Songs of Travel | Page 4

glow, no more the grace,?Enshrines, endears.?Cold beats the light of time upon your face?And shows your tears.
He came and went. Perchance you wept a while?And then forgot.?Ah me! but he that left you with a smile?Forgets you not.
V
SHE rested by the Broken Brook,?She drank of Weary Well,?She moved beyond my lingering look,?Ah, whither none can tell!
She came, she went. In other lands,?Perchance in fairer skies,?Her hands shall cling with other hands,?Her eyes to other eyes.
She vanished. In the sounding town,?Will she remember too??Will she recall the eyes of brown?As I recall the blue?
VI
THE infinite shining heavens?Rose and I saw in the night?Uncountable angel stars?Showering sorrow and light.
I saw them distant as heaven,?Dumb and shining and dead,?And the idle stars of the night?Were dearer to me than bread.
Night after night in my sorrow?The stars stood over the sea,?Till lo! I looked in the dusk?And a star had come down to me.
VII
PLAIN as the glistering planets shine?When winds have cleaned the skies,?Her love appeared, appealed for mine,?And wantoned in her eyes.
Clear as the shining tapers burned?On Cytherea's shrine,?Those brimming, lustrous beauties turned,?And called and conquered mine.
The beacon-lamp that Hero lit?No fairer shone on sea,?No plainlier summoned will and wit,?Than hers encouraged me.
I thrilled to feel her influence near,?I struck my flag at sight.?Her starry silence smote my ear?Like sudden drums at night.
I ran as, at the cannon's roar,?The troops the ramparts man -?As in the holy house of yore?The willing Eli ran.
Here, lady, lo! that servant stands?You picked from passing men,?And should you need nor heart nor hands?He bows and goes again.
VIII
TO you, let snow and roses?And golden locks belong.?These are the world's enslavers,?Let these delight the throng.?For her of duskier lustre?Whose favour still I wear,?The snow be in her kirtle,?The rose be in her hair!
The hue of highland rivers?Careering, full and cool,?From sable on to golden,?From rapid on to pool -?The hue of heather-honey,?The hue of honey-bees,?Shall tinge her golden shoulder,?Shall gild her tawny knees.
IX
LET Beauty awake in the morn from beautiful dreams,?Beauty awake from rest!?Let Beauty awake?For Beauty's sake?In the hour when the birds awake in the brake?And the stars are bright in the west!
Let Beauty awake in the eve from the slumber of day,?Awake in the crimson eve!?In the day's dusk end?When the shades ascend,?Let her wake to the kiss of a tender friend?To render again and receive!
X
I KNOW not how it is with you -?I love the first and last,?The whole field of the present view,?The whole flow of the past.
One tittle of the things that are,?Nor you should change nor I -?One pebble in our path - one star?In all our heaven of sky.
Our lives, and every day and hour,?One symphony appear:?One road, one garden - every flower?And every bramble dear.
XI
I WILL make you brooches and toys for your delight?Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night.?I will make a palace fit for you and me?Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.
I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room,?Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom,?And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white?In rainfall at morning and dewfall at night.
And this shall be for music when no one else is near,?The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear!?That only I remember, that only you admire,?Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire.
XII - WE HAVE LOVED OF YORE (To an air of Diabelli)
BERRIED brake and reedy island,?Heaven below, and only heaven above,?Through the sky's inverted azure?Softly swam the boat that bore our love.?Bright were your eyes as the day;?Bright ran the stream,?Bright hung the sky above.?Days of April, airs of Eden,?How the glory died through golden hours,?And the shining moon arising,?How the boat drew homeward filled with flowers!?Bright were your eyes in the night:?We have lived, my love -?O, we have loved, my love.
Frost has bound our flowing river,?Snow has whitened all our island brake,?And beside the winter fagot?Joan and Darby doze and dream and wake.?Still, in the river of dreams?Swims the boat of love -?Hark! chimes the falling oar!?And again in winter evens?When on firelight dreaming fancy feeds,?In those ears of aged lovers?Love's own river warbles in the reeds.?Love still the past, O my love!?We have lived of yore,?O, we have loved of yore.
XIII - MATER TRIUMPHANS
SON of my woman's body, you go, to the drum and fife,?To taste the colour of love and the other side of life -?From out of the dainty the rude, the strong from out of the frail, Eternally through the ages from the female comes the male.
The ten fingers and toes, and the shell-like nail on each,?The eyes blind as gems and the tongue attempting speech;?Impotent hands in my bosom, and yet they shall wield the sword! Drugged with slumber and milk, you wait the