| |
| THY hands are like cool herbs that bring | |
| Balm to men’s hearts, upon them laid; | |
| Thy lovely-petalled lips are made | |
| As any blossom of the spring. | |
| But in thine eyes there is a thing, | 5 |
| O Love, that makes me half afraid. | |
| |
| For they are old, those eyes … They gleam | |
| Between the waking and the dream | |
| With antique wisdom, like a bright | |
| Lamp strangled by the temple’s veil, | 10 |
| That beckons to the acolyte | |
| Who prays with trembling lips and pale | |
| In the long watches of the night. | |
| |
| They are as old as Life. They were | |
| When proud Gomorrah reared its head | 15 |
| A new-born city. They were there | |
| When in the places of the dead | |
| Men swathed the body of the Lord. | |
| They visioned Pa-wak raise the wall | |
| Of China. They saw Carthage fall | 20 |
| And marked the grim Hun lead his horde. | |
| |
| There is no secret anywhere | |
| Nor any joy or shame that lies | |
| Not writ somehow in those child-eyes | |
| Of thine, O Love, in some strange wise. | 25 |
| Thou art the lad Endymion, | |
| And that great queen with spice and myrrh | |
| From Araby, whom Solomon | |
| Delighted, and the lust of her. | |
| |
| The legions marching from the sea | 30 |
| With Cæsar’s cohorts sang of thee, | |
| How thy fair head was more to him | |
| Than all the land of Italy. | |
| Yea, in the old days thou wast she | |
| Who lured Mark Antony from home | 35 |
| To death and Egypt, seeing he | |
| Lost love when he lost Rome. | |
| |
| Thou saw’st old Tubal strike the lyre, | |
| Yea, first for thee the poet hurled | |
| Defiance at God’s starry choir! | 40 |
| Thou art the romance and the fire, | |
| Thou art the pageant and the strife, | |
| The clamour, mounting high and higher, | |
| From all the lovers in the world | |
To all the lords of love and life.
. . . . . . | 45 |
| |
| Perhaps the passions of mankind | |
| Are but the torches mystical | |
| Lit by some spirit-hand to find | |
| The dwelling of the Master-Mind | |
| That knows the secret of it all, | 50 |
| In the great darkness and the wind. | |
| |
| We are the Candle, Love the Flame, | |
| Each little life-light flickers out, | |
| Love bides, immortally the same: | |
| When of life’s fever we shall tire | 55 |
| He will desert us and the fire | |
| Rekindle new in prince or lout. | |
| |
| Twin-born of knowledge and of lust, | |
| He was before us, he shall be | |
| Indifferent still of thee and me, | 60 |
| When shattered is life’s golden cup, | |
| When thy young limbs are shrivelled up, | |
| And when my heart is turned to dust. | |
| |
| Nay, sweet, smile not to know at last | |
| That thou and I, or knave, or fool, | 65 |
| Are but the involitient tool | |
| Of some world-purpose vague and vast. | |
| No bar to passion’s fury set, | |
| With monstrous poppies spice the wine, | |
| For only drunk are we divine, | 70 |
| And only mad shall we forget! | |
| |
