E-text prepared by Al Haines

Transcriber's note:

The word "beloved" appears in this book several times, in various upper and lower case combinations. Whatever the combination, in some cases, the second E in "beloved" is e-accent (é) and sometimes it is e-grave (è). Since I had no way of telling if this was what the author intended, or a typesetting error, or some other reason, I have left each exactly as it appears in the original book.

A JONGLEUR STRAYED

Verses on Love and Other Matters Sacred and Profane

by

RICHARD LE GALLIENNE

With an Introduction by Oliver Herford

Garden City ————— New York
Doubleday, Page & Company
1922
Copyright, 1922, by
Doubleday, Page & Company
All Rights Reserved, Including That of Translation
into Foreign Languages, Including the Scandinavian
Printed in the United States
at
The Country Life Press, Garden City, N. Y.
First Edition

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The writer desires to thank the editors of The Atlantic Monthly,
Harper's, Life, Judge, Leslie's, Munsey's, Ainslee's, Snappy Stories,
Live Stories, The Cosmopolitan, and Collier's for their kind
permission to reprint the following verses.

He desires also to thank the editor of The New York Evening Post for the involuntary gift of a title.

The Catskills,

June, 1922.

TO

THE LOVE

OF

ANDRÉ AND GWEN

  If after times
  Should pay the least attention to these rhymes,
  I bid them learn
  'Tis not my own heart here
  That doth so often seem to break and burn—
  O no such thing!—
  Nor is it my own dear
  Always I sing:
  But, as a scrivener in the market-place,
  I sit and write for lovers, him or her,
  Making a song to match each lover's case—
  A trifling gift sometimes the gods confer!

(After STRATO)

CONTENTS

I

  An Echo from Horace
  Ballade of the Oldest Duel in the World
  Sorcery
  The Dryad
  May is Back
  Moon-Marketing
  Two Birthdays
  Song
  The Faithful Lover
  Love's Tenderness
  Anima Mundi
  Ballade of the Unchanging Beloved
  Love's Arithmetic
  Beauty's Arithmetic
  The Valley
  Ballade of the Bees of Trebizond
  Broken Tryst
  The Rival
  The Quarrel
  Lovers
  Shadows
  After Tibullus
  A Warning
  Primum Mobile
  The Last Tryst
  The Heart on the Sleeve
  At Her Feet
  Reliquiae
  Love's Proud Farwell
  The Rose Has Left the Garden

II

  The Gardens of Adonis
  Nature the Healer
  Love Eternal
  The Loveliest Face and the Wild Rose
  As in the Woodland I Walk
  To a Mountain Spring
  Noon
  A Rainy Day
  In the City
  Country Largesse
  Morn
  The Source
  Autumn
  The Rose in Winter
  The Frozen Stream
  Winter Magic
  A Lover's Universe
  To the Golden Wife
  Buried Treasure
  The New Husbandman
  Paths that Wind
  The Immortal Gods

III

  Ballade of Woman
  The Magic Flower
  Ballade of Love's Cloister
  An Old Love Letter
  Too Late
  The Door Ajar
  Chipmunk
  Ballade of the Dead Face that Never Dies
  The End of Laughter
  The Song that Lasts
  The Broker of Dreams

IV

  At the Sign of the Lyre
  To Madame Jumel
  To a Beautiful Old Lady
  To Lucy Hinton; December 19, 1921

V

OTHER MATTERS, SACRED AND PROFANE

  The World's Musqueteer: To Marshal Foch
  We Are With France
  Satan: 1920
  Under Which King?
  Man, the Destroyer
  The Long Purposes of God
  Ballade to a Departing God
  Ballade of the Absent Guest
  Tobacco Next
  Ballade of the Paid Puritan
  The Overworked Ghost
  The Valiant Girls
  Not Sour Grapes
  Ballade of Reading Bad Books
  Ballade of the Making of Songs
  Ballade of Running Away with Life
  To a Contemner of the Past

INTRODUCTION

One Spring day in London, long before the invention of freak verse and Freudism, I was standing in front of the Cafe Royal in Regent Street when there emerged from its portals the most famous young writer of the day, the Poet about whose latest work "The Book Bills of Narcissus" all literary London was then talking.

Richard Le Gallienne was the first real poet I had ever laid eyes upon in the flesh and it seemed to my rapt senses that this frock-coated young god, with the classic profile and the dark curls curving from the impeccable silk "tile" that surmounted them as curve the acanthus leaves of a Corinthian capital, could be none other than Anacreon's self in modern shape.

I can see Le Gallienne now, as he steps across the sunlit sidewalk and with gesture Mercurian hails the passing Jehu. I can even hear the quick clud of the cab doors as the smartly turning hansome snatches from my view the glass-dimmed face I was not to behold again until years later at the house of a mutual friend in New York.

In another moment the swiftly moving vehicle was dissolved in the glitter of Regent Street and I fell to musing upon the curious interlacement of parts in this picture puzzle of life.

Here was a common Cabby, for the time being combining in himself the several functions of guide-book, chattel-mortgage and writ of habeas corpus on the person of the most popular literary idol of the hour and all for the matter of maybe no more than half a crown, including the pourboire!

Who would not have rejoiced to change places with that cabman! And how might not Pegasus have envied that cab-horse!

* * * * * *

Now after all these years it has come to pass that I am to change places with the cabman.

Perched aloft in the driver's seat of the First Person Singular, it is my proud privilege to crack the prefatory whip and start this newest and best Le Gallienne Vehicle upon its course through the garlanded Via Laurea to the Sign of the Golden Sheaf.

Look at it well, Dear People, before it starts, this golden vehicle of
Richard Le Gallienne.

Consider how it is built on the authentic lines of the best workmanship, made to last for generations, maybe for ever.

Take note of its springs so perfectly hung that the Muse may ride in luxurious ease, unjarred by metrical joltings as befits the Queen.

Mark the mirror smooth surface of the lacquer that only time and tireless labour can apply.

Before this Master Coach of Poesy the rattle-jointed Tin Lizzie of Free Verse and the painted jazz wagon of Futurism and the cheap imitation of the Chinese palanquin must turn aside, they have no right of way, these literary road-lice on the garlanded Via Laurea.

With angry thumb, the traffic cop Time will jerk them back to the side streets and byways where they belong, to make way for the Golden Coach of Richard Le Gallienne.

OLIVER HERFORD

I

AN ECHO FROM HORACE

  Lusisti est, et edisti, atque bibisti;
  Tempus abire, tibi est.

  Take away the dancing girls, quench the lights, remove
    Golden cups and garlands sere, all the feast; away
  Lutes and lyres and Lalage; close the gates, above
    Write upon the lintel this; Time is done for play!
  Thou hast had thy fill of love, eaten, drunk; the show
  Ends at last, 'twas long enough—time it is to go.

  Thou hast played—ah! heart, how long!—past all count were they,
    Girls of gold and ivory, bosomed deep, all snow,
  Leopard swift, and velvet loined, bronze for hair, wild clay
    Turning at a touch to flame, tense as a strung bow.
  Cruel as the circling hawk, tame at last as dove,—
  Thou hast had thy fill and more than enough of love.

  Thou hast eaten; peacock's tongues,—fed thy carp with slaves,—
    Nests of Asiatic birds, brought from far Cathay,
  Umbrian boars, and mullet roes snatched from stormy waves;
    Half thy father's lands have gone one strange meal to pay;
  For a morsel on thy plate ravished sea and shore;
  Thou hast eaten—'tis enough, thou shalt eat no more.

  Thou hast drunk—how hast thou drunk! mighty vats, whole seas;
    Vineyards purpling half a world turned to gold thy throat,
  Falernian, true Massic, the gods' own vintages,
    Lakes thou hast swallowed deep enough galleys tall to float;
  Wildness, wonder, wisdom, all, drunkenness divine,
  All that dreams within the grape, madness too, were thine.

  Time it is to go and sleep—draw the curtains close—
    Tender strings shall lull thee still, mellow flutes be blown,
  Still the spring shall shower down on thy couch the rose,
    Still the laurels crown thine head, where thou dreamest alone.
  Thou didst play, and thou didst eat, thou hast drunken deep,
  Time at last it is to go, time it is to sleep.

BALLADE OF THE OLDEST DUEL IN THE WORLD

  A battered swordsman, slashed and scarred,
    I scarce had thought to fight again,
  But love of the old game dies hard,
    So to't, my lady, if you're fain!
    I'm scarce the mettle to refrain,
  I'll ask no quarter from your art—
    But what if we should both be slain!
  I fight you, darling, for your heart.

  I warn you, though, be on your guard,
    Nor an old swordsman's craft disdain,
  He jests at scars—what saith the Bard?
    Love's wounds are real, and fierce the pain;
    If we should die of love, we twain!
  You laugh—en garde then—so we start;
    Cyrano-like, here's my refrain:
  I fight you, darling, for your heart.

  If compliments I interlard
    Twixt feint and lunge, you'll not complain
  Lacking your eyes, the night's un-starred,
    The rose is beautiful in vain,
    In vain smells sweet—Rose-in-the-Brain,
  Dizzying the world—a touch! sweet smart!—
    Only the envoi doth remain:
  I fight you, darling, for your heart.

ENVOI

  Princess, I'm yours; the rose-red rain
    Pours from my side—but see! I dart
  Within your guard—poor pretty stain!
    I fight you, darling, for your heart.

SORCERY

  Face with the forest eyes,
    And the wayward wild-wood hair,
  How shall a man be wise,
    When a girl's so fair;
  How, with her face once seen,
  Shall life be as it has been,
    This many a year?

  Beautiful fearful thing!
    You undulant sorcery!
  I dare not hear you sing,
    Dance not for me;
  The whiteness of your breast,
  Divinely manifest
    I must not see.

  Too late, thou luring child,
    Moon matches little moon;
  I must not be beguiled,
    With the honied tune:
  Yet O to lay my head
  Twixt moon and moon!
  'Twas so my sad heart said,
    Only last June.

THE DRYAD

  My dryad hath her hiding place
    Among ten thousand trees.
      She flies to cover
      At step of a lover,
  And where to find her lovely face
    Only the woodland bees
      Ever discover,
  Bringing her honey
  From meadows sunny,
      Cowslip and clover.

  Vainly on beech and oak I knock
    Amid the silent boughs;
      Then hear her laughter,
      The moment after,
  Making of me her laughing-stock
    Within her hidden house.

  The young moon with her wand of pearl
    Taps on her hidden door,
      Bids her beauty flower
      In that woodland bower,
  All white like a mortal girl,
    With moonshine hallowed o'er.

  Yet were there thrice ten thousand trees
    To hide her face from me,
      Not all her fleeing
      Should 'scape my seeing,
  Nor all her ambushed sorceries
    Secure concealment be
      For her bright being.

  Yea! should she by the laddered pine
    Steal to the stars on high,
      Her fairy whiteness,
      Hidden in brightness,
  Her hiding-place would so out-shine
    The constellated sky,
    She could not 'scape the eye
  Of my pursuing,
    Nor her fawn-foot lightness
  Out-speed my wooing.

MAY IS BACK

  May is back, and You and I
    Are at the stream again—
  The leaves are out,
  And all about
  The building birds begin
  To make a merry din:
  May is back, and You and I
    Are at the dream again.

  May is back, and You and I
    Lie in the grass again,—
  The butterfly
  Flits painted by,
  The bee brings sudden fear,
  Like people talking near;
  May is back, and You and I
    Are lad and lass again.

  May is back, and You and I
    Are heart to heart again,—
  In God's green house
  We make our vows
  Of summer love that stays
  Faithful through winter days;
  May is back, and You and I
    Shall never part again.

MOON-MARKETING

  Let's go to market in the moon,
    And buy some dreams together,
  Slip on your little silver shoon,
    And don your cap and feather;
  No need of petticoat or stocking—
  No one up there will think it shocking.

    Across the dew,
    Just I and you,
  With all the world behind us;
    Away from rules,
    Away from fools,
  Where nobody can find us.

TWO BIRTHDAYS

  Your birthday, sweetheart, is my birthday too,
    For, had you not been born,
  I who began to live beholding you
    Up early as the morn,
  That day in June beside the rose-hung stream,
    Had never lived at all—
  We stood, do you remember? in a dream
    There by the water-fall.

  You were as still as all the other flowers
    Under the morning's spell;
  Sudden two lives were one, and all things "ours"—
    How we can never tell.
  Surely it had been fated long ago—
    What else, dear, could we think?
  It seemed that we had stood for ever so,
    There by the river's brink.

  And all the days that followed seemed as days
    Lived side by side before,
  Strangely familiar all your looks and ways,
    The very frock you wore;
  Nothing seemed strange, yet all divinely new;
    Known to your finger tips,
  Yet filled with wonder every part of you,
    Your hair, your eyes, your lips.

  The wise in love say love was ever thus
    Through endless Time and Space,
  Heart linked to heart, beloved, as with us,
    Only one face—one face—
  Our own to love, however fair the rest;
    'Tis so true lovers are,
  For ever breast to breast,
    On—on—from star to star.

SONG

  My eye upon your eyes—
  So was I born,
  One far-off day in Paradise,
  A summer morn;
  I had not lived till then,
  But, wildered, went,
  Like other wandering men,
  Nor what Life meant
  Knew I till then.

  My hand within your hand—
  So would I live,
  Nor would I ask to understand
  Why God did give
  Your loveliness to me,
  But I would pray
  Worthier of it to be,
  By night and day,
  Unworthy me!

  My heart upon your heart—
  So would I die,
  I cannot think that God will part
  Us, you and I;
  The work he did undo,
  That summer morn;
  I lived, and would die too,
  Where I was born,
  Beloved, in you.

THE FAITHFUL LOVER

  All beauty is but thee in echo-shapes,
    No lovely thing but echoes some of thee,
  Vainly some touch of thy perfection apes,
    Sighing as fair as thou thyself to be;
  Therefore, be not disquieted that I
    On other forms turn oft my wandering gaze,
  Nor deem it anywise disloyalty:
    Nay! 'tis the pious fervour of my eye,
  That seeks thy face in every other face.
    As in the mirrored salon of a queen,
  Flashes from glass to glass, as she walks by,
    In sweet reiteration still—the queen!
  So is the world for thee to walk in, sweet;
    But to see thee is all things to have seen.
  And, as the moon in every crystal lake,
    Walking the heaven with little silver feet,
  Sees each bright copy her reflection take,
    And every dew-drop holds its little glass,
  To catch her loveliness as she doth pass,
  So do all things make haste to copy thee.
    I, then, to see thee thus over and over,
  Am wistful too all lovely shapes to see,
    For each thus makes me more and more thy lover.

LOVE'S TENDERNESS

  Deem not my love is only for the bloom,
    The honey and the marble, that is You;
  Tis so, Belovéd, common loves consume
    Their treasury, and vanish like the dew.
    Nay, but my love's a thing that's far more true;
  For little loves a little hour hath room,
  But not for us their brief and trivial doom,
    In a far richer soil our loving grew,
  From deeper wells of being it upsprings;
    Nor shall the wildest kiss that makes one mouth,
      Draining all nectar from the flowered world,
    Slake its divine unfathomable drouth;
      And, when your wings against my heart lie furled,
  With what a tenderness it dreams and sings!

ANIMA MUNDI

  Let all things vanish, if but you remain;
    For if you stay, beloved, what is gone?
  Yet, should you go, all permanence is vain,
    And all the piled abundance is as none.

  With you beside me in the desert sand,
  Your smile upon me, and on mine your hand,
    Oases green arise, and camel-bells;
  For in the long adventure of your eyes
  Are all the wandering ways to Paradise.

  Existence, in your being, comes and goes;
  What were the garden, love, without the rose?
  In vain were ears to hear,
    And eyes in vain,
  Lacking your ordered music, sphere to sphere,
    Blind, should your beauty blossom not again.

  The pulse that shakes the world with rhythmic beat
  Is but the passing of your little feet;
  And all the singing vast of all the seas,
    Down from the pole
  To the Hesperides,
    Is but the praying echo of your soul.

  Therefore, beloved, know that this is true—
  The world exists and vanishes in you!
  Tis not a lover's fancy; ask the sky
  If all its stars depend not, even as I,
  Upon your eyelids, when they open or close;
  And let the garden answer with the rose.

BALLADE OF THE UNCHANGING BÉLOVED

(TO I——a)

  When rumour fain would fright my ear
    With the destruction and decay
  Of things familiar and dear,
    And vaunt of a swift-running day
    That sweeps the fair old Past away;
  Whatever else be strange and new,
    All other things may go or stay,
  So that there be no change in you.

  These loud mutations others fear
    Find me high-fortressed 'gainst dismay,
  They trouble not the tranquil sphere
    That hallows with immortal ray
    The world where love and lovers stray
  In glittering gardens soft with dew—
    O let them break and burn and slay,
  So that there be no change in you.

  Let rapine its republics rear,
    And murder its red sceptre sway,
  Their blood-stained riot comes not near
    The quiet haven where we pray,
    And work and love and laugh and play;
  Unchanged, our skies are ever blue,
    Nothing can change, for all they say,—
  So that there be no change in you.

ENVOI

  Princess, let wild men brag and bray,
    The pure, the beautiful, the true.
  Change not, and changeless we as they—
    So that there be no change in you.

LOVE'S ARITHMETIC

  You often ask me, love, how much I love you,
    Bidding my fancy find
    An answer to your mind;
  I say: "Past count, as there are stars above you."
    You shake your head and say,
    "Many and bright are they,
  But that is not enough."

        Again I try:
  "If all the leaves on all the trees
    Were counted over,
  And all the waves on all the seas,
    More times your lover,
  Yea! more than twice ten thousand times am I."
    "'Tis not enough," again you make reply.

  "How many blades of grass," one day I said,
    "Are there from here to China? how many bees
    Have gathered honey through the centuries?
  Tell me how many roses have bloomed red
    Since the first rose till this rose in your hair?
    How many butterflies are born each year?
    How many raindrops are there in a shower?
    How many kisses, darling, in an hour?"
  Thereat you smiled, and shook your golden head;
  "Ah! not enough!" you said.
  Then said I: "Dear, it is not in my power
    To tell how much, how many ways, my love;
  Unnumbered are its ways even as all these,
    Nor any depth so deep, nor height above,
  May match therewith of any stars or seas."
  "I would hear more," you smiled . . .

        "Then, love," I said,
  "This will I do: unbind me all this gold
    Too heavy for your head,
    And, one by one, I'll count each shining thread,
  And when the tale of all its wealth is told . . ."
    "As much as that!" you said—
  "Then the full sum of all my love I'll speak,
    To the last unit tell the thing you ask . . ."
    Thereat the gold, in gleaming torrents shed,
  Fell loose adown each cheek,
    Hiding you from me; I began my task.

"'Twill last our lives," you said.

BEAUTY'S WARDROBE

  My love said she had nought to wear;
    Her garments all were old,
  And soon her body must go bare
    Against the winter's cold.

  I took her out into the dawn,
    And from the mountain's crest
  Unwound long wreaths of misty lawn,
    And wound them round her breast.

  Then passed we to the maple grove,
    Like a great hall of gold,
  The yellow and the red we wove
    In rustling flounce and fold.

  "Now, love," said I, "go, do it on!
    And I would have you note
  No lovely lady dead and gone
    Had such a petticoat."

  Then span I out of milkweeds fine
    Fair stockings soft and long,
  And other things of quaint design
    That unto maids belong.

  And beads of amber and of pearl
    About her neck I strung,
  And in the bronze of her thick hair
    The purple grape I hung. . . .

  Then led her to a glassy spring,
    And bade her look and see
  If any girl in all the world
    Had such fine clothes as she.

THE VALLEY

  I will walk down to the valley
    And lay my head in her breast,
  Where are two white doves,
  The Queen of Love's,
    In a silken nest;
  And, all the afternoon,
  They croon and croon
  The one word "Rest!"
  And a little stream
    That runs thereby
  Sings "Dream!"
    Over and over
  It sings—
    "O lover,
  Dream!"

BALLADE OF THE BEES OF TREBIZOND

  There blooms a flower in Trebizond
    Stored with such honey for the bee,
  (So saith the antique book I conned)
    Of such alluring fragrancy,
    Not sweeter smells the Eden-tree;
  Thither the maddened feasters fly,
    Yet—so alas! is it with me—
  To taste that honey is to die.

  Belovèd, I, as foolish fond,
    Feast still my eyes and heart on thee,
  Asking no blessedness beyond
    Thy face from morn till night to see,
    Ensorcelled past all remedy;
  Even as those foolish bees am I,
    Though well I know my destiny—
  To taste that honey is to die.

  O'er such a doom shall I despond?
    I would not from thy snare go free,
  Release me not from thy sweet bond,
    I live but in thy mystery;
    Though all my senses from me flee,
  I still would glut my glazing eye,
    Thou nectar of mortality—
  To taste that honey is to die.

ENVOI

  Princess, before I cease to be,
    Bend o'er my lips so burning dry
  Thy honeycombs of ivory—
    To taste that honey is to die.

BROKEN TRYST

  Waiting in the woodland, watching for my sweet,
  Thinking every leaf that stirs the coming of her feet,
  Thinking every whisper the rustle of her gown,
  How my heart goes up and up, and then goes down and down.

  First it is a squirrel, then it is a dove,
    Then a red fox feather-soft and footed like a dream;
  All the woodland fools me, promising my love;
    I think I hear her talking—'tis but the running stream.

  Vowelled talking water, mimicking her voice—
    O how she promised she'd surely come to-day!
  There she comes! she comes at last! O heart of mine rejoice—
    Nothing but a flight of birds winging on their way.

  Lonely grows the afternoon, empty grows the world;
  Day's bright banners in the west one by one are furled,
  Sadly sinks the lingering sun that like a lover rose,
  One by one each woodland thing loses heart and goes.

  Back along the woodland, all the day is dead,
  All the green has turned to gray, and all the gold to lead;
  O 'tis bitter cruel, sweet, to treat a lover so:
  If only I were half a man . . . I'd let the baggage go.

THE RIVAL

  She failed me at the tryst:
    All the long afternoon
  The golden day went by,
    Until the rising moon;
  But, as I waited on,
    Turning my eyes about,
  Aching for sight of her,
    Until the stars came out,—
  Maybe 'twas but a dream—
    There close against my face,
  "Beauty am I," said one,
    "I come to take her place."

  And then I understood
    Why, all the waiting through,
  The green had seemed so green,
    The blue had seemed so blue,
  The song of bird and stream
    Had been so passing sweet,
  For all the coming not
    Of her forgetful feet;
  And how my heart was tranced,
    For all its lonely ache,
  Gazing on mirrored rushes
    Sky-deep in the lake.
  Said Beauty: "Me you love,
    You love her for my sake."

THE QUARREL

  Thou shall not me persuade
    This love of ours
  Can in a moment fade,
    Like summer flowers;

  That a swift word or two,
    In angry haste,
  Our heaven shall undo,
    Our hearts lay waste.

  For a poor flash of pride,
    A cold word spoken,
  Love shall not be denied,
    Or long troth broken.

  Yea; wilt thou not relent?
    Be mine the wrong,
  No more the argument,
    Dear love, prolong.

  The summer days go by,
    Cease that sweet rain,
  Those angry crystals dry,
    Be friends again.

  So short a time at best
    Is ours to play,
  Come, take me to thy breast—
    Ah! that's the way.

LOVERS

  Why should I ask perfection of thee, sweet,
    That have so little of mine own to bring?
  That thou art beautiful from head to feet—
    Is that, beloved, such a little thing,
    That I should ask more of thee, and should fling
  Thy largesse from me, in a world like this,
  O generous giver of thy perfect kiss?

  Thou gavest me thy lips, thine eyes, thine hair;
    I brought thee worship—was it not thy due?
  If thou art cruel—still art thou not fair?
    Roses thou gavest—shalt thou not bring rue?
    Alas! have I not brought thee sorrow too?
  How dare I face the future and its drouth,
  Missing that golden honeycomb thy mouth?

  Kiss and make up—'tis the wise ancient way;
    Back to my arms, O bountiful deep breast!
  No more of words that know not what they say;
    To kiss is wisdom—folly all the rest.
    Dear loveliness so mercifully pressed
  Against my heart—I shake with sudden fear
  To think—to losing thee I came so near.

SHADOWS

  Shadows! the only shadows that I know
    Are happy shadows of the light of you,
    The radiance immortal shining through
  Your sea-deep eyes up from the soul below;
    Your shadow, like a rose's, on the grass
    Where your feet pass.

  The shadow of the dimple in your chin,
    The shadow of the lashes of your eyes,
    As on your cheek, soft as a moth, it lies;
  And, as a church, I softly enter in
    The solemn twilight of your mighty hair,
    Down falling there.

  These are Love's shadows, Love knows none but these:
    Shadows that are the very soul of light,
    As morning and the morning blossom bright,
  Or jewelled shadows of moon-haunted seas;
    The darkest shadows in this world of ours
    Are made of flowers.

AFTER TIBULLUS

Illius est nobis lege colendus amor

  On her own terms, O lover, must thou take
    The heart's beloved: be she kind, 'tis well,
  Cruel, expect no more; not for thy sake
    But for the fire in thee that melts her snows
    For a brief spell
  She loves thee—"loves" thee! Though thy heart should break,
    Though thou shouldst lie athirst for her in hell,
      She could not pity thee: who of the Rose,
  Or of the Moon, asks pity, or return
      Of love for love? and she is even as those.
  Beauty is she, thou Love, and thou must learn,
    O lover, this:
  Thine is she for the music thou canst pour
      Through her white limbs, the madness, the deep dream;
    Thine, while thy kiss
      Can sweep her flaming with thee down the stream
    That is not thou nor she but merely bliss;
  The music ended, she is thine no more.

  In her Eternal Beauty bends o'er thee,
    Be thou content;
  She is the evening star in thy hushed lake
      Mirrored,—be glad;
    A soul-less creature of the element,
      Nor good, nor bad;
  That which thou callest to in the far skies
  Comes to thee in her eyes;
      That thou mayst slake
  Thy love of lilies, lo! her breasts! Be wise,
  Ask not that she, as thou, should human be,
    She that doth smell so sweet of distant heaven;
    Pity is mortal leaven,
  Dews know it not, nor morning on the hills,
    And who hath yet found pity of the sea
  That blesses, knowing not, and, not knowing, kills;
    And sister unto all of these is she,
  Whose face, as theirs, none reads; whose heart none knows;
    Whose words are as the wind's words, and whose ways,
      O lover, learn,
      Swerve not, or turn
    Aside for prayers, or broken-hearted praise:
  The young moon looks not back as on she goes.
  On their own terms, O lover!—Girl, Moon, Rose.

A WARNING

  We that were born, beloved, so far apart,
    So many seas and lands,
  The gods, one sudden day, joined heart to heart,
    Locked hands in hands,
  Distance relented and became our friend,
  And met, for our sakes, world's end with world's end.
  The earth was centred in one flowering plot
  Beneath thy feet, and all the rest was not.

  Now wouldst thou rend our nearness, and again
    Bring distance back, and place
  Poles and equators, mountain range and plain,
    Between me and thy face,
  Undoing what the gods divinely planned;
  Heart, canst thou part? hand, loose me from thy hand?
  Not twice the gods their slighted gifts bestow;
  Bethink thee well, beloved, ere thou dost go.

PRIMUM MOBILE

  When thou art gone, then all the rest will go;
    Mornings no more shall dawn,
  Roses no more shall blow,
    Thy lovely face withdrawn—
  Nor woods grow green again after the snow;
    For of all these thy beauty was the dream,
  The soul, the sap, the song;
    To thee the bloom and beam
  Of flower and star belong,
    And all the beauty thine of bird and stream.

  Thy bosom was the moonrise, and the morn
    The roses of thy cheek,
  No lovely thing was born
    But of thy face did speak—
  How shall all these endure, of thee forlorn?
    The sad heart of the world grew glad through thee,
  Happy, men toiled and spun
    That had thy smile for fee;
  So flowers seek the sun,
    So singing rivers hasten to the sea.

  Yet, though the world, bereft, should bleakly bloom,
    And wanly make believe
  Against the general doom,
    For me the earth you leave
  Shall be for ever but a haunted room;
    Yea! though my heart beat on a little space,
  When thou art strangely gone
    To thy far hiding-place,
  Soon shall I follow on,
    Out-footing Death to over-take thy face.

THE LAST TRYST

  The cowbells wander through the woods,
    'Neath arching boughs a stream slips by,
  In all the ferny solitude
    A chipmunk and a butterfly
    Are all that is—and you and I.

  This summer day, with all its flowers,
    With all its green and gold and blue,
  Just for a little while is ours,
    Just for a little—I and you:
    Till the stars rise and bring the dew.

  One perfect day to us is given;
    Tomorrow—all the aching years;
  This is our last short day in heaven,
    The last of all our kisses nears—
    Then life too arid even for tears.

  Here, as the day ends, we two end,
    Two that were one, we said, for ever;
  We had Eternity to spend,
    And laughed for joy to know that never
    Two so divinely one could sever.

  A year ago—how rich we seemed!
    Like piles of gold our kisses lay,
  Enough to last our lives we dreamed,
    And lives to come, we used to say—
    Yet are we at the last to-day.

  The last, I say, yet scarce believe
    What all my heart is black with knowing;
  Doomed, I yet watch for some reprieve,
    But know too well that love is going,
    As sure as yonder stream is flowing.

  Look round us how the hot sun burns
    In plots of glory here and there,
  Pouring its gold among the ferns:
    So burned my lips upon your hair,
    So rained our kisses, love, last year.

  We saw not where a shadow loomed,
    That, from its first auroral hour,
  Our happy paradise fore-doomed;
    A Fate within whose icy power
    Love blooms as helpless as a flower.

  Its shadow by the dial stands,
    The golden moments shudder past,
  Soon shall he smite apart our hands,
    In vain we hold each other fast,
    And the last kiss must come at last.

  The last! then be it charged with fire,
    With sacred passion wild and white,
  With such a glory of desire,
    We two shall vanish in its light,
    And find each other in God's sight.

THE HEART ON THE SLEEVE

  I wore my heart upon my sleeve,
    Tis most unwise, they say, to do—
  But then how could I but believe
    The foolish thing was safe with you?
  Yet, had I known, 'twas safer far
    With wolves and tigers, the wild sea
  Were kinder to it than you are—
    Sweetheart, how you must laugh at me!

  Yet am I glad I did not know
    That creatures of such tender bloom,
  Beneath their sanctuary snow,
    Were such cold ministers of doom;
  For had I known, as I began
    To love you, ere we flung apart,
  I had not been so glad a man
    As holds his lady to his heart.

  And am I lonely here to-night
    With empty eyes, the cause is this,
  Your face it was that gave me sight,
    My heart ran over with your kiss.
  Still do I think that what I laid
    Before the altar of your face,
  Flower of words that shall not fade,
    Were worthy of a moment's grace;

  Some thoughtless, lightly dropped largesse,
    A touch of your immortal hand
  Laid on my brow in tenderness,
    Though you could never understand.
  And yet with hungered lips to touch
    Your feet of pearl and in your face
  To look a little was over-much—
    In heaven is no such fair a place
  As, broken-hearted, at your feet
    To lie there and to kiss them, sweet.

AT HER FEET

  My head is at your feet,
    Two Cytherean doves,
  The same, O cruel sweet,
    As were the Queen of Love's;
  They brush my dreaming brows
    With silver fluttering beat,
  Here in your golden house,
    Beneath your feet.

  No man that draweth breath
    Is in such happy case:
  My heart to itself saith—
    Though kings gaze on her face,
    I would not change my place;
  To lie here is more sweet,
  Here at her feet.

  As one in a green land
    Beneath a rose-bush lies,
  Two petals in his hand,
    With shut and dreaming eyes,
  And hears the rustling stir,
    As the young morning goes,
  Shaking abroad the myrrh
    Of each awakened rose;
  So to me lying there
  Comes the soft breath of her,—
  O cruel sweet!—
  There at her feet.

  O little careless feet
  That scornful tread
  Upon my dreaming head,
  As little as the rose
  Of him who lies there knows
  Nor of what dreams may be
  Beneath your feet;
  Know you of me,
  Ah! dreams of your fair head,
  Its golden treasure spread,
  And all your moonlit snows,
  Yea! all your beauty's rose
  That blooms to-day so fair
  And smells so sweet—
  Shoulders of ivory,
  And breasts of myrrh—
  Under my feet.

RELIQUIAE

  This is all that is left—this letter and this rose!
  And do you, poor dreaming things, for a moment suppose
  That your little fire shall burn for ever and ever on,
  And this great fire be, all but these ashes, gone?

  Flower! of course she is—but is she the only flower?
  She must vanish like all the rest at the funeral hour,
  And you that love her with brag of your all-conquering thew,
  What, in the eyes of the gods, tall though you be, are you?

  You and she are no more—yea! a little less than we;
  And what is left of our loving is little enough to see;
  Sweet the relics thereof—a rose, a letter, a glove—
  That in the end is all that remains of the mightiest love.

  Six-foot two! what of that? for Death is taller than he;
  And, every moment, Death gathers flowers as fair as she;
  And nothing you two can do, or plan or purpose or dream,
  But will go the way of the wind and go the way of the stream.

LOVE'S PROUD FAREWELL

  I am too proud of loving thee, too proud
    Of the sweet months and years that now have end,
      To feign a heart indifferent to this loss,
  Too thankful-happy that the gods allowed
      Our orbits cross,
    Beloved and lovely friend;
    And though I wend
  Lonely henceforth along a road grown gray,
  I shall not be all lonely on the way,
  Companioned with the attar of thy rose,
  Though in my garden it no longer blows.

  Thou canst not give elsewhere thy gifts to me,
    Or only seem to give;
    Yea, not so fugitive
  The glory that hath hallowed me and thee,
  Not thou or I alone that marvel wrought
  Immortal is the paradise of thought,
    Nor ours to destroy,
  Born of our hearts together, where bright streams
    Ran through the woods for joy,
  That heaven of our dreams.

    There shall it shine
      Under green boughs,
  So long as May and June bring leaves and flowers,
  Couches of moss and fern and woven bowers,
    Still thine and mine,
      A golden house;
  And, perchance, e'er the winter that takes all,
    I, there alone in the deep listening wood,
  Shall hear thy lost foot-fall,
    And, scarce believing the beatitude,
  Shall know thee there,
    Wild heart to wild heart pressed,
  And wrap me in the splendour of thine hair,
    And laugh within thy breast.

THE ROSE HAS LEFT THE GARDEN

  The Rose has left the garden,
  Here she but faintly lives,
  Lives but for me,
  Within this little urn of pot-pourri
  Of all that was
  And never more can be,
  While her black berries harden
  On the wind-shaken tree.
  Yet if my song a little fragrance gives,
  'Tis not all loss,
  Something I save
  From the sweet grave
  Wherein she lies,
  Something she gave
  That never dies,
  Something that may still live
  In these my words
  That draw from her their breath,
  And fain would be her birds
  Still in her death.

II

THE GARDENS OF ADONIS

  Belovèd, I would tell a ghostly thing
    That hides beneath the simple name of Spring;
  Wild beyond hope the news—the dead return,
    The shapes that slept, their breath a frozen mist,
  Ascend from out sarcophagus and urn,
    Lips that were dust new redden to be kissed,
  Fires that were quenched re-burn.

  The gardens of Adonis bloom again,
    Proserpina may hold the lad no more,
  That in her arms the winter through hath lain;
    Up flings he from the hollow-sounding door,
  Where Love hath bruised her rosy breast in vain:
    Ah! through their tears—the happy April rain—
  They, like two stars aflame, together run,
    Then lift immortal faces in the sun.

  A faint far music steals from underground,
  And to the spirit's ear there comes the sound,
    The whisper vague, and rustle delicate,
  Of myriad atoms stirring in their trance
    That for the lifted hand of Order wait,
  Taking their stations in the cosmic dance,
    Mate linked to mystic mate.

  And perished shapes rebuild themselves anew,
  Nourished on essences of fire and dew,
    And in earth's cheek, but now so wistful wan,
  The colour floods, and from deep wells of power
    Rises the sap of resurrection;
  The dead branch buds, the dry staff breaks in flower,
    The grass comes surging on.

  These ghostly things that in November died,
  How come they thus again adream with pride?
    I saw the Red Rose lying in her tomb,
  Yet comes she lovelier back, a redder rose;
    What paints upon her cheek this vampire bloom?
  Belovéd, when to the dark thy beauty goes,
    Thee too will Spring re-lume?

  Verily, nothing dies; a brief eclipse
  Is all; and this blessed union of our lips
    Shall bind us still though we have lips no more:
  For as the Rose and as the gods are we,
    Returning ever; but the shapes we wore
  Shall have some look of immortality
    More shining than before.

  Make we our offerings at Adonis' shrine,
    For this is Love's own resurrection day,
  Bring we the honeyed cakes, the sacred wine,
    And myrtle garlands on his altars lay:
  O Thou, beloved alike of Proserpine
  And Aphrodite, to our prayers incline;
  Be thou propitious to this love of ours,
  And we, the summer long, shall bring thee flowers.

NATURE THE HEALER

  When all the world has gone awry,
    And I myself least favour find
  With my own self, and but to die
    And leave the whole sad coil behind,
  Seems but the one and only way;
    Should I but hear some water falling
  Through woodland veils in early May,
    And small bird unto small bird calling—
  O then my heart is glad as they.

  Lifted my load of cares, and fled
    My ghosts of weakness and despair,
  And, unafraid, I raise my head
    And Life to do its utmost dare;
  Then if in its accustomed place
    One flower I should chance find blowing,
  With lovely resurrected face
    From Autumn's rust and Winter's snowing—
  I laugh to think of my disgrace.

  A simple brook, a simple flower,
    A simple wood in green array,—
  What, Nature, thy mysterious power
    To bind and heal our mortal clay?
  What mystic surgery is thine,
    Whose eyes of us seem all unheeding,
  That even so sad a heart as mine
    Laughs at the wounds that late were bleeding?—
  Yea! sadder hearts, O Power Divine.

  I think we are not otherwise
    Than all the children of thy knee;
  For so each furred and winged one flies,
    Wounded, to lay its heart on thee;
  And, strangely nearer to thy breast,
    Knows, and yet knows not, of thy healing,
  Asking but there awhile to rest,
    With wisdom beyond our revealing—
  Knows and yet knows not, and is blest.

LOVE ETERNAL

  The human heart will never change,
    The human dream will still go on,
  The enchanted earth be ever strange
    With moonlight and the morning sun,
  And still the seas shall shout for joy,
    And swing the stars as in a glass,
  The girl be angel for the boy,
    The lad be hero for the lass.

  The fashions of our mortal brains
    New names for dead men's thoughts shall give,
  But we find not for all our pains
    Why 'tis so wonderful to live;
  The beauty of a meadow-flower
    Shall make a mock of all our skill,
  And God, upon his lonely tower
    Shall keep his secret—secret still.

  The old magician of the skies,
    With coloured and sweet-smelling things,
  Shall charm the sense and trance the eyes,
    Still onward through a million springs;
  And nothing old and nothing new
    Into the magic world be born,
  Yea! nothing older than the dew,
    And nothing younger than the morn.

  Delight and Destiny and Death
    Shall still the mortal story weave,
  Man shall not lengthen out his breath,
    Nor stay when it is time to leave;
  And all in vain for him to ask
    His little meaning in the Whole,
  Done well or ill his tiny task,
    The mystic making of his soul.

  Ah! love, and is it not enough
    To have our part in this romance
  Made of such planetary stuff,
    Strange partners in the cosmic dance?
  Though Life be all too swift a dream,
    And its fair rose must fade and fall,
  Life has no sorrow in its scheme
    As never to have lived at all.

  This fire that through our being runs,
    When our two hearts together beat,
  Is one with yonder burning sun's,
    Two atoms that in glory meet;
  What unimagined loss it were,
    If that dread power in which we trust
  Had left your eyes, your lips, your hair,
    Nought but un-animated dust.

  Unknown the thrilling touch divine
    That sets our magic clay aflame,
  That wrought your beauty to be mine,
    And joy enough to speak your name;
  Thanks be to Life that did this thing,
    Unsought, beloved, for you and me,
  Gave us the rose, and birds to sing,
    The golden earth, the blue-robed sea.

THE LOVELIEST FACE AND THE WILD ROSE

  The loveliest face! I turned to her
    Shut in 'mid savage rocks and trees;—
  'Twas in the May-time of the year,
    And our two hearts were filled with ease—
  And pointed where a wild-rose grew,
    Suddenly fair in that grim place:
  "We should know all, if we but knew
    Whence came this flower, and whence—this face."

  The loveliest face! My thoughts went around:
    "Strange sister of this little rose,
  So softly 'scaped from underground;
    O tell me if your beauty knows,
  Being itself so fair a thing,
    How came this lovely thing so fair,
  How came it to such blossoming,
    Leaning so strangely from the air?

  "The wonder of its being born,
    So lone and lovely—even as you—
  Half maiden-moon, half maiden-morn,
    And delicately sad with dew;
  How came it in this rocky place?
    Or shall I ask the rose if she
  Knows how this marvel of your face
    On this harsh planet came to be?"

  Earth's bluest eyes gazed into mine,
    And on her head Earth's brightest gold
  Made all the rocks with glory shine—
    But still the secret went untold;
  For rose nor girl, no more than I,
    Their own mysterious meaning knew,
  Save that alike from earth and sky
    Each her enchanted being drew.

  Both from deep wells of wonder sprang,
    Both children of the cosmic dream,
  Alike with yonder bird that sang,
    And little lives that flit and gleam;
  Sparks from the central rose of fire
    That at the heart of being burns,
  That draws the lily from the mire
    And trodden dust to beauty turns.

  Strange wand of Beauty—that transforms
    Old dross to dreams, that softly glows
  On the fierce rainbowed front of storms,
    And smiles on unascended snows,
  That from the travail of lone seas
    Wrests sighing shell and moonlit pearl,
  And gathers up all sorceries
    In the white being of one girl.

AS IN THE WOODLAND I WALK

  As in the woodland I walk, many a strange thing I learn—
  How from the dross and the drift the beautiful things return,
  And the fires quenched in October in April reburn;

  How foulness grows fair with the stern lustration
      of sleets and snows,
  And rottenness changes back to the breath and the cheek
      of the rose,
  And how gentle the wind that seems wild to each blossom
      that blows;

  How the lost is ever found, and the darkness the door
      of the light,
  And how soft the caress of the hand that to shape
      must not fear to smite,
  And how the dim pearl of the moon is drawn from the gulf
      of the night;

  How, when the great tree falls, with its empire
      of rustling leaves,
  The earth with a thousand hands its sunlit ruin receives,
  And out of the wreck of its glory each secret artist weaves

  Splendours anew and arabesques and tints on his swaying loom,
  Soft as the eyes of April, and black as the brows of doom,
  And the fires give back in blue-eyed flowers the woodland
      they consume;

  How when the streams run dry, the thunder calls on the hills,
  And the clouds spout silver showers in the laps
      of the little rills,
  And each spring brims with the morning star,
      and each thirsty fountain fills;

  And how, when the songs seemed ended, and all the music mute,
  There is always somewhere a secret tune, some string
      of a hidden lute,
  Lonely and undismayed that has faith in the flower
      and the fruit.

  So I learn in the woods—that all things come again,
  That sorrow turns to joy, and that laughter is born of pain,
  That the burning gold of June is the gray of December's rain.