Perchance some honour tarrieth for thee!_’‘As tarrieth,’ I said, ‘for sure, the grave.’For I had pondered on a rune of roses,Which to her votaries the moon discloses.The wisdom of the world said: ‘_There are bays:Go forth and run, for victory is good,After the stress of the laborious days._’‘Yet,’ said I, ‘shall I be the worms’…
Not heart on heart,Nor with the useless anguish of a kiss;But touch mine hand and say:‘Until to-morrow or some other day,If we must part’.Words are so weakWhen love hath been so strong;Let silence speak:‘Life is a little while, and love is long;A time to sow and reap,And after harvest a long time to sleep,But words…
In Cupid’s train we were enrolled:Erewhile!Your little hands were clasped in mine,Your head all ruddy and sun-goldLay on my breast which was your shrine,And all the tale of love was told:Ah, God, that sweet things should decline,And fires fade out which were not cold,Erewhile.
(Loved long ago in lily-time),Become a maid, mysterious and strange,With fair, pure eyes – dear eyes, but not the eyes I knewOf old, in the olden time!Till on my doubting soul the ancient goodOf her dear childhood in the new disguiseDawned, and I hastened to adoreThe glory of her waking maidenhead,And found the old tenderness…
And we have reaped the crops the gods have sown;Despair and death; deep darkness o’er the land,Broods like an owl; we cannot understandLaughter or tears, for we have only knownSurpassing vanity: vain things aloneHave driven our perverse and aimless band.Let us go hence, somewhither strange and cold,To Hollow Lands where just men and unjustFind end…
Even now the fragrant darkness of her hairHad brushed my cheek; and once, in passing by,Her hand upon my hand lay tranquilly:What things unspoken trembled in the air!Always I know, how little severs meFrom mine heart’s country, that is yet so far;And must I lean and long across a bar,That half a word would shatter…
Though all the summer skies be overcast,Haply I will go down to her, some day,And cast my rests of life before her feet,That she may have her will of me, being so sweetAnd none gainsay!So might she look on me with pitying eyes,And lay calm hands of healing on my head:‘_Because of thy long pains…
Despising the world’s wisdom and the world’s desire,Which from the body of this death bring no release?Within their austere walls no voices penetrate;A sacred silence only, as of death, obtains;Nothing finds entry here of loud or passionate;This quiet is the exceeding profit of their pains.From many lands they came, in divers fiery ways;Each knew at…
On apple-blossomAnd dew-drenched vine,Is yours and mine?The silent valleyThat we will find,Where all the voicesOf humankindAre left behind.There all forgetting,Forgotten quite,We will repose us,With our delightHid out of sight.The world forsaken,And out of mindHonour and labour,We shall not findThe stars unkind.And men shall travail,And laugh and weep;But we have vistasOf Gods asleep,With dreams as deep.A…
Into the dark and cold,Friend of my heart!Remember, if you can,Not him who lingers, but that other man,Who loved and sang, and had a beating heart, –When I am old !When I am old,And all Love’s ancient fireBe tremulous and cold:My soul’s desire !Remember, if you may,Nothing of you and me but yesterday,When heart on…
