Part 5

Chapter 53,843 wordsPublic domain

To-day in flight from world-wide dissonance, I storm your heart,--and claim not any fee For any service rendered anywhere, But as one comes to his inheritance Demand admittance, knowing my love to be No whit unworthy even to enter there.

III

Catullus might have made of words that seek With rippling sound, in soft recurrent ways, The perfect song, or in remoter days Theocritus have hymned you in glad Greek; But I am not as they,--and dare not speak Of you unworthily, and dare not praise Perfection with imperfect roundelays, And desecrate the prize I dare to seek.

I do not woo you, then, by fashioning Vext analogues ’twixt you and Guinevere; Nor do I come with agile lips that bring The sugared periods of a sonneteer, And bring no more,--but just with lips that cling To yours, in murmuring, _I love you, dear_!

LIGHTS OF THE WORLD

--After CHARLES GARNIER.

Speed forth, my song, the sun’s ambassador, Lest in the east night prove the conqueror, And day be slain, and darkness triumph,--for The sun is single, but her eyes are twain.

And now the sunlight and the night contest A doubtful battle, and day bides at best Doubtful, till Phyllis wake. It is attest The sun is single.

But her eyes are twain,-- And should the light of all the world delay, And darkness prove victorious? Is it day Now that the sun alone is risen?

Nay, The sun is single, but her eyes are twain,-- Twain firmaments that mock with heavenlier hue The heavens’ less lordly and less gracious blue, And lit with sunlier sunlight through and through.

The sun is single, but her eyes are twain, And of fair things this side of Paradise Fairest, of goodly things most goodly.

Rise! And succor the benighted world that cries, _The sun is single, but her eyes are twain_!

“--OF ANISE AND CUMMIN ALSO”

--After NICOLAS DE CAEN.

It is in vain I mirror forth the praise In pondered virelais Of her that is the lady of my love; Far-sought and curious phrases fail to tell The tender miracle Of her white body and the grace thereof.

Thus many and many an artful-artless strain Is fashioned all in vain: Sound proves unsound; and even her name, that is To me more glorious than the glow of fire Or dawn or love’s desire Or opals interlinked with turquoises, Mocks utterance.

So, lacking skill to praise That perfect bodily beauty which is hers, Even as those worshippers Who bore rude offerings of honey and maize, Their all, into the gold-paved ministers Of Aphroditê, I have given her these My faltering melodies, That are Love’s lean and ragged messengers.

“SWEET ADELAIS”

--After RAIMBAUT DE VAQUEIRAS.

Had you lived when earth was new What had bards of old to do Save to sing in praise of you?

Had you lived in ancient days, Adelais, sweet Adelais, You had all the ancients’ praise,-- You whose beauty would have won Canticles of Solomon, Had the sage Judean king Gazed upon this goodliest thing Earth of Heaven’s grace hath got.

Had you gladdened Greece, were not All the nymphs of Greece forgot?

Had you trod Sicilian ways, Adelais, sweet Adelais, You had pilfered all their praise: Bion and Theocritus Had transmitted unto us Honeyed harmonies to tell Of your beauty’s miracle, Delicate, desirable, And their singing skill were bent You-ward tenderly,--content, While the world slipped by, to gaze On the grace of you, and praise Sweet Adelais.

Had you lived in Roman times No Catullus in his rhymes Had lamented Lesbia’s sparrow! He had praised your forehead, narrow As the newly-crescent moon, White as apple-trees in June; He had made some amorous tune Of the laughing light Erôs Snared as Psychê-ward he goes By your beauty,--by your slim, White, perfect beauty.

After him Horace, finding in your eyes Horace limned in lustrous wise, Would have made you melodies Fittingly to hymn your praise, Sweet Adelais.

Had your father’s household been Guelfic-born or Ghibelline, Beatricê were unknown On her star-encompassed throne.

For, had Dante viewed your grace, Adelais, sweet Adelais, You had reigned in Bicê’s place,-- Had, for candles, Sirius, Rigel and Rutilicus, Whilst you heard Zacháriel Chant of you, and, chanting, tell All the grace of you, and praise Sweet Adelais.

Had you lived when earth was new What had bards of old to do Save to sing in praise of you?

They had sung of you always, Adelais, sweet Adelais, As worthiest of all men’s praise; Nor had undying melodies Wailed soft as love may sing of these Dream-hallowed names,--of Héloïse, Ysoude, Salomê, Semelê, Morgaine, Lucrece, Antiopê, Brunhilda, Helen, Mélusine, Penelopê, and Magdalene: --But you alone had all men’s praise, Sweet Adelais.

LOVE’S LOVERS

--After RAIMBAUT DE VAQUEIRAS.

_Nor had undying melodies Wailed soft as love may sing of these That are love’s martyrs,--Héloïse, Brunhilda, Helen, Mélusine, Antiopê, and Magdalene,-- Ysoude, Salomê, Semelê, Lucretia, and Penelopê._

What of these ladies that have been Exalted by stern songs wherein Beats strong the valorous heart of Love And all the power and pride thereof-- Unto what haven are they sped?

Because they are not wholly dead: The Land of Matters Unforgot They walk at will, where time is not And death has no dominion,-- And there they never view the sun, But through a vague and amiable Hushed twilight pass, and, passing, tell Their tale of ancient miseries, And neither laugh nor weep.

To these, Whose lives were troubled harmonies Whereby the heart of Love yet is Enamored, Love at last accords An end of love. To these, the Lords Of Life and Death, that kindled lust, And wrath, and joy frail as blown dust, And faith like flame that braves the wind; And kindled for each sin they sinned Fame, and for every misery fame Set as a flaring star to flame And blaze and glow above the seas Where light love founders: have granted peace Unvexed by heart-beats.--Thus they pass, Desiring naught of life that was Exhausted of all things long ago,-- With void eyes, emptied of woe, Emptied of joy, pass hand-in-hand, Being shadows in a shadow land.

The story of their love is writ In song; the valiant sound of it Endures unaltered evermore: But we, that love as heretofore These loved, must perish, as they, and be Forgotten by all men utterly.

I cry _Content_! Our names will die. I cry _Content_! and cheerily, Félise.

Our love-songs are unsung, Yet we have loved. We have been young In April and in unison ... Oblivious of oblivion, And heedless of each after-year, How well we lived our verses, dear!

VIII

RIDENS

“_Soient blanches, soient brunettes_”

BALLAD OF PLAGIARY

“_Frères et maîtres, vous qui cultivez_”

--PAUL VERVILLE.

Hey, my masters, lords and brothers, ye that till the fields of rhyme, Are ye deaf ye will not hearken to the clamor of your time?

Still ye blot and change and polish--vary, heighten and transpose-- Old sonorous metres marching grandly to their tranquil close.

Ye have toiled and ye have fretted; ye attain perfected speech: Ye have nothing new to utter and but platitudes to preach. Still your rhymes are all of loving, as within the old days when Love was lord of the ascendant in the horoscopes of men.

Still ye make of love the utmost end and scope of all your art, And, more blind than he you write of, note not what a modest part Loving now may claim in living, when we have scant time to spare, Who are plundering the sea-depths, taking tribute of the air,-- Whilst the sun makes pictures for us; since to-day, for good or ill, Earth and sky and sea are harnessed, and the lightnings work our will.

Hey, my masters, all these love-songs by dust-hidden mouths were sung That ye mimic and re-echo with an artful-artless tongue,-- Sung by poets close to nature, free to touch her garments’ hem Whom to-day ye know not truly; for ye only copy them.

Them ye copy, copy always, with your backs turned to the sun, Caring not what man is doing, noting that which man has done.

_We are talking over telephones, as Shakespeare could not talk; We are riding out in motor-cars, where Homer had to walk; And pictures Dante labored on of mediæval Hell The nearest cinematograph paints quicker, and as well._

But ye copy, copy always;--and ye marvel when ye find This new beauty, that new meaning,--while a model stands behind, Waiting, young and fair as ever, till some singer turn and trace Something of the deathless wonder of life lived in any place.

Hey, my masters, turn from piddling to the turmoil and the strife! Cease from sonneting, my brothers; let us fashion songs from life.

THUS I WROTE ERE SYLVIA PASSED ME.... THEN DID I EPITOMIZE ALL LIFE’S BEAUTY IN ONE POEM, AND MAKE HASTE TO EULOGIZE QUITE THE FAIREST THING LIFE BOASTS OF, FOR I WROTE OF SYLVIA’S EYES.

TOUCHING UBIQUITY

“_Voulant faire un cadeau digne de la plus belle_”

--CHARLES GARNIER.

The gods in honor of my Sylvia’s worth Bore gifts to her:--and Jove, Olympus’ lord, Co-rule of Earth and Heaven did accord, And Hermes brought that lyre he framed at birth, And Venus her famed girdle (to engirth A fairer beauty now), and Mars his sword, And wrinkled Plutus half the secret hoard And immemorial treasure of mid-earth;--

And while the careful gods were pondering Which of these goodly gifts the goodliest was, Young Cupid came among them carolling And proffered unto her a looking-glass, Wherein she gazed and saw the goodliest thing That Earth had borne, and Heaven might not surpass.

Cupid invaded Hell, and boldly drove Before him all the hosts of Erebus, Till he had conquered; and grim Cerberus Sang madrigals, the Furies rhymed of love, Old Charon sighed, and sonnets rang above The gloomy Styx; and even as Tantalus Was Prosperine discrowned in Tartarus, And Cupid regnant in the place thereof.

Thus Love is monarch throughout Hell to-day; In Heaven we know his power was always great; And Earth acclaimed Love’s mastery straightway When Sylvia came to gladden Earth’s estate:-- Thus Hell and Heaven and Earth his rule obey, And Sylvia’s heart alone is obdurate.

FANCIES IN FILIGREE

--Strambotti of ALESSANDRO DE MEDICI.

XXIV

“_Guarda negli occhi la nostra regina_”

My Lady’s Eyes Remembrance bring Of lyttel Waves whose Wavering Beneathe ye roving Summer Breeze Makes scintillant hushed Summer Seas Whenas ye Sun is vanishing.

They gladden me, as when in Spring We sing & knowe not why we sing. In sooth, there be noe Eyes like these My Lady’s Eyes.

Whenas their Glance is threatening They frighten Cupid, & that King From Florimel a-quaking flees; But when they soften, on hys Knees Love falls before them worshipping My Lady’s Eyes.

XLI

“_Rime d’amore usar dolci e leggiadre_”

Ye little Rhyme I swore last Night To lay before ye Eyes so bright I have long loved--& loved too well!-- So now ye Muses to compell, & shapely Phrases to indite.

Which shall it be?--Ye Villanelle, Ode, Triolet, Rondeau, Rondel, Ballade, or Sonnet?--Each is hight Ye littel Rhyme.

Yet none will aide my hapless Plight: All little Rhymes are short & slight, & of ye Charmes of Florimel An Epick’s Length alone can tell,-- So that of her I may not write Ye lyttel Rhyme.

IT IS ENOUGH

--After NICOLAS DE CAEN.

Love me or love me not, it is enough That I have loved you, seeing my whole life is Uplifted and made glad by the glory of Love,-- My life that was a scroll bescrawled and blurred With tavern-catches, which that pity of his Erased, and wrote instead one lonely word, _Yolande!_

I have accorded you incessant praise And song and service, dear, because of this; And always I have dreamed incessantly Who always dreamed,--_When in oncoming days This man or that shall love you, and at last This man or that shall win you, it must be That, loving him, you will have pity on me When happiness engenders memory And long thoughts nor unkindly of the past, Yolande!_

Of this I know not surely,--who am sure That I shall always love you while I live, And that, when I am dead, with naught to give Of song or service, Love will yet endure, And yet retain his last prerogative, When I lie still, and sleep out centuries With dreams of you and the exceeding love I bore you, and am glad dreaming thereof, And give God thanks for all, and so find peace, Yolande!

AN ARCADIAN APOLOGIZES

--After CHARLES GARNIER.

I pray you do not marvel, dear, that I, Whenever with fond hardihood I try To rhyme your praises, fail ingloriously.

And marvel not that I in happier wise Have hymned Félise and lauded Sylvia’s eyes, And now may offer you no melodies.

We poets are so made that when we be Unscathed by love none woos so well as we, But, wounded once, we worship silently.

ARCADIANS CONFER IN EXILE

--After CHARLES GARNIER.

So long ago it was! Nay, is it true In verity we passed a month or so In Arcady when life and love were new So long ago?

The tide of time’s indomitable flow, Augmenting, rears a drearier realm, whereto We twain are exiled. Yet ... I do not know ... Now that a woman calls, whose eyes are blue, Whose speech is gracious--strangely sweet and low She calls, and smiles as STELLA used to do So long ago.

I am not fit to follow; yet I pray Some mighty task be set me, to commit In her dear name, for trifles to essay I am not fit.

Nay, I, unstable and infirm of wit-- Even I!--return to my old love to-day, Whose bounty is so fond and infinite That I am heartened, and made strong, and may Not ever falter in deserving it, If but for dread lest of such grace men say I am not fit.

III

Time has changed naught in us; for now the din And darkness of tempestuous years, that wrought So vainly, lift; and it is lightly seen Time has changed naught.

Such knowledge of those brawling years I bought: _The thing which shall be is that which has been, When heaven again surprises us, unsought, And life returns full circle; and we win Again to realms which with how little thought We ceded, and find loyalty wherein Time has changed naught._

Sweetheart, I wait; now, as in time gone by, Your suppliant, half-frightened, half-elate, Outside the trellised doors of Arcady, Sweetheart, I wait.

Again I glimpse its meadows--through a grate, Alas!--and streams and groves and cloudless sky; And cry to you to be compassionate,-- Yea, as of old to STELLA, now I cry To you that once were STELLA; and my fate Attends your piloting, for whose reply, Sweetheart, I wait.

THE EAVESDROPPERS

--After ALPHONSE MOREAU.

The heart of the twilight is troubled; and there Where the stubbled fields bathe in colorless air, And show as the chin of a giant unshorn, Dog-weary, and dreaming of days unborn, The east is perturbed; and night kindles to morn.

Wide world, that wakes to each miracle Each dawn engenders, thou wilt not tell, If mother of me indeed thou art, How gladly and furtively I depart Master and lord of Phyllida’s heart.

Hah, Lady Moon, so we meet again! I remember. Who silvered the window-pane, Climbed over heaped faggots with noiseless tread, Turned velvet the cobwebs that gleamed overhead, Stealthily, hearkening to all we said?

Eavesdropper, keep my secret well! Remember the tales that old poets tell Of the Latmian hills, and a cave thereon Whereinto passed when each day was done-- Eavesdropper!--not only Endymion.

Ye will not tell of it. Nor will he, The owl that hoots now in yonder tree, And flutters his wings, with a watchful eye Bent through the boughs at a passer-by Who laughs, in the dawn ... and he wonders why.

NOSTALGIA

--After ALPHONSE MOREAU.

Were the All-Mother wise, life (shaped anotherwise) Would be all high and true; Could I be otherwise I had been otherwise Simply because of you.... _With whom I have naught to do, And who are no longer you!_

Life with its pay to be bade us essay to be What we became,--I believe Were there a way to be what it was play to be I would not greatly grieve.... _Hearts are not worn on the sleeve. Let us neither laugh nor grieve!_

BUT, OH, THE WORLD IS WIDE, DEAR LASS, THAT I MUST WANDER THROUGH, AND MANY A WIND AND TIDE, DEAR LASS, MUST FLOW ’TWIXT ME AND YOU, ERE LOVE THAT MAY NOT BE DENIED SHALL BRING ME BACK TO YOU, --DEAR LASS! SHALL BRING ME BACK TO YOU.

APATURIA

“_Ainsi m’ont amours abusé_”

GRAY DAYS

--After NICOLAS DE CAEN.

I can find no meaning in life. That have weighed the world,--and it was Abundant with folly, and rife With sorrows brittle as glass, And with joys that flicker and pass Like dreams through a fevered head; And as the dripping of rain In gardens naked and dead Is the obdurate thin refrain Of our youth which is presently dead.

And Chloris, whom last I loved, Looks ever with loathing on me, As one she hath seen disproved And stained with such smirches as be Not ever cleansed utterly; And is loth to remember the days When destiny fixed her name As the theme and the goal of my praise; And my love engenders shame, And I stain what I strive for and praise.

Chloris, most perfect of all, Just to have known you is well! And it heartens me now to recall That just to have known you is well. And naught else is desirable Save only to do as you willed And to love you my whole life long;-- But this heart in me is filled With hunger cruel and strong, And with hunger unfulfilled.

Fond heart, though thy hunger be As a flame that wanders unstilled, There is none more perfect than she!

A WOOD-PIECE

Yes, you will soon forget. Leaf-shadowed ways Are disenchanted now; the kindly haze Of love-light lifts from too-long loitering; A kiss is now at most two lips that cling; And mirth is dead now; and desire decays.

Even now Love flutters restive wings, and stays Impatient of restraint, what while I praise Love’s old lost favor, past replevining,-- But you will soon forget.

Yes, you will soon forget: and naught betrays That any heart save mine even now inveighs In futile rage because nor youth nor spring Can stay or solace light love’s vanishing. I shall remember, dear, through all my days, But you will soon forget.

LOVE GOES INTO WINTER QUARTERS

--After ANTOINE RICZI.

(THE SCENE a dale, somewhere in Arcady, But filled with snow and sleet, made horrible By many tramplings; there anon must be A CRIER, robed in black and with a bell; To whom a POET, peering curiously.)

“What are thou calling, small sombre Crier?-- Who seeks what fugitive? who is beguiled? Is it a theft or a house to hire, A sheriff’s sale or a stolen child?”

_For none of these do I play the crier. And toll a reward where the winds are wild, And I strive knee-deep in the sleet and the mire In quest of a kingdom undefiled._

“Reward, quoth he!--and how darest thou prattle Of guerdon-giving, that goest in black, Sans cap and sandals, where bleak winds battle Which first may strip the rags from thy back?”

_Of no compulsion save my own pleasure’s I wear this black--for a mourning sign,-- Till Yesterday waken, and yield the treasures And gold-wrought garments which once were mine._

“Faith, only a madman dreams to muster The bygone hours, bid them live again ... Though Crœsus wheedle or Charlemaigne bluster, Time heeds not at all, and they strive in vain.”

_Nay, Time forgets them; for these--unlanded, Unkinged, uncarnate, and cold,--lie hid Where Time comes never, to be commanded;-- Time cannot hear through the coffin’s lid._

“So it matters naught with what pomp they wended, What queens they wed, and what realms they won! These things were goodly; these things are ended; And naught sleeps sounder than joy fordone.”

_Cry Absit omen! the sermon is stupid-- Hey, even of sermons I grow afraid, Who am no madman, but outlawed_ CUPID, _With never a place to lay my head_.

_But Yesterday! for Yesterday! I cry a reward for a Yesterday Now lost or stolen or gone astray, With all the laughter of Yesterday!_

(FOR WE HAVE MADE AN END OF AMOROUS PLAYING, AND SHALLOW-HEARTED LOVE IS TURNED ASTRAY, WITH CHILDISH SORROWING AND WEAK-VOICED PRAYING FOR YESTERDAY.)

FLOTSAM

We did not share the same inheritance,-- I and this woman, five years older than I, Yet daughter of a later century,-- Who is therefore only wearied by that dance Which has set my blood a-leaping.

It is queer To note how kind her face grows, listening To my wild talk, and plainly pitying My callow youth, and seeing in me a dear Amusing boy,--yet somewhat old to be Still reading _Alice Through the Looking-Glass_ And _Water Babies_....

With light talk we pass.

And I that have lived long in Arcady-- I that have kept so many a foolish tryst, And written drivelling rhymes--feel stirring in me Droll pity for this woman who pities me, And whose weak mouth so many men have kissed.

HEIRS UNAPPARENT

How very heartily I hate The man that will love you, Some day, somewhere, and more than I, And with a love more true;-- Whom for that reason you will love As you may not love me,-- Though I might hold your heart, I think, Held I one heart in fee.

My dear, too many ghosts arise Between us when I woo, One mocking me with softer lips, And one with eyes more blue, And one with hands more fine than yours, And one with lovelier hair, Proclaiming:--_She is fair enough, But then ... I too was fair._

_What of thy heart thou gavest me_ (“And me!”--“And me!”)--_is thine No more to give again. That part Is mine._--(“And mine!”--“And mine!”) _And he that plays with love too long Gets love of many-an-one, But is denied Love’s crowning grace, And can give love to none._

Since these be truthful ghosts, I shrug And woo you without tears Or too much laughter, till with time A properer Prince appears, Whom very heartily I hate,-- The man that will love you, Some day, somewhere, and more than I, And with a love more true.

THE SUN’S HIGHWAY

--After ANTOINE RICZI.

Though long be the way to the Limit of Lands, And through leagues and leagues of treacherous sands, And miles of marsh and mire, One must win, if at all, to the rim of the west Ere one enter the kingdom the sun loves best, Yet there is my heart’s desire.