Part 8 (1/2)
FAREWELL TO THE GLEN
Sweet stream-fed glen, why say 'farewell' to thee Who far'st so well and find'st for ever smooth The brow of Time where man may read no ruth?
Nay, do thou rather say 'farewell' to me, Who now fare forth in bitterer fantasy Than erst was mine where other shade might soothe By other streams, what while in fragrant youth The bliss of being sad made melancholy.
And yet, farewell! For better shalt thou fare When children bathe sweet faces in thy flow And happy lovers blend sweet shadows there In hours to come, than when an hour ago Thine echoes had but one man's sighs to bear And thy trees whispered what he feared to know.
VAIN VIRTUES
What is the sorriest thing that enters h.e.l.l?
None of the sins,--but this and that fair deed Which a soul's sin at length could supersede.
These yet are virgins, whom death's timely knell Might once have sainted; whom the fiends compel Together now, in snake-bound shuddering sheaves Of anguish, while the scorching bridegroom leaves Their refuse maidenhood abominable.
Night sucks them down, the garbage of the pit, Whose names, half entered in the book of Life, Were G.o.d's desire at noon. And as their hair And eyes sink last, the Torturer deigns no whit To gaze, but, yearning, waits his worthier wife, The Sin still blithe on earth that sent them there.
LOST DAYS
The lost days of my life until to-day, What were they, could I see them on the street Lie as they fell? Would they be ears of wheat Sown once for food but trodden into clay?
Or golden coins squandered and still to pay?
Or drops of blood dabbling the guilty feet?
Or such spilt water as in dreams must cheat The throats of men in h.e.l.l, who thirst alway?
I do not see them here; but after death G.o.d knows I know the faces I shall see, Each one a murdered self, with low last breath.
'I am thyself,--what hast thou done to me?'
'And I--and I--thyself,' (lo! each one saith,) 'And thou thyself to all eternity!'
DEATH'S SONGSTERS
When first that horse, within whose populous womb The birth was death, o'ershadowed Troy with fate, Her elders, dubious of its Grecian freight, Brought Helen there to sing the songs of home: She whispered, 'Friends, I am alone; come, come!'
Then, crouched within, Ulysses waxed afraid, And on his comrades' quivering mouths he laid His hands, and held them till the voice was dumb.
The same was he who, lashed to his own mast, There where the sea-flowers screen the charnel-caves, Beside the sirens' singing island pa.s.s'd, Till sweetness failed along the inveterate waves...
Say, soul,--are songs of Death no heaven to thee, Nor shames her lip the cheek of Victory?
HERO'S LAMP*
That lamp thou fill'st in Eros name to-night, O Hero, shall the Sestian augurs take To-morrow, and for drowned Leander's sake To Anteros its fireless lip shall plight.