Aux Italiens

891

And I swear, as I thought of her thus, in that hour,
And of how, after all, old things were best,
That I smelt the smell of that jasmine-flower
Which she used to wear in her breast.

It smelt so faint, and it smelt so sweet,
It made me creep, and it made me cold!

Like the scent that steals from the crumbling sheet
Where a mummy is half unrolled.

And I turned, and looked. She was sitting there
In a dim box, over the stage; and dressed
In that muslin dress with that full soft hair,
And that jasmine in her breast!

I was here; and she was there;

And the glittering horseshoe curved between:From my bride-betrothed, with her raven hair, And her sumptuous scornful mien,

To my early love, with her eyes downcast,
And over her primrose face the shade
(In short from the Future back to the Past),
There was but a step to be made.

To my early love from my future bride

One moment I looked. Then I stole to the door,
I traversed the passage; and down at her side
I was sitting, a moment more.

My thinking of her, or the music's strain,

Or something which never will be expressed, Had brought her back from the grave again, With the jasmine in her breast.

She is not dead, and she is not wed!

But she loves me now, and she loved me then! And the very first word that her sweet lips said, My heart grew youthful again.

The Marchioness there, of Carabas,

She is wealthy, and young, and handsome still, And but for her . . . well, we'll let that pass, She may marry whomever she will.

But I will marry my own first love,

With her primrose face: for old things are best,
And the flower in her bosom, I prize it above
The brooch in my lady's breast.

The world is filled with folly and sin,

And Love must cling where it can, I say: For Beauty is easy enough to win;

But one isn't loved every day.

And I think, in the lives of most women and men, There's a moment when all would go smooth and even, If only the dead could find out when

To come back, and be forgiven.

But O the smell of that jasmine-flower!
And O that music! and O the way

That voice rang out from the donjon tower,

Non ti scordar di me,

Non ti scordar di me!

Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton [1831–1891]

SONG

I SAW the day's white rapture
Die in the sunset's flame,
But all her shining beauty

Lives like a deathless name.

Our lamps of joy are wasted,

Gone is Love's hallowed light;

But you and I remember

Through every starlit night.

Charles Hanson Towne (1877

"

Evensong

893

THE LONELY ROAD

I THINK thou waitest, Love, beyond the Gate-
Eager, with wind-stirred ripples in thy hair;
I have not found thee, and the hour is late,
And harsh the weight I bear.

Far have I sought, and flung my wealth of years
Like a young traveler, gay at careless inns→→
See how the wine-stain whitens 'neath the tears
My burden wins!

And wilt thou know me, Love, with bended back,
Or wilt thou scorn me, in so drear a guise?..
I have a wealth of sorrows in my pack,

One lonely prize—

Thy dream-and dross of sin. . . . O, dim the fields-
I may not find thee in so dark a land-

Yet I await what hope the turning yields
And beg with empty hand.

Kenneth Rand [1891

EVENSONG

BEAUTY calls and gives no warning,
Shadows rise and wander on the day.
In the twilight, in the quiet evening,
We shall rise and smile and go away.
Over the flaming leaves
Freezes the sky.

It is the season grieves,

Not you, not I.

All our spring-times, all our summers,
We have kept the longing warm within.
Now we leave the after-comers

To attain the dreams we did not win.

Oh, we have wakened, Sweet, and had our birth,
And that's the end of earth;

And we have toiled and smiled and kept the light,

And that's the end of night.

Ridgely Torrence [1875–

THE NYMPH'S SONG TO HYLAS

From

"The Life and Death of Jason "

I KNOW a little garden-close
Set thick with lily and red rose,
Where I would wander if I might
From dewy dawn to dewy night,
And have one with me wandering.

And though within it no birds sing,
And though no pillared house is there,
And though the apple boughs are bare
Of fruit and blossom, would to God,
Her feet upon the green grass trod,
And I beheld them as before!

There comes a murmur from the shore,
And in the close two fair streams are,
Drawn from the purple hills afar,
Drawn down unto the restless sea;
Dark hills whose heath-bloom feeds no bee,
Dark shore no ship has ever seen,
Tormented by the billows green,
Whose murmur comes unceasingly
Unto the place for which I cry.

For which I cry both day and night,
For which I let slip all delight,
Whereby I grow both deaf and blind,
Careless to win, unskilled to find,
And quick to lose what all men seek.

Yet tottering as I am, and weak,
Still have I left a little breath
To seek within the jaws of death

An entrance to that happy place;

To seek the unforgotten face

Once seen, once kissed, once reft from me

Anigh the murmuring of the sea.

William Morris [1834-1896]

"A Little While"

NO AND YES

IF I could choose my paradise,

And please myself with choice of bliss,
Then I would have your soft blue eyes
And rosy little mouth to kiss!

Your lips, as smooth and tender, child,
As rose-leaves in a coppice wild.

If fate bade choose some sweet unrest,
To weave my troubled life a snare,
Then I would say "her maiden breast
And golden ripple of her hair";
And weep amid those tresses, child,
Contented to be thus beguiled.

895

Thomas Ashe [1836-1889]

LOVE IN DREAMS

LOVE hath his poppy-wreath,

Not Night alone.

I laid my head beneath

Love's lilied throne:

Then to my sleep he brought

This anodyne

The flower of many a thought

And fancy fine:

A form, a face, no more;

Fairer than truth;

A dream from death's pale shore;

The soul of youth:

A dream so dear, so deep,

All dreams above,

That still I pray to sleep

Bring Love back, Love!

John Addington Symonds [1840-1893]

"A LITTLE WHILE I FAIN WOULD LINGER YET”.

A LITTLE While (my life is almost set!)

I fain would pause along the downward way,
Musing an hour in this sad sunset-ray,