Poems, with The Ballad of Reading Gaol

FLOWERS OF GOLD

IMPRESSIONS

I

LES SILHOUETTES

 
   The sea is flecked with bars of grey,
   The dull dead wind is out of tune,
   And like a withered leaf the moon
Is blown across the stormy bay.
 
 
   Etched clear upon the pallid sand
   Lies the black boat: a sailor boy
   Clambers aboard in careless joy
With laughing face and gleaming hand.
 
 
   And overhead the curlews cry,
   Where through the dusky upland grass
   The young brown-throated reapers pass,
Like silhouettes against the sky.
 

II

LA FUITE DE LA LUNE

 
   To outer senses there is peace,
   A dreamy peace on either hand
   Deep silence in the shadowy land,
Deep silence where the shadows cease.
 
 
   Save for a cry that echoes shrill
   From some lone bird disconsolate;
   A corncrake calling to its mate;
The answer from the misty hill.
 
 
   And suddenly the moon withdraws
   Her sickle from the lightening skies,
   And to her sombre cavern flies,
Wrapped in a veil of yellow gauze.
 

THE GRAVE OF KEATS

 
Rid of the world’s injustice, and his pain,
   He rests at last beneath God’s veil of blue:
   Taken from life when life and love were new
The youngest of the martyrs here is lain,
Fair as Sebastian, and as early slain.
   No cypress shades his grave, no funeral yew,
   But gentle violets weeping with the dew
Weave on his bones an ever-blossoming chain.
O proudest heart that broke for misery!
   O sweetest lips since those of Mitylene!
   O poet-painter of our English Land!
Thy name was writ in water – it shall stand:
   And tears like mine will keep thy memory green,
   As Isabella did her Basil-tree.
 

Rome.

THEOCRITUS

A VILLANELLE

 
O singer of Persephone!
   In the dim meadows desolate
Dost thou remember Sicily?
 
 
Still through the ivy flits the bee
   Where Amaryllis lies in state;
O Singer of Persephone!
 
 
Simætha calls on Hecate
   And hears the wild dogs at the gate;
Dost thou remember Sicily?
 
 
Still by the light and laughing sea
   Poor Polypheme bemoans his fate;
O Singer of Persephone!
 
 
And still in boyish rivalry
   Young Daphnis challenges his mate;
Dost thou remember Sicily?
 
 
Slim Lacon keeps a goat for thee,
   For thee the jocund shepherds wait;
O Singer of Persephone!
Dost thou remember Sicily?
 

IN THE GOLD ROOM

A HARMONY

 
Her ivory hands on the ivory keys
   Strayed in a fitful fantasy,
Like the silver gleam when the poplar trees
   Rustle their pale-leaves listlessly,
Or the drifting foam of a restless sea
When the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze.
 
 
Her gold hair fell on the wall of gold
   Like the delicate gossamer tangles spun
On the burnished disk of the marigold,
   Or the sunflower turning to meet the sun
   When the gloom of the dark blue night is done,
And the spear of the lily is aureoled.
 
 
And her sweet red lips on these lips of mine
   Burned like the ruby fire set
In the swinging lamp of a crimson shrine,
   Or the bleeding wounds of the pomegranate,
   Or the heart of the lotus drenched and wet
With the spilt-out blood of the rose-red wine.
 

BALLADE DE MARGUERITE

(NORMANDE)

 
I am weary of lying within the chase
When the knights are meeting in market-place.
 
 
Nay, go not thou to the red-roofed town
Lest the hoofs of the war-horse tread thee down.
 
 
But I would not go where the Squires ride,
I would only walk by my Lady’s side.
 
 
Alack! and alack! thou art overbold,
A Forester’s son may not eat off gold.
 
 
Will she love me the less that my Father is seen
Each Martinmas day in a doublet green?
 
 
Perchance she is sewing at tapestrie,
Spindle and loom are not meet for thee.
 
 
Ah, if she is working the arras bright
I might ravel the threads by the fire-light.
 
 
Perchance she is hunting of the deer,
How could you follow o’er hill and mere?
 
 
Ah, if she is riding with the court,
I might run beside her and wind the morte.
 
 
Perchance she is kneeling in St. Denys,
(On her soul may our Lady have gramercy!)
 
 
Ah, if she is praying in lone chapelle,
I might swing the censer and ring the bell.
 
 
Come in, my son, for you look sae pale,
The father shall fill thee a stoup of ale.
 
 
But who are these knights in bright array?
Is it a pageant the rich folks play?
 
 
’T is the King of England from over sea,
Who has come unto visit our fair countrie.
 
 
But why does the curfew toll sae low?
And why do the mourners walk a-row?
 
 
O ’t is Hugh of Amiens my sister’s son
Who is lying stark, for his day is done.
 
 
Nay, nay, for I see white lilies clear,
It is no strong man who lies on the bier.
 
 
O ’t is old Dame Jeannette that kept the hall,
I knew she would die at the autumn fall.
 
 
Dame Jeannette had not that gold-brown hair,
Old Jeannette was not a maiden fair.
 
 
O ’t is none of our kith and none of our kin,
(Her soul may our Lady assoil from sin!)
 
 
But I hear the boy’s voice chaunting sweet,
‘Elle est morte, la Marguerite.’
 
 
Come in, my son, and lie on the bed,
And let the dead folk bury their dead.
 
 
O mother, you know I loved her true:
O mother, hath one grave room for two?
 

THE DOLE OF THE KING’S DAUGHTER

(BRETON)

 
Seven stars in the still water,
   And seven in the sky;
Seven sins on the King’s daughter,
   Deep in her soul to lie.
 
 
Red roses are at her feet,
   (Roses are red in her red-gold hair)
And O where her bosom and girdle meet
   Red roses are hidden there.
 
 
Fair is the knight who lieth slain
   Amid the rush and reed,
See the lean fishes that are fain
   Upon dead men to feed.
 
 
Sweet is the page that lieth there,
   (Cloth of gold is goodly prey,)
See the black ravens in the air,
   Black, O black as the night are they.
 
 
What do they there so stark and dead?
   (There is blood upon her hand)
Why are the lilies flecked with red?
   (There is blood on the river sand.)
 
 
There are two that ride from the south and east,
   And two from the north and west,
For the black raven a goodly feast,
   For the King’s daughter rest.
 
 
There is one man who loves her true,
   (Red, O red, is the stain of gore!)
He hath duggen a grave by the darksome yew,
   (One grave will do for four.)
 
 
No moon in the still heaven,
   In the black water none,
The sins on her soul are seven,
   The sin upon his is one.
 

AMOR INTELLECTUALIS

 
Oft have we trod the vales of Castaly
   And heard sweet notes of sylvan music blown
   From antique reeds to common folk unknown:
And often launched our bark upon that sea
Which the nine Muses hold in empery,
   And ploughed free furrows through the wave and foam,
   Nor spread reluctant sail for more safe home
Till we had freighted well our argosy.
Of which despoilèd treasures these remain,
   Sordello’s passion, and the honeyed line
Of young Endymion, lordly Tamburlaine
   Driving his pampered jades, and more than these,
The seven-fold vision of the Florentine,
   And grave-browed Milton’s solemn harmonies.
 

SANTA DECCA

 
The Gods are dead: no longer do we bring
   To grey-eyed Pallas crowns of olive-leaves!
   Demeter’s child no more hath tithe of sheaves,
And in the noon the careless shepherds sing,
For Pan is dead, and all the wantoning
   By secret glade and devious haunt is o’er:
   Young Hylas seeks the water-springs no more;
Great Pan is dead, and Mary’s son is King.
 
 
And yet – perchance in this sea-trancèd isle,
   Chewing the bitter fruit of memory,
   Some God lies hidden in the asphodel.
Ah Love! if such there be, then it were well
   For us to fly his anger: nay, but see,
   The leaves are stirring: let us watch awhile.
 

Corfu.

A VISION

 
Two crownèd Kings, and One that stood alone
   With no green weight of laurels round his head,
   But with sad eyes as one uncomforted,
And wearied with man’s never-ceasing moan
For sins no bleating victim can atone,
   And sweet long lips with tears and kisses fed.
   Girt was he in a garment black and red,
And at his feet I marked a broken stone
   Which sent up lilies, dove-like, to his knees.
Now at their sight, my heart being lit with flame,
I cried to Beatricé, ‘Who are these?’
And she made answer, knowing well each name,
   ‘Æschylos first, the second Sophokles,
   And last (wide stream of tears!) Euripides.’
 

IMPRESSION DE VOYAGE

 
The sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky
   Burned like a heated opal through the air;
   We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair
For the blue lands that to the eastward lie.
From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye
   Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek,
   Ithaca’s cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak,
And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady.
   The flapping of the sail against the mast,
   The ripple of the water on the side,
The ripple of girls’ laughter at the stern,
The only sounds: – when ’gan the West to burn,
   And a red sun upon the seas to ride,
   I stood upon the soil of Greece at last!
 

Katakolo.

THE GRAVE OF SHELLEY

 
Like burnt-out torches by a sick man’s bed
   Gaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone;
   Here doth the little night-owl make her throne,
And the slight lizard show his jewelled head.
And, where the chaliced poppies flame to red,
   In the still chamber of yon pyramid
   Surely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid,
Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead.
 
 
Ah! sweet indeed to rest within the womb
   Of Earth, great mother of eternal sleep,
But sweeter far for thee a restless tomb
   In the blue cavern of an echoing deep,
Or where the tall ships founder in the gloom
   Against the rocks of some wave-shattered steep.
 

Rome.

BY THE ARNO

 
   The oleander on the wall
   Grows crimson in the dawning light,
   Though the grey shadows of the night
Lie yet on Florence like a pall.
 
 
   The dew is bright upon the hill,
   And bright the blossoms overhead,
   But ah! the grasshoppers have fled,
The little Attic song is still.
 
 
   Only the leaves are gently stirred
   By the soft breathing of the gale,
   And in the almond-scented vale
The lonely nightingale is heard.
 
 
   The day will make thee silent soon,
   O nightingale sing on for love!
   While yet upon the shadowy grove
Splinter the arrows of the moon.
 
 
   Before across the silent lawn
   In sea-green vest the morning steals,
   And to love’s frightened eyes reveals
The long white fingers of the dawn
 
 
   Fast climbing up the eastern sky
   To grasp and slay the shuddering night,
   All careless of my heart’s delight,
Or if the nightingale should die.
 

IMPRESSIONS DE THÉÂTRE

FABIEN DEI FRANCHI

To my Friend Henry Irving

 
The silent room, the heavy creeping shade,
   The dead that travel fast, the opening door,
   The murdered brother rising through the floor,
The ghost’s white fingers on thy shoulders laid,
And then the lonely duel in the glade,
   The broken swords, the stifled scream, the gore,
   Thy grand revengeful eyes when all is o’er, —
These things are well enough, – but thou wert made
   For more august creation! frenzied Lear
   Should at thy bidding wander on the heath
   With the shrill fool to mock him, Romeo
For thee should lure his love, and desperate fear
Pluck Richard’s recreant dagger from its sheath —
Thou trumpet set for Shakespeare’s lips to blow!
 

PHÈDRE

To Sarah Bernhardt

 
How vain and dull this common world must seem
   To such a One as thou, who should’st have talked
At Florence with Mirandola, or walked
Through the cool olives of the Academe:
Thou should’st have gathered reeds from a green stream
   For Goat-foot Pan’s shrill piping, and have played
   With the white girls in that Phæacian glade
Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream.
 
 
Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clay
   Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again
   Back to this common world so dull and vain,
For thou wert weary of the sunless day,
   The heavy fields of scentless asphodel,
   The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell.
 

WRITTEN AT THE LYCEUM THEATRE

I

PORTIA

To Ellen Terry

 
I marvel not Bassanio was so bold
   To peril all he had upon the lead,
   Or that proud Aragon bent low his head
Or that Morocco’s fiery heart grew cold:
For in that gorgeous dress of beaten gold
   Which is more golden than the golden sun
   No woman Veronesé looked upon
Was half so fair as thou whom I behold.
Yet fairer when with wisdom as your shield
   The sober-suited lawyer’s gown you donned,
And would not let the laws of Venice yield
   Antonio’s heart to that accursèd Jew —
   O Portia! take my heart: it is thy due:
I think I will not quarrel with the Bond.
 

II

QUEEN HENRIETTA MARIA

To Ellen Terry

 
In the lone tent, waiting for victory,
   She stands with eyes marred by the mists of pain,
   Like some wan lily overdrenched with rain:
The clamorous clang of arms, the ensanguined sky,
War’s ruin, and the wreck of chivalry
   To her proud soul no common fear can bring:
   Bravely she tarrieth for her Lord the King,
Her soul a-flame with passionate ecstasy.
O Hair of Gold!  O Crimson Lips!  O Face
   Made for the luring and the love of man!
   With thee I do forget the toil and stress,
The loveless road that knows no resting place,
   Time’s straitened pulse, the soul’s dread weariness,
   My freedom, and my life republican!
 

III

CAMMA

To Ellen Terry

 
As one who poring on a Grecian urn
   Scans the fair shapes some Attic hand hath made,
   God with slim goddess, goodly man with maid,
And for their beauty’s sake is loth to turn
And face the obvious day, must I not yearn
   For many a secret moon of indolent bliss,
   When in midmost shrine of Artemis
I see thee standing, antique-limbed, and stern?
 
 
And yet – methinks I’d rather see thee play
   That serpent of old Nile, whose witchery
Made Emperors drunken, – come, great Egypt, shake
   Our stage with all thy mimic pageants!  Nay,
   I am grown sick of unreal passions, make
The world thine Actium, me thine Anthony!
 

PANTHEA

 
Nay, let us walk from fire unto fire,
   From passionate pain to deadlier delight, —
I am too young to live without desire,
   Too young art thou to waste this summer night
Asking those idle questions which of old
Man sought of seer and oracle, and no reply was told.
 
 
For, sweet, to feel is better than to know,
   And wisdom is a childless heritage,
One pulse of passion – youth’s first fiery glow, —
   Are worth the hoarded proverbs of the sage:
Vex not thy soul with dead philosophy,
Have we not lips to kiss with, hearts to love and eyes to see!
 
 
Dost thou not hear the murmuring nightingale,
   Like water bubbling from a silver jar,
So soft she sings the envious moon is pale,
   That high in heaven she is hung so far
She cannot hear that love-enraptured tune, —
Mark how she wreathes each horn with mist, yon late and labouring moon.
 
 
White lilies, in whose cups the gold bees dream,
   The fallen snow of petals where the breeze
Scatters the chestnut blossom, or the gleam
   Of boyish limbs in water, – are not these
Enough for thee, dost thou desire more?
Alas! the Gods will give nought else from their eternal store.
 
 
For our high Gods have sick and wearied grown
   Of all our endless sins, our vain endeavour
For wasted days of youth to make atone
   By pain or prayer or priest, and never, never,
Hearken they now to either good or ill,
But send their rain upon the just and the unjust at will.
 
 
They sit at ease, our Gods they sit at ease,
   Strewing with leaves of rose their scented wine,
They sleep, they sleep, beneath the rocking trees
   Where asphodel and yellow lotus twine,
Mourning the old glad days before they knew
What evil things the heart of man could dream, and dreaming do.
 
 
And far beneath the brazen floor they see
   Like swarming flies the crowd of little men,
The bustle of small lives, then wearily
   Back to their lotus-haunts they turn again
Kissing each others’ mouths, and mix more deep
The poppy-seeded draught which brings soft purple-lidded sleep.
 
 
There all day long the golden-vestured sun,
   Their torch-bearer, stands with his torch ablaze,
And, when the gaudy web of noon is spun
   By its twelve maidens, through the crimson haze
Fresh from Endymion’s arms comes forth the moon,
And the immortal Gods in toils of mortal passions swoon.
 
 
There walks Queen Juno through some dewy mead,
   Her grand white feet flecked with the saffron dust
Of wind-stirred lilies, while young Ganymede
   Leaps in the hot and amber-foaming must,
His curls all tossed, as when the eagle bare
The frightened boy from Ida through the blue Ionian air.
 
 
There in the green heart of some garden close
   Queen Venus with the shepherd at her side,
Her warm soft body like the briar rose
   Which would be white yet blushes at its pride,
Laughs low for love, till jealous Salmacis
Peers through the myrtle-leaves and sighs for pain of lonely bliss.
 
 
There never does that dreary north-wind blow
   Which leaves our English forests bleak and bare,
Nor ever falls the swift white-feathered snow,
   Nor ever doth the red-toothed lightning dare
To wake them in the silver-fretted night
When we lie weeping for some sweet sad sin, some dead delight.
 
 
Alas! they know the far Lethæan spring,
   The violet-hidden waters well they know,
Where one whose feet with tired wandering
   Are faint and broken may take heart and go,
And from those dark depths cool and crystalline
Drink, and draw balm, and sleep for sleepless souls, and anodyne.
 
 
But we oppress our natures, God or Fate
   Is our enemy, we starve and feed
On vain repentance – O we are born too late!
   What balm for us in bruisèd poppy seed
Who crowd into one finite pulse of time
The joy of infinite love and the fierce pain of infinite crime.
 
 
O we are wearied of this sense of guilt,
   Wearied of pleasure’s paramour despair,
Wearied of every temple we have built,
   Wearied of every right, unanswered prayer,
For man is weak; God sleeps: and heaven is high:
One fiery-coloured moment: one great love; and lo! we die.
 
 
Ah! but no ferry-man with labouring pole
   Nears his black shallop to the flowerless strand,
No little coin of bronze can bring the soul
   Over Death’s river to the sunless land,
Victim and wine and vow are all in vain,
The tomb is sealed; the soldiers watch; the dead rise not again.
 
 
We are resolved into the supreme air,
   We are made one with what we touch and see,
With our heart’s blood each crimson sun is fair,
   With our young lives each spring-impassioned tree
Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range
The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.
 
 
With beat of systole and of diastole
   One grand great life throbs through earth’s giant heart,
And mighty waves of single Being roll
   From nerveless germ to man, for we are part
Of every rock and bird and beast and hill,
One with the things that prey on us, and one with what we kill.
 
 
From lower cells of waking life we pass
   To full perfection; thus the world grows old:
We who are godlike now were once a mass
   Of quivering purple flecked with bars of gold,
Unsentient or of joy or misery,
And tossed in terrible tangles of some wild and wind-swept sea.
 
 
This hot hard flame with which our bodies burn
   Will make some meadow blaze with daffodil,
Ay! and those argent breasts of thine will turn
   To water-lilies; the brown fields men till
Will be more fruitful for our love to-night,
Nothing is lost in nature, all things live in Death’s despite.
 
 
The boy’s first kiss, the hyacinth’s first bell,
   The man’s last passion, and the last red spear
That from the lily leaps, the asphodel
   Which will not let its blossoms blow for fear
Of too much beauty, and the timid shame
Of the young bridegroom at his lover’s eyes, – these with the same
 
 
One sacrament are consecrate, the earth
   Not we alone hath passions hymeneal,
The yellow buttercups that shake for mirth
   At daybreak know a pleasure not less real
Than we do, when in some fresh-blossoming wood,
We draw the spring into our hearts, and feel that life is good.
 
 
So when men bury us beneath the yew
   Thy crimson-stainèd mouth a rose will be,
And thy soft eyes lush bluebells dimmed with dew,
   And when the white narcissus wantonly
Kisses the wind its playmate some faint joy
Will thrill our dust, and we will be again fond maid and boy.
 
 
And thus without life’s conscious torturing pain
   In some sweet flower we will feel the sun,
And from the linnet’s throat will sing again,
   And as two gorgeous-mailèd snakes will run
Over our graves, or as two tigers creep
Through the hot jungle where the yellow-eyed huge lions sleep
 
 
And give them battle!  How my heart leaps up
   To think of that grand living after death
In beast and bird and flower, when this cup,
   Being filled too full of spirit, bursts for breath,
And with the pale leaves of some autumn day
The soul earth’s earliest conqueror becomes earth’s last great prey.
 
 
O think of it!  We shall inform ourselves
   Into all sensuous life, the goat-foot Faun,
The Centaur, or the merry bright-eyed Elves
   That leave their dancing rings to spite the dawn
Upon the meadows, shall not be more near
Than you and I to nature’s mysteries, for we shall hear
 
 
The thrush’s heart beat, and the daisies grow,
   And the wan snowdrop sighing for the sun
On sunless days in winter, we shall know
   By whom the silver gossamer is spun,
Who paints the diapered fritillaries,
On what wide wings from shivering pine to pine the eagle flies.
 
 
Ay! had we never loved at all, who knows
   If yonder daffodil had lured the bee
Into its gilded womb, or any rose
   Had hung with crimson lamps its little tree!
Methinks no leaf would ever bud in spring,
But for the lovers’ lips that kiss, the poets’ lips that sing.
 
 
Is the light vanished from our golden sun,
   Or is this dædal-fashioned earth less fair,
That we are nature’s heritors, and one
   With every pulse of life that beats the air?
Rather new suns across the sky shall pass,
New splendour come unto the flower, new glory to the grass.
 
 
And we two lovers shall not sit afar,
   Critics of nature, but the joyous sea
Shall be our raiment, and the bearded star
   Shoot arrows at our pleasure!  We shall be
Part of the mighty universal whole,
And through all æons mix and mingle with the Kosmic Soul!
 
 
We shall be notes in that great Symphony
   Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres,
And all the live World’s throbbing heart shall be
   One with our heart; the stealthy creeping years
Have lost their terrors now, we shall not die,
The Universe itself shall be our Immortality.