CHORGESÄNGE AUS ATALANTA IN CALYDON (1865). WHEN THE HOUNDS OF SPRING ARE ON WINTER'S TRACES... When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces, Fills the shadows and windy places With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain; For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces, Come with bows bent and with emptying of quivers, Maiden most perfect, lady of light, With a noise of winds and many rivers, With a clamour of waters, and with might; Bind on thy sandals, O thou most fleet, Over the splendour and speed of thy feet; For the faint east quickens, the wan west shivers, Round the feet of the day and the feet of the night. Where shall we find her, how shall we sing to her, As raiment, as songs of the harp-player; And the southwest-wind and the west-wind sing. For winter's rains and ruins are over, The light that loses, the night that wins; Blossom by blossom the spring begins. The full streams feed on flower of rushes, And Pan by noon and Bacchus by night, And soft as lips that laugh and hide The ivy falls with the Bacchanal's hair To the limbs that glitter, the feet that scare BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF YEARS Before the beginning of years There came to the making of man Time, with a gift of tears; Grief, with a glass that ran; Pleasure, with pain for leaven; Summer, with flowers that fell; Remembrance fallen from heaven, And madness risen from hell; Strength without hands to smite; Love that endures for a breath; Night, the shadow of light, And life, the shadow of death. And the high gods took in hand In the houses of death and of birth; And death beneath and above, For a day and a night and a morrow, The holy spirit of man. From the winds of the north and the south They gathered as unto strife; They breathed upon his mouth, They filled his body with life; Eyesight and speech they wrought A time to serve and to sin; In his eyes foreknowledge of death; His life is a watch or a vision WE HAVE SEEN THEE, O LOVE We have seen thee, O Love, thou art fair; thou art goodly, O Love; Thy wings make light in the air as the wings of a dove. Thy feet are as winds that divide the stream of the sea; Earth is thy covering to hide thee, the garment of thee. Thou art swift and subtle and blind as a flame of fire; Before thee the laughter, behind thee the tears of desire; And twain go forth beside thee, a man with a maid; Her eyes are the eyes of a bride whom delight makes afraid; As the breath in the buds that stir is her bridal breath: But Fate is the name of her; and his name is Death. For an evil blossom was born. Of sea-foam and the frothing of blood, And the seed of it laughter and tears, And the leaves of it madness and scorn; Sprung without graft from the years. The weft of the world was untorn And the waves of the sea as she came Fawning, rejoiced to bring forth Filling the heavens with heat To the cold white ends of the north. And in air the clamorous birds, And men upon earth that hear Sweet articulate words Sweetly divided apart, And in shallow and channel and mere The rapid and footless herds, Rejoiced, being foolish of heart. For all they said upon earth, She is fair, she is white like a dove, And the life of the world in her breath Breathes, and is born at her birth; For they knew thee for mother of love, And knew thee not mother of death. What hadst thou to do being born, Mother, when winds were at ease, As a flower of the springtime of corn, A flower of the foam of the seas? |