At a London Music Two rows of foolish faces blent In two blurred lines; the compliment,
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My life is bitter with thy love ; thine eyes
Blind me, thy tresses burn me, thy sharp sighs
Divide my flesh and spirit with soft sound,
I.
SHE, who so long has lain
Stone-stiff with folded wings,
Within my heart again
The brown bird wakes and sings.
Ave Faustina Imperatrix, morituri te salutant.
Lean back, and get some minutes' peace ;
Let your head lean
Back to the shoulder with its fleece
WHEN I watch the living meet,
And the moving pageant file
Warm and breathing through the street
Where I lodge a little while,
If the heats of hate and lust
"Oh, lost and unforgotten friend,Whose presence change and chance deny;If angels turn your soft proud eyeTo lines your cynic playmate penned,
Once in a dream (for once I dreamed of you)
We stood together in an open field ;
Above our heads two swift-winged pigeons wheeled,
Song.
I have loved you for long long years Ellen,
On you has my heart been set
I have loved you for long patient years,
But you do not love me yet.
Shake hands, we shall never be friends, it's all over;
I only vex you the more I try.
All's wrong that ever I've done or said,
WITH fruit and flowers the board is deckt,
The wine and laughter flow ;
I'll not complain—could one expect
So dull a world to know ?
I.
LIFT thy lips, turn round, look back for love,
Blind love that comes by night and casts out rest ;
Of all things tired thy lips look weariest,
O LOVE ! what shall be said of thee ?
The son of grief begot by joy ?
Being sightless, wilt thou see ?
Being sexless, wilt thou be
Maiden or boy ?
I.
BEHIND the Rector's lily-bed
I saw an Angel pass,
A halo shone behind her head
Behind the Rector's lily-bed,
You are to me the secret of my soul
And I to you what no man yet has been.
I, your Prometheus, fire from Heaven stole
ON Bellosguardo, when the year was young,
We wandered, seeking for the daffodil
And dark anemone, whose purples fill
The peasant's plot, between the corn-shoots sprung.
THE time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place ;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
I.
Procemium
THREE times the Muse, with black bat wings outspread,
Darkening the night, with lightning in her eyes
IS it thy will that I should wax and wane,Barter my cloth of gold for hodden grey,And at thy pleasure weave that web of pain
"I.Give me the words of once upon a time,So long ago your voice is not the same,Your lips have altered : but the rose trees climb
ALL the night sleep came not upon my eyelids,
Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather,
Yet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron
Stood and beheld me.
FORGOTTEN seers of lost repute
That haunt the banks of Acheron,
Where have you dropped the broken lute
You played in Troy or Calydon ?
O ye that sang in Babylon
The lips of Vice were painted,
The face of Vice was white,
Love passed on unacquainted,
Intent on Love's delight.
Dear friend, I know not if such days and nights
Of fervent comradeship as we have spent,
Or if twin minds with equal ardour bent
To search the world's unspeakable delights,
O fair as those I love, and sweet and fair
As those whose sweetness is so fair to me,
O dearer than the love my love does dare
"
I
He was all beautiful: as fair
As summer in the silent trees;
As bright as sunshine on the leas;
Put on that languor which the world frowns on,
That blamed misleading strangeness of attire,
And let them see that see us we have done