Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin
Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in
Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove
Dance me to the end of love
Dance me to the end of love
From 'The Saya-y-Manto.'
While now the Pole Star sinks from sight
The Southern Cross it climbs the sky;
But losing thee, my love, my light,
O bride but for one bridal night,
The loss no rising joys supply.
Love, love, the Trade Winds urge abaft,
And thee, from thee, they steadfast waft.
By day the blue and silver sea
And chime of waters blandly fanned--
Nor these, nor Gama's stars to me
May yield delight since still for thee
I long as Gama longed for land.
O heart of hearts, the chalice of love's fire,
Hid round with flowers and all the bounty of bloom;
O wonderful and perfect heart, for whom
The lyrist liberty made life a lyre;
O heavenly heart, at whose most dear desire
Dead love, living and singing, cleft his tomb,
And with him risen and regent in death's room
All day thy choral pulses rang full choir;
O heart whose beating blood was running song,
O sole thing sweeter than thine own songs were,
Help us for thy free love's sake to be free,
Sweet fa's the eve on Craigieburn,
And blythe awakens the morrow,
But a' the pride o' spring's return
Can yield me nocht but sorrow.
I see the flowers and spreading trees,
I hear the wild birds singing;
But what a weary wight can please,
And care his bosom wringing?
Fain, fain would I my griefs impart,
Yet darena for your anger'
But secret love will break my heart,
If I conceal it langer.
If thou refuse to pity me,
If thou shalt love anither,
Dick's dead! It was the Polack guard
Put powdered glass into his cage
When I was tramping round the yard,--
I could have killed him in my rage.
I slugged him with that wrench I stole:
That's why I'm rotting in the Hole.
II
Dick's dead! Sure I wish I was too.
His honey breast, his lacy claws
I kissed and cried, for well I knew
They murdered him. I cursed because
He was my only chum on earth . . .
Oh how he cheered me with his mirth!
III
Dick's dead! I know he cared for me.
Man was made of social earth,
Child and brother from his birth;
Tethered by a liquid cord
Of blood through veins of kindred poured,
Next his heart the fireside band
Of mother, father, sister, stand;
Names from awful childhood heard,
Throbs of a wild religion stirred,
Their good was heaven, their harm was vice,
Till Beauty came to snap all ties,
The maid, abolishing the past,
With lotus-wine obliterates
Dear memory's stone-incarved traits,
And by herself supplants alone
Cupid on a summer day,
Wearied by unceasing play,
In a rose heart sleeping lay,
While, to guard the tricksy fellow,
Close above the fragrant bed
Back and forth a gruff bee sped,
And, to lull the sleepy head,
Played 'Zoom! Zoom!' upon his ‘cello.
Little did the god surmise
That sweet Anna’s cerule eyes
Gazed on him with glad surprise,
Or that he was in such danger;
But the watchman bee, in haste,
Left his post that he might taste
of the honey nature placed
On the lips of that fair stranger.
What large, dark hands are those at the window
Lifted, grasping in the yellow light
Which makes its way through the curtain web
At my heart to-night?
Ah, only the leaves! So leave me at rest,
In the west I see a redness come
Over the evening's burning breast --
For now the pain is numb.
The woodbine creeps abroad
Calling low to her lover:
The sunlit flirt who all the day
Has poised above her lips in play
And stolen kisses, shallow and gay
Of dalliance, now has gone away
Cruel, behold my heavy ending,
See what you wrought by your disdaining.
Causeless I die, love still attending
Your hopeless pity of my complaining.
Suffer those eyes which thus have slain me,
With speed to end their killing power,
So shall you prove how love doth pain me,
And see me die still your.
Her thoughts are sweet glimpses of heaven,
Her life is that heaven brought down;
Oh, never to mortal was given
So rare and bejewelled a crown!
I'll wear it as saints wear the glory
That radiantly clasps them above-
Oh, dower most fair!
Oh, diadem rare!
Bright crown of her maidenly love.
My heart is a fane of devotion,
My feelings are converts at prayer,
And every thrill of emotion
Makes dearer the crown I would wear.
My soul in its fulness of rapture
Begins its millennial reign,
