VISION'D face unutterably fair,
How oft when blackness muffled up the night
And tempest-laden was the surcharged air,
Nor any hope appear'd of starry light,
How often, lucent as the full-faced moon
When suddenly she rends the clouded fleece,
Hath thy sweet influence, like an unhoped boon,
Turn'd dark to bright, and tempest into peace!
Queen of my night of sorrows hast thou been,
Whose countenance of good all evil mars,
Knowing to crown with hopeful light serene
Earth's darksome vault when most forlorn of stars,
And to convert clouds bodeful of despair
To silver-suited omens good and fair.
WILL not rail, or grieve when torpid eld
Frosts the slow-journeying blood, for I shall see
The lovelier leaves hang yellow on the tree,
The nimbler brooks in icy fetters held.
Methinks the aged eye that first beheld
The fitful ravage of December wild,
Then knew himself indeed dear Nature's child,
Seeing the common doom, that all compelled.
No kindred we to her beloved broods,
If, dying these, we drew a selfish breath;
But one path travel all her multitudes,
And none dispute the solemn Voice that saith:
"Sun to thy setting; to your autumn, woods;
Stream to thy sea; and man unto thy death!"
HAT day we brought our Beautiful One to lie
In the
green peace within your gates, he came
To give us greeting, boyish and kind and shy,
And, stricken as we were, we blessed his name:
Yet, like the Creature of Light that had been ours,
Soon of the sweet Earth disinherited;
He too must join, even with the Year's old flowers,
The unanswering generations of the Dead.
So stand we friends to you, who stood our friend
Through him that day; for now through him you know
That, though where love was love is till the end,
Love, turned of death to longing, like a foe,
Strikes: when the ruined heart goes forth to crave
Mercy of the high, austere, unpitying Grave.
THE SOUL'S COMPLAINT OF LOVE'S ABSENCE
TRANGE children in my breast thine absence breeds,
Fierce ghosts of love insatiable as fire,
That break my slumber with their hasty greeds,
And rob my spirit of its clear desire.
And where I would not, there they lead my feet;
And what I wish not, therewith feast mine eyes;
Till to make bitter loneliness seem sweet
My thought consents to what my soul denies!
O, dear, pure vision of all love on earth,
Why tarriest thou from me in any land?
Return and rid me of this monstrous birth:
On my racked senses lay thy healing hand!
For, in my dreams, I give my faith the lie,
And shuddering wake and pray lest this be I!
AN ANCIENT CHESS KING
APLY some Rajah first in ages gone Amid his languid ladies finger'd thee, While a black nightingale, sun-swart as he, Sang his one wife, love's passionate orison; Haply thou mayst have pleased old Prester John Among his pastures, when full royally He sat in tent, grave shepherds at his knee, While lamps of balsam winked and glimmered on. What doest thou here? Thy masters are all dead; My heart is full of ruth and yearning pain At sight of thee; O King that hast a crown Outlasting theirs, and tell'st of greatness fled Through cloud-hung nights of unabated rain And murmur of the dark majestic town.
|