Short Poems

ODE LXXII.

Fare thee well, perfidious maid,
My soul, too long on earth delayed,
Delayed, perfidious girl, by thee,
Is on the wing for liberty.
I fly to seek a kindlier sphere,
Since thou hast ceased to love me here!

ODE LXIII.

To Love, the soft and blooming child,
I touch the harp in descant wild:
To Love, the babe of Cyprian bowers,
The boy, who breathes and blushes flowers;
To Love, for heaven and earth adore him,
And gods and mortals bow before him!

The anguish'd doubt broods over Eden; night
hangs her rent banners thro' the viewless height;
trophies and glories whence a trouble streams
of lamentable valour in old dreams:
out of its blank the watcher's soul is stirr'd
to take unto itself some olden word:

But on the zenith, mass'd, a glittering throng,
the distant stars dropt a disdainful song:

Breaking the desert's tawny level ring
three columns, an oasis; but no shade
falls from the curl'd acanthus-leaves; no spring
bubbles soft laughter for its leaning maid.
The cell is waste: where once the god abode
a burning desolation furls its wing:
enter, and lo! once more, the hopeless road
world-wide, the tawny desert's level ring.

The birds that fly out of the west
into the creeping violet shade,
the birds that find no welcoming nest
(O heart that wavers, what wings invade?),
the birds that speed on desolate quest
(O heart that scatters in gusty flight!),
the birds that return not, lost wings of unrest,
have carried my heart into the night.

Scant majesty of stars prevails
across the uncreated night,
and fate is in the wind that wails
or clamours on the lonely height.

ON TIME'S THERESHOLD

" See: brood: remember: this thy function only;
Neither to have nor do is meet for thee. "
" Ah, earth's a palace where I must go lonely! "
" Nay: earth's a dungeon which thou passest, free. "

Thou glory of the world, our destinies,
Our very faith in heaven, are stayed on thee.
Should verse of mine find favour in thine eyes,
Though often writ in haste, 'twill plead for me:
Grant me a father's right; though fate's decree
Deny me fatherhood, that wrong redress;
If I have failed, may this my comfort be,
And this the generous guerdon of success.

You never recite, though you pose as a poet.
Well, for that many thanks: we will gladly forgo it.