A Jongleur Strayed | Page 4

not for us their
brief and trivial doom,
In a far richer soil our loving grew,
From
deeper wells of being it upsprings;
Nor shall the wildest kiss that
makes one mouth,
Draining all nectar from the flowered world,

Slake its divine unfathomable drouth;
And, when your wings against
my heart lie furled,
With what a tenderness it dreams and sings!
ANIMA MUNDI
Let all things vanish, if but you remain;
For if you stay, beloved,
what is gone?
Yet, should you go, all permanence is vain,
And all
the piled abundance is as none.
With you beside me in the desert sand,
Your smile upon me, and on
mine your hand,
Oases green arise, and camel-bells;
For in the long
adventure of your eyes

Are all the wandering ways to Paradise.

Existence, in your being, comes and goes;
What were the garden,
love, without the rose?
In vain were ears to hear,
And eyes in vain,

Lacking your ordered music, sphere to sphere,
Blind, should your
beauty blossom not again.
The pulse that shakes the world with rhythmic beat
Is but the passing
of your little feet;
And all the singing vast of all the seas,
Down
from the pole
To the Hesperides,
Is but the praying echo of your
soul.
Therefore, beloved, know that this is true--
The world exists and
vanishes in you!
Tis not a lover's fancy; ask the sky
If all its stars
depend not, even as I,
Upon your eyelids, when they open or close;

And let the garden answer with the rose.
BALLADE OF THE UNCHANGING BÉLOVED
(TO I----a)
When rumour fain would fright my ear
With the destruction and
decay
Of things familiar and dear,
And vaunt of a swift-running day

That sweeps the fair old Past away;
Whatever else be strange and
new,
All other things may go or stay,
So that there be no change in
you.
These loud mutations others fear
Find me high-fortressed 'gainst
dismay,
They trouble not the tranquil sphere
That hallows with
immortal ray
The world where love and lovers stray
In glittering
gardens soft with dew--
O let them break and burn and slay,
So that
there be no change in you.
Let rapine its republics rear,
And murder its red sceptre sway,
Their
blood-stained riot comes not near
The quiet haven where we pray,

And work and love and laugh and play;
Unchanged, our skies are
ever blue,
Nothing can change, for all they say,--
So that there be

no change in you.
ENVOI
Princess, let wild men brag and bray,
The pure, the beautiful, the true.

Change not, and changeless we as they--
So that there be no
change in you.
LOVE'S ARITHMETIC
You often ask me, love, how much I love you,
Bidding my fancy find

An answer to your mind;
I say: "Past count, as there are stars above
you."
You shake your head and say,
"Many and bright are they,

But that is not enough."
Again I try:
"If all the leaves on all the trees
Were counted over,

And all the waves on all the seas,
More times your lover,
Yea! more
than twice ten thousand times am I."
"'Tis not enough," again you
make reply.
"How many blades of grass," one day I said,
"Are there from here to
China? how many bees
Have gathered honey through the centuries?

Tell me how many roses have bloomed red
Since the first rose till
this rose in your hair?
How many butterflies are born each year?

How many raindrops are there in a shower?
How many kisses,
darling, in an hour?"
Thereat you smiled, and shook your golden head;

"Ah! not enough!" you said.
Then said I: "Dear, it is not in my
power
To tell how much, how many ways, my love;
Unnumbered
are its ways even as all these,
Nor any depth so deep, nor height
above,
May match therewith of any stars or seas."
"I would hear
more," you smiled . . .
"Then, love," I said,
"This will I do: unbind me all this gold
Too
heavy for your head,
And, one by one, I'll count each shining thread,

And when the tale of all its wealth is told . . ."
"As much as that!"

you said--
"Then the full sum of all my love I'll speak,
To the last
unit tell the thing you ask . . ."
Thereat the gold, in gleaming torrents
shed,
Fell loose adown each cheek,
Hiding you from me; I began
my task.
"'Twill last our lives," you said.
BEAUTY'S WARDROBE
My love said she had nought to wear;
Her garments all were old,

And soon her body must go bare
Against the winter's cold.
I took her out into the dawn,
And from the mountain's crest

Unwound long wreaths of misty lawn,
And wound them round her
breast.
Then passed we to the maple grove,
Like a great hall of gold,
The
yellow and the red we wove
In rustling flounce and fold.
"Now, love," said I, "go, do it on!
And I would have you note
No
lovely lady dead and gone
Had such a petticoat."
Then span I out of milkweeds fine
Fair stockings soft and long,

And other things of quaint design
That unto maids belong.
And beads of amber and of pearl
About her neck I strung,
And in
the bronze of her thick hair
The purple grape I hung. . . .
Then led