Part 15

And bade her servants carve a cedar chest With all the wonder of this history, Within whose scented womb their limbs should rest Where olive-trees make tender the blue sky On the low hills of Paphos, and the Faun Pipes in the noonday, and the nightingale sings on till dawn.

Nor failed they to obey her hest, and ere The morning bee had stung the daffodil With tiny fretful spear, or from its lair The waking stag had leapt across the rill And roused the ouzel, or the lizard crept Athwart the sunny rock, beneath the grass their bodies slept.

And when day brake, within that silver shrine Fed by the flames of cressets tremulous, Queen Venus knelt and prayed to Proserpine That she whose beauty made Death amorous Should beg a guerdon from her pallid Lord, And let Desire pass across dread Charon’s icy ford.

III

IN melancholy moonless Acheron, Farm for the goodly earth and joyous day Where no spring ever buds, nor ripening sun Weighs down the apple trees, nor flowery May Chequers with chestnut blooms the grassy floor, Where thrushes never sing, and piping linnets mate no more,

There by a dim and dark Lethæan well Young Charmides was lying; wearily He plucked the blossoms from the asphodel, And with its little rifled treasury Strewed the dull waters of the dusky stream, And watched the white stars founder, and the land was like a dream,

When as he gazed into the watery glass And through his brown hair’s curly tangles scanned His own wan face, a shadow seemed to pass Across the mirror, and a little hand Stole into his, and warm lips timidly Brushed his pale cheeks, and breathed their secret forth into a sigh.

Then turned he round his weary eyes and saw, And ever nigher still their faces came, And nigher ever did their young mouths draw Until they seemed one perfect rose of flame, And longing arms around her neck he cast, And felt her throbbing bosom, and his breath came hot and fast,

And all his hoarded sweets were hers to kiss, And all her maidenhood was his to slay, And limb to limb in long and rapturous bliss Their passion waxed and waned,—O why essay To pipe again of love, too venturous reed! Enough, enough that Eros laughed upon that flowerless mead.

Too venturous poesy, O why essay To pipe again of passion! fold thy wings O’er daring Icarus and bid thy lay Sleep hidden in the lyre’s silent strings Till thou hast found the old Castalian rill, Or from the Lesbian waters plucked drowned Sappho’s golden quid!

Enough, enough that he whose life had been A fiery pulse of sin, a splendid shame, Could in the loveless land of Hades glean One scorching harvest from those fields of flame Where passion walks with naked unshod feet And is not wounded,—ah! enough that once their lips could meet

In that wild throb when all existences Seemed narrowed to one single ecstasy Which dies through its own sweetness and the stress Of too much pleasure, ere Persephone Had bade them serve her by the ebon throne Of the pale God who in the fields of Enna loosed her zone.

FLOWERS OF GOLD

IMPRESSIONS

I LES SILHOUETTES

THE sea is flecked with bars of grey, The dull dead wind is out of tune, And like a withered leaf the moon Is blown across the stormy bay.

Etched clear upon the pallid sand Lies the black boat: a sailor boy Clambers aboard in careless joy With laughing face and gleaming hand.

And overhead the curlews cry, Where through the dusky upland grass The young brown-throated reapers pass, Like silhouettes against the sky.

II LA FUITE DE LA LUNE

TO outer senses there is peace, A dreamy peace on either hand Deep silence in the shadowy land, Deep silence where the shadows cease.

Save for a cry that echoes shrill From some lone bird disconsolate; A corncrake calling to its mate; The answer from the misty hill.

And suddenly the moon withdraws Her sickle from the lightening skies, And to her sombre cavern flies, Wrapped in a veil of yellow gauze.

THE GRAVE OF KEATS

RID of the world’s injustice, and his pain, He rests at last beneath God’s veil of blue: Taken from life when life and love were new The youngest of the martyrs here is lain, Fair as Sebastian, and as early slain. No cypress shades his grave, no funeral yew, But gentle violets weeping with the dew Weave on his bones an ever-blossoming chain. O proudest heart that broke for misery! O sweetest lips since those of Mitylene! O poet-painter of our English Land! Thy name was writ in water—it shall stand: And tears like mine will keep thy memory green, As Isabella did her Basil-tree.

ROME.

THEOCRITUS

A VILLANELLE

O SINGER of Persephone! In the dim meadows desolate Dost thou remember Sicily?