Poems & Ballads Volume I Part 21

[4] Nam te prcipu in suis urbibus colit ora h.e.l.lespontia, cteris ostreosior oris.

CATULL. _Carm._ xviii.

THE GARDEN OF PROSERPINE

Here, where the world is quiet; Here, where all trouble seems Dead winds' and spent waves' riot In doubtful dreams of dreams; I watch the green field growing For reaping folk and sowing, For harvest-time and mowing, A sleepy world of streams.

I am tired of tears and laughter, And men that laugh and weep; Of what may come hereafter For men that sow to reap: I am weary of days and hours, Blown buds of barren flowers, Desires and dreams and powers And everything but sleep.

Here life has death for neighbour, And far from eye or ear Wan waves and wet winds labour, Weak s.h.i.+ps and spirits steer; They drive adrift, and whither They wot not who make thither; But no such winds blow hither, And no such things grow here.

No growth of moor or coppice, No heather-flower or vine, But bloomless buds of poppies, Green grapes of Proserpine, Pale beds of blowing rushes Where no leaf blooms or blushes Save this whereout she crushes For dead men deadly wine.

Pale, without name or number, In fruitless fields of corn, They bow themselves and slumber All night till light is born; And like a soul belated, In h.e.l.l and heaven unmated, By cloud and mist abated Comes out of darkness morn.

Though one were strong as seven, He too with death shall dwell, Nor wake with wings in heaven, Nor weep for pains in h.e.l.l; Though one were fair as roses, His beauty clouds and closes; And well though love reposes, In the end it is not well.

Pale, beyond porch and portal, Crowned with calm leaves, she stands Who gathers all things mortal With cold immortal hands; Her languid lips are sweeter Than love's who fears to greet her To men that mix and meet her From many times and lands.

She waits for each and other, She waits for all men born; Forgets the earth her mother, The life of fruits and corn; And spring and seed and swallow Take wing for her and follow Where summer song rings hollow And flowers are put to scorn.

There go the loves that wither, The old loves with wearier wings; And all dead years draw thither, And all disastrous things; Dead dreams of days forsaken, Blind buds that snows have shaken, Wild leaves that winds have taken, Red strays of ruined springs.

We are not sure of sorrow, And joy was never sure; To-day will die to-morrow; Time stoops to no man's lure; And love, grown faint and fretful, With lips but half regretful Sighs, and with eyes forgetful Weeps that no loves endure.

From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever G.o.ds may be That no life lives for ever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea.

Then star nor sun shall waken, Nor any change of light: Nor sound of waters shaken, Nor any sound or sight: Nor wintry leaves nor vernal, Nor days nor things diurnal; Only the sleep eternal In an eternal night.

HESPERIA

Out of the golden remote wild west where the sea without sh.o.r.e is, Full of the sunset, and sad, if at all, with the fulness of joy, As a wind sets in with the autumn that blows from the region of stories, Blows with a perfume of songs and of memories beloved from a boy, Blows from the capes of the past oversea to the bays of the present, Filled as with shadow of sound with the pulse of invisible feet, Far out to the shallows and straits of the future, by rough ways or pleasant, Is it thither the wind's wings beat? is it hither to me, O my sweet?

For thee, in the stream of the deep tide-wind blowing in with the water, Thee I behold as a bird borne in with the wind from the west, Straight from the sunset, across white waves whence rose as a daughter Venus thy mother, in years when the world was a water at rest.

Out of the distance of dreams, as a dream that abides after slumber, Strayed from the fugitive flock of the night, when the moon overhead Wanes in the wan waste heights of the heaven, and stars without number Die without sound, and are spent like lamps that are burnt by the dead, Comes back to me, stays by me, lulls me with touch of forgotten caresses, One warm dream clad about with a fire as of life that endures; The delight of thy face, and the sound of thy feet, and the wind of thy tresses, And all of a man that regrets, and all of a maid that allures.

But thy bosom is warm for my face and profound as a manifold flower, Thy silence as music, thy voice as an odour that fades in a flame; Not a dream, not a dream is the kiss of thy mouth, and the bountiful hour That makes me forget what was sin, and would make me forget were it shame.

Thine eyes that are quiet, thine hands that are tender, thy lips that are loving, Comfort and cool me as dew in the dawn of a moon like a dream; And my heart yearns baffled and blind, moved vainly toward thee, and moving As the refluent seaweed moves in the languid exuberant stream, Fair as a rose is on earth, as a rose under water in prison, That stretches and swings to the slow pa.s.sionate pulse of the sea, Closed up from the air and the sun, but alive, as a ghost rearisen, Pale as the love that revives as a ghost rearisen in me.

From the bountiful infinite west, from the happy memorial places Full of the stately repose and the lordly delight of the dead, Where the fortunate islands are lit with the light of ineffable faces, And the sound of a sea without wind is about them, and sunset is red, Come back to redeem and release me from love that recalls and represses, That cleaves to my flesh as a flame, till the serpent has eaten his fill; From the bitter delights of the dark, and the feverish, the furtive caresses That murder the youth in a man or ever his heart have its will.

Thy lips cannot laugh and thine eyes cannot weep; thou art pale as a rose is, Paler and sweeter than leaves that cover the blush of the bud; And the heart of the flower is compa.s.sion, and pity the core it encloses, Pity, not love, that is born of the breath and decays with the blood.

As the cross that a wild nun clasps till the edge of it bruises her bosom, So love wounds as we grasp it, and blackens and burns as a flame; I have loved overmuch in my life; when the live bud bursts with the blossom, Bitter as ashes or tears is the fruit, and the wine thereof shame.

As a heart that its anguish divides is the green bud cloven asunder; As the blood of a man self-slain is the flush of the leaves that allure; And the perfume as poison and wine to the brain, a delight and a wonder; And the thorns are too sharp for a boy, too slight for a man, to endure.

Too soon did I love it, and lost love's rose; and I cared not for glory's: Only the blossoms of sleep and of pleasure were mixed in my hair.

Was it myrtle or poppy thy garland was woven with, O my Dolores?

Was it pallor of slumber, or blush as of blood, that I found in thee fair?

For desire is a respite from love, and the flesh not the heart is her fuel; She was sweet to me once, who am fled and escaped from the rage of her reign; Who behold as of old time at hand as I turn, with her mouth growing cruel, And flushed as with wine with the blood of her lovers, Our Lady of Pain.

Low down where the thicket is thicker with thorns than with leaves in the summer, In the brake is a gleaming of eyes and a hissing of tongues that I knew; And the lithe long throats of her snakes reach round her, their mouths overcome her, And her lips grow cool with their foam, made moist as a desert with dew.

With the thirst and the hunger of l.u.s.t though her beautiful lips be so bitter, With the cold foul foam of the snakes they soften and redden and smile; And her fierce mouth sweetens, her eyes wax wide and her eyelashes glitter, And she laughs with a savour of blood in her face, and a savour of guile.

She laughs, and her hands reach hither, her hair blows. .h.i.ther and hisses, As a low-lit flame in a wind, back-blown till it shudder and leap; Let her lips not again lay hold on my soul, nor her poisonous kisses, To consume it alive and divide from thy bosom, Our Lady of Sleep.

Ah daughter of sunset and slumber, if now it return into prison, Who shall redeem it anew? but we, if thou wilt, let us fly; Let us take to us, now that the white skies thrill with a moon unarisen, Swift horses of fear or of love, take flight and depart and not die.

They are swifter than dreams, they are stronger than death; there is none that hath ridden, None that shall ride in the dim strange ways of his life as we ride; By the meadows of memory, the highlands of hope, and the sh.o.r.e that is hidden, Where life breaks loud and unseen, a sonorous invisible tide; By the sands where sorrow has trodden, the salt pools bitter and sterile, By the thundering reef and the low sea-wall and the channel of years, Our wild steeds press on the night, strain hard through pleasure and peril, Labour and listen and pant not or pause for the peril that nears; And the sound of them trampling the way cleaves night as an arrow asunder, And slow by the sand-hill and swift by the down with its glimpses of gra.s.s, Sudden and steady the music, as eight hoofs trample and thunder, Rings in the ear of the low blind wind of the night as we pa.s.s; Shrill shrieks in our faces the blind bland air that was mute as a maiden, Stung into storm by the speed of our pa.s.sage, and deaf where we past; And our spirits too burn as we bound, thine holy but mine heavy-laden, As we burn with the fire of our flight; ah love, shall we win at the last?

LOVE AT SEA

We are in love's land to-day; Where shall we go?

Love, shall we start or stay, Or sail or row?

There's many a wind and way, And never a May but May; We are in love's hand to-day; Where shall we go?

Our landwind is the breath Of sorrows kissed to death And joys that were; Our ballast is a rose; Our way lies where G.o.d knows And love knows where.

We are in love's hand to-day--

Our seamen are fledged Loves, Our masts are bills of doves, Our decks fine gold; Our ropes are dead maids' hair, Our stores are love-shafts fair And manifold.

We are in love's land to-day--

Where shall we land you, sweet?

On fields of strange men's feet, Or fields near home?

Or where the fire-flowers blow, Or where the flowers of snow Or flowers of foam?

We are in love's hand to-day--

Land me, she says, where love Shows but one shaft, one dove, One heart, one hand.

--A sh.o.r.e like that, my dear, Lies where no man will steer, No maiden land.

_Imitated from Thophile Gautier._

APRIL

FROM THE FRENCH OF THE VIDAME DE CHARTRES

12--?

When the fields catch flower And the underwood is green, And from bower unto bower The songs of the birds begin, I sing with sighing between.

When I laugh and sing, I am heavy at heart for my sin; I am sad in the spring For my love that I shall not win, For a foolish thing.

This profit I have of my woe, That I know, as I sing, I know he will needs have it so Who is master and king, Who is lord of the spirit of spring.

I will serve her and will not spare Till her pity awake Who is good, who is pure, who is fair, Even her for whose sake Love hath ta'en me and slain unaware.