English Poems | Page 3

from which the sun has gone?Trembles all night with all the stars he gave?A firmament of memories of the sun,--?So thrilled and thrilled each life when that great kiss was done.
But coward shame that had no word to say?In passion's hour, with sudden icy clang?Slew the bright morn, and through the tarnished day?An iron bell from light to darkness rang:?She shut her ears because a throstle sang,?She dare not hear the little innocent bird,?And a white flower made her poor head to hang--?To be so white! once she was white as curd,?But now--'Alack!' 'Alack!' She speaks no other word.
The pearly line on yonder hills afar?Within the dawn, when mounts the lark and sings?By the great angel of the morning star,--?That was his love, and all free fair fresh things?That move and glitter while the daylight springs:?To thus know love, and yet to spoil love thus!?To lose the dream--O silly beating wings--?Great dream so splendid and miraculous:?O Lord, O Lord, have mercy, have mercy upon us.
She turned her mind upon the holy ones?Whose love lost here was love in heaven tenfold,?She thought of Lucy, that most blessed of nuns?Who sent her blue eyes on a plate of gold?To him who wooed her daily for her love--?'Mine eyes!' 'Mine eyes!' 'Here,--go in peace, they are!' But ever love came through the midnight grove,?Young Love, with wild eyes watching from afar,?And called and called and called until the morning star.
Ah, poor Francesca, 'tis not such as thou?That up the stony steeps of heaven climb;?Take thou thy heaven with thy Paolo now--?Sweet saint of sin, saint of a deathless rhyme,?Song shall defend thee at the bar of Time,?Dante shall set thy fair young glowing face?On the dark background of his theme sublime,?And Thou and He in your superb disgrace?Still on that golden wind of passion shall embrace.

So love this twain, but whither have they passed??Ah me, that dark must always follow day,?That Love's last kiss is surely kissed at last,?Howe'er so wildly the poor lips may pray:?Merciful God, is there no other way??And pen, O must thou of the ending write,?The hour Lanciotto found them where they lay,?Folded together, weary with delight,?Within the sumptuous petals of the rose of night.
Yea, for Lanciotto found them: many an hour?Ere their dear joy had run its doomèd date,?Had they, in silken nook and blossomed bower,?All unsuspect the blessed apple ate,?Who now must grind its core predestinate.?Kiss, kiss, poor losing lovers, nor deny?One little tremor of its bliss, for Fate?Cometh upon you, and the dark is nigh?Where all, unkissed, unkissing, learn at length to lie.
Bent on some journey of the state's concern?They deemed him, and indeed he rode thereon?But questioned Paolo--'What if he return!'?'Nay, love, indeed he is securely gone?As thou art surely here, beloved one,?He went ere sundown, and our moon is here--?A fear, love, in this heart that yet knew none!'?How could he fright that little velvet ear?With last night's dream and all its ghostly fear!
So did he yield him to her eager breast,?And half forgot, but could not quite forget,?No sweetest kiss could put that fear to rest,?And all its haggard vision chilled him yet;?Their warder moon in nameless trouble set,?There seemed a traitor echo in the place,?A moaning wind that moaned for lovers met,?And once above her head's deep sunk embrace?He saw--Death at the window with his yellow face.
Had that same dream caught old Lanciotto's reins,?Bent in a weary huddle on his steed,?In darkling haste along the blindfold lanes,?Making a clattering halt in all that speed:--?'Fool! fool!' he cried, 'O dotard fool, indeed,?So ho! they wanton while the old man rides,'?And on the night flashed pictures of the deed.?'Come!'--and he dug his charger's panting sides,?And all the homeward dark tore by in roaring tides.
As some great lord of acres when a thief?Steals from his park some flower he never sees,?Calls it a lily fair beyond belief,?Prisons the wretch, and fines before he frees;?Such jealous madness did Lanciotto seize:?All in an instant is Francesca dear,?He claims the wife he never cared to please,?All in an instant seems his castle near,--?And those poor lovers sleep, forgot at last their fear.
His horse left steaming at his journey's end,?Up through his palace stairs with springing tread?He strode; the silence met him like a friend,?Fain to dissuade him from that deed of dread,?Making a breeze about his burning head,?Laying large hands of comfort on his soul;?Within the ashes of his cheek burned red?A long-shut rose of youth, as to the goal?Of death he sped, as once to love's own tryst he stole.
He caught a sound as of a rose's breath,?He caught another breath of deeper lung,?Rose-leaves and oak-leaves on the wind of death;?He drew aside the arras where they clung?In the dim light, so lovely and so young--?They lay in sin as in a cradle there,?Twin babes that in