The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems - Richard Le Gallienne
THE LONELY DANCER AND OTHER POEMS
BY
RICHARD LE GALLIENNE
1913
WITH A FRONTISPIECE PORTRAIT BY
IRMA LE GALLIENNE
TO
IRMA
ALL THE WAY
Not all my treasure hath the bandit Time
Locked in his glimmering caverns of the Past:
Fair women dead and friendships of old rhyme,
And noble dreams that had to end at last:--
Ah! these indeed; and from youth's sacristy
Full many a holy relic hath he torn,
Vessels of mystic faith God filled for me,
Holding them up to Him in life's young morn.
All these are mine no more--Time hath them all,
Time and his adamantine gaoler Death:
Despoilure vast--yet seemeth it but small,
When unto thee I turn, thy bloom and breath
Filling with light and incense the last shrine,
Innermost, inaccessible,--yea, thine.
CONTENTS
THE LONELY DANCER
I
FLOS AEVORUM
"ALL THE WORDS IN ALL THE WORLD"
"I SAID--I CARE NOT"
"ALL THE WIDE WORLD IS BUT THE THOUGHT OF YOU"
"LIGHTNINGS MAY FLICKER ROUND MY HEAD"
"THE AFTERNOON IS LONELY FOR YOUR FACE"
"SORE IN NEED WAS I OF A FAITHFUL FRIEND"
"I THOUGHT, BEFORE MY SUNLIT TWENTIETH YEAR"
II
TO A BIRD AT DAWN
ALMA VENUS
"AH! DID YOU EVER HEAR THE SPRING"
APRIL
MAY IS BUILDING HER HOUSE
SHADOW
JUNE
GREEN SILENCE
SUMMER SONGS
TO A WILD BIRD
"I CROSSED THE ORCHARD WALKING HOME"
"I MEANT TO DO MY WORK TO-DAY"
"HOW FAST THE YEAR IS GOING BY"
AUGUST MOONLIGHT
TO A ROSE
INVITATION
SUMMER GOING
AUTUMN TREASURE
WINTER
THE MYSTIC FRIENDS
THE COUNTRY GODS
III
TO ONE ON A JOURNEY
HER PORTRAIT IMMORTAL
SPRING'S PROMISES
"APRIL IS IN THE WORLD AGAIN"
"SINGING GO I"
"WHO WAS IT SWEPT AGAINST MY DOOR"
"FACE IN THE TOMB THAT LIES SO STILL"
"I KNOW NOT IN WHAT PLACE"
RESURRECTION
"WHEN THE LONG DAY HAS FADED"
"HER EYES ARE BLUEBELLS NOW"
"THE DEAD AROSE"
"THE BLOOM UPON THE GRAPE"
THE FRIEND
ADORATION
"AT LAST I GOT A LETTER FROM THE DEAD"
IV
SONGS FOR FRAGOLETTA
V
A BALLAD OF WOMAN
AN EASTER HYMN
BALLAD OF THE SEVEN O'CLOCK WHISTLE
MORALITY
VI
FOR THE BIRTHDAY OF EDGAR ALLAN POE
TO RALPH WALDO EMERSON
RICHARD WATSON GILDER
IN A COPY OF FITZGERALD'S "OMAR"
VII
A BALLAD OF TOO MUCH BEAUTY
SPRING IN THE PARIS CATACOMBS
A FACE IN A BOOK
TIME, BEAUTY'S FRIEND
YOUNG LOVE
LOVERS
FOR A PICTURE BY ROSE CECIL O'NEIL
LOVE IN SPAIN
THE EYES THAT COME FROM IRELAND
A BALLAD OF THE KIND LITTLE CREATURES
BLUE FLOWER
THE HEART UNSEEN
THE SHIMMER OF THE SOUND
A SONG OF SINGERS
THE END
THE LONELY DANCER
I had no heart to join the dance,
I danced it all so long ago--
Ah! light-winged music out of France,
Let other feet glide to and fro,
Weaving new patterns of romance
For bosoms of new-fallen snow.
But leave me thus where I may hear
The leafy rustle of the waltz,
The shell-like murmur in my ear,
The silken whisper fairy-false
Of unseen rainbows circling near,
And the glad shuddering of the walls.
Another dance the dancers spin,
A shadow-dance of mystic pain,
And other partners enter in
And dance within my lonely brain--
The swaying woodland shod in green,
The ghostly dancers of the rain;
The lonely dancers of the sea,
Foam-footed on the sandy bar,
The wizard dance of wind and tree,
The eddying dance of stream and star;
Yea, all these dancers tread for me
A measure mournful and bizarre:
An echo-dance where ear is eye,
And sound evokes the shapes of things,
Where out of silence and a sigh
The sad world like a picture springs,
As, when some secret bird sweeps by,
We see it in the sound of wings.
Those human feet upon the floor,
That eager pulse of rhythmic breath,--
How sadly to an unknown shore
Each silver footfall hurryeth;
A dance of autumn leaves, no more,
On the fantastic wind of death.
Fire clasped to elemental fire,
'Tis thus the solar atom whirls;
The butterfly in aery gyre,
On autumn mornings, swarms and swirls,
In dance of delicate desire,
No other than these boys and girls.
The same strange music everywhere,
The woven paces just the same,
Dancing from out the viewless air
Into the void from whence they came;
Ah! but they make a gallant flare
Against the dark, each little flame!
And what if all the meaning lies
Just in the music, not in those
Who dance thus with transfigured eyes,
Holding in vain each other close;
Only the music never dies,
The dance goes on,--the dancer goes.
A woman dancing, or a world
Poised on one crystal foot afar,
In shining gulfs of silence whirled,
Like notes of the strange music are;
Small shape against another curled,
Or dancing dust that makes a star.
To him who plays the violin
All one it is who joins the reel,
Drops from the dance, or enters in;
So that the never-ending wheel
Cease not its mystic course to spin,
For weal or woe, for woe or weal.
I
FLOS AEVORUM
You must mean more than just this hour,
You perfect thing so subtly fair,
Simple and complex as a flower,
Wrought with such planetary care;
How patient the eternal power
That wove the marvel of your hair.
How long the sunlight and the sea
Wove and re-wove this rippling gold
To rhythms of eternity;
And many a flashing thing grew old,
Waiting this miracle to be;
And painted marvels manifold,
Still with his work unsatisfied,
Eager each new effect to try,
The solemn artist cast aside,
Rainbow and shell and butterfly,
As some stern blacksmith scatters wide
The sparks that from his anvil fly.
How many shells, whorl within whorl,
Litter the marges of the sphere
With wrack of unregarded pearl,
To shape that little thing your ear:
Creation, just to make one girl,
Hath travailed with exceeding fear.
The moonlight of forgotten seas
Dwells in your eyes, and on your tongue
The honey of a million bees,
And all the sorrows of all song:
You are the ending of all these,
The world grew old to make you young.
All time hath traveled to this rose;
To the strange making of this face
Came agonies of fires and snows;
And Death and April, nights and days
Unnumbered, unimagined throes,
Find in this flower their meeting place.
Strange artist, to my aching thought
Give answer: all the patient power
That to this perfect ending wrought,
Shall it mean nothing but an hour?
Say not that it is all for nought
Time brings Eternity a flower.
All the words in all the world
Cannot tell you how I love you,
All the little stars that shine
To make a silver crown above you;
"ALL THE WORDS IN ALL THE WORLD"
All the flowers cannot weave
A garland worthy of your hair,
Not a bird in the four winds
Can sing of you that is so fair.
Only the spheres can sing of you;
Some planet in celestial space,
Hallowed and lonely in the dawn,
Shall sing the poem of your face.
"I SAID--I CARE NOT"
I said--I care not if I can
But look into her eyes again,
But lay my hand within her hand
Just once again.
Though all the world be filled with snow
And fire and cataclysmal storm,
I'll cross it just to lay my head
Upon her bosom warm.
Ah! bosom made of April flowers,
Might I but bring this aching brain,
This foolish head, and lay it down
On April once again!
"ALL THE WIDE WORLD IS BUT THE THOUGHT OF YOU"
All the wide world is but the thought of you:
Who made you out of wonder and of dew?
Was it some god with tears in his deep eyes,
Who loved a woman white and over-wise,
That strangely put all violets in your hair--
And put into your face all distance too?
"LIGHTNINGS MAY FLICKER ROUND MY HEAD"
Lightnings may flicker round my head,
And all the world seem doom,
If you, like a wild rose, will walk
Strangely into the room.
If only my sad heart may hear
Your voice of faery laughter--
What matters though the heavens fall,
And hell come thundering after.
"THE AFTERNOON IS LONELY FOR YOUR FACE"
The afternoon is lonely for your face,
The pampered morning mocks the day's decline--
I was so rich at noon, the sun was mine,
Mine the sad sea that in that rocky place
Girded us round with blue betrothal ring.
Because your heart was mine, your heart, that precious thing.
The night will be a desert till the dawn,
Unless you take some ferry-boat of dreams,
And glide to me, a glory of silver beams,
Under my eyelids, like sad curtains drawn;
So, by good hap, my heart can find its way
Where all your sweetness lies in fragrant disarray.
Ah! but with morn the world begins anew,
Again the sea shall sing up to your feet,
And earth and all the heavens call you sweet,
You all alone with me, I all alone with you,
And all the business of the laurelled hours
Shyly to gaze on that betrothal ring of ours.
"SORE IN NEED WAS I OF A FAITHFUL FRIEND"
Sore in need was I of a faithful friend,
And it seemed to me that life
Had come to its much desired end--
Just then God gave me a wife.
I had seen the beauty of fairy things,
And seen the women walk;
I had heard the voice of the seven sins
And all the wonderful talk.
Ah, the promising earth that seems so kind,
And the comrades with outstretched hand--
But did you ever stand alone
In a black, forsaken land?
Then the wonderful things that God can do
One comes to understand:
How He turns the desert dust to a dream,
And the lonely wind to a friend,
And makes a bright beginning
Of what had seemed the end:
'Twas in such an hour God placed in mine
The moonbeam hand of a friend.
"I THOUGHT, BEFORE MY SUNLIT TWENTIETH YEAR"
I thought, before my sunlit twentieth year,
That I knew Love, and Death that goes with it;
And my young broken heart in little songs,
Dew-like, I poured, and waited for my end
Wildly--and waited--being then nineteen.
I walked a little longer on my way,
Alive, 'gainst expectation and desire,
And, being then past twenty, I beheld
The face of all the faces of the world
Dewily opening on its stem for me.
Ah! so it seemed, and, each succeeding year,
Thus hath some woman blossom of the divine
Flowered in my path, and made a frail delay
In my true journey--to my home in thee.
October 27, 1911.
II
TO A BIRD AT DAWN
O bird that somewhere yonder sings,
In the dim hour 'twixt dreams and dawn,
Lone in the hush of sleeping things,
In some sky sanctuary withdrawn;
Your perfect song is too like pain,
And will not let me sleep again.
I think you must be more than bird,
A little creature of soft wings,
Not yours this deep and thrilling word--
Some morning planet 'tis that sings;
Surely from no small feathered throat
Wells that august, eternal note.
As some old language of the dead,
In one resounding syllable,
Says Rome and Greece and all is said--
A simple word a child may spell;
So in your liquid note impearled
Sings the long epic of the world.
Unfathomed sweetness of your song,
With ancient anguish at its core,
What womb of elemental wrong,
With shudder unimagined, bore
Peace so divine--what hell hath trod
This voice that softly talks with God!
All silence in one silver flower
Of speech that speaks not, save as speaks
The moon in heaven, yet hath power
To tell the soul the thing it seeks.
And pack, as by some wizard's art,
The whole within the finite part.
To you, sweet bird, one well might feign--
With such authority you sing
So clear, yet so profound, a strain
Into the simple ear of spring--
Some secret understanding given
Of the hid purposes of Heaven.
And all my life until this day,
And all my life until I die,
All joy and sorrow of the way,
Seem calling yonder in the sky;
And there is something the song saith
That makes me unafraid of death.
Now the slow light fills all the trees,
The world, before so still and strange,
With day's familiar presences,
Back to its common self must change,
And little gossip shapes of song
The porches of the morning throng.
Not yours with such as these to vie
That of the day's small business sing,
Voice of man's heart and of God's sky--
But O you make so deep a thing
Of joy, I dare not think of pain
Until I hear you sing again.
ALMA VENUS
Only a breath--hardly a breath! The shore
Is still a huddled alabaster floor
Of shelving ice and shattered slabs of cold,
Stern wreckage of the fiercely frozen wave,
Gleaming in mailed wastes of white and gold;
As though the sea, in an enchanted grave,
Of fearful crystal locked, no more shall stir
Softly, all lover, to the April moon:
Hardly a breath! yet was I now aware
Of a most delicate balm upon the air,
Almost a voice that almost whispered "soon"!
Not of the earth it was--no living thing
Moves in the iron landscape far or near,
Saving, in raucous flight, the winter crow,
Staining the whiteness with its ebon wing,
Or silver-sailing gull, or 'mid the drear
Rock cedars, like a summer soul astray,
A lone red squirrel makes believe to play,
Nibbling the frozen snow.
Not of the earth, that hath not scent nor song,
Nor hope of aught, nor memory, nor dream,
Nor any speech upon its sullen tongue,
Nor any liberty of running stream;
Not of the earth, that hath forgot to smile;
But, strangely wafted o'er the frozen sea,
As from some hidden Cytherean isle,
Veil within veil, the sweetness came to me.
Beyond the heaving glitter of the floe,
The free blue water sparkles to the sky,
Losing itself in brightness; to and fro
Long bands of mists trail luminously by,
And, as behind a screen, on the sea's rim
Hid softnesses of sunshine come and go,
And shadowy coasts in sudden glory swim--
O land made out of distance and desire!--
With ports of mystic pearl and crests of fire.
Thence, somewhere in the spaces of the sea,
Travelled this halcyon breath presaging Spring;
Over the water even now secretly
She maketh ready in her hands to bring
Blossom and blade and wing;
And soon the wave shall ripple with her feet,
And her wild hair be blown about the skies,
And with her bosom all the world grow sweet,
And blue with the sea-blue of her deep eyes
The meadow, like another sea, shall flower,
And all the earth be song and singing shower;
While watching, in some hollow of the grass
By the sea's edge, I may behold her stand,
With rosy feet, upon the yellow sand,
Pause in a dream, and to the woodland pass.
"AH! DID YOU EVER HEAR THE SPRING"
Ah! did you ever hear the Spring
Calling you through the snow,
Or hear the little blackbird sing
Inside its egg--or go
To that green land where grass begins,
Each tiny seed, to grow?
O have you heard what none has heard,
Or seen what none has seen;
O have you been to that strange land
Where no one else has been!
APRIL
April, half-clad in flowers and showers,
Walks, like a blossom, o'er the land;
She smiles at May, and laughing takes
The rain and sunshine hand in hand.
So gay the dancing of her feet,
So like a garden her soft breath,
So sweet the smile upon her face,
She charms the very heart of death.
The young moon in a trance she holds
Captive in clouds of orchard bloom,
She snaps her fingers at the grave,
And laughs into the face of doom.
Yet in her gladness lurks a fear,
In all her mirth there breathes a sigh,
So soon her pretty flowers are gone--
And ah! she is too young to die!
MAY IS BUILDING HER HOUSE
May is building her house. With apple blooms
She is roofing over the glimmering rooms;
Of the oak and the beech hath she builded its beams,
And, spinning all day at her secret looms,
With arras of leaves each wind-swayed wall
She pictureth over, and peopleth it all
With echoes and dreams,
And singing of streams.
May is building her house of petal and blade;
Of the roots of the oak is the flooring made,
With a carpet of mosses and lichen and clover,
Each small miracle over and over,
And tender, travelling green things strayed.
Her windows the morning and evening star,
And her rustling doorways, ever ajar
With the coming and going
Of fair things blowing,
The thresholds of the four winds are.
May is building her house. From the dust of things
She is making the songs and the flowers and the wings;
From October's tossed and trodden gold
She is making the young year out of the old;
Yea! out of winter's flying sleet
She is making all the summer sweet,
And the brown leaves spurned of November's feet
She is changing back again to spring's.
SHADOW
When leaf and flower are newly made,
And bird and butterfly and bee
Are at their summer posts again;
When all is ready, lo! 'tis she,
Suddenly there after soft rain--
The deep-lashed dryad of the shade.
Shadow! the fairest gift of June,
Gone like the rose the winter through,
Save in the ribbed anatomy
Of ebon line the moonlight drew,
Stark on the snow, of tower or tree,
Like letters of a dead man's rune.
Dew-breathing shade! all summer lies
In the cool hollow of thy breast,
Thou moth-winged creature darkly fair;
The very sun steals down to rest
Within thy swaying tendrilled hair,
And forest-flicker of thine eyes.
Made of all shapes that flit and sway,
And mass, and scatter in the breeze,
And meet and part, open and close;
Thou sister of the clouds and trees,
Thou daintier phantom of the rose,
Thou nun of the hot and honeyed day.
Misdeemed art thou of those who hold
Darkness thy soul, thy dwelling place
Night and its stars; nay! all of light
Wert though begot, all flowers thy face,
And, hushed in thee, all colours bright
Hide from the noon their blue and gold.
Thy voice the song of hidden rills,
The sigh deep-bosomed silence heaves
From the full heart of happy things,--
The lap of water-lily leaves,
The noiseless language of the wings
Of evening making strange the hills.
JUNE
We thought that winter, love, would never end,
That the dark year had slain the innocent May,
Nor hoped that your soft hand, this summer day,
Would lie, as now, in mine, beloved friend;
And, like some magic spring, your dream-deep eyes
Hold all the summer skies.
But lo! the world again is mad with flowers,
The long white silence spake, small bird by bird,
Blade after blade, amid the song of showers,
The grass stole back once more, and there was heard
The ancient music of the vernal spheres,
Half laughter and half tears.
Ah! love, and now too swiftly, like some groom,
Raining hot kisses on his bride's young mouth,
The mad young year, delirious with the South,
Squanders his fairy treasure, bloom on bloom;
Too soon the wild rose hastens to be sweet,
Too swift, O June, thy feet.
Tarry a little, summer, crowd not so
All glory and gladness in so brief a day,
Teach all thy dancing flowers a step more slow,
And bid thy wild musicians softlier play,
O hast thou thought, that like a madman spends,
The longest summer ends.
GREEN SILENCE
Silence, whose drowsy eyelids are soft leaves,
And whose half-sleeping eyes are the blue flowers,
On whose still breast the water-lily heaves,
For all her speech the whisper of the showers.
Made of all things that in the water sway,
The quiet reed kissing the arrowhead,
The willows murmuring, all a summer day,
"Silence"--sweet word, and ne'er so softly said
As here along this path of brooding peace,
Where all things dream, and nothing else is done
But all such gentle businesses as these
Of leaves and rippling wind, and setting sun
Turning the stream to a long lane of gold,
Where the young moon shall walk with feet of pearl,
And, framed in sleeping lilies, fold on fold,
Gaze at herself, like any mortal girl.
SUMMER SONGS
I
How thick the grass,
How green the shade--
All for love
And lovers made.
Wood-lilies white
As hidden lace--
Open your bodice,
That's their place.
See how the sun-god
Overpowers
The summer lying
Deep in flowers;
With burning kisses
Of bright gold
Fills her young womb
With joy untold;
And all the world
Is lad and lass,
A blue sky
And a couch of grass.
Summer is here--
let us drain
It all! it may
Not come again.
II
How the leaves thicken
On the boughs,
And the birds make
Their lyric vows.
O the beating, breaking
Heart of things,
The pulse and passion--
How it sings.
How it burns and flames
And showers,
Lusts and laughs, flowers
And deflowers.
III
Summer came,
Rose on rose;
Leaf on leaf,
Summer goes.
Summer came,
Song on song;
O summer had
A golden tongue.
Summer goes,
Sigh on sigh;
Not a rose
Sees him die.
TO A WILD BIRD
Wild bird, I stole you from your nest,
And cannot find your nest again;
To hear you chirp a little while
I wrung your mother's heart with pain.
And here you sit and droop and die,
Nor any love that I can bring
Wins me forgiveness for the wrong,
Nor any kindness makes you sing.
"I CROSSED THE ORCHARD WALKING HOME"
I crossed the orchard, walking home,
The rising moon was at my back,
The apples and the moonlight fell
Together on the railroad track.
Then, speeding through the evening dews,
A dozen lighted windows glide--
The East-bound flyer for New York,
Soft as a magic-lantern slide.
New York! on through the sleeping flowers,
Through echoing midnight on to noon;
How strange that yonder is New York,
And here such silence and the moon.
"I MEANT TO DO MY WORK TO-DAY"
I meant to do my work to-day--
But a brown bird sang in the apple-tree,
And a butterfly flitted across the field,
And all the leaves were calling me.
And the wind went sighing over the land,
Tossing the grasses to and fro,
And a rainbow held out its shining hand--
So what could I do but laugh and go?
"HOW FAST THE YEAR IS GOING BY"
How fast the year is going by!
Love, it will be September soon;
O let us make the best of June.
Already, love, it is July;
The rose and honeysuckle go,
And all too soon will come the snow.
Dark berries take the place of flowers,
Of summer August still remains,
Then sad September with her rains.
O love, how short a year is ours--
So swiftly does the summer fly,
Scarce time is left to say goodbye.
AUGUST MOONLIGHT
The solemn light behind the barns,
The rising moon, the cricket's call,
The August night, and you and I--
What is the meaning of it all!
Has it a meaning, after all?
Or is it one of Nature's lies,
That net of beauty that she casts
Over Life's unsuspecting eyes?
That web of beauty that she weaves
For one strange purpose of her own,--
For this the painted butterfly,
For this the rose--for this alone!
Strange repetition of the rose,
And strange reiterated call
Of bird and insect, man and maid,--
Is that the meaning of it all?
If it means nothing, after all!
And nothing lives, except to die--
It is enough--that solemn light
Behind the barns, and you and I.
TO A ROSE
O rose! forbear to flaunt yourself,
All bloom and dew--
I once, sad-hearted as I am,
Was young as you.
But, one by one, the petals fell
Earthward to rot;
Only a berry testifies
A rose forgot.
INVITATION
Unless you come while still the world is green,
A place of birds and the blue dreaming sea,
In vain has all the singing summer been,
Unless you come, and share it all with me.
Ah! come, ere August flames its heart away,
Ere, like a golden widow, autumn goes
Across the woodlands, sad with thoughts of May,
An aster in her bosom for a rose.
SUMMER GOING
Crickets calling,
Apples falling.
Summer dying,
Life is flying.
So soon over--
Love and lover.
AUTUMN TREASURE
Who will gather with me the fallen year,
This drift of forgotten forsaken leaves,
Ah! who give ear
To the sigh October heaves
At summer's passing by!
Who will come walk with me
On this Persian carpet of purple and gold
The weary autumn weaves,
And be as sad as I?
Gather the wealth of the fallen rose,
And watch how the memoried south wind blows
Old dreams and old faces upon the air,
And all things fair.
WINTER
Winter, some call thee fair,
Yea! flatter thy cold face
With vain compare
Of all thy glittering ways
And magic snows
With summer and the rose;
Thy phantom flowers
And fretted traceries
Of crystal breath,
Thy frozen and fantastic art of death,
With April as she showers
The violet on the leas,
And bares her bosom
In the blossoming trees,
And dances on her way
To laugh with May--
Winter that hath no bird
To sing thee, and no bloom
To deck thy brow:
To me thou art an empty haunted room,
Where once the music
Of the summer stirred,
And all the dancers
Fallen on silence now.
THE MYSTIC FRIENDS
I nothing did all yesterday
But listen to the singing rain
On roof and weeping window-pane,
And, 'whiles I'd watch the flying spray
And smoking breakers in the bay:
Nothing but this did I all day--
Save turn anon to trim the fire
With a new log, and mark it roar
And flame with yellow tongues for more
To feed its mystical desire.
No other comrades save these three,
The fire, the rain, and the wild sea,
All day from morn till night had I--
Yea! and the wind, with fitful cry,
Like a hound whining at the door.
Yet seemed it, as to sleep I turned,
Pausing a little while to pray,
That not mis-spent had been the day;
That I had somehow wisdom learned
From those wild waters in the bay,
And from the fire as it burned;
And that the rain, in some strange way,
Had words of high import to say;
And that the wind, with fitful cry,
Did some immortal message try,
Striving to make some meaning clear
Important for my soul to hear.