Silverpoints

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Silverpoints, by John Gray
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Title: Silverpoints
Author: John Gray
Release Date: April 24, 2007 [EBook #21211]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
? START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SILVERPOINTS ***
Produced by Ruth Hart [email protected]
Transcriber's note: In the original text all the verse titles and dedications are in regular type, while all the stanzas are italicized. I have not indicated these different styles in this online text.
SILVERPOINTS
BY
JOHN GRAY
LONDON M.DCCC.XC.III?ELKIN MATHEWS AND?JOHN LANE. AT THE?SIGN OF THE BODLEY?HEAD IN VIGO STREET
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
. . . EN COMPOSANT DES ACROSTICHES INDOLENTS
P.V.
LES DEMOISELLES DE SAUVE
TO S. A. S. ALICE, PRINCESSE DE MONACO
Beautiful ladies through the orchard pass;?Bend under crutched-up branches, forked and low;?Trailing their samet palls o'er dew-drenched grass.
Pale blossoms, looking on proud Jacqueline,?Blush to the colour of her finger tips,?And rosy knuckles, laced with yellow lace.
High-crested Berthe discerns, with slant, clinched eyes,?Amid the leaves pink faces of the skies;?She locks her plaintive hands Sainte-Margot-wise.
Ysabeau follows last, with languorous pace;?Presses, voluptuous, to her bursting lips.?With backward stoop, a bunch of eglantine.
Courtly ladies through the orchard pass;?Bow low, as in lords' halls; and springtime grass?Tangles a snare to catch the tapering toe.
HEART'S DEMESNE
TO PAUL VERLAINE
Listen, bright lady, thy deep Pansie eyes?Made never answer when my eyes did pray,?Than with those quaintest looks of blank surprise.
But my love longing has devised a way?To mock thy living image, from thy hair?To thy rose toes and keep thee by alway.
My garden's face is oh! so maidly fair,?With limbs all tapering and with hues all fresh;?Thine are the beauties all that flourish there.
Amaranth, fadeless, tells me of thy flesh.?Briar rose knows thy cheek, the Pink thy pout.?Bunched kisses dangle from the Woodbine mesh.
I love to loll, when Daisy stars peep out,?And hear the music of my garden dell,?Hollyhock's laughter and the Sunflowers shout.
And many whisper things I dare not tell.
SONG OF THE SEEDLING
TO ARTHUR SEWELL BUTT
Tell, little seedling, murmuring germ,?Why are you joyful? What do you sing??Have you no fear of that crawling thing,?Him that has so many legs? and the worm?
Rain drops patter above my head--
Drip, drip, drip.?To moisten the mould where my roots are fed--
Sip, sip, sip.?No thought have I of the legged thing.
Of the worm no fear,?When the goal is so near;?Every moment my life has run,?The livelong day I've not ceased to sing:?I must reach the sun, the sun.
LADY EVELYN
I know no Name too sweet to tell of her,?For Love's sweet Sake and Domination.?She hath me all; her Spell hath Power to stir?My Heart to every Lust, and spur me on.?Love saith: 'tis even thus; her Will no Thrall,?But Touchstone of thy Worth in Love's Armure;?They only conquer in Love's Lists that fall,?And Wounds renewed for Wounds are captain Cure.?He doubly is inslaved that gilts his Chain,?Saith Reason, chaffering for his Empire gone,?Bestir, and root the Canker that hath ta'en?Thy Breast for Bed, and feeds thy Heart upon.
I this: Sweet Love, an sweet an sour thou be,?I know no Name too sweet to tell of thee.
COMPLAINT
TO FELIX FéNéON
Men, women, call thee so or so;
I do not know.?Thou hast no name?For me, but in my heart aflame
Burns tireless, neath a silver vine.
And round entwine?Its purple girth?All things of fragrance and of worth.
Thou shout! thou burst of light! thou throb
Of pain! thou sob!?Thou like a bar?Of some sonata, heard from far
Through blue-hue'd veils! When in these wise,
To my soul's eyes,?Thy shape appears,?My aching hands are full of tears.
A HALTING SONNET
TO MISS ELLEN TERRY ON HER BIRTHDAY
It is not meet for one like me to praise?A lady, princess, goddess, artist such;?For great ones crane their foreheads to her touch,?To change their splendours into crowns of bays.?But poets never rhyme as they are bid;?Nor never see their ft goal; but aspire,?With straining eyes, to some far silvern spire;?Flowers among, sing to the gods cloud-hid.?One of these, onetime, opened velvet eyes?Upon the world--the years recall the day;?Those lights still shine, conscious of power alway,?But flattering men with feigned looks of surprise.
The couplet is so great that, where thou art,?--Thou being a poem--it is past my art.
WINGS IN THE DARK
TO ROBERT HARBOROUGH SHERARD
Forth into the warm darkness faring wide--?More silent momently the silent quay--?Towards where the ranks of boats rock to the tide,?Muffling their plaintive gurgling jealously.
With gentle nodding of her gracious snout,?One greets her master till he step aboard;?She flaps her wings, impatient to get out;?She runs to plunder, straining every cord,
Full-winged and stealthy like a bird of prey,?All tense the muscles of her seemly flanks;?She, the coy creature that the idle day?Sees idly riding in the