Helen of Troy | Page 4

fire,?Like Ursula upon an altar-screen.?Come, leave the light and sit beside my bed,?For I have had enough of saints and prayers.?Strange broken thoughts are beating in my brain,?They come and vanish and again they come.?It is the fever driving out my soul,?And Death stands waiting by the arras there.
Ornella, I will speak, for soon my lips?Shall keep a silence till the end of time.?You have a mouth for loving -- listen then:?Keep tryst with Love before Death comes to tryst;?For I, who die, could wish that I had lived?A little closer to the world of men,?Not watching always thro' the blazoned panes?That show the world in chilly greens and blues?And grudge the sunshine that would enter in.?I was no part of all the troubled crowd?That moved beneath the palace windows here,?And yet sometimes a knight in shining steel?Would pass and catch the gleaming of my hair,?And wave a mailed hand and smile at me,?Whereat I made no sign and turned away,?Affrighted and yet glad and full of dreams.?Ah, dreams and dreams that asked no answering!?I should have wrought to make my dreams come true,?But all my life was like an autumn day,?Full of gray quiet and a hazy peace.
What was I saying? All is gone again.?It seemed but now I was the little child?Who played within a garden long ago.?Beyond the walls the festal trumpets blared.?Perhaps they carried some Madonna by?With tossing ensigns in a sea of flowers,?A painted Virgin with a painted Child,?Who saw for once the sweetness of the sun?Before they shut her in an altar-niche?Where tapers smoke against the windy gloom.?I gathered roses redder than my gown?And played that I was Saint Elizabeth,?Whose wine had turned to roses in her hands.?And as I played, a child came thro' the gate,?A boy who looked at me without a word,?As tho' he saw stretch far behind my head?Long lines of radiant angels, row on row.?That day we spoke a little, timidly,?And after that I never heard the voice?That sang so many songs for love of me.?He was content to stand and watch me pass,?To seek for me at matins every day,?Where I could feel his eyes the while I prayed.?I think if he had stretched his hands to me,?Or moved his lips to say a single word,?I might have loved him -- he had wondrous eyes.
Ornella, are you there? I cannot see --?Is every one so lonely when he dies?
The room is filled with lights -- with waving lights --?Who are the men and women 'round the bed??What have I said, Ornella? Have they heard??There was no evil hidden in my life,?And yet, and yet, I would not have them know --
Am I not floating in a mist of light??O lift me up and I shall reach the sun!
Sappho
The twilight's inner flame grows blue and deep,?And in my Lesbos, over leagues of sea,?The temples glimmer moonwise in the trees.?Twilight has veiled the little flower face?Here on my heart, but still the night is kind?And leaves her warm sweet weight against my breast.?Am I that Sappho who would run at dusk?Along the surges creeping up the shore?When tides came in to ease the hungry beach,?And running, running, till the night was black,?Would fall forespent upon the chilly sand?And quiver with the winds from off the sea??Ah, quietly the shingle waits the tides?Whose waves are stinging kisses, but to me?Love brought no peace, nor darkness any rest.?I crept and touched the foam with fevered hands?And cried to Love, from whom the sea is sweet,?From whom the sea is bitterer than death.?Ah, Aphrodite, if I sing no more?To thee, God's daughter, powerful as God,?It is that thou hast made my life too sweet?To hold the added sweetness of a song.?There is a quiet at the heart of love,?And I have pierced the pain and come to peace.?I hold my peace, my Cleis, on my heart;?And softer than a little wild bird's wing?Are kisses that she pours upon my mouth.?Ah, never any more when spring like fire?Will flicker in the newly opened leaves,?Shall I steal forth to seek for solitude?Beyond the lure of light Alcaeus' lyre,?Beyond the sob that stilled Erinna's voice.?Ah, never with a throat that aches with song,?Beneath the white uncaring sky of spring,?Shall I go forth to hide awhile from Love?The quiver and the crying of my heart.?Still I remember how I strove to flee?The love-note of the birds, and bowed my head?To hurry faster, but upon the ground?I saw two winged shadows side by side,?And all the world's spring passion stifled me.?Ah, Love, there is no fleeing from thy might,?No lonely place where thou hast never trod,?No desert thou hast left uncarpeted?With flowers that spring beneath thy perfect feet.?In many guises didst thou come to me;?I saw thee by the maidens while they danced,?Phaon allured me with a look