FELISE Mais oÙ sont les neiges d'antan? What shall be said between us here Among the downs, between the trees, In fields that knew our feet last year, In sight of quiet sands and seas, This year, FElise? Who knows what word were best to say? For last year's leaves lie dead and red On this sweet day, in this green May, And barren corn makes bitter bread. What shall be said? Here as last year the fields begin, A fire of flowers and glowing grass; The old fields we laughed and lingered in, Seeing each our souls in last year's glass, FElise, alas! Shall we not laugh, shall we not weep, Not we, though this be as it is? For love awake or love asleep Ends in a laugh, a dream, a kiss, A song like this. I that have slept awake, and you Sleep, who last year were well awake, Though love do all that love can do, My heart will never ache or break For your heart's sake. The great sea, faultless as a flower, Throbs, trembling under beam and breeze, And laughs with love of the amorous hour. I found you fairer once, FElise, Than flowers or seas. We played at bondsman and at queen; But as the days change men change too; I find the grey sea's notes of green, The green sea's fervent flakes of blue, More fair than you. Your beauty is not over fair Now in mine eyes, who am grown up wise. The smell of flowers in all your hair Allures not now; no sigh replies If your heart sighs. But you sigh seldom, you sleep sound, You find love's new name good enough. Less sweet I find it than I found The sweetest name that ever love Grew weary of. My snake with bright bland eyes, my snake Grown tame and glad to be caressed, With lips athirst for mine to slake Their tender fever! who had guessed You loved me best? I had died for this last year, to know You loved me. Who shall turn on fate? I care not if love come or go Now, though your love seek mine for mate. It is too late. The dust of many strange desires Lies deep between us; in our eyes Dead smoke of perishable fires Flickers, a fume in air and skies, A steam of sighs. You loved me and you loved me not; A little, much, and overmuch. Will you forget as I forgot? Let all dead things lie dead; none such Are soft to touch. I love you and I do not love, Too much, a little, not at all; Too much, and never yet enough. Birds quick to fledge and fly at call Are quick to fall. And these love longer now than men, And larger loves than ours are these. No diver brings up love again Dropped once, my beautiful FElise, In such cold seas. Gone deeper than all plummets sound, Where in the dim green dayless day The life of such dead things lies bound As the sea feeds on, wreck and stray And castaway. Can I forget? yea, that can I, And that can all men; so will you, Alive, or later, when you die. Ah, but the love you plead was true? Was mine not too? I loved you for that name of yours Long ere we met, and long enough. Now that one thing of all endures-- The sweetest name that ever love Waxed weary of. Like colours in the sea, like flowers, Like a cat's splendid circled eyes That wax and wane with love for hours, Green as green flame, blue-grey like skies, And soft like sighs-- And all these only like your name, And your name full of all of these. I say it, and it sounds the same-- Save that I say it now at ease, Your name, FElise. I said "she must be swift and white, And subtly warm, and half perverse, And sweet like sharp soft fruit to bite, And like a snake's love lithe and fierce." Men have guessed worse. What was the song I made of you Here where the grass forgets our feet As afternoon forgets the dew? Ah that such sweet things should be fleet, Such fleet things sweet! As afternoon forgets the dew, As time in time forgets all men, As our old place forgets us two, Who might have turned to one thing then But not again. O lips that mine have grown into Like April's kissing May, O fervent eyelids letting through Those eyes the greenest of things blue, The bluest of things grey, If you were I and I were you, How could I love you, say? How could the roseleaf love the rue, The day love nightfall and her dew, Though night may love the day? You loved it may be more than I; We know not; love is hard to seize. And all things are not good to try;