Part 10

(To Eleonora Duse)

We are anhungered after solitude, Deep stillness pure of any speech or sound, Soft quiet hovering over pools profound, The silences that on the desert brood, Above a windless hush of empty seas, The broad unfurling banners of the dawn, A faery forest where there sleeps a Faun; Our souls are fain of solitudes like these. O woman who divined our weariness, And set the crown of silence on your art, From what undreamed-of depth within your heart Have you sent forth the hush that makes us free To hear an instant, high above earth's stress, The silent music of infinity?

The Return

I turned the key and opened wide the door To enter my deserted room again, Where thro' the long hot months the dust had lain. Was it not lonely when across the floor No step was heard, no sudden song that bore My whole heart upward with a joyous pain? Were not the pictures and the volumes fain To have me with them always as before? But Giorgione's Venus did not deign To lift her lids, nor did the subtle smile Of Mona Lisa deepen. Madeleine Still wept against the glory of her hair, Nor did the lovers part their lips the while, But kissed unheeding that I watched them there.

Fear

I am afraid, oh I am so afraid! The cold black fear is clutching me to-night As long ago when they would take the light And leave the little child who would have prayed, Frozen and sleepless at the thought of death. My heart that beats too fast will rest too soon; I shall not know if it be night or noon,-- Yet shall I struggle in the dark for breath? Will no one fight the Terror for my sake, The heavy darkness that no dawn will break? How can they leave me in that dark alone, Who loved the joy of light and warmth so much, And thrilled so with the sense of sound and touch,-- How can they shut me underneath a stone?

Anadyomene

The wide, bright temple of the world I found, And entered from the dizzy infinite That I might kneel and worship thee in it; Leaving the singing stars their ceaseless round Of silver music sound on orbed sound, For measured spaces where the shrines are lit, And men with wisdom or with little wit Implore the gods that mercy may abound. Ah, Aphrodite, was it not from thee My summons came across the endless spaces? Mother of Love, turn not thy face from me Now that I seek for thee in human faces; Answer my prayer or set my spirit free Again to drift along the starry places.

Galahad in the Castle of the Maidens

(To the maiden with the hidden face in Abbey's painting)

The other maidens raised their eyes to him Who stumbled in before them when the fight Had left him victor, with a victor's right. I think his eyes with quick hot tears grew dim; He scarcely saw her swaying white and slim, And trembling slightly, dreaming of his might, Nor knew he touched her hand, as strangely light As a wan wraith's beside a river's rim. The other maidens raised their eyes to see And only she has hid her face away, And yet I ween she loved him more than they, And very fairly fashioned was her face. Yet for Love's shame and sweet humility, She dared not meet him with their queenlike grace.

To an Aeolian Harp

The winds have grown articulate in thee, And voiced again the wail of ancient woe That smote upon the winds of long ago: The cries of Trojan women as they flee, The quivering moan of pale Andromache, Now lifted loud with pain and now brought low. It is the soul of sorrow that we know, As in a shell the soul of all the sea. So sometimes in the compass of a song, Unknown to him who sings, thro' lips that live, The voiceless dead of long-forgotten lands Proclaim to us their heaviness and wrong In sweeping sadness of the winds that give Thy strings no rest from weariless wild hands.

To Erinna

Was Time not harsh to you, or was he kind, O pale Erinna of the perfect lyre, That he has left no word of singing fire Whereby you waked the dreaming Lesbian wind, And kindled night along the lyric shore? O girl whose lips Erato stooped to kiss, Do you go sorrowing because of this In fields where poets sing forevermore? Or are you glad and is it best to be A silent music men have never heard, A dream in all our souls that we may say: "Her voice had all the rapture of the sea, And all the clear cool quiver of a bird Deep in a forest at the break of day"?

To Cleis

"I have a fair daughter with a form like a golden flower, Cleis, the beloved." Sapphic fragment.

When the dusk was wet with dew, Cleis, did the muses nine Listen in a silent line While your mother sang to you?

Did they weep or did they smile When she crooned to still your cries, She, a muse in human guise, Who forsook her lyre awhile?

Did you feel her wild heart beat? Did the warmth of all the sun Thro' your little body run When she kissed your hands and feet?

Did your fingers, babywise, Touch her face and touch her hair, Did you think your mother fair, Could you bear her burning eyes?

Are the songs that soothed your fears Vanished like a vanished flame, Save the line where shines your name Starlike down the graying years?

Cleis speaks no word to me, For the land where she has gone Lieth mute at dusk and dawn Like a windless tideless sea.

Paris in Spring

The city's all a-shining Beneath a fickle sun, A gay young wind's a-blowing, The little shower is done. But the rain-drops still are clinging And falling one by one-- Oh it's Paris, it's Paris, And spring-time has begun.

I know the Bois is twinkling In a sort of hazy sheen, And down the Champs the gray old arch Stands cold and still between. But the walk is flecked with sunlight Where the great acacias lean, Oh it's Paris, it's Paris, And the leaves are growing green.

The sun's gone in, the sparkle's dead, There falls a dash of rain, But who would care when such an air Comes blowing up the Seine? And still Ninette sits sewing Beside her window-pane, When it's Paris, it's Paris, And spring-time's come again.

Madeira from the Sea