Part 2 (1/2)
GRACIOUS MOONLIGHT
Even as the moon grows queenlier in mid-s.p.a.ce When the sky darkens, and her cloud-rapt car Thrills with intenser radiance from afar,-- So lambent, lady, beams thy sovereign grace When the drear soul desires thee. Of that face What shall be said,--which, like a governing star, Gathers and garners from all things that are Their silent penetrative loveliness?
O'er water-daisies and wild waifs of Spring, There where the iris rears its gold-crowned sheaf With flowering rush and sceptred arrow-leaf, So have I marked Queen Dian, in bright ring Of cloud above and wave below, take wing And chase night's gloom, as thou the spirit's grief.
LOVE-SWEETNESS
Sweet dimness of her loosened hair's downfall About thy face; her sweet hands round thy head In gracious fostering union garlanded, Her tremulous smiles, her glances' sweet recall Of love; her murmuring sighs memorial; Her mouth's culled sweetness by thy kisses shed On cheeks and neck and eyelids, and so led Back to her mouth which answers there for all:--
What sweeter than these things, except the thing In lacking which all these would lose their sweet:-- The confident heart's still fervour: the swift beat And soft subsidence of the spirit's wing, Then when it feels, in cloud--girt wayfaring, The breath of kindred plumes against its feet?
HEART'S HAVEN
Sometimes she is a child within mine arms, Cowering beneath dark wings that love must chase,-- With still tears showering and averted face, Inexplicably filled with faint alarms: And oft from mine own spirit's hurtling harms I crave the refuge of her deep embrace,-- Against all ills the fortified strong place And sweet reserve of sovereign counter-charms.
And Love, our light at night and shade at noon, Lulls us to rest with songs, and turns away All shafts of shelterless tumultuous day.
Like the moon's growth, his face gleams through his tune; And as soft waters warble to the moon, Our answering spirits chime one roundelay.
LOVE'S BAUBLES
I stood where Love in br.i.m.m.i.n.g armfuls bore Slight wanton flowers and foolish toys of fruit: And round him ladies thronged in warm pursuit, Fingered and lipped and proffered the strange store: And from one hand the petal and the core Savoured of sleep; and cl.u.s.ter and curled shoot Seemed from another hand like shame's salute,-- Gifts that I felt my cheek was blus.h.i.+ng for.
At last Love bade my Lady give the same: And as I looked, the dew was light thereon; And as I took them, at her touch they shone With inmost heaven-hue of the heart of flame.
And then Love said: 'Lo! when the hand is hers, Follies of love are love's true ministers.'
PRIDE OF YOUTH
Even as a child, of sorrow that we give The dead, but little in his heart can find, Since without need of thought to his clear mind Their turn it is to die and his to live: Even so the winged New Love smiles to receive Along his eddying plumes the auroral wind, Nor, forward glorying, casts one look behind Where night-rack shrouds the Old Love fugitive.
There is a change in every hour's recall, And the last cowslip in the fields we see On the same day with the first corn-poppy.
Alas for hourly change! Alas for all The loves that from his hand proud Youth lets fall, Even as the beads of a told rosary!
WINGED HOURS
Each hour until we meet is as a bird That wings from far his gradual way along The rustling covert of my soul,--his song Still loudlier trilled through leaves more deeply stirr'd: But at the hour of meeting, a clear word Is every note he sings, in Love's own tongue; Yet, Love, thou know'st the sweet strain wrong, Through our contending kisses oft unheard.
What of that hour at last, when for her sake No wing may fly to me nor song may flow; When, wandering round my life unleaved, I The bloodied feathers scattered in the brake, And think how she, far from me, with like eyes Sees through the untuneful bough the wingless skies?
MID-RAPTURE