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YOUTH, LOVE, AND DEATH
Lucifer. AND we might trust these youths and maidens fair, | |
| The world was made for nothing but love, love. | |
| Now I think it was made most to be burn’d. | |
| Festus. The night is glooming on us. It is the hour | |
| When lovers will speak lowly, for the sake | 5 |
| Of being nigh each other; and when love | |
| Shoots up the eye, like morning on the east, | |
| Making amends for the long northern night | |
| They pass’d, ere either knew the other lov’d; | |
| The hour of hearts! Say gray-beards what they please, | 10 |
| The heart of age is like an emptied wine-cup; | |
| Its life lies in a heel-tap: how can age judge? | |
| ’T were a waste of time of ask how they wasted theirs; | |
| But while the blood is bright, breath sweet, skin smooth, | |
| And limbs all made to minister delight; | 15 |
| Ere yet we have shed our locks, like trees their leaves, | |
| And we stand staring bare into the air; | |
| He is a fool who is not for love and beauty. | |
| It is I, the young, to the young speak. I am of them, | |
| And always shall be. What are years to me? | 20 |
| You traitor years, that fang the hands ye have lick’d, | |
| Vicelike; henceforth your venom-sacs are gone. | |
| I have conquer’d. Ye shall perish: yea, shall fall | |
| Like birdlets beaten by some resistless storm | |
| ’Gainst a dead wall, dead. I pity ye, that such | 25 |
| Mean things should have rais’d in man or hope or fear; | |
| Those Titans of the heart that fight at heaven, | |
| And sleep, by fits, on fire, whose slightest stir’s | |
| An earthquake. I am bound and bless’d to youth. | |
| None but the brave and beautiful can love. | 30 |
| Oh give me to the young, the fair, the free, | |
| The brave, who would breast a rushing, burning world | |
| Which came between him and his heart’s delight. | |
| Mad must I be, and what’s the world? Like mad | |
| For itself. And I to myself am all things, too. | 35 |
| If my heart thunder’d would the world rock? Well, | |
| Then let the mad world fight its shadow down. | |
| Soon there may be nor sun nor world nor shadow. | |
| But thou, my blood, my bright red running soul, | |
| Rejoice thou like a river in thy rapids. | 40 |
| Rejoice, thou wilt never pale with age, nor thin; | |
| But in thy full dark beauty, vein by vein | |
| Serpent-wise, me encircling, shalt to the end | |
| Throb, bubble, sparkle, laugh, and leap along. | |
| Make merry, heart, while the holidays shall last. | 45 |
| Better than daily dwine, break sharp with life; | |
| Like a stag, sunstruck, top thy bounds and die. | |
| Heart, I could tear thee out, thou fool, thou fool, | |
| And strip thee into shreds upon the wind. | |
| What have I done that thou shouldst maze me thus? | 50 |
| Lucifer. Let us away; we have had enough of hearts. | |
| Festus. Oh for the young heart like a fountain playing, | |
| Flinging its bright fresh feelings up to the skies | |
| It loves and strives to reach; strives, loves in vain. | |
| It is of earth, and never meant for heaven, | 55 |
| Let us love both and die. The sphinx-like heart | |
| Loathes life the moment that life’s riddle is read. | |
| The knot of our existence solv’d, all things | |
| Loose-ended lie, and useless. Life is had, | |
| And lo! we sigh, and say, can this be all? | 60 |
| It is not what we thought; it is very well, | |
| But we want something more. There is but death. | |
| And when we have said and seen, done, had, enjoy’d | |
| And suffer’d, maybe, all we have wish’d or fear’d, | |
| From fame to ruin, and from love to loathing, | 65 |
| There can come but one more change—try it—death. | |
| Oh! it is great to feel that nought of earth, | |
| Hope, love, nor dread, nor care for what’s to come, | |
| Can check the royal lavishment of life; | |
| But, like a streamer strown upon the wind, | 70 |
| We fling our souls to fate and to the future. | |
| For to die young is youth’s divinest gift; | |
| To pass from one world fresh into another, | |
| Ere change hath lost the charm of soft regret, | |
| And feel the immortal impulse from within | 75 |
| Which makes the coming life cry alway, on! | |
| And follow it while strong, is heaven’s last mercy. | |
| There is a fire-fly in the south, but shines | |
| When on the wing. So is’t with mind. When once | |
| We rest, we darken. On! saith God to the soul, | 80 |
| As unto the earth for ever. On it goes, | |
| A rejoicing native of the infinite, | |
| As is a bird, of air; an orb, of heaven. | |
| |
THE POET
Festus. THANKS, thanks! With the Muse is always love and light, | |
| And self-sworn loyalty to truth. For know, | 85 |
| Poets are all who love, who feel, great truths, | |
| And tell them: and the truth of truths is love. | |
| There was a time—oh, I remember well! | |
| When, like a sea-shell with its sea-born strain, | |
| My soul aye rang with music of the lyre, | 90 |
| And my heart shed its lore as leaves their dew— | |
| A honey dew, and throve on what it shed. | |
| All things I lov’d; but song I lov’d in chief. | |
| Imagination is the air of mind, | |
| Judgment its earth and memory its main, | 95 |
| Passion its fire. I was at home in heaven. | |
| Swiftlike, I liv’d above; once touching earth, | |
| The meanest thing might master me: long wings | |
| But baffled. Still and still I harp’d on song. | |
| Oh! to create within the mind is bliss, | 100 |
| And shaping forth the lofty thought, or lovely, | |
| We seek not, need not heaven: and when the thought, | |
| Cloudy and shapeless, first forms on the mind, | |
| Slow darkening into some gigantic make, | |
| How the heart shakes with pride and fear, as heaven | 105 |
| Quakes under its own thunder; or as might, | |
| Of old, the mortal mother of a god, | |
| When first she saw him lessening up the skies. | |
| And I began the toil divine of verse, | |
| Which, like a burning bush, doth guest a god. | 110 |
| But this was only wing-flapping—not flight; | |
| The pawing of the courser ere he win; | |
| Till by degrees, from wrestling with my soul, | |
| I gather’d strength to keep the fleet thoughts fast, | |
| And made them bless me. Yes, there was a time | 115 |
| When tomes of ancient song held eye and heart; | |
| Were the sole lore I reck’d of: the great bards | |
| Of Greece, of Rome, and mine own master land, | |
| And they who in the holy book are deathless; | |
| Men who have vulgariz’d sublimity, | 120 |
| And bought up truth for the nations; held it whole; | |
| Men who have forged gods—utter’d—made them pass: | |
| Sons of the sons of God, who in olden days | |
| Did leave their passionless heaven for earth and woman, | |
| Brought an immortal to a mortal breast, | 125 |
| And, rainbowlike the sweet earth clasping, left | |
| A bright precipitate of soul, which lives | |
| Ever, and through the lines of sullen men, | |
| The dump array of ages, speaks for all; | |
| Flashing by fits, like fire from an enemy’s front; | 130 |
| Whose thoughts, like bars of sunshine in shut rooms, | |
| Mid gloom, all glory, win the world to light; | |
| Who make their very follies like their souls, | |
| And like the young moon with a ragged edge, | |
| Still in their imperfection beautiful; | 135 |
| Whose weaknesses are lovely as their strengths, | |
| Like the white nebulous matter between stars, | |
| Which, if not light, at least is likest light; | |
| Men whom be build our love round like an arch | |
| Of triumph, as they pass us on their way | 140 |
| To glory, and to immortality; | |
| Men whose great thoughts possess us like a passion, | |
| Through every limb and the whole heart; whose words | |
| Haunt us, as eagles haunt the mountain air; | |
| Whose thoughts command all coming times and minds, | 145 |
| As from a tower, a warden—fix themselves | |
| Deep in the heart as meteor stones in earth, | |
| Dropp’d from some higher sphere: the words of gods, | |
| And fragments of the undeem’d tongues of heaven; | |
| Men who walk up to fame as to a friend, | 150 |
| Or their own house, which from the wrongful heir | |
| They have wrested, from the world’s hard hand and gripe; | |
| Men who, like death, all bone but all unarm’d, | |
| Have ta’en the giant world by the throat, and thrown him, | |
| And made him swear to maintain their name and fame | 155 |
| At peril of his life; who shed great thoughts | |
| As easily as an oak looseneth its golden leaves | |
| In a kindly largesse to the soil it grew on; | |
| Whose names are ever on the world’s broad tongue, | |
| Like sound upon the falling of a force; | 160 |
| Whose words, if wing’d, are with angels’ wings; | |
| Who play upon the heart as on a harp, | |
| And make our eyes bright as we speak of them; | |
| Whose hearts have a look southwards, and are open | |
| To the whole noon of nature; these I have wak’d, | 165 |
| And wept o’er, night by night; oft pondering thus: | |
| Homer is gone: and where is Jove? and where | |
| The rival cities seven? His song outlives | |
| Time, tower, and god—all that then was, save heaven. | |
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HELEN’S SONG
THE ROSE is weeping for her love, | 170 |
| The nightingale; | |
| And he is flying fast above, | |
| To her he will not fail. | |
| Already golden eve appears; | |
| He wings his way along; | 175 |
| Ah! look, he comes to kiss her tears, | |
| And soothe her with his song. | |
| |
| The moon in pearly light may steep | |
| The still blue air; | |
| The rose hath ceas’d to droop and weep, | 180 |
| For lo! her love is there; | |
| He sings to her, and o’er the trees | |
| She hears his sweet notes swim; | |
| The world may weary; she but sees | |
| Her love, and hears but him. | 185 |
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LUCIFER AND ELISSA
Elissa. Nigh one year ago,
I WATCH’D that large bright star, much where ’t is now: | |
| Time hath not touch’d its everlasting lightning, | |
| Nor dimm’d the glorious glances of its eye; | |
| Nor passion clouded it, nor any star | |
| Eclips’d; it is the leader still of heaven. | 190 |
| And I who lov’d it then can love it now; | |
| But am not what I was, in one degree. | |
| Calm star! who was it nam’d thee Lucifer, | |
| From him who drew the third of heaven down with him? | |
| Oh! it was but the tradition of thy beauty! | 195 |
| For if the sun hath one part, and the moon one, | |
| Thou hast the third part of the host of heaven— | |
| Which is its power—which power is but its beauty! | |
| Lucifer. It was no tradition, lady, but of truth! | |
| Elissa. I thought we parted last to meet no more. | 200 |
| Lucifer. It was so, lady; but it is not so. | |
| Elissa. Am I to leave, or thou, then? | |
| Lucifer. Neither, yet. | |
| Elissa. And who art thou that I should fear and serve? | |
| Lucifer. I am the morning and the evening star, | 205 |
| The star thou lovedst; thy lover too; as once | |
| I told thee incredulous; star and spirit I am; | |
| A power, an ill which doth outbalance being. | |
| Behold life’s tyrant evil, peer of good, | |
| The great infortune of the universe. | 210 |
| Am I not more than mortal in my form? | |
| Millions of years have circled round my brow, | |
| Like worlds upon their centres,—still I live, | |
| And age but presses with a halo’s weight. | |
| This single arm hath dash’d the light of heaven; | 215 |
| This one hand dragg’d the angels from their thrones:— | |
| Am I not worthy to have lov’d thee, lady? | |
| Thou mortal model of all heavenliness! | |
| Yet all these spoils have I abandon’d, cower’d | |
| My powers, my course becalm’d, and stoop’d from the high | 220 |
| Destruction of the skies for thee, and him | |
| Who loving thee is with thee lost, both lost. | |
| Thou hast but serv’d the purpose of the fiend; | |
| Art but the gilded vessel of selfish sin | |
| Whose poison hath drunken made a soul to death: | 225 |
| Thou, useless now. I come to bid thee die. | |
| Elissa. Wicked, impure, tormentor of the world, | |
| I knew thee not. Yet doubt not thou it was | |
| Who darkenedst for a moment with base aim | |
| God to evade, and shun in this world, man, | 230 |
| Love’s heart; with selfish end alone redeeming | |
| Me from the evil, the death-fright. Take, nathless, | |
| One human soul’s forgiveness, such the sum | |
| Of thanks I feel for heaven’s great grace that thou | |
| From the overflowings of love’s cup mayst quench | 235 |
| Thy breast’s broad burning desert, and fertilize | |
| Aught may be in it, that boasts one root of good. | |
| Lucifer. It is doubtless sad to feel one day our last. | |
| Elissa. I knew, forewarn’d, I was dying. God is good. | |
| The heavens grow darker as they purer grow, | 240 |
| And both, as we approach them; so near death | |
| The soul grows darker and diviner hourly. | |
| Could I love less, I should be happier now. | |
| But always ’t is to that mad extreme, death | |
| Alone appears the fitting end to bliss | 245 |
| Like that my spirit presseth for. | |
| Lucifer. Thy death | |
| Gentle shall be as e’er hath been thy life. | |
| I ’ll hurt thee not, for once upon this breast, | |
| Fell, like a snowflake on a fever’d lip, | 250 |
| Thy love. Thy soul shall, dreamlike, pass from thee. | |
| One instant, and thou wakest in heaven for aye. | |
| Elissa. Lost, say’st thou in one breath, and sav’d in heaven. | |
| I ever thought thee to be more than mortal, | |
| And since thus mighty, grant me—and thou mayst | 255 |
| This one, this only boon, as friend to friend— | |
| Bring him I love, one moment ere I die; | |
| Life, love, all his.… | |
| Lucifer. Cease! | |
| As a wind-flaw, darting from some rifted cloud, | 260 |
| Seizes upon a water-patch mid main, | |
| And into white wrath worries it, so my mind | |
| This petty controversy distracts. He comes, | |
| I say, but never shalt thou view him, living. | |
| Elissa. But I will, will see him, and while I am alive. | 265 |
| I hear him. He is come. | |
| Lucifer. The ends of things | |
| Are urgent. Still, to this mortuary deed | |
| Reluctant, fix I death’s black seal. He ’s here! | |
| Elissa. I hear him; he is come; it is he; it is he! | 270 |
| Lucifer. Die graciously, as ever thou hast liv’d; | |
| Die, thou shalt never look upon him again. | |
| Elissa. My love! haste, Festus! I am dying. | |
| Lucifer. Dead! | |
| As ocean racing fast and fierce to reach | 275 |
| Some headland, ere the moon with maddening ray | |
| Forestall him, and rebellious tides excite | |
| To vain strife, nor of the innocent skiff that thwarts | |
| His path, aught heeds, but with dispiteous foam | |
| Wrecks deathful, I, made hasty by time’s end | 280 |
| Impending, thus fill up fate’s tragic form. | |
| A word could kill her. See, she hath gone to heaven. | |
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