Flowers of Gold

Impressions

The Grave Of Keats

• Rid of the world’s injustice, and his pain,
• He rests at last beneath God’s veil of blue:
• Taken from life when life and love were new
• The youngest of the martyrs here is lain,
• Fair as Sebastian, and as early slain.
• No cypress shades his grave, no funeral yew,
• But gentle violets weeping with the dew
• Weave on his bones an ever-blossoming chain.
• O proudest heart that broke for misery!
• O sweetest lips since those of Mitylene!
• O poet-painter of our English land!
• Thy name was writ in water—it shall stand:
• And tears like mine will keep thy memory green,
• As Isabella did her Basil tree.

Rome

Theocritus: A Villanelle

• • O singer of Persephone!
  • In the dim meadows desolate
  • Dost thou remember Sicily?
• • Still through the ivy flits the bee
  • Where Amaryllis lies in state;
  • O Singer of Persephone!
• • Simaetha calls on Hecate
  • And hears the wild dogs at the gate:
  • Dost thou remember Sicily?
• • Still by the light and laughing sea
  • Poor Polypheme bemoans his fate:
  • O Singer of Persephone!
• • And still in boyish rivalry
  • Young Daphnis challenges his mate:
  • Dost thou remember Sicily?
• • Slim Lacon keeps a goat for thee,
  • For thee the jocund shepherds wait,
  • O Singer of Persephone!
  • Dost thou remember Sicily?

In The Gold Room: A Harmony

• • Her ivory hands on the ivory keys
  • Strayed in a fitful fantasy,
  • Like the silver gleam when the poplar trees
  • Rustle their pale leaves listlessly,
  • Or the drifting foam of a restless sea
  • When the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze.
• • Her gold hair fell on the wall of gold
  • Like the delicate gossamer tangles spun
  • On the burnished disk of the marigold,
  • Or the sun-flower turning to meet the sun
  • When the gloom of the jealous night is done,
  • And the spear of the lily is aureoled.
• • And her sweet red lips on these lips of mine
  • Burned like the ruby fire set
  • In the swinging lamp of a crimson shrine,
  • Or the bleeding wounds of the pomegranate,
  • Or the heart of lotus drenched and wet
  • With the spilt-out blood of the rose-red wine.

Ballade De Marguerite: Normande

• • I am weary of lying within the chase
  • When the knights are meeting in market-place.
• • Nay, go not thou to the red-roofed town
  • Lest the hooves of the war-horse tread thee down.
• • But I would not go where the Squires ride,
  • I would only walk by my Lady’s side.
• • Alack! and alack! thou art over bold,
  • A Forester’s son may not eat off gold.
• • Will she love me the less that my Father is seen
  • Each Martinmas day in a doublet green?
• • Perchance she is sewing at tapestrie,
  • Spindle and loom are not meet for thee.
• • Ah, if she is working the arras bright
  • I might ravel the threads by the firelight.
• • Perchance she is hunting of the deer,
  • Flow could you follow o’er hill and mere?
• • Ah, if she is riding with the court,
  • I might run beside her and wind the morte.
• • Perchance she is kneeling in S. Denys,
  • (On her soul may our Lady have gramercy!)
• • Ah, if she is praying in lone chapelle,
  • I might swing the censer and ring the bell.
• • Come in my son, for you look sae pale,
  • Thy father shall fill thee a stoup of ale.
• • But who are these knights in bright array?
  • Is it a pageant the rich folks play?
• • ’Tis the King of England from over sea,
  • Who has come unto visit our fair countrie.
• • But why does the curfew tool sae low
  • And why do the mourners walk a-row?
• • O ’tis Hugh of Amiens my sister’s son
  • Who is lying stark, for his day is done.
• • Nay, nay, for I see white lilies clear,
  • It is no strong man who lies on the bier.
• • O ’tis old Dame Jeannette that kept the hall,
  • I knew she would die at the autumn fall.
• • Dame Jeannette had not that gold-brown hair,
  • Old Jeannette was not a maiden fair.
• • O ’tis none of our kith and none of our kin,
  • (Her soul may our Lady assoil from sin!)
• • But I hear the boy’s voice chanting sweet,
  • “Elle est morte, la Marguerite.”
• • Come in my son and lie on the bed,
  • And let the dead folk bury their dead.
• • O mother, you know I loved her true:
  • O mother, hath one grave room for two?

The Dole Of The King’s Daughter: Breton

• • Seven stars in the still water,
  • And seven in the sky;
  • Seven sins on the King’s daughter,
  • Deep in her soul to lie.
• • Red roses are at her feet,
  • (Roses are red in her red-gold hair,)
  • And O where her bosom and girdle meet
  • Red roses are hidden there.
• • Fair is the knight who lieth slain
  • Amid the rush and reed,
  • See the lean fishes that are fain
  • Upon dead men to feed.
• • Sweet is the page that lieth there,
  • (Cloth of gold is goodly prey,)
  • See the black ravens in the air,
  • Black, O black as the night are they.
• • What do they there so stark and dead?
  • (There is blood upon her hand)
  • Why are the lilies flecked with red,
  • (There is blood on the river sand.)
• • There are two that ride from the south and east,
  • And two from the north and west,
  • For the black raven a goodly feast,
  • For the King’s daughter rest.
• • There is one man who loves her true
  • (Red, O red, is the stain of gore!
  • He hath duggen a grave by the darksome yew,
  • (One grave will do for four.)
• • No moon in the still heaven,
  • In the black water none,
  • The sins on her soul are seven,
  • The sin upon his is one.

Amor Intellectualis

• Oft have we trod the vales of Castaly
• And heard sweet notes of sylvan music blown
• From antique reeds to common folk unknown
• And often launched our bark upon that sea
• Which the nine muses hold in empery,
• And plowed free furrows through the wave and foam,
• Nor spread reluctant sail for more safe home
• Till we had freighted well our argosy.
• Of which despoiled treasures these remain,
• Sordello’s passion, and the honeyed line
• Of young Endymion, lordly Tamburlaine
• Driving him pampered jades, and more than these,
• The seven-fold vision of the Florentine,
• And grave-browed Milton’s solemn harmonics.

Santa Decca

• • The Gods are dead: no longer do we bring
  • To gray-eyed Pallas crowns of olive-leaves!
  • Demeter’s child no more hath tithe of sheaves,
  • And in the noon the careless shepherds sing,
  • For Pan is dead, and all the wantoning
  • By secret glade and devious haunt is o’er:
  • Young Hylas seeks the water-springs no more;
  • Great Pan is dead, and Mary’s Son is King.
• • And yet- perchance in this sea-tranced isle,
  • Chewing the bitter fruit of memory,
  • Some God lies hidden in the asphodel.
  • Ah Love! if such there be then it were well
  • For us to fly his anger: nay, but see
  • The leaves are stirring: let us watch a-while.

Corfu

A Vision

• Two crowned Kings and One that stood alone
• With no green weight of laurels round his head,
• But with sad eyes as one uncomforted,
• And wearied with man’s never-ceasing moan
• For sins no bleating victim can atone,
• And sweet long lips with tears and kisses fed.
• Girt was he in a garment black and red,
• And at his feet I marked a broken stone
• Which sent up lilies, dove-like, to his knees,
• Now at their sight, my heart being lit with flame
• I cried to Beatrice, “Who are these?”
• “Aeschylos first, the second Sophokles,
• And last (wide stream of tears!) Euripides.”

Impression De Voyage

• The sea was sapphire colored, and the sky
• Burned like a heated opal through the air,
• We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair
• For the blue lands that to the eastward lie.
• From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye
• Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek,
• Ithaca’s cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak,
• And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady.
• The flapping of the sail against the mast,
• The ripple of the water on the side,
• The ripple of girls’ laughter at the stern,
• The only sounds:- when ’gan the West to burn,
• And a red sun upon the seas to ride,
• I stood upon the soil of Greece at last!

Katakolo

The Grave Of Shelley

• • Like burnt-out torches by a sick man’s bed
  • Gaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone;
  • Here doth the little night-owl make her throne,
  • And the slight lizard show his jewelled head.
  • And, where the chaliced poppies flame to red,
  • In the still chamber of yon pyramid
  • Surely some Old-World Sphinx lurks darkly hid,
  • Grim warder of this pleasaunce of the dead.
• • Ah! sweet indeed to rest within the womb
  • Of Earth great mother of eternal sleep,
  • But sweeter far for thee a restless tomb
  • In the blue cavern of an echoing deep,
  • Or where the tall ships founder in the gloom
  • Against the rocks of some wave-shattered steep.

Rome

By The Arno

• • The oleander on the wall
  • Grows crimson in the dawning light,
  • Though the gray shadows of the night
  • Lie yet on Florence like a pall.
• • The dew is bright upon the hill,
  • And bright the blossoms overhead,
  • But ah! the grasshoppers have fled,
  • The little Attic song is still.
• • Only the leaves are gently stirred
  • By, the soft breathing of the gale,
  • And in the almond-scented vale
  • The lonely nightingale is heard
• • The day will make thee silent soon,
  • O nightingale sing on for love!
  • While yet upon the shadowy grove
  • Splinter the arrows of the moon.
• • Before across the silent lawn
  • In sea-green mist the morning steals,
  • And to love’s frightened eyes reveals
  • The long white fingers of the dawn.
• • Fast climbing up the eastern sky,
  • To grasp and slay the shuddering night,
  • All careless of my heart’s delight,
  • Or if the nightingale should die.