Sister Songs | Page 3

lily-cluster poised in sun
Dispread its gracile curls of light

I knew what chosen child was there in place!
I knew there might no
brows be, save of one,
With such Hesperian fulgence compassed,

Which in her moving seemed to wheel about her head.
O Spring's little children, more loud your lauds upraise,
For this is
even Sylvia, with her sweet, feat ways!
Your lovesome labours lay
away,
And prank you out in holiday,
For syllabling to Sylvia;

And all you birds on branches, lave your mouths with May,
To bear
with me this burthen
For singing to Sylvia!
7.
Spring, goddess, is it thou, desired long?
And art thou girded round
with this young train? -
If ever I did do thee ease in song,
Now of
thy grace let me one meed obtain,
And list thou to one plain.
Oh,
keep still in thy train
After the years when others therefrom fade,

This tiny, well-beloved maid!
To whom the gate of my heart's
fortalice,
With all which in it is,
And the shy self who doth therein
immew him
'Gainst what loud leagurers battailously woo him,
I,
bribed traitor to him,
Set open for one kiss.
Then suffer, Spring, thy children, that lauds they should upraise To
Sylvia, this Sylvia, her sweet, feat ways;
Their lovely labours lay
away,
And trick them out in holiday,
For syllabling to Sylvia;

And that all birds on branches lave their mouths with May,
To bear
with me this burthen,
For singing to Sylvia.
8.
A kiss? for a child's kiss?
Aye, goddess, even for this.
Once, bright
Sylviola! in days not far,
Once--in that nightmare-time which still
doth haunt
My dreams, a grim, unbidden visitant -

Forlorn, and

faint, and stark,
I had endured through watches of the dark
The
abashless inquisition of each star,
Yea, was the outcast mark
Of all
those heavenly passers' scrutiny;
Stood bound and helplessly
For
Time to shoot his barbed minutes at me;
Suffered the trampling hoof
of every hour
In night's slow-wheeled car;
Until the tardy dawn
dragged me at length
From under those dread wheels; and, bled of
strength,
I waited the inevitable last.
Then there came past
A child;
like thee, a spring-flower; but a flower
Fallen from the budded
coronal of Spring,
And through the city-streets blown withering.

She passed,--O brave, sad, lovingest, tender thing! -
And of her own
scant pittance did she give,
That I might eat and live:
Then fled, a
swift and trackless fugitive.
Therefore I kissed in thee
The heart of
Childhood, so divine for me;
And her, through what sore ways,
And
what unchildish days,
Borne from me now, as then, a trackless
fugitive.
Therefore I kissed in thee
Her, child! and innocency,

And spring, and all things that have gone from me,
And that shall
never be;
All vanished hopes, and all most hopeless bliss,
Came
with thee to my kiss.
And ah! so long myself had strayed afar
From
child, and woman, and the boon earth's green,
And all wherewith
life's face is fair beseen;
Journeying its journey bare
Five suns,
except of the all-kissing sun
Unkissed of one;
Almost I had forgot

The healing harms,
And whitest witchery, a-lurk in that

Authentic cestus of two girdling arms:
And I remembered not

The
subtle sanctities which dart
From childish lips' unvalued precious
brush,
Nor how it makes the sudden lilies push
Between the
loosening fibres of the heart.
Then, that thy little kiss
Should be to
me all this,
Let workaday wisdom blink sage lids thereat;
Which
towers a flight three hedgerows high, poor bat!
And straightway
charts me out the empyreal air.
Its chart I wing not by, its canon of
worth
Scorn not, nor reck though mine should breed it mirth:
And
howso thou and I may be disjoint,
Yet still my falcon spirit makes her
point
Over the covert where
Thou, sweetest quarry, hast put in from
her!

(Soul, hush these sad numbers, too sad to upraise
In hymning bright
Sylvia, unlearn'd in such ways!
Our mournful moods lay we away,

And prank our thoughts in holiday,
For syllabling to Sylvia;
When
all the birds on branches lave their mouths with May,
To bear with us
this burthen,
For singing to Sylvia!)
9.
Then thus Spring, bounteous lady, made reply:
O lover of me and all
my progeny,
For grace to you
I take her ever to my retinue.
Over
thy form, dear child, alas! my art
Cannot prevail; but mine
immortalising
Touch I lay upon thy heart.
Thy soul's fair shape
In
my unfading mantle's green I drape,
And thy white mind shall rest by
my devising
A Gideon-fleece amid life's dusty drouth.
If Even burst
yon globed yellow grape
(Which is the sun to mortals' sealed sight)

Against her stained mouth;
Or if white-handed light
Draw thee yet
dripping from the quiet pools,
Still lucencies and cools,
Of sleep,
which all night mirror constellate dreams;
Like to the sign which led
the Israelite,
Thy soul, through day or dark,
A visible brightness on
the chosen ark
Of thy sweet body and pure,
Shall it assure,
With
auspice large and tutelary gleams,
Appointed solemn courts, and
covenanted streams."
Cease, Spring's little children, now cease your lauds to raise; That
dream is past, and Sylvia, with her sweet, feat ways.
Our loved labour,
laid away,
Is smoothly ended; said our say,
Our syllable to Sylvia.

Make sweet, you birds on branches! make sweet your mouths with
May!
But borne is this burthen,
Sung unto Sylvia.
PART THE SECOND
And now, thou