Poems & Ballads Volume II Part 7

Hast thou found any likeness for thy vision?

O gardener of strange flowers, what bud, what bloom, Hast thou found sown, what gathered in the gloom?

What of despair, of rapture, of derision, What of life is there, what of ill or good?

Are the fruits grey like dust or bright like blood?

Does the dim ground grow any seed of ours, The faint fields quicken any terrene root, In low lands where the sun and moon are mute And all the stars keep silence? Are there flowers At all, or any fruit?

VIII

Alas, but though my flying song flies after, O sweet strange elder singer, thy more fleet Singing, and footprints of thy fleeter feet, Some dim derision of mysterious laughter From the blind tongueless warders of the dead, Some gainless glimpse of Proserpine's veiled head, Some little sound of unregarded tears Wept by effaced unprofitable eyes, And from pale mouths some cadence of dead sighs-- These only, these the hearkening spirit hears, Sees only such things rise.

IX

Thou art far too far for wings of words to follow, Far too far off for thought or any prayer.

What ails us with thee, who art wind and air?

What ails us gazing where all seen is hollow?

Yet with some fancy, yet with some desire, Dreams pursue death as winds a flying fire, Our dreams pursue our dead and do not find.

Still, and more swift than they, the thin flame flies, The low light fails us in elusive skies, Still the foiled earnest ear is deaf, and blind Are still the eluded eyes.

X

Not thee, O never thee, in all time's changes, Not thee, but this the sound of thy sad soul, The shadow of thy swift spirit, this shut scroll I lay my hand on, and not death estranges My spirit from communion of thy song-- These memories and these melodies that throng Veiled porches of a Muse funereal-- These I salute, these touch, these clasp and fold As though a hand were in my hand to hold, Or through mine ears a mourning musical Of many mourners rolled.

XI

I among these, I also, in such station As when the pyre was charred, and piled the sods, And offering to the dead made, and their G.o.ds, The old mourners had, standing to make libation, I stand, and to the G.o.ds and to the dead Do reverence without prayer or praise, and shed Offering to these unknown, the G.o.ds of gloom, And what of honey and spice my seedlands bear, And what I may of fruits in this chilled air, And lay, Orestes-like, across the tomb A curl of severed hair.

XII

But by no hand nor any treason stricken, Not like the low-lying head of Him, the King, The flame that made of Troy a ruinous thing, Thou liest, and on this dust no tears could quicken There fall no tears like theirs that all men hear Fall tear by sweet imperishable tear Down the opening leaves of holy poets' pages.

Thee not Orestes, not Electra mourns; But bending us-ward with memorial urns The most high Muses that fulfil all ages Weep, and our G.o.d's heart yearns.

XIII

For, sparing of his sacred strength, not often Among us darkling here the lord of light Makes manifest his music and his might In hearts that open and in lips that soften With the soft flame and heat of songs that s.h.i.+ne.

Thy lips indeed he touched with bitter wine, And nourished them indeed with bitter bread; Yet surely from his hand thy soul's food came, The fire that scarred thy spirit at his flame Was lighted, and thine hungering heart he fed Who feeds our hearts with fame.

XIV

Therefore he too now at thy soul's sunsetting, G.o.d of all suns and songs, he too bends down To mix his laurel with thy cypress crown, And save thy dust from blame and from forgetting.

Therefore he too, seeing all thou wert and art, Compa.s.sionate, with sad and sacred heart, Mourns thee of many his children the last dead, And hallows with strange tears and alien sighs Thine unmelodious mouth and sunless eyes, And over thine irrevocable head Sheds light from the under skies.

XV

And one weeps with him in the ways Lethean, And stains with tears her changing bosom chill: That obscure Venus of the hollow hill, That thing transformed which was the Cytherean, With lips that lost their Grecian laugh divine Long since, and face no more called Erycine; A ghost, a bitter and luxurious G.o.d.

Thee also with fair flesh and singing spell Did she, a sad and second prey, compel Into the footless places once more trod, And shadows hot from h.e.l.l.

XVI

And now no sacred staff shall break in blossom, No choral salutation lure to light A spirit sick with perfume and sweet night And love's tired eyes and hands and barren bosom.

There is no help for these things; none to mend And none to mar; not all our songs, O friend, Will make death clear or make life durable.

Howbeit with rose and ivy and wild vine And with wild notes about this dust of thine At least I fill the place where white dreams dwell And wreathe an unseen shrine.

XVII

Sleep; and if life was bitter to thee, pardon, If sweet, give thanks; thou hast no more to live; And to give thanks is good, and to forgive.

Out of the mystic and the mournful garden Where all day through thine hands in barren braid Wove the sick flowers of secrecy and shade, Green buds of sorrow and sin, and remnants grey, Sweet-smelling, pale with poison, sanguine-hearted, Pa.s.sions that sprang from sleep and thoughts that started, Shall death not bring us all as thee one day Among the days departed?

XVIII

For thee, O now a silent soul, my brother, Take at my hands this garland, and farewell.

Thin is the leaf, and chill the wintry smell, And chill the solemn earth, a fatal mother, With sadder than the Niobean womb, And in the hollow of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s a tomb.

Content thee, howsoe'er, whose days are done; There lies not any troublous thing before, Nor sight nor sound to war against thee more, For whom all winds are quiet as the sun, All waters as the sh.o.r.e.

MEMORIAL VERSES

ON THE DEATH OF THOPHILE GAUTIER

Death, what hast thou to do with me? So saith Love, with eyes set against the face of Death; What have I done, O thou strong Death, to thee, That mine own lips should wither from thy breath?

Though thou be blind as fire or as the sea, Why should thy waves and storms make war on me?

Is it for hate thou hast to find me fair, Or for desire to kiss, if it might be,

My very mouth of song, and kill me there?

So with keen rains vexing his crownless hair.

With bright feet bruised from no delightful way, Through darkness and the disenchanted air,

Lost Love went weeping half a winter's day.

And the armd wind that smote him seemed to say, How shall the dew live when the dawn is fled, Or wherefore should the Mayflower outlast May?

Then Death took Love by the right hand and said, Smiling: Come now and look upon thy dead.

But Love cast down the glories of his eyes, And bowed down like a flower his flowerless head.

And Death spake, saying: What ails thee in such wise, Being G.o.d, to shut thy sight up from the skies?

If thou canst see not, hast thou ears to hear?

Or is thy soul too as a leaf that dies?