The Poems and Prose of Ernest Dowson, With a Memoir by Arthur Symons Part 14

III

SPLEEN

Around were all the roses red, The ivy all around was black.

Dear, so thou only move thine head, Shall all mine old despairs awake!

Too blue, too tender was the sky, The air too soft, too green the sea.

Always I fear, I know not why, Some lamentable flight from thee.

I am so tired of holly-sprays And weary of the bright box-tree,

Of all the endless country ways; Of everything alas! save thee.

IV

The sky is up above the roof So blue, so soft!

A tree there, up above the roof, Swayeth aloft.

A bell within that sky we see, Chimes low and faint: A bird upon that tree we see, Maketh complaint.

Dear G.o.d! is not the life up there, Simple and sweet?

How peacefully are borne up there Sounds of the street!

What hast thou done, who comest To weep alway?

Where hast thou laid, who comest here, Thy youth away?

TO HIS MISTRESS

There comes an end to summer, To spring showers and h.o.a.r rime; His mumming to each mummer Has somewhere end in time, And since life ends and laughter, And leaves fall and tears dry, Who shall call love immortal, When all that is must die?

Nay, sweet, let's leave unspoken The vows the fates gainsay, For all vows made are broken, We love but while we may.

Let's kiss when kissing pleases, And part when kisses pall, Perchance, this time to-morrow, We shall not love at all.

You ask my love completest, As strong next year as now, The devil take you, sweetest, Ere I make aught such vow.

Life is a masque that changes, A fig for constancy!

No love at all were better, Than love which is not free.

JADIS

Erewhile, before the world was old, When violets grew and celandine, In Cupid's train we were enrolled: Erewhile!

Your little hands were clasped in mine, Your head all ruddy and sun-gold Lay on my breast which was your shrine, And all the tale of love was told: Ah, G.o.d, that sweet things should decline, And fires fade out which were not cold, Erewhile.

IN A BRETON CEMETERY

They sleep well here, These fisher-folk who pa.s.sed their anxious days In fierce Atlantic ways; And found not there, Beneath the long curled wave, So quiet a grave.

And they sleep well These peasant-folk, who told their lives away, From day to market-day, As one should tell, With patient industry, Some sad old rosary.

And now night falls, Me, tempest-tost, and driven from pillar to post, A poor worn ghost, This quiet pasture calls; And dear dead people with pale hands Beckon me to their lands.

TO WILLIAM THEODORE PETERS ON HIS RENAISSANCE CLOAK

The cherry-coloured velvet of your cloak Time hath not soiled: its fair embroideries Gleam as when centuries ago they spoke To what bright gallant of Her Daintiness, Whose slender fingers, long since dust and dead, For love or courtesy embroidered The cherry-coloured velvet of this cloak.

Ah! cunning flowers of silk and silver thread, That mock mortality? the broidering dame, The page they decked, the kings and courts are dead: Gone the age beautiful; Lorenzo's name, The Borgia's pride are but an empty sound; But l.u.s.trous still upon their velvet ground, Time spares these flowers of silk and silver thread.

Gone is that age of pageant and of pride: Yet don your cloak, and haply it shall seem, The curtain of old time is set aside; As through the sadder coloured throng you gleam; We see once more fair dame and gallant gay, The glamour and the grace of yesterday: The elder, brighter age of pomp and pride.

THE SEA-CHANGE

Where river and ocean meet in a great tempestuous frown, Beyond the bar, where on the dunes the white-capped rollers break; Above, one windmill stands forlorn on the arid, gra.s.sy down: I will set my sail on a stormy day and cross the bar and seek That I have sought and never found, the exquisite one crown, Which crowns one day with all its calm the pa.s.sionate and the weak.

When the mad winds are unreined, wilt thou not storm, my sea?

(I have ever loved thee so, I have ever done thee wrong In drear terrestrial ways.) When I trust myself to thee With a last great hope, arise and sing thine ultimate, great song Sung to so many better men, O sing at last to me, That which when once a man has heard, he heeds not over long.

I will bend my sail when the great day comes; thy kisses on my face Shall seal all things that are old, outworn; and anger and regret Shall fade as the dreams and days shall fade, and in thy salt embrace, When thy fierce caresses blind mine eyes and my limbs grow stark and set, All that I know in all my mind shall no more have a place: The weary ways of men and one woman I shall forget.

_Point du Pouldu_.

DREGS

The fire is out, and spent the warmth thereof (This is the end of every song man sings!) The golden wine is drunk, the dregs remain, Bitter as wormwood and as salt as pain; And health and hope have gone the way of love Into the drear oblivion of lost things.

Ghosts go along with us until the end; This was a mistress, this, perhaps, a friend.

With pale, indifferent eyes, we sit and wait For the dropt curtain and the closing gate: This is the end of all the songs man sings.

A SONG

All that a man may pray, Have I not prayed to thee?

What were praise left to say, Has not been said by me _O, ma mie?_

Yet thine eyes and thine heart, Always were dumb to me: Only to be my part, Sorrow has come from thee, _O, ma mie?_

Where shall I seek and hide My grief away with me?

Lest my bitter tears should chide, Bring brief dismay to thee, _O, ma mie?_

More than a man may pray, Have I not prayed to thee?

What were praise left to say, Has not been said by me, _O, ma mie?_