Helen of Troy | Page 7

again.?He might have loved some other spring than this;?I should have kept my life -- I let it go.?He would not love me now tho' Cypris bound?Her girdle round me. I am Death's, not Love's.?Go from me, Sappho, back to find the sun.
I am alone, alone. O Cyprian . . .
Love Songs
Song
You bound strong sandals on my feet,?You gave me bread and wine,?And bade me out, 'neath sun and stars,?For all the world was mine.
Oh take the sandals off my feet,?You know not what you do;?For all my world is in your arms,?My sun and stars are you.
The Rose and the Bee
If I were a bee and you were a rose,?Would you let me in when the gray wind blows??Would you hold your petals wide apart,?Would you let me in to find your heart,
If you were a rose?
"If I were a rose and you were a bee,?You should never go when you came to me,?I should hold my love on my heart at last,?I should close my leaves and keep you fast,
If you were a bee."
The Song Maker
I made a hundred little songs?That told the joy and pain of love,?And sang them blithely, tho' I knew?No whit thereof.
I was a weaver deaf and blind;?A miracle was wrought for me,?But I have lost my skill to weave?Since I can see.
For while I sang -- ah swift and strange!?Love passed and touched me on the brow,?And I who made so many songs?Am silent now.
Wild Asters
In the spring I asked the daisies?If his words were true,?And the clever little daisies?Always knew.
Now the fields are brown and barren,?Bitter autumn blows,?And of all the stupid asters?Not one knows.
When Love Goes
I
O mother, I am sick of love,?I cannot laugh nor lift my head,?My bitter dreams have broken me,?I would my love were dead.
"Drink of the draught I brew for thee,?Thou shalt have quiet in its stead."
II
Where is the silver in the rain,?Where is the music in the sea,?Where is the bird that sang all day?To break my heart with melody?
"The night thou badst Love fly away,?He hid them all from thee."
The Wayfarer
Love entered in my heart one day,?A sad, unwelcome guest;?But when he begged that he might stay,?I let him wait and rest.
He broke my sleep with sorrowing,?And shook my dreams with tears,?And when my heart was fain to sing,?He stilled its joy with fears.
But now that he has gone his way,?I miss the old sweet pain,?And sometimes in the night I pray?That he may come again.
The Princess in the Tower
I
The Princess sings:
I am the princess up in the tower?And I dream the whole day thro'?Of a knight who shall come with a silver spear?And a waving plume of blue.
I am the princess up in the tower,?And I dream my dreams by day,?But sometimes I wake, and my eyes are wet,?When the dusk is deep and gray.
For the peasant lovers go by beneath,?I hear them laugh and kiss,?And I forget my day-dream knight,?And long for a love like this.
II
The Minstrel sings:
I lie beside the princess' tower,?So close she cannot see my face,?And watch her dreaming all day long,?And bending with a lily's grace.
Her cheeks are paler than the moon?That sails along a sunny sky,?And yet her silent mouth is red?Where tender words and kisses lie.
I am a minstrel with a harp,?For love of her my songs are sweet,?And yet I dare not lift the voice?That lies so far beneath her feet.
III
The Knight sings:
O princess cease your dreams awhile?And look adown your tower's gray side --?The princess gazes far away,?Nor hears nor heeds the words I cried.
Perchance my heart was overbold,?God made her dreams too pure to break,?She sees the angels in the air?Fly to and fro for Mary's sake.
Farewell, I mount and go my way,
? But oh her hair the sun sifts thro' -- The tilts and tourneys wait my spear, I am the Knight of the Plume of Blue.
When Love Was Born
When Love was born I think he lay?Right warm on Venus' breast,?And whiles he smiled and whiles would play?And whiles would take his rest.
But always, folded out of sight,?The wings were growing strong?That were to bear him off in flight?Erelong, erelong.
The Shrine
There is no lord within my heart,?Left silent as an empty shrine?Where rose and myrtle intertwine,?Within a place apart.
No god is there of carven stone?To watch with still approving eyes?My thoughts like steady incense rise;?I dream and weep alone.
But if I keep my altar fair,?Some morning I shall lift my head?From roses deftly garlanded?To find the god is there.
The Blind
The birds are all a-building,?They say the world's a-flower,?And still I linger lonely?Within a barren bower.
I weave a web of fancies?Of tears and darkness spun.?How shall I sing of sunlight?Who never saw the sun?
I hear the pipes a-blowing,?But yet I may not dance,?I know that Love is passing,?I cannot catch his glance.
And if his voice