A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems | Page 7

bay.
I know
that we laughed for pleasure
(Were we wise or a couple of fools?)

As we gazed at the painted fishes
Which swam in the shallow pools.
And night drew over our Island
The purple pall of the skies,
The air
was heavy with fragrance
And soft with the breath of sighs,
And
voices out of the forest,
Voices out of the sea,
Told the eternal
secret....
Told it to you and me.
And the stars came down from the heavens,

And the magical tropic

moon,
To dance a measure together
Over the still lagoon;
And the
whisper of distant forests,
The noise of the surf in our ears,
Seemed
like the song of the ages
Sung by the passing years.
But we said "farewell" to our Island
Which we had discovered
alone....
The sand ... and the palms ... and the headland....
The
westering wind ... and the sun.
We said "farewell" to our Island
(Oh!
hark to the sullen rain!)
... And I knew as it fell behind us
We
should not see it again.
For only a few may go there
And they but once may go,
With
glamour of stars above them
And the swinging seas below.
But I
still hear its forests whisper,
The noise of the surf on the shore,
In
that far-off wonderful Island
Which I shall see no more.
Fair Filamelle.
Fair Filamelle is my distress
With all her cruel backwardness.
She
will not listen to my pain,
But turneth from me in disdain.
That fair
Filamelle,
Her disdain is now my hell.
She hath bewitched me with
her eyes,
As Circe did the sailor wise,
Or Egypt did the Roman
Prince,
Two thousand years agone.
I've little else but weeping since,

My heart is like a stone.
If you like laughter's silver sound
Why have you dealt me such a
wound,
If youth and beauty look askance
At glum and heavy
countenance,
Why is it coy and cruel,
Adding to my fire more fuel?

Alas! Alas! it has no care,
Free as the birds which flit in air,
Nor
heedfulness has any,

Else were its kindness not so rare,
Its victims
then so many.
Ah! fair Filamelle, have pity on my moan,
Else must I die alone,

My heart is like a stone.
The Song of Kisses.

I have no skill in Love's soft war,
Nor am I bold to woo
In the same
sort that conquerors are
When they are lovers too.
Tho' passion
thunders in my brain
Like ocean on a beach,
My tongue is bounden
with a chain
And manacled my speech.
Yet, could I let one word go
free
To touch your chords with fire,
Become the wind upon the sea

The plectrum of the lyre,
Then, my Althea, should we be
Two
lovers without shame,
All things in their epitome,
The Universe our
name.
Then should we bow to Love's command
As the waves kiss
the shore
And the rain falls upon the land
That it may thirst no more.

Then should we kiss, with time at bay
As in the Ajalon valley,
A
score--two score--two hundred--nay
We would not keep the tally--

A hundred thousand in one bout,
Ten myriads ere we slumbered,

And the stars winked and all went out
To find themselves
out-numbered.
The Song of Odysseus.
Out of the dark I return--
The abode of the shades;
The words
which they said
Were the strengthless words of the Dead,

Meaningless, nothing importing.
Out of the dark I return
And the House of the Dead;
The endless
regions of gloom
Deep sepulchred in the womb
Of Earth, the
mother of all things.
Out of the dark I return,
From the stream of the Dead;
I slew a goat
on the brink
And they pressed around me to drink
Their shadowy
twittering legions.
Out of the dark I return,
From the speech of the Dead;

I asked them
for counsel and word,
They twittered like bats when they heard
And
wailed for the warm blood flowing.
Out of the dark I return;
(Ye are baffled, Oh! Dead);
Lost hopes,
lost hearts, lost loves,
Hollow-eyed, hollow-cheeked are your droves,


I drew my sword and ye vanished.
Out of the dark I return
And the dust of desire;
My ears are still
filled with the shrieks
Of the pitiful Dead and my cheeks
Still pale
with the paleness of Hades.
Out of the dark I return
For the day, for the deed;
And now to
Apollo, the slayer,
I stand and utter a prayer
Humbly, first making
obeisance.
STORIES IN VERSE.
Adeimantus.
The dream of Adeimantus
Who carved for a Grecian Prince
Statues
of perfect marble,
Fairer than all things since,
Wonderful, white,
and gracious
Like lotus flowers on a mere,
Or phantoms born of the
moonbeam,
Beyond all praise but a tear.
The dream of Adeimantus

(As he lay upon his bed),
Wonderful, white, and gracious,
And
this was the word it said.
"Arise! oh! Adeimantus,
The breath of the
dawn blows chill,
The stars begin to fade
Ere the first ray strikes the
sill.
Arise! oh! Adeimantus
For here is work to your hand,
If the
fingers fashion the dream
As the soul can understand."
He rose
from his troubled bed
Ere the dream had faded away,
And he said,
"I will fashion the dream
As the potter fashions the clay."
He said
in his great heart's vanity,
"I will fashion a wondrous thing
To stand
in a palace of onyx
And blind the eyes of a king."
He said in the
pride of his soul
As the birds began to sing,
"I will