The Nuts of Knowledge | Page 3

that all in vain?Would stay the proud eternal powers that flee?After the chase in burning exultation.
THE MASTER SINGER
A laughter in the diamond air, a music in the trembling grass; And one by one the words of light as joydrops through my being pass. I am the sunlight in the heart, the silver moonglow in the mind; My laughter runs and ripples through the wavy tresses of the wind. I am the fire upon the hills, the dancing flame that leads afar Each burning-hearted wanderer, and I the dear and homeward star. A myriad lovers died for me, and in their latest yielded breath I woke in glory giving them immortal life though touched by death. They knew me from the dawn of time: if Hermes beats his rainbow wings, If Angus shakes his locks of light, or golden-haired Apollo sings, It matters not the name, the land; my joy in all the gods abides: Even in the cricket in the grass some dimness of me smiles and hides. For joy of me the day star glows, and in delight and wild desire The peacock twilight rays aloft its plumes and blooms of shadowy fire, Where in the vastness too I burn through summer nights and ages long, And with the fiery footed Watchers shake in myriad dance and song.
APHRODITE
Not unremembering we pass our exile from the starry ways: One timeless hour in time we caught from the long night of endless days. With solemn gaiety the stars danced far withdrawn on elfin heights: The lilac breathed amid the shade of green and blue and citron lights. But yet the close enfolding night seemed on the phantom verge of things, For our adoring hearts had turned within from all their wanderings: For beauty called to beauty and there thronged at the enchanter's will The vanished hours of love that burn within the Ever-living still. And sweet eternal faces put the shadows of the earth to rout, And faint and fragile as a moth your white hand fluttered and went out. Oh, who am I who tower beside this goddess of the twilight air? The burning doves fly from my heart and melt within her bosom there. I know the sacrifice of old they offered to the mighty queen, And this adoring love has brought us back the beauty that has been. As to her worshippers she came descending from her glowing skies So Aphrodite I have seen with shining eyes look through your eyes: One gleam of the ancestral face which lighted up the dawn for me: One fiery visitation of the love the gods desire in thee!
ILLUSION
What is the love of shadowy lips?That know not what they seek or press,?From whom the lure for ever slips?And fails their phantom tenderness?
The mystery and light of eyes?That near to mine grow dim and cold;?They move afar in ancient skies?Mid flame and mystic darkness rolled.
O, beauty, as thy heart o'erflows?In tender yielding unto me,?A vast desire awakes and grows?Unto forgetfulness of thee.
BABYLON
The blue dusk ran between the streets; my love was winged within my mind; It left to-day and yesterday and thrice a thousand years behind. To-day was past and dead for me for from to-day my feet had run Through thrice a thousand years to walk the ways of ancient Babylon. On temple top and palace roof the burnished gold flung back the rays Of a red sunset that was dead and lost beyond a million days. The tower of heaven turns darker blue; a starry sparkle now begins; The mystery and magnificence, the myriad beauty and the sins Come back to me. I walk beneath the shadowy multitude of towers; Within the gloom the fountain jets its pallid mist in lily flowers. The waters lull me, and the scent of many gardens, and I hear Familiar voices, and the voice I love is whispering in my ear. Oh real as in dream all this; and then a hand on mine is laid: The wave of phantom time withdraws; and that young Babylonian maid, One drop of beauty left behind from all the flowing of that tide, Is looking with the self-same eyes, and here in Ireland by my side. Oh, light our life in Babylon, but Babylon has taken wings, While we are in the calm and proud procession of eternal things.
ALTER EGO
All the morn a spirit gay?Breathes within my heart a rhyme,?'Tis but hide and seek we play?In and out the courts of Time.
Fairy lover, when my feet?Through the tangled woodland go,?'Tis thy sunny fingers fleet?Fleck the fire dews to and fro.
In the moonlight grows a smile?Mid its rays of dusty pearl--?'Tis but hide and seek the while,?As some frolic boy and girl.
When I fade into the deep?Some mysterious radiance showers?From the jewel-heart of sleep?Through the veil of darkened hours.
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