Charmides, and Other Poems

LA MER

A white mist drifts across the shrouds,   A wild moon in this wintry sky   Gleams like an angry lion’s eyeOut of a mane of tawny clouds.The muffled steersman at the wheel   Is but a shadow in the gloom; —   And in the throbbing engine-roomLeap the long rods of polished steel.The shattered storm has left its trace   Upon this huge and heaving dome,   For the thin threads of yellow foamFloat on the waves like ravelled lace.

LE PANNEAU

Under the rose-tree’s dancing shade   There stands a little ivory girl,   Pulling the leaves of pink and pearlWith pale green nails of polished jade.The red leaves fall upon the mould,   The white leaves flutter, one by one,   Down to a blue bowl where the sun,Like a great dragon, writhes in gold.The white leaves float upon the air,   The red leaves flutter idly down,   Some fall upon her yellow gown,And some upon her raven hair.She takes an amber lute and sings,   And as she sings a silver crane   Begins his scarlet neck to strain,And flap his burnished metal wings.She takes a lute of amber bright,   And from the thicket where he lies   Her lover, with his almond eyes,Watches her movements in delight.And now she gives a cry of fear,   And tiny tears begin to start:   A thorn has wounded with its dartThe pink-veined sea-shell of her ear.And now she laughs a merry note:   There has fallen a petal of the rose   Just where the yellow satin showsThe blue-veined flower of her throat.With pale green nails of polished jade,   Pulling the leaves of pink and pearl,   There stands a little ivory girlUnder the rose-tree’s dancing shade.

LES BALLONS

Against these turbid turquoise skies   The light and luminous balloons   Dip and drift like satin moonsDrift like silken butterflies;Reel with every windy gust,   Rise and reel like dancing girls,   Float like strange transparent pearls,Fall and float like silver dust.Now to the low leaves they cling,   Each with coy fantastic pose,   Each a petal of a roseStraining at a gossamer string.Then to the tall trees they climb,   Like thin globes of amethyst,   Wandering opals keeping trystWith the rubies of the lime.

CANZONET

   I have no storeOf gryphon-guarded gold;   Now, as before,Bare is the shepherd’s fold.   Rubies nor pearlsHave I to gem thy throat;   Yet woodland girlsHave loved the shepherd’s note.   Then pluck a reedAnd bid me sing to thee,   For I would feedThine ears with melody,   Who art more fairThan fairest fleur-de-lys,   More sweet and rareThan sweetest ambergris.   What dost thou fear?Young Hyacinth is slain,   Pan is not here,And will not come again.   No horned FaunTreads down the yellow leas,   No God at dawnSteals through the olive trees.   Hylas is dead,Nor will he e’er divine   Those little redRose-petalled lips of thine.   On the high hillNo ivory dryads play,   Silver and stillSinks the sad autumn day.

LE JARDIN DES TUILERIES

This winter air is keen and cold,   And keen and cold this winter sun,   But round my chair the children runLike little things of dancing gold.Sometimes about the painted kiosk   The mimic soldiers strut and stride,   Sometimes the blue-eyed brigands hideIn the bleak tangles of the bosk.And sometimes, while the old nurse cons   Her book, they steal across the square,   And launch their paper navies whereHuge Triton writhes in greenish bronze.And now in mimic flight they flee,   And now they rush, a boisterous band —   And, tiny hand on tiny hand,Climb up the black and leafless tree.Ah! cruel tree! if I were you,   And children climbed me, for their sake   Though it be winter I would breakInto spring blossoms white and blue!

PAN DOUBLE VILLANELLE

IO goat-foot God of Arcady!This modern world is grey and old,And what remains to us of thee?No more the shepherd lads in gleeThrow apples at thy wattled fold,O goat-foot God of Arcady!Nor through the laurels can one seeThy soft brown limbs, thy beard of goldAnd what remains to us of thee?And dull and dead our Thames would be,For here the winds are chill and cold,O goat-loot God of Arcady!Then keep the tomb of Helice,Thine olive-woods, thy vine-clad wold,And what remains to us of thee?Though many an unsung elegySleeps in the reeds our rivers hold,O goat-foot God of Arcady!Ah, what remains to us of thee?IIAh, leave the hills of Arcady,Thy satyrs and their wanton play,This modern world hath need of thee.No nymph or Faun indeed have we,For Faun and nymph are old and grey,Ah, leave the hills of Arcady!This is the land where libertyLit grave-browed Milton on his way,This modern world hath need of thee!A land of ancient chivalryWhere gentle Sidney saw the day,Ah, leave the hills of Arcady!This fierce sea-lion of the sea,This England lacks some stronger lay,This modern world hath need of thee!Then blow some trumpet loud and free,And give thine oaten pipe away,Ah, leave the hills of Arcady!This modern world hath need of thee!

IN THE FOREST

Out of the mid-wood’s twilight   Into the meadow’s dawn,Ivory limbed and brown-eyed,   Flashes my Faun!He skips through the copses singing,   And his shadow dances along,And I know not which I should follow,   Shadow or song!O Hunter, snare me his shadow!   O Nightingale, catch me his strain!Else moonstruck with music and madness   I track him in vain!

SYMPHONY IN YELLOW

An omnibus across the bridge   Crawls like a yellow butterfly   And, here and there, a passer-byShows like a little restless midge.Big barges full of yellow hay   Are moored against the shadowy wharf,   And, like a yellow silken scarf,The thick fog hangs along the quay.The yellow leaves begin to fade   And flutter from the Temple elms,   And at my feet the pale green ThamesLies like a rod of rippled jade.

SONNETS

HÉLAS!

To drift with every passion till my soulIs a stringed lute on which can winds can play,Is it for this that I have given awayMine ancient wisdom and austere control?Methinks my life is a twice-written scrollScrawled over on some boyish holidayWith idle songs for pipe and virelay,Which do but mar the secret of the whole.Surely there was a time I might have trodThe sunlit heights, and from life’s dissonanceStruck one clear chord to reach the ears of God:Is that time dead? lo! with a little rodI did but touch the honey of romance —And must I lose a soul’s inheritance?

TO MILTON

Milton! I think thy spirit hath passed awayFrom these white cliffs and high-embattled towers;This gorgeous fiery-coloured world of oursSeems fallen into ashes dull and grey,And the age changed unto a mimic playWherein we waste our else too-crowded hours:For all our pomp and pageantry and powersWe are but fit to delve the common clay,Seeing this little isle on which we stand,This England, this sea-lion of the sea,By ignorant demagogues is held in fee,Who love her not: Dear God! is this the landWhich bare a triple empire in her handWhen Cromwell spake the word Democracy!

ON THE MASSACRE OF THE CHRISTIANS IN BULGARIA

Christ, dost Thou live indeed? or are Thy bonesStill straitened in their rock-hewn sepulchre?And was Thy Rising only dreamed by herWhose love of Thee for all her sin atones?For here the air is horrid with men’s groans,The priests who call upon Thy name are slain,Dost Thou not hear the bitter wail of painFrom those whose children lie upon the stones?Come down, O Son of God! incestuous gloomCurtains the land, and through the starless nightOver Thy Cross a Crescent moon I see!If Thou in very truth didst burst the tombCome down, O Son of Man! and show Thy mightLest Mahomet be crowned instead of Thee!

HOLY WEEK AT GENOA

I wandered through Scoglietto’s far retreat,   The oranges on each o’erhanging spray   Burned as bright lamps of gold to shame the day;Some startled bird with fluttering wings and fleetMade snow of all the blossoms; at my feet   Like silver moons the pale narcissi lay:   And the curved waves that streaked the great green bayLaughed i’ the sun, and life seemed very sweet.Outside the young boy-priest passed singing clear,   ‘Jesus the son of Mary has been slain,   O come and fill His sepulchre with flowers.’Ah, God!  Ah, God! those dear Hellenic hours   Had drowned all memory of Thy bitter pain,   The Cross, the Crown, the Soldiers and the Spear.

URBS SACRA ÆTERNA

Rome! what a scroll of History thine has been;   In the first days thy sword republican   Ruled the whole world for many an age’s span:Then of the peoples wert thou royal Queen,Till in thy streets the bearded Goth was seen;   And now upon thy walls the breezes fan   (Ah, city crowned by God, discrowned by man!)The hated flag of red and white and green.When was thy glory! when in search for power   Thine eagles flew to greet the double sun,   And the wild nations shuddered at thy rod?Nay, but thy glory tarried for this hour,   When pilgrims kneel before the Holy One,   The prisoned shepherd of the Church of God.Montre Mario

E TENEBRIS

Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand,   For I am drowning in a stormier sea   Than Simon on Thy lake of Galilee:The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,My heart is as some famine-murdered land   Whence all good things have perished utterly,   And well I know my soul in Hell must lieIf I this night before God’s throne should stand.‘He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase,   Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name   From morn to noon on Carmel’s smitten height.’Nay, peace, I shall behold, before the night,   The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,   The wounded hands, the weary human face.

AT VERONA

How steep the stairs within King’s houses are   For exile-wearied feet as mine to tread,   And O how salt and bitter is the breadWhich falls from this Hound’s table, – better farThat I had died in the red ways of war,   Or that the gate of Florence bare my head,   Than to live thus, by all things comradedWhich seek the essence of my soul to mar.‘Curse God and die: what better hope than this?   He hath forgotten thee in all the bliss   Of his gold city, and eternal day’ —Nay peace: behind my prison’s blinded bars   I do possess what none can take away,   My love and all the glory of the stars.

ON THE SALE BY AUCTION OF KEATS’ LOVE LETTERS

These are the letters which Endymion wrote   To one he loved in secret, and apart.   And now the brawlers of the auction martBargain and bid for each poor blotted note,Ay! for each separate pulse of passion quote   The merchant’s price.  I think they love not art   Who break the crystal of a poet’s heartThat small and sickly eyes may glare and gloat.Is it not said that many years ago,   In a far Eastern town, some soldiers ran   With torches through the midnight, and beganTo wrangle for mean raiment, and to throw   Dice for the garments of a wretched man,Not knowing the God’s wonder, or His woe?

THE NEW REMORSE

The sin was mine; I did not understand.   So now is music prisoned in her cave,   Save where some ebbing desultory waveFrets with its restless whirls this meagre strand.And in the withered hollow of this land   Hath Summer dug herself so deep a grave,   That hardly can the leaden willow craveOne silver blossom from keen Winter’s hand.But who is this who cometh by the shore?(Nay, love, look up and wonder!)  Who is this   Who cometh in dyed garments from the South?It is thy new-found Lord, and he shall kiss   The yet unravished roses of thy mouth,And I shall weep and worship, as before.