Classic Poem

Gold light across the golden coomb;
The sun went west with horns of fire;
Athwart the sweet, sea-breathing room
The swallows swooped; the village spire
Glowed red against a gleam of broom;
While earth its scented secrets told,
There, silent, sunset-aureoled,
Sat Ioläus, mild and old.

In distance large the moving ships
Sailed on into the evening skies.
He gazed, and saw not. In eclipse
He tensely sat, like one who grips
Some semblance that his dream descries,
With such a look of far surprise
That half-uncanny seemed the man,
So warped with age, so weirdly wan:
He had such ghostly eyes.

Then half to self, and half to me,
Aloof in passion and lone despair,
He spoke like one whose secrets flee
From silence unaware:
Now plaintively from a grief gone blind,
Heavy with cumbering care,
Now, thrilling thought like a white sea-wind,
His words, the echoes of his mind,
Haunted the air:

... 'Tis gone like the roses of long ago:
Yet a dawn's impassioned thrill
Makes blush the blossom's virgin snow
Far on in a faery hill.
Two faces there in the glamour glow
In a place that is strangely still.

On the rim of the world is a ruined tower
Sky-poised above wide sea-foam,
Where a beautiful spirit waits hour by hour,
Far-eyed 'gainst a dawn like a phantom flower,
Till a ghostly lover comes home....

To leeward spread the freshening deep
Purple beneath a rosy gleam.
From a high, mist-engirdled steep
Thin anthems to the orient beam
Came faint as languid waves of sleep
That lap the lonely strands of dream.

We sank our anchor solemnly
Into that lustrous, splendid sea;
For we, that chased the summer's smile
Across the world a wondering while,
Hailed at the heart the Happy Isle,
The haunted shores of Faëry!

Beyond a gently-heaving brine
We broke with oars a trembling bay.
The swerving water, like rare wine,
Slid iridescent from our way.
A lovely hand was laid on mine
Pensively as to say:
"Life is divine!"

The drifting, witching wonder grew.
From out the burgeoning bounds of space
It seemed some morn unearthly drew
To that grave glamourous place,
Where, fearful of some far adieu,
I talked with one who never knew
The peril of her face.

The joy that lives is mightier far
Than foretaste of all grief unborn.
The earth to youth is a silver star
That glitters on the edge of morn,
A star! a star! a dancing star.

The fair, the mystic, happy morn!
Dawn glimmered on the gladdening sea;
Each zephyr blew an elfin horn
To echoes in felicity.
All sounds to silver rhythm ran:
Came flutings as from piping Pan
In purpled hills of Arcady!

Seaward we heard the breakers roar;
And the belated nightingales
Sang all their moonlight raptures o'er,
Enchanted still in echoing vales.
We lingered by the brightening shore;
We leapt upon the roseate strand:
The joy that in our hearts we bore
We loved, nor longed to understand.
Soft siren voices evermore
Chanted to chimes in Faeryland.

O, life was like a bird that sings
At morning on a vernal bough!
The springtide at the heart of things
Sang as the spring knows how.
And fair was she, and both were young;
We knew not what made time so good;
Nature with glamour-tutored tongue
Spread glory in the blood.

We climbed the dim and dreaming streets:
We reached a plateau crowned with pine:
The leaning roses breathed their sweets
'Mid many a subtle-scented vine.
We wreathed our brows with ivy-twine.

In mouldering majesty sublime,
Misty with eld, the mute of time,
A castle, dawn-enchanted, there
Above th' abyss sheer, shimmering fair,
Hung like a perilous dream in air.
Poised on a dizzy turret high,
Enfolded with the gorgeous sky,
We listened, she and I,
In wonder, 'mazed. Without a word
A soul had spoken, soul had heard.
All suddenly came, charged with tears,
The sweetness of the human years.

We saw deep forests far away
Kindle to meet the kiss of day;
And mists with morn's delight uprise
Like love thoughts in a maiden's eyes.
We shared the dream that never dies.

Our hearts were hushed with vague desire;
We breathed in kingdoms wildly new,
Enthralled by Memnon's mystic lyre
In regions whence the Ph[oe]nix flew;
Dumb splendour round us blown, and higher
On heaven's deep dome--the peacock's hue,
Bright flakes of crimsoning fire!

Dew-fresh was all the wavering air.
We heard the reef's far rollers croon
About the ocean's margent, where
Loitered the waning moon ...
So fond the hour; the scene so fair;
And fate came home so soon ...
Some sorrow wept,--I knew not where.
Some sudden presence made the air
Chill as the breathless moon.

Silent, upon a lonelier steep,
I gazed across a deeper deep,
Where the pale mists pass from the isles of sleep.--

Lost voices called in other years:
Old sweetness like a breaking grief
Rose in the heart and stung to tears:
In that clear moment brief
Life's dearest, dead so long before,
Returned to bless and die once more.

The faintly crooning sabbath bells
At evening in the golden fells
I heard; the tinkle of the rills
In haunts where childish fancy fed;
I saw the orchard daffodils
About the calm homestead;
Ah, saddest thought that ever fills
An errant heart that memory thrills,
The heath-smell of his homeland hills
To one whose loves are dead ...

What yearnings burn the human breast;
What wild desires like prisoned birds
Impel the heart from east to west;
What urgings baffling words
Beat up from nature unexpressed
Till soul distinct stands manifest,
On guard for heaven, or, wanton, hurled
Toward judgment through the world.

Long following beauty's floating flame
Beneath the sky from sea to sea
No isle of rest, no haven could claim
The lonely, homeless heart in me.
Sick loneliness no more should be
Companion to my soul, for She
To fill the questing vision came,
Came down the breadths of blossoming foam
To give to loveliness a name,
To happiness a home!

Yet thought toward passion moved with dread,
Like one who, hurrying to be wed,
Steps, darkling, on the dead.

Far down we saw mute wavelets leap
Feebly as though remembering sleep;
The wheeling sea-birds proudly sway
In glory o'er the opal bay;--
But at the heart the world grew grey;
Some joy had perished from the day;
Some love was grieving far away.

No voice stirred through the haunted hill
Touched with the morn's inviolate gleam.
All fearfully wild heart and will
Drank rapture in the face of ill!
Our spirits thrilled to answer thrill,
And trembled in their dream.

Truth comes, and tears, and glamour goes.
There's speech within the blood
More eloquent than language knows,
And woes make signal unto woes
While pity breathes and passion blows:
We looked:----we understood.
On summer's heart fell winter's snows ...
The death that dissipates the rose
Was busy in the bud ...

The spectre beckoned: none could save ...
The sundering grave ... The sundering grave! ...
Our lonely love in time could be
But whisper of a broken wave
Lost in a boundless sea ...
She spoke, so fair, so pale, so brave,----
Across infinity!

Ah meekness mute with tragedy!...
My body stirred as in a grave,
And looked forth wonderingly ...
The everlasting sea serene
'Neath everlasting sky
Shone, and across the morning sheen
The deathless winds went by.
And a face was there that I never had seen;
And a shadow stood where a glory had been;
The beauty hung at my heart like pain;
And love was lovely, but life was bane,
For all should die,--but the wonder remain,
And the earth, and the sea, and the sky ...

The hills have winds, the fields have flowers;
Not all alone is the wintry tree;
The stars that gleam in cloudy bowers
Have stars for company;
The waste hath peace of the drifting hours;
And night brings joy to the hoary sea:

But the heart of man is a lonely thing;
And lone the soul of the secret vows,
With its wasted love and its wounded wing,
In a withered world that hath no spring,
No burgeoning boughs:
The soul of man is the loneliest thing
In life's eternal wandering
That God allows ...

O, isle of dreams, and orient shore!
Ah miracle in sea and sky!
Ah youth that fleeting love made soar
To heaven! The glory upon high
To dusk hath waned, yet comes once more
A wonder and a cry!...

The ship's bell tolled off that fair land;
The sails bulged buoyantly:
The sun rose mute, and large, and bland;
The favouring wind swung free.
We stood from that enchanted strand
Into the morning sea.

We rode down swinging winds away,
Far o'er the moving waters wan,
Seen low at pale meridan,
The land was grey.

The dusk came down; and like a ghost
Rose the sad moon; the waves 'gan moan:
There on the deep no kindly coast,--
The dark alone.

And in two faces stared, and stared
The being without blood or breath,
The stilly spectre, horror-haired,
That haunteth all he murdereth;
At noon, at midnight stared, and stared
When sunrise flashed, when sunset flared,
The grizzly phantom horror-haired:--

Stalking frail beauty to her grave
I saw him moving evermore
A stealthy wanderer on the wave,
A shrouded shadow on the shore,
The worm his bondsman, and the brave
His victims evermore ...

The Power that drives all mortal things,
Upbuoys all being's wanderings,
Moved in the void his urgent wings ...

On down the weltering world we sped;
Across the lonely, drifting noon;
Along the wreathëd tides we fled
Beneath the memoried moon.
Sad love pursued where sorrow led;
And beauty, waiting to be dead,
Kissed under the dead moon.

Love, speechless, yearned in hopeless eyes;
And hearts that hungered craved in vain.
Dumb pity heard sad pity's sighs;
And grief soothed grief again.
Fond smile to smile sent faint replies,
And faded back to pain.

Entangled in the toils of fate,
Two stood at Eden's open gate--
Banned, in a world found desolate ...
And love made league with hate ...
All time's long woe since man's wet eyes
Peered toward a promised paradise
Pressed home,--the weight of smothered cries,
Dead dreams, and hopeless pain
Of souls in silence slain.

We saw the loathsome waste of death;
Sad soul at war with sense;
And suffering doomed to lingering breath;
And slandered innocence;
And beauty ravished at the bloom;
Saw strength flung prostrate; fall
The brave, life-worsted from the womb;
White truth made criminal:
Impotent, passionate, counting all,
We kissed----across a tomb ...

The lustrous clouds trailed proudly by:
And through a rift of dazzling sky
I cursed God with a dreary cry ...

The silence of the starry night;
The silver of the moonlit sea;
And loud in secret, stern, and trite,
The pulse of destiny.
Ah sadness scourged with doomed delight!
Ah wondrous misery!

Pale topsails in the offing shone,
And faded into foam:
And down the noontide, one by one,
The pale, proud ships would roam;
Each sailor to his love went on;
Each wanderer to his home.

And, ceasing not, death's nearing knell
Tolled in a heart that dreamed no more.
Our lips shook, sad as lips in hell;
But, fearful of the rending shore,
To fill all time with sad farewell
We would have sailed for evermore!

For pleasantly a song she'd croon,
And feign the world a kindly place;
And tender was the haunting tune
To match her haunting grace;
And tenderly the witching moon
Toyed with her feeling face ...

Our love was like the scent of flowers
To her who watches by the bed
Of one that dies in the dark hours,
The one her youth had wed:
At dawn she scares her tears away,
And through the cloud-enamelled day
Jests bravely for their bread.

She shared with all the brighter part;
The witching sallies lightly flew;
Her thoughts seemed, spilt by subtle art,
Half tear-drops and half dew.
They loved her for her gracious heart,
And the glad winds blew.

The sunbeam of her fleeting life
Gladdened the unsuspecting days;
And all the dusky imps of strife
Paled in her wisdom's lambent rays.
Her laugh to one was as a knife:
But she had pleasure's praise.

And I who loved that conquering smile,
And felt the tears in secret shed,
Who watched her life with kindly guile
Veiling its darlings dead,
Held in a choking hush the while
A heart that feigned--and bled ...

Onward with blind rebellious breast
I ranged, with love, with bale opprest,
Piteous, passionate, all unblest,
The dispossessëd,--God-possest ...

More lonely grew the leaden wave
That broke against the leaning sky;
The melancholy winds 'gan rave
Among the whimpering shrouds on high:
Most lonely up the leaden wave
Two climbed toward yet a lonelier grave--
Where only one should lie.

We neared a grey and grievous land
That thundered by a wintry sea;
I touched the sorrow of her hand,
But nothing sad said she:
She turned from love at death's command
To death eternally.

We passed the numbly moaning bar;
We heard the harbour bell,
Its dull fog-muffled clang from far
Came like a lorn death-knell.
The quay-lights pushed a livid flare
Through shrouding mist; and all things there
Moved like grim shades in hell.

The hammer's clamp on resonant steel;
The siren's shriek; the scream and whirr
Reverberant from forge and wheel;
The fury and the clangorous stir
And plunge of traffic; Vulcan's heel
Crashing on iron,--and the reel
Of sense at loss of her.--

None guessed when, playfully, she said,
With smile that brightened toward her dead,
"To-day across the world I ride
To meet a bridegroom, I the bride."
They thought her mischief lied.

Around us was the deafening roar,
A void, a wild and drear eclipse.
A sadder sweetness than before
Shook her pale, smiling lips;
She waved adieu through vapours hoar,
And vanished in the shadows frore
Among the heedless ships ...
In that dread lapse of all farewell
The spirit, listening, plain could tell
That devils laughed in drifting hell
With guile upon their lips ...

The world seemed all a hollow ghost
That would dissolve away;
And life itself a random boast
Of elements at play;
And time a swift elusive gleam,
And man the mockery of a dream,
A foam-bell to a moment's beam
Flung from the spray.

I had worshipped her with sacred sighs,
Loved with the love that wondereth;
My life had found her maiden-wise,
And sweeter than the rose's breath;
Lit by a soul in paradise
The lights within her holy eyes,
The lady loved of death ...

Bereft, forlorn, by passion driven,
And blanched with loss, by suffering riven,
With impious heart I fled from Heaven ...

Thought like a frost gripped all the brain:
With frozen tears opprest,
The conscious blood with sullen pain
Lunged at the callous breast,
Where hope and love, a pallid twain,
Sat with a ghoul for guest.

Over the watery wastes I fled
Where'er dim desolation led
Beneath sad sun and moon!
For faith was dead, and joy was dead,
And love was where the phantoms tread,
And bitterness was passion's bread:
"Grant, jester Death," I, laughing, said,
"Thy haggard fool a boon!" ...

And unforgiving, unforgiven,
A derelict, by tempest driven,
I drave beneath the breadth of heaven ...

Grim sorrow fell on all things fair;
To dust was turned the lover's breath.
Ah longing, like a pariah bare,
And passion, led by lewd despair
To kiss the smelling jowl of death!

As in a sunless cavern cold,
Like one who flies a crime,
Fearful, and old as God is old,
The spirit shrank from time;
For a stifled scream was the angry gold
Of the weird sunset, and the noonday bold
Was the stare on the face of a crime.

I saw as brain-blurred drunkards see;
I felt, yet could not feel;
I seemed in moving time to be
In nerveless immobility
As dust upon a wheel.

Some world material moved around,
Mazed breadths of spume and brine;
Strange voices spake as from a bound
Far off, I answered with a sound,
Nor knew the answer mine;
And sometimes like a weary hound
I heard the darkness whine.

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