A Jongleur Strayed | Page 6

thou must learn,?O lover, this:?Thine is she for the music thou canst pour
Through her white limbs, the madness, the deep dream; Thine, while thy kiss?Can sweep her flaming with thee down the stream?That is not thou nor she but merely bliss;?The music ended, she is thine no more.
In her Eternal Beauty bends o'er thee,?Be thou content;?She is the evening star in thy hushed lake
Mirrored,--be glad;?A soul-less creature of the element,?Nor good, nor bad;?That which thou callest to in the far skies?Comes to thee in her eyes;
That thou mayst slake?Thy love of lilies, lo! her breasts! Be wise,?Ask not that she, as thou, should human be,?She that doth smell so sweet of distant heaven;?Pity is mortal leaven,?Dews know it not, nor morning on the hills,?And who hath yet found pity of the sea?That blesses, knowing not, and, not knowing, kills;?And sister unto all of these is she,?Whose face, as theirs, none reads; whose heart none knows; Whose words are as the wind's words, and whose ways,?O lover, learn,?Swerve not, or turn?Aside for prayers, or broken-hearted praise:?The young moon looks not back as on she goes.?On their own terms, O lover!--Girl, Moon, Rose.
A WARNING
We that were born, beloved, so far apart,?So many seas and lands,?The gods, one sudden day, joined heart to heart,?Locked hands in hands,?Distance relented and became our friend,?And met, for our sakes, world's end with world's end.?The earth was centred in one flowering plot?Beneath thy feet, and all the rest was not.
Now wouldst thou rend our nearness, and again?Bring distance back, and place?Poles and equators, mountain range and plain,?Between me and thy face,?Undoing what the gods divinely planned;?Heart, canst thou part? hand, loose me from thy hand??Not twice the gods their slighted gifts bestow;?Bethink thee well, beloved, ere thou dost go.
PRIMUM MOBILE
When thou art gone, then all the rest will go;?Mornings no more shall dawn,?Roses no more shall blow,?Thy lovely face withdrawn--?Nor woods grow green again after the snow;?For of all these thy beauty was the dream,?The soul, the sap, the song;?To thee the bloom and beam?Of flower and star belong,?And all the beauty thine of bird and stream.
Thy bosom was the moonrise, and the morn?The roses of thy cheek,?No lovely thing was born?But of thy face did speak--?How shall all these endure, of thee forlorn??The sad heart of the world grew glad through thee,?Happy, men toiled and spun?That had thy smile for fee;?So flowers seek the sun,?So singing rivers hasten to the sea.
Yet, though the world, bereft, should bleakly bloom,?And wanly make believe?Against the general doom,?For me the earth you leave?Shall be for ever but a haunted room;?Yea! though my heart beat on a little space,?When thou art strangely gone?To thy far hiding-place,?Soon shall I follow on,?Out-footing Death to over-take thy face.
THE LAST TRYST
The cowbells wander through the woods,?'Neath arching boughs a stream slips by,?In all the ferny solitude?A chipmunk and a butterfly?Are all that is--and you and I.
This summer day, with all its flowers,?With all its green and gold and blue,?Just for a little while is ours,?Just for a little--I and you:?Till the stars rise and bring the dew.
One perfect day to us is given;?Tomorrow--all the aching years;?This is our last short day in heaven,?The last of all our kisses nears--?Then life too arid even for tears.
Here, as the day ends, we two end,?Two that were one, we said, for ever;?We had Eternity to spend,?And laughed for joy to know that never?Two so divinely one could sever.
A year ago--how rich we seemed!?Like piles of gold our kisses lay,?Enough to last our lives we dreamed,?And lives to come, we used to say--?Yet are we at the last to-day.
The last, I say, yet scarce believe?What all my heart is black with knowing;?Doomed, I yet watch for some reprieve,?But know too well that love is going,?As sure as yonder stream is flowing.
Look round us how the hot sun burns?In plots of glory here and there,?Pouring its gold among the ferns:?So burned my lips upon your hair,?So rained our kisses, love, last year.
We saw not where a shadow loomed,?That, from its first auroral hour,?Our happy paradise fore-doomed;?A Fate within whose icy power?Love blooms as helpless as a flower.
Its shadow by the dial stands,?The golden moments shudder past,?Soon shall he smite apart our hands,?In vain we hold each other fast,?And the last kiss must come at last.
The last! then be it charged with fire,?With sacred passion wild and white,?With such a glory of desire,?We two shall vanish in its light,?And find each other in God's sight.
THE HEART ON THE SLEEVE
I wore my heart upon my sleeve,?Tis most unwise, they say, to do--?But then how could I but believe?The foolish thing was safe with you??Yet, had I known, 'twas safer far?With wolves and tigers, the wild sea?Were kinder to it than you are--?Sweetheart, how you must laugh at me!
Yet am I glad I