Part 25

“I see white flowers upon the floor Betrodden to a clot; My wreath were they?”—“Nay; love me much, Swear you’ll forget me not! ’Twas but a wreath! Full many such Are brought here and forgot.”

* * * * * * *

The watches of the night grow hoar, He rises ere the sun; “Now could I kill thee here!” he says, “For winning me from one Who ever in her living days Was pure as cloistered nun!”

She cowers, and he takes his track Afar for many a mile, For evermore to be apart From her who could beguile His senses by her burning heart, And win his love awhile.

XII

A year: and he is travelling back To her who wastes in clay; From day-dawn until eve he fares Along the wintry way, From day-dawn until eve repairs Unto her mound to pray.

XIII

And there he sets him to fulfil His frustrate first intent: And lay upon her bed, at last, The offering earlier meant: When, on his stooping figure, ghast And haggard eyes are bent.

XIV

“O surely for a little while You can be kind to me! For do you love her, do you hate, She knows not—cares not she: Only the living feel the weight Of loveless misery!

“I own my sin; I’ve paid its cost, Being outcast, shamed, and bare: I give you daily my whole heart, Your babe my tender care, I pour you prayers; and aye to part Is more than I can bear!”

XVI

He turns—unpitying, passion-tossed; “I know you not!” he cries, “Nor know your child. I knew this maid, But she’s in Paradise!” And swiftly in the winter shade He breaks from her and flies.

IMITATIONS, ETC.

SAPPHIC FRAGMENT

“Thou shalt be—Nothing.”—OMAR KHAYYÁM.

“Tombless, with no remembrance.”—W. SHAKESPEARE.

DEAD shalt thou lie; and nought Be told of thee or thought, For thou hast plucked not of the Muses’ tree: And even in Hades’ halls Amidst thy fellow-thralls No friendly shade thy shade shall company!

CATULLUS: XXXI (After passing Sirmione, April 1887.)

SIRMIO, thou dearest dear of strands That Neptune strokes in lake and sea, With what high joy from stranger lands Doth thy old friend set foot on thee! Yea, barely seems it true to me That no Bithynia holds me now, But calmly and assuringly Around me stretchest homely Thou.

Is there a scene more sweet than when Our clinging cares are undercast, And, worn by alien moils and men, The long untrodden sill repassed, We press the pined for couch at last, And find a full repayment there? Then hail, sweet Sirmio; thou that wast, And art, mine own unrivalled Fair!

AFTER SCHILLER

KNIGHT, a true sister-love This heart retains; Ask me no other love, That way lie pains!

Calm must I view thee come, Calm see thee go; Tale-telling tears of thine I must not know!

SONG FROM HEINE

I SCANNED her picture dreaming, Till each dear line and hue Was imaged, to my seeming, As if it lived anew.

Her lips began to borrow Their former wondrous smile; Her fair eyes, faint with sorrow, Grew sparkling as erstwhile.

Such tears as often ran not Ran then, my love, for thee; And O, believe I cannot That thou are lost to me!