when
Will all thy sombre musings rise again?
O, how the light drifts from the hemlock grove,
How in the night disarmed Desires do rove!
A Better Woe
Of all my desert days
Thou art the only one
Upon whose sandy face
A strip of pleasure’s foliage trembling grows;
Of all the winding ways.
Which with my rapture shone
But one can I retrace,
And there the barren breast of beauty glows.
Of all the dread desires,
That beat within me still,
One shakes the sacred fear
And hurls me into the arms of her below;
But oh, how life suspires—
How soon after the thrill
Of joy I shudder, I hear
My murmuring soul pine for a better woe.
The First and Last
O kiss me now; the end is near
The bright beginning; kiss me, dear.
I would not that thou shouldst one day
In bitter thought remembering say:
“When in the high tide of our bliss
Upon these lips I slew the kiss
That should have lived.” The kiss I fear—
The poison, ah, the lie, my dear.
Fear not; O kiss me whilst I can’t
Refuse; am I to-morrow thine?
Wilt thou be near me when I pant?
I shall not go; thou wilt not pine.
Sweet thoughts!—Alas, the first, the last!
Nay, nay! I cling to thee: the past
Is dying in the lap of night
In which our star is shining bright.
The fingers in the shadow, there!
What are they weaving? Look, a shroud!
Come, purse thy lips; do not despair;
Take hold my hand and speak aloud.
No, no! For whom that shroud, for whom?
Not for our love—not for our joy?
Then seal thou with thy lips my doom,
Ay, with a kiss this life destroy!
In the Meadow
The shadow of thy curls I see
Upon thy lovely face;
And just a little wish is mine—
The shadow to embrace.
On thy black and silken tresses,
Ah, one longs to feast the sight;
But the shadows of their beauty,
Hanging on thy cheeks of light,
From my lips, exact a tribute,
Which I pay here in this meadow:
Blush not, my most winsome maiden;
I have only kissed the shadow.
O, Sweet Sometime
O, sweet Sometime, the gardens bloom the while I wait;
Each moment melts a tear of joy before thy gate;
It is thy pleasure that I burn—it is my fate,
O, sweet Sometime!
O, when the moment in this interval is born.
When through this sleeping splendor breaks the lingering morn,
And when thy sensual silence laughs my noise to scorn—
O, sweet Sometime!
Spare me the vacant moment yet—O just awhile;
Expectancy, thy sweetest daughter, will beguile
My yearning hours; the shades reflected by her smile
Are now my haunts, O sweet Sometime.
The waiting while, O sweet Sometime, I can enjoy;
Thy heralding shadows every beating pang destroy,
And with their breath of musk and myrrh my soul they cloy,
O, sweet Sometime!
I tremble, I forget, I throb when once I hear
The dying interval announcing thou are near;
A touch, a groan, a kiss and thou wilt disappear,
With bitten lip, O, sweet Sometime!
And then the memory—O, how it will oppress!
Far sweeter is Expectancy—ah, let me press
The vigor from her limbs to mine; I’ll yet caress
The waiting while, O, sweet Sometime!
A Bed of Flame
I saw one day on the horizon grey,
As with my load I wandered near the sea,
A whiff of smoke embrace the sleeping sun;
And just as their enchantment had begun,
A lonely cloud that roved above the lea
Passed by their couch and hid them from the day.
I saw this and my soul, long silent, cried:
“Would that I were the whiff of smoke
Now sleeping with the sun!
In beds of flame, how often was I tried—
How often have I ’neath the stroke
Of God or Satan shone!”
The Sister of Death
Ah, talk to me of something else, I pray;
I’m weary of the dreams that bring nor sleep,
Nor rest, nor love, nor something from the deep,
Where buried are the gods of yesterday;
Ah, talk to me of Death that takes away
My little sorrows, as they hide and peep,
My little joys, as they disport and leap,
My little vanities, my budless May.
The burden of my virtues and my sins,
The burden of authority that grins
At every effort, ah, the burden kills;
I know that Death a Sister hath, but where,
Where can I find thee, Love, when shall I share
The sweetness of the silence of the hills?
Retribution
How I did hold in deep contempt
The slaves and queens of love!
How I disguised my feelings when
I met a deer or a dove!
How I did smile and sniff and rail
At lovers young and old;
How I denied, in days gone by,
O love, thy charms untold!
But now, alas! I find myself
In chains at Beauty’s shrine:
The chains whose power I have denied
Are sapping, sapping mine.
Let Thine Eyes Whisper
Grieve not, for I am near thee;
Sigh not, for I can hear thee;
Wash from thy heart all memory of past wrong;
Doubt not that doubts besmear thee;
Speak not, for I do fear thee;
Let thine eyes whisper love’s conciling song.
Lilatu Laili
At night on the radiant Rialto,
By the stars in their houses of glass,
I strolled with my soul in my pocket
And prayed that my night might not pass;
I have seen ’neath the high heels of Beauty
My heart and my soul and my shame;
That form! O, how often it lured me,
And how often I lost in the game!
And how often I walked in the shadow
Of a Laila a mile and a mile!
But the rapture and bliss of a vision
Would end in a great gush of bile.
To the hints that her garment would whisper
I have listened but I would not dare;
I have seen every one of my fancies
Retreat in the dark of her hair.
I have wished that each building around us
Was a cedar, a poplar, a pine;
That the men and the women were statues,
And the rain that was falling was wine;
That the lights were ethereal flowers;
That the cars were
