Enamels and Cameos and other Poems

TWO LOVE-LOCKS

Reviving languorous dreamingOf conquered, conquering eye,Upon thy forehead gleaming,Two fairest love-locks lie.I see them softly nesting,Of wondrous, golden sheen,Like little wheels come restingFrom car of Mab the Queen;Or bows of Cupid readyTo let the arrows fly,Bent circlewise and steadyFor archer's mastery.One heart have I of passion.Yet two love-locks are thine!O brow of fickle fashion!Whose heart is caught with mine?

THE TEA-ROSE

Most beautiful of all the rosesIs this half-open bud, whose bare,Unpetalled heart a dream disclosesOf carmine very faint and fair.I wonder, was it once a white rose,Till butterfly too ardent spokeA language soft, and in the light roseA shyer, warmer tint awoke?Its delicate fabric hath the colourOf lovely and velutinous skin.Its perfect freshness maketh dullerEnvironing hues incarnadine.For as some rare patrician featuresEclipse the brows of ruddier gleam,So masquerade as rustic creaturesGay sisters of this rose supreme.But, dear one, if your hand caress it,And raise it for its sweet perfume,Ere yet your velvet cheek shall press it,'T will fade before a fairer bloom.No rose in all the world so tender,That gloweth in the springtime fleet,But shall its every charm surrenderUnto your seventeen years, my sweet.A face hath more than petal's power:A pure heart's blood that blushing flowsO'er youth's nobility, is flowerHigh sovereign over every rose.

CARMEN

Slender is Carmen, of lissome guise,Her hair is black as the midnight's heart;Dark circles are under her gypsy eyes,Her swarthy skin is the devil's art.The women will mock at her form and face;But the men will follow her all the day.Toledo's Archbishop (now save His Grace!)Tones his mass at her knees, they say.Nestled in warmth of her amber neckLies a massive coil, till she fling it downTo be a raiment to frame and deckHer delicate body from foot to crown.Then out from her pallid face with powerHer witching, terrible smiles compel.Her mouth is a mystical poison-flowerThat hath drawn its crimson from hearts in hell.The haughtiest beauty must yield her fame,When this strange vision shall dusk her sky.For Carmen rules, and her glance's flameShall set the torch to satiety.Wild, graceless Carmen! – Though yet this be,Savour she hath of a world undreamt,Of a world of wonder, whose salt young seaProvoked a Venus to rise and tempt.

WHAT THE SWALLOWS SAY

AN AUTUMN SONGThe dry, brown leaves have dropped forlorn,And lie amid the golden grass.The wind is fresh both eve and morn.But where are summer days, alas!The tardy flowers the autumn stayedFor latter treasures now unfold.The dahlia dons its gay cockade,Its flaming cap the marigold.Rain stirs the pool with pelt and shock.The swallows to the roof repair,Confabulating as they flockAnd feel the winter in the air.By hundreds gather they to vowTheir little yearnings and intents.Saith one: "'T is fair in Athens now,Upon the sun-warm battlements!"Thither I go to take my napUpon the Parthenon high and free.My cornice nest is in the gapA cannon-ball made there for me."And one: "A ceiling meets my needsWithin a Smyrna coffee-house,Where Hadjis tell their amber beadsUpon the threshold luminous."I go and come above the folk,While their chibouques their clouds upfling.I skim along through silver smoke,And graze the turbans with my wing."Another: "There's a triglyph grayOn one of Baalbec's temples high.'T is there I go to brood all dayAbove my little family."Another calleth, "My addressIs settled: 'At the Knights of Rhodes.'In a dark colonnade's recessI'll make the snuggest of abodes.""Old age hath made me slow for flight,"Declares a fifth; "I'll rest at evenOn Malta's terraces of white,Where blue sea melts to blue of heaven."A sixth: "In Cairo is my home,Up in a minaret's retreat:A twig or two, a bit of loam —My winter lodgings are complete."A last: "The Second CataractShall mark my place – the nest of brownA granite king doth hold intactWithin the circle of his crown."And all together sing: "What milesTo-morrow shall have stretched beneathOur fleeing swarm: – remembered isles,Snow peaks, vast waters, lands of heath!"With calls and cries and beat of wings,Grown eager now and venturesome,The swallows hold their twitterings,To see the blight of winter come.And I – I understand them all,Because the poet is a bird, —Oh! but a sorry bird, and thrallTo a great lack, pressed heavenward.It's Oh for wings! to seek the star,To count the seas when day is done,To breast the air with swallows far,To verdant spring, to golden sun!

CHRISTMAS

Black is the sky and white the ground.O ring, ye bells, your carol's grace!The Child is born! A love profoundBeams o'er Him from His Mother's face.No silken woof of costly showKeeps off the bitter cold from Him.But spider-webs have drooped them low,To be His curtain soft and dim.Now trembles on the straw downspreadThe Little Child, the Star beneath.To warm Him in His holy bed,Upon Him ox and ass do breathe.Snow hangs its fringes on the byre.The roof stands open to the trystOf aureoled saints, that sweetly choirTo shepherds, "Come, behold the Christ!"

THE DEAD CHILD'S PLAYTHINGS

Marie comes no more at call.She has wandered from her play.Ah, how pitifully smallWas the coffin borne away!See – about the nursery floorAll her little heritage:Rubber ball and battledore,Tattered book and coloured page.Poor forsaken doll! in vainStretch your arms. She will not come.Stopped forever is the train,And the music-box is dumb.Some one touched it soft, apart,Where the silence is her name.And what sinking of the heartAt the plaintive note that came!Ah, the anguish! when the tombRobs the cradle; when bereftWe discover in the gloomChild toys that an angel left.

AFTER WRITING MY DRAMATIC REVIEW

My columns are ranged and steady,Upbearing, though sad forespent,The newspaper pediment,And my review is ready.Now for a week, poetaster,My door is bolted. Away,Thou still-born masterpiece, – aye,Till Monday I am my master.No melodrama shall whitenMy labour with threadbare leaves.The warp that my fancy weavesWith silken flowers shall brighten.Brief moment my spirit's warder,Ye voices of soul that float,I'll hearken your sorrow's note,Nor verses evoke to order.Then deep in my glass regainingThe health of a day gone by, —Old visions for company —The bloom of my vintage draining,The wine of my thought I'll measure,Wine virgin of alien glow,Grapes trodden by life, that flowFrom my heart at my heart's own pleasure!

THE CASTLE OF REMEMBRANCE

Before my hearth with head low-bowedI dream, and strive to reach again,Across the misty past's gray cloud,Unto Remembrance's domain,Where tree and house and upland wayAre blurred and blue like passing ghosts,And the eye, ponder though it may,Consults in vain the guiding-posts.Now gropingly to gain a sightOf all the buried world, I pressThrough mystic marge of shade and lightAnd limbo of forgetfulness.But white, diaphanous Memory stands,Where many roadways meet and spread,Like Ariadne, in my handsThrusting her little ball of thread.Henceforth the way is all secure.The shrouded sun hath reappeared,And o'er the trees with vision sureI see the castle tower upreared.Beneath the boughs where day grows darkWith shower on shower of leaves down-pouredThe dear old path through moss and barkStill lengthens far its narrow cord.But creeping-plant and bramble-sprayHave wrought a net to daunt me now.The stubborn branch I force awaySwings fiercely back to lash my brow.I come upon the house at last.No window lit with lamp or face,No breath of smoke from gables vast,To touch with life the mouldering place!Bridges are crumbling. Moats are still,And slimed with rank, green refuse-flowers,And tortuous waves of ivy fillThe crevices and choke the towers.The portico in moonlight wanes.Time sculptures it to suit his whim.And with the wash of many rainsMy coloured coat of arms is dim.The door I open eagerly.The ancient hinges creak and halt.A breath of dampness wafts to meThe musty odour of the vault.The hairy nettle sharp of sting,The coarse and broad-leafed burdock weedIn court-yard nooks are prospering,By spreading hemlocks canopied.Upon two marble monsters near,That guard the mossy steps of stone,The shadow of a tree falls clear,That in my absence has upgrown.Sudden the lion sentinels raiseTheir paws, aggressive and malign,And challenge me with their white gaze;But soft I breathe the countersign.I pass. The old dog menaceth,But falls back hushed, the shades amid.My resonant footstep wakenethCrouched echoes in their corners hid.Through yellow panes of glass a rayOf dubious light creeps down the hallWhere ancient tapestries displayApollo's fortunes from the wall.Fair tree-bound Daphne still with graceStretches her tufted fingers green.But in the amorous god's embraceShe fades, a formless phantom seen.I watch divine Apollo stand,Herdsman to acarus-riddled sheep,The Muses Nine, a haggard band,Upon a faded Pindus weep;While Solitude in scanty gownTraces "Desertion" in the dustThat through the air she sifteth downUpon a marble stand august.And now, among forgotten things,I find, like sleepers manifold,Pastels bedimmed, dark picturings,Young beauties, and the friends of old.My faltering fingers lift a crape, —And lo, my love with look and lure!With puffing skirts and prisoned shape!Cidalise à la Pompadour!A tender, blossoming rose she feelsAgainst her ribboned bodice pressed,Whose lace half hides and half revealsA snowy, azure-veinèd breast.Within her eyes gleam sparkles lush,As on the rime-kissed, deadened leaves.Upon her cheek a purple flush —Death's own cosmetic hue! – deceives.She startles as I come before,And fixeth soft on me her eyes,Reproachfully forevermore,Yet with a charm and witching wise.Life bore me from thee at its will,Yet on my heart thy name is laid,Thou dead delight, that lingereth still,Bedizened for the masquerade!Envious of Art, fair Nature wroughtTo overpass Murillo's fame, —From Andalusia here she broughtThe face that lights the second frame.By some poetical caprice,Our atmosphere of mist and cloud,With rare exotic charm's increaseThis other Petra Camara dowed.Warm orange tones are gilding yetHer lovely skin of roseate hue.Her eyelids fair have lashes jetThat beams of sunshine filter through.There shimmers fine a pearly gleamBetween her scarlet lips elate;Her beauty flashes forth supreme —A bright south summer pomegranate.Long to the sound of Spain's guitar,I told her praise 'mid song and glass.She came alone one evenstar,And all my room Alhambra was.Farther I see a robust Fair,With strong and gem-beladen arms.In pearls of price and velvet rareAre set her ivory bosom's charms.Her ennui is a weary queen's,An adulating court amid.Superb, aloof, her hand she leansUpon a casket's jewelled lid.Her sensuous lips their crimes confess,As crimson with the blood of hearts.With brutal, mad voluptuousnessHer conquering eye a challenge darts.Here dwells, in lieu of tender grace,Vertiginous allure, whereofA cruel Venus ruled a race,Presiding o'er malignant love.Unnatural mother to her child,This Venus all imperative!O thou, my bitter joy and wild, —Farewell forever! I forgive!Within its frame in shadow fine,The misty glass that still enduresReveals another face than mine, —The earliest of my portraitures.A retrospective ghost, with faceOf vanished type, steps from the vastDim mirror of his biding-placeIn tenebrous, forgotten past.Gay in his doublet satin-rose,Coloured in bold and vivid way,He seems as if about to poseFor Deveria or Boulanger.Terror of glabrous commoner,His flowing locks in royal guise,Like mane of lion, or sinisterKing's hair, fall heavy to his thighs.Romanticist of bold conceit,Knight of an art which strives anew,He hurled himself at Drama's feet,When erst Hernani's trumpet blew.Night falls. The corners are astirWith many shapes and shadows tall.The Unknown – grim stage-carpenter —Sets up its darksome frights o'er all.A sudden burst of candles, weirdWith aureoles, like lamps of death!The room is populous, and blearedWith folk brought hither by a breath!Down step the portraits from the wall, —A ruddy-litten company!Circling the fireplace in the hall,Where the wood blazes suddenly.The figures wrested from the tombsHave lost their rigid, frozen mien,The gradual glow of life illumesThe Past with flush incarnadine.A colour lights the faces pale,As in the days of old delight.Friends whom my thought shall never fail,I thank ye, that ye came to-night!Now eighteen-thirty shows to meIts great and valiant-hearted men.(Ah, like Otranto's pirates, weWho were an hundred, are but ten!)And one his reddish beard spreads out,Like Barbarossa in his cave.Another his mustachio stoutCurls at the ends in fashion suave.Under the ample fold that cloaksAn ever unrevealèd ill,Petrus a cigarette now smokes,Naming it "papelito" still.Another cometh, fain to tellHis visions and his hopes supreme.Like Icarus on the sands he fell,Where lie all broken shafts of dream.And one a drama hath begot,Planned after some new model's freak,Which, merging all things in its plot,Makes Calderon with Molière speak.Tom, late forsaken by his Dear,Love's Labour's Lost must low recite;And Fritz to Cidalise makes clearFaust's vision of Walpurgis Night.But dawn comes through the window free.Diaphanous the phantoms grow.The objects of realityStrike through their shapes that merge and go.The candles are consumed away.The ember-lights no longer gleamUpon the hearth. No thing shall stay.Farewell, O castle of my dream!December gray shall turn once moreThe glass of Time, for all we fret!The present enters at my door,And vainly bids me to forget.

CAMELLIA AND MEADOW-DAISY

We praise the hot-house flowers that loomFar from their native sun and shade,The flaring forms that flaunt their bloom,Like jewels under glass displayed.With never breeze to kiss their heads,They have their birth and live and dieOn costly, artificial beds,Beneath an ever-crystal sky.For whomsoever idly scans,Baring their treasures to entice,Like fair and sumptuous courtesans,They stand for sale at golden price.Fine porcelain holds their gathered groups,Or glove-clad fingers fondle themBetween the dances, till each droopsUpon a limp or broken stem.But down amid the grass unreaped,Shunning the curious, in reposeAnd silence all the long day steeped,A little woodland daisy blows.A butterfly upon the wingTo point the place, a casual look,And you surprise the sweet, shy thing,Within its calm, sequestered nook.Beneath the blue it openeth,Rising on slender, vernal rod,Spreading its soul in fragrant breathFor solitude and for its God.And proud camellias tall and white,Red tulips in a flaming mass,Are all at once forgotten quite,For the small flower amid the grass.

THE FELLAH

On seeing a Water-Colour by Princess MathildeCaprice of brush fantastical,And of imperial idleness,Your fellah-sphinx presents us allWith an enigma worth the guess.A rigid fashion, verily,This mask, this garment, seem to us,Intriguing with its mysteryThe ball-room's every Oedipus.Isis bequeathed her veil of oldTo modern daughters of the Nile.But through this band austere, behold,Two stars of radiance beam and smile, —Two stars, two eyes, two poems that spring,The soft, voluptuous fires whereofResolve the riddle, murmuring:"Lo, I am Beauty! Be thou Love!"

THE GARRET

From balcony tiles where casual catsSit low in wait for birds unwise,I see the worn and riven slatsOf a poor, humble garret rise.Now could I as an author lie,To give you comfort as you think,Its window I would falsify,And frame with flowers refined and pink,And place within it RigoletteWith her cheap looking-glass, somehow,Whose broken glazing mirrors yetA portion of her pretty brow;Or Margery, her dress undone,Her hair blown free, her tie forgot,Watering in the pleasant sunHer pail-encompassed garden-plot;Or poet-youth whom fame awaits,Who scans his verse and eyes the hills,Or in a reverie contemplatesMontmartre with its distant mills.Alas! my garret is no feint.There climbeth no convolvulus.The window with its nibbled paintLeers filmy and unluminous.Alike for artist and grisette,Alike for widower and lad,A garret – save to music set —Is never otherwise than sad.Of old, beneath an angle pent,That forced the forehead to a kiss,Love, with a folding-couch content,To chat with Susan deemed it bliss.But we must wad our bliss aboutWith cushioned walls and laces wide,And silks that flutter in and out,O'er beds by Monbro canopied.This evening, to Mount Breda fledIs Rigolette, to linger there,And Margery, well clothed and fed,No longer tends her garden fair.The poet, tired of catching rimesUpon the wing, has turned to cullReporter's bays, and left betimesA heaven for an entresol.And in the window this is all:An ancient goody chattering,And railing at a kitten smallThat toys forever with a string.

THE CLOUD

Lightly in the azure airSoars a cloud, emerging freeLike a virgin from the fairBlue sea;Or an Aphrodite sweet,Floating upright and empearledIn the shell, about its feetFoam-curled.Undulating overhead,How its changing body glows!On its shoulder dawn hath spreadA rose.Marble, snow, blend amorouslyIn that form by sunlight kissed —Slumbering AntiopeOf mist!Sailing unto distant goal,Over Alps and Apennines,Sister of the woman-soul,It shines;Till my heart flies forth at lastOn the wings of passion warm,And I yearn to gather fastIts form.Reason saith: "Mere vapour thing!Bursting bubble! Yet, we deem,Holds this wind-distorted ringOur dream."Faith declareth: "Beauty seen,Like a cloud, is but a thought,Or a breath, that, having been,Is naught."Have thy vision. Build it proud.Let thy soul be full thereof.Love a woman – love a cloud —But love!"

THE BLACKBIRD

A bird from yonder branch at dawnIs trilling forth a joyful note,Or hopping o'er the frozen lawn,In yellow boots and ebon coat.It is the blackbird credulous.Little of calendar knows he,Whose soul, with sunbeams luminous,Sings April to the snows that be.Rain sweeps in torrents unrepressed.The Arve makes dull the Rhone with mire.The pleasant hall retains its guestIn goodly cheer before the fire.The mountains have their ermine on,Each one a mighty magistrate,And hold grave conference uponA case of Winter lasting late.The bird dries well his wing, and long,Despite the rains, the mists that roll,Insists upon his little song,Believes in Spring with all his soul.He softly chides the slumberous mornFor dallying so long abed,And bids the shivering flower forlornBe bold, and raise aloft its head;Behind the dark sees day that smiles,Even as behind the Holy Rod,When bare the altar, dim the aisles,The child of faith beholds his God.He trusts to Nature's purpose high,Sure of her laws for here and now.Who laughs at thy philosophy,Dear blackbird, is less wise than thou!

THE FLOWER THAT MAKES THE SPRINGTIME

The chestnut trees are soon to flowerAt fair Saint Jean, the villa dippedIn sun, before whose viny towerStretch purple mountains silver-tipped.The little leaves that yesterdayPressed in their bodices were seenHave put their sober garb away,And touched the tender twigs with green.But vainly do the sunbeams fillThe branches with a flood of light.The shy bud hesitateth stillTo show the secret thyrse of white.And yet the rosy peach-tree blooms,Like some faint blush of first desire.The apple waves a wealth of plumes,And laughs in all its fresh attire.To bask amid the buttercupsThe timid speedwell ventures out.Nature calls every earthling up,And reassures each tiny sprout.Yet I must off to other sphere!Then please your poet, chestnuts tall,Yea, spread ye forth without a fearYour firework bloom fantastical!I know your summer splendour's pride.I've seen you standing sumptuousIn autumn's tunics purple-dyed,With golden circlets luminous.In winter white and crystal-crossedYour delicate boughs I saw again, —Like lovely traceries the frostLimns lightly on the window-pane.Your every garment I have known,Ye chestnuts grand that loom aloft, —Save one to me you've never shown,Of young green fabric first and soft.Ah, well, good-bye, for I must go!Keep, then, your flowers, where'er they be.There is another flower I know,That makes the springtime fair for me.Let May with all her blooms arise,Let May with all her blooms depart!That flower sufficeth for mine eyes,And hath pure honey in its heart.Let be the season where it waits,And blue or dull be heaven's dome —It smiles and charms and captivates, —The precious violet of my home!

A LAST WISH

How long my soul has loved thee, love!It is full many a year agone.Thy spring – what charm of flowers thereof,My winter – what wild snows thereon!White lilacs from the land of gravesBlow near my temples. Soon enowThou'lt mark the pallid mass that wavesEnshadowing my withered brow.My westering sun must speedy drop,And disappear behind the road.Already on the dim hill-top,There gleams and waits my last abode.Then from thy rosy lips let fallUpon my lips a tardy kiss,That in my tomb, when comes the call,My heart may rest, remembering this.

THE DOVE

O tender, beauteous dove,Calling such plaintive things!Wilt serve unto my love,And be my love's own wings?O, but we 're like, poor heart!Thy dear one, too, is far.Remembering, apart,Each weeps beneath the star.Let not thy rosy feetStay once on any tower, —I am so fain, my sweet, —So weary turns the hour!Forswear the palm's reposeThat spreadeth over all,And gables where the snowsOf other pinions fall.Now fail me not, nor fear!He dwelleth near the king.Give him this letter, dear,These kisses on thy wing.Then seek again my breast,This flaming, throbbing goal,Then come, my dove, and rest —But bring me back his soul!

A PLEASANT EVENING

What flurrying of rains and snows!Now every coachman, blue of nose,     In fur and ireSits petrified. Oh, it were rightTo spend this wild December night     Before one's fire!The cosy chimney-corner chairAssumes its most persuasive air.     I seem to seeIts arms held out, its voice to hear,Beseeching like a mistress dear:     "Ah, stay with me!"A gauze reveals the orbèd lamp,Like a fair breast beneath a guimpe,     And drowsilyThe shimmer of its light ascends,Flushing with gold and crimson blends     The ceiling high.The silence frames no sound of things,Save for the pendulum that swings     Its golden disk,And many winds that roam and weep,Or stealthy to the hall-way sweep,     To dance and frisk.It's ball-night at the Embassy.My coat's limp sleeves are signalling me     To dress anon.My waistcoat yawns. My shirt obtuseSeems raising high its wristbands loose,     To be put on.A narrow boot's abundant glazeReflects the ruddy firelight's blaze.     Have I forgot?A glove's flat fingers span the shelf.A thin cravat protrudes itself,     And begs a knot.Then must I forth? But what a bore —To seek the over-crowded door!     To fall in lineOf coaches bearing coats of armsAnd haughty beauties with their charms,     Superb and fine!To stand against a portal wideAnd see the surging mass inside     Bear form on form:Old faces, faces fresh and young,Black coats low bodices among, —     A motley swarm!And puffy backs that hide their redWith laces fine of costly thread     Aerial,Dandies, diplomatists, that press,With features dull, expressionless,     At fashion's call.What! Brave, to win a glance of hers,The rows of lynx-eyed dowagers!     Try undeterredTo speak the dear name of my dear,And whisper softly in her ear     Love's little word!Nay, but I'll not! Her eye shall heedA letter in the flowers I'll speed.     No ball-room now!Let Parma violets make goodWhatever be her passing mood.     They hold my vow.Ensconced with Heine or with Taine,Or, if I like, the Goncourts twain,     The time will go.I'll dream, until the hour shall stirReality, and wait for her.     She'll come, I know.

ART

More fair the work, more strong,Stamped in resistance long, —Enamel, marble, song.Poet, no shackles bear,Yet bid thy Muse to wearThe buskin bound with care.A fashion loose forsake, —A shoe of sloven make,That any foot may take.Sculptor, the clay withstand,That yieldeth to the hand,Though listless heart command.Contend till thou have wrought,Till the hard stone have caughtThe beauty of thy thought.With Paros match thy might,And with Carrara bright,That guard the line of light.Borrow from SyracuseThe bronze's stubborn use,Wherein thy form to choose.And with a delicate graceIn the veined onyx traceApollo's perfect face.Painter, put thou asideThe transient. Be thy prideThe colour furnace-tried.Limn thou, fantastic, freeBlue sirens of the sea,And beasts of heraldry.Before a nimbus goldTranscendently upholdThe Child, the Cross foretold.Things perish. Gods have passed.But song sublimely castShall citadels outlast.And the forgotten sealTurned by the plowman's steelAn emperor may reveal.For Art alone is great:The bust survives the state,The crown the potentate.Carve, burnish, build thy theme, —But fix thy wavering dreamIn the stern rock supreme.