Blue and gold are April days, All the wealth of spring unrolled Down the wet, bird-haunted ways Blue and gold.
In their rapture uncontrolled, From the trees the blackbirds raise Songs of triumph, clear and bold: And the distance is blue haze, Where the hills the fields enfold, Like still seas in sheltered bays Blue and gold.
GANHARDINE"S SONG
When my lady climbs the stair, From the wet, surf-beaten sands, Loosening her cloak of hair, With her slender, foam-white hands, All my soul cries out in me: What fair things G.o.d maketh be!
Praise her white, and red, and gold; Praise her lips made sweet with mirth, Her grave eyes, that dreaming hold Tears, which tremble ere their birth!
Yet what song shall snare the feet Of white dawn upon the wheat?
Surely earth"s swift-changing grace, Starry waters, starry skies Fallen in some flower-loved place, Speak such peace as speak her eyes; There earth"s sudden wonders are Gla.s.sed, as waters gla.s.s a star.
When my lady climbs the stair, Every wandering golden tress Streams out, through the living air, Like a flame for loveliness, And my soul cries out in me: What fair things G.o.d maketh be.
THE SOUL"S ANSWER
My soul said unto me: Yea, G.o.d is wise With wisdom far too bright for our weak eyes.
I answered thus my soul: Yea, G.o.d is wise!
My soul said unto me: Yea, G.o.d is good And maketh love to be our daily food.
I answered thus my soul: Yea, G.o.d is good!
I sent my soul from me that it might tell The d.a.m.ned and make a Heaven where was h.e.l.l, It smiled and said: Nay, fear not, all is well!
WINTER
TO U. A. T.
Bare are the boughs where Love took cover, Once in the spring: Nor bird to bird, nor lover to lover, Whisper or sing.
A low moon floodeth the level meadows With frosty light: Sheep come softly through mist as shadows, Grey in the night.
And over pasture and plough and fallow My dreams go, For thy mouth to kiss and thine hands to hallow, Thine heart to know.
THE FAUN
Kore, O Kore, where art thou fled, Now that the spring blows white in the land?
Shake out the honeyed locks o" thine head; Plunder the lilies that lie to thine hand, Glistering saffron loved of the bees Murmuring in them, till shadows grow long With dew-dropping silence under the trees, Ere break the voluptuous thrillings of song From the brown-throated sweet harbourers there Raptured and grieving under the stars....
THE CUP
Ye mock me, wantons, that I come among you Drunken, bedecked with garlands Like a white sacrificial bull.
Laugh then!
So Cypris laughing shakes one petal down From her rose-braided hair, Honeyed with kisses, to perfume The glowing purple that brims up this gold.
Laugh then, and mock, but kiss me! For what man Would come among you sober? Wise, I come Borne on Silenus" a.s.s to praise Eros.
PAROLES SANS MUSIQUE
FOR JELLY D"ARaNYI
Ah, the night! The eyes!
You are white beneath the plum-blossoms, As an oread beneath the shadow Of flowering branches: immobile, Among things fugitive and frail.
For G.o.d hath filled you with the memory Of things forgotten by man; and your eyelids Close upon lost splendours.
Yea! They are heavy with the secrets of time; Troubled by the strangeness of beauty.
But mine heart knoweth the secret Of your subtile lips and eyes: the silence Wherein throng presently, with maddening cymbals, With bright-tressed torches, the maenads, Their cool flesh wreathed with dark vines.
Ah, the night! The eyes!
Honey pale are you, pallid as ivory: An amber grape, whose sweetness will be wine On some king"s lip!
Here "mid these golds and purples, These dusked magnificences, Amid strange faces Only your face against the plum-blossom Know I: remembering Bright spear heads in the moonlight By the still tents, the red embers, The strings and flutes of pain....
And again the weariness of desiring.
Ah, the night! The eyes!
DANAE
Thou, whom the gray seas bare more fierce than they.
O bitter Love! Have pity on his weeping, Smite me with pain; lo, I am all thy prey!
Sleep thou, my son, as all the world is sleeping; Sleep thou, my babe; and sleep, thou bitter sea; And sleep, O grief, within the heart of me.
Ashen thy fruit, O Love, thy crown is pain!
Sweet were thy words to me, thy soft caresses.