THE PASSING GOD

SONGS FOR LOVERS

BY

HARRY KEMP

Class. ____

Book-i

Copyrights.

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.

THE PASSING GOD

SONGS FOR LOVERS

OTHER BOOKS BY HARRT KEMP

THE CRY OF YOUTH. Verses (Kennerly) JUDAS. A Play (Kennerly) JOHN MERLIN, Poet. Forthcoming Autobio- graphic Novel (Bon i & Liver ight)

THE PASSING GOD

SONGS FOR LOVERS

BY

HARRY KEMP

AUTHOR OF "THE CRY OF YOUTH," " JUDAS," ETC.

With Introduction by

RICHARD LeGALLIENNE

NEW YORK

BRENTANO'S

MCMXIX

\

\

COPYRIGHTED, I 9 I Q, BY BRENTANO's

•«.*

THE-PLIMPTON-PRESS NOKWOOD-MASS-U'S-A

>CI.A52584l JUN 13 1919

-. ^ I

I

THIS BOOK I DEDICATE TO

MARY PYNE

I

N bringing out these poems in book-form, acknowledgments are due to the following magazines: McClure's, The Cosmopolitan, House and Garden, The Century, The Pictorial Review, Munseys, The Smart Set, Ainslee's, Smith's, The Masses, The Parisienne, Snappy Stories, Breezy Stories, Live Stories, The New Review, and The Quill; and, in England, The Daily Citizen.

LOVES DEMOCRACY

1 HERE is only one thing That Slave and King Share, beside Breath And a Common Death — Love, that comes With banners and drums, — Love, that goes As the wind blows!

CONTENTS

PAGE

Love's Democracy 9

Cresseid 25

Helen in Hades 55

Cleopatra, Dead 5^

Zenobia 57

Resurrection 5°

The Emperor to His Love 59

A Memory of a Former Life 6o

The Song of Rensi, Pharaoh's Lute-player .... 6i

Villon Sings 6*

Invocation "3

Love in Hell 64

There are Two Powers 65

The Few 66

The Wise Man Said 67

At Last I Know — 68

The Passing God 69

The Way 7°

The Red Rose Cried 7*

The Passing Flower 72

Eros Sings 73

Innumerability 74

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CONTENTS

Old-fashioned Flower-song 75

Mad-Men 76

Purity 77

Young Man's Song 78

When Silent is the Singer 79

A Cruel Thing 80

Why Should I Listen? 81

Greek Vintage Song 82

Admonition 83

The Reason 84

To Think That Somewhere 85

And Is It True? 86

A Queen Died, Long Ago 87

Hermitage 88

To Myrrha 89

To 90

Little Things 91

The Life of Love 92

No Qualms 93

You Love Me and I Am Afraid 94

Nightmare 95

Why Have You Come to Me ? 96

The Moth's Complaint [97

Old Song "98

To Passion 99

Consummation 100

Possession 101

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CONTENTS

O, Tell Me Not 102

A Dream of Inconstancy 103

When That Which Could Not Be 104

On Thoughts of Suicide 105

Retaliation 106

Variety 107

Fantasia 108

You 109

Love Me no

The Wind's Death in

Love-faith 112

Defeat 113

Alienation 114

I Thought That It Would Never Cease .... 115

The Return 116

Why Should We Strive? 117

The Irony 118

To Atthis y . . . . 119

The Rainbow V . . . 120

The Puzzle 121

The Lesson 122

I Promised In My Passion 123

Folly 124

Sun and Rain 125

Heart-break 126

Deluded 127

Adjuration 128

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CONTENTS

The Guestless Room 129

In Love Again 130

Dialogue 131

Without Inconstancy 132

I Held Love Usual 133

The Protean Heart 134

Love Pays 135

The Wheel 136

Ignorance 137

What Else to Do? 138

The Mistake 139

The Ghost 140

Haunted 141

Adam, to Eve 142

Your Absence 143

Your Handkerchief 144

The Tryst 145

Dreams 146

The Lover's Lie 147

Strange 148

The Leafless Bough 149

Dissipation 150

The Fountain 151

When I Am Dead 152

A Chant of Dead Lovers 153

No Refuge 154

The Mirrored Venus 155

A COMMENDATORY ADDRESS TO THE GENTLE READER

I cannot say whether or not Mr. Kemp has ever held up a train — though I should be very disappointed to learn authoratively that he has not. He has done so many arduous adventurous things of the kind — things that some of us dream of all our lives — that it must be merely an ac- cident if he has not been a train-robber as well. I have met many poets, but never, so far as I know, a train-robber; and I would gladly ex- change a baker's dozen of poets for one train- robber. A train-robber and a poet combined would, it seems to me, be something like a com- plete man. However, as I have said, Mr. Kemp, in his many manly activities, has come so near to my dream, that he quite sufficiently fills the bill.

The adventure by which he first caught the shaggy ear of the public was one of the most satisfying ever recorded of a poet. Several years ago, as his readers will recall, he stowed away on a vessel sailing to England. When, a day or two out at sea, he was brought up before the captain, after true stowaway procedure, he gave the

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unique excuse for his misdemeanor that he was a poet, anxious to visit the shrines of English poets dead and gone, but too poor to pay the passage for such a pilgrimage. The very origi- nality of his plea seems to have won him un- accustomed consideration, and, as he was a stalwart man of his hands there was no difficulty in making him a useful member of the crew. For him to "work his passage" was mere child's-play, just an additional part of the fun. His pluck won sympathy for his plight, and, though, on landing, it was impossible to save him altogether from a week or two in an English jail (to him merely another amusing detail), the spirit of his adventure seems to have appealed to the English magistracy, and he was eventually allowed to go his way, and fulfil his boyhood's dream of visiting Westminster Abbey, Stratford- on-Avon, the -Boar's Head in East-Cheap, "The Cheshire Cheese," and other such places sacred to the memory of that robust breed of English singers of the tribe of which he is authentically sealed.

Even had he been less real a poet than he is, that adventure must still have won our hearts. Placed, however, in connection with such strong and beautiful poetry as this volume contains, the

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incident has a complete fitness. It is harmoni- ously significant of one who is at once a man through and through, and a poet through and through — believe me, a far from usual com- bination. Mr. Kemp is now generally known, and referred to in the press, as "the tramp poet." It is a designation of which he may well be proud — whatever meaning may attach to it in the minds of those who have thus labelled him. I dwell a little upon this side of Mr. Kemp's career, because of the quite astonishing contrast — with which anyone who reads this volume cannot but immediately be surprised — between all that the term "tramp poet" connotes and the character and quality of the poems this volume contams.

Tramp-poetry one might not unnaturally ex- pect to be the unkempt rhymings, probably in vers libre, of some half-educated pretender, with far more tramp in it than poetry. But, curiously enough, the exact reverse is the truth; for here is poetry, highly wrought and polished, and, while vital with original human experience, in the direct tradition of the noblest, classic, English song. You will seek in vain for the tramp; but there is not a page on which you will not find the poet.

Yet, as I have already implied, Mr. Kemp has been as sincere in one character as in the other.

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He has come as fairly by the honourable title of "tramp," as he has come fairly by the perhaps no less honourable title of "poet." A word or two about his life will be relevant here. Mr. Kemp was born on December 15, 1883, at Youngstown, Ohio, his forbears on his father's side being "Penn- sylvania Dutch," and his mother being an English- woman. He left school at twelve years of age, and worked for several years in the Arlington celluloid factory. At sixteen, he ran away to sea, shipping as cattleman, on board a German ship, bound for Australia. Soon after he turned up in China, during the Boxer rebellion. Coming back to this country, he took a turn at High School, but soon resumed his chosen profession, his next tramp being through the Genessee Valley, with a copy of Christina Rossetti in his pocket. Three months in a Texas gaol, held over on the subtle charge of burglary, was Mr. Kemp's next experience, but the Grand Jury failed to find a true bill against our poet; so he was set free to drop in for a while at Elbert Hubbard's Roycroft Shop, in East Aurora. Thence he wandered to the Mount Hermon Pre- paratory School in Massachusetts, afterwards tramping to Lawrence, Kansas, where he stayed some time, taking courses at the State University. Finally, a trip on a cattle train brought him

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East, where for the most part, he has since re- mained.

This brief chronicle should also include farm work in various states, and a number of brief terms in gaol — for vagrancy. Mr. Kemp has also worked as porter, a sort of third cook, on the Great Lakes.

Such was the fulness, variety, and originality of Mr. Kemp's training for that "high calling" of poet, which, as Milton has admonished us, no man should strive after, without having first made his life a true poem; a reference which not irrelevantly recalls another noble phrase of Mil- ton's, that in regard to "the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat." Milton was referring to the Christian's race for a heavenly crown, but we may apply his phrase to the race for the immortal garland of the Muses; and affirm that no poet of our time has run for it through so stern and steadfast a course, certainly "not without dust and heat," as Mr. Kemp.

During all these goings to and fro upon the earth, and manful grappling with the human lot in so many grim and dreary, if adventurous, ways, he found time to teach himself Greek, and to be- come an accomplished Latinist; reading every-

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thing there was to be read, and especially plung- ing with passionate absorption into the study of the great English poets. These have been his constant masters and influences. But he has read all the lesser ones too. In fact, no poetry ever written anywhere seems to have escaped him. With him, as with Keats, poetry has been the one passion of his life. Poetry . . . and, of course, the beautiful faces of women, as this book sup- plies plentiful documentary evidence. That goes without saying; for the loving of women — per- haps many women — is, of course, a part of the process of poetry — that part which consists of the continual breaking and mending and breaking again of the poet's heart, in the ordeal of beauty. It is one of the most heart-breaking of old love-stories that Mr. Kemp chooses to tell again in his opening poem, Cresseid, and I think that I shall not be singular among his readers in having felt an instant thrill of gratitude to him for his having gone back to the great school of Chaucer for the manner of its telling. How good to see a modern poet writing "after the mediaeval Scotch of Robert Henryson.,, It seems years since one heard the mention of that sturdy name. And with what strength and skill and dramatic force Mr. Kemp handles the fine old metre, preserving too

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all that curious sad sweetness that clings about the strong old "English undefined" — ex forte duke do.

By itself, Cresseid is enough to give distinction to this volume, and at once to win for Mr. Kemp a high place among modern poets, as a poet who is an artist too; though, properly speaking, one should not make any such distinction, for, ex- cept in rare cases — such as Blake — a poet must be an artist to be a poet at all.

But there is a great deal more in this volume than Cresseid, and the lyrics and "epigrams" which form its bulk, making a sort of lover's confessional, are no less artistically wrought than they are spontaneously inspired. It is an en- viably fortunate title Mr. Kemp gives to them, and significant of his philosophy as "love's pil- grim"— The Passing God: the god that touches our hearts, either to fleeting or enduring joy (it matters not which) and passes on his way. These poems are in many moods and many manners. The marmoreal influence of his Greek and Latin studies is apparent in them all, for they all com- bine a firm simplicity of contour with a thrill of apparently unsought beauty. Sometimes, too, they recall the seemingly flower-like carelessness of the Restoration lyrists. Through all, too,

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there breathes the fragrance of romance, like that of the hidden arbutus in the spring woods.

One day, Mr. Kemp and I were talking, among other matters, of the poetry of Mr. William Wat- son, and, after I had quoted some of the incom- parable stanzas of " Wordsworth's Grave," Mr. Kemp made what struck me as being a very illuminative comment: to the effect that in Mr. Watson's poetry, at its best, there was an in- teresting fusion of the methods of Pope and Keats — eighteenth-century precision, with something of the sensuous glamour "the wizard twilight," that characterised the romanticist revolt of the early nineteenth century. Mr. Kemp held that in that revolt, and its succeeding developments, we had gone too far in the other direction, and that there was a good deal worth saving in the eighteenth-century method. In this I quite agree with him, and his own poetry points his own moral. After all, it is vain to try and get away from Milton's "simple, sensuous, and passionate." Nor has there ever been any need to, nor will there ever be. Because poetry can be too clear, and too precise, is no reason for our going to the other extreme of esoteric incomprehensibility. Poetry may be perfectly clear and comprehensible, and yet glow with that light that never was on

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sea or land. It is always so with the best poetry. Meaning and magic are not necessarily incom- patible; and I trust — though I have my fears — that it will not be held against Mr. Kemp that his songs always have a meaning, are always (horribile dictu!) "interesting," in spite of their being suggestive beyond their themes, with those undertones and overtones without which poetry cannot exist. Those who seek vague, mystical, symbolical, mathematical, or "colourful" verbiage must go elsewhere. It is to be had by the ton, for the asking. All Mr. Kemp can bring to the reader is beautiful, simple and passionate singing, the expression and interpretation of his own ad- ventures with love and beauty, the wonder, the heartache, the gaiety, the whimsical cynicism, the wayward philosophies, that in a rich "pic- aresque" nature belong to such experience. In a sub-title he calls his book "Songs for Lovers." Lovers will certainly love this book, for there is scarce a mood of loving, a joy, a fear, a bliss, a torture, or a whimsy, which does not here find expression, by one who is not merely a good poet, but an engagingly human being, with a wise, laughing eye on himself, but at the same time an indestructible faith in the folly of loving.

Richard Le Gallienne

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CRESSEID

A NARRATIVE POEM INSPIRED BY THE MEDIEVAL SCOTCH OF ROBERT HENRTSON

Dedicated to my father-in-law, John Pyne, as a slight return for his encouragement and appreciation during the writing of this narrative

PROEM

A

DOLEFUL season suits a doleful tale, And so it was when I began to write This tragedy. From the North showers of hail Drove downward in grey clouds of sidelong flight, Bouncing and roaring on my roof at night And smoking o'er the heather in dim day. . . . / scarce could drive the bitter cold away.

ii

Yet, none the less, within my little room

I stood when the pale sun had dropped from eye

And Venus throbbed all golden in the gloom

Girdled with light and immortality, —

A dying rose still lingered in the sky.

While she, like a young moon, in beauty shone.

And for the moment held the dark alone.

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CRESSEID

in

Her beams poured through the glass so clear and fair

That I might see the wind had purified,

Bleak from the North, the crystal-washing air,

And packed the clouds away on every side;

The white frost crisped and sparkled far and wide;

The blasts in gusts came whistling sharp and chill

And made me draw away against my will.

IV

For I held trust that she of love the queen,

To whom I'd rendered true obedience,

Would make my faded heart again sprout green, —

And, thereupon, in humble reverence,

I thought to pray her high magnificence —

But the wide cold put frost to my desire,

And I removed, and shook before my fire;

I blew it up into a roaring flame And in its light I turned myself about, Brewed a hot draught, drew comfort from the same. So, having put the sharp-breathed cold to rout, I fetched my Master Chaucer's volume out And wore the night till dawn reading the tale Of Troilus' love for Cresseid, and their bale.

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CRESSEID

VI

But naught I saw therein of how fate sent

One touch of blackness into Cresseid's life,

Till on another book my gaze I bent,

In which I found how this fair, wanton wife,

After the Greeks had left their ten years' strife,

Was brought low like the dust that strews the street,

That even slaves tread under with their feet. . . .

VII

Which I shall make in English as I may

In language oaken-rough, but flowered at times.

I would not pack the Summer in one day;

Let others jingle on in jeweled rhymes

Laid dazzling-thick, — the singer's chief of crimes:

To make Apollo all his trappings wear

In twenty suits at once — he's brighter bare!

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CRESSEID

W

HEN Diomed had cloyed his appetite On Cresseid's body, like the wind he blew Another course. He set his whole delight Upon another, and no longer knew Cresseid, though she was fair as flower with

dew. . . . And desolate she wandered up and down, And joined, some say, the women of the town.

II

Thrust from the high-arched doorway of his house, Full oft she went in lack of daily bread Despite her body small and amorous — For all the townsmen stood in face-blanched

dread Of him to whom she once unveiled her head. Oft then in dreams she turned to Troy again Where she was royal and had serving men.

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CRESSEID

in And in short space so waste her days became From lack of friends and comfort, that she went Out at the city gates, this lovely dame, Disguised, and to her father, Chalcas, sent Ahead. And so made speed incontinent When dusk had cloaked the world and day hung

dim . . . She fell along the earth and wept by him ....

IV

Old Chalcas, captive, served at Venus' shrine And her son Cupid's, and the temple kept.

Each eve he waked the lamps like stars in line

To Cupid's altar every morning crept

Cresseid, close-cloaked, and loosed her hair, and

wept, Heart-shaken, ere up marble-vistaed stairs Came slow-processioned folk in solemn pairs.

For she would not that any one might see Her fall from the high place she held of late. . . There, kneeling in close-curtained orat'ry, From day to day bewailing her sad fate, She prayed to Him who left her desolate,

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CRESSEID

Cupid, whom she had served from that first hour That her sweet bud of life burst into flower.

VI

Now held of vilest worth on lips of men, To Troilus lost, by Diomed put by, Become a tale that old wives tell again With nodded head and close, lascivious eye, What was there left for Cresseid but to die? A darker end — that she should live and be A rose where death held secret revelry!

VII

A rose, which, leaf by leaf, must fall away While the worm trailed its blackness to the core; Gnawed into piecemeal, yellowed by decay, To gradual pollution given o'er Till sucked-out emptiness held nothing more, Till plague spread wing and buzzed and passed

her by, And Death, strange-pitying, gave her leave to die!

VIII

Such was the fate of Cresseid. In the glass She glimpsed the grey pits hollowing her face:

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CRESSEID

First, hints of ruin like light clouds did pass, Then slowly each root pushed into its place Till the foul growth had clutched in its embrace All that men's roving eyes approve as good In the prized comeliness of womanhood.

IX

And Cresseid cursed the coming of the flowers

And the soft, infinite falling of the rain.

And Cresseid cursed the heavy-footed hours,

Slow-crawling hosts o'er Time's unending plain. .

She cursed all life, all pity, and all pain,

All hope and joy — but over and above

She cursed her death-in-life, the god of love!

She sent her little, timid-footed Page

With tangled golden hair and eyes of blue,

Unto her father, laying on his age

A deeper burden than the eye can view. . . .

"Father, I ask but one small boon of you, —

Give me a little brazen gong to beat

With leper folk to get my bread and meat."

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XI

Her father came, with that, and kneeling low,

He sought to lift her, but away she thrust

His ancient arms, then, bitter-tongued from woe,

"Oh, that I serve a god who is unjust,"

He cried, " For now life holds but little lust. . . .

Thou God of Love, full true they call thee blind,

Only one sightless could be so unkind!"

XII

"Father," wept Cresseid, "Nothing may be

done; Let me go forth in darkness and unknown, Cloaked from men's eyes and the too-curious

sun. . . . Give me a beggar's hat, a beggar's gown. . . . I must go forth to live in lepers' town . . . For ail the joy of life has gone from me!" "Thou cruel god," he groaned, "who cannot see!"

XIII

Time must forever onward run, no turn May eddy backward in his flowing stream; Tears, falling for old sorrows, cease to burn, And life itself becomes a passing dream, So that what things are real and what seem

CRESSEID

Together in a tangled garden grow, —

And ghosts, a-stray, in ghostly realms we go.

XIV

The Past, the Present, and the Future fold One Thing, and though we call it " life," who knows What in wise hands Eternity may hold, — What sweet, immortal balm for mortal woes! . . . But Time, at last, that ever onward flows, Will carry us to where we'll know full well — What none of us will e'er return to tell. . . .

xv

Having wept dry the sources of her tears, Cresseid arose and bowed her soul to fate, A broken thing that all the breaking years Could into nothing worse disintegrate. . . . She crept forth at a secret postern gate, Unknown, unseen, and loathing to be seen Who once had walked abroad as beauty's queen.

XVI

Where whispered sedge by barren waters thinned And sudden snakes slid rustling out of view, Near a wide marsh, dry-bitten by the wind, With tardy piety, as rich men do, In fear for huge, ill-gotten revenue,

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CRESSEID

Or in repentance for his youth's carouse, A certain man had built the lazar house.

XVII

With ignorant trust to purchase Christ from

God. . . . Bleak as the grey-washed sea this hospital! Abhorrence, skirting far, the sky's edge trod. As in the dark men press a friendly wall. . . . So there the lepers' wail, the sea-birds' call And winds and waves were all that silence heard Save when some sliding snake the sedges stirred.

XVIII

The clouted lepers found last refuge there As all the Dead at last must seek the grave. The huge catastrophe of one despair From which no mortal medicine can save A common lack of hope unto them gave From day to day respiring briefer breath In sad democracy of living death.

XIX

As from a tomb, each morn they issued out To squat in rags against the city gates,

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CRESSEID

Exposing ulcered stump and ugly clout

And begging scarce-flung coins, contemptuous

cates, And bowing in return their scurfy pates To call God's eyes upon the giver's soul For meager alms dropped into wooden bowl. . . .

xx

Yet, if the Dead in graves were live, not dead,

Or lay in living death bound side by side,

Then even they would grow accustomed

(As bride to feel the bridegroom at her side)

Unto that sad existence coffin-wide, —

Would learn as commonplace the caverned dark

And live strange death with none but God to mark.

XXI

The lepers lived and bred like other men. . . . After the strangeness dwindled in their hearts. From very humanness, they turned again (If not to common trades and common arts And tilling fields and chaffering goods in marts) To pride they turned, and hate, and love, and

lust, And all that shakes the heart till it be dust. . . .

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CRESSEID

XXII

Her cheerless way along the alien sand Cresseid now stole — Terror and she alone — But no, — her Memory waved its cursed wand, And kings she saw that sat on throne on throne With queens close by (it made her spirit groan) And lords and ladies thriving merrily — And she was lonelier for such company.

XXIII

No noise was needed at the lazar door, Nor timid knock nor volley loud and bold, — The harsh bolt is no brother to the Poor And careful lock securing stolen gold. . . . But these poor folk had even less to hold, And so their house lay open like a street Where only winds crept up on timid feet. . . .

XXIV

Where none but winds and creeping lazars went. . Here Cresseid faltered at the outer post, And, after God's eternity seemed spent, She moved like one attended by a ghost (Perhaps but vanguard to a monstrous host) Not daring lift her eyes or turn her head — Into the hostel of the Living Dead. . . .

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CRESSEID

XXV

Into the hostel of the Dead she passed

As a sick animal creeps forth to die

That Nature tells which hour must be its last. . .

But first she raised her wrecked face to the sky

And prayed that her few days might hasten by,

That her shamed soul might go its silent way

And not behold her body's slow decay

XXVI

And now she dared to let her fearful eyes Glimpse slowly round — as in a dungeon's dark The dazed culprit's gradual vision spies With gaze accustomed, every woeful mark Set in the stones by some imprisoned clerk Who traced sad verses ere his hand forebore And the sharp axe set wide his prison door. . . .

XXVII

Scattered like rocks that break a level sea The lepers gathered semblance in her gaze. Yon, — Christ have mercy, — quavering merrily, One sang falsetto of green-shadowed ways And made a ballad in his lady's praise. — Sad seemed his gladness, to seem doubly saJ When witless laughter spake a mind run mad.

CRESSEID

XXVIII

Wild came that laughter as a voice in air That frights a wanderer in a haunted land, Floating about his ears, now here, now there, Till, with uplifted staff he makes his stand But only strikes the void on every hand, — Then hastens with his cloak about his ears More fearful since he knows not what he fears.

XXIX

Some played at dice, some chattered, some were

still, While others wrapped new clouts about old

sores, — For all held death to be the greater ill, And so they bided there on rush-strewn floors. The house of life possesses many doors : The grave holds only one, so strangely stout All must go in, but none may wander out.

xxx

All her glad days at last seemed strangely far, And time was fledged with paradise no more, And love, that lights the mind up like a star, To lay assaults against her heart forebore. She felt content with rushes on the floor . . .

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CRESSEID

Then in a trice she woke to life, and cried Aloud, for Horror squatted at her side.

XXXI

It was a man, It said It called her " Fair.

"Cresseid," she heard the word endearing come, As if an echo got birth from the air: The gaping thing could not be else but dumb, . . . And now it put a hand that was all thumb Against her breasts, and cried again aloud — This naked body ready for its shroud.

XXXII

"Cresseid, I know you well,,, the creature said, — "Right welcome are you to our burial ground, For still love stirs among the Living Dead." Cresseid for terror could not make a sound As with that wide-eyed nightmare she sat

bound. ... Her voice rushed forth at last, "You loathly jest Upon mankind — the Dead at least know rest

XXXIII

You are so old you have forgot to die!" "Nay, I am young as you, if you but knew!" "Then life itself has given you the lie!" "Yea — the same lie that it has given you!"

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CRESSEID

"Your eyes are sockets, and your flesh is blue. . . ." "Yet I was Phidion ... a year ago Cresseid had never thought to use me so. . . .

XXXIV

No longer sunrise widens into day,

Nor from great windows can I watch the dawn, —

Darkness has swept the happy stars away,

And into blackness has the bright world gone —

And yet I guess that beauty has withdrawn

In ebb of loveliness from your drear face

And body that once filled a king's embrace. . . .

xxxv

Since we are equals thus — why not in love? . . . You knew me comely once, as you were fair. Why tremble, sweetheart, like a captured dove! My foot was joyful once upon your stair; Your eager fingers once went through my hair!" "Away, foul toad — God, that I could not see! You fright to life all I thought dead in me." . . .

XXXVI

"Aye me, aye me!" she wailed, when Phidion

went, "From its fresh grave arises my distress. To lazar ways my soul had grown content;

CRESSEID

But now a solitary hut I'd bless

Set amid silence in a wilderness."

An aged leper crone who crouched nearby

Lifted her ancient voice and croaked reply.

XXXVII

"Give heed to one who would advise you well: It profits nothing, lady, thus to plain. Since in this hospital you still must dwell Till death prove kind, there is no hope to gain. . . So take your bowl and clapper, and be fain To use your shoulders to the galling yoke And go and beg your bread with leper folk."

XXXVIII

After that Troy had bowed her heights to flame That those cloud-envied tops forevermore Might build themselves into eternal fame, — Some few in scattered bands escaped that shore Whom blowing winds and flowing waters bore To other lands. . . . Troilus was one of these He shook the islands with wild piracies

XXXIX

And up the inlets rowed and struck the land, Taking their sleeping strongholds unaware,

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CRESSEID

Becoming to the Greeks a blazing brand And to their chiefs a symbol of despair — Revenge for fallen Troy his only prayer Which at the altars of the gods he made — But aye he thought of Cresseid as he prayed.

XL

And now he paced with his bright-armoured tread That land to his long-dreamed revenge so dear, The kingdom of adulterous Diomed. . . . His heart rejoiced because his foe was near. . . . His great arm trembled as he took his spear Longing to drive it through the man he sought And slaying him a hundred times in thought.

XLI

They were too few embattled siege to keep

Or under day to dare unequal fight,

And so they gave the Watch eternal sleep

And forced the palace gates at deepest night:

And some they slew in half-arisen flight,

And some, in sleep . . . 'mongst whom their

headless Lord Sprawled, clutching in his hand his half-sheathed

sword.

C423

CRESSEID

XLII

Then with closed visors toward their ship they

fled, Troilus and all his men, ere day made known To twenty thousand swords their deed of dread — But night into the morn so swift had grown That unexpected dawn anon has shown His peering face with one star at his brow, — And all the little birds are singing now.

XLIII

The little birds are singing . . . fluting low In leafy underbrush, concealed from eye, Among the fruit trees ranged in ordered row, On trees whose tops seemed tangled with the

sky; — And, from the meadow grass, sprung up on high, The lark in golden music disappears Lost to the eye, but charming mortal ears.

XLIV

The laughter of the sunlight in the leaves Grew brighter as a wind blew in from dawn, — And golden-flashing shone the warriors' greaves, And diamond-woven each habergeon. . . . They rode a-breast in flowing unison

C433

CRESSEID

As light as swallows gliding on the wing — For they had stol'n the horses of the king

XLV

And surely they rejoiced to feel again

Those steeds, beneath, responsive to the rein, —

For, from their youth, they'd been good riding

men, And oft their hearts had rushed through every

vein With thunder-beating hoofs and flying mane. . . . Reluctant, they beheld the sea a-far Like the great body of a shattered star.

XLVI

And now they sped where the wide-elbowed road Lapsed 'round, and straight ahead the ocean

swept; Brimming the sky the mighty waters flowed. . . . For league on league the foamy breakers crept To show how that their Father never slept, Deep in his heart, but ever dreamed of storm As in the Vast he couched his giant form.

XLVII

The lazar house bestirred itself that morn When the first shaft of day had put to flight

CRESSEID

The last dim star . . . and Cresseid rose forlorn Knowing she must go forth in beggar's plight. To see those lepers was a monstrous sight As o'er the sands they crept like hideous spawn And nameless live things left by tides withdrawn

XLVIII

The Trojans saw them moving, small and far,

Like flights of birds that hang against the sky, —

And Troilus cried, "I swear by Venus' Star

And Father Ocean's million progeny,

A moving host I see approaching nigh —

But not a shield they bear to flash the sun

Nor any piece of armour warriors don."

XLIX

"Lass, follow me, and do what things I bid," The aged leper crone to Cresseid spake. "Keep not your face in shameful mantle hid — Thus you may sooner people's pity wake. . . . And you must seem in every limb to quake. . . Behold, there winds around yon Western hill Folk who will put to test your learner's skill."

C45]

CRESSEID

L

The knights drew near. . . . their dancing scab- bards clanked Against their thighs ... a faltering land wind

bore Their laughter and their voices. . . . triple-ranked They gained the waste that spread its level floor From distant hills to distant sea . . . and more Cresseid nor saw nor heard : they used the tongue Of Troy — her being with its music rung,

LI

And tears ran down her aged-seeming face. . . . Yet, lest she should be known, she bided mute, — Or made some sounds in Greek in that wide place, Which, though it be to all the world a lute, To her seemed better fitted for the brute Beside the perfect speech she knew in Troy Where every Hour was born a child of joy.

LII

She lifted up her bowl and cried, "Good sirs! . . . Have pity!" Then her voice no more could

tell — A motion comes upon her which bestirs Her sleeping nature to its inmost cell —

U63

CRESSEID

A shadowy dread athwart her sunlight fell

As of an obscure ill she knew before

Or lived, or dreamed, on some forgotten shore.

LIII

Life was so strange it might be all a dream. . . .

She hardly knew if she were live or dead.

What things had really been, and what did

seem? . . . As Troilus passed he moved disquieted And unnamed sorrows through his being sped. . . . Why should this hag quicken dead worlds in him Making his hands shake and his eye grow dim?

LIV

Cresseid! . . . Ah God, and where was Cresseid

now? He wore her ring upon his finger yet. Why should this creature with her roughened

brow Bring to his memory one he should forget, The still-belov'd, who shamed his love, and set His fame on high to be perpetual scorn So that he loathed the day that he was born?

C473

CRESSEID

LV

Before he guessed it, his great hand had clasped His bag of spoil; he reined his horse in flight, Checking the foaming bridle golden-hasped, And showered, in a cataract of light, Jewel on jewel, pillaged that same night From the wide-plundered palace of the king — And, at the last, he cast thereto his ring:

LVI

He would forget that he had ever known Falseness so fair, and love so full of hate; Not even to the memory that had grown Within him, would he be compassionate: He would be stronger, if he must, than fate. . . . Where was his warrior heart, his warrior pride? Why should he longer keep a ghost to bride?

LVII

He laughed out like a sick man who grows glad

Before he dies, mistaking death for life:

His fellow raiders thought their chief gone mad :

They gathered almost into open strife —

One laid his hand along his ready knife

At seeing riches garnered with such pain

Dropped into beggar's lap like careless rain.

CRESSEID

LVIII

But "Onward !" Troilus spake — and they

obeyed, Though murmuring thunder half-aroused to

storm. . . . His eyes like lightning through his morion played, And a god seemed to swell within his form. . . . His warriors feared, though suckled on alarm Before they left their mothers' breasts . . . they

bent Seaward again, with his strong will content.

LIX

"Ah!" cried the lepers, gathering fast around,

As flies about a flagon overturned,

"Good hap, a pretty gentleman youVe found

Whom in the olden days your beauty spurned

Till like a windy torch desire burned

Within him for your tender body's touch! . . .

He loved you well, for he has given much! —

LX

More than we lepers ever got or will. . . . Now we'll be rich for many days of ease: We'll fill our casks with wine and eat our fill." Cresseid half-rose upon her gnarled knees.

U93

CRESSEID

Her soul at last was sick with death's disease. "Go . . . run ... go ... see .. . if it be he!"

she said, "Go ... I will give you all . . . when I am

dead."

LXI

One who was whole but for a lion's face, Except he squeaked whereas a lion roared, Leaped, gossip-eager, from his squatting-place, And set off running, shrilling loud, "Great Lord, Grant us, we beg of you, one passing word. . . . Whoe'er you are, pray tell us — we would know His mighty name who loves poor lepers so!"

LXII

Then cried a lad who galloped in the rear,

"Go back and tell them, Troilus is his name,

One who has never seen the front of fear,

One who will sit upon the head of fame

Till the world tumbles headlong whence it came

And chaos sprawl athwart the sky in peace, . . .

Troilus, who lives to pluck the beard of Greece!"

LXIII

"Troilus, that mighty man!" the old wife cried — "His tale has been a proverb many a year. . . .

£50]

CRESSEID

'The Story Of The Trojan and His Bride'

Has gone abroad that every man may hear. . . .

So it is false . . . and YOU have been his

dear? . . . The ballad has it that he still keeps true. . . . I knew he'd do the same that all men do,

LXIV

For troth has never yet been kept by man!" But Cresseid heard no word the lepers spake. Once more through diamond-scattered dews she

ran, A girl, while dawn shed flake on golden flake Of glory over waves that rose to take The morning to them . . . and, afar, she heard The God of Love himself, cry out One Word.

LXV

"Love, wait for me," she called, "I come to thee,"

And she grew into Woman as she ran:

And still Love cried from blue immensity. . . .

Seeking to gain a god, she got a man,

Troilus . . . and then a-new the quest began:

Love calling, calling ever from the void,

Ever ahead, and never yet enjoyed !

CRESSEID

LXVI

Then Diomed caught her up and cast her by, And Phidion with lute and garland strove To prove himself the sought divinity. . . . And others mocked her in the name of Love, One after one, — a wine-flushed, singing drove! . . . A wand was waved . . . they turned to fleeing

swine. . . . She closed her eyes: still called that Voice Divine!

LXVII

"Ah, Love, where art thou . . . bide for me,

I pray!" Her feet went swift on clouds that flowed and

flowed. . . . "Love, I have sought thee now for many a

day; I have gone down full many a beckoning road; My eyes have scattered stars, my breasts have

glowed, Thinking that thou wert close . . . but thou

wert gone. . . . Make day for me with thy immortal dawn! . . .

C523

CRESSEID

LXVIII

Phidion!" she shrieked . . . she saw his loath- some face Changed from the comeliness it once had been. . . . And then another presence took its place, — A Presence that she felt, that stayed unseen. . . . The absence of all shadow dropped between. . . . She covered eyes, and, waiting, stayed her breath. She need not look — she knew that it was Death.

LXIX

Then, like the sound of many melodies

From many lutes, each word soared forth, a star:

"Rise, Sweetheart, rise! nor bruise those dimpled

knees, Which should be only pressed against a flower, On the harsh earth forevermore! There are Dreams within dreams — and life of these is

one!" And glory dawned about her like the sun. . . .

LXX

" Death — thou?" "Yea,!!" " Fore'er wilt thou

be true And strong enough to hold me evermore ? " "Yea, — for as infinite as heaven's blue,

C53 3

CRESSEID

And like a sea that never had a shore,

I will embrace thee!" "I have suffered sore,

Sweet Death . . . how beautiful and great

thou art ! Be good to me ... for I am thine . . . sweet- heart!"

LXXI

The lepers wrangled long above the gems While the strange-speaking woman now lay cold — Pearls that were kingdoms set in diadems, And precious stones that shone in baser gold . . Then, when a just division had been told, They took up Cresseid and they laid her low, — Burying her where none may ever know.

C54]

HELEN IN HADES

A

LL that I sought was peace and happiness, But there was something fatal in my eyes And maddening in my mouth; Men grew unwise And crazed, beholding me, and Law was less Than their desire; one vagrant, windy tress, Or my unguarded bosom's rich surprise Filled each man's heart with visions and vain

cries And his arms rose in dreams for my caress.

Yea, I saw neither happiness nor peace But hungry faces bright as swords and spears; I was the White, Unwilling Storm of Greece; Tumult tossed round me, rising with the years . What was that pale boy's name the gossips set By mine ? ... we dead so easily forget !

tssl

CLEOPATRA, DEAD

D

EATH, hast thou felt the thrill of her soft

hand And let in love to thy forbidden land ? Ah, if thou hast, the Queen has conquered thee And tipped thy darts with immortality!

CS6]

ZENOBIA

±_^jO, Caesar's legioned army, victor-led,

A sight to glad and pride the Roman eye:

Wrinkled and monster elephants sweep by

Making the earth to quake beneath their tread;

Caesar himself, with laurel on his head,

Rides next, and all his banners flaunt the sky.

But now the eager concourse gapes and hums, For She who makes the triumph-march complete, Zenobia, naked and imperial, comes, With gold chains chiming from her hands and

feet — Her kingdoms overthrown, herself a prize, Yet no capitulation in her eyes.

C57 3

RESURRECTION

i

HOPE there is a resurrection day For bodies, as the grey-beard prophets say, When Helen's naked limbs again will gleam Regathered from the dust of death's long dream, And all the olden beauties, being fair, Will take the watching angels unaware And make God's heavenly meadows doubly sweet With rosy vagrancy of little feet.

C58 3

THE EMPEROR TO HIS LOVE

i

'VE a green garden with a grey wall 'round Where even the wind's footfall makes no sound; There let us go and from ambition flee, Accepting love's brief immortality. Let other rulers hugely labour still Beneath the burden of ambition's ill Like caryatids heaving up the strain Of mammoth chambers, till they stoop again. . . Your face has changed my days to splendid

dreams And baubled trumpets, traffics, and triremes: One swift touch of your passion-parted lips Is worth five armies and ten seas of ships.

C59 3

A MEMORY OF A FORMER LIFE

o

N a raft of reeds

Where Nineveh's walls looked down I lived with a fisher-girl Whose teeth were white as pearl

Whose body was berry-brown.

But how many children we had That's what I do not know — I've died so many times And written so many rhymes And that was so long ago!

ceo]

THE SONG OF RENSI, PHARAOH'S LUTE-PLAYER

K

ING PHRA had twenty dancing girls And I, his slave, had none: I used to watch their shining limbs That glimmered in the sun.

King Phra had twenty dancing girls

That glided to my lute, And every way they moved their limbs

I made a sound to suit.

King Phra had twenty dancing girls Whose feet were wandering stars

Whose blossomed breasts were circled round With bright vermillion bars.

King Phra had twenty dancing girls:

His wisdom oft I sung . . . But I was wiser than the king

Because I held my tongue.

King Phra had twenty dancing girls —

And he was old and grey, — And age and power are made a jest

When youth sings down the way!

C6i]

VILLON SINGS

W

ANDERING along the king's highway, The ladies all to me were kind; 'T is word enough to say that I

Was neither halt, nor maim, nor blind.

The little birds they sang for me,

The budding hedgerow flowers were seen

In red and white and purple mists,

And there were herds in fields of green.

The world was mine and life was mine, My heart sang like bird-filled tree,

So myriad-full of love, the King,

Who rode by, looked, and envied me.

C623

INVOCATION

B

RING me my slender reeds to blow upon, A lay I'll make, of perfect songs the king,

Which white-armed girls with soft, warm throats will sing To ease their hearts with, when I'm dead and gone.

C63n

LOVE IN HELL

I

N the storms which beat on the shores of hell Great devil-bats go flapping by, And boulderlike hailstones hiss through the air And tear the naked sky.

'Round black promontories the loud winds flare, On which, like a stream of living leaves,

Phantom lovers rustle and sigh

Innumerably.

C64]

THERE ARE TWO POWERS

T

HERE are two powers that hold me with a

vow, There are two spirits that compel my knee To bend before their sought divinity: One is to me the blossom on the bough Of an else barren life; one, even now, Is the last recompense of God to me, — And both are as two ships hailed far at sea By wreck-cast men with hands strained hard at

brow.

So, hour by holy hour, and day by day, And all night long I kneel before the shrine Of each divinity, and, kneeling, pray; And, though I die, — immortal, they are mine: Beauty, bewildering me with many flowers, And Love, that makes eternal, life's few hours!

Wl

THE FEW

T,

HERE are few who dare to climb The mountain-tops Where the great, blue sky begins And all space stops,

Where the winds of Being blow

And wings lift free Against audacious stars

That kiss infinitely.

166^

THE WISE MAN SAID

1_-^0VE is a plague that brings no rest To maddened brain and fevered breast, — Rather than love I would be dead, Twere peace, at least," the Wise Man said,

"Is love, then, the worst ill that Man Can suffer under fate's harsh plan?" I asked, "Ah, no, — a greater ill Exists, to which this evil still Seems happiness — 'Tis not to be In love!" the Wise Man answered me.

Zfyl

AT LAST I KNOW

l\.T last I know a woman's mind !

There is no power, here or above, Can make her see — if she be blind,

Or make her hate — if she but love.

And if she will — why then she will, And if she will not, what can bind ?

Much like a man I find her still. . . . At last I know a woman's mind!

C68]

THE PASSING GOD

H

E who has loved for one immortal hour Nor asked the god what lay beyond his power, Has won a thing past all computed gain — A mood that casts up pearls as thick as rain; He has soared forth beyond his fellow men And been some other bright star's citizen . . . For Love moves not with ledgers in his mind; The little god is naked, mad, and blind; He is no smiting whip, no breaking rod — He's a brief-granted, flower-glimpse of God!

C693

THE WAY

T.

O get Love, one must come on it unsought, The ripe fruit falls when mellow, not before: For it cannot be stolen, begged, or bought Without some taste of greenness at the core.

C?o]

THE RED ROSE CRIED

V>/ COME to me, my Love," the red rose cried; "I fear your thorns," the nightingale replied. . . .

"My thorns are only deadly for my foes To keep myself for you," replied the rose.

C70

THE PASSING FLOWER

i

N Baalbec there were lovers Who plucked the passing flower; In Sidon and Palmyra

Each flushed, immortal hour

Was gathered in the passing;

In Greece and Rome they knew That from the living Present

The whitest blossoms grew.

The countless generations Like Autumn leaves go by:

Love only is eternal,

Love only does not die. . . .

I hear the dying nations Go by on phantom feet —

But still the rose is fragrant, And still a kiss is sweet!

L721

EROS SINGS

T,

HOUGH death still rages (Still, as of old), I have scattered his pages With dust of gold.

Though the great, dark wing of him

Shadow Man's bliss, I have drawn the sting of him

With a kiss.

l73l

INNUMERABILITY

o

NE kiss! . . . one kiss is not enough Suppose the sea should say Unto the shore — "IVe sent one wave, — That's all you'll get to-day!"

C74]

OLD-FASHIONED FLOWER-SONG

r OR dawn, a waiting hush of skies, For trees, a wind that blows,

For clouds, the color-making sun, — And for my Love, a rose !

For him who dreams, a quiet nook

Wherein a fire glows, For him who rides, an open way, —

And for my Love, a rose !

A hand-clasp for a world chance-met, And hate for hate, for foes,

An easy pipe and glass for friends, — And for my Love, a rose !

C75 3

MAD-MEN

D

EAR, it is good that lovers should go mad, — The world swings else to so well-ordered law That God must find some way to strike with awe Its multitudes. The West, in sunsets clad, The East, in morning, — once a power these had Over the souls of men . . . but now they draw Their vestitures in vain . . . once men's eyes

saw The naked moon, and beauty made them glad.

But now how few there are whom starlight moves: So, mid the gold-struck peoples, it behooves Life's purpose well that mad-men here and there Should rise among them, testifying this: That solid things are bubbles hung in air When Love can capture heaven with a kiss.

C76 3

PURITY

B

E pure, sweetheart, but not like snow Which soon its whiteness must forego — Be fierce and pure as fire may be Which burns away impurity.

l77l

YOUNG MAN'S SONG

o

TIME has lightning in its wing, And pleasure is a fragile thing That b-reaks in clutching; beauty's face Carries a skull behind its grace: Then where's a better reason why I should love beauty ere it die, Lift brighter torches in the night And seize on joy in time's despite?

C7S3

WHEN SILENT IS THE SINGER

W

HEN silent is the singer And broken is the lute Say not the song was nothing And vain the far pursuit;

When love's brief rose has faded Say never "it was naught!" —

Say rather that each moment Was worth the joy it brought!

C79]

A CRUEL THING

fOVE is a cruel thing And jesting is his trade: My sweetheart loves another man. And he, another maid. . . .

And yet there is a way

To thwart his wanton will —

'Tis not to be in love at all: And that is crueller still.

C80]

WHY SHOULD I LISTEN?

w

HY should I listen to the Wise Though every word they say is true ? . . I grant that Love is king of lies, And that his greatest lie is — you!

The old men lift their warning hands,

They move their mouths and tell of shame

Yet there's not one but understands If he were young he'd do the same.

In vain the generations learn,

In vain men mete each sober rule, —

Ah, who would not grave counsels spurn When 'tis so sweet to be a fool!

CSO

GREEK VINTAGE SONG

B

'LUSHING maiden, laughing boy, Tread the ripened grapes of joy Till unto your naked thighs Spurted jets of purple rise — Was it not for this the grape Gathered its voluptuous shape?

C82]

ADMONITION

o

MOURN not if her face be a brief flower, O, mourn not if her beauty drop away, — Who would forego the rose's perfect hour Because she does not hold her pomp for aye?

The gods pass with their fading altar-fires,

They fear their dark descent in their bright prime . . . Unleash the white, swift hounds of soft desires And when life's hour strikes "LOVE" think not of time.

cs33

Y.

THE REASON

AFTER A SAPPHIC FRAGMENT

OU were to me so quaint and small I never thought of you at all Save as a child . . . but Life, that wakes The white, sweet blossoming of brakes, The windy flower on the wall, — Made you grow white and fair and tall.

You were to me so quaint and small I never thought of you at all . . . In the full blossom of your day It is not strange you turned away Nor heard my heart's awakened call When you were white and fair and tall.

C84]

TO THINK THAT SOMEWHERE

T.

O think that somewhere now you wait for me, This very month, this week, this day, this hour, — That slowly you come into perfect flower, As perfect as a woman's growth may be, Dreaming, in uncompanioned ecstasy, How some day you will yield that richest dower, Yourself, to love's supreme and utmost power, — This, in its very joy, is agony!

And yet — to fear that your white, alien feet Might go down some unknown, diverging way Straying a little further, day by day, From the appointed place where we should meet — This is too deep a hell ... it were not best To think that God could wreak so sad a jest!

C853

AND IS IT TRUE?

A

ND is it true you smoothed your hair And never thought of me, Or walked abroad when noon was white Nor knew what yet must be? . . .

I look on every day as lost

Before my knowledge grew That, on the common earth there walked

The Vision that is you!

C86]

A QUEEN DIED LONG AGO

J\ QUEEN died long ago

As fair as you are fair, Of kindred white her brow,

And gold, like yours, her hair.

Her face is but a dream,

Her little mouth is dust. . . .

O, let us kiss and kiss Since death is so unjust.

C87]

HERMITAGE

O

FOR a country place I know Where elms stand in a windy row, Where larches frame the crimson sun And maples turn vermillion And branchy oaks stand wide and still Each like a green, inverted hill: There, when I'd dreamed a day or two, I 'd have a room made neat for you — For trees they are such lonely things With all their leaves and whisperings.

C88]

TO MYRRHA

Y

OU are my ceaseless litany That I will sing before all men, — And, dear, if you believe in God, I'll be your Christian then;

And I will kneel by you, my Love, — Will pray, contrite and hushed, by you.

If not, a pagan I will be

And heaven will fail by two!

C89 3

TO

I

WAS the servant of a dream Until you brought to me The splendid vision of your face — Then dawned Reality;

Not She whose empty shrines of Fact The world's blind fools adore, —

Reality so high, so true That dreams avail no more.

C9°3

LITTLE THINGS

lOPACE is but a little thing That God takes like a ball

To toss up for a moment's flight And laugh to see it fall.

Love is but a little thing, It is a tossed-up ball, —

Yet it embraces life and hope, The world, and God, and ALL!

C90

THE LIFE OF LOVE

T

HE life of love is the life of a flower That lifts to the touch of the sun and the moon. The life of love is the joy of an hour,

The strain of a flute or a viol's sweet tune:

The flower dies at the dawn's red heart, And sorrow kisses fair joy to death;

The viol-sound's drowned in the roar of the mart; The flute-voice dies with the player's breath.

C923

NO QUALMS

i

HAVE no qualms for any gift love bring, Whether he make me wail, or rage, or sing. I would not merely seek the Docile out . . . There is, I think, some merit in the shout That tears the ear, some music in the pain That roars on the soul's windows with its rain.

C93]

YOU LOVE ME AND I AM AFRAID

Y

OU love me, and I am afraid To take your mouth and rouse your soul Though it be lifted up to me

As those who drink wine lift a bowl.

You love me, and I am afraid:

Though you protest it's nothing more

Than friendship, — I have heard a-far The opening of an unseen door;

You love me, and I am afraid

Of love's disaster treading near —

If you were not so beautiful,

So young, and blind, — you too would fear!

C94 3

NIGHTMARE

s

HE bade him wait, while other men Who did not care, had all their will; He was as patient as a corpse

Whose face shows white and still;

His passion was a fatal thing;

For, blinded, still he followed her, — Each whim of hers, a holy Cause,

And he, its minister.

Her little mouth, her small, white hands Were holier to him than shrines

Where, in each dim and hallowed niche A sacred taper shines. . . .

Her little mouth — she gave to all!

Her little hands — as free as air! . . . To him as inaccessible

As God is to a prayer!" . . .

O, you are perfect, you are pure;

I think that you are strong and true, — And yet, last night I dreamed these things

And was afraid of you.

C9SD

WHY HAVE YOU COME TO ME?

w

HY have you come to me, you lovely

thing, Making my heart leap and my pulses sing? Why have you come to me to bid me say "My life is now as nothing till to-day"? All that IVe ever dreamed or hoped or done Is like a night that yearns toward the sun; All that IVe ever thought or felt or known Is aimless thistledown o'er waters blown. Why did I never know, not ever see That, on this day of days, you waited me? By storms and tumults of your beauty torn, Now I shall wish that I was never born, Then, in the same breath, thank what gods there

be That, at this great hour, you were given me!

C96H

THE MOTH'S COMPLAINT

T

HE butterfly is slain, they say, By the first breath of cold — But, O, for his one perfect day On wings of braided gold!

C973

OLD SONG

w

HEN the worm has banqueted Where will be your beauty then, All that lovely white and red Held so high in praise of men?

That which you think lasting now Will no more with magic bind:

Sweet-curved lips, and eyes, and brow Gone like music on the wind.

C98]

TO PASSION

Y,

OU beautiful, consuming thing, You are a power, you are a wing

Uplifting me, — IVe never held you vile or base Because you stayed in no one place,

But footed free!

C993

CONSUMMATION

w

AVES of unutterable ecstasy Shake through my yielded body, as a sea, Moonlight, sweeps in against an island bar, Its every atom trembling with a star, — Or as a singing, leaping shower of rain, Misted with iris like a peacock's train, Comes softly on the dry trees sick with heat And all the long, white stretches of the street.

C 1003

POSSESSION

L-/OVE me or love me not, for I no longer care:

You have been, ever will be, mine; There is no dream of mine but you must share;

Love breaks all bounds; he is divine.

Nay, when I had you, dear, I know I held you not, —

But, having passed beyond my sight, Your spirit, merging with my inmost thought,

Opened to me the Infinite.

You are the sky, the clouds, you are the singing birds,

The hills, the trees, the plain, My hopes, my aspirations passing words, —

Our love was not in vain!

CioO

O, TELL ME NOT

o

TELL me not, dear, to forget: Let me remember still The hands that parted as they met, The sweet and froward will.

Give me your memory in trust While we still move with men —

When you are dust and I am dust, It will not matter then.

C 102]

A DREAM OF INCONSTANCY

i

HAD a dream you were unfaithful to me With some rare lover of a godlike mien, That there were stars and wonder, youth and moonlight As once with us had been;

I woke from bitter visions in the darkness, From visions bitter, and yet sweet, to me:

I watched your sleeping face, if I could find there Some hushed inconstancy!

I 103 3

WHEN THAT WHICH COULD NOT BE

w

HEN that which could not be has come to pass And you look frightened in the usual glass To find a different man or woman there, — Then, from your soul, you'll offer God a prayer (You, whose heart sang with music yesterday) To help you walk, alone, life's bitter way, In vain repentant for the slow, unkind Insistence that forced sight on love that's blind.

C 104]

ON THOUGHTS OF SUICIDE

N.

AY, I might still be prisoned Upon my ancient rack, Till, quenched unto its very roots, The fires of Hell went black!

C 105:]

RETALIATION

fADY, I have loved overmuch

I think, in ever loving you, Responded to the lightest touch

Of all your whims, been far too true. Now it shall be your turn to rue The looks that burn, the wiles that slay — For love's a game that two can play.

Since begging has not got my will, Since following your wayward feet

Has only led me further still

From consummations men hold meet, I will no longer now entreat, —

I'll torture you the selfsame way —

Since love's a game that two can play.

Now YOU shall know whole nights awake, Great, barren dawns that surge and roll

Like huge, recurrent waves that take

A ship, nor leave one plank that's whole,- Just nigh the harbour's sheltered goal . .

And / shall laugh and you shall pray —

Since love's a game that two can play!

Cio6 3

VARIETY

I

F there were not some bitterness in love, If it were like white honey wholly sweet, If there fell not across its shining fields

Some shadow of the sinking sun's retreat, —

Its long continuance of light would pall,

Its honey-heavy kiss ache through with sorrow,

And so I love you better, dear, today,

Because I know not what may be tomorrow.

C1073

FANTASIA

W

HEN hosts of alien suns Their shining lamps up-thrust And the solar system breaks Into drifts of silver dust

In the gaze of other worlds To burst forth and expire

And stain the sable night

With trailing ghosts of fire, —

Where will be this heart, then, This mad, impassioned brain

That flared high like a windy dawn After a night's black rain ? . . .

And will I then look upward, In strange, sweet flesh re-born

While ten undreamed-of senses Put this poor Five to scorn,

As that far world I lived in Comes leaping from the night

And bursts, a tiny blossom, Into a moment's sight?

Cio8]

YOU

I

F I tapped blind among the Blind And you swept like a shadow by Nor glanced at me —

That would put seeing in my eye.

If I were turned to bones and dust, O, breaker of the hearts of men,

And you drew nigh —

I'd gather into life again!

C io9 3

LOVE ME

.L/OVE me a day, a week, a month, a year, - If you but love me, that is all I care.

I seek no irrecoverable oath Such as Immortals swear;

For if you kiss me once, and then depart,

Or hold me but a day, It will be more than duty chained for life

By what the world might say.

Love me a day, a week, a month, a year, — Then, ere we know it, time will cease to be,

And we will laugh like children in the sun, Thieves of eternity!

C1103

THE WIND'S DEATH

T,

HE Wind died yesterday And it will blow no more The heaping little silver waves Against the shining shore.

The Wind died yesterday:

It will no longer run Along the purple-shadowed grass

And chase the laughing sun.

The Wind died yesterday

That piled the sky with light And sent the silver-bodied clouds

Like solemn swans in flight.

The Wind died yesterday

And stark the forests sleep, Their blowing summits surge no more

With tumults golden-deep . . .

O, Wind, arise again

And brighten all the air: Strike silver motions through the trees,

Wake colors everywhere:

Purple and Green and Gold

Wait your creative breath! . . .

O, Wind of Love, strike through my soul — Without you, all is death!

[in]

LOVE-FAITH

N,

OW that you would leave me And another woo, Was it you that told me once Lovers should be true?

Was it you that told me

Lovers should be true? —

Dear, I still believe in Love, But no more — in you!

Hi"]

DEFEAT

-L^ET us shut out the dark a little while, Let us shut out a while the blaring day

That has come down upon us . . . you, you smile A pitiless smile — there is no more to say.

IVe fought and fought for you — and fought in vain, And all night long I've knocked at your heart's door Begging you take a moment's thought again, Asking for that which you could give no more.

The other one — what has he that I lack?

No! ... I begin again! ... I must be still: And yet, if I could win one least kiss back,

I would forever serve your littlest will!

E «3:i

ALIENATION

G,

O, I will shut the windows And draw the blinds for gloom. Go, for the flower has fallen

That filled two lives with bloom.

For me wait other women,

For you wait other men . . .

But the ghosts of our old madness Will rise and walk again.

Cii4 3

I THOUGHT THAT IT WOULD NEVER CEASE

i

THOUGHT that it would never cease to be, The love I held for you, you held for me, — But, as the body's unperceived decay Slips grave-ward, so our young love passed away Till that which came, born bright with Summer

hours, Went out, an infant hearse, all white with

flowers . . . "Whose child is that?" I asked . . . and you

replied "It is our child — our poor, weak Love that

died!"

C»5 3

THE RETURN

OHE whom I loved is coming back to me! Once more her cloudy head of hair will be Poured on my shoulder, and my life's long drouth Made satiate of the soft wine of her mouth.

Full many are the bitter nights Tve lain

Longing for her white, little hands in vain,

Until I fell asleep, and dreams, more kind

Than waking, brought her back to my glad mind,

And I was happy with her till the grey

And languid disillusionment of day.

Yet, now that she is coming back to me,

I dread the Dark of fresh calamity:

Shall I not fear the mixing of a kiss

With that same mouth that gave Another bliss?

Will not another's face crowd in between

My face and hers, — another's arms, unseen,

Go round her, thwarting mine unpityingly. . . .

When she whom I have loved comes back to me?

C»6 3

WHY SHOULD WE STRIVE

w

HY should we strive to raise again The ghost that time has laid, Going like people in the dark Of every sound afraid,

With here an old, familiar kiss,

Long buried in the night, And there a grey, revived caress

Estranged from all delight? . . .

I once knew one who waked a love

No longer glad and gay And it was dreadful as a ghost

That walked abroad in day.

C 117:1

THE IRONY

T

HOUGH you are everything that truth

holds base, Because of your insuperable face Men have tossed life-long honor into air And youth has saddened to grey-voiced despair, And slunk forth, hollow-eyed, to pine and die, Proclaiming love to be life's vilest lie.

You have accepted all that's high and good, Then turned it to the Dark's similitude, Making a doubtful jest, like sour, spilt wine, Of all that broken hearts once held divine.

And yet, because I must be proud and brave, I shall go singing of you to my grave, Love-sick, with rhymed, immortal lies of you: And fools shall read, and shall believe them true!

tiisn

I

TO ATTHIS

AFTER A SAPPHIC FRAGMENT

LOVED you, Atthis, long ago: If men .had told me time would be When we would love not, I had said Rather shall death not cleave to me. Aye, lies were true; mine eyes did see Eternal love (if days were so) . . . I loved you, Atthis, long ago.

I loved you, Atthis, long ago ...

In vast confusion of retreat

My songs and dreams forsook me, then,

And day and night the breaking, sweet

Music of madness set my feet

To measures paced in chains of woe . .

I loved you, Atthis, long ago.

I loved you, Atthis, long ago;

Alas, that so strong love were vain . . .

Those violet-woven days are gone

Like last year's roses, last year's rain . ,

Gone, too, the sorrow and the pain

That broke me like a Cretan bow . . .

I loved you, Atthis, long ago!

C»93

THE RAINBOW

W

HEN I beheld the rainbow Flung brightly through the sky I saw in it a promise That love can never die.

I told my hope to Flora,

Then, one next summer's day

I pointed up to heaven

And said the same to May.

Since then I've changed my fancy

Of times an honest score : Yet nothing that could happen

Could change my first-learned lore.

I've kissed, I've laughed, I've suffered And none knows more than I

The rainbow keeps his promise That love can never die.

C 120 ]

THE PUZZLE

T

JL HE woman that I have I do not want, The woman that I have not wears me gaunt. And so we foolish poets are undone Like crying children reaching for the sun.

Cm]

THE LESSON

i

WISH that love were but the joy- That careless poets say, That sips the honey from the heart, Then lightly wings away.

I never knew a thing that gave Such pleasure kin to pain —

If ever I get free of him I'll never love again.

C 122]

I PROMISED IN MY PASSION

i

PROMISED in my passion That I'd be true to May; I vowed the same to Alice, I think, but yesterday. . . .

O, I've begun a ballad

That all the world shall sing — "If love kept all his pledges

He's be a beggared king."

C123]

FOLLY

I

LOVE the folly of women, I love the folly of men, That never heeded precept, But played the fool again.

I love the folly of women That will not pause to think,

And the light foot that covets The precipice's brink.

O, when I'm lying silent Upon my still, black bier,

Don't tell them of my learning, As you hold heaven dear,

Don't say that I was perfect Nor lie of ordered days,

When good wine was my glory And madness led my ways.

If you dare lie about me May God requite you so.

Just say that I was human — Then fold my hands, and go.

C 124]

SUN AND RAIN

T

HE rain that blows in grey gusts over the world, It never makes me sad. I know it wakens every bud up-curled Whose flower will make me glad.

But when the sun clothes earth and air with gold

Then chiefly am I sad, Dreaming of days the Past's great Dark doth hold

And perished love I had.

t^sl

HEART-BREAK

F

IE! For shame — to curse all women Just because one broke your heart. Would you go and drop to nothing? Still there's life, and work, and art.

Pluck up courage, give up grieving, Come and join the world of men.

Somewhere, there's another waiting — She will break your heart again!

Cl26]

DELUDED

H

OW have I been deluded And broken in my pride By eyes that falsely looked the truth, By wanton lips that lied.

How have I been deluded

By kisses in the night, — How many a full-blown rose I've lost

By blossom-plucked delight . . .

By women, by women

How have I been betrayed! . . . And how I fear God's lightnings yet

For the lies I, too, have made!

C 127]

ADJURATION

D,

ON'T shut close in a coffin, In the old, grewsome fashion, This death-grey body that once thrilled

With life's sweet gift of passion. Don't let them lay me shallow-deep Where all the ordered good folk sleep.

But bury me in roses

In some wrecked garden-close, The home of booming beetle

And bedraggled, wind-swept rose.

C128]

THE GUESTLESS ROOM

i

T cannot be again, I have loved too much, too long; I have banished love, today, Forever, from my song.

He shall no more have place Within my heart or brain:

Let him arise and go To one who is more fain

Of his cries and tears and lies, Of the Mocking in his face —

I have swept my heart of him, No more his dwelling place . . .

Nay, now he's gone, I fear

That soon, through my life's door, He'll enter Scripture-wise,

With twenty devils more.

C 129]

IN LOVE AGAIN

O

UT of my heart there lifts that flower Whose blossom is belief in men, Whose very stalk I thought was dead — 'Faith, I must be in love again.

I i3o3

DIALOGUE

T

HE moon brings pallid gifts of sleep And dreams of wan desire — Nay, you malign her, she, who is Love's everlasting fire.

I swear the moon's a silver world

Whose only life is light — Nay, she is an eternal lamp

For lovers' raptured sight.

She whom I loved has left my arms,

And life's a broken tune — I thought as much, and now I know

Why you maligned the moon!

C13O

WITHOUT INCONSTANCY

▼ V HERE do you sail, O friend of mine? —

I sail where love is all. And do you think to find such place upon this

whirling ball? — I know not. I but trust in Him, he takes the

helm and steers. Love is a thing of days, my friend, but life's a

thing of years. . . . On many a ship of dreams I've sailed to many an

alien strand, And I've grown grey with pilgrimage, yet know

I not that land Where love holds sway beyond the day — Nay,

I would still be bold!

And so my friend puts bravely forth with mast

of beaten gold, With hull of hollow pearl and sail of silk-stuffs

woven fine, Where the reef flashes colors mid a sea of troubled

wine, Where storms their darkened brows impend, —

for he must learn, as we, That Love indeed were less than love without

inconstancy.

I HELD LOVE USUAL

i

HELD love usual as the sun And lightly scanned his lore, — And yesterday he left my heart, Left, to return no more.

Like all things life holds commonplace

He seemed of little worth : The world cast out the God of Gods When He was on the earth.

C 133 3

THE PROTEAN HEART

i

LOATHE the beauty of the rose, I love not any flower that blows. Let the sun set, — I will not stay To watch the going of the day Like a great ship that pirates burn. . I love, and am not loved in turn.

I would not miss the budding rose Nor any common flower that blows: The sun has set ? Then I will stay To view the vast re-birth of day; In me what dawns of beauty burn, — I love, and I am loved in turn.

Ci34 3

LOVE PAYS

J-^OVE pays for all his singing fire, His gold and trinkets gay,

With burnt-out ashes of desire And broken feet of clay.

Love pays for all his singing fire With day on listless day —

Yet only those without desire Are those who fear to play.

n 1353

THE WHEEL

c

OME out into the hilltops, Whom life has tossed and torn, The stars' supreme derision Will laugh your love to scorn;

You'll feel the earth roll under As it goes down through space;

The moon, a world that perished, Will shine against your face —

Where men, like you, grown bitter From love's unending woe,

Walked sadly in the starlight Ten million years ago.

Ci36 3

IGNORANCE

JLAOW ignorant was I

Of love's most simple lore, Who, when a day had passed, Thought light would be no more,

For, when the sun went down, And night came on apace,

A hundred thousand stars Revealed unending space.

Ci37ll

WHAT ELSE TO DO?

R

OMANCE knocks at the heart so many times, And, after one has written rhymes on rhymes,

One wearies of it all, Knowing that after love's first, sweet surprise There wait the stratagems, deceits, and lies

That soon turn sweet to gall.

There is one worse thing only, still to hold One's hands out toward a fire that's black and cold,

To dead love falsely true. . . . Then let them say their say, — what else remains, After one has drunk old love to the drains,

But to seek out a new?

C 138 3

THE MISTAKE

1—^EST love should give immortal life The gods sent woe, then hate, then strife, Suspicion, falsehood, jealousy — Poor lad, they blame them all on thee!

C 139 3

THE GHOST

kJHE'D left a note . . . forever gone . . .

The drear monotony of the rain Crowded, with its incessant blur,

The drumming, dripping window pane . . Each echo was a thought of her.

The house was full of little sounds.

The red fire dwindled, spark by spark, As daylight, stricken gray at birth,

Was gathered back into the Dark And ancient night reclaimed the earth.

Still all the room was full of her So sweet and solemn and serene;

There was her footstool . . . here, her chair A book with hasty mark between . . .

A fugitive pin dropped from her hair. . . .

Was that her hand against the door Or the wind grappling with the rain ?

Was that her face that glimmered white A moment, at the rattling pane, And then drew back into the night?

C 140II

HAUNTED

Y,

OU'LL hear my footsteps in the rain, And when the wind shakes at the door You'll think that it's my eager hand; And when the fire grows bright at dusk

You'll feel me sitting in the chair Just as I used to do, of old . . . And you'll not dare to turn your head For fear you'll see me sitting there. . . .

And you will start up in the night Dreaming that you have heard my voice.

Chi]

ADAM, TO EVE

i

WAS a fool who did not know God's pathways were of pearl, - Why did you fill me with conceit Of stolen apples, girl ?

C 142]

YOUR ABSENCE

i

TOSS about in bed and cannot sleep; I feel as if my hands were gloved with fire; My heavy pulses roar along my veins . . . I cannot sleep because of my desire.

The clock strikes on and on ... I stare awake;

Your lovely name a thousand times I say: Then comes a grey ghost to the window pane. . .

I think it is the thing that men call "day."

C 143 3

YOUR HANDKERCHIEF

Y

OU left your handkerchief behind. The perfume of your favorite flower Was on it, — as a sudden wind Carries the soft scents of a bower

A league away — it brought to me The incense of your skin, your kind

Young eyes that smiled so trustfully . You left your handkerchief behind.

C H4 3

THE TRYST

A:

ND have you found another lover? And shall I kiss those lips no more That were as sweet as dripping honey From the hive's golden core ?

And shall I wait for you no longer

Beneath the white, cloud-drifting moon

And feel an hour too late, without you, — Arrived an hour too soon ?

Not yet! Not yet! . . . we are discovered! . .

I swear by all the night above I'll never love another woman

If you have failed me, love!

You come! . . . Life's miracle has happened Again! . . . O, girl so white and pure

Why is it love is most uncertain When it is most secure ?

C 145 3

DREAMS

OOME say that dreams they come of God,

I know that this is true, Because the good God sends a dream

Each night, of you.

I meet you in a far, green place

Whenas I fall asleep, — We linger all night in a bower

Where leaves are deep,

And, till the blushing of the dawn,

I am complete in you. . . . Some say that dreams they come of God:

I know that it is true.

C146]

THE LOVER'S LIE

A'M sick of your white folly And all your wanton ways;

You've rilled my nights with madness, My life, with empty days;

I'm leaving you forever,

I'm — what, you didnt hear? . . . Yes, I was only saying How much I love you, dear!

tml

STRANGE

T

IS strange that we whose tumults roll Hot like lava from soul to soul, Must some day into silence go And lie as calm as moonlit snow, With no more beating of the heart, In a narrow grave, . . . apart!

Ci48 3

THE LEAFLESS BOUGH

OlNCE you have gone away from me

My very life has grown Bare as a leafless bough from which

A singing bird has flown, —

A leafless bough in a windy sky

Without one hint of green : But through the barren twigs of it

The clouds themselves are seen.

C 149]

DISSIPATION

i

CLIMBED and climbed the windy stair. A yellow light slanted in the gloom. The curtains, dark about the room, Shivered alive in the rushing air. A tall, white woman waited me there. Our four lips burst forth into bloom Of flowering kisses . . . when I came down Feeling feeble of step and grey, A flight of birds hovered in air And my eyes ached against the day, For it was daylight everywhere.

CiSo]

I

THE FOUNTAIN

N a green garden of delight A hidden fountain played all night, A grey and moving ghost of sound That floated over phantom ground, Now near, now far, as the wind blew. The fountain was my love for you; The wind, your moods as light as air; The black night was my love's despair.

CI5I3

WHEN I AM DEAD

T,

HE wind will blow above when I am dead, The sun take dusk, and the great dawn flare red; The trees will sway above when I am dead, And Time's mad chariot whirl, forever sped;

While I drop back to that from which I came Men will be seared with the brief whip and flame Of pitiless life — but, let two lovers pass And I'll forget, and sing beneath the grass.

Ci523

A CHANT OF DEAD LOVERS

1 ^1 OW silence and mysterious death are ours And over us perennial growths of flowers Come and depart, hear what we lovers say Who are dead and perished, having loved our day Death has not made the memory of one kiss Diminish its least heritage of bliss; Decay, with all its strength, has not withdrawn The memory of our first love's shy, sweet dawn, The soft reluctant hand that still would stay, The poignant, perfect loves of yesterday. As for the Bitter Ones who lie here stark, Loveless in life, now wrapped in loveless Dark, — We pity them who were dead, alive — and, dead, Are by no least love's memory comforted.

C1533

NO REFUGE

O

FOR a refuge In some remote quiet, Love is a madness, Dear I a-by it . . .

But, in remote quiet,

I'd hear my blood beating In pitiful riot

Like armies retreating.

C154H

THE MIRRORED VENUS

V

ENUS lived of old in Cyprus With soft roses in her hair, — All her house was full of mirrors Everywhere,

Mirrors with a thousand motions When she went her rosy ways. .

Full of motions all her dawns and Shadowy days.

Venus lived in every mirror

Every way she turned her head:

Duplicate innumerably Her bright tread,

Duplicate innumerably

Hands and arms and hair, —

Venus saw her beauty only Everywhere. . . .

O, the vain and barren beauty, — Every worshipper that came

Multiplied into a thousand, Each the same;

And the little moon that lingered On its back across a cloud

Duplicated silver crescents In a crowd. . . .

CiSSl

THE MIRRORED VENUS

Broken are the many mirrors, Gone forever are the days,

Dark the altar that was many With one blaze,

Gone the bright, reflected laughter That was Music's self a stir, —

Yet are memories immortal Left of Her,

And in every woman walking Loveward, does each lover meet

Droop of low, immortal eyelids, Flow of feet

Echoing on eternal errands

Drawn by love's compulsive will

And The Venus Of the Mirrors Thralls him still!

Ci563

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