Wine, Women, and Song Part 11

So I'll be loved by you; Now I'm on fire too!"

XVI.

Some semi-descriptive pieces, which connect the songs of Spring with lyrics of a more purely personal emotion, can boast of rare beauty in the original.

The most striking of these, upon the theme of Sleep and Love, I have tried to render in trochaic verse, feeling it impossible, without knowledge of the medieval melody, to reproduce its complicated and now only half-intelligible rhythms.

A DESCANT UPON SLEEP AND LOVE.

No. 27.

When the lamp of Cynthia late Rises in her silver state, Through her brother's roseate light, Blushing on the brows of night; Then the pure ethereal air Breathes with zephyr blowing fair; Clouds and vapours disappear.

As with chords of lute or lyre, Soothed the spirits now respire, And the heart revives again Which once more for love is fain.

But the orient evening star Sheds with influence kindlier far Dews of sweet sleep on the eye Of o'er-tired mortality.

Oh, how blessed to take and keep Is the antidote of sleep!

Sleep that lulls the storms of care And of sorrow unaware, Creeping through the closed doors Of the eyes, and through the pores Breathing bliss so pure and rare That with love it may compare.

Then the G.o.d of dreams doth bring To the mind some restful thing, Breezes soft that rippling blow O'er ripe cornfields row by row, Murmuring rivers round whose brim Silvery sands the swallows skim, Or the drowsy circling sound Of old mill-wheels going round, Which with music steal the mind And the eyes in slumber bind.

When the deeds of love are done Which bland Venus had begun, Languor steals with pleasant strain Through the chambers of the brain, Eyes 'neath eyelids gently tired Swim and seek the rest desired.

How deliriously at last Into slumber love hath pa.s.sed!

But how sweeter yet the way Which leads love again to play!

From the soothed limbs upward spread Glides a mist divinely shed, Which invades the heart and head: Drowsily it veils the eyes, Bending toward sleep's paradise, And with curling vapour round Fills the lids, the senses swound, Till the visual ray is bound By those ministers which make Life renewed in man awake.

Underneath the leafy shade Of a tree in quiet laid, While the nightingale complains Singing of her ancient pains, Sweet it is still hours to pa.s.s, But far sweeter on the gra.s.s With a buxom maid to play All a summer's holiday.

When the scent of herb and flower Breathes upon the silent hour, When the rose with leaf and bloom Spreads a couch of pure perfume, Then the grateful boon of sleep Falls with satisfaction deep, Showering dews our eyes above, Tired with honeyed strife of love.

In how many moods the mind Of poor lovers, weak and blind, Wavers like the wavering wind!

As a ship in darkness lost, Without anchor tempest-tossed, So with hope and fear imbued It roams in great incert.i.tude Love's tempestuous ocean-flood.

A portion of this descant finds an echo in another lyric of the _Carmina Burana_:--

"With young leaves the wood is new; Now the nightingale is singing; And field-flowers of every hue On the sward their bloom are flinging.

Sweet it is to brush the dew From wild lawns and woody places!

Sweeter yet to wreathe the rose With the lily's virgin graces; But the sweetest sweet man knows, Is to woo a girl's embraces."

The most highly wrought of descriptive poems in this species is the _Dispute of Flora and Phyllis_, which occurs both in the _Carmina Burana_ and in the English MSS. edited by Wright. The motive of the composition is as follows:--Two girls wake in the early morning, and go out to walk together through the fields. Each of them is in love; but Phyllis loves a soldier, Flora loves a scholar. They interchange confidences, the one contending with the other for the superiority of her own sweetheart.

Having said so much, I will present the first part of the poem in the English version I have made.

FLORA AND PHYLLIS.

PART I.

No. 28.

In the spring-time, when the skies Cast off winter's mourning, And bright flowers of every hue Earth's lap are adorning, At the hour when Lucifer Gives the stars their warning, Phyllis woke, and Flora too, In the early morning.

Both the girls were fain to go Forth in sunny weather, For love-laden bosoms throw Sleep off like a feather; Then with measured steps and slow To the fields together Went they, seeking pastime new 'Mid the flowers and heather.

Both were virgins, both, I ween, Were by birth princesses; Phyllis let her locks flow free, Flora trained her tresses.

Not like girls they went, but like Heavenly holinesses; And their faces shone like dawn 'Neath the day's caresses.

Equal beauty, equal birth, These fair maidens mated; Youthful were the years of both, And their minds elated; Yet they were a pair unpaired, Mates by strife unmated; For one loved a clerk, and one For a knight was fated.

Naught there was of difference 'Twixt them to the seeing, All alike, within without, Seemed in them agreeing; With one garb, one cast of mind, And one mode of being, Only that they could not love Save with disagreeing.

In the tree-tops overhead A spring breeze was blowing, And the meadow lawns around With green gra.s.s were growing; Through the gra.s.s a rivulet From the hill was flowing, Lively, with a pleasant sound Garrulously going.

That the girls might suffer less From the noon resplendent, Near the stream a spreading pine Rose with stem ascendant; Crowned with boughs and leaves aloft, O'er the fields impendent; From all heat on every hand Airily defendent.

On the sward the maidens sat, Naught that seat surpa.s.ses; Phyllis near the rivulet, Flora 'mid the gra.s.ses; Each into the chamber sweet Of her own soul pa.s.ses, Love divides their thoughts, and wounds With his shafts the la.s.ses.

Love within the breast of each, Hidden, unsuspected, Lurks and draws forth sighs of grief From their hearts dejected: Soon their ruddy cheeks grow pale, Conscious, love-affected; Yet their pa.s.sion tells no tale, By soft shame protected.

Phyllis now doth overhear Flora softly sighing: Flora with like luck detects Sigh to sigh replying.

Thus the girls exchange the game, Each with other vying; Till the truth leaps out at length, Plain beyond denying.

Long this interchange did last Of mute conversation; All of love-sighs fond and fast Was that dissertation.

Love was in their minds, and Love Made their lips his station; Phyllis then, while Flora smiled, Opened her oration.

"Soldier brave, my love!" she said, "Where is now my Paris?

Fights he in the field, or where In the wide word tarries?

Oh, the soldier's life, I swear, All life's glory carries; Only valour clothed in arms With Dame Venus marries!"

Phyllis thus opens the question whether a soldier or a scholar be the fitter for love. Flora responds, and for some time they conduct the dispute in true scholastic fashion. Being unable to settle it between themselves, they resolve to seek out Love himself, and to refer the matter to his judgment. One girl mounts a mule, the other a horse; and these are no ordinary animals, for Neptune reared one beast as a present to Venus, Vulcan forged the metal-work of bit and saddle, Minerva embroidered the trappings, and so forth. After a short journey they reach the Garden of Love, which is described with a truly luxuriant wealth of imagery. It resembles some of the earlier Renaissance pictures, especially one of great excellence by a German artist which I once saw in a dealer's shop at Venice, and which ought now to grace a public gallery.

FLORA AND PHYLLIS.

PART III.

No. 29.