Sister Songs: an Offering to Two Sisters

Part 1

Transcribed from the 1908 Burns and Oates edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

SISTER SONGS An Offering to Two Sisters

BY FRANCIS THOMPSON

BURNS & OATES 28, ORCHARD STREET LONDON, W.: 1908

PREFACE

THIS poem, though new in the sense of being now for the first time printed, was written some four years ago, about the same date as the Hound of Heaven in my former volume.

One image in the Proem was an unconscious plagiarism from the beautiful image in Mr. Patmore’s St. Valentine’s Day:—

“O baby Spring, That flutter’st sudden ’neath the breast of Earth, A month before the birth!”

Finding I could not disengage it without injury to the passage in which it is embedded, I have preferred to leave it, with this acknowledgment to a Poet rich enough to lend to the poor.

FRANCIS THOMPSON.

1895.

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To Monica and Madeline (Sylvia) Meynell

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SISTER SONGS An Offering to Two Sisters

The Proem

SHREWD winds and shrill—were these the speech of May? A ragged, slag-grey sky—invested so, Mary’s spoilt nursling! wert thou wont to go? Or thou, Sun-god and song-god, say Could singer pipe one tiniest linnet-lay, While Song did turn away his face from song? Or who could be In spirit or in body hale for long,— Old Æsculap’s best Master!—lacking thee? At length, then, thou art here! On the earth’s lethèd ear Thy voice of light rings out exultant, strong; Through dreams she stirs and murmurs at that summons dear: From its red leash my heart strains tamelessly, For Spring leaps in the womb of the young year! Nay, was it not brought forth before, And we waited, to behold it, Till the sun’s hand should unfold it, What the year’s young bosom bore? Even so; it came, nor knew we that it came, In the sun’s eclipse. Yet the birds have plighted vows, And from the branches pipe each other’s name; Yet the season all the boughs Has kindled to the finger-tips,— Mark yonder, how the long laburnum drips Its jocund spilth of fire, its honey of wild flame! Yea, and myself put on swift quickening, And answer to the presence of a sudden Spring. From cloud-zoned pinnacles of the secret spirit Song falls precipitant in dizzying streams; And, like a mountain-hold when war-shouts stir it, The mind’s recessèd fastness casts to light Its gleaming multitudes, that from every height Unfurl the flaming of a thousand dreams. Now therefore, thou who bring’st the year to birth, Who guid’st the bare and dabbled feet of May; Sweet stem to that rose Christ, who from the earth Suck’st our poor prayers, conveying them to Him; Be aidant, tender Lady, to my lay! Of thy two maidens somewhat must I say, Ere shadowy twilight lashes, drooping, dim Day’s dreamy eyes from us; Ere eve has struck and furled The beamy-textured tent transpicuous, Of webbèd coerule wrought and woven calms, Whence has paced forth the lambent-footed sun. And Thou disclose my flower of song upcurled, Who from Thy fair irradiant palms Scatterest all love and loveliness as alms; Yea, Holy One, Who coin’st Thyself to beauty for the world!

Then, Spring’s little children, your lauds do ye upraise To Sylvia, O Sylvia, her sweet, feat ways! Your lovesome labours lay away, And trick you out in holiday, For syllabling to Sylvia; And all you birds on branches, lave your mouths with May, To bear with me this burthen, For singing to Sylvia.

Part the First

THE leaves dance, the leaves sing, The leaves dance in the breath of the Spring. I bid them dance, I bid them sing, For the limpid glance Of my ladyling; For the gift to the Spring of a dewier spring, For God’s good grace of this ladyling! I know in the lane, by the hedgerow track, The long, broad grasses underneath Are warted with rain like a toad’s knobbed back; But here May weareth a rainless wreath. In the new-sucked milk of the sun’s bosom Is dabbled the mouth of the daisy-blossom; The smouldering rosebud chars through its sheath; The lily stirs her snowy limbs, Ere she swims Naked up through her cloven green, Like the wave-born Lady of Love Hellene; And the scattered snowdrop exquisite Twinkles and gleams, As if the showers of the sunny beams Were splashed from the earth in drops of light. Everything That is child of Spring Casts its bud or blossoming Upon the stream of my delight.

Their voices, that scents are, now let them upraise To Sylvia, O Sylvia, her sweet, feat ways! Their lovely mother them array, And prank them out in holiday, For syllabling to Sylvia; And all the birds on branches lave their mouths with May, To bear with me this burthen, For singing to Sylvia.

While thus I stood in mazes bound Of vernal sorcery, I heard a dainty dubious sound, As of goodly melody; Which first was faint as if in swound, Then burst so suddenly In warring concord all around, That, whence this thing might be, To see The very marrow longed in me! It seemed of air, it seemed of ground, And never any witchery Drawn from pipe, or reed, or string, Made such dulcet ravishing. ’Twas like no earthly instrument, Yet had something of them all In its rise, and in its fall; As if in one sweet consort there were blent Those archetypes celestial Which our endeavouring instruments recall. So heavenly flutes made murmurous plain To heavenly viols, that again —Aching with music—wailed back pain; Regals release their notes, which rise Welling, like tears from heart to eyes; And the harp thrills with thronging sighs. Horns in mellow flattering Parley with the cithern-string:— Hark!—the floating, long-drawn note Woos the throbbing cithern-string!

Their pretty, pretty prating those citherns sure upraise For homage unto Sylvia, her sweet, feat ways: Those flutes do flute their vowelled lay, Their lovely languid language say, For lisping to Sylvia; Those viols’ lissom bowings break the heart of May, And harps harp their burthen, For singing to Sylvia.

Now at that music and that mirth Rose, as ’twere, veils from earth; And I spied How beside Bud, bell, bloom, an elf Stood, or was the flower itself ’Mid radiant air All the fair Frequence swayed in irised wavers. Some against the gleaming rims Their bosoms prest Of the kingcups, to the brims Filled with sun, and their white limbs Bathèd in those golden lavers; Some on the brown, glowing breast Of that Indian maid, the pansy, (Through its tenuous veils confest Of swathing light), in a quaint fancy Tied her knot of yellow favours; Others dared open draw Snapdragon’s dreadful jaw: Some, just sprung from out the soil, Sleeked and shook their rumpled fans Dropt with sheen Of moony green; Others, not yet extricate, On their hands leaned their weight, And writhed them free with mickle toil, Still folded in their veiny vans: And all with an unsought accord Sang together from the sward; Whence had come, and from sprites Yet unseen, those delights, As of tempered musics blent, Which had given me such content. For haply our best instrument, Pipe or cithern, stopped or strung, Mimics but some spirit tongue.

Their amiable voices, I bid them upraise To Sylvia, O Sylvia, her sweet, feat ways; Their lovesome labours laid away, To linger out this holiday In syllabling to Sylvia; While all the birds on branches lave their mouths with May, To bear with me this burthen, For singing to Sylvia.

Next I saw, wonder-whist, How from the atmosphere a mist, So it seemed, slow uprist; And, looking from those elfin swarms, I was ’ware How the air Was all populous with forms Of the Hours, floating down, Like Nereids through a watery town. Some, with languors of waved arms, Fluctuous oared their flexile way; Some were borne half resupine On the aërial hyaline, Their fluid limbs and rare array Flickering on the wind, as quivers Trailing weed in running rivers; And others, in far prospect seen, Newly loosed on this terrene, Shot in piercing swiftness came, With hair a-stream like pale and goblin flame. As crystálline ice in water, Lay in air each faint daughter; Inseparate (or but separate dim) Circumfused wind from wind-like vest, Wind-like vest from wind-like limb. But outward from each lucid breast, When some passion left its haunt, Radiate surge of colour came, Diffusing blush-wise, palpitant, Dying all the filmy frame. With some sweet tenderness they would Turn to an amber-clear and glossy gold; Or a fine sorrow, lovely to behold, Would sweep them as the sun and wind’s joined flood Sweeps a greening-sapphire sea; Or they would glow enamouredly Illustrious sanguine, like a grape of blood; Or with mantling poetry Curd to the tincture which the opal hath, Like rainbows thawing in a moonbeam bath. So paled they, flushed they, swam they, sang melodiously.

Their chanting, soon fading, let them, too, upraise For homage unto Sylvia, her sweet, feat ways; Weave with suave float their wavèd way, And colours take of holiday, For syllabling to Sylvia; And all the birds on branches lave their mouths with May, To bear with me this burthen, For singing to Sylvia.

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