English

DEATH

I.

Death! — Shalt not thou reveal all things unseen,
And teach me why the roses faded quite,
And why a dawn that brake in golden light
Over blue Isis and far meadows green
Became so thunder-dark at noon, I ween! —
Death! — Thou shalt teach me why my lady bright
Fled with fleet steps till she was lost to sight, —
And sweet things were as if they had not been.

Two years within the lonely room
I watched. No sweet ghost came:
No hand that sought mine, grasping through the gloom;
No wings more sun-bright than the dawn's bright flame.

All waited, silent, as of old;
The pictures and the chair:
The merry firelight touched to dancing gold
The mantle, framed, of her who was not there.

Then lo! one winter night it happed
That I sat there alone,
Lonely in heart as moonless hills snow-capped,
Dreaming of love's pale desecrated throne;

I.

And now must I lose thee , O dark-eyed love, O darling?
Will the bright eyes of Spring greet thrush and lark and starling,
But shall I not greet thee?
I will not sing again. What is the worth of singing
When thus thy farewell voice around my path is ringing?
Let the great silence deepen around me.

II.

I will not sing again. For years and years I, early,
When all the morning clouds were washed in gold and pearly,
Have sung to the morning light, —

I.

I claim the eternal right to love, — without conditions.
To crown thee with my love, and crown thee with love's visions,
Though all men stand i' the way.
Oh, is not Love enough? If in a golden carriage,
Sweet, thou wast drawn along, towards a golden marriage,
Could Love have more triumphant words to say?

II.

I love thee with my soul. Heaven knows I love thee truly.
Each time I see thy face, the tide of love flows newly
Round laughing happier shores.

I dreamed a sudden dream, and was aware
Of my lost goddess bending over me,
And of some magic echo of the sea,
And strange outpouring of remembered hair;
And round me flowed, as an electric air
Of crystal and surpassing purity,
A woman's breath, and clothed exultantly
My body in a raiment soft and fair.

And every sin she lightly blew away,
But as an easy flake of thistle-down
That floats along the summer, winged and grey;
And over me she placed a quiet crown
Of hands, and brought my cheek beside the brown

Oh, love, the difference when I met thine eyes!
How the sweet sunlight broke through doubtful skies,
Upon my heart and on the world's heart shed.
How swiftly I forgot thy brother's face,
As one forgets a pale white rose's grace
When lo! its sister rose of noblest red
Smiles with supreme exuberance instead,
Flooding with holier fragrance all the place!

So was it, lady, when the grey pure eyes
First smote me tenderly with quick surprise,
For then thou wast in very truth a queen
Surpassing page and maid who came before,

Passion blossoms, then dies
And its bloom
Passes quite, and its eyes
Sunlit once like the skies
Close in gloom.

Give me love that will last
When the fire
Of romance in the past
Sunsetlike fadeth fast
On its pyre.

Give me love more divine
Than the light
Of a star that can shine
For a month, then decline
In a night.

If you love me, why so
Let it be:
But with love that will grow
From a stream's quiet flow

Just a year 'tis since we met,
Just a year!
Many suns have risen and set;
Many stars have waxed and waned,
Flowers have fled, but love remained;
Love's bright presence has been here
Just a year.

Will he linger, will he pass,
He who stays
Never 'mid the meads of grass,
Never on the mountain-steeps;
For his swift foot never sleeps,
And his progress he delays
Not for Mays.

Not for May, and not for June
Will he wait,
Not for August's cheery tune;
Not for hungry-hearted prayer

Give my hand a sword to hold,
Bring a helmet wrought of gold,
A cuirass
Where the sun may see his rays
Flame and pass,
As he treads the cloudy ways.

Place a weapon in my hand
That will welcome and withstand
Many blows,
In my helmet fix a white
Snowy rose,
For I battle for the right.

On my breastplate let a star
That will glitter from afar
Flash and gleam;
For the night with all its wrong
Like a dream
Shall be scattered at my song.

Every girl in London needs

Now clear and white the immortal woman shines,
Pervading with sweet roses of her hands,
And violets of her bosom, and dark strands
Of endless overflowing hair she twines,
Not any room, but the blue dim-seen lines
Of hills, and misty spaces of the air,
And rivers, and brown forests, and the fair
And murmuring interstices of pines,
And larches, and green hollows of the beech:
As a sweet single star she shone before,
But now she fills the multitudinous shore
Plain in the wet reflected orb of each,