Music.

3

Music.

Before the dawn is yet the day

I lie and dream so deep,

So drowsy-deep I cannot say

If yet I wake or sleep.

But in my dream a tune there is,

And rings so fresh and sweet

That I would rather die than miss

The utmost end of it.

And yet I know not an it be

Some music in the lane,

Or but a song that rose with me

From sleep, to sink again.

And so, alas, and even so

I waste my life away;

Nor if the tune be real I know,

Or but a dream astray.

4

A Pastoral of Parnassus.

“Ma io perchè venirvi? O chi’l concede?”

At morning dawn I left my sheep

And sought the mountains all aglow;

The shepherds said, “The way is steep:

Ah, do not go!”

I left my pastures fresh with rain,

My water-courses edged with bloom,

A larger breathing space to gain

And singing room.

Then of a reed I wrought a flute,

And as I went I sang and played.

But though I sang, my heart was mute

And sore afraid,

Because the great hill and the sky

Were full of glooms and glorious

Beyond all light or dark that I

Imagined thus.

5My sense grew pure through love and fear;

I saw God burn in every briar.

Then sudden voices, strong and clear,

Flashed up like fire.

And turning where that music rang

I saw aloft, half out of sight,

The watching poets; and they sang

Through day and night.

And very sweet—ah, sweet indeed—

Their voices sounded high and deep.

I blew an echo on my reed

As one asleep.

I heard. My heart grew cold with dread,

For what would happen if they heard?

Would not these nightingales strike dead

Their mocking-bird?

Then from the mountain’s steepest crown,

Where white cliffs pierce the tender grass,

I saw an arm reach slowly down,

Heard some word pass.

6“The end is come,” I thought, “and still

I am more happy, come what may,

To die upon Parnassus hill

Than live away.”

Then hands and faces luminous

And holy voices grew one flame—

“Come up, poor singer, and sing with us!”

They sang; I came.

So ended all my wandering;

This is the end and this is sweet,—

All night, all day, to listen and sing

Below their feet.

7

Going South.

A little grey swallow,

I fled to the vales

Of the nightingales

And the haunts of Apollo.

Behind me lie the sheer white cliffs, the hollow

Green waves that break at home, the northern gales,

The oaks above the homesteads in the vales,

For all my home is far, and cannot follow.

O nightingale voices!

O lemons in flower!

O branches of laurel!

You all are here, but ah not here my choice is:

Fain would I pluck one pink-vein’d bloom of sorrel,

Or watch the wrens build in our hazel bower.

8

Spring Under Cypresses.

Under the cypresses, here in the stony

Woods of the mountain, the Spring too is sunny:

Rare Spring and early,

Birds singing sparely,

Pale sea-green hellebore smelling of honey.

Desolate, bright, in the blue Lenten weather,

Cones of the cypresses sparkle together,

Shining brightly.

Loosely and lightly,

The winds lift the branches and stir them and feather.

Where the sun pierces, the sharp boulders glitter

Desolate, bright; and the white moths flitter

Pallidly over

The bells that cover

With faint-smelling green all the fragrant brown litter.

9Down in the plain the sun ripens for hours—

Look! in the orchards a mist of pale flowers—

Past the rose-hedges

A-bloom to the edges,

A smoke of blue olives, a vision of towers!

Here only hellebore grows, only shade is;

Surely the very Spring here half afraid is:

Out of her bosom

Drops not a blossom,

Mutely she passes through—she and her ladies.

Mutely? Ah, no; for a pause, and thou hearest

One bird who sings alone—one bird, the dearest.

Nay, who shall name it,

Call it or claim it?

Such birds as sing at all sing here their clearest.

Ah, never dream that the brown meadow thrushes,

Finches, or happy larks sing in these hushes.

Only some poet

Of birds, flying to it,

Sings here alone, and is lost to the bushes.

10

La Belle au Bois Dormant.

Down the enchanted Forest grey,

Hark, a dreamy note is borne!

’Tis the winding of a horn

Far away!

Boughs of oak and boughs of thorn

Stir and sway.

Yet the wood is haunted,

Silent many a year;

Only long-enchanted

Dreamers linger here.

’Tis a Forest thick and dim,

Overgrown and hoar indeed,

Hung with lichen, choked with weed,

To the brim.

Sleeps the knight and sleeps the steed

Under him.

Here the pale princesses

Lying on the green,

Pillow with their tresses

Their enchanted Queen.

11Where the barren branches meet

Still they sleep, and none behold

Robes of dim brocaded gold,

Sandalled feet,

Languid arms and lips a-cold

Pale and sweet.

Here the wind is noiseless,

Here the fountain stops,

Hanging blank and voiceless

Her enchanted drops.

Hark, along the unwonted gale

Rings the winding of a horn;

Rings thro’ all a world forlorn

Glad Reveil.

Till the blossom studs the thorn,

Thick as hail.

Hark the awaken’d thrushes!

Lo! the deer awake,

Leaping from the rushes,

Through the windy brake.

Till beneath the flowering tree,

Novel music in her ears,

Lo, asleep a thousand years,

12It is She!

Blow thy clarion, Spring; she hears!

She is free!

Break, O bower above her,

Briar and thorn divide.

Hark, the Eternal Lover

Calls the Enchanted Bride!

13

Dawn-Angels.

All night I watched awake for morning,

At last the East grew all a-flame,

The birds for welcome sang, or warning,

And with their singing morning came.

Along the gold-green heavens drifted

Pale wandering souls that shun the light,

Whose cloudy pinions torn and rifted,

Had beat the bars of Heaven all night.

These clustered round the moon, but higher

A troop of shining spirits went,

Who were not made of wind or fire,

But some divine dream-element.

Some held the Light, while those remaining

Shook out their harvest-coloured wings

A faint unusual music raining

(Whose sound was Light) on earthly things.

They sang, and as a mighty river

Their voices washed the night away,

From East to West ran one white shiver,

And waxen strong their song was Day.

14

A Pastoral.

It was Whit Sunday yesterday,

The neighbours met at church to pray;

But I remembered it was May

And went a-wandering far away.

I rested on a shady lawn,

Behind I heard green branches torn,

And through the gap there looked a Faun,

Green ivy hung from either horn.

We built ourselves a flowery house

With roof and walls of tangled boughs,

But while we sat and made carouse

The church bells drowned our songs and vows.

The light died out and left the sky,

We sighed and rose and said good-bye.

We had forgotten—He and I,

That he was dead, that I must die.

15

Paradise Fancies.

I.

Through Paradise garden

A minstrel strays,

An old golden viol

For ever he plays.

Birds fly to his head,

Beasts lie at his feet,

For none of God’s angels

Make music so sweet.

And here, far from Zion

And lonely and mute,

I listen and long

For my heart is the lute.

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On the topmost branch of the Tree of Life

There hung a ripe red apple,

The angels singing underneath

All praised its crimson dapple.

16They plucked it once to play at ball,

But ’mid the shouts and laughter

The apple fell o’er Heaven’s edge,

Sad angels looking after.

E’en while at ease to see it rest

Beside a peaceful chapel,

An old priest flung it farther still,

“Bah, what a battered apple!”

17

To a Dragon Fly.

You hail from Dream-land, Dragon-fly?

A stranger hither? so am I,

And (sooth to say) I wonder why

We either of us came!

Are you (that shine so bright i’ the air)

King Oberon’s state-messenger?

Come tell me how my old friends fare,

Is Dream-land still the same?

Who won the latest tourney fight,

King Arthur, or the Red-Cross Knight,

Or he who bore away the bright

Renown’d Mambrino’s Casque?

Is Caliban King’s councillor yet?

Cross Mentor jester still and pet?

Is Suckling out of love and debt?

Has Spenser done his task?

Say, have they settled over there,

Which is the loveliest Guinevere,

Or Gloriana or the fair

Young Queen of Oberon’s Court?

18And does Titania torment still

Mike Drayton and sweet-throated Will?

In sooth of her amours ’twas ill

To make such merry sport.

Ah, I have been too long away!

No doubt I shall return some day,

But now I’m lost in love and may

Not leave my Lady’s sight.

Mine is (of course) the happier lot,

Yet—tell them I forget them not,

My pretty gay compatriot,

When you go home to-night.

19

Celia’s Home-Coming.

Maidens, kilt your skirts and go

Down the stormy garden-ways,

Pluck the last sweet pinks that blow,

Gather roses, gather bays,

Since our Celia comes to-day

That has been too long away.

Crowd her chamber with your sweets—

Not a flower but grows for her!

Make her bed with linen sheets

That have lain in lavender;

Light a fire before she come

Lest she find us chill at home.

Ah, what joy when Celia stands

By the leaping blaze at last,

Stooping down to warm her hands

All benumbèd with the blast,

While we hide her cloak away

To assure us she shall stay.

20Cyder bring and cowslip wine,

Fruits and flavours from the East,

Pears and pippins too, and fine

Saffron loaves to make a feast:

China dishes, silver cups,

For the board where Celia sups!

Then, when all the feasting’s done,

She shall draw us round the blaze,

Laugh, and tell us every one

Of her far triumphant days—

Celia, out of doors a star,

By the hearth a holier Lar!

21

Posies.

TO F. M. R.

I.

I made a posy for my Love

As fair as she is soft and fine:

The lilac thrift I made it of,

And lemon-yellow columbine.

But woe is me for my despair,

For my pale flowers, woe is me

A bolder man has given her

A branch of crimson peony!

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Come let us a posy make

Sweet with lasting flowers to-day!

Gather roses, dear, and break

Pinks in bud and sprigs of bay,

Myrtle, violets, woodruff, rue,

Lavender and featherfew.

22Trim it round with southern-wood,

Grey and sweet as honest age;

Ladies’ bedstraw fresh and good;

Lilac thyme and silvery sage.

Kiss it last, and let it lie

With my letters—till it die!

23

Thanksgiving for Flowers.

You bring me flowers—behold my shaded room

Is grown all glorious and alive with Light.

Moonshine of pallid primroses, and bright

Daffodil-suns that light the way o’ the tomb.

You bring me dreams—through sleep’s close-lidded gloom,

Sad violets mourn for Sappho all the night,

Where purple saffrons make antique delight

Mid crown’d memorials of Narcissus’ doom.

A scent of herbs now sets me musing on

Men dead i’ the fennel-beds on Marathon:

My flowers, my dreams and I shall lie as dead!

Flowers fade, dreams wake, men die; but never dies

The soul whereby these things were perfected,—

This leaves the world on flower with memories.

24

Poplar Leaves.

The wind blows down the dusty street;

And through my soul that grieves—

It brings a sudden odour sweet:

A smell of poplar leaves.

O leaves that herald in the spring,

O freshness young and pure,

Into my weary soul you bring

The vigour to endure.

The wood is near, but out of sight,

Where all the poplars grow;

Straight up and tall and silver white,

They quiver in a row.

My love is out of sight, but near;

And through my soul that grieves

A sudden memory wafts her here

As fresh as poplar leaves.

25

A Rifiorita.

Flowers in the wall!

How could he leave the house where he was born?

(We children played together

In warm or wintry weather)

How could he leave the house where he was born?

I count the stones for him and love them all.

(We children played together

In warm or wintry weather).

Flowers on the stone!

The Siren loves the sea, but I the Past!

(We children played together

In warm or wintry weather)

The Siren loves the sea, but I the Past!

Upon my rock I sing alone, alone,—

(We children played together

In warm or wintry weather).

26

Le Roi Est Mort.

And shall I weep that Love’s no more,

And magnify his reign?

Sure never mortal man before,

Would have his grief again.

Farewell the long-continued ache,

The days a-dream, the nights awake,

I will rejoice and merry make,

And never more complain.

King Love is dead and gone for aye,

Who ruled with might and main,

For with a bitter word one day,

I found my tyrant slain,

And he in Heathenesse was bred,

Nor ever was baptized, ’tis said,

Nor is of any creed, and dead

Can never rise again.

27

Lethe.

Come with me to Lethe-lake,

Come, since Love is o’er,

He whose thirst those waters slake,

Thirsteth nevermore.

There the sleepy hemlock grows

In the night-shade ranks,

Crimson poppies rows on rows

Flush its quiet banks.

Drink with me of Lethe-lake

Deep and deeper yet,

Drink with me for dead Love’s sake

Drink till we forget.

Since our roses are all dead,

Lost our laurel-boughs,

Let these poppies hang instead

Round our aching brows.

28

Sonnet.

God sent a poet to reform His earth.

But when he came and found it cold and poor,

Harsh and unlovely, where each prosperous boor

Held poets light for all their heavenly birth,

He thought—Myself can make one better worth

The living in than this—full of old lore,

Music and light and love, where Saints adore

And Angels, all within mine own soul’s girth.

But when at last he came to die, his soul

Saw earth (flying past to Heaven) with new love,

And all the unused passion in him cried:

O God, your Heaven I know and weary of.

Give me this world to work in and make whole,

God spoke: Therein, fool, thou hast lived and died!

29

Two Lovers.

I.

I love my lover; on the heights above me

He mocks my poor attainment with a frown.

I, looking up as he is looking down,

By his displeasure guess he still doth love me;

For his ambitious love would ever prove me

More excellent than I as yet am shown:

So, straining for some good ungrasped, unknown,

I vainly would become his image of me.

And, reaching through the dreadful gulfs that sever

Our souls, I strive with darkness nights and days,

Till my perfected work towards him I raise,

Who laughs thereat, and scorns me more than ever;

Yet his upbraiding is beyond all praise.

This lover that I love I call: Endeavour.

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30I have another lover loving me,

Himself beloved of all men, fair and true.

He would not have me change although I grew

Perfect as Light, because more tenderly

He loves myself than loves what I might be.

Low at my feet he sings the winter through,

And, never won, I love to hear him woo.

For in my heaven both sun and moon is he,

To my bare life a fruitful-flooding Nile,

His voice like April airs that in our isle

Wake sap in trees that slept since autumn went.

His words are all caresses, and his smile

The relic of some Eden ravishment;

And he that loves me so I call: Content.

31

Treasure Song.

The miser loves to count his store

Of barren ducats o’er and o’er:

Above all pomp or pleasure

He loves his golden treasure.

And I do love to count alone

A useless treasure of mine own

Heigho! Delights of dreaming,

So dear, and only seeming!

32

Love, Death, and Art.

Lord, give me Love! give me the silent bliss

Of meeting souls, of answering eyes and hands;

The comfort of one heart that understands;

The thrill and rapture of Love’s sealing kiss.

Or grant me—lest I weary of all this—

The quiet of Death’s unimagined lands,

Wherein the longed-for Tree of Knowledge stands,

Where Thou art, Lord—and the great mysteries.

Nay let me sing, my God, and I’ll forego,

Love’s smiling mouth, Death’s sweetlier smiling eyes.

Better my life long mourn in glorious woe,

Than love unheard in a mute Paradise—

For no grief, no despair, can quail me long,

While I can make these sweet to me in song.

33

Friendship.

For your sovereign sake, my friend,

All my lovers are estranged,

Shadow lovers without end;

But last night they were avenged.

On the middle of the night

One by one I saw them rise,

Passing in the ghostly light,

Silent, with averted eyes.

First, my master from the South

With the laurels round his brow,

And the bitter-smiling mouth,

Left me—without smiling now.

Then came one long used to rule

All I was, or did, or had—

Plato, that I read at school

Till my playmates called me mad.

34Maiden saints as pure as pearls,

Beautiful, divine, austere;

Sweeter-voiced Æolian girls,

Left their friend of many a year.

But my earliest friend and best,

My Beethoven, this was hard,

You should leave me with the rest,

Pass without one last regard.

For all went and left me there,

Sighing as they passed me by;

Ah, how sad their voices were!

I shall hear them when I die.

“Fare thee well,” they said; “we go

Scorned as shades and dreams. Adieu!

Love thine earthly friend, but know

Shadows still thou dost pursue.”

35

Wild Cherry Branches.

I.

Lithe sprays of freshness and faint perfume,

You are strange in a London room;

Sweet foreigners come to the dull, close city,

Your flowers are memories, clear in the gloom,

That sigh with regret and are fragrant with pity.

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Flowers, a week since your long, sweet branches

Swayed, hardly seen, in the dusk overhead;

(We live, but the bloom on our living is dead).

Ah! look, where the white moon launches

Her skiff in the skies where the roof-tops spread.

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Like rocks on her course. But she rose not so

Through your wavering sprays when the April weather

Smelt only of flowers a week ago—

On your stems, in my heart, did such blossoms blow!

Let us sigh all together.

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36Your sigh is, perchance, for the neighbouring bushes,

With soft, yellow palms, or the song of the thrushes;

But mine for none of the birds that sing,

No flower of the spring,

But for two distant eyes and a voice that hushes.

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Such light and music, O blossom,

Was ours when I plucked you one moonrise, and you

Remember in fragrance her smile that you knew,

As you lived in her hand, as you lay on her bosom

Once, for a moment, and blossomed anew.

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As I took you I looked, half in awe, where my friend

Crowned with completeness

All heaven’s peace and the whole earth’s sweetness;

So does her soul all souls transcend,

So, in my love for her, all loves blend.

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37For more than the vast everlasting heaven

Declares in its infinite mute appeal

To hearts that feel,

More than the secret and peace of dim even

Knows of God, may a love reveal.

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For then indeed it was clear to my soul

That in loving the one I loved the whole,

Fulfilled all aims, attained every goal,

And God was with me, eternity round me,

Though Life still bound me.

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Past is that hour, but the heart’s trouble lessens

Because it has been.

When I die, when free of its selfish screen

The god in me soars to the Godhead, the Presence

May seem to it first as the love once seen.

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We, flowers, have lived to our blossoming hour,

And not in vain did we rise from the root,

Whether we perish or ripen to power;

We know what sweetness it is to flower,

Let life or death be the fruit.

38

The Springs of Fontana.

The springs of Fontana well high on the mountain,

Out of the rock of the granite they pour

Twenty or more;

Ripple and runnel and freshet and fountain

Well, happy tears, from the heart of the mountain

Up at Fontana.

See, not a step can we take but a spring

Breaks from the roots of the blond-flower’d chestnuts—

(Look, in the water their long golden breast-knots

Flung in caress!)—from a tuft of the ling,

From a stone, anything,

Up at Fontana.

Twenty or more, and no one of the twenty

Gushes the same; here the waters abundant

Babble redundant,

Filling the vale with the bruit of their plenty;

Here a mere ripple, a trickle, a scanty

Dew on Fontana.

39Surely one noonday the Prophet in heaven

Slept, and the wand of the desert fell—

Fell to the rock, and the rock was riven.

Lo, all around it eternally well

(A miracle!)

The springs of Fontana.

Waters of boon!

Deluge or drought cannot alter your current,

Swift in December and icy in June,

Full when the icicle hangs on the torrent,

Full when the river is dry and the noon

Parches Fontana.

Over the rocks!

Over the tree-root that tangles and blocks—

Robbing from all that resists you a sunny

Scent of the cistus and rock-hidden honey,

Yarrow, campanula, thyme, agrimony—

Flow from Fontana!

Flow, happy waters, and gather and rally,

Rush to the plain.

Flow to the heavenly fields of Limain,

Blue as a dream in the folds of the valley;

Feed them and fatten with blossom and grain,

Springs of Fontana!

40River of springs,

Born many times in renewal unending,

Bright, irresistible, purest of things,

Blessing the rocks that oppose you, befriending

Pastures and cattle and men in your wending

Forth from Fontana.

Born (who knows how?) a mysterious fountain

Out of the stone and the dust of the mountain,

Bound to a country we know little of,

How shall I bless ye and praise ye enough,

Image of Love,

Springs of Fontana!

July, 1889.

41“Un cœur tendre qui hait le néant vaste et noir

Du passé lumineux recueille tout vestige.”

Baudelaire