Chapter VI

Large-eyed, Siren-like she stands,
In the lake or on its sands,
And with rapture from the hands
Of the Night some stars are shaken;
To her song the rushes swing,
Lilies nod and ripples ring,
Lost in helpless listening--
These will wake that hear her sing,
But one mortal will not waken.

INTIMATIONS

I

Is it uneasy moonlight
On the restless field, that stirs?
Or wild white meadow-blossoms
The night-wind bends and blurs?

Is it the dolorous water,
That sobs in the woods and sighs?
Or heart of an ancient oak-tree,
That breaks and, sighing, dies?

The wind is vague with the shadows
That wander in No-Man's Land;
The water is dark with the voices
That weep on the Unknown strand.

O ghosts of the winds that call me!
O ghosts of the whispering waves!
As sad as forgotten flowers
That die upon nameless graves!

What is this thing you tell me
In tongues of a twilight race,
Of death, with the vanished features,
Mantled, of my own face?

II

The old enigmas of the deathless dawns
And riddles of the all immortal eves,--
That still o'er Delphic lawns
Speak as the gods spoke through oracular leaves--
I read with new-born eyes,
Remembering how, a slave;
They buried me, a living sacrifice,
Once in a dead king's grave.

Or crowned with hyacinth and helichrys,
How, towards the altar in the marble gloom,--
Hearing the magadis
Dirge through the pale amaracine perfume,--
'Mid chanting priests I trod,
With never a sigh or pause,
To give my life to pacify a god,
And save my country's cause.

Again: Cyrenian roses on wild hair,
And oil and purple smeared on breasts and cheeks,
How, with mad torches there,--
Reddening the cedars of Cithaeron's peaks,--
With gesture and fierce glance,
Lascivious Maenad bands
Once drew and slew me in the Pyrrhic dance,
With Bacchanalian hands.

III

In eons of the senses,
My spirit knew of yore,
I found the Isle of Circe
And felt her magic lore;
And still the soul remembers
What I was once before.

She gave me flowers to smell of
That wizard branches bore,
Of weird and sorcerous beauty,
Whose stems dripped human gore--
Their scent when I remember
I know that world once more.

She gave me fruits to eat of
That grew upon the shore,
Of necromantic ripeness,
With human flesh at core--
Their taste when I remember
I know that life once more.

And then, behold! a serpent,
That glides my face before,
With eyes of tears and fire
That glare me o'er and o'er--
I look into its eyeballs,
And know myself once more.

BEFORE THE TEMPLE

I

All desolate she sate her down
Upon the marble of the temple's stair.
You would have thought her, with her eyes of brown,
Flushed cheeks and hazel hair,
A dryad dreaming there.

II

A priest of Bacchus passed, nor stopped
To chide her; deeming her--whose chiton hid
But half her bosom, and whose girdle dropped--
Some grief-drowned Bassarid,
The god of wine had chid.

III

With wreaths of woodland cyclamen
For Dian's shrine, a shepherdess drew near,
All her young thoughts on vestal beauty, when--
She dare not look for fear--
Behold the goddess here!

IV

Fierce lights on shields of bossy brass
And helms of gold, next from the hills deploy
Tall youths of Argos. And she sees _him_ pass,
Flushed with heroic joy,
On towards the siege of Troy.

ANTHEM OF DAWN

I

Then up the orient heights to the zenith that balanced the
crescent,--
Up and far up and over,--the heaven grew erubescent,
Vibrant with rose and with ruby from hands of the harpist Dawn,
Smiting symphonic fire on the firmament's barbition;
And the East was a priest who adored with offerings of gold and of
gems,
And a wonderful carpet unrolled for the inaccessible hems
Of the glittering robes of her limbs; that, lily and amethyst,
Swept glorying on and on through temples of cloud and mist.

II

Then out of the splendour and richness, that burned like a magic
stone,
The torrent suffusion that deepened and dazzled and broadened and
shone,
The pomp and the pageant of colour, triumphal procession of glare,
The sun, like a king in armour, breathing splendour from feet to
hair,
Stood forth with majesty girdled, as a hero who towers afar
Where the bannered gates are bristling hells and the walls are
roaring war:
And broad on the back of the world, like a Cherubin's fiery blade,
The effulgent gaze of his aspect fell in glittering accolade.

III

Then billowing blue, like an ocean, rolled from the shores of dawn
to even:
And the stars, like rafts, went down: and the moon, like a
ghost-ship driven,
A feather of foam, from port to port of the cloud-built isles that
dotted,
With pearl and cameo, bays of the day, her canvas webbed and rooted,
Lay lost in the gulf of heaven: while over her mixed and melted
The beautiful children of Morn, whose bodies are opal-belted;
The beautiful daughters of Dawn, who, over and under and after
The rivered radiance wrestled; and rainbowed heaven with laughter
Of halcyon sapphire.--O Dawn! thou visible mirth,
Thou hallelujah of heaven! hosanna of Earth!

AT THE LANE'S END

I

No more to strip the roses from
The rose-boughs of her porch's place!--
I dreamed last night that I was home
Beside a rose--her face.

I must have smiled in sleep--who knows?--
The rose aroma filled the lane;
I saw her white hand's lifted rose
That called me home again.

And yet when I awoke--so wan,
An old face wet with icy tears!--
Somehow, it seems, sleep had misdrawn
A love gone thirty years.