Part 11

Out of the delicate dream of the distance an emerald emerges Veiled in the violet folds of the air of the sea; Softly the dream grows awakening--shimmering white of a city, Splashes of crimson, the gay bougainvillea, the palms. High in the infinite blue of its heaven a quiet cloud lingers, Lost and forgotten of winds that have fallen asleep, Fallen asleep to the tune of a Portuguese song in a garden.

City Vignettes

I Dawn

The greenish sky glows up in misty reds, The purple shadows turn to brick and stone, The dreams wear thin, men turn upon their beds, And hear the milk-cart jangle by alone.

II Dusk

The city's street, a roaring blackened stream Walled in by granite, thro' whose thousand eyes A thousand yellow lights begin to gleam, And over all the pale untroubled skies.

III Rain at Night

The street-lamps shine in a yellow line Down the splashy, gleaming street, And the rain is heard now loud now blurred By the tread of homing feet.

By the Sea

Beside an ebbing northern sea While stars awaken one by one, We walk together, I and he.

He woos me with an easy grace That proves him only half sincere; A light smile flickers on his face.

To him love-making is an art, And as a flutist plays a flute, So does he play upon his heart

A music varied to his whim. He has no use for love of mine, He would not have me answer him.

To hide my eyes within the night I watch the changeful lighthouse gleam Alternately with red and white.

My laughter smites upon my ears, So one who cries and wakes from sleep Knows not it is himself he hears.

What if my voice should let him know The mocking words were all a sham, And lips that laugh could tremble so?

What if I lost the power to lie, And he should only hear his name In one low, broken cry?

On the Death of Swinburne

He trod the earth but yesterday, And now he treads the stars. He left us in the April time He praised so often in his rhyme, He left the singing and the lyre and went his way.

He drew new music from our tongue, A music subtly wrought, And moulded words to his desire, As wind doth mould a wave of fire; From strangely fashioned harps slow golden tones he wrung.

I think the singing understands That he who sang is still, And Iseult cries that he is dead,-- Does not Dolores bow her head And Fragoletta weep and wring her little hands?

New singing now the singer hears To lyre and lute and harp; Catullus waits to welcome him, And thro' the twilight sweet and dim, Sappho's forgotten songs are falling on his ears.

Triolets

Love looked back as he took his flight, And lo, his eyes were filled with tears. Was it for love of lost delight Love looked back as he took his flight? Only I know while day grew night, Turning still to the vanished years, Love looked back as he took his flight, And lo, his eyes were filled with tears.

II (Written in a copy of "La Vita Nuova". For M. C. S.)

If you were Lady Beatrice And I the Florentine, I'd never waste my time like this-- If you were Lady Beatrice I'd woo and then demand a kiss, Nor weep like Dante here, I ween, If you were Lady Beatrice And I the Florentine.

III (Written in a copy of "The Poems of Sappho".)

Beyond the dim Hesperides, The girl who sang them long ago Could never dream that over seas, Beyond the dim Hesperides, The wind would blow such songs as these-- I wonder now if she can know, Beyond the dim Hesperides, The girl who sang them long ago?