Poems by Alan Seeger Part 14

But the long vespers close. The priest on high Raises the thing that Christ's own flesh enforms; And down the Gothic nave the crowd flows by And through the portal's carven entry swarms.

Maddened he peers upon each pa.s.sing face Till the long drab procession terminates.

No princess pa.s.ses out with proud majestic pace.

She has not come, the woman that he waits.

Back in the empty silent church alone He walks with aching heart. A white-robed boy Puts out the altar-candles one by one, Even as by inches darkens all his joy.

He dreams of the sweet night their lips first met, And groans--and turns to leave--and hesitates . . .

Poor stricken heart, he will, he can not fancy yet She will not come, the woman that he waits.

But in an arch where deepest shadows fall He sits and studies the old, storied panes, And the calm crucifix that from the wall Looks on a world that quavers and complains.

Hopeless, abandoned, desolate, aghast, On modes of violent death he meditates.

And the tower-clock tolls five, and he admits at last, She will not come, the woman that he waits.

Through the stained rose the winter daylight dies, And all the tide of anguish unrepressed Swells in his throat and gathers in his eyes; He kneels and bows his head upon his breast, And feigns a prayer to hide his burning tears, While the satanic voice reiterates 'Tonight, tomorrow, nay, nor all the impending years, She will not come,' the woman that he waits.

Fond, fervent heart of life's enamored spring, So true, so confident, so pa.s.sing fair, That thought of Love as some sweet, tender thing, And not as war, red tooth and nail laid bare, How in that hour its innocence was slain, How from that hour our disillusion dates, When first we learned thy sense, ironical refrain, She will not come, the woman that he waits.

Do You Remember Once . . .

I

Do you remember once, in Paris of glad faces, The night we wandered off under the third moon's rays And, leaving far behind bright streets and busy places, Stood where the Seine flowed down between its quiet quais?

The city's voice was hushed; the placid, l.u.s.trous waters Mirrored the walls across where orange windows burned.

Out of the starry south provoking rumors brought us Far promise of the spring already northward turned.

And breast drew near to breast, and round its soft desire My arm uncertain stole and clung there unrepelled.

I thought that nevermore my heart would hover nigher To the last flower of bliss that Nature's garden held.

There, in your beauty's sweet abandonment to pleasure, The mute, half-open lips and tender, wondering eyes, I saw embodied first smile back on me the treasure Long sought across the seas and back of summer skies.

Dear face, when courted Death shall claim my limbs and find them Laid in some desert place, alone or where the tides Of war's tumultuous waves on the wet sands behind them Leave rifts of gasping life when their red flood subsides,

Out of the past's remote delirious abysses Shine forth once more as then you shone,--beloved head, Laid back in ecstasy between our blinding kisses, Transfigured with the bliss of being so coveted.

And my sick arms will part, and though hot fever sear it, My mouth will curve again with the old, tender flame.

And darkness will come down, still finding in my spirit The dream of your brief love, and on my lips your name.

II

You loved me on that moonlit night long since.

You were my queen and I the charming prince Elected from a world of mortal men.

You loved me once. . . . What pity was it, then, You loved not Love. . . . Deep in the emerald west, Like a returning caravel caressed By breezes that load all the ambient airs With clinging fragrance of the bales it bears From harbors where the caravans come down, I see over the roof-tops of the town The new moon back again, but shall not see The joy that once it had in store for me, Nor know again the voice upon the stair, The little studio in the candle-glare, And all that makes in word and touch and glance The bliss of the first nights of a romance When will to love and be beloved casts out The want to question or the will to doubt.

You loved me once. . . . Under the western seas The pale moon settles and the Pleiades.

The firelight sinks; outside the night-winds moan -- The hour advances, and I sleep alone.*

* D /eduke m en 'a sel /anna ka i Plh /iadec, m /essai de n /uktec, p /ara d' '/erxet' '/wra '/egw de m /ona kate /udw. --Sappho.

III

Farewell, dear heart, enough of vain despairing!

If I have erred I plead but one excuse -- The jewel were a lesser joy in wearing That cost a lesser agony to lose.

I had not bid for beautifuller hours Had I not found the door so near unsealed, Nor hoped, had you not filled my arms with flowers, For that one flower that bloomed too far afield.

If I have wept, it was because, forsaken, I felt perhaps more poignantly than some The blank eternity from which we waken And all the blank eternity to come.

And I betrayed how sweet a thing and tender (In the regret with which my lip was curled) Seemed in its tragic, momentary splendor My transit through the beauty of the world.

The Bayadere

Flaked, drifting clouds hide not the full moon's rays More than her beautiful bright limbs were hid By the light veils they burned and blushed amid, Skilled to provoke in soft, lascivious ways, And there was invitation in her voice And laughing lips and wonderful dark eyes, As though above the gates of Paradise Fair verses bade, Be welcome and rejoice!

O'er rugs where mottled blue and green and red Blent in the patterns of the Orient loom, Like a bright b.u.t.terfly from bloom to bloom, She floated with delicious arms outspread.

There was no pose she took, no move she made, But all the feverous, love-envenomed flesh Wrapped round as in the gladiator's mesh And smote as with his triple-forked blade.

I thought that round her sinuous beauty curled Fierce exhalations of hot human love, -- Around her beauty valuable above The sunny outspread kingdoms of the world; Flowing as ever like a dancing fire Flowed her belled ankles and bejewelled wrists, Around her beauty swept like sanguine mists The nimbus of a thousand hearts' desire.

Eudaemon

O happiness, I know not what far seas, Blue hills and deep, thy sunny realms surround, That thus in Music's wistful harmonies And concert of sweet sound A rumor steals, from some uncertain sh.o.r.e, Of lovely things outworn or gladness yet in store:

Whether thy beams be pitiful and come, Across the sundering of vanished years, From childhood and the happy fields of home, Like eyes instinct with tears Felt through green brakes of hedge and apple-bough Round haunts delightful once, desert and silent now;

Or yet if prescience of unrealized love Startle the breast with each melodious air, And gifts that gentle hands are donors of Still wait intact somewhere, Furled up all golden in a perfumed place Within the folded petals of forthcoming days.

Only forever, in the old unrest Of winds and waters and the varying year, A litany from islands of the blessed Answers, Not here . . . not here!

And over the wide world that wandering cry Shall lead my searching heart unsoothed until I die.