English Poems | Page 6

mood??Or was it some will, like a snake in him,?Lay a charm upon her blood?
Love of his limbs, was it that, think you??Body of bullock build,?Sap in the bones, and spring in the thew,?A lusty youth unspilled??But is it so that a maid is won,?Such a maiden maid as she??Her face like a lily all white in the sun,?For such mere male as he!?Ah, why do the fields with their white and gold?To Farmer Clod belong,?Who though he hath reaped and stacked and sold?Hath never heard their song??Nay, seek not an answer, comfort ye,?The poet heard their call,?And so, dear Love, will I comfort me--?He hath thy lease, that's all.
VII
THE LAMP AND THE STAR
Yea, let me be 'thy bachelere,'?'Tis sweeter than thy lord;?How should I envy him, my dear,?The lamp upon his board.?Still make his little circle bright?With boon of dear domestic light,?While I afar,?Watching his windows in the night,?Worship a star?For which he hath no bolt or bar.?Yea, dear,?Thy 'bachelere.'
VIII
ORBITS
Two stars once on their lonely way?Met in the heavenly height,?And they dreamed a dream they might shine alway?With undivided light;?Melt into one with a breathless throe,?And beam as one in the night.
And each forgot in the dream so strange?How desolately far?Swept on each path, for who shall change?The orbit of a star??Yea, all was a dream, and they still must go?As lonely as they are.
IX
NEVER--EVER
My mouth to thy mouth?Ah never, ah never!?My breast from thy breast?Eternities sever;?But my soul to thy soul?For ever and ever.
X
LOVE'S POOR
Yea, love, I know, and I would have it thus,?I know that not for us?Is springtide Passion with his fire and flowers,?I know this love of ours?Lives not, nor yet may live,?By the dear food that lips and hands can give.?Not, Love, that we in some high dream despise?The common lover's common Paradise;?Ah, God, if Thou and I?But one short hour their blessedness might try,?How could we poor ones teach?Those happy ones who half forget them rich:?For if we thus endure,?'Tis only, love, because we are so poor.
XI
COMFORT OF DANTE
Down where the unconquered river still flows on,?One strong free thing within a prison's heart,?I drew me with my sacred grief apart,?That it might look that spacious joy upon:?And as I mused, lo! Dante walked with me,?And his face spake of the high peace of pain?Till all my grief glowed in me throbbingly?As in some lily's heart might glow the rain.
So like a star I listened, till mine eye?Caught that lone land across the water-way?Wherein my lady breathed,--now breathing is--?'O Dante,' then I said, 'she more than I?Should know thy comfort, go to her, I pray.'?'Nay!' answered he, 'for she hath Beatrice.'
XII
A LOST HOUR
God gave us an hour for our tears,?One hour out of all the years,?For all the years were another's gold,?Given in a cruel troth of old.
And how did we spend his boon??That sweet miraculous flower?Born to die in an hour,?Late born to die so soon.
Did we watch it with breathless breath?By slow degrees unfold??Did we taste the innermost heart of it?The honey of each sweet part of it??Suck all its hidden gold?To the very dregs of its death?
Nay, this is all we did with our hour--?We tore it to pieces, that precious flower;?Like any daisy, with listless mirth,?We shed its petals upon the earth;?And, children-like, when it all was done,?We cried unto God for another one.
XIII
MET ONCE MORE
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,