s: Lays at Rogero's helm with all his might.


s: With that excessive force, wherewith the gin,


s: And raised by men and wheels, with deafening din


s: Descends upon the sharpened piles below,


s: Him the charmed helmet helped, or -- such its force --


s: The stroke would have divided man and horse.


s: Twice nodded, opening legs and arms; anew


s: Then threatened other stroke; but that fine sword


s: Bore not such hammering, and in shivers flew;


s: Was in the combat left with unarmed hand.


s: He swoops upon the Child, unheeding aught:


s: Whom by the neck he with strong arm has caught,


s: And gripes and grapples with such mighty force,


s: He falls on earth, pulled headlong from his horse.


s: Yet leaps from earth as nimbly, moved by spleen


s: Far less than shame; for on his gentle bride


s: He turned his eyes, and that fair face serene


s: Now troubled the disdainful warrior spied.


s: She in sore doubt her champion's fall had seen;


s: And well nigh at that sight the lady died.


s: Shunned warily, retiring from his ground,


s: And, as he past, the paynim's bridle took


s: With his left had, and turned his courser round;


s: While with his right he at his rider struck,


s: Whom he in belly, flank and breast would wound;


s: And twice sore anguish felt the monarch, gored


s: In flank and thigh, by good Rogero's sword.


s: Rodomont, grasping still in that close fight


s: The hilt and pommel of his broken blade,


s: Layed at Rogero's helmet with such might,


s: That him another stroke might have dismaid:


s: But good Rogero, who should win of right,


s: Seizing his arm, the king so rudely swayed,


s: Bringing his left his better hand to speed,


s: That he pulled down the paynim from his steed.


s: Through force or skill, so fell the Moorish lord,


s: He stood his match, I rather ought to say


s: Fell on his feet; because Rogero's sword


s: Gave him, 'twas deemed, advantage in the fray.


s: For the wise champion will not let a wight


s: So talk and bulky close with him in fight;


s: And other wounds; and hoped he would have failed


s: So that he finally should have prevailed.


s: His hilt and pommel in his fist yet held


s: The paynim, which with all his might he scaled


s: The stripling never was so stunned before.


s: In the helmet-cheek and shoulder-bone below


s: The Child was smit, and left so sore astound,


s: He, tripping still and staggering to and fro,


s: Scarce kept himself from falling to the ground.


s: But his foot fails him, weakened by the wound,


s: Which pierced his thigh: he overtasked his might;


s: And on his kneepan fell the paynim knight.


s: Rogero lost no time, and with fierce blows


s: Smote him in face and bosom with his brand;


s: Hammered, and held the Saracen so close,


s: To ground he bore that champion with his hand.


s: But he so stirred himself, again he rose:


s: He gripes Rogero so, fast locked they stand.


s: They circle one another, shake, and press.


s: His wounded thigh and gaping flank had sore


s: Weakened the vigour of the Moorish king:


s: Was greatly practised in the wrestlers' ring:


s: He marked his vantage, nor from strife forbore;


s: And, where he saw the blood most freely spring,


s: And where most wounded was the warrior, prest


s: The paynim with his feet, his arms, and breast.


s: Rodomont filled with spite and rage, his foe


s: Takes by the neck and shoulders, and now bends


s: Towards him, and now pushes from him; now


s: Raises from earth, and on his chest suspends;


s: Whirls here and there and grapples; and to throw


s: The stripling sorely in that strife contends.


s: To keep his vantage taxing strength and thought.


s: So shifting oft his hold, about the Moor


s: His arms the good and bold Rogero wound;


s: Against his left flank shoved his breast, and sore


s: Strained him with all his strength engirdled round.


s: Rodomont's knees and pushed, and from the ground


s: Then hurled him down head foremost on the sward.


s: Such was the shock wherewith King Rodomont


s: With battered head and spine the champion smote,


s: That, issuing from his wounds as from a font,


s: Streams of red blood the crimsoned herbage float.


s: Lest he should rise, with one hand griped his throat,


s: And with his knees the paynim's belly prest.


s: As sometimes where they work the golden vein


s: By impious avarice there condemned to slave,


s: So with the load they lie opprest, with pain


s: A passage can their prisoned spirit have:


s: Pinned to the ground in that disastrous fray.


s: His naked poniard's point, with threatening cry,


s: That he will slay him, save he yields, content


s: For the least deed of shame, preferred to die,


s: Writhed, struggled, and with all his vigour tried


s: To pull Rogero down, and nought replied.


s: As mastiff that below the deer-hound lies,


s: Fixed by the gullet fast, with holding bite,


s: Sorely bestirs himself and vainly tries,


s: With lips besmeared with foam and eyes alight,


s: And cannot from beneath the conqueror rise,


s: Who foils his foe by force, and not despite;


s: Yet Rodomont so twists and strives, he gains


s: And with the right hand, which his poniard strains,


s: Would wound Rogero underneath the reins:


s: Through which he might have died, by his delay


s: And smiting twice or thrice his horrid front,


s: Raising as high as he could raise in air


s: And freed himself withal from further care.


s: Loosed from the more than icy corse, to font


s: Of fetid Acheron, and hell's foul repair,


s: The indignant spirit fled, blaspheming loud;


s: Erewhile on earth so haughty and so proud.


s: placed in single quotes, or otherwise marked as needed.


s: Lines longer than 78 characters are broken and the continuation


s: With a Copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets on Leaving College


s: on the blood-stained but reconquered soil.  To his friends


s: but may add to the well-worn phrase its less familiar sequel:


s: Or knock the breast, no weakness, no contempt,


s: Dispraise, or blame,--nothing but well and fair,


s: And what may quiet us in a death so noble.


s: Of all the poets who have died young, none has died so happily.


s: Without suggesting any parity of stature, one cannot but think


s: of the group of English poets who, about a hundred years ago,


s: by a chance capful of wind from the hills of Carrara;


s: Byron, stung by a fever-gnat on the very threshold of his great


s: a good death to die; and two years of unflinching endurance


s: not only of his early death, but of his whole-hearted devotion


s: his ideal was crowned and consummated, for ever safe


s: from the withering touch of time, or accidental soilure.


s: If it had been given to Swinburne to fall, rifle in hand,


s: on, say, the field of Mentana, we should have been the poorer


s: by many splendid verses, but the richer by a heroic life-story.


s: If ever there was a being who said "Yea" to life, accepted it


s: have at least the value of a first-hand human document,


s: the sincere self-portraiture of a vivid and virile soul.


s: There are three more or less clearly-marked elements in a poet's


s: equipment--observation, passion, reflection, or in simpler terms,


s: when he called his pre-war poems "Juvenilia".  Great emotions,


s: and perhaps great sorrows, would have come to him in due time,


s: and would have deepened and enriched his vein of song.


s: The first great emotion which found him, when he rallied


s: The unfulfilment of his poetic hopes and dreams meant


s: Alan Seeger was born in New York on June 22nd, 1888.


s: His father and his mother belonged to old New England families.


s: When he was a year old his parents removed to Staten Island,


s: They could see the great steamships of all the nations


s: threading their way through the Narrows and passing in procession


s: the giant curves of Brooklyn Bridge, and, range over range,


s: In 1898 the family returned to New York, and there Alan continued


s: the rushing fire-engines which were an almost daily feature


s: Mexico represents to perfection the romance of Picturesqueness.


s: And then it is the scene of the most fascinating adventure


s: recorded in history--an exploit which puts to shame


s: the imagination of the greatest masters of romance.


s: It is true that the Mexico City of to-day shows scanty traces


s: (except in its Museum) of the Tenochtitlan of Montezuma;


s: For two very happy years, it was the home of the whole family.


s: The children had a tutor whom they respected and loved,


s: and he overstepped his department with contributions of poetry


s: In the chilly days of winter, frequent visits were paid


s: to crawl zigzagging up the almost precipitous ascent


s: that divides the 'tierra templada' from the 'tierra fria';


s: speak in this apostrophe from the "Ode to Antares":


s: Star of the South that now through orient mist


s: Greetest the sailor, rising from those seas


s: The tropic sunset's bloom on cloudy piles


s: Cast out industrious cares with dreams of fabulous isles. . . .


s: motives from the vast uplands with their cloud pageantry,


s: That frame some drowsy street and dazzling square,


s: Beyond whose flowers and palm-tree promenades


s: White belfries burn in the blue tropic air.


s: And even when the tropics were finally left behind,


s: he carried with him in his memory their profusion of colour,


s: in his most receptive years, to regions where they superabound.


s: Seemed all-sufficient, and my sojourn there


s: that the altitude of Mexico City was too great for him.


s: of his former tutor, in Southern California--again a region


s: famed for its beauty.  He returned much improved in health,


s: in his literary interests.  His work gives ample proof of real,


s: There followed two years (1910-12) in New York--probably the


s: least satisfactory years of his life.  The quest of beauty


s: is scarcely a profession, and it caused his parents some concern


s: to find him pausing irresolute on the threshold of manhood,


s: instead of setting himself a goal and bracing his energies


s: for its achievement.  In 1911 his mother and sister left Mexico,


s: that the life he craved for was not to be found in America,


s: there can be little doubt.  Had he settled down to literary work,


s: Paris has had many lovers, but few more devoted than Alan Seeger.


s: Baghdad or Samarcand, a city of the Arabian Nights.


s: With gilded gates and sunny spires ablaze,


s: And burnished domes half seen through luminous haze.


s: Fluttering with flags its proud pavilions rise:


s: What bright bazaars, what marvellous merchandise,


s: Down seething alleys what melodious din,


s: What clamor, importuning from every booth:


s: At Earth's great mart where Joy is trafficked in


s: Buy while thy purse yet swells with golden Youth!


s: Into this fair he sallied forth, not as one to the manner born,


s: is curiously ingenuous, but perfectly sane and straightforward.


s: It is the Paris of Murger in which he lives, not the Paris


s: of a great, absorbing experience.  All this means, of course,


s: Across the sweet fifth lustrum of my days.


s: Paris, however, did not absorb him entirely during these years.


s: Then came the fateful year 1914.  His "Juvenilia" having grown


s: We passed three days at Canterbury--three days of such intimacy


s: heard services in the Cathedral, and had long talks in the close.


s: As soon as it became evident that a European war was inevitable


s: not foreseeing the risks to which he was thus exposing them.


s: The war was not three weeks old when, along with forty or fifty


s: . . . when courted Death shall claim my limbs and find them


s: Laid in some desert place alone, or where the tides


s: Of war's tumultuous waves on the wet sands behind them


s: Leave rifts of gasping life when their red flood subsides.


s: I have been so excited over the war, it would have needed


s: "Why did you enlist?"  In every case the answer was the same.


s: and with honor--not all, but some.  The old order of things


s: By the hand that peopled the earth & air


s: Some sat & watched how the action veered --


s: But, yielding ourselves to the master hand,


s: We played it through as the author planned.


s: without any theoretic distaste for the soldier's calling.


s: behind the barracks, walking right into the rising sun.


s: play as big a part as love and tenderness, and cannot be shirked


s: The battalion must have left Toulouse almost immediately


s: after this was written, for in a post-card of October 10,


s: -- two weeks of beautiful autumn weather on the whole,


s: but hardened me, and I am in excellent health and spirits. . . .


s: In a post-card of October 20, postmarked "Vertus", he says:


s: On October 23, he writes from "17 kil. south-east of Reims".


s: Dear Mother. . . .  I am sitting on the curbstone of a street


s: So glad to get your letter.  Love and lots of it to all.


s: from which a few extracts must suffice.  He writes on December 8,


s: We left our camp in the woods before daybreak this morning,


s: There is something fascinating if one is stationed on sentry-duty


s: come gradually forth.  The light splash in the foreground


s: becomes a ruined chateau, the grey street a demolished village.


s: With increasing daylight the sentinel takes a sheltered position,


s: For the artilleryman it is "doubtless very interesting"


s: but "the poor common soldier" has a pretty mean time of it:


s: His rule is simply to dig himself a hole in the ground


s: How different from the popular notion of the evening campfire,


s: is a matter that occupies more of the young soldier's thoughts


s: than the invisible enemy.  Our corporal told us the other day


s: Ever over our heads goes on the precise and scientific struggle


s: of all calibres and at all distances.  We learn to read the score


s: far away are siege guns.  Over all there is the unmistakable,


s: sharp, metallic twang of the French 75, the whistle of its shell


s: a grand orchestral concert of this music of human madness!


s: "brings moments of exaltation, if the cloud-banks roll back,


s: above which the Great Bear wheels upward to the zenith, he feels,


s: was all to the northward.  One gathers from his poem "The Aisne"


s: On March 12, 1915, he writes to his mother in fierce indignation


s: over something that has appeared in an American paper as to life


s: If his lies did nothing worse than belittle his comrades,


s: who are here for motives that he is unable to conceive,


s: has been generous beyond anything that one would think possible,


s: it is too shameful for any words to characterize."


s: We put in a very pleasant week here--nine hours of guard at night


s: not to stay in front of the glassless windows through which


s: throw up fountains of dirt and debris all along the line


s: During the summer, the Legion was moved about a good deal


s: On June 18, 1915, he wrote to his mother:


s: Death is nothing terrible after all.  It may mean something


s: The same note recurs in a letter of two weeks later (July 3):


s: and I am ready to see it through to the end.  Success in life


s: means doing that thing than which nothing else conceivable


s: nowhere else in the world than where I am.


s: In this letter he says that an article about Rupert Brooke


s: These rumors proved to be well founded, and on July 17,


s: he wrote on a picture-postcard representing the Lion of Belfort:


s: Three weeks later (August 8) he wrote to his mother:


s: for anything that I am ready to suffer in their cause.


s: The spell of rest lasted some two months, and then the Legion


s: returned to the front in time for the battle in Champagne


s: "in which" he writes "we took part from the beginning,


s: the morning of the memorable 25th. September."  I cannot resist


s: quoting at some length from the admirably vivid letter


s: in which he gave an account of this experience:


s: The part we played in the battle is briefly as follows.


s: the open space between the lines, over the barbed wire,


s: where not so many of our men were lying as I had feared,


s: terror-stricken, held up their hands, begged for their lives,


s: cried "Kamerad", "Bon Francais", even "Vive la France".


s: and the artillery, leaving the emplacements where they had been


s: anchored a whole year, came across and took position in the open,


s: I often envied him after that.  For now our advanced troops


s: were in contact with the German second-line defenses,


s: and these proved to be of a character so formidable


s: to which we were entirely exposed, regulated the fire.


s: That night we spent in the rain.  With portable picks and shovels


s: our concentrated artillery again began the bombardment,


s: It was a young soldier, wounded in the hand.  His face and voice


s: bespoke the emotion of the experience he had been through,


s: in a way that I will never forget.  "Ah, les salauds!" he cried,


s: "Not at all in front of us."  I congratulated him on having


s: a 'blessure heureuse' and being well out of the affair.


s: He then tells how, in spite of substantial gains, it gradually


s: who was his comrade and best friend in the regiment.


s: A piece of difficult trench work was allotted to the men,


s: to be finished in one night.  "Each was given the limit,


s: that he was supposed to be able to complete in the time.


s: It happened that Rif Baer was ill, and, after working a while,


s: his eyes glowed with happiness, and he said he had never done


s: anything in his life that gave him such entire satisfaction."


s: turned into suppliance.  We knew many splendid moments,


s: worth having endured many trials for.  But in our larger aim,


s: of piercing their line, of breaking the long deadlock,


s: Never was anything more magnificent.  I remember a captain,


s: badly wounded in the leg, as he passed us, borne back on a litter


s: It is inconceivable that a Frenchman, forced to yield,


s: But the Frenchman who goes up is possessed with a passion


s: I am 'navre' to think of your having suffered so.


s: I should have arranged to cable after the attack, had I known


s: that any such absurd rumours had been started.  Here one has


s: a wholesome notion of the unimportance of the individual.


s: It needs an effort of imagination to conceive of its making


s: As a youth he had never been robust; but the soldier's life


s: of "Juvenilia".  On April 13th he wrote to his mother:


s: I shall go back to the front on the first of May without regrets.


s: On May 13th he wrote to his "marraine", Mrs. Weeks:  "The chateau


s: old seventeenth-century manor, surrounded by a lordly estate.


s: What is that exquisite stanza in 'Maud' about 'in the evening


s: through the lilacs (or laurels) of the old manorial home'?*


s: and made a patrol all by myself through the wood paths and trails


s: planted in the ground, and a scrap of paper stuck in the top,


s: was nothing else than a bit of the 'Berliner Tageblatt'.


s: in the information.  Yesterday afternoon I repeated this exploit,


s: to the German barbed wire, where I left a card with my name.


s: It was very thrilling work, "courting destruction with taunts,


s: with invitations" as Whitman would say.  I have never been


s: in a sector like this, where patrols could be made in daylight.


s: I and a few others are going to try to get permission


s: In our present existence it is the only way I can think of


s: to get the Croix de Guerre.  And to be worthy of my marraine


s: I think that I ought to have the Croix de Guerre.


s: He had hoped to have been in Paris on Decoration Day, May 30th,


s: to read, before the statue of Lafayette and Washington,


s: which was "without exception the hardest he had ever made" --


s: "20 kilometers through the blazing sun and in a cloud of dust.


s: In that case nothing doing in the way of permission.


s: of Belloy-en-Santerre.  Alan Seeger advanced in the first rush,


s: were more fortunate.  As his comrades came up to him,


s: Alan cheered them on; and as they left him behind,


s: they heard him singing a marching-song in English: --


s: Accents of ours were in the fierce melee.


s: They took the village, they drove the invaders out;


s: but for some reason unknown--perhaps a very good one --


s: the battlefield was left unvisited that night.  Next morning,


s: And on those furthest rims of hallowed ground


s: Where the forlorn, the gallant charge expires,


s: When the slain bugler has long ceased to sound,


s: The last wild rally staggers, crumbles, stops,


s: Withered beneath the shrapnel's iron showers: --


s: Now heaven be thanked, we gave a few brave drops,


s: Now heaven be thanked, a few brave drops were ours.


s: His death was briefly noticed in one or two French papers.


s: But France had no time, even if she had had the knowledge,


s: Came back the generous path of Lafayette,


s: on which he had written "These are worthless."


s: Again and again in the "Last Poems"--notably in "Maktoob"


s: he returns to the note of fatalism.  Here he has not only


s: the wisdom of the East but the logic of the West on his side.


s: no generous choice, but was the conscript of Destiny.


s: There is a power whose inspiration fills


s: Nature's fair fabric, sun- and star-inwrought,


s: Like perfume in the laden flower, like aught


s: Unseen which interfused throughout the whole


s: Becomes its quickening pulse and principle and soul.


s: Now when, the drift of old desire renewing,


s: Warm tides flow northward over valley and field,


s: When half-forgotten sound and scent are wooing


s: From their deep-chambered recesses long sealed


s: Of childhood and the happy hues it wore,


s: In years gone by, it stirs me to respond, --


s: Not as a force whose fountains are within


s: Subject with them to darkness and decay,


s: But something absolute, something beyond,


s: Oft met like tender orbs that seem to peer


s: Some fringe of tinted cloud at close of day;


s: Deep in those cares that make Youth loveliest,


s: To comment on the burden in his breast --


s: The joys he covets and the dreams he dreams --


s: One then with all beneath the radiant skies


s: It courses through the lilac-scented air,


s: A blessing on the fields, a wonder everywhere.


s: Flung like the rose of dawn across the sea,


s: Alone can flush the exalted consciousness


s: Light of the World, essential loveliness:


s: Not from her paths and gentle precepture


s: Shall vulgar ends engage, nor break the spell


s: That taught him first to feel thy secret charms


s: And o'er the earth, obedient to their lure,


s: Their sweet surprise and endless miracle,


s: When from the blue horizon to the shore,


s: Casting faint silver pathways like the moon's


s: Across the Ocean's glassy, mottled floor,


s: Far clouds uprear their gleaming battlements


s: Drawn to the crest of some bleak eminence,


s: When autumn twilight fades on the sere hill


s: To watch the East for some emerging sign,


s: Or that great huntsman with the golden gear;


s: To feel the invoked presence hovering near,


s: Spent on the roads of wandering solitude


s: Have set their sober impress on his brow,


s: And torrent and the tread of mountain showers,


s: That holds him, till thy last delight be known,


s: Bound in thy service and in thine alone.


s: Who choose to follow where thy pathway leads,


s: And donned the simple, lowly pilgrim's weeds.


s: Deep-bowered in umbrage of ancestral trees,


s: Where earliest thy sweet enchantment falls,


s: Of heavens just lost the lingering evidence


s: From that first dawn of roseate infancy,


s: My breast has thrilled.  As oft for one brief second


s: The veil through which those infinite offers beckoned


s: Of vistas past the sense of mortal seeing,


s: So oft, as one whose stricken eyes might see


s: I stood, like him, possessed, and all my being,


s: Quivered with cosmic passion; whether then


s: On woody pass or glistening mountain-height


s: I walked in fellowship with winds and clouds,


s: Whether in cities and the throngs of men,


s: A curious saunterer through friendly crowds,


s: Has shed on earthly things the hue of things divine


s: I sought eternal Loveliness, and seeking,


s: If ever transport crossed my brow bespeaking


s: Such fire as a prophetic heart might feel


s: Where simple worship blends in fervent zeal,


s: Surpassed the vision poets have held dear


s: By such a sentiment evoked.  The thought,


s: Bright Spirit, whose illuminings I sought,


s: Importing something more than unsubstantial dreams


s: To vigils by lone shores and walks by murmuring streams.


s: Youth's flowers like childhood's fade and are forgot.


s: That thou art steadfast where all else deceives!


s: When least it waits and most hath need of thee,


s: With grandeur welled from unsuspected springs, --


s: When from warm showers the pearly shades disband


s: Shows thy veiled immanence in orient skies, --


s: Hung on far isle or vanishing mountain-crest,


s: Fields of remote enchantment can suggest


s: So sweet to wander in it matters nought,


s: They hold no place but in impassioned thought,


s: Long as one draught from a clear sky may be


s: Be thou my worship, thou my sole desire,


s: Thy paths my pilgrimage, my sense a lyre


s: To see the birth of day's transparent moon


s: Far from cramped walls may fading afternoon


s: Me, from sweet slumber underneath green boughs,


s: Ere the stars flee may forest matins rouse,


s: Afoot when the great sun in amber floods


s: Pours horizontal through the steaming woods


s: And windless fumes from early chimneys start


s: And many a cock-crow cheers the traveller's heart


s: In hills untopped and valleys unexplored.


s: Give me the white road into the world's ends,


s: Lover of roadside hazard, roadside friends,


s: On ample prospects, lost in glimmering haze


s: At noon, or where down odorous dales twilit,


s: Filled with low thundering of the mountain stream,


s: Over the plain where blue seas border it


s: I have fared too far to turn back now; my breast


s: Burns with the lust for splendors unrevealed,


s: Stars of midsummer, clouds out of the west,


s: Pallid horizons, winds that valley and field


s: What though distress and poverty assail!


s: Though other voices chide, yours never will.


s: Powers that my childhood with a spell so sweet,


s: My youth with visions of such glory nursed,


s: On any venture set, but 'twas the thirst


s: For Beauty willed them, yea, whatever be


s: The faults I wanted wings to rise above;


s: I am cheered yet to think how steadfastly


s: Where from a sunny, mountain-girdled plain


s: With tinted walls a space on either hand


s: The high-road mounts, and thence a silver band


s: Through vineyard slopes above and rolling grain,


s: Winds off to that dim corner of the skies


s: Where behind sunset hills a stately city lies.


s: Here, among trees whose overhanging shade


s: Strews petals on the little droves below,


s: Pattering townward in the morning weighed


s: With greens from many an upland garden-row,


s: Runs an old wall; long centuries have frayed


s: Its scalloped edge, and passers to and fro


s: Heard never from beyond its crumbling height


s: Sweet laughter ring at noon or plaintive song at night.


s: But here where little lizards bask and blink


s: The tendrils of the trumpet-vine have run,


s: At whose red bells the humming bird to drink


s: Stops oft before his garden feast is done;


s: And rose-geraniums, with that tender pink


s: That cloud-banks borrow from the setting sun,


s: Have covered part of this old wall, entwined


s: With fair plumbago, blue as evening heavens behind.


s: And crowning other parts the wild white rose


s: And all within beneath the dense-set trees,


s: Tall and luxuriant the rank grass grows,


s: Grass melt in leaves, the mossy trunks between,


s: Down fading avenues of implicated green;


s: Wherein no lack of flowers the verdurous night


s: Shine through the green and clustering apple-spray,


s: Such as the fairy-queen before her knight


s: Where round lost isles Hesperian billows break


s: Or towers loom up beneath the clear, translucent lake;


s: And under the deep grass blue hare-bells hide,


s: And myrtle plots with dew-fall ever wet,


s: Now blossom through the brake on either side,


s: With vines in bloom and flower-bearing trees,


s: Mingle their incense all to swell the perfumed breeze,


s: That sprung like Hermes from his natal cave


s: In some blue rampart of the curving West,


s: Comes up the valleys where green cornfields wave,


s: Ravels the cloud about the mountain crest,


s: Breathes on the lake till gentle ripples pave


s: Its placid floor; at length a long-loved guest,


s: He steals across this plot of pleasant ground,


s: Waking the vocal leaves to a sweet vernal sound.


s: Here many a day right gladly have I sped,


s: Watch the white, ever-wandering clouds go by,


s: And soaring birds make their dissolving bed


s: Or nearer that small huntsman of the air,


s: The fly-catcher, dart nimbly from his leafy lair;


s: And shrill cicadas whom the hottest noon


s: Keeps not from drowsy song; the mourning dove


s: Pours down the murmuring grove his plaintive croon


s: Oft have I risen to seek through this green maze


s: (Even as my feet thread now the great world's garden-ways);


s: Perhaps by some deep-shaded pool at last


s: My feet would pause, where goldfish poise and swim,


s: And snowy callas' velvet cups are massed


s: Here, then, that magic summoning would cease,


s: Or sound far off again among the orchard trees.


s: And here where the blanched lilies of the vale


s: And violets and yellow star-flowers teem,


s: Their heavy fume, once more to drowse and dream


s: My head would sink, from many an olden tale


s: Only with fair creations of fantastic thought.


s: For oft I think, in years long since gone by,


s: That gentle hearts dwelt here and gentle hands


s: Stored all this bowery bliss to beautify


s: Here, safe from all except the loved one's eye,


s: 'Tis sweet to think white limbs were wont to glance,


s: Well pleased to wanton like the flowers and share


s: Their simple loveliness with the enamored air.


s: Thrice dear to them whose votive fingers decked


s: The altars of First Love were these green ways, --


s: These lawns and verdurous brakes forever flecked


s: With the warm sunshine of midsummer days;


s: Oft where the long straight allies intersect


s: And marble seats surround the open space,


s: Where a tiled pool and sculptured fountain stand,


s: Hath Evening found them seated, silent, hand in hand.


s: When twilight deepened, in the gathering shade


s: Whose sombre vault and towering colonnade


s: Dwarfed the enfolded forms that moved below,


s: Oft with close steps these happy lovers strayed,


s: Till down its darkening aisle the sunset glow


s: Grew less and patterning the garden floor


s: Faint flakes of filtering moonlight mantled more and more.


s: And the strange tempest that a touch imparts


s: Through the mid fibre of the molten frame,


s: When the sweet flesh in early youth asserts


s: Its heyday verve and little hints enflame,


s: Disturbed them as they walked; from their full hearts


s: Welled the soft word, and many a tender name


s: Strove on their lips as breast to breast they strained


s: And the deep joy they drank seemed never, never drained.


s: Love's soul that is the depth of starry skies


s: Set in the splendor of one upturned face


s: To beam adorably through half-closed eyes;


s: Love's body where the breadth of summer days


s: And all the beauty earth and air comprise


s: Come to the compass of an arm's embrace,


s: And yield intemperate joy to quivering finger-tips,


s: They knew; and here where morning-glories cling


s: Round carven forms of carefullest artifice,


s: They made a bower where every outward thing


s: Should comment on the cause of their own bliss;


s: With flowers of liveliest hue encompassing


s: That rose that for the banquet of Love's bee


s: Has budded all the aeons of past eternity.


s: But their choice seat was where the garden wall,


s: From rustling foliage where cuckoos call


s: With flowering vines and weatherworn by rain and sun.


s: Still round the turrets of this antique tower


s: The bougainvillea hangs a crimson crown,


s: Wreathing the lower surface further down,


s: Of motley blossoms like a broidered gown.


s: Outside, ascending from the garden grove,


s: A crumbling stairway winds to the one room above.


s: And whoso mounts by this dismantled stair


s: Finds the old pleasure-hall, long disarrayed,


s: Brick-tiled and raftered, and the walls foursquare


s: Backward dense branches intercept the glare


s: Eastward the level valley-plains expand,


s: Sweet as a queen's survey of her own Fairyland.


s: For through that frame the ivied arches make,


s: Wide tracts of sunny midland charm the eye,


s: Frequent with hamlet, grove, and lucent lake


s: Where the blue hills' inverted contours lie;


s: Far to the east where billowy mountains break


s: Huge thunderheads loom up behind the ranges,


s: Changing from gold to pink as deepening sunset changes;


s: Like lotus-leaves on bluest waters strewn,


s: Flushing with rose, while all breathes fresh and free


s: In peace and amplitude and bland tranquillity.


s: Dear were such evenings to this gentle pair;


s: Love's tide that launched on with a blast too strong


s: Sweeps toward the foaming reef, the hidden snare,


s: Baffling with fond illusion's siren-song,


s: Too faint, on idle shoals, to linger there


s: Far from Youth's glowing dream, bore them along,


s: With purple sail and steered by seraph hands


s: To isles resplendent in the sunset of romance.


s: And out of this old house a flowery fane,


s: They built, and furnished it with gold and grain,


s: And bade all spirits of beauty hither come,


s: And bless their pillow, and in this his home


s: Make them his priests as Hero was of yore


s: In her sweet girlhood by the blue Dardanian shore.


s: Tree-ferns, therefore, and potted palms they brought,


s: Tripods and urns in rare and curious taste,


s: Polychrome chests and cabinets inwrought


s: With pearl and ivory etched and interlaced;


s: Pendant brocades with massive braid were caught,


s: And chain-slung, oriental lamps so placed


s: Sunken in swelling down and silks from Hindustan.


s: And there was spread, upon the ample floors,


s: Carpets the dim seraglio's scented gloom.


s: Each morn renewed, the garden's flowery stores


s: Blushed in fair vases, ochre and peach-bloom,


s: And little birds through wicker doors left wide


s: Flew in to trill a space from the green world outside.


s: Bronze and eburnean.  All but disarrayed,


s: Here in eternal doubt sweet Psyche stood


s: Fain of the bath's delight, yet still afraid


s: Lurked of most menace to a helpless maid.


s: Nor yet the last loose fold slips rippling from her hands.


s: In the fresh flower of adolescent grace,


s: They set the dear Bithynian shepherd lad,


s: Shows but one aspect, moon-like, to our gaze,


s: Yet Fancy pictures how those lips could smile


s: At revelries in Rome, and banquets on the Nile.


s: And there were shapes of Beauty myriads more,


s: Clustering their rosy bridal bed around,


s: Whose scented breadth a silken fabric wore


s: Broidered with peacock hues on creamiest ground,


s: Fit to have graced the barge that Cydnus bore


s: While pillows swelled in stuffs of Orient dyes,


s: All broidered with strange fruits and birds of Paradise.


s: 'Twas such a bower as Youth has visions of,


s: Lie upon rose-leaves, sleep and wake with Love


s: And feast on kisses to the heart's desire;


s: Wide to the wood-winds and the sweet birds' choir,


s: A girl might stand and gaze into green boughs,


s: Like Credhe at the window of her golden house.


s: Or most like Vivien, the enchanting fay,


s: Where with her friend, in the strange tower they planned,


s: Sometimes at twilight when the woods are gray


s: And wolf-packs howl far out across the lande,


s: Waking to love, while up behind the trees


s: The large midsummer moon lifts--even so loved these.


s: For here, their pleasure was to come and sit


s: Oft when the sun sloped midway to the west,


s: The long light slant across the green earth's breast,


s: Topple and break and fall in purple rain,


s: And mist of summer showers trail out across the plain.


s: Whereon the shafts of ardent light, far-flung


s: Ofttimes in arcs of transient beauty hung


s: The fragmentary rainbow's green and red.


s: Joy it was here to love and to be young,


s: To watch the sun sink to his western bed,


s: And streaming back out of their flaming core


s: The vesperal aurora's glorious banners soar.


s: Tinging each altitude of heaven in turn,


s: Those fiery rays would sweep.  The cumuli


s: That peeped above the mountain-tops would burn


s: Carmine a space; the cirrus-whorls on high,


s: More delicate than sprays of maiden fern,


s: Streak with pale rose the peacock-breasted sky,


s: Then blanch.  As water-lilies fold at night,


s: Sank back into themselves those plumes of fervid light.


s: And they would watch the first faint stars appear,


s: The blue East blend with the blue hills below,


s: As lovers when their shuddering bliss draws near


s: New fragrance on the freshening atmosphere


s: Would steal with evening, and the sunset glow


s: Round vales of Proserpine and islands of the blest.


s: So dusk would come and mingle lake and shore,


s: To pearl the domed clouds the mountains bore,


s: Where late the sun's effulgent fire had been --


s: Showing as darkness deepened more and more


s: The incandescent lightnings flare within,


s: And Night that furls the lily in the glen


s: And twines impatient arms would fall, and then--and then . . .


s: Sometimes the peasant, coming late from town


s: Past the old lookout when the Northern Crown


s: Glittered with Cygnus through the scented grove,


s: Would hear soft noise of lute-strings wafted down


s: And voices singing through the leaves above


s: Those songs that well from the warm heart that woos


s: And he would pause under the garden wall,


s: Caught in the spell of that voluptuous strain,


s: With all the sultry South in it, and all


s: And he would wait till the last passionate fall


s: Died on the night, and all was still again, --


s: Marvelling whence that flood of elfin song might come.


s: O lyre that Love's white holy hands caress,


s: Youth, from thy bosom welled their passionate lays --


s: All earth in smiling ministration pays --


s: Thine was the source whose plenitude, past over,


s: What prize shall rest to pluck, what secret to discover!


s: The wake of color that follows her when May


s: Walks on the hills loose-haired and daisy-crowned,


s: Fair cities, and the pleasures that abound


s: Where music calls, and crowds in bright array


s: Gather by night to find and to be found;


s: What were these worth or all delightful things


s: Without thine eyes to read their true interpretings!


s: For thee the mountains open glorious gates,


s: To thee white arms put out from orient skies,


s: Decks but to be delicious in thine eyes,


s: Thou guest of honor for one day, whose fetes


s: Ah, grace them well in the brief hour they last!


s: Another's turn prepares, another follows fast.


s: Let my sun set who found the world so fair!


s: Frail verse, when Time the singer's coronal


s: Has rent, and stripped the rose-leaves from his hair,


s: The miracles of dawn and starry evening fell!


s: Speak of one then who had the lust to feel,


s: And, from the hues that far horizons take,


s: And cloud and sunset, drank the wild appeal,


s: Too deep to live for aught but life's sweet sake,


s: Where Beauty's purest benediction spake,


s: And sunshine and green Earth and tender arms could yield --


s: A nympholept, through pleasant days and drear


s: In mist and rainbows on the world's extreme,


s: The mouth of Life's fair flower-bordered stream,


s: Clutched at Love's single respite in his need


s: More than the drowning swimmer clutches at a reed --


s: That coming one whose feet in other days


s: Shall bleed like mine for ever having, more


s: Than any purpose, felt the need to praise


s: In love with Love, its wonderful, sweet ways


s: Counting what most makes life worth living for,


s: How I loved these things too and they were dear to me.


s: Mantles through all the rose's sentient vine


s: Of bloom its clambering height incarnadine;


s: I sometimes think that cleaving lips, no less,


s: And limbs that crowned desires at length entwine


s: Are nerves through which that being drinks delight,


s: Whose frame is the green Earth robed round with day and night.


s: And such were theirs:  the traveller without,


s: Pausing at night under the orchard trees,


s: Wondered and crossed himself in holy doubt,


s: For through their song and in the murmuring breeze


s: As though, responsive to the chords they woke,


s: All Nature into sweet epithalamium broke.


s: And still they think a spirit haunts the place:


s: And through the branches twinkling fireflies trace


s: That one should see the moon rise through the lace


s: Of blossomy boughs above the garden wall,


s: That surely would he take great ill thereof


s: And famish in a fit of unexpressive love.


s: But this I know not, for what time the wain


s: Was loosened and the lily's petal furled,


s: Then I would rise, climb the old wall again,


s: And pausing look forth on the sundown world,


s: Scan the wide reaches of the wondrous plain,


s: The hamlet sites where settling smoke lay curled,


s: Fair snowpeaks colored with the sun's last ray.


s: Waves of faint sound would pulsate from afar --


s: Faint song and preludes of the summer night;


s: Deep in the cloudless west the evening star


s: Hung 'twixt the orange and the emerald light;


s: From the dark vale where shades crepuscular


s: Dimmed the old grove-girt belfry glimmering white,


s: Throbbing, as gentlest breezes rose or fell,


s: Came the sweet invocation of the evening bell.


s: Their strength had fed on this when Death's white arms


s: Curling across the jungle's ferny floor,


s: Becking each fevered brain.  On bleak divides,


s: That twinged blue lips into a mouthed curse,


s: Not back to Seville and its sunny plains


s: Winged their brief-biding dreams, but once again,


s: They guarded Montezuma's treasure-hoard.


s: Gold, like some finny harvest of the sea,


s: Poured out knee deep around the rifted floors,


s: Shiny and sparkling,--arms and crowns and rings:


s: Gold, sweet to toy with as beloved hair, --


s: To plunge the lustful, crawling fingers down,


s: Arms elbow deep, and draw them out again,


s: And watch the glinting metal trickle off,


s: Even as at night some fisherman, home bound


s: Dips in his paddle, lifts it forth again,


s: And laughs to see the luminous white drops


s: Fall back in flakes of fire. . . .  Gold was the dream


s: That cheered that desperate enterprise.  And now? . . .


s: There many corpses, rotting in the wind,


s: Poked up stiff limbs, but in the leprous rags


s: Gleamed, as the prying halberds raked them o'er.


s: Pillage that ran red-handed through the streets


s: Came railing home at evening empty-palmed;


s: And they, on that sad night a twelvemonth gone,


s: Who, ounce by ounce, dear as their own life's blood


s: Retreating, cast the cumbrous load away:


s: They, when brown foemen lopped the bridges down,


s: Who tipped thonged chests into the stream below


s: And over wealth that might have ransomed kings


s: Passed on to safety;--cheated, guerdonless --


s: Found (through their fingers the bright booty slipped)


s: Purged of damp air, where in unbroken night


s: Black scorpions nested in the sooty beams,


s: Helpless and manacled they led him down --


s: Cuauhtemotzin--and other lords beside --


s: All chieftains of the people, heroes all --


s: And stripped their feathered robes and bound them there


s: On short stone settles sloping to the head,


s: But where the feet projected, underneath


s: Heaped the red coals.  Their swarthy fronts illumed,


s: The bearded Spaniards, helmed and haubergeoned,


s: Paced up and down beneath the lurid vault.


s: Some kneeling fanned the glowing braziers; some


s: Stood at the sufferers' heads and all the while


s: Hissed in their ears:  "The gold . . . the gold . . . the gold.


s: Where have ye hidden it--the chested gold?


s: Past those proud lips whose key their sovereign claimed


s: Only it chanced that bound beside the king


s: Lay one whom Nature, more than other men


s: To teach that fortitude that warriors feel


s: And glory in the proof.  He answered not,


s: Convulsed in every limb, and all his face


s: Turned on his lord a look of wild appeal,


s: For leave--for leave to utter it--one sign --


s: One word--one little word--to ease his pain.


s: Propped on an elbow, garlanded with flowers,


s: Saw lust and greed and boisterous revelry


s: Surge round him on the tides of wine, but he,


s: Staunch in the ethic of an antique school --


s: With steady eyes surveyed the unbridled scene,


s: Himself impassive, silent, self-contained:


s: So sat the Indian prince, with brow unblanched,


s: He who had seen his hopes made desolate,


s: His realm despoiled, his early crown deprived him,


s: And watched while Pestilence and Famine piled


s: His stricken people in their reeking doors,


s: Whence glassy eyes looked out and lean brown arms


s: Stretched up to greet him in one last farewell


s: As back and forth he paced along the streets


s: With words of hopeless comfort--what was this


s: That one should weaken now?  He weakened not.


s: Whate'er was in his heart, he neither dealt


s: In pity nor in scorn, but, turning round,


s: Met that racked visage with his own unmoved,


s: Bent on the sufferer his mild calm eyes,


s: And while the pangs smote sharper, in a voice,


s: As who would speak not all in gentleness


s: Nor all disdain, said:  "Yes!  And am -I- then


s: Shame bitterer than his anguish--to betray


s: And merit such rebuke, the boy grew calm;


s: And stilled his struggling limbs and moaning cries,


s: And shook away his tears, and strove to smile,


s: And turned his face against the wall--and died.


s: There was a boy--not above childish fears --


s: With steps that faltered now and straining ears,


s: Who one bright dawn, when each remotest hill


s: Stood sharp and clear in Heaven's unclouded blue


s: And all Earth shimmered with fresh-beaded dew,


s: Risen in the first beams of the gladdening sun,


s: Walked up into the mountains.  One by one


s: Each towering trunk beneath his sturdy stride


s: The boundless prospect opened.  Long he strayed,


s: From dawn till the last trace of slanting shade


s: Had vanished from the canyons, and, dismayed


s: At that far length to which his path had led,


s: He paused--at such a height where overhead


s: The clouds hung close, the air came thin and chill,


s: And all was hushed and calm and very still,


s: Save, from abysmal gorges, where the sound


s: The pines, by those keen upper currents blown,


s: Here, with the wind in lovely locks laid bare,


s: With arms oft raised in dedicative prayer,


s: Lost in mute rapture and adoring wonder,


s: He stood, till the far noise of noontide thunder,


s: Of wind and waterfall and whispering trees,


s: Made loneliness more lone.  Some Panic fear


s: Would seize him then, as they who seemed to hear


s: The god's hallooing wake the leafy solitudes;


s: I think it was the same:  some piercing sense


s: The Life that visible Nature doth indwell


s: Grown great and near and all but palpable . . .


s: He might not linger, but with winged strides


s: Like one pursued, fled down the mountain-sides --


s: Down the long ridge that edged the steep ravine,


s: By glade and flowery lawn and upland green,


s: But where the grassy foothills opened.  Then,


s: While shadows lengthened on the plain below


s: And the sun vanished and the sunset-glow


s: Looked back upon the world with fervid eye


s: Through the barred windows of the western sky,


s: Homeward he fared, while many a look behind


s: Showed the receding ranges dim-outlined,


s: Highland and hollow where his path had lain,


s: Veiled in deep purple of the mountain rain.


s: To see the clouds his spirit yearned toward so


s: Over new mountains piled and unploughed waves,


s: Back of old-storied spires and architraves


s: And roused by street-cries in strange tongues when day


s: Flooded with gold some domed metropolis,


s: Between new towers to waken and new bliss


s: These were his joys.  Oft under bulging crates,


s: To greet the sunrise at the city-gates, --


s: There where the meadows waken in its rays,


s: Golden with mist, and the great roads commence,


s: And backward, where the chimney-tops are dense,


s: Cathedral-arches glimmer through the haze.


s: White dunes that breaking show a strip of sea,


s: A plowman and his team against the blue,


s: Swiss pastures musical with cowbells, too,


s: And coast-towns where the vultures back and forth


s: Sail in the clear depths of the tropic sky,


s: And swallows in the sunset where they fly


s: And the wine-cellar and the chorus there,


s: The dance-hall and a face among the crowd, --


s: Were all delights that made him sing aloud


s: Back of his footsteps as he journeyed fell


s: Range after range; ahead blue hills emerged.


s: Before him tireless to applaud it surged


s: Shone the past joys his memory retraced,


s: And bright as the blue east he always faced


s: Beckoned the loves and joys that were to be.


s: From every branch a blossom for his brow


s: He gathered, singing down Life's flower-lined road,


s: And youth impelled his spirit as he strode


s: Like winged Victory on the galley's prow.


s: That Loveliness whose being sun and star,


s: Green Earth and dawn and amber evening robe,


s: That veiled divinity whose beams transpire


s: As the fair soul illumes the lovely face --


s: That was his guest, his passion, his desire.


s: His heart the love of Beauty held as hides


s: One gem most pure a casket of pure gold.


s: It was not large enough for aught besides.


s: The need to love that all the stars obey


s: Entered my heart and banished all beside.


s: Bare were the gardens where I used to stray;


s: Faded the flowers that one time satisfied.


s: The moonlit hills from cloister-casements viewed,


s: And cast out peace and maddened solitude.


s: I sought the City and the hopes it held:


s: With smoke and brooding vapors intercurled,


s: As the thick roofs and walls close-paralleled


s: Shut out the fair horizons of the world --


s: A truant from the fields and rustic joy,


s: In my changed thought that image even so


s: And all the pure delights I used to know.


s: Often the veil has trembled at some tide


s: Sweet lips that sacrifice and arms that yield:


s: Clouds, window-framed, beyond the huddled eaves


s: When summer cumulates their golden chains,


s: Or from the parks the smell of burning leaves,


s: Fragrant of childhood in the country lanes,


s: Where our kites climbed once from some grassy hill:


s: And my soul once more would be wrapped entire


s: In the pure peace and blessing of those years


s: Had ravaged all the flesh.  Through starting tears


s: Shone that lost Paradise; but, if it did,


s: Again ere long the prison-shades would fall


s: That Youth condemns itself to walk amid,


s: And I have followed Fame with less devotion,


s: Rise from the foam of Nature's sunlit ocean


s: And aught the world contends for to mine eye


s: Over the radiant ridges borne out on the offshore wind,


s: I have sailed as a butterfly sails whose priming wings unfurled


s: Leave the familiar gardens and visited fields behind


s: Evening of ample horizons, opaline, delicate, pure,


s: Forests whose murmuring voices are amorous prophecies,


s: World of romance and profusion, still round my journey spread


s: I never could rest from roving nor put from my heart this need


s: Over the azure expanses, on the offshore breezes borne,


s: Like the full moon out of a perfumed sea


s: Thine image from the waves of blissful sound


s: And in the country, leaf and flower and air


s: Would alter and the eternal shape emerge;


s: Because they spoke of thee the fields seemed fair,


s: The little cloud-gaps in the east that filled


s: Gray afternoons with bits of tenderest blue


s: That thy voluptuous traits came glimmering through.


s: For which men toil within its prison-bars,


s: I watched thy white feet moving in the mire


s: And thy white forehead hid among the stars.


s: Sensual with laughing lips and thrown-back head,


s: Draped in the rainbow on the summer hills,


s: Hidden in sea-mist down the hot coast-line,


s: Couched on the clouds that fiery sunset fills,


s: The gold all color and grace are folded o'er,


s: The warmth all beauty and tenderness embower, --


s: Thou quiverest at Nature's perfumed core,


s: The world's desire, as stars around their pole.


s: Round thee all earthly loveliness beside


s: In rubric written on its golden ground --


s: That Nature paints her flowers and foliage


s: Thou art the rose that the world's smiles and tears


s: Thou art the theme the music of the spheres


s: Faced by Love's congregated worshippers,


s: Thou art the secret in the crystal where,


s: For the last light upon the mystery Man,


s: And soft and warm as in the magic sphere,


s: So in my heart thine image would appear,


s: Curled round with the red flames of my desire.


s: All that's not love is the dearth of my days,


s: The leaves of the volume with rubric unwrit,


s: The temple in times without prayer, without praise,


s: The courts of Life's abbey in ivied decay,


s: Whence sometime sweet anthems and incense arose.


s: The delicate hues of its sevenfold rings


s: The rainbow outlives not; their yellow and blue


s: The butterfly sees not dissolve from his wings,


s: But even with their beauty life fades from them too.


s: No more would I linger past Love's ardent bounds


s: Nor live for aught else but the joy that it craves,


s: That, burden and essence of all that surrounds,


s: Is the song in the wind and the smile on the waves.


s: First, London, for its myriads; for its height,


s: Manhattan heaped in towering stalagmite;


s: But Paris for the smoothness of the paths


s: That lead the heart unto the heart's delight. . . .


s: Fair loiterer on the threshold of those days


s: When there's no lovelier prize the world displays


s: Than, having beauty and your twenty years,


s: You have the means to conquer and the ways,


s: And coming where the crossroads separate


s: And down each vista glories and wonders wait,


s: Crowning each path with pinnacles so fair


s: You know not which to choose, and hesitate --


s: Oh, go to Paris. . . .  In the midday gloom


s: That looks off over Paris and its towers


s: From Saint Gervais round to the Emperor's Tomb, --


s: Croon down the chimney from the roof above,


s: Fair plants to fill with verdure and blossoming,


s: That sparrows seek, to feed from pretty hands,


s: There of an evening you shall sit at ease


s: In the sweet month of flowering chestnut-trees,


s: There with your little darling in your arms,


s: And looking out over the domes and towers


s: That chime the fleeting quarters and the hours,


s: While the bright clouds banked eastward back of them


s: Blush in the sunset, pink as hawthorn flowers,


s: You cannot fail to think, as I have done,


s: Some of life's ends attained, so you be one


s: Who measures life's attainment by the hours


s: Now crowded diners fill the floor of brasserie and restaurant.


s: And old men stand with menu-cards, inviting passers-by to dine


s: Slavs with their peasant, Christ-like heads,


s: bright-hued and stitched with golden threads;


s: And lovers wander two by two, oblivious among the press,


s: And making one of them no less, all lovers shall be dear to you:


s: "Comment ca va!"  "Mon vieux!"  "Mon cher!"


s: 'Tis sweet to see among the mass comrades and lovers everywhere,


s: The open cafe-windows frame loungers at their liqueurs and beer,


s: And walking past them one can hear fragments of Tosca and Boheme.


s: And in the brilliant-lighted door of cinemas the barker calls,


s: Here all Bohemia flocks apace; you could not often find elsewhere


s: Under the glare and noise and heat the galaxy of dancing whirls,


s: Here Mimi ventures, at fifteen, to make her debut in romance,


s: Uncorseted, her clinging dress with every step and turn betrays,


s: In pretty and provoking ways her adolescent loveliness,


s: As guiding Gaby or Lucile she dances, emulating them


s: In each disturbing stratagem and each lascivious appeal.


s: Each turn a challenge, every pose an invitation to compete,


s: Surrender, swift to be possessed, the silken supple forms beneath


s: Lithe limbs relaxed, exalted eyes fastened on vacancy, they seem


s: To float upon the perfumed stream of some voluptuous Paradise,


s: And only when the measures cease and terminate the flowing dance


s: Make one of them and come to know sweet Paris--not as many do,


s: And when all else is gray and void in the vast gulf of memory,


s: Green islands of delight shall be all blessed moments so enjoyed:


s: My spirit only lived to look on Beauty's face,


s: As only when they clasp the arms seem served aright;


s: As in their flesh inheres the impulse to embrace,


s: To gaze on Loveliness was my soul's appetite.


s: I have roamed far in search; white road and plunging bow


s: Were keys in the blue doors where my desire was set;


s: Obedient to their lure, my lips and laughing brow


s: The hill-showers and the spray of many seas have wet.


s: Hot are enamored hands, the fragrant zone unbound,


s: To leave no dear delight unfelt, unfondled o'er,


s: The will possessed my heart to girdle Earth around


s: With their insatiate need to wonder and adore.


s: The flowers in the fields, the surf upon the sands,


s: The sunset and the clouds it turned to blood and wine,


s: Were shreds of the thin veil behind whose beaded strands


s: A radiant visage rose, serene, august, divine.


s: A noise of summer wind astir in starlit trees,


s: A song where sensual love's delirium rose and fell,


s: Were rites that moved my soul more than the devotee's


s: When from the blazing choir rings out the altar bell.


s: I woke amid the pomp of a proud palace; writ


s: In tinted arabesque on walls that gems o'erlay,


s: The names of caliphs were who once held court in it,


s: Their baths and bowers were mine to dwell in for a day.


s: Their robes and rings were mine to draw from shimmering trays --


s: Brocades and broidered silks, topaz and tourmaline --


s: Their turban-cloths to wind in proud capricious ways,


s: And fasten plumes and pearls and pendent sapphires in.


s: I rose; far music drew my steps in fond pursuit


s: Down tessellated floors and towering peristyles:


s: Through groves of colonnades fair lamps were blushing fruit,


s: On seas of green mosaic soft rugs were flowery isles.


s: And there were verdurous courts that scalloped arches wreathed,


s: Where fountains plashed in bowls of lapis lazuli.


s: Through enigmatic doors voluptuous accents breathed,


s: And having Youth I had their Open Sesame.


s: I paused where shadowy walls were hung with cloths of gold,


s: And tinted twilight streamed through storied panes above.


s: In lamplit alcoves deep as flowers when they unfold


s: Soft cushions called to rest and fragrant fumes to love.


s: I hungered; at my hand delicious dainties teemed --


s: Fair pyramids of fruit; pastry in sugared piles.


s: I thirsted; in cool cups inviting vintage beamed --


s: Sweet syrups from the South; brown muscat from the isles.


s: I yearned for passionate Love; faint gauzes fell away.


s: Pillowed in rosy light I found my heart's desire.


s: Over the silks and down her florid beauty lay,


s: As over orient clouds the sunset's coral fire.


s: Joys that had smiled afar, a visionary form,


s: Behind the ranges hid, remote and rainbow-dyed,


s: Drew near unto my heart, a wonder soft and warm,


s: To touch, to stroke, to clasp, to sleep and wake beside.


s: Joy, that where summer seas and hot horizons shone


s: Had been the outspread arms I gave my youth to seek,


s: Drew near; awhile its pulse strove sweetly with my own,


s: Awhile I felt its breath astir upon my cheek.


s: I was so happy there; so fleeting was my stay, --


s: What wonder if, assailed with vistas so divine,


s: I only lived to search and sample them the day


s: When between dawn and dusk the sultan's courts were mine!


s: Speak not of other worlds of happiness to be,


s: Lay more to tempt man's soul to immortality


s: Than ripens for his bliss abundant now and here!


s: Flowerlike I hope to die as flowerlike was my birth.


s: Rooted in Nature's just benignant law like them,


s: I want no better joys than those that from green Earth


s: My spirit's blossom drew through the sweet body's stem.


s: I see no dread in death, no horror to abhor.


s: I never thought it else than but to cease to dwell


s: Spectator, and resolve most naturally once more


s: Into the dearly loved eternal spectacle.


s: Unto the fields and flowers this flesh I found so fair


s: I yield; do you, dear friend, over your rose-crowned wine,


s: Murmur my name some day as though my lips were there,


s: And frame your mouth as though its blushing kiss were mine.


s: Yea, where the banquet-hall is brilliant with young men,


s: You whose bright youth it might have thrilled my breast to know,


s: Drink . . . and perhaps my lips, insatiate even then


s: Of lips to hang upon, may find their loved ones so.


s: Unto the flush of dawn and evening I commend


s: This immaterial self and flamelike part of me, --


s: Unto the azure haze that hangs at the world's end,


s: The sunshine on the hills, the starlight on the sea, --


s: Unto angelic Earth, whereof the lives of those


s: Who love and dream great dreams and deeply feel may be


s: The elemental cells and nervules that compose


s: Its divine consciousness and joy and harmony.


s: In that fair capital where Pleasure, crowned


s: Amidst her myriad courtiers, riots and rules,


s: Were my life's warmth and sunshine, outspread arms


s: The force that all the stars acknowledge too.


s: Where I an atom crawled and cleaved and sundered,


s: The vapors passed and there was nought but Love,


s: Where Beauty beckoned and where Strength pursued.


s: There was a time when I thought much of Fame,


s: Should fitly house the glory of my name.


s: But swifter than my fingers pushed their plan,


s: The ivy clambered and the rose-vine ran.


s: And now, too late to see my vision, rise,


s: In place of golden pinnacles and towers,


s: Only some sunny mounds of leaves and flowers,


s: My friends were duped, my favorers deceived;


s: But sometimes, musing sorrowfully there,


s: That flowered wreck has seemed to me so fair


s: For there were nights . . . my love to him whose brow


s: Has glistened with the spoils of nights like those,


s: What time green dawn down every street uprears


s: Arches of triumph!  He has drained as well


s: Joy's perfumed bowl and cried as I have cried:


s: Be Fame their mistress whom Love passes by.


s: This only matters:  from some flowery bed,


s: If one have known what bliss it is to come,


s: Bearing on hands and breast and laughing lips


s: The fragrance of his youth's dear rose.  To him


s: The hills have bared their treasure, the far clouds


s: Unveiled the vision that o'er summer seas


s: Drew on his thirsting arms.  This last thing known,


s: He can court danger, laugh at perilous odds,


s: Without regret yield his victorious soul,


s: What is Success?  Out of the endless ore


s: Of passionate memory; to have lived so well


s: That the fifth moon, when it swims up once more


s: Through orchard boughs where mating orioles build


s: Find not of that dear need that all things tell


s: The heart unburdened nor the arms unfilled.


s: O Love, whereof my boyhood was the dream,


s: Life was so slight a thing and thou so great,


s: How could I make thee less than all-supreme!


s: In thy sweet transports not alone I thought


s: Mingled the twain that panted breast to breast.


s: The sun and stars throbbed with them; they were caught


s: By the same light that consecrates it so.


s: Love!--'tis the payment of the debt we owe


s: In silks and perfume and unloosened hair


s: That soul partakes whose inspiration fills


s: The springtime and the depth of summer skies,


s: The rainbow and the clouds behind the hills,


s: That excellence in earth and air and sea


s: That makes things as they are the real divinity.


s: Down the strait vistas where a city street


s: Fades in pale dust and vaporous distances,


s: Stained with far fumes the light grows less and less


s: And the sky reddens round the day's retreat.


s: Now out of orient chambers, cool and sweet,


s: Like Nature's pure lustration, Dusk comes down.


s: Now the lamps brighten and the quickening town


s: Rings with the trample of returning feet.


s: And Pleasure, risen from her own warm mould


s: Sunk all the drowsy and unloved daylight


s: In layers of odorous softness, Paphian girls


s: Cover with gauze, with satin, and with pearls,


s: Crown, and about her spangly vestments fold


s: Her courts are by the flux of flaming ways,


s: Between the rivers and the illumined sky


s: Whose fervid depths reverberate from on high


s: They mark it inland; blithe and fair of face


s: Her suitors follow, guessing by the glare


s: How bright the cressets at her portals blaze.


s: On the pure fronts Defeat ere many a day


s: Falls like the soot and dirt on city-snow;


s: There hopes deferred lie sunk in piteous seams.


s: The graves of Beauty and the wreck of dreams.


s: There was a youth around whose early way


s: White angels hung in converse and sweet choir,


s: Teaching in summer clouds his thought to stray, --


s: His life was nursed in beauty, like the stream


s: Born of clear showers and the mountain dew,


s: Close under snow-clad summits where they gleam


s: Forever pure against heaven's orient blue.


s: Within the city's shades he walked at last.


s: With the lost heights and splendor of life's morn.


s: Up at his attic sill the South wind came


s: And days of sun and storm but never peace.


s: He heard the heart-throbs of a sentient frame:


s: Each night the whistles in the bay, the same


s: Whirl of incessant wheels and clanging cars:


s: For smoke that half obscured, the circling stars


s: Burnt like his youth with but a sickly flame.


s: The throes with which her iron sinews heave --


s: Welled in his heart and trembled in his eyes


s: The light that hangs on desert hills at eve


s: And tints the sea on solitary shores. . . .


s: Floods the fair city; from warm pavements fume


s: The chestnut-trees with phallic spires are gay.


s: Over the terrace flows the thronged cafe;


s: The boulevards are streams of hurrying sound;


s: And through the streets, like veins when they abound,


s: The lust for pleasure throbs itself away.


s: Here let me live, here let me still pursue


s: Phantoms of bliss that beckon and recede, --


s: Thy strange allurements, City that I love,


s: Maze of romance, where I have followed too


s: The dream Youth treasures of its dearest need


s: And stars beyond thy towers bring tidings of.


s: Give me the treble of thy horns and hoofs,


s: The ponderous undertones of 'bus and tram,


s: Of clouds blown eastward over Notre Dame,


s: The glad-eyed streets and radiant gatherings


s: Where I drank deep the bliss of being young,


s: The strife and sweet potential flux of things


s: I sought Youth's dream of happiness among!


s: It walks here aureoled with the city-light,


s: Forever through the myriad-featured mass


s: Flaunting not far its fugitive embrace, --


s: Heard sometimes in a song across the night,


s: Caught in a perfume from the crowds that pass,


s: And when love yields to love seen face to face.


s: Whose stations Beauty's bright examples are,


s: Over the sands for wealth and holy ground,


s: With all perfection, blemishless and high,


s: With the world's praise and wonder clad around.


s: Unworshipped, if glad eyes have access there, --


s: Beyond all earthly bounds have made my goal


s: To find where that sweet shrine is and extol


s: The hand that triumphed in a work so fair.


s: The pall of empty, loveless hours withdrawn,


s: Sweet Beauty, opening on the impoverished heart,


s: Not though high heaven should rend would deeper awe


s: Nor all those signs the Patmian prophet saw


s: Seem a new heaven and earth so marvelous;


s: But, clad thenceforth in iridescent dyes,


s: The fair world glistens, and in after days


s: The memory of kind lips and laughing eyes


s: Lives in my step and lightens all my face, --


s: Still breathed, returned, of that sweet, joyful place.


s: Was like the full moon seen behind the lace


s: Of orchard boughs where clouded blossoms part


s: When Spring shines in the world and in the heart.


s: As the full-moon-beams to the ferny floor


s: Of summer woods through flower and foliage pour,


s: Flooded the light of so much loveliness;


s: My youth was the pathetic thirsting for,


s: And where she moved the veil of Nature grew


s: Diaphanous and that radiance mantled through


s: A splendor, flamelike, born to be pursued,


s: And eyes incensed with love for all they see,


s: On whom the grace of conscious womanhood


s: Hath come the realm of those old fabulous queens


s: Whose storied loves are Art's rich heritage,


s: That force that moving through sweet Beauty's means


s: Lifts up Man's soul to towering enterprise.


s: * A paraphrase of Petrarca, 'Quando fra l'altre donne . . .'


s: When among creatures fair of countenance


s: Love comes enformed in such proud character,


s: So far the breast with fiercer longing pants;


s: I bless the spot, and hour, and circumstance,


s: And say, Glad soul, rejoice, for thou and I


s: Of bliss unpaired are made participants;


s: Hence have come ardent thoughts and waking dreams


s: That, feeding Fancy from so sweet a cup,


s: Through her the woman's perfect beauty gleams


s: To that high source from which all beauty springs.


s: Coming at dusk, when the dim stars emerge,


s: Tall poplars tremble and deep grasses roll,


s: Come thou no less and, kneeling in a shoal


s: Of the freaked flag and meadow buttercup,


s: Bend till thine image from the pool beam up


s: Arched with blue heaven like an aureole.


s: Is like the wind's way on the woods below,


s: Filling all nature where its pathway lies


s: With arms that supplicate and trembling sighs.


s: I fancied, while you stood conversing there,


s: My life, whose whole religion Beauty is,


s: Be charged with sin if ever before yours


s: A lesser feeling crossed my mind than his


s: Nay, rather in my dream-world's ivory tower


s: And mounting there in many a wistful hour,


s: Burdened with love, I trembled and was still,


s: Seeing discovered from that azure height


s: It may be for the world of weeds and tares


s: And dearth in Nature of sweet Beauty's rose


s: That oft as Fortune from ten thousand shows


s: One from the train of Love's true courtiers


s: Deep wonder seizes and swift trembling grows,


s: Reft by that sight of purpose and repose,


s: Hardly its weight his fainting breast upbears.


s: Then on the soul from some ancestral place


s: Floods back remembrance of its heavenly birth,


s: When, in the light of that serener sphere,


s: That through the forms of this our meaner Earth


s: Shines with a beam less steadfast and less clear.


s: Where man-forsaken lay the bleeding rood,


s: Whose hands, when men had craved substantial food,


s: Gave not, nor folded when they cried, Embrace,


s: Her whom west winds with natal foam bedewed,


s: Wafted toward Cyprus, lily-breasted, nude,


s: Standing with arms out-stretched and flower-like face.


s: And, sick with all those centuries of tears


s: Once more I saw the nations at her feet,


s: For Love shone in their eyes, and in their ears


s: Come unto me, Love beckoned them, for lo!


s: The breast your lips abjured is still as sweet.


s: Who shall invoke her, who shall be her priest,


s: With single rites the common debt to pay?


s: On some green headland fronting to the East


s: Our fairest boy shall kneel at break of day.


s: New milk and honey and sweet-tinctured wine,


s: Not without twigs of clustering apple-spray


s: To wreath a garland for Our Lady's shrine.


s: Shall drop sweet influence through her drowsing lid;


s: Shall scarce disturb the flowers he kneels amid,


s: That, waked so lightly, shall lift up their eyes,


s: Cushion his knees, and nod between his thighs.


s: In grove and garden to the sapphire sea;


s: Twine yellow roses for the drinker's crown;


s: Let music reach and fair heads circle me,


s: Watching blue ocean where the white sails steer


s: Fruit-laden forth or with the wares and news


s: Of merchant cities seek our harbors here,


s: Careless how Corinth fares, how Syracuse;


s: But here, with love and sleep in her caress,


s: Warm night shall sink and utterly persuade


s: Night-winds, and one whose white youth's loveliness,


s: Dreams, with the starlight on her fragrant hair.


s: Stretched on a sunny bank he lay at rest,


s: Ferns at his elbow, lilies round his knees,


s: With sweet flesh patterned where the cool turf pressed,


s: Flowerlike crept o'er with emerald aphides.


s: Single he couched there, to his circling flocks


s: Piping at times some happy shepherd's tune,


s: Nude, with the warm wind in his golden locks,


s: And arched with the blue Asian afternoon.


s: Past him, gorse-purpled, to the distant coast


s: Rolled the clear foothills.  There his white-walled town,


s: There, a blue band, the placid Euxine lay.


s: Beyond, on fields of azure light embossed


s: He watched from noon till dewy eve came down


s: The summer clouds pile up and fade away.


s: Her eyes under their lashes were blue pools


s: Fringed round with lilies; her bright hair unfurled


s: Clothed her as sunshine clothes the summer world.


s: Her robes were gauzes--gold and green and gules,


s: All furry things flocked round her, from her hand


s: Nibbling their foods and fawning at her feet.


s: Two peacocks watched her where she made her seat


s: Sometimes she sang. . . .  Whoever heard forgot


s: Errand and aim, and knights at noontide here,


s: Riding from fabulous gestes beyond the seas,


s: Would follow, tranced, and seek . . . and find her not . . .


s: But wake that night, lost, by some woodland mere,


s: Powdered with stars and rimmed with silent trees.


s: I loved illustrious cities and the crowds


s: That eddy through their incandescent nights.


s: Girdled, and fringed about with snowy heights.


s: I loved fair women, their sweet, conscious ways


s: Of wearing among hands that covet and plead


s: That bounds the world's desire and all its need.


s: Seemed all-sufficient and my sojourn there


s: For aught but life's romance, nor puts above


s: All life's necessities the need to love,


s: Nor counts his greatest wealth what Beauty gives.


s: When dandelions dot the fields with gold,


s: And under rustling shade a few weeks old


s: 'Tis sweet to stroll and hear the bluebirds sing,


s: Do you, blond head, whom beauty and the power


s: Of being young and winsome have prepared


s: For life's last privilege that really pays,


s: These relics of the time when I too fared


s: Across the sweet fifth lustrum of my days.


s: With a Copy of Shakespeare's Sonnets on Leaving College


s: As one of some fat tillage dispossessed,


s: Weighing the yield of these four faded years,


s: What lasting gold among the garnered ears, --


s: Ah, then I'll say what hours I had of thine,


s: Therein I reaped Time's richest revenue,


s: Read in thy text the sense of David's line,


s: Through thee achieved the love that Shakespeare knew.


s: Take then his book, laden with mine own love


s: As flowers made sweeter by deep-drunken rain,


s: That when years sunder and between us move


s: Wide waters, and less kindly bonds constrain,


s: Thou may'st turn here, dear boy, and reading see


s: Some part of what thy friend once felt for thee.


s: That frame some drowsy street and dazzling square


s: Beyond whose flowers and palm-tree promenades


s: White belfries burn in the blue tropic air.


s: Lie near me in dim forests where the croon


s: Of wood-doves sounds and moss-banked water flows,


s: Breaks through some ruined abbey's empty rose.


s: Sweetest of those to-day whose pious hands


s: Where fewer offerings burn, and fewer kneel,


s: Pour there your passionate beauty on my heart,


s: How sweet the fellowship of those who feel!


s: Through gaping walls the summer fields appear,


s: Green, tan, or, poppy-mingled, tinged with red.


s: The courts where revel rang deep grass and moss


s: The gate where banners blazoned with a cross


s: Rolled forth to toss round Tyre and Ascalon.


s: Decay consumes it.  The old causes fade.


s: And fretting for the contest many a heart


s: Waits their Tyrtaeus to chant on the new.


s: Oh, pass him by who, in this haunted shade


s: Musing enthralled, has only this much art,


s: To love the things the birds and flowers love too.


s: Though thou art now a ruin bare and cold,


s: Thou wert sometime the garden of a king.


s: The birds have sought a lovelier place to sing.


s: The flowers are few.  It was not so of old.


s: It was not thus when hand in hand there strolled


s: Through arbors perfumed with undying Spring


s: Bare bodies beautiful, brown, glistening,


s: Decked with green plumes and rings of yellow gold.


s: Do you suppose the herdsman sometimes hears


s: Vague echoes borne beneath the moon's pale ray


s: From those old, old, far-off, forgotten years?


s: Who knows?  Here where his ancient kings held sway


s: He stands.  Their names are strangers to his ears.


s: Another prospect pleased the builder's eye,


s: And Fashion tenanted (where Fashion wanes)


s: When first these gables rose against the sky.


s: Vacant, with lichened walls and window-panes


s: Blank as the windows of a skull.  But I,


s: On evenings when autumnal winds have stirred


s: Have laid a wondering ear and oft-times heard,


s: A hilltop sought by every soothing breeze


s: That loves the melody of murmuring boughs,


s: Cool shades, green acreage, and antique house


s: Fronting the ocean and the dawn; than these


s: Old monks built never for the spirit's ease


s: Cloisters more calm--not Cluny nor Clairvaux;


s: Sweet are the noises from the bay below,


s: To while a listless spell of summer days,


s: Happier than hoarder in each evening's gain,


s: When evenings found me richer by one line,


s: One verse well turned, or serviceable phrase.


s: Tonight a shimmer of gold lies mantled o'er


s: Smooth lovely Ocean.  Through the lustrous gloom


s: A savor steals from linden trees in bloom


s: And gardens ranged at many a palace door.


s: Proud walls rise here, and, where the moonbeams pour


s: Their pale enchantment down the dim coast-line,


s: Terrace and lawn, trim hedge and flowering vine,


s: Crown with fair culture all the sounding shore.


s: How sweet, to such a place, on such a night,


s: From halls with beauty and festival a-glare,


s: To come distract and, stretched on the cool turf,


s: While the moon, reddening, sinks, and all the air


s: Sighs with the muffled tumult of the surf!


s: A cloud has lowered that shall not soon pass o'er.


s: The world takes sides:  whether for impious aims


s: Whether with Freedom, stretched in her own gore,


s: Whose pleading hands and suppliant distress


s: Still offer hearts that thirst for Righteousness


s: A glorious cause to strike or perish for.


s: England, which side is thine?  Thou hast had sons


s: Would shrink not from the choice however grim,


s: Were Justice trampled on and Courage downed;


s: Which will they be--cravens or champions?


s: Whose death made Missolonghi holy ground.


s: I stood beside his sepulchre whose fame,


s: Hurled over Europe once on bolt and blast,


s: Now glows far off as storm-clouds overpast


s: Glow in the sunset flushed with glorious flame.


s: Has Nature marred his mould?  Can Art acclaim


s: As with their hearts' high needs personified?


s: There are will say, One such our lips could name;


s: Columbia gave him birth.  Him Genius most


s: Gifted to rule.  Against the world's great man


s: Lift their low calumny and sneering cries


s: Of piddling slanderers whose little eyes


s: Know not what greatness is and never can.


s: He faints with hope and fear.  It is the hour.


s: Distant, across the thundering organ-swell,


s: In sweet discord from the cathedral-tower,


s: Fall the faint chimes and the thrice-sequent bell.


s: He sees a plume, a fur; his heart dilates --


s: Soars . . . and then sinks again.  It is not hers he loves.


s: She will not come, the woman that he waits.


s: Braided with streams of silver incense rise


s: The antique prayers and ponderous antiphones.


s: The priest that serves nor him that celebrates,


s: But ever scans the aisle for his blonde head. . . .  In vain!


s: How like a flower seemed the perfumed place


s: Where the sweet flesh lay loveliest to kiss;


s: And her white hands in what delicious ways,


s: With what unfeigned caresses, answered his!


s: And he calls out her name and spreads his arms . . .  No use!


s: But the long vespers close.  The priest on high


s: Raises the thing that Christ's own flesh enforms;


s: And down the Gothic nave the crowd flows by


s: And through the portal's carven entry swarms.


s: Maddened he peers upon each passing face


s: Till the long drab procession terminates.


s: No princess passes out with proud majestic pace.


s: She has not come, the woman that he waits.


s: He walks with aching heart.  A white-robed boy


s: He dreams of the sweet night their lips first met,


s: And groans--and turns to leave--and hesitates . . .


s: Poor stricken heart, he will, he can not fancy yet


s: She will not come, the woman that he waits.


s: But in an arch where deepest shadows fall


s: He sits and studies the old, storied panes,


s: And the calm crucifix that from the wall


s: Looks on a world that quavers and complains.


s: And the tower-clock tolls five, and he admits at last,


s: Through the stained rose the winter daylight dies,


s: Swells in his throat and gathers in his eyes;


s: He kneels and bows his head upon his breast,


s: And feigns a prayer to hide his burning tears,


s: 'Tonight, tomorrow, nay, nor all the impending years,


s: She will not come,' the woman that he waits.


s: Fond, fervent heart of life's enamored spring,


s: That thought of Love as some sweet, tender thing,


s: And not as war, red tooth and nail laid bare,


s: How in that hour its innocence was slain,


s: How from that hour our disillusion dates,


s: When first we learned thy sense, ironical refrain,


s: She will not come, the woman that he waits.


s: Do you remember once, in Paris of glad faces,


s: The night we wandered off under the third moon's rays


s: And, leaving far behind bright streets and busy places,


s: Stood where the Seine flowed down between its quiet quais?


s: The city's voice was hushed; the placid, lustrous waters


s: Mirrored the walls across where orange windows burned.


s: Out of the starry south provoking rumors brought us


s: Far promise of the spring already northward turned.


s: And breast drew near to breast, and round its soft desire


s: My arm uncertain stole and clung there unrepelled.


s: I thought that nevermore my heart would hover nigher


s: To the last flower of bliss that Nature's garden held.


s: There, in your beauty's sweet abandonment to pleasure,


s: The mute, half-open lips and tender, wondering eyes,


s: I saw embodied first smile back on me the treasure


s: Long sought across the seas and back of summer skies.


s: Dear face, when courted Death shall claim my limbs and find them


s: Laid in some desert place, alone or where the tides


s: Of war's tumultuous waves on the wet sands behind them


s: Leave rifts of gasping life when their red flood subsides,


s: Out of the past's remote delirious abysses


s: Shine forth once more as then you shone,--beloved head,


s: Laid back in ecstasy between our blinding kisses,


s: Transfigured with the bliss of being so coveted.


s: And my sick arms will part, and though hot fever sear it,


s: My mouth will curve again with the old, tender flame.


s: And darkness will come down, still finding in my spirit


s: The dream of your brief love, and on my lips your name.


s: You loved me on that moonlit night long since.


s: You were my queen and I the charming prince


s: You loved me once. . . .  What pity was it, then,


s: You loved not Love. . . .  Deep in the emerald west,


s: By breezes that load all the ambient airs


s: With clinging fragrance of the bales it bears


s: From harbors where the caravans come down,


s: The new moon back again, but shall not see


s: The joy that once it had in store for me,


s: Nor know again the voice upon the stair,


s: And all that makes in word and touch and glance


s: The bliss of the first nights of a romance


s: When will to love and be beloved casts out


s: The want to question or the will to doubt.


s: You loved me once. . . .  Under the western seas


s: The firelight sinks; outside the night-winds moan --


s: This file contains translations from the Anglo-Saxon of the


s: following works: "Genesis A", "Genesis B", "Exodus", "Daniel",


s: and "Christ and Satan".  All are works found in the manuscript of


s: These works were originally written in Anglo-Saxon, sometime


s: between the 7th and 10th Centuries A.D.  Although sometimes


s: ascribed to the poet Caedmon (fl. late 7th Century), it is


s: generally thought that these poems do not represent the work of


s: Doane, A.N. (ed.): "Genesis A: A New Critical Edition"


s: Doane, A.N. (ed.): "The Saxon Genesis: An Edition of the West


s: Dobbie, Elliot VanKirk (ed.): "The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records,


s: vol. I--The Junius Manuscript" (Columbia University Press, New


s: Farrell, R.T. (ed.): "Daniel and Azarias" (Methuen & Co. Ltd.,


s: Tolkein, J.R.R. (ed.): "The Old English Exodus" (Oxford


s: NOTE: This work is generally believed to be a composite of two


s: separate poems, usually referred to as "Genesis A" (or "The


s: B" is interpolated into "Genesis A" at lines #235-851.


s: The reason for this interpolation is not known.  Perhaps the


s: original compiler preferred the version of the story presented in


s: is evidence that "Genesis B" appears to be a translation from an


s: earlier and separate Old Saxon retelling of the biblical "Book of


s: "Genesis", like the other poems of "Codex Junius 11", is not a


s: direct translation into Anglo-Saxon of the Old Testament "Book of


s: poetry and style of the Germanic Epic, a style still popular with


s: (ll. 1-28) Right is it that we praise the King of heaven, the


s: Lord of hosts, and love Him with all our hearts.  For He is great


s: Never hath He known beginning, neither cometh an end of His


s: eternal glory.  Ever in majesty He reigneth over celestial


s: thrones; in righteousness and strength He keepeth the courts of


s: heaven which were established, broad and ample, by the might of


s: God, for angel dwellers, wardens of the soul.  The angel legions


s: knew the blessedness of God, celestial joy and bliss.  Great was


s: their glory!  The mighty spirits magnified their Prince and sang


s: His praise with gladness, serving the Lord of life, exceeding


s: blessed in His splendour.  They knew no sin nor any evil; but


s: dwelt in peace for ever with their Lord.  They wrought no deed in


s: walked in the ways of error.  Then no longer would they work


s: their own advantage, but turned away from the love of God.  They


s: boasted greatly, in their banded strength, that they could share


s: with God His glorious dwelling, spacious and heavenly bright.


s: (ll. 28-46) Then sorrow came upon them, envy and insolence and


s: pride of the angel who first began that deed of folly, to plot


s: and hatch it forth, and, thirsting for battle, boasted that in


s: the northern borders of heaven he would establish a throne and a


s: kingdom.  Then was God angered and wrathful against that host


s: which He had crowned before with radiance and glory.  For the


s: traitors, to reward their work, He shaped a house of pain and


s: grim affliction, and lamentations of hell.  Our Lord prepared


s: this torture-house of exiles, deep and joyless, for the coming of


s: smoke-veils and ruddy flame.  And over that wretched realm He


s: spread the brooding terror of torment.  They had wrought grievous


s: (ll. 47-77) Fierce of heart, they boasted they would take the


s: kingdom, and easily.  But their hope failed them when the Lord,


s: High King of heaven, lifted His hand against their host.  The


s: erring spirits, in their sin, might not prevail against the Lord,


s: broke their pride, bereft these impious souls of victory and


s: power and dominion and glory; despoiled His foes of bliss and


s: peace and joy and radiant grace, and mightily avenged His wrath


s: upon them to their destruction.  His heart was hardened against


s: them; with heavy hand He crushed His foes, subdued them to His


s: will, and, in His wrath, drove out the rebels from their ancient


s: home and seats of glory.  Our Lord expelled and banished out of


s: heaven the presumptuous angel host.  All-wielding God dismissed


s: the faithless horde, a hostile band of woeful spirits, upon a


s: long, long journey.  Crushed was their pride, their boasting


s: humbled, their power broken, their glory dimmed.  Thenceforth


s: those dusky spirits dwelt in exile.  No cause had they to laugh


s: aloud, but, racked with pangs of hell, they suffered pain and woe


s: (ll. 78-81) Then was there calm as formerly in heaven, the kindly


s: (ll. 82-91) The citizens of heaven, the home of glory, dwelt


s: again in concord.  Strife was at an end among the angels, discord


s: hurled from heaven.  Behind them stretching wide their mansions


s: lay, crowned with glory, prospering in grace in God's dominion, a


s: spirits reached their place of exile within Hell's prison-walls.


s: (ll. 92-102) Then our Lord took counsel in the thoughts of His


s: heart how He might people, with a better host, the great


s: creation, the native seats and gleaming mansions, high in heaven,


s: earth-creatures in the stead of those rebellious foes whom He had


s: (ll. 103-119) As yet was nought save shadows of darkness; the


s: spacious earth lay hidden, deep and dim, alien to God, unpeopled


s: and unused.  Thereon the Steadfast King looked down and beheld


s: it, a place empty of joy.  He saw dim chaos hanging in eternal


s: night, obscure beneath the heavens, desolate and dark, until this


s: things, Almighty King, made earth and heaven, raised up the sky


s: and founded the spacious land.  The earth was not yet green with


s: grass; the dark waves of the sea flowed over it, and midnight


s: (ll. 119-134) Then in radiant glory God's holy spirit moved upon


s: the waters with wondrous might.  The Lord of angels, Giver of


s: life, bade light shine forth upon the spacious earth.  Swiftly


s: was God's word fulfilled; holy light gleamed forth across the


s: waste at the Creator's bidding.  Over the seas the Lord of


s: victory divided light from darkness, shadow from radiant light.


s: The Lord of life gave both a name.  By the word of God the


s: gleaming light was first called day.  And in the beginning of


s: creation was God well pleased.  The first day saw the dark and


s: brooding shadows vanish throughout the spacious earth.


s: (ll. 135-143) The day departed, hasting over the dwellings of


s: earth.  And after the gleaming light the Lord, our maker, thrust


s: on the first of evenings.  Murky gloom pressed hard upon the


s: heels of day; God called it night.  Our Lord sundered them, one


s: from the other; and ever since they follow out the will of God to


s: (ll. 143-153) Then came a second day, light after darkness.  And


s: the Lord of life ordained a pleasant firmament amid the waters.


s: Our Lord sundered the seas and established the heavens.  By His


s: word the King, Almighty God, raised them above the earth.  The


s: waters were divided under the heavens by His holy might; the


s: waters were sundered from the waters, under the firmament.


s: (ll. 154-168) Then came hasting over the earth the third fair


s: morning.  Not yet were the wide ways and spacious tracts useful


s: unto God, but the land lay covered by the deep.  The Lord of


s: angels, by His word, commanded that the waters come together,


s: which now beneath the heavens hold their course and place


s: ordained.  Then suddenly, wide-stretching under heaven, lay the


s: sea, as God gave bidding.  The great deep was sundered from the


s: land.  The Warden of life, the Lord of hosts, beheld the dry


s: ground far outspread.  And the King of glory called it earth.


s: For the ocean-billows and the wide-flung sea He set a lawful path


s: (ll. 169-191) ....It did not seem good to the Lord of heaven that


s: Paradise.  Wherefore the King, Almighty God, wrought him an


s: helpmeet; the Author of life made woman and brought her unto the


s: man whom He loved.  He took the stuff of Adam's body, and


s: secretly drew forth a rib from his side.  He was fast asleep in


s: peaceful slumber; he knew no pain nor any pang; there came no


s: blood from out the wound, but the Lord of angels drew forth from


s: his body a growing rib, and the man was unhurt.  Of this God


s: fashioned a lovely maid, breathing into her life and an eternal


s: soul.  They were like unto the angels.  The bride of Adam was a


s: living spirit.  By God's might both were born into the world in


s: the loveliness of youth.  They knew no sin nor any evil, but in


s: the hearts of both there burned the love of God.


s: (ll. 192-195) Then the Gracious King, Lord of all human kind,


s: blessed these two, male and female, man and wife, and spake this


s: (ll. 196-205) "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the green earth


s: have dominion over the salt sea, and over all the world.  Enjoy


s: the riches of earth, the fish of the sea, and the fowls of the


s: air.  To you is given power over the herds which I have hallowed,


s: the earth; all living things, which the depths bring forth


s: throughout the sea, shall be subject unto you."


s: (ll. 206-234) And our Lord beheld the beauty of His works and the


s: pleasant and inviting, filled with goodly store and endless


s: blessings.  Bountifully a running stream, a welling spring,


s: watered that pleasant land.  Not yet did clouds, dark with wind,


s: carry the rains across the spacious earth; nathless the land lay


s: decked with increase.  Out from this new Paradise four pleasant


s: brooks of water flowed.  All were divisions of one beauteous


s: stream, sundered by the might of God when He made the earth, and


s: sent into the world.  And one of these the mortal dwellers of


s: earth called Pison, which compasseth the land of Havilah about


s: with shining waters.  And in that land, as books tell us, the


s: sons of men from far and near find out the best of gold and


s: precious gems.  And the second floweth round about the land and


s: borders of the Ethiopians, a spacious kingdom.  Its name is


s: Gihon.  The third is Tigris, whose abundant stream lieth about


s: the limits of Assyria.  Likewise also the fourth, which now


s: through many a folk-land men call Euphrates....


s: ((LACUNA--At least one, possibly two, leaves missing))


s: (ll. 235-236) "...Eat freely of the fruit of every other tree.


s: From that one tree refrain.  Beware of its fruit.  And ye shall


s: (ll. 237-245) Eagerly they bowed them down before the King of


s: heaven, and gave Him thanks for all, for His teachings and


s: counsels.  And He gave them that land to dwell in.  Then the Holy


s: creatures of His hand abode together on the earth.  They had no


s: whit of care to grieve them, but only to do the will of God for


s: ever.  Dear were they unto God as long as they would keep His


s: (ll. 246-260) The Holy Lord, All-wielding God, with mighty hand


s: had wrought ten angel-orders in whom He trusted well, that they


s: would do Him service, and work His will.  Therefore God gave them


s: bliss.  But one He made so great and strong of heart, He let him


s: wield such power in heaven next unto God, so radiant-hued He


s: wrought him, so fair his form in heaven which God had given, that


s: Maker's praise, and prized his bliss in heaven.  He should have


s: thanked his Lord for the great boon He showered on him in the


s: heavenly light, and let him long enjoy.  But he turned him to a


s: worse thing, and strove to stir up strife against the Highest


s: Lord of heaven, who sitteth on the throne of glory.


s: (ll. 261-276) Dear was he to our Lord.  Nor could it long be hid


s: from God that pride was growing in His angel's heart.  He set


s: himself against his Leader, scoffed at God with boasting, and


s: would not serve Him.  He said his form was beautiful and bright,


s: gleaming and fair of hue.  Nor could he find it in his heart to


s: serve the Lord God, or be subject to Him.  It seemed to him that


s: he had greater strength and larger following than Holy God might


s: have.  Many words the angel spake in his presumption.  By his own


s: stately palace in the north and west.  He said he doubted in his


s: heart if he would still be subject unto God:


s: (ll. 277-291) "Why should I slave?" quoth he. "I need not serve a


s: enough have I to rear a goodlier throne, a higher in the heavens.


s: I may be God as well as He!  Brave comrades stand about me;


s: stout-hearted heroes who will not fail me in the fray.  These


s: valiant souls have chosen me their lord.  With such peers one may


s: and faithful-hearted; and I may be their lord and rule this


s: realm.  It seemeth no wise right to me that I should cringe a


s: whit to God for any good.  I will not serve Him longer."