And Venus cried, “It is dread Artemis

  Whose bitter hand hath wrought this cruelty,

  Or else that mightier maid whose care it is

  To guard her strong and stainless majesty

  Upon the hill Athenian—alas!

  That they who loved so well unloved into Death’s house should pass.”

  So with soft hands she laid the boy and girl

  In the great golden wagon tenderly,

  Her white throat whiter than a moony pearl

  Just threaded with a blue vein’s tapestry

  Had not yet ceased to throb, and still her breast

  Swayed like a wind-stirred lily in ambiguous unrest.

  And then each pigeon spread its milky van,

  The bright car soared into the dawning sky,

  And like a cloud the aerial caravan

  Passed over the Aegean silently,

  Till the faint air was troubled with the song

  From the wan mouths that call on bleeding Thammuz all night long.

  But when the doves had reached their wonted goal

  Where the wide stair of orbèd marble dips

  Its snows into the sea, her fluttering soul

  Just shook the trembling petals of her lips

  And passed into the void, and Venus knew

  That one fair maid the less would walk amid her retinue,

  And bade her servants carve a cedar chest

  With all the wonder of this history,

  Within whose scented womb their limbs should rest

  Where olive-trees make tender the blue sky

  On the low hills of Paphos, and the faun

  Pipes in the noonday, and the nightingale sings on till dawn.

  Nor failed they to obey her hest, and ere

  The morning bee had stung the daffodil

  With tiny fretful spear, or from its lair

  The waking stag had leapt across the rill

  And roused the ouzel, or the lizard crept

  Athwart the sunny rock, beneath the grass their bodies slept.

  And when day brake, within that silver shrine

  Fed by the flames of cressets tremulous,

  Queen Venus knelt and prayed to Proserpine

  That she whose beauty made Death amorous

  Should beg a guerdon from her pallid Lord,

  And let Desire pass across dread Charon’s icy ford.

  III

  In melancholy moonless Acheron,

  Farm for the goodly earth and joyous day,

  Where no spring ever buds, nor ripening sun

  Weighs down the apple trees, nor flowery May

  Chequers with chestnut blooms the grassy floor,

  Where thrushes never sing, and piping linnets mate no more,

  There by a dim and dark Lethaean well

  Young Charmides was lying; wearily

  He plucked the blossoms from the asphodel,

  And with its little rifled treasury

  Strewed the dull waters of the dusky stream,

  And watched the white stars founder, and the land was like a dream,

  When as he gazed into the watery glass

  And through his brown hair’s curly tangles scanned

  His own wan face, a shadow seemed to pass

  Across the mirror, and a little hand

  Stole into his, and warm lips timidly

  Brushed his pale cheeks, and breathed their secret forth into a sigh.

  Then turned he round his weary eyes and saw,

  And ever nigher still their faces came,

  And nigher ever did their young mouths draw

  Until they seemed one perfect rose of flame,

  And longing arms around her neck he cast,

  And felt her throbbing bosom, and his breath came hot and fast,

  And all his hoarded sweets were hers to kiss,

  And all her maidenhood was his to slay,

  And limb to limb in long and rapturous bliss

  Their passion waxed and waned—O why essay

  To pipe again of love, too venturous reed!

  Enough, enough that Eros laughed upon that flowerless mead.

  Too venturous poesy, O why essay

  To pipe again of passion! fold thy wings

  O’er daring Icarus and bid thy lay

  Sleep hidden in the lyre’s silent strings

  Till thou hast found the old Castalian rill,

  Or from the Lesbian waters plucked drowned Sappho’s golden quill!

  Enough, enough that he whose life had been

  A fiery pulse of sin, a splendid shame,

  Could in the loveless land of Hades glean

  One scorching harvest from those fields of flame

  Where passion walks with naked unshod feet

  And is not wounded—ah! enough that once their lips could meet

  In that wild throb when all existences

  Seemed narrowed to one single ecstasy

  Which dies through its own sweetness and the stress

  Of too much pleasure, ere Persephone

  Had bade them serve her by the ebon throne

  Of the pale God who in the fields of Enna loosed her zone.

  Flowers of Gold

  Impressions

  I

  Les Silhouettes

  The sea is flecked with bars of grey,

  The dull dead wind is out of tune,

  And like a withered leaf the moon

  Is blown across the stormy bay.

  Etched clear upon the pallid sand

  Lies the black boat: a sailor boy

  Clambers aboard in careless joy

  With laughing face and gleaming hand.

  And overhead the curlews cry,

  Where through the dusky upland grass

  The young brown-throated reapers pass,

  Like silhouettes against the sky.

  II

  La Fuite de la Lune

  To outer senses there is peace,

  A dreamy peace on either hand,

  Deep silence in the shadowy land,

  Deep silence where the shadows cease.

  Save for a cry that echoes shrill

  From some lone bird disconsolate;

  A corncrake calling to its mate;

  The answer from the misty hill.

  And suddenly the moon withdraws

  Her sickle from the lightening skies,

  And to her sombre cavern flies,

  Wrapped in a veil of yellow gauze.

  The Grave of Keats

  Rid of the world’s injustice, and his pain,

  He rests at last beneath God’s veil of blue:

  Taken from life when life and love were new

  The youngest of the martyrs here is lain,

  Fair as Sebastian, and as early slain.

  No cypress shades his grave, no funeral yew,

  But gentle violets weeping with the dew

  Weave on his bones an ever-blossoming chain.

  O proudest heart that broke for misery!

  O sweetest lips since those of Mitylene!

  O poet-painter of our English Land!

  Thy name was writ in water—it shall stand:

  And tears like mine will keep thy memory green,

  As Isabella did her Basil-tree.

  Rome.

  Theocritus

  A Villanelle

  O singer of Persephone!

  In the dim meadows desolate

  Dost thou remember Sicily?

  Still through the ivy flits the bee

  Where Amaryllis lies in state;

  O Singer of Persephone!

  Simaetha calls on Hecate

  And hears the wild dogs at the gate;

  Dost thou remember Sicily?

  Still by the light and laughing sea

  Poor Polypheme bemoans his fate;

  O Singer of Persephone!

  And still in boyish rivalry

  Young Daphnis challenges his mate;

  Dost thou remember Sicily?

  Slim Lacon keeps a goat for thee,

  For thee the jocund shepherds wait;

  O Singer of Persephone!

  Dost thou remember Sicily?

  In the Gold Room

  A Harmony

  Her ivory hands on the ivory keys

  Strayed in a fitful fantasy,

  Like the silver gleam when the poplar trees

  Rustle their pale leaves listlessly,

  Or the drifting foam of a restless sea

  When the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze.

  Her gold hair fell on the wall of gold

  Like the delicate gossamer tangles spun

  On the burnished disk of the marigold,

  Or the sunflower turning to meet the sun

  When the gloom of the dark blue night is done,

  And the spear of the lily is aureoled.

  And her sweet red lips on these lips of mine

  Burned like the ruby fire set

  In the swinging lamp of a crimson shrine,

  Or the bleeding wounds of the pomegranate,

  Or the heart of the lotus drenched and wet

  With the spilt-out blood of the rose-red wine.

  Ballade de Marguerite

  (Normande)

  I am weary of lying within the chase

  When the knights are meeting in market-place.

  Nay, go not thou to the red-roofed town

  Lest the hoofs of the war-horse tread thee down.

  But I would not go where the Squires ride,

  I would only walk by my Lady’s side.

  Alack! and alack! thou art overbold,

  A Forester’s son may not eat off gold.

  Will she love me the less that my Father is seen

  Each Martinmas day in a doublet green?

  Perchance she is sewing at tapestrie,

  Spindle and loom are not meet for thee.

  Ah, if she is working the arras bright

  I might ravel the threads by the fire-light.

  Perchance she is hunting of the deer,

  How could you follow o’er hill and mere?

  Ah, if she is riding with the court,

  I might run beside her and wind the morte.

  Perchance she is kneeling in St. Denys,

  (On her soul may our Lady have gramercy!)

  Ah, if she is praying in lone chapelle,

  I might swing the censer and ring the bell.

  Come in, my son, for you look sae pale,

  The father shall fill thee a stoup of ale.

  But who are these knights in bright array?

  Is it a pageant the rich folks play?

  ’Tis the King of England from over sea,

  Who has come unto visit our fair countrie.

  But why does the curfew toll sae low?

  And why do the mourners walk a-row?

  O ’tis Hugh of Amiens my sister’s son

  Who is lying stark, for his day is done.

  Nay, nay, for I see white lilies clear,

  It is no strong man who lies on the bier.

  O ’tis old Dame Jeannette that kept the hall,

  I knew she would die at the autumn fall.

  Dame Jeannette had not that gold-brown hair,

  Old Jeannette was not a maiden fair.

  O ’tis none of our kith and none of our kin,

  (Her soul may our Lady assoil from sin!)

  But I hear the boy’s voice chaunting sweet,

  “Elle est morte, la Marguerite.”

  Come in, my son, and lie on the bed,

  And let the dead folk bury their dead.

  O mother, you know I loved her true:

  O mother, hath one grave room for two?

  The Dole of the King’s Daughter

  (Breton)

  Seven stars in the still water,

  And seven in the sky;

  Seven sins on the King’s daughter,

  Deep in her soul to lie.

  Red roses are at her feet,

  (Roses are red in her red-gold hair)

  And O where her bosom and girdle meet

  Red roses are hidden there.

  Fair is the knight who lieth slain

  Amid the rush and reed,

  See the lean fishes that are fain

  Upon dead men to feed.

  Sweet is the page that lieth there,

  (Cloth of gold is goodly prey,)

  See the black ravens in the air,

  Black, O black as the night are they.

  What do they there so stark and dead?

  (There is blood upon her hand)

  Why are the lilies flecked with red?

  (There is blood on the river sand.)

  There are two that ride from the south and east,

  And two from the north and west,

  For the black raven a goodly feast,

  For the King’s daughter rest.

  There is one man who loves her true,

  (Red, O red, is the stain of gore!)

  He hath duggen a grave by the darksome yew,

  (One grave will do for four.)

  No moon in the still heaven,

  In the black water none,

  The sins on her soul are seven,

  The sin upon his is one.

  Amor Intellectualis

  Oft have we trod the vales of Castaly

  And heard sweet notes of sylvan music blown

  From antique reeds to common folk unknown:

  And often launched our bark upon that sea

  Which the nine Muses hold in empery,

  And ploughed free furrows through the wave and foam,

  Nor spread reluctant sail for more safe home

  Till we had freighted well our argosy.

  Of which despoilèd treasures these remain,

  Sordello’s passion, and the honeyed line

  Of young Endymion, lordly Tamburlaine

  Driving his pampered jades, and more than these,

  The seven-fold vision of the Florentine,

  And grave-browed Milton’s solemn harmonies.

  Santa Decca

  The Gods are dead: no longer do we bring

  To grey-eyed Pallas crowns of olive-leaves!

  Demeter’s child no more hath tithe of sheaves,

  And in the noon the careless shepherds sing,

  For Pan is dead, and all the wantoning

  By secret glade and devious haunt is o’er:

  Young Hylas seeks the water-springs no more;

  Great Pan is dead, and Mary’s son is King.

  And yet—perchance in this sea-trancèd isle,

  Chewing the bitter fruit of memory,

  Some God lies hidden in the asphodel.

  Ah Love! if such there be, then it were well

  For us to fly his anger: nay, but see,

  The leaves are stirring: let us watch awhile.