YOUNG LOVE

N.B.—This sequence of poems has appeared in former editions under the title of 'Love Platonic.'

I

1 Surely at last, O Lady, the sweet moon That bringeth in the happy singing weather Groweth to pearly queendom, and full soon Shall Love and Song go hand in hand together; For all the pain that all too long hath waited In deep dumb darkness shall have speech at last, And the bright babe Death gave the Love he mated Shall leap to light and kiss the weeping past.

For all the silver morning is a-glimmer With gleaming spears of great Apollo's host, And the night fadeth like a spent out swimmer Hurled from the headlands of some shining coast. O, happy soul, thy mouth at last is singing, Drunken with wine of morning's azure deep, Sing on, my soul, the world beneath thee swinging, A bough of song above a sea of sleep.

2 Who is the lady I sing? Ah, how can I tell thee her praise For whom all my life's but the string Of a rosary painful of days;

Which I count with a curious smile As a miser who hoardeth his gain, Though, a madhearted spendthrift the while, I but gather to waste again.

Yea, I pluck from the tree of the years, As a country maid greedy of flowers, Each day brimming over with tears, And I scatter like petals its hours;

And I trample them under my feet In a frenzy of cloven-hoofed swine, And the breath of their dying is sweet, And the blood of their hearts is as wine.

O, I throw me low down on the ground And I bury my face in their death, And only I rise at the sound Of a wind as it scattereth,

As it scattereth sweetly the dried Leaves withered and brittle and sere Of days of old years that have died— And, O, it is sweet in my ear

And I rise me and build me a pyre Of the whispering skeleton things, And my heart laugheth low with the fire, Laugheth high with the flame as it springs;

And above in the flickering glare I mark me the boughs of my tree, My tree of the years, growing bare. Growing bare with the scant days to be.

Then I turn to my beads and I pray For the axe at the root of the tree— Last flower, last bead—ah! last day That shall part me, my darling, from thee!

And I pray for the knife on the string Of this rosary painful of days: But who is the Lady I sing? Ah, how can I tell thee her praise!

II

I make this rhyme of my lady and me To give me ease of my misery, Of my lady and me I make this rhyme For lovers in the after-time. And I weave its warp from day to day In a golden loom deep hid away In my secret heart, where no one goes But my lady's self, and—no one knows.

With bended head all day I pore On a joyless task, and yet before My eyes all day, through each weary hour, Breathes my lady's face like a dewy flower. Like rain it comes through the dusty air, Like sun on the meadows to think of her; O sweet as violets in early spring The flower-girls to the city bring, O, healing-bright to wintry eyes As primrose-gold 'neath northern skies— But O for fit thing to compare With the joy I have in the thought of her! So all day long doth her holy face Bring fragrance to the barren place, And whensoe'er it comes nearest me, My loom it weaveth busily.

Some days there be when the loom is still And my soul is sad as an autumn hill, But how to tell the blessed time When my heart is one glowing prayer of rhyme! Think on the humming afternoon Within some busy wood in June, When nettle patches, drunk with the sun, Are fiery outposts of the shade; While gnats keep up a dizzy reel, And the grasshopper, perched upon his blade, Loud drones his fairy threshing-wheel:— Hour when some poet-wit might feign The drowsy tune of the throbbing air The weaving of the gossamer In secret nooks of wood and lane— The gossamer, silk night-robes of the flowers, Fluttered apart by amorous morning hours. Yea, as the weaving of the gossamer, If truly that the mystic golden boom, Is the strange rapture of my hidden loom, As I sit in the light of the thought of her; And it weaveth, weaveth, day by day, This parti-coloured roundelay; Weaving for ease of misery, Weaving this rhyme of my lady and me, Weaving, weaving this warp of rhyme For lovers in the after-time.

My lady, lover, may never be mine In the same sweet way that thine is thine, My lady and I may never stand By the holy altar hand in hand, My lady and I may never rest Through the golden midnight breast to breast, Nor share long days of happy light Sweet moving in each other's sight: Yea, even must we ever miss The honey of the chastest kiss.

III

But, Song, arise thee on a greater wing, Nor twitter robin-like of love, nor sing A pretty dalliance with grief—but try Some metre like a sky, Wherein to set Stars that may linger yet When I, thy master, shall have come to die. Twitter and tweet Thy carollings Of little things, Of fair and sweet; For it is meet, O robin red! That little theme Hath little song, That little head Hath little dream, And long. But we have starry business, such a grief As Autumn's, dead by some forgotten sheaf, While all the distance echoes of the wain; Grief as an ocean's for some sudden isle Of living green that stayed with it a while, Then to oblivious deluge plunged again! Grief as of Alps that yearn but never reach, Grief as of Death for Life, of Night for Day: Such grief, O Song, how hast thou strength to teach, How hope to make assay?

IV

ONCE

Once we met, and then there came Like a Pentecostal flame, A word; And I said not, Only thought, She heard! All I never say but sing, Worshipping; Wrapt in the hidden tongue Of an ambiguous song.

How we met what need to say? When or where, Years ago or yesterday, Here or there. All the song is—once we met, She and I; Once, but never to forget, Till we die.

All the song is that we meet Never now— 'Hast thou yet forgotten, sweet?' 'Love, hast thou?'

V

THE DAY OF THE TWO DAFFODILS

'The daffodils are fine this year,' I said; 'O yes, but see my crocuses,' said she. And so we entered in and sat at talk Within a little parlour bowered about With garden-noises, filled with garden scent, As some sweet sea-shell rings with pearly chimes And sighs out fragrance of its mother's breast.

We sat at talk, and all the afternoon Whispered about in changing silences Of flush and sudden light and gathering shade, As though some Maestro drew out organ stops Somewhere in heaven. As two within a boat On the wide sea we sat at talk, the hours Lapping unheeded round us as the waves. And as such two will ofttimes pause in speech, Gaze at high heaven and draw deep to their hearts The infinite azure, then meet eyes again And flash it to each other; without words First, and then with voice trembling as trumpets Tremble with fierce breath, voice cadenced too As deep as the deep sea, Aeolian voice, Voice of star-spaces, and the pine-wood's voice In dewy mornings, Life's own awful voice: So did We talk, gazing with God's own eyes Into Life's deeps—ah, how they throbbed with stars! And were we not ourselves like pulsing suns Who, once an aeon met within the void, So fiery close, forget how far away Each orbit sweeps, and dream a little space Of fiery wedding. So our hearts made answering Lightnings all that afternoon through purple mists Of riddled speech; and when at last the sun, Our sentinel, made sign beneath the trees Of coming night, and we arose and passed Across the threshold to the flowers again, We knew a presence walking in the grove, And a voice speaking through the evening's cool Unknown before: though Love had wrought no wrong, His rune was spoken, and another rhyme Writ in his poem by the master Life.

'Pray, pluck me some,' I said. She brought me two, For daffodils were very fine that year,— O very fine, but daffodils no more.

VI

WHY DID SHE MARRY HIM?

Why did she marry him? Ah, say why! How was her fancy caught? What was the dream that he drew her by, Or was she only bought? Gave she her gold for a girlish whim, A freak of a foolish mood? Or was it some will, like a snake in him, Lay a charm upon her blood?

Love of his limbs, was it that, think you? Body of bullock build, Sap in the bones, and spring in the thew, A lusty youth unspilled? But is it so that a maid is won, Such a maiden maid as she? Her face like a lily all white in the sun, For such mere male as he! Ah, why do the fields with their white and gold To Farmer Clod belong, Who though he hath reaped and stacked and sold Hath never heard their song? Nay, seek not an answer, comfort ye, The poet heard their call, And so, dear Love, will I comfort me— He hath thy lease, that's all.

VII

THE LAMP AND THE STAR

Yea, let me be 'thy bachelere,' 'Tis sweeter than thy lord; How should I envy him, my dear, The lamp upon his board. Still make his little circle bright With boon of dear domestic light, While I afar, Watching his windows in the night, Worship a star For which he hath no bolt or bar. Yea, dear, Thy 'bachelere.'

VIII

ORBITS

Two stars once on their lonely way Met in the heavenly height, And they dreamed a dream they might shine alway With undivided light; Melt into one with a breathless throe, And beam as one in the night.

And each forgot in the dream so strange How desolately far Swept on each path, for who shall change The orbit of a star? Yea, all was a dream, and they still must go As lonely as they are.

IX

NEVER—EVER

My mouth to thy mouth Ah never, ah never! My breast from thy breast Eternities sever; But my soul to thy soul For ever and ever.

X

LOVE'S POOR

Yea, love, I know, and I would have it thus, I know that not for us Is springtide Passion with his fire and flowers, I know this love of ours Lives not, nor yet may live, By the dear food that lips and hands can give. Not, Love, that we in some high dream despise The common lover's common Paradise; Ah, God, if Thou and I But one short hour their blessedness might try, How could we poor ones teach Those happy ones who half forget them rich: For if we thus endure, 'Tis only, love, because we are so poor.

XI

COMFORT OF DANTE

Down where the unconquered river still flows on, One strong free thing within a prison's heart, I drew me with my sacred grief apart, That it might look that spacious joy upon: And as I mused, lo! Dante walked with me, And his face spake of the high peace of pain Till all my grief glowed in me throbbingly As in some lily's heart might glow the rain.

So like a star I listened, till mine eye Caught that lone land across the water-way Wherein my lady breathed,—now breathing is— 'O Dante,' then I said, 'she more than I Should know thy comfort, go to her, I pray.' 'Nay!' answered he, 'for she hath Beatrice.'

XII

A LOST HOUR

God gave us an hour for our tears, One hour out of all the years, For all the years were another's gold, Given in a cruel troth of old.

And how did we spend his boon? That sweet miraculous flower Born to die in an hour, Late born to die so soon.

Did we watch it with breathless breath By slow degrees unfold? Did we taste the innermost heart of it The honey of each sweet part of it? Suck all its hidden gold To the very dregs of its death?

Nay, this is all we did with our hour— We tore it to pieces, that precious flower; Like any daisy, with listless mirth, We shed its petals upon the earth; And, children-like, when it all was done, We cried unto God for another one.

XIII

MET ONCE MORE

O Lady, I have looked on thee once more, Thou too hast looked on me, as thou hadst said, And though the joy was pain, the pain was bliss, Bliss that more happy lovers well may miss: Captives feast richly on a little bread, So are we very rich who are so poor.

XIV

A JUNE LILY

[The poet dramatises his Lady's loneliness]

Alone! once more alone! how like a tomb My little parlour sounds which only now Yearned like some holy chancel with his voice. So still! so empty! Surely one might fear The walls should meet in ruinous collapse That held no more his music. Yet they stand Firm in a foolish firmness, meaningless As frescoed sepulchre some Pharaoh built But never came to sleep in; built, indeed, For—that grey moth to flit in like a ghost!

Alone! another feast-day come and gone, Watched through the weeks as in my garden there I watch a seedling grow from blade to bud Impatient for its blossom. So this day Has bloomed at last, and we have plucked its flower And shared its sweetness, and once more the time Is as that stalk from which but now I plucked Its last June-lily as a parting sign. Yea, but he seemed to love it! yet if he But craved it in deceit of tenderness To make my heart glow brighter with a lie! Will it indeed be cherished as he said, Or will he keep it near his book a while, And when grown rank forget it in his glass, And leave it for the maid who dusts his room To clear away and cast upon the heap? Or, may be, will he bury it away In some old drawer with other mummy-flowers?

Nay, but I wrong thee, dear one, thinking so. My boy, my love, my poet! Nay, I know Thy lonely room, tomb-like to thee as mine, Tomb-like as tomb of some returning ghost Seems only bright about my lily-flower. And, mayhap, while I wrong thee thus in thought Thou bendest o'er it, feigning for some ease Of parted ache conceits of poet-wit On petal and on stamen—let me try! If lilies be alike thine is as this, I wonder if thy reading tallies too.

Six petals with a dewdrop in their heart, Six pure brave years, an ivory cup of tears; Six pearly-pillared stamens golden-crowned Growing from out the dewdrop, and a seventh Soaring alone trilobed and mystic green; Six pearl-bright years aflower with gold of joy, Sprung from the heart of those brave tear-fed years: But what that seventh single stamen is My little wit must leave for thee to tell.

But neither poet nor a sibyl thou! What brave conceit had he, my poet, built; No jugglery of numbers that mean nought, That can mean nought for ever, unto us.

XV

REGRET

One asked of regret, And I made reply: To have held the bird, And let it fly; To have seen the star For a moment nigh, And lost it Through a slothful eye; To have plucked the flower And cast it by; To have one only hope— To die.

XVI

LOVE AFAR

Love, art thou lonely to-day? Lost love that I never see, Love that, come noon or come night, Comes never to me; Love that I used to meet In the hidden past, in the land Of forbidden sweet.

Love! do you never miss The old light in the days? Does a hand Come and touch thee at whiles Like the wand of old smiles, Like the breath of old bliss? Or hast thou forgot, And is all as if not?

What was it we swore? 'Evermore! I and Thou,' Ah, but Fate held the pen And wrote N Just before: So that now, See, it stands, Our seals and our hands, 'I and Thou, Nevermore!'

We said 'It is best!' And then, dear, I went And returned not again. Forgive that I stir, Like a breath in thy hair, The old pain, 'Twas unmeant. I will strive, I will wrest Iron peace—it is best.

But, O for thy hand Just to hold for a space, For a moment to stand In the light of thy face; Translate Then to Now, To hear 'Is it Thou?' And reply 'It is I!' Then, then I could rest, Ah, then I could wait Long and late.

XVII

Canst thou be true across so many miles, So many days that keep us still apart? Ah, canst thou live upon remembered smiles, And ask no warmer comfort for thy heart?

I call thy name right up into the sky, Dear name, O surely she shall hear and hark! Nay, though I toss it singing up so high, It drops again, like yon returning lark.

O be a dove, dear name, and find her breast, There croon and croodle all the lonely day; Go tell her that I love her still the best, So many days, so many miles, away.

POSTSCRIPT

_So sang young Love in high and holy dream Of a white Love that hath no earthly taint, So rapt within his vision he did seem Less like a boyish singer than a saint.

Ah, Boy, it is a dream for life too high, It is a bird that hath no feet for earth: Strange wings, strange eyes, go seek another sky And find thy fellows of an equal birth.

For many a body-sweet material thing, What canst thou give us half so dear as these? We would not soar amid the stars to sing, Warm and content amid the nested trees.

Young Seraph, go and lake thy song to heaven, We would not grow unhappy with our lot, Leave us the simple love the earth hath given— Sing where thou wilt, so that we hear thee not_.