THE SURVIVING SENSE

The rapture is over,

The passion for pressure is spent,

And, lover by lover,

We lie in a languid content;

Still warmed by our flame’s afterglow

We speak not, but take

One soft kiss now and then just to show

That we still are awake.

In the weak wind the curtain

Stirs faintly, the light of the fire

Flickers pale and uncertain

Like the last of our sated desire;

Here as our souls sink and fall

Into cavernous sleep,

Do you think, as I think, of it all,

What we lose, what we keep?

When of all this fierce splendour

Of lust are our bodies bereft,

When these limbs strong and tender

Have no power or grace in them left,

When we have outlived and outworn

The delights of the flesh,

We shall smile at this past—not in scorn—

If we keep our hearts fresh.

PASTORAL

Out in the fields, at times,

When you are too tired to speak

And I cease from stringing you rhymes

And kissing your mouth and cheek,

When the sun beats down so hot

That you lie with half-closed eyes

Drinking in what air’s to be got,

I move from your breast, half rise,

And bend o’er your face awhile,

My arm round your neck beneath,

And gaze past your lazy smile

’Twixt the even white lines of your teeth,

To your inner mouth and your throat

Where, like water-anemones,

Pink mounds and tendrils float

In silky salivan seas.

I scarce can believe it true

That within that delicate gate

Is the whole strange structure of you

So wondrously ornate.

And I marvel that a brain

That can think is thereabove,

That below that tiny drain

Is a crimson heart that can move—

A living brain so near

Behind its carven screen,

A heart I can often hear

And yet have never seen;

That through head and trunk and limbs,

In artery and vein,

The blood sings pulsing hymns

To serve that heart and brain;

That your stomach’s creamy skin,

Soft-downed like a giant peach,

Conceals a coiled fire within

That flames in thought and speech;

Tubes in a cavern of bone

Writhing fold upon fold,

Mine, miner, philosopher’s stone,

Pent forge of infinite gold;

That there rest in your raftered room,

Distilling their secret dews,

Great gems of flesh in the gloom

With a hundred hidden hues.

And I fetch back my eyes, half dazed

At the miracles richly spread

In this temple Time has raised

On countless tribes of the dead,

And draw our bosoms asunder,

And quiver, and backward sink

In a luminous cloud of wonder,

And look at the sky and think

Of this you and this shrine of yours

That I cannot tell from you,

This complicate thing that lures

My being and thrills me through

With hopes and longings and lusts,

Tumults of body and mind,

A medley of pulls and thrusts

Unnumbered and undefined.

A medley they are, but I learn them

On the summits of thought and dream

As parts of a whole, and discern them

One Love though many they seem:

The Love that gloats on the swell

Of your breast all ripe for its fang,

The Love that would suffer a hell

To save you a passing pang,

The Love with throb and sting

At whose waking my loins are stirred,

The Love that would make me fling

From a cliff-top at your word. . . . .

On a sudden I break my thought

With a little laugh, and turn

As a dutiful lover ought

To fanning your cheeks that burn,

And smoothing your tangled hair

From your forehead, strand by strand,

With such a caressing care

That you needs must draw back my hand

And lift your arms to enfold me

And draw me down to your face,

And closer, closer, hold me

In the depths of a dumb embrace,

Till we cling without stir on the grass

Under the quiet sun,

Forgetting that all things pass,

Dead to all things but one.

COMING

An hour ago she climbed the stair

And stepped into her lonely room,

And found his letter lying there

Upon the table, in the gloom.

She dropped it with a little sigh.

Took off her hat and old green coat

And lit the lamp with scrutinous eye,

Just murmuring, “The same old note.

“He’s aching to be here, but sees

No earthly chance of coming yet.

The fates are deaf to paupers’ pleas”. . . .

She turned again, her lids were wet.

An hour ago she picked it up

And saw his opening burst of joy,

Half-blinded clasped her brimming cup,

And cried aloud, “My boy, my boy!”

ESQUISSE

Slow rollers sweeping to the beach,

The shoremost brilliant in the moon;

Two lovers clinging each to each,

Knowing they must be parted soon.

Poor souls that strive in vain to think

Of hope, though thought of hope were vain,

Poor shadowed hearts that dumbly shrink

The anguish of a lonely pain!

Ah! sad beyond all power of speech

That Life and life are out of tune. . . .

The shoremost roller on the beach

Breaks and is snow-white in the moon.

LASSITUDE

The room is filled full of the peace of night,

The small flames murmur and flicker and sway,

Within me is neither shadow, nor light,

Nor night, nor twilight, nor dawn, nor day.

For the brain strives not to the goal of thought,

And the limbs lie wearied, and all desire

Sleeps for a while, and I am naught

But a pair of eyes that gaze at a fire.

LOVE’S PRAISE

They praise their ladies:

They praise their ladies:Feet

“Shapely,” and eyes “demure,”

And lips “down-curved, discreet,”

Brows “virginal and pure,”

And breasts whose dazzling loveliness

Frail men may scarce endure.

Their necks are white as snow,

Their hair as yellow gold,

Their teeth are set a-row

As pearls of price untold;

They have all charms of body and face—

That fade when one grows old.

But I, I am scarce ’ware

Of the colour of your eyes

Or the colour of your hair,

And sing not in this wise,

For your heart is all my care

And the love that in it lies.

Haply your neck is white,

Your hair continually

May send forth gleams more bright

Than any gold may be,

Your cheeks may peach-like bloom; but yet,

What’s that to Love or me?

Are other lips discreeter?

Are other eyes demurer?

I know no heart is sweeter,

The faith of none is surer.

And, since no love’s more pure than yours,

What boots whose brow is purer?

Are they not fond who think

This love and this love’s praise

To draw in waning ink,

The body’s passing phase;

Is it thus that you and I should waste

The unreturning days?

When earth’s alive with Spring

And hearts nigh break with bliss,

Should I stand forth and sing

Praises as vain as this?

Nay, Love is its own praise, and speaks

Itself in every kiss.

BOYHOOD

He looked awhile at the fields all white

Glistening fair in the soft moonlight;

But the bells tolled forth the heavy midnight.

So he knelt him down beside the bed,

Folded his hands and bent his head,

And the devil smiled at the prayers he said.

LOVE’S LIGHTNING

Last night as I lay awake in bed

A flash of you came into my head

And into my heart, and straightway fled.

It passed from the chamber suddenly,

Leaving no trace to know it by

But a tightened breast and a wet, glad eye.

Like a moonray soft it came and went,

Which glimmers through where the cloud-wrack’s rent,

Hovers a moment and then is spent;

Or a bee against a window-pane,

Which taps but once and never again,

Some autumn day, before the rain.

For one brief moment I felt it stealing

Along the verge of thought and feeling

As though some great vague thing revealing,

As though for that moment sad and sweet

My soul was out in the infinite.

And Life and Death were as one to it.

CONSUMMATION

On this cheek now, and now on this

Soft cheek that burns; now a mouth-kiss.

We are near to swoon as lips meet lips

In ecstasy of deep eclipse

Of breath. O worshipt spirit and flesh,

Let us inweave us in a mesh

Of twined limbs together pressed,

Thus, thus… Ah! closer, breast to breast;

Our hearts which feel each other’s beat

Thrill for a while with strange, complete

Knowledge of all eternity.

I kiss thee this once more, my sweet,

For to the earth each drowsy limb

Sinks, as the night grows pale, and dim

The stars, and dawn comes tremulous.

Should we not pride ourselves that we,

We two alone, have wrenched one whole

Deep hour from Fate, and mingled us

Soul and body, body and soul?

ON THE BALCONY

Night, purpled night

From her starry crown

Sheds a doubtful glimmer

On the sleeping town;

I scarce can see your face

Soft and shadowy-white,

But I know your eyes

Look deep into the night.

Do you think, perchance,

Of one I never knew,

One I never heard of,

All in all to you;

Dead, maybe, or lost

’Mid the many years?. . . .

You are very still;

Are you shedding tears?

The night feels your tears,

The night returns your sigh

From where the spires and towers

Stand dim against the sky;

But my heart leaps swift,

Swift, and leaps again,

Ah! to soothe and quiet

Your poor soul in pain.

Ah! to soothe your soul!

It may never be,

For I cannot draw one veil

From your mystery,

For your brow is lineless

But your heart is old,

And the wind is rising

Fast, and growing cold,

And in the crowded rooms

Swells the merry din.

Clasp your cloak’s neck, come,

Let us go within.

FIN-DE-SIÈCLE

You say the meadow-grass is green,

You say the heavens are blue,

The birds sing free on every tree;

All this is very true,

No doubt—

But what of me and you?

But what of you and me? Ah, yes—

“About an even chance!”

Methinks, dear soul, upon the whole

God leads us a merry dance.

I’ faith,

God leads us a merry dance.

EVENING

Long lines of quiet rooks

Winging to their rest

Over where the pines are dark

’Gainst the yellow West.

Gleaming pool and brown moor,

Stone, and bush, and tree

Slowly in the utter peace

Fade from you and me.

Ah! leave your hand in mine

Till the last light dies;

Thus… for ever… Nay, love,

Tears in your eyes?

SONG

Stranger, we challenge thee,

Say, if you meet her,

Sweet mouth or sweet eyes,

Which is the sweeter?

Which softer falls—

Tell if you know—

Snow upon water

Or snow upon snow?

A ROUNDEL IN MARCH

When March has fled with windy feet,

Spring’s blessings on the woodland shed

We too shall share, for we shall meet

When March has fled;

And all the things we left unsaid

Will find an utterance complete

In silence; and our hearts which bled

At Time and Space, with every beat

Will feel as Time and Space were dead—

For we shall clasp us close, my sweet,

When March has fled.

AT DAWN

I rise from the chair and shut the books,

The light is coming, the glad birds wake,

First the little ones, then the rooks–

O the hubbub those old rooks make!

They cease for a moment; a scarce-heard sigh

As the dawn wind rises, the cold trees stir;

As I look at their branches listlessly

Why is it, I wonder, I think of her?

ON THE ROAD

I. MORNING

I have no name, no cares, no kin,

Beneath the whole blue sky,

None ever had a gladder heart

Or freer limbs than I.

The sun shines bright, my step is light,

I, who have no abode,

Jeer at the stuck, monotonous

Black posts along the road.

II. MIDDAY

The wood is still,

As here I sit

My heart drinks in

The peace of it.

A something stirs

I know not where,

Some quiet spirit

In the air.

O tall straight stems!

O cool deep green!

O hand unfelt!

O face unseen!

III. EVENING

The evening closes in;

A-down this last long lane

I plod; there patter round

First heavy drops of rain.

Feet ache, legs ache, but now

Step quickens as I think

Of mounds of bread and cheese

And something hot to drink.

IV. NIGHT

Ah! sleep is sweet, but yet

I will not sleep awhile

Nor for a space forget

The toil of that last mile;

But lie awake and feel

The cool sheets’ tremulous kisses

O’er all my body steal. . . .

Is sleep as sweet as this is?

THE ROOF I

When the clouds hide the sun away

The tall slate roof is dull and grey,

And when the rain a-down it streams

’Tis polished lead with pale-blue gleams.

When the clouds vanish and the rain

Stops, and the sun comes out again,

It shimmers golden in the sun

Almost too bright to look upon.

But soon beneath the steady rays

The roof is dried and reft of blaze,

’Tis dusty yellow traversed through

By long thin lines of deepest blue.

Then at the last, as night draws near,

The lines grow faint and disappear,

The roof becomes a purple mist,

A great square darkening amethyst

Which sinks into the gathering shade

Till separate form and colour fade,

And it is but a patch which mars

The beauty of a field of stars.

II

It stands so lonely in the sky

The sparrows never come anigh,

The glossy starlings seldom stop

To preen and chatter on the top.

For a whole week sometimes up there

No wing-wave stirs the quiet air,

The roof lies silent and serene

As though no life had ever been;

Till some bright afternoon, athwart

The edge two sudden shadows dart,

And two white pigeons with pink feet

Flutter above and pitch on it.

Jerking their necks out as they walk

They talk awhile their pigeon-talk,

A low continuous murmur blent

Of mock reproaches and content.

Then cease, and sit there warm and white

An hour, till in the fading light

They wake, and know the close of day,

Flutter above, and fly away,

Leaving the roof whereon they sat

As ’twas before, a peaceful flat

Expanse, as silent and serene

As though no life had ever been.

TWO TRIUMPHS

Fills the scorchèd way with clamour: shouts of people,

Clash of cymbals, rolling of the chariots,

Tramp of feet. The long line winds to sight.

The shouts grow louder and louder,

Exulting cries of a crowd triumphant,

Seeing the train of the captive chiefs,

Dark-skinned and bearded, beads of sweat shining

On fevered brows. Hopelessly, wearily,

With great black melancholy eyes cast down,

Walk fettered Asian maids. But, ah! the splendour of gold

On the car, and the purple robe of the victor aloft,

And his haughty mien, and his eyes. . . .

• • • • • • Dead, rotten, dead, two thousand years ago.

MIDNIGHT

The night is dark and the place is lone,

The wind is weary and maketh moan,

The dank tree drips on the moss-covered stone,

And the brain is an ash when the spark has flown.

But the horror of Death is an ecstasy,

And the sweetest song is an elegy,

And the loveliest flowers in the world for me

Are the roses which bloom on the cypress-tree.

TO THE BODIES OF THE DEAD

O husks of vanished souls,

O bodies cast away

Into drear, darkened holes

Far from the light of day,

O tender bodies, can ye not feel at all,

Pent by your thick earth-wall

So desolate, so desolate?

Once quivering heart and brain,

Within you doth no spark o’ the spirit remain

To mourn your pitiful fate?

Ah, nay! though some of you in dank, moist earth were laid,

Naught but a few thin boards for screen, which soon decayed;

Creeping and soft and quiet

The worms hold silent riot,

They burrow rotting skin and flesh,

Eagerly writhing through, and lose

Themselves amid the coiling bowels’ mesh

Pricking, and forth the secret juices ooze,

The which they suck, nor cease

Ever, in those abodes of ghastly peace.

And some are in dry vaults, encased in solid stone;

But these fare otherwise, for ribs and gaunt breast-bone

Gradually protrude as the brown and shrivelled skin

Sinks slowly, and the flesh moulders away within,

Crumbling into dust;

Strong arm and lofty brow

Which made the nations bow,

Wrapt in eternal gloom

Crumble into dust;

Yea, face and breasts and womb

Which moved men’s love and lust,

Alike within the tomb

Fall to a little dust.

O solitary hearts that no pain sears,

I give you gifts of grief through all my years;

O poor transformèd eyes that may not weep,

I bring you many tears;

O void dark brains laid in ignoble rest,

Though ye be buried deep,

Your unborn thoughts in me made manifest

Throng to you where ye sleep.

TO THE CONTINENTAL SOCIALISTS FEBRUARY 1906

We who have but begun,

We who as yet are few,

Send out our hearts to you

Whose cause and ours is one,

Who long have dauntless stood

And witnessed with your blood

The Holy Brotherhood

Of all beneath the sun.

Almost we were as these

With eyes but seeing not,

Well fed or ill, who rot

In poverty or ease;

Till on our ears swift-smiting

There came for our souls’ lighting

A rumour of men fighting

Across the narrow seas.

As far fleets we did mark

Your columns in the battle,

And your clamour, as the rattle

Of cannon through the dark,

From out your dim coasts welling,

Came faint but ever swelling,

And, as a breath compelling,

Revived the faded spark.

Yea, faith was in the mire

And hope had shrunk and sickened

Till you within us quickened

The Dream and the Desire;

The whisper of your name in us

Blew as a wind of shame in us

Until the dwindled flame in us

Burst in a mighty fire.

And by its blaze we knew

The road ’twas ours to follow,

And over hill and hollow

We set us to pursue

That road with toil and fasting,

Our thoughts for comfort casting

Out to the everlasting,

Illimitable blue.

Still as we go we win us

New comrades by the way

To share by night and day

What doom the Fates may spin us;

Each one the old path spurneth

And never one returneth,

And brighter, brighter, burneth

The fervour that is in us.

O glow of things sublime!

O glory of the vision!

May anger or derision

Weigh on our souls, who climb?

May furious fool or sneerer

Retard our steps when nearer

And clearer, ever clearer,

We view the Coming Time?

The heavens overarching

With the echo shall be ringing

Of those who travel singing

To the goal of all their searching:

The solid earth thereunder

Shall thrill with joy and wonder

Beneath the steady thunder

Of many nations marching.

Immeasurably vast

We see the multitude

Who stand where none have stood

And tread the plains at last

(Error and Darkness riven),

Of that terrestrial heaven

For which the race has striven

Through all the ages past;

The land foreseen of old,

Where naught is reaped unsown

And human blood and bone

Are neither bought nor sold;

An earth where kings’ oppressions

And prayers and intercessions

To priest-contrived obsessions

Shall be a strange tale told.

Where, upright ’mid the spheres,

Great Man, of Man the friend,

Shall rise and make an end

Of idle hopes and fears;

Where, truth and duty plainer,

Man shall be freer, saner,

And, of himself sustainer,

Shall wipe away all tears.

We who have but begun,

We who as yet are few,

Send out our hearts to you

Whose cause and ours is one,

Who long have dauntless prest

Onward toward the quest.

O Brothers, noblest, best

Of all beneath the sun.

BLOSSOMS OF EVIL

A VOYAGE TO CYTHERA

My heart was like a bird and took to flight,

Around the rigging circling joyously;

The ship rolled on beneath a cloudless sky

Like a great angel drunken with the light.

“What is yon isle, sad and funereal?”

“Cythera, famed in deathless song,” say they,

“The gay old bachelors’ Eldorado–Nay,

Look! ’tis a poor bare country after all!”

Isle of sweet secrets and heart banquetings!

The queenly shade of antique Venus thrills

Scentlike above thy level seas and fills

Our souls with languor and all amorous things.

Fair island of green myrtles and blown flowers

Held holy by all men for evermore,

Where the faint sighs of spirits that adore

Float like rose-incense through the quiet hours,

And dovelike sounds each murmured orison:–

Cythera lay there barren ’neath bright skies,

A rocky waste rent by discordant cries:

Natheless I saw a curious thing thereon.

No shady temple was it, close enshrined

I’ the trees; no flower-crowned priestess hither came

With her young body burnt by secret flame,

Baring her breast to the caressing wind;

But when so close to the land’s edge we drew

Our canvas scared the sea-fowl–gradually

We knew it for a three-branched gallows tree

Like a black cypress stark against the blue.

A rotten carcase hung, whereon did sit

A swarm of foul black birds; with writhe and shriek

Each sought to pierce and plunge his knife-like beak

Deep in the bleeding trunk and limbs of it.

The eyes were holes; the belly opened wide,

Streaming its heavy entrails on the thighs;

The grim birds, gorged with dreadful delicacies,

Had dug and furrowed it on every side.

Beneath the blackened feet there strove and pressed

A herd of jealous beasts with upward snout,

And in the midst of these there turned about

One, the chief hangman, larger than the rest. . . . .

Lone Cytherean! now all silently

Thou sufferest these insults to atone

For those old infamous sins that thou hast known,

The sins that locked the gate o’ the grave to thee.

Mine are thy sorrows, ludicrous corse; yea, all

Are mine! I stood thy swaying limbs beneath,

And, like a bitter vomit, to my teeth

There rose old sorrows in a stream of gall.

O thou unhappy devil, I felt afresh,

Gazing at thee, the beaks and jaws of those

Black savage panthers and those ruthless crows,

Who loved of old to macerate my flesh.

The sea was calm, the sky without a cloud;

Henceforth for me all things that came to pass

Were blood and darkness,—round my heart, alas!

There clung that allegory, like a shroud.

Naught save mine image on a gibbet thrust

Found I on Venus island desolate. . . . .

Ah, God! the courage and strength to contemplate

My body and my heart without disgust!

ELEVATION

Above the valleys and above the meres,

The mountains and the woods, the clouds, the seas,

Beyond the sun and ether distances,

Beyond the confines of the starry spheres,

Swiftly, my spirit, thou dost hold thy flight,

And, as one swoons with joy on the sea’s breast,

Those calm eternal deeps thou furrowest

With an ineffable and strong delight.

Leave far beneath thy feet these pestilent places

To bathe in upper air, and quench desire

With unpolluted draughts of that clear fire

Which fills the luminous and limpid spaces.

O happy who can cast aside his chains,

The heavy load of grief and weariness,

And, winging from this misty wilderness,

Can set his eyes on those far-shining plains!

Whose lark-like thoughts, with bright, untrammelled wings,

Spring upward when the morning skies are clear;

Who soars o’er life, and effortless can hear

The secret speech of flowers and dumb things!

THE ENEMY

Naught but a long blind tempest was my youth,

Sun-shot at times; the thunder and the rain

Have worked their havock with so little ruth

That in my garden few red fruits remain.

Now have I reached the autumn of my thought,

And shovel and pick must use some soil to save

From out the ruins that the rain hath wrought

Where all around great pits gape like the grave.

Who knows if these last flowers of my dreams

Shall find beneath this naked strand that streams

The mystic substance which their strength imparts?

O misery! misery! Time eats our lives,

And that dark Enemy who gnaws our hearts

Grows by the blood he sucks from us, and thrives.

THE CHASTISEMENT OF PRIDE

In those old times wherein Theology

Flourished with greater sap and energy,

A celebrated doctor—so they say—

Having stirred many careless hearts one day

Down to their dullest depths, and having shown

Strange pathways leading to the heavenly throne—

Tracks he himself had never journeyed on

(Whereby maybe pure spirits alone had gone)—

Frenzied and swollen by the devilish pride,

Like to a man who has climbed too high, outcried:

"Ah, little Jesus, I have lifted thee!

But had I willed to assault thy dignity,

Thy shame had matched they present fame, and lo!

Thou wouldst be but a wretched embryo!"

Straightway his reason left him; that keen mind,

Sunbright before, was darkened and made blind;

All chaos whirled within that intellect

Erewhile a shrine with all fair gems bedeckt,

Beneath whose roof such pomp had shone so bright;

He was possessed by silence and thick night

As is a cellar when its key is lost. . . . .

Thenceforth he was a brute beast; when he crossed

The fields at times, not seeing any thing,

Knowing not if 'twere winter or green spring,

Useless, repulsive, vile, he made a mock

For infants, a mere children's laughing-stock.

HYMN TO BEAUTY

Comest thou from high heaven or from the abyss,

O Beauty? For thy look, hellish, divine,

Is fraught with mingled misery and bliss

(Wherefore thy soul is as the soul of wine).

Within thine eye red dawn and sunset burn;

Odours thou spread’st as stormy evenings;

Thy kisses are a draught, thy mouth an urn

To make men quail and babes do mighty things.

From the dark gulf, or from the immortal stars?

The charmèd Demon follows like a hound;

Thou rul’st with hand that careless makes or mars,

Nor to our prayers vouchsafest any sound.

Thou walkest over dead men, mocking them,

Beauty! and horror decks the throat of thee,

And glittering murder, thy most precious gem,

On thy proud belly dances amorously.

Toward thee, flame, the dazzled insect flies,

Shrivels and cries, “Blest conqueror of gloom!”

Upon his fair one’s breast the lover lies,

As ’twere a dying man who hugs his tomb.

Naïve, terrible form! what boots it sky or pit,

O beauty! if thine eye, smile, foot, alone

Can open me the gate of an infinite

My soul’s athirst for, and has never known?

What boots it, seraph or siren, from God’s height

Or Satan’s hell, O queen! if thou dost come

Soft-eyed, to make, with rhythm, scent, and light,

The world less dull and time less burdensome?

ILL-LUCK

O Sisyphus, thy strength were meet

A load so heavy to sustain;

The soul for work is very fain,

But Art is long, and Time is fleet.

Towards a lonely cemetery

From all famed sepulchres apart,

Like to a muffled drum my heart

Beats funeral marches ceaselessly.

Jewels many and many a one

Lie hid in dark oblivion

Far, far from pick or plummet’s ken;

Many sweet flowers’ scented breath

Is lavished till they fade in death

In solitudes untrod by men.

LA CHEVELURE

O billows flowing o’er the shoulders bare!

O curls! O perfume sweet beyond belief!

Here in this bower to people the night air

With all the memories sleeping in this hair

I long to shake it like a handkerchief!

Fierce Afric and the languorous Orient,

All a vast world, distant, nay, almost dead,

Within this aromatic wood is pent;

My soul beloved floats upon thy scent

As other souls have music for a bed.

I will go out where full-veined man and tree

Swoon daylong in the sultry summer’s heat—

Strong tresses be the barque which carries me:

Thou boldest a bright dream, O ebon sea,

Of sails, flames, rowers, on a splendid fleet;

A harbour where through every sense are rolled

Vast sweeping waves of perfume, sound, and hue,

Where vessels gliding over moire and gold

Stretch up great arms to heaven to enfold

The glory of the everlasting blue.

There waits for me delicious drunkenness

In this dark sea which holds those other seas;

My spirit in the gentle main’s caress

Shall know once more the old rich idleness,

Infinite rockings of embalmèd ease.

Ah! dark-blue, streaming banner of the night,

You bring me back those azure skies afar,

Plunged in your silken folds my soul takes flight

And drinks once more with measureless delight

The scent of cocoa-oil and musk and tar.

For ever I will scatter in each strand,

That thou may’st never turn deaf ears to me,

Rubies, pearls, sapphires with a lavish hand. . . . .

Thou art the well-spring in a desert land

Wherefrom I quaff deep draughts of memory.

TO THEODORE DE BANVILLE, 1842

So proud your port, your arm so powerful.

With such a grip you grip the goddess’ hair,

That one might take you, from your casual air,

For a young ruffian flinging down his trull.

Your clear eye flashing with precocity,

You have displayed yourself proud architect

Of fabrics so audaciously correct

That we may guess what your ripe prime will be.

Poet, our blood ebbs out through every pore;

Is it, perchance, the robe the Centaur bore,

Which made a sullen streamlet of each vein,

Was three times dipped within the venom fell

Of those old reptiles fierce and terrible

Whom, in his cradle, Hercules had slain?

THE GIANTESS

When Nature in her lavish lustiness

Bred day by day new, strange monstrosities,

Would I had lived with a young giantess

Like a warm cat who at a queen’s feet lies.

’Twere sweet to watch her soul and body blossom

While she disported her in terrible wise;

To guess if a fierce flame burnt in her bosom

By the wet mists that swam within her eyes.

Ah! freely o’er her mighty limbs to run,

To crawl upon the bend of her vast knees,

And when in summer, tired of the pestilent sun,

Across the plain she stretches calm and still,

Within her breasts’ cool shade to sleep at ease

Like some small hamlet sheltered by a hill.

A CARRION

Rememberest thou, my sweet, that summer’s day,

How in the sun outspread

At a path’s bend a filthy carcase lay

Upon a pebbly bed?

Like a lewd woman, with its legs in air,

Burned, oozed the poisonous mass;

Its gaping belly, calm and debonair,

Was full of noisome gas.

And steadily upon this rottenness,

As though to cook it brown

And render Nature hundredfold excess,

The sun shone down.

The blue sky thought the carrion marvellous,

A flower most fair to see;

And as we gazed it almost poisoned us—

It stank so horribly.

The flies buzzed on this putrid belly, whence

Black hosts of maggots came,

Which streamed in thick and shining rivers thence

Along that ragged frame.

Pulsating like a wave, spirting about

Bright jets, it seemed to live;

As though it were by some vague wind blown out,

Some breath procreative.

And all this life was strangely musical

Like wind or bubbling spring,

Or corn which moves with rhythmic rise and fall

In time of winnowing.

The lines became indefinite and faint

As a thin dream that dies,

A half-forgotten scene the hand can paint

Only from memories. . . . .

Behind the rocks there lurked a hungry hound

With melancholy eye,

Longing to nose the morsel he had found

And gnaw it greedily.

Yet thou shalt be as vile a carrion

As this infection dire,

O bright star of my eyes, my nature’s sun,

My angel, my desire!

Yea, such, O queen of the graces, shalt thou be

After the last soft breath,

Beneath the grass and the lush greenery

A mouldering in death!

When thy sweet flesh the worms devour with kisses,

Tell them, O beauty mine,

Of rotting loves I keep the bodily blisses

And essence all-divine!

TOUT ENTIÈRE

This morning in my attic high

The Demon came to visit me,

And seeking faults in my reply,

He said: “I would inquire of thee,

“Of all the beauties which compose

Her charming body’s potent spell,

Of all the objects black and rose

Which make the thing you love so well,

“Which is the sweetest?” O my soul!

Thou didst rejoin: “How tell of parts,

When all I know is that the whole

Works magic in my heart of hearts?

“Where all is fair, how should I say

What single grace is my delight?

She shines on me like break of day

And she consoles me as the night.

“There flows through all her perfect frame

A harmony too exquisite

That weak analysis should name

The numberless accords of it.

“O mystic metamorphosis!

My separate senses all are blent;

Within her breath soft music is,

And in her voice a subtle scent!”

DE PROFUNDIS CLAMAVI

O my sole love, I pray thee pity me

From out this dark gulf where my poor heart lies

A barren world hemmed in by leaden skies

Where horror flies at night, and blasphemy.

For half the year the sickly sun is seen,

The other half thick night lies on the land,

A country bleaker than the polar strand;

No beasts, no brooks, nor any shred of green.

There never was a horror which surpassed

This icy sun’s cold cruelty, and this vast

Night like primæval Chaos; would I were

Like the dumb brutes, who in a secret lair

Lie wrapt in stupid slumber for a space. . . .

The time creeps at so burdensome a pace.

UNE NUIT QUE J’ÉTAIS PRÈS D’UNE AFFREUSE JUIVE

A hideous Jewess lay with me for hire

One night: two corpses side by side we seemed

And stretched by that polluted thing I dreamed

Of the sad beauty of my vain desire.

I thought upon her brow clad round with fire

And matchless strength, her native majesty,

Her perfumed helm of hair whose memory

Makes me toward Love’s heights to reaspire.

For fervently I would have rained, my Sweet,

Fond kisses over all thy form divine

Even from thy black tresses to thy feet,

If some soft evening, with a single tear,

O cruel queen, thou couldst have dimmed the clear

Cold splendour of those icy eyes of thine.

SEMPER EADEM

“Whence,” ask you, “is this heavy sadness shed,

Rising like ocean round the bare black stone?”

When the heart’s crop has once been harvested

Life is a burden! ’Tis of all men known.

A simple grief and not mysterious,

Blown like thy joy for all the world: so cease,

Cease, O fair questioner, to probe me thus,

And, though thy voice be gentle, hold thy peace.

Hold thy peace, rapturous one! Child’s mouth so rife

With merriment. Death’s links with us oft seem

Subtler than those which bind our souls to Life.

Let, let my heart grow drunken with a lie,

And plunge in thy great eyes as in a dream,

And slumber ’neath thy lashes tranquilly!

SONNET

What wilt thou say, poor lonely soul, to-night?

What wilt thou say, erst withered heart of mine,

To the most kind, most beautiful, most bright,

Who hath renewed thee with her glance divine?

Put we our pride to singing of her praise!

Happy the thralls who know her gentle yoke,

Angelic perfume floats along her ways,

And she hath clad us in a shining cloak!

Out in the night and in the solitude

Out in the street and in the multitude

Her phantom dances torch-like in the air;

And sometimes speaks she: “Beauty, thou shalt choose

Thine only love, for love of me who am fair;

I am Madonna, Guardian-Angel, Muse!”

THE SPIRITUAL DAWN

When upon revellers the stained dawn breaks

The fierce ideal comes with it; at that hour,

Stirred by some terrible avenging power,

An angel in the sated brute awakes.

Above the stricken, suffering man there glow

Far azure plains of unimagined bliss

Which draw his dreaming spirit like the abyss.

O pure, beloved Goddess, even so

O’er the smoked wrecks of stupid scenes of shame

Brighter and rosier thy sweet memory

Hovers before my wide eyes hauntingly. . . .

The Sun has dimmed and charred the candles’ flame,

And thus, my glorious all-conquering one,

Thy shade is peer to the immortal Sun.

THE INVITATION TO THE VOYAGE

How sweet, my own,

Could we live alone

Over beyond the sea!

To love and to die

Indolently

In the land that’s akin to thee!

Where the suns which rise

In the watery skies

Weave soft spells over my sight,

As thy false eyes do

When they flicker through

Their tears with a dim, strange light.

There all is beauty and symmetry,

Pleasure and calm and luxury.

Years that have gone

Have polished and shone

The things that would fill our room;

The flowers most rare

Which scent the air

In the richly-ceiling’d gloom,

And the mirrors profound,

And the walls around

With Orient splendour hung,

To the soul would speak

Of things she doth seek

In her gentle native tongue.

There all is beauty and symmetry,

Pleasure and calm and luxury.

The canals are deep

Where the strange ships sleep

Far from the land of their birth;

To quench the fire

Of thy least desire

They have come from the ends of the earth.

The sunsets drown

Peaceful town

And meadow, and stagnant stream

In bistre and gold,

And the world enfold

In a warm and luminous dream.

There all is beauty and symmetry,

Pleasure and calm and luxury.

THE IRREPARABLE I

How shall we kill this old, this long Remorse

Which writhes continually

And feeds on us as worms upon a corse,

Maggots upon a tree?

How stifle this implacable Remorse?

What wine, what drug, what philtre known of man

Will drown this ancient foe,

Ruthless and ravenous as a courtesan,

Sure as an ant, and slow?

What wine? What drug? What philtre known of man?

O tell, fair sorceress, tell if thou dost know

This soul distraught with pain

As a dying soldier crushed and bruised below

Steel hooves and wounded men!

O tell, fair sorceress, tell if thou dost know.

This poor racked wretch the wolf already flays

O’er whom the vultures whirr,

This broken warrior! if in vain he prays

For cross and sepulchre.

This anguished wretch the wolf already flays!

How should we rend dense gulfs which know not dawn

Nor eve, nor any star?

How pierce with light skies which abyss-like yawn

When black as pitch they are?

How should we rend dense gulfs which know not dawn?

Hope glimmered in the windows of the Inn,

But Hope is dead for aye!

Moonless and rayless, can poor travellers win

To shelter from the way?

The Devil made dark the windows of the Inn!

Dost love the damned, adorable sorceress?

Dost know the smitten sore?

Dost know Remorse that, grim and pitiless,

Feeds at my heart’s red core?

Dost love the damned, adorable sorceress?

My soul is prey to the Irreparable,

It gnaws with tooth accurst,

And, termite-like, the cunning spawn of hell

Mines the foundations first!

My soul is prey to the Irreparable!

II

Often within a theatre I have seen,

’Thwart the orchestral roar,

A dazzling Fairy stand in sudden sheen

Where all was gloom before!

Often within a theatre I have seen

A being made of light and gold and gauze

Fling Demons to their fate!

But on my heart’s dark stage an endless pause

Is all, and I await

In vain, in vain the Spirit with wings of gauze!

CAUSERIE

You are an autumn sky, suffused with rose. . . .

Yet sadness rises in me like the sea,

And on my sombre lip, when it outflows,

Leaves its salt burning slime for memory.

Over my swooning breast your fingers stray;

In vain, alas! My breast is a void pit

Sacked by the tooth and claw of woman. Nay,

Seek not my heart; the beasts have eaten it!

My heart is as a palace plunderèd

By the wolves, wherein they gorge and rend and kill,

A perfume round thy naked throat is shed. . . .

Beauty, strong scourge of souls, O work thy will!

Scorch with thy fiery eyes which shine like feasts

These shreds of flesh rejected by the beasts!

LE REVENANT

Like the mild-eyed angels sweet

I will come to thy retreat,

Stealing in without a sound

When the shades of night close round.

I will give thee manifold

Kisses soft and moony-cold,

Gliding, sliding o’er thee like

A serpent crawling round a dike.

When the livid morn creeps on

You will wake and find me gone

Till the evening come again.

As by tenderness and ruth

Others rule thy life and youth,

I by terror choose to reign.

THE SADNESS OF THE MOON

This evening the Moon dreams more languidly,

Like a beauty who on many cushions rests,

And with her light hand fondles lingeringly,

Before she sleeps, the slope of her sweet breasts.

On her soft satined avalanches’ height

Dying, she laps herself for hours and hours

In long, long swoons, and gazes at the white

Visions which rise athwart the blue-like flowers.

When sometimes in her perfect indolence

She lets a furtive tear steal gently thence,

Some pious poet, a lone, sleepless one,

Takes in his hollowed hand this gem, shot through,

Like an opal stone, with gleams of every hue,

And in his heart’s depths hides it from the sun.

THE CATS

The lover and the stern philosopher

Both love, in their ripe time, the confident

Soft cats, the house’s chiefest ornament,

Who like themselves are cold and seldom stir.

Of knowledge and of pleasure amorous,

Silence they seek and Darkness’ fell domain;

Had not their proud souls scorned to brook his rein,

They would have made grim steeds for Erebus.

Pensive they rest in noble attitudes

Like great stretched sphinxes in vast solitudes

Which seem to sleep wrapt in an endless dream;

Their fruitful loins are full of sparks divine,

And gleams of gold within their pupils shine

As ’twere within the shadow of a stream.

THE OWLS

’Neath their black yews in solemn state

The owls are sitting in a row

Like foreign gods; and even so

Blink their red eyes; they meditate.

Quite motionless they hold them thus

Until at last the day is done,

And, driving down the slanting sun,

The sad night is victorious.

They teach the wise who gives them ear

That in this world he most should fear

All things which loud or restless be.

Who, dazzled by a passing shade,

Follows it, never will be free

Till the dread penalty be paid.

THE PIPE

An author’s favourite pipe am I,

My Kaffir woman’s countenance

Tells the beholder at a glance

My master smokes incessantly.

If he is mournful or in pain

I smoke as does the ploughman’s cot

When the good wife prepares the pot

Before her spouse comes home again.

I bind his soul and rock her well

In the blue twisting skein which slips

And rises from my fiery lips,

And weave a very potent spell

Which soothes his heart in its distress

And heals his spirit’s weariness.

MUSIC

Oft Music, as it were some moving mighty sea,

Bears me toward my pale

Star: in clear space, or ’neath a vaporous canopy

On-floating, I set sail.

With heaving chest which strains forward, and lungs outblown,

I climb the ridgèd steeps

Of those high-pilèd clouds which ’thwart the night are thrown,

Veiling its starry deeps.

I suffer all the throes, within my quivering form,

Of a great ship in pain,

Now a soft wind, and now the writhings of a storm

Upon the vasty main

Rock me: at other times a death-like calm, the bare

Mirror of my despair.

THE BURIAL OF AN ACCURSED POET

If haply one dark, dreary night

Some charitable soul appear

And ’neath old rubble stow from sight

The body that you held so dear–

What time the chaste stars veil their eyes,

Drowsy and fain for slumber, there

Spiders shall weave their traceries,

Vipers their spotted young shall bear.

Above your doomed head you will hear

Each night throughout the heavy year

The lean wolves’ melancholy cries,

Famished hags’ howlings for a crust,

Lewd pastimes of old men who lust,

And scoundrels’ dark conspiracies.

THE JOYOUS CORSE

In a soil full of snails and free from stones

I fain would dig myself a pit full deep,

Where I might lay at ease my agèd bones

And, like a wave-borne shark, forgetful sleep.

For testaments I hate, and tombs I hate;

Rather than crave a tear from human eyes

I would invite the crows their hunger sate

Upon my corpse’s foul extremities.

O worms! O black, deaf, sightless company!

There comes to you a dead man glad and free.

O philosophic sons of rottenness,

Across my ruin crawl without remorse,

And tell if any pain may yet oppress

This old and soulless death-surrounded corse.

THE CRACKED BELL

’Tis bitter-sweet, when winter nights are long,

To watch, beside the flames which smoke and twist,

The distant memories which slowly throng,

Brought by the chime soft-singing through the mist.

Happy the sturdy, vigorous-throated bell

Who, spite of age alert and confident,

Cries hourly, like some strong old sentinel

Flinging the ready challenge from his tent.

For me, my soul is cracked; when, sick with care,

She strives with songs to people the cold air

It happens often that her feeble cries

Mock the harsh rattle of a man who lies

Wounded, forgotten, ’neath a mound of slain

And dies, pinned fast, writhing his limbs in vain.

SPLEEN

When the low heavy sky weighs like a lid

Upon the spirit aching for the light,

And all the wide horizon’s line is hid

By a black day sadder than any night;

When the changed earth is but a dungeon dank

Where batlike Hope goes blindly fluttering

And, striking wall and roof and mouldered plank,

Bruises his tender head and timid wing;

When like grim prison-bars stretch down the thin,

Straight, rigid pillars of the endless rain,

And the dumb throngs of infamous spiders spin

Their meshes in the caverns of the brain;—

Suddenly, bells leap forth into the air,

Hurling a hideous uproar to the sky

As 'twere a band of homeless spirits who fare

Through the strange heavens, wailing stubbornly.

And hearses, without drum or instrument,

File slowly through my soul; crushed, sorrowful,

Weeps Hope, and Grief, fierce and omnipotent,

Plants his black banner on my drooping skull.

OBSESSION

Great woods! like mighty fanes you frighten me,

You howl like the organ; in our cursed souls,

Grey grief-chambers where old death-rattles be,

Your many-echoing “De profundis” rolls.

I hate thee, Ocean! for my spirit is torn

With tumults like thine own; a laugh has birth,

Like a beaten man’s, full of all tears and scorn

And bitterness, within the sea’s vast mirth.

Ah! how I love thee, Night, when not a star

Speaks with known tongue of light through the dark air;

For lo! I seek the void, the black, the bare;

Yet even darkest depths but curtains are

Where live, shot from my eye, innumerable

Lost forms and faces that I know too well.

THE ALCHEMY OF GRIEF

One, Nature! burns and makes thee bright,

One gives thee weeds to mourn withal;

And what to one is burial

Is to the other life and light.

The unknown Hermes who assists

And alway fills my heart with fear,

Makes the mighty Midas’ peer

The saddest of the alchemists.

Through him I make gold changeable

To dross, and paradise to hell;

Clouds for its corpse-cloths I descry.

A stark dead body I love well,

And in the gleaming fields on high

I build immense sarcophagi.

THE WARNER

Each man who is man, high or low,

Has in his heart a yellow snake

Who on a throne his seat doth take

And answers “I desire” with “No.”

Plunge thine eyes deep in Sirens’ eyes,

Drink in their sensuous sorceries;

The Tooth says, “Think on what is right.”

Yea, breed thy children, plant thy trees,

Polish thy verse or carve thy frieze,

The Tooth says, “Shalt thou live this night?”

Man cannot live a moment here,

Whate’er he plan, or ill or well,

But boding, insupportable,

The Viper whispers in his ear.

THE RANSOM

To pay his ransom man must toil

With Reason's implement alone

To plough and rake and free from stone

Two plots of hard volcanic soil.

And if he would from out them wrench

A few thorns or a meagre flower,

Continually a heavy shower

Of his salt sweat their roots must drench.

The one is Art, the other Love;

And on that last and terrible day

The wrath of the stern judge to stay

And 'scape the vengeance from above,

He must show barns whose uttermost

Recesses swell with ripened grain,

And blooms whose shapes and hues will gain

The suffrage of the Heavenly Host.

THE OFFENDED MOON

O Moon, O lamp of hill and secret dale!

Thou whom our fathers, ages out of mind,

Worshipped in thy blue heaven, whilst behind

Thy stars streamed after thee a glittering trail,

Dost see the poet, weary-eyed and pale,

Or lovers on their happy beds reclined,

Showing white teeth in sleep, or vipers twined,

’Neath the dry sward; or in a golden veil

Stealest thou with faint footfall o’er the grass

As of old, to kiss from twilight unto dawn

The faded charms of thine Endymion?. . . .

“O child of this sick century, I see

Thy grey-haired mother leering in her glass

And plastering the breast that suckled thee!”

LOLA DE VALENCE INSCRIPTION FOR THE PICTURE BY EDWARD MANET

Friends, though on every side of you you see

Such beauties that desire must hesitate,

In Lola de Valence there scintillate

Strange charms o’ a gem of rose and ebony.

DAMNED WOMEN

They lie like pensive cattle on the sands,

And as their gaze to the far sea’s edge clings,

Their feet which twine, and their enclaspèd hands

Suffer sweet swoons and bitter shudderings.

But some, enamoured of long converse, stray

Where the streams wander through the coppices,

Spell out the loves of timid childhood’s day,

And carve the green wood of the little trees.

Others like sisters wander slow and grave

Across the rocks where phantom shapes flit dim,

Where Anthony saw, surging wave on wave,

The naked purple breasts which tempted him.

Some there are who, by crumbling torches’ light

In the dumb gulfs of pagan caverns deep,

Pray thee to put their fever-throes to flight,

Bacchus! who drownest old remorse in sleep.

And others, fain of scapularies, roam

With a long whip beneath their garments’ fold,

And in lone woods at midnight mingle foam

Of joy with cries of anguish manifold.

O virgins, demons, monsters, martyrs! ye

Who scorn reality through all the years;

Soiled holy ones who seek infinity

So full of cries and, ah! so full of tears!

Poor sisters whom my soul has tracked in hell,

I love you and I weep for all your woe:

Your burning thirst, your pains unspeakable,

The wells of love with which your hearts o’erflow.

THE BLIND

Look at them, Soul! They are horrible. Lo! there,

Like shrunk dwarfs, vaguely ludicrous; yet they keep

An aspect strange as those who walk in sleep,

Rolling their darkened orbs one knows not where.

Their eyes, from which the godlike spark has flown,

Stare upward at the sky as though to see

Some far thing; never hang they dreamily

Those eyes toward the barren pavement-stone.

Thus cross they the illimitable dark,

That brother of eternal silence. Mark!

O frenzied city, as thou roarest by.

Drunk with thy song and laughter, I too stray

With crawling feet! but ask, more dull than they,

“What seek they, all these blind men, in the sky?”

THE MURDERER’S WINE

My wife is dead and I am free,

Now I may drink to my content;

When I came back without a cent

Her piteous outcries tortured me.

Now I am happy as a king,

The air is pure, the sky is clear;

Just such a summer as that year,

When first I went a-sweethearting.

A horrible thirst is tearing me,

To quench it I should have to swill

Just as much cool wine as would fill

Her tomb–that’s no small quantity.

I threw her down and then began

To pile upon her where she fell

All the great stones around the well—

I shall forget it if I can.

By all the soft vows of our prime,

By those eternal oaths we swore,

And that our love might be once more

As ’twas in our old passionate time,

I begged her in a lonely spot

To come and meet me at nightfall;

She came, mad creature—we are all

More or less crazy, are we not?

She was quite pretty still, my wife,

Though she was very tired, and I,

I loved her too much, that is why

I said to her, “Come, quit this life.”

No one can grasp my thought aright;

Did any of these sodden swine

Ever conceive a shroud of wine

On his most strangely morbid night?

Dull and insensible above

Iron machines, that stupid crew,

Summer or winter, never knew

The agonies of real love.

So now I am without a care!

Dead-drunk this evening I shall be,

Then fearlessly, remorselessly

Shall lie out in the open air.

And sleep there like a homeless cur;

Some cart may rumble with a load

Of stones or mud along the road

And crush my head—I shall not stir.

Some heavy dray incontinent

May come and cut me clean in two:

I laugh at thought o’t as I do

At Devil, God, and Sacrament.

PRINTED BY NEILL AND COMPANY, LIMITED, EDINBURGH.