Rose Leaf and Apple Leaf Part 2

"_Festo quid potius die Neptuni faciam._"

HORACE, _Odes_, iii. 28.

Spring grew to perfect summer in one day, And we lay there among the vines, to gaze Where Circe's isle floats purple, far away Above the golden haze:

And on our ears there seemed to rise and fall The burden of an old world song we knew, That sang, "To-day is Neptune's festival, And we, what shall we do?"

Go down brown-armed Campagna maid of mine, And bring again the earthen jar that lies With three years' dust above the mellow wine; And while the swift day dies,

You first shall sing a song of waters blue, Paphos and Cnidos in the summer seas, And one who guides her swan-drawn chariot through The white-sh.o.r.ed Cyclades;

And I will take the second turn of song, Of floating tresses in the foam and surge Where Nereid maids about the sea-G.o.d throng; And night shall have her dirge.

1881.

"IF ANY ONE RETURN"

I would we had carried him far away To the light of this south sun land.

Where the hills lean down to some red-rocked bay And the sea's blue breaks into snow-white spray As the wave dies out on the sand.

Not there, not there, where the winds deface!

Where the storm and the cloud race by!

But far away in this flowerful place Where endless summers retouch, retrace, What flowers find heart to die.

And if ever the souls of the loved, set free, Come back to the souls that stay, I could dream he would sit for a while with me Where I sit by this wonderful tideless sea And look to the red-rocked bay,

By the high cliff's edge where the wild weeds twine, And he would not speak or move, But his eyes would gaze from his soul at mine, My eyes that would answer without one sign, And that were enough for love.

And I think I should feel as the sun went round That he was not there any more, But dews were wet on the gra.s.s-grown mound On the bed of my love lying underground, And evening pale on the sh.o.r.e.

1879.

SONNETS

"UNE HEURE VIENDRA QUI TOUT PAIERA"

It was a tomb in Flanders, old and grey, A knight in armour, lying dead, unknown Among the long-forgotten, yet the stone Cried out for vengeance where the dead man lay;

No name was chiselled at his side to say What wrongs his spirit thirsted to atone, Only the armour with green moss o'ergrown, And those grim words no years had worn away.

It may be haply in the songs of old His deeds were wonders to sweet music set, His name the thunder of a battle call, Among the things forgotten and untold; His only record is the dead man's threat,-- "An hour will come that shall atone for all!"

1879.

ACTEA

When the last bitterness was past, she bore Her singing Caesar to the Garden Hill, Her fallen pitiful dead emperor.

She lifted up the beggar's cloak he wore --The one thing living he would not kill-- And on those lips of his that sang no more, That world-loathed head which she found lovely still, Her cold lips closed, in death she had her will.

Oh wreck of the lost human soul left free To gorge the beast thy mask of manhood screened!

Because one living thing, albeit a slave, Shed those hot tears on thy dishonoured grave, Although thy curse be as the sh.o.r.eless sea, Because she loved, thou art not wholly fiend.

1881.

IMPERATOR AUGUSTUS

Is this the man by whose decree abide The lives of countless nations, with the trace Of fresh tears wet upon the hard cold face?

--He wept, because a little child had died.

They set a marble image by his side, A sculptured Eros, ready for the chase; It wore the dead boy's features, and the grace Of pretty ways that were the old man's pride.

And so he smiled, grown softer now, and tired Of too much empire, and it seemed a joy Fondly to stroke and pet the curly head, The smooth round limbs so strangely like the dead, To kiss the white lips of his marble boy And call by name his little heart's-desired.

1879.

"ATQUE IN PERPETUUM FRATER AVE ATQUE VALE"

This was the end love made,--the hard-drawn breath, The last long sigh that ever man sighs here; And then for us, the great unanswered fear, Will love live on,--the other side of death?

Only a year, and I had hoped to spend A life of pleasant communing, to be A kindred spirit holding fast to thee, We never thought that love had such an end.

This was the end love made, for our delight, For one sweet year he cannot take away;-- Those tapers burning in the dim half-light, Those kneeling women with a cross that pray, And there, beneath green leaves and lilies white, Beyond the reach of love, our loved one lay.

1879.