A Jongleur Strayed Part 4

THE LAST TRYST

The cowbells wander through the woods, 'Neath arching boughs a stream slips by, In all the ferny solitude A chipmunk and a b.u.t.terfly Are all that is--and you and I.

This summer day, with all its flowers, With all its green and gold and blue, Just for a little while is ours, Just for a little--I and you: Till the stars rise and bring the dew.

One perfect day to us is given; Tomorrow--all the aching years; This is our last short day in heaven, The last of all our kisses nears-- Then life too arid even for tears.

Here, as the day ends, we two end, Two that were one, we said, for ever; We had Eternity to spend, And laughed for joy to know that never Two so divinely one could sever.

A year ago--how rich we seemed!

Like piles of gold our kisses lay, Enough to last our lives we dreamed, And lives to come, we used to say-- Yet are we at the last to-day.

The last, I say, yet scarce believe What all my heart is black with knowing; Doomed, I yet watch for some reprieve, But know too well that love is going, As sure as yonder stream is flowing.

Look round us how the hot sun burns In plots of glory here and there, Pouring its gold among the ferns: So burned my lips upon your hair, So rained our kisses, love, last year.

We saw not where a shadow loomed, That, from its first auroral hour, Our happy paradise fore-doomed; A Fate within whose icy power Love blooms as helpless as a flower.

Its shadow by the dial stands, The golden moments shudder past, Soon shall he smite apart our hands, In vain we hold each other fast, And the last kiss must come at last.

The last! then be it charged with fire, With sacred pa.s.sion wild and white, With such a glory of desire, We two shall vanish in its light, And find each other in G.o.d's sight.

THE HEART ON THE SLEEVE

I wore my heart upon my sleeve, Tis most unwise, they say, to do-- But then how could I but believe The foolish thing was safe with you?

Yet, had I known, 'twas safer far With wolves and tigers, the wild sea Were kinder to it than you are-- Sweetheart, how you must laugh at me!

Yet am I glad I did not know That creatures of such tender bloom, Beneath their sanctuary snow, Were such cold ministers of doom; For had I known, as I began To love you, ere we flung apart, I had not been so glad a man As holds his lady to his heart.

And am I lonely here to-night With empty eyes, the cause is this, Your face it was that gave me sight, My heart ran over with your kiss.

Still do I think that what I laid Before the altar of your face, Flower of words that shall not fade, Were worthy of a moment's grace;

Some thoughtless, lightly dropped largesse, A touch of your immortal hand Laid on my brow in tenderness, Though you could never understand.

And yet with hungered lips to touch Your feet of pearl and in your face To look a little was over-much-- In heaven is no such fair a place As, broken-hearted, at your feet To lie there and to kiss them, sweet.

AT HER FEET

My head is at your feet, Two Cytherean doves, The same, O cruel sweet, As were the Queen of Love's; They brush my dreaming brows With silver fluttering beat, Here in your golden house, Beneath your feet.

No man that draweth breath Is in such happy case: My heart to itself saith-- Though kings gaze on her face, I would not change my place; To lie here is more sweet, Here at her feet.

As one in a green land Beneath a rose-bush lies, Two petals in his hand, With shut and dreaming eyes, And hears the rustling stir, As the young morning goes, Shaking abroad the myrrh Of each awakened rose; So to me lying there Comes the soft breath of her,-- O cruel sweet!-- There at her feet.

O little careless feet That scornful tread Upon my dreaming head, As little as the rose Of him who lies there knows Nor of what dreams may be Beneath your feet; Know you of me, Ah! dreams of your fair head, Its golden treasure spread, And all your moonlit snows, Yea! all your beauty's rose That blooms to-day so fair And smells so sweet-- Shoulders of ivory, And b.r.e.a.s.t.s of myrrh-- Under my feet.

RELIQUIAE

This is all that is left--this letter and this rose!

And do you, poor dreaming things, for a moment suppose That your little fire shall burn for ever and ever on, And this great fire be, all but these ashes, gone?

Flower! of course she is--but is she the only flower?

She must vanish like all the rest at the funeral hour, And you that love her with brag of your all-conquering thew, What, in the eyes of the G.o.ds, tall though you be, are you?

You and she are no more--yea! a little less than we; And what is left of our loving is little enough to see; Sweet the relics thereof--a rose, a letter, a glove-- That in the end is all that remains of the mightiest love.

Six-foot two! what of that? for Death is taller than he; And, every moment, Death gathers flowers as fair as she; And nothing you two can do, or plan or purpose or dream, But will go the way of the wind and go the way of the stream.

LOVE'S PROUD FAREWELL

I am too proud of loving thee, too proud Of the sweet months and years that now have end, To feign a heart indifferent to this loss, Too thankful-happy that the G.o.ds allowed Our orbits cross, Beloved and lovely friend; And though I wend Lonely henceforth along a road grown gray, I shall not be all lonely on the way, Companioned with the attar of thy rose, Though in my garden it no longer blows.

Thou canst not give elsewhere thy gifts to me, Or only seem to give; Yea, not so fugitive The glory that hath hallowed me and thee, Not thou or I alone that marvel wrought Immortal is the paradise of thought, Nor ours to destroy, Born of our hearts together, where bright streams Ran through the woods for joy, That heaven of our dreams.

There shall it shine Under green boughs, So long as May and June bring leaves and flowers, Couches of moss and fern and woven bowers, Still thine and mine, A golden house; And, perchance, e'er the winter that takes all, I, there alone in the deep listening wood, Shall hear thy lost foot-fall, And, scarce believing the beat.i.tude, Shall know thee there, Wild heart to wild heart pressed, And wrap me in the splendour of thine hair, And laugh within thy breast.

THE ROSE HAS LEFT THE GARDEN

The Rose has left the garden, Here she but faintly lives, Lives but for me, Within this little urn of pot-pourri Of all that was And never more can be, While her black berries harden On the wind-shaken tree.

Yet if my song a little fragrance gives, 'Tis not all loss, Something I save From the sweet grave Wherein she lies, Something she gave That never dies, Something that may still live In these my words That draw from her their breath, And fain would be her birds Still in her death.

II

THE GARDENS OF ADONIS

Beloved, I would tell a ghostly thing That hides beneath the simple name of Spring; Wild beyond hope the news--the dead return, The shapes that slept, their breath a frozen mist, Ascend from out sarcophagus and urn, Lips that were dust new redden to be kissed, Fires that were quenched re-burn.

The gardens of Adonis bloom again, Proserpina may hold the lad no more, That in her arms the winter through hath lain; Up flings he from the hollow-sounding door, Where Love hath bruised her rosy breast in vain: Ah! through their tears--the happy April rain-- They, like two stars aflame, together run, Then lift immortal faces in the sun.

A faint far music steals from underground, And to the spirit's ear there comes the sound, The whisper vague, and rustle delicate, Of myriad atoms stirring in their trance That for the lifted hand of Order wait, Taking their stations in the cosmic dance, Mate linked to mystic mate.