Chapter 2

Message of Spring in the hearts of a man and a maid, Hearts on a holiday: ho! let us love: it is Spring. Joy in the birds of the air, in the buds of the glade, Joy in our hearts in the joy of the hours on the wing.

Well, but to-morrow? To-morrow, good-bye: it is over. Scarcely with tears shall we part, with a smile who had met. Tears? What is this? But I thought we were playing at lover. Play-time is past. I am going. And you love me yet!

GIPSY LOVE.

THE gipsy tents are on the down, The gipsy girls are here; And it’s O to be off and away from the town With a gipsy for my dear!

We’d make our bed in the bracken With the lark for a chambermaid; The lark would sing us awake in the mornings Singing above our head.

We’d drink the sunlight all day long With never a house to bind us; And we’d only flout in a merry song The world we left behind us.

We would be free as birds are free The livelong day, the livelong day; And we would lie in the sunny bracken With none to say us nay.

The gipsy tents are on the down, The gipsy girls are here; And it’s O to be off and away from the town With a gipsy for my dear!

IN KENSINGTON GARDENS.

UNDER the almond tree, Room for my love and me! Over our heads the April blossom; April-hearted are we.

Under the pink and white, Love in her eyes alight; Love and the Spring and Kensington Gardens: Hey for the heart’s delight!

REWARDS.

BECAUSE you cried, I kissed you, and, Ah me! how should I understand That piteous little you were fain To cry and to be kissed again?

Because you smiled at last, I thought That I had found what I had sought. But soon I found, without a doubt, No man can find a woman out.

I kissed your tears, and did not stay Till I had kissed them all away. Ah, hapless me! ah, heartless child! She would not kiss me when she smiled.

PERFUME.

SHAKE out your hair about me, so, That I may feel the stir and scent Of those vague odours come and go The way our kisses went.

Night gave this priceless hour of love, But now the dawn steals in apace, And amorously bends above The wonder of your face.

“Farewell” between our kisses creeps, You fade, a ghost, upon the air; Yet, ah! the vacant place still keeps The odour of your hair.

SOUVENIR.

HOW you haunt me with your eyes! Still that questioning persistence, Sad and sweet, across the distance Of the days of love and laughter, Those old days of love and lies.

Not reproaching, not reproving, Only, always, questioning, Those divinest eyes can bring Memories of certain summers, Nights of dreaming, days of loving,

When I loved you, when your kiss, Shyer than a bird to capture, Lit a sudden heaven of rapture; When we neither dreamt that either Could grow old in heart like this.

Do you still, in love’s December, Still remember, still regret That sweet unavailing debt? Ah, you haunt me, to remind me You remember, I forget!

TO MARY.

IF, Mary, that imperious face, And not in dreams alone, Come to this shadow-haunted place And claim dominion;

If, for your sake, I do unqueen Some well-remembered ghost, Forgetting much of what hath been Best loved, remembered most;

It is your witchery, not my will, Your beauty, not my choice: My shadows knew me faithful, till They heard your living voice.

TO A GREAT ACTRESS.

SHE has taken my heart, though she knows not, would care not. It thrills at her voice like a reed in the wind; I would taste all her agonies, have her to spare not, Sin deep as she sinned,

To be tossed by the storm of her love, as the ocean Rocks vessels to wreck; to be hers, though the cost Were the loss of all else: for that moment’s emotion Content to be lost!

To be, for a moment, the man of all men to her, All the world, for one measureless moment complete; To possess, be possessed! To be mockery then to her, Then to die at her feet!

LOVE IN DREAMS.

I LIE on my pallet bed, And I hear the drip of the rain; The rain on my garret roof is falling, And I am cold and in pain.

I lie on my pallet bed, And my heart is wild with delight; I hear her voice through the midnight calling, As I lie awake in the night.

I lie on my pallet bed, And I see her bright eyes gleam; She smiles, she speaks, and the world is ended, And made again in a dream.

MUSIC AND MEMORY.

To K.W.

ACROSS the tides of music, in the night, Her magical face, A light upon it as the happy light Of dreams in some delicious place Under the moonlight in the night.

Music, soft throbbing music in the night, Her memory swims Into the brain, a carol of delight; The cup of music overbrims With wine of memory, in the night.

Her face across the music, in the night, Her face a refrain, A light that sings along the waves of light, A memory that returns again, Music in music, in the night.

SPRING TWILIGHT.

To K. W.

THE twilight droops across the day, I watch her portrait on the wall Palely recede into the grey That palely comes and covers all.

The sad Spring twilight, dull, forlorn, The menace of the dreary night: But in her face, more fair than morn, A sweet suspension of delight.

IN WINTER.

PALE from the watery west, with the pallor of winter a-cold, Rays of the afternoon sun in a glimmer across the trees; Glittering moist underfoot, the long alley. The firs, one by one, Catch and conceal, as I saunter, and flash in a dazzle of gold Lower and lower the vanishing disc: and the sun alone sees At I wait for my love in the fir-tree alley alone with the sun.

QUEST.

I CHASE a shadow through the night, A shadow unavailing; Out of the dark, into the light, I follow, follow: is it she?

Against the wall of sea outlined, Outlined against the windows lit, The shadow flickers, and behind I follow, follow after it.

The shadow leads me through the night To the grey margin of the sea; Out of the dark, into the light, I follow unavailingly.

TO A PORTRAIT.

A PENSIVE photograph Watches me from the shelf: Ghost of old love, and half Ghost of myself!

How the dear waiting eyes Watch me and love me yet: Sad home of memories, Her waiting eyes!

Ghost of old love, wronged ghost, Return, though all the pain Of all once loved, long lost, Come back again.

Forget not, but forgive! Alas, too late I cry. We are two ghosts that had their chance to live, And lost it, she and I.

SECOND THOUGHTS.

WHEN you were here, ah foolish then! I scarcely knew I loved you, dear. I know it now, I know it when You are no longer here.

When you were here, I sometimes tired, Ah me! that you so loved me, dear. Now, in these weary days desired, You are no longer here.

When you were here, did either know That each so loved the other, dear? But that was long and long ago: You are no longer here.

APRIL MIDNIGHT.

SIDE by side through the streets at midnight, Roaming together, Through the tumultuous night of London, In the miraculous April weather.

Roaming together under the gaslight, Day’s work over, How the Spring calls to us, here in the city, Calls to the heart from the heart of a lover!

Cool the wind blows, fresh in our faces, Cleansing, entrancing, After the heat and the fumes and the footlights, Where you dance and I watch your dancing.

Good it is to be here together, Good to be roaming; Even in London, even at midnight, Lover-like in a lover’s gloaming.

You the dancer and I the dreamer, Children together, Wandering lost in the night of London, In the miraculous April weather.

DURING MUSIC.

THE music had the heat of blood, A passion that no words can reach; We sat together, and understood Our own heart’s speech.

We had no need of word or sign, The music spoke for us, and said All that her eyes could read in mine Or mine in hers had read.

ON THE BRIDGE.

MIDNIGHT falls across hollow gulfs of night As a stone that falls in a sounding well; Under us the Seine flows through dark and light, While the beat of time—hark!—is audible.

Lights on bank and bridge glitter gold and red, Lights upon the stream glitter red and white; Under us the night, and the night overhead. We together, we alone together in the night.

“I DREAM OF HER.”

I DREAM of her the whole night long, The pillows with my tears are wet. I wake, I seek amid the throng The courage to forget.

Yet still, as night comes round, I dread, With unavailing fears, The dawn that finds, beneath my head, The pillows wet with tears.

TEARS.

O HANDS that I have held in mine, That knew my kisses and my tears, Hands that in other years Have poured my balm, have poured my wine;

Women, once loved, and always mine, I call to you across the years, I bring a gift of tears, I bring my tears to you as wine.

THE LAST EXIT.

OUR love was all arrayed in pleasantness, A tender little love that sighed and smiled At little happy nothings, like a child, A dainty little love in fancy dress.

But now the love that once was half in play Has come to be this grave and piteous thing. Why did you leave me all this suffering For all your memory when you went away?

You might have played the play out, O my friend, Closing upon a kiss our comedy. Or is it, then, a fault of taste in me, Who like no tragic exit at the end?

AFTER LOVE.

O TO part now, and, parting now, Never to meet again; To have done for ever, I and thou, With joy, and so with pain.

It is too hard, too hard to meet As friends, and love no more; Those other meetings were too sweet That went before.

And I would have, now love is over, An end to all, an end: I cannot, having been your lover, Stoop to become your friend!

ALLA PASSERETTA BRUNA.

IF I bid you, you will come, If I bid you, you will go, You are mine, and so I take you To my heart, your home; Well, ah, well I know I shall not forsake you.

I shall always hold you fast, I shall never set you free, You are mine, and I possess you Long as life shall last; You will comfort me, I shall bless you.

I shall keep you as we keep Flowers for memory, hid away, Under many a newer token Buried deep, Roses of a gaudier day, Rings and trinkets, bright and broken.

Other women I shall love, Fame and fortune I may win, But when fame and love forsake me And the light is night above, You will let me in, You will take me.

NOCTURNES.

NOCTURNE.

ONE little cab to hold us two, Night, an invisible dome of cloud, The rattling wheels that made our whispers loud, As heart-beats into whispers grew; And, long, the Embankment with its lights, The pavement glittering with fallen rain, The magic and the mystery that are night’s, And human love without the pain.

The river shook with wavering gleams, Deep buried as the glooms that lay Impenetrable as the grave of day, Near and as distant as our dreams. A bright train flashed with all its squares Of warm light where the bridge lay mistily. The night was all about us: we were free, Free of the day and all its cares!

That was an hour of bliss too long, Too long to last where joy is brief. Yet one escape of souls may yield relief To many weary seasons’ wrong. “O last for ever!” my heart cried; It ended: heaven was done. I had been dreaming by her side That heaven was but begun.

HER STREET.

(IN ABSENCE.)

I PASSED your street of many memories. A sunset, sombre pink, the flush Of inner rose-leaves idle fingers crush, Died softly, as the rose that dies. All the high heaven behind the roof lay thus, Tenderly dying, touched with pain A little; standing there I saw again The sunsets that were dear to us.

I knew not if ’twere bitter or more sweet To stand and watch the roofs, the sky. O bitter to be there and you not nigh, Yet this had been that blessed street. How the name thrilled me, there upon the wall! There was the house, the windows there Against the rosy twilight high and bare, The pavement-stones: I knew them all!

Days that have been, days that have fallen cold! I stood and gazed, and thought of you, Until remembrance sweet and mournful drew Tears to eyes smiling as of old. So, sad and glad, your memory visibly Alive within my eyes, I turned; And, through a window, met two eyes that burned, Tenderly questioning, on me.

ON JUDGES’ WALK.

THAT night on Judges’ Walk the wind Was as the voice of doom; The heath, a lake of darkness, lay As silent as the tomb.

The vast night brooded, white with stars, Above the world’s unrest; The awfulness of silence ached Like a strong heart repressed.

That night we walked beneath the trees, Alone, beneath the trees; There was some word we could not say Half uttered in the breeze.

That night on Judges’ Walk we said No word of all we had to say; But now there shall be no word said Before the Judge’s Day.

IN THE NIGHT.

THE moonlight had tangled the trees Under our feet as we walked in the night, And the shadows beneath us were stirred by the breeze In the magical light; And the moon was a silver fire, And the stars were flickers of flame, Golden and violet and red; And the night-wind sighed my desire, And the wind in the tree-tops whispered and said In her ear her adorable name.

But her heart would not hear what I heard, The pulse of the night as it beat, Love, Love, Love, the unspeakable word, In its murmurous repeat; She heard not the night-wind’s sigh, Nor her own name breathed in her ear, Nor the cry of my heart to her heart, A speechless, a clamorous cry: “Love! Love! will she hear? will she hear?” O heart, she will hear, by and by, When we part, when for ever we part.

FÊTES GALANTES.

AFTER PAUL VERLAINE.

MANDOLINE,

THE singers of serenades Whisper their faded vows Unto fair listening maids Under the singing boughs.

Tircis, Aminte, are there, Clitandre is over-long, And Damis for many a fair Tyrant makes many a song.

Their short vests, silken and bright, Their long pale silken trains, Their elegance of delight, Twine soft blue silken chains.

And the mandolines and they, Faintlier breathing, swoon Into the rose and grey Ecstasy of the moon.

DANS L’ALLÉE.

AS in the age of shepherd king and queen, Painted and frail amid her nodding bows, Under the sombre branches, and between The green and mossy garden-ways she goes, With little mincing airs one keeps to pet A darling and provoking perroquet. Her long-trained robe is blue, the fan she holds With fluent fingers girt with heavy rings, So vaguely hints of vague erotic things That her eye smiles, musing among its folds. —Blonde too, a tiny nose, a rosy mouth, Artful as that sly patch that makes more sly, In her divine unconscious pride of youth, The slightly simpering sparkle of the eye.

CYTHÈRE.

BY favourable breezes fanned, A trellised arbour is at hand To shield us from the summer airs;

The scent of roses, fainting sweet, Afloat upon the summer heat, Blends with the perfume that she wears.

True to the promise her eyes gave, She ventures all, and her mouth rains A dainty fever through my veins;

And Love, fulfilling all things, save Hunger, we ’scape, with sweets and ices, The folly of Love’s sacrifices.

LES INDOLENTS.

BAH! spite of Fate, that says us nay, Suppose we die together, eh? —A rare conclusion you discover!

—What’s rare is good. Let us die so, Like lovers in Boccaccio. —Hi! hi! hi! you fantastic lover!

—Nay, not fantastic. If you will, Fond, surely irreproachable. Suppose, then, that we die together?

—Good sir, your jests are fitlier told Than when you speak of love or gold. Why speak at all, in this glad weather?

Whereat, behold them once again, Tircis beside his Dorimène, Not far from two blithe rustic rovers,

For some caprice of idle breath Deferring a delicious death. Hi! hi! hi! what fantastic lovers!

FANTOCHES.

SCARAMOUCHE waves a threatening hand To Pulcinella, and they stand, Two shadows, black against the moon.

The old doctor of Bologna pries For simples with impassive eyes, And mutters o’er a magic rune.

The while his daughter, scarce half-dressed, Glides slyly ’neath the trees, in quest Of her bold pirate lover’s sail;

Her pirate from the Spanish main, Whose passion thrills her in the pain Of the loud languorous nightingale.

PANTOMIME.

PIERROT, no sentimental swain, Washes a pâté down again With furtive flagons, white and red.

Cassandre, to chasten his content, Greets with a tear of sentiment His nephew disinherited.

That blackguard of a Harlequin Pirouettes, and plots to win His Colombine that flits and flies.

Colombine dreams, and starts to find A sad heart sighing in the wind, And in her heart a voice that sighs.

L’AMOUR PAR TERRE.

THE wind the other evening overthrew The little Love who smiled so mockingly Down that mysterious alley, so that we, Remembering, mused thereon a whole day through.

The wind has overthrown him! The poor stone Lies scattered to the breezes. It is sad To see the lonely pedestal, that had The artist’s name, scarce visible, alone,

Oh! it is sad to see the pedestal Left lonely! and in dream I seem to hear Prophetic voices whisper in my ear The lonely and despairing end of all.

Oh! it is sad! And thou, hast thou not found One heart-throb for the pity, though thine eye Lights at the gold and purple butterfly Brightening the littered leaves upon the ground.

À CLYMÈNE.

MYSTICAL strains unheard, A song without a word, Dearest, because thine eyes. Pale as the skies,

Because thy voice, remote As the far clouds that float Veiling for me the whole Heaven of the soul,

Because the stately scent Of thy swan’s whiteness, blent With the white lily’s bloom Of thy perfume,

Ah! because thy dear love, The music breathed above By angels halo-crowned, Odour and sound,

Hath, in my subtle heart, With some mysterious art Transposed thy harmony, So let it be!

FROM ROMANCES SANS PAROLES.

TEARS in my heart that weeps, Like the rain upon the town, What drowsy languor steeps In tears my heart that weeps?

O sweet sound of the rain On earth and on the roofs! For a heart’s weary pain O the song of the rain!

Vain tears, vain tears, my heart! What, none hath done thee wrong? Tears without reason start, From my disheartened heart.

This is the weariest woe, O heart, of love and hate Too weary, not to know Why thou hast all this woe.

MOODS AND MEMORIES.

CITY NIGHTS.

I. IN THE TRAIN.

THE train through the night of the town, Through a blackness broken in twain By the sudden finger of streets; Lights, red, yellow, and brown, From curtain and window-pane, The flashing eyes of the streets.

Night, and the rush of the train, A cloud of smoke through the town, Scaring the life of the streets; And the leap of the heart again, Out into the night, and down The dazzling vista of streets!

II. IN THE TEMPLE.

THE grey and misty night, Slim trees that hold the night among Their branches, and, along The vague Embankment, light on light.

The sudden, racing lights! I can just hear, distinct, aloof, The gaily clattering hoof Beating the rhythm of festive nights.

The gardens to the weeping moon Sigh back the breath of tears. O the refrain of years on years ’Neath the weeping moon!

A WHITE NIGHT.

THE yellow moon across the clouds That shiver in the sky; White, hurrying travellers, the clouds, And, white and aching cold on high, Stars in the sky.

Whiter, along the frozen earth, The miracle of snow; Close covered as for sleep, the earth Lies, mutely slumbering below Its shroud of snow.

Sleepless I wander in the night, And, wandering, watch for day; Earth sleeps, yet, high in heaven, the night Awakens, faint and far away, A phantom day.

IN THE VALLEY.

DOWN the valley will I wander, singing songs forlorn, Waiting for the maiden coming up between the corn.

Down below I hear the river babbling to the breeze, And I see the sunlight kiss the tresses of the trees.

All the corn is shining with the tears of early rain: Come, thou sunlight of mine eyes, and bring the dawn again!

Down the valley will I wander, singing songs forlorn, Till I meet the maiden coming up between the corn.

PEACE AT NOON.

HERE there is peace, cool peace, Upon these heights, beneath these trees; Almost the peace of sleep or death, To wearying brain, to labouring breath.

Here there is rest at last, A sweet forgetting of the past; There is no future here, nor aught Save this soft healing pause of thought.

IN FOUNTAIN COURT.

THE fountain murmuring of sleep, A drowsy tune; The flickering green of leaves that keep The light of June; Peace, through a slumbering afternoon, The peace of June.

A waiting ghost, in the blue sky, The white curved moon; June, hushed and breathless, waits, and I Wait too, with June; Come, through the lingering afternoon, Soon, love, come soon.

AT BURGOS.

MIRACULOUS silver-work in stone Against the blue miraculous skies, The belfry towers and turrets rise Out of the arches that enthrone That airy wonder of the skies.

Softly against the burning sun The great cathedral spreads its wings; High up, the lyric belfry sings. Behold Ascension Day begun Under the shadow of those wings!

AT DAWN.

SHE only knew the birth and death Of days, when each that died Was still at morn a hope, at night A hope unsatisfied.

The dark trees shivered to behold Another day begin; She, being hopeless, did not weep As the grey dawn came in.

IN AUTUMN.

FRAIL autumn lights upon the leaves Beacon the ending of the year. The windy rains are here, Wet nights and blowing winds about the eaves.

Here in the valley, mists begin To breathe about the river side The breath of autumn-tide. The dark fields wait to take the harvest in.

And you, and you are far away. Ah, this it is, and not the rain Now loud against the pane, That takes the light and colour from the day!

ON THE ROADS.

THE road winds onward long and white, It curves in mazy coils, and crooks A beckoning finger down the height; It calls me with the voice of brooks To thirsty travellers in the night.

I leave the lonely city street, The awful silence of the crowd; The rhythm of the roads I beat, My blood leaps up, I shout aloud, My heart keeps measure with my feet.

Nought know, nought care I whither I wend: ’Tis on, on, on, or here or there. What profiteth it an aim or end? I walk, and the road leads anywhere. Then forward, with the Fates to friend!

’Tis on and on! Who knows but thus Kind Chance shall bring us luck at last? Adventures to the adventurous! Hope flies before, and the hours slip past: O what have the hours in store for us?

A bird sings something in my ear, The wind sings in my blood a song Tis good at times for a man to hear; The road winds onward white and long, And the best of Earth is here!

PIERROT IN HALF-MOURNING.