Chapter 5

Now death's poppies alone circle thy hair, girdle thy breasts as white; Bloodless blossoms of death, leaves that have sprung never against the light.

Nay then, sleep if thou wilt; love is content; what should he do to weep? Sweet was love to thee once; now in thine eyes sweeter than love is sleep.

AT PARTING

For a day and a night Love sang to us, played with us, Folded us round from the dark and the light; And our hearts were fulfilled of the music he made with us, Made with our hearts and our lips while he stayed with us, Stayed in mid passage his pinions from flight For a day and a night.

From his foes that kept watch with his wings had he hidden us, Covered us close from the eyes that would smite, From the feet that had tracked and the tongues that had chidden us Sheltering in shade of the myrtles forbidden us Spirit and flesh growing one with delight For a day and a night.

But his wings will not rest and his feet will not stay for us: Morning is here in the joy of its might; With his breath has he sweetened a night and a day for us; Now let him pass, and the myrtles make way for us; Love can but last in us here at his height For a day and a night.

A SONG IN SEASON

I

Thou whose beauty Knows no duty Due to love that moves thee never; Thou whose mercies Are men's curses, And thy smile a scourge for ever;

II

Thou that givest Death and livest On the death of thy sweet giving; Thou that sparest Not nor carest Though thy scorn leave no love living;

III

Thou whose rootless Flower is fruitless As the pride its heart encloses, But thine eyes are As May skies are, And thy words like spoken roses;

IV

Thou whose grace is In men's faces Fierce and wayward as thy will is; Thou whose peerless Eyes are tearless, And thy thoughts as cold sweet lilies;

V

Thou that takest Hearts and makest Wrecks of loves to strew behind thee, Whom the swallow Sure should follow, Finding summer where we find thee;

VI

Thou that wakest Hearts and breakest, And thy broken hearts forgive thee, That wilt make no Pause and take no Gift that love for love might give thee;

VII

Thou that bindest Eyes and blindest, Serving worst who served thee longest; Thou that speakest, And the weakest Heart is his that was the strongest;

VIII

Take in season Thought with reason; Think what gifts are ours for giving; Hear what beauty Owes of duty To the love that keeps it living.

IX

Dust that covers Long dead lovers Song blows off with breath that brightens; At its flashes Their white ashes Burst in bloom that lives and lightens.

X

Had they bent not Head or lent not Ear to love and amorous duties, Song had never Saved for ever, Love, the least of all their beauties.

XI

All the golden Names of olden Women yet by men's love cherished, All our dearest Thoughts hold nearest, Had they loved not, all had perished.

XII

If no fruit is Of thy beauties, Tell me yet, since none may win them, What and wherefore Love should care for Of all good things hidden in them?

XIII

Pain for profit Comes but of it, If the lips that lure their lover's Hold no treasure Past the measure Of the lightest hour that hovers.

XIV

If they give not Or forgive not Gifts or thefts for grace or guerdon, Love that misses Fruit of kisses Long will bear no thankless burden.

XV

If they care not Though love were not, If no breath of his burn through them, Joy must borrow Song from sorrow, Fear teach hope the way to woo them.

XVI

Grief has measures Soft as pleasure's, Fear has moods that hope lies deep in, Songs to sing him, Dreams to bring him, And a red-rose bed to sleep in.

XVII

Hope with fearless Looks and tearless Lies and laughs too near the thunder; Fear hath sweeter Speech and meeter For heart's love to hide him under.

XVIII

Joy by daytime Fills his playtime Full of songs loud mirth takes pride in; Night and morrow Weave round sorrow Thoughts as soft as sleep to hide in.

XIX

Graceless faces, Loveless graces, Are but motes in light that quicken, Sands that run down Ere the sundown, Roseleaves dead ere autumn sicken.

XX

Fair and fruitless Charms are bootless Spells to ward off age's peril; Lips that give not Love shall live not, Eyes that meet not eyes are sterile.

XXI

But the beauty Bound in duty Fast to love that falls off never Love shall cherish Lest it perish, And its root bears fruit for ever.

TWO LEADERS

[Greek: Bate domon, megaloi philotimoi Nuktos paides apaides, hup euphroni pompa.]

I

O great and wise, clear-souled and high of heart, One the last flower of Catholic love, that grows Amid bare thorns their only thornless rose, From the fierce juggling of the priests' loud mart Yet alien, yet unspotted and apart From the blind hard foul rout whose shameless shows Mock the sweet heaven whose secret no man knows With prayers and curses and the soothsayer's art; One like a storm-god of the northern foam Strong, wrought of rock that breasts and breaks the sea And thunders back its thunder, rhyme for rhyme Answering, as though to outroar the tides of time And bid the world's wave back--what song should be Theirs that with praise would bring and sing you home?

II

With all our hearts we praise you whom ye hate, High souls that hate us; for our hopes are higher, And higher than yours the goal of our desire, Though high your ends be as your hearts are great. Your world of Gods and kings, of shrine and state, Was of the night when hope and fear stood nigher, Wherein men walked by light of stars and fire Till man by day stood equal with his fate. Honour not hate we give you, love not fear, Last prophets of past kind, who fill the dome Of great dead Gods with wrath and wail, nor hear Time's word and man's: "Go honoured hence, go home, Night's childless children; here your hour is done; Pass with the stars, and leave us with the sun."

VICTOR HUGO IN 1877

"Dazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns?"

Above the spring-tide sundawn of the year, A sunlike star, not born of day or night, Filled the fair heaven of spring with heavenlier light, Made of all ages orbed in one sole sphere Whose light was as a Titan's smile or tear; Then rose a ray more flowerlike, starry white, Like a child's eye grown lovelier with delight, Sweet as a child's heart-lightening laugh to hear; And last a fire from heaven, a fiery rain As of God's wrath on the unclean cities, fell And lit the shuddering shades of half-seen hell That shrank before it and were cloven in twain; A beacon fired by lightning, whence all time Sees red the bare black ruins of a crime.

CHILD'S SONG

What is gold worth, say, Worth for work or play, Worth to keep or pay, Hide or throw away, Hope about or fear? What is love worth, pray? Worth a tear?

Golden on the mould Lie the dead leaves rolled Of the wet woods old, Yellow leaves and cold, Woods without a dove; Gold is worth but gold; Love's worth love.

TRIADS

I

I

The word of the sun to the sky, The word of the wind to the sea, The word of the moon to the night, What may it be?

II

The sense to the flower of the fly, The sense of the bird to the tree, The sense to the cloud of the light, Who can tell me?

III

The song of the fields to the kye, The song of the lime to the bee, The song of the depth to the height, Who knows all three?

II

I

The message of April to May That May sends on into June And June gives out to July For birthday boon;

II

The delight of the dawn in the day, The delight of the day in the noon, The delight of a song in a sigh That breaks the tune;

III

The secret of passing away, The cost of the change of the moon, None knows it with ear or with eye, But all will soon.

III

I

The live wave's love for the shore, The shore's for the wave as it dies, The love of the thunder-fire That sears the skies,

II

We shall know not though life wax hoar, Till all life, spent into sighs, Burn out as consumed with desire Of death's strange eyes;

III

Till the secret be secret no more In the light of one hour as it flies, Be the hour as of suns that expire Or suns that rise.

FOUR SONGS OF FOUR SEASONS

I. WINTER IN NORTHUMBERLAND

I

Outside the garden The wet skies harden; The gates are barred on The summer side: "Shut out the flower-time, Sunbeam and shower-time; Make way for our time," Wild winds have cried. Green once and cheery, The woods, worn weary, Sigh as the dreary Weak sun goes home: A great wind grapples The wave, and dapples The dead green floor of the sea with foam.

II

Through fell and moorland, And salt-sea foreland, Our noisy norland Resounds and rings; Waste waves thereunder Are blown in sunder, And winds make thunder With cloudwide wings; Sea-drift makes dimmer The beacon's glimmer; Nor sail nor swimmer Can try the tides; And snowdrifts thicken Where, when leaves quicken, Under the heather the sundew hides.

III

Green land and red land, Moorside and headland, Are white as dead land, Are all as one; Nor honied heather, Nor bells to gather, Fair with fair weather And faithful sun: Fierce frost has eaten All flowers that sweeten The fells rain-beaten; And winds their foes Have made the snow's bed Down in the rose-bed; Deep in the snow's bed bury the rose.

IV

Bury her deeper Than any sleeper; Sweet dreams will keep her All day, all night; Though sleep benumb her And time o'ercome her, She dreams of summer, And takes delight, Dreaming and sleeping In love's good keeping, While rain is weeping And no leaves cling; Winds will come bringing her Comfort, and singing her Stories and songs and good news of the spring.

V

Draw the white curtain Close, and be certain She takes no hurt in Her soft low bed; She feels no colder, And grows not older, Though snows enfold her From foot to head; She turns not chilly Like weed and lily In marsh or hilly High watershed, Or green soft island In lakes of highland; She sleeps awhile, and she is not dead.

VI

For all the hours, Come sun, come showers, Are friends of flowers, And fairies all; When frost entrapped her, They came and lapped her In leaves, and wrapped her With shroud and pall; In red leaves wound her, With dead leaves bound her Dead brows, and round her A death-knell rang; Rang the death-bell for her, Sang, "is it well for her, Well, is it well with you, rose?" they sang.

VII

O what and where is The rose now, fairies, So shrill the air is, So wild the sky? Poor last of roses, Her worst of woes is The noise she knows is The winter's cry; His hunting hollo Has scared the swallow; Fain would she follow And fain would fly: But wind unsettles Her poor last petals; Had she but wings, and she would not die.

VIII

Come, as you love her, Come close and cover Her white face over, And forth again Ere sunset glances On foam that dances, Through lowering lances Of bright white rain; And make your playtime Of winter's daytime, As if the Maytime Were here to sing; As if the snowballs Were soft like blowballs, Blown in a mist from the stalk in the spring.

IX

Each reed that grows in Our stream is frozen, The fields it flows in Are hard and black; The water-fairy Waits wise and wary Till time shall vary And thaws come back. "O sister, water," The wind besought her, "O twin-born daughter Of spring with me, Stay with me, play with me, Take the warm way with me, Straight for the summer and oversea."

X

But winds will vary, And wise and wary The patient fairy Of water waits; All shrunk and wizen, In iron prison, Till spring re-risen Unbar the gates; Till, as with clamour Of axe and hammer, Chained streams that stammer And struggle in straits Burst bonds that shiver, And thaws deliver The roaring river in stormy spates.

XI

In fierce March weather White waves break tether, And whirled together At either hand, Like weeds uplifted, The tree-trunks rifted In spars are drifted, Like foam or sand, Past swamp and sallow And reed-beds callow, Through pool and shallow, To wind and lee, Till, no more tongue-tied, Full flood and young tide Roar down the rapids and storm the sea.

XII

As men's cheeks faded On shores invaded, When shorewards waded The lords of fight; When churl and craven Saw hard on haven The wide-winged raven At mainmast height; When monks affrighted To windward sighted The birds full-flighted Of swift sea-kings; So earth turns paler When Storm the sailor Steers in with a roar in the race of his wings.

XIII

O strong sea-sailor, Whose cheek turns paler For wind or hail or For fear of thee? O far sea-farer, O thunder-bearer, Thy songs are rarer Than soft songs be. O fleet-foot stranger, O north-sea ranger Through days of danger And ways of fear, Blow thy horn here for us, Blow the sky clear for us, Send us the song of the sea to hear.

XIV

Roll the strong stream of it Up, till the scream of it Wake from a dream of it Children that sleep, Seamen that fare for them Forth, with a prayer for them; Shall not God care for them, Angels not keep? Spare not the surges Thy stormy scourges; Spare us the dirges Of wives that weep. Turn back the waves for us: Dig no fresh graves for us, Wind, in the manifold gulfs of the deep.

XV

O stout north-easter, Sea-king, land-waster, For all thine haste, or Thy stormy skill, Yet hadst thou never, For all endeavour, Strength to dissever Or strength to spill, Save of his giving Who gave our living, Whose hands are weaving What ours fulfil; Whose feet tread under The storms and thunder; Who made our wonder to work his will.

XVI

His years and hours, His world's blind powers, His stars and flowers, His nights and days, Sea-tide and river, And waves that shiver, Praise God, the giver Of tongues to praise. Winds in their blowing, And fruits in growing; Time in its going, While time shall be; In death and living, With one thanksgiving, Praise him whose hand is the strength of the sea.

II. SPRING IN TUSCANY

Rose-red lilies that bloom on the banner; Rose-cheeked gardens that revel in spring; Rose-mouthed acacias that laugh as they climb, Like plumes for a queen's hand fashioned to fan her With wind more soft than a wild dove's wing, What do they sing in the spring of their time?

If this be the rose that the world hears singing, Soft in the soft night, loud in the day, Songs for the fire-flies to dance as they hear; If that be the song of the nightingale, springing Forth in the form of a rose in May, What do they say of the way of the year?

What of the way of the world gone Maying, What of the work of the buds in the bowers, What of the will of the wind on the wall, Fluttering the wall-flowers, sighing and playing, Shrinking again as a bird that cowers, Thinking of hours when the flowers have to fall?

Out of the throats of the loud birds showering, Out of the folds where the flag-lilies leap, Out of the mouths of the roses stirred, Out of the herbs on the walls reflowering, Out of the heights where the sheer snows sleep, Out of the deep and the steep, one word.

One from the lips of the lily-flames leaping, The glad red lilies that burn in our sight, The great live lilies for standard and crown; One from the steeps where the pines stand sleeping, One from the deep land, one from the height, One from the light and the might of the town.

The lowlands laugh with delight of the highlands, Whence May winds feed them with balm and breath From hills that beheld in the years behind A shape as of one from the blest souls' islands, Made fair by a soul too fair for death, With eyes on the light that should smite them blind.

Vallombrosa remotely remembers, Perchance, what still to us seems so near That time not darkens it, change not mars, The foot that she knew when her leaves were September's, The face lift up to the star-blind seer, That saw from his prison arisen his stars.

And Pisa broods on her dead, not mourning, For love of her loveliness given them in fee; And Prato gleams with the glad monk's gift Whose hand was there as the hand of morning; And Siena, set in the sand's red sea, Lifts loftier her head than the red sand's drift.

And far to the fair south-westward lightens, Girdled and sandalled and plumed with flowers, At sunset over the love-lit lands, The hill-side's crown where the wild hill brightens, Saint Fina's town of the Beautiful Towers, Hailing the sun with a hundred hands.

Land of us all that have loved thee dearliest, Mother of men that were lords of man, Whose name in the world's heart works as a spell, My last song's light, and the star of mine earliest, As we turn from thee, sweet, who wast ours for a span, Fare well we may not who say farewell.

III. SUMMER IN AUVERGNE

The sundawn fills the land Full as a feaster's hand Fills full with bloom of bland Bright wine his cup; Flows full to flood that fills From the arch of air it thrills Those rust-red iron hills With morning up.

Dawn, as a panther springs, With fierce and fire-fledged wings Leaps on the land that rings From her bright feet Through all its lava-black Cones that cast answer back And cliffs of footless track Where thunders meet.

The light speaks wide and loud From deeps blown clean of cloud As though day's heart were proud And heaven's were glad; The towers brown-striped and grey Take fire from heaven of day As though the prayers they pray Their answers had.

Higher in these high first hours Wax all the keen church towers, And higher all hearts of ours Than the old hills' crown, Higher than the pillared height Of that strange cliff-side bright With basalt towers whose might Strong time bows down.

And the old fierce ruin there Of the old wild princes' lair Whose blood in mine hath share Gapes gaunt and great Toward heaven that long ago Watched all the wan land's woe Whereon the wind would blow Of their bleak hate.

Dead are those deeds; but yet Their memory seems to fret Lands that might else forget That old world's brand; Dead all their sins and days; Yet in this red clime's rays Some fiery memory stays That sears their land.

IV. AUTUMN IN CORNWALL

The year lies fallen and faded On cliffs by clouds invaded, With tongues of storms upbraided, With wrath of waves bedinned; And inland, wild with warning, As in deaf ears or scorning, The clarion even and morning Rings of the south-west wind.

The wild bents wane and wither In blasts whose breath bows hither Their grey-grown heads and thither, Unblest of rain or sun; The pale fierce heavens are crowded With shapes like dreams beclouded, As though the old year enshrouded Lay, long ere life were done.

Full-charged with oldworld wonders, From dusk Tintagel thunders A note that smites and sunders The hard frore fields of air; A trumpet stormier-sounded Than once from lists rebounded When strong men sense-confounded Fell thick in tourney there.

From scarce a duskier dwelling Such notes of wail rose welling Through the outer darkness, telling In the awful singer's ears What souls the darkness covers, What love-lost souls of lovers, Whose cry still hangs and hovers In each man's born that hears.

For there by Hector's brother And yet some thousand other He that had grief to mother Passed pale from Dante's sight; With one fast linked as fearless, Perchance, there only tearless; Iseult and Tristram, peerless And perfect queen and knight.

A shrill-winged sound comes flying North, as of wild souls crying The cry of things undying, That know what life must be; Or as the old year's heart, stricken Too sore for hope to quicken By thoughts like thorns that thicken, Broke, breaking with the sea.

THE WHITE CZAR

[In an English magazine of 1877 there appeared a version of some insolent lines addressed by "A Russian Poet to the Empress of India." To these the first of the two following sonnets was designed to serve by way of counterblast. The writer will scarcely be suspected of royalism or imperialism; but it seemed to him that an insult levelled by Muscovite lips at the ruler of England might perhaps be less unfitly than unofficially resented by an Englishman who was also a republican.]

I

Gehazi by the hue that chills thy cheek And Pilate by the hue that sears thine hand Whence all earth's waters cannot wash the brand That signs thy soul a manslayer's though thou speak All Christ, with lips most murderous and most meek-- Thou set thy foot where England's used to stand! Thou reach thy rod forth over Indian land! Slave of the slaves that call thee lord, and weak As their foul tongues who praise thee! son of them Whose presence put the snows and stars to shame In centuries dead and damned that reek below Curse-consecrated, crowned with crime and flame, To them that bare thee like them shalt thou go Forth of man's life--a leper white as snow.

II

Call for clear water, wash thine hands, be clean, Cry, _What is truth?_ O Pilate; thou shalt know Haply too soon, and gnash thy teeth for woe Ere the outer darkness take thee round unseen That hides the red ghosts of thy race obscene Bound nine times round with hell's most dolorous flow, And in its pools thy crownless head lie low By his of Spain who dared an English queen With half a world to hearten him for fight, Till the wind gave his warriors and their might To shipwreck and the corpse-encumbered sea. But thou, take heed, ere yet thy lips wax white, Lest as it was with Philip so it be, O white of name and red of hand, with thee.

RIZPAH