s: This outworn vesture, tenantless of thee,


s: Who once the beautiful, discarded raiment bare,


s: So dropping down the years from hour to hour


s: This dead youth's scent is wafted me to-day:


s: I sit, and from the fragrance dream the flower.


s: As viewless ether turns, in deep on deep, to dyes.


s: Through maiden meads, with waved shadow and gleam


s: Of locks half-lifted on the winds of dream,


s: Till love up-caught her to his chariot's glow.


s: This drooping flower of youth thou lettest fall


s: I, faring in the cockshut-light, astray,


s: And lay it on my bosom, and make it mine.


s: To this, the all of love the stars allow me,


s: A trothed hand to the dead the last trump shall not raise.


s: From those eternal sorrows of thy pictured eyes


s: Entwines and draws me down their soundless intricacies!


s: The songs which both thy countries sing:


s: Or we shall fear lest, heavened thus long,


s: Flasked in the grape the wine they knew,


s: Taste of the sun that riped their birth,


s: Within your spirit's arms I stay me fast


s: Immitigate ravening of the gates of hell;


s: And claim my right in you, most hardly won,


s: Hold me and hold by me, lest both should fall


s: Even in the breach of Heaven's assaulted wall.


s: The clift, Sweet, of your skyward-jetting soul, -


s: Shook by all gusts that sweep it, overcome


s: To your soul, dearest, as my life to you!


s: For if that soil grow sterile, then the whole


s: Of me must shrivel, from the topmost shoot


s: Of climbing poesy, and my life, killed through,


s: Dry down and perish to the foodless root.


s: Sweet Summer! unto you this swallow drew,


s: Lured from his gelid North which wrought him wrong,


s: Lured to the untried regions and the new


s: To twitter there, and in his singing dwell.


s: But ah! if you, my Summer, should grow waste,


s: For such migration my poor wing was strong


s: It needs must drop, and lie with stiffened wings


s: Hushed with the cooing of an unseen dove;


s: Whose spirit to my touch thrills purer far


s: As soul,--yea, which it profanation were


s: For all but you to take as fleshly woof,


s: Which your own eyes invest with light divine,


s: As maid's breast against breast of maid;


s: On it, and with what purging thoughts have laved


s: Your beauty, Dian, dress and contemplate


s: Unveil this spirit, lady, when you will,


s: Unveil, and fearless gaze there, you alone,


s: And if you love the image--'tis your own!


s: In burning throne though they keep still


s: Through those night-waters of thine hair,


s: Which the woven vesture should subserve.


s: God's master-piece thou shouldst retouch.


s: Of that high speech which angels' tongues turn gold!


s: So should her deathless beauty take no wrong,


s: Praised in her own great kindred's fit and cognate tongue.


s: Which Adam in the garden talked with God!


s: But our untempered speech descends--poor heirs!


s: Grimy and rough-cast still from Babel's bricklayers:


s: Strong but to damn, not memorise, a spirit!


s: Move with light ease in speech of working-day;


s: But here the gates we burst, and to the temple go.


s: Their praise were her dispraise; who dare, who dare,


s: Adulate the seraphim for their burning hair?


s: How, if with them I dared, here should I dare it?


s: How praise the woman, who but know the spirit?


s: How praise the colour of her eyes, uncaught


s: While they were coloured with her varying thought


s: How her mouth's shape, who only use to know


s: What tender shape her speech will fit it to?


s: Or her lips' redness, when their joined veil


s: Song's fervid hand has parted till it wore them pale?


s: If I would praise her soul (temerarious if!),


s: Heaven, which not oft is prodigal of its more


s: To singers, in their song too great before;


s: To her, who can the trust so well conduct


s: To her it gives the use, to us the usufruct.


s: I utter, though I spoke her own carved perfect way?


s: What of her daily gracious converse known,


s: Whose heavenly despotism must needs dethrone


s: And subjugate all sweetness but its own?


s: Deep in my heart subsides the infrequent word,


s: And there dies slowly throbbing like a wounded bird.


s: What of her silence, that outsweetens speech?


s: What of her thoughts, high marks for mine own thoughts to reach?


s: Yet (Chaucer's antique sentence so to turn),


s: Most gladly will she teach, and gladly learn;


s: And teaching her, by her enchanting art,


s: The master threefold learns for all he can impart.


s: Now all is said, and all being said,--aye me!


s: Nay, to conclude (so to conclude I dare),


s: Then for her faults you'll fall in love with her.


s: Her Muse, that died with her auroral dews!


s: Learn, the wise cherubim from harps of gold


s: So she first lighted on our frosty earth,


s: Playing to alien ears--which did not prize


s: But soon from her own harpings taking fire,


s: Now Heaven affords her, for her silenced hymn,


s: At the rich odours from her heart that rise,


s: And antenatal gales blow from Heaven's shores of spice;


s: And feel the primal sex of heaven and poetry:


s: How to the petty prison could she shrink


s: Of reticent withdrawal's sweet, courted pale,


s: She took the cloistral flesh, the sexual veil,


s: The habit of cloistral flesh which founding Eve indued.


s: Thus do I know her:  but for what men call


s: Its most just praise a thing unproper were


s: A robe, half careless, for it is the use;


s: Conceit it might the soul's begetter be.


s: The immortal could we cease to contemplate,


s: The mortal part suggests its every trait.


s: Of her pure members as on smoothed keys,


s: And there out-breathed her spirit's harmonies


s: To count the beauty worth my wish or gaze,


s: Which the dull daily fool can covet or obtain.


s: For her I'll proudlier speak:- how could it be


s: That I should praise the gilding on the psaltery?


s: 'Tis not for her to hold that prize a prize,


s: Or praise much praise, though proudest in its wise,


s: To which even hopes of merely women rise.


s: Such strife would to the vanquished laurels yield,


s: Against HER suffered to have lost a field.


s: Herself must with herself be sole compeer,


s: Some gold migration send to melodise the year.


s: But first our hearts must burn in larger guise,


s: And so the deathless plumage to acclimatise:


s: Since this, their sole congener in our clime,


s: Droops her sad, ruffled thoughts for half the shivering time.


s: Yet I have felt what terrors may consort


s: In women's cheeks, the Graces' soft resort;


s: My hand hath shook at gentle hands' access,


s: My blood known panic fear, and fled dismayed,


s: Where ladies' eyes have set their ambuscade.


s: Although my heart hath beat the loud advance,


s: I have recoiled before a challenging glance,


s: Proved gay alarms where warlike ribbons dance.


s: And from it all, this knowledge have I got, -


s: The whole that others have, is less than they have not;


s: Unnoted would remain and overshone in her.


s: How should I gauge what beauty is her dole,


s: Who cannot see her countenance for her soul;


s: As birds see not the casement for the sky?


s: And as 'tis check they prove its presence by,


s: My flight debarred the heaven of her mind.


s: Hers is the face whence all should copied be,


s: Its presence felt by what it does abate,


s: Because the soul shines through tempered and mitigate:


s: Dark Time works hidden by its luminousness;


s: Turns added beauty, like the veins that run


s: Athwart a leaf which hangs against the sun.


s: There Earth- and Heaven-Love play for aureoles;


s: There Sweetness out of Sadness breaks at fits,


s: A sudden silver fin through its deep infinites;


s: There amorous Thought has sucked pale Fancy's breath,


s: And Tenderness sits looking toward the lands of death


s: There Feeling stills her breathing with her hand,


s: And Dream from Melancholy part wrests the wand


s: And on this lady's heart, looked you so deep,


s: Poor Poetry has rocked himself to sleep:


s: Hangs the bee Musing; nigh her lids eclipse


s: Each half-occulted star beneath that lies;


s: Passionless passion, wild tranquillities.


s: Wherein he excuseth himself for the manner of the Portrait.


s: Alas! now wilt thou chide, and say (I deem),


s: My figured descant hides the simple theme:


s: I ill observe thine own high reticent way.


s: What thou couldst never speak, nor others be!


s: Of what the gazer's eyes makes so intent),


s: She will but smile, perhaps, that I find my fair


s: Sufficing scope in such strait theme as her.


s: "Bird of the sun! the stars' wild honey-bee!


s: Is your gold browsing done so thoroughly?


s: Or sinks a singed wing to narrow nest in me?"


s: (Thus she might say:  for not this lowly vein


s: Oh, you mistake, dear lady, quite; nor know


s: Ether was strict as you, its loftiness as low!


s: The heavens do not advance their majesty


s: The ensigns of the wind are not unfurled,


s: His reign is hooped in by the pale o' the world.


s: 'Tis not the continent, but the contained,


s: That pleasaunce makes or prison, loose or chained.


s: What groweth to its height demands no higher;


s: A firmament, the skiey vault will crack.


s: Our minds make their own Termini, nor call


s: The issuing circumscriptions great or small;


s: So high constructing Nature lessons to us all:


s: Your countenance large as looks the sun to be,


s: And distant greatness less than near humanity.


s: We, therefore, with a sure instinctive mind,


s: In confines far or near, of air or our own kind.


s: Our looks and longings, which affront the stars,


s: Most richly bruised against their golden bars,


s: Delighted captives of their flaming spears,


s: Find a restraint restrainless which appears


s: In you;--the fair detention freedom call,


s: And overscroll with fancies the loved prison-wall.


s: In you, as in those golden bars, we touch!


s: Our longings are contented with the skies,


s: Contented with the heaven, and your eyes.


s: My restless wings, that beat the whole world through,


s: Flag on the confines of the sun and you;


s: And find the human pale remoter of the two.


s: It seemed corrival of the world's great prime,


s: But some god like to those grim Asgard lords,


s: Upheaved its stubborn girth, and raised unriven,


s: When doom puffed out the stars, we might have said,


s: For this firm yew did from the vassal leas,


s: But now our yew is strook, is fallen--yea


s: Never! -To Hades' shadowy shipyards gone,


s: Stirred by its fall--poor destined bark of Dis! -


s: Its breast was hollowed as the tooth of eld;


s: Yet they, within its very heart so crept,


s: And in its boughs did close and kindly nest


s: But bird nor child might touch by any art


s: The breadth of God, he breadth of death and life!


s: The sweetest wife on sweetest marriage-day, -


s: "I take you to my inmost heart, my true!"


s: The hold that falls not when the town is got,


s: Its ports you cannot burst--you are withstood -


s: Its gates are deaf to Love, high summoner;


s: Yea, Love's great warrant runs not there:


s: Yourself are with yourself the sole consortress


s: Its keys are at the cincture hung of God;


s: And if His feet shall rock those floors in wrath,


s: Yea, in that ultimate heart's occult abode


s: Built by a secret Lover for His Spouse; -


s: When dusk shrunk cold, and light trod shy,


s: And dawn's grey eyes were troubled grey;


s: Since last I saw those sweet eyes shine;


s: Since last that deep heart knocked at mine.


s: Her eyes were clear, her eyes were Hope's,


s: That Time's hoar wings grow young therein,


s: Where our last kiss still warms the air,


s: A grape-spurt, a vine-splash, a tossed tress, flown vaunt 'tis!


s: In thy feasting-flagon's impurpurate glows!


s: The sopped sun--toper as ever drank hard -


s: Tanned maiden! with cheeks like apples russet,


s: And breast a brown agaric faint-flushing at tip,


s: And a mouth too red for the moon to buss it,


s: With the glorious gules of a glowing rust.


s: The crescent moon, in the May-days dead,


s: Fly up with its slender white wings spread


s: Out of its nest in the sea's waved mead!


s: How are the veins of thee, Autumn, laden?


s: Froth the veins of thee, wild, wild maiden!


s: In tumbling clusters, like swarthy grapes,


s: Round thy brow and thine ears o'ershaden;


s: With the burning darkness of eyes like pansies,


s: The splendid might of thy conflagrate fancies;


s: With robe gold-tawny not hiding the shapes


s: The wassailous heart of the Year is thine!


s: The Summer looks out from her brazen tower,


s: Whereof there cometh, with sandals fleet,


s: With a sword to sheer, and untameable feet,


s: Day's dying dragon lies drooping his crest,


s: With flitter alit on the swinging blossom,


s: The gusty blossom, that tosses and swings,


s: Of the sea with its blown and ruffled bosom;


s: Its ruffled bosom wherethrough the wind sings


s: Till the crisped petals are loosened and strown


s: Rose-leaves curl, on the flecked strand.


s: Or higher, holier, saintlier when, as now,


s: The calm hour strikes on yon golden gong,


s: What is this feel of incense everywhere?


s: Clings it round folds of the blanch-amiced clouds,


s: That swingeth the slow earth before the embannered


s: Or is't the Season under all these shrouds


s: Of light, and sense, and silence, makes her known


s: A hand on the soothed tresses of the air?


s: As there is but one hour for me and thee,


s: Heaven's death-lights kindle, yellow spark by spark,


s: Beneath the dreadful catafalque of the dark.


s: But a great wind blew all the stars to flare,


s: And cried, "I sweep the path before the moon!


s: Then died before the coming of the moon.


s: And she came forth upon the trepidant air,


s: And a haze about her tinged in fainter wise.


s: As if she had trodden the stars in press,


s: Till the gold wine spurted over her dress,


s: Till the gold wine gushed out round her feet;


s: And bubbled in golden froth at her feet,


s: And hung like a whirlpool's mist round her.


s: And that right round thy locks are native to;


s: And o'er thy shoulders thrown wide air's depending pall.


s: What if thine earth be blear and bleak of hue?


s: Still, Season, still thou hast thy triumphs there!


s: Cleft the great rondure of thy reign complete,


s: Yielding thee half, who hast indeed the all?


s: That washes in the sea the stars' gold fleeces


s: Who sets his burning lips to the salt brine,


s: And, laden with its lamped clusters bright,


s: The fiery-fruited vineyard of this night.


s: I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;


s: I fled Him, down the arches of the years;


s: Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears


s: I hid from Him, and under running laughter.


s: From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.


s: "All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."


s: By many a hearted casement, curtained red,


s: (For, though I knew His love Who followed,


s: Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside)


s: But, if one little casement parted wide,


s: The gust of His approach would clash it to


s: Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.


s: And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,


s: Smiting for shelter on their changed bars;


s: And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon.


s: I said to dawn:  Be sudden--to eve:  Be soon;


s: With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over


s: Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!


s: I tempted all His servitors, but to find


s: Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.


s: To all swift things for swiftness did I sue;


s: Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.


s: They clanged his chariot 'thwart a heaven,


s: Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet:-


s: Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.


s: "Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."


s: I sought no more that, after which I strayed,


s: But still within the little children's eyes


s: Seems something, something that replies,


s: THEY at least are for me, surely for me!


s: But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair


s: Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.


s: "Come then, ye other children, Nature's--share


s: With me" (said I) "your delicate fellowship;


s: I in their delicate fellowship was one -


s: Rose and drooped with--made them shapers


s: Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine -


s: I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,


s: And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine;


s: Against the red throb of its sunset-heart


s: But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.


s: In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek.


s: For ah! we know not what each other says,


s: THEIR sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.


s: Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth;


s: Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me


s: "Lo! naught contents thee, who content'st not Me."


s: Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke!


s: My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me,


s: And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.


s: In the rash lustihead of my young powers,


s: And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears,


s: I stand amid the dust o' the mounded years -


s: My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.


s: My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,


s: Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.


s: Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist


s: I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist,


s: Are yielding; cords of all too weak account


s: For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.


s: Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?


s: Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it?


s: My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust;


s: Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever


s: The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind?


s: I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds;


s: Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then


s: Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again;


s: With grooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned;


s: His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.


s: Whether man's heart or life it be which yields


s: That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:


s: Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!


s: Wherefore should any set thee love apart?


s: Seeing none but I makes much of naught" (He said),


s: Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?


s: Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,


s: All which I took from thee I did but take,


s: But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.


s: Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:


s: Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?


s: Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me."


s: Paradise-verdure he stately passes * to win to the Father of


s: Through the conscious and palpitant grasses * of inter-tangled


s: The angels a-play on its fields of Summer * (their wild wings


s: To where on the far crystelline pale * of that transtellar Heaven


s: The immutable crocean dawn * effusing from the Father's Throne.


s: Through the reverberant Eden-ways * the bruit of his great advent


s: Over the bickering gonfalons, * far-ranged as for Tartarean wars,


s: Like a flame-plumed fan shake slowly out * their ridgy reach of


s: The great Triune, and Mary nigh, * lit round with spears of their


s: The poet drew, in the thunderous blue * involved dread of those


s: Till heavily parts a sinister chasm, * a grisly jaw, whose verges


s: Slowly and ominously filled * by the on-coming plenilune,


s: Supportlessly congest with fire, * and suddenly spit forth the


s: With beauty, not terror, through tangled error * of night-dipt


s: Hu, hu! a wonder! a wonder! see, * clasping the singer's glories


s: Shrinking close from the unused glows * of the seraphs'


s: The angels laughed with a lovely scorning:  *--"Who has done this


s: Never our fingers knew this stuff:  * not so fashion the looms of


s: The singer bowed his brow majestic, * searching that patchwork


s: And this dishonest vesture * is the only vesture that is mine;


s: He wrested o'er the rhymer's head * that garmenting which wrought


s: "Better thou wov'st thy woof of life * than thou didst weave thy


s: They turned the raiment, saw and felt * what their turning did


s: All the inner surface piled * with bloodied hairs, like hairs of


s: Every leaf between their fingers, * as they bruised it, burst and


s: As if the chaplet-flowers had driven * deep roots in to nourish


s: Lord, who gav'st him robe and wreath, * WHAT was this Thou gav'st


s: Guess whitherward draws the battle-sway;


s: These marches 'twixt delimitless Powers.


s: Some may perchance, with strange surprise,


s: Death dawned; Heaven lay in prospect wide:-


s: "He lived his life."  He lived HIS life!


s: And the harebell shakes on the windy hill -


s: She knew not those sweet words she spake,


s: But there's never a bird, so sweet a song


s: Her beauty smoothed earth's furrowed face!


s: All things being accomplished, saith the Father of Heaven.


s: This labouring, vast, Tellurian galleon,


s: Had broken its cable, and stood out to space


s: Down some frore Arctic of the aerial ways:


s: And now, back warping from the inclement main,


s: Its vaporous shroudage drenched with icy rain,


s: When, floated on the prosperous sun-gale, you


s: Lit, a white halcyon auspice, 'mid our frozen crew.


s: To the Sun, stranger, surely you belong,


s: You bear the name of me, his constant Magian.


s: Lest fated to my fate you be, as to my name.


s: When at the first those tidings did they bring,


s: My heart turned troubled at the ominous thing:


s: Though well may such a title him endower,


s: For whom a poet's prayer implores a poet's power.


s: The Assisian, who kept plighted faith to three,


s: (In two alone of whom most singers prove


s: He the sweet Sales, of whom we scarcely ken


s: How God he could love more, he so loved men;


s: The crown and crowned of Laura and Italy;


s: And Fletcher's fellow--from these, and not from me,


s: Take you your name, and take your legacy!


s: When worms, for ivies, intertwine my hair,


s: My clayey hest with sullen servile breath,


s: Made then your happy freedman by testating death.


s: When you have compassed all weak I began,


s: The man at feud with the perduring child


s: In you before song's altar nobly reconciled;


s: From the wise heavens I half shall smile to see


s: How little a world, which owned you, needed me.


s: If, while you keep the vigils of the night,


s: For your wild tears make darkness all too bright,


s: Some lone orb through your lonely window peeps,


s: As it played lover over your sweet sleeps;


s: Which I have pierced but to behold you by!


s: And when, immortal mortal, droops your head,


s: And you, the child of deathless song, are dead;


s: Then, as you search with unaccustomed glance


s: The ranks of Paradise for my countenance,


s: Turn not your tread along the Uranian sod


s: Pass where beneath their ranged gonfalons


s: The starry cohorts shake their shielded suns,


s: The dreadful mass of their enridged spears;


s: Pass where majestical the eternal peers,


s: The stately choice of the great Saintdom, meet -


s: Pass by where wait, young poet-wayfarer,


s: Your cousined clusters, emulous to share


s: With you the roseal lightnings burning 'mid their hair;


s: Pass the crystalline sea, the Lampads seven:-


s: And left the flushed print in a poppy there:


s: Like a yawn of fire from the grass it came,


s: And the fanning wind puffed it to flapping flame.


s: With burnt mouth red like a lion's it drank


s: The blood of the sun as he slaughtered sank,


s: And dipped its cup in the purpurate shine


s: When the eastern conduits ran with wine.


s: Till it grew lethargied with fierce bliss,


s: With mouth wide a-pout for a sultry kiss.


s: But between the clasp of his hand and hers


s: She turned, with the rout of her dusk South hair,


s: And snatched and snapped it in swift child's whim,


s: With--"Keep it, long as you live!"--to him.


s: And his smile, as nymphs from their laving meres,


s: Tossed on the wave of his troubled heart.


s: The verge shrivelled inward smoulderingly:


s: "Though with bruised poppies my feet are red!"


s: The diverse chambers in Love's guest-hall,


s: In how differing accents hear the throng


s: You give--this withering flower of dreams.


s: Do you know what the days will do to you?


s: To your Love and you what the days will do,


s: "You have loved me, Fair, three lives--or days:


s: 'Twill pass with the passing of my face.


s: Knowing well when certain years are over


s: Yet I know, and love, like the foster-mother.


s: For my brief life--while I take from you


s: For me--this withering flower of dreams."


s: The sleep-flower sways in the wheat its head,


s: The goodly grain and the sun-flushed sleeper


s: And my fruit is dreams, as theirs is bread:


s: The goodly men and the sun-hazed sleeper


s: The world shall glean of me, me the sleeper!


s: Love! love! your flower of withered dream


s: From the reaper man, and his reaper Time.


s: What things she said, how sweet, how wise;


s: Me sob all night for your implacable sake?


s: Those laughing words when drenched with sobbing so?


s: Another voice than yours, than yours, he hath!


s: His mighty utterance?--yet he saith, and saith!


s: This dreadful Death to his own dreadfulness


s: This dreadful childish babble on his tongue!


s: That iron tongue made to speak sentences,


s: Why should it only say the long night through,


s: You drink it through a straw, a straw, a straw!"


s: Why did you teach that fatal mouth to draw,


s: Uttering their native earthquake and eclipse,


s: To rend from hem to hem the ultimate veil


s: Spirit, and leave it stripped and desecrate, -


s: From eyes and speech weakness unmanned, unmeet;


s: Its little lesson learneth at your feet;


s: With broken toys your hand has cast away,


s: With derelict trinkets of the darling young.


s: Why have you taught--that he might so complete


s: This dreadful childish babble to his tongue,


s: Lo, my book thinks to look Time's leaguer down,


s: Fall to the overthrow of assaulting Time,


s: Yet this one page shall fend oblivious shame,


s: Armed with your crested and prevailing Name.


s: 'Wisdom is easily seen by them that love her, and is found


s: To think therefore upon her is perfect understanding.'


s: Sits behind the fosse of death.  Mine eyes saw not,


s: All its birds in middle air hung a-dream, their


s: In the land of Luthany, and the tracts of Elenore.


s: Nor the wall of emerald float in wreath-ed haze away.


s: For her blood flowed through their nervures;


s: And the roses were most red, for she dipt them in


s: Lovelily her lucid body with that light was inter-


s: Fuming clouds of golden fire, for a cloud of incense-


s: And her eyes a little tremble, in the wind of her


s: Over-gloomed and over-glowed with hope and fear


s: Where the peoples underground dwell whom


s: For the great earthquaking sunrise rolling up


s: While I tell the ancient secrets in that Lady's


s: Where, upon our dusty earth, of that vine a cluster


s: For the vine have we the spine?  Is this all the


s: All the spines upon the thorn into curling tendrils


s: Falls my singed song down the sky, even the old


s: For the front of saint or singer any divinizing twine.


s: 'But woe the singer, woe!' she said; 'beyond the


s: Know, for thou else couldst not believe;


s: Lose, that the lost thou may'st receive;


s: When earth and heaven lay down their veil,


s: Their living, death; their light, most light-


s: Pass the gates of Luthany, tread the region Elenore.'


s: Thrice-threefold walled with emerald from our mor-


s: And from out its mortal ruins the purpureal phantom


s: The ravished soul her meanings knew.  Mine ears


s: Music in the holy poets to my wistful want, I doubt


s: Or so it seemed; field, water, tree, were still,


s: Nor was there any purpose on the calm-browed hill.


s: Nature one hour appears a thing unsexed,


s: That her twin natures cease their sweet alarms,


s: The sun with resting pulses seems to brood,


s: And slacken its command upon my unurged blood.


s: Its passionless water to the sea to bear;


s: The wall to me has freshness like a scent,


s: Making one life with its green moss and stain;


s: And life with all things seems too perfect blent


s: The very shades on hill, and tree, and plain,


s: Where they have fallen doze, and where they doze remain.


s: No heaven with a more urgent rest betrays


s: We are too near akin that thou shouldst cheat


s: Too instant, too entire for sense thereof,


s: Motion like gnats when autumn suns are low,


s: On the heart's floors with pain-ed pace that go.


s: Nothing so active is, as that which least seems so.


s: For he, that conduit running wine of song,


s: That round our corporal walls unheeded beat;


s: Narrow their heaven to his fleshly vault:


s: His heart's a drop-well of tranquillity;


s: His mind more still is than the limbs of fear,


s: Wheels like a dervish, while his being is


s: Streamed with the set of the world's harmonies,


s: Shout to each other from the peaks of space,


s: As thwart ravines of azure shouts the mountaineer.


s: Although the heart that knows its bitterness


s: That he who kens to meet Pain's kisses fierce


s: Nor of the appointed quarry his staunch sight


s: Nor shake his certitude of haughty fate.


s: Pacing the burning shares of many dooms,


s: I with stern tread do the clear-witting stars


s: The proving of their pure-willed ordeal.


s: Yet sometimes comes a hand, sometimes a voice withal,


s: And she sits meek now, and expects the light.


s: Faint lightning of remembered transient sweet--


s: But to be sweet a little, a little sweet, and fleet;


s: This loitering and most fitful light a space,


s: When this morass of tears, then drained and firm,


s: And all the gods move with calm hand in hand,


s: And eyes that know not trouble and the worm.


s: If ye were blind, ye should have no sin:  but now ye say:  We


s: see:  your sin remaineth.            JOHN ix. 41.


s: Grapes of the heavens' star-loaden vine,


s: And do disrelish all life's sober taste.


s: How shall my mouth content it with mortality?


s: From distances of distance drifting its lone flight,


s: Down the arcane where Night would perish in night,


s: Like a god's loosened locks slips undulously:


s: Music that is too grievous of the height


s: For bounded hearts which yet would girth the sea!


s: Though sweet be great, and though my heart be small:


s: Which else I could not credit to the height,


s: The incredible excess of unsensed sweet,


s: Though sweet be great, and though my heart be small,


s: And golden love-feasts, the fair stars entreat.


s: For low they fall whose fall is from the sky.


s: To broken writhings in the shameful slime:


s: By forta'en breath of Heaven's austerest clime.


s: My flesh doth know the heart-perturbing thing;


s: That all my conquered skies do grow a hollow mock,


s: Reversing the shook banners of their song.


s: Ah, for a heart less native to high Heaven,


s: The veil of tutelar flesh to simple livers given,


s: Or those brave-fledging fervours of the Saint,


s: Whose heavenly falcon-craft doth never taint,


s: Nor they in sickest time their ample virtue mew.


s: Which sprinkles benediction through the dawn;


s: Sets, for high close of the mysterious feast,


s: Within the flaming monstrance of the West.


s: Dances before thee from the dawn to dark.


s: Behold her fair and greater daughter {1}


s: Which at thy first white Ave shall conceive!


s: Such as, with sighs, misgives she is not fair,


s: Till flatteries sweet provoke the charms they swear:


s: What dainty guiles and treacheries caught


s: From artful prompting of love's artless thought


s: Her lowly loveliness teach her to adorn,


s: When thy plumes shiver against the conscious gates of morn!


s: Earth, though her first-frightened breast


s: Gives back to thee in sanctities of flower;


s: Though dear recoil, the tremorous nurse of joy,


s: Till Phosphor lead, at thy returning hour,


s: The laughing captive from the wishing West.


s: Before thy terrible hunt thy planets run;


s: Lashed with terror, leashed with longing,


s: Pricked with terror, leashed with longing,


s: Thy rein they love, and thy rebuke they shun.


s: With love that trembleth, fear that loveth,


s: Death and resurgence of our day and night;


s: With double potence of the black and white.


s: The terror, and the loveliness, and purging,


s: The deathfulness and lifefulness of fire!


s: And out of thee, the eater, comes forth meat.


s: But shall tri-umph upon my lips in heaven,


s: Or cling a shameful fungus there in hell.


s: And still thou teachest them, O splendent Brother,


s: The truth which is their heritage from their Sire


s: In sweet disguise of flesh from their sweet Mother.


s: Which makes the dulcet psalter of the world's desire.


s: Thou whisperest in the Moon's white ear,


s: The things I cannot half so sweetly tell


s: As she can sweetly speak, I sweetly hear.


s: By her, the Woman, does Earth live, O Lord,


s: The seals that melt, the open revelation?


s: Than hasty Gideons in their hands may sup;--


s: Touch from yon altar my poor mouth's desire,


s: And the relucent song take for thy sacred meeds.


s: Thou round'st the chrysolite of the grape,


s: Bind'st thy gold lightnings in his veins;


s: Thou storest the white garners of the rains.


s: Art the unthank-ed marrow of its wealth;


s: That Earth, the gusty Maenad, drink and dance?


s: Yea, in glad twinkling advent, thou dost dwell


s: Their weeping night the symbol of our prayers,


s: Essential Heavens and corporal Earth await,


s: Haste with my gold, my incenses and myrrhs,


s: To thy desired epiphany, from the spiced


s: Regions and odorous of Song's traded East.


s: To whom the pinion of this longing verse


s: Beats but with fire which first thyself did give,


s: To thee, O Sun--or is't perchance, to Christ?


s: Ay, if men say that on all high heaven's face


s: Which round my stol-ed altars hold their solemn place,


s: And heard what thing the stars together shout,--


s: 'By this, O Singer, know we if thou see.


s: When men shall say to thee:  Lo! Christ is here,


s: When men shall say to thee:  Lo! Christ is there,


s: Believe them:  yea, and this--then art thou seer,


s: Is but:  Lo here! lo there!--ah me, lo everywhere!'


s: (And a million songs are as song of one.)


s: (And a million songs are as song of one),


s: The one that runs not, the many that run.


s: (And a million songs are as song of one).


s: The chase that's chased is the Lord o' the chase


s: And the hounds in leash are the hounds that run.


s: And sounds unheard heard sounds between,


s: And a world in the world man looks upon.


s: And the One in all; as the sun's strength so


s: Strives in all strength, glows in all glow


s: Of the earth that wits not, and man thereon.


s: (And a million strengths are as strength of one),


s: (And a million sounds are as sound of one),


s: From stellate peak to peak is tossed a voice of wonder,


s: And the height stoops down to the depths thereunder,


s: And the dream of the world is dream in dream,


s: But the one Is is, or nought could seem;


s: And the song runs round to the song begun.


s: In the chaos of preordination, and night of our forebeings.--


s: Et lux in tenebris erat, et tenebrae eam non comprehenderunt.--


s: Cast wide the folding doorways of the East,


s: And the wind-besomed chambers of the air,


s: And look the ways exhale some precious odours,


s: And set ye all about wild-breathing spice,


s: But now distinct, with raiment glittering free,


s: Shake she the ringing rafters of the skies


s: With festal footing and bold joyance sweet,


s: And let the earth be drunken and carouse!


s: Spring is come home with her world-wandering feet,


s: And all things are made young with young desires;


s: By dawn and day-fall, on the jocund hills.


s: And ye, winged minstrels of her fair meinie,


s: And round her treading dance and without end


s: What popular breath her coming does out-tell


s: From blade to blade along the voluble grass!


s: We hear thee, each man in his proper tongue!


s: Break, elemental children, break ye loose


s: Vault, O young winds, vault in your tricksome courses


s: Washed in the lambent waters of the sun.


s: Let even the slug-abed snail upon the thorn


s: And ah, my foster-brethren, seem not sad--


s: That my strange heart and I should be so little glad.


s: Unsharing in the liberal laugh of earth;


s: Begot of wholly sad and half-sweet memory--


s: The little sweetness making grief complete;


s: Faint wind of wings from hours that distant beat,


s: Was once, O wild companions, as are you,


s: Frail, strengthless as a noon-belated moon,


s: Or as the glazing eyes of watery heaven,


s: When the sick night sinks into deathly swoon.


s: Sounds to me from far days when I too shall rejoice,


s: Nor more be with your jollity at strife.


s: Of things that are, and are not, and shall be!


s: His clangorous 'Sleep no more' to all the dead--


s: Beat his strong vans o'er earth, and air, and sea.


s: For them that found the dying way to life!


s: And quicken to the great precursive word;


s: Green spray showers lightly down the cascade of the larch;


s: And the Sun comes with power amid the clouds of heaven!


s: O earth, unchilded, widowed Earth, so long


s: Behold your bridegroom cometh in to you,


s: Raise up your eyes, O raise your eyes abroad!


s: Upon the hieratic night the star-sealed sense of all:


s: Rejoice, O barren, and look forth abroad!


s: Your children gathered back to your embrace


s: Look up, O mortals, and the portent heed;


s: Washed with new fire to their irradiant birth,


s: The world's unfolded blossom smells of God.


s: Of that which was the first, and is the last!


s: When the world's infant horoscope He cast.


s: Unshackled from the bright Phoebean awe,


s: Most strengthless, unparticipant, inane,


s: Unsummered, granted to her own worst smart


s: Disintegration, merely which man's heart


s: Of the low popular levels spawned in all the lands.


s: The bondage of thy waste and futile reign,


s: And sweetly to the great compulsion draw


s: And Freedom, only which the wise intend,


s: Love, that is child of Beauty and of Awe:


s: And work'st from change to change and birth to birth


s: Hearing once more the primal fiat toll:-


s: Light to the zenith, light from pole to pole;


s: Light from the East that waxeth to the West,


s: And with its great approaches does prevail


s: Crescent and confident through the crescent hour,


s: Goes down with laughters on the subject vale.


s: Light to the sentient closeness of the breast,


s: Light to the secret chambers of the brain!


s: And thou up-floatest, warm, and newly-bathed,


s: And with thine own apparent beauties swathed,


s: Wringing the waters from thine arborous hair;


s: That all men's hearts, which do behold and see,


s: Grow weak with their exceeding much desire,


s: Enamoured with their utter wish of thee,


s: What vine-outquickening life all creatures sup,


s: Feel, for the air within its sapphire cup


s: Feel, for Earth's bosom pants, and heaves her scarfing sea;


s: And round and round in bacchanal rout reel the swift spheres


s: My little-worlded self! the shadows pass


s: In this thy sister-world, as in a glass,


s: Of all processions that revolve in thee:


s: Not only of cyclic Man, but of the cyclic Me.


s: But thine own bosom's year, still circling round


s: Toward the far completion, wherewith crowned,


s: Love unconsumed shall chant in his own furnace-fire.


s: Enrich thy soul for joys deciduous still,


s: Which fools still take for that which is to be!


s: For all the past, read true, is prophecy,


s: And all the firsts are hauntings of some Last,


s: And all the springs are flash-lights of one Spring.


s: Then leaf, and flower, and falless fruit


s: Shall hang together on the unyellowing bough;


s: These things are far too sure that thou should'st dream


s: Thereof, lest they appear as things that seem.


s: Shade within shade! for deeper in the glass


s: The mind no further by the warm sense fed,


s: The soul weak-stirring in the arid mind,


s: More tearless-weak to flash itself abroad


s: Than the earth's life beneath the frost-scorched sod.


s: With torment and with tension does prepare


s: The lush disclosures of the vernal time.


s: The bounteous efflux of the vernal time.


s: From its retracted coil strikes the resilient song.


s: Thou only seest in me, so stripped and bare,


s: Before it stretch and flutteringly unfold


s: Its rumpled webs of amethyst-freaked, diaphanous gold.


s: And what hard task abstracts me from delight,


s: Filling with hopeless hope and dear despair


s: The still-born day and parch-ed fields of night,


s: That my old way of song, no longer fair,


s: Is grown a stony and a weed-choked plot,


s: How many songs must die that this may live!


s: And shall this most rash hope and fugitive,


s: In days whose feet are rumorous on the air,


s: For songs which might have been, nor ever were?


s: And though with that dread rite of sacrifice


s: Ah, who shall tell me will the wall uprise?


s: Thou wilt not tell me, who dost only know!


s: He which observes the wind shall hardly sow,


s: He which regards the clouds shall hardly reap.


s: Risk all, who all would gain:  and blindly.  Be it so.


s: Of coming songs, that lift my hair and stir it?


s: What winds with music wet do the sweet storm foreshow!


s: Is the solstitial slumber of the spirit,


s: The blear and blank negation of all life:


s: But these sharp questionings mean strife, and strife


s: The thing from which I turn my troubled look


s: That--but low breathe it, lest the Nemesis


s: Is bliss, the hid, hugged, swaddled bliss!


s: Pliest the strange wonder of thine infant lip,


s: What this aghast surprise of keenest panging,


s: Wherefrom I blench, and cry thy soft mouth rest?


s: Ah hold, withhold, and let the sweet mouth slip!


s: So, with such pain, recoils the woolly dam,


s: Unused, affrighted, from her yeanling lamb:


s: Too many and too stern the shadows pass.


s: Ah, more I think the long ensepulture cold,


s: From the unsealed mouth of the holy East;


s: Than the snow-cloistered penance of the seed.


s: Which yet for just the accepting spirit scans.


s: With sight to pass the frontier of all spheres,


s: And voice which does my sight such wrong.


s: I, that no part have in the time's bragged way,


s: Rather foul fume englutting, that of day


s: And kiss the gods' feet, though they wreak


s: All eyes and know not; t'ward whom climb


s: The steps o' the world, and beats all wing of rhyme,


s: Which folded cycles within cycles cloak:


s: We pass, we pass, we pass; this does not pass away,


s: But holds the furrowing earth still harnessed to its yoke.


s: The stars still write their golden purposes


s: On heaven's high palimpsest, and no man sees,


s: But each resurgent morn, behold, more near the Perfect Morn.'


s: Firm is the man, and set beyond the cast


s: Of Fortune's game, and the iniquitous hour,


s: Or ere the quarry sighted; who looks past


s: To slow much sweet from little instant sour,


s: And in the first does always see the last.


s: 'Thou needst not sing new songs, but say the old.'--COWLEY.


s: Even my thoughts which, without change else,


s: Sucking the sweet breasts of my Mother?--


s: Dead that we die not, stooped to rear us,


s: Who knows the gifts which YOU shall give,


s: For who Christ's eyes shall miss, with those


s: When to love YOU is (O Christ's Spouse!)


s: Vision--yea, the vision of Thabor mount,


s: And Day fulfils the married arms of Night.


s: This song is sung and sung not, and its words are sealed.


s: God's breath they spake, with visibleness


s: Damned by what, reverenced, had redeemed.


s: Even after my device, to this and to that use;


s: Thy path disorbed hast never wit to tame;


s: Not wholly missed near sweet, fanning proud plumes above.


s: To waste on bootless things its skiey-gendered rain:


s: And with approv-ed music clear this slip


s: Being a little dramatic sequence on the aspect of primitive girl-


s: 'Of course, he WOULD have asked it, and--


s: 'His eyes, where once I dreadless laughed,


s: 'He'll think me vanquished, for this lapse,


s: 'My heart hides from my soul he's sweet:


s: 'To hear him praise my eyes' brown gleams


s: Each touch and look (and he'll look oft)


s: Could you have played, Sweet, the sweet spy,


s: How rough the road to that blest heaven!


s: Thence heightening that hour when her lover


s: Her grace, with trembling, should discover,


s: I looked, she drooped, and neither spake, and cold,


s: We stood, how unlike all forecasted thought


s: Doubting; whereat she lifted--oh, brave eyes


s: Unfrighted:--forward like a wind-blown flame


s: Touching long-laid expectance, all went up


s: Caught, blazed, and wrapt us round in vibrant fire.


s: Time's beating wing subsided, and the winds


s: Caught up their breathing, and the world's great pulse


s: Stayed in mid-throb, and the wild train of life


s: Reeled by, and left us stranded on a hush.


s: Within us--are we not one now, one, one roof,


s: His roof, and the partition of weak flesh


s: Gone down before him, and no more, for ever?--


s: Stands like a bird new-lit, and as he lit,


s: Within our shaken hearts the air of passion,


s: Cleft by his sudden coming, eddies still


s: And whirs round his enchanted movelessness.


s: A film of trance between two stirrings!  Lo,


s: It bursts; yet dream's snapped links cling round the limbs


s: Of waking:  like a running evening stream


s: Which no man hears, or sees, or knows to run,


s: (Glazed with dim quiet), save that there the moon


s: Is shattered to a creamy flicker of flame,


s: Our eyes' sweet trouble were hid, save that the love


s: Trembles a little on their impassioned calms.


s: Saved by her confidence that she's small,--


s: Speaks, where expression bates its wings,


s: And while she feels the heavens lie bare,


s: Her lover's tokens she would answer not--


s: 'Twere well she should be strange with him somewhat:


s: A pretty babe, this Love,--but fie on it,


s: That would not suffer her lay it down a whit!


s: And with her lightest comrade lightly walked,


s: Who scared the chidden Love to hide apart,


s: And peep from some unnoticed corner of her heart.


s: She thought not of her lover, deem it not


s: (There yonder, in the hollow, that's HIS cot),


s: She saw him at his gate, yet stilled her tongue--


s: So weak she felt her, that she would feel strong,


s: And she must punish him for doing him wrong:


s: And if she turned upon the brow o' the hill,


s: You saw she thought he was not thought upon.


s: He through the gate went back in bitterness;


s: She that night woke and stirred, with no distress,


s: Glad of her doing,--sedulous to be glad,


s: Lest perhaps her foolish heart suspect that it was sad.


s: Love, like a wind, shook wide your blosmy eyes,


s: You trembled, and your breath came sobbing-wise


s: You were so kind, so sweet, none could withhold


s: To adore, but that you were so strange, so cold;


s: Like to a box of spikenard did you break


s: Your heart about my feet.  What words you spake!


s: Life fell to dust without me; so you tried


s: All carefullest ways to drive me from your side,


s: You gave yourself as children give, that weep


s: And snatch back, with--'I meant you not to keep!'


s: That love could teach all ways that hate could do


s: Your love, or loss may even from this begin--


s: You still unweave, unloving all your love;


s: Or what rights have I that scorn could deny?


s: Even of your love, alas, poor Love must die,


s: From passion taught misprision to begin;


s: Was because love to cast out had no skill


s: Her own self-will made void her own self's will


s: That a pledge should have force to bind,


s: Floats down the hush-ed waters of the wind,


s: The heart-strings of the throbbing harp begin


s: In wafts that poignant sweetness drifts, until


s: The wounded soul ooze sadness.  The red sun,


s: A bubble of fire, drops slowly toward the hill,


s: While one bird prattles that the day is done.


s: Sinkest in music to thy smooth-ed sleep,


s: Discrowned of homage, though yet crowned with rays,


s: Hymned not at harvest more, though reapers reap:


s: For thee this music wakes not.  O deceived,


s: If thou hear in these thoughtless harmonies


s: Yet, in this field where the Cross planted reigns,


s: I know not what strange passion bows my head


s: To thee, whose great command upon my veins


s: Proves thee a god for me not dead, not dead!


s: For doubt--oh, too believing-passionate!


s: A fount of most baptismal tears?--Thy straight


s: Long beam lies steady on the Cross.  Ah me!


s: What secret would thy radiant finger show?


s: Of thy bright mastership is this the key?


s: Is THIS thy secret, then?  And is it woe?


s: Fling from thine ear the burning curls, and hark


s: A song thou hast not heard in Northern day;


s: For Rome too daring, and for Greece too dark,


s: Sweet with wild wings that pass, that pass away!


s: The springing music, and its wasting breath--


s: The fairest things in life are Death and Birth,


s: And of these two the fairer thing is Death.


s: It is the falling star that trails the light,


s: It is the breaking wave that hath the might,


s: The passing shower that rainbows maniple.


s: That draw'st thy splendours round thee in thy fall?


s: But thou dost set in statelier pageantry,


s: Thy visible music-blasts make deaf the sky,


s: I SEE the crimson blaring of thy shawms!


s: Strew thy feet's failing thicklier than their might,


s: Who dost but hood thy glorious eyes with night,


s: And vex the heels of all the yesterdays?


s: Will stay behind to greet the usurping moon,


s: When they have cloud-barred over thee the West.


s: Oh, shake the bright dust from thy parting shoon!


s: The earth not paeans thee, nor serves thy hest,


s: Be godded not by Heaven! avert thy face,


s: The oblivious world! unsceptre thee of state and place!


s: Ha! but bethink thee what thou gazedst on,


s: Ere yet the snake Decay had venomed tooth;


s: The name thou bar'st in those vast seasons gone--


s: Clad in the light of thine immortal youth!


s: Or Artemis drave her clamours through the wood,


s: Thou saw'st how once against Olympus' height


s: And shook the gods' world 'bout their ears, and how


s: Shouldered me Pelion with its swinging pines,


s: The river unrecked, that did its broken flood


s: Spurt on his back:  before the mountainous shock


s: Scared to their skies; wide o'er rout-trampled night


s: Flew spurned the pebbled stars:  those splendours then


s: Had quaked Olympus and cold-fearing men.


s: And hewed their forces into splintered flight.


s: When thou didst, bursting from the great void's husk,


s: Leap like a lion on the throat o' the dusk;


s: And the First Morn knelt down to thy visage of thunder!


s: And from the unswath-ed vapours laughed to thee.


s: Thou twi-form deity, nurse at once and sire!


s: Thou genitor that all things nourishest!


s: The earth was suckled at thy shining breast,


s: And in her veins is quick thy milky fire.


s: Who scarfed her with the morning? and who set


s: Who queened her front with the enrondured moon?


s: To dower her, past an eastern wizard's dreams,


s: When hovering on him through his haschish-swoon,


s: All the rained gems of the old Tartarian line


s: Shiver in lustrous throbbings of tinged flame?


s: And all her births are propertied by thee:


s: Who lit the furnace of the mammoth's heart?


s: Who shagged him like Pilatus' ribb-ed flanks?


s: Which like a continent torn oppressed the sea,


s: When the ancient heavens did in rains depart,


s: Of the tossed scud made hiss thy drench-ed curls?


s: And the lithe panther's flexuous symmetry.


s: How came the entomb-ed tree a light-bearer,


s: Mate of the earthquake and thunders volcanic,


s: Clasped in the arms of the forces Titanic


s: When flame on the breath of his nostrils feeds


s: Beneath the dead bones of a perished world;


s: The mountainous wrack of a creation hurled.


s: Cupped to the marge with beauty; a perfume-press


s: Than all the flavorous ooze of Cyprus' vats?


s: Lo, in yon gale which waves her green cymar,


s: Drunk with the must of her own odorousness;


s: While in a moted trouble the vexed gnats


s: Maze, and vibrate, and tease the noontide hush.


s: Who girt dissolv-ed lightnings in the grape?


s: Is it not thou that dost the tulip drape,


s: And her frail sister, whom the waters name,


s: Dost vestal-vesture 'mid the blaze of June,


s: Cold as the new-sprung girlhood of the moon


s: Ere Autumn's kiss sultry her cheek with flame?


s: Before thy ark Earth keeps her sacred dance.


s: And now, O shaken from thine antique throne,


s: Now that the red glare of thy fall is blown


s: Where are the wailing voices that should meet


s: From hill, stream, grove, and all of mortal shape


s: Who tread thy gifts, in vineyards as stray feet


s: Pulp the globed weight of juiced Iberia's grape?


s: The wind, that sings to himself as he makes stride


s: Lonely and terrible on the Andean height?


s: Where is the Naiad 'mid her sworded sedge?


s: The Nymph wan-glimmering by her wan fount's verge?


s: The Dryad at timid gaze by the wood-side?


s: On one up-strain-ed sole from the rock-ledge?


s: The Nereid tip-toe on the scud o' the surge,


s: With whistling tresses dank athwart her face,


s: And all her figure poised in lithe Circean grace?


s: Have they sighed hence with trailing garment-gem?


s: Draw your eyes down to me, and dream on them!


s: A space, and they fleet from me.  Must ye fade--


s: The earth a living and a radiant thing--


s: And leave her corpse in our strained, cheated arms?


s: Lo ever thus, when Song with chorded charms


s: Draws from dull death his lost Eurydice,


s: Even in the swooning minute that claims her his,


s: Even as he trembles to the impassioned kiss


s: Clasps the cold body, and foregoes the soul!


s: Is but the rainbow on life's weeping rain.


s: And all our chants but chaplet some decay,


s: As mine this vanishing--nay, vanished Day.


s: No rift disturbs the heavy shade and chill,


s: Save one, where the charred firmament lets through


s: The scorching dazzle of Heaven; 'gainst which the hill,


s: Burns through the leaden broodings of the mind:


s: Dafts me no more with doubt; I seek and find.


s: Like Him thou hang'st in dreadful pomp of blood


s: And His stained brow did veil like thine to night,


s: And, risen, again departed from our ball,


s: But when It set on earth arose in Heaven.


s: Thus hath He unto death His beauty given:


s: For birth hath in itself the germ of death,


s: But death hath in itself the germ of birth.


s: The falling rain that bears the greenery,


s: The fern-plants moulder when the ferns arise.


s: For there is nothing lives but something dies,


s: And there is nothing dies but something lives.


s: Till Time, the hidden root of change, updries,


s: Are Birth and Death inseparable on earth;


s: For they are twain yet one, and Death is Birth.


s: Sets in the bleakening waters of my soul:


s: One step, and lo! the Cross stands gaunt and long


s: 'Twixt me and yet bright skies, a presaged dole.


s: Thy roots are fast within our fairest fields;


s: Brightness may emanate in Heaven from thee,


s: Here thy dread symbol only shadow yields.


s: Of reap-ed joys thou art the heavy sheaf


s: Which must be lifted, though the reaper groan;


s: Yea, we may cry till Heaven's great ear be deaf,


s: But we must bear thee, and must bear alone.


s: Our night not borrows the superfluous day.


s: Yet woe to him that from his burden flees!


s: Crushed in the fall of what he cast away.


s: Thou gentleness that dost enmoss and drape


s: Wipe thou the blood from wounds that needs must gape.


s: 'Lo, though suns rise and set, but crosses stay,


s: I leave thee ever,' saith she, 'light of cheer.'


s: 'Tis so:  yon sky still thinks upon the Day,


s: And showers aerial blossoms on his bier.


s: Yon cloud with wrinkled fire is edg-ed sharp;


s: And once more welling through the air, ah me!


s: How the sweet viol plains him to the harp,


s: Whose pang-ed sobbings throng tumultuously.


s: Oh, this Medusa-pleasure with her stings!


s: This essence of all suffering, which is joy!


s: I am not thankless for the spell it brings,


s: Though tears must be told down for the charmed toy.


s: No; while soul, sky, and music bleed together,


s: Let me give thanks even for those griefs in me,


s: The restless windward stirrings of whose feather


s: My soul is quitted of death-neighbouring swoon,


s: Who shall not slake her immitigable scars


s: Until she hear 'My sister!' from the moon,


s: And take the kindred kisses of the stars.


s: (On a portrait of Coventry Patmore by J. S. Sargent, R.A.)


s: Look on him.  This is he whose works ye know;


s: Ye have adored, thanked, loved him,--no, not him!


s: But that of him which proud portentous woe


s: Look on him now.  Love, worship if ye can,


s: Where all the paths of pain-ed greatness are;


s: The words accursed of comfortable men,--


s: 'For ever'; and infinite glooms intolerable


s: Where God wipes not the tears from any eyes,


s: Where-through the ways of dreadful greatness are


s: Sink into doom, and sinking, still are sunk.


s: And if his sole and solemn term thereout


s: He has attained, to love ye shall not dare


s: That hath to its own selfhood been most fell,


s: Is blanch-ed with the travel-heats of hell.


s: Nor fail and falter with the intimidate throng;


s: Behind them clang infernal, and that word


s: Lo I, Song's most true lover, plain me sore


s: That worse than other women she can deceive,


s: For she being goddess, I have given her more


s: Than mortal ladies from their loves receive;


s: She was not coy, and gracious were her ways,


s: Before her, thinking ever on her praise,


s: Nought had I left she would be gracious for.


s: That still, more constantly she is pursued,


s: From mortal woman thou may'st know full well,


s: O poet, that dost deem the fair and tall


s: What thou art toil-ed in her sweet, wild spell.


s: Her pit, as her first kiss is heavenlier-sweet.


s: Still the more watchful-cruel to deny?--


s: Know this, that in her service thou shalt learn


s: True is his witness who doth witness this,


s: Nor in those fires shall cease to weep and burn--


s: Through the loud vast and populacy of Heaven,


s: Tempested with gold schools of ponderous orbs,


s: That cleav'st with deep-revolting harmonies


s: Passage perpetual, and behind thee draw'st


s: Of trailing music!  What large effluence,


s: Not sole the cloudy sighing of thy seas,


s: From prying of the stars, and the broad shafts


s: Of thrusting sunlight tempers?  For, dropped near


s: This is the efflux of thy rocks and fields,


s: And wind-cuffed forestage, and the souls of men,


s: The odorous lives of many-throated flowers,


s: And each thing's mettle effused; that so thou wear'st,


s: Albeit, with custom-dulled perceivingness,


s: Nestled against thy breast, my sense not take


s: The breathings of thy nostrils, there's no tree,


s: No grain of dust, nor no cold-seeming stone,


s: But wears a fume of its circumfluous self.


s: Thine own life and the lives of all that live,


s: Wherein thou walkest through thy large demesne


s: And us that still a precious seeing have


s: I come in rearward of the throats of song,


s: Singing with doom upon me; yet give heed!


s: One poet with sick pinion, that still feels


s: Breath through the Orient gateways closing fast,


s: Fast closing t'ward the undelighted night!


s: Mother, we put these fleshly lendings on


s: Thou yield'st to thy poor children; took thy gift


s: Of life, which must, in all the after-days,


s: Being once bound thine almsmen for that gift,


s: We are bound to beggary, nor our own can call


s: But after suit obsequious for't to thee.


s: We find, which from thy hands we simply took,


s: Nor know thy heel o' the neck.  O Mother!  Mother!


s: Then what use knew I of thy solemn robes,


s: But as a child, to play with them?  I bade thee


s: Leave thy great husbandries, thy grave designs,


s: Thy tedious state which irked my ignorant years,


s: Thy winter-watches, suckling of the grain,


s: Upon the brooded Summer, thy chill cares,


s: To sport with me, thy darling.  Thought I not


s: Thou set'st thy seasons forth processional


s: To pamper me with pageant,--thou thyself


s: My fellow-gamester, appanage of mine arms?


s: Then what wild Dionysia I, young Bacchanal,


s: Shook thy matron tresses down in fancies


s: Then when thy circuit swung to nightward,


s: Night the abhorr-ed, night was a new dawning,


s: Dusk grew turbulent with fire before me,


s: And like a windy arras waved with dreams.


s: In a little joy, O Earth, in a little joy;


s: Loving thy beauty in all creatures born of thee,


s: Children, and the sweet-essenced body of woman;


s: But breathing warm of thee as infants breathe


s: New from their mother's morning bosom.  So I,


s: Risen from thee, restless winnower of the heaven,


s: The play of wings about my fledg-ed heel--


s: Sure on the verges of precipitous dream,


s: From jut to jut of inaccessible fancies,


s: In a little thought, in a little thought,


s: We stand and eye thee in a grave dismay,


s: With sad and doubtful questioning, when first


s: Thou speak'st to us as men:  like sons who hear


s: Before, and say--'She is not as we dreamed:


s: Ah me! we are beguiled!'  What art thou, then,


s: That art not our conceiving?  Art thou not


s: Too old for thy young children?  Or perchance,


s: Keep'st thou a youth perpetual-burnishable


s: Yet thou may'st be but as a pendant bulla


s: Against his stripling bosom swung.  Alack!


s: To have slipped the world's great leaping-time, and come


s: Upon thy pinched and dozing days:  these weeds,


s: These corporal leavings, thou not cast'st us new,


s: Fresh from thy craftship, like the lilies' coats,


s: With hasty tarnished piecings negligent,


s: That have seen sorrier usage; remainder-flesh


s: Some of us, that if speech may have free leave


s: With more than our sires' heaviness, and with


s: More than their weakness weak; we shall not be


s: Mighty with all their mightiness, nor shall not


s: Rejoice with all their joy.  Ay, Mother!  Mother!


s: What is this Man, thy darling kissed and cuffed,


s: Crowned with all honour and all shamefulness?


s: He dogs the secret footsteps of the heavens,


s: Sifts in his hands the stars, weighs them as gold-dust,


s: And entail of four planks.  Thou hast made his mouth


s: Avid of all dominion and all mightiness,


s: All sorrow, all delight, all topless grandeurs,


s: And dim transtellar things;--even that it may,


s: Filled in the ending with a puff of dust,


s: Confess--'It is enough.'  The world left empty


s: What that poor mouthful crams.  His heart is builded


s: All heights, all deeps, and all immensities,


s: Arrased with purple like the house of kings,--


s: To stall the grey-rat, and the carrion-worm


s: Sayer of dark sayings in a thousand tongues,


s: Who bringest forth no saying yet so dark


s: As we ourselves, thy darkest!  We the young,


s: In a little thought, in a little thought,


s: At last confront thee, and ourselves in thee,


s: On a mount standing, and against him stands,


s: On the mount adverse, crowned with westering rays,


s: To the dull vale, his Godhead peels from him


s: For nothingness of new-found mortality--


s: With all around the valleys growing grave,


s: And known things changed and strange; but he holds on,


s: Though all the land of light be widow-ed,


s: In a little strength, in a little strength,


s: We affront thy unveiled face intolerable,


s: Though I the Orient never more shall feel


s: Break like a clash of cymbals, and my heart


s: Clang through my shaken body like a gong;


s: Nor ever more with spurted feet shall tread


s: I' the winepresses of song; nought's truly lost


s: That moulds to sprout forth gain:  now I have on me


s: The high Phoebean priesthood, and that craves


s: An unrash utterance; not with flaunted hem


s: Nor, though we hold the sacred dances good,


s: Shall the holy Virgins maenadize:  ruled lips


s: Thence with no mutable, nor no gelid love,


s: Though life slow, and the sobering Genius change


s: To a lamp his gusty torch.  What though no more


s: Thy face look forth triumphal?  Thou put'st on


s: Strange sanctities of pathos; like this knoll


s: This, where emboss-ed with the half-blown seed


s: The solemn purple thistle stands in grass


s: Holds mist for water in the nights of Fall.


s: Not to the boy, although his eyes be pure


s: Uneuphrasied with tears, the hierarchical


s: Through all create down-wheeling, from the Throne


s: This is the enchantment, this the exaltation,


s: Linking such heights and such humilities


s: Stirring the blossoms in the meadow-grass,


s: This to the shunless fardel of the world


s: Nerves my uncurb-ed back; that I endure,


s: The monstrous Temple's moveless caryatid,


s: With wide eyes calm upon the whole of things,


s: The incredible, with bloody clutch and feet


s: Clinging the painful juts of jagg-ed faith.


s: Science, old noser in its prideful straw,


s: Its three-inch of thy skin, and brags--'All's bare,'


s: The eyeless worm, that boring works the soil,


s: Ministers poppies to our troublous thought,


s: Grossly unwotting; all things has expounded


s: Which in our dull thoughts symbolise disorder,


s: Finds in God's thoughts irrefragable order,


s: And admirable the manner of our corruption


s: As of our health.  It grafts upon the cypress


s: The tree of Life--Death dies on his own dart


s: Their proper imperishability; extracting


s: I put the blinding knowledge of the fool,


s: Nor thrust my arm in nature shoulder-high,


s: And cry--'There's nought beyond!'  How should I so,


s: That cannot with these arms of mine engirdle


s: In mine own region?  Who the chart shall draw


s: Of the strange courts and vaulty labyrinths,


s: The spacious tenements and wide pleasances,


s: Where the rat memory does its burrows make,


s: Close-seal them as I may, and my stolen tread


s: That too strait seems my mind my mind to hold,


s: With scabby sapience plastered, aye forsooth!


s: Clap my wise foot-rule to the walls o' the world,


s: And vow--A goodly house, but something ancient,


s: And so with strenuous gazes sounding down,


s: Whose last look is his deepest, I beside


s: This slow perpetual Time stand patiently,


s: Earth, thou reclaim'st us, who do all our lives


s: Thou dost this body, this enhavocked realm,


s: Subject to ancient and ancestral shadows;


s: Descended passions sway it; it is distraught


s: With ghostly usurpation, dinned and fretted


s: With the still-tyrannous dead; a haunted tenement,


s: Peopled from barrows and outworn ossuaries.


s: Thou giv'st us life not half so willingly


s: As thou undost thy giving; thou that teem'st


s: The stealthy terror of the sinuous pard,


s: The serpent, and all fair strong beasts of ravin,


s: Thyself most fair and potent beast of ravin;


s: And thy great eaters thou, the greatest, eat'st.


s: Thou hast devoured mammoth and mastodon,


s: Thou fill'st thy mouth with nations, gorgest slow


s: On purple aeons of kings; man's hulking towers


s: Keep their cold house within thee; thou hast sucked down


s: And perished cities whose great phantasmata


s: Tarry awhile, lean Earth, for thou shalt drink,


s: The draught thou grow'st most fat on; hear'st thou not


s: The world's knives bickering in their sheaths?  O patience!


s: Much offal of a foul world comes thy way,


s: And man's superfluous cloud shall soon be laid


s: Of imposed being, and relenting, mend'st


s: Too much, with nought.  The westering Phoebus' horse


s: Paws i' the lucent dust as when he shocked


s: In this decline that morning when we did


s: Sport 'twixt the claws of newly-whelped existence,


s: Which had not yet learned rending? we did then


s: Divinely stand, not knowing yet against us


s: Sentence had passed of life, nor commutation


s: Petitioning into death.  What's he that of


s: The Free State argues?  Tellus! bid him stoop,


s: Even where the low hic jacet answers him;


s: Thus low, O Man! there's freedom's seignory,


s: Tellus' most reverend sole free commonweal,


s: Woos the impartial worm, whose favours kiss


s: With liberal largesse all; there each is free


s: To be e'en what he must, which here did strive


s: So much to be he could not; there all do


s: Their uses just, with no flown questioning.


s: Which lacqueys them, their suits of maintenance,


s: Put on condition:  Death's ungentle buffet


s: So are the heavenly statutes set, and those


s: Like fierce beasts that a common thirst makes brothers,


s: We drain with all our burthens of dishonour


s: Into the cleansing sands o' the thirsty grave.


s: And all the glistering shows o' the seeming world,


s: Which the sight aches at, we unwinking see


s: Through the smoked glass of Death; Death, wherewith's fined


s: The muddy wine of life; that earth doth purge


s: Of her plethora of man; Death, that doth flush


s: Nothing, of nothing king, with front uncrowned,


s: Whose hand holds crownets; playmate swart o' the strong;


s: Tenebrous moon that flux and refluence draws


s: Of the high-tided man; skull-hous-ed asp


s: That stings the heel of kings; true Fount of Youth,


s: Where he that dips is deathless; being's drone-pipe;


s: Whose nostril turns to blight the shrivelled stars,


s: And thicks the lusty breathing of the sun;


s: Pontifical Death, that doth the crevasse bridge


s: To the steep and trifid God; one mortal birth


s: This kinsman feared, Tellus, behold me come,


s: Thy son stern-nursed; who mortal-motherlike,


s: To turn thy weanlings' mouth averse, embitter'st


s: Thine over-childed breast.  Now, mortal-sonlike,


s: Shall sustenant be to thee.  Here I untrammel,


s: Here I pluck loose the body's cerementing,


s: And break the tomb of life; here I shake off


s: The bur o' the world, man's congregation shun,


s: I take the tongueless vows:  my cell is set


s: Here in thy bosom; my little trouble is ended


s: Play Can you see me? through their wings?


s: In Heaven, because 'twas quite clean blue!


s: And didst Thou join Thy hands, this way?


s: And did they tire sometimes, being young,


s: Kiss Thee, and fold the clothes in right?


s: Kissed, and sweet, and thy prayers said?


s: And He will smile, that children's tongue


s: There is a parable in the pathless cloud,


s: There's prophecy in heaven,--they did not lie,


s: The Chaldee shepherds; seal-ed from the proud,


s: To cheer the weighted heart that mates the seeing eye.


s: A lonely man, oppressed with lonely ills,


s: The wind and I keep both one monotoning tongue.


s: Like grey clouds one by one my songs upsoar


s: Over my soul's cold peaks; and one by one


s: They loose their little rain, and are no more;


s: And whether well or ill, to tell me there is none.


s: For 'tis an alien tongue, of alien things,


s: From all men's care, how miserably apart!


s: Even my friends say:  'Of what is this he sings?'


s: And barren is my song, and barren is my heart.


s: For who can work, unwitting his work's worth?


s: Better, meseems, to know the work for naught,


s: Turn my sick course back to the kindly earth,


s: And leave to ampler plumes the jetting tops of thought.


s: Of doom, and poets widowed of their muse,


s: And what dark 'gan, dark ended, in me did commence.


s: I thought of spirit wronged by mortal ills,


s: And my flesh rotting on my fate's dull stake;


s: And how self-scorn-ed they the bounty fills


s: Of others, and the bread, even of their dearest, take.


s: I thought of Keats, that died in perfect time,


s: In predecease of his just-sickening song;


s: Of him that set, wrapt in his radiant rhyme,


s: Sunlike in sea.  Life longer had been life too long.


s: O then, no more but even a soulless corse!


s: Nay, my Delight dies not; 'tis I should be


s: Her dead, a stringless harp on which she had no force.


s: Of my wild lot I thought; from place to place,


s: Making in all my home, with pliant ways,


s: But, provident of change, putting forth root in none.


s: Now, with starved brain, sick body, patience galled


s: With fardels even to wincing; from fair sky


s: Fell sudden little rain, scarce to be called


s: A shower, which of the instant was gone wholly by.


s: What cloud thus died I saw not; heaven was fair.


s: Methinks my angel plucked my locks:  I bowed


s: My spirit, shamed; and looking in the air:-


s: 'Even so,' I said, 'even so, my brother the good Cloud?'


s: Its home was allwheres the wind left it rest,


s: And in all places was a stranger and a guest.


s: It harked all breaths of heaven, and did obey


s: With sweet peace their uncomprehended wills;


s: It knew the eyes of stars which made no stay,


s: And with the thunder walked upon the lonely hills.


s: And from the subject earth it seemed to scorn,


s: And of his life and light full as a maid kissed new.


s: Its also darkness of the face withdrawn,


s: And the long waiting for the little light,


s: It fled with tempest breathing hard at heel of flight;


s: And having known full East, did not disdain


s: Save what all loss doth of its loss retain,


s: And who hath held hath somewhat that he still must hold.


s: Right poet! who thy rightness to approve,


s: Having all liberty, didst keep all measure,


s: But at the heavens' uncomprehended pleasure.


s: With amplitude unchecked, how sweetly thou


s: Didst wear the ancient custom of the skies,


s: And yoke of used prescription; and thence how


s: Find gay variety no license could devise!


s: Of the one grove our own than forests great,


s: Restraint, by the delighted search of it,


s: Turns to right scope.  For lovely moving intricate


s: Of ordered limit; and all-changeful Hermes


s: Our souls for latitude, whose strength in bound and term is.


s: That play at policy with change and fate,


s: Who should my soul from foreign broils keep free,


s: In the fast-guarded frontiers of its single state!


s: Could I face firm the Is, and with To-be


s: Trust Heaven; to Heaven commit the deed, and do;


s: And fit myself to change with virtue ever new;


s: Thou hadst not shamed me, cousin of the sky,


s: Thou wandering kinsman, that didst sweetly live


s: Weeping more gracious song than any I can weave;


s: Which these gross-tissued words do sorely wrong.


s: Thou hast taught me on powerlessness a power;


s: To make song wait on life, not life on song;


s: To hold sweet not too sweet, and bread for bread though sour;


s: With tears ascended from the heart's sad sea,


s: Sing, Pain would list, forgetting Pain to be,


s: And Death would tarry marvelling, and forget to die!


s: Nor like-ways is one flame-sopped flower


s: At evening, when the lank and rigid trees,


s: To the mere forms of their sweet day-selves drying,


s: On heaven's blank leaf seem pressed and flatten-ed;


s: Or rather, to my sombre thoughts replying,


s: That hour when all old dead things seem most dead,


s: And their death instant most and most undying,


s: That the flesh aches at them; there stirred in me


s: Dead sorrow and sorrow unborn so blent their pain,


s: That which more present was were hardly said,


s: My soul like sackcloth did her body rend,


s: 'Let pass the chalice of this coming dread,


s: Or that fore-drained O bid me not re-drain!'


s: So have I asked, who know my asking vain,


s: That grief's soul transmigrates, and lives again,


s: Come you living or dead to me, out of the silt of the Past,


s: You are neither two nor one--I would you were one or two,


s: For your awful self is embalmed in the fragrant self I knew:


s: But by my sleep that sleepeth not,--O Shadow of a Girl!--


s: Nought here but I and my dreams shall know the secret of this


s: For ever the songs I sing are sad with the songs I never sing,


s: Sad are sung songs, but how more sad the songs we dare not sing!


s: Ah, the ill that we do in tenderness, and the hateful horror of


s: It has sent more souls to the unslaked Pit than it ever will draw


s: I shall have no comfort now in scent, no ease in dew, for this;


s: I shall be afraid of daffodils, and rose-buds are amiss;


s: You have made a thing of innocence as shameful as a sin,


s: I shall never feel a girl's soft arms without horror of the skin.


s: You have done this to me.  And I, what I to you?--It lies with


s: Sleeps she swathed in the flushed Arctic


s: For whom but for the stealthy-visitant sun


s: And when he stirs, she stirs in her repose:


s: NOTE. The first two stanzas are from a French original--I have


s: Passed through thy golden garden's bars,


s: Up she rose, fair daughter--well she was graced


s: As a cloud her going, stept from her chair,


s: As a summer-soft cloud, in her going paced,


s: Down dropped her riband-band, and all her waving hair


s: Shook like loosened music cadent to her waist;--


s: 'Friend, whereto art thou come?'  Thus Verity;


s: Comes with no multitude, but alone by night,


s: Lit with the one torch of his lifted soul,


s: Seeking her that he may lay hands on her;


s: Thus:  and waits answer from the mouth of deed.


s: Truth is a maid, whom men woo diversely;


s: This, as a spouse; that, as a light-o'-love,


s: To know, and having known, to make his brag.


s: But woe to him that takes the immortal kiss,


s: And not estates her in his housing life,


s: Not Truth, the unbetrayable, but himself:


s: And with his kiss's rated traitor-craft,


s: 'Tis said there were no thought of hell,


s: Save hell were taught; that there should be


s: 'Tis Heaven that lies beyond our sights,


s: Whenas my life shall time with funeral tread


s: The heavy death-drum of the beaten hours,


s: Following, sole mourner, mine own manhood dead,


s: Poor forgot corse, where not a maid strows flowers;


s: Your dear face through changed eyes, all grim change prove;--


s: When shamed Love keep his ruined lodging, elf!


s: O to that tomb be tender then, which bears


s: Soothsay.  Behold, with rod twy-serpented,


s: Hermes the prophet, twining in one power


s: The cloudy cap, wherewith he hath in dower


s: The cloud's own virtue--change and counterchange,


s: To show in light, and to withdraw in pall,


s: As mortal eyes best bear.  His lineage strange


s: From Zeus, Truth's sire, and maiden May--the all-


s: Illusive Nature.  His fledged feet declare


s: And the thrice-furnaced passions, which do bear


s: Both parents clasp; and from the womb of Nature


s: Stern Truth takes flesh in shows of lovely feature.


s: When I perceive Love's heavenly reaping still


s: Regard perforce the clouds' vicissitude,


s: That the fixed spirit loves not when it will,


s: But craves its seasons of the flawful blood;


s: Oft voiceless stray beneath the uninfluent stars,


s: And Song's brave wings fret on their sensual bars;


s: When I perceived the fullest-sail-ed sprite


s: The provident captainship oft voided quite,


s: I scorn myself, that put for such strange toys


s: The spirit's ark sealed with a little clay,


s: That seal what shall surrender?  Not the sea


s: Love's feet are stained with clay and travel-sore,


s: And dusty are Song's lucent wing and hairs.


s: Eat hasty bread standing with loins up-girt,


s: How shall this stead thy feet for their sore way?


s: Ah, Song, what brief embraces balm thy hurt!


s: Had Jacob's toil full guerdon, casting his


s: Twice-seven heaped years to burn in Rachel's kiss?


s: The heart you hold too small and local thing,


s: And yet, since Poesy first shook out her wing,


s: The mighty Love has been impalaced there;


s: That has she given him as his wide demesne,


s: Against its door to knock has Beauty been


s: Of many a lover, who the heaven would think


s: The world, from star to sea, cast down its brink--


s: Yet shall that chasm, till He Who these did build


s: An awful Curtius make Him, yawn unfilled.


s: O nothing, in this corporal earth of man,


s: That to the imminent heaven of his high soul


s: Responds with colour and with shadow, can


s: Lack correlated greatness.  If the scroll


s: Where thoughts lie fast in spell of hieroglyph


s: All's vast that vastness means.  Nay, I affirm


s: Nature is whole in her least things exprest,


s: Nor know we with what scope God builds the worm.


s: Our towns are copied fragments from our breast;


s: And all man's Babylons strive but to impart


s: I love the evenings, passionless and fair, I love the evens,


s: Whether old manor-fronts their ray with golden fulgence leavens,


s: Whether the mist in reefs of fire extend its reaches sheer,


s: Or a hundred sunbeams splinter in an azure atmosphere


s: Oh gaze ye on the firmament! a hundred clouds in motion,


s: Up-piled in the immense sublime beneath the winds' commotion,


s: Under their waves at intervals flames a pale levin through,


s: As if some giant of the air amid the vapours drew


s: The sun at bay with splendid thrusts still keeps the sullen fold;


s: Or on the blurred horizons joins his battle with the haze;


s: Or pools the glooming fields about with inter-isolate blaze


s: Then mark you how there hangs athwart the firmament's swept track


s: Under its burnished belly slips a ray of eventide,


s: The flickerings of a hundred glowing clouds its tenebrous side


s: Then mounts a palace, then the air vibrates--the vision flees.


s: Confounded to its base, the fearful cloudy edifice


s: Afar the fragments strew the sky, and each envermeiled cone


s: Hangeth, peak downward, overhead, like mountains overthrown


s: When the earthquake heaves its hugy back.


s: These vapours with their leaden, golden, iron, bronz-ed glows,


s: Where the hurricane, the waterspout, thunder, and hell repose,


s: Muttering hoarse dreams of destined harms,


s: 'Tis God who hangs their multitude amid the skiey deep,


s: As a warrior that suspendeth from the roof-tree of his keep


s: All vanishes!  The sun, from topmost heaven precipitated,


s: Like to a globe of iron which is tossed back fiery red


s: Shocking the cloudy surges, plashed from its impetuous ire,


s: Even to the zenith spattereth in a flecking scud of fire


s: O contemplate the heavens! whenas the vein-drawn day dies pale,


s: In every season, every place, gaze through their every veil,


s: Beneath their solemn beauty is a mystery infinite:


s: If winter hue them like a pall; or if the summer night


s: Have you sometimes, calm, silent, let your tread aspirant rise


s: Up to the mountain's summit, in the presence of the skies?


s: Was't on the borders of the South? or on the Bretagne coast?


s: And at the basis of the mount had you the Ocean tossed?


s: And there, leaned o'er the wave and o'er the immeasurableness,


s: Calm, silent, have you harkened what it says?  Lo, what it says!


s: One day at least, whereon my thought, enlicens-ed to muse,


s: Had drooped its wing above the beach-ed margent of the ooze,


s: And, plunging from the mountain height into the immensity,


s: Beheld upon one side the land, on the other side the sea.


s: I harkened, comprehended,--never, as from those abysses,


s: A sound it was, at outset, vast, immeasurable, confused,


s: Vaguer than is the wind among the tufted trees effused,


s: Full of magnificent accords, suave murmurs, sweet as is


s: The evensong, and mighty as the shock of panoplies


s: When the hoarse melee in its arms the closing squadrons grips,


s: And pants, in furious breathings, from the clarions' brazen lips.


s: Whose fluid undulations round the world a girdle keep,


s: Even to the profound arcane, whose ultimate chasms sombre


s: Its shattered flood englut with time, with space and form and


s: Like to another atmosphere with thin o'erflowing robe,


s: The hymn eternal covers all the inundated globe:


s: And the world, swathed about with this investuring symphony,


s: Even as it trepidates in the air, so trepidates in the harmony.


s: And pensive, I attended the ethereal lutany,


s: Lost within this containing voice as if within the sea.


s: Which did from off the land and seas even to the heavens aspire;


s: Chanting the universal chant in simultaneous quire.


s: And I distinguished them amid that deep and rumorous sound,


s: As who beholds two currents thwart amid the fluctuous profound.


s: The one was of the waters; a be-radiant hymnal speech!


s: Was sorrowful; and that, alack! the murmur was of man;


s: And in this mighty quire, whose chantings day and night resound,


s: Every wave had its utterance, and every man his sound.


s: Now, the magnificent Ocean, as I said, unbannering


s: A voice of joy, a voice of peace, did never stint to sing,


s: Most like in Sion's temples to a psaltery psaltering,


s: And to creation's beauty reared the great lauds of his song.


s: Upon the gale, upon the squall, his clamour borne along


s: Unpausingly arose to God in more triumphal swell;


s: And every one among his waves, that God alone can quell,


s: When the other of its song made end, into the singing pressed.


s: Like that majestic lion whereof Daniel was the guest,


s: At intervals the Ocean his tremendous murmur awed;


s: And I, t'ward where the sunset fires fell shaggily and broad,


s: Meanwhile, and side by side with that august fan-faronnade,


s: The other voice, like the sudden scream of a destrier affrayed,


s: Like an infernal door that grates ajar its rusty throat,


s: Like to a bow of iron that gnarls upon an iron rote,


s: Grinded; and tears, and shriekings, the anathema, the lewd taunt,


s: And clamour, and malediction, and dread blasphemy, among


s: That hurtling crowd of rumour from the diverse human tongue,


s: Went by as who beholdeth, when the valleys thick t'ward night,


s: The long drifts of the birds of dusk pass, blackening flight on


s: What was this sound whose thousand echoes vibrated unsleeping?


s: Alas! the sound was earth's and man's, for earth and man were


s: Brothers! of these two voices, strange most unimaginably,


s: Unceasingly regenerated, dying unceasingly,


s: Harken-ed of the Eternal throughout His Eternity,


s: The one voice uttereth:  NATURE! and the other voice:  HUMANITY!


s: Then I alit in reverie; for my ministering sprite


s: Alack! had never yet deployed a pinion of an ampler flight,


s: Nor ever had my shadow endured so large a day to burn:


s: And long I rested dreaming, contemplating turn by turn


s: Now that abyss obscure which lurked beneath the water's roll,


s: And now that other untemptable abyss which opened in my soul.


s: And I made question of me, to what issues are we here,


s: And why the Lord, Who, only, reads within that book of His,


s: In fatal hymeneals hath eternally entwined


s: The vintage-chant of nature with the dirging cry of humankind?


s: O you, love's mendicancy who never tried,


s: Your little languid hand in mine you slide,


s: Like to a child says--'Kiss me and let me go!'


s: And night for this is fretted with my tears,


s: While I:-'How soon this heavenly neck doth tire


s: Bending to me from its transtellar spheres!'


s: Ah, heart all kneaded out of honey and fire!


s: And shamed thee much with an unlovely soul,


s: That the most strainedest charity of earth


s: Distasteth soon to render back the whole


s: Of thine inflam-ed sweets and gentilesse!


s: Gnaw'st on thyself for famine's bitterness,


s: And leap'st against thy chain.  Sweet Lady, how


s: Though I should touch yours careless for a year,


s: Not one blue vein would lie divinelier blue


s: Of your sad mouth would droop more sad and sweet.


s: But little food love's beggars needs must serve,


s: That eye your plenteous graces from the street.


s: A hand-clasp I must feed on for a night,


s: A noon, although the untasted feast you lay,


s: To mock me, of your beauty.  That you might


s: What 'tis to pass unsuppered to your couch,


s: Keep fast from love all day; and so be taught


s: The famine which these craving lines avouch!


s: Ah! miser of good things that cost thee naught,


s: How know'st thou poor men's hunger?--Misery!


s: When I presage the time shall come--yea, now


s: Perchance is come, when you shall fail from me,


s: Because the mighty spirit, to whom you vow


s: Scourges my sloth, and from your side dismissed


s: Henceforth this sad and most, most lonely soul


s: Must, marching fatally through pain and mist,


s: When I presage that none shall hear the voice


s: From the great Mount that clangs my ordained advance,


s: That sullen envy bade the churlish choice


s: Yourself shall say, and turn your altered glance;


s: O God!  Thou knowest if this heart of flesh


s: Quivers like broken entrails, when the wheel


s: Rolleth some dog in middle street, or fresh


s: Fruit when ye tear it bleeding from the peel;


s: Beloved whom I must lose, nor thence regret


s: The doubly-vouched and twin allegiance owed


s: To you in Heaven, and Heaven in you, Lady.


s: How could you hope, loose dealer with my God,


s: For still 'tis thus:-because I am so true,


s: My Fair, to Heaven, I am so true to you!


s: Ah, who can view with passionless glance


s: Methinks, throughout the world 'twere right


s: And yet, such sweet in all things' heart,


s: She shares them not; their azures probe,


s: But mine these hills and fields, which put


s: My earth, perchance, your sway abjures?--


s: Yet, stern possession!  I have my death,


s: Death, then, be hers.  I have my heaven,


s: Taste you, my stream, in God your source,--


s: Hear, thou slave Fame, while Time endures,


s: Looked, spake, simply touched, and went.


s: Stung by those wild brown bees, her eyes!


s: Now in these last spent drops, slow, slower shed,


s: Love dies, Love dies, Love dies--ah, Love is dead!


s: Pale Love in death; while all his offspring songs,


s: Like children, versed not in death's chilly wrongs,


s: So still, who did not know that Love could die.


s: One lifts his wing, where dulls the vermeil all


s: Like clotting blood, and shrinks to find it cold,


s: And when she sees its lapse and nerveless fall


s: Clasps her fans, while her sobs ooze through the webb-ed gold.


s: Thereat all weep together, and their tears


s: Make lights like shivered moonlight on long waters.


s: He shall not wake more through the mortal years,


s: Nor breath to your wild wings; for Love is dead!


s: Less than myself, need was that he should die;


s: Since Love that first did wing, now clogged me from the sky.


s: Yet lofty Love being dead thus passeth base--


s: There is a soul of nobleness which stays,


s: Songs, for the dust that dims his sacred head!


s: The days draw on too dark for Song or Love;


s: O peace, my songs, nor stir ye any wing!


s: For lo, the thunder hushing all the grove,


s: And did Love live, not even Love could sing.


s: For your love taught me this:-'tis Love's true praise


s: To be, not staff, but writ of worthy days;


s: Should still remain it learned in love elate.


s: Beyond your star, still, still the stars are bright;


s: Beyond your highness, still I follow height;


s: Sole I go forth, yet still to my sad view,


s: Beyond your trueness, Lady, Truth stands true.


s: This wisdom sings my song with last firm breath,


s: Caught from the twisted lore of Love and Death,


s: From Pallas' straying locks twined with her aegis-snakes.


s: 'On him the unpetitioned heavens descend,


s: Who heaven on earth proposes not for end;


s: Taking with peace, lacking with thankfulness.


s: Thou'rt not extreme in bliss; be equal still:


s: Sweets to be granted think thy self unmeet


s: Till thou have learned to hold sweet not too sweet.'


s: This thing not far is he from wise in art


s: Who teacheth; nor who doth, from wise in heart.


s: Go, songs, for ended is our brief, sweet play;


s: And some are sung, and that was yesterday,


s: And some unsung, and that may be to-morrow.


s: Old joy can lend what newer grief must borrow:


s: And it was sweet, and that was yesterday,


s: And sweet is sweet, though purchas-ed with sorrow.


s: Go, songs, and come not back from your far way:


s: And if men ask you why ye smile and sorrow,


s: Tell them ye grieve, for your hearts know To-day,


s: Tell them ye smile, for your eyes know To-morrow.


s: THE love I dedicate to your Lordship is without end; whereof this


s: warrant I have of your honourable disposition, not the worth of


s: my untutored lines, makes it assured of acceptance.  What I have


s: done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I


s: have, devoted yours.  Were my worth greater, my duty would show


s: greater; meantime, as it is, it is bound to your Lordship, to


s: whom I wish long life, still lengthened with all happiness.


s: LUCIUS TARQUINIUS (for his excessive pride surnamed Superbus),


s: after he had caused his own father-in-law, Servius Tullius, to be


s: not requiring or staying for the people's suffrages, had


s: possessed himself of the kingdom, went, accompanied with his sons


s: Sextus Tarquinius, the king's son, in their discourses after


s: supper, every one commended the virtues of his own wife; among


s: whom Collatinus extolled the incomparable chastity of his wife


s: Lucretia. In that pleasant humour they all posted to Rome; and


s: intending, by their secret and sudden arrival, to make trial of


s: that which every one had before avouched, only Collatinus finds


s: his wife, though it were late in the night, spinning amongst her


s: maids: the other ladies were all found dancing and revelling, or


s: in several disports.  Whereupon the noblemen yielded Collatinus


s: the victory, and his wife the fame.  At that time Sextus


s: Tarquinius being inflamed with Lucrece's beauty, yet smothering


s: his passions for the present, departed with the rest back to the


s: camp; from whence he shortly after privily withdrew himself, and


s: was (according to his estate) royally entertained and lodged by


s: Lucrece at Collatium.  The same night he treacherously stealeth


s: into her chamber, violently ravished her, and early in the


s: morning speedeth away. Lucrece, in this lamentable plight,


s: hastily dispatched messengers, one to Rome for her father,


s: another to the camp for Collatine.  They came, the one


s: accompanied with Junius Brutus, the other with Publius Valerius;


s: and finding Lucrece attired in mourning habit, demanded the cause


s: revenge, revealed the actor, and whole manner of his dealing, and


s: they all vowed to root out the whole hated family of the


s: Tarquins; and bearing the dead body to Rome, Brutus acquainted


s: the people with the doer and manner of the vile deed, with a


s: bitter invective against the tyranny of the king; wherewith the


s: people were so moved, that with one consent and a general


s: acclamation the Tarquins were all exiled, and the state


s: government changed from kings to consuls.


s: Borne by the trustless wings of false desire,


s: Lust-breathed Tarquin leaves the Roman host,


s: And to Collatium bears the lightless fire


s: Which, in pale embers hid, lurks to aspire


s: And girdle with embracing flames the waist


s: Of Collatine's fair love, Lucrece the chaste.


s: This bateless edge on his keen appetite;


s: To praise the clear unmatched red and white


s: Which triumph'd in that sky of his delight,


s: Where mortal stars, as bright as heaven's beauties,


s: With pure aspects did him peculiar duties.


s: For he the night before, in Tarquin's tent,


s: Unlock'd the treasure of his happy state;


s: What priceless wealth the heavens had him lent


s: In the possession of his beauteous mate;


s: Reckoning his fortune at such high-proud rate,


s: That kings might be espoused to more fame,


s: But king nor peer to such a peerless dame.


s: And, if possess'd, as soon decay'd and done


s: Against the golden splendour of the sun!


s: An expir'd date, cancell'd ere well begun:


s: Are weakly fortress'd from a world of harms.


s: From thievish ears, because it is his own?


s: Perchance his boast of Lucrece' sovereignty


s: For by our ears our hearts oft tainted be:


s: His high-pitch'd thoughts, that meaner men should vaunt


s: That golden hap which their superiors want.


s: His all-too-timeless speed, if none of those;


s: His honour, his affairs, his friends, his state,


s: Neglected all, with swift intent he goes


s: To quench the coal which in his liver glows.


s: O rash false heat, wrapp'd in repentant cold,


s: Thy hasty spring still blasts, and ne'er grows old!


s: When at Collatium this false lord arriv'd,


s: Within whose face beauty and virtue striv'd


s: Which of them both should underprop her fame:


s: When virtue bragg'd, beauty would blush for shame;


s: Virtue would stain that or with silver white.


s: From Venus' doves doth challenge that fair field:


s: Then virtue claims from beauty beauty's red,


s: Which virtue gave the golden age, to gild


s: Their silver cheeks, and call'd it then their shield;


s: Teaching them thus to use it in the fight,--


s: When shame assail'd, the red should fence the white.


s: This heraldry in Lucrece' face was seen,


s: Argued by beauty's red, and virtue's white:


s: Proving from world's minority their right:


s: Yet their ambition makes them still to fight;


s: The sovereignty of either being so great,


s: That oft they interchange each other's seat.


s: Their silent war of lilies and of roses,


s: Which Tarquin view'd in her fair face's field,


s: In their pure ranks his traitor eye encloses;


s: Where, lest between them both it should be kill'd,


s: The coward captive vanquish'd doth yield


s: To those two armies that would let him go,


s: Now thinks he that her husband's shallow tongue,


s: In that high task hath done her beauty wrong,


s: Which far exceeds his barren skill to show:


s: Therefore that praise which Collatine doth owe


s: This earthly saint, adored by this devil,


s: For unstain'd thoughts do seldom dream on evil;


s: Birds never lim'd no secret bushes fear:


s: So guiltless she securely gives good cheer


s: And reverend welcome to her princely guest,


s: Whose inward ill no outward harm express'd: