XXXV
O! Love’s a crystal cup filled rim to rim
And set for us by gods at Life’s banquet,
Where we may drink and drink as Titans yet
Find always there is sweetness at the brim:
When laughter’s ringing loud, who sits there grim
And scorns the gift, the best the gods have set,
Will find it empty if he try to wet
Late at Life’s banquet board dead lips and dim.
Come, Love, I pledge you in this goodly gift!
High! high! above our heads the cup now lift!
Let’s drain it here together, you and I,
For ages that come after we’ll not sigh,
For we have bought the best with this our breath—
Alone remembered joy is safe from death.
XXXVI
“O! palagio d’Ilio, in alta stanza—”
Gabriele d’Annunzio
I’m grateful for that sonnet that you read
With such a thrill of voice I seemed to see
The laughing Cyclades again, gayly
Ships slipping down the shining wind’s roadstead
That sweeps to Troy. ’Twas like a frame you said,
That sonnet in the tongue of Italy,
To frame one fine last line, clean-chiselled, free—
The love-night of two lovers long since dead.
Helen, the white loved one, it said, grieved not
Nor evermore of Greece, home, kindred, thought,
The while the ship sped on. There rose to mind,
Like visions of the day unto the blind,
A room wherein rich gems Love’s luster shed
Upon a cedar-wrought, gold, gleaming bed.
XXXVII
“Mujer mas pura que la luz serena,
Mas negra que la sombra del pecado.”
How I do love your voice when thus you read
The poets of your soft and southern tongue
Whose vowels are like silver prayer-bells rung
Within the oratory of Love’s creed,
Where longing is the incense to up-speed,
And consonants are hushed like prayer among
Gray, gliding nuns, when vesper songs are sung
And they ask pardon for sins sweet indeed.
The last line! How your voice did tremble there,
Caressing lovingly each cadenced sound,
Tonal sonorousness, new, rich, soon found
To weave a magic on the waiting air!
I love you for that subtle sense of art
Where one with me forever is your heart.
XXXVIII
My heart is filled with joy like spring-fed streams
Which bubbling overflow a barren land,
To leave with lavishness on either hand
Green ripple of leaf-dance, and petal gleams.
My heart is filled with joy like spring-fed streams
By floating, fragile, white mist-billows fanned,
Prismatic curtains by the sun’s light planned,
The substance iridescent of our dreams.
My heart is filled with joy, for Love dwells there,
New Heaven for me making and new Earth—
Love! Love!—the God-dream, that to joy gives birth.
’Tis this I know well makes the world so fair,
’Tis this which is the music all things sing—
The crocus dawn—the sunset crimsoning.
XXXIX
Late met we last night by the lake again
When faint for dawn I felt the dark to be;
Mist-veiled, the water lay all silently,
An opal, mystic, dim, Hungarian.
Beneath its milky whiteness I knew when
The call of day came crisping clear and free,
Troubling within the trees birds dream-drowsy
A maze of misty flame would leap again.
So from my heart as night mists dropped adown
And earth became an opal for Love’s crown,
No real world anywhere, nothing but this,
I knew that with sun-splendor of your kiss
There’d come a wonder as with dawn there came
And from Love’s opal heart would leap a flame.
XL
We waked not till again the cruel day came.
The level lake with fire was burnished white.
It bit into the eyes, wounded the sight,
And all the barren land was like a flame.
We lay beside a window wherein came
The scent and sight of cedars, their slim height,
Above them, higher towering, black as night,
One sad and sombre pine—the badge of shame.
Within its glooming shadows I saw glare
The night-bird of the wild and awful stare,
My black, black Bird of Night, to you I cried,
In peace let me a little, pray, abide,
Then to your twilights take me, Bird of Night,
Since now I’m one with you: I fear the light.
XLI
Again, again you ask how you can know
How much I really love you? This to me!
All women I do envy that I see
If they have aught of youth or charm to show,
And wonder, would you like me better so,
If better thus, if thus changed I might be,
Count o’er the years of youth still left to me
Praying: “Dear God, make time go very slow!”
For you I’ve plunged me from calm’s peerless height,
And dwarfed my soul for Envy’s shabby door;
Yet know that I would cry: “Dear God, give more!”
If for the asking I could have to-night
Gold Helens and all dear dead ones’ beauty
Since for your love so little it would be.
XLII
He said when ready for the ball I stood—
Mi esposo—“These gems will you not wear?”
Down bending then to fasten pearl tears where
You’ve set the rubies of Love’s solitude.
And I said, laughing strangely, wild of mood—
“I’d like a corsage gem of grapes to wear
Upon my breast, my arms, my throat, my hair—
Black, bursting grapes, the fiercest suns have wooed!”
And all night while the music rose and fell
I felt your black curls touch me, loved them well,
Felt float across my face spice scents from south,
Felt on my lips the hot breath of your mouth,
Vineyards I saw, gold-dusted grapes in stack—
Your black, black curls flung passionately back.
XLIII
How ebon rich, how wondrous, is your hair!
When here it floats beside me darkly free,
This is the vision that I seem to see:
A roof in Nineveh the Ancient where
Night long there pulses upward on the air
The breath of the great earth-breast’s heat fiercely,
A Titan’s passion like to, first set free
With blackness of the night, exhaustless, there.
A woman, passion-pale, with gems like rain,
Leans listless by stone parapets, again
Lifts arms voluptuous toward where afar
A rider’s armor shines beneath a star,
Her jewels all a-shiver as a pearl
When into ocean depths the sun-rays whirl.
XLIV
To-night a magic sail, Love, is your hair
That wafts o’er waters that know not the sun,
Where stars come not, nor bright the dawn lights run,
And black a basalt palace towers there.
There mingle all night long upon the air
The murmurings of Love’s oblivion,
With songs of many waters, one by one
Flung o’er stone dream of arches black and bare.
Voluptuously listening here I lie
Learning the languors of that unseen sea,
Its rich accords, its magic, mystery.
The night grows deep within your eyes—my sky.
There wild stars rise. Soon, soon our love will be
Swelling the black night palace harmony.
XLV
Your hair I love despite its selfish hue
Made up of treasured sun-gold held in fee,
Not one reflected ray has been set free,
Therefore it is so brightly black to view.
Ages of eastern passion made this hue
Dark as its deepest midnights ere can be,
Splendid as noons the skies strike blanchingly,
So fiercely black, so cruelly bright it grew.
Gold hair gives back again whatever it takes,
Much shine and shimmer in the sunlight makes;
Your hair for æons has drunk deep the sun;
Slow ages swirl beneath me, one by one;
Unto my heart come thoughts that I fear there,
At sight of the black passion of your hair!
XLVI
When in your hair like this I hide my face
I sense sharp savors of Autumn divine,
See tree-boles black against the dusky shine
Of early night; frost-blooms like flaunted lace
Upon the hills; flocked birds sweeping through space;
Sombre the forest aisles, all powdered fine
With twilight dust—sepia crystalline—
And to my heart, too, twilight comes apace.
What is that numbing fragrance in your hair!
Down those dim forest aisles,—lo! dancing there,
One scarlet clad! Slow notes shiver the night.
They tremble down her head disks like sunlight;
By subtle Moorish scents my face is fanned—
O! dance for me again the Saraband!
XLVII
Couleur tabac d’Espagne—your eyes are, Love,
Clearly and sweetly brown, with sun shone through
At mid-day when of merry mood are you—
Mirth’s mirrors, such as brooklets to the dove.
Couleur topaz d’Espagne—my tawny Love—
Topazes filled with diamond’s eyes of you
When shadows lengthen and soft falls the dew—
Dusk’s jewelled passion—Oh! my tawny Love!
But when midnight her magic does distil,
Then fathomless, a black abyss, your eyes
Where death, destruction lurk, and whence arise
Sweet danger calls that swift my pulses thrill.
Yes, yes, ’tis Fate that’s king and ruleth all;
Lo! I am one to whom the deeps do call.
XLVIII
Our arms together twined twin marbles are:
Yours, brown, Numidian, warm, turquoise-veined,
Mine, pale Pentelican, rose, faintly stained—
Two tinted figurines of Tanagra.
In mine I see the north which snowfields mar,
In yours I see the languors unrestrained
Of Asiatic noons—Afric regained—
Life lived beneath a sun oracular.
Be to me, Sweet, a city of the south,
The garden of its richness be your mouth;
In kisses pour Egyptian lavender,
The strange, sleep-swaying scents of Lydia,
Pour on my arms to dull their sharp whiteness
Rose-liquor from the mountains of Cyprus!
XLIX
“Chiunque venne qui, portò con sè il suo mistero amoroso.”
Matilde Serao
This vision of my childhood comes to me:
A little river by my northern home,
A mountain river, noisy, white with foam,
Brave-hearted, full of laughter, song and glee,
Myself like to in those old days care-free,
It longed for other scenes and left the home;
I met it far away, now silent grown
Mid meadows; sad, with nearness of the sea.
O little mountain river! I’m like you,
Hushed, silenced, by the wonder of life, too,
Struck fear-dumb by the nearness of a sea
Which, as for you the ocean, waits for me;
Were it not there with cruel, baleful glow
I’d not have lived life thus—O no, no, no!
L
O let me be a child to you to-night!
Take from me lore of love and all its pain,
Then tell some fabled tale of olden Spain
And let me listen with a child’s delight!
O let me be a child to you to-night!
So tired am I of stress and strife and strain—
Of life—the puzzle naught can now make plain,
Of balance keeping between wrong and right!
You’ve asked me often if I ever pray.
Can any to that question answer—nay?
What are ambition, effort,—life—but prayer,
What are all great desires everywhere?
I’m praying now beneath your eyes’ love-light—
O let me be a child again to-night!
LI
Upon this point of time flung island-wise
Between two boundless oceans deep as thought,
With up-surge of the world-tides we are caught
And for a moment held in poised surprise.
The beacon of desire flames in our eyes,
We stretch out tremblingly hands love-distraught
And clasp each other close, caring for naught,
High on the pinnacle of destinies.
And you are happy, Love! You think we go
On, on, hand clasped in hand, forever so,
And carelessly kiss me with soft caress;
I kiss back with a passion measureless
Because I know that even to hope is vain—
The deeps will never let us meet again!
LII
I look out toward the gray Missouri Hills.
Behold!—there Spring comes back to us again,
Upon my window beats its first wild rain
And scents of Summer now the dawn distils.
Trees, prayerful, armed, ascetic, some joy thrills.
Shining gun-metal gray the long streets stain
Where pales the passion of the first Spring rain,
Sweeping from off the gray Missouri Hills.
Adown their shimmering length looking I see
The colors as of rainbows steal softly;
Unseen hands crocuses and jonquils fling,
I see the splendors of immortal Spring
And know ’tis but reflection of my heart—
Eternal Spring dwells where enthroned thou art.
LIII
You took my fingers—thus—and bent them back,
Slowly, then one by one, giving to each
Some special love-name from your Spanish speech—
“Muy cariñoso,”—sadly said—Alack!
Plucked them as petals from your passion’s track,
Stripped bare the trembling flower-heart to beseech
The red, red rose your lips leaned low to reach
Unto my palm—the fingers thus bent back.
You said: “Now close your hand, quick! quick, Dear One!
I’ve sealed upon it there in Moorish guise
The rose-tree seal of Allah’s Paradise;
Should I be ever where you’re not, Dear One,
Like Life’s tree which by sacred Tesnim grew,
This rose shall bud and blossom—shelter you!”
LIV
How can it matter what they were to me,
The old, old lovers of the days long dead,
Nor what they whispered fondly, what I said,
Since it is all so far away from me!
O! blot not thus hours bought so bitterly
By useless brooding o’er things vanished,—dead;
The past, Dear, is a tide that’s hastenèd
Back, back again unto the shoreless sea.
O foolish, foolish fond one that you are!
How much you owe them of the long ago
Who taught me lore of love, its restless woe—
Love! Love! the bitter art whose masters are
Than Spartan mothers crueller since they say—
The arms that bring you joy likewise must slay!
LV
Sadly I watched the dancers gayly dressed—
A silken river of frail iris sheen
O’er-fluttered by winged fans; watched heads down lean
In languor to be sweetly word caressed;
O! weary was the heart within my breast
Though ribboned light on mirrored walls such sheen
Of bright foam flung, as when flowers overlean
A river’s marge and dance at wind’s behest.
Outside within the night your lute-string trilled.
The yellow whirling ball-room floated far,
We stood together ’neath the morning star;
You reached a lilac branch with blossoms filled,
O’er me was flung its jewelled, fragrant rain—
“Love! clasp me close,” I cried,—“the dawn again!”
LVI
I dreamed a dream of fields vivid with Spring,
Strown o’er with scentless flowers of fleckless white
Which said: “We are thy youth’s first loves!” Aright
They seemed to me as snow upon the Spring.
This dream passed. Next into Doom’s Land I swing,
Before from the abyss there rose to sight
One giant amorous lily, black as night—
A flame of ebony the days there bring.
The Doom-Pit and the lily were as one.
I dropped down their entangling, dim twilight,
In sable petals folded deep as night,
Dreaming how once you said to me, Dear One,
When eagerly you leaned my hair to kiss—
“Your eyes are a black dangerous abyss!”
LVII
“Espejo encantado?... Espejo encantado
gomo en el que Fausto mirò à Margarita,
donde se proyecta, donde resuscita
visiones efimeras—todo lo pasado.”
Francisco Villaespesa
At night, twin urns, your eyes are filled with sleep
From some far, silent sea I do not know,
Some far, far sea whither I may not go,
Where you do leave me for the tideless deep.
At dawn when you come back again you keep
Your soul so recessed, hidden from me so,
Our old love seems as steps in melting snow
Hastening unto the twin, dim urns of sleep.
As one within a twilight lone I feel
While gorgeous-winged some great strange bird sweeps past
And brushes me with wings—ah! brightly vast.
The promise that Life longs for most I feel
Has flashed its gold upon me. I can keep
Only the shadow in the urns of sleep.
LVIII
The Spring sun has swathed us in its toga’d light.
O! why were we not born in Sybaris!
I smell Damascus roses, sharp iris,
See streets Lucanian, gay, thus by night:
Rich balconies of marble hid from sight
By tapestries and silks of Sybaris;
The peplus purpling, the bold chlamys;
Greeks ankleted in gems; while buskined bright
Soft-footed Asiatics come and go;
Women with pale eyelids powdered blue,
Upon their lips that smile the sphinxes knew;
Men calm of face as chiselled cameo,
All sauntering unto some love-bought bliss.
O! why were we not born in Sybaris!
LIX
With a Gift of Eastern Perfume
Egyptian baccharis! This gift I prize.
Of old your slave as now I watched you go
With one crowned with the pheasant’s topaz glow.
“Who’s that,” she cried, “whose heart shakes in her eyes?”
To me pointing. I dared not run nor rise,
But, crouching, o’er your baccar buds bent low.
A slave with flowers only a queen may know?
Some royal lover, hath she, I surmise!
Straightway within her eyes my doom I read.
Like lightning blue the lances shook o’er me.
I was not worth your crown! How could I be!
But when within your eyes the look I read,
I thought: “For this death’s cheap—aye! cheap the price—
For one such other I would meet it twice!”
LX
“Che fai tu, luna, in ciel? dimmi, che fai, Silenzïo sa luna?”
Leopardi
How sad, how sad the moon is, Dear, to-night,
And strangely chill the wind, as if it came
From barren space beyond the bright sun’s flame;
To-night there dwells a horror in the night.
How sad, how sad the wind is, Dear, to-night,
And O! so full of grief, regret, and shame
And fear of thousand things that have no name!
The stars even wink back their tears, to-night.
O! break upon me, storm of grief—break! break!
Hiding black hearts behind that pallid moon,
The sooner will come calmness, sun, and noon.
Take me within your arms, Dear, quickly take!
I’m so afraid of life, aye!—love—I seem
To want to die awhile—then wake—to dream.
LXI
How sad, how sad the moon is, Dear, to-night—
Pale woman in her grave-clothes seeking there
Along the azure meadows of the air,
The way that leadeth back to life and light.
She trembles and her face with fear is white
Astray amid that cold strange splendor there;
Gold star-flowers stare with eyes that do not care
While she gropes broken-hearted down the night.
Pull low that purple lilac! Yes!—this way.
When—list!—you kiss me thus, let her not see,
She’s so athirst for love she’d envy me,
Poor, poor lost lonely one, wound her not, pray!
Why, Dear, the glad great gods themselves I think
For kisses such as these would cross death’s brink!
LXII
“Venisti. O nuntii beati.”
Catullus
The stars are trembling wind-blown lamps to-night
By nymphs upheld whose bare, white feet now flee
Adown the winding stairs of ivory
That cross the terraced Garden of the Night.
Sly Nymphs! How they spin on in fluttered flight
Their misty, gossamer gowns out-floating free,
Dot-like, red, little mouths; eyes wide to see;
Hair like sun-flushed tree-tops at sweet twilight.
Unto the Opal Chambers of the Moon,
The irised chambers of old revelry
They hasten down Night’s stairs of ivory.
Faint grow the little star-lamps. They fade soon.
But through frost ferns faint, pallid lustres creep
Where white-armed little Nymphs sleep love’s deep sleep.
LXIII
“Scrivo sol per sfogar l’interna doglia”
Vittoria Colonna
My heart’s a wound of piteousness to-day
Because our crimson room last night was seen
The shadow of all sin since time has been—
That color that Macbeth washed not away.
Fear came between our kisses then. “Nay! nay!—
The world, how can it know our love has been?”
The moon—look!—tells it now to stars that lean
In eagerness; and they to winds that sway
The talking trees. Ah! when I leave you, Dear,
What horrors in the dawn upon me’ll seize
At many fingered mockery of leaves
A-point at me! The world will see—will hear—
The merciless white Day no one deceives,
And O! all those black-fingered, scornful trees!