Chapter I: Front Matter

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Produced by Al Haines

HIS LADY

OF THE SONNETS

BY

ROBERT W. NORWOOD

BOSTON

SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY

1915

COPYRIGHT, 1915

SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY

TO

MY WIFE

"I shall never, in the years remaining,
Paint you pictures, no, nor carve you statues,
Make you music that should all-express me;
So it seems: I stand on my attainment.
This of verse alone, one life allows me;
Verse and nothing else have I to give you.
Other heights in other lives, God willing:
All the gifts from all the heights, your own, Love!"
ROBERT BROWNING.

CONTENTS

His Lady Of The Sonnets
Antony To Cleopatra, After Actium
Paul To Timothy
Dives In Torment

SONNETS AND SONGS

Fellow Craftsmen
Posca
Reincarnation
Jacob's Dream
Keats
A Poet's Prayer
What Is Religion?
A Song Of Spring
A Fallen Angel
A Litany
The Great Comrade
A Revery
Good-Bye
David's Song To Michal
David Before Saul
A Villanelle Of Fate
One Woman

HIS LADY OF THE SONNETS

I

My soul awoke from slumber--the long ease
Of years that passed away in dull content,
Not caring what the world's deep voices meant--
Sunk in my dreams, I heard their harmonies
Like wind-blown clamour of far-calling seas
That told of Ithaca to sailors spent
With trouble, and forgetful at the scent
And taste of fruit plucked from the lotus trees;

For as I slept, your footsteps on the grass,
Your voice, wrought once again the Miracle
Of Eden; and I saw appear and pass
Eve in her beauty, binding still the spell
That Adam felt, when from his opened side
Stepped Woman forth in loveliness and pride.

II

I meet you in the mystery of the night,
A dear Dream-Goddess on a crescent moon;
An opalescent splendour, like a noon
Of lilies; and I wonder that the height
Should darken for the depth to give me light--
Light of your face, so lovely that I swoon
With gazing, and then wake to find how soon
Joy of the world fades when you fade from sight.

Beholding you, I am Endymion,
Lost and immortal in Latmian dreams;
With Dian bending down to look upon
Her shepherd, whose aeonian slumber seems
A moment, twinkling like a starry gem
Among the jewels of her diadem.

III

If I could tell why, when you look at me,
Dreams that have visited half wakeful nights
Re-form and shape themselves, and Pisgah-sights
Fill one far valley to a purple sea;
And white-domed cities rise with porphyry,
Jacinth and sapphire gates, beneath the heights,
Rose-flamed within the dawn where Ph[oe]bus smites
Earth with his heel--claiming its lord to be;

Then would you know what my heart seeks to say
And falters ere sufficient words be found:
How all the voiceless night and vocal day
Love looks on you and trembles into sound;
Love longs and pleads for his one moment's bliss--
You and him mingled in a silent kiss.

IV

My love is like a spring among the hills
Whose brimming waters may not be confined,
But pour one torrent through the ways that wind
Down to a garden; there the rose distills
Its nectar; there a tall, white lily fills
Night with anointing of two lovers, blind,
Dumb, deaf, of body, spirit, and of mind
From breathless blending of far-sundered wills.

Long ere my love had reached you, hard I strove
To send its torrent through the barren fields;
I wanted you, the lilied treasure-trove
Of innocence, whose dear possession yields
Immortal gladness to my heart that knows
How you surpass the lily and the rose.

V

Like one great opal on the breast of Night,
Soft and translucent, hangs the orb of June!
I hear wild pipings of a joyous tune
Played on a golden reed for the delight
Of you, my hidden, lovely Eremite--
You by the fountain from the marble hewn--
You silent as in dream, with flowers strewn
About your feet--you goddess, robed in white!

Mute and amazed, I at the broken wall
Lean fearful, lest the sudden, dreadful dawn
For me Diana's awful doom let fall;
And I be cursed with curious Action,
Save that you find in me this strong defence--
My adoration of your innocence.

VI

When from the rose-mist of creation grew
God's patient waiting in your wide-set eyes,
The morning stars, and all the host that flies
On wings of love, paused at the wondrous blue
With which the Master, mindful of the hue,
Stained first the crystal dome of summer skies;
And afterward the violet that vies
With amethyst, before He fashioned you.

And I have trembled with those ancient stars;
My heart has known the flame-winged seraphs' song;
For no indifferent, dreamy eyelid bars
Me from the blue, nor veils with lashes long
Your love, that to my tender gazing grows
Bold to confess it: I am glad he knows!

VII

There came three wise men riding from the east;
One was a king and brought a gift of gold;
And one bore frankincense that fate foretold;
While myrrh was offered by a mitred priest.
Nor ever hath Love's brave adventure ceased
Since that fair night ashine with stars and cold,
When even angels paused their wings to fold--
Love to adore made one with man and beast.

Accept three gifts I to thee gladly bring;
Each hath its own divine significance:
Gold is the Body thou hast crowned a king;
My Spirit is the prophet's frankincense;
Myrrh is the Mind which strives to tell thee all
Love's mystic and melodious ritual!

VIII

Sometimes I think that we have lived before,
And found sweet interest down the centuries
In all life's little things that charm and please;
That we have toiled together at the oar
In one of Caesar's galleys; that we bore
One burden on our backs and bowed the knees
Of servitude to Charlemagne; and these
Have taught us how to love for evermore.

Dear Comrade, we have often changed our state;
We have been slaves and masters, serfs and kings;
You have been man, I woman, wont to wait
Upon my lover's word; rememberings
Are in the mystic rapture that we feel
Whenever at your feet a while I kneel.

IX

Two faces haunt the stillnesses of sleep.
The first is of a woman I have known
Past years, in many lives, as on a throne
Within my heart, for whom I daily keep
Fast and high vigil while deep calls to deep;
You also stir me, like wind-voices blown
Through woodland hollows where I walk alone
When twilight and its shadows slowly creep;

And I am torn 'twixt love of you and her--
My dear Dream-Lady of some long ago--
Till past and present, pausing to confer,
Determine what I hardly dare to know:
The faces I have loved and love are one--
How you have followed me from sun to sun!

X

Last night I crossed the spaces to your side,
As you lay sleeping in the sacred room
Of our great moment. Like a lily's bloom,
Fragile and white were you, my spirit-bride,
For pain and loneliness with you abide,
And Death had thought to touch you with his doom,
Until Love stood angelic at the tomb,
Drew sword, smote him, and life's door opened wide.

I looked on you and breathed upon your hair--
Your hair of such soft, brown, translucent gold!
Nor did you know that I knelt down in prayer,
Clasped hands, and worshipped you for the untold
Magnificence of womanhood divine--
God's miracle of Water turned to Wine!