Chapter I: And My Shadow Are So Made One

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THAT WERE WE PARTED EACH LIFE WERE DONE.

SEA-SCAPES

I lie and dream in the soft warm sand; and the thunder and surge and
the baffled roar
Of the sea’s relentless and vain endeavors are a pleasant lullaby,
here on shore.

Since a little hillock screens yonder ageless tenacious battlings
(which shatter, and pass
In foam and spume), I appraise, half-nodding, much sand and sky and
gaunt nodding grass.

And I am content to lie and dream; and I am too drowsy to rise, and
see
If it be worth breasting--that ocean yonder, which a little hillock
hides from me.

VII

VERTICORDIA

“_A vous parle, compaings de galles_”

THE AGELESS MAID

“_Amors, qu’a escien m’a donat tal voler_”

--RAIMBAUT DE VAQUEIRAS.

Man’s Love, that leads me day by day
Through many a screened and scented way,
Finds to assuage my thirst
No love that may the old love slay,
None sweeter than the first.

Fond heart of mine, that beats so fast
As this or that fair maid trips past,
Once, and with lesser stir,
We viewed the grace of love, at last,
And turned idolater.

Lad’s Love it was, that in the spring
When all things woke to blossoming,
Was as a child that came
Laughing, and filled with wondering,
Nor knowing his own name.

And still--whatever years impend
To witness time a fickle friend
And youth a dwindling fire,--
I must adore till all years end
My first love, Heart’s Desire.

I may not hear men speak of her
Unmoved, and vagrant pulses stir
To greet her passing-by,
And I, in all her worshipper,
Must serve her till I die.

For I remember: this is she
That reigns in one man’s memory
Immune to age and fret,
And stays the maid I may nor see
Nor win to, nor forget.

FROM AFAR

“_Domna, si no us vezon mei heulh_”

--RAIMBAUT DE VAQUEIRAS.

Félise, whose will, yet undiscerned, commands
My willing heart, stayest thou unmoved to see
How Love, forlorn and reft of empery,
Strains toward thy free heart with bleeding hands?
Now the last hour of day runs leaden sands
Hast thou indeed, Félise, no thought of me,
As all my thoughts take wing and throng to thee
Athwart the long leagues of dividing lands?

Félise, I am long sick with long delay,
Brain-wearied with long dreaming of thy grace,
Heart-hungered with long waiting in this place
Of days that are so long, whilst Love’s own day,
Longed-for so long, draws on with leisured pace
To make thee mine, dear love so far away.

_Félise, have pity!_--cringing, at thy door
Entreats, with dolorous cry and clamoring,
That mendicant who quits thee nevermore:
Now winter chills the world, and no birds sing
In any woods, yet as in wanton spring
He follows thee; and never will have done,
Though nakedly he die, from following
Whither thou leadest.

Canst thou look upon
His woes, and laugh to see a goddess’ son
Of wide dominion, and in strategy
More strong than Jove, more wise than Solomon,
Inept to combat thy severity?
Félise, have pity! and let Love be one
Among the folk that bear thee company.

COMPETITORS

--After ALESSANDRO DE MEDICI.

Heart o’ My Heart, dost thou not hear
Tired waves, perturbed by the mystery
Of the voiding east where vext winds veer,
Lamenting and lisping?--_I, the Sea,
Grapple and strain till I win to thee
I have loved so long, and may never depart
From that age-long siege till I win to thee,
Though I win as Enipëus, Heart o’ My Heart._
--The Sea’s exordium
Pleads thus, _cor cordium_.

Heart o’ My Heart, dost thou not hear
A sighing of dying Winds?--crying to thee:--
_We that were friendly with Guinevere,
And wafted Queen Helen oversea,_
_And served that lady of mystery
Balkis, a Sheban--caress and depart
Unwillingly, finding none fairer than thee
In those cold old venturings, Heart o’ My Heart._
--The Winds’ exordium
Sighs thus, _cor cordium_.

Heart o’ My Heart, dost thou not hear
Love that strives--as the yearning Sea,
As the truant Winds,--for the staid, and severe,
And sturdy and stainless heart of thee?--
Nay, without warning Love wins to thee
Suddenly some day, swift to impart
The secret of tears and the mystery
Of sorrow and heartbreak, Heart o’ My Heart.
--Without exordium
Love takes, _cor cordium_.

All sighs and tears are the Winds and the Sea,
And fit precursors--nay, portion and part--
Of Love that is silent, and wins to thee
Silently some day, Heart o’ My Heart.

THE STRIKING HOUR

“_Comme un Croisé vaincu, qui longtemps languissait_”

--NICOLAS DE CAEN.

As one imprisoned, that hath lain alone
And dreamed of sunlight where no vagrant gleam
Of sunlight pierces, being freed, must deem
This too but dreaming, and must dread the sun
Whose glory dazzles;--even as such-an-one
Am I, whose longing was but now supreme
For this high hour, and, now it strikes, esteem
I do but dream long dreamed-of goals are won.

Take heed! be still! lest haply God reprove.
We have climbed too high! Those note us overhead
Who know I am unworthy of your love;
And when yet-parted lips, sigh-visited,
End speech and wait, mine when I will to move,
Such joy awakens that I grow afraid.

Yet I have loved you in so many ways,--
With reverence always, and such purity
As often curbs that which is base in me;
And, though some folly oftentimes betrays
My purpose into naught, through all these days
Till this day I had striven silently
To win at last to what, at least, would be
Earth-staggering homage reverberant in your praise.

To-day in flight from world-wide dissonance,
I storm your heart,--and claim not any fee
For any service rendered anywhere,
But as one comes to his inheritance
Demand admittance, knowing my love to be
No whit unworthy even to enter there.

III

Catullus might have made of words that seek
With rippling sound, in soft recurrent ways,
The perfect song, or in remoter days
Theocritus have hymned you in glad Greek;
But I am not as they,--and dare not speak
Of you unworthily, and dare not praise
Perfection with imperfect roundelays,
And desecrate the prize I dare to seek.

I do not woo you, then, by fashioning
Vext analogues ’twixt you and Guinevere;
Nor do I come with agile lips that bring
The sugared periods of a sonneteer,
And bring no more,--but just with lips that cling
To yours, in murmuring, _I love you, dear_!

LIGHTS OF THE WORLD

--After CHARLES GARNIER.

Speed forth, my song, the sun’s ambassador,
Lest in the east night prove the conqueror,
And day be slain, and darkness triumph,--for
The sun is single, but her eyes are twain.

And now the sunlight and the night contest
A doubtful battle, and day bides at best
Doubtful, till Phyllis wake. It is attest
The sun is single.

But her eyes are twain,--
And should the light of all the world delay,
And darkness prove victorious? Is it day
Now that the sun alone is risen?

Nay,
The sun is single, but her eyes are twain,--
Twain firmaments that mock with heavenlier hue
The heavens’ less lordly and less gracious blue,
And lit with sunlier sunlight through and through.

The sun is single, but her eyes are twain,
And of fair things this side of Paradise
Fairest, of goodly things most goodly.

Rise!
And succor the benighted world that cries,
_The sun is single, but her eyes are twain_!

“--OF ANISE AND CUMMIN ALSO”

--After NICOLAS DE CAEN.

It is in vain I mirror forth the praise
In pondered virelais
Of her that is the lady of my love;
Far-sought and curious phrases fail to tell
The tender miracle
Of her white body and the grace thereof.

Thus many and many an artful-artless strain
Is fashioned all in vain:
Sound proves unsound; and even her name, that is
To me more glorious than the glow of fire
Or dawn or love’s desire
Or opals interlinked with turquoises,
Mocks utterance.

So, lacking skill to praise
That perfect bodily beauty which is hers,
Even as those worshippers
Who bore rude offerings of honey and maize,
Their all, into the gold-paved ministers
Of Aphroditê, I have given her these
My faltering melodies,
That are Love’s lean and ragged messengers.

“SWEET ADELAIS”

--After RAIMBAUT DE VAQUEIRAS.

Had you lived when earth was new
What had bards of old to do
Save to sing in praise of you?

Had you lived in ancient days,
Adelais, sweet Adelais,
You had all the ancients’ praise,--
You whose beauty would have won
Canticles of Solomon,
Had the sage Judean king
Gazed upon this goodliest thing
Earth of Heaven’s grace hath got.

Had you gladdened Greece, were not
All the nymphs of Greece forgot?

Had you trod Sicilian ways,
Adelais, sweet Adelais,
You had pilfered all their praise:
Bion and Theocritus
Had transmitted unto us
Honeyed harmonies to tell
Of your beauty’s miracle,
Delicate, desirable,
And their singing skill were bent
You-ward tenderly,--content,
While the world slipped by, to gaze
On the grace of you, and praise
Sweet Adelais.

Had you lived in Roman times
No Catullus in his rhymes
Had lamented Lesbia’s sparrow!
He had praised your forehead, narrow
As the newly-crescent moon,
White as apple-trees in June;
He had made some amorous tune
Of the laughing light Erôs
Snared as Psychê-ward he goes
By your beauty,--by your slim,
White, perfect beauty.

After him
Horace, finding in your eyes
Horace limned in lustrous wise,
Would have made you melodies
Fittingly to hymn your praise,
Sweet Adelais.

Had your father’s household been
Guelfic-born or Ghibelline,
Beatricê were unknown
On her star-encompassed throne.

For, had Dante viewed your grace,
Adelais, sweet Adelais,
You had reigned in Bicê’s place,--
Had, for candles, Sirius,
Rigel and Rutilicus,
Whilst you heard Zacháriel
Chant of you, and, chanting, tell
All the grace of you, and praise
Sweet Adelais.

Had you lived when earth was new
What had bards of old to do
Save to sing in praise of you?

They had sung of you always,
Adelais, sweet Adelais,
As worthiest of all men’s praise;
Nor had undying melodies
Wailed soft as love may sing of these
Dream-hallowed names,--of Héloïse,
Ysoude, Salomê, Semelê,
Morgaine, Lucrece, Antiopê,
Brunhilda, Helen, Mélusine,
Penelopê, and Magdalene:
--But you alone had all men’s praise,
Sweet Adelais.

LOVE’S LOVERS

--After RAIMBAUT DE VAQUEIRAS.

_Nor had undying melodies
Wailed soft as love may sing of these
That are love’s martyrs,--Héloïse,
Brunhilda, Helen, Mélusine,
Antiopê, and Magdalene,--
Ysoude, Salomê, Semelê,
Lucretia, and Penelopê._

What of these ladies that have been
Exalted by stern songs wherein
Beats strong the valorous heart of Love
And all the power and pride thereof--
Unto what haven are they sped?

Because they are not wholly dead:
The Land of Matters Unforgot
They walk at will, where time is not
And death has no dominion,--
And there they never view the sun,
But through a vague and amiable
Hushed twilight pass, and, passing, tell
Their tale of ancient miseries,
And neither laugh nor weep.

To these,
Whose lives were troubled harmonies
Whereby the heart of Love yet is
Enamored, Love at last accords
An end of love. To these, the Lords
Of Life and Death, that kindled lust,
And wrath, and joy frail as blown dust,
And faith like flame that braves the wind;
And kindled for each sin they sinned
Fame, and for every misery fame
Set as a flaring star to flame
And blaze and glow above the seas
Where light love founders: have granted peace
Unvexed by heart-beats.--Thus they pass,
Desiring naught of life that was
Exhausted of all things long ago,--
With void eyes, emptied of woe,
Emptied of joy, pass hand-in-hand,
Being shadows in a shadow land.

The story of their love is writ
In song; the valiant sound of it
Endures unaltered evermore:
But we, that love as heretofore
These loved, must perish, as they, and be
Forgotten by all men utterly.

I cry _Content_! Our names will die.
I cry _Content_! and cheerily,
Félise.

Our love-songs are unsung,
Yet we have loved. We have been young
In April and in unison ...
Oblivious of oblivion,
And heedless of each after-year,
How well we lived our verses, dear!

VIII

RIDENS

“_Soient blanches, soient brunettes_”

BALLAD OF PLAGIARY

“_Frères et maîtres, vous qui cultivez_”

--PAUL VERVILLE.

Hey, my masters, lords and brothers, ye that till the fields of rhyme,
Are ye deaf ye will not hearken to the clamor of your time?

Still ye blot and change and polish--vary, heighten and transpose--
Old sonorous metres marching grandly to their tranquil close.

Ye have toiled and ye have fretted; ye attain perfected speech:
Ye have nothing new to utter and but platitudes to preach.
Still your rhymes are all of loving, as within the old days when
Love was lord of the ascendant in the horoscopes of men.

Still ye make of love the utmost end and scope of all your art,
And, more blind than he you write of, note not what a modest part
Loving now may claim in living, when we have scant time to spare,
Who are plundering the sea-depths, taking tribute of the air,--
Whilst the sun makes pictures for us; since to-day, for good or ill,
Earth and sky and sea are harnessed, and the lightnings work our will.

Hey, my masters, all these love-songs by dust-hidden mouths were sung
That ye mimic and re-echo with an artful-artless tongue,--
Sung by poets close to nature, free to touch her garments’ hem
Whom to-day ye know not truly; for ye only copy them.

Them ye copy, copy always, with your backs turned to the sun,
Caring not what man is doing, noting that which man has done.

_We are talking over telephones, as Shakespeare could not talk;
We are riding out in motor-cars, where Homer had to walk;
And pictures Dante labored on of mediæval Hell
The nearest cinematograph paints quicker, and as well._

But ye copy, copy always;--and ye marvel when ye find
This new beauty, that new meaning,--while a model stands behind,
Waiting, young and fair as ever, till some singer turn and trace
Something of the deathless wonder of life lived in any place.

Hey, my masters, turn from piddling to the turmoil and the strife!
Cease from sonneting, my brothers; let us fashion songs from life.

THUS I WROTE ERE SYLVIA PASSED ME.... THEN DID I EPITOMIZE
ALL LIFE’S BEAUTY IN ONE POEM, AND MAKE HASTE TO EULOGIZE
QUITE THE FAIREST THING LIFE BOASTS OF, FOR I WROTE OF SYLVIA’S EYES.

TOUCHING UBIQUITY

“_Voulant faire un cadeau digne de la plus belle_”

--CHARLES GARNIER.

The gods in honor of my Sylvia’s worth
Bore gifts to her:--and Jove, Olympus’ lord,
Co-rule of Earth and Heaven did accord,
And Hermes brought that lyre he framed at birth,
And Venus her famed girdle (to engirth
A fairer beauty now), and Mars his sword,
And wrinkled Plutus half the secret hoard
And immemorial treasure of mid-earth;--

And while the careful gods were pondering
Which of these goodly gifts the goodliest was,
Young Cupid came among them carolling
And proffered unto her a looking-glass,
Wherein she gazed and saw the goodliest thing
That Earth had borne, and Heaven might not surpass.

Cupid invaded Hell, and boldly drove
Before him all the hosts of Erebus,
Till he had conquered; and grim Cerberus
Sang madrigals, the Furies rhymed of love,
Old Charon sighed, and sonnets rang above
The gloomy Styx; and even as Tantalus
Was Prosperine discrowned in Tartarus,
And Cupid regnant in the place thereof.

Thus Love is monarch throughout Hell to-day;
In Heaven we know his power was always great;
And Earth acclaimed Love’s mastery straightway
When Sylvia came to gladden Earth’s estate:--
Thus Hell and Heaven and Earth his rule obey,
And Sylvia’s heart alone is obdurate.

FANCIES IN FILIGREE

--Strambotti of ALESSANDRO DE MEDICI.

XXIV

“_Guarda negli occhi la nostra regina_”

My Lady’s Eyes Remembrance bring
Of lyttel Waves whose Wavering
Beneathe ye roving Summer Breeze
Makes scintillant hushed Summer Seas
Whenas ye Sun is vanishing.

They gladden me, as when in Spring
We sing & knowe not why we sing.
In sooth, there be noe Eyes like these
My Lady’s Eyes.

Whenas their Glance is threatening
They frighten Cupid, & that King
From Florimel a-quaking flees;
But when they soften, on hys Knees
Love falls before them worshipping
My Lady’s Eyes.

XLI

“_Rime d’amore usar dolci e leggiadre_”

Ye little Rhyme I swore last Night
To lay before ye Eyes so bright
I have long loved--& loved too well!--
So now ye Muses to compell,
& shapely Phrases to indite.

Which shall it be?--Ye Villanelle,
Ode, Triolet, Rondeau, Rondel,
Ballade, or Sonnet?--Each is hight
Ye littel Rhyme.

Yet none will aide my hapless Plight:
All little Rhymes are short & slight,
& of ye Charmes of Florimel
An Epick’s Length alone can tell,--
So that of her I may not write
Ye lyttel Rhyme.

IT IS ENOUGH

--After NICOLAS DE CAEN.

Love me or love me not, it is enough
That I have loved you, seeing my whole life is
Uplifted and made glad by the glory of Love,--
My life that was a scroll bescrawled and blurred
With tavern-catches, which that pity of his
Erased, and wrote instead one lonely word,
_Yolande!_

I have accorded you incessant praise
And song and service, dear, because of this;
And always I have dreamed incessantly
Who always dreamed,--_When in oncoming days
This man or that shall love you, and at last
This man or that shall win you, it must be
That, loving him, you will have pity on me
When happiness engenders memory
And long thoughts nor unkindly of the past,
Yolande!_

Of this I know not surely,--who am sure
That I shall always love you while I live,
And that, when I am dead, with naught to give
Of song or service, Love will yet endure,
And yet retain his last prerogative,
When I lie still, and sleep out centuries
With dreams of you and the exceeding love
I bore you, and am glad dreaming thereof,
And give God thanks for all, and so find peace,
Yolande!

AN ARCADIAN APOLOGIZES

--After CHARLES GARNIER.

I pray you do not marvel, dear, that I,
Whenever with fond hardihood I try
To rhyme your praises, fail ingloriously.

And marvel not that I in happier wise
Have hymned Félise and lauded Sylvia’s eyes,
And now may offer you no melodies.

We poets are so made that when we be
Unscathed by love none woos so well as we,
But, wounded once, we worship silently.

ARCADIANS CONFER IN EXILE

--After CHARLES GARNIER.

So long ago it was! Nay, is it true
In verity we passed a month or so
In Arcady when life and love were new
So long ago?

The tide of time’s indomitable flow,
Augmenting, rears a drearier realm, whereto
We twain are exiled. Yet ... I do not know ...
Now that a woman calls, whose eyes are blue,
Whose speech is gracious--strangely sweet and low
She calls, and smiles as STELLA used to do
So long ago.

I am not fit to follow; yet I pray
Some mighty task be set me, to commit
In her dear name, for trifles to essay
I am not fit.

Nay, I, unstable and infirm of wit--
Even I!--return to my old love to-day,
Whose bounty is so fond and infinite
That I am heartened, and made strong, and may
Not ever falter in deserving it,
If but for dread lest of such grace men say
I am not fit.

III

Time has changed naught in us; for now the din
And darkness of tempestuous years, that wrought
So vainly, lift; and it is lightly seen
Time has changed naught.

Such knowledge of those brawling years I bought:
_The thing which shall be is that which has been,
When heaven again surprises us, unsought,
And life returns full circle; and we win
Again to realms which with how little thought
We ceded, and find loyalty wherein
Time has changed naught._

Sweetheart, I wait; now, as in time gone by,
Your suppliant, half-frightened, half-elate,
Outside the trellised doors of Arcady,
Sweetheart, I wait.

Again I glimpse its meadows--through a grate,
Alas!--and streams and groves and cloudless sky;
And cry to you to be compassionate,--
Yea, as of old to STELLA, now I cry
To you that once were STELLA; and my fate
Attends your piloting, for whose reply,
Sweetheart, I wait.

THE EAVESDROPPERS

--After ALPHONSE MOREAU.

The heart of the twilight is troubled; and there
Where the stubbled fields bathe in colorless air,
And show as the chin of a giant unshorn,
Dog-weary, and dreaming of days unborn,
The east is perturbed; and night kindles to morn.

Wide world, that wakes to each miracle
Each dawn engenders, thou wilt not tell,
If mother of me indeed thou art,
How gladly and furtively I depart
Master and lord of Phyllida’s heart.

Hah, Lady Moon, so we meet again!
I remember. Who silvered the window-pane,
Climbed over heaped faggots with noiseless tread,
Turned velvet the cobwebs that gleamed overhead,
Stealthily, hearkening to all we said?

Eavesdropper, keep my secret well!
Remember the tales that old poets tell
Of the Latmian hills, and a cave thereon
Whereinto passed when each day was done--
Eavesdropper!--not only Endymion.

Ye will not tell of it. Nor will he,
The owl that hoots now in yonder tree,
And flutters his wings, with a watchful eye
Bent through the boughs at a passer-by
Who laughs, in the dawn ... and he wonders why.

NOSTALGIA

--After ALPHONSE MOREAU.

Were the All-Mother wise, life (shaped anotherwise)
Would be all high and true;
Could I be otherwise I had been otherwise
Simply because of you....
_With whom I have naught to do,
And who are no longer you!_

Life with its pay to be bade us essay to be
What we became,--I believe
Were there a way to be what it was play to be
I would not greatly grieve....
_Hearts are not worn on the sleeve.
Let us neither laugh nor grieve!_

BUT, OH, THE WORLD IS WIDE, DEAR LASS,
THAT I MUST WANDER THROUGH,
AND MANY A WIND AND TIDE, DEAR LASS,
MUST FLOW ’TWIXT ME AND YOU,
ERE LOVE THAT MAY NOT BE DENIED
SHALL BRING ME BACK TO YOU,
--DEAR LASS!
SHALL BRING ME BACK TO YOU.

APATURIA

“_Ainsi m’ont amours abusé_”

GRAY DAYS

--After NICOLAS DE CAEN.

I can find no meaning in life.
That have weighed the world,--and it was
Abundant with folly, and rife
With sorrows brittle as glass,
And with joys that flicker and pass
Like dreams through a fevered head;
And as the dripping of rain
In gardens naked and dead
Is the obdurate thin refrain
Of our youth which is presently dead.

And Chloris, whom last I loved,
Looks ever with loathing on me,
As one she hath seen disproved
And stained with such smirches as be
Not ever cleansed utterly;
And is loth to remember the days
When destiny fixed her name
As the theme and the goal of my praise;
And my love engenders shame,
And I stain what I strive for and praise.

Chloris, most perfect of all,
Just to have known you is well!
And it heartens me now to recall
That just to have known you is well.
And naught else is desirable
Save only to do as you willed
And to love you my whole life long;--
But this heart in me is filled
With hunger cruel and strong,
And with hunger unfulfilled.

Fond heart, though thy hunger be
As a flame that wanders unstilled,
There is none more perfect than she!

A WOOD-PIECE

Yes, you will soon forget. Leaf-shadowed ways
Are disenchanted now; the kindly haze
Of love-light lifts from too-long loitering;
A kiss is now at most two lips that cling;
And mirth is dead now; and desire decays.

Even now Love flutters restive wings, and stays
Impatient of restraint, what while I praise
Love’s old lost favor, past replevining,--
But you will soon forget.

Yes, you will soon forget: and naught betrays
That any heart save mine even now inveighs
In futile rage because nor youth nor spring
Can stay or solace light love’s vanishing.
I shall remember, dear, through all my days,
But you will soon forget.

LOVE GOES INTO WINTER QUARTERS

--After ANTOINE RICZI.

(THE SCENE a dale, somewhere in Arcady,
But filled with snow and sleet, made horrible
By many tramplings; there anon must be
A CRIER, robed in black and with a bell;
To whom a POET, peering curiously.)

“What are thou calling, small sombre Crier?--
Who seeks what fugitive? who is beguiled?
Is it a theft or a house to hire,
A sheriff’s sale or a stolen child?”

_For none of these do I play the crier.
And toll a reward where the winds are wild,
And I strive knee-deep in the sleet and the mire
In quest of a kingdom undefiled._

“Reward, quoth he!--and how darest thou prattle
Of guerdon-giving, that goest in black,
Sans cap and sandals, where bleak winds battle
Which first may strip the rags from thy back?”

_Of no compulsion save my own pleasure’s
I wear this black--for a mourning sign,--
Till Yesterday waken, and yield the treasures
And gold-wrought garments which once were mine._

“Faith, only a madman dreams to muster
The bygone hours, bid them live again ...
Though Crœsus wheedle or Charlemaigne bluster,
Time heeds not at all, and they strive in vain.”

_Nay, Time forgets them; for these--unlanded,
Unkinged, uncarnate, and cold,--lie hid
Where Time comes never, to be commanded;--
Time cannot hear through the coffin’s lid._

“So it matters naught with what pomp they wended,
What queens they wed, and what realms they won!
These things were goodly; these things are ended;
And naught sleeps sounder than joy fordone.”

_Cry Absit omen! the sermon is stupid--
Hey, even of sermons I grow afraid,
Who am no madman, but outlawed_ CUPID,
_With never a place to lay my head_.

_But Yesterday! for Yesterday!
I cry a reward for a Yesterday
Now lost or stolen or gone astray,
With all the laughter of Yesterday!_

(FOR WE HAVE MADE AN END OF AMOROUS PLAYING,
AND SHALLOW-HEARTED LOVE IS TURNED ASTRAY,
WITH CHILDISH SORROWING AND WEAK-VOICED PRAYING
FOR YESTERDAY.)

FLOTSAM

We did not share the same inheritance,--
I and this woman, five years older than I,
Yet daughter of a later century,--
Who is therefore only wearied by that dance
Which has set my blood a-leaping.

It is queer
To note how kind her face grows, listening
To my wild talk, and plainly pitying
My callow youth, and seeing in me a dear
Amusing boy,--yet somewhat old to be
Still reading _Alice Through the Looking-Glass_
And _Water Babies_....

With light talk we pass.

And I that have lived long in Arcady--
I that have kept so many a foolish tryst,
And written drivelling rhymes--feel stirring in me
Droll pity for this woman who pities me,
And whose weak mouth so many men have kissed.

HEIRS UNAPPARENT

How very heartily I hate
The man that will love you,
Some day, somewhere, and more than I,
And with a love more true;--
Whom for that reason you will love
As you may not love me,--
Though I might hold your heart, I think,
Held I one heart in fee.

My dear, too many ghosts arise
Between us when I woo,
One mocking me with softer lips,
And one with eyes more blue,
And one with hands more fine than yours,
And one with lovelier hair,
Proclaiming:--_She is fair enough,
But then ... I too was fair._

_What of thy heart thou gavest me_
(“And me!”--“And me!”)--_is thine
No more to give again. That part
Is mine._--(“And mine!”--“And mine!”)
_And he that plays with love too long
Gets love of many-an-one,
But is denied Love’s crowning grace,
And can give love to none._

Since these be truthful ghosts, I shrug
And woo you without tears
Or too much laughter, till with time
A properer Prince appears,
Whom very heartily I hate,--
The man that will love you,
Some day, somewhere, and more than I,
And with a love more true.

THE SUN’S HIGHWAY

--After ANTOINE RICZI.

Though long be the way to the Limit of Lands,
And through leagues and leagues of treacherous sands,
And miles of marsh and mire,
One must win, if at all, to the rim of the west
Ere one enter the kingdom the sun loves best,
Yet there is my heart’s desire.

And lately I learned of a pleasanter way
Which two of us travel on every day--
Oh, for all that a staid world deems
None cross high heaven, men have forgot
The sun in his flamy chariot
And me in my car of dreams!

Whereby we win to a land of ease
In whose stately glittering palaces
Wracked lives are lived anew,--
For the sun and I go on pilgrimage
To the lovelier land of a younger age,
Where what might have been is true.

I may not know on what lordly quest
The sun fares sturdily into the west,
But I know that he goes with joy,
And espies, perhaps, past the mountained rim
Repentant Daphnê awaiting him,
Or Creusa no longer coy.

There, too, she waits whom alone I love;
And a chill light heart that I could not move
And bright eyes which would not see
My heart’s hard hunger, no more the same,
Enkindle and nourish love’s lovely flame,
And its beacon burns for me.

Well! I must win to her; I must kneel--
Kneel at her naked feet,--and feel
Soft hands that caress my hair
Silently--oh, in such tender wise
That I shall not hasten to raise tired eyes
To a face however fair.

Fair face unstained by the grave’s eclipse!
Fair face that lifts now to no man’s lips
And troubles no man’s sleep!
The woman that wore you has children now ...
But that is nothing; I keep my vow,
And I have a tryst to keep.

And so in a world whose tumults seem
Intriguing shadows I tread, and dream
Of a maiden who dreams of me:
For the tryst is set; be it late, be it soon,
Or east of the sun or west of the moon,
I shall win to you, Dorothy.

THE OLDEST DITTY

--After NICOLAS DE CAEN.

And so farewell;--for now assuredly
Did the long pulse of the profoundest sea,
So deep it knows not light nor any heat,
Vex now some seaweed thick about my feet
Which there had nodded through a century,
All faith in you were not more dead in me,--
And so farewell!

And so, _Farewell!_ I cry,--that may not see
Love quicken in the eyes of Dorothy
Ever again, nor evermore repeat
Mad rhymes to her, nor ever bend to meet
Her lips this side of all eternity;--
_Love hath nowhere enfixed pre-potency,
And so farewell!_

TO THE SAME AIR AS THE PRECEDING

_And so farewell_ (as my rondeau wails
In obsolete accents and absolute truth),
For all is over, and nothing avails
To capture the rapture of last year’s youth.

All is quite over. Touch hands. Good-bye.
For you the future is nowise dim;
For me there are other women, and I
Must forget you now, since that is your whim.

And we will laugh in the after-times
At two young people we knew, no doubt,
Who scribbled each other such woeful rhymes
And played a comical tragedy out.

We shall not die of it. We shall be
Contented and healed of the passing smart;
And yet if you had not tired of me,
Life while life lasted were yours, sweetheart.

ARMATA

“_Ainsi le bon temps regretons_”

LIGHT COINAGE

--“MERCURIENS”: PAUL VERVILLE.

“_C’est une comédie, qui termine aujourd’huy_”

That comedy we end, content to please
Its players merely, was a comedy
Wherein Love had no part. It may not be
Enrolled among Love’s mighty memories,
And men unborn will read of Héloïse,
And Ruth, and Rosamond, and Semelê,
When none remembers your name’s melody
Or rhymes your name enregistered with these.

And will my name wake moods as amorous
As that of Abélard or Lancelot
Arouses? be recalled when Pyramus
And Tristram are unrhymed of and forgot?--
Time’s laughter answers, who accords to us
More gracious fields, wherein we harvest--what?

XXIII

“_Voicy! un autre chante!--Il n’est pas interdit_”

_A singer, eh?... Well, well! but when he sings
Take jealous heed lest idiosyncrasies
Entinge and taint too deep his melodies;
See that his lute has no discordant strings
To harrow us; and let his vaporings
Be all of virtue and its victories,
And of man’s best and noblest qualities,
And scenery, and flowers, and similar things._

Thus bid our paymasters, whose mutterings
Some few deride, and blithely link their rhymes
At random; and, as ever, on frail wings
Of wine-stained paper scribbled with such rhymes
Men mount to heaven, and loud laughter springs
From hell’s midpit, whose fuel is such rhymes.

GRAVE GALLANTRY

--After CHARLES GARNIER.

My rival Death is fashioned amorously;--
No caliph boasts more comely wives than he,
For whom crowned Cleopatra reft the snare
Of careful-eyed Octavius, and--less fair
Than she, but lovely still--Leucothoë,
And Atalanta, and Antigonê,
Loosed virgin zones.... What need hadst thou to be
Desirous then of this girl’s lips and hair,
My rival Death?

What need hadst thou likewise of Dorothy!
What need of that which was all life to me!
What need, lascivious Death, that she forswear
Fond oaths to me--fond oaths made otherwhere--
In thy lank arms, and leave me friends with thee,
My rival, Death!

Had she divined how many virelais
Have feebly parodied some piercing phase
Of love for her whom love lacked might to claim--
How many rhymes have marshalled frail and lame,
Yet fervent-hearted, to avouch her praise,--
Such pity had been mine as well repays
Drear years of waiting. Ey, in kindlier days
Compassion might have worn some kinglier name
Had she divined.

Now that may never be; divergent ways
Allured; and all is ended; and naught betrays
Dead cheeks to kindle, now, with livelier flame
For aught I utter.... Yet it were no shame
To dream a little on her softening gaze
Had she divined.

III

That she is dead breeds no uncouth despair,
However,--as death bred when men would bear
A glove upon their helms, and slay or sing
In honor of its giver, hazarding
Life and life’s aims because a girl was fair ...
Grotesque their liege-lord seems when we compare
That Cupidling who spurs me to declare
Sedate regret, in rhythmic sorrowing
That she is dead.

Nay, he is much the punier of the pair,--
My little lord, who dreads lest critics stare
Too pointedly,--a flimsy fainéant king;--
Yet hearts may crack without crude posturing.
This girl is dead; and I confess I care
That she is dead.

BY-WORDS

--After ALPHONSE MOREAU.

Not even now in all things may there be
An end of folly; nor, as mutineers
Against love’s lunacy, that now appears
Of no more weight or worth or urgency
Than last night’s dreams,--not wholly yet may we
Become in all things like all our compeers,
That are armored by interminable years
And keep no vestige of insanity.

_What yet remains, now we drift far apart,
With seas between, and each of us forgets
The happenings of all our happy days?_--
Your by-words, heard on other lips, to raise
Love’s pitiable phantom in my heart,
And waken mirthful memories and regrets.

ANOTHER LABORER WEIGHS HIS HIRE

“_Amors, tant vos ai servit_”

--RAIMBAUT DE VAQUEIRAS.

Lord, I have worshipped thee ever,--
Through all these years
I have served thee, forsaking never
Light Love that veers
As a child between laughter and tears.
Hast thou no more to afford,--
Naught save laughter and tears,--
Love, my lord?

I have borne thy heaviest burden,
Nor served thee amiss:
When thou hast given a guerdon,
Lo, it was this--
A sigh, a shudder, a kiss.
Hast thou no more to accord?
I would have more than this,
Love, my lord.

I am wearied of love that is pastime
And gifts that it brings;
I entreat of thee, lord, at this last time
Ineffable things.
Nay, have proud long-dead kings
Stricken no subtler chord,
Whereof the memory clings,
Love, my lord?

But for a little we live;
Show me thine innermost hoard!
Hast thou no more to give,
Love, my lord?

RETRACTIONS

--After THÉODORE PASSERAT.

YOU ASK A SONNET?--WELL, IT IS YOUR RIGHT.
I GRANT IT, LAUGH, SHRUG, SET ABOUT THE TASK,
AND MAKE A SEQUENCE, SINCE IT IS MY RIGHT
NO MORE TO GIVE YOU ONLY WHAT YOU ASK.

Although as yet my cure be incomplete,
Yet love of you, time-lulled and vigorless,
Engenders now no more unhappiness,
Not even discontent. And now we meet
Unmoved--half-waggish,--and my pulses beat
Quite calmly as I wonder now, _Is he
As proud as I was? and--as once to me--
To him is her love lovely and very sweet?_

Nor do I grudge him any joy of his
Who follows on a road that I have trod,
And sues for love where I was wont to sue;
I am contented by remembrances,
And know that neither fate nor time, nor God,
Robs me of that first mastery of you.

I am contented by remembrances,--
Dreams of dead passions, wraiths of vanished times,
Fragments of vows, and by-ends of old rhymes,--
Flotsam and jetsam tumbling in the seas
Whereon, long since, put forth our argosies
Which, launched for traffic in the Isles of Love,
Lie foundered somewhere in some firth thereof,
Encradled by eternal silences.

Thus, having come to naked bankruptcy,
Let us part friends, as thrifty tradesmen do
When common ventures fail; for it may be
These battered oaths and rhymes may yet ring true
To some fair woman’s hearing, so that she
Will listen and think of love, and I of you.

III

You have chosen the love “that lives sans murmurings,
Sans passion,” and incuriously endures
The gradual lapse of time. You have chosen as yours
A level life of little happenings;
And through the long autumnal evenings
Lord Love, no doubt, is of the company,
And hugs your ingleside contentedly,
Smiles at old griefs, and rustles needless wings.

And yet I think that sometimes memories
Of divers trysts, of blood that urged like wine
On moonlit nights, and of that first long kiss
Whereby your lips were first made one with mine,
Awake and trouble you, and loving is
Once more important and perhaps divine.

You have chosen; and I cry content thereto,
And cry your pardon also, and am reproved
In that I took you for a woman I loved
Odd centuries ago, and would undo
That curious error. Nay, your eyes are blue,
Your speech is gracious, but you are not she;
And I am older,--and changed how utterly!--
I am no longer I, you are not you.

Time, destined as we thought but to befriend
And guerdon love like ours, finds you beset
With joys and griefs I neither share nor mend
Who am a stranger; and we two are met
Nor wholly glad nor sorry, and the end
Of too much laughter is a faint regret.

It is in many ways made plain to us
That love must grow like any common thing,
Root, bud, and leaf, ere ripe for garnering
The mellow fruitage front us; even thus
Must Helena encounter Thesëus
Ere Paris come, and every century
Spawn divers queens who die with Antony
But live a great while first with Julius.

Thus I have spoken the prologue of a play
Wherein I have no part, and laugh, and sit
Contented in the wings, whilst you portray
An amorous maid with gestures that befit
This lovely rôle,--as who knows better, pray.
Than I that helped you in rehearsing it?

With Love I garnered mirth, and dreams, and shame;
And half his playmate, half his worshipper,
I flouted him, and yet might not demur
To do his bidding, or in aught defame
Love’s tutorage,--not even when you came,
And at the portal of Love’s golden house
We hazarded stray kisses, sighs and vows,
And lightly staked them in a hackneyed game.

And now the game is ended, dear; and we
May not re-enter that august domain
Which we, encoasting, lost eternally;
And now, although beloved by many men,
You may love no man as you have loved me,
Who have loved you as I may not love again.

VII

Unto how many futures I was heir
In those old talks, which fixed what must be done
When we at last should rule (in Babylon
Perhaps, or in Caer-Is, or Kennaquhair),
And must do this or that, and bravely share
Fantastic fates, whose frolic freakishness
Seems how less quaint than this is,--to confess
That I have lost you, and do not greatly care!

Well! had we never cared, in all that fleet
Sweet time which passed so swiftly and is gone--
And gone eternally!--yet it was sweet
To play at loving, for all that every groan,
And gainless grieving, was in counterfeit
And parody of love, ungained, unknown.

VIII

And so we played at loving. So we played
With love as venturous children in the sea
Wade ankle-deep, and laugh, and wistfully
Peer at the world’s far rim, being half-afraid.
Half-wistful. So we laughed, and we obeyed
That changeless law which sways the cosmic plan,
And ever draws the maid unto the man,
And ever draws the man unto the maid.

The sea hides deep our fragile argosy,
And idle doubts quest fruitlessly above
Those shattered hulks, too frail to brave the sea,
Too frail to brave the wrath and mirth thereof:
I had not heart to love you heartily,
You were too shrewd to be befooled by love.

Time was I coveted the woes they rued
Whose love commemorates them--I that meant
To get like grace of love then!--and intent
To win, as they had done, love’s plenitude,
Rapture and havoc, vauntingly I sued
That love like theirs might make a toy of me,
At will caressed, at will (if publicly)
Demolished, as Love found or found not good.

To-day I am no longer overbrave.
I have a fever--I that always knew
This hour was certain!--and am too weak to rave,
Too tired to seek (as later I must do)
Tried remedies--time, manhood and the grave,--
To drug, abate and banish love of you.

Time was I loved you.... And indeed I came
To love you so time hardly washes out
The scars of an old moment which, as flame
Leaps toward chaff, bereft me even of doubt:
And then indeed I knew you had deceived me--
You, even you!--and counterfeiting truth
So cunningly that you and I believed me,
I cried, _I will forget!_ ... This was in youth.

Now, being older and less over-nice,
I estimate these follies, breed of them
My little books,--shift, polish and re-price
The jewels of a battered diadem,--
And cry, _What hope of heaven for those who sell
What I am vending? and what need of hell?_

We are as time moulds us, lacking wherewithal
To shape out nobler fortunes or contend
Against all-patient Fates, who may not mend
The allotted pattern of things temporal,
Or alter it a thread’s-width, or let fall
A single stitch thereof, until at last
The web and its drear weavers be overcast,
And predetermined darkness swallow all.

They have ordained for us a time to sing,
A time to love, a time wherein to tire
Of all spent songs and kisses; carolling
Such elegies as buried dreams require,
Love now departs, and leaves us shivering
Beside the embers of a burned-out fire.

XII

Cry _Kismet!_ and take heart. Erôs is gone,
Nor may we follow to that loftier air
Olympians breathe. Take heart, and enter where
A lighter love-lord takes a heatless sun,
Oblivious of tangled webs ill-spun
By ancient wearied weavers, for it may be
His guidance leads to lovers of such as we
And hearts so credulous as to be won.

Cry _Kismet!_ Put away vain memories
Of all old sorrows and of all old joys,
And learn that life is never quite amiss
So long as unreflective girls and boys
Remember that young lips were meant to kiss,
And hold that laughter is a seemly noise.

XIII

So, let us laugh.... How quaint that even I
Was once a fool such as each fool bemocks,
Burlesques and shames! how droll a paradox
It is that we meet calmly! nor deny
That I in an old time dared to be I,
And you in that same season dared be you,
When commonly we wooed (as others do,
And we do not, now) dreams which do not die,--

But take new life, with new idolaters.
Among our juniors; and in naught are kin
To our time-tempered blood which, drowsing, stirs
A little, recollecting with what din
And ardor we assailed stark barriers
Proved obdurate ere we were locked therein.

XIV

So, let us laugh,--lest vain rememberings
Breed, as of old, some rude bucolic cry
Of awkward anguishes, of dreams that die
Without decorum, of Love lacking wings
Yet striving you-ward in his flounderings
Eternally,--as now, even when I lie
As I lie now, who know that you and I
Exist and heed not lesser happenings.

I was. I am. I will be. Eh, no doubt
For some sufficient cause, I drift, defer,
Equivocate, dream, hazard, grow more stout,
Age, am no longer Love’s idolater,--
And yet I could and would not live without
Your faith that heartens and your doubts which spur.

Nightly I mark and praise, or great or small.
Such stars as proudly struggle one by one
To heaven’s highest place, as Procyon,
Antares, Naös, Tejat and Nibal
Attain supremacy, and proudly fall,
Still glorious, and glitter, and are gone
So very soon;--whilst steadfast and alone
Polaris gleams, and is not changed at all.

Daily I find some gallant dream that ranges
The heights of heaven; and as others do,
I serve my dream until my dream estranges
Its errant bondage, and I note anew
That nothing dims, nor shakes, nor mars, nor changes.
Fond faith in you and in my love of you.

AND THEREFORE PRAISE I EVEN THE MOST HIGH
LORD CHANCE,--THAT, BEING OF KIN WITH SETEBOS,
IN ORDERING LIFE’S LABOR, STRIFE AND LOSS,
ORDAINED THAT YOU BE YOU, AND I BE I.

GARDEN-SONG

“_Adieu, nous n’irons plus aux champs_”

--CHARLES GARNIER.

Farewell to Fields and Butterflies
And levities of Yester-year!
For we espy, and hold more dear,
The Wicket of our Destinies.

Whereby we enter, once for all,
A Garden which such Fruit doth yield
As, tasted once, no more Afield
We fare where Youth holds carnival.

Farewell, fair Fields, none found amiss
When laughter was a frequent noise
And golden-hearted girls and boys
Appraised the mouth they meant to kiss.

Farewell, farewell! but for a space
We, being young, Afield might stray,
That in our Garden nod and say,
_Afield is no unpleasant place_.

THE CAVERN OF PHIGALIA

(_Adytum of Demeter Melænis_)

I enter,
Proud and erect:
I take my fill of delight
Imperiously, irrationally.
And none punishes.

--Not yet.

But in three months
And in three months
And in three more months,
The avenger comes forth
And mocks me
By being as I am,
Visibly,
And by being foredoomed
To do as I have done,
Inevitably.

AT PARTING

_Thus then I end my calendar
Of ancient loves more light than air;--
And now Lad’s Love, that led afar
In April fields that were so fair,
Is fled, and I no longer share
Sedate unutterable days
With Heart’s Desire, nor ever praise
Félise, or mirror forth the lures
Of Stella’s eyes nor Sylvia’s,
Yet love for each loved lass endures._

_Chloris is wedded, and Ettarre
Forgets; Yolande loves otherwhere,
And worms long since made bold to mar
The lips of Dorothy and fare
Mid Florimel’s bright ruined hair;
And time obscures that roseate haze
Which glorified hushed woodland ways
When Phyllis came, as time obscures
That faith which once was Phyllida’s,--
Yet love for each loved lass endures._

_That boy is dead as Schariar,
Tiglath-pileser, or Clotaire,
Who once of love got many a scar.
And his loved lasses past compare?--
None is alive now anywhere.
Each is transmuted nowadays
Into a stranger, and displays
No whit of love’s investitures.
I let these women go their ways,
Yet love for each loved lass endures._

_Heart o’ My Heart, thine be the praise
If aught of good in me betrays
Thy tutelage--whose love matures
Unmarred in these more wistful days,--
Yet love for each loved lass endures._

EXPLICIT

Transcriber’s note:

Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but
minor inconsistencies and archaic forms have been retained as printed.

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From the hidden wayChapter I: And My Shadow Are So Made One

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