Far out to the shallows and straits of the future, by rough ways or pleasant, Is it thither the wind's wings beat? is it hither to me, O my sweet?

For thee, in the stream of the deep tidewind blowing in with the water, Thee I behold as a bird borne in with the wind from the west, Straight from the sunset, across white waves whence rose as a daughter Venus thy mother, in years when the world was a water at rest.

Out of the distance of dreams, as a dream that abides after slumber,

Strayed from the fugitive flock of the night, when the moon overhead Wanes in the wan waste heights of the heaven, and stars without number Die without sound, and are spent like lamps that are burnt by the dead, Comes back to me, stays by me, lulls me with touch of forgotten caresses, One warm dream clad about with a fire as of life that endures;

The delight of thy face, and the sound of thy feet, and the wind of thy tresses, And all of a man that regrets, and all of a maid that allures.

But thy bosom is warm for my face and profound as a manifold flower,

Thy silence as music, thy voice as an odour that fades in a flame;

Not a dream, not a dream is the kiss of

thy mouth, and the bountiful hour That makes me forget what was sin, and would make me forget were it shame. Thine eyes that are quiet, thine hands that are tender, thy lips that are loving, Comfort and cool me as dew in the dawn of a moon like a dream;

And my heart yearns baffled and blind, moved vainly toward thee, and moving As the refluent seaweed moves in the languid exuberant stream,

Fair as a rose is on earth, as a rose under water in prison,

That stretches and swings to the slow passionate pulse of the sea,

Closed up from the air and the sun, but alive, as a ghost rearisen,

Pale as the love that revives as a ghost rearisen in me.

From the bountiful infinite west, from the happy memorial places

Full of the stately repose and the lordly delight of the dead,

Where the fortunate islands are lit with the light of ineffable faces,

And the sound of a sea without wind is about them, and sunset is red, Come back to redeem and release me from love that recalls and represses,

That cleaves to my flesh as a flame, till the serpent has eaten his fill; From the bitter delights of the dark, and the feverish, the furtive caresses

That murder the youth in a man or ever his heart have its will.

Thy lips cannot laugh and thine eyes cannot weep; thou art pale as a rose is, Paler and sweeter than leaves that cover the blush of the bud;

And the heart of the flower is compassion, and pity the core it encloses, Pity, not love, that is born of the breath and decays with the blood.

As the cross that a wild nun clasps till the edge of it bruises her bosom,

So love wounds as we grasp it, and blackens and burns as a flame;

I have loved overmuch in my life; when the live bud bursts with the blossom, Bitter as ashes or tears is the fruit, and the wine thereof shame.

As a heart that its anguish divides is the green bud cloven asunder;

As the blood of a man self-slain is the flush of the leaves that allure;

And the perfume as poison and wine to the brain, a delight and a wonder; And the thorns are too sharp for a boy, too slight for a man, to endure. Too soon did I love it, and lost love's rose; and I cared not for glory's:

Only the blossoms of sleep and of pleasure were mixed in my hair. Was it myrtle or poppy thy garland was woven with, O my Dolores?

Was it pallor of slumber, or blush as of blood, that I found in thee fair? For desire is a respite from love, and the flesh not the heart is her fuel;

She was sweet to me once, who am fled and escaped from the rage of her reign; Who behold as of old time at hand as I turn, with her mouth growing cruel, And flushed as with wine with the blood of her lovers, Our Lady of Pain. Low down where the thicket is thicker with

thorns than with leaves in the summer, In the brake is a gleaming of eyes and a hissing of tongues that I knew;

And the lithe long throats of her snakes reach round her, their mouths overcome her,

And her lips grow cool with their foam, made moist as a desert with dew. With the thirst and the hunger of lust

though her beautiful lips be so bitter, With the cold foul foam of the snakes they soften and redden and smile; And her fierce mouth sweetens, her eyes wax wide and her eyelashes glitter, And she laughs with a savour of blood in her face, and a savour of guile.

She laughs, and her hands reach hither, her hair blows hither and hisses,

As a low-lit flame in a wind, back-blown till it shudder and leap;

Let her lips not again lay hold on my soul, nor her poisonous kisses,

To consume it alive and divide from thy bosom, Our Lady of Sleep.

Ah daughter of sunset and slumber, if now it return into prison,

Who shall redeem it anew? but we, if thou wilt, let us fly;

Let us take to us, now that the white

skies thrill with a moon unarisen, Swift horses of fear or of love, take flight and depart and not die. They are swifter than dreams, they are stronger than death; there is none that hath ridden,

None that shall ride in the dim strange ways of his life as we ride;

By the meadows of memory, the highlands of hope, and the shore that is hidden, Where life breaks loud and unseen, a sonorous invisible tide;

By the sands where sorrow has trodden, the salt pools bitter and sterile,

By the thundering reef and the low seawall and the channel of years, Our wild steeds press on the night, strain hard through pleasure and peril, Labour and listen and pant not or pause for the peril that nears; And the sound of them trampling the way

cleaves night as an arrow asunder, And slow by the sand-hill and swift by the down with its glimpses of grass, Sudden and steady the music, as eight hoofs trample and thunder,

Rings in the ear of the low blind wind of the night as we pass;

Shrill shrieks in our faces the blind bland air that was mute as a maiden, Stung into storm by the speed of our passage, and deaf where we past; And our spirits too burn as we bound, thine holy but mine heavy-laden, As we burn with the fire of our flight; ah love, shall we win at the last?

SAPPHICS [1866.]

ALL the night sleep came not upon my eyelids,

Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather,

Yet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron

Stood and beheld me.

Then to me so lying awake a vision Came without sleep over the seas and touched me,

Softly touched mine eyelids and lips; and
I too,
Full of the vision,

Saw the white implacable Aphrodite,
Saw the hair unbound and the feet un-
sandalled

Shine as fire of sunset on western waters; Saw the reluctant

Feet, the straining plumes of the doves that drew her,

Looking always, looking with necks reverted,

Back to Lesbos, back to the hills whereunder

Shone Mitylene;

Heard the flying feet of the Loves behind her

Make a sudden thunder upon the waters, As the thunder flung from the strong unclosing

Wings of a great wind.

So the goddess fled from her place, with awful

Sound of feet and thunder of wings around her;

While behind a clamour of singing women Severed the twilight.

Ah the singing, ah the delight, the passion! All the Loves wept, listening; sick with anguish,

Stood the crowned nine Muses about Apollo;

Fear was upon them,

While the tenth sang wonderful things they knew not.

Ah the tenth, the Lesbian! the nine were silent,

None endured the sound of her song for weeping;

Some sang to me dreaming in class-time
And truant in hand as in tongue;
For the youngest were born of boy's pas-
time,

The eldest are young.

Is there shelter while life in them lingers, Is there hearing for songs that recede, Tunes touched from a harp with man's fingers

Or blown with boy's mouth in a reed? Is there place in the land of your labour, Is there room in your world of delight, Where change has not sorrow for neighbour

And day has not night?

In their wings though the sea-wind yet quivers

Will you spare not a space for them there

Made green with the running of rivers
And gracious with temperate air;
In the fields and the turreted cities,
That cover from sunshine and rain
Fair passions and bountiful pities
And loves without stain?

In a land of clear colours and stories,
In a region of shadowless hours,
Where earth has a garment of glories
And a murmur of musical flowers;
In the woods where the spring half un-

covers

The flush of her amorous face,
By the waters that listen for lovers,
For these is there place?

For the song-birds of sorrow, that muffle
Their music as clouds do their fire:
For the storm-birds of passion, that ruffle
Wild wings in a wind of desire;

In the stream of the storm as it settles

Blown seaward, borne far from the sun, Shaken loose on the darkness like petals Dropt one after one?

Though the world of your hands be more gracious

And the lovelier in lordship of things Clothed round by sweet art with the spacious

Warm heaven of her imminent wings, Let them enter, unfledged and nigh fainting,

For the love of old loves and lost times; And receive in your palace of painting

This revel of rhymes.

Though the seasons of man full of losses
Make empty the years full of youth,
If but one thing be constant in crosses.
Change lays not her hand upon truth;
Hopes die, and their tombs are for token

That the grief as the joy of them ends Ere time that breaks all men has broken The faith between friends.

Though the many lights dwindle to one light,

There is help if the heaven has one; Though the skies be discrowned of the sunlight

And the earth dispossessed of the sun, They have moonlight and sleep for repayment,

When, refreshed as a bride and set free, With stars and sea-winds in her raiment, Night sinks on the sea.

MATER DOLOROSA

[1871.]

Citoyen, lui dit Enjolras, ma mère, c'est la République. -Les Misérables.

WHO is it that sits by the way, by the wild wayside,

In a rent stained raiment, the robe of a cast-off bride,

In the dust, in the rainfall sitting, with soiled feet bare,

With the night for a garment upon her, with torn wet hair?

She is fairer of face than the daughters of men, and her eyes,

Worn through with her tears, are deep as the depth of skies.

This is she for whose sake being fallen, for whose abject sake,

Earth groans in the blackness of darkness, and men's hearts break.

This is she for whose love, having seen her, the men that were

Poured life out as water, and shed their souls upon air.

This is she for whose glory their years were counted as foam;

Whose face was a light upon Greece, was a fire upon Rome.

Is it now not surely a vain thing, a foolish and vain,

To sit down by her, mourn to her, serve her, partake in the pain?

She is gray with the dust of time on his manifold ways,

Where her faint feet stumble and falter through yearlong days.

Shall she help us at all, O fools, give fruit or give fame,

Who herself is a name despised, a rejected name?

We have not served her for guerdon. If any do so,

That his mouth may be sweet with such honey, we care not to know.

We have drunk from a wine-unsweetened, a perilous cup,

A draught very bitter. The kings of the earth stood up,

Can these bones live? or the leaves that are dead leaves bud?

Or the dead blood drawn from her veins be in your veins blood?

Will ye gather up water again that was drawn and shed?

In the blood is the life of the veins, and her veins are dead.

For the lives that are over are over, and past things past;

She had her day, and it is not; was first, and is last.

Is it nothing unto you, then, all ye that pass by,

If her breath be left in her lips, if she live now or die?

Behold now, O people, and say if she be not fair,

Whom your fathers followed to find her, with praise and prayer,

And rejoiced, having found her, though roof they had none, nor bread.

But ye care not: what is it to you if her day be dead?

It was well with our fathers; their sound was in all men's lands;

There was fire in their hearts, and the hunger of fight in their hands. Naked and strong they went forth in her

strength like flame,

For her love's and her name's sake of old, her republican name.

But their children, by kings made quiet, by priests made wise,

Love better the heat of their hearths than the light of her eyes.

Are they children of these thy children indeed, who have sold,

O golden goddess, the light of thy face for gold?

Are they sons indeed of the sons of thy

dayspring of hope,

Whose lives are in fief of an emperor, whose souls of a Pope?

Hide then thine head, O beloved! thy time is done;

Thy kingdom is broken in heaven, and blind thy sun.

What sleep is upon you, to dream she indeed shall rise,

When the hopes are dead in her heart as the tears in her eyes?

If ye sing of her dead, will she stir? if ye weep for her, weep?

Come away now, leave her: what hath she to do but sleep?

But ye that mourn are alive, and have years to be;

And life is good, and the world is wiser than we.

Yea, wise is the world and mighty, with years to give,

And years to promise; but how long now shall it live?

And foolish and poor is faith, and her ways are bare,

Till she find the way of the sun, and the morning air.

In that hour shall this dead face shine as the face of the sun,

And the soul of man and her soul and the world's be one.

FROM MATER TRIUMPHALIS
[TO LIBERTY.]
[1871.]

I am thine harp between thine hands, O mother!

All my strong chords are strained with love of thee.

We grapple in love and wrestle, as each with other

Wrestle the wind and the unreluctant

sea.

I am no courtier of the sober-suited,
Who loves a little for a little pay.
Me not thy winds and storms, nor thrones
disrooted,

Nor molten crowns, nor thine own sins, dismay.

Sinned has thou sometime, therefore art thou sinless;

Stained hast thou been, who art therefore without stain;

Even as a man's soul is kin to thee, but kinless

Thou, in whose womb Time sows the all-various grain.

I do not bid thee spare me, O dreadful mother!

I pray thee that thou spare not, of thy grace.

How were it with me then, if ever another Should come to stand before thee in this my place?

I am the trumpet at thy lips, thy clarion, Full of thy cry, sonorous with thy breath; The graves of souls born worms, and creeds grown carrion

Thy blast of judgment fills with fires of death.