Chapter III

There was a poet of the East named Hâfiz,
Who sang of wine and beauty. Let us go
Praising them, too. And where good wine to quaff is
And maids to kiss, doff life's gray garb of woe;
For soon that tavern's reached, that inn, you know,
Where wine and love are not; where, sans disguise,
Each one must lie in his strait bed apart,
The thorn of sleep deep-driven in his heart,
And dust and darkness in his mouth and eyes.

FAILURE

There are some souls
Whose lot it is to set their hearts on goals
That adverse Fate controls.

While others win
With little labor through life's dust and din,
And lord-like enter in

Immortal gates;
And, of Success the high-born intimates,
Inherit Fame's estates....

Why is 't the lot
Of merit oft to struggle and yet not
Attain? to toil--for what?

Simply to know
The disappointment, the despair, and woe
Of effort here below?

Ambitious still to reach
Those lofty peaks, which men, aspiring, preach,
For which their souls beseech:

Those heights that swell
Remote, removed, and unattainable,
Pinnacle on pinnacle:

Still yearning to attain
Their far repose, above life's stress and strain,
But all in vain, in vain!...

Why hath God put
Great longings in some souls and straightway shut
All doors of their clay hut?

The clay accurst
That holds achievement back; from which, immersed,
The spirit may not burst.

Were it, at least;
Not better to have sat at Circe's feast,
If afterwards a beast?

Than aye to bleed,
To strain and strive, to toil in thought and deed,
And nevermore succeed?

THE CUP OF JOY

Let us mix a cup of Joy
That the wretched may employ,
Whom the Fates have made their toy.

Who have given brain and heart
To the thankless world of Art,
And from Fame have won no part.

Who have labored long at thought;
Starved and toiled and all for naught;
Sought and found not what they sought.

Let our goblet be the skull
Of a fool; made beautiful
With a gold nor base nor dull:

Gold of madcap fancies, once
It contained, that,--sage or dunce,--
Each can read whoever runs.

First we pour the liquid light
Of our dreams in; then the bright
Beauty that makes day of night.

Let this be the must wherefrom,
In due time, the mettlesome
Care-destroying drink shall come.

Folly next: with which mix in
Laughter of a child of sin,
And the red of mouth and chin.

These shall give the tang thereto,
Effervescence and rich hue
Which to all good wine are due.

Then into our cup we press
One wild kiss of wantonness,
And a glance that says not less.

Sparkles both that give a fine
Lustre to the drink divine,
Necessary to good wine.

Lastly in the goblet goes
Sweet a love-song, then a rose
Warmed upon _her_ breast's repose.

These bouquet our drink.--Now measure
With your arm the waist you treasure--
Lift the cup and drink to Pleasure.

LA JEUNESSE ET LA MORT

I

Unto her fragrant face and hair,--
As some wild-bee unto a rose,
That blooms in splendid beauty there
Within the South,--my longing goes:
My longing, that is overfain
To call her mine, but all in vain;
Since jealous Death, as each one knows,
Is guardian of La belle Heléne;
Of her whose face is very fair--
To my despair,
Ah, belle Heléne.

II

The sweetness of her face suggests
The sensuous scented Jacqueminots;
Magnolia blooms her throat and breasts;
Her hands, long lilies in repose:
Fair flowers all without a stain,
That grow for Death to pluck again,
Within that garden's radiant close.
The body of La belle Heléne;
The garden glad that she suggests,--
That Death invests,
Ah, belle Heléne.