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| WHAT shall we do for Love these days? | |
| How shall we make an altar-blaze | |
| To smite the horny eyes of men | |
| With the renown of our Heaven, | |
| And to the unbelievers prove | 5 |
| Our service to our dear god, Love? | |
| What torches shall we lift above | |
| The crowd that pushes through the mire, | |
| To amaze the dark heads with strange fire? | |
| I should think I were much to blame, | 10 |
| If never I held some fragrant flame | |
| Above the noises of the world, | |
| And openly ’mid men’s hurrying stares, | |
| Worshipt before the sacred fears | |
| That are like flashing curtains furl’d | 15 |
| Across the presence of our Lord Love. | |
| |
| Nay, would that I could fill the gaze | |
| Of the whole earth with some great praise | |
| Made in a marvel for men’s eyes, | |
| Some tower of glittering masonries, | 20 |
| Therein such a spirit flourishing | |
| Men should see what my heart can sing: | |
| All that Love hath done to me | |
| Built into stone, a visible glee; | |
| Marble carried to gleaming height | 25 |
| As moved aloft by inward delight; | |
| Not as with toil of chisels hewn, | |
| But seeming poised in a mighty tune. | |
| For of all those who have been known | |
| To lodge with our kind host, the sun, | 30 |
| I envy one for just one thing: | |
| |
| In Cordova of the Moors | |
| There dwelt a passion-minded King, | |
| Who set great bands of marble-hewers | |
| To fashion his heart’s thanksgiving | 35 |
| In a tall palace, shapen so | |
| All the wondering world might know | |
| The joy he had of his Moorish lass. | |
| His love, that brighter and larger was | |
| Than the starry places, into firm stone | 40 |
| He sent, as if the stone were glass | |
| Fired and into beauty blown. | |
| |
| Solemn and invented gravely | |
| In its bulk the fabric stood, | |
| Even as Love, that trusteth bravely | 45 |
| In its own exceeding good | |
| To be better than the waste | |
| Of time’s devices; grandly spaced, | |
| Seriously the fabric stood. | |
| But over it all a pleasure went | 50 |
| Of carven delicate ornament, | |
| Wreathing up like ravishment, | |
| Mentioning in sculptures twined | |
| The blitheness Love hath in his mind; | |
| And like delighted senses were | 55 |
| The windows, and the columns there | |
| Made the following sight to ache | |
| As the heart that did them make. | |
| Well I can see that shining song | |
| Flowering there, the upward throng | 60 |
| Of porches, pillars and window’d walls, | |
| Spires like piercing panpipe calls, | |
| Up to the roof’s snow-cloud flight; | |
| All glancing in the Spanish light | |
| White as water of arctic tides, | 65 |
| Save an amber dazzle on sunny sides. | |
| You had said, the radiant sheen | |
| Of that palace might have been | |
| A young god’s fantasy, ere he came | |
| His serious worlds and suns to frame; | 70 |
| Such an immortal passion | |
| Quiver’d among the slim hewn stone. | |
| And in the nights it seem’d a jar | |
| Cut in the substance of a star, | |
| Wherein a wine, that will be pour’d | 75 |
| Some time for feasting Heaven, was stored. | |
| |
| But within this fretted shell, | |
| The wonder of Love made visible, | |
| The King a private gentle mood | |
| There placed, of pleasant quietude. | 80 |
| For right amidst there was a court, | |
| Where always muskèd silences | |
| Listen’d to water and to trees; | |
| And herbage of all fragrant sort,— | |
| Lavender, lad’s-love, rosemary, | 85 |
| Basil, tansy, centaury,— | |
| Was the grass of that orchard, hid | |
| Love’s amazements all amid. | |
| Jarring the air with rumour cool, | |
| Small fountains play’d into a pool | 90 |
| With sound as soft as the barley’s hiss | |
| When its beard just sprouting is; | |
| Whence a young stream, that trod on moss, | |
| Prettily rimpled the court across. | |
| And in the pool’s clear idleness, | 95 |
| Moving like dreams through happiness, | |
| Shoals of small bright fishes were; | |
| In and out weed-thickets bent | |
| Perch and carp, and sauntering went | |
| With mounching jaws and eyes a-stare; | 100 |
| Or on a lotus leaf would crawl | |
| A brinded loach to bask and sprawl, | |
| Tasting the warm sun ere it dipt | |
| Into the water; but quick as fear | |
| Back his shining brown head slipt | 105 |
| To crouch on the gravel of his lair, | |
| Where the cool’d sunbeams broke in wrack, | |
| Spilt shatter’d gold about his back. | |
| |
| So within that green-veil’d air, | |
| Within that white-wall’d quiet, where | 110 |
| Innocent water thought aloud,— | |
| Childish prattle that must make | |
| The wise sunlight with laughter shake | |
| On the leafage overbow’d,— | |
| Often the King and his love-lass | 115 |
| Let the delicious hours pass. | |
| All the outer world could see | |
| Graved and sawn amazingly | |
| Their love’s delighted riotise, | |
| Fixt in marble for all men’s eyes; | 120 |
| But only these twain could abide | |
| In the cool peace that withinside | |
| Thrilling desire and passion dwelt; | |
| They only knew the still meaning spelt | |
| By Love’s naming script, which is | 125 |
| God’s word written in ecstasies. | |
| |
| And where is now that palace gone, | |
| All the magical skill’d stone, | |
| All the dreaming towers wrought | |
| By Love as if no more than thought | 130 |
| The unresisting marble was? | |
| How could such a wonder pass? | |
| Ah, it was but built in vain | |
| Against the stupid horns of Rome, | |
| That pusht down into the common loam | 135 |
| The loveliness that shone in Spain. | |
| But we have raised it up again! | |
| A loftier palace, fairer far, | |
| Is ours, and one that fears no war. | |
| Safe in marvellous walls we are; | 140 |
| Wondering sense like builded fires, | |
| High amazement of desires, | |
| Delight and certainty of love, | |
| Closing around, roofing above | |
| Our unapproacht and perfect hour | 145 |
| Within the splendours of love’s power. | |
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