Chapter II

Go your own ways. Who shall persuade me now
To look with high face for a star of hope?
Or up endeavor’s unsubduable slope
Advance a bosom of desire, and bow
A back of patience in a thankless task?
Alone beside the grave of love I ask,
Shalt thou? or thou?

Leave go my hands. Fain would I walk alone
The easy ways of silence and of sleep.
What though I go with eyes that can not weep,
And lips contracted with no uttered moan,
Through rocks and thorns, where every footprint bleeds,
A dead-sea path of desert night that leads
To one white stone!

Though sands be black and bitter black the sea,
Night lie before me and behind me night,
And God within far Heaven refuse to light
The consolation of the dawn for me,--
Between the shadowy bournes of Heaven and Hell,
It is enough love leaves my soul to dwell
With memory.

THE WORLD’S DESIRE

The roses of voluptuousness
Wreathe her dark locks and hide her eyes;
Her limbs are flower-like nakedness,
Wherethrough the fragrant blood doth press,
The blossom-blood of Paradise.

She stands with Lilith finger-tips,
With Lilith hands; and gathers up
The grapes of life; whose wine she sips,--
With Lilith-laughter-lightened lips,--
The soul, as from a curious cup.

What though she cast the cup away!
The empty bowl that flashed with wine!
Her lips’ wild kiss, that stained the clay,
Her hands’ hot clasp--shall these not stay,
That made its nothingness divine?

Through one again shall live the glow,
Immortalizing, of her touch;
And through the other, sweet to know
How life swept, flame once, ’neath the snow
Of her moon’d breasts--and this is much!

THE UNATTAINABLE

Mark thou! a shadow crowned with fire of hell.
Man holds her in his heart as night doth hold
The moonlight memories of day’s dead gold;
Or as a winter-withered asphodel
In its dead loveliness holds scents of old.
And looking on her, lo, he thinks ’tis well.

Who would not follow her whose glory sits,
Imperishably lovely, on the air?
Who, from the arms of Earth’s desire, flits
With eyes defiant and rebellious hair?--
Hers is the beauty that no man shall share.

He who hath seen, what shall it profit him?
He who doth love, what shall his passion gain?
When disappointment at her cup’s bright brim
Poisons the pleasure with the hemlock pain?
Hers is the passion that no man shall drain.

How long, how long since Life hath kissed her eyes,
Making their night clairvoyant! And how long
Since Love hath kissed her lips and made them wise,
Mixing their speech with prophecy and song!
Hope clad her nakedness in lovely lies,
Giving into her hands the right of wrong!

Lo! in her world she sets pale tents of thought,
Unearthly bannered; and her dreams’ wild bands
Besiege the heavens like a twilight fraught
With recollections of lost stars. She stands
Radiant as Lilith glowing from God’s hands.

The golden rose of patience at her throat
Drops fragrant petals--as a pensive tune
Drops its surrendered sweetness note by note;--
And from her hands the buds of hope are strewn,
Moon-flowers, mothered of the barren moon.

So in her flowers man seats him at her feet
In star-faced worship, knowing all of this;
And now to him to die seems very sweet,
Filled with the fire of her look and kiss;
While in his heart the blood’s tumultuous beat
Drowns, in her own, the drowsing serpent’s hiss.

He who hath dreamed but of her world shall give
All of his soul unto her restlessly:
He who hath seen but her far face shall live
No more for things we name reality:
Such is the power of her tyranny.

He, whom she wins, hath nothing ’neath the sun;
Forgetting all that she may not forget
He loves her, who still feeds his soul upon
Dreams and desires, and doubt and vain regret,--
Life’s bitter bread his heart’s fierce tears make wet.

What word of wisdom hast thou, Life, to wake
Him now! or song of magic now to dull
The dreams he lives in! or what charm to break
The spell that makes her evil beautiful!
What charm to show her beauty hides a snake,
Whose basilisk eyes burn dark behind a skull!

PROBLEMS

Man’s is the learning of his books--
What is all knowledge that he knows
Beside the wit of winding brooks,
The wisdom of the summer rose!

How soil distils the scent in flowers
Baffles his science: heaven-dyed,
How, from the sunshine and the showers,
They draw their colors, hath defied.

Nor hath he solved why light is white,
Yet paints with hues the dawns and noons,
Stains all the hollow edge of night
With glory as of molten moons.

What knows he of the laws of birth
Or death, or what these are and why!
Or what it is within the earth
That helps us live and helps us die!

THE BEAUTIFUL

I

Of moires of placid glitter
The moon is knitter,
Under dark trees, whose branches
The blue night blanches:
Upon yon stream’s swift arrow
Lights lie, as narrow
As is the glance of some pale sorceress,
Spell-haunted, watching in a wilderness.
And I, who, dreaming, wander,
Seem to behold her yonder,
My beautiful dream, my bodiless loveliness.

II

Upon this water’s glimmer
White sheets of shimmer
Glow outward, as if inner
Sea-castles,--thinner
Than peeléd pearl,--through curlings
And water whirlings,
Let spray the light of lucid dome and spire,
The smoldering silver of an inward fire.--
Perhaps her towers, enchanted,
Are there; on mountains planted
Of crystal:--hers! the soul of my desire!

III

Or there above the beeches,
On terraced reaches
Of rolling roses, towered
And moonbeam-bowered,
Is it her palace airy?--
Or dream of Fairy?--
Piled, full of melody and marble-white,
Its pointed casements lit with piercing light:
Wherein, all veiled and hidden,
She waits,--who long hath bidden
Me come to her,--her accoladed knight?