Silverpoints

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Title: Silverpoints
Author: John Gray
Release Date: April 24, 2007 [EBook #21211]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
0. START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
SILVERPOINTS ***
Produced by Ruth Hart [email protected]
Transcriber's note: In the original text all the verse titles and
dedications are in regular type, while all the stanzas are italicized. I
have not indicated these different styles in this online text.
SILVERPOINTS
BY
JOHN GRAY
LONDON M.DCCC.XC.III
ELKIN MATHEWS AND
JOHN
LANE. AT THE
SIGN OF THE BODLEY
HEAD IN VIGO
STREET
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

. . . EN COMPOSANT DES ACROSTICHES INDOLENTS
P.V.
LES DEMOISELLES DE SAUVE
TO S. A. S. ALICE, PRINCESSE DE MONACO
Beautiful ladies through the orchard pass;
Bend under crutched-up
branches, forked and low;
Trailing their samet palls o'er
dew-drenched grass.
Pale blossoms, looking on proud Jacqueline,
Blush to the colour of
her finger tips,
And rosy knuckles, laced with yellow lace.
High-crested Berthe discerns, with slant, clinched eyes,
Amid the
leaves pink faces of the skies;
She locks her plaintive hands
Sainte-Margot-wise.
Ysabeau follows last, with languorous pace;
Presses, voluptuous, to
her bursting lips.
With backward stoop, a bunch of eglantine.
Courtly ladies through the orchard pass;
Bow low, as in lords' halls;
and springtime grass
Tangles a snare to catch the tapering toe.
HEART'S DEMESNE
TO PAUL VERLAINE
Listen, bright lady, thy deep Pansie eyes
Made never answer when
my eyes did pray,
Than with those quaintest looks of blank surprise.
But my love longing has devised a way
To mock thy living image,
from thy hair
To thy rose toes and keep thee by alway.
My garden's face is oh! so maidly fair,
With limbs all tapering and
with hues all fresh;
Thine are the beauties all that flourish there.

Amaranth, fadeless, tells me of thy flesh.
Briar rose knows thy cheek,
the Pink thy pout.
Bunched kisses dangle from the Woodbine mesh.
I love to loll, when Daisy stars peep out,
And hear the music of my
garden dell,
Hollyhock's laughter and the Sunflowers shout.
And many whisper things I dare not tell.
SONG OF THE SEEDLING
TO ARTHUR SEWELL BUTT
Tell, little seedling, murmuring germ,
Why are you joyful? What do
you sing?
Have you no fear of that crawling thing,
Him that has so
many legs? and the worm?
Rain drops patter above my head--
Drip, drip, drip.
To moisten the mould where my roots are fed--
Sip, sip, sip.
No thought have I of the legged thing.
Of the worm no fear,
When the goal is so near;
Every moment my
life has run,
The livelong day I've not ceased to sing:
I must reach
the sun, the sun.
LADY EVELYN
I know no Name too sweet to tell of her,
For Love's sweet Sake and
Domination.
She hath me all; her Spell hath Power to stir
My Heart
to every Lust, and spur me on.
Love saith: 'tis even thus; her Will no
Thrall,
But Touchstone of thy Worth in Love's Armure;
They only
conquer in Love's Lists that fall,
And Wounds renewed for Wounds
are captain Cure.
He doubly is inslaved that gilts his Chain,
Saith
Reason, chaffering for his Empire gone,
Bestir, and root the Canker
that hath ta'en
Thy Breast for Bed, and feeds thy Heart upon.

I this: Sweet Love, an sweet an sour thou be,
I know no Name too
sweet to tell of thee.
COMPLAINT
TO FELIX FÉNÉON
Men, women, call thee so or so;
I do not know.
Thou hast no name
For me, but in my heart aflame
Burns tireless, neath a silver vine.
And round entwine
Its purple girth
All things of fragrance and of
worth.
Thou shout! thou burst of light! thou throb
Of pain! thou sob!
Thou like a bar
Of some sonata, heard from far
Through blue-hue'd veils! When in these wise,
To my soul's eyes,
Thy shape appears,
My aching hands are full of
tears.
A HALTING SONNET
TO MISS ELLEN TERRY ON HER BIRTHDAY
It is not meet for one like me to praise
A lady, princess, goddess,
artist such;
For great ones crane their foreheads to her touch,
To
change their splendours into crowns of bays.
But poets never rhyme
as they are bid;
Nor never see their ft goal; but aspire,
With
straining eyes, to some far silvern spire;
Flowers among, sing to the
gods cloud-hid.
One of these, onetime, opened velvet eyes
Upon
the world--the years recall the day;
Those lights still shine, conscious
of power alway,
But flattering men with feigned looks of surprise.

The couplet is so great that, where thou art,
--Thou being a poem--it
is past my art.
WINGS IN THE DARK
TO ROBERT HARBOROUGH SHERARD
Forth into the warm darkness faring wide--
More silent momently the
silent quay--
Towards where the ranks of boats rock to the