THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES % LYRICS ARTHUR SYMONS LYRICS BY ARTHUR SYMONS _ a o ■» b J J J ., J > S *|J • * > ) ) J > 3 i } J , J ^ > 3 > J J J J ) ) J J J J * J J^ J J 1 JJiJ >JJ «J 3 i J PORTLAND MAINE THOMAS B MOSHER MDCCCCVII FIRST EDITION, SECOND EDITION, OCTOBER, 1903 OCTOBER, 1907 :y a FOUNTAIN COURT a Arthur Symons. LA cour de la fontaine est, dans le Temple, Un coin exquis de ce coin delicat Du Londres vieux ou le jeune avocat Apprend I'etroite Loi, puis le Droit ample: Des arbres moins anciens ( mais vieux, sans faute ) Que les maisons d' aspect ancien tres bien Et la noire chapelle au plus ancien Encore galbe, aujourd'hui . . . table d'hote . . . Des moineaux francs picorent joliment — Car c'est Thiver — la bale un peu moisie Sur la branche precaire, et — poesie ! La jeune Anglaise a 1' Anglais'age ment . . . Qu'importe ! lis ont raison, et nous aussi, Symons, d' aimer les vers et la musique Et tout I'art, et 1' argent melancholique D'etre si vite envole, vil souci ! " Et le jet d'eau ride 1' humble bassin " Comme chantait, quand il avait votre age, L'auteur de ces vers-ci, debris d'orage, Ruine, epave, au vague et lent dessin. PAUL VERLAINE. Londres, Novembre, 1894. ^-K^ftOQ CONTENTS I LOVE POEMS WANDERER'S SONG 3 AT SEVENTEEN . . . . 5 MEMORY 6 IN FOUNTAIN COURT 7 AFTER LOVE 8 THE RETURN 9 THE DANCE 10 ALLA PASSERETTA BRUNA . 11 THE RAT 12 THE LAST MEMORY 13 THE SICK HEART . . . . 14 THE CRYING OF WATER 15 THE GREY WOLF . 16 II MISCELLANEOUS FOR A PICTURE OF WATTEAU ROSA MUNDI .... 19 21 Vll CONTENTS PAGE JAVANESE DANCERS ... 23 LA MELINITE: MOULIN-ROUGE . 24 THE OPIUM-SMOKER ... 26 THE OLD WOMEN .... 27 ON AN AIR OF RAMEAU . . 30 AT DEIPPE: I AFTER SUNSET ... 31 II ON THE BEACH ... 32 III BEFORE THE SQUALL . . 33 IV REQUIES 34 IN THE WOOD OF FINVARA . 35 THE WANDERERS .... 36 Vlll LOVE POEMS MODERN BEAUTY I am the torch, she saith, and what to me If the moth die of me ? I am the flame Of Beauty, and I burn that all may see Beauty, and I have neither joy nor shame. But live with that clear life of perfect fire Which is to men the death of their desire. I am Yseult and Helen, I have seen Troy bum, and the most loving knight lie dead. The world has been my mirror, time has been My breath upon the glass ; and men have said, Age after age, in rapture and despair, Love's poor few words, before my image there. I live, and am immortal ; in my eyes The sorrow of the world, and on my lips The joy of life, mingle to make me wise ; Yet now the day is darkened with eclipse : Who is there lives for beauty ? Still am I The torch, but where' s the moth that still dares die ? WANDERER'S SONG HAVE had enough of women, and enough of love, But the land waits, and the sea waits, and day and night is enough ; Give me a long white road, and the grey wide path of the sea, And the wind's will and the bird's will, and the heart-ache still in me. Why should I seek out sorrow, and give gold for strife ? I have loved much and wept much, but tears and love are not life ; The grass calls to my heart, and the foam to my blood cries up. And the sun shines and the road shines, and the wine's in the cup. I have had enough of wisdom, and enough of mirth, For the way's one and the end's one, and it's soon to the ends of the earth ; And it's then good-night and to bed, and if heels or heart ache, Well, it's sound sleep and long sleep, and sleep too deep to wake. AT SEVENTEEN YOU were a child, and liked me, yesterday. To-day you are a woman, and perhaps Those softer eyes betoken the sweet lapse Of liking into loving : who shall say ? Only I know that there can be for us No liking more, nor any kisses now, But they shall wake sweet shame upon yourbrow Sweetly, or in a rose calamitous. Trembling upon the verge of some new dawn You stand, as if awakened out of sleep. And it is I who cried to you, " Arise ! " I who would fain call back the child that's gone, And what you lost for me would have you keep, Fearing to meet the woman of your eyes. MEMORY AS a perfume doth remain In the folds where it hath lain, So the thought of you, remaining Deeply folded in my brain, Will not leave me : all things leave me You remain. Other thoughts may come and go, Other moments I may know That shall waft me, in their going, As a breath blown to and fro, Fragrant memories : fragrant memories Come and go. Only thoughts of you remain In my heart where they have lain, Perfumed thoughts of you, remaining, A hid sweetness, in my brain. Others leave me : all things leave me : You remain. IN FOUNTAIN COURT ^~I~^HE fountain murmuring of sleep, -*■ A drowsy tune ; The flickering green of leaves that keep The light of June ; Peace, through a slumbering afternoon. The peace of June. A waiting ghost, in the blue sky. The white curved moon ; June, hushed and breathless, waits, and I Wait too, with June ; Come, through the lingering afternoon. Soon, love, come soon. AFTER LOVE /^ TO part now, and, parting now, ^^ Never to meet again ; To have done for ever, I and thou, With joy, and so with pain. It is too hard, too hard to meet If we must love no more ; Those other meetings were too sweet That went before. And I would have, now love is over, An end to all, an end : I cannot, having been your lover, Stoop to become your friend ! 8 THE RETURN A LITTLE hand is knocking at my heart, And I have closed the door. " I pray thee, for the love of God, depart : Thou shalt come in no more." " Open, for I am weary of the vi^ay. The night is very black. I have been wandering many a night and day. Open. I have come back." The little hand is knocking patiently ; I listen, dumb with pain. " Wilt thou not open any more to me ? I have come back again." " I will not open any more. Depart. I, that once lived, am dead." The hand that had been knocking at my heart Was still. "And L?" she said. There is no sound, save, in the winter air. The sound of wind and rain. All that I loved in all the world stands there, And will not knock again. THE DANCE T?OR the immortal moment of a passionate -*■ dance, Surely our two souls rushed together and were one, Once, in the beat of our winged feet in unison, When, in the brief and flaming ardour of your glance. The world withered away, vanishing into smoke ; The world narrowed about us, and we heard the beat As of the rushing winds encompassing our feet ; In the blind heart of the winds, eternal silence woke. And, cast adrift on our unchainable ecstasy. Once, and once only, heart to heart and soul to soul. For an immortal moment we endured the whole Rapture of intolerable immortality. 10 ALLA PASSERETTA BRUNA TF I bid you, you will come, -'■ If I bid you, you will go. You are mine, and so I take you To my heart, your home ; Well, ah, well I know I shall not forsake you. I shall always hold you fast, I shall never set you free, You are mine, and I possess you Long as life shall last ; You will comfort me, I shall bless you. I shall keep you as we keep Flowers for memory, hid away. Under many a newer token Buried deep, Roses of a gaudier day. Rings and trinkets, bright and broken. Other women I shall love. Fame and fortune I may win, But when fame and love forsake me And the light is night above, You will let me in. You will take me. 11 THE RAT T3AIN gnaws at my heart like a rat that ■*- gnaws at a beam In the dusty dark of a ghost-frequented house ; And I dream of the days forgotten, of love the dream, The desire of her eyes unappeased, and the peace of her brows. I can hear the old rat gnaw in the dark by night, In the deep overshadowing dust that the years have cast ; He gnaws at my heart that is empty of all delight, He stirs the dust where the feet of my dreams had passed. 12 THE LAST MEMORY WHEN I am old, and think of the old days, And warm my hands before a little blaze, Having forgotten love, hope, fear, desire, I shall see, smiling out of the pale fire. One face, mysterious and exquisite ; And I shall gaze, and ponder over it. Wondering, was it Leonardo wrought That stealthy ardency, where passionate thought Burns inward, a revealing flame, and glows To the last ecstasy, which is repose ? Was it Bronzino, those Borghese eyes ? And, musing thus among my memories, O unforgotten ! you will come to seem. As pictures do, remembered, some old dream. And I shall think of you as something strange, And beautiful, and full of helpless change, Which I beheld and carried in my heart ; But you, I loved, will have become a part Of the eternal mystery, and love Like a dim pain ; and I shall bend above My little fire, and shiver, being cold. When you are no more young, and I am old. 13 THE SICK HEART /^ SICK heart, be at rest ! ^-^ Is there nothing that I can do To quiet your crying in my breast ? Will nothing comfort you ? I am sick of a malady There is but one thing can assuage : Cure me of youth, and, see, I will be wise in age ! " 14 THE CRYING OF WATER /^ WATER, voice of my heart, crying in ^-^ the sand, All night long crying with a mournful cry, As I lie and listen, and cannot understand The voice of my heart in my side or the voice of the sea, O water, crying for rest, is it I, is it I ? All night long the water is crying to me. Unresting water, there shall never be rest Till the last moon droop and the last tide fail. And the fire of the end begin to burn in the west ; And the heart shall be weary and wonder and cry like the sea, All life long crying without avail. As the water all night long is crying to me. 15 THE GREY WOLF ** I ""HE grey wolf comes again : I had made -*- fast The door with chains ; how has the grey wolf passed My threshold ? I have nothing left to give : Go from me now, grey wolf, and let me live ! I have fed you once, given all you would, given all I had to give, I have been prodigal ; I am poor now, the table is but spread With water and a little wheaten bread ; You have taken all I ever had from me : Go from me now, grey wolf, and let me be ! The grey wolf, crouching by the bolted door, Waits, watching for his food upon the floor ; I see the old hunger and the old thirst of blood Rise up, under his eyelids, like a flood : What shall I do that the grey wolf may go? This time, I have no store of meat to throw ; He waits ; but I have nothing, and I stand Helpless, and his eyes fasten on my hand. O grey wolf, grey wolf, will you not depart, This time, unless I feed you with my heart? 16 II MISCELLANEOUS FOR A PICTURE OF WATTEAU j^jlERE the vague winds have rest; ^ & The forest breathes in sleep, '^ Lifting a quiet breast ; It is the hour of rest. How summer glides away! An autumn pallor blooms Upon the cheek of day. Come, lovers, come away ! But here, where dead leaves fall Upon the grass, what strains. Languidly musical. Mournfully rise and fall.'' Light loves that woke with spring This autumn afternoon Beholds meandering, Still, to the strains of spring. 19 Your dancing feet are faint, Lovers : the air recedes Into a sighing plaint, Faint, as your loves are faint It is the end, the end, The dance of love's decease. Feign no more now, fair friend ! It is the end, the end. 20 ROSA MUNDI A N angel of pale desire "^ ^ Whispered me in the ear (Ah me, the white-rose mesh Of the flower-soft, rose -white flesh ! ) ' Love, they say, is a fire : Lo, the soft love that is here ! Love, they say, is a pain Infinite as the soul, Ever a longing to be Love's, to infinity. Ever a longing in vain After a vanishing goal. ' Lo, the soft joy that I give Here in the garden of earth ; Come where the rose-tree grows. Thine is the garden's rose, Weave rose-garlands, and live In ease, in indolent mirth," Then I saw that the rose was fair, And the mystical rose afar, 21 A glimmering shadow of light, Paled to a star in the night ; And the angel whispered " Beware, Love is a wandering star. " Love is a raging fire. Choose thou content instead ; Thou, the child of the dust. Choose thou a delicate Lust." "Thou hast chosen ! " I said To the angel of pale desire. 22 JAVANESE DANCERS '' I ""WITCHED strings, the clang of metal, -*• beaten drums. Dull, shrill, continuous, disquieting ; And now the stealthy dancer comes Undulantly with cat-like steps that cling ; Smiling between her painted lids a smile, Motionless, unintelligible, she twines Her fingers into mazy lines. The scarves across her fingers twine the while. One, two, three, four glide forth, and, to and fro. Delicately and imperceptibly, Now swaying gently in a row, Now interthreading slow and rhythmically. Still, with fixed eyes, monotonously still. Mysteriously, with smiles inanimate. With lingering feet that undulate. With sinuous fingers, spectral hands that thrill In measure while the gnats of music whirr, The little amber-coloured dancers move. Like painted idols seem to stir By the idolaters in a magic grove. 23 LA M£LINITE: MOULIN-ROUGE OLIVIER METRA'S Waltz of Roses Sheds in a rhythmic shower The very petals of the flower ; And all is roses, The rouge of petals in a shower. Down the long hall the dance returning Rounds the full circle, rounds The perfect rose of lights and sounds, The rose returning Into the circle of its rounds. Alone, apart, one dancer watches Her mirrored, morbid grace ; Before the mirror, face to face, Alone she watches Her morbid, vague, ambiguous grace. Before the mirror's dance of shadows She dances in a dream, And she and they together seem A dance of shadows, Alike the shadows of a dream. 24 The orange-rosy lamps are trembling Between the robes that turn ; In ruddy flowers of flame that burn The lights are trembling : The shadows and the dancers turn. And, enigmatically smiling, In the mysterious night, She dances for her own delight, A shadow smiling Back to a shadow in the night. 25 THE OPIUM-SMOKER T AM engulfed, and drown deliciously. -*■ Soft music like a perfume, and sweet light Golden with audible odours exquisite, Swathe me with cerements for eternity. Time is no more. I pause and yet I flee. A million ages wrap me round with night. I drain a million ages of delight. I hold the future in my memory. Also I have this garret which I rent. This bed of straw, and this that was a chair, This worn-out body like a tattered tent, This crust, of which the rats have eaten part. This pipe of opium; rage, remorse, despair; This soul at pawn and this delirious heart. 26 THE OLD WOMEN THEY pass upon their old, tremulous feet, Creeping with little satchels down the street, And they remember, many years ago, Passing that way in silks. They wander, slow And solitary, through the city ways, And they alone remember those old days Men have forgotten. In their shaking heads A dancer of old carnivals yet treads The measure of past waltzes, and they see The candles lit again, the patchouli Sweeten the air, and the warm cloud of musk Enchant the passing of the passionate dusk. Then you will see a light begin to creep Under the earthen eyelids, dimmed with sleep, And a new tremor, happy and uncouth. Jerking about the corners of the mouth. Then the old head drops down again, and shakes, Muttering. Sometimes, when the swift gaslight wakes The dreams and fever of the sleepless town, A shaking huddled thing in a black gown Will steal at midnight, carrying with her Violet little bags of lavender, Into the tap-room full of noisy light ; Or, at the crowded earlier hour of night. Sidle, with matches, up to some who stand About a stage-door, and, with furtive hand, Appealing : " I too was a dancer, when Your fathers would have been young gentlemen ! ' And sometimes, out of some lean ancient throat, A broken voice, with here and there a note Of unspoilt crystal, suddenly will arise Into the night, while a cracked fiddle cries Pantingly after ; and you know she sings The passing of light, famous, passing things. And sometimes, in the hours past midnight, ree Out of an alley upon staggering heels, Or into the dark keeping of the stones About a doorway, a vague thing of bones And draggled hair. And all these have been loved, And not one ruinous body has not moved The heart of man's desire, nor has not seemed Immortal in the eyes of one who dreamed The dream that men call love. This is the end Of much fair flesh ; it is for this you tend 28 Your delicate bodies many careful years, To be this thing of laughter and of tears, To be this living judgment of the dead, An old grey woman with a shaking head. 29 ON AN AIR OF RAMEAU TO ARNOLD DOLMETSCH A MELANCHOLY desire of ancient things -^ ^ Floats like a faded perfume out of the wires ; Pallid lovers, what unforgotten desires, Whispered once, are retold in your whisperings? Roses, roses, and lilies with hearts of gold. These you plucked for her, these she wore in her breast ; Only Rameau's music remembers the rest. The death of roses over a heart grown cold. But these sighs? Can ghosts then sigh from the tomb ? Life then wept for you, sighed for you, chilled your breath ? It is the melancholy of ancient death The harpsichord dreams of, sighing in the room. 30 AT DIEPPE AFTER SUNSET ^ I ''HE sea lies quieted beneath -■■ The after-sunset flush That leaves upon the heaped grey clouds The grape's faint purple blush. Pale, from a little space in heaven Of delicate ivory, The sickle-moon and one gold star Look down upon the sea. 31 II ON THE BEACH ]VTlGHT, a grey sky, a ghostly sea, -^ ^ The soft beginning of the rain ; Black on the horizon, sails that wane Into the distance mistily. The tide is rising, I can hear The soft roar broadening far along ; It cries and murmurs in my ear A sleepy old forgotten song. Softly the stealthy night descends, The black sails fade into the sky : Is not this, where the sea-line ends. The shore-line of infinity .'' I cannot think or dream ; the grey Unending waste of sea and night. Dull, impotently infinite, Blots out the very hope of day. 32 Ill BEFORE THE SQUALL ^ I ""HE wind is rising on the sea, -■- The windy white foam-dancers leap ; And the sea moans uneasily, And turns to sleep, and cannot sleep. Ridge after rocky ridge uplifts Wild hands, and hammers at the land, Scatters in liquid dust, and drifts To death among the dusty sand. On the horizon's nearing line. Where the sky rests, a visible wall, Grey in the offing, I divine The sails that fly before the squall. 33 IV REQUIES /^ IS it death or life ^-^ That sounds like something strangely known In this subsiding out of strife, This slow sea-monotone ? A sound, scarce heard through sleep. Murmurous as the August bees That fill the forest hollows deep About the roots of trees. O is it life or death, O is it hope or memory, That quiets all things with this breath Of the eternal sea? 34 IN THE WOOD OF FINVARA I HAVE grown tired of sorrow and human tears ; Life is a dream in the night, a fear among fears, A naked runner lost in a storm of spears. I have grown tired of rapture and love's desire ; Love is a flaming heart, and its flames aspire Till they cloud the soul in the smoke of a windy fire. I would wash the dust of the world in a soft green flood : Here, between sea and sea, in the fairy wood, I have found a delicate, wave-green solitude. Here, in the fairy wood, between sea and sea, I have heard the song of a fairy bird in a tree, And the peace that is not in the world has flown to me. 35 THE WANDERERS AIT' AN BERING, ever wandering, * ' Their eyelids freshened with the wind of the sea Blown up the cliffs at sunset, their cheeks cooled With meditative shadows of hushed leaves That have been drowsing in the woods all day, And certain fires of sunrise in their eyes. They wander, and the white roads under them Crumble into fine dust behind their feet, For they return not ; life, a long white road. Winds ever from the dark into the dark. And they, as days, return not ; they go on For ever, with the travelling stars ; the night Curtains them, being wearied, and the dawn Awakens them unwearied ; they go on. They know the winds of all the earth, they know The dust of many highways, and the stones Of cities set for landmarks on the road. Theirs is the world, and all the glory of it. Theirs, because they forego it, passing on Into the freedom of the elements ; 36 Wandering, ever wandering, Because life holds not anything so good As to be free of yesterday, and bound Towards a new-born to-morrow ; and they go Into a world of unknown faces, where It may be there are faces waiting them. Faces of friendly strangers, not the long Intolerable monotony of friends. The joy of earth is yours, O wanderers, The only joy of the old earth, to wake. As each new dawn is patiently renewed. With foreheads fresh against a fresh young sky. To be a little further on the road, A little nearer somewhere, some few steps Advanced into the future, and removed By some few counted milestones from the past ; God gives you this good gift, the only gift That God, being repentant, has to give. Wanderers, you have the sunrise and the stars ; And we, beneath our comfortable roofs. Lamplight, and daily fire upon the hearth, And four walls of a prison, and sure food. But God has given you freedom, wanderers ! NINE HUNDRED AND FIFTY COPIES OF THIS BOOK PRINTED ON VAN GELDER HAND-MADE PAPER AND THE TYPE DISTRIBUTED. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. »!. AlfG I S 1974 KECD LD-URt 'uC^' QL JANi|2on'^ 0m-7.'69(N296s4) — C-120 — Tt 3 1158 00791 6348 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 376 445 3 I