Decoration
TO
R. W. D. 1 O my vague desires! Ye lambent flames of the soul, her offspring fires: That are my soul herself in pangs sublime Rising and flying to heaven before her time: What doth tempt you forth To drown in the south or shiver in the frosty north? What seek ye or find ye in your random flying, Ever soaring aloft, soaring and dying? Joy, the joy of flight! They hide in the sun, they flare and dance in the night; Gone up, gone out of sight: and ever again Follow fresh tongues of fire, fresh pangs of pain. Ah! they burn my soul, The fires, devour my soul that once was whole: She is scattered in fiery phantoms day by day, But whither, whither? ay whither? away, away! Could I but control These vague desires, these leaping flames of the soul: Could I but quench the fire: ah! could I stay My soul that flieth, alas, and dieth away!
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LONDON SNOW When men were all asleep the snow came flying, In large white flakes falling on the city brown, Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying, Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town; Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing; Lazily and incessantly floating down and down: Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing; Hiding difference, making unevenness even, Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing. All night it fell, and when full inches seven It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness, The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven; And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare: The eye marvelled—marvelled at the dazzling whiteness; The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air; No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling, And the busy morning cries came thin and spare. Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling, They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing; Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees; Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder, ’O look at the trees!’ they cried, ’O look at the trees!’ With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder, Following along the white deserted way, A country company long dispersed asunder: When now already the sun, in pale display Standing by Paul’s high dome, spread forth below His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day. For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow; And trains of sombre men, past tale of number, Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go: But even for them awhile no cares encumber Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken, The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken.
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THE VOICE OF NATURE I stand on the cliff and watch the veiled sun paling A silver field afar in the mournful sea, The scourge of the surf, and plaintive gulls sailing At ease on the gale that smites the shuddering lea: Whose smile severe and chaste June never hath stirred to vanity, nor age defaced. In lofty thought strive, O spirit, for ever: In courage and strength pursue thine own endeavour. Ah! if it were only for thee, thou restless ocean Of waves that follow and roar, the sweep of the tides; Wer’t only for thee, impetuous wind, whose motion Precipitate all o’errides, and turns, nor abides: For you sad birds and fair, Or only for thee, bleak cliff, erect in the air; Then well could I read wisdom in every feature, O well should I understand the voice of Nature. But far away, I think, in the Thames valley, The silent river glides by flowery banks: And birds sing sweetly in branches that arch an alley Of cloistered trees, moss-grown in their ancient ranks: Where if a light air stray, ’Tis laden with hum of bees and scent of may. Love and peace be thine, O spirit, for ever: Serve thy sweet desire: despise endeavour. And if it were only for thee, entrancÈd river, That scarce dost rock the lily on her airy stem, Or stir a wave to murmur, or a rush to quiver; Wer’t but for the woods, and summer asleep in them: For you my bowers green, My hedges of rose and woodbine, with walks between, Then well could I read wisdom in every feature, O well should I understand the voice of Nature.
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ON A DEAD CHILD Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee, With promise of strength and manhood full and fair! Though cold and stark and bare, The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee. Thy mother’s treasure wert thou;—alas! no longer To visit her heart with wondrous joy; to be Thy father’s pride;—ah, he Must gather his faith together, and his strength make stronger. To me, as I move thee now in the last duty, Dost thou with a turn or gesture anon respond; Startling my fancy fond With a chance attitude of the head, a freak of beauty. Thy hand clasps, as ’twas wont, my finger, and holds it: But the grasp is the clasp of Death, heartbreaking and stiff; Yet feels to my hand as if ’Twas still thy will, thy pleasure and trust that enfolds it. So I lay thee there, thy sunken eyelids closing,— Go lie thou there in thy coffin, thy last little bed!— Propping thy wise, sad head, Thy firm, pale hands across thy chest disposing. So quiet! doth the change content thee?—Death, whither hath he taken thee? To a world, do I think, that rights the disaster of this? The vision of which I miss, Who weep for the body, and wish but to warm thee and awaken thee? Ah! little at best can all our hopes avail us To lift this sorrow, or cheer us, when in the dark, Unwilling, alone we embark, And the things we have seen and have known and have heard of, fail us.
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THE PHILOSOPHER TO HIS MISTRESS Because thou canst not see, Because thou canst not know The black and hopeless woe That hath encompassed me: Because, should I confess The thought of my despair, My words would wound thee less Than swords can hurt the air: Because with thee I seem As one invited near To taste the faery cheer Of spirits in a dream; Of whom he knoweth nought Save that they vie to make All motion, voice and thought A pleasure for his sake: Therefore more sweet and strange Has been the mystery Of thy long love to me, That doth not quit, nor change, Nor tax my solemn heart, That kisseth in a gloom, Knowing not who thou art That givest, nor to whom. Therefore the tender touch Is more; more dear the smile: And thy light words beguile My wisdom overmuch: And O with swiftness fly The fancies of my song To happy worlds, where I Still in thy love belong.
6 Haste on, my joys! your treasure lies In swift, unceasing flight. O haste: for while your beauty flies I seize your full delight. Lo! I have seen the scented flower, Whose tender stems I cull, For her brief date and meted hour Appear more beautiful. O youth, O strength, O most divine For that so short ye prove; Were but your rare gifts longer mine, Ye scarce would win my love. Nay, life itself the heart would spurn, Did once the days restore The days, that once enjoyed return, Return—ah! nevermore.
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INDOLENCE We left the city when the summer day Had verged already on its hot decline, And charmed Indolence in languor lay In her gay gardens, ’neath her towers divine: ’Farewell,’ we said, ’dear city of youth and dream!’ And in our boat we stepped and took the stream. All through that idle afternoon we strayed Upon our proposed travel well begun, As loitering by the woodland’s dreamy shade, Past shallow islets floating in the sun, Or searching down the banks for rarer flowers We lingered out the pleasurable hours. Till when that loveliest came, which mowers home Turns from their longest labour, as we steered Along a straitened channel flecked with foam, We lost our landscape wide, and slowly neared An ancient bridge, that like a blind wall lay Low on its buried vaults to block the way. Then soon the narrow tunnels broader showed, Where with its arches three it sucked the mass Of water, that in swirl thereunder flowed, Or stood piled at the piers waiting to pass; And pulling for the middle span, we drew The tender blades aboard and floated through. But past the bridge what change we found below! The stream, that all day long had laughed and played Betwixt the happy shires, ran dark and slow, And with its easy flood no murmur made: And weeds spread on its surface, and about The stagnant margin reared their stout heads out. Upon the left high elms, with giant wood Skirting the water-meadows, interwove Their slumbrous crowns, o’ershadowing where they stood The floor and heavy pillars of the grove: And in the shade, through reeds and sedges dank, A footpath led along the moated bank. Across, all down the right, an old brick wall, Above and o’er the channel, red did lean; Here buttressed up, and bulging there to fall, Tufted with grass and plants and lichen green; And crumbling to the flood, which at its base Slid gently nor disturbed its mirrored face. Sheer on the wall the houses rose, their backs All windowless, neglected and awry, With tottering coins, and crooked chimney stacks; And here and there an unused door, set high Above the fragments of its mouldering stair, With rail and broken step led out on air. Beyond, deserted wharfs and vacant sheds, With empty boats and barges moored along, And rafts half-sunken, fringed with weedy shreds, And sodden beams, once soaked to season strong. No sight of man, nor sight of life, no stroke, No voice the somnolence and silence broke. Then I who rowed leant on my oar, whose drip Fell without sparkle, and I rowed no more; And he that steered moved neither hand nor lip, But turned his wondering eye from shore to shore; And our trim boat let her swift motion die, Between the dim reflections floating by.
8 I praise the tender flower, That on a mournful day Bloomed in my garden bower And made the winter gay. Its loveliness contented My heart tormented. I praise the gentle maid Whose happy voice and smile To confidence betrayed My doleful heart awhile: And gave my spirit deploring Fresh wings for soaring. The maid for very fear Of love I durst not tell: The rose could never hear, Though I bespake her well: So in my song I bind them For all to find them.
9 A winter’s night with the snow about: ’Twas silent within and cold without: Both father and mother to bed were gone: The son sat yet by the fire alone. He gazed on the fire, and dreamed again Of one that was now no more among men: As still he sat and never aware How close was the spirit beside his chair. Nay, sad were his thoughts, for he wept and said Ah, woe for the dead! ah, woe for the dead! How heavy the earth lies now on her breast, The lips that I kissed, and the hand I pressed. The spirit he saw not, he could not hear The comforting word she spake in his ear: His heart in the grave with her mouldering clay No welcome gave—and she fled away.
10 My bed and pillow are cold, My heart is faint with dread, The air hath an odour of mould, I dream I lie with the dead: I cannot move, O come to me, love, Or else I am dead. The feet I hear on the floor Tread heavily overhead: O Love, come down to the door, Come, Love, come, ere I be dead: Make shine thy light, O Love, in the night; Or else I am dead.
11 O thou unfaithful, still as ever dearest, That in thy beauty to my eyes appearest, In fancy rising now to re-awaken My love unshaken; All thou’st forgotten, but no change can free thee, No hate unmake thee; as thou wert I see thee, And am contented, eye from fond eye meeting Its ample greeting. O thou my star of stars, among things wholly Devoted, sacred, dim and melancholy, The only joy of all the joys I cherished That hast not perished, Why now on others squand’rest thou the treasure, That to be jealous of is still my pleasure: As still I dream ’tis me whom thou invitest, Me thou delightest? But day by day my joy hath feebler being, The fading picture tires my painful seeing, And faery fancy leaves her habitation To desolation. Of two things open left for lovers parted ’Twas thine to scorn the past and go lighthearted: But I would ever dream I still possess it, And thus caress it.
12 Thou didst delight my eyes: Yet who am I? nor first Nor last nor best, that durst Once dream of thee for prize; Nor this the only time Thou shalt set love to rhyme. Thou didst delight my ear: Ah! little praise; thy voice Makes other hearts rejoice, Makes all ears glad that hear; And short my joy: but yet, O song, do not forget. For what wert thou to me? How shall I say? The moon, That poured her midnight noon Upon his wrecking sea;— A sail, that for a day Has cheered the castaway.
13 Joy, sweetest lifeborn joy, where dost thou dwell? Upon the formless moments of our being Flitting, to mock the ear that heareth well, To escape the trainÈd eye that strains in seeing, Dost thou fly with us whither we are fleeing; Or home in our creations, to withstand BlackwingÈd death, that slays the making hand? The making mind, that must untimely perish Amidst its work which time may not destroy, The beauteous forms which man shall love to cherish, The glorious songs that combat earth’s annoy? Thou dost dwell here, I know, divinest Joy: But they who build thy towers fair and strong, Of all that toil, feel most of care and wrong. Sense is so tender, O and hope so high, That common pleasures mock their hope and sense; And swifter than doth lightning from the sky The ecstasy they pine for flashes hence, Leaving the darkness and the woe immense, Wherewith it seems no thread of life was woven, Nor doth the track remain where once ’twas cloven. And heaven and all the stable elements That guard God’s purpose mock us, though the mind Be spent in searching: for his old intents We see were never for our joy designed: They shine as doth the bright sun on the blind, Or like his pensioned stars, that hymn above His praise, but not toward us, that God is Love. For who so well hath wooed the maiden hours As quite to have won the worth of their rich show, To rob the night of mystery, or the flowers Of their sweet delicacy ere they go? Nay, even the dear occasion when we know, We miss the joy, and on the gliding day The special glories float and pass away. Only life’s common plod: still to repair The body and the thing which perisheth: The soil, the smutch, the toil and ache and wear, The grinding enginry of blood and breath, Pain’s random darts, the heartless spade of death; All is but grief, and heavily we call On the last terror for the end of all. Then comes the happy moment: not a stir In any tree, no portent in the sky: The morn doth neither hasten nor defer, The morrow hath no name to call it by, But life and joy are one,—we know not why,— As though our very blood long breathless lain Had tasted of the breath of God again. And having tasted it I speak of it, And praise him thinking how I trembled then When his touch strengthened me, as now I sit In wonder, reaching out beyond my ken, Reaching to turn the day back, and my pen Urging to tell a tale which told would seem The witless phantasy of them that dream. But O most blessÈd truth, for truth thou art, Abide thou with me till my life shall end. Divinity hath surely touched my heart; I have possessed more joy than earth can lend: I may attain what time shall never spend. Only let not my duller days destroy The memory of thy witness and my joy.
14 The full moon her cloudless skies Turneth her face, I think, on me; And from the hour when she doth rise Till when she sets, none else will see. One only other ray she hath, That makes an angle close with mine, And glancing down its happy path Upon another spot doth shine. But that ray too is sent to me, For where it lights there dwells my heart: And if I were where I would be, Both rays would shine, love, where thou art.
15 Awake, my heart, to be loved, awake, awake! The darkness silvers away, the morn doth break, It leaps in the sky: unrisen lustres slake The o’ertaken moon. Awake, O heart, awake! She too that loveth awaketh and hopes for thee; Her eyes already have sped the shades that flee, Already they watch the path thy feet shall take: Awake, O heart, to be loved, awake, awake! And if thou tarry her,—if this could be,— She cometh herself, O heart, to be loved, to thee; For thee would unashamÈd herself forsake: Awake to be loved, my heart, awake, awake! Awake, the land is scattered with light, and see, Uncanopied sleep is flying from field and tree: And blossoming boughs of April in laughter shake; Awake, O heart, to be loved, awake, awake! Lo all things wake and tarry and look for thee: She looketh and saith, ’O sun, now bring him to me. Come more adored, O adored, for his coming’s sake, And awake my heart to be loved: awake, awake!’
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SONG I love my lady’s eyes Above the beauties rare She most is wont to prize, Above her sunny hair, And all that face to face Her glass repeats of grace. For those are still the same To her and all that see: But oh! her eyes will flame When they do look on me: And so above the rest I love her eyes the best. Now say, [Say, O say! saith the music] who likes my song?— I knew you by your eyes, That rest on nothing long, And have forgot surprise; And stray [Stray, O stray! saith the music] as mine will stray, The while my love’s away.
17 Since thou, O fondest and truest, Hast loved me best and longest, And now with trust the strongest The joy of my heart renewest; Since thou art dearer and dearer While other hearts grow colder, And ever, as love is older, More lovingly drawest nearer: Since now I see in the measure Of all my giving and taking, Thou wert my hand in the making, The sense and soul of my pleasure; The good I have ne’er repaid thee In heaven I pray be recorded, And all thy love rewarded By God, thy master that made thee.
18 The evening darkens over. After a day so bright The windcapt waves discover That wild will be the night. There’s sound of distant thunder. The latest sea-birds hover Along the cliff’s sheer height; As in the memory wander Last flutterings of delight, White wings lost on the white. There’s not a ship in sight; And as the sun goes under Thick clouds conspire to cover The moon that should rise yonder. Thou art alone, fond lover.
19 O youth whose hope is high, Who dost to Truth aspire, Whether thou live or die, O look not back nor tire. Thou that art bold to fly Through tempest, flood and fire, Nor dost not shrink to try Thy heart in torments dire: If thou canst Death defy, If thy Faith is entire, Press onward, for thine eye Shall see thy heart’s desire. Beauty and love are nigh, And with their deathless quire Soon shall thine eager cry Be numbered and expire.
[Pg 120]
[Pg 121] SHORTER POEMS Decoration
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