Chapter 7

(The metre of the second of these two translations is an experiment. The splendid fourteen-syllable metre of Chapman I have treated after the manner of Drydenian rhyming heroics; with the occasional triplet, and even the occasional Alexandrine, represented by a line of eight accents—a treatment which can well extend, I believe, the majestic resources of the metre.)

ULTIMA

LOVE’S ALMSMAN PLAINETH HIS FARE

O YOU, love’s mendicancy who never tried, How little of your almsman me you know! Your little languid hand in mine you slide, Like to a child says—‘Kiss me and let me go!’ And night for this is fretted with my tears, While I:—‘How soon this heavenly neck doth tire Bending to me from its transtellar spheres!’ Ah, heart all kneaded out of honey and fire! Who bound thee to a body nothing worth, And shamed thee much with an unlovely soul, That the most strainedest charity of earth Distasteth soon to render back the whole Of thine inflamèd sweets and gentilesse! Whereat, like an unpastured Titan, thou Gnaw’st on thyself for famine’s bitterness, And leap’st against thy chain. Sweet Lady, how Little a linking of the hand to you! Though I should touch yours careless for a year, Not one blue vein would lie divinelier blue Upon your fragile temple, to unsphere The seraphim for kisses! Not one curve Of your sad mouth would droop more sad and sweet. But little food love’s beggars needs must serve, That eye your plenteous graces from the street. A hand-clasp I must feed on for a night, A noon, although the untasted feast you lay, To mock me, of your beauty. That you might Be lover for one space, and make essay What ’tis to pass unsuppered to your couch, Keep fast from love all day; and so be taught The famine which these craving lines avouch! Ah! miser of good things that cost thee naught, How know’st thou poor men’s hunger?—Misery! When I go doleless and unfed by thee!

A HOLOCAUST

‘_No man ever attained supreme knowledge, unless his heart had been torn up by the roots_.’

WHEN I presage the time shall come—yea, now Perchance is come, when you shall fail from me, Because the mighty spirit, to whom you vow Faith of kin genius unrebukably, Scourges my sloth, and from your side dismissed Henceforth this sad and most, most lonely soul Must, marching fatally through pain and mist, The God-bid levy of its powers enrol; When I presage that none shall hear the voice From the great Mount that clangs my ordained advance, That sullen envy bade the churlish choice Yourself shall say, and turn your altered glance; O God! Thou knowest if this heart of flesh Quivers like broken entrails, when the wheel Rolleth some dog in middle street, or fresh Fruit when ye tear it bleeding from the peel; If my soul cries the uncomprehended cry When the red agony oozed on Olivet! Yet not for this, a caitiff, falter I, Beloved whom I must lose, nor thence regret The doubly-vouched and twin allegiance owed To you in Heaven, and Heaven in you, Lady. How could you hope, loose dealer with my God, That I should keep for you my fealty? For still ’tis thus:—because I am so true, My Fair, to Heaven, I am so true to you!

BENEATH A PHOTOGRAPH

PHŒBUS, who taught me art divine, Here tried his hand where I did mine; And his white fingers in this face Set my Fair’s sigh-suggesting grace. O sweetness past profaning guess, Grievous with its own exquisiteness! Vesper-like face, its shadows bright With meanings of sequestered light; Drooped with shamefast sanctities She purely fears eyes cannot miss, Yet would blush to know she _is_. Ah, who can view with passionless glance This tear-compelling countenance! He has cozened it to tell Almost its own miracle. Yet I, all-viewing though he be, Methinks saw further here than he; And, Master gay! I swear I drew Something the better of the two!

AFTER HER GOING

THE after-even! Ah, did I walk, Indeed, in her or even? For nothing of me or around But absent She did leaven, Felt in my body as its soul, And in my soul its heaven.

‘Ah me! my very flesh turns soul, Essenced,’ I sighed, ‘with bliss!’ And the blackbird held his lutany, All fragrant-through with bliss; And all things stilled were as a maid Sweet with a single kiss.

For grief of perfect fairness, eve Could nothing do but smile; The time was far too perfect fair, Being but for a while; And ah, in me, too happy grief Blinded herself with smile!

The sunset at its radiant heart Had somewhat unconfest: The bird was loath of speech, its song Half-refluent on its breast, And made melodious toyings with A note or two at best.

And she was gone, my sole, my Fair, Ah, sole my Fair, was gone! Methinks, throughout the world ’twere right I had been sad alone; And yet, such sweet in all things’ heart, And such sweet in my own!

MY LADY THE TYRANNESS

ME since your fair ambition bows Feodary to those gracious brows, Is nothing mine will not confess Your sovran sweet rapaciousness? Though use to the white yoke inures, Half-petulant is Your loving rebel for somewhat his, Not yours, my love, not yours!

Behold my skies, which make with me One passionate tranquillity! Wrap thyself in them as a robe, She shares them not; their azures probe, No countering wings thy flight endures. Nay, they do stole Me like an aura of her soul. I yield them, love, for yours!

But mine these hills and fields, which put Not on the sanctity of her foot. Far off, my dear, far off the sweet Grave pianissimo of your feet! My earth, perchance, your sway abjures?— Your absence broods O’er all, a subtler presence. Woods, Fields, hills, all yours, all yours!

Nay then, I said, I have my thought, Which never woman’s reaching raught; Being strong beyond a woman’s might, And high beyond a woman’s height, Shaped to my shape in all contours.— I looked, and knew No thought but you were garden to. All yours, my love, all yours!

Meseemeth still, I have my life; All-clement Her its resolute strife Evades; contained, relinquishing Her mitigating eyes; a thing Which the whole girth of God secures. Ah, fool, pause! pause! I had no life, until it was All yours, my love, all yours!

Yet, stern possession! I have my death, Sole yielding up of my sole breath; Which all within myself I die, All in myself must cry the cry Which the deaf body’s wall immures.— Thought fashioneth My death without her.—Ah, even death All yours, my love, all yours!

Death, then, he hers. I have my heaven, For which no arm of hers has striven; Which solitary I must choose, And solitary win or lose.— Ah, but not heaven my own endures! I must perforce Taste you, my stream, in God your source,— So steep my heaven in yours.

At last I said—I have my God, Who doth desire me, though a clod, And from His liberal Heaven shall He Bar in mine arms His privacy. Himself for mine Himself assures.— None shall deny God to be mine, but He and I All yours, my love, all yours!

I have no fear at all lest I Without her draw felicity. God for His Heaven will not forego Her whom I found such heaven below, And she will train Him to her lures. Nought, lady, I love In you but more is loved above; What made me, makes Him yours.

‘I, thy sought own, am I forgot?’ Ha, thou?—thou liest, I seek thee not. Why what, thou painted parrot, Fame, What have I taught thee but her name? Hear, thou slave Fame, while Time endures, I give her thee; Page her triumphal name!—Lady, Take her, the thrall is yours.

UNTO THIS LAST

A BOY’S young fancy taketh love Most simply, with the rind thereof; A boy’s young fancy tasteth more The rind, than the deific core. Ah, Sweet! to cast away the slips Of unessential rind, and lips Fix on the immortal core, is well; But heard’st thou ever any tell Of such a fool would take for food Aspect and scent, however good, Of sweetest core Love’s orchards grow? Should such a phantast please him so, Love where Love’s reverent self denies Love to feed, but with his eyes, All the savour, all the touch, Another’s—was there ever such? Such were fool, if fool there be; Such fool was I, and was for thee! But if the touch and savour too Of this fruit—say, Sweet, of you— You unto another give For sacrosanct prerogative, Yet even scent and aspect were Some elected Second’s share; And one, gone mad, should rest content With memory of show and scent; Would not thyself vow, if there sigh Such a fool—say, Sweet, as I— Treble frenzy it must be Still to love, and to love thee?

Yet had I torn (man knoweth not, Nor scarce the unweeping angels wot Of such dread task the lightest part) Her fingers from about my heart. Heart, did we not think that she Had surceased her tyranny? Heart, we bounded, and were free! O sacrilegious freedom!—Till She came, and taught my apostate will The winnowed sweet mirth cannot guess And tear-fined peace of hopefulness; Looked, spake, simply touched, and went. Now old pain is fresh content, Proved content is unproved pain. Pangs fore-tempted, which in vain I, faithless, have denied, now bud To untempted fragrance and the mood Of contrite heavenliness; all days Joy affrights me in my ways; Extremities of old delight Afflict me with new exquisite Virgin piercings of surprise,— Stung by those wild brown bees, her eyes!

ULTIMUM

NOW in these last spent drops, slow, slower shed, Love dies, Love dies, Love dies—ah, Love is dead! Sad Love in life, sore Love in agony, Pale Love in death; while all his offspring songs, Like children, versed not in death’s chilly wrongs, About him flit, frighted to see him lie So still, who did not know that Love could die. One lifts his wing, where dulls the vermeil all Like clotting blood, and shrinks to find it cold, And when she sees its lapse and nerveless fall Clasps her fans, while her sobs ooze through the webbèd gold. Thereat all weep together, and their tears Make lights like shivered moonlight on long waters. Have peace, O piteous daughters! He shall not wake more through the mortal years, Nor comfort come to my soul widowèd, Nor breath to your wild wings; for Love is dead!

I slew, that moan for him: he lifted me Above myself, and that I might not be Less than myself, need was that he should die; Since Love that first did wing, now clogged me from the sky. Yet lofty Love being dead thus passeth base— There is a soul of nobleness which stays, The spectre of the rose: be comforted, Songs, for the dust that dims his sacred head! The days draw on too dark for Song or Love; O peace, my songs, nor stir ye any wing! For lo, the thunder hushing all the grove, And did Love live, not even Love could sing.

And, Lady, thus I dare to say, Not all with you is passed away! For your love taught me this:—’tis Love’s true praise To be, not staff, but writ of worthy days; And that high worth in love unfortunate Should still remain it learned in love elate. Beyond your star, still, still the stars are bright; Beyond your highness, still I follow height; Sole I go forth, yet still to my sad view, Beyond your trueness, Lady, Truth stands true. This wisdom sings my song with last firm breath, Caught from the twisted lore of Love and Death, The strange inwoven harmony that wakes From Pallas’ straying locks twined with her ægis-snakes. ‘On him the unpetitioned heavens descend, Who heaven on earth proposes not for end; The perilous and celestial excess Taking with peace, lacking with thankfulness. Bliss in extreme befits thee not, until Thou’rt not extreme in bliss; be equal still: Sweets to be granted think thy self unmeet Till thou have learned to hold sweet not too sweet.’ This thing not far is he from wise in art Who teacheth; nor who doth, from wise in heart.

ENVOY

GO, songs, for ended is our brief, sweet play; Go, children of swift joy and tardy sorrow: And some are sung, and that was yesterday, And some unsung, and that may be to-morrow.

Go forth; and if it be o’er stony way, Old joy can lend what newer grief must borrow: And it was sweet, and that was yesterday, And sweet is sweet, though purchasèd with sorrow.

Go, songs, and come not back from your far way: And if men ask you why ye smile and sorrow, Tell them ye grieve, for your hearts know To-day, Tell them ye smile, for your eyes know To-morrow.

FOOTNOTES

{27} The earth.

{190} The Ark of the Egyptian temple was sealed with clay, which the Pontiff-king broke when he entered the inner shrine to offer worship.