His Lady of the Sonnets Part 3

x.x.x

My Lady of the Sonnets, one word more, The last; and, after, let the silence fall.

Our year is ended, and things great and small Glow with its glory; could we live it o'er, What would we scatter from its precious store Of pearl, chalcedony, and topaz--all The many-jewelled moments that we call Love's treasure--we who had not loved before!

Into that treasure plunge we both our hands, The while we laugh, and love, and live again.

What rainbow-splendours and what golden sands Fall from our fingers! ... Now let come the pain And steal the shadow, moan the wintry sea; Locked is the casket: in your hands the key!

ANTONY TO CLEOPATRA,

AFTER ACTIUM

I

Day is all drenched with heavy rain of tears; The silences of joy are lost in sound Of sorrow; for I weep the wasted years-- Wasted as wine poured out upon the ground From beakers br.i.m.m.i.n.g red for thirsty lips.

Hushed are the trumpets that will call no more; Lonely and vast the s.p.a.ces of the sea Where oft my mariners have flashed the oar And ploughed deep furrows with my scarlet s.h.i.+ps-- Eager and ready for the fight, and free.

II

Egypt! My Egypt! Actium, and thou The glory and the wonder of the world, t.i.tles and place, all that I had are now Rolled up within a sphere of flame and hurled Into the gulfs of doom; quaking of earth, And thunder, as of G.o.ds deriding, fill The darkness and the void of those abysses: Yet in my anger and my anguish still Hath Love his ancient way, stirring to birth Dreams of the lost, dead days, thy lips and kisses.

III

Yea, I must love thee though I fall and die!

Yea, hath my heart become for Love a lyre, And he hath syllabled thy name, and I Fill in each silence with a song; aspire To rival in my rapture Euterpe.

For life or death, Elysium or Doom, We soar and sink together through the vast And unrevealed, dim reaches of the Room Whose walls are Night, and its wide portals three-- The Future, and the Present, and the Past!

IV

Leave thou thy chamber and its spectral glooms; Rise like the morn upon the mountains; stand, My Rose of Dawn, among all lesser blooms, And with white lilies mate each slender hand, And let the sky grow glorious and blue To match thine eyes! ... Come, Queen, and my Adored, Clothed in thy splendour as I saw thee first!

Oh, come, ere I thwart Caesar on my sword, And with my body pay him what is due!

Quench with thy lips on mine, O Heart, love's thirst.

V

Why dost thou linger, thou the miracle Among all marvels? Hither call the birds; The faint, far song of rivers; silver bell And pause of twilight, when the crooning words Of mothers bending over babes awake Echoes of whispers through the reeds and gra.s.s: Let these and other voices vie with thine, And lo! the G.o.d who vanquished Marsyas Yields thee his harp, and one by one forsake The nymphs their singing for thy voice divine.

VI

O beauty, beauty that can never die!

O music, music meeting on thy mouth!

Challenge the wings of morning, bid them fly Over the earth, east, west, north, and south, To find one other woman fair as thou; One other woman in whom harmonies Rise up like fountains singing in the sun.

Supernal Wonder! thou art more than these Frail jars of perfumed balsams from the bough Of Life's tree, emptied ere the day be done.

VII

Since thou wast born, the dreamy lotus blows Its blossomed buds no more in vales of ease; Mnemosyne revives where Lethe flows Past sad, lost souls; for he who beauty sees, That moment lives forever, and the sight Shatters the crystal chalices of dream; While phantom faces form, and legions wan And ghostly gather from the dark to stream Out through the wide, star-studded gates of night, Claiming the open portals of the dawn!

VIII

Behold the chaff is beaten from the wheat: Dost thou not hear the flails upon the floor?

Within the presses purple-stained feet Bruise joy from out the grape, and o'er and o'er The tale of Bacchus and the vine is told.

Laughter and dance and song are everywhere.

Shall we who live and love be then denied The harvest? Nay; the fields are not all bare; Still have they fragrant autumn gourds of gold; The trees have yet their majesty and pride.

IX

Listen and hear Rome roaring from afar!

Oh, hearken to the tumult of the hordes Of Caesar, drunk with the red wine of war!

Blow trumpets! Clang, O brazen s.h.i.+elds and swords, Your thunder to the steady march of men!

And sing, O purple pennons that unfold Beneath the bronze-tipped menace of the spears!

The G.o.ds! The G.o.ds are gleaming on the gold, Wide-winged, great eagles of the Tiber, when The standard of the Emperor appears!

X

Come, Cleopatra, from thy prison break, And I will gather now my waiting band-- My cohorts; yea, I will rise up and shake Over Octavius a mighty hand; Yea, I-- What sayest thou? The Queen is dead?

O Joy of G.o.ds and men! thou couldst not die-- Never to Cleopatra could come death!

There, lad! hold thou my sword, and let me fly On wings of love to realms unvisited Where Cleopatra, waiting, wandereth!

PAUL TO TIMOTHY

The long day ends at last, O Timothy, And I, Paul, prisoner of Jesus Christ, Wait for the dark.

Upon my window-ledge A sparrow twitters, pecks at the iron bars As though to set me free this night of Rome.