Philip Bourke Marston [1850-1887]
ROCOCO
Take hand and part with laughter; Touch lips and part with tears; Once more and no more after, Whatever comes with years. We twain shall not remeasure The ways that left us twain; Nor crush the lees of pleasure From sanguine grapes of pain.
We twain once well in sunder, What will the mad gods do For hate with me, I wonder, Or what for love with you? Forget them till November, And dream there's April yet, Forget that I remember, And dream that I forget.
Time found our tired love sleeping, And kissed away his breath; But what should we do weeping, Though light love sleep to death? We have drained his lips at leisure, Till there's not left to drain A single sob of pleasure, A single pulse of pain.
Dream that the lips once breathless Might quicken if they would; Say that the soul is deathless; Dream that the gods are good; Say March may wed September, And time divorce regret; But not that you remember, And not that I forget.
We have heard from hidden places What love scarce lives and hears: We have seen on fervent faces The pallor of strange tears: We have trod the wine-vat's treasure, Whence, ripe to steam and stain, Foams round the feet of pleasure The blood-red must of pain.
Remembrance may recover And time bring back to time The name of your first lover, The ring of my first rhyme: But rose-leaves of December The frosts of June shall fret, The day that you remember, The day that I forget.
The snake that hides and hisses In heaven we twain have known; The grief of cruel kisses, The joy whose mouth makes moan; The pulses' pause and measure, Where in one furtive vein Throbs through the heart of pleasure The purpler blood of pain.
We have done with tears and treasons And love for treason's sake; Room for the swift new seasons, The years that burn and break, Dismantle and dismember Men's days and dreams, Juliette; For love may not remember, But time will not forget.
Life treads down love in flying, Time withers him at root; Bring all dead things and dying, Reaped sheaf and ruined fruit, Where, crushed by three days' pressure Our three days' love lies slain; And earlier leaf of pleasure, And latter flower of pain.
Breathe close upon the ashes, It may be flame will leap; Unclose the soft close lashes, Lift up the lids and weep. Light love's extinguished ember, Let one tear leave it wet For one that you remember And ten that you forget.
Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]
RONDEL
These many years since we began to be, What have the Gods done with us? what with me, What with my love? They have shown me fates and fears, Harsh springs, and fountains bitterer than the sea, Grief a fixed star, and joy a vane that veers, These many years.
With her, my Love, - with her have they done well? But who shall answer for her? who shall tell Sweet things or sad, such things as no man hears? May no tears fall, if no tears ever fell, From eyes more dear to me than starriest spheres, These many years!
But if tears ever touched, for any grief, Those eyelids folded like a white-rose leaf, Deep double shells where through the eye-flower peers, Let them weep once more only, sweet and brief, Brief tears and bright, for one who gave her tears These many years!
Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]
THE OBLATION
Ask nothing more of me, sweet; All I can give you I give. Heart of my heart, were it more, More would be laid at your feet: Love that should help you to live, Song that should spur you to soar.
All things were nothing to give Once to have sense of you more, Touch you and taste of you, sweet, Think you and breathe you and live, Swept of your wings as they soar, Trodden by chance of your feet.
I that have love and no more Give you but love of you, sweet: He that hath more, let him give; He that hath wings, let him soar; Mine is the heart at your feet Here, that must love you to live.
Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]
THE SONG OF THE BOWER From "The House of Life"
Say, is it day, is it dusk in thy bower, Thou whom I long for, who longest for me? Oh! be it light, be it night, 'tis Love's hour, Love's that is fettered as Love's that is free. Free Love has leaped to that innermost chamber, Oh! the last time, and the hundred before: Fettered Love, motionless, can but remember, Yet something that sighs from him passes the door.
Nay, but my heart when it flies to thy bower, What does it find there that knows it again? There it must droop like a shower-beaten flower, Red at the rent core and dark with the rain. Ah! yet what shelter is still shed above it, - What waters still image its leaves torn apart? Thy soul is the shade that clings round it to love it, And tears are its mirror deep down in thy heart.
What were my prize, could I enter thy bower, This day, to-morrow, at eve or at morn? Large lovely arms and a neck like a tower, Bosom then heaving that now lies forlorn. Kindled with love-breath, (the sun's kiss is colder!) Thy sweetness all near me, so distant to-day; My hand round thy neck and thy hand on my shoulder, My mouth to thy mouth as the world melts away.
What is it keeps me afar from thy bower, - My spirit, my body, so fain to be there? Waters engulfing or fires that devour? - Earth heaped against me or death in the air? Nay, but in day-dreams, for terror, for pity, The trees wave their heads with an omen to tell; Nay, but in night-dreams, throughout the dark city, The hours, clashed together, lose count in the bell.
Shall I not one day remember thy bower, One day when all days are one day to me? - Thinking, "I stirred not, and yet had the power," Yearning, "Ah God, if again it might be!" Peace, peace! such a small lamp illumes, on this highway, So dimly so few steps in front of my feet, - Yet shows me that her way is parted from my way. . . . Out of sight, beyond light, at what goal may we meet?
Dante Gabriel Rossetti [1828-1882]
SONG
We break the glass, whose sacred wine To some beloved health we drain, Lest future pledges, less divine, Should e'er the hallowed toy profane; And thus I broke a heart that poured Its tide of feelings out for thee, In draughts, by after-times deplored, Yet dear to memory.
But still the old, impassioned ways And habits of my mind remain, And still unhappy light displays Thine image chambered in my brain, And still it looks as when the hours Went by like flights of singing birds, Or that soft chain of spoken flowers And airy gems, - thy words.
Edward Coote Pinkney [1802-1828]
MAUD MULLER
Maud Muller on a summer's day Raked the meadow sweet with hay.
Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth Of simple beauty and rustic health.
Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee The mock-bird echoed from his tree.
But when she glanced to the far-off town, White from its hill-slope looking down,
The sweet song died, and a vague unrest And a nameless longing filled her breast, -
A wish that she hardly dared to own, For something better than she had known.
The Judge rode slowly down the lane, Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.
He drew his bridle in the shade Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,
And asked a draught from the spring that flowed Through the meadow across the road.
She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up, And filled for him her small tin cup,
And blushed as she gave it, looking down On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.
"Thanks!" said the Judge; "a sweeter draught From a fairer hand was never quaffed."
He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees, Of the singing birds and the humming bees;
Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.
And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown, And her graceful ankles bare and brown;
And listened, while a pleased surprise Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.
At last, like one who for delay Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.
Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah me! That I the Judge's bride might be!
"He would dress me up in silks so fine, And praise and toast me at his wine.
"My father should wear a broadcloth coat; My brother should sail a painted boat.
"I'd dress my mother so grand and gay, And the baby should have a new toy each day.
"And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor, And all should bless me who left our door."
The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill, And saw Maud Muller standing still.
"A form more fair, a face more sweet, Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.
"And her modest answer and graceful air Show her wise and good as she is fair.
"Would she were mine, and I to-day, Like her, a harvester of hay;
"No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs, Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,
"But low of cattle and song of birds, And health and quiet and loving words."
But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold, And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.
So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on, And Maud was left in the field alone.
But the lawyers smiled that afternoon, When he hummed in court an old love-tune;
And the young girl mused beside the well Till the rain on the unraked clover fell.
He wedded a wife of richest dower, Who lived for fashion, as he for power.