Kitabı oku: «Gypsy Verses», sayfa 3

DEAD LADIES

 
Thais and Lalage, your eyes are closed,
Phryne, Aholibah, your lips are dust.
Your tinkling feet are idle and composed,
All your gold beauty vanished into rust.
 
 
Nor Dionysian mysteries taught you this,
Since the gold serpent was your seal and sign;
Tho’ deathless be the imprint of your kiss,
The lips that redden are not yours, but mine.
 
 
How you would scorn us, Lalage, the lure
Of your mad moments, us, the motley crew;
Yet shall your beauty only so endure
Imperishable, that we sing of you.
 

WHEN TRISTAN SAILED

 
When Tristan sailed from Ireland
Across the summer sea,
How young he was, how debonnaire,
How glad he was and free.
Why should he know the gales would blow,
The skies be black above,
How should he dream his port was Death,
And Doom, whose name is Love?
 
 
The Lady Iseult, sweet as prayer,
We hardly dare to pray,
Pearl-pale beneath her shadow hair,
Grows fairer day by day,
The ichor gains her spring-kissed veins,
Her skies the eyes of youth.
How should she dream the ichor Love,
Was hellebore in truth?
 
 
So Tristan sailed from Ireland
As youth must always sail;
He quaffed the cup, nor asked the wine;
He dared, nor feared to fail.
And be it poison, be it life,
Or wrecks that strew the shore,
Tristan set forth! nor ask the end,
Else youth shall sail no more.
 

THE BATTLE

 
Ah, never, never, never! for the flag
Is twined about my body, and my back
Is braced against the wall! I know the lack
Of crust and water, and a man might brag
For fighting thus, yet—how a soul may lag,
For want of just so little, when the rack
Of hopeless strife from dawn to bivouac
Finds the foe now who storms the utmost crag.
 
 
Never surrender! You who storm my heart
Till I am faint with love and hunger, all
Starved for your lips—how can I say “depart”?
And yet—drag up the sword again—and thrust!
Ah, Love, mine enemy—I will not fall
Until my honour’s flag and I are dust.
 

RECOMPENSE

 
Those who ask for a star
Often receive but a stone,
Yet they asked for a star,
Does the high thought not atone?
 
 
I, who asked but a stone,
A plaything of azure or red,
May I count it for gain
That I won a star instead?
 

THE LOTUS EATERS

 
We have no rain, we have no sun,
We only watch the moments run
Like little adders thro’ the leaves,
Lost ere their flitting has begun.
 
 
The cool light airs that fan our brow,
What aromatic sweets they know!
The tall tired trees that make our sky
Are lapped in spices as they bow.
 
 
The bright-eyed flowers that form our bed,
Like eager jewels, blue and red,
Seem brimmed with gay immortal life,
Yet we dream on when they are dead.
 

LOST APHRODITE

 
The gods upon the hills no more are seen,
Couched on the virginal green,
No more their cry upon the silence grieves,
The shadow of dark leaves.
 
 
The blazonry of Spring must now abate,
Without the purple state
Of Aphrodite, amorous and frail,
Cinctured with lilies pale.
 
 
She who was love and every man’s desire,
Now only can inspire,
The mutual love of mortals, and alone
Like wind her plaints are blown.
 
 
About the unregarding world her hands
Yearn forth across the lands
Once passionate with her lovers, but in vain,
They will not come again!
 
 
She who was Aphrodite, tho’ she gives
Love to each heart that lives,
Gives and receives not. She, of love the breath,
Doomed now with utter death.
 

THE FOOLS

 
On the wrist a paroquet,
Motley on the shoulder,
We exist for joy of life,
Never growing older.
 
 
Dancing down the lane of years,
Rosy garlands trailing,
Who would pause for time or tears,
Barren days bewailing.
 
 
Brighter burden never were
Than the smiles we scatter,
Loving deeds and laughing love,
This is our great matter.
 
 
And the wise who scorn our bells
Mate with melancholy,
We are wiser than the wise,
Holding hands with folly.
 

THE AWAKENING

 
Perhaps the world is tired of pageantries,
And all the weary women called the Hours,
Jaded with jewels, shall exchange for flowers
Their badge of pride. In violet harmonies,
With sweet blue veils of silence o’er their eyes,
They shall return to Spring’s most languorous bowers;
And Light and Beauty shall come down as showers
Releasing life from all its pedantries.
 
 
Only the bloomy purple hill to see
Thro’ half-closed lids, and only to be blind
With asphodils! Shall these things ever be?
Surely the time is ripe to live for this
Dawn, springing radiant from her sleep to find
A world of lovers waiting for her kiss.
 

THE DARK WOMAN

 
My dark, wild woman of the braes,
I know your heart, I know your ways,
I know the raw, sweet food you taste,
I love the colours ’round your waist.
 
 
Ribbons of green and gold you wear,
Threaded about your shadowy hair,
My colours—and your eyes are mine,
Dark as the deeps of love—and wine.
 
 
I wake with you at budding Dawn,
Leaving this life of dew-spread lawn,
To join your spirit in the wild,
Your brother, lover, or your child.
 
 
Take me upon your savage breast,
Teach me your calms and your unrest.
Take me, I know the jungle cry,
Teach me your love, or let me die.