English

III

Cold and clear-cut face, why come you so cruelly meek,
Breaking a slumber in which all spleenful folly was drowned,
Pale with the golden beam of an eyelash dead on the cheek,
Passionless, pale, cold face, star-sweet on a gloom profound;
Womanlike, taking revenge too deep for a transient wrong
Done but in thought to your beauty, and ever as pale as before
Growing and fading and growing upon me without a sound,
Luminous, gemlike, ghostlike, deathlike, half the night long
Growing and fading and growing, till I could bear it no more,

II

Long have I sighed for a calm: God grant I may find it at last!
It will never be broken by Maud, she has neither savour nor salt,
But a cold and clear-cut face, as I found when her carriage past,
Perfectly beautiful: let it be granted her: where is the fault?
All that I saw (for her eyes were downcast, not to be seen)
Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null,
Dead perfection, no more; nothing more, if it had not been
For a chance of travel, a paleness, an hour's defect of the rose,

A MONODRAMA

PART I

I

I

I hate the dreadful hollow behind the little wood,
Its lips in the field above are dabbled with blood-red heath,
The red-ribbed ledges drip with a silent horror of blood,
And Echo there, whatever is asked her, answers " Death."

II

For there in the ghastly pit long since a body was found,
His who had given me life — O father! O God! was it well? —
Mangled, and flattened, and crushed, and dinted into the ground:

If to be left were to be left alone,
And lock the door and find one's self again —
Drag forth and dust Penates of one's own
That in a corner all too long have lain;
Read Brahms, read Chaucer, set the chessmen out
In classic problem, stretch the shrunken mind
Back to its stature on the rack of thought —
Loss might be said to leave its boon behind.
But fruitless conference and the interchange
With callow wits of bearded cons and pros
Enlist the neutral daylight, and derange
A will too sick to battle for repose.

Nay, learned doctor, these fine leeches fresh
From the pond's edge my cause cannot remove:
Alas, the sick disorder in my flesh
Is deeper than your skill, is very love.
And you, good friar, far liefer would I think
Upon my dear, and dream him in your place,
Than heed your ben'cites and heavenward sink
With empty heart and noddle full of grace.
Breathes but one mortal on the teeming globe
Could minister to my soul's or body's needs —
Physician minus physic, minus robe;
Confessor minus Latin, minus beads.

Like as the culver on the bared bough
Sits mourning for the absence of her mate,
And in her moan sends many a wishful vow
For his return, that seems to linger late;
So I alone, now left disconsolate,
Mourn to myself the absence of my love,
And wandering here and there all desolate,
Seek with my plaints to match that mournful dove.
Ne joy of aught that under heaven doth hove
Can comfort me, but her own joyous sight,
Whose sweet aspect both God and man can move,
In her unspotted pleasaunce to delight:

Since I have lackt the comfort of that light,
The which was wont to lead my thoughts astray:
I wander as in darkenesse of the night,
Affrayd of every dangers least dismay.
Ne ought I see, though in the clearest day,
When others gaze upon theyr shadowes vayne:
But th'onely image of that heavenly ray,
Whereof some glance doth in mine eie remayne.
Of which beholding th'Idaea playne,
Through contemplation of my purest part:
With light thereof I doe my selfe sustayne,
And thereon feed my love-affamisht hart.

Since I did leave the presence of my love,
Many long weary dayes I have outworne:
And many nights, that slowly seemd to move
Theyr sad protract from evening untill morne.
For when as day the heaven doth adorne,
I wish that night the noyous day would end:
And when as night hath us of light forlorne,
I wish that day would shortly reascend.
Thus I the time with expectation spend,
And faine my griefe with chaunges to beguile,
That further seemes his terme still to extend,
And maketh every minute seeme a myle.

Venemous toung tipt with vile adders sting,
Of that selfe kynd with which the Furies fell
Theyr snaky heads doe combe, from which a spring
Of poysoned words and spitefull speeches well.
Let all the plagues and horrid paines of hell,
Upon thee fall for thine accursed hyre:
That with false forged lyes, which thou didst tel,
In my true love did stirre up coles of yre,
The sparkes whereof let kindle thine own fyre,
And catching hold on thine owne wicked hed
Consume thee quite, that didst with guile conspire

The world that cannot deeme of worthy things,
When I doe praise her, say I doe but flatter:
So does the Cuckow, when the Mavis sings,
Begin his witlesse note apace to clatter.
But they that skill not of so heavenly matter,
All that they know not, envy or admyre:
Rather then envy let them wonder at her,
But not to deeme of her desert aspyre.
Deepe in the closet of my parts entyre,
Her worth is written with a golden quill:
That me with heavenly fury doth inspire,
And my glad mouth with her sweet prayses fill.