Chapter I

1

Was it for you the aching past alone Lived, that on you might fall the shadow of it? For you, for you kings climbed a ravished throne, And all these menacing, quenched fires were lit. Wars that have left no more than a grey trace, Where are they? Scattered foam, blown dust--ah, me! How have they found their way into your face? The new day is not yours, you only see A battle raging in a desert place, And blood-stained warriors seeking Sanctuary.

2

I cannot love you in the street; I met You in the street once and turned my head away, But I will meet you where the red sunset With forlorn fire flashes the leaping spray. We are too old, too old for all this noise, No wine of such new vintage shall control Us who have known, what passionate joys Once in some far, dark City of the Soul. We are kings still and have, as kings, the choice To spurn the proffered half and claim the whole.

3

Let us find out a new way; for it is plain That all these old, worn, trodden roads suffice Only those who will return again Seeking shelter in their homes from Paradise. Oh! let us find some solitary, green Forgotten garden, where the sunrays fall All blind and blurred and indistinct between Cypresses lofty as earth's boundary wall; Beneath whose shade shall glimmer forth half seen Your face through the soft darkness when I call.

II.

1

If one, with visionary pen, should write The love which might be ours, how would he call These strange, perplexing fires veiled servants light Down the dark vistas of our empty hall? That love which might be ours, how would he name That love? No bitter leaving of the brine, No white or fading blossom twined like flame Round any brow, Christian or Erycine, Not all those loves blown to a windy fame Shall find their counterpart in yours and mine.

2

Not Tristram, not Isolde, wild shades which dip Their pinions like blown gulls in a waste sea, Nor those mute lovers, who still, lip on lip, Float on for ever, though they have ceased to be, Not any of those who loved once;--far apart We wander; the years have made us weak, we fail To rush together with a single heart, And we shall meet at last, only as pale Autumnal mists no sun's shaft cleaves apart When all the winds are still and no ships sail.