We will leave reason,
Sweet, for a season;
Reason were treason
Now that the nether
Spaces are clad, oh,
In silvery shadow —
We will be glad, oh,
Glad as this weather!
Heart unto heart, where the moonlight is slanted,
Let us believe that our souls are enchanted: —
I in the castle-keep; you are the airy
Prince who comes seeking me; Love is the Fairy
Bringing our hearts together.
Starlight in masses
Over us passes;
And in the grass is
Many a flower:
Now will you tell me
How'd you enspell me?
What once befell me
There in your bower?
Soul unto soul – in the moon's wizard glory,
Let us believe we are parts in a story: —
I am a poem; a poet you hear it
Whispered in star and in flower; a Spirit,
Love, puts my soul in your power.
Perhaps we lived in the days
Of the Khalif Haroun er Reshid;
And loved, as the story says
Did the Sultan's favorite one
And the Persian Emperor's son,
Ali ben Bekkar, he
Of the Kisra dynasty.
Do you know the story? – Well,
You were Haroun's Sultana.
When night on the palace fell,
A slave through a secret door, —
Low-arched on the Tigris' shore, —
By a hidden winding stair
Brought me to your bower there.
Then there was laughter and mirth,
And feasting and singing together,
In a chamber of wonderful worth;
In a chamber vaulted high
On columns of ivory;
Its dome, like the irised skies,
Mooned over with peacock eyes;
Its curtains and furniture,
Damask and juniper.
Ten slave girls – like unto blooms —
Stand, holding tamarisk torches,
Silk-clad from the Irak looms;
Ten handmaidens serve the feast,
Each girl like a star in the east;
Ten lutanists, lutes a-tune,
Wait, each like the Ramadan moon.
For you in a stuff of Merv
Blue-clad, unveiled and jewelled,
No metaphor known may serve:
Scarved deep with your raven hair,
The jewels like fireflies there,
Blossom and moon and star,
The Lady Shemsennehar.
The zone that girdles your waist
Would ransom a Prince and Emeer;
In your coronet's gold enchased,
And your bracelet's twisted bar,
Burn rubies of Istakhar;
And pearls of the Jamshid race
Hang looped on your bosom's lace.
You stand like the letter I;
Dawn-faced, with eyes that sparkle
Black stars in a rosy sky;
Mouth like a cloven peach,
Sweet with your smiling speech;
Cheeks that the blood presumes
To make pomegranate blooms.
With roses of Rocknabad,
Hyacinths of Bokhara, —
Creamily cool and clad
In gauze, – girls scatter the floor
From pillar to cedarn door.
Then a poppy-bloom at each ear,
Come the dancing girls of Kashmeer.
Kohl in their eyes, down the room, —
That opaline casting-bottles
Have showered with rose perfume, —
They glitter and drift and swoon
To the dulcimer's languishing tune;
In the liquid light like stars,
And moons and nenuphars.
Carbuncles, tragacanth-red,
Smoulder in armlet and anklet;
Gleaming on breast and on head
Bangles of coins, that are angled,
Tinkle; and veils, that are spangled,
Flutter from coiffure and wrist
Like a star-bewildered mist.
Each dancing-girl is a flower
Of the Tuba from vales of El Liwa. —
How the bronzen censers glower!
And scents of ambergris pour
And myrrh brought of Lahore,
And musk of Khoten! how good
Is the scent of the sandal-wood!
A lutanist smites her lute;
Sings loves of Mejnoon and Leila —
Her voice is a houri flute; —
While the fragrant flambeaux wave
Barbaric o'er free and slave,
O'er fabrics and bezels of gems
And roses in anadems.
Sherbets in ewers of gold,
Fruits in salvers carnelian;
Flagons of grotesque mold,
Made of a sapphire glass,
Brimmed with wine of Shiraz;
Shaddock and melon and grape
On plate of an antique shape.
Vases of frosted rose,
Of limpid alabaster,
Filled with the mountain snows;
Goblets of mother-of-pearl,
One filigree silver-swirl;
Vessels of gold foamed up
With spray of spar on the cup.
Then a slave bursts in with a cry:
"The eunuchs! the Khalif's eunuchs! —
With scimitars bared draw nigh!
Wesif and Afif and he,
Chief of the hideous three,
Mesrour! – the Sultan's seen
'Mid a hundred weapons' sheen!"
Did we part when we heard this? No!
It seems that my soul remembers
How I clasped you and kissed you, so.
When they came they found us – dead
On the flowers our blood dyed red;
Our lips together, and
The dagger in my hand.
How it was I cannot tell,
For I know not where nor why;
But perhaps we loved too well
In some world that does not lie
East or west of where we dwell,
And beneath no mortal sky.
Was it in the golden ages
Or the iron? – I had heard, —
In the prophecy of sages, —
Haply, how had come a bird,
Underneath whose wing were pages
Of an unknown lover's word.
I forget. You may remember
How the earthquake shook our ships;
How our city, one huge ember,
Blazed within the thick eclipse.
When you found me – deep December
Sealed my icy eyes and lips.
I forget. No one may say
That such things can not be true: —
Here a flower dies to-day,
And to-morrow blooms anew…
Death is silent. – Tell me, pray,
Why men doubt what God can do?
As to that, nothing to tell,
You being all my belief;
Doubt may not enter or dwell
Here where your image is chief;
Here where your name is a spell,
Potent in joy and in grief.
Is it the glamor of spring
Working in us so we seem
Aye to have loved? that we cling
Even to some fancy or dream,
Rainbowing everything
Here in our souls with its gleam?
See! how the synod is met
There of the heavens to preach us —
Freed from the earth's oubliette,
See how the blossoms beseech us —
Were it not well to forget
Winter and night as they teach us?
Dew and a bud and a star,
These, – like a beautiful thought,
Over man's wisdom how far! —
God for some purpose has wrought;
And though they're that which they are,
What are the thoughts they have brought?
Stars and the moon; and they roll
Over our way that is white.
Here shall we end the long stroll?
Here shall I kiss you good-night?
Or, for a while, soul to soul,
Linger and dream of delight?
Myths tell of walls and cities that arose
To melody. But I would build with tone,
Had I that harp, a world for us alone,
A world of love, and joy, and deep repose.
A land of lavender light, of blue-bell skies;
Pale peaks that rise against the gold of eve;
And on one height, the splendors never leave,
Our castled home o'er which the wild swan flies.
There, pitiless, the ruined hand of death
Should never reach. No bud, no thing should fade;
All should be perfect, pure, and unafraid;
And life serener than an angel's breath.
The days should move to music; wildly tame
The nights should move to music and the stars;
And morn and evening in their opal cars,
Like heralds, banner God's eternal name.
O world! O life! desired and to be!
How shall we reach thee? – dark the way and dim.
– Give me your hand, love, let us follow him,
Love with the mystery and the melody.
Violets and anemones
The surrendered hours
Pour, as handsels, round the knees
Of the Spring, who to the breeze
Flings her myriad flowers.
Like to coins the sumptuous day
Strews with blossoms golden
Every furlong of his way, —
Like a Sultan gone to pray
At a Kaaba olden.
And the night, with spark on spark,
Clad in dim attire,
Dots with Stars the haloed dark, —
As a priest around the Ark
Lights his lamps of fire.
These are but the cosmic strings
To the harp of Beauty,
To that instrument which sings
In our souls of love that brings
Peace and faith and duty.
О проекте
О подписке
Другие проекты