Kitabı oku: «Gypsy Verses», sayfa 7

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Beyond the hill the hearth fires burn,
A hundred flags in air,
But one which tossed but yesterday
Is dead, one hearth is bare.
 
 
The wife whose fingers fed the fire
Grew weary of the play,
A lad laughed thro’ the open door
And stole my dear away.
 
 
And now alone I face the road;
No hearth, no home for me.
And yet—Ah Life!—come sun, come rain,
My beggar soul is free.
 

BLACK AND GOLD

 
Round her knees her lovers yearned,
She who sat in black and gold,
What recked she who begged or burned,
Sister to the gods of old.
 
 
Darkness was her pedigree,
Light her ever living flame,
Lovers die for such as she,
Paying for her smiles with shame.
 
 
Round her head the music floats,
Black by night and gold by day;
These are Time’s inchoate notes,
Calling, “Sister, come away.”
 
 
Bride of eager-blooded gods,
Wife to man’s primeval age,
What to her shall serve these clods
Save to irk her pilgrimage?
 

THE ANSWER

 
The themes of women! Mounting up the sky,
Beating the air with tremulous weak wings,
How shall so small a matter win so high,
The vain sweet goal of their imaginings?
 
 
Striving for Beauty, dark philosophy,
Or the obscure and purple deeps of truth,
How shall they know their one great verity,
The answer to their queries and their youth?
 
 
Simple vain themes of women! Only this
One theme may lift their wings to goals above,—
To spill their hearts out blindly in a kiss,
An infinite surrendering to love.
 

PEACE

 
Night thundered down the valley
From off the rocky steeps,
Like wind it broke the silences
That light divinely keeps.
 
 
As low dark clouds concealing
The things one dare not see,
So grimly dark and ominous
Hung low each shadowy tree.
 
 
Night, the dread terror-master,
What wordless woe he weaves!
Suddenly peace, and all the air
Is scented with green leaves.
 

BARNABAS

 
They all are dead but Barnabas; he’ll wait,
With his old groping hands and haggard eyes,
Which nothing in the world can now surprise,
Till the last leaf whirls thro’ the clanging gate
Of the last sunrise. Did he learn too late?
Maybe, that one may hear the moans and cries
That ring by night, and yet be calm and wise.
And teach the women how a man can hate!
 
 
I did not think a soul could live so long,
And be so little. He remembers youth
With a wry smile of disbelief; the wrong
Was this, he squeezed the fruit so dry
So long ago; and now must live, forsooth
Because a woman will not let him die.
 

LOST DREAMS

 
Coming thro’ the porch of dreams
To the portal of the day,
Vacant all the ether seems
With a grief that leaves her grey.
 
 
In a threnody of sighs,
With the cloud wreaths ’round her face,
Morning veils her heavy eyes,
Weeping for her vanished grace.
 
 
Ah! in gaining lusty Dawn,
Life, and pleasant facts of light,
Why must we, the darkness gone,
Lose the dreams that haunt the night?
 

LADY OF LIGHT

 
Light of the World, what are violets but eyes of you,
Perfume, your hair blowing back on the breeze,
Ah, but the fugitive dainty surprise of you,
Pricking in green on the blossomy trees.
 
 
Give me the sun of your smile to be fire to me,
Give me the moon when the passion is gone,
Give me the light to be dream and desire to me
Down the dark alleys that lead to the dawn.
 

SONG

 
You are the dawning of dreams.
You are the end of desire.
You are the gladness and glory that seems
Dauntless, to urge and aspire.
 
 
Cradle my soul on your wings,
Cradle my head on your breast.
Teach me the ardour that conquers and sings.
Grant me your infinite rest.
 

THE GYPSY BLOOD

 
Because the lover cares for daffodils
Must we be stranger to the passion flower,
Or slight the iris, dewy from a shower?
The gypsy heather bloom upon the hill
Strikes fiercely on a gypsy heart, and thrills
New argosies of dreams to sail the hours.
No rosy perfume blown from garden bowers
May bear the subtle perfume this distills.
 
 
Must we forego the dreamy twilight stars
Because the true-love lives for morning sun?
Love dare not hold the sense behind such bars.
The moon drips scented petals on our hair,
And gypsy hearts to gypsy flowers must run
While life is everything, tho’ love be fair.
 

AND YET

 
Inadequate and void, the days
Are not more tired than tears;
And yet, how long, how long the ways,
Down the bare lane of years.
 
 
The bird that flutters from the nest
Is fused of fire and spring,
And yet how soon the throbbing breast
Will lose the life to sing.
 
 
How long the lane, how soon ’tis past,
Rough road, dark sky above,
And yet, dear heart, there’s home at last,
With light, and life, and love!
 

THRO’ THE PLEACHED ALLEYS

 
Thro’ the pleached alley in my garden of the Spring
Merry leaves tossed over me with elfish whispering.
I was not alone, alone, for Love with blowing hair
Touched my hands and touched my heart, dancing everywhere.
 
 
Darting round about my steps, as a swallow slips,
How she laughed and laughed at me, with little rosy lips,
Ghostly wise she kissed my eyes, her mouth was chill as snow,
For she had died, my Love had died, so very long ago.