Classic Poem

A BALLAD

Wonderful throat and neck,
Marble, pure, beyond fleck.

Wonderful sea-deep eyes,
Splendid as waves or skies.

Wonderful arms and hands,
Wonderful soft hair-bands.

Wonderful lips, divine
With savour of eglantine.

From what wonderful land
Camest thou, girl-form grand?

Rising, as Venus rose,
From white waves, whiter than snows.

Coming, as Venus came,
To set the world aflame.

Love, where art thou now,
Tender, noble of brow?

What flowers in what land
Have caressed thine hand?

Dost thou dream or me,
Dream of our old sweet sea?

Dream of the love-sweet dell
Where our footsteps fell?

Dream of the words I spoke
When love the silence broke?

Dream of the deep green valleys
Whence the soft breeze sallies,

Laden with odours fair
That soften the summer air?

Dost thou dream of the days
When, ardent with new-born lays,

I flung at thy dear feet
Many a song-flower sweet?

Splendid as Dante's queen
(She too was fifteen

When he first beheld
Her figure and love forth-welled) —

Splendid as Dante's bride
Thou wast, by the green cliff-side.

Standing, lithe, upright,
Youth's wonderful one sweet sight.

Now thou art no more
A glory on that far shore.

The inland woods have heard
Thy laughter, O love-voiced bird!

And inland flowers have seen
The seawind-kissed fair queen.

Art thou content with flowers
That blossom within thy bowers?

Dost thou not yearn for the sea?
Dost thou dream never of me?

Take this one far word:
Let the sound of my song be heard.

Where thou art sitting to-day, —
Look up, sweet, — hearken, I pray.

Give me thy wonderful hand,
And enter the long-lost land.

Enter the woods one night,
A spirit, a wonder white.

Or I will wait for thee
By the old unaltered sea.

Give me a kiss and cling
About me, O soft of wing!

Touch me with every nerve:
With wonderful bend and curve.

Of wonderful supple form,
Womanly, eager, warm,

Earnest, swift, on fire,
Satiate my desire.

Let body and neck and face
Mix in a wild embrace,

Awful, entire, supreme,
Great as a great God's dream.

Give me thine utter soul,
Thy spirit, thine heart, — the whole.

Be compliant and pure;
With rapture of clasp secure.

My neck in thine eager hands,
And smother with loose hair-bands.

(That fluctuate over me,
So that their night I see.

Alone, and nought beside
Save star-eyes of my bride).

My face, and pour thy splendour
Great, terrible, burning, tender,

Throughout me: like all flowers
That ever filled earth's bowers;

Or like the rush of a stream,
Or music's manifold dream.

Like one multiform flower,
My body and soul imbower, —

One woman-blossom, giving
Joy utter, abundant, living;

Joy beyond all speech,
That song's words cannot reach,

Joy that quivers along
The body in throbs of song,

And through the soul in leaps
That stir the soul's dim deeps —

Wonderful body divine,
Flower-body, be thou mine;

Flower-lips, rose-mouth, kiss, cling, —
White arms, be tense white ring.

My body to embrace:
And, wonderful woman-face,

Thy spirit through thine eyes
Mingle, with dear low sighs.

Of sacred joy with me:
Woman, my woman be.