Why do you linger and loiter, O most sweet?
Why do you falter and delay, Now that the insolent, high-blooded May Comes greeting and to greet?
Comes with her instant summonings to stray Down the green, antient way-- The leafy, still, rose-haunted, eye-proof street!-- Where true lovers each other may entreat, Ere the gold hair turn gray?
Entreat, and fleet Life gaudily, and so play out their play, Even with the triumphing May-- The young-eyed, smiling, irresistible May!
Why do you loiter and linger, O most dear?
Why do you dream and palter and stay, When every dawn, that rushes up the bay, Brings nearer, and more near, The Terror, the Discomforter, whose prey, Beloved, we must be? Nor prayer, nor tear, Lets his arraignment; but we disappear, What time the gold turns gray, Into the sheer, Blind gulfs unglutted of mere Yesterday, With the unlingering May-- The good, fulfilling, irresponsible May!
XV
_Come where my Lady lies_, _Sleeping down the golden hours_!
_Cover her with flowers_.
Bluebells from the clearings, Flag-flowers from the rills, Wildings from the lush hedgerows, Delicate daffodils, Sweetlings from the formal plots, Bloomkins from the bowers-- Heap them round her where she sleeps, _Cover her with flowers_!
Sweet-pea and pansy, Red hawthorn and white; Gilliflowers--like praising souls; Lilies--lamps of light: Nurselings of what happy winds, Suns, and stars, and showers!
Joylets good to see and smell-- _Cover her with flowers_!
Like to sky-born shadows Mirrored on a stream, Let their odours meet and mix And waver through her dream!
Last, the crowded sweetness Slumber overpowers, And she feels the lips she loves _Craving through the flowers_!
XVI
The west a glory of green and red and gold, The magical drifts to north and eastward rolled, The shining sands, the still, transfigured sea, The wind so light it scarce begins to be, As these long days unfold a flower, unfold Life"s rose in me.
Life"s rose--life"s rose! Red at my heart it glows-- Glows and is glad, as in some quiet close The sun"s spoiled darlings their gay life renew!
Only, the clement rain, the mothering dew, Daytide and night, all things that make the rose, Are you, dear--you!
XVII
Look down, dear eyes, look down, Lest you betray her gladness.
Dear brows, do naught but frown, Lest men miscall my madness.
Come not, dear hands, so near, Lest all besides come nearer.
Dear heart, hold me less dear, Lest time hold nothing dearer.
Keep me, dear lips, O, keep The great last word unspoken, Lest other eyes go weep, And other lives lie broken!
XVIII
Poplar and lime and chestnut Meet in a living screen; And there the winds and the sunbeams keep A revel of gold and green.
O, the green dreams and the golden, The golden thoughts and green, This green and golden end of May My lover and me between!
XIX
Hither, this solemn eventide, All flushed and mystical and blue, When the late bird sings And sweet-breathed garden-ghosts walk sudden and wide, Hesper, that bringeth all good things, Brings me a dream of you.
And in my heart, dear heart, it comes and goes, Even as the south wind lingers and falls and blows, Even as the south wind sighs and tarries and streams, Among the living leaves about and round; With a still, soothing sound, As of a mult.i.tude of dreams Of love, and the longing of love, and love"s delight, Thronging, ten thousand deep, Into the uncreating Night, With semblances and shadows to fulfil, Amaze, and thrill The strange, dispeopled silences of Sleep.
XX
After the grim daylight, Night-- Night and the stars and the sea!
Only the sea, and the stars And the star-shown sails and spars-- Naught else in the night for me!
Over the northern height, Light-- Light and the dawn of a day With nothing for me but a breast Laboured with love"s unrest, And the irk of an idle May!
XXI
Love, which is l.u.s.t, is the Lamp in the Tomb.
Love, which is l.u.s.t, is the Call from the Gloom.
Love, which is l.u.s.t, is the Main of Desire.
Love, which is l.u.s.t, is the Centric Fire.
So man and woman will keep their trust, Till the very Springs of the Sea run dust.
Yea, each with the other will lose and win, Till the very Sides of the Grave fall in.
For the strife of Love"s the abysmal strife, And the word of Love is the Word of Life.
And they that go with the Word unsaid, Though they seem of the living, are d.a.m.ned and dead.
XXII
Between the dusk of a summer night And the dawn of a summer day, We caught at a mood as it pa.s.sed in flight, And we bade it stoop and stay.