The Hours of Fiammetta | Page 3

to this bleak?Simplicity whereto blind satyrs run?"--?The irony seems old, old as the sun.
IX
THE MEDIEVAL MIRROR-CASES
I
Rondels of old French ivory to-day
(Poor perished beauty's deathless mirror-cases!)?Reveal to me the delicate amorous play
Of reed-like flowering folk with pointed faces.?Lovers ride hawking; over chess delight;
The Castle of Ladies renders up its keys,?Its roses all being flung; a gracious knight
Kneels to his garlander mid orchard-trees.?Passionate pilgrims, do ye keep so fast
Your dream of miracles and heights? Ah, shent?And sore-bewildered shall ye couch at last
In bitter beds of disillusionment.?In the Black Orchard the foul raven grieves?White Love, on some Montfau?on of the thieves.
X
THE MIRROR-CASES
II
O treasonable heart and perverse words,
Ye darken beauty with your plots of pain!?What languors beat through me like muted chords?
I know indeed that suffering shall profane?These lovers, sweet as viols or violet-spices.
Strangely must end their dreamy chess-playing,?Strange wounds amaze their broidered Paradises,
And stain the falconry and garlanding.?Their bodies must be broken as on wheels,
Their souls be carded with implacable shame,--?Molten like wax, be crushed beneath the seals
Of sin and penance. Yet, with wings aflame,?Love, Love more lovely, like a triumpher,?Shall break his malefactor's sepulchre.
XI
THE PASSION-FLOWER
The passion-flower bears in her violet Cup
The senses of her bridal, and they seem?Symbols of sacred pangs,--Love lifted up
To expiate the beauty of his dream.?Come and adore, ye crafty imagers,
This piece of ivory and amethyst.?Let Music, Colour, decorated Verse,
Meditate, each like some sad lutanist,?This Paten, and the marvels it uncovers,
Identities of joy and anguish. Rod,?Nails, bitter garlands, all ecstatic lovers
Blindly repeat the dolours of a God.?Subdue this mournful matter unto Art,?Ivory, amethyst, serene of heart.
XII
THE VOICE OF LOVE
I
"Mine, mine!" saith Love, "Deny me many times.
Yet mine that body wherein mine arrow thrills,?And mine the fugitive soul that bleeding climbs
Hunting a vision on the frozen hills.?Mine are her stigmata, sad rhapsodist.--
And when to the delighted bridal-bowers?They bring thee starlike through the silver mist
Of music and canticles and myrtle-flowers,?And the dark hour bids the consentless heart
Surrender to disillusion, since in all?The labyrinth of deed no counterpart
Can pattern Passion's archetype, nor shall?The chalice of sense endure her flaming wine,?Superb and bitter dreamer, thou most art mine."
XIII
THE VOICE OF LOVE
II
"Mine, mine!" saith Love, "Although ye serve no more
Mine images of ivory and bronze?With flute-led dances of the days of yore,
But leave them to barbarian orisons?Of dull hearth-loving hearts, mistaking me:
Yet from mine incense ye shall not divorce?Remembrance. Fools, these recantations be
Ardours that prove you still idolators;?And, though ye hurry through the circling hells
Of bright ambition like hopes and energies,?That haste bewrays you. My great doctrine dwells
Immortal in those fevered heresies,?And all the inversions of my rites proclaim?The mournful memory of mine altar-flame."
XIV
DREAM-GHOSTS
White house of night, too much the ghosts come through
Your crazy doors, to vex and startle me,?Touching with curious fingers cold as dew
Kissing with unloved kisses fierily?That dwell, slow fever, through my veins all day,
And fill my senses as the dead their graves.?They are builded in my castles and bridges? Yea,
Not therefore must my dreams become their slaves.?If once we passed some kindness, must they still
Sway me with weird returns and dim disgust?--?Though even in sleep the absolute bright Will
Would exorcise them, saying, "These are but dust,"?They show sad symbols, that, when I awaken,?I never can deny I have partaken.
XV
MEMORIA SUBMERSA
Can souls forget what bodies keep the while?
Is this among their dark antinomies??The spiritual joy is volatile:
The flesh is faithful to her memories.?This living silk, this inarticulate
Remembrance of the nerves enwinds us fast:?Delicate cells, obscure and obstinate,
Secrete the bitter essence of the Past.?Ah! Was the fading web of rose and white
All macerated by the kisses of old?As rare French queens with perfume? (So, by night,
They lived like lilies mid their cloth-of-gold.)?Within the sense, howe'er the soul abjure,?Like flavours and fumes these ancient things endure.
XVI
A PORTRAIT BY VENEZIANO
Strange dancing-girl with curls of golden wire,
With strait white veil, and sinister jewel strung?Upon your brows, your sombre eyes desire
Some secret thing. Garlanded leaves are young?Around your head, and, in your beauty's hours,
Venice yet loved that joy's enthusiast?Be frail, fantastic as gilt iris-flowers.
O startling reveller from out the Past,?Long, long ago through lanes of chrysophrase
The Dark Eros compelled his exquisite?Evil apostle. This painter made your praise,
A piece of art, a curious delight.?But your ghost wanders. Yesterday your sweet?Accusing eyes challenged me in the street.
XVII
THE ENIGMA
Eternally grieving and arraigning eyes,
Why vex my heart? What is it I can do??Can I call back the hounds of Time with sighs,
Or find inviolate peace to bring you to,?Pluck frenzy from the amazed soul of man,
Or curb the horses of raging poverty?That trample you until--escape who can,--
Or spill the honey from rich revelry?And strip the silken days?--Alas! alas!
I am so dream-locked that I cannot know?Why it is not much easier to pass
To death than let love's haughty cloister show?A common hostel for such taverners.--?Ye know, who are perhaps my ransomers.
XVIII
THE DOUBT
I am pure, because of great illuminations
Of dreamy doctrine caught