Enough (with thoughts like ships that cannot land, Blown by faint winds about a magic sh.o.r.e) To realize, in each mysterious feeling, The droop of the warm cheek so near my own: The cool white arm about my shoulder thrown: Those exquisite fair feet where I was kneeling.
How little know they life"s divinest bliss, That know not to possess and yet refrain!
Let the young Psyche roam, a fleeting kiss: Grasp it--a few poor grains of dust remain.
See how those floating flowers, the b.u.t.terflies, Hover the garden thro", and take no root!
Desire for ever hath a flying foot: Free pleasure comes and goes beneath the skies.
Close not thy hand upon the innocent joy That trusts itself within thy reach. It may, Or may not, linger. Thou canst but destroy The winged wanderer. Let it go or stay.
Love thou the rose, yet leave it on its stem.
Think! Midas starved by turning all to gold.
Blessed are those that spare, and that withhold; Because the whole world shall be trusted them.
The foolish Faun pursues the unwilling Nymph That culls her flowers beside the precipice Or dips her shining ankles in the lymph: But, just when she must perish or be his, Heaven puts an arm out. She is safe. The sh.o.r.e Gains some new fountain; or the lilied lawn A rarer sort of rose: but ah, poor Faun!
To thee she shall be changed for evermore.
Chase not too close the fading rapture. Leave To Love his long auroras, slowly seen.
Be ready to release as to receive.
Deem those the nearest, soul to soul, between Whose lips yet lingers reverence on a sigh.
Judge what thy sense can reach not, most thine own, If once thy soul hath seized it. The unknown Is life to love, religion, poetry.
The moon had set. There was not any light, Save of the lonely legion"d watch-stars pale In outer air, and what by fits made bright Hot oleanders in a rosy vale Search"d by the lamping fly, whose little spark Went in and out, like pa.s.sion"s bashful hope.
Meanwhile the sleepy globe began to slope A ponderous shoulder sunward thro" the dark.
And the night pa.s.s"d in beauty like a dream.
Aloof in those dark heavens paused Destiny, With her last star descending in the gleam Of the cold morrow, from the emptied sky.
The hour, the distance from her old self, all The novelty and loneness of the place Had left a lovely awe on that fair face, And all the land grew strange and magical.
As droops some billowy cloud to the crouch"d hill, Heavy with all heaven"s tears, for all earth"s care, She droop"d unto me, without force or will, And sank upon my bosom, murmuring there A woman"s inarticulate pa.s.sionate words.
O moment of all moments upon earth!
O life"s supreme! How worth, how wildly worth, Whole worlds of flame, to know this world affords.
What even Eternity can not restore!
When all the ends of life take hands and meet Round centres of sweet fire. Ah, never more, Ah never, shall the bitter with the sweet Be mingled so in the pale after-years!
One hour of life immortal spirits possess.
This drains the world, and leaves but weariness, And parching pa.s.sion, and perplexing tears.
Sad is it, that we cannot even keep That hour to sweeten life"s last toil: but Youth Grasps all, and leaves us: and when we would weep, We dare not let our tears fall, lest, in truth, They fall upon our work which must be done.
And so we bind up our torn hearts from breaking: Our eyes from weeping, and our brows from aching: And follow the long pathway all alone.
Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton, Earl of Lytton. 1831-1892
795. The Last Wish
SINCE all that I can ever do for thee Is to do nothing, this my prayer must be: That thou mayst never guess nor ever see The all-endured this nothing-done costs me.
James Thomson. 1834-1882
796. In the Train
AS we rush, as we rush in the Train, The trees and the houses go wheeling back, But the starry heavens above the plain Come flying on our track.
All the beautiful stars of the sky, The silver doves of the forest of Night, Over the dull earth swarm and fly, Companions of our flight.
We will rush ever on without fear; Let the goal be far, the flight be fleet!
For we carry the Heavens with us, dear, While the Earth slips from our feet!
James Thomson. 1834-1882
797. Sunday up the River
MY love o"er the water bends dreaming; It glideth and glideth away: She sees there her own beauty, gleaming Through shadow and ripple and spray.
O tell her, thou murmuring river, As past her your light wavelets roll, How steadfast that image for ever Shines pure in pure depths of my soul.
James Thomson. 1834-1882
798. Gifts
GIVE a man a horse he can ride, Give a man a boat he can sail; And his rank and wealth, his strength and health, On sea nor sh.o.r.e shall fail.
Give a man a pipe he can smoke, Give a man a book he can read: And his home is bright with a calm delight, Though the room be poor indeed.
Give a man a girl he can love, As I, O my love, love thee; And his heart is great with the pulse of Fate, At home, on land, on sea.
James Thomson. 1834-1882
799. The Vine
THE wine of Love is music, And the feast of Love is song: And when Love sits down to the banquet, Love sits long:
Sits long and arises drunken, But not with the feast and the wine; He reeleth with his own heart, That great, rich Vine.
William Morris. 1834-1896
800. Summer Dawn
PRAY but one prayer for me "twixt thy closed lips, Think but one thought of me up in the stars.
The summer night waneth, the morning light slips Faint and gray "twixt the leaves of the aspen, betwixt the cloud-bars, That are patiently waiting there for the dawn: Patient and colourless, though Heaven"s gold Waits to float through them along with the sun.
Far out in the meadows, above the young corn, The heavy elms wait, and restless and cold The uneasy wind rises; the roses are dun; Through the long twilight they pray for the dawn Round the lone house in the midst of the corn.
Speak but one word to me over the corn, Over the tender, bow"d locks of the corn.
William Morris. 1834-1896