Chamber Music | Page 5

not sad because all men?Prefer a lying clamour before you:?Sweetheart, be at peace again -- -?Can they dishonour you?
They are sadder than all tears;?Their lives ascend as a continual sigh.?Proudly answer to their tears:?As they deny, deny.
XX
In the dark pine-wood?I would we lay,?In deep cool shadow?At noon of day.
How sweet to lie there,?Sweet to kiss,?Where the great pine-forest?Enaisled is!
Thy kiss descending?Sweeter were?With a soft tumult?Of thy hair.
O unto the pine-wood?At noon of day?Come with me now,?Sweet love, away.
XXI
He who hath glory lost, nor hath?Found any soul to fellow his,?Among his foes in scorn and wrath?Holding to ancient nobleness,?That high unconsortable one -- -?His love is his companion.
XXII
Of that so sweet imprisonment?My soul, dearest, is fain -- -?Soft arms that woo me to relent?And woo me to detain.?Ah, could they ever hold me there?Gladly were I a prisoner!
Dearest, through interwoven arms?By love made tremulous,?That night allures me where alarms?Nowise may trouble us;?But lseep to dreamier sleep be wed?Where soul with soul lies prisoned.
XXIII
This heart that flutters near my heart?My hope and all my riches is,?Unhappy when we draw apart?And happy between kiss and kiss:?My hope and all my riches -- - yes! -- -?And all my happiness.
For there, as in some mossy nest?The wrens will divers treasures keep,?I laid those treasures I possessed?Ere that mine eyes had learned to weep.?Shall we not be as wise as they?Though love live but a day?
XXIV
Silently she's combing,?Combing her long hair?Silently and graciously,?With many a pretty air.
The sun is in the willow leaves?And on the dapplled grass,?And still she's combing her long hair?Before the looking-glass.
I pray you, cease to comb out,?Comb out your long hair,?For I have heard of witchery?Under a pretty air,
That makes as one thing to the lover?Staying and going hence,?All fair, with many a pretty air?And many a negligence.
XXV
Lightly come or lightly go:?Though thy heart presage thee woe,?Vales and many a wasted sun,?Oread let thy laughter run,?Till the irreverent mountain air?Ripple all thy flying hair.
Lightly, lightly -- - ever so:?Clouds that wrap the vales below?At the hour of evenstar?Lowliest attendants are;?Love and laughter song-confessed?When the heart is heaviest.
XXVI
Thou leanest to the shell of night,?Dear lady, a divining ear.?In that soft choiring of delight?What sound hath made thy heart to fear??Seemed it of rivers rushing forth?From the grey deserts of the north?
That mood of thine?Is his, if thou but scan it well,?Who a mad tale bequeaths to us?At ghosting hour conjurable -- -?And all for some strange name he read
In Purchas or in Holinshed.
XXVII
Though I thy Mithridates were,?Framed to defy the poison-dart,?Yet must thou fold me unaware?To know the rapture of thy heart,?And I but render and confess?The malice of thy tenderness.
For elegant and antique phrase,?Dearest, my lips wax all too wise;?Nor have I known a love whose praise?Our piping poets solemnize,?Neither a love where may not be?Ever so little falsity.
XXVIII
Gentle lady, do not sing?Sad songs about the end of love;?Lay aside sadness and sing?How love that passes is enough.
Sing about the long deep sleep?Of lovers that are dead, and how?In the grave all love shall sleep:?Love is aweary now.
XXIX
Dear heart, why will you use me so??Dear eyes that gently me upbraid,?Still are you beautiful -- - but O,?How is your beauty raimented!
Through the clear mirror of your eyes,?Through the soft sigh of kiss to kiss,?Desolate winds assail with cries?The shadowy garden where love is.
And soon shall love dissolved be?When over us the wild winds blow -- -?But you, dear love, too dear to me,?Alas! why will you use me so?
XXX
Love came to us in time gone by?When one at twilight shyly played?And one in fear was standing nigh -- -?For Love at first is all afraid.
We were grave lovers. Love is past?That had his sweet hours many a one;?Welcome to us now at the last?The ways that we shall go upon.
XXXI
O, it was out by Donnycarney?When the bat flew from tree to tree?My love and I did walk together;?And sweet were the words she said to me.
Along with us the summer wind?Went murmuring -- - O, happily! -- -?But softer than the breath of summer?Was the kiss she gave to me.
XXXII
Rain has fallen all the day.?O come among the laden trees:?The leaves lie thick upon the way?Of memories.
Staying a little by the way?Of memories shall we depart.?Come, my beloved, where I may?Speak to your heart.
XXXIII
Now, O now, in this brown land?Where Love did so sweet music make?We two shall wander, hand in hand,?Forbearing for old friendship' sake,?Nor grieve because our love was gay?Which now is ended in this way.
A rogue in red and yellow dress?Is knocking, knocking at the tree;?And all around our loneliness?The wind is whistling merrily.?The leaves -- - they do not sigh at all?When the year takes them in the fall.
Now, O now, we hear no more?The vilanelle and roundelay!?Yet will we kiss, sweetheart, before?We take sad leave at