Ionica | Page 9

and buried in the sand.?Oh no. By mortal hands I must be ferried?Unto the Tuscan strand.
You came to cheer my exile, and to lift?The weight of silence off my lips:?With you I ruled the clouds, and ocean-drift,?Meteors, and wandering ships.
Your fancies glinting on my central mind?Fell off in beams of many hues,?Soft lambent light. Yet, severed from mankind,?Not light, but heat, I lose.
I go, before my heart be chilled. Behold,?The bark that bears me waves her flag,?To chide my loitering. Back to your mountain-hold,?And flee the tyrant hag.
Away. I hear your little voices sinking?Into the wood-notes of the breeze:?I hear you say: "Enough, enough of thinking;?Love lies beyond the seas."
AMATURUS
Somewhere beneath the sun,?These quivering heart-strings prove it,?Somewhere there must be one?Made for this soul, to move it;
Some one that hides her sweetness?From neighbours whom she slights,?Nor can attain completeness,?Nor give her heart its rights;
Some one whom I could court?With no great change of manner,?Still holding reason's fort,?Though waving fancy's banner;
A lady, not so queenly?As to disdain my hand,?Yet born to smile serenely?Like those that rule the land;
Noble, but not too proud;?With soft hair simply folded,?And bright face crescent-browed,?And throat by Muses moulded;
And eyelids lightly falling?On little glistening seas,?Deep-calm, when gales are brawling,?Though stirred by every breeze:
Swift voice, like flight of dove?Through minster arches floating,?With sudden turns, when love?Gets overnear to doting;
Keen lips, that shape soft sayings?Like crystals of the snow,?With pretty half-betrayings?Of things one may not know;
Fair hand, whose touches thrill,?Like golden rod of wonder,?Which Hermes wields at will?Spirit and flesh to sunder;
Light foot, to press the stirrup?In fearlessness and glee,?Or dance, till finches chirrup,?And stars sink to the sea.
Forth, Love, and find this maid,?Wherever she be hidden:?Speak, Love, be not afraid,?But plead as thou art bidden;
And say, that he who taught thee?His yearning want and pain,?Too dearly, dearly bought thee?To part with thee in vain.
MORTEM, QUAE VIOLAT SUAVI A PELLIT AMOR
The plunging rocks, whose ravenous throats?The sea in wrath and mockery fills,?The smoke, that up the valley floats,?The girlhood of the growing hills;
The thunderings from the miners' ledge,?The wild assaults on nature's hoard,?The peak, that stormward bares an edge?Ground sharp in days when Titans warred;
Grim heights, by wandering clouds embraced?Where lightning's ministers conspire,?Grey glens, with tarn and streamlet laced,?Stark forgeries of primeval fire;
These scenes may gladden many a mind?Awhile from homelier thoughts released,?And here my fellow-men may find?A Sabbath and a vision-feast.
I bless them in the good they feel;?And yet I bless them with a sigh:?On me this grandeur stamps the seal?Of tyrannous mortality.
The pitiless mountain stands so sure,?The human breast so weakly heaves;?That brains decay, while rocks endure,?At this the insatiate spirit grieves.
But hither, oh ideal bride!?For whom this heart in silence aches,?Love is unwearied as the tide,?Love is perennial as the lakes;
Come thou. The spiky crags will seem?One harvest of one heavenly year,?And fear of death, like childish dream,?Will pass and flee, when thou art here.
TWO FRAGMENTS OF CHILDHOOD
When these locks were yellow as gold,?When past days were easily told,?Well I knew the voice of the sea,?Once he spake as a friend to me.
Thunder-roarings carelessly heard,?Once that poor little heart they stirred.?Why, oh, why??Memory, Memory!?She that I wished to be with was by.
Sick was I in those misanthrope days?Of soft caresses, womanly ways;?Once that maid on the stairs I met,?Lip on brow she suddenly set.
Then flushed up my chivalrous blood?Like Swiss streams in a midsummer flood.?Then, oh, then,?Imogen, Imogen!?Hadst thou a lover, whose years were ten.
WAR MUSIC
One hour of my boyhood, one glimpse of the past,?One beam of the dawn ere the heavens were o'ercast.
I came to a castle by royalty's grace,?Forgot I was bashful, and feeble, and base.?For stepping to music I dreamt of a siege,?A vow to my mistress, a fight for my liege.?The first sound of trumpets that fell on mine ear?Set warriors around me and made me their peer.?Meseemed we were arming, the bold for the fair,?In joyous devotion and haughty despair:?The warders were waiting to draw bolt and bar,?The maidens attiring to gaze from afar:
I thought of the sally, but not the retreat,?The cause was so glorious, the dying so sweet.
I live, I am old, I return to the ground:?Blow trumpets, and still I can dream to the sound.
NUBENTI
Though the lark that upward flies?Recks not of the opening skies,?Nor discerneth grey from blue,?Nor the rain-drop from the dew:?Yet the tune which no man taught?So can quicken human thought,?That the startled fancies spring?Faster far than voice or wing.
And the songstress as she floats?Rising on her buoyant notes,?Though she may the while refuse?Homage to the nobler Muse,?Though she cannot truly tell?How her voice hath wrought the spell,?Fills the listener's eyes with tears,?Lifts him to the inner spheres.
Lark, thy morning song is done;?Overhead the silent sun?Bids thee pause. But he that heard?Such a strain must bless the bird.?Lady, thou hast hushed too soon?Sounds that cheered