O LYRIC LOVE. [Aus: The Ring and the Book, I. 1868.] O LYRIC Love, half angel and half bird To toil for man, to suffer or to die, This is the same voice: can thy soul know change? -Never conclude, but raising hand and head Their utmost up and on,-so blessing back In those thy realms of help, that heaven thy home, Some whiteness which, I judge, thy face makes proud, Some wanness where, I think, thy foot may fall! SUCH A STARVED BANK OF MOSS. [The Two Poets of Croisic 1878.] SUCH a starved bank of moss Beamy the world, yet a blank all the same, Rose-beauty above, And all that was death SUMMUM BONUM. [Asolando 1889.] ALL the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee: All the wonder and wealth of the mine in the heart of one gem: In the core of one pearl all the shade and the shine of the sea: Breath and bloom, shade and shine,-wonder, wealth, and-how far above them Truth, that's brighter than gem, Trust, that's purer than pearl,-- Brightest truth, purest trust in the universe-all were for me In the kiss of one girl. A PEARL, A GIRL. A SIMPLE ring with a single stone To the vulgar eye no stone of price: Forth starts a sprite, like fire from ice, A woman ('tis I this time that say) With little the world counts worthy praise-- Escapes her soul: I am wrapt in blaze, PROLOGUE. [Asolando 1889.] "THE Poet's age is sad: for why? No common object but his eye At once involved with alien glowHis own soul's iris-bow. "And now a flower is just a flower: Man, bird, beast are but beast, bird, manSimply themselves, uncinct by dower Of dyes which, when life's day began, Round each in glory ran." Friend, did you need an optic glass, Which were your choice? A lens to drape In ruby, emerald, chrysopras, Each object-or reveal its shape Clear outlined, past escape, The naked very thing?-so clear That, when you had the chance to gaze, You found its inmost self appear Through outer seeming-truth ablaze, Not falsehood's fancy-haze? How many a year, my Asolo, Since-one step just from sea to land loved yet feared you so For natural objects seemed to stand Palpably fire-clothed! No No mastery of mine o'er these! Terror with beauty, like the Bush Burning but unconsumed. Bend knees, Drop eyes to earthward! Language? Tush! Silence 'tis awe decrees. And now? The lambent flame is-where? Hill, vale, tree, flower-they stand distinct, Has once my eyelid winked? No, for the purged ear apprehends Earth's import, not the eye late dazed: ASOLO: Sept. 6, 1889. EPILOGUE. [Asolando 1889.] AT the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time, Will they pass to where-by death, fools think, imprisoned Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so, -Pity me? Oh to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken! What had I on earth to do With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly? -Being-who? |