 
—De Gramont. SESTINA.When from the portals of her paradise Sweet Eve went forth an exile with sad heart, She lingered at the thrice-barred gate in tears, And to the guardian of that Eden fair, As on her cheeks there came and went the rose, She weeping mourned the harshness of her fate. "O angel," cried she, "bitter is the fate That drives me from this fairest paradise, And bids me wear life's rue and not its rose! Give me one flower to lay upon my heart Before I wander through far lands less fair, And drown all visions of my past in tears." She ceased, but still flowed fast her silent tears At memory of the waywardness of fate. "Ah," thought she, "young I am, 'tis true, and fair, But shall I find another paradise?" Then turning once again with trembling heart, She spake: "O angel, but a rose-one rose!" Within the angel's breast compassion rose At sight of her sad face and falling tears, The while her beauty touched his tender heart, And knowing well the misery of her fate, He gave the flower, a rose of paradise, Because she was so very young and fair. And since that time there may be flowers as fair, But they must all yield fealty to the rose, The red, red rose that bloomed in paradise, That Eve in exile watered with her tears, The only blossom in her cheerless fate, The one flower in the desert of her heart. And into every mortal's life and heart There come some time, in cloudy days or fair, It matters not, to bless and light his fate For one short space, the perfume of the rose; And though the after years may bring but tears, That moment's pleasure is of paradise. O wondrous rose of love most passing fair, Whate'er our fate in earthly paradise, Grant that our tears be dewdrops in thy heart. Florence M. Byrne. LOVE'S GOING.(Sestina.) Love lies a-sleeping: maiden, softly sing, Lest he should waken; pluck the falling rose A-brushing 'gainst his cheek, her glowing heart Ope'd to the sun's hot kisses-foolish thing, To list the tale oft told!-but summer goes, And all the roses' petals fall apart. Love lies a-sleeping: let the curtains part So that the breeze may lightly to him sing A lullaby-the changeful breeze that goes A-whispering through the grass, where'er it rose, Where'er it listeth bound, a wilful thing, Low murmuring sweets from an inconstant heart. Love lies a-sleeping: press the pulsing heart That beats against thy bosom: stand apart And stay thine eager breath, lest anything Should mar his rest-the songs that lovers sing, The tale the butterfly tells to the rose, The low wind to the grass, and onward goes. Love lies a-sleeping: ah, how swiftly goes The sweet delusion he hath taught thy heart, Fair maiden, pressing to thy breast the rose Whose sun-kiss'd petals sadly fall apart With thy quick breath! That rhyme wouldst hear him sing Which yesterday seem'd such a foolish thing? Love lies a-sleeping: nay, for such a thing Break not his slumber. See how sweetly goes That smile across his lips, that will not sing For very wilfulness. Love hath no heart! If he should wake, these red-ripe lips would part In laughter low to see this ravish'd rose. Love lies a-sleeping: so the full-blown rose Falls to the earth a dead unpitied thing; The grasses 'neath the breeze deep-sighing part And sway; and as thy warm breath comes and goes In motion with the red tides of thy heart, The song is hush'd which Love was wont to sing. Love lies a-sleeping: thus in dreams he goes; Strive not to waken him, but tell thy heart, "Love lies a-sleeping, and he may not sing." Charles W. Coleman, Jun. SESTINA.To F. H. "'Fra tutte il primo Arnoldo Daniello Grand maestro d'amor.'"-Petrarch. In fair Provence, the land of lute and rose, Arnaut, great master of the lore of love, First wrought sestines to win his lady's heart; For she was deaf when simpler staves he sang, And for her sake he broke the bonds of rhyme, And in this subtler measure hid his woe. 'Harsh be my lines,' cried Arnaut, 'harsh the woe, My lady, that enthron'd and cruel rose, Inflicts on him that made her live in rhyme!' But through the metre spake the voice of Love, And like a wild-wood nightingale he sang Who thought in crabbed lays to ease his heart. It is not told if her untoward heart Was melted by her poet's lyric woe, Or if in vain so amorously he sang. Perchance through crowd of dark conceits he rose To nobler heights of philosophic love, And crowned his later years with sterner rhyme. This thing alone we know: the triple rhyme, Of him who bared his vast and passionate heart To all the crossing flames of hate and love, Wears in the midst of all its storm of woe,- As some loud morn of March may bear a rose,- The impress of a song that Arnaut sang. 'Smith of his mother-tongue,' the Frenchman sang Of Lancelot and of Galahad, the rhyme That beat so bloodlike at its core of rose, It stirred the sweet Francesca's gentle heart To take that kiss that brought her so much woe, And sealed in fire her martyrdom of love. And Dante, full of her immortal love, Stayed his drear song, and softly, fondly sang As though his voice broke with that weight of woe; And to this day we think of Arnaut's rhyme Whenever pity at the labouring heart On fair Francesca's memory drops the rose. Ah! sovereign Love, forgive this weaker rhyme! The men of old who sang were great at heart, Yet have we too known woe, and worn thy rose. Edmund Gosse. PULVIS ET UMBRA.(A Sestina.) Along the crowded streets I walk and think How I, a shadow, pace among the shades, For I and all men seem to me unreal: Foam that the seas of God, which cover all Cast on the air a moment, shadows thrown In moving westward by the Moon of Death. Oh, shall it set at last, that orb of Death? May any morning follow? As I think, From one surmise upon another thrown, My very thoughts appear to me as shades- Shades, like the prisoning self that bounds them all, Shades, like the transient world, and as unreal. But other hours there be when I, unreal, When only I, vague in a conscious Death, Move through the mass of men unseen by all; I move along their ways, I feel and think, Yet am more light than echoes, or the shades That hide me, from their stronger bodies thrown. And better moments come, when, overthrown All round me, lie the ruins of the unreal And momentary world, as thin as shades; When I alone, triumphant over Death, Eternal, vast, fill with the thoughts I think, And with my single soul the frame of all. Ah, for a moment could I grasp it all! Ah, could but I (poor wrestler often thrown) Once grapple with the truth, oh then, I think, Assured of which is living, which unreal, I would not murmur, though among the shades My lot were cast, among the shades and Death. "One thing is true," I said, "and that is Death," And yet it may be God disproves it all; And Death may be a passage from the shades, And films on our beclouded senses thrown; And Death may be a step beyond the Unreal Towards the Thought that answers all I think. In vain I think. O moon-like thought of Death, All is unreal beneath thee, uncertain all, Dim moon-ray thrown along a world of shades. A. Mary F. Robinson. CUPID AND THE SHEPHERD.(Sestina.) One merry morn when all the earth was bright, And flushed with dewy dawn's encrimsoning ray A shepherd youth, o'er whose fair face the light Of rosy smiles was ever wont to stray, Roamed through a level grassy mead, bedight With springtime blossoms, fragrant, fresh and gay. But now, alas! his mood was far from gay; And musing how the dark world would be bright Could he but win his maiden's love, and stray With her forever, basking in its light, He saw afar, in morn's bright beaming ray, A lissome boy with archer's arms bedight. The boy shot arrows at a tree bedight With red-winged songsters warbling sweet and gay Amid the leaves and blossoms blooming bright. He seemed an aimless, wandering waif astray, And so the shepherd caught him, stealing light, While from his eyes he flashed an angry ray. The fair boy plead until a kindly ray Shone o'er the shepherd's clouded brow, bedight With clustering locks, and he said, smiling gay, "I prithee promise, by thy face so bright, To ne'er again, where'er thou mayest stray, Slay the sweet birds that make so glad the light." While yet he spake, from out those eyes a light Divine shot forth, before whose glowing ray The shepherd quailed, it was so wondrous bright; Then well he knew 'twas Cupid coy and gay, With all his arts and subtle wiles bedight, And knelt in homage lest the boy should stray. "Rise," said the God, "and e'er thy footsteps stray Know that within her eyes where beamed no light Of love for thee, I will implant a ray. She shall be thine with all her charms bedight." The shepherd kissÈd Love's hand and bounded gay To gain his bliss,—and all the world was bright. When naught is bright to these that sadly stray, Oftimes a single ray of Eros' light Will make all earth bedight with radiance gay. Clinton Scollard. SESTINA.I saw my soul at rest upon a day As a bird sleeping in the nest of night, Among soft leaves that give the starlight way To touch its wings but not its eyes with light; So that it knew as one in visions may, And knew not as men waking, of delight. This was the measure of my soul's delight; It had no power of joy to fly by day, Nor part in the large lordship of the light; But in a secret moon-beholden way Had all its will of dreams and pleasant night, And all the love and life that sleepers may. But such life's triumph as men waking may It might not have to feed its faint delight Between the stars by night and sun by day, Shut up with green leaves and a little light; Because its way was as a lost star's way, A world's not wholly known of day or night. All loves and dreams and sounds and gleams of night Made it all music that such minstrels may, And all they had they gave it of delight; But in the full face of the fire of day What place shall be for any starry light, What part of heaven in all the wide sun's way? Yet the soul woke not, sleeping by the way, Watched as a nursling of the large eyed night, And sought no strength nor knowledge of the day, Nor closer touch conclusive of delight, Nor mightier joy nor truer than dreamers may, Nor more of song than they, nor more of light. For who sleeps once and sees the secret light Whereby sleep shows the soul a fairer way Between the rise and rest of day and night, Shall care no more to fare as all men may, But be his place of pain or of delight, There shall he dwell, beholding night as day. Song, have thy day and take thy fill of light Before the night be fallen across thy way; Sing while he may, man hath no long delight. Algernon Charles Swinburne. |
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