I think his eyes with quick hot tears grew dim;He scarcely saw her swaying white and slim, And trembling slightly, dreaming of his might, Nor knew he touched her hand, as strangely light As a wan wraith's beside a river's rim.
The other maidens raised their eyes to see And only she has hid her face away, And yet I ween she loved him more than they, And very fairly fashioned was her face.
Yet for Love's shame and sweet humility, She dared not meet him with their queenlike grace.
To an Aeolian HarpThe winds have grown articulate in thee, And voiced again the wail of ancient woe That smote upon the winds of long ago:
The cries of Trojan women as they flee, The quivering moan of pale Andromache, Now lifted loud with pain and now brought low.
It is the soul of sorrow that we know, As in a shell the soul of all the sea.
So sometimes in the compass of a song, Unknown to him who sings, thro' lips that live, The voiceless dead of long-forgotten lands Proclaim to us their heaviness and wrong In sweeping sadness of the winds that give Thy strings no rest from weariless wild hands.
To ErinnaWas Time not harsh to you, or was he kind, O pale Erinna of the perfect lyre, That he has left no word of singing fire Whereby you waked the dreaming Lesbian wind, And kindled night along the lyric shore?
O girl whose lips Erato stooped to kiss, Do you go sorrowing because of this In fields where poets sing forevermore?
Or are you glad and is it best to be A silent music men have never heard, A dream in all our souls that we may say:
"Her voice had all the rapture of the sea, And all the clear cool quiver of a bird Deep in a forest at the break of day"?
To Cleis"I have a fair daughter with a form like a golden flower, Cleis, the beloved."Sapphic fragment.
When the dusk was wet with dew, Cleis, did the muses nine Listen in a silent line While your mother sang to you?
Did they weep or did they smile When she crooned to still your cries, She, a muse in human guise, Who forsook her lyre awhile?
Did you feel her wild heart beat?
Did the warmth of all the sun Thro' your little body run When she kissed your hands and feet?
Did your fingers, babywise, Touch her face and touch her hair, Did you think your mother fair, Could you bear her burning eyes?
Are the songs that soothed your fears Vanished like a vanished flame, Save the line where shines your name Starlike down the graying years?
Cleis speaks no word to me, For the land where she has gone Lieth mute at dusk and dawn Like a windless tideless sea.
Paris in SpringThe city's all a-shining Beneath a fickle sun, A gay young wind's a-blowing, The little shower is done.
But the rain-drops still are clinging And falling one by one --Oh it's Paris, it's Paris, And spring-time has begun.
I know the Bois is twinkling In a sort of hazy sheen, And down the Champs the gray old arch Stands cold and still between.
But the walk is flecked with sunlight Where the great acacias lean, Oh it's Paris, it's Paris, And the leaves are growing green.
The sun's gone in, the sparkle's dead, There falls a dash of rain, But who would care when such an air Comes blowing up the Seine?
And still Ninette sits sewing Beside her window-pane, When it's Paris, it's Paris, And spring-time's come again.
Madeira from the SeaOut of the delicate dream of the distance an emerald emerges Veiled in the violet folds of the air of the sea;Softly the dream grows awakening -- shimmering white of a city, Splashes of crimson, the gay bougainvillea, the palms.
High in the infinite blue of its heaven a quiet cloud lingers, Lost and forgotten of winds that have fallen asleep, Fallen asleep to the tune of a Portuguese song in a garden.
City VignettesI
DawnThe greenish sky glows up in misty reds, The purple shadows turn to brick and stone, The dreams wear thin, men turn upon their beds, And hear the milk-cart jangle by alone.
II
DuskThe city's street, a roaring blackened stream Walled in by granite, thro' whose thousand eyes A thousand yellow lights begin to gleam, And over all the pale untroubled skies.
III
Rain at NightThe street-lamps shine in a yellow line Down the splashy, gleaming street, And the rain is heard now loud now blurred By the tread of homing feet.
By the SeaBeside an ebbing northern sea While stars awaken one by one, We walk together, I and he.
He woos me with an easy grace That proves him only half sincere;A light smile flickers on his face.
To him love-making is an art, And as a flutist plays a flute, So does he play upon his heartA music varied to his whim.
He has no use for love of mine, He would not have me answer him.
To hide my eyes within the night I watch the changeful lighthouse gleam Alternately with red and white.
My laughter smites upon my ears, So one who cries and wakes from sleep Knows not it is himself he hears.
What if my voice should let him know The mocking words were all a sham, And lips that laugh could tremble so?
What if I lost the power to lie, And he should only hear his name In one low, broken cry?
On the Death of SwinburneHe trod the earth but yesterday, And now he treads the stars.
He left us in the April time He praised so often in his rhyme, He left the singing and the lyre and went his way.
He drew new music from our tongue, A music subtly wrought, And moulded words to his desire, As wind doth mould a wave of fire;From strangely fashioned harps slow golden tones he wrung.
I think the singing understands That he who sang is still, And Iseult cries that he is dead, --Does not Dolores bow her head And Fragoletta weep and wring her little hands?
New singing now the singer hears To lyre and lute and harp;Catullus waits to welcome him, And thro' the twilight sweet and dim, Sappho's forgotten songs are falling on his ears.
TrioletsI
Love looked back as he took his flight, And lo, his eyes were filled with tears.
Was it for love of lost delight Love looked back as he took his flight?
Only I know while day grew night, Turning still to the vanished years, Love looked back as he took his flight, And lo, his eyes were filled with tears.
II
