Chapter I: PASSED your street of many memories

A sunset, sombre pink, the flush Of inner rose-leaves idle fingers crush, Died softly, as the rose that dies. All the high heaven behind the roof lay thus, Tenderly dying, touched with pain A little; standing there I saw again The sunsets that were dear to us.

I knew not if ’twere bitter or more sweet
To stand and watch the roofs, the sky.
O bitter to be there and you not nigh,
Yet this had been that blessed street.
How the name thrilled me, there upon the wall!
There was the house, the windows there
Against the rosy twilight high and bare,
The pavement-stones: I knew them all!

Days that have been, days that have fallen cold!
I stood and gazed, and thought of you,
Until remembrance sweet and mournful drew
Tears to eyes smiling as of old.
So, sad and glad, your memory visibly
Alive within my eyes, I turned;
And, through a window, met two eyes that burned,
Tenderly questioning, on me.

ON JUDGES’ WALK.

THAT night on Judges’ Walk the wind
Was as the voice of doom;
The heath, a lake of darkness, lay
As silent as the tomb.

The vast night brooded, white with stars,
Above the world’s unrest;
The awfulness of silence ached
Like a strong heart repressed.

That night we walked beneath the trees,
Alone, beneath the trees;
There was some word we could not say
Half uttered in the breeze.

That night on Judges’ Walk we said
No word of all we had to say;
But now there shall be no word said
Before the Judge’s Day.

IN THE NIGHT.

THE moonlight had tangled the trees Under our feet as we walked in the night, And the shadows beneath us were stirred by the breeze In the magical light; And the moon was a silver fire, And the stars were flickers of flame, Golden and violet and red; And the night-wind sighed my desire, And the wind in the tree-tops whispered and said In her ear her adorable name.

But her heart would not hear what I heard, The pulse of the night as it beat, Love, Love, Love, the unspeakable word, In its murmurous repeat; She heard not the night-wind’s sigh, Nor her own name breathed in her ear, Nor the cry of my heart to her heart, A speechless, a clamorous cry: “Love! Love! will she hear? will she hear?” O heart, she will hear, by and by, When we part, when for ever we part.

FÊTES GALANTES.

AFTER PAUL VERLAINE.

MANDOLINE,

THE singers of serenades
Whisper their faded vows
Unto fair listening maids
Under the singing boughs.

Tircis, Aminte, are there,
Clitandre is over-long,
And Damis for many a fair
Tyrant makes many a song.

Their short vests, silken and bright,
Their long pale silken trains,
Their elegance of delight,
Twine soft blue silken chains.

And the mandolines and they,
Faintlier breathing, swoon
Into the rose and grey
Ecstasy of the moon.

DANS L’ALLÉE.

AS in the age of shepherd king and queen, Painted and frail amid her nodding bows, Under the sombre branches, and between The green and mossy garden-ways she goes, With little mincing airs one keeps to pet A darling and provoking perroquet. Her long-trained robe is blue, the fan she holds With fluent fingers girt with heavy rings, So vaguely hints of vague erotic things That her eye smiles, musing among its folds. —Blonde too, a tiny nose, a rosy mouth, Artful as that sly patch that makes more sly, In her divine unconscious pride of youth, The slightly simpering sparkle of the eye.

CYTHÈRE.

BY favourable breezes fanned,
A trellised arbour is at hand
To shield us from the summer airs;

The scent of roses, fainting sweet,
Afloat upon the summer heat,
Blends with the perfume that she wears.

True to the promise her eyes gave,
She ventures all, and her mouth rains
A dainty fever through my veins;

And Love, fulfilling all things, save
Hunger, we ’scape, with sweets and ices,
The folly of Love’s sacrifices.

LES INDOLENTS.

BAH! spite of Fate, that says us nay, Suppose we die together, eh? —A rare conclusion you discover!

—What’s rare is good. Let us die so, Like lovers in Boccaccio. —Hi! hi! hi! you fantastic lover!

—Nay, not fantastic. If you will, Fond, surely irreproachable. Suppose, then, that we die together?

—Good sir, your jests are fitlier told Than when you speak of love or gold. Why speak at all, in this glad weather?

Whereat, behold them once again, Tircis beside his Dorimène, Not far from two blithe rustic rovers,

For some caprice of idle breath Deferring a delicious death. Hi! hi! hi! what fantastic lovers!

FANTOCHES.

SCARAMOUCHE waves a threatening hand To Pulcinella, and they stand, Two shadows, black against the moon.

The old doctor of Bologna pries For simples with impassive eyes, And mutters o’er a magic rune.

The while his daughter, scarce half-dressed, Glides slyly ’neath the trees, in quest Of her bold pirate lover’s sail;

Her pirate from the Spanish main, Whose passion thrills her in the pain Of the loud languorous nightingale.

PANTOMIME.

PIERROT, no sentimental swain, Washes a pâté down again With furtive flagons, white and red.

Cassandre, to chasten his content, Greets with a tear of sentiment His nephew disinherited.

That blackguard of a Harlequin Pirouettes, and plots to win His Colombine that flits and flies.

Colombine dreams, and starts to find A sad heart sighing in the wind, And in her heart a voice that sighs.

L’AMOUR PAR TERRE.

THE wind the other evening overthrew
The little Love who smiled so mockingly
Down that mysterious alley, so that we,
Remembering, mused thereon a whole day through.

The wind has overthrown him! The poor stone
Lies scattered to the breezes. It is sad
To see the lonely pedestal, that had
The artist’s name, scarce visible, alone,

Oh! it is sad to see the pedestal
Left lonely! and in dream I seem to hear
Prophetic voices whisper in my ear
The lonely and despairing end of all.

Oh! it is sad! And thou, hast thou not found
One heart-throb for the pity, though thine eye
Lights at the gold and purple butterfly
Brightening the littered leaves upon the ground.

À CLYMÈNE.

MYSTICAL strains unheard, A song without a word, Dearest, because thine eyes. Pale as the skies,

Because thy voice, remote As the far clouds that float Veiling for me the whole Heaven of the soul,

Because the stately scent Of thy swan’s whiteness, blent With the white lily’s bloom Of thy perfume,

Ah! because thy dear love, The music breathed above By angels halo-crowned, Odour and sound,

Hath, in my subtle heart, With some mysterious art Transposed thy harmony, So let it be!

FROM ROMANCES SANS PAROLES.

TEARS in my heart that weeps, Like the rain upon the town, What drowsy languor steeps In tears my heart that weeps?

O sweet sound of the rain On earth and on the roofs! For a heart’s weary pain O the song of the rain!

Vain tears, vain tears, my heart! What, none hath done thee wrong? Tears without reason start, From my disheartened heart.

This is the weariest woe, O heart, of love and hate Too weary, not to know Why thou hast all this woe.

MOODS AND MEMORIES.

CITY NIGHTS.

I. IN THE TRAIN.

THE train through the night of the town,
Through a blackness broken in twain
By the sudden finger of streets;
Lights, red, yellow, and brown,
From curtain and window-pane,
The flashing eyes of the streets.

Night, and the rush of the train,
A cloud of smoke through the town,
Scaring the life of the streets;
And the leap of the heart again,
Out into the night, and down
The dazzling vista of streets!