Gypsy Verses

Helen Hay Whitney

Gypsy Verses

To

G. V. W.

because she is my friend

Acknowledgment is made to Messrs. Harper and Brothers, the Century Company, and the Metropolitan Magazine for courteous permission to reproduce certain of the verses included in this volume.

Oh, you were not so idle—You wore a sprig of green;You wore a feather in your cap,The reddest ever seen.Your face was laughing gypsy brown,Your eyes were of the blue;You wandered up and down the world,For you had much to do.For oh, you were not idle,Whatever men might say—You made the colour of the yearMagnificent and gay.

ATARAH

With painted slender folded handsShe waited what might come,Her head was tyred with jewelled bands,Her mouth was sweet and dumb.Her cymar was of ardassine,Fire red from throat to hem,Broidered with Turkis stones therein—She gave her soul for them.Faint cassia and love-haunted myrrhMade perilous her hair,And what was Sidon’s woe to herWhose face was king’s despair?Nor life nor love from those cold lips,But ah, in what degree,Her passionate lover leans and sipsHer death-bright poesy.

AGE

Blindness, and women wailing on white seas,Seas where no placid sails have ever been,Dreams like wan demons on waste marshes seenThro’ dulling, fevered eyes. The dregs and leesOf wine long spilt to dead divinities.Grey, empty days when Spring is never green,Can the heart answer what these riddles mean—Can the life hold such hopelessness as these?Love lying low in the long pleasant grass,Youth with his eager face against the sun,They may not guess the hours when these shall pass,In what drear coin such lovely dreams are paid,At what grim cost their flowery days are won,When man is old and lonely and afraid.

LOVE AND DAWN

Dawn shaking long light pennons in the East—Is love the leastAnd love the greatest of the morning’s woes?See how the roseBreaks in a hundred petals down the sky.Darkness must die,And in the heart, where flutters sad desire,Wakes the new fireSilver and azure of the open day.So, grief, away!We will be glad with flagons, drown old pain,And Dawn shall bring us to her own again.

L’AMOUR AMBIGUEUX

You are the dreams we do not dare to dream,The dim florescence of a mystic rose,In poverty or pride love comes and goes,We do not question what the deeps may seemLaunched on the steady current of the stream.Gaily and hardily we hear the prose;In youth, red sun, in age the charnel snows.Nor see the banks where subtle flowers gleam,In green sweet beds of moly and of thymeWild as an errant fancy. All the whileWe know you, mystic rose; we know your smile,Your deep, still eyes, your fragrant floating hair,The peacock purple of the gown you wear,O lyric alchemist of rune and rhyme!

SAPPHICS

Leave the Vine, Ah Love, and the wreath of myrtle,Leave the Song, to die, on the lips of laughter,Come, for love is faint with the choric measure,Weary of waiting.Down the sky in lines of pellucid amberBlows the hair of her whom the gods have treasured,Fair, more fair is mine in the ring of maidens,Mine for the taking.

SATAN, PRINCE OF DARKNESS

I sinned, but gloriously. I bore the fallFrom Heaven’s high places as becomes a king.I did not shrink before the utmost stingOf torture or of banishment. The pallOf Dis, I cried, should be the hallWhere sad proud men of men should meet and singThe woes of that defeat ambitions bringHurled from the last vain fight against the wall.I thought I had been punished. To foregoAll lovely sights, the whisper of fresh rain,To brood forever endlessly on painYet still a Prince, Ah God, I dreamed,—and thenI learned my Fate, this wandering to and froIn Devil’s work among the sons of men.

IN PRISON

Above her task the long year throughShe works with steady hands,The while her heart is tired with dreamsWhich no man understands.For long and long ago she knewGreen trees and open sky,Before the law condemned her daysTo doom until she die.And so she dreams in mystic peace,Indifferent to the scene,Because her heart retains and knowsThe little stain of green.

GHOSTS

The long lost lights of love I know,They thrill from ultimate space, they blowLike small bewildered stars, tossed highOn some unknown and passionate sky.I know them for the loved lost lightsThat made the glamour of my nightsLong, long ago, and now I fearTheir coming, and the garb they wear.For they are very white and cold,They are not coloured as of old,In trailing radiance, rose and red,For these are ghosts, and they are dead.

LILIS

We have forgiven you because you are so fair,Eloquent by virtue of your dark enchanting eyes,Evil to your heart of hearts, shall we blame or care,You are very beautiful, and love has made you wise.With a splendid insolence you exist to sin,Scorn us for the weaknesses that bring us to our pain.Weak you are and false you are and never may we win,Yet we have forgiven you, and shall forgive again.

THE OLD WOMEN

We are very, very old,We have had our day,So we bend above our workWhile the others play.Do they call us women, weGaunt and grey and grim,Hideous and sexless thingsWeak of brain and limb?Beauty ended, love long past,Yet, when all else flees,We are women, for we stillHave our memories.

TO HIPPOLYTUS

It is too late to part. I dreamed a dreamThat love had loosed me, that no more your nameShould vex my soul, for very pride and shameI hid you out of mind; I said, The streamHas grown too wide between us, it would seemTo sunder even memory. Your fameRang hollow on my ear, and then you cameAnd love laughed for the lie he would redeem.It is too late. Love will not let me go.The bare suns burn me, and the strong winds blow;I take them fearlessly, for I am wiseAt last; for being yours I must be brave,Tho’ you give nothing, still am I your slave,The light within my heart your eyes, your eyes.

THE GARDEN HEDGE

I live in a beautiful garden,All joyous with fountains and flowers;I reck not of penance or pardon,At ease thro’ the exquisite hours.My blossoms of lilies and pansies,Pale heliotrope, rosemary, rue,All lull me with delicate fanciesAs shy as the dawn and the dew.But the ghost—Gods—the ghost in the gloaming,How it lures me with whispers and cries,How it speaks of the wind and the roaming,Free, free, ’neath the Romany skies.’Tis the hedge that is crimson with roses,All wonderfully crimson and gold,And caged in my beautiful closesI know what it is to be old.

THE SLAVE WOMAN

Her eyes are dark with unknown deeps,Old woes and new despair,Her shackled spirit feels the thongThat breaks her body bare.The savage master of her daysWho mocks her passive pain,How should he know her scorn of him.Indifferent to the stain?For in her heart she sees the glowOf sacrificial fires,A priestess of a mystic ritePerformed on nameless pyres.The incident of shame and toilShe takes with idle breath,For she remembers Africa,And what to her is death?

SONG

The sky is more blue than the eyes of a boy,A riot of roses entangles the year;Ah, come to me, run to me, fill me with joy,Dear, dear, dear.The air is a passion of perfume and song,The little moon swings up above, look above,I cannot wait longer, I’ve waited so long,Love, love, love.

SANS-JOY

Hide your eyes, Angels, beneath your gold phylacteries,Israfel will charm you with the magic of his song:Yet you will not smile for him, by reason of your memories,For Lucifer is absent, and the cry goes up, How long!For his expiation you would give your dreams and destinies,Paradise is clouded by the measure of your pain;Hide your eyes, Angels, beneath your gold phylacteries,Till the jasper gates swing wide to bring him home again.

OUT OF THE JUNGLE

Out of the jungle he came, he came,Man of the lion’s breed,His heart was fire and his eyes were flame,And he piped on a singing reed.Spring was sweet and keen in his blood,Singing, he sought his mate,The wife for the life and time of his mood,Formed for his needs by fate.Over his reed he piped and sang,His eyes were the eyes of a man,But the jungle knew how his changes rang,For his heart was the heart of Pan.

IN PORT

Wave buffeted and sick with storm,The ships came reeling in,The harbour lights were kind and warm,And yet, so hard to win.Like wings, the tired sails fluttered down,While night began to fall,Then came, sea-scarred, toward the town,The smallest ship of all.At last in harbour, safe and still,No more she need be brave,No more she’d meet the winds’ rough will,The wanton of each wave.The harbour lights! but where the moonShould murmur blessings bright,Clouded instead the dread typhoon,That thundered down the night.What curse the luring harbour boreOf false security;The port held desolation moreThan boasted all the sea.When morning came with leering lip,What death lay on her breast,And oh! the little weary shipWas wrecked with all the rest.

SONNY BOY

(A bust by H. F.)Grave as a little god, erect and wise,He dares the years that open to his gaze.Brave in his charming beauty, he portraysA bright eternal youth, and in his eyesSweet moons that are no more. No sad surpriseHas gloomed the gay adventure of his ways,And from the flower-lit meadow of the daysHe leaps clean-hearted to life’s enterprise.

SUNRISE

There was a cry from the sky,A cry at night;It wakened the breeze in the treesWhen the moon was white;And I, only I,Adrift on life’s terrible seas,Read the cry aright.Pennants of gold were unrolled,They told of sun;Night’s pain with the dark and the rain,Was over and done.The travail of oldHad passed from the mother again,And the fight was won.There was a cry from the sky,And my soul was tornWith a passion divine, as of wine,From the breast of morn;For I, only I,Knew the cry as the signal and signThat love was born.

DEAD LADIES

Thais and Lalage, your eyes are closed,Phryne, Aholibah, your lips are dust.Your tinkling feet are idle and composed,All your gold beauty vanished into rust.Nor Dionysian mysteries taught you this,Since the gold serpent was your seal and sign;Tho’ deathless be the imprint of your kiss,The lips that redden are not yours, but mine.How you would scorn us, Lalage, the lureOf your mad moments, us, the motley crew;Yet shall your beauty only so endureImperishable, that we sing of you.

WHEN TRISTAN SAILED

When Tristan sailed from IrelandAcross the summer sea,How young he was, how debonnaire,How glad he was and free.Why should he know the gales would blow,The skies be black above,How should he dream his port was Death,And Doom, whose name is Love?The Lady Iseult, sweet as prayer,We hardly dare to pray,Pearl-pale beneath her shadow hair,Grows fairer day by day,The ichor gains her spring-kissed veins,Her skies the eyes of youth.How should she dream the ichor Love,Was hellebore in truth?So Tristan sailed from IrelandAs youth must always sail;He quaffed the cup, nor asked the wine;He dared, nor feared to fail.And be it poison, be it life,Or wrecks that strew the shore,Tristan set forth! nor ask the end,Else youth shall sail no more.

THE BATTLE

Ah, never, never, never! for the flagIs twined about my body, and my backIs braced against the wall! I know the lackOf crust and water, and a man might bragFor fighting thus, yet—how a soul may lag,For want of just so little, when the rackOf hopeless strife from dawn to bivouacFinds the foe now who storms the utmost crag.Never surrender! You who storm my heartTill I am faint with love and hunger, allStarved for your lips—how can I say “depart”?And yet—drag up the sword again—and thrust!Ah, Love, mine enemy—I will not fallUntil my honour’s flag and I are dust.

RECOMPENSE

Those who ask for a starOften receive but a stone,Yet they asked for a star,Does the high thought not atone?I, who asked but a stone,A plaything of azure or red,May I count it for gainThat I won a star instead?

THE LOTUS EATERS

We have no rain, we have no sun,We only watch the moments runLike little adders thro’ the leaves,Lost ere their flitting has begun.The cool light airs that fan our brow,What aromatic sweets they know!The tall tired trees that make our skyAre lapped in spices as they bow.The bright-eyed flowers that form our bed,Like eager jewels, blue and red,Seem brimmed with gay immortal life,Yet we dream on when they are dead.

LOST APHRODITE

The gods upon the hills no more are seen,Couched on the virginal green,No more their cry upon the silence grieves,The shadow of dark leaves.The blazonry of Spring must now abate,Without the purple stateOf Aphrodite, amorous and frail,Cinctured with lilies pale.She who was love and every man’s desire,Now only can inspire,The mutual love of mortals, and aloneLike wind her plaints are blown.About the unregarding world her handsYearn forth across the landsOnce passionate with her lovers, but in vain,They will not come again!She who was Aphrodite, tho’ she givesLove to each heart that lives,Gives and receives not. She, of love the breath,Doomed now with utter death.

THE FOOLS

On the wrist a paroquet,Motley on the shoulder,We exist for joy of life,Never growing older.Dancing down the lane of years,Rosy garlands trailing,Who would pause for time or tears,Barren days bewailing.Brighter burden never wereThan the smiles we scatter,Loving deeds and laughing love,This is our great matter.And the wise who scorn our bellsMate with melancholy,We are wiser than the wise,Holding hands with folly.

THE AWAKENING

Perhaps the world is tired of pageantries,And all the weary women called the Hours,Jaded with jewels, shall exchange for flowersTheir badge of pride. In violet harmonies,With sweet blue veils of silence o’er their eyes,They shall return to Spring’s most languorous bowers;And Light and Beauty shall come down as showersReleasing life from all its pedantries.Only the bloomy purple hill to seeThro’ half-closed lids, and only to be blindWith asphodils! Shall these things ever be?Surely the time is ripe to live for thisDawn, springing radiant from her sleep to findA world of lovers waiting for her kiss.

THE DARK WOMAN

My dark, wild woman of the braes,I know your heart, I know your ways,I know the raw, sweet food you taste,I love the colours ’round your waist.Ribbons of green and gold you wear,Threaded about your shadowy hair,My colours—and your eyes are mine,Dark as the deeps of love—and wine.I wake with you at budding Dawn,Leaving this life of dew-spread lawn,To join your spirit in the wild,Your brother, lover, or your child.Take me upon your savage breast,Teach me your calms and your unrest.Take me, I know the jungle cry,Teach me your love, or let me die.

SUMMER SONG

My heart’s a yellow butterflyThat flutters down the road;A beggar, tricksy, dancing thingThat scorns a fixed abode.The aigrette of the thistle bloomBecomes the swinging signOf merry hostelries, where IMay pause awhile and dine.The sky is lapis lazuliBestrewn by clouds of pearl,—Who would not be a butterflyInstead of just a girl?

SERAPHIS

He tasted dragon’s bloodFrom the dark dragon tree,In those far islands where the moodIs faery-like and free.With cinnamon and nardHis strange gay clothes were sweet,His lips were fanciful with fard,Red flames played ’round his feet.Sharp dancing pointed flames,Detached as butterflies,He called them all by secret names,They were his ecstasies.No love, no maiden brightMight woo him from his swoon,For he had tasted strange delightIn lands beyond the moon.

VENGEMENT

What was his offense to you,You who sit thro’ dreamless days,Sifting thro’ your fingers slimAshes in a porphyry vase?Hatred makes your eyes grow hard,As you conjure forth his nameFrom the dust that was his face,From the heart that was his flame.Then she, lifting heavy eyes,Spoke: “When this man walked the worldHim I loved, he loved not me;So his days to death I hurled.“Dying, then, he touched my hand,Smiled and whispered, ‘I forgive’;This his vengeance on my soul,I must hate him while I live.”

AUTUMN LOVE

IOnce I could love this season of the year,And watch the calm and delicate declineOf Summer gladly; I could see the pineDeep green on bluest sky, and laugh for cheerOf very living. Yet I’d fain appearTh’ unhurried gourmet, tasting of my wine,Lingering o’er memories of the purpled vine,Loath for each passing moment. Ah, my dear,Now like a careless child, I toss the hoursOver my shoulder, I forget the sun,The dewy dawn, the white moon and the flowers.Like a tired pilgrim with his goal in view,Looking not right nor left, I run, I runTo that bright day of days that brings me you.III feel as murderers feel, who, having slainTheir love, laugh with red hands and do not care.I took sweet Summer by her lovely hair,Bent her white throat, and gladly saw the stainCrimson her green leaf-gown of hill and plain.I would not wait for her last kiss, nor spareOne splendid flying hour, for chill and fairAutumn, my love, comes near me thro’ the rain.Pale with mysterious wonder, her deep eyesAre wells of wisdom; fugitive, astrayFrom a blue land that dreams beyond the skies.’Tis done. I lay young Summer on her pyre,And turning, burn thro’ distance to the dayThat brings me to the lips of my desire.

THE WITCH

Whence came the fire in her eyes, eyes of a beast in the jungle,Desperate, golden and green, wild as a river in spate?Her long lithe limbs were brown, and she took the world as a leopard,Grave, disdainful and strong, takes of his prey without hate.Glamourie slept in her eyes, terribly calm in the tumult,Hidden and secret and sweet was the smile of her crimson mouth.A marigold wound in her hair, she swayed like wind in the desert,Burning and thrilling to thirst the hearts that dream of the South.Whence came the fire in her eyes? I, only I, knew the secret,The thing that hung on her breast, hid by her stormy hair,Amber drops on a string, her talisman, witches’ amber,Golden, yellow and brown, that only a witch may wear.

THE MAN

The flame is spent, I can no moreHold the tall candle by your door.Too often have I watched to seeYour lagging steps come home to me.The Tyrian traders taught me this.They came, perfumed with ambergris,With amethystine robes, and hairCurled by the kisses of salt air.They mocked me for my weary hands,Holding your light as love demands,They sang the lure of poppied sleep,Their lips were warm, their eyes were deep.The flame is spent! Your pale weak faceMust seek another resting place.Win me, and hold me now who can!The Tyrian trader was a man!

DOWN IN MALDONADO TOWN

There’s a town called Maldonado,That’s the place where I would be;There’s a girl in Maldonado,And she gave her heart to me.Starved with sixty days of sailing,How we swaggered to the shore,Hands in pockets, eyes cocked sideways,At the girl in every door.Sweet they fluttered to our shoulders,She, my girl, the fairest girl,And I took her for a plaything,Face of flower and heart of pearl.Round my neck she clung and pleaded,But I told her to be wise;Said no sailor could be faithful,And his love was ever lies.Then she turned and left me silent,Stepping weary, stepping slow;Merry was I to have won her,And I laughed to see her go.Now ’tis done—I have lost her,Seas between us thunder wide,“Dear,” I said, “I shall forget you,”And God knows that I have lied!Many girls have smiled upon me,Up and down the Northern coast,But their kisses only taunt meWith the kiss that I have lost.Oh! You’re killing me by inches,Velvet lips and eyes of brown,For it’s love I left behind me,Down in Maldonado town.

THE CHOICE

The long well rose above me, a slim shaft,With wet, black walls, and high aloft the lightRound as a moon intensified my night.I ate the air and bitterly I quaffedThe death damp; nor my pleading nor my craftAvailed to aid me in my desperate plight:The vista of high heaven the only sightTo see, and at my woe high heaven had laughed.Suddenly the darkness deepened, and a faceGloomed on the opening, terrible and grimAn Afreet! In his hands he held disgraceAnd direst poverty and ruinous strife.“Choose now between,” he cried, “calm Death by himAnd Life empoisoned,” yet I cried, “Give Life.”

THE BROOK

I have a little brook in the deeps of my heart.What does it matter if the day be chill or clear,Coloured like a tourmaline and wingèd like a dart,Voiced like a nightingale, it sings all the year.Small bright herbs on the banks of the stream,Moon-pale primroses, and tapestries of fern,This is the reality and life is just a dream,Iridescent bubble that the moon tides turn.

AT THE END OF THE WORLD

To the world’s end, to the world’s end,Did I wander seeking you,And wide was the water and dark was the fell,With Time at my heels like a hound of hell,And the worst still left to do.To the world’s end, to the world’s end,And the void to verify.They told me of a tale of love supreme.“Sometimes,” I cried, “I have caught the gleam,I shall seek it tho’ I die.”At the world’s end, at the world’s end,At the end of the endless mile,Nothing to see but the silent snow—I turned with my tears to your heart, and lo!Love was with me all the while!

THE GYPSY

O, she was most precious, as the wind’s self was fair.What did I give her when I had her on my knee?Red kisses for her coral lips, and a red comb for her hair.She took my gifts, she took my heart, and fled away from me.O, but she was fanciful, she found a savage mate,He scorned her, he spurned her, he drove her from his door;She cuddled in his inglenook and laughed at all his hate,She took his curses, took his blows, and never left him more.

BOY O’ DREAMS

Must I leave you in the mountains,Boy o’ dreams,Must I leave you where the fountainsToss the silver of their streams,Where the trees are clothed in samite,And the little broken moonIs a symbol and an answer,Like the reading of a rune?May I take you to the city,Boy o’ dreams,Where your heart will break with pityAt the lethargy that seemsOnly half alive to living,Only enemy to mirth,Where the dusty facts will blind youTo the fancies of the earth?I must take you—but I’ll keep you,Boy o’ dreams,Where no alien winds shall sweep you,In a secret place that gleams,With the light of your own laughter,Yours the vessel, yours the chart,And we’ll brave the storm together.You, the captain of my heart.

BALLAD OF THE SLAVE

The helot got him a hempen cord,A slave of love was he,“She made me dance to her circumstance—In the air one dances free!”She sits on a throne of ivorySerene in her silver gown,“Ah, woe,” he cried, “but the world is wide,But ’tis straight where I lie down.“She mocked, she scorned, and she hated me,She shall pity me not,” he said;“Too late for the nether way of hate,I may flout her when I’m dead.”Out in the dark of the moonless sky,The rope was round his neck,“’Tis the torque of gold from her throat so cold,Why should I rue or reck?”Tighter tangled the hempen cord;“’Tis her fingers hot with fire,In a tempest of fear she draws me near,—Now dying is not so dire!”Black, more black grew the empty void,“And I but a broken reed,For there’s only her face in this grisly place”—But his love stood there indeed!Close to her heart she took his head,And she kissed him back to breath,“You are mine by right of that line of white,You are mine—by Life and Death!”

FOAM

I have dallied with wantons, made mad by their passionate wine,Time, like a golden ball, I have tossed to the wastes of the air.I have whispered with Beauty, whose song has been sister to mine,Laughed with the long late hours who lie with the stars in their hair.Like the spume on the crest of the wave blowing back to the sea,Cast from the depths beneath, now to riot and dance in the light,I have flung you the foam of my heart, to be mask unto me,Caught to my heart again from the doom of your fugitive sight.

THE SEAL

The document of day is folded down,Night, the great lawyer, takes the waiting sheet,And o’er the murky shadows of the townSets his red seal, to make the deed complete.

RELEASE

I asked to be released, I did not know’Twas hate, not love, that would not let me go.Vengeance had burned your image on my mind,I gazed and gazed until my eyes were blind.Now—neither pride nor love has set me free,But happy chance—in wonderful degree.Shackled by memory, a prey to fear,Once you were mine by the black load I bore,But now, released, I lose you—O my Dear,Ever, irrevocably mine no more!