A Jongleur Strayed | Page 8

mine,
A golden house;
And, perchance,
e'er the winter that takes all,
I, there alone in the deep listening wood,

Shall hear thy lost foot-fall,
And, scarce believing the beatitude,

Shall know thee there,
Wild heart to wild heart pressed,
And wrap
me in the splendour of thine hair,
And laugh within thy breast.
THE ROSE HAS LEFT THE GARDEN
The Rose has left the garden,
Here she but faintly lives,
Lives but
for me,
Within this little urn of pot-pourri
Of all that was
And
never more can be,
While her black berries harden
On the
wind-shaken tree.
Yet if my song a little fragrance gives,
'Tis not all
loss,
Something I save
From the sweet grave
Wherein she lies,

Something she gave
That never dies,
Something that may still live

In these my words

That draw from her their breath,
And fain
would be her birds
Still in her death.
II
THE GARDENS OF ADONIS
Belovèd, I would tell a ghostly thing
That hides beneath the simple

name of Spring;
Wild beyond hope the news--the dead return,
The
shapes that slept, their breath a frozen mist,
Ascend from out
sarcophagus and urn,
Lips that were dust new redden to be kissed,

Fires that were quenched re-burn.
The gardens of Adonis bloom again,
Proserpina may hold the lad no
more,
That in her arms the winter through hath 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