I found in dreams a place of wind and flowers, | |
Full of sweet trees and colour of glad grass, | |
In midst whereof there was | |
A lady clothed like summer with sweet hours. | |
Her beauty, fervent as a fiery moon, | |
Made my blood burn and swoon | |
Like a flame rained upon. | |
Sorrow had filled her shaken eyelids’ blue, | |
And her mouth’s sad red heavy rose all through | |
10 | Seemed sad with glad things gone. |
She held a little cithern by the strings, | |
Shaped heartwise, strung with subtle-coloured hair | |
Of some dead lute-player | |
That in dead years had done delicious things. | |
The seven strings were named accordingly; | |
The first string charity, | |
The second tenderness, | |
The rest were pleasure, sorrow, sleep, and sin, | |
And loving-kindness, that is pity’s kin | |
20 | And is most pitiless. |
There were three men with her, each garmented | |
With gold and shod with gold upon the feet; | |
And with plucked ears of wheat | |
The first man’s hair was wound upon his head: | |
His face was red, and his mouth curled and sad; | |
All his gold garment had | |
Pale stains of dust and rust. | |
A riven hood was pulled across his eyes; | |
The token of him being upon this wise | |
30 | Made for a sign of Lust. |
The next was Shame, with hollow heavy face | |
Coloured like green wood when flame kindles it. | |
He hath such feeble feet | |
They may not well endure in any place. | |
His face was full of grey old miseries, | |
And all his blood’s increase | |
Was even increase of pain. | |
The last was Fear, that is akin to Death; | |
He is Shame’s friend, and always as Shame saith | |
40 | Fear answers him again. |
My soul said in me; This is marvellous, | |
Seeing the air’s face is not so delicate | |
Nor the sun’s grace so great, | |
If sin and she be kin or amorous. | |
And seeing where maidens served her on their knees, | |
I bade one crave of these | |
To know the cause thereof. | |
Then Fear said: I am Pity that was dead. | |
And Shame said: I am Sorrow comforted. | |
50 | And Lust said: I am Love. |
Thereat her hands began a lute-playing | |
And her sweet mouth a song in a strange tongue; | |
And all the while she sung | |
There was no sound but long tears following | |
Long tears upon men’s faces, waxen white | |
With extreme sad delight. | |
But those three following men | |
Became as men raised upon among the dead; | |
Great glad mouths open and fair cheeks made red | |
60 | With child’s blood come again. |
Then I said: Now assuredly I see | |
My lady is perfect, and transfigureth | |
All sin and sorrow and death, | |
Making them fair as her own eyelids be, | |
Or lips wherein my whole soul’s life abides; | |
Or as her sweet white sides | |
And bosom carved to kiss. | |
Now therefore, if her pity further me, | |
Doubtless for her sake all my days shall be | |
70 | As righteous as she is. |
Forth, ballad, and take roses in both arms, | |
Even till the top rose touch thee in the throat | |
Where the least thornprick harms; | |
And girdled in thy golden singing-coat, | |
Come thou before my lady and say this; | |
Borgia, thy gold hair’s colour burns in me, | |
Thy mouth makes beat my blood in feverish rhymes; | |
Therefore so many as these roses be, | |
Kiss me so many times. | |
80 | Then it may be, seeing how sweet she is, |
That she will stoop herself none otherwise | |
Than a blown vine-branch doth, | |
And kiss thee with soft laughter on thine eyes, | |
Ballad, and on thy mouth. |