A man had given all other bliss,
And all his worldly worth for this,
To waste his whole heart in one kiss
Upon her perfect lips.
FLOW down, cold rivulet, to the sea, Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be, Forever and forever.
Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet, then a river:
Nowhere by thee my steps shall be,
Forever and forever.
But here will sigh thine alder-tree, And here thine aspen shiver: And here by thee will hum the bee, Forever and forever.
A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
Forever and forever.
I HAD a vision when the night was late:
A youth came riding toward a palace-gate.
He rode a horse with wings, that would have
But that his heavy rider kept him down.
And from the palace came a child of sin,
And took him by the curls, and led him in,
Where sat a company with heated eyes,
Expecting when a fountain should arise:
A sleepy light upon their brows and lips-
As when the sun, a crescent of eclipse,
Dreams over lake and lawn, and isles and capes-
Suffused them, sitting, lying, languid shapes,
By heaps of gourds, and skins of wine, and piles
of grapes.
Then methought I heard a mellow sound,
Gathering up from all the lower ground;
Narrowing in to where they sat assembled
Low voluptuous music winding trembled,
Woven in circles: they that heard it sighed,
Panted hand in hand with faces pale,
Swung themselves, and in low tones replied;
Till the fountain spouted, showering wide
Sleet of diamond-drift and pearly hail;
Then the music touched the gates and died;
Rose again from where it seemed to fail,
Stormed in orbs of song, a growing gale;
Till thronging in and in, to where they waited,
As 't were a hundred-throated nightingale,
The strong tempestuous treble throbbed and
palpitated;
Ran into its giddiest whirl of sound,
Caught the sparkles, and in circles,
Purple gauzes, golden hazes, liquid mazes,
Flung the torrent rainbow round:
Then they started from their places,
Moved with violence, changed in hue,
Caught each other with wild grimaces,
Half-invisible to the view,
Wheeling with precipitate paces.
To the melody, till they flew,
Hair, and eyes, and limbs, and faces,
Twisted hard in fierce embraces,
Like to Furies, like to Graces,
Dashed together in blinding dew:
Till, killed with some luxurious agony,
The nerve-dissolving melody
Fluttered headlong from the sky.
And then I looked up toward a mountain-tract,
That girt the region with high cliff and lawn:
I saw that every morning, far withdrawn
Beyond the darkness and the cataract,
God made himself an awful rose of dawn,
Unheeded: and detaching, fold by fold,
From those still heights, and slowly drawing
A vapor heavy, hueless, formless, cold,
Came floating on for many a month and year,
Unheeded and I thought I would have spoken,
And warned that madman ere it grew too late:
But, as in dreams, I could not. Mine was broken,
When that cold vapor touched the palace-gate,
And linked again. I saw within my head
A gray and gap-toothed man as lean as death,
Who slowly rode across a withered heath,
And lighted at a ruined inn, and said:
"Wrinkled hostler, grim and thin! Here is custom come your way: Take my brute, and lead him in, Stuff his ribs with mouldy hay. "Bitter barmaid, waning fast!
See that sheets are on my bed; What! the flower of life is past: It is long before you wed. "Slipshod waiter, lank and sour, At the Dragon.on the heath! Let us have a quiet hour,
Let us hob-and-nob with Death.
"I am old, but let me drink; Bring me spices, bring me wine; I remember, when I think,
That my youth was half divine. "Wine is good for shrivelled lips, When a blanket wraps the day, When the rotten woodland drips,
And the leaf is stamped in clay. "Sit thee down, and have no shame, Cheek by jowl, and knee by knee: What care I for any name?
What for order or degree?
"Let me screw thee up a peg:
Let me loose thy tongue with wine: Callest thou that thing a leg?
Which is thinnest? thine or mine?
"Fill the cup, and fill the can! Mingle madness, mingle scorn! Dregs of life, and lees of man:
Yet we will not die forlorn."
The voice grew faint: there came a further change:
Once more uprose the mystic mountain-range:
Below were men and horses pierced with worms,
And slowly quickening into lower forms;
By shards and scurf of salt, and scum of dross,
Old plash of rains, and refuse patched with moss.
Then some one spake: "Behold! it was a crime
Of sense avenged by sense that wore with time."
Another said: "The crime of sense became
The crime of malice, and is equal blame."
And one: "He had not wholly quenched his
power;
A little grain of conscience made him sour."
At last I heard a voice upon the slope
Cry to the summit, "Is there any hope?
To which an answer pealed from that high land,
But in a tongue no man could understand;
And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn
God made Himself an awful rose of dawn.
SONGS FROM "THE PRINCESS."
As through the land at eve we went,
And plucked the ripened ears,
We fell out, my wife and I,
Oh, we fell out I know not why,
And kissed again with tears.
For when we came where lies the child
We lost in other years,
There above the little grave,
Oh, there above the little grave,
We kissed again with tears.
Sweet and low, sweet and low,
Wind of the western sea,
Low, low, breathe and blow,
Wind of the western sea!
Over the rolling waters go,
Come from the dying moon, and blow,
Blow him again to me;
"O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each,
While my little one, while my pretty one, sleeps. That bright and fierce and fickle is the South,
And dark and true and tender is the North.
"O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light
Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill,
And cheep and twitter twenty million loves.
"Oh, were I thou that she might take me in, And lay me on her bosom, and her heart Would rock the snowy cradle till I died.
"Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love,
Delaying as the tender ash delays
To clothe herself, when all the woods are green?
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