| SWEET are the rosy memories of the lips | |
| That first kiss'd ours, albeit they kiss no more: | |
| Sweet is the sight of sunset-sailing ships, | |
| Altho' they leave us on a lonely shore: | |
| Sweet are familiar songs, tho' Music dips | 5 |
| Her hollow shell in Thought's forlornest wells: | |
| And sweet, tho' sad, the sound of midnight bells | |
| When the oped casement with the night-rain drips. | |
| |
| There is a pleasure which is born of pain: | |
| The grave of all things hath its violet. | 10 |
| Else why, thro' days which never come again, | |
| Roams Hope with that strange longing, like Regret? | |
| Why put the posy in the cold dead hand? | |
| Why plant the rose above the lonely grave? | |
| Why bring the corpse across the salt sea-wave? | 15 |
| Why deem the dead more near in native land? | |
| |
| Thy name hath been a silence in my life | |
| So long, it falters upon language now, | |
| O more to me than sister or than wife | |
| Once ... and now—nothing! It is hard to know | 20 |
| That such things have been, and are not; and yet | |
| Life loiters, keeps a pulse at even measure, | |
| And goes upon its business and its pleasure, | |
| And knows not all the depths of its regret.... | |
| |
| Ah, could the memory cast her spots, as do | 25 |
| The snake's brood theirs in spring! and be once more | |
| Wholly renew'd, to dwell i' the time that 's new, | |
| With no reiterance of those pangs of yore. | |
| Peace, peace! My wild song will go wandering | |
| Too wantonly, down paths a private pain | 30 |
| Hath trodden bare. What was it jarr'd the strain? | |
| Some crush'd illusion, left with crumpled wing | |
| |
| Tangled in Music's web of twinèd strings— | |
| That started that false note, and crack'd the tune | |
| In its beginning. Ah, forgotten things | 35 |
| Stumble back strangely! and the ghost of June | |
| Stands by December's fire, cold, cold! and puts | |
| The last spark out.—How could I sing aright | |
| With those old airs haunting me all the night | |
| And those old steps that sound when daylight shuts? | 40 |
| |
| For back she comes, and moves reproachfully, | |
| The mistress of my moods, and looks bereft | |
| (Cruel to the last!) as tho' 'twere I, not she, | |
| That did the wrong, and broke the spell, and left | |
| Memory comfortless.—Away! away! | 45 |
| Phantoms, about whose brows the bindweed clings, | |
| Hopeless regret! In thinking of these things | |
| Some men have lost their minds, and others may. | |
| |
| Yet, O for one deep draught in this dull hour! | |
| One deep, deep draught of the departed time! | 50 |
| O for one brief strong pulse of ancient power, | |
| To beat and breathe thro' all the valves of rhyme! | |
| Thou, Memory, with thy downward eyes, that art | |
| The cup-bearer of gods, pour deep and long, | |
| Brim all the vacant chalices of song | 55 |
| With health! Droop down thine urn. I hold my heart | |
| |
| One draught of what I shall not taste again | |
| Save when my brain with thy dark wine is brimm'd,— | |
| One draught! and then straight onward, spite of pain, | |
| And spite of all things changed, with gaze undimm'd, | 60 |
| Love's footsteps thro' the waning Past to explore | |
| Undaunted; and to carve in the wan light | |
| Of Hope's last outposts, on Song's utmost height, | |
| The sad resemblance of an hour or more. | |
| |
| Midnight, and love, and youth, and Italy! | 65 |
| Love in the land where love most lovely seems! | |
| Land of my love, tho' I be far from thee, | |
| Lend, for love's sake, the light of thy moonbeams, | |
| The spirit of thy cypress-groves and all | |
| Thy dark-eyed beauty for a little while | 70 |
| To my desire. Yet once more let her smile | |
| Fall o'er me: o'er me let her long hair fall.... | |
| |
| Under the blessèd darkness unreproved | |
| We were alone, in that best hour of time | |
| Which first reveal'd to us how much we loved, | 75 |
| 'Neath the thick starlight. The young night sublime | |
| Hung trembling o'er us. At her feet I knelt, | |
| And gazed up from her feet into her eyes. | |
| Her face was bow'd: we breathed each other's sighs: | |
| We did not speak: not move: we look'd: we felt. | 80 |
| |
| The night said not a word. The breeze was dead. | |
| The leaf lay without whispering on the tree, | |
| As I lay at her feet. Droop'd was her head: | |
| One hand in mine: and one still pensively | |
| Went wandering through my hair. We were together. | 85 |
| How? Where? What matter? Somewhere in a dream, | |
| Drifting, slow drifting down a wizard stream: | |
| Whither? Together: then what matter whither? | |
| |
| It was enough for me to clasp her hand: | |
| To blend with her love-looks my own: no more. | 90 |
| Enough (with thoughts like ships that cannot land, | |
| Blown by faint winds about a magic shore) | |
| To realize, in each mysterious feeling, | |
| The droop of the warm cheek so near my own: | |
| The cool white arm about my shoulder thrown: | 95 |
| Those exquisite fair feet where I was kneeling. | |
| |
| How little know they life's divinest bliss, | |
| That know not to possess and yet refrain! | |
| Let the young Psyche roam, a fleeting kiss: | |
| Grasp it—a few poor grains of dust remain. | 100 |
| See how those floating flowers, the butterflies, | |
| Hover the garden thro', and take no root! | |
| Desire for ever hath a flying foot: | |
| Free pleasure comes and goes beneath the skies. | |
| |
| Close not thy hand upon the innocent joy | 105 |
| That trusts itself within thy reach. It may, | |
| Or may not, linger. Thou canst but destroy | |
| The wingèd wanderer. Let it go or stay. | |
| Love thou the rose, yet leave it on its stem. | |
| Think! Midas starved by turning all to gold. | 110 |
| Blessèd are those that spare, and that withhold; | |
| Because the whole world shall be trusted them. | |
| |
| The foolish Faun pursues the unwilling Nymph | |
| That culls her flowers beside the precipice | |
| Or dips her shining ankles in the lymph: | 115 |
| But, just when she must perish or be his, | |
| Heaven puts an arm out. She is safe. The shore | |
| Gains some new fountain; or the lilied lawn | |
| A rarer sort of rose: but ah, poor Faun! | |
| To thee she shall be changed for evermore. | 120 |
| |
| Chase not too close the fading rapture. Leave | |
| To Love his long auroras, slowly seen. | |
| Be ready to release as to receive. | |
| Deem those the nearest, soul to soul, between | |
| Whose lips yet lingers reverence on a sigh. | 125 |
| Judge what thy sense can reach not, most thine own, | |
| If once thy soul hath seized it. The unknown | |
| Is life to love, religion, poetry. | |
| |
| The moon had set. There was not any light, | |
| Save of the lonely legion'd watch-stars pale | 130 |
| In outer air, and what by fits made bright | |
| Hot oleanders in a rosy vale | |
| Search'd by the lamping fly, whose little spark | |
| Went in and out, like passion's bashful hope. | |
| Meanwhile the sleepy globe began to slope | 135 |
| A ponderous shoulder sunward thro' the dark. | |
| |
| And the night pass'd in beauty like a dream. | |
| Aloof in those dark heavens paused Destiny, | |
| With her last star descending in the gleam | |
| Of the cold morrow, from the emptied sky. | 140 |
| The hour, the distance from her old self, all | |
| The novelty and loneness of the place | |
| Had left a lovely awe on that fair face, | |
| And all the land grew strange and magical. | |
| |
| As droops some billowy cloud to the crouch'd hill, | 145 |
| Heavy with all heaven's tears, for all earth's care, | |
| She droop'd unto me, without force or will, | |
| And sank upon my bosom, murmuring there | |
| A woman's inarticulate passionate words. | |
| O moment of all moments upon earth! | 150 |
| O life's supreme! How worth, how wildly worth, | |
| Whole worlds of flame, to know this world affords. | |
| |
| What even Eternity can not restore! | |
| When all the ends of life take hands and meet | |
| Round centres of sweet fire. Ah, never more, | 155 |
| Ah never, shall the bitter with the sweet | |
| Be mingled so in the pale after-years! | |
| One hour of life immortal spirits possess. | |
| This drains the world, and leaves but weariness, | |
| And parching passion, and perplexing tears. | 160 |
| |
| Sad is it, that we cannot even keep | |
| That hour to sweeten life's last toil: but Youth | |
| Grasps all, and leaves us: and when we would weep, | |
| We dare not let our tears fall, lest, in truth, | |
| They fall upon our work which must be done. | 165 |
| And so we bind up our torn hearts from breaking: | |
| Our eyes from weeping, and our brows from aching: | |
| And follow the long pathway all alone. | |
