English Poems | Page 7

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O Lady, I have looked on thee once more,
Thou too hast looked on
me, as thou hadst said,
And though the joy was pain, the pain was
bliss,
Bliss that more happy lovers well may miss:
Captives feast
richly on a little bread,
So are we very rich who are so poor.
XIV
A JUNE LILY
[The poet dramatises his Lady's loneliness]
Alone! once more alone! how like a tomb
My little parlour sounds
which only now
Yearned like some holy chancel with his voice.
So
still! so empty! Surely one might fear
The walls should meet in
ruinous collapse
That held no more his music. Yet they stand
Firm
in a foolish firmness, meaningless
As frescoed sepulchre some
Pharaoh built
But never came to sleep in; built, indeed,
For--that

grey moth to flit in like a ghost!
Alone! another feast-day come and gone,
Watched through the weeks
as in my garden there
I watch a seedling grow from blade to bud

Impatient for its blossom. So this day
Has bloomed at last, and we
have plucked its flower
And shared its sweetness, and once more the
time
Is as that stalk from which but now I plucked
Its last June-lily
as a parting sign.
Yea, but he seemed to love it! yet if he
But craved
it in deceit of tenderness
To make my heart glow brighter with a lie!

Will it indeed be cherished as he said,
Or will he keep it near his
book a while,
And when grown rank forget it in his glass,
And
leave it for the maid who dusts his room
To clear away and cast upon
the heap?
Or, may be, will he bury it away
In some old drawer with
other mummy-flowers?
Nay, but I wrong thee, dear one, thinking so.
My boy, my love, my
poet! Nay, I know
Thy lonely room, tomb-like to thee as mine,

Tomb-like as tomb of some returning ghost
Seems only bright about
my lily-flower.
And, mayhap, while I wrong thee thus in thought

Thou bendest o'er it, feigning for some ease
Of parted ache conceits
of poet-wit
On petal and on stamen--let me try!
If lilies be alike
thine is as this,
I wonder if thy reading tallies too.
Six petals with a dewdrop in their heart,
Six pure brave years, an
ivory cup of tears;
Six pearly-pillared stamens golden-crowned

Growing from out the dewdrop, and a seventh
Soaring alone trilobed
and mystic green;
Six pearl-bright years aflower with gold of joy,

Sprung from the heart of those brave tear-fed years:
But what that
seventh single stamen is
My little wit must leave for thee to tell.
But neither poet nor a sibyl thou!
What brave conceit had he, my poet,
built;
No jugglery of numbers that mean nought,
That can mean
nought for ever, unto us.

XV
REGRET
One asked of regret,
And I made reply:
To have held the bird,

And let it fly;
To have seen the star
For a moment nigh,
And lost
it
Through a slothful eye;
To have plucked the flower
And cast it
by;
To have one only hope--
To die.
XVI
LOVE AFAR
Love, art thou lonely to-day?
Lost love that I never see,
Love that,
come noon or come night,
Comes never to me;
Love that I used to
meet
In the hidden past, in the land
Of forbidden sweet.
Love! do you never miss
The old light in the days?
Does a hand

Come and touch thee at whiles
Like the wand of old smiles,
Like
the breath of old bliss?
Or hast thou forgot,
And is all as if not?
What was it we swore?
'Evermore!
I and Thou,'
Ah, but Fate held the pen
And wrote N
Just before:
So that now,
See, it stands,
Our seals
and our hands,
'I and Thou,
Nevermore!'
We said 'It is best!'
And then, dear, I went
And returned not again.

Forgive that I stir,
Like a breath in thy hair,
The old pain,
'Twas
unmeant.
I will strive, I will wrest
Iron peace--it is
best.
But, O for thy hand
Just to hold for a space,
For a moment to stand

In the light of thy face;
Translate Then to Now,
To hear 'Is it

Thou?'
And reply
'It is I!'
Then, then I could rest,
Ah, then I could wait
Long and late.
XVII
Canst thou be true across so many miles,
So many days that keep us
still apart?
Ah, canst thou live upon remembered smiles,
And ask
no warmer comfort for thy heart?
I call thy name right up into the sky,
Dear name, O surely she shall
hear and hark!
Nay, though I toss it singing up so high,
It drops
again, like yon returning lark.
O be a dove, dear name, and find her breast,
There croon and croodle
all the lonely day;
Go tell her that I love her still the best,
So many
days, so many miles, away.
POSTSCRIPT
_So sang young Love in high and holy dream
Of a white Love that
hath no earthly taint,
So rapt within his vision he did seem
Less like
a boyish singer than a saint.
Ah, Boy, it is a dream for life too high,
It is a bird that hath no feet
for earth:
Strange wings, strange eyes, go seek another sky
And find
thy fellows of an equal birth.
For many a body-sweet material thing,
What canst thou give us half
so dear