An Oasis.
You wandered in the desert waste, athirst;
My soul I gave you as a well to drink;
A little while you lingered at the brink,
And then you went, nor either blessed nor cursed.
The image of your face, which sank that day
Into the magic waters of the well,
Still haunts their clearness, still remains to tell
Of one who looked and drank and could not stay.
The sun shines down, the moon slants over it,
The stars look in and are reflected not;
Only your face, unchanged and unforgot,
Shines through the deeps, till all the waves are lit.
My soul I gave you as a well to drink,
And in its depth your face is clearer far
Than any shine of sun or moon or star—
Since then you pause by many a greener brink.
Tuberoses.
I.
The Tuberose you left me yesterday
Leans yellowing in the glass we set it in;
It could not live when you were gone away,
Poor spike of withering sweetness changed and thin.
And all the fragrance of the dying flower
Is grown too faint and poisoned at the source,
Like passion that survives a guilty hour,
To find its sweetness heavy with remorse.
What shall we do, my dear, with dying roses?
Shut them in weighty tomes where none will look
—To wonder when the unfrequent page uncloses
Who shut the wither’d blossoms in the book?—
What shall we do, my dear, with things that perish,
Memory, roses, love we feel and cherish?
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Alive and white, we praised the Tuberose,
So sweet it fill’d the garden with its breath,
A spike of waxy bloom that grows and grows
Until at length it blooms itself to death.
Everything dies that lives—everything dies;
How shall we keep the flower we lov’d so long?
O press to death the transient thing we prize,
Crush it, and shut the elixir in a song.
A song is neither live nor sweet nor white;
It hath no heavenly blossom tall and pure,
No fragrance can it breathe for our delight,
It grows not, neither lives; it may endure.
Sweet Tuberose, adieu! you fade too fast!
Only a dream, only a thought, can last.
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Who’d stay to muse if Death could never wither?
Who dream a dream if Passion did not pass?
But, once deceived, poor mortals, hasten hither
To watch the world in Fancy’s magic glass.
Truly your city, O men, hath no abiding!
Built on the sand it crumbles, as it must;
And as you build, above your praise and chiding,
The columns fall to crush you to the dust.
But fashion’d in the mirage of a dream,
Having nor life nor sense, a bubble of nought,
The enchanted City of the Things that Seem
Keeps till the end of time the eternal Thought.
Forswear to-day, forswearing joy and sorrow,
Forswear to-day, O man, and take to-morrow.
In Affliction.
I watch the happier people of the house
Come in and out, and talk, and go their ways;
I sit and gaze at them; I cannot rouse
My heavy mind to share their busy days.
I watch them glide, like skaters on a stream,
Across the brilliant surface of the world.
But I am underneath: they do not dream
How deep below the eddying flood is whirl’d.
They cannot come to me, nor I to them;
But, if a mightier arm could reach and save,
Should I forget the tide I had to stem?
Should I, like these, ignore the abysmal wave?
Yes! in the radiant air how could I know
How black it is, how fast it is, below.
Remembrance.
O night of Death, O night that bringest all!
Night full of dreams and large with promises,
O night that holdest on thy shadowy knees
Sleep for all fevers, hope for every thrall;
Bring thou to my belovèd, when I die,
The memory of our enchanted past;
So let her turn, remembering me at last,
And I shall hear and triumph where I lie.
Then let my face, pale as a waning moon,
Rise on thy dark and be again as dear;
Let my dead voice find its forgotten tune
And strike again as sweetly on her ear
As when, upon my lips, one far-off June,
Thy name, O Death! she could not brook to hear.
Art and Life.
(A SONNET.)
When autumn comes, my orchard trees alone
Shall bear no fruit to deck the reddening year—
When apple gatherers climb the branches sere
Only on mine no harvest shall be grown.
For when the pearly blossom first was blown,
I filled my hands with delicate buds and dear,
I dipped them in thine icy waters clear,
O well of Art! and turned them all to stone.
Therefore, when winter comes, I shall not eat
Of mellow apples such as others prize:
I shall go hungry in a magic spring!—
All round my head and bright before mine eyes
The barren, strange, eternal blossoms meet,
While I, not less an-hungered, gaze and sing.
Temple Garlands.
There is a temple in my heart
Where moth or rust can never come,
A temple swept and set apart
To make my soul a home;
And round about the doors of it
Hang garlands that for ever last,
That gathered once are always sweet;
The roses of the Past!
Pallor.
The great white lilies in the grass
Are pallid as the smile of death;
For they remember still—alas!—
The graves they sprang from underneath.
The angels up in heaven are pale—
For all have died, when all is said;
Nor shall the lutes of Eden avail
To let them dream they are not dead.
Song.
I have lost my singing-voice;
My heyday’s over.
No more I lilt my cares and joys,
But keep them under cover.
My heyday’s gone:
I sit and look on.
Life rushes past with a sob and a moan.
Wherefore should I care to tell
The pang that rends me?
If it leave me all is well;
And if it last it ends me.
The tears that rise
To my entrancèd eyes
Drop for a world full of hunger and sighs.
Personality.
(A SESTINA.)
As one who goes between high garden walls,
Along a road that never has an end,
With still the empty way behind, in front,
Which he must pace for evermore alone—
So, even so, is Life to every soul,
Walled in with barriers that no Love can break.
And yet, ah me! how often would we break
Through every fence, and overleap the walls,
And link ourselves to some belovèd soul,
Hearing her answering voice until the end,
Going her chosen way, no more alone,
But happy comrades, seeing Heaven in front.
But, ah, the barrier’s high! and still my front
I dash against the stones in vain, nor break
A passage through, but still remain alone:
Hearing sometimes across the garden walls
A voice the wind brings over, or an end
Of song that sinks like dew into my soul.
Since others sing, let me forget, my Soul,
How dreary-long the road goes on in front,
And tow’rds how flat, inevitable an end.
Come, let me look for daisies, let me break
The gillyflowers that shelter in the walls—
But, ah! it is so sad to be alone!
For ever, irremediably alone,
Not only I or thou, but every soul,
Each cased and fastened with invisible walls.
Shall we go mad with it? or bear a front
Of desperate courage doomed to fail and break?
Or trudge in sullen patience till the end?
Ah, hope of every heart, there is an end!
An end when each shall be no more alone,
But either dead, or strong enough to break
This prisoning self and find that larger Soul
(Neither of thee nor me) enthroned in front
Of Time, beyond the world’s remotest walls!
I trust the end and sing within my walls,
Sing all alone, to bid some listening soul
Wait till the day break, watch for me in front!
“Sois par le cœur à ce qui passe et par la pensée à ce qui demeure.”
La Légende Divine.