English

M IGHIT of old was the City: a great King ruled therein,
A monarch of wide wild conquest, a monarch of cruel sin:
Close by the gate of the Palace a magical Fountain rose,
And all who drank its waters forgot for a while their woes.

O virgin world! O marvellous far days!
No more with dreams of grief doth love grow bitter,
Nor trouble dim the lustre wont to glitter
In happy eyes. Decay alone decays:
A moment — death's dull sleep is o'er; and we
Drink the immortal morning air, Earine.
...
" Si mihi Nausicai patrios concederet hortos,
Alcinoo possem dicere, Malo meos ."

If we are weak with immemorial strife,
If sadder destiny each aera weaves,
Yet listen to the lyrics 'mid the leaves,
Look to the life beyond the verge of life.
Let the dull lecture and the womanish weep:
To the Poet leave the wine of song, the realm of sleep.
...
" We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep."

That wild free song which will not wear a fetter,
Such as was mastered well by loving Shelley
(Pure poet, down-ridden in the world's hot mêlee ),
Or such as Shakespeare uttered, careless setter
In Orient gold of perfect amethysts,
Whom men must marvel at, while the great world exists.

Strange; for it is not long since her white form
Lay in my arms, and all the lights burnt dim
In the old haunted chamber, weird and warm,
And no ghosts tortured the entwining limb,
Nor any ghouls of the charnel dared to swarm
Round that sweet Sister of the Seraphim.
Strange that the Authorities did not find in her face
And figure quicker passport to the surface.

Hoc discunt omnes, ante Alpha et Beta,
Puellae: so the cruel Roman satirist.
'Tis true enough, from countess to cosmeta .
Thou, moral poet, writing elsewise, flatterest.
But why in the world should anybody treat a
Topic so fair unfairly? Rain that patterest
In the sweet spring-tide with a slow soft cadence,
No lovelier art thou than moist mouths of maidens.

I hold my goblet up, and each scintilla
Scrutinize pleasantly . . . and as I view it,
My ancestral portraits, ille atque illa ,
Laughingly leave their framework and eschew it.
The Founder of the Race [not Squire Gorilla,
Darwin's progenitor] is first to do it.
In the great room they gather, strange to see.
Comes Helen from the throng, and kisses me.

But they depart, shy-blushing, backward-glancing,
And we are left in utter silence, save
That distant music on the air is dancing
As sunlight dances on the summer wave —
Music like wine our ecstasy enhancing . . .
But suddenly it sinks into its grave —
With one strange magical cadence leaves us lonely,
Whose meaning is, Love always and Love only .

We are led forth amid the mystic moan
Of music sad with love unutterable
To ascend the wide slow stair of carven stone,
So wide a troop of mounted knights were able
To climb it easily. When the door is thrown
Open, I see clad in a cloak of sable
A skeleton form with lurid light above,
Who says, " I am the Lover of thy Love ."

Now with the sound of that great knight's slow saying
I seem to pass back many centuries.
It is another world I am surveying
Than this of comforts and philosophies:
There is a passion-storm the nations swaying
Of Faith that shatters old idolatries,
And a sworn soldier of that Faith am I.
But, " Where is the Lady of my Love? " I cry.