Ten Colloquies

"Why dost thou hide from these Out along the hills halloaing? Why hast forbade Thy face, O goddess! to thy votaries?" "Unasking and unknowing Is he whom I make glad, Like Dian grandly going To the sleeping shepherd-lad. Men that pursue learn not To follow is my lot." "Happiness, secret one, Heartbeat of the April weather, Where art thou found? Tell; lest I err too, yonder in the sun." "Call in thine eye from ether, Thy feet from far ground; Seek Honour in this heather, With austere purples wound. Serve her: she will reveal Me, hound-like at thy heel."

"Good-morrow, Symbol."—"Call me not The name I neither love nor merit." —"That grave eternal name inherit, Thine ever, though all men forgot." "Mistake me not; secure and free From rock to rock my falchion passes: But Symbols trail through grey morasses The tattered shows of faëry." "My Symbol thou, of phantom blood, With starlight from thy temples raying; Along thy floated body playing Are withering wings, and wings in bud." "Alas, thine eye with clay is sealed." —"Symbol, before the clay's denial, While yet I had a god's espial, I saw thee in a solar field!" "Nay: I am Fact."—"Then lose thy praise; And lest to-day no song behoove thee, Lest mine impeach thee, or reprove thee, Ah, Symbol, Symbol! go thy ways."

"Where shall I find my light?" "Turn from another's track: Whether for gain or lack, Love but thy natal right. Cease to follow withal, Though on thine up-led feet Flakes of the phosphor fall. Oracles overheard Are never again for thee, Nor at a magian's knee Under the hemlock tree, Burns the illumining word." "Whence shall I take my law?" "Neither from sires nor sons, Nor the delivered ones, Holy, invoked with awe. Rather, dredge the divine Out of thine own poor dust, Feebly to speak and shine. Schools shall be as they are: Be thou truer, and stray Alone, intent, and away, In a savage wild to obey Some dim primordial star."

"Recall for me, recall The time more true and ample; The world whereon I trample, How tortuous and small! Behold, I tire of all. "Once, gods in jewelled mail Through greenwood ways invited; There how the moon is blighted, And mosses long and pale On lifeless cedars trail." "Child, keep this good unrest: But give to thine own story Simplicity with glory; To greatness dispossessed, Dominion of thy breast. "In abstinence, in pride, Thou, who from Folly's boldest Thy sacred eye withholdest, Another morn shalt ride At Agamemnon's side."

"See: brood: remember: this thy function only; Neither to have nor do is meet for thee." "Ah, earth's a palace where I must go lonely!" "Nay: earth's a dungeon which thou passest, free."

"I cannot soar beside, but must for ever suffer Blue air athrill with thee to lap against my breast, And dream it is thy wing." —"Dear, sighs about thee hover: Among the dewy leaves my longing is thy guest. Yet, lone and far apart, shall we no joy discover To travel the same sky, and by one sea to rest? Say, mate in all this world?" —"Ah, mute forbidden lover, Ah, song I shall not hear!" —"Ah, sweet unbuilded nest!"

"If the gods ruin send?"— "Make that thy bride and friend." "If the gods cheat?"—"They say The one true word alway." "If for some loss I pine?" "—The past is theirs, yet thine." "If I sue not?"—"Vain cares! The morrow's thine, not theirs."

"Is it thou, silly heart, Not prone on thy pallet, but grieving apart?" —"Natal Star, even so." "I miss thee to-night, while thou smoulderest low." —"Live in beauty! but I For bloodshed of spirit, here dwindle and die." "Are we two not the same, By law everlasting one mystical flame? Aloft if I burn, Every ray of my light be thy stair of return: Up, up! to our lot Where warfare and time and the body are not."

"Iole is coy with me, Goddess! for a month I suffer Knowing not how far I be: Teach me softer arts, or rougher, Well to sail that sea." "Fie: how long could Love divine Venturing, abstain from answer, Nor look landward for a sign! Niggard, take of thine entrancer Shipwreck in the brine."

"Master of your wounded heart, regent of your pleasure! We that long defied your art, tamèd Moods at leisure, All with you, nor now apart, would tread out our measure." "Welcome, equal powers benign, quit of ancient madness! Dance with me beneath the vine, not ungentle Sadness; Link your little hand in mine soberly, my Gladness."