The Triumph Of Music Part 7

Thy flesh I craved, thy face!-- Love shrinks at this-- Now on thy lips to place One farewell kiss!--

5

Weep not, but die!--'tis given-- And so--farewell!-- Die!--that which makes death heaven, Makes life a h.e.l.l.

TWO LIVES.

1

"There is no G.o.d," one said, And love is l.u.s.t; When I am dead I'm _dead_, And all is dust.

"Be merry while you can Before you're gray; With some wild courtesan Drink care away."

2

One said, "A G.o.d there is, And G.o.d is love; Death is not _death_, but bliss, And life above.

"Above all flesh is mind; And faith and truth G.o.d's gifts to poor mankind That make life youth."

3

One from a harlot's side Arose at morn; One cursing G.o.d had died That night forlorn.

FOREVERMORE.

I

O heart that vainly follows The flight of summer swallows, Far over holts and hollows, O'er frozen buds and flowers; To violet seas and levels, Where Love Time's locks dishevels With merry mimes and revels Of aphrodisiac Hours.

II

O Love who, dreaming, borrows Dead love from sad to-morrows, The broken heart that sorrows, The blighted hopes that weep; Pale faces pale with sleeping; Red eyelids red with weeping; Dead lips dead secrets keeping, That shake the deeps of sleep!

III

O Memory that showers About the withered hours White, ruined, sodden flowers, Dead dust and bitter rain; Dead loves with faces teary; Dead pa.s.sions wan and dreary; The weary, weary, weary, Dead heart-ache and the pain!

IV

O give us back the blisses, Lost madness of moist kisses, The youth, the joy, the tresses, The fragrant limbs of white; The high heart like a jewel Alive with subtle fuel, Lips beautiful and cruel, Eyes' incarnated light!

V

Instead of tears, wild laughter The old hot pa.s.sions after, The houri sweets that dafter Made flesh and soul a slave!

Enough of tearful sorrows; Enough of rank to-morrows; The life that whines and borrows But memories of the grave!

VI

The grave that breaks no netting Of care or spint's fretting, No long, long sweet forgetting For those who would forget; And those who stammer by it Hope of an endless quiet, Within them voiceless riot When they and it have met.

VII

And G.o.d we pray beseeching,-- But Life with finger reaching, Stone-stern, remaineth teaching Our hearts to turn to stone; Then fain are we to follow The last, lorn, soaring swallow Past bourns of holt and hollow Forevermore alone.

A BLOWN ROSE.

Lay but a finger on That pallid petal sweet, It trembles gray and wan Beneath the pa.s.sing feet.

But soft! blown rose, we know A merriment of bloom, A life of st.u.r.dy glow,-- But no such dear perfume.

As some good bard, whose page Of life with beauty's fraught, Grays on to ripe old age Sweet-mellowed through with thought.

So when his h.o.a.ry head Is wept into the tomb, The mind, which is not dead, Sheds round it rare perfume.

TO-MORROW.

A Lorelei full fair she sits Throned on the stream that dimly rolls; Still, hope-thrilled, with her wild harp knits To her from year to year men's souls.

They hear her harp, they hear her song, Led by the wizard beauty high, Like blind brutes maddened rush along, Sink at her cold feet, gasp and die.

MNEMOSYNE.