English Poems - Richard Le Gallienne
VII
THE LAMP AND THE STAR
Yea, let me be 'thy bachelere,'
'Tis sweeter than thy lord;
How should I envy him, my dear,
The lamp upon his board.
Still make his little circle bright
With boon of dear domestic light,
While I afar,
Watching his windows in the night,
Worship a star
For which he hath no bolt or bar.
Yea, dear,
Thy 'bachelere.'
VIII
ORBITS
Two stars once on their lonely way
Met in the heavenly height,
And they dreamed a dream they might shine alway
With undivided light;
Melt into one with a breathless throe,
And beam as one in the night.
And each forgot in the dream so strange
How desolately far
Swept on each path, for who shall change
The orbit of a star?
Yea, all was a dream, and they still must go
As lonely as they are.
IX
NEVER--EVER
My mouth to thy mouth
Ah never, ah never!
My breast from thy breast
Eternities sever;
But my soul to thy soul
For ever and ever.
X
LOVE'S POOR
Yea, love, I know, and I would have it thus,
I know that not for us
Is springtide Passion with his fire and flowers,
I know this love of ours
Lives not, nor yet may live,
By the dear food that lips and hands can give.
Not, Love, that we in some high dream despise
The common lover's common Paradise;
Ah, God, if Thou and I
But one short hour their blessedness might try,
How could we poor ones teach
Those happy ones who half forget them rich:
For if we thus endure,
'Tis only, love, because we are so poor.
XI
COMFORT OF DANTE
Down where the unconquered river still flows on,
One strong free thing within a prison's heart,
I drew me with my sacred grief apart,
That it might look that spacious joy upon:
And as I mused, lo! Dante walked with me,
And his face spake of the high peace of pain
Till all my grief glowed in me throbbingly
As in some lily's heart might glow the rain.
So like a star I listened, till mine eye
Caught that lone land across the water-way
Wherein my lady breathed,--now breathing is--
'O Dante,' then I said, 'she more than I
Should know thy comfort, go to _her_, I pray.'
'Nay!' answered he, 'for she hath Beatrice.'
XII
A LOST HOUR
God gave us an hour for our tears,
One hour out of all the years,
For all the years were another's gold,
Given in a cruel troth of old.
And how did we spend his boon?
That sweet miraculous flower
Born to die in an hour,
Late born to die so soon.
Did we watch it with breathless breath
By slow degrees unfold?
Did we taste the innermost heart of it
The honey of each sweet part of it?
Suck all its hidden gold
To the very dregs of its death?
Nay, this is all we did with our hour--
We tore it to pieces, that precious flower;
Like any daisy, with listless mirth,
We shed its petals upon the earth;
And, children-like, when it all was done,
We cried unto God for another one.
XIII
MET ONCE MORE
O Lady, I have looked on thee once more,
Thou too hast looked on me, as thou hadst said,
And though the joy was pain, the pain was bliss,
Bliss that more happy lovers well may miss:
Captives feast richly on a little bread,
So are we very rich who are so poor.
XIV
A JUNE LILY
[_The poet dramatises his Lady's loneliness_]
Alone! once more alone! how like a tomb
My little parlour sounds which only now
Yearned like some holy chancel with his voice.
So still! so empty! Surely one might fear
The walls should meet in ruinous collapse
That held no more his music. Yet they stand
Firm in a foolish firmness, meaningless
As frescoed sepulchre some Pharaoh built
But never came to sleep in; built, indeed,
For--that grey moth to flit in like a ghost!
Alone! another feast-day come and gone,
Watched through the weeks as in my garden there
I watch a seedling grow from blade to bud
Impatient for its blossom. So this day
Has bloomed at last, and we have plucked its flower
And shared its sweetness, and once more the time
Is as that stalk from which but now I plucked
Its last June-lily as a parting sign.
Yea, but he seemed to love it! yet if he
But craved it in deceit of tenderness
To make my heart glow brighter with a lie!
Will it indeed be cherished as he said,
Or will he keep it near his book a while,
And when grown rank forget it in his glass,
And leave it for the maid who dusts his room
To clear away and cast upon the heap?
Or, may be, will he bury it away
In some old drawer with other mummy-flowers?
Nay, but I wrong thee, dear one, thinking so.
My boy, my love, my poet! Nay, I know
Thy lonely room, tomb-like to thee as mine,
Tomb-like as tomb of some returning ghost
Seems only bright about my lily-flower.
And, mayhap, while I wrong thee thus in thought
Thou bendest o'er it, feigning for some ease
Of parted ache conceits of poet-wit
On petal and on stamen--let me try!
If lilies be alike thine is as this,
I wonder if thy reading tallies too.
Six petals with a dewdrop in their heart,
Six pure brave years, an ivory cup of tears;
Six pearly-pillared stamens golden-crowned
Growing from out the dewdrop, and a seventh
Soaring alone trilobed and mystic green;
Six pearl-bright years aflower with gold of joy,
Sprung from the heart of those brave tear-fed years:
But what that seventh single stamen is
My little wit must leave for thee to tell.
But neither poet nor a sibyl thou!
What brave conceit had he, my poet, built;
No jugglery of numbers that mean nought,
That can mean nought for ever, unto us.
XV
REGRET
One asked of regret,
And I made reply:
To have held the bird,
And let it fly;
To have seen the star
For a moment nigh,
And lost it
Through a slothful eye;
To have plucked the flower
And cast it by;
To have one only hope--
To die.
XVI
LOVE AFAR
Love, art thou lonely to-day?
Lost love that I never see,
Love that, come noon or come night,
Comes never to me;
Love that I used to meet
In the hidden past, in the land
Of forbidden sweet.
Love! do you never miss
The old light in the days?
Does a hand
Come and touch thee at whiles
Like the wand of old smiles,
Like the breath of old bliss?
Or hast thou forgot,
And is all as if not?
What was it we swore?
'Evermore!
I and Thou,'
Ah, but Fate held the pen
And wrote N
Just before:
So that now,
See, it stands,
Our seals and our hands,
'I and Thou,
Nevermore!'
We said 'It is best!'
And then, dear, I went
And returned not again.
Forgive that I stir,
Like a breath in thy hair,
The old pain,
'Twas unmeant.
I will strive, I will wrest
Iron peace--it _is_ best.
But, O for thy hand
Just to hold for a space,
For a moment to stand
In the light of thy face;
Translate Then to Now,
To hear 'Is it Thou?'
And reply
'It is I!'
Then, then I could rest,
Ah, then I could wait
Long and late.
XVII
Canst thou be true across so many miles,
So many days that keep us still apart?
Ah, canst thou live upon remembered smiles,
And ask no warmer comfort for thy heart?
I call thy name right up into the sky,
Dear name, O surely she shall hear and hark!
Nay, though I toss it singing up so high,
It drops again, like yon returning lark.
O be a dove, dear name, and find her breast,
There croon and croodle all the lonely day;
Go tell her that I love her still the best,
So many days, so many miles, away.
_POSTSCRIPT_
_So sang young Love in high and holy dream
Of a white Love that hath no earthly taint,
So rapt within his vision he did seem
Less like a boyish singer than a saint.
Ah, Boy, it is a dream for life too high,
It is a bird that hath no feet for earth:
Strange wings, strange eyes, go seek another sky
And find thy fellows of an equal birth.
For many a body-sweet material thing,
What canst thou give us half so dear as these?
We would not soar amid the stars to sing,
Warm and content amid the nested trees.
Young Seraph, go and lake thy song to heaven,
We would not grow unhappy with our lot,
Leave us the simple love the earth hath given--
Sing where thou wilt, so that we hear thee not_.
COR CORDIUM
TO MY WIFE, MILDRED
_Dear wife, there is no word in all my songs
But unto thee belongs:
Though I indeed before our true day came
Mistook thy star in many a wandering flame,
Singing to thee in many a fair disguise,
Calling to thee in many another's name,
Before I knew thine everlasting eyes.
Faces that fled me like a hunted fawn
I followed singing, deeming it was Thou,
Seeking this face that on our pillow now
Glimmers behind thy golden hair like dawn,
And, like a setting moon, within my breast
Sinks down each night to rest.
Moon follows moon before the great moon flowers,
Moon of the wild wild honey that is ours;
Long must the tree strive up in leaf and root,
Before it bear the golden-hearted fruit:
And shall great Love at once perfected spring,
Nor grow by steps like any other thing?_
COR CORDIUM
_The lawless love that would not be denied,
The love that waited, and in waiting died,
The love that met and mated, satisfied.
Ah, love, 'twas good to climb forbidden walls,
Who would not follow where his Juliet calls?
'Twas good to try and love the angel's way,
With starry souls untainted of the clay;
But, best the love where earth and heaven meet,
The god made flesh and dwelling in us, sweet._
(October 22, 1891.)
THE DESTINED MAID: A PRAYER
_(Chant Royal)_
O MIGHTY Queen, our Lady of the fire,
The light, the music, and the honey, all
Blent in one Power, one passionate Desire
Man calleth Love--'Sweet love,' the blessed
call--:
I come a sad-eyed suppliant to thy knee,
If thou hast pity, pity grant to me;
If thou hast bounty, here a heart I bring
For all that bounty 'thirst and hungering.
O Lady, save thy grace, there is no way
For me, I know, but lonely sorrowing--
Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray!
I lay in darkness, face down in the mire,
And prayed that darkness might become my
pall;
The rabble rout roared round me like some quire
Of filthy animals primordial;
My heart seemed like a toad eternally
Prisoned in stone, ugly and sad as he;
Sweet sunlight seemed a dream, a mythic thing,
And life some beldam's dotard gossiping.
Then, Lady, I bethought me of thy sway,
And hoped again, rose up this prayer to wing--
Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray!
Lady, I bear no high resounding lyre
To hymn thy glory, and thy foes appal
With thunderous splendour of my rhythmic ire;
A little lute I lightly touch and small
My skill thereon: yet, Lady, if it be
I ever woke ear-winning melody,
'Twas for thy praise I sought the throbbing string,
Thy praise alone--for all my worshipping
Is at thy shrine, thou knowest, day by day,
Then shall it be in vain my plaint to sing?--
Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray!
Yea! why of all men should this sorrow dire
Unto thy servant bitterly befall?
For, Lady, thou dost know I ne'er did tire
Of thy sweet sacraments and ritual;
In morning meadows I have knelt to thee,
In noontide woodlands hearkened hushedly
Thy heart's warm beat in sacred slumbering,
And in the spaces of the night heard ring
Thy voice in answer to the spheral lay:
Now 'neath thy throne my suppliant life I fling--
Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray!
I ask no maid for all men to admire,
Mere body's beauty hath in me no thrall,
And noble birth, and sumptuous attire,
Are gauds I crave not--yet shall have withal,
With a sweet difference, in my heart's own She,
Whom words speak not but eyes know when they
see.
Beauty beyond all glass's mirroring,
And dream and glory hers for garmenting;
Her birth--O Lady, wilt thou say me nay?--
Of thine own womb, of thine own nurturing--
Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray!
ENVOI
Sweet Queen who sittest at the heart of spring,
My life is thine, barren or blossoming;
'Tis thine to flush it gold or leave it grey:
And so unto thy garment's hem I cling--
Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray.
(_January_ 13, 1888.)
WITH SOME OLD LOVE VERSES
Dear Heart, this is my book of boyish song,
The changing story of the wandering quest
That found at last its ending in thy breast--
The love it sought and sang astray so long
With wild young heart and happy eager tongue.
Much meant it all to me to seek and sing,
Ah, Love, but how much more to-day to bring
This 'rhyme that first of all he made when young.'
Take it and love it, 'tis the prophecy
For whose poor silver thou hast given me gold;
Yea! those old faces for an hour seemed fair
Only because some hints of Thee they were:
Judge then, if I so loved weak types of old,
How good, dear Heart, the perfect gift of Thee.
IN A COPY OF MR. SWINBURNE'S
_TRISTRAM OF LYONESSE_
Dear Heart, what thing may symbolise for us
A love like ours, what gift, whate'er it be,
Hold more significance 'twixt thee and me
Than paltry words a truth miraculous;
Or the poor signs that in astronomy
Tell giant splendours in their gleaming might:
Yet love would still give such, as in delight
To mock their impotence--so this for thee.
This song for thee! our sweetest honeycomb
Of lovesome thought and passion-hearted rhyme,
Builded of gold and kisses and desire,
By that wild poet who so many a time
Our hungering lips have blessed, until a fire
Burnt speech up and the wordless hour had come.
COMFORT AT PARTING
O little Heart,
So much I see
Thy hidden smart,
So much I long
To sing some song
To comfort thee.
For, little Heart,
Indeed, indeed,
The hour to part
Makes cruel speed;
Yet, dear, think thou
How even now,
With happy haste,
With eager feet,
The hour when we
Again shall meet
Cometh across the waste.
HAPPY LETTER
Fly, little note,
And know no rest
Till warm you lie
Within that nest
Which is her breast;
Though why to thee
Such joy should be
Who carest not,
While I must wait
Here desolate,
I cannot wot.
O what I 'd do
To come with you!
PRIMROSE AND VIOLET
Primrose and Violet--
May they help thee to forget
All that love should not remember,
Sweet as meadows after rain
When the sun has come again,
As woods awakened from December.
How they wash the soul from stain!
How they set the spirit free!
Take them, dear, and pray for me.
'JULIET AND HER ROMEO'
_(With Mr. Dicksee's Picture)_
Take 'this of Juliet and her Romeo,'
Dear Heart of mine, for though yon budding sky
Yearns o'er Verona, and so long ago
That kiss was kissed; yet surely Thou and I,
Surely it is, whom morning tears apart,
As ruthless men tear tendrilled ivy down:
Is not Verona warm within thy gown,
And Mantua all the world save where thou art?
O happy grace of lovers of old time,
Living to love like gods, and dead to live
Symbols and saints for us who follow them;
Even bitter Death must sweets to lovers give:
See how they wear their tears for diadem,
Throned on the star of an unshaken rhyme.
IN HER DIARY
Go, little book, and be the looking-glass
Of her dear soul,
The mirror of her moments as they pass,
Keeping the whole;
Wherein she still may look on yesterday
To-day to cheer,
And towards To-morrow pass upon her way
Without a fear.
For yesterday hath never won a crown,
However fair,
But that To-day a better for its own
Might win and wear;
And yesterday hath never joyed a joy,
However sweet,
That this To-day or that To-morrow too
May not repeat.
Think too, To-day is trustee for to-morrow,
And present pain
That's bravely borne shall ease the future sorrow
Nor cry in vain
'Spare us To-day, To-morrow bring the rod,'
For then again
To-morrow from To-morrow still shall borrow,
A little ease to gain:
But bear to-day whate'er To-day may bring,
'Tis the one way to make To-morrow sing.
PARABLES
I
Dear Love, you ask if I be true,
If other women move
The heart that only beats for you
With pulses all of love.
Out in the chilly dew one morn
I plucked a wild sweet rose,
A little silver bud new-born
And longing to unclose.
I took it, loving new-born things,
I knew my heart was warm,
'O little silver rose, come in
And shelter from the storm.'
And soon, against my body pressed,
I felt its petals part,
And, looking down within my breast
I saw its golden heart.
O such a golden heart it has,
Your eyes may never see,
To others it is always shut,
It opens but for me.
But that is why you see me pass
The honeysuckle there,
And leave the lilies in the grass,
Although they be so fair;
Why the strange orchid half-accurst--
Circe of flowers she grows--
Can tempt me not: see! in my heart,
Silver and gold, my rose.
II
Deep in a hidden lane we were,
My little love and I;
When lo! as we stood kissing there--
A flower against the sky!
Frail as a tear its beauty hung--
O spare it, little hand.
But innocence like its, alas!
Desire may not withstand.
And so I clambered up the bank
And threw the blossom down,
But we were sadder for its sake
As we walked back to town.
A LOVE-LETTER
Darling little woman, just a little line,
Just a little silver word
For that dear gold of thine,
Only a whisper you have so often heard:
Only such a whisper as hidden in a shell
Holds a little breath of all the mighty sea,
But think what a little of all its depth and swell,
And think what a little is this little note of me.
'Darling, I love thee, that is all I live for'--
There is the whisper stealing from the shell,
But here is the ocean, O so deep and boundless,
And each little wave with its whisper as well.
IN THE NIGHT
'Kiss me, dear Love!'--
But there was none to hear,
Only the darkness round about my bed
And hollow silence, for thy face had fled,
Though in my dreaming it had come so near.
I slept again and it came back to me,
Burning within the hollow arch of night
Like some fair flame of sacrificial light,
And all my soul sprang up to mix with thee--
'Kiss me, my love!
Ah, Love, thy face how fair!'
So did I cry, but still thou wert not there.
THE CONSTANT LOVER
I see fair women all the day,
They pass and pass--and go;
I almost dream that they are shades
Within a shadow-show.
Their beauty lays no hand on me,
They talk--- I hear no word;
I ask my eyes if they have seen,
My ears if they have heard.
For why--within the north countree
A little maid, I know,
Is waiting through the days for me,
Drear days so long and slow.
THE WONDER-CHILD
'Our little babe,' each said, 'shall be
Like unto thee'--'Like unto _thee_!'
'Her mother's'--'Nay, his father's'--'eyes,'
'Dear curls like thine'--but each replies,
'As thine, all thine, and nought of me.'
What sweet solemnity to see
The little life upon thy knee,
And whisper as so soft it lies,--
'Our little babe!'
For, whether it be he or she,
A David or a Dorothy,
'As mother fair,' or 'father wise,'
Both when it's 'good,' and when it cries,
One thing is certain,--it will be
_Our_ little babe.
MISCELLANEOUS
THE HOUSE OF VENUS
Not that Queen Venus of adulterous fame,
Whose love was lust's insatiable flame--
Not hers the house I would be singer in
Whose loose-lipped servants seek a weary sin:
But mine the Venus of that morning flood
With all the dawn's young passion in her blood,
With great blue eyes and unpressed bosom sweet.
Her would I sing, and of the shy retreat
Where Love first kissed her wondering maidenhood,
And He and She first stood, with eyes afraid,
In the most golden House that God has made.
SATIETY
The heart of the rose--how sweet
Its fragrance to drain,
Till the greedy brain
Reels and grows faint
With the garnered scent,
Reels as a dream on its silver feet.
Sweet thus to drain--then to sleep:
For, beware how you stay
Till the joy pass away,
And the jaded brain
Seeketh fragrance in vain,
And hates what it may not reap.
WHAT OF THE DARKNESS?
What of the darkness? Is it very fair?
Are there great calms and find ye silence there?
Like soft-shut lilies all your faces glow
With some strange peace our faces never know,
With some great faith our faces never dare.
Dwells it in Darkness? Do you find it there?
Is it a Bosom where tired heads may lie?
Is it a Mouth to kiss our weeping dry?
Is it a Hand to still the pulse's leap?
Is it a Voice that holds the runes of sleep?
Day shows us not such comfort anywhere.
Dwells it in Darkness? Do you find it there?
Out of the Day's deceiving light we call,
Day that shows man so great and God so small,
That hides the stars and magnifies the grass;
O is the Darkness too a lying glass,
Or, undistracted, do you find truth there?
What of the Darkness? Is it very fair?
AD CIMMERIOS
(_A Prefatory Sonnet for_ SANTA LUCIA_, the Misses Hodgkin's
Magazine for the Blind)_
We, deeming day-light fair, and loving well
Its forms and dyes, and all the motley play
Of lives that win their colour from the day,
Are fain some wonder of it all to tell
To you that in that elder kingdom dwell
Of Ancient Night, and thus we make assay
Day to translate to Darkness, so to say,
To talk Cimmerian for a little spell.
Yet, as we write, may we not doubt lest ye
Should smile on us, as once our fathers smiled,
When we made vaunt of joys they knew no more;
Knowing great dreams young eyes can never see,
Dwelling in peace unguessed of any child--
Will ye smile thus upon our daylight lore?
OLD LOVE-LETTERS
You ask and I send. It is well, yea! best:
A lily hangs dead on its stalk, ah me!
A dream hangs dead on a life it blest.
Shall it flaunt its death where sad eyes may see
In the cold dank wind of our memory?
Shall we watch it rot like an empty nest?
Love's ghost, poor pitiful mockery--
Bury these shreds and behold it shall rest.
And shall life fail if one dream be sped?
For loss of one bloom shall the lily pass?
Nay, bury these deep round the roots, for so
In soil of old dreams do the new dreams grow,
New 'Hail' is begot of the old 'Alas.'
See, here are our letters, so sweet--so dead.
DEATH IN A LONDON LODGING
'Yes, Sir, she's gone at last--'twas only five minutes ago
We heard her sigh from her corner,--she sat in the kitchen, you know:
We were all just busy on breakfast, John cleaning the boots, and I
Had just gone into the larder--but you could have heard that sigh
Right up in the garret, sir, for it seemed to pass one by
Like a puff of wind--may be 'twas her soul, who knows--
And we all looked up and ran to her--just in time to see her head
Was sinking down on her bosom and "she's gone at last," I said.'
So Mrs. Pownceby, meeting on the stairs
Her second-floor lodger, me, bound citywards,
Told of her sister's death, doing her best
To match her face's colour with the news:
While I in listening made a running gloss
Beneath her speech of all she left unsaid.
As--'in the kitchen,' _rather in the way,_
_Poor thing_; 'busy on breakfast,' _awkward time_,
_Indeed, for one must live and lodgers' meals_,
_You know, must be attended to what comes_--
(Or goes, I added for her) _yes! indeed_.
'"She's gone at last," I said,' _and better perhaps_,
_For what had life for her but suffering?_
_And then, we're only poor, sir, John and I_,
_And she indeed was somewhat of a strain_:
_O! yes, it's for the best for all of us_.
And still beneath all else methought I read
'_What will the lodgers think, having the dead_
_Within the house! how inconvenient!_'
What did the lodgers think? Well, I replied
In grief's set phrase, but 'the first floor,'
I fancy, frowned at first, as though indeed
Landladies' sisters had no right to die
And taint the air for nervous lodger folk;
Then smoothed his brow out into decency,
And said, 'how sad!' and presently inquired
The day of burial, ending with the hope
His lunch would not be late like yesterday.
The maiden-lady living near the roof
Quoted Isaiah may be, or perhaps Job--
How the Lord gives, and likewise takes away,
And how exceeding blessed is the Lord!--
For she has pious features; while downstairs
Two 'medicals'--both 'decent' lads enough--
Hearkened the story out like gentlemen,
And said the right thing--almost looked it too!
Though all the while within them laughed a sea
Of student mirth, which for full half an hour
They stifled well, but then could hold no more,
As soon their mad piano testified:
While in the kitchen dinner was toward
With hiss and bubble from the cooking stove,
And now a laugh from John ran up the stairs,
And a voice called aloud--of boiling pans.
'So soon,' reflected I, 'the waters of life
Close o'er the sunken head!' Reflected _I_,
Not that in truth I was more pitiful
To the poor dead than those about me were,
Nay, but a trick of thinking much on Life
And Death i' the piece giveth each little strand
More deep significance--love for the whole
Must make us tender for the parts, methinks,
As in some souls the equal law holds true,
Sorrow for one makes sorrow for the world.
A fallen leaf or a dead flower indeed
Has made me just as sad, or some poor bee
Dead in the early summer--what's the odds?
Death was at '48,' and yet what sign?
Who seemed to know? who could have known that called?
For not a blind was lower than its wont--
'The lodgers would not like them down,' you know--
And in all rooms, save one, the boisterous life
Blazed like the fires within the several grates--
Save one where lay the poor dead silent thing,
A closest chill as who hath sat at night
With love beside the ingle knows the ashes
In the morning.