Kneel down, fair Love, and fill thyself with tears, | |
Girdle thyself with sighing for a girth | |
Upon the sides of mirth, | |
Cover thy lips and eyelids, let thine ears | |
Be filled with rumour of people sorrowing; | |
Make thee soft raiment out of woven sighs | |
Upon the flesh to cleave, | |
Set pains therein and many a grievous thing, | |
And many sorrows after each his wise | |
10 | For armlet and for gorget and for sleeve. |
O Love’s lute heard about the lands of death, | |
Left hanged upon the trees that were therein; | |
O Love and Time and Sin, | |
Three singing mouths that mourn now underbreath, | |
Three lovers, each one evil spoken of; | |
O smitten lips wherethrough this voice of mine | |
Came softer with her praise; | |
Abide a little for our lady’s love. | |
The kisses of her mouth were more than wine, | |
20 | And more than peace the passage of her days. |
O Love, thou knowest if she were good to see. | |
O Time, thou shalt not find in any land | |
Till, cast out of thine hand, | |
The sunlight and the moonlight fail from thee, | |
Another woman fashioned like as this. | |
O Sin, thou knowest that all thy shame in her | |
Was made a goodly thing; | |
Yea, she caught Shame and shamed him with her kiss, | |
With her fair kiss, and lips much lovelier | |
30 | Than lips of amorous roses in late spring. |
By night there stood over against my bed | |
Queen Venus with a hood striped gold and black, | |
Both sides drawn fully back | |
From brows wherein the sad blood failed of red, | |
And temples drained of purple and full of death. | |
Her curled hair had the wave of sea-water | |
And the sea’s gold in it. | |
Her eyes were as a dove’s that sickeneth. | |
Strewn dust of gold she had shed over her, | |
40 | And pearl and purple and amber on her feet. |
Upon her raiment of dyed sendaline | |
Were painted all the secret ways of love | |
And covered things thereof, | |
That hold delight as grape-flowers hold their wine; | |
Red mouths of maidens and red feet of doves, | |
And brides that kept within the bride-chamber | |
Their garment of soft shame, | |
And weeping faces of the wearied loves | |
That swoon in sleep and awake wearier, | |
50 | With heat of lips and hair shed out like flame. |
The tears that through her eyelids fell on me | |
Made mine own bitter where they ran between | |
As blood had fallen therein, | |
She saying; Arise, lift up thine eyes and see | |
If any glad thing be or any good | |
Now the best thing is taken forth of us; | |
Even she to whom all praise | |
Was as one flower in a great multitude, | |
One glorious flower of many and glorious, | |
60 | One day found gracious among many days: |
Even she whose handmaiden was Love – to whom | |
At kissing times across her stateliest bed | |
Kings bowed themselves and shed | |
Pale wine, and honey with the honeycomb, | |
And spikenard bruised for a burnt-offering; | |
Even she between whose lips the kiss became | |
As fire and frankincense; | |
Whose hair was as gold raiment on a king, | |
Whose eyes were as the morning purged with flame, | |
70 | Whose eyelids as sweet savour issuing thence. |
Then I beheld, and lo on the other side | |
My lady’s likeness crowned and robed and dead. | |
Sweet still, but now not red, | |
Was the shut mouth whereby men lived and died. | |
And sweet, but emptied of the blood’s blue shade, | |
The great curled eyelids that withheld her eyes. | |
And sweet, but like spoilt gold, | |
The weight of colour in her tresses weighed. | |
And sweet, but as a vesture with new dyes, | |
80 | The body that was clothed with love of old. |
Ah! that my tears filled all her woven hair | |
And all the hollow bosom of her gown – | |
Ah! that my tears ran down | |
Even to the place where many kisses were, | |
Even where her parted breast-flowers have place, | |
Even where they are cloven apart – who knows not this? | |
Ah! the flowers cleave apart | |
And their sweet fills the tender interspace; | |
Ah! the leaves grown thereof were things to kiss | |
90 | Ere their fine gold was tarnished at the heart. |
Ah! in the days when God did good to me, | |
Each part about her was a righteous thing; | |
Her mouth an almsgiving, | |
The glory of her garments charity, | |
The beauty of her bosom a good deed, | |
In the good days when God kept sight of us; | |
Love lay upon her eyes, | |
And on that hair whereof the world takes heed; | |
And all her body was more virtuous | |
100 | Than souls of women fashioned otherwise. |
Now, ballad, gather poppies in thine hands | |
And sheaves of brier and many rusted sheaves | |
Rain-rotten in rank lands, | |
Waste marigold and late unhappy leaves | |
And grass that fades ere any of it be mown; | |
And when thy bosom is filled full thereof | |
Seek out Death’s face ere the light altereth, | |
And say ‘My master that was thrall to Love | |
Is become thrall to Death.’ | |
110 | Bow down before him, ballad, sigh and groan, |
But make no sojourn in thy outgoing; | |
For haply it may be | |
That when thy feet return at evening | |
Death shall come in with thee. |