A Jongleur Strayed | Page 7

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 did not know
That creatures of such tender bloom,

Beneath their sanctuary snow,
Were such cold ministers of doom;

For had I known, as I began
To love you, ere we flung apart,
I had
not been so glad a man
As holds his lady to his heart.
And am I lonely here to-night
With empty eyes, the cause is this,

Your face it was that gave me sight,
My heart ran over with your kiss.

Still do I think that what I laid
Before the altar of your face,

Flower of words that shall not fade,
Were worthy of a moment's
grace;
Some thoughtless, lightly dropped largesse,
A touch of your immortal
hand
Laid on my brow in tenderness,
Though you could never
understand.
And yet with hungered lips to touch
Your feet of pearl
and in your face
To look a little was over-much--
In heaven is no
such fair a place
As, broken-hearted, at your feet
To lie there and to
kiss them, sweet.
AT HER FEET
My head is at your feet,
Two Cytherean doves,
The same, O cruel
sweet,
As were the Queen of Love's;
They brush my dreaming
brows
With silver fluttering beat,
Here in your golden house,

Beneath your feet.
No man that draweth breath
Is in such happy case:
My heart to
itself saith--
Though kings gaze on her face,
I would not change my
place;
To lie here is more sweet,
Here at her feet.
As one in a green land
Beneath a rose-bush lies,
Two petals in his
hand,
With shut and dreaming eyes,
And hears the rustling stir,

As the young morning goes,
Shaking abroad the myrrh
Of each
awakened rose;
So to me lying there
Comes the soft breath of her,--

O cruel sweet!--
There at her feet.

O little careless feet
That scornful tread
Upon my dreaming head,

As little as the rose
Of him who lies there knows
Nor of what
dreams may be
Beneath your feet;
Know you of me,
Ah! dreams
of your fair head,
Its golden treasure spread,
And all your moonlit
snows,
Yea! all your beauty's rose
That blooms to-day so fair
And
smells so sweet--
Shoulders of ivory,
And breasts of myrrh--

Under my feet.
RELIQUIAE
This is all that is left--this letter and this rose!
And do you, poor
dreaming things, for a moment suppose
That your little fire shall burn
for ever and ever on,
And this great fire be, all but these ashes, gone?
Flower! of course she is--but is she the only flower?
She must vanish
like all the rest at the funeral hour,
And you that love her with brag of
your all-conquering thew, What, in the eyes of the gods, tall though
you be, are you?
You and she are no more--yea! a little less than we;
And what is left
of our loving is little enough to see;
Sweet the relics thereof--a rose, a
letter, a glove--
That in the end is all that remains of the mightiest
love.
Six-foot two! what of that? for Death is taller than he;
And, every
moment, Death gathers flowers as fair as she;
And nothing you two
can do, or plan or purpose or dream,
But will go the way of the wind
and go the way of the stream.
LOVE'S PROUD FAREWELL
I am too proud of loving thee, too proud
Of the sweet months and
years that now have end,
To feign a heart indifferent to this loss,

Too thankful-happy that the gods allowed
Our orbits cross,
Beloved and lovely friend;
And though I wend


Lonely henceforth along a road grown gray,
I shall not be all lonely
on the way,
Companioned with the attar of thy rose,
Though in my
garden it no longer blows.
Thou canst not give elsewhere thy gifts to me,
Or only seem to give;

Yea, not so fugitive
The glory that hath hallowed me and thee,

Not thou or I alone that marvel wrought
Immortal is the paradise of
thought,
Nor ours to destroy,
Born of our hearts together, where
bright streams
Ran through the woods for joy,
That heaven of our
dreams.
There shall it shine
Under green boughs,
So long as May and June
bring leaves and flowers,
Couches of moss and fern and woven
bowers,
Still thine and