A Jongleur Strayed | Page 8

lain;?Up flings he from the hollow-sounding door,?Where Love hath bruised her rosy breast in vain:?Ah! through their tears--the happy April rain--?They, like two stars aflame, together run,?Then lift immortal faces in the sun.
A faint far music steals from underground,?And to the spirit's ear there comes the sound,?The whisper vague, and rustle delicate,?Of myriad atoms stirring in their trance?That for the lifted hand of Order wait,?Taking their stations in the cosmic dance,?Mate linked to mystic mate.
And perished shapes rebuild themselves anew,?Nourished on essences of fire and dew,?And in earth's cheek, but now so wistful wan,?The colour floods, and from deep wells of power?Rises the sap of resurrection;?The dead branch buds, the dry staff breaks in flower,?The grass comes surging on.
These ghostly things that in November died,?How come they thus again adream with pride??I saw the Red Rose lying in her tomb,?Yet comes she lovelier back, a redder rose;?What paints upon her cheek this vampire bloom??Belovéd, when to the dark thy beauty goes,?Thee too will Spring re-lume?
Verily, nothing dies; a brief eclipse?Is all; and this blessed union of our lips?Shall bind us still though we have lips no more:?For as the Rose and as the gods are we,?Returning ever; but the shapes we wore?Shall have some look of immortality?More shining than before.
Make we our offerings at Adonis' shrine,?For this is Love's own resurrection day,?Bring we the honeyed cakes, the sacred wine,?And myrtle garlands on his altars lay:?_O Thou, beloved alike of Proserpine?And Aphrodite, to our prayers incline;?Be thou propitious to this love of ours,?And we, the summer long, shall bring thee flowers._
NATURE THE HEALER
When all the world has gone awry,?And I myself least favour find?With my own self, and but to die?And leave the whole sad coil behind,?Seems but the one and only way;?Should I but hear some water falling?Through woodland veils in early May,?And small bird unto small bird calling--?O then my heart is glad as they.
Lifted my load of cares, and fled?My ghosts of weakness and despair,?And, unafraid, I raise my head?And Life to do its utmost dare;?Then if in its accustomed place?One flower I should chance find blowing,?With lovely resurrected face?From Autumn's rust and Winter's snowing--?I laugh to think of my disgrace.
A simple brook, a simple flower,?A simple wood in green array,--?What, Nature, thy mysterious power?To bind and heal our mortal clay??What mystic surgery is thine,?Whose eyes of us seem all unheeding,?That even so sad a heart as mine?Laughs at the wounds that late were bleeding?--?Yea! sadder hearts, O Power Divine.
I think we are not otherwise?Than all the children of thy knee;?For so each furred and winged one flies,?Wounded, to lay its heart on thee;?And, strangely nearer to thy breast,?Knows, and yet knows not, of thy healing,?Asking but there awhile to rest,?With wisdom beyond our revealing--?Knows and yet knows not, and is blest.
LOVE ETERNAL
The human heart will never change,?The human dream will still go on,?The enchanted earth be ever strange?With moonlight and the morning sun,?And still the seas shall shout for joy,?And swing the stars as in a glass,?The girl be angel for the boy,?The lad be hero for the lass.
The fashions of our mortal brains?New names for dead men's thoughts shall give,?But we find not for all our pains?Why 'tis so wonderful to live;?The beauty of a meadow-flower?Shall make a mock of all our skill,?And God, upon his lonely tower?Shall keep his secret--secret still.
The old magician of the skies,?With coloured and sweet-smelling things,?Shall charm the sense and trance the eyes,?Still onward through a million springs;?And nothing old and nothing new?Into the magic world be born,?Yea! nothing older than the dew,?And nothing younger than the morn.
Delight and Destiny and Death?Shall still the mortal story weave,?Man shall not lengthen out his breath,?Nor stay when it is time to leave;?And all in vain for him to ask?His little meaning in the Whole,?Done well or ill his tiny task,?The mystic making of his soul.
Ah! love, and is it not enough?To have our part in this romance?Made of such planetary stuff,?Strange partners in the cosmic dance??Though Life be all too swift a dream,?And its fair rose must fade and fall,?Life has no sorrow in its scheme?As never to have lived at all.
This fire that through our being runs,?When our two hearts together beat,?Is one with yonder burning sun's,?Two atoms that in glory meet;?What unimagined loss it were,?If that dread power in which we trust?Had left your eyes, your lips, your hair,?Nought but un-animated dust.
Unknown the thrilling touch divine?That sets our magic clay aflame,?That wrought your beauty to be mine,?And joy enough to speak your name;?Thanks be to Life that did this thing,?Unsought, beloved, for you and me,?Gave us the rose, and birds to sing,?The golden earth, the blue-robed sea.
THE LOVELIEST FACE AND THE WILD ROSE
The loveliest face! I turned to her?Shut in 'mid savage rocks and trees;--?'Twas in the May-time of the year,?And