On the gale's warm heaving bosom;
Shake the lilies till their scent
Over-drip their rims;
That our
runaway may see
We do know her whims:
Sleek the tumbled waters out
For her travelled limbs;
Strew and smoothe blue night thereon,
There will--O not doubt her!--
The lovely
sleepy lady lie,
With all her stars about her!
TO A SNOW-FLAKE.
What heart could have thought you?--
Past our devisal
(O filigree petal!)
Fashioned so
purely,
Fragilely, surely,
From what Paradisal
Imagineless metal,
Too
costly for cost?
Who
hammered you,
wrought you,
From
argentine vapour?--
'God was my shaper.
Passing surmisal,
He
hammered, He
wrought me,
From curled silver vapour,
To lust of His mind:-
Thou could'st not have thought me!
So
purely, so palely,
Tinily, surely,
Mightily, frailly,
Insculped and embossed,
With His
hammer of wind,
And His graver of frost.'
NOCTURN.
I walk, I only,
Not I only wake;
Nothing is, this sweet night,
But doth couch and wake
For its love's sake;
Everything, this sweet night,
Couches with its mate.
For whom but for the stealthy-visitant sun
Is the naked moon
Tremulous and elate?
The heaven hath the earth
Its own and all apart;
The hush-ed pool holdeth
A star to its heart.
You may think the rose sleepeth,
But though she folded is,
The wind doubts her sleeping;
Not all the rose sleeps,
But smiles in her sweet heart
For
crafty bliss.
The wind lieth with the rose,
And when he stirs, she stirs in her repose:
The wind hath the rose,
And the rose her kiss.
Ah, mouth of me!
Is it then that this
Seemeth much to thee?--
I
wander only.
The rose hath her kiss.
A MAY BURDEN.
Through meadow-ways as I did tread,
The corn grew in great lustihead,
And hey! the beeches burgeon-ed.
By Godd-es fay, by Godd-es fay!
It is the month, the jolly month,
It is the jolly month of May.
God ripe the wines and corn, I say
And wenches for the marriage-day,
And boys to teach love's
comely play.
By Godd-es fay, by Godd-es fay!
It is the month, the jolly month,
It is the jolly month of May.
As I went down by lane and lea,
The daisies reddened so, pardie!
'Blushets!' I said, 'I well do see,
By Godd-es fay, by Godd-es fay!
The thing ye think of in this month,
Heigho! this jolly month of May.'
As down I went by rye and oats,
The
blossoms smelt of kisses; throats
Of birds turned kisses into notes;
By Godd-es fay, by Godd-es fay!
The kiss it is a growing flower,
I trow, this jolly month of May!
God send a mouth to every kiss,
Seeing the
blossom of this bliss
By
gathering doth grow, certes!
By Godd-es fay, by Godd-es fay!
Thy brow-garland pushed all aslant
Tells--but I tell not,
wanton May!
NOTE. The first two stanzas are from a French original--I have
forgotten what.
A DEAD ASTRONOMER.
(Father Perry, S.J.)
Starry amorist, starward gone,
Thou art--what thou didst gaze upon!
Passed through thy golden garden's bars,
Thou seest the Gardener of the Stars.
She, about whose moon-ed brows
Seven stars make seven glows,
Seven lights for seven woes;
She, like thine own Galaxy,
All lustres in one purity:-
What said'st thou, Astronomer,
When thou did'st discover HER?
When thy hand its tube let fall,
Thou found'st the fairest Star of all!
'CHOSE VUE'.
A metrical caprice.
Up she rose, fair daughter--well she was graced
As a cloud her going, stept from her chair,
As a summer-soft cloud, in her going paced,
Down dropped her riband-band, and all her waving hair
Shook like loosened music cadent to her waist;--
Lapsing like music, wavery as water,
Slid to her waist.
'WHERETO ART THOU COME?'
'Friend, whereto art thou come?' Thus Verity;
Of each that to the world's sad Olivet
Comes with no
multitude, but alone by night,
Lit with the one torch of his lifted soul,
Seeking her that he may lay hands on her;
Thus: and waits answer from the mouth of deed.
Truth is a maid, whom men woo diversely;
This, as a
spouse; that, as a light-o'-love,
To know, and having known, to make his brag.
But woe to him that takes the
mortal" target="_blank" title="a.不死的n.不朽的人物">
immortal kiss,
And not estates her in his housing life,
Mother of all his seed! So he betrays,
Not Truth, the unbetrayable, but himself:
And with his kiss's rated traitor-craft,
The Haceldama of a plot of days
He buys, to
consummate his Judasry
Therein with Judas' guerdon of despair.
HEAVEN AND HELL.
'Tis said there were no thought of hell,
Save hell were taught; that there should be
A Heaven for all's self-credible.
Not so the thing appears to me.
'Tis Heaven that lies beyond our sights,
And hell too possible that proves;
For all can feel the God that smites,
But ah, how few the God that loves!
TO A CHILD.
Whenas my life shall time with
funeral tread
The heavy death-drum of the
beaten hours,
Following, sole
mourner, mine own
manhood dead,
Poor forgot corse, where not a maid strows flowers;
When I you love am no more I you love,
But go with unsubservient feet, behold
Your dear face through changed eyes, all grim change prove;--
A new man, mock-ed with misname of old;
When shamed Love keep his ruined
lodging, elf!
When, ceremented in mouldering memory,
Myself is hears-ed
underneath myself,
And I am but the
monument of me:-
O to that tomb be tender then, which bears
Only the name of him it sepulchres!
HERMES.
Soothsay. Behold, with rod twy-serpented,
Hermes the
prophet, twining in one power
The woman with the man. Upon his head
The cloudy cap,
wherewith he hath in dower
The cloud's own virtue--change and counterchange,
To show in light, and to
withdraw in pall,
As
mortal eyes best bear. His lineage strange
From Zeus, Truth's sire, and
maiden May--the all-
Illusive Nature. His fledged feet declare
That 'tis the
nether self transdeified,
And the thrice-furnaced passions, which do bear
The poet Olympusward. In him allied
Both parents clasp; and from the womb of Nature
Stern Truth takes flesh in shows of lovely feature.
HOUSE OF BONDAGE.
I
When I
perceive Love's
heavenly reaping still
Regard perforce the clouds' vicissitude,
That the fixed spirit loves not when it will,
But craves its seasons of the flawful blood;
When I
perceive that the high poet doth
Oft voiceless stray beneath the uninfluent stars,
That even Urania of her kiss is loath,
And Song's brave wings fret on their sensual bars;
When I
perceived the fullest-sail-ed sprite
Lag at most need upon the leth-ed seas,
The provident captainship oft voided quite,
And lam-ed lie deep-draughted argosies;
I scorn myself, that put for such strange toys
The wit of man to purposes of boys.
II
The spirit's ark sealed with a little clay,
Was old ere Memphis grew a memory; {2}
The hand pontifical to break away
That seal what shall
surrender? Not the sea
Which did englut great Egypt and his war,
Nor all the desert-drown-ed sepulchres.