world, Which is myself inevitably, How through the window was unfurled The midnight that had darkened me. And as the bursting buds emerge And odorous flames of flowers are born, I followed on the fainting verge The slow emergency of morn. Wherefore, because all curious things. The warmth of flowers, the flower of flame, The momentariness of wings Weaving together the ways they came, The breath of lilies on still air That toll like censers full of myrrh, The weaving of a woman's hair. Which breathes the frankincense of her, [ 33 ] Because all curious things impress Me only through the sense of me, I strove to make for loveliness A sensitive transparency ; Till all the labor on the glass Brought a reflection dimly known, And mingled with the shapes that pass I see the eyes that are mine own — Till ever in the carelessness Of the untroubled world I see The image of mine own distress, The mute mirage of sympathy. As though the living wine of pain Should stir again its stagnant lees, And with a human sorrow stain The Hermes of Praxiteles. [ 34 ] A PRAYER Pour down the darkness of your hair As a veil falls over the evening skies. I hear the voice of an old despair Calling, calling out of the past, And there 's an echo that replies. Pour down the darkness of your hair And make a mist about my eyes ; — For what is there to say at last ? [ 35 ] DREAM-TRYST Come to me not in dream, For fear of the awaking ! ■ What is the good to seem, To keep my heart from breaking ? Come to me not to-night, O dream without a morrow ! You come and you take flight When you have borne my sorrow. Come to me not at all ! Then is the world a hollow. You do not come — you call. You do not come — I follow ! [ 36 ] ABOVE THE SEA The hill is high in heaven, And here in the control Of vision shall be given The seas that shall unroll Till seas on skies are driven, — Till through the seas asunder Is the abysm cracked; And there the days go under, And there the cataract Of Ocean throws its thunder. And while the westward rivers Are winding to the sea, The dying day delivers Its ghost, which seems to be The dusk that cries and quivers. [ 37 ] Now is the saddest hour Of hours that still are sweet. Oh for my heart the power, The ways oh for my feet, To find its fatal flower! Though love grow even fonder Than love that lures and clings. Oh that I still may wander Home to the tears of things. And know the trouble yonder ! [ 38 ] NIGHT SONG Ah, love, it is all so dark in me That I fear and I feel alone, Like one who wanders along the sea And hears the surges moan ; When the moonless sea is a mystery He fears and he feels alone. Ah, love, will you look in the dark of me As though you understood The sea and the alien shore of the sea And the dark unentered wood ? Your eyes in a moonless mystery Make heavenly neighborhood ! [ 39 ] INTERIOR Oh to enclose thee, sweet, A lily in the room, Wherein a chosen gloom Shuts out in dim defeat The gold and crimson blent In the ecstatic songs Shrilled by the sunny throngs Of flowers too violent ! The fervent flute of June Deliriously blows The crimson of the rose And the high note of noon. The windows have a veil That lets the summer fall More mutely musical Upon the cold and pale [ 40 ] Hush of the mastered keys Whereo'er thy fingers furl, O instrumental girl For human melodies ! [ 41 ] THE RETURN I LAY me under quiet skies to sleep And cease remembering the days that keep My heart awake with murmuring their old tales, Murmuring like a wind against the sails That seek the sea and are blown always home. Haply, I said, these memories may roam At last and all go sailing down the sea, If for an hour of sleep I cease to be. But there were voices in the open sky Singing so far away they seemed to die. The voice of distance and a singing cloud Too far above the tree-tops to be loud ; And still they sang and kept my heart awake Because of their untroubled beauty's sake. So it grew sweet to listen to old stories, And view around the sterile promontories The dreams that were too weak to cross the sea Drift back to their old haven helplessly. [ 42 ] VENUS OF MELOS Lo, I was weary, and I have rest in thee, For over the fawns of thine unhidden breast And solemn urgency of their long gaze. The veil and far seclusion of thy face Has fallen like a silence blessedly, And hushed their hunger and eternal quest. [ 43 ] AUTUMN WIND The birds drift over the autumnal sky Like frail and fallen leaves across a lawn. And the unmitigating winds have drawn Out of their chant a shivering shaken cry. The winds have wrecked the gleaming sails of day And they have made a sorrow of the air — Wild winds, that are as streaming as the hair Of girls that wait the drowned by the bay. [ 44 ] QUEST What was it that I shall not seek again, Vainly, in your pure eyes sought not in vain ? What was it, all the unsure summer through, I feverishly hoped to find in you ? And what, when in a new, pathetic wise. You left ajar the gateway of your eyes, And at the last endured that I should look Into your eyes and read as in a book, Unveiling in a tremulous distress The candor of your spirit's nakedness, What was it in your eyes that let me read Merely a woman's need of a man's need ? [ 45 ] Why did your own desiring make you seem No more the strange, strange woman of my dream? Ah ! what old disillusion turned to strike And show that you were human-sisterlike ? [ 46 ] CONFIDENCES Listening woman, conjuring, Out of the shadows of my heart, Out of the shelter of the wing Of shame itself that broods apart, The words that are as wounds, the dreams That are so quiet, being dead. What is this wistfulness that gleams When you have heard and I have said ? Because I looked upon your smile, I held my heart out in a word. Your smile grew sad a little while . . . Alas, I dreamed that you had heard ! And you, when you have listened so. And know the shrine that you may be. Where praying men may come and go. You weep, and almost feel for me. [ 47 ] MY LADY'S TOMB My lady in the darkened house Where all the dead go home to drowse Awoke, and could not understand The flowers that faded in her hand. My lady in the lonely bed Where she had never thought to wed Knew Death, and while her eyelids kept The look of sleep, she wept and wept. Above her eyes, a fountain sealed. With lips all thirsty Death hath kneeled. And he hath drunk from the dim pool That made her sorrows beautiful. And in the waning garden close Where many a lily and one red rose Were all the life that she would reap. Death like a lover falls asleep. C 48 ] WEARINESS I AM weary already of the years that are yet to be, The sad and stale prepared procession of years That flag with desperate hopes and a fever of fears The straight descent and the single certainty. I fear the invasion of days that, one by one. Stealthily over the wall of the leaguered night, Invade the city of sleep with a lance of light And a flood of flame and the torch of a surging sun. And when the flame and the flood pass over me, I shall feel too tired for the waking after death. I had rather sleep than draw the long, long breath Of the tired insomnia of eternity. [ 49 ] FOR A PICTURE BY LEONARDO DA VINCI Mary the virgin mother — see ! — Still like a child upon the knee Of Anne as virginal as she, The mother like a sister grown To her who of herself alone Covered a god with flesh and bone. Veiled in a smile that is not mirth, They dream of the vain virgin birth That is a miracle on earth. The smile of their secretive eyes Is with a subtle shame grown wise, The holy shame of Mysteries. And on their maiden mouths their smile Hides them as Eve hid, in the guile Of women who have loved awhile. [ 50 ] Though grace of God has lighted there The hidden haloes of their hair, And though they tend with wistful care The Son of God and still their own, They are as slaves whose dreams have flown From where they wait about the throne, As vestal slaves who dream again, In lands where they are alien. Of olden home and hearts of men. [ 51 ] SLUMBER SONG We are alone and guarded deep Among the silences of sleep, And morning muses still so far, It has not dimmed the morning star. Sleep and be happy, do not moan — We are alone. Sleep and be happy, do not break The twilight with your eyes awake ! Oh sleep, oh sleep, the dreadful day Is still so many hours away; And when you are awake you seem To lose a dream. [ 52 ] CHRYSEIS When came the priest thy father to recapture Thee, O thou sad and glad Chryseis, won And worn by Agamemnon and undone, What of thy rape and thine unwilling rapture Didst thou remember, pure and simple daughter. Seeing thy father with a golden treasure Still fail to free thee from the deadly pleasure And sail without thee home across the water ? Wert thou so lonely then that thou didst crave Oh any touch to make thee less alone. Till, when the Grecian hand unclasped thy zone, Almost did'st thou forget to be a slave ? And when thy father's god with myriad slaughter Ransomed thee at the last as if with gold. And Agamemnon's fingers loosed their hold Among thy tresses, O thou ravished daughter, [ 53 ] And when the Grecians sailed thee home again, Threading the islands toward thy native cape, No more a simple maid ! what of thy rape And thine unwilling helpless rapture then Didst thou remember, leaning on the mast That dipt into the winds Jike a god's oar ? Didst thou gaze backward toward the Trojan shore, Willing a little at the very last? [ 54 ] THE WILD ROSE Deep in the meadow where the roses hive Their joy of June I went to be made glad. They were not human but they were alive, And they were all the living that I had. The joyous roses in the meadow twine And of themselves they give abundantly. I plucked a rose, but it would not be mine, I breathed it, but I could not make it me. I tore the garment of my rose apart. Alas, when all the petals had been shed. Still made my rose a secret of its heart, And I have left it on the meadow dead. [ 55 3 DURING MUSIC Slow with old pain Awake again, Her eyelids cling In opening Without surprise Pain-patient eyes. Her memory How like the sea, Whereunder, low. The afterglow Of day and night Sinks out of sight ! Ah, she knows not Her own dim thought, Nor of her passion Its first fierce fashion. Nor of the past Knows now at last The dawn above The flight of love. C 56 ] All things that were Are dim to her, The dead days rise With vacant eyes, So swift, so aching The woe awaking Wakens to swoon At this old tune. [ 57 ] SEAWARD I KNOW there is another strand Down where the sky is low as land, Out of whose dimness cometh soon The lowly rising of the moon. And her impassive bar of light Across the waters in the night Hath power to hold the surges under. When they rise up in foam and thunder. And when the moon is taken away. There is no light till early day, And nothing on the sea can hold The strength of waters mountain-rolled. No light along the hidden sea Husheth the waves continually. [ 58 ] NOCTURNE Stars in the silent boughs Wake while the robins drowse. After so long a winging What starts them now to singing? Of course it is a love, Which they are dreaming of. But song and stars and dreams Are lovelier than love seems. Dreams and the stars and song! Oh why does the world go wrong ? [ 59 ] THE GRAVE I WONDER if she grieves, in her dark grave Because she may not look through closed eyes When the mild moth wings of the morning wave And swarm the tranquil emptiness of skies ? I wonder if regret for the green earth Wakens her heart and tells her timid feet To grope back homeward through the gates of birth Where there 's a sun to make the shadow sweet ? Once on her grave the flowers were springing up, And they were bursting with the need to live ; And every flower had raised an empty cup Under the April sun, and sang: "O give! " And now they lift unto a sunless cloud Their cups still empty, and they still cry : " Give ! " And so may she be crying in her shroud. And so may she have still the need to live. [ 60 ] TIME'S LOSSES I Egyptian sands are restless like the sea! With winds of all the ages, wave on wave, Up heaven's stairs, the Pyramid, they rave . . . They drown that rival of eternity ! And Cleopatra beckoned Anthony To show her with a kiss if he were brave Five fathom underneath the climbing grave That riddles to the Sphinx unanswerably. Holier ashes in the sands are drowned Than Cleopatra's, fair but fainter fames Of queens that were no more than blooms of sound, The " Tragedies " of Alexandria's flames. In ashes are they dead ? Go tell the Sphinx That they in God are living when God thinks ! [ 61 ] TIME'S LOSSES II The golden pillars of the Parthenon Are all discrowned of the Pheidian frieze ; Statues of gods within the waves off Greece The Romans drowned, and then they voyaged on. Chryselephantine phantom of the dawn, Such is Athena now that no man sees ; And never in Melos more may Venus ease With her lost lovely arms her lovers gone. Earth the eternal lies upon the tomb Of men who made of her so great a mother. She waits ... of men alive she waits what other To make her spirit from her body bloom. Her maiden majesty and act of love. And the still unconceived dreams thereof? [ 62 ] ON A MACEDONIAN TOMB So soon, behold, they tired of this their House, Man and his woman even one in death. Which from the love of life left out of breath Their souls explored and makes it hard to rouse. They have released themselves and dare not drowse, Mistrustful, though the stealthy silence saith : " Unto the dead no new thing followeth. So slumber on beneath the cypress boughs." Yea, they have risen now and plumb the deep Of the god-haunted spaces of the skies, Nor trust the sad security of sleep. Nor rest the ageless watching of their eyes. Lest the abortion of the future leap Quick on them with the terror of surprise. [ 63 ] THE END OF THE STORY Sadly at midnight in the little room I close the book, and on the window pane I lean my forehead, till I hear again Time — that is disenchanted now — resume Its death-watch like a sentry in the gloom ; And in my soul I hear the Grecian main Ebbing its music from a tidal plain That now becomes a waste without one bloom. I close the book, and from imagined flight I sink into myself. Good night, good night, If night were not so long ! See how the moon Is lagging in the arms of yonder tree ! The night is stagnant ! Ah, but see how soon Out of those arms the moon is rising free ! [ 64 ] AT PARTING Hush and give over : have no other thought Than to be silent now ! Ah, cease to urge Her to return ; for on the sunset verge Of her own lone horizon she has caught The wings of her own spirit sought and sought. Call her no more ; lest, if she should emerge Shoreward a moment, she should feel the surge Breaking again upon the life forgot. I would, instead, that I might go with her ! Yea, this instead, because she is so young And may be troubled when the shadows stir And have no knowledge of her way among The nights that must be lonelier than they were. When to my hand she tremulously clung. [ 65 ] THE SLEEPING BEAUTY She sleeps . . . and shall she yet awake ? She lies So very quiet on her narrow bed. The lace about her throat, the lilies spread Upon her bosom neither fall nor rise, Nor pale beneath the pallor of the skies Veiled by the darkened windows; candles shed The light that only falls about the dead. When they are burned what dawn shall touch her eyes ? Princess of Slumber for a Hundred Years, Before you fell asleep you dried your tears, Hearing a Prince should come for your awaking. And gladly closed your eyes to wait for him ! So if he leave your eyes forever dim, Grieve not — you shall not know your old mistaking ! [ 66 ] "MUSIC TO HEAR" A LITTLE longer let thy fingers fall Upon the keys. Oh cease, oh cease not yet ! But still, oh very gently, touch and fret The sleep of an enchanted madrigal ! Fret and awake, call and caress and call. And give not over calling, weep and wet Thy song with all thy tears, till it forget The silence that shall be the end of all. Give over now at last, and let it be ! Waken no song that sleeps. Touch not a key. But let thine hands in mine be quiet. Lo ! Above that halcyon brooding on the seas Which was thy voice, the tidal silences Float with the drowned life of long ago ! [ 67 ] FOR A PICTURE OF A SAINT She was a girl who waited on the Lord, And years becalmed were hers that she might pray, For He had pleasure in the simple way She spake, and when before the Throne she poured The patience of her gaze she made accord With all the viols that in Heaven play. And from the hymn on high the Will would stray Earthward to her for some enchanted word. Fountains were like the service of her thought, And on her soul, forsooth, her senses fell Like April rains at night that waken not. But if she ever loved I cannot tell. Or if the soul that has to Heaven been caught Had dared to tarry with a soul in Hell. [ 68 ] TO ONE WHOSE LOVE WAS SERVICE She never would have had a parting grieve The two or three who gathered in her name, Nor for the spent self-sacrificial flame Of all her days spared she at all to sheave The tired late hours left in the field at eve, The hours ungleaned, but offered still the same That presence unto which our prayers made claim . . . And so we dreamed that she would not take leave. But on a night that was without a moon Or even a star to light her long last way, She moved her lips that we might come and kneel Beside her ; and we know not then how soon She laid her lips upon us for her seal ; But when we rose it was another day. [ 69 ] A FACE Susceptible as silence to a song, Or lakes to winds, or night to slow sunrise, Or dreamers sleeping where the moonlight lies On meadows, to the moon's evasions long. These are the eyes the days departed throng With memories like clouds upon the skies, Till out of weariness remembrance dies. And hope, and nothing now is right or wrong. Yet as the weary may outsleep the dawn And waken in the doubtful evening light. Thinking it still is dawn and not the night. So she would think, — if only Love would tell ! — That still her golden hours have not all gone The shadowy way that leads from Heaven to Hell. [ 70 ] THE PIETA OF MICHEL ANGELO Look now how broken and how spent he lies, Even like an arrow shattered in a tree, Or like a messenger of victory Who to his home so races that he dies. In death dead-tired, he seems to agonise Now for the rest he takes upon the knee Of her who knows how restful death must be, Bowing with pitilessly peaceful eyes. He knew the virtue had gone out of him, Once, in the years accomplished, to console A sickened woman ; now from every limb The crucified extortion of his soul Drains until limbs are shrunk and eyes are dim Virtue enough to make a sick world whole. [ 71 ] ATALANTA I THINK that Atalanta turned her face Backward along the course and saw the man, Desperately defeated as he ran, Throw down a golden apple upon a place Where she must pass again and win the race. She scanned his eyes — what care had she to scan The shame of gold that was to break her ban Of girlhood ? — and she faltered in her pace. Oh then she feared the fear to be a bride. And feared the wind that had laid bare her thigh ; She burned to blushes, but she paused and bowed Above the apple till he passed her by; She hid her burning in his dusty cloud And heard the trailing laughter of his pride ! [ 72 ] IN THE HOME OF LIFE As though to-morrow were the mortal morn, The unpermitted portal in the hall Where I have turned the golden keys of all Those other portals wide and overworn With passionate quest and hope not all forlorn, Death seems so near to me that I might call And by mine own intrusion disenthrall The secret that he keeps behind his bourne. Scarce would I say God grants for God grants death; Yet granting death to me in time to come, God grant my spirit be not wholly numb. Nor so distracted by a strangling breath That then should be eclipsed by the pain The love that after all was all life's gain. [ 73 ] WHEN I AM OLD When I am old and weary of the world. And ready for the solitary change That after all adventure shall be strange — When after revolutions that have hurled The crowns of noon into the ocean swirled Round my Helena and its haunted grange I shall beside the window sit and range Lost kingdoms with a dream of banners furled, Be with me then ... or if you have to be Upon your errand to Eternity, Oh keep not hidden in the skyey blue; But turn at every star, half lingeringly. And drop a quiet flower of memory. That I may know the way to follow you. [ 74 ] THE NIGHTINGALES Still in Boccaccio's book the nightingales, As in the ancient night of Florence, cool With stars that made the silence purposeful. Gleam in the silence with the starry tales Boccaccio told of lust that wore love's veils. Pure songs, they charm the claws of Time that pull Love's veils away and show the withered skull Hidden where the face flushes not now nor pales. Oh for what face outlived that once was hers, Hers who is living now and here asleep, Call ye among the dead, proud wakeners ? Oh call no more, or she will wake and weep ! She wanders now by broken sepulchres. She has an other tryst than mine to keep. [ 75 ] THE POET Just listen to the poet's dream — Of life he wants to live the whole ! So starving, that to feed his soul, Poor fellow, he must make things seem ! [ 76 ] THE MASTERPIECE I THINK ere any early poet awed Men with a haunted image of Mankind, They buried in a grave gone out of mind The supreme poet who imagined God. [ 11 ] YOUTH I AM as one born blind. God, let me see ! Thou hast enchanted me in a strange land, So sweet, that I forget the mystery Of thine unseen, insinuating Hand. [ 78 ] TIME IN A GARDEN The daffodils have held one golden day For seven days and nights ; their day is done. Their requiem, 'tis the iris misty and gray. Which holds the hour of twilight in the sun. [ 79 ] THE RHONE AT AVIGNON Under the towers the currents of the Rhone Endure the deep division of an isle, Proud from the first embrace to wait alone Their marriage through the seaward Afterwhile. [ 80 ] ON A CERTAIN IRREGULARITY Put out the World — I want to sleep awhile ! I know about her beauties very well. When I am tired of her Platonic smile, She breaks the Law to work a Miracle ! [ 8i ] TO A DESERTED LITTER OF PUPPIES New-born, and so precariously new, Blind in a milkless world, and shivering. The very puppies for a moment knew That the life-eiFort is the fatal thing. [ 82 ] TO A GOADED SHEEP If it had known the journey's end, the dunce, Limping along, the mimic of its pain, It might have known there was n't much to gain It might have rested, and been killed at once. [ 83 ] A FRANCISCAN His tonsure like a branded aureole, His naked feet, the rope that round him ties The sack that cloisters him — can these control The truant dreaming of his prisoned eyes ? [ 84 ] TRIBUTE Some few, within a still, religious haunt, Pay unto God the tribute of their praise ; But others have to pay in other ways — They suffer, God, if that is what you want. [ 85 ] OUT OF DOORS I HEAR the wings, the winds, the river pass, And toss the fretful book upon the grass. Poor book, it could not cure my soul of aught • It has itself the old disease of thought. [ 86 ] ABOUT AN ALLEGORY It was the earth that Dante trod When he trod Hell, it was the earth, Itself sufficient for the hearth That warms the hands of a cold God. [ 87 ] TRISTAN AND ISEULT OF THE WHITE HANDS A FRAGMENT Tristan Boy, art thou waking ? Iseult Nay, he sleeps, but I Have wakened all night through, dear lord. Tristan What news ? Iseult The dawn hath broke the east. There hath no more Than dawn and gradual stars come over-sea, And the long moon since last I gave thee word. [ 88 ] Tristan Then will I watch by day as thou by night. Till that lone ship shall follow stars and moon Up to the empty circle of the heavens, And rise on wings of white and bring my love, Or rise on raven wings and bring her not. And tell me with its wings to live or die. Lift me a little in my bed, Iseult, Lift me, and let me look upon the light. Iseult Yea, Tristan, rest thine eyes upon the sky And the untroubled presence of the sea. And rest upon my breast thy fallen head. Tristan Thine arms are all about me as of old. Where have we fallen apart, Iseult, that thus Thine arms are all about me as of old And thy loose hair entangles me, and still I am as far from thee as hell from heaven ? [ 89 3 Iseult Ask me not that, nor ask it of thyself, Lest thou shouldst understand too well at last How flowers of loveliness may fade for love. Perchance I waked for thee too long, and faded ! Tristan Wert thou awake indeed ? Iseult Yea, lord, indeed. Tristan Would I had called thee then. I lay alone, Walled in by midnight darkness, and the waves Rolled out their rhythms on the empty sands And set the chambers murmuring like a shell. Then was I haunted by a ghost of fear . . . The seas are very perilous by nighty And love is little when the seas are wide : Perchance Iseult of Cornwall will not come ! I might have called thee when I trembled then, [ 90 ] And felt thee throbbing by me, breath by breath, A living creature in that deadly darkness. Iseult The midnight darkness walled us in together. The surges rolled their rhythms on the shore, The chambers murmured dumbly like a shell. And I was haunted by a ghost like thine. I have no gift of comfort any more To bring thee quiet breathing in the night. For all my magic is nothing more than love. And all my love is turned from me aside While from my breast thou gazest to the sea. Tristan My wound is master of my words, Iseult. I am too weary with my wound to say How I love not, how love, how now my life Lingers a little only till my love From all her sailing sinks her anchor here. Thee have I loved indeed. So for that love. So for that love that I have not remembered, Oh help me live until the sails come home ! Be not afraid, I should not leave thee then, [ 91 ] Not though a friend had need and called, not though Another love than thine were calling at last Should I arise and leave for love or battle. But all my heart hath only this desire, That the warm woman flower of overseas Iseult of Cornwall hear my call and come, Crossing the seas, and hide me in her hair, And hold me in her fragrance till I die. TRANSLATIONS SONNET FROM RONSARD I WANT to read the Iliad in three days, So, Corydon, turn tight the lock on me. If any one disturbs me, verily. Thou shalt find out how much mine anger weighs. I only want to come and make my bed Our chambermaid, thy mate, and never thee ; I want to live three days in privacy. Then to make merry for a week ahead. But should somebody from Cassandra come. Open the door and let him enter straight. Hurry into my room, and help me dress. For him alone I want to be at home. Otherwise, though a god for me express From heaven, shut the door and let him wait. E 95 ] SONNET FROM DU BELLAY Happy is he who like Ulysses travels far, Or like the one who made the conquest of the Fleece, And then returns, laden with lore and memories, To pass the remnant of his life where kindred are ! Alas, when shall I see again the smoke upglide Above my little town, and in what time of year See once again the garden of my home austere. Which is for me a province, and so much beside ? Pleases me more the mansion that my fathers knew Than the facades of Roman courts spectacular : Pleases me more than mighty marble the slate fine. Than the Italian Tiber more the Gallic Loire, And more my little Lyre than Mount Palatine, And more than ocean wind the softness of Anjou. [ 96 ] UPON A DEAD WOMAN FROM DE MUSSET Beautiful was she, if the Night Which sleeps where Michel Angelo Has made her bed the shrine twilight, Without a motion may be so. She was a saint, if 't is enough, Passing, to give with open palms. So God sees not nor speaks thereof; If, without pity, gold makes alms. Thoughtful she was, if the vain tone Of a sweet voice and subtly wrought. Just like a stream that maketh moan. May make one have belief in thought. She prayed, if two resplendent eyes. Upon the earth a moment staying, A moment lifted to the skies. May properly be called a praying. [ 97 ] She would have smiled, if ever a flower That is not in full blossom yet Could be burst open by the power Of winds that pass it and forget. She would have wept, if hand of hers, Laid on her heart in this cold way. Could once have felt in all her years The dew of heaven in human clay. She would have loved, save that her pride. Like to the lamp unserviceable Illumined at the coffin's side. By her hard heart stood sentinel. She 's dead, and never lived at all. She looks as though she were not dead. Out of her hands she has let fall The book that she has never read. [ 98 ] MEDITATION FROM BAUDELAIRE Be patient, O my Grief, and quiet down. You call for Evening; it descends; 't is here; An atmosphere obscure enfolds the town, Bringing to some repose, to others fear. Now, while the human hordes without renown, Under the lash of Pleasure, doomsman drear. Gather remorse in fetes of slave and clown. My Grief, hold out your hand to me ; draw near, Afar from them. See how the Years deceased Bow from the skies in robes of by-gone styles ; Out of the water springs Regret and smiles ; Beneath an arch is drowsed the dying sun, And drawn like a long coffin toward the East, Hear, love, the coming Night, the gentle one. [99] COMPLAINT OF LORD PIERROT FROM JULES LAFORGUE She that must put me wise about the Feminine ! We '11 tell her firstly, with my air least impolite : " The angles of a triangle, O sweetheart mine, Are equal to two right." And if this cry escape her : " God, how I love thee ! " — " God will reward his own." Or if she wince and cry " My keys have heart, thou shalt be all my melody ! " " All 's relative," say I. With all her eyes then, knowing that she is too trite : " Alas, thou lov' st me not; others are jealous, too ! " And I, who with one eye at the Unconscious sight : " Thanks, not so bad ; and you ? " [ io° ] " Let 's play that we are true ! " — " O Nature, for what profit ? For each who loses someone wins ! " Then lines like these : " Thou 'It be the first to weary, I am certain of it. . . . " . — " After you, if you please." At last if she shall die some evening, fugitive Among my books; feigning to be incredulous, I'll mutter: "Well now, but — we had the Means to Live! So it was serious ? " [ »oi ] CONCEITS FROM JULES LAFORGUE Ah ! the Moon, the Moon obsesses me . , Do you think there is a remedy ? Dead ? But may she not be merely numb, Drunken with the cosmic opium ? O rose-window with thine efflorescence Tomb-like in the Temple of Quiescence, Thou persistest in thine attitude, While I stifle with my lonely mood. Yes, oh yes, thy breast is fashioned fair ; But, if never I may suckle there ? . . . Oh, to-morrow night, and such allusion Will go off a-laughing in confusion, [ I02 ] Finding in my platonism fine Raptures of an angler at his line. Queen of Lilies, hail ! Your Majesty, I would pierce thee with the moths of me ! I would kiss thy patine, widowed Charger of Saint John the Baptist's head 1 I would find a song to touch thee so. Thou would'st voyage to the mouth below. But there are no other rhymes for Moon — ah, What a most regrettable lacuna ! [ »o3 ] SEA WIND FROM MALLARME The flesh is sad, alas, and all the books are read. Flight, flight out there ! The birds, I know, are ravished To be amid the unknown foam and in the skies ! Nothing, not olden gardens mirrored in the eyes Can hold at home this heart that plunges in the sea, nights, nor yet my candle's lonely clarity On the blank page whose whiteness keeps it undefiled. Nor the young wife who suckles at her breast her child. 1 will depart. O steamer with thy masts asway, Lift anchor now for an exotic Far-away. An ennui, desolate with hopes that turned to griefs, Is trusting still the last good-bye of handkerchiefs ! And it may be these masts, which to the tempests beck, Are even of those a wind may bend above a wreck Lost, with no masts, no masts nor isles exuberant . . . But hearken, O my heart, unto the sailors' chant ! Note: The first line is Arthur Symons'' . C 104 ] WHAT SILK IN SCENTS FROM MALLARME What silk in scents of centuries Where the Chimera is subdued Is worth the shape and native nude That you outside your mirror ease ? The wounds of banners eloquent Exalt along the thoroughfare : But I — I have your naked hair For covering my eyes content. Ah no ! the mouth may not be sure To taste of that which makes it fond, Till he, your princely paramour. Extinguish, like a diamond. In the considerable tangles The cry of Glories that he strangles. [ 105 ] MUSETTE FROM MURGER Seeing a swallow yesterday Bringing the year into its prime, I was reminded of the fay Who loved me when she had the time ; And even till the night drew near In revery I bowed above The almanack of that old year When she and I were so in love. Ah, no, my youth is not dead yet. Not dead my memory of you ! If at my door you knocked, Musette, My heart would open and draw you through. Because your name still makes it beat, O Muse of infidelity. Come back that we again may eat The blessed bread of gaiety. [ ^°6 ] The things about our little room, The olden friends of our amour, Just in the hope that you may come Put on again a gay allure. Come, you will see them all, my lass, Mourning because you left them there. The little bed and the big glass. From which you often drank my share. You should put on your white array, Exactly as of yore you should. And as of yore the Sabbath day We 'd go to run about the wood ; And in a bower at evening We 'd drink again that vintage light Wherein your song would dip a wing Before it soared into the night. Musette, who at the last had learned The carnival had sunk to rest. Upon a pleasant morn returned. Migrating bird, to the old nest ; But even in kissing the coquette. No longer did my heart beat high, [ i°7 ] And she, who is no more Musette, Said that I was no longer I. Adieu, now go your ways, my dear. Dead with the love that is no more ; Our youth is in its sepulchre Beneath the almanack of yore. 'T is only now by digging through The dust of days that in it lies A memory may find anew The key of the lost paradise. [. io8 ] AFTER THREE YEARS FROM VERLAINE When I had pushed the narrow gate that hung ajar, I made my way into the little garden close, Whereover quietly the morning sunshine glows, Jeweling every blossom with a watery star. Nothing has changed. I see it all : the unpretending Bower with the vine grown wild and wicker chairs around. Always the jet of water makes its silver sound, And the old aspen tree its threnody unending. The roses as of yore are throbbing ; as of yore The great proud lilies in the breeze are bending o'er. I recollect each lark that in and out is sailing. Even the Velleda, I find, is standing yet, Down at the alley's end, with all its plaster scaling, — Thin, in the sickening perfume of the mignonette. [ ^°9 ] NEVERMORE FROM VERLAINE Memory, Memory, what would'st thou have ? The fall Has put the thrush to flight across the fatal air. The while the sun is darting a monotonous glare On yellowing woods that thunder with a northern squall. We were alone and in a dream we walked away, Just she and I together, with hair and thought blown free. Suddenly uttered, with her thrilling gaze on me. Her voice of living gold : "What was thy happiest day? " — Fresh and angelical, her ringing voice and sweet ! I let her have her answer in a smile discreet, And pressed a kiss on her white hand, devotedly. Ah, the first flowers of all, how good they are to smell ! And sounds with what a murmur of felicity The " yes " that is the first from lips adorable. [ "o ] MY FAMILIAR DREAM FROM VERLAINE Often I have a vision strange and close Of an Unknown I love and who loves me, And who is never the same, nor utterly Another, and me she loves and me she knows. She knows me, and my heart, alas, that clears For her alone, is not a problem now For her alone, and my pale sweating brow Can she alone of all refresh, in tears. Is she blonde, auburn, dark ? I cannot say. Her name ? I know that it is soft and splendid. As of the loves that Life has driven away. Her gaze is as the gaze of statuary. And she has in her voice, grave, distant, airy. The cadence of dear voices that have ended. LANGUOR FROM VERLAINE I AM the Empire at the end of the Decline, Who watch the marching of the tall barbarians white, The while I am composing some acrostics slight, All in the golden style adance with tired sunshine. My soul is sick at heart with an ennui supine. Far off they tell of many a long and bloody fight. O lack of power, being so weak for vows so light, O lack of will to use awhile this life of mine ! O lack of will, O lack of power to die awhile ! Ah, all is drunk ! Bathyllus, wilt thou always smile ? Ah, all is drunk, all eaten ! There 's no more to say ! Only, a bit of verse too trivial that you burn, Only, a slave neglecting you a bit to stray. Only, an ennui, who knows what, that makes you mourn ! [ 112 ] OH HEAVY, HEAVY WAS MY MIND FROM VERLAINE Oh heavy, heavy v^^as my mind, Because, because of vi^omankind. I never could be comforted. Far off although my heart had fled. Although my mind, although my heart Far from the woman kept apart. I never could be comforted. Far ofF although my heart had fled. My heart, my heart in very ruth Said to my mind : " Is it the truth. Is it the truth — or has it been — This exile proud, this exile keen ? " [ "3 ] My mind said to my heart : " Do I Myself make out this mystery Of exiles who remain at home, However far away they roam ? " [ "4 ] CYDALISES FROM GERARD DE NERVAL Where are our mistresses ? They are within the tomb ! They have more happiness Within a lovelier home ! They with the seraphim Are deep in the blue sky, And with their praises hymn The mother of the Most High ! O virgin in first flower, O snow-white bride to be. Love-woman for an hour, To fade in misery. Eternity profound Was smiling in your eyes ! Lights that the world has drowned. Rekindle in the skies ! [ ^15 ] DELPHICA FROM GERARD DE NERVAL Daphne, do you remember this old strain, Under the sycamore or laurel white, Or olives, myrtles, or blown willows light. This song of love . . . that always starts again ? Do you remember the great columned fane. The bitter citrons that you still would bite. The cavern, death to many a wreckless wight, Where sleep old offspring of the dragon slain ? They will return, these gods you weep always ! Time will bring back the reign of ancient days ; The earth has quivered with the breath immortal . . . And yet the sibyl of the Roman mien Sleeps still beneath the arch of Constantine : — And nothing has disturbed that haughty portal. [ "6 ] MIGNON'S SONG FROM GOETHE Knowest thou the country where the citrons bloom ? Gold oranges light up the leafy gloom, Indolent wind is in the azure skies, The myrtle still and high the laurel rise. Dost thou remember ? Thither, thither, I would. Beloved, we might go together. Knowest thou the mansion with the columned walls ? The laughter of the light is in its halls, And marble statues stand and gaze at me: "Unhappy child, what have they done to thee ?" Dost thou remember ? Thither, thither, I would, my saviour, we might go together. [ "7 ] Knowest thou the mountain and its cloudy tryst? The mule seeks out the way amid the mist, The dragon's ancient brood is in the cave, Plunges the clifF, and over it the wave. Dost thou remember ? Thither, thither Our way ! O Father, let us go together ! [ "8 ] SONG FROM HEINE He was an olden monarch, Hoary of hair, his heart had died. The lonely olden monarch Married a maiden bride. He was a page in Maytime, Yellow his hair, glad was his mien. He bore the silken trailing Train of the maiden queen. Knowest thou the olden ditty. So full of sweet, so full of woe ? They had to die together, They loved each other so. [ "9 ] TO ZANTE FROM UGO FOSCOLO Ne'er shall I reach again the shores divine Where was delivered my body young, O Zante, who dost in the surges shine Of the Greek sea, from which was Venus sprung Virgin, and filled those isles with flower and vine At her first smile, whence is there still a tongue For thy clear clouds and all those boughs of thine In the immortal verse of him who sung The fatal waters and the exile strange. From which, made fair with fame and bitter change, Ulysses kissed his rocky Ithaca. Thou of thy son shalt have the song alone, O mother land of mine : the fates withdraw From us the grave that thou might'st weep upon. [ »2o ] ON THE DEATH OF A BROTHER FROM UGO FOSCOLO Some day, if I go not forever flying From people to people, thou shalt see me come Upon thy grave, O thou my brother, sighing Of thy so gentle years the fallen bloom. Our mother, now alone to her night nighing. Speaks about me unto thine ashes dumb j But with wild hands to reach you I am trying. And lonely from afar salute my home. I know the hostile Fates and unconfessed Cares that were in thy life tempestuously, And at thy portal pray I too for rest. This out of so much hope to-day is left ! O strangers, yield at least the bones of me Unto the bosom of the mother reft. CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS U . S . A Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: Oct. 2009 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESERVATION 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111 •''^v- i ^■-'\'^^^':! r^