Bulchevy's Book of English Verse Part 156

Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy. 1844-1881

830. The Fountain of Tears

IF you go over desert and mountain, Far into the country of Sorrow, To-day and to-night and to-morrow, And maybe for months and for years; You shall come with a heart that is bursting For trouble and toiling and thirsting, You shall certainly come to the fountain At length,--to the Fountain of Tears.

Very peaceful the place is, and solely For piteous lamenting and sighing, And those who come living or dying Alike from their hopes and their fears; Full of cypress-like shadows the place is, And statues that cover their faces: But out of the gloom springs the holy And beautiful Fountain of Tears.

And it flows and it flows with a motion So gentle and lovely and listless, And murmurs a tune so resistless To him who hath suffer'd and hears-- You shall surely--without a word spoken, Kneel down there and know your heart broken, And yield to the long-curb'd emotion That day by the Fountain of Tears.

For it grows and it grows, as though leaping Up higher the more one is thinking; And ever its tunes go on sinking More poignantly into the ears: Yea, so blessed and good seems that fountain, Reach'd after dry desert and mountain, You shall fall down at length in your weeping And bathe your sad face in the tears.

Then alas! while you lie there a season And sob between living and dying, And give up the land you were trying To find 'mid your hopes and your fears; --O the world shall come up and pa.s.s o'er you, Strong men shall not stay to care for you, Nor wonder indeed for what reason Your way should seem harder than theirs.

But perhaps, while you lie, never lifting Your cheek from the wet leaves it presses, Nor caring to raise your wet tresses And look how the cold world appears-- O perhaps the mere silences round you-- All things in that place Grief hath found you-- Yea, e'en to the clouds o'er you drifting, May soothe you somewhat through your tears.

You may feel, when a falling leaf brushes Your face, as though some one had kiss'd you, Or think at least some one who miss'd you Had sent you a thought,--if that cheers; Or a bird's little song, faint and broken, May pa.s.s for a tender word spoken: --Enough, while around you there rushes That life-drowning torrent of tears.

And the tears shall flow faster and faster, Brim over and baffle resistance, And roll down blear'd roads to each distance Of past desolation and years; Till they cover the place of each sorrow, And leave you no past and no morrow: For what man is able to master And stem the great Fountain of Tears?

But the floods and the tears meet and gather; The sound of them all grows like thunder: --O into what bosom, I wonder, Is pour'd the whole sorrow of years?

For Eternity only seems keeping Account of the great human weeping: May G.o.d, then, the Maker and Father-- May He find a place for the tears!

John Boyle O'Reilly. 1844-1890

831. A White Rose

THE red rose whispers of pa.s.sion, And the white rose breathes of love; O the red rose is a falcon, And the white rose is a dove.

But I send you a cream-white rosebud With a flush on its petal tips; For the love that is purest and sweetest Has a kiss of desire on the lips.

Robert Bridges. b. 1844

832. My Delight and Thy Delight

MY delight and thy delight Walking, like two angels white, In the gardens of the night:

My desire and thy desire Twining to a tongue of fire, Leaping live, and laughing higher:

Thro' the everlasting strife In the mystery of life.

Love, from whom the world begun, Hath the secret of the sun.

Love can tell, and love alone, Whence the million stars were strewn, Why each atom knows its own, How, in spite of woe and death, Gay is life, and sweet is breath:

This he taught us, this we knew, Happy in his science true, Hand in hand as we stood 'Neath the shadows of the wood, Heart to heart as we lay In the dawning of the day.

Robert Bridges. b. 1844

833. Spirits

ANGEL spirits of sleep, White-robed, with silver hair, In your meadows fair, Where the willows weep, And the sad moonbeam On the gliding stream Writes her scatter'd dream:

Angel spirits of sleep, Dancing to the weir In the hollow roar Of its waters deep; Know ye how men say That ye haunt no more Isle and gra.s.sy sh.o.r.e With your moonlit play; That ye dance not here, White-robed spirits of sleep, All the summer night Threading dances light?

Robert Bridges. b. 1844

834. Nightingales

BEAUTIFUL must be the mountains whence ye come, And bright in the fruitful valleys the streams, wherefrom Ye learn your song: Where are those starry woods? O might I wander there, Among the flowers, which in that heavenly air Bloom the year long!

Nay, barren are those mountains and spent the streams: Our song is the voice of desire, that haunts our dreams, A throe of the heart, Whose pining visions dim, forbidden hopes profound, No dying cadence nor long sigh can sound, For all our art.

Alone, aloud in the raptured ear of men We pour our dark nocturnal secret; and then, As night is withdrawn From these sweet-springing meads and bursting boughs of May, Dream, while the innumerable choir of day Welcome the dawn.

Robert Bridges. b. 1844

835. A Pa.s.ser-by

WHITHER, O splendid s.h.i.+p, thy white sails crowding, Leaning across the bosom of the urgent West, That fearest nor sea rising, nor sky clouding, Whither away, fair rover, and what thy quest?

Ah! soon, when Winter has all our vales opprest, When skies are cold and misty, and hail is hurling, Wilt thou glde on the blue Pacific, or rest In a summer haven asleep, thy white sails furling.

I there before thee, in the country that well thou knowest, Already arrived am inhaling the odorous air: I watch thee enter unerringly where thou goest, And anchor queen of the strange s.h.i.+pping there, Thy sails for awnings spread, thy masts bare: Nor is aught from the foaming reef to the snow-capp'd grandest Peak, that is over the feathery palms, more fair Than thou, so upright, so stately and still thou standest.

And yet, O splendid s.h.i.+p, unhail'd and nameless, I know not if, aiming a fancy, I rightly divine That thou hast a purpose joyful, a courage blameless, Thy port a.s.sured in a happier land than mine.

But for all I have given thee, beauty enough is thine, As thou, aslant with trim tackle and shrouding, From the proud nostril curve of a prow's line In the offing scatterest foam, thy white sails crowding.

Robert Bridges. b. 1844

836. Absence

WHEN my love was away, Full three days were not sped, I caught my fancy astray Thinking if she were dead,

And I alone, alone: It seem'd in my misery In all the world was none Ever so lone as I.

I wept; but it did not shame Nor comfort my heart: away I rode as I might, and came To my love at close of day.

The sight of her still'd my fears, My fairest-hearted love: And yet in her eyes were tears: Which when I question'd of,

'O now thou art come,' she cried, ''Tis fled: but I thought to-day I never could here abide, If thou wert longer away.'

Robert Bridges. b. 1844