Grass of Parnassus | Page 6

OF DEPARTURE. {3}
Fair white bird, what song art thou singing?In wintry weather of lands o'er sea??Dear white bird, what way art thou winging,?Where no grass grows, and no green tree?
I looked at the far-off fields and grey,?There grew no tree but the cypress tree,?That bears sad fruits with the flowers of May,?And whoso looks on it, woe is he.
And whoso eats of the fruit thereof?Has no more sorrow, and no more love;?And who sets the same in his garden stead,?In a little space he is waste and dead.
THEY HEAR THE SIRENS FOR THE SECOND TIME.
The weary sails a moment slept,?The oars were silent for a space,?As past Hesperian shores we swept,?That were as a remembered face?Seen after lapse of hopeless years,?In Hades, when the shadows meet,?Dim through the mist of many tears,?And strange, and though a shadow, sweet.
So seemed the half-remembered shore,?That slumbered, mirrored in the blue,?With havens where we touched of yore,?And ports that over well we knew.?Then broke the calm before a breeze?That sought the secret of the west;?And listless all we swept the seas?Towards the Islands of the Blest.
Beside a golden sanded bay?We saw the Sirens, very fair?The flowery hill whereon they lay,?The flowers set upon their hair.?Their old sweet song came down the wind,?Remembered music waxing strong,--?Ah now no need of cords to bind,?No need had we of Orphic song.
It once had seemed a little thing?To lay our lives down at their feet,?That dying we might hear them sing,?And dying see their faces sweet;?But now, we glanced, and passing by,?No care had we to tarry long;?Faint hope, and rest, and memory?Were more than any Siren's song.
CIRCE'S ISLE REVISITED.
Ah, Circe, Circe! in the wood we cried;?Ah, Circe, Circe! but no voice replied;?No voice from bowers o'ergrown and ruinous?As fallen rocks upon the mountain side.
There was no sound of singing in the air;?Faded or fled the maidens that were fair,?No more for sorrow or joy were seen of us,?No light of laughing eyes, or floating hair.
The perfume, and the music, and the flame?Had passed away; the memory of shame?Alone abode, and stings of faint desire,?And pulses of vague quiet went and came.
Ah, Circe! in thy sad changed fairy place,?Our dead youth came and looked on us a space,?With drooping wings, and eyes of faded fire.?And wasted hair about a weary face.
Why had we ever sought the magic isle?That seemed so happy in the days erewhile??Why did we ever leave it, where we met?A world of happy wonders in one smile?
Back to the westward and the waning light?We turned, we fled; the solitude of night?Was better than the infinite regret,?In fallen places of our dead delight.
THE LIMIT OF LANDS.
Between the circling ocean sea?And the poplars of Persephone?There lies a strip of barren sand,?Flecked with the sea's last spray, and strown?With waste leaves of the poplars, blown?From gardens of the shadow land.
With altars of old sacrifice?The shore is set, in mournful wise?The mists upon the ocean brood;?Between the water and the air?The clouds are born that float and fare?Between the water and the wood.
Upon the grey sea never sail?Of mortals passed within our hail,?Where the last weak waves faint and flow;?We heard within the poplar pale?The murmur of a doubtful wail?Of voices loved so long ago.
We scarce had care to die or live,?We had no honey cake to give,?No wine of sacrifice to shed;?There lies no new path over sea,?And now we know how faint they be,?The feasts and voices of the dead.
Ah, flowers and dance! ah, sun and snow!?Glad life, sad life we did forego?To dream of quietness and rest;?Ah, would the fleet sweet roses here?Poured light and perfume through the drear?Pale year, and wan land of the west.
Sad youth, that let the spring go by?Because the spring is swift to fly,?Sad youth, that feared to mourn or love,?Behold how sadder far is this,?To know that rest is nowise bliss,?And darkness is the end thereof.
VERSES
MARTIAL IN TOWN.
Last night, within the stifling train,?Lit by the foggy lamp o'erhead,?Sick of the sad Last News, I read?Verse of that joyous child of Spain,
Who dwelt when Rome was waxing cold,?Within the Roman din and smoke.?And like my heart to me they spoke,?These accents of his heart of old:-
"Brother, had we but time to live,?And fleet the careless hours together,?With all that leisure has to give?Of perfect life and peaceful weather,
"The Rich Man's halls, the anxious faces,?The weary Forum, courts, and cases?Should know us not; but quiet nooks,?But summer shade by field and well,?But county rides, and talk of books,?At home, with these, we fain would dwell!
"Now neither lives, but day by day?Sees the suns wasting in the west,?And feels their flight, and doth delay?To lead the life he loveth best."
So from thy city prison broke,?Martial, thy wail for life misspent,?And so, through London's noise and smoke?My heart replies to the lament.
For dear as