Canzoni & Ripostes Part 13

[1] Asclepiades, Julia.n.u.s aegyptus.

AN IMMORALITY

Sing we for love and idleness, Naught else is worth the having.

Though I have been in many a land, There is naught else in living.

And I would rather have my sweet, Though rose-leaves die of grieving,

Than do high deeds in Hungary To pa.s.s all men's believing.

DIEU! QU'IL LA FAIT

_From Charles D'Orleans_ _For music_

G.o.d! that mad'st her well regard her, How she is so fair and bonny; For the great charms that are upon her Ready are all folk to reward her.

Who could part him from her borders When spells are alway renewed on her?

G.o.d! that mad'st her well regard her, How she is so fair and bonny.

From here to there to the sea's border, Dame nor damsel there's not any Hath of perfect charms so many.

Thoughts of her are of dream's order: G.o.d! that mad'st her well regard her.

SALVE PONTIFEX

(A.C.S.)

One after one they leave thee, High Priest of Iacchus, Intoning thy melodies as winds intone The whisperings of leaves on sunlit days.

And the sands are many And the seas beyond the sands are one In ultimate, so we here being many Are unity; nathless thy compeers, Knowing thy melody, Lulled with the wine of thy music Go seaward silently, leaving thee sentinel O'er all the mysteries, High Priest of Iacchus.

For the lines of life lie under thy fingers, And above the vari-coloured strands Thine eyes look out unto the infinitude Of the blue waves of heaven, And even as Triplex Sisterhood Thou fingerest the threads knowing neither Cause nor the ending, High Priest of Iacchus, Draw'st forth a multiplicity Of strands, and, beholding The colour thereof, raisest thy voice Towards the sunset, O High Priest of Iacchus!

And out of the secrets of the inmost mysteries Thou chantest strange far-sourced canticles: O High Priest of Iacchus!

Life and the ways of Death her Twin-born sister, that is life's counterpart, And of night and the winds of night; Silent voices ministering to the souls Of hamadryads that hold council concealed In streams and tree-shadowing Forests on hill slopes, O High Priest of Iacchus, All the manifold mystery Thou makest a wine of song, And maddest thy following even With visions of great deeds And their futility, O High Priest of Iacchus!

Though thy co-novices are bent to the scythe Of the magian wind that is voice of Persephone, Leaving thee solitary, master of initiating Maenads that come through the Vine-entangled ways of the forest Seeking, out of all the world, Madness of Iacchus, That being skilled in the secrets of the double cup They might turn the dead of the world Into paeans, O High Priest of Iacchus, Wreathed with the glory of thy years of creating Entangled music, Breathe!

Now that the evening cometh upon thee, Breathe upon us, that low-bowed and exultant Drink wine of Iacchus, that since the conquering Hath been chiefly contained in the numbers Of them that, even as thou, have woven Wicker baskets for grape cl.u.s.ters Wherein is concealed the source of the vintage, O High Priest of Iacchus, Breathe thou upon us Thy magic in parting!

Even as they thy co-novices, At being mingled with the sea, While yet thou madest thy canticles Serving upright before the altar That is bound about with shadows Of dead years wherein thy Iacchus Looked not upon the hills, that being Uncared for, praised not him in entirety.

O High Priest of Iacchus, Being now near to the border of the sands Where the sapphire girdle of the sea Encinctureth the maiden Persephone, released for the spring, Look! Breathe upon us The wonder of the thrice encinctured mystery Whereby thou being full of years art young, Loving even this lithe Persephone That is free for the seasons of plenty; Whereby thou being young art old And shalt stand before this Persephone Whom thou lovest, In darkness, even at that time That she being returned to her husband Shall be queen and a maiden no longer, Wherein thou being neither old nor young Standing on the verge of the sea Shalt pa.s.s from being sand, O High Priest of Iacchus, And becoming wave Shalt encircle all sands, Being trans.m.u.ted through all The girdling of the sea.

O High Priest of Iacchus, Breathe thou upon us!

_Note._--This apostrophe was written three years before Swinburne's death.

DORIA [Greek]

Be in me as the eternal moods of the bleak wind, and not As transient things are--gaiety of flowers.

Have me in the strong loneliness of sunless cliffs And of grey waters.

Let the G.o.ds speak softly of us In days hereafter, The shadowy flowers of Orcus Remember Thee.

THE NEEDLE

Come, or the stellar tide will slip away, Eastward avoid the hour of its decline, Now! for the needle trembles in my soul!

Here have we had our vantage, the good hour.

Here we have had our day, your day and mine.

Come now, before this power That bears us up, shall turn against the pole.

Mock not the flood of stars, the thing's to be.

O Love, come now, this land turns evil slowly.

The waves bore in, soon will they bear away.

The treasure is ours, make we fast land with it.

Move we and take the tide, with its next favour, Abide Under some neutral force Until this course turneth aside.

SUB MARE

It is, and is not, I am sane enough, Since you have come this place has hovered round me, This fabrication built of autumn roses, Then there's a goldish colour, different.

And one gropes in these things as delicate Algae reach up and out beneath Pale slow green surgings of the under-wave, 'Mid these things older than the names they have, These things that are familiars of the G.o.d.

PLUNGE

I would bathe myself in strangeness: These comforts heaped upon me, smother me!

I burn, I scald so for the new, New friends, new faces, Places!

Oh to be out of this, This that is all I wanted --save the new.

And you, Love, you the much, the more desired!

Do I not loathe all walls, streets, stones, All mire, mist, all fog, All ways of traffic?

You, I would have flow over me like water, Oh, but far out of this!