( … ) |
VII Claude to Eustace | |
So, I have seen a man killed! An experience that, among others! | |
Yes, I suppose I have; although I can hardly be certain, | |
And in a court of justice could never declare I had seen it. | |
But a man was killed, I am told, in a place where I saw | |
Something; a man was killed, I am told, and I saw something. | |
I was returning home from St Peter’s; Murray, as usual, | |
Under my arm, I remember; had crossed the St Angelo bridge; and | |
Moving towards the Condotti, had got to the first barricade, when | |
Gradually, thinking still of St Peter’s, I became conscious | |
Of a sensation of movement opposing me, – tendency this way | |
(Such as one fancies may be in a stream when the wave of the tide is | |
Coming and not yet come, – a sort of poise and retention); | |
So I turned, and, before I turned, caught sight of stragglers | |
Heading a crowd, it is plain, that is coming behind that corner. | |
Looking up, I see windows filled with heads; the Piazza, | |
Into which you remember the Ponte St Angelo enters, | |
Since I passed, has thickened with curious groups; and now the | |
Crowd is coming, has turned, has crossed that last barricade, is | |
Here at my side. In the middle they drag at something. What is it? | |
Ha! bare swords in the air, held up! There seem to be voices | |
Pleading and hands putting back; official, perhaps; but the swords are | |
Many, and bare in the air. In the air? They descend; they are smiting | |
Hewing, chopping – At what? In the air once more upstretched! And | |
Is it blood that’s on them? Yes, certainly blood! Of whom, then? | |
Over whom is the cry of this furor of exultation? | |
While they are skipping and screaming, and dancing their caps on the points of | |
Swords and bayonets, I to the outskirts back, and ask a | |
Mercantile-seeming by-stander, ‘What is it?’ and he, looking always | |
That way, makes me answer, ‘A Priest, who was trying to fly to | |
The Neapolitan army,’ – and thus explains the proceeding. | |
You didn’t see the dead man? No; – I began to be doubtful; | |
I was in black myself, and didn’t know what mightn’t happen; – | |
But a National Guard close by me, outside of the hubbub, | |
Broke his sword with slashing a broad hat covered with dust, – and | |
Passing away from the place with Murray under my arm, and | |
Stooping, I saw through the legs of the people the legs of a body. | |
You are the first, do you know, to whom I have mentioned the matter. | |
Whom should I tell it to, else? – these girls? – the Heavens forbid it! – | |
Quidnuncs at Monaldini’s? – idlers upon the Pincian? | |
If I rightly remember, it happened on that afternoon when | |
Word of the nearer approach of a new Neapolitan army | |
First was spread. I began to bethink me of Paris Septembers, | |
Thought I could fancy the look of the old ’Ninety-two. On that evening | |
Three or four, or, it may be, five, of these people were slaughtered. | |
Some declare they had, one of them, fired on a sentinel; others | |
Say they were only escaping; a Priest, it is currently stated, | |
Stabbed a National Guard on the very Piazza Colonna: | |
History, Rumour of Rumours, I leave it to thee to determine! | |
But I am thankful to say the government seems to have strength to | |
Put it down; it has vanished, at least; the place is most peaceful. | |
Through the Trastevere walking last night, at nine of the clock, I | |
Found no sort of disorder; I crossed by the Island-bridges, | |
So by the narrow streets to the Ponte Rotto, and onwards | |
Thence, by the Temple of Vesta, away to the great Coliseum, | |
Which at the full of the moon is an object worthy a visit. |
VIII Georgina Trevellyn to Louisa | |
Only think, dearest Louisa, what fearful scenes we have witnessed! |
* * * |
George has just seen Garibaldi, dressed up in a long white cloak, on | |
Horseback, riding by, with his mounted negro behind him: | |
This is a man, you know, who came from America with him, | |
Out of the woods, I suppose, and uses a lasso in fighting, | |
Which is, I don’t quite know, but a sort of noose, I imagine; | |
This he throws on the heads of the enemy’s men in a battle, | |
Pulls them into his reach, and then most cruelly kills them: | |
Mary does not believe, but we heard it from an Italian. | |
Mary allows she was wrong about Mr Claude being selfish; | |
He was most useful and kind on the terrible thirtieth of April. | |
Do not write here any more; we are starting directly for Florence: | |
We should be off to-morrow, if only Papa could get horses; | |
All have been seized everywhere for the use of this dreadful Mazzini. | |
P.S. | |
Mary has seen thus far. – I am really so angry, Louisa, – | |
Quite out of patience, my dearest! What can the man be intending! | |
I am quite tired; and Mary, who might bring him to in a moment, | |
Lets him go on as he likes, and neither will help nor dismiss him. |
IX Claude to Eustace | |
It is most curious to see what a power a few calm words (in | |
Merely a brief proclamation) appear to possess on the people. | |
Order is perfect, and peace; the city is utterly tranquil; | |
And one cannot conceive that this easy and nonchalant crowd, that | |
Flows like a quiet stream through street and market-place, entering | |
Shady recesses and bays of church, osteria, and caffè, | |
Could in a moment be changed to a flood as of molten lava, | |
Boil into deadly wrath and wild homicidal delusion. | |
Ah, ’tis an excellent race, – and even in old degradation, | |
Under a rule that enforces to flattery, lying, and cheating, | |
E’en under Pope and Priest, a nice and natural people. | |
Oh, could they but be allowed this chance of redemption! – but clearly | |
That is not likely to be. Meantime, notwithstanding all journals, | |
Honour for once to the tongue and the pen of the eloquent writer! | |
Honour to speech! and all honour to thee, thou noble Mazzini! |
X Claude to Eustace | |
I am in love, meantime, you think; no doubt you would think so. | |
I am in love, you say; with those letters, of course, you would say so. | |
I am in love, you declare. I think not so; yet I grant you | |
It is a pleasure, indeed, to converse with this girl. Oh, rare gift, | |
Rare felicity, this! she can talk in a rational way, can | |
Speak upon subjects that really are matters of mind and of thinking, | |
Yet in perfection retain her simplicity; never, one moment, | |
Never, however you urge it, however you tempt her, consents to | |
Step from ideas and fancies and loving sensations to those vain | |
Conscious understandings that vex the minds of man-kind. | |
No, though she talk, it is music; her fingers desert not the keys; ’tis | |
Song, though you hear in the song the articulate vocables sounded, | |
Syllabled singly and sweetly the words of melodious meaning. | |
I am in love, you say; I do not think so exactly. |
Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night | |
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight: | |
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught | |
The Sultán’s Turret in a Noose of Light. |
Dreaming when Dawn’s Left Hand was in the Sky | |
I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry, | |
‘Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup | |
‘Before Life’s Liquor in its Cup be dry.’ |
And, as the Cock crew, those who stood before | |
The Tavern shouted – ‘Open then the Door! | |
‘You know how little while we have to stay, | |
‘And, once departed, may return no more.’ |
(… ) |
‘How sweet is mortal Sovranty!’ – think some: | |
Others – ‘How blest the Paradise to come!’ | |
Ah, take the Cash in hand and waive the Rest; | |
Oh, the brave Music of a distant Drum! |
Look to the Rose that blows about us – ‘Lo, | |
‘Laughing,’ she says, ‘into the World I blow: | |
‘At once the silken Tassel of my purse | |
‘Tear, and its Treasure on the Garden throw.’ |
The Worldly Hope men set their Hearts upon | |
Turns Ashes – or it prospers; and anon, | |
Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face | |
Lighting a little Hour or two – is gone. |
And those who husbanded the Golden Grain, | |
And those who flung it to the Winds like Rain, | |
Alike to no such aureate Earth are turn’d | |
As, buried once, Men want dug up again. |
Think, in this batter’d Caravanserai | |
Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day, | |
How Sultán after Sultán with his Pomp | |
Abode his Hour or two, and went his way. |
They say the Lion and the Lizard keep | |
The Courts where Jamshýd gloried and drank deep: | |
And Bahrám, that great Hunter – the Wild Ass | |
Stamps o’er his Head, and he lies fast asleep. |
I sometimes think that never blows so red | |
The Rose as where some buried Cæesar bled; | |
That every Hyacinth the Garden wears | |
Dropt in its Lap from some once lovely Head. |
And this delightful Herb whose tender Green | |
Fledges the River’s Lip on which we lean – | |
Ah, lean upon it lightly! for who knows | |
From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen! |
Ah, my Belovéd, fill the Cup that clears | |
TO-DAY of past Regrets and future Fears – | |
To-morrow? – Why, To-morrow I may be | |
Myself with Yesterday’s Sev’n Thousand Years. |
Lo! some we loved, the loveliest and best | |
That Time and Fate of all their Vintage prest, | |
Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before, | |
And one by one crept silently to Rest. |
And we, that now make merry in the Room | |
They left, and Summer dresses in new Bloom, | |
Ourselves must we beneath the Couch of Earth | |
Descend, ourselves to make a Couch – for whom? |
Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend, | |
Before we too into the Dust descend; | |
Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie, | |
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and – sans End! |
Alike for those who for TO-DAY prepare, | |
And those that after a TO-MORROW stare, | |
A Muezzin from the Tower of Darkness cries | |
‘Fools! your Reward is neither Here nor There!’ |
Why, all the Saints and Sages who discuss’d | |
Of the Two Worlds so learnedly, are thrust | |
Like foolish Prophets forth; their Words to Scorn | |
Are scatter’d, and their Mouths are stopt with Dust. |
Oh, come with old Khayyám, and leave the Wise | |
To talk; one thing is certain, that Life flies; | |
One thing is certain, and the Rest is Lies; | |
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies. |
Myself when young did eagerly frequent | |
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument | |
About it and about: but evermore | |
Came out by the same Door as in I went. |
With them the Seed of Wisdom did I sow, | |
And with my own hand labour’d it to grow: | |
And this was all the Harvest that I reap’d – | |
‘I came like Water, and like Wind I go.’ |
‘Ithin the woodlands, flow’ry gleäded, | |
By the woak tree’s mossy moot, | |
The sheenèn grass-bleädes, timber-sheäded, | |
Now do quiver under voot; | |
An’ birds do whissle over head, | |
An’ water’s bubblèn in its bed, | |
An’ there vor me the apple tree | |
Do leän down low in Linden Lea. |
When leaves that leätely wer a-springèn | |
Now do feäde ’ithin the copse, | |
An’ païnted birds do hush their zingèn | |
Up upon the timber’s tops; | |
An’ brown-leav’d fruit’s a turnèn red, | |
In cloudless zunsheen, over head, | |
Wi’ fruit vor me, the apple tree | |
Do leän down low in Linden Lea. |
Let other vo’k meäke money vaster | |
In the aïr o’ dark-room’d towns, | |
I don’t dread a peevish meäster; | |
Though noo man do heed my frowns, | |
I be free to goo abrode, | |
Or teäke ageän my hwomeward road | |
To where, vor me, the apple tree | |
Do leän down low in Linden Lea. |
When I wer still a bwoy, an’ mother’s pride, | |
A bigger bwoy spoke up to me so kind-like, | |
‘If you do like, I’ll treat ye wi’ a ride | |
In theäse wheel-barrow here.’ Zoo I wer blind-like | |
To what he had a-workèn in his mind-like, | |
An’ mounted vor a passenger inside; | |
An’ comèn to a puddle, perty wide, | |
He tipp’d me in, a-grinnèn back behind-like. | |
Zoo when a man do come to me so thick-like, | |
An’ sheäke my hand, where woonce he pass’d me by, | |
An’ tell me he would do me this or that, | |
I can’t help thinkèn o’ the big bwoy’s trick-like. | |
An’ then, vor all I can but wag my hat | |
An’ thank en, I do veel a little shy. |
The woods decay, the woods decay and fall, | |
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground, | |
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, | |
And after many a summer dies the swan. | |
Me only cruel immortality | |
Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms, | |
Here at the quiet limit of the world, | |
A white-hair’d shadow roaming like a dream | |
The ever-silent spaces of the East, | |
Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn. |
Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man – | |
So glorious in his beauty and thy choice, | |
Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem’d | |
To his great heart none other than a God! | |
I ask’d thee, ‘Give me immortality.’ | |
Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile, | |
Like wealthy men, who care not how they give. | |
But thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills, | |
And beat me down and marr’d and wasted me, | |
And tho’ they could not end me, left me maim’d | |
To dwell in presence of immortal youth, | |
Immortal age beside immortal youth, | |
And all I was, in ashes. Can thy love, | |
Thy beauty, make amends, tho’ even now, | |
Close over us, the silver star, thy guide, | |
Shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears | |
To hear me? Let me go: take back thy gift: | |
Why should a man desire in any way | |
To vary from the kindly race of men | |
Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance | |
Where all should pause, as is most meet for all? |
A soft air fans the cloud apart; there comes | |
A glimpse of that dark world where I was born. | |
Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals | |
From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure, | |
And bosom beating with a heart renew’d. | |
Thy cheek begins to redden thro’ the gloom, | |
Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine, | |
Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team | |
Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise, | |
And shake the darkness from their loosen’d manes, | |
And beat the twilight into flakes of fire. |
Lo! ever thus thou growest beautiful | |
In silence, then before thine answer given | |
Departest, and thy tears are on my cheek. | |
Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears, | |
And make me tremble lest a saying learnt, | |
In days far-off, on that dark earth, be true? | |
‘The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts.’ |
Ay me! ay me! with what another heart | |
In days far-off, and with what other eyes | |
I used to watch – if I be he that watch’d – | |
The lucid outline forming round thee; saw | |
The dim curls kindle into sunny rings; | |
Changed with thy mystic change, and felt my blood | |
Glow with the glow that slowly crimson’d all | |
Thy presence and thy portals, while I lay, | |
Mouth, forehead, eyelids, growing dewy-warm | |
With kisses balmier than half-opening buds | |
Of April, and could hear the lips that kiss’d | |
Whispering I knew not what of wild and sweet, | |
Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing, | |
While Ilion like a mist rose into towers. |
Yet hold me not for ever in thine East: | |
How can my nature longer mix with thine? | |
Coldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold | |
Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet | |
Upon thy glimmering thresholds, when the steam | |
Floats up from those dim fields about the homes | |
Of happy men that have the power to die, | |
And grassy barrows of the happier dead. | |
Release me, and restore me to the ground; | |
Thou seëst all things, thou wilt see my grave: | |
Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn; | |
I earth in earth forget these empty courts, | |
And thee returning on thy silver wheels. |
(written 1833)
To the dim light and the large circle of shade | |
I have clomb, and to the whitening of the hills, | |
There where we see no colour in the grass. | |
Natheless my longing loses not its green, | |
It has so taken root in the hard stone | |
Which talks and hears as though it were a lady. |
Utterly frozen is this youthful lady, | |
Even as the snow that lies within the shade; | |
For she is no more moved than is the stone | |
By the sweet season which makes warm the hills | |
And alters them afresh from white to green, | |
Covering their sides again with flowers and grass. |
When on her hair she sets a crown of grass | |
The thought has no more room for other lady; | |
Because she weaves the yellow with the green | |
So well that Love sits down there in the shade, – | |
Love who has shut me in among low hills | |
Faster than between walls of granite-stone. |
She is more bright than is a precious stone; | |
The wound she gives may not be healed with grass: | |
I therefore have fled far o’er plains and hills | |
For refuge from so dangerous a lady; | |
But from her sunshine nothing can give shade, – | |
Not any hill, nor wall, nor summer-green. |
A while ago, I saw her dressed in green, – | |
So fair, she might have wakened in a stone | |
This love which I do feel even for her shade; | |
And therefore, as one woos a graceful lady, | |
I wooed her in a field that was all grass | |
Girdled about with very lofty hills. |
Yet shall the streams turn back and climb the hills | |
Before Love’s flame in this damp wood and green | |
Burn, as it burns within a youthful lady, | |
For my sake, who would sleep away in stone | |
My life, or feed like beasts upon the grass, | |
Only to see her garments cast a shade. |
How dark soe’er the hills throw out their shade, | |
Under her summer-green the beautiful lady | |
Covers it, like a stone cover’d in grass. |
He was the first always: Fortune | |
Shone bright in his face. | |
I fought for years; with no effort | |
He conquered the place: | |
We ran; my feet were all bleeding, | |
But he won the race. |
Spite of his many successes | |
Men loved him the same; | |
My one pale ray of good fortune | |
Met scoffing and blame. | |
When we erred, they gave him pity, | |
But me – only shame. |
My home was still in the shadow, | |
His lay in the sun: | |
I longed in vain: what he asked for | |
It straightway was done. | |
Once I staked all my heart’s treasure, | |
We played – and he won. |
Yes; and just now I have seen him, | |
Cold, smiling, and blest, | |
Laid in his coffin. God help me! | |
While he is at rest, | |
I am cursed still to live: – even | |
Death loved him the best. |
I cannot tell you how it was; | |
But this I know: it came to pass | |
Upon a bright and breezy day | |
When May was young; ah pleasant May! | |
As yet the poppies were not born | |
Between the blades of tender corn; | |
The last eggs had not hatched as yet, | |
Nor any bird foregone its mate. | |
I cannot tell you what it was; | |
But this I know: it did but pass. | |
It passed away with sunny May, | |
With all sweet things it passed away, | |
And left me old, and cold, and grey. |
When I am dead, my dearest, | |
Sing no sad songs for me; | |
Plant thou no roses at my head, | |
Nor shady cypress tree: | |
Be the green grass above me | |
With showers and dewdrops wet; | |
And if thou wilt, remember, | |
And if thou wilt, forget. |
I shall not see the shadows, | |
I shall not feel the rain; | |
I shall not hear the nightingale | |
Sing on, as if in pain: | |
And dreaming through the twilight | |
That doth not rise nor set, | |
Haply I may remember, | |
And haply may forget. |
I tell my secret? No indeed, not I: | |
Perhaps some day, who knows? | |
But not today; it froze, and blows, and snows, | |
And you’re too curious: fie! | |
You want to hear it? well: | |
Only, my secret’s mine, and I won’t tell. |
Or, after all, perhaps there’s none: | |
Suppose there is no secret after all, | |
But only just my fun. | |
Today’s a nipping day, a biting day; | |
In which one wants a shawl, | |
A veil, a cloak, and other wraps: | |
I cannot ope to every one who taps, | |
And let the draughts come whistling thro’ my hall; | |
Come bounding and surrounding me, | |
Come buffeting, astounding me, | |
Nipping and clipping thro’ my wraps and all. | |
I wear my mask for warmth: who ever shows | |
His nose to Russian snows | |
To be pecked at by every wind that blows? | |
You would not peck? I thank you for good will, | |
Believe, but leave that truth untested still. |
Spring’s an expansive time: yet I don’t trust | |
March with its peck of dust, | |
Nor April with its rainbow-crowned brief showers, | |
Nor even May, whose flowers | |
One frost may wither thro’ the sunless hours. |
Perhaps some languid summer day, | |
When drowsy birds sing less and less, | |
And golden fruit is ripening to excess, | |
If there’s not too much sun nor too much cloud, | |
And the warm wind is neither still nor loud, | |
Perhaps my secret I may say, | |
Or you may guess. |
I | |
‘But why do you go?’ said the lady, while both sat under the yew, | |
And her eyes were alive in their depth, as the kraken beneath the sea-blue. |
II | |
‘Because I fear you,’ he answered; – ‘because you are far too fair, | |
And able to strangle my soul in a mesh of your gold-coloured hair.’ |
III | |
‘Oh, that,’ she said, ‘is no reason! Such knots are quickly undone, | |
And too much beauty, I reckon, is nothing but too much sun.’ |
IV | |
‘Yet farewell so,’ he answered; – ‘the sunstroke’s fatal at times. | |
I value your husband, Lord Walter, whose gallop rings still from the limes.’ |
V | |
‘Oh, that,’ she said, ‘is no reason. You smell a rose through a fence: | |
If two should smell it, what matter? who grumbles, and where’s the pretence?’ |
VI | |
‘But I,’ he replied, ‘have promised another, when love was free, | |
To love her alone, alone, who alone and afar loves me.’ |
VII | |
‘Why, that,’ she said, ‘is no reason. Love’s always free, I am told. | |
Will you vow to be safe from the headache on Tuesday, and think it will hold?’ |
VIII | |
‘But you,’ he replied, ‘have a daughter, a young little child, who was laid | |
In your lap to be pure; so I leave you: the angels would make me afraid.’ |
IX | |
‘Oh, that,’ she said, ‘is no reason. The angels keep out of the way; | |
And Dora, the child, observes nothing, although you should please me and stay.’ |
X | |
At which he rose up in his anger, – ‘Why, now, you no longer are fair! | |
Why, now, you no longer are fatal, but ugly and hateful, I swear.’ |
XI | |
At which she laughed out in her scorn: ‘These men! Oh, these men overnice, | |
Who are shocked if a colour not virtuous is frankly put on by a vice.’ |
XII | |
Her eyes blazed upon him – ‘And you! You bring us your vices so near | |
That we smell them! You think in our presence a thought ’twould defame us to hear! |
XIII | |
‘What reason had you, and what right, – I appeal to your soul from my life, – | |
To find me too fair as a woman? Why, sir, I am pure, and a wife. |
XIV | |
‘Is the day-star too fair up above you? It burns you not. Dare you imply | |
I brushed you more close than the star does, when Walter had set me as high? |
XV | |
‘If a man finds a woman too fair, he means simply adapted too much | |
To use unlawful and fatal. The praise! – shall I thank you for such? |
XVI | |
‘Too fair? – not unless you misuse us! and surely if, once in a while, | |
You attain to it, straightway you call us no longer too fair, but too vile. |
XVII | |
‘A moment, – I pray your attention! – I have a poor word in my head | |
I must utter, though womanly custom would set it down better unsaid. |
XVIII | |
‘You grew, sir, pale to impertinence, once when I showed you a ring. | |
You kissed my fan when I dropped it. No matter! – I’ve broken the thing. |
XIX | |
‘You did me the honour, perhaps, to be moved at my side now and then | |
In the senses – a vice, I have heard, which is common to beasts and some men. |
XX | |
‘Love’s a virtue for heroes! – as white as the snow on high hills, | |
And immortal as every great soul is that struggles, endures, and fulfils. |
XXI | |
‘I love my Walter profoundly, – you, Maude, though you faltered a week, | |
For the sake of… what was it – an eyebrow? or, less still, a mole on a cheek? |
XXII | |
‘And since, when all’s said, you’re too noble to stoop to the frivolous cant | |
About crimes irresistible, virtues that swindle, betray and supplant, |
XXIII | |
‘I determined to prove to yourself that, whate’er you might dream or avow | |
By illusion, you wanted precisely no more of me than you have now. |
XXIV | |
‘There! Look me full in the face! – in the face. Understand, if you can, | |
That the eyes of such women as I am are clean as the palm of a man. |
XXV | |
‘Drop his hand, you insult him. Avoid us for fear we should cost you a scar – | |
You take us for harlots, I tell you, and not for the women we are. |
XXVI | |
‘You wronged me: but then I considered… there’s Walter! And so at the end | |
I vowed that he should not be mulcted, by me, in the hand of a friend. |
XXVII | |
‘Have I hurt you indeed? We are quits then. Nay, friend of my Walter, be mine! | |
Come, Dora, my darling, my angel, and help me to ask him to dine.’ |
What was he doing, the great god Pan, | |
Down in the reeds by the river? | |
Spreading ruin and scattering ban, | |
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat, | |
And breaking the golden lilies afloat | |
With the dragon-fly on the river. |
He tore out a reed, the great god Pan, | |
From the deep cool bed of the river: | |
The limpid water turbidly ran, | |
And the broken lilies a-dying lay, | |
And the dragon-fly had fled away, | |
Ere he brought it out of the river. |
High on the shore sat the great god Pan | |
While turbidly flowed the river; | |
And hacked and hewed as a great god can, | |
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed, | |
Till there was not a sign of the leaf indeed | |
To prove it fresh from the river. |
He cut it short, did the great god Pan, | |
(How tall it stood in the river!) | |
Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man, | |
Steadily from the outside ring, | |
And notched the poor dry empty thing | |
In holes, as he sat by the river. |
‘This is the way,’ laughed the great god Pan | |
(Laughed while he sat by the river), | |
‘The only way, since gods began | |
To make sweet music, they could succeed.’ | |
Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed, | |
He blew in power by the river. |
Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan! | |
Piercing sweet by the river! | |
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan! | |
The sun on the hill forgot to die, | |
And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly | |
Came back to dream on the river. |
Yet half a beast is the great god Pan, | |
To laugh as he sits by the river, | |
Making a poet out of a man: | |
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain, – | |
For the reed which grows nevermore again | |
As a reed with the reeds in the river. |
I | |
By this he knew she wept with waking eyes: | |
That, at his hand’s light quiver by her head, | |
The strange low sobs that shook their common bed | |
Were called into her with a sharp surprise, | |
And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes, | |
Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay | |
Stone-still, and the long darkness flow’d away | |
With muffled pulses. Then, as midnight makes | |
Her giant heart of Memory and Tears | |
Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat | |
Sleep’s heavy measure, they from head to feet | |
Were moveless, looking thro’ their dead black years, | |
By vain regret scrawl’d over the blank wall. | |
Like sculptured effigies they might be seen | |
Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between; | |
Each wishing for the sword that severs all. |
XVII | |
At dinner she is hostess, I am host. | |
Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keeps | |
The Topic over intellectual deeps | |
In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost. | |
With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball: | |
It is in truth a most contagious game; | |
HIDING THE SKELETON shall be its name. | |
Such play as this the devils might appal! | |
But here’s the greater wonder; in that we, | |
Enamour’d of our acting and our wits, | |
Admire each other like true hypocrites. | |
Warm-lighted glances, Love’s Ephemerae, | |
Shoot gaily o’er the dishes and the wine. | |
We waken envy of our happy lot. | |
Fast, sweet, and golden, shows our marriage-knot. | |
Dear guests, you now have seen Love’s corpse-light shine! |
XXXIV | |
Madam would speak with me. So, now it comes: | |
The Deluge or else Fire! She’s well; she thanks | |
My husbandship. Our chain on silence clanks. | |
Time leers between, above his twiddling thumbs. | |
Am I quite well? Most excellent in health! | |
The journals, too, I diligently peruse. | |
Vesuvius is expected to give news: | |
Niagara is no noisier. By stealth | |
Our eyes dart scrutinizing snakes. She’s glad | |
I’m happy, says her quivering under-lip. | |
‘And are not you?’ ‘How can I be?’ ‘Take ship! | |
For happiness is somewhere to be had.’ | |
‘Nowhere for me!’ Her voice is barely heard. | |
I am not melted, and make no pretence. | |
With commonplace I freeze her, tongue and sense. | |
Niagara or Vesuvius is deferred. |
L | |
Thus piteously Love closed what he begat: | |
The union of this ever-diverse pair! | |
These two were rapid falcons in a snare, | |
Condemn’d to do the flitting of the bat. | |
Lovers beneath the singing sky of May, | |
They wander’d once; clear as the dew on flowers: | |
But they fed not on the advancing hours: | |
Their hearts held cravings for the buried day. | |
Then each applied to each that fatal knife, | |
Deep questioning, which probes to endless dole. | |
Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul | |
When hot for certainties in this our life! – | |
In tragic hints here see what evermore | |
Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean’s force, | |
Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse, | |
To throw that faint thin line upon the shore! |
Thou shalt have one God only; who | |
Would be at the expense of two? | |
No graven images may be | |
Worshipped, except the currency: | |
Swear not at all; for for thy curse | |
Thine enemy is none the worse: | |
At church on Sunday to attend | |
Will serve to keep the world thy friend: | |
Honour thy parents; that is, all | |
From whom advancement may befall: | |
Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive | |
Officiously to keep alive: | |
Do not adultery commit; | |
Advantage rarely comes of it: | |
Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat, | |
When it’s so lucrative to cheat: | |
Bear not false witness; let the lie | |
Have time on its own wings to fly: | |
Thou shalt not covet; but tradition | |
Approves all forms of competition. |
The sum of all is, thou shalt love, | |
If any body, God above: | |
At any rate shall never labour | |
More than thyself to love thy neighbour. |
What is thought that is not free? | |
’Tis a lie that runs in grooves, | |
And by nought and nothing proves | |
Three times one is one, not three. |
(1915)
There the ash-tree leaves do vall | |
In the wind a-blowèn cwolder, | |
An’ my childern, tall or small, | |
Since last Fall be woone year wolder; | |
Woone year wolder, woone year dearer, | |
Till when they do leave my he’th. | |
I shall be noo mwore a hearer | |
O’ their vaïces or their me’th. |
There dead ash leaves be a-toss’d | |
In the wind, a-blowèn stronger, | |
An’ our life-time, since we lost | |
Souls we lov’d, is woone year longer; | |
Woone year longer, woone year wider, | |
Vrom the friends that death ha’ took, | |
As the hours do teäke the rider | |
Vrom the hand that last he shook. |
No. If he do ride at night | |
Vrom the zide the zun went under, | |
Woone hour vrom his western light | |
Needen meäke woone hour asunder; | |
Woone hour onward, woone hour nigher | |
To the hopevul eastern skies, | |
Where his mornèn rim o’ vier | |
Soon ageän shall meet his eyes. |
Leaves be now a-scatter’d round | |
In the wind, a blowèn bleaker, | |
An’ if we do walk the ground | |
Wi’ our life-strangth woone year weaker; | |
Woone year weaker, woone year nigher | |
To the pleäce where we shall vind | |
Woone that’s deathless vor the dier, | |
Voremost they that dropp’d behind. |