DIEGO 
 
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 ftftsss 
 
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 Central University Library 
 
 University of California, San Diego 
 his item is subject to recall after two weeks. 
 
 Date Due 
 
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 UCSDLib.
 
 OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO 
 
 ORNIA SAN DIEGC 
 
 3 1822016098402
 
 ANACTORIA 
 
 AND OTHER LYRICAL 
 POEMS
 
 ANACTORIA 
 
 AND OTHER 
 
 LYRICAL 
 
 POEMS 
 
 ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 MITCHELL KENNERLEY 
 MDCCCCVI
 
 // is a far cry from the four thousand and more 
 pages of the Collected Poems and Tragedies 
 of Mr. Swinburne, recently issued in eleven 
 volumes, to this little book of selections ; but at 
 least it may be said of Anactoria and other 
 Lyrical Poems that it contains nothing that is 
 not among Mr. Swinburne 's best work. An 
 eminent critic was bold enough not long ago to 
 suggest that in days to come Poems and Ballads 
 will not be so highly considered as it is to-day, 
 and with this obiter dicta it is difficult to disagree. 
 Hence the omission from this book of such faded 
 favourites of our youth as Felise, Faustine, Frag- 
 oletta and Dolores, and those other poems dealing 
 with " The burden of bought kisses," which made 
 Poems and Ballads the most romantic book of 
 poems of the last fifty years.
 
 Contents 
 
 Anactoria 13 
 
 Salt of the Earth 24 
 
 Chorus from Atalanta in Calydon 25 
 
 Rococo 27 
 
 A Ballad of Francois Villon 31 
 
 The Garden of Proserpine 33 
 
 To Walt Whitman in America 37 
 
 A Leave-Taking 43 
 
 Madonna Mia 45 
 
 Adieux a Marie Stuart 49 
 
 Sonnet with a copy of Mademoiselle de Maupin 56 
 
 A Match 57 
 
 In Memory of Walter Savage Landor 59 
 
 The Oblation 62 
 
 The Triumph of Time 63
 
 ANACTORIA 
 
 AND OTHER LYRICAL 
 POEMS
 
 Anactoria 
 
 SAPPHO 
 
 MY life is bitter with thy love ; thine eyes 
 Blind me, thy tresses burn me, thy sharp sighs 
 Divide my flesh and spirit with soft sound, 
 And my blood strengthens, and my veins abound. 
 I pray thee sigh not, speak not, draw not breath ; 
 Let life burn down, and dream it is not death. 
 I would the sea had hidden us, the fire 
 (Wilt thou fear that, and fear not my desire ?) 
 Severed the bones that bleach, the flesh that cleaves, 
 And let our sifted ashes drop like leaves. 
 I feel thy blood against my blood : my pain 
 Pains thee, and lips bruise lips, and vein stings vein. 
 Let fruit be crushed on fruit, let flower on flower, 
 Breast kindle breast, and either burn one hour. 
 Why wilt thou follow lesser loves ? are thine 
 Too weak to bear these hands and lips of mine ? 
 I charge thee for my life's sake, O too sweet 
 To crush love with thy cruel faultless feet, 
 I charge thee keep thy lips from hers or his, 
 Sweetest, till theirs be sweeter than my kiss : 
 Lest I too lure, a swallow for a dove, 
 Erotion or Erinna to my love. 
 I would my love could kill thee ; I am satiated 
 With seeing thee live, and fain would have thee dead.
 
 Anactoria 
 
 I would earth had thy body as fruit to eat, 
 
 And no mouth but some serpent's found thee sweet. 
 
 I would find grievous ways to have thee slain, 
 
 Intense device, and superflux of pain ; 
 
 Vex thee with amorous agonies, and shake 
 
 Life at thy lips, and leave it there to ache ; 
 
 Strain out thy soul with pangs too soft to kill, 
 
 Intolerable interludes, and infinite ill ; 
 
 Relapse and reluctation of the breath, 
 
 Dumb tunes and shuddering semitones of death. 
 
 I am weary of all thy words and soft strange ways, 
 
 Of all love's fiery nights and all his days, 
 
 And all the broken kisses salt as brine 
 
 That shuddering lips make moist with waterish wine, 
 
 And eyes the bluer for all those hidden hours 
 
 That pleasure fills with tears and feeds from flowers, 
 
 Fierce at the heart with fire that half comes through, 
 
 But all the flower-like white stained round with blue ; 
 
 The fervent underlid, and that above 
 
 Lifted with laughter or abashed with love ; 
 
 Thine amorous girdle, full of thee and fair, 
 
 And leavings of the lilies in thine hair. 
 
 Yea, all sweet words of thine and all thy ways, 
 
 And all the fruit of nights and flower of days, 
 
 And stinging lips wherein the hot sweet brine 
 
 That Love was born of burns and foams like wine, 
 
 And eyes insatiable of amorous hours, 
 
 Fervent as fire and delicate as flowers,
 
 Anactoria 
 
 Coloured like night at heart, but cloven through 
 
 Like night with flame, dyed round like night with blue, 
 
 Clothed with deep eyelids under and above 
 
 Yea, all thy beauty sickens me with love ; 
 
 Thy girdle empty of thee and now not fair, 
 
 And ruinous lilies in thy languid hair. 
 
 Ah, take no thought for Love's sake; shall this be, 
 
 And she who loves thy lover not love thee ? 
 
 Sweet soul, sweet mouth of all that laughs and lives, 
 
 Mine is she, very mine ; and she forgives. 
 
 For I beheld in sleep the light that is 
 
 In her high place in Paphos, heard the kiss 
 
 Of body and soul that mix with eager tears 
 
 And laughter stinging through the eyes and ears ; 
 
 Saw Love, as burning flame from crown to feet, 
 
 Imperishable, upon her storied seat; 
 
 Clear eyelids lifted toward the north and south, 
 
 A mind of many colours, and a mouth 
 
 Of many tunes and kisses; and she bowed, 
 
 With all her subtle face laughing aloud, 
 
 Bowed down upon me, saying, c Who doth thee wrong, 
 
 Sappho ? ' but thou thy body is the song, 
 
 Xhy mouth the music ; thou art more than I, 
 
 Though my voice die not till the whole world die ; 
 
 Though men that hear it madden ; though love weep, 
 
 Though nature change, though shame be charmed to sleep. 
 
 Ah, wilt thou slay me lest I kiss thee dead ? 
 
 Yet the queen laughed from her sweet heart and said :
 
 Anactoria 
 
 * Even she that flies shall follow for thy sake, 
 
 And she shall give thee gifts that would not take, 
 
 Shall kiss that would not kiss thee ' (yea, kiss me) 
 
 4 When thou wouldst not ' when I would not kiss thee ! 
 
 Ah, more to me than all men as thou art, 
 
 Shall not my songs assuage her at the heart ? 
 
 Ah, sweet to me as life seems sweet to death, 
 
 Why should her wrath fill thee with fearful breath ? 
 
 Nay, sweet, for is she God alone ? hath she 
 
 Made earth and all the centuries of the sea, 
 
 Taught the sun ways to travel, woven most fine 
 
 The moonbeams, shed the starbeams forth as wine, 
 
 Bound with her myrtles, beaten with her rods, 
 
 The young men and the maidens and the gods ? 
 
 Have we not lips to love with, eyes for tears, 
 
 And summer and flower of women and of years ? 
 
 Stars for the foot of morning, and for noon 
 
 Sunlight, and exaltation of the moon ; 
 
 Waters that answer waters, fields that wear 
 
 Lilies, and languor of the Lesbian air ? 
 
 Beyond those flying feet of fluttered doves, 
 
 Are there not other gods for other loves ? 
 
 Yea, though she scourge thee, sweetest, for my sake, 
 
 Blossom not thorns, and flowers not blood should break. 
 
 Ah that my lips were tuneless lips, but pressed 
 
 To the bruised blossom of thy scourged white breast ! 
 
 Ah that my mouth for Muses' milk were fed 
 
 On the sweet blood thy sweet small wounds had bled ! 
 
 16
 
 Anactoria 
 
 That with my tongue I felt them, and could taste 
 The faint flakes from thy bosom to the waist ! 
 That I could drink thy veins as wine, and eat 
 Thy. breasts like honey ! that from face to feet 
 Thy body were abolished and consumed, 
 And in my flesh thy very flesh entombed ! 
 Ah, ah, thy beauty ! like a beast it bites, 
 Stings like an adder, like an arrow smites. 
 Ah sweet, and sweet again, and seven times sweet, 
 The paces and the pauses of thy feet ! 
 Ah sweeter than all sleep or summer air 
 The fallen fillets fragrant from thine hair ! 
 Yea, though their alien kisses do me wrong, 
 Sweeter thy lips than mine with all their song; 
 Thy shoulders whiter than a fleece of white, 
 And flower-sweet fingers, good to bruise or bite 
 As honeycomb of the inmost honey-cells, 
 With almond-shaped and roseleaf-coloured shells, 
 And blood like purple blossom at the tips 
 Quivering; and pain made perfect in thy lips 
 For my sake when I hurt thee ; O that I 
 Durst crush thee out of life with love, and die, 
 Die of thy pain and my delight, and be 
 iVIixed with thy blood and molten into thee ! 
 Would I not plague thee dying overmuch ? 
 Would I not hurt thee perfectly ? not touch 
 Thy pores of sense with torture, and make bright 
 Thine eyes with bloodlike tears and grievous light !
 
 Anactoria 
 
 Strike pang from pang as note is struck from note, 
 
 Catch the sob's middle music in thy throat, 
 
 Take thy limbs living, and new-mould with these 
 
 A lyre of many faultless agonies ? 
 
 Feed thee with fever and famine and fine drouth, 
 
 With perfect pangs convulse thy perfect mouth, 
 
 Make thy life shudder in thee and burn afresh, 
 
 And wring thy very spirit through the flesh ? 
 
 Cruel ? but love makes all that love him well 
 
 As wise as heaven and crueller than hell. 
 
 Me hath love made more bitter toward thee 
 
 Than death toward man ; but were I made as he 
 
 Who hath made all things to break them one by one, 
 
 If my feet trod upon the stars and sun 
 
 And souls of men as his have alway trod, 
 
 God knows I might be crueller than God. 
 
 For who shall change with prayers or thanksgivings 
 
 The mystery of the cruelty of things ? 
 
 Or say what God above all gods and years, 
 
 With offering and blood-sacrifice of tears, 
 
 With lamentation from strange lands, from graves 
 
 Where the snake pastures, from scarred mouth of slaves, 
 
 From prison, and from plunging prows of ships 
 
 Through flamelike foam of the sea's closing lips 
 
 With thwartings of strange signs, and wind-blown hair 
 
 Of comets, desolating the dim air, 
 
 When darkness is made fast with seals and bars, 
 
 And fierce reluctance of disastrous stars, 
 
 18
 
 Anactoria 
 
 Eclipse, and sound of shaken hills, and wings 
 
 Darkening, and blind inexpiable things 
 
 With sorrow of labouring moons, and altering light 
 
 And travail of the planets of the night, 
 
 And weeping of the weary Pleiads seven, 
 
 Feeds the mute melancholy lust of heaven ? 
 
 Is not this incense bitterness, his meat 
 
 Murder ? his hidden face and iron feet 
 
 Hath not man known, and felt them on their way 
 
 Threaten and trample all things and every day ? 
 
 Hath he not sent us hunger ? who hath cursed 
 
 Spirit and flesh with longing ? filled with thirst 
 
 Their lips who cried unto him ? who bade exceed 
 
 The fervid will, fall short the feeble deed, 
 
 Bade sink the spirit and the flesh aspire, 
 
 Pain animate the dust of dead desire, 
 
 And life yield up her flower to violent fate ? 
 
 Him would I reach, him smite, him desecrate, 
 
 Pierce the cold lips of God with human breath, 
 
 And mix his immortality with death. 
 
 Why hath he made us ? what had all we done 
 
 That we should live and loathe the sterile sun, 
 
 And with the moon wax paler as she wanes, 
 
 And pulse by pulse feel time grow through our veins ? 
 
 Thee too the years shall cover ; thou shalt be 
 
 As the rose born of one same blood with thee, 
 
 As a song sung, as a word said, and fall 
 
 Flower-wise, and be not any more at all,
 
 Anactoria 
 
 Nor any memory of thee anywhere ; 
 For never Muse has bound above thine hair 
 The high Pierian flowers whose graft outgrows 
 All summer kinship of the mortal rose 
 And colour of deciduous days, nor shed 
 Reflex and flush of heaven about thine head, 
 Nor reddened brows made pale by floral grief 
 With splendid shadow from that lordlier leaf. 
 Yea, thou shalt be forgotten like spilt wine, 
 Except these kisses of my lips on thine 
 Brand them with immortality ; but me 
 Men shall not see bright fire nor hear the sea, 
 Nor mix their hearts with music, nor behold 
 Cast forth of heaven with feet of awful gold 
 And plumeless wings that make the bright air blind, 
 Lightning, with thunder for a hound behind 
 Hunting through fields unfurrowed and unsown 
 But in the light and laughter, in the moan 
 And music, and in grasp of lip and hand 
 And shudder of water that makes felt on land 
 The immeasurable tremor of all the sea, 
 Memories shall mix and metaphors of me. 
 Like me shall be the shuddering calm of night, 
 When all the winds of the world for pure delight 
 Close lips that quiver and fold up wings that ache ; 
 When nightingales are louder for love's sake, 
 And leaves tremble like lute-strings or like fire ; 
 Like me the one star swooning with desire 
 
 20
 
 Anactoria 
 
 Even at the cold lips of the sleepless moon, 
 As I at thine ; like me the waste white noon, 
 Burnt through with barren sunlight ; and like me 
 The land-stream and the tide-stream in the sea. 
 I am sick with time as these with ebb and flow, 
 And by the yearning in my veins I know 
 The yearning sound of waters ; and mine eyes 
 Burn as that beamless fire which fills the skies 
 With troubled stars and travailing things of flame ; 
 And in my heart the grief consuming them 
 Labours, and in my veins the thirst of these, 
 And all the summer travail of the trees 
 And all the winter sickness ; and the earth, 
 Filled full with deadly works of death and birth, 
 Sore spent with hungry lusts of birth and death, 
 Has pain like mine in her divided breath ; 
 Her spring of leaves is barren, and her fruit 
 Ashes; her boughs are burdened, and her root 
 Fibrous and gnarled with poison; underneath 
 Serpents have gnawn it through with tortuous teeth 
 Made sharp upon the bones of all the dead, 
 And wild birds rend her branches overhead. 
 These, woven as raiment for his word and thought, 
 These hath God made, and me as these, and wrought 
 Song, and hath lit it at my lips; and me 
 Earth shall not gather though she feed on thee. 
 As a shed tear shalt thou be shed ; but I 
 Lo, earth may labour, men live long and die,
 
 Anactoria 
 
 Years change and stars, and the high God devise 
 
 New things, and old things wane before his eyes 
 
 Who wields and wrecks them, being more strong than they 
 
 But, having made me, me he shall not slay. 
 
 Nor slay nor satiate, like those herds of his 
 
 Who laugh and live a little, and their kiss 
 
 Contents them, and their loves are swift and sweet, 
 
 And sure death grasps and gains them with slow feet, 
 
 Love they or hate they, strive or bow their knees 
 
 And all these end ; he hath his will of these. 
 
 Yea, but albeit he slay me, hating me 
 
 Albeit he hide me in the deep dear sea 
 
 And cover me with cool wan foam, and ease 
 
 This soul of mine as any soul of these, 
 
 And give me water and great sweet waves, and make 
 
 The very sea's name lordlier for my sake, 
 
 The whole sea sweeter albeit I die indeed 
 
 And hide myself and sleep and no man heed, 
 
 Of me the high God hath not all his will. 
 
 Blossom of branches, and on each high hill 
 
 Clear air and wind, and under in clamorous vales 
 
 Fierce noises of the fiery nightingales, 
 
 Buds burning in the sudden spring like fire, 
 
 The wan washed sand and the waves' vain desire, 
 
 Sails seem like blown white flowers at sea, and words 
 
 That bring tears swiftest, and long notes of birds 
 
 Violently singing till the whole world sings 
 
 I Sappho shall be one with all these things,
 
 Anactoria 
 
 With all high things forever; and my face 
 
 Seen once, my songs once heard in a strange place, 
 
 Cleave to men's lives, and waste the days thereof 
 
 With gladness and much sadness and long love. 
 
 Yea, they shall say, earth's womb has borne in vain 
 
 New things, and never this best thing again ; 
 
 Borne days and men, borne fruits and wars and wine, 
 
 Seasons and songs, but no song more like mine. 
 
 And they shall know me as ye who have known me here, 
 
 Last year when I loved Atthis, and this year 
 
 When I love thee; and they shall praise me, and say 
 
 4 She hath all time as all we have our day, 
 
 Shall she not live and have her will ' even I ? 
 
 Yea, though thou diest, I say I shall not die. 
 
 For these shall give me of their souls, shall give 
 
 Life, and the days and loves wherewith I live, 
 
 Shall quicken me with loving, fill with breath, 
 
 Save me and serve me, strive for me with death. 
 
 Alas, that neither moon nor snow nor dew 
 
 Nor all cold things can purge me wholly through, 
 
 Assuage me nor allay me nor appease, 
 
 Till supreme sleep shall bring me bloodless ease ; 
 
 Till time wax faint in all his periods; 
 
 Till fate undo the bondage of the gods, 
 
 And lay, to slake and satiate me all through, 
 
 Lotus and Lethe on my lips like dew, 
 
 And shed around and over and under me 
 
 Thick darkness and the insuperable sea.
 
 The Salt of the Earth 
 
 IF childhood were not in the world, 
 * But only men and women grown ; 
 No baby-locks in tendjils curled, 
 No baby-blossoms blown ; 
 
 Though men were stronger, women fairer, 
 And nearer all delights in reach, 
 
 And verse and music uttered rarer 
 Tones of more godlike speech ; 
 
 Though the utmost life of life's best hours 
 Found, as it cannot now find, words j 
 
 Though desert sands were sweet as flowers 
 And flowers could sing like birds. 
 
 But children never heard them, never 
 They felt a child's foot leap and run 
 
 This were a drearier star than ever 
 Yet looked upon the sun.
 
 Chorus- From Atalanta In Calydon 
 
 BEFORE the beginning of years 
 There came to the making of man 
 Time, with a gift of tears ; 
 
 Grief, with a glass that ran ; 
 Pleasure, with pain for leaven ; 
 
 Summer, with flowers that fell ; 
 Remembrance fallen from heaven, 
 
 And madness risen from hell ; 
 Strength without hands to smite ; 
 
 Love that endures for a breath; 
 Night, the shadow of light, 
 
 And life, the shadow of death. 
 
 And the high gods took in hand 
 
 Fire, and the falling of tears, 
 And a measure of sliding sand 
 
 From under the feet of the years, 
 And froth and drift of the sea ; 
 
 And dust of the labouring earth ; 
 And bodies of things to be 
 
 In the houses of death and of birth ; 
 And wrought with weeping and laughter, 
 
 And fashioned with loathing and love, 
 With life before and after 
 
 And death beneath and above, 
 For a day and a night and a morrow, 
 
 That his strength might endure for a span 
 With travail and heavy sorrow, 
 
 The holy spirit of man.
 
 Chorus From Atalanta In Calydon 
 
 From the winds of the north and the south 
 
 They gathered as unto strife ; 
 They breathed upon his mouth, 
 
 They filled his body with life ; 
 Eyesight and speech they wrought 
 
 For the veils of the soul therein, 
 A time for labor and thought, 
 
 A time to serve and to sin ; 
 They gave him light in his ways, 
 
 And love and a space for delight, 
 And beauty and length of days, 
 
 And night, and sleep in the night. 
 His speech is a burning fire ; 
 
 With his lips he travaileth : 
 In his heart is a blind desire, 
 
 In his eyes foreknowledge of death ; 
 He weaves, and is clothed with derision ; 
 
 Sows, and he shall not reap ; 
 His life is a watch or a vision 
 
 Between a sleep and a sleep. 
 
 26
 
 Rococo 
 
 TAKE hands and part with laughter; 
 Touch lips and part with tears ; 
 Once more and no more after, 
 Whatever comes with years. 
 We twain shall not remeasure 
 
 The ways that left us twain; 
 Nor crush the lees of pleasure 
 From sanguine grapes of pain. 
 
 We twain once well in sunder, 
 
 What will the mad gods do 
 For hate with me, I wonder, 
 
 Or what for love with you ? 
 Forget them till November, 
 
 And dream there's April yet 
 Forget that I remember, 
 
 And dream that I forget. 
 
 Time found our tired love sleeping, 
 
 And kissed away his breath; 
 But what should we do weeping, 
 
 Though light love sleep to death ? 
 We have drained his lips at leisure, 
 
 Till there's not left to drain 
 A single sob of pleasure, 
 
 A single pulse of pain. 
 
 27
 
 Rococo 
 
 Dream that the lips once breathless 
 
 Might quicken if they would; 
 Say that the soul is deathless; 
 
 Dream that the gods are good ; 
 Say March may wed September, 
 
 And time divorce regret; 
 But not that you remember, 
 
 And not that I forget. 
 
 We have heard from hidden places 
 
 What love scarce lives and hears : 
 We have seen on fervent faces 
 
 The pallor of strange tears : 
 We have trod the wine-vat's treasure, 
 
 Whence, ripe to steam and stain, 
 Foams round the feet of pleasure 
 
 The blood-red must of pain. 
 
 Remembrance may recover 
 
 And time bring back to time 
 The name of your first lover, 
 
 The ring of my first rhyme ; 
 But rose-leaves of December 
 
 The frosts of June shall fret, 
 The day that you remember, 
 
 The day that I forget. 
 
 28
 
 Rococo 
 
 The snake that hides and hisses 
 
 In heaven we twain have known ; 
 The grief of cruel kisses, 
 
 The joy whose mouth makes moan ; 
 The pulse's pause and measure, 
 
 Where in one furtive vein 
 Throbs through the heart of pleasure 
 
 The purpler blood of pain. 
 
 We have done with tears and treasons 
 
 And love for treason's sake; 
 Room for the swift new seasons, 
 
 The years that burn and break, 
 Dismantle and dismember 
 
 Men's days and dreams, Juliette ; 
 For love may not remember, 
 
 But time will not forget. 
 
 Life treads down love in flying, 
 
 Time withers him at root ; 
 Bring all dead things and dying, 
 
 Reaped sheaf and ruined fruit, 
 Where, crushed by three days' pressure 
 
 Our three days' love lies slain ; 
 And earlier leaf of pleasure, 
 
 And latter flower of pain. 
 
 29
 
 Rococo 
 
 Breathe close upon the ashes, 
 
 It may be flame will leap ; 
 Unclose the soft close lashes, 
 
 Lift up the lids, and weep. 
 Light love's extinguished ember, 
 
 Let one tear leave it wet 
 For one that you remember 
 
 And ten that you forget. 
 
 3
 
 A Ballad of Francois Villon 
 
 Prince of all Ballad-Makers 
 
 BIRD of the bitter bright grey golden morn 
 Scarce risen upon the dusk of dolorous years, 
 First of us all and sweetest singer born 
 
 Whose far shrill note the world of new men hears 
 Cleave the cold shuddering shade as twilight clears ; 
 When song new-born put off the old-world's attire 
 And felt its tune on her changed lips expire, 
 
 Writ foremost on the roll of them that came 
 Fresh girt for service of the latter lyre, 
 Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name ! 
 
 Alas the joy, the sorrow, and the scorn, 
 
 That clothed thy life with hopes and sins and fears, 
 And gave thee stones for bread and tares for corn 
 
 And plume-plucked gaol-birds for thy starveling peers 
 
 Till death dipt close their flight with shameful shears ; 
 Till shifts came short and love were hard to hire, 
 When lilt of song nor twitch of twangling wire 
 
 Could buy thee bread or kisses ; when light fame 
 Spurned like a ball and haled through brake and briar, 
 
 Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name ! 
 
 Poor splendid wings so frayed and spoiled and torn ! 
 Poor kind wild eyes so dashed with light quick tears ! 
 
 Poor perfect voice, most blithe when most forlon, 
 That rings athwart the sea whence no man steers 
 Like joy-bells crossed with death-bells in our ears !
 
 A Ballad of Francois Villon 
 
 What far delight has cooled the fierce desire 
 That like some ravenous bird was strong to tire 
 
 On that frail flesh and soul consumed with flame, 
 But left more sweet than roses to respire, 
 
 Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name ! 
 
 ENVOI 
 
 Prince of sweet songs made out of tears and fire, 
 A harlot was thy nurse, a God thy sire ; 
 
 Shame soiled thy song, and song assoiled thy shame. 
 But from thy feet now death has washed the mire, 
 Love reads out first at head of all our quire, 
 
 Villon, our sad bad glad mad brother's name.
 
 The Garden of Proserpine 
 
 HERE, where the world is quiet ; 
 Here, where all trouble seems 
 Dead winds' and spent waves' riot 
 
 In doubtful dreams of dreams ; 
 I watch the green fields growing 
 For reaping folk and sowing, 
 For harvest-time and mowing, 
 A sleepy world of streams. 
 
 I am tired of tears and laughter, 
 
 And men that laugh and weep ; 
 Of what may come hereafter 
 For men that sow to reap : 
 I am weary of days and hours, 
 Blown buds of barren flowers, 
 Desires and dreams and powers 
 And everything but sleep. 
 
 Here life has death for neighbour, 
 
 And far from eye or ear 
 Wan waves and wet winds labour, 
 
 Weak ships and spirits steer; 
 They drive adrift, and whither 
 They wot not who make thither; 
 But no such winds blow hither, 
 
 And no such things grow here. 
 
 No growth of moor or coppice, 
 No heather-flower or vine, 
 
 33
 
 The Garden of Proserpine 
 
 But bloomless buds of poppies, 
 Green grapes of Proserpine, 
 Pale beds of blowing rushes 
 Where no leaf blooms or blushes 
 Save this whereout she crushes 
 For dead men deadly wine. 
 
 Pale, without name or number, 
 
 In fruitless fields of corn, 
 They bow themselves and slumber 
 
 All night till light is born ; 
 And like a soul belated, 
 In hell and heaven unmated, 
 By cloud and mist abated 
 
 Comes out of darkness morn. 
 
 Though one were strong as seven, 
 He too with death shall dwell, 
 
 Nor wake with wings in heaven, 
 Nor weep for pains in hell ; 
 
 Though one were fair as roses, 
 
 His beauty clouds and closes; 
 
 And well though love reposes, 
 In the end it is not well. 
 
 Pale, beyond porch and portal, 
 
 Crowned with calm leaves, she stands 
 
 Who gathers all things mortal 
 With cold immortal hands : 
 
 34
 
 The Garden of Proserpine 
 
 Her languid lips are sweeter 
 Than love's who fears to greet her 
 To men that mix and meet her 
 From many times and lands. 
 
 She waits for each and other, 
 She waits for all men born ; 
 Forgets the earth her mother, 
 The life of fruits and corn ; 
 And spring and seed and swallow 
 Take wing for her and follow 
 Where summer song rings hollow 
 And flowers are put to scorn. 
 
 There go the loves that wither, 
 
 The old loves with wearier wings; 
 And all dead years draw thither, 
 
 And all disastrous things ; 
 Dead dreams of days forsaken, 
 Blind buds that snows have shaken, 
 Wild leaves that winds have taken, 
 Red strays of ruined springs. 
 
 We are not sure of sorrow, 
 
 And joy was never sure ; 
 To-day will die to-morrow; 
 
 Time stoops to no man's lure ; 
 And love, grown faint and fretful, 
 With lips but half regretful 
 
 35
 
 The Garden of Proserpine 
 
 Sighs, and with eyes forgetful 
 Weeps that no loves endure. 
 
 From too much love of living, 
 From hope and fear set free, 
 
 We thank with brief thanksgiving 
 Whatever gods may be 
 
 That no life lives forever ; 
 
 That dead men rise up never; 
 
 That even the weariest river 
 Winds somewhere safe to sea. 
 
 Then star nor sun shall waken, 
 Nor any change of light : 
 
 Nor sound of waters shaken, 
 Nor any sound or sight : 
 
 Nor wintry leaves nor vernal, 
 
 Nor days nor things diurnal ; 
 
 Only the sleep eternal 
 In an eternal night.
 
 To Walt Whitman in America 
 
 SEND but a song oversea for us, 
 Heart of their hearts who are free, 
 Heart of their singer, to be for us 
 More than our singing can be ; 
 Ours, in the tempest of error, 
 With no light but the twilight of terror ; 
 Send us a song oversea ! 
 
 Sweet-smelling of pine-leaves and grasses, 
 And blown as a tree through and through 
 
 With the winds of the keen mountain-passes, 
 And tender as sun-smitten dew; 
 
 Sharp-tongued as the winter that shakes 
 
 The waste of your limitless lakes, 
 Wide-eyed as the sea-line's blue. 
 
 O strong-winged soul with prophetic 
 Lips hot with the bloodbeats of song, 
 
 With tremor of heartstrings magnetic, 
 With thoughts as thunders in throng, 
 
 With consonant ardours of chords 
 
 That pierce men's souls as with swords 
 And hale them hearing along, 
 
 Make us too music, to be with us 
 
 As a word from a world's heart warm, 
 
 To sail the dark as a sea with us, 
 Full-sailed, outsinging the storm, 
 
 A song to put fire in our ears 
 
 Whose burning shall burn up tears, 
 Whose sign bid battle reform ; 
 
 37
 
 To Walt Whitman in America 
 
 A note in the ranks of a clarion, 
 
 A word in the wind of cheer, 
 To consume as with lightning the carrion 
 
 That makes time foul for us here ; 
 In the air that our dead things infest 
 A blast of the breath of the west, 
 
 Till east way as west way is clear. 
 
 Out of the sun beyond sunset, 
 
 From the evening whence morning shall be, 
 With the rollers in measureless onset, 
 
 With the van of the stormy sea, 
 With the world-wide wind, with the breath 
 That breaks ships driven upon death, 
 
 With the passion of all things free, 
 
 With the sea-steeds footless and frantic, 
 White myriads for death to bestride 
 
 In the charge of the ruining Atlantic 
 Where deaths by regiments ride, 
 
 With clouds and clamours of waters, 
 
 With a long note shriller than slaughter's 
 On the furrowless fields world-wide, 
 
 With terror, with ardour and wonder, 
 With the soul of the season that wakes 
 
 When the weight of a whole year's thunder 
 In the tidestream of autumn breaks, 
 
 Let the flight of the wide-winged word 
 
 Come over, come in and be heard, 
 Take form and fire for our sakes. 
 
 38
 
 To Walt Whitman in America 
 
 For a continent bloodless with travail 
 Here toils and brawls as it can, 
 
 And the web of it who shall unravel 
 Of all that peer on the plan ; 
 
 Would fain grow men, but they grow not, 
 
 And fain be free, but they know not 
 One name for freedom and man ? 
 
 One name, not twain for division ; 
 
 One thing, not twain, from the birth ; 
 Spirit and substance and vision, 
 
 Worth more than worship is worth; 
 Unbeheld, unadored, undivined, 
 The cause, the centre, the mind, 
 
 The secret and sense of the earth. 
 
 Here as a weakling in irons, 
 
 Here as a weanling in bands, 
 As a prey that the stake-net environs, 
 
 Our life that we looked for stands ; 
 And the man-child naked and dear, 
 Democracy, turns on us here 
 
 Eyes trembling with tremulous hands. 
 
 It sees not what season shall bring to it 
 Sweet fruit of its bitter desire ; 
 
 Few voices it hears yet sing to it, 
 Few pulses of hearts reaspire ; 
 
 Foresees not time, nor forebears 
 
 The noises of imminent years, 
 
 Earthquake, and thunder, and fire : 
 
 39
 
 To Walt Whitman in America 
 
 When crowned and weaponed and curbless 
 It shall walk without helm or shield 
 
 The bare burnt furrows and herbless 
 Of war's last flame-stricken field, 
 
 Till godlike, equal with time, 
 
 It stand in the sun sublime, 
 
 In the godhead of man revealed. 
 
 Round your people and over them 
 
 Light like raiment is drawn, 
 Close as a garment to cover them 
 
 Wrought not of mail nor of lawn ; 
 Here, with hope hardly to wear, 
 Naked nations and bare 
 
 Swim, sink, strike out for the dawn. 
 
 Chains are here, and a prison, 
 Kings, and subjects, and shame ; 
 
 If the God upon you be arisen, 
 
 How should our songs be the same ? 
 
 How, in confusion of change, 
 
 How shall we sing in a strange 
 Land, songs praising his name ? 
 
 God is buried and dead to us, 
 
 Even the spirit of earth, 
 Freedom ; so have they said to us, 
 
 Some with mocking and mirth, 
 Some with heartbreak and tears ; 
 And a God without eyes, without ears, 
 
 Who shall sing of him, dead in the birth ? 
 
 40
 
 To Walt Whitman in America 
 
 The earth-god Freedom, the lonely 
 Face lightening, the footprint unshod, 
 
 Not as one man crucified only 
 
 Nor scourged with but one life's rod ; 
 
 The soul that is substance of nations, 
 
 Reincarnate with fresh generations ; 
 The great god Man, which is God. 
 
 But in weariest of years and obscurest 
 Doth it live not at heart of all things, 
 
 The one God and one spirit, a purest 
 Life, fed from unstanchable springs? 
 
 Within love, within hatred it is, 
 
 And its seed in the stripe as the kiss, 
 And in slaves is the germ, and in kings. 
 
 Freedom we call it, for holier 
 
 Name of the soul's there is none ; 
 
 Surelier it labours, if slowlier, 
 
 Than the metres of star or of sun ; 
 
 Slowlier than life into breath, 
 
 Surelier than time into death, 
 It moves till its labour be done. 
 
 Till the motion be done and the measure 
 Circling through season and clime, 
 
 Slumber and sorrow and pleasure, 
 Vision of virtue and crime ; 
 
 Till consummate with conquering eyes, 
 
 A soul disembodied, it rise 
 
 From the body transfigured of time. 
 
 4 1
 
 To Walt Whitman in America 
 
 Till it rise and remain and take station 
 With the stars of the world that rejoice ; 
 
 Till the voice of its heart's exultation 
 Be as theirs an invariable voice ; 
 
 By no discord of evil estranged, 
 
 By no pause, by no breach in it changed, 
 By no clash in the chord of its choice. 
 
 It is one with the world's generations, 
 With the spirit, the star, and the sod ; 
 
 With the kingless and king-stricken nations, 
 With the cross, and the chain, and the rod ; 
 
 The most high, the most secret, most lonely, 
 
 The earth-soul Freedom, that only 
 Lives, and that only is God.
 
 A Leave-Taking 
 
 LET us go hence, my songs ; she will not hear. 
 Let us go hence together without fear ; 
 Keep silence now, for singing-time is over, 
 And over all old things and all things dear. 
 She loves not you nor me as all we love her. 
 Yea, though we sang as angels in her ear, 
 She would not hear. 
 
 Let us rise up and part ; she will not know. 
 Let us go seaward as the great winds go, 
 Full of blown sand and foam ; what help is here ? 
 There is no help, for all these things are so, 
 And all the world is bitter as a tear. 
 And how these things are, though ye strove to show, 
 She would not know. 
 
 Let us go home and hence ; she will not weep. 
 We gave love many dreams and days to keep, 
 Flowers without scent, and fruits that would not grow, 
 Saying * If thou wilt, thrust in thy sickle and reap/ 
 All is reaped now ; no grass is left to mow ; 
 And we that sowed, though all we fell on sleep, 
 She would not weep. 
 
 Let us go hence and rest ; she will not love. 
 She shall not hear us if we sing hereof, 
 Nor see love's ways, how sore they are and steep. 
 Come hence, let be, lie still ; it is enough. 
 
 43
 
 A Leave-Taking 
 
 Love is a barren sea, bitter and deep ; 
 And though she saw all heaven in flower above, 
 She would not love. 
 
 Let us give up, go down ; she will not care. 
 Though all the stars made gold of all the air, 
 And the sea moving saw before it move 
 One moon-flower making all the foam-flowers fair ; 
 Though all those waves went over us, and drove 
 Deep down the stifling lips and drowning hair, 
 She would not care. 
 
 Let us go hence, go hence ; she will not see. 
 Sing all once more together ; surely she, 
 She too, remembering days and words that were, 
 Will turn a little toward us, sighing ; but we, 
 We are hence, we are gone, as though we had not been there 
 Nay, and though all men seeing had pity on me, 
 She would not see. 
 
 44
 
 Madonna Mia 
 
 UNDER green apple-boughs 
 That never a storm will rouse, 
 My lady hath her house 
 Between two bowers ; 
 In either of the twain 
 Red roses full of rain ; 
 She hath for bondwomen 
 All' kind of flowers. 
 
 She hath no handmaid fair 
 To draw her curled gold hair 
 Through rings of gold that bear 
 
 Her whole hair's weight; 
 She hath no maids to stand 
 Gold-clothed on either hand ; 
 In all the great green land 
 
 None is so great. 
 
 She hath no more to wear 
 But one white hood of vair 
 Drawn over eyes and hair, 
 
 Wrought with strange gold, 
 Made for some great queen's head, 
 Some fair great queen since dead ; 
 And one strait gown of red 
 
 Against the cold. 
 
 45
 
 Madonna Mia 
 
 Beneath her eyelids deep 
 Love lying seems asleep, 
 Love, swift to wake, to weep, 
 
 To laugh, to gaze ; 
 Her breasts are like white birds, 
 And all her gracious words 
 As water-grass to herds 
 
 In the June-days. 
 
 To her all dews that fall 
 And rains are musical ; 
 Her flowers are fed from all, 
 
 Her joy from these ; 
 In the deep-feathered firs 
 Their gift of joy is hers, 
 In the least breath that stirs 
 
 Across the trees. 
 
 She grows with greenest leaves, 
 Ripens with reddest sheaves, 
 Forgets, remembers, grieves, 
 
 And is not sad ; 
 The quiet lands and skies 
 Leave light upon her eyes ; 
 None knows her, weak or wise, 
 
 Or tired or glad.
 
 Madonna Mia 
 
 None knows, none understands, 
 What flowers are like her hands ; 
 Though you should search all lands 
 
 Wherein time grows, 
 What snows are like her feet, 
 Though his eyes burn with heat 
 Through gazing on my sweet, 
 
 Yet no man knows. 
 
 Only this thing is said ; 
 
 That white and gold and red, 
 
 God's three chief words, man's bread 
 
 And oil and wine, 
 Were given her for dowers, 
 And kingdom of all hours, 
 And grace of goodly flowers 
 
 And various vine. 
 
 This is my lady's praise : 
 God after many days 
 Wrought her in unknown ways, 
 
 In sunset lands; 
 This was my lady's birth ; 
 God gave her might and mirth 
 And laid his whole sweet earth 
 
 Between her hands. 
 
 47
 
 Madonna Mia 
 
 Under deep apple-boughs 
 My lady hath her house; 
 She wears upon her brows 
 
 The flower thereof ; 
 All saying but what God saith 
 To her is as vain breath; 
 She is more strong than death, 
 
 Being strong as love. 
 
 48
 
 Adieux a Marie Stuart 
 
 I 
 
 QUEEN, for whose house my fathers fought, 
 With hopes that rose and fell, 
 Red star of boyhood's fiery thought, 
 Farewell. 
 
 They gave their lives, and I, my queen, 
 
 Have given you of my life, 
 Seeing your brave star burn high between 
 
 Men's strife. 
 
 The strife that lightened round their spears 
 
 Long since fell still : so long 
 Hardly may hope to last in years 
 
 My song. 
 
 But still through strife of time and thought 
 
 Your light on me too fell : 
 Queen, in whose name we sang or fought, 
 
 Farewell. 
 
 49
 
 Adieux a Marie Stuart 
 
 II 
 
 There beats no heart on either border 
 Wherethrough the north blasts blow 
 
 But keeps your memory as a warder 
 His beacon-fire aglow. 
 
 Long since it fired with love and wonder 
 
 Mine, for whose April age 
 Blithe midsummer made banquet under 
 
 The shade of Hermitage. 
 
 Soft sang the burn's blithe notes, that gather 
 
 Strength to ring true : 
 And air and trees and sun and heather 
 
 Remembered you. 
 
 Old border ghosts of fight or fairy 
 
 Or love or teen, 
 These they forgot, remembering Mary 
 
 The Queen.
 
 Adieux a Marie Stuart 
 
 in 
 
 Queen once of Scots and ever of ours 
 Whose sires brought forth for you 
 
 Their lives to strew your way like flowers, 
 Adieu. 
 
 Dead is full many a dead man's name 
 
 Who died for you this long 
 Time past : shall this too fare the same, 
 
 My song ? 
 
 But surely, though it die or live, 
 
 Your face was worth 
 All that a man may think to give 
 
 On earth. 
 
 No darkness cast of years between 
 
 Can darken you : 
 Man's love will never bid my queen 
 
 Adieu.
 
 Adieux S Marie Stuart 
 
 IV 
 
 Love hangs like light about your name 
 
 As music round the shell : 
 No heart can take of you a tame 
 
 Farewell. 
 
 Yet, when your very face was seen, 
 111 gifts were yours for giving : 
 
 Love gat strange guerdons of my queen 
 When living. 
 
 O diamond heart unflawed and clear, 
 The whole world's crowning jewel ! 
 
 Was ever heart so dearly dear 
 So cruel ? 
 
 Yet none for you of all that bled 
 Grudged once one drop that fell : 
 
 Not one to life reluctant said 
 Farewell.
 
 Adieux a Marie Stuart 
 
 v 
 
 Strange love they have given you, love disloyal, 
 Who mock with praise your name, 
 
 To leave a head so rare and royal 
 Too low for praise or blame. 
 
 You could not love nor hate, they tell us, 
 
 You had nor sense nor sting : 
 In God's name, then, what plague befell us 
 
 To fight for such a thing ? 
 
 " Some faults the gods will give," to fetter 
 
 Man's highest intent : 
 But surely you were something better 
 
 Than innocent ! 
 
 No maid that stays with steps unwary 
 
 Through snares unseen, 
 But one to live and die for ; Mary, 
 
 The Queen. 
 
 53
 
 Adieux a Marie Stuart 
 
 VI 
 
 Forgive them all their praise, who blot 
 Your fame with praise of you : 
 
 Then love may say, and falter not, 
 Adieu. 
 
 Yet some you hardly would forgive 
 Who did you much less wrong 
 
 Once : but resentment should not live 
 Too long. 
 
 They never saw your lip's bright bow, 
 
 Your swordbright eyes, 
 The bluest of heavenly things below 
 
 The skies. 
 
 Clear eyes that love's self finds most like 
 
 A swordblade's blue, 
 A swordblade's ever keen to strike, 
 
 Adieu. 
 
 54
 
 Adieux a Marie Stuart 
 
 VII 
 
 Though all things breathe or sound of fight 
 
 That yet make up your spell, 
 To bid you were to bid the light 
 
 Farewell. 
 
 Farewell the song says only, being 
 
 A star whose race is run : 
 Farewell the soul says never, seeing 
 
 The sun. 
 
 Yet, wellnigh as with flash of tears, 
 
 The song must say but so 
 That took your praise up twenty years 
 
 Ago. 
 
 More bright than stars or moons that vary, 
 
 Sun kindling heaven and hell, 
 Here, after all these years, Queen Mary, 
 
 Farewell. 
 
 55
 
 Sonnet 
 
 (With a copy of Mademoiselle de Maupin) 
 
 THIS is the golden book of spirit and sense, 
 The holy writ of beauty ; he that wrought 
 Made it with dreams and faultless words and thought 
 
 That seeks and finds and loses in the dense 
 
 Dim air of life that beauty's excellence 
 
 Wherewith love makes one hour of life distraught 
 And all hours after follow and find not aught. 
 
 Here is that height of all love's eminence 
 
 Where man may breathe but for a breathing-space 
 And feel his soul burn as an altar-fire 
 To the unknown God of unachieved desire, 
 
 And from the middle mystery of the place 
 
 Watch lights that break, hear sounds as of a quire, 
 
 But see not twice unveiled the veiled God's face.
 
 A Match 
 
 TF love were what the rose is, 
 * And I were like the leaf, 
 Our lives would grow together 
 In sad or singing weather, 
 Blown fields or flowerful closes, 
 
 Green pleasure or grey grief; 
 If love were what the rose is, 
 
 And I were like the leaf. 
 
 If I were what the words are, 
 
 And love were like the tune, 
 With double sound and single 
 Delight our lips would mingle, 
 With kisses glad as birds are 
 
 That get sweet rain at noon ; 
 If I were what the words are 
 And love were like the tune. 
 
 If you were life, my darling, 
 And I your love were death, 
 
 We'd shine and snow together 
 
 Ere March made sweet the weather 
 
 With daffodil and starling 
 And hours of fruitful breath ; 
 
 If you were life, my darling, 
 And I your love were death. 
 
 57
 
 A Match 
 
 If you were thrall to sorrow, 
 
 And I were page to joy, 
 We'd play for lives and seasons 
 With loving looks and treasons 
 And tears of night and morrow 
 And laughs of maid and boy ; 
 If you were thrall to sorrow, 
 And I were page to joy. 
 
 If you were April's lady, 
 
 And I were lord in May, 
 We'd throw with leaves for hours 
 And draw for days with flowers, 
 Till day like night were shady 
 
 And night were bright like day ; 
 If you were April's lady, 
 And I were lord in May. 
 
 If you were queen of pleasure, 
 
 And I were king of pain, 
 We'd hunt down love together, 
 Pluck out his flying-feather, 
 And teach his feet a measure, 
 And find his mouth a rein ; 
 If you were queen of pleasure, 
 And I were king of pain.
 
 In Memory of Walter Savage Landor 
 
 BACK to the flower-town, side by side, 
 The bright months bring, 
 New-born, the bridegroom and the bride, 
 Freedom and spring. 
 
 The sweet land laughs from sea to sea, 
 
 Filled full of sun ; 
 All things come back to her, being free ; 
 
 All things but one. 
 
 In many a tender wheaten plot 
 
 Flowers that were dead 
 Live, and old suns revive ; but not 
 
 That holier head. 
 
 By this white wandering waste of sea, 
 
 Far north, I hear 
 One face shall never turn to me 
 
 As once this year: 
 
 Shall never smile and turn and rest 
 
 On mine as there, 
 Nor one most sacred hand be prest 
 
 Upon my hair. 
 
 I came as one whose thoughts half linger, 
 
 Half run before; 
 The youngest to the oldest singer 
 
 That England bore. 
 
 59
 
 In Memory of Walter Savage Landor 
 
 I found him whom I shall not find 
 
 Till all grief end, 
 In holiest age our mightiest mind, 
 
 Father and friend. 
 
 But thou, if anything endure, 
 
 If hope there be, 
 O spirit that man's life left pure, 
 
 Man's death set free, 
 
 Not with disdain of days that were 
 
 Look earthward now; 
 Let dreams revive the reverend hair, 
 
 The imperial brow; 
 
 Come back in sleep, for in the life 
 
 Where thou art not 
 We find none like thee. Time and strife 
 
 And the world's lot 
 
 Move thee no more; but love at least 
 
 And reverent heart 
 May move thee, royal and released, 
 
 Soul, as thou art. 
 
 And thou, his Florence, to thy trust 
 
 Receive and keep, 
 Keep safe his dedicated dust, 
 
 His sacred sleep. 
 
 60
 
 In Memory of Walter Savage Landor 
 
 So shall thy lovers, come from far, 
 
 Mix with thy name 
 As morning-star with evening-star 
 
 His faultless fame. 
 
 61
 
 The Oblation 
 
 Ask nothing more of me, sweet ; 
 All I can give you I give. 
 
 Heart of my heart, were it more, 
 More would be laid at your feet : 
 Love that should help you to live, 
 Song that should spur you to soar. 
 
 All things were nothing to give 
 Once to have sense of you more, 
 
 Touch you and taste of you sweet, 
 Think you and breathe you and live, 
 Swept of your wings as they soar, 
 Trodden by chance of your feet. 
 
 I that have love and no more 
 
 Give you but love of you, sweet : 
 
 He that hath more, let him give ; 
 He that hath wings, let him soar; 
 Mine is the heart at your feet 
 Here, that must love you to live. 
 
 62
 
 The Triumph of Time 
 
 BEFORE our lives divide for ever, 
 While time is with us and hands are free, 
 (Time, swift to fasten and swift to sever 
 
 Hand from hand, as we stand by the sea) 
 I will say no word that a man might say 
 Whose whole life's love goes down in a day; 
 For this could never have been ; and never, 
 
 Though the gods and the years relent, shall be. 
 
 Is it worth a tear, is it worth an hour, 
 
 To think of things that are well outworn ? 
 
 Of fruitless husk and fugitive flower, 
 
 The dream foregone and the deed foreborne ? 
 
 Though joy be done with and grief be vain, 
 
 Time shall not sever us wholly in twain ; 
 
 Earth is not spoilt for a single shower ; 
 
 But the rain has ruined the ungrown corn. 
 
 It will grow not again, this fruit of my heart, 
 Smitten with sunbeams, ruined with rain. 
 
 The singing seasons divide and depart, 
 Winter and summer depart in twain. 
 
 It will grow not again, it is ruined at root, 
 
 The bloodlike blossom, the dull red fruit ; 
 
 Though the heart yet sickens, the lips yet smart, 
 With sullen savour of poisonous pain. 
 
 I have given no man of my fruit to eat ; 
 
 I trod the grapes, I have drunken the wine. 
 Had you eaten and drunken and found it sweet, 
 
 This wild new growth of the corn and vine, 
 
 63
 
 The Triumph of Time 
 
 This wine and bread without lees or leaven, 
 We had grown as gods, as the gods in heaven, 
 Souls fair to look upon, goodly to greet, 
 One splendid spirit, your soul and mine. 
 
 In the change of years, in the coil of things, 
 In the clamour and rumour of life to be, 
 We, drinking love at the furthest springs, 
 
 Covered with love as a covering tree, 
 We had grown as gods, as the gods above, 
 Filled from the heart to the lips with love, 
 Held fast in his hands, clothed warm with his wings, 
 O love, my love, had you loved but me ! 
 
 We had stood as the sure stars stand, and moved 
 As the moon moves, loving the world ; and seen 
 
 Grief collapse as a thing disproved, 
 Death consume as a thing unclean. 
 
 Twain halves of a perfect heart, made fast 
 
 Soul to soul while the years fell past ; 
 
 Had you loved me once, as you have not loved ; 
 Had the chance been with us that has not been. 
 
 I have put my days and dreams out of mind, 
 Days that are over, dreams that are done. 
 Though we seek life through, we shall surely find 
 
 There is none of them clear to us now, not one. 
 But clear are these things ; the grass and the sand 
 Where, sure as the eyes reach, ever at hand, 
 With lips wide open and face burnt blind, 
 The strong sea-daisies feast on the sun. 
 
 64
 
 The Triumph of Time 
 
 The low downs lean to the sea ; the stream, 
 One loose thin pulseless tremulous vein, 
 
 Rapid and vivid and dumb as a dream, 
 
 Works downward, sick of the sun and the rain ; 
 
 No wind is rough with the rank rare flowers ; 
 
 The sweet sea, mother of loves and hours, 
 
 Shudders and shines as the grey winds gleam, 
 Turning her smile to a fugitive pain. 
 
 Mother of loves that are swift to fade, 
 Mother of mutable winds and hours. 
 A barren mother, a mother-maid, 
 
 Cold and clean as her faint salt flowers. 
 I would we twain were even as she, 
 Lost in the night and the light of the sea, 
 Where faint sounds falter and wan beams wade, 
 Break, and are broken, and shed into showers. 
 
 The loves and hours of the life of a man, 
 
 They are swift and sad, being born of the sea. 
 
 Hours that rejoice and regret for a span, 
 Born with a man's breath, mortal as he ; 
 
 Loves that are lost ere they come to birth, 
 
 Weeds of the wave, without fruit upon earth. 
 
 I lose what I long for, save what I can, 
 My love, my love, and no love for me ! 
 
 It is not much that a man can save 
 
 On the sands of life, in the straits of time, 
 
 Who swims in sight of the great third wave 
 That never a swimmer shall cross or climb. 
 
 65
 
 The Triumph of Time 
 
 Some waif washed up with the strays and spars 
 That ebb-tide shows to the shore and the stars ; 
 Weed from the water, grass from a grave, 
 A broken blossom, a ruined rhyme. 
 
 There will no man do for your sake, I think, 
 
 What I would have done for the least word said. 
 I had wrung life dry for your lips to drink, 
 
 Broken it up for your daily bread : 
 Body for body and blood for blood, 
 As the flow of the full sea risen to flood 
 That yearns and trembles before it sink, 
 
 I had given, and lain down for you, glad and dead. 
 
 Yea, hope at highest and all her fruit, 
 And time at fullest and all his dower, 
 
 I had given you surely, and life to boot, 
 Were we once made one for a single hour. 
 
 But now you are twain, you are cloven apart, 
 
 Flesh of his flesh, but heart of my heart : 
 
 And deep in one is the bitter root, 
 
 And sweet for one is the lifelong flower. 
 
 To have died if you cared I should die for you, clung 
 To my life if you bade me, played my part 
 
 As it pleased you these were the thoughts that stung, 
 The dreams that smote with a keener dart 
 
 Than shafts of love or arrows of death ; 
 
 These were but as fire is, dust, or breath, 
 
 Or poisonous foam on the tender tongue 
 Of the little snakes that eat my heart. 
 
 66
 
 The Triumph of Time 
 
 I wish we were dead together to-day, 
 
 Lost sight of, hidden away out of sight, 
 Clasped and clothed in the cloven clay, 
 
 Out of the world's way, out of the light, 
 Out of the ages of worldly weather, 
 Forgotten of all men altogether, 
 As the world's first dead, taken wholly away, 
 
 Made one with death, filled full of the night. 
 
 How we should slumber, how we should sleep, 
 Far in the dark with the dreams and the dews ! 
 
 And dreaming, grow to each other, and weep, 
 Laugh low, live softly, murmur and muse : 
 
 Yea, and it may be, struck through by the dream, 
 
 Feel the dust quicken and quiver, and seem 
 
 Alive as of old to the lips, and leap 
 Spirit to spirit as lovers use. 
 
 Sick dreams and sad of a dull delight j 
 
 For what shall it profit when men are dead 
 To have dreamed, to have loved with the whole soul's might, 
 
 To have looked for day when the day was fled ? 
 Let come what will, there is one thing worth, 
 To have had fair love in the life upon earth : 
 To have held love safe till the day grew night, 
 
 While skies had colour and lips were red. 
 
 Would I lose you now ? would I take you then, 
 
 If I lose you now that my heart has need ? 
 And come what may after death to men, 
 
 What thing worth this will the dead years breed ? 
 
 67
 
 The Triumph of Time 
 
 Lose life, lose all ; but at least I know, 
 
 sweet life's love, having loved you so, 
 
 Had I reached you on earth, I should lose not again, 
 In death nor life, nor in dream or deed. 
 
 Yea, I know this well : were you once sealed mine, 
 Mine in the blood's beat, mine in the breath, 
 
 Mixed into me as honey in wine, 
 
 Not time that sayeth and gainsayeth, 
 
 Nor all strong things had severed us then ; 
 
 Not wrath of gods, nor wisdom of men, 
 
 Nor all things earthly, nor all divine, 
 Nor joy nor sorrow, nor life nor death. 
 
 1 had grown pure as the dawn and the dew, 
 
 You had grown strong as the sun or the sea. 
 But none shall triumph a whole life through : 
 
 For death is one and the fates are three. 
 At the door of life, by the gate of breath, 
 There are worse things waiting for men than death ; 
 Death could not sever my soul and you, 
 
 As these have severed your soul from me. 
 
 You have chosen and clung to the chance they sent you, 
 
 Life sweet as perfume and pure as prayer. 
 But will it not one day in heaven repent you ? 
 
 Will they solace you wholly, the days that were ? 
 Will you lift up your eyes between sadness and bliss, 
 
 Meet mine, and see where the great love is, 
 And tremble, and turn and be changed ? Content you ; 
 
 The gate is straight ; I shall not be there. 
 
 68
 
 The Triumph of Time 
 
 But you, had you chosen, had you stretched hand, 
 Had you seen good such a thing were done, 
 
 I too might have stood with the souls that stand 
 
 In the sun's sight, clothed with the light of the sun ; 
 
 But who now on earth need care how I live ? 
 
 Have the high gods anything left to give, 
 
 Save dust and laurels and gold and sand? 
 Which gifts are goodly ; but I will none. 
 
 all fair lovers about the world, 
 
 There is none of you, none, that shall comfort me. 
 My thoughts are as dead things, wrecked and whirled 
 
 Round and round in a gulf of the sea ; 
 And still, through the sound and the straining stream, 
 Through the coil and chafe, they gleam in a dream^ 
 The bright fine lips so cruelly curled, 
 
 And strange swift eyes where the soul sits free. 
 
 Free, without pity, withheld from woe, 
 
 Ignorant ; fair as the eyes are fair. 
 Would I have you change now, change at a blow, 
 
 Startled and stricken, awake and aware ? 
 Yea, if I could, would I have you see 
 My very love of you filling me, 
 And know my soul to the quick, as I know 
 
 The likeness and look of your throat and hair ? 
 
 1 shall not change you. Nay, though I might, 
 
 Would I change my sweet one love with a word ? 
 I had rather your hair should change in a night, 
 Clear now as the plume of a black bright bird ; 
 
 69
 
 The Triumph of Time 
 
 Your face fail suddenly, cease, turn grey, 
 Die as a leaf that dies in a day. 
 I will keep my soul in a place out of sight, 
 Far off, where the pulse of it is not heard. 
 
 Far off it walks, in a bleak blown space, 
 Full of the sound of the sorrow of years. 
 
 I have woven a veil for the weeping face, 
 Whose lips have drunken the wine of tears ; 
 
 I have found a way for the failing feet, 
 
 A place for slumber and sorrow to meet ; 
 
 There is no rumour about the place, 
 Nor light, nor any that sees or hears. 
 
 I have hidden my soul out of sight, and said 
 
 " Let none take pity upon thee, none 
 Comfort thy crying : for lo, thou art dead, 
 
 Lie still now, safe out of sight of the sun. 
 Have I not built thee a grave, and wrought 
 Thy grave-clothes on thee of grievous thought, 
 With soft spun verses and tears unshed, 
 And sweet light visions of things undone ? 
 
 " I have given thee garments and balm and myrrh, 
 And gold, and beautiful burial things. 
 
 But thou, be at peace now, make no stir ; 
 Is not thy grave as a royal king's ? 
 
 Fret not thyself though the end were sore ; 
 
 Sleep, be patient, vex me no more. 
 
 Sleep ; what hast thou to do with her ? 
 
 The eyes that weep, with the mouth that sings ? 
 
 70
 
 The Triumph of Time 
 
 Where the dead red leaves of the years lie rotten, 
 The cold old crimes and the deeds thrown by, 
 The misconceived and the misbegotten, 
 
 I would find a sin to do ere I die, 
 Sure to dissolve and destroy me all through, 
 That would set you higher in heaven, serve you 
 And leave you happy, when clean forgotten, 
 As a dead man out of mind, am I. 
 
 Your lithe hands draw me, your face burns through me, 
 
 I am swift to follow you, keen to see ; 
 But love lacks might to redeem or undo me, 
 
 As I have been, I know I shall surely be ; 
 " What should such fellows as I do ? " Nay, 
 My part were worse if I chose to play ; 
 For the worst is this after all ; if they knew me, 
 
 Not a soul upon earth would pity me. 
 
 And I play not for pity of these ; but you, 
 If you saw with your soul what man am I, 
 
 You would praise me at least that my soul all through 
 Clove to you, loathing the lives that lie ; 
 
 The souls and lips that are bought and sold, 
 
 The smiles of silver and kisses of gold, 
 
 The lapdog loves that whine as they chew, 
 The little lovers that curse and cry. 
 
 There are fairer women, I hear ; that may be 
 But I, that I love you and find you fair, 
 
 Who are more than fair in my eyes if they be, 
 Do the high gods know or the great gods care ? 
 
 71
 
 The Triumph of Time 
 
 Though the swords in my heart for one were seven, 
 Would the iron hollow of doubtful heaven, 
 That knows not itself whether night-time or day be, 
 Reverberate words and a foolish prayer ? 
 
 I will go back to the great sweet mother, 
 
 Mother and lover of men, the sea. 
 I will go down to her, I and none other, 
 
 Close with her, kiss her and mix her with me ; 
 Cling to her, strive with her, hold her fast ; 
 O fair white mother, in days long past 
 Born without sister, born without brother, 
 
 Set free my soul as thy soul is free. 
 
 fair green-girdled mother of mine, 
 
 Sea, that art clothed with the sun and the rain, 
 Thy sweet hard kisses are strong like wine, 
 
 Thy large embraces are keen like pain. 
 Save me and hide me with all thy waves, 
 Find me one grave of thy thousand graves, 
 Those pure cold populous graves of thine 
 
 Wrought without hand in a world without stain. 
 
 1 shall sleep, and move with the moving ships, 
 
 Change as the winds change, veer in the tide ; 
 My lips will feast on the foam of thy lips, 
 
 I shall rise with thy rising, with thee subside ; 
 Sleep, and not know if she be, if she were, 
 Filled full with life to the eyes and hair, 
 As a rose is fulfilled to the roseleaf tips 
 
 With splendid summer and perfume and pride. 
 
 72
 
 The Triumph of Time 
 
 This woven raiment of nights and days, 
 
 Were it once cast off and unwound from me 
 Naked and glad would I walk in thy ways, 
 
 Alive and aware of thy ways and thee ; 
 Clear of the whole world, hidden at home, 
 Clothed with the green and crowned with the foam, 
 A pulse of the life of thy straits and bays, 
 
 A vein in the heart of the streams of the sea. 
 
 Fair mother, fed with the lives of men, 
 
 Thou art subtle and cruel of heart, men say. 
 
 Thou hast taken, and shalt not render again ; 
 Thou art full of thy dead, and cold as they. 
 
 But death is the worst that comes of thee ; 
 
 Thou art fed with our dead, O mother, O sea, 
 
 But when hast thou fed on our hearts ? or when, 
 Having given us love, hast thou taken away ? 
 
 O tender-hearted, O perfect lover, 
 
 Thy lips are bitter, and sweet thine heart. 
 
 The hopes that hurt and the dreams that hover, 
 Shall they not vanish away and apart ? 
 
 But thou, thou art sure, thou art older than earth ; 
 
 Thou art strong for death and fruitful of birth ; 
 
 Thy depths conceal and thy gulfs discover; 
 From the first thou wert ; in the end thou art. 
 
 And grief shall endure not forever, I know. 
 
 As things that are not shall these things be ; 
 We shall live through seasons of sun and of snow, 
 
 And none be grievous as this to me. 
 
 73
 
 The Triumph of Time 
 
 We shall hear, as one in a trance that hears, 
 The sound of time, the rhyme of the years ; 
 Wrecked hope and passionate pain will grow 
 As tender things of a spring-tide sea. 
 
 Sea-fruit that swings in the waves that hiss, 
 Drowned gold and purple and royal rings. 
 And all time past, was it all for this ? 
 
 Times unforgotten, and treasures of things ? 
 Swift years of liking and sweet long laughter, 
 That wist not well of the years thereafter 
 Till love woke, smitten at heart by a kiss, 
 With lips that trembled and trailing wings ? 
 
 There lived a singer in France of old 
 
 By the tideless dolorous midland sea. 
 In a land of sand and ruin and gold 
 
 There shone one woman, and none but she. 
 And finding life for her love's sake fail, 
 Being fain to see her, he bade set sail, 
 Touched land, and saw her as life grew cold, 
 And praised God, seeing ; and so died he. 
 
 Died, praising God for his gift and grace : 
 
 For she bowed down to him weeping, and said 
 " Live ;" and her tears were shed on his face 
 
 Or ever the life in his face was shed. 
 
 The sharp tears fell through her hair, and stung 
 
 Once, and her close lips touched him and clung 
 
 Once, and grew one with his lips for a space j 
 
 And so drew back, and the man was dead. 
 
 74
 
 The Triumph of Time 
 
 brother, the gods were good to you. 
 Sleep, and be glad while the world endures. 
 
 Be well content as the years wear through ; 
 
 Give thanks for life, and the loves and lures ; 
 Give thanks for life, O brother, and death, 
 For the sweet last sound of her feet, her breath, 
 For gifts she gave you, gracious and few, 
 
 Tears and kisses, that lady of yours. 
 
 Rest, and be glad of the gods ; but I, 
 
 How shall I praise them, or how take rest ? 
 
 There is not room under all the sky 
 
 For me that know not of worst or best, 
 
 Dream or desire of the days before, 
 
 Sweet things or bitterness, any more. 
 
 Love will not come to me now though I die, 
 As love came close to you, breast to breast. 
 
 1 shall never be friends again with roses ; 
 
 I shall loathe sweet tunes, where a note grown strong 
 Relents and recoils, and climbs and closes, 
 
 As a wave of the sea turned back by song. 
 There are sounds where the soul's delight takes fire, 
 Face to face with its own desire ; 
 A delight that rebels, a desire that reposes ; 
 
 I shall hate music my whole life long. 
 
 The pulse of war and passion of wonder, 
 
 The heavens that murmur, the sounds that shine, 
 
 The stars that sing and the loves that thunder, 
 The music burning at heart like wine, 
 
 75
 
 The Triumph of Time 
 
 An armed archangel whose hands raise up 
 All senses mixed in the spirit's cup 
 Till flesh and spirit are molten in sunder 
 These things are over, and no more mine. 
 
 These were a part of the playing I heard 
 
 Once, ere my love and my heart were at strife ; 
 
 Love that sings and hath wings as a bird, 
 Balm of the wound and heft of the knife. 
 
 Fairer than earth is the sea, and sleep 
 
 Than overwatching of eyes that weep, 
 
 Now time has done with his one sweet word, 
 The wine and leaven of lovely life. 
 
 I shall go my ways, tread out my measure, 
 
 P'ill the days of my daily breath 
 With fugitive things not good to treasure, 
 
 Do as the world doth, say as it saith ; 
 But if we had loved each other O sweet, 
 Had you felt, lying under the palms of your feet, 
 The heart of my heart, beating harder with pleasure 
 
 To feel you tread it to dust and death 
 
 Ah, had I not taken my life up and given 
 
 All that life gives and the years let go, 
 The wine and honey, the balm and leaven, 
 
 The dreams reared high and the hopes brought low ? 
 Come life, come death, not a word be said ; 
 Should I lose you living, and vex you dead ? 
 I never shall tell you on earth ; and in heaven 
 
 If I cry to you then will you hear or know ? 
 
 76
 
 Of this book one thousand copies have been printed on Van 
 Gelder hand-made paper, and fifty numbered copies on 
 Japan Vellum, and the type distributed, October, 1 906.
 
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