Grass of Parnassus

Why will you haunt my sleep?
   You know it may not be,
The grave is wide and deep,
   That sunders you and me;
In bitter dreams we reap
   The sorrow we have sown,
And I would I were asleep,
   Forgotten and alone!

We knew and did not know,
   We saw and did not see,
The nets that long ago
   Fate wove for you and me;
The cruel nets that keep
   The birds that sob and moan,
And I would we were asleep,
   Forgotten and alone!

‘La Rose qui chante et l’herbe qui égare.’

White Rose on the grey garden wall,
   Where now no night-wind whispereth,
Call to the far-off flowers, and call
   With murmured breath and musical
Till all the Roses hear, and all
   Sing to my Love what the White Rose saith.

White Rose on the grey garden wall
   That long ago we sung!
Again you come at Summer’s call,—
Again beneath my windows all
   With trellised flowers is hung,
With clusters of the roses white
Like fragrant stars in a green night.

St. Mary’s, Merton, Magdalen—still
   Their sweet bells chime and swing,
The old years answer them, and thrill
A wintry heart against its will
   With memories of the Spring—
That Spring we sought the gardens through
For flowers which ne’er in gardens grew!

For we, beside our nurse’s knee,
   In fairy tales had heard
Of that strange Rose which blossoms free
On boughs of an enchanted tree,
   And sings like any bird!
And of the weed beside the way
That leadeth lovers’ steps astray!

In vain we sought the Singing Rose
   Whereof old legends tell,
Alas, we found it not mid those
Within the grey old College close,
   That budded, flowered, and fell,—
We found that herb called ‘Wandering’
And meet no more, no more in Spring!

A little of Horace, a little of Prior,
A sketch of a Milkmaid, a lay of the Squire—
These, these are ‘on draught’ ‘At the Sign of the Lyre!’

A child in Blue Ribbons that sings to herself,
A talk of the Books on the Sheraton shelf,
A sword of the Stuarts, a wig of the Guelph,

A lai, a pantoum, a ballade, a rondeau,
A pastel by Greuze, and a sketch by Moreau,
And the chimes of the rhymes that sing sweet as they go,

A fan, and a folio, a ringlet, a glove,
’Neath a dance by Laguerre on the ceiling above,
And a dream of the days when the bard was in love,

A scent of dead roses, a glance at a pun,
A toss of old powder, a glint of the sun,
They meet in the volume that Dobson has done!

If there’s more that the heart of a man can desire,
He may search, in his Swinburne, for fury and fire;
If he’s wise—he’ll alight ‘At the Sign of the Lyre!’

FOR A SKETCH BY MR. G. LESLIE, R.A.

France your country, as we know;
   Room enough for guessing yet,
What lips now or long ago,
   Kissed and named you—Colinette.
In what fields from sea to sea,
   By what stream your home was set,
Loire or Seine was glad of thee,
   Marne or Rhone, O Colinette?

Did you stand with maidens ten,
   Fairer maids were never seen,
When the young king and his men
   Passed among the orchards green?
Nay, old ballads have a note
   Mournful, we would fain forget;
No such sad old air should float
   Round your young brows, Colinette.

Have I seen you proud and gay,
   With a patched and perfumed beau,
Dancing through the summer day,
   Misty summer of Watteau?
Nay, so sweet a maid as you
   Never walked a minuet
With the splendid courtly crew;
   Nay, forgive me, Colinette.

Not from Greuze’s canvases
   Do you cast a glance, a smile;
You are not as one of these,
   Yours is beauty without guile.
Round your maiden brows and hair
   Maidenhood and Childhood met
Crown and kiss you, sweet and fair,
   New art’s blossom, Colinette.

LUI.

The silk sail fills, the soft winds wake,
   Arise and tempt the seas;
Our ocean is the Palace lake,
Our waves the ripples that we make
   Among the mirrored trees.

ELLE.

Nay, sweet the shore, and sweet the song,
   And dear the languid dream;
The music mingled all day long
With paces of the dancing throng,
   And murmur of the stream.

An hour ago, an hour ago,
   We rested in the shade;
And now, why should we seek to know
What way the wilful waters flow?
   There is no fairer glade.

Nay, pleasure flits, and we must sail,
   And seek him everywhere;
Perchance in sunset’s golden pale
He listens to the nightingale,
      Amid the perfumed air.

Come, he has fled; you are not you,
   And I no more am I;
Delight is changeful as the hue
Of heaven, that is no longer blue
   In yonder sunset sky.

ELLE.

Nay, if we seek we shall not find,
   If we knock none openeth;
Nay, see, the sunset fades behind
The mountains, and the cold night wind
   Blows from the house of Death.

‘Serai-je nonnette, oui ou non?
Semi-je nonnette? je crois que non.
Derrière chez mon père
Il est un bois taillis,
Le rossignol y chante
Et le jour et la nuit.
Il chante pour les filles
Qui n’ont pas d’ami;
Il ne chant pas pour moi,
J’en ai un, Dieu merci.’—Old French.

I’ll never be a nun, I trow,
While apple bloom is white as snow,
   But far more fair to see;
I’ll never wear nun’s black and white
While nightingales make sweet the night
   Within the apple tree.

Ah, listen! ’tis the nightingale,
And in the wood he makes his wail,
   Within the apple tree;
He singeth of the sore distress
Of many ladies loverless;
   Thank God, no song for me.

Between lark’s song and nightingale’s
A silent space, while dawning pales,
   The birds leave still and free
For words and kisses musical,
For silence and for sighs that fall
   In the dawn, ’twixt him and me.

‘When last we gathered roses in the garden
I found my wits, but truly you lost yours.’

The Broken Heart.

Kiss me, and say good-bye;
   Good-bye, there is no word to say but this,
   Nor any lips left for my lips to kiss,
Nor any tears to shed, when these tears dry;
Kiss me, and say, good-bye.

Farewell, be glad, forget;
   There is no need to say ‘forget,’ I know,
   For youth is youth, and time will have it so,
And though your lips are pale, and your eyes wet,
   Farewell, you must forget.

You shall bring home your sheaves,
   Many, and heavy, and with blossoms twined
   Of memories that go not out of mind;
Let this one sheaf be twined with poppy leaves
When you bring home your sheaves.

In garnered loves of thine,
   The ripe good fruit of many hearts and years,
   Somewhere let this lie, grey and salt with tears;
It grew too near the sea wind, and the brine
Of life, this love of mine.

Yet was it thine, my sweet,
   This love, though weak as young corn withered,
   Whereof no man may gather and make bread;
Thine, though it never knew the summer heat;
Forget not quite, my sweet.

Χαιρέ μοι, ω βασίλεια, διαμπερες, εις ο κε γηρας
Ελθη και θάνατος, τά τ’ επ’ ανθρώποισι πέλονται.

Odyssey, XIII.

My prayer an old prayer borroweth,
Of ancient love and memory—
‘Do thou farewell, till Eld and Death,
That come to all men, come to thee.’
Gently as winter’s early breath,
Scarce felt, what time the swallows flee,
To lands whereof no man knoweth
Of summer, over land and sea;
So with thy soul may summer be,
Even as the ancient singer saith,
‘Do thou farewell, till Eld and Death,
That come to all men, come to thee.’

AFTER RONSARD.

IN MEMORY OF GÉRARD DE NERVAL.

Two loves there were, and one was born
   Between the sunset and the rain;
Her singing voice went through the corn,
Her dance was woven ’neath the thorn,
   On grass the fallen blossoms stain;
And suns may set, and moons may wane,
But this love comes no more again.

There were two loves and one made white,
   Thy singing lips, and golden hair;
Born of the city’s mire and light,
The shame and splendour of the night,
   She trapped and fled thee unaware;
Not through the lamplight and the rain
Shalt thou behold this love again.

That other love, afield, afar
   Fled the light love, with lighter feet.
Nay, though thou seek where gravesteads are,
And flit in dreams from star to star,
   That dead love shalt thou never meet,
Till through bleak dawn and blowing rain
Thy soul shall find her soul again.

Plotinus, the Greek philosopher, had a certain proper mode of ecstasy, whereby, as Porphyry saith, his soul, becoming free from the deathly flesh, was made one with the Spirit that is in the world.

Alas, the path is lost, we cannot leave
   Our bright, our clouded life, and pass away
As through strewn clouds, that stain the quiet eve,
   To heights remoter of the purer day.
The soul may not, returning whence she came,
   Bathe herself deep in Being, and forget
The joys that fever, and the cares that fret,
   Made once more one with the eternal flame
That breathes in all things ever more the same.
   She would be young again, thus drinking deep
Of her old life; and this has been, men say,
   But this we know not, who have only sleep
To soothe us, sleep more terrible than day,
   Where dead delights, and fair lost faces stray,
To make us weary at our wakening;
   And of that long lost path to the Divine
We dream, as some Greek shepherd erst might sing,
   Half credulous, of easy Proserpine,
And of the lands that lie ‘beneath the day’s decline.’

Some say that Helen went never to Troy, but abode in Egypt; for the gods, having made in her semblance a woman out of clouds and shadows, sent the same to be wife to Paris.  For this shadow then the Greeks and Trojans slew each other.

Why from the quiet hollows of the hills,
And extreme meeting place of light and shade,
Wherein soft rains fell slowly, and became
Clouds among sister clouds, where fair spent beams
And dying glories of the sun would dwell,
Why have they whom I know not, nor may know,
Strange hands, unseen and ruthless, fashioned me,
And borne me from the silent shadowy hills,
Hither, to noise and glow of alien life,
To harsh and clamorous swords, and sound of war?

One speaks unto me words that would be sweet,
Made harsh, made keen with love that knows me not,
And some strange force, within me or around,
Makes answer, kiss for kiss, and sigh for sigh,
And somewhere there is fever in the halls
That troubles me, for no such trouble came
To vex the cool far hollows of the hills.

At other hours another life seems mine,
Where one great river runs unswollen of rain,
By pyramids of unremembered kings,
And homes of men obedient to the Dead.
There dark and quiet faces come and go
Around me, then again the shriek of arms,
And all the turmoil of the Ilian men.

What are they? even shadows such as I.
What make they?  Even this—the sport of gods—
The sport of gods, however free they seem.
Ah, would the game were ended, and the light,
The blinding light, and all too mighty suns,
Withdrawn, and I once more with sister shades,
Unloved, forgotten, mingled with the mist,
Dwelt in the hollows of the shadowy hills.

To H. R. H.

Not in the waste beyond the swamps and sand,
   The fever-haunted forest and lagoon,
Mysterious Kôr thy walls forsaken stand,
   Thy lonely towers beneath the lonely moon,
   Not there doth Ayesha linger, rune by rune
Spelling strange scriptures of a people banned.
   The world is disenchanted; over soon
Shall Europe send her spies through all the land.

Nay, not in Kôr, but in whatever spot,
   In town or field, or by the insatiate sea,
Men brood on buried loves, and unforgot,
   Or break themselves on some divine decree,
Or would o’erleap the limits of their lot,
   There, in the tombs and deathless, dwelleth SHE!

He left the land of youth, he left the young,
   The smiling gods of Greece; he passed the isle
Where Jason loitered, and where Sappho sung,
   He sought the secret-founted wave of Nile,
   And of their old world, dead a weary while,
Heard the priests murmur in their mystic tongue,
   And through the fanes went voyaging, among
Dark tribes that worshipped Cat and Crocodile.

He learned the tales of death Divine and birth,
Strange loves of Hawk and Serpent, Sky and Earth,
   The marriage, and the slaying of the Sun.
The shrines of gods and beasts he wandered through,
And mocked not at their godhead, for he knew
   Behind all creeds the Spirit that is One.

Of all that were thy prisons—ah, untamed,
Ah, light and sacred soul!—none holds thee now;
   No wall, no bar, no body of flesh, but thou
Art free and happy in the lands unnamed,
Within whose gates, on weary wings and maimed,
   Thou still would’st bear that mystic golden bough
   The Sibyl doth to singing men allow,
Yet thy report folk heeded not, but blamed.
   And they would smile and wonder, seeing where
Thou stood’st, to watch light leaves, or clouds, or wind,
   Dreamily murmuring a ballad air,
Caught from the Valois peasants; dost thou find
   A new life gladder than the old times were,
A love more fair than Sylvie, and as kind?

Master, I see thee with the locks of grey,
   Crowned by the Muses with the laurel-wreath;
   I see the roses hiding underneath,
Cassandra’s gift; she was less dear than they.
Thou, Master, first hast roused the lyric lay,
   The sleeping song that the dead years bequeath,
   Hast sung thine answer to the lays that breathe
Through ages, and through ages far away.

And thou hast heard the pulse of Pindar beat,
   Known Horace by the fount Bandusian!
Their deathless line thy living strains repeat,
   But ah, thy voice is sad, thy roses wan,
But ah, thy honey is not honey-sweet,
   Thy bees have fed on yews Sardinian!

With other helpless folk about the gate,
The gate called Beautiful, with weary eyes
   That take no pleasure in the summer skies,
Nor all things that are fairest, does she wait;
So bleak a time, so sad a changeless fate
   Makes her with dull experience early wise,
   And in the dawning and the sunset, sighs
That all hath been, and shall be, desolate.

Ah, if Love come not soon, and bid her live,
   And know herself the fairest of fair things,
Ah, if he have no healing gift to give,
   Warm from his breast, and holy from his wings,
Or if at least Love’s shadow in passing by
Touch not and heal her, surely she must die.

He spake not truth, however wise, who said
   That happy, and that hapless men in sleep
   Have equal fortune, fallen from care as deep
As countless, careless, races of the dead.
Not so, for alien paths of dreams we tread,
   And one beholds the faces that he sighs
   In vain to bring before his daylit eyes,
And waking, he remembers on his bed;

And one with fainting heart and feeble hand
Fights a dim battle in a doubtful land
   Where strength and courage were of no avail;
And one is borne on fairy breezes far
To the bright harbours of a golden star
   Down fragrant fleeting waters rosy pale.

‘Les Sirènes estoient tant intimes amies et fidelles compagnes de Proserpine, qu’elles estoient toujours ensemble.  Esmues du juste deul de la perte de leur chère compagne, et enuyées jusques au desepoir, elles s’arrestèrent à la mer Sicilienne, où par leurs chants elles attiroient les navigans, mais l’unique fin de la volupté de leur musique est la Mort.’

Pontus de Tyard, 1570

The Sirens once were maidens innocent
   That through the water-meads with Proserpine
Plucked no fire-hearted flowers, but were content
   Cool fritillaries and flag-flowers to twine,
   With lilies woven and with wet woodbine;
Till once they sought the bright Ætnæan flowers,
And their glad mistress fled from summer hours
   With Hades, far from olive, corn, and vine.
And they have sought her all the wide world through
   Till many years, and wisdom, and much wrong
Have filled and changed their song, and o’er the blue
   Rings deadly sweet the magic of the song,
And whoso hears must listen till he die
Far on the flowery shores of Sicily.

THE WINDS ARE INVOKED BY THE WINNOWERS OF CORN.

DU BELLAY, 1550.

To you, troop so fleet,
That with winged wandering feet,
   Through the wide world pass,
And with soft murmuring
Toss the green shades of spring
   In woods and grass,
Lily and violet
I give, and blossoms wet,
   Roses and dew;
This branch of blushing roses,
Whose fresh bud uncloses,
   Wind-flowers too.

Ah, winnow with sweet breath,
Winnow the holt and heath,
   Round this retreat;
Where all the golden mom
We fan the gold o’ the corn,
   In the sun’s heat.

JACQUES TAHUREAU.

The high Midnight was garlanding her head
   With many a shining star in shining skies,
And, of her grace, a slumber on mine eyes,
   And, after sorrow, quietness was shed.
Far in dim fields cicalas jargonèd
   A thin shrill clamour of complaints and cries;
And all the woods were pallid, in strange wise,
   With pallor of the sad moon overspread.

Then came my lady to that lonely place,
And, from her palfrey stooping, did embrace
   And hang upon my neck, and kissed me over;
Wherefore the day is far less dear than night,
And sweeter is the shadow than the light,
   Since night has made me such a happy lover.

VICTOR HUGO.

The Grave said to the Rose,
   ‘What of the dews of morn,
Love’s flower, what end is theirs?’
   ‘And what of souls outworn,
Of them whereon doth close
   The tomb’s mouth unawares?’
The Rose said to the Grave.

The Rose said, ‘In the shade
   From the dawn’s tears is made
A perfume faint and strange,
   Amber and honey sweet.’
   ‘And all the spirits fleet
Do suffer a sky-change,
   More strangely than the dew,
   To God’s own angels new,’
The Grave said to the Rose.

DU BELLAY.

We that with like hearts love, we lovers twain,
New wedded in the village by thy fane,
Lady of all chaste love, to thee it is
We bring these amaranths, these white lilies,
A sign, and sacrifice; may Love, we pray,
Like amaranthine flowers, feel no decay;
Like these cool lilies may our loves remain,
Perfect and pure, and know not any stain;
And be our hearts, from this thy holy hour,
Bound each to each, like flower to wedded flower.

RONSARD.

When you are very old, at evening
You’ll sit and spin beside the fire, and say,
   Humming my songs, ‘Ah well, ah well-a-day!
When I was young, of me did Ronsard sing.’
None of your maidens that doth hear the thing,
   Albeit with her weary task foredone,
   But wakens at my name, and calls you one
Blest, to be held in long remembering.

I shall be low beneath the earth, and laid
On sleep, a phantom in the myrtle shade,
   While you beside the fire, a grandame grey,
My love, your pride, remember and regret;
Ah, love me, love! we may be happy yet,
   And gather roses, while ’t is called to-day.

JACQUES TAHUREAU.

Within the sand of what far river lies
The gold that gleams in tresses of my Love?
   What highest circle of the Heavens above
Is jewelled with such stars as are her eyes?
And where is the rich sea whose coral vies
   With her red lips, that cannot kiss enough?
What dawn-lit garden knew the rose, whereof
   The fled soul lives in her cheeks’ rosy guise?

What Parian marble that is loveliest
Can match the whiteness of her brow and breast?
   When drew she breath from the Sabæan glade?
Oh happy rock and river, sky and sea,
Gardens, and glades Sabæan, all that be
   The far-off splendid semblance of my maid!

RÉMY BELLEAU, 1560.

April, pride of woodland ways,
   Of glad days,
April, bringing hope of prime,
   To the young flowers that beneath
   Their bud sheath
Are guarded in their tender time;

April, pride of fields that be
   Green and free,
That in fashion glad and gay,
Stud with flowers red and blue,
   Every hue,
Their jewelled spring array;

April, pride of murmuring
   Winds of spring,
That beneath the winnowed air,
Trap with subtle nets and sweet
   Flora’s feet,
Flora’s feet, the fleet and fair;

April, joy of the green hours,
   Clothes with flowers
Over all her locks of gold
My sweet Lady; and her breast
   With the blest
Buds of summer manifold.

April, with thy gracious wiles,
   Like the smiles,
Smiles of Venus; and thy breath
Like her breath, the gods’ delight,
   (From their height
They take the happy air beneath;)

It is thou that, of thy grace,
   From their place
In the far-off isles dost bring
Swallows over earth and sea,
   Glad to be
Messengers of thee, and Spring.

Nightingales ye now may hear,
   Piercing clear,
Singing in the deepest shade;
Many and many a babbled note
   Chime and float,
Woodland music through the glade.

April, all to welcome thee,
   Spring sets free
Ancient flames, and with low breath
Wakes the ashes grey and old
   That the cold
Chilled within our hearts to death.

Thou beholdest in the warm
   Hours, the swarm
Of the thievish bees, that flies
Evermore from bloom to bloom
   For perfume,
Hid away in tiny thighs.

GÉRARD DE NERVAL.

There is an air for which I would disown
   Mozart’s, Rossini’s, Weber’s melodies,—
A sweet sad air that languishes and sighs,
   And keeps its secret charm for me alone.

Whene’er I hear that music vague and old,
   Two hundred years are mist that rolls away;
The thirteenth Louis reigns, and I behold
   A green land golden in the dying day.

An old red castle, strong with stony towers,
   The windows gay with many-coloured glass;
Wide plains, and rivers flowing among flowers,
   That bathe the castle basement as they pass.

In antique weed, with dark eyes and gold hair,
   A lady looks forth from her window high;
It may be that I knew and found her fair,
   In some forgotten life, long time gone by.

HENRI MURGER.

Louise, have you forgotten yet
   The corner of the flowery land,
The ancient garden where we met,
   My hand that trembled in your hand?
Our lips found words scarce sweet enough,
   As low beneath the willow-trees
We sat; have you forgotten, love?
   Do you remember, love Louise?

Marie, have you forgotten yet
   The loving barter that we made?
The rings we changed, the suns that set,
   The woods fulfilled with sun and shade?
The fountains that were musical
   By many an ancient trysting tree—
Marie, have you forgotten all?
   Do you remember, love Marie?

Louise is dead, and, well-a-day!
   Marie a sadder path has ta’en;
And pale Christine has passed away
   In southern suns to bloom again.
Alas! for one and all of us—
   Marie, Louise, Christine forget;
Our bower of love is ruinous,
   And I alone remember yet.

I be pareld most of prise,
I ride after the wild fee.

Will ye that I should sing
Of the love of a goodly thing,
   Was no vilein’s may?
’Tis all of a knight so free,
Under the olive tree,
   Singing this lay.

Her weed was of samite fine,
Her mantle of white ermine,
   Green silk her hose;
Her shoon with silver gay,
Her sandals flowers of May,
   Laced small and close.

Her belt was of fresh spring buds,
Set with gold clasps and studs,
   Fine linen her shift;
Her purse it was of love,
Her chain was the flower thereof,
   And Love’s gift.

She riding on a day,
Knights met her by the way,
   They did her grace:
‘Fair lady, whence be ye?’
‘France it is my countrie,
   I come of a high race.

‘My sire is the nightingale,
That sings, making his wail,
   In the wild wood, clear;
The mermaid is mother to me,
That sings in the salt sea,
   In the ocean mere.’

‘Ye come of a right good race,
And are born of a high place,
   And of high degree;
Would to God that ye were
Given unto me, being fair,
   My lady and love to be.’

ROMAIC FOLK-SONG.

All the maidens were merry and wed
   All to lovers so fair to see;
The lover I took to my bridal bed
   He is not long for love and me.

I spoke to him and he nothing said,
   I gave him bread of the wheat so fine;
He did not eat of the bridal bread,
   He did not drink of the bridal wine.

I made him a bed was soft and deep,
   I made him a bed to sleep with me;
‘Look on me once before you sleep,
   And look on the flower of my fair body.

‘Flowers of April, and fresh May-dew,
   Dew of April and buds of May;
Two white blossoms that bud for you,
   Buds that blossom before the day.’

FRENCH VOLKS-LIED.

It was a mother and a maid
   That walked the woods among,
And still the maid went slow and sad,
   And still the mother sung.

‘What ails you, daughter Margaret?
   Why go you pale and wan?
Is it for a cast of bitter love,
   Or for a false leman?’

‘It is not for a false lover
   That I go sad to see;
But it is for a weary life
   Beneath the greenwood tree.

‘For ever in the good daylight
   A maiden may I go,
But always on the ninth midnight
   I change to a milk-white doe.

* * * * *

‘Good-morrow, mother.’  ‘Good-morrow, son;
   Where are your hounds so good?’
‘Oh, they are hunting a white doe
   Within the glad greenwood.

‘And three times have they hunted her,
   And thrice she’s won away;
The fourth time that they follow her
   That white doe they shall slay.’

* * * * *

Then out and spoke the forester,
   As he came from the wood,
‘Now never saw I maid’s gold hair
   Among the wild deer’s blood.

‘And I have hunted the wild deer
   In east lands and in west;
And never saw I white doe yet
   That had a maiden’s breast.’

‘But ye must bury my sweet sister
   With a stone at her foot and her head,
And ye must cover her fair body
   With the white roses and red.

‘And I must out to the greenwood,
   The roof shall never shelter me;
And I shall lie for seven long years
   On the grass below the hawthorn tree.’

(MELEAGER.)

Pour wine, and cry again, again, again!
   To Heliodore!
And mingle the sweet word ye call in vain
   With that ye pour!
And bring to me her wreath of yesterday
   That’s dank with myrrh;
Hesternæ Rosæ, ah my friends, but they
   Remember her!
Lo the kind roses, loved of lovers, weep
   As who repine,
For if on any breast they see her sleep
   It is not mine!

(ANTIPHILUS.)

I knew it in your childish grace
   The dawning of Desire,
‘Who lives,’ I said, ‘will see that face
   Set all the world on fire!’
They mocked; but Time has brought to pass
   The saying over-true;
Prophet and martyr now, alas,
   I burn for Truth,—and you!

(POMPEIUS.)

Lais that bloomed for all the world’s delight,
   Crowned with all love lilies, the fair and dear,
Sleeps the predestined sleep, nor knows the flight
   Of Helios, the gold-reined charioteer:
Revel, and kiss, and love, and hate, one Night
   Darkens, that never lamp of Love may cheer!

(MELEAGER.)

For Death, not for Love, hast thou
   Loosened thy zone!
Flutes filled thy bower but now,
   Morning brings moan!
Maids round thy bridal bed
   Hushed are in gloom,
Torches to Love that led
   Light to the tomb!

(LEONIDAS OF TARENTUM.)

Theris the Old, the waves that harvested
   More keen than birds that labour in the sea,
With spear and net, by shore and rocky bed,
   Not with the well-manned galley laboured he;
Him not the star of storms, nor sudden sweep
   Of wind with all his years hath smitten and bent,
But in his hut of reeds he fell asleep,
   As fades a lamp when all the oil is spent:
This tomb nor wife nor children raised, but we
His fellow-toilers, fishers of the sea.

(MELEAGER.)

Ah Love, my Master, hear me swear
By all the locks of Timo’s hair,
By Demo, and that fragrant spell
Wherewith her body doth enchant
Such dreams as drowsy lovers haunt,
By Ilias’ mirth delectable.
And by the lamp that sheds his light
On love and lovers all the night,
By those, ah Love, I swear that thou
Hast left me but one breath, and now
Upon my lips it fluttereth,
Yet this I’ll yield, my latest breath,
Even this, oh Love, for thee to Death!

(RUFINUS.)

Thou hast Hera’s eyes, thou hast Pallas’ hands,
And the feet of the Queen of the yellow sands,
Thou hast beautiful Aphrodite’s breast,
Thou art made of each goddess’s loveliest!
Happy is he who sees thy face,
Happy who hears thy words of grace,
And he that shall kiss thee is half divine,
But a god who shall win that heart of thine!

(ASCLEPIADES.)

Believe me, love, it is not good
To hoard a mortal maidenhood;
In Hades thou wilt never find,
Maiden, a lover to thy mind;
Love’s for the living! presently
Ashes and dust in death are we!

(MELEAGER.)

O gentle ships that skim the seas,
And cleave the strait where Hellé fell,
Catch in your sails the Northern breeze,
   And speed to Cos, where she doth dwell,
   My Love, and see you greet her well!
And if she looks across the blue,
Speak, gentle ships, and tell her true,
‘He comes, for Love hath brought him back,
No sailor, on the landward tack.’

If thus, oh gentle ships, ye do,
   Then may ye win the fairest gales,
And swifter speed across the blue,
   While Zeus breathes friendly on your sails.

(PAULUS SILENTIARIUS.)

I that in youth had never been
The servant of the Paphian Queen,
I that in youth had never felt
The shafts of Eros pierce and melt,
Cypris! in later age, half grey,
I bow the neck to thee to-day.
Pallas, that was my lady, thou
Dost more triumphant vanquish now,
Than when thou gained’st, over seas,
The apple of the Hesperides.

Thirty-six is the term that the prophets assign,
And the students of stars to the years that are mine;
Nay, let thirty suffice, for the man who hath passed
Thirty years is a Nestor, and he died at last!

(FROM THE LATIN OF MÉNAGE.)

Within the streams, Pausanias saith,
   That down Cocytus valley flow,
Girdling the grey domain of Death,
   The spectral fishes come and go;
The ghosts of trout flit to and fro.
   Persephone, fulfil my wish,
And grant that in the shades below
   My ghost may land the ghosts of fish.

Φη λογοποιος ανήρ, δνοφερων εντοσθε ρεέθρων
   οσσα πέριξ Αιδην εις ’Αχέροντα ρέει
ιχθύες ως αν’ αφεγγες υδωρ σκιαι αισσουσιν
   ειδωλ’ ειδώλοις νηχόμενα πτερύγων.
Φερσεφόνη, συ θανόντι δ’ εμοι κρήηνον εέλδωρ,
   καν Αιδη σκιερους ιχθύας εξερύσαι.

L. C.