Poems & Ballads Volume II Part 9

(WITH A COPY OF _Mademoiselle de Maupin_)

This is the golden book of spirit and sense, The holy writ of beauty; he that wrought Made it with dreams and faultless words and thought That seeks and finds and loses in the dense Dim air of life that beauty's excellence Wherewith love makes one hour of life distraught And all hours after follow and find not aught.

Here is that height of all love's eminence Where man may breathe but for a breathing-s.p.a.ce And feel his soul burn as an altar-fire To the unknown G.o.d of unachieved desire, And from the middle mystery of the place Watch lights that break, hear sounds as of a quire, But see not twice unveiled the veiled G.o.d's face.

AGE AND SONG

(TO BARRY CORNWALL)

I

In vain men tell us time can alter Old loves or make old memories falter, That with the old year the old year's life closes.

The old dew still falls on the old sweet flowers, The old sun revives the new-fledged hours, The old summer rears the new-born roses.

II

Much more a Muse that bears upon her Raiment and wreath and flower of honour, Gathered long since and long since woven, Fades not or falls as fall the vernal Blossoms that bear no fruit eternal, By summer or winter charred or cloven.

III

No time casts down, no time upraises, Such loves, such memories, and such praises, As need no grace of sun or shower, No saving screen from frost or thunder To tend and house around and under The imperishable and fearless flower.

IV

Old thanks, old thoughts, old aspirations, Outlive men's lives and lives of nations, Dead, but for one thing which survives-- The inalienable and unpriced treasure, The old joy of power, the old pride of pleasure, That lives in light above men's lives.

IN MEMORY OF BARRY CORNWALL

(October 4, 1874)

I

In the garden of death, where the singers whose names are deathless One with another make music unheard of men, Where the dead sweet roses fade not of lips long breathless, And the fair eyes s.h.i.+ne that shall weep not or change again, Who comes now crowned with the blossom of snow-white years?

What music is this that the world of the dead men hears?

II

Beloved of men, whose words on our lips were honey, Whose name in our ears and our fathers' ears was sweet, Like summer gone forth of the land his songs made sunny, To the beautiful veiled bright world where the glad ghosts meet, Child, father, bridegroom and bride, and anguish and rest, No soul shall pa.s.s of a singer than this more blest.

III

Blest for the years' sweet sake that were filled and brightened, As a forest with birds, with the fruit and the flower of his song; For the souls' sake blest that heard, and their cares were lightened, For the hearts' sake blest that have fostered his name so long; By the living and dead lips blest that have loved his name, And clothed with their praise and crowned with their love for fame.

IV

Ah, fair and fragrant his fame as flowers that close not, That shrink not by day for heat or for cold by night, As a thought in the heart shall increase when the heart's self knows not, Shall endure in our ears as a sound, in our eyes as a light; Shall wax with the years that wane and the seasons' chime, As a white rose thornless that grows in the garden of time.

V

The same year calls, and one goes hence with another, And men sit sad that were glad for their sweet songs' sake; The same year beckons, and elder with younger brother Takes mutely the cup from his hand that we all shall take.[1]

They pa.s.s ere the leaves be past or the snows be come; And the birds are loud, but the lips that outsang them dumb.

VI

Time takes them home that we loved, fair names and famous, To the soft long sleep, to the broad sweet bosom of death; But the flower of their souls he shall take not away to shame us, Nor the lips lack song for ever that now lack breath.

For with us shall the music and perfume that die not dwell, Though the dead to our dead bid welcome, and we farewell.

[Footnote 1: Sydney Dobell died August 22, 1874.]

EPICEDE

(James Lorimer Graham died at Florence, April 30, 1876)

Life may give for love to death Little; what are life's gifts worth To the dead wrapt round with earth?

Yet from lips of living breath Sighs or words we are fain to give, All that yet, while yet we live, Life may give for love to death.

Dead so long before his day, Pa.s.sed out of the Italian sun To the dark where all is done, Fallen upon the verge of May; Here at life's and April's end How should song salute my friend Dead so long before his day?

Not a kindlier life or sweeter Time, that lights and quenches men, Now may quench or light again, Mingling with the mystic metre Woven of all men's lives with his Not a clearer note than this, Not a kindlier life or sweeter.

In this heavenliest part of earth He that living loved the light, Light and song, may rest aright, One in death, if strange in birth, With the deathless dead that make Life the lovelier for their sake In this heavenliest part of earth.

Light, and song, and sleep at last-- Struggling hands and suppliant knees Get no goodlier gift than these.

Song that holds remembrance fast, Light that lightens death, attend Round their graves who have to friend Light, and song, and sleep at last.

TO VICTOR HUGO

He had no children, who for love of men, Being G.o.d, endured of G.o.ds such things as thou, Father; nor on his thunder-beaten brow Fell such a woe as bows thine head again, Twice bowed before, though G.o.dlike, in man's ken, And seen too high for any stroke to bow Save this of some strange G.o.d's that bends it now The third time with such weight as bruised it then.

Fain would grief speak, fain utter for love's sake Some word; but comfort who might bid thee take?