A Jongleur Strayed Part 3

Lonely grows the afternoon, empty grows the world; Day's bright banners in the west one by one are furled, Sadly sinks the lingering sun that like a lover rose, One by one each woodland thing loses heart and goes.

Back along the woodland, all the day is dead, All the green has turned to gray, and all the gold to lead; O 'tis bitter cruel, sweet, to treat a lover so: If only I were half a man . . . I'd let the baggage go.

THE RIVAL

She failed me at the tryst: All the long afternoon The golden day went by, Until the rising moon; But, as I waited on, Turning my eyes about, Aching for sight of her, Until the stars came out,-- Maybe 'twas but a dream-- There close against my face, "Beauty am I," said one, "I come to take her place."

And then I understood Why, all the waiting through, The green had seemed so green, The blue had seemed so blue, The song of bird and stream Had been so pa.s.sing sweet, For all the coming not Of her forgetful feet; And how my heart was tranced, For all its lonely ache, Gazing on mirrored rushes Sky-deep in the lake.

Said Beauty: "_Me_ you love, You love her for my sake."

THE QUARREL

Thou shall not me persuade This love of ours Can in a moment fade, Like summer flowers;

That a swift word or two, In angry haste, Our heaven shall undo, Our hearts lay waste.

For a poor flash of pride, A cold word spoken, Love shall not be denied, Or long troth broken.

Yea; wilt thou not relent?

Be mine the wrong, No more the argument, Dear love, prolong.

The summer days go by, Cease that sweet rain, Those angry crystals dry, Be friends again.

So short a time at best Is ours to play, Come, take me to thy breast-- Ah! that's the way.

LOVERS

Why should I ask perfection of thee, sweet, That have so little of mine own to bring?

That thou art beautiful from head to feet-- Is that, beloved, such a little thing, That I should ask more of thee, and should fling Thy largesse from me, in a world like this, O generous giver of thy perfect kiss?

Thou gavest me thy lips, thine eyes, thine hair; I brought thee wors.h.i.+p--was it not thy due?

If thou art cruel--still art thou not fair?

Roses thou gavest--shalt thou not bring rue?

Alas! have I not brought thee sorrow too?

How dare I face the future and its drouth, Missing that golden honeycomb thy mouth?

Kiss and make up--'tis the wise ancient way; Back to my arms, O bountiful deep breast!

No more of words that know not what they say; To kiss is wisdom--folly all the rest.

Dear loveliness so mercifully pressed Against my heart--I shake with sudden fear To think--to losing thee I came so near.

SHADOWS

Shadows! the only shadows that I know Are happy shadows of the light of you, The radiance immortal s.h.i.+ning through Your sea-deep eyes up from the soul below; Your shadow, like a rose's, on the gra.s.s Where your feet pa.s.s.

The shadow of the dimple in your chin, The shadow of the lashes of your eyes, As on your cheek, soft as a moth, it lies; And, as a church, I softly enter in The solemn twilight of your mighty hair, Down falling there.

These are Love's shadows, Love knows none but these: Shadows that are the very soul of light, As morning and the morning blossom bright, Or jewelled shadows of moon-haunted seas; The darkest shadows in this world of ours Are made of flowers.

AFTER TIBULLUS

_Illius est n.o.bis lege colendus amor_

On her own terms, O lover, must thou take The heart's beloved: be she kind, 'tis well, Cruel, expect no more; not for thy sake But for the fire in thee that melts her snows For a brief spell She loves thee--"loves" thee! Though thy heart should break, Though thou shouldst lie athirst for her in h.e.l.l, She could not pity thee: who of the Rose, Or of the Moon, asks pity, or return Of love for love? and she is even as those.

Beauty is she, thou Love, and thou must learn, O lover, this: Thine is she for the music thou canst pour Through her white limbs, the madness, the deep dream; Thine, while thy kiss Can sweep her flaming with thee down the stream That is not thou nor she but merely bliss; The music ended, she is thine no more.

In her Eternal Beauty bends o'er thee, Be thou content; She is the evening star in thy hushed lake Mirrored,--be glad; A soul-less creature of the element, Nor good, nor bad; That which thou callest to in the far skies Comes to thee in her eyes; That thou mayst slake Thy love of lilies, lo! her b.r.e.a.s.t.s! Be wise, Ask not that she, as thou, should human be, She that doth smell so sweet of distant heaven; Pity is mortal leaven, Dews know it not, nor morning on the hills, And who hath yet found pity of the sea That blesses, knowing not, and, not knowing, kills; And sister unto all of these is she, Whose face, as theirs, none reads; whose heart none knows; Whose words are as the wind's words, and whose ways, O lover, learn, Swerve not, or turn Aside for prayers, or broken-hearted praise: The young moon looks not back as on she goes.

On their own terms, O lover!--Girl, Moon, Rose.

A WARNING

We that were born, beloved, so far apart, So many seas and lands, The G.o.ds, one sudden day, joined heart to heart, Locked hands in hands, Distance relented and became our friend, And met, for our sakes, world's end with world's end.

The earth was centred in one flowering plot Beneath thy feet, and all the rest was not.

Now wouldst thou rend our nearness, and again Bring distance back, and place Poles and equators, mountain range and plain, Between me and thy face, Undoing what the G.o.ds divinely planned; Heart, canst thou part? hand, loose me from thy hand?

Not twice the G.o.ds their slighted gifts bestow; Bethink thee well, beloved, ere thou dost go.

PRIMUM MOBILE

When thou art gone, then all the rest will go; Mornings no more shall dawn, Roses no more shall blow, Thy lovely face withdrawn-- Nor woods grow green again after the snow; For of all these thy beauty was the dream, The soul, the sap, the song; To thee the bloom and beam Of flower and star belong, And all the beauty thine of bird and stream.

Thy bosom was the moonrise, and the morn The roses of thy cheek, No lovely thing was born But of thy face did speak-- How shall all these endure, of thee forlorn?

The sad heart of the world grew glad through thee, Happy, men toiled and spun That had thy smile for fee; So flowers seek the sun, So singing rivers hasten to the sea.

Yet, though the world, bereft, should bleakly bloom, And wanly make believe Against the general doom, For me the earth you leave Shall be for ever but a haunted room; Yea! though my heart beat on a little s.p.a.ce, When thou art strangely gone To thy far hiding-place, Soon shall I follow on, Out-footing Death to over-take thy face.