forest slow
Her palfrey's silken feet did go,
Bearing her solemnly like a god
Over the shadow-haunted sod;
She laught to see the dead desire
That even now her life should tire,
She laught to think that to the earth
They call'd her that was full of mirth,
And though before her horse's head
Throng'd the wan legions of the dead
Wanly attempting to stop her way,
She halted not for their legions gray,
But rode through the midnight's mystic noon
Under the far gaze of the moon.
Then out from the dying woods at last
Into the moonlit plain she passt;
The misty stars were almost dead
Sunk in the heavens overhead,
While low down in the solemn skies
The white moon wan'd as one that dies.
Solemnly through the misty air
She rode with gold gems in her hair;
Bright were her holy eyes divine,
And red her lips as the red red wine.
At last in the unceasing night
Down from her palfrey she doth alight
By the strange murmuring of the sea;
She climbs the tall stair fearlessly,
And cometh at last to her chamber high
Beneath the wide face of the sky.
At last her journey being done,
She hath her golden stays undone,
And being a little wearied,
Hath laid her naked on her bed,
Thinking to slumber like the dead.




CHANGELESSNESS


When Death shall touch thy body beautiful,
And thou that art of all the earth most fair
Shalt close thine eyes upon the shining air,
An unadorned gold urn to make full;

When that thou liest quietly inurn'd
In the dark bosom of the earth divine,
Being turned unto a heap of ashes fine,
For love of whose white face all men have burn'd;

Then in the earth, O beautiful white love,
Thy beauty shall not wholly end and cease,
When that thou art gone to endless peace;

Though all things beneath the sky above
Fade away, it knoweth not to die,
But abideth changeless endlessly.




MADONNA


Anguish and Mourning are as gold to her;
She weareth Pain upon her as a gem,
And on her head Grief like a diadem;
And as with frankincense and tropic myrrh

Her face is fragrant made with utter Woe;
And on her purple gorgeous garment's hem
Madness and Death and all the ways of them
Emblazoned in strange carousal show.

Within her delicate face are all things met,
And all the sad years and the dolorous days
Are but as jewels round her forehead set,

Add but a little glory to her face,
A little languor to her half-clos'd eyes,
That smile so strangely under the far skies.




POPPY SONG


O poppy-buds, that in the golden air
Wave heavy hanging censers of delight,
Give me an anodyne for my despair;
O crimson poppy-blooms, O golden blight,
O careless drunken heavy poppy-flowers,
Make that the day for me be as the night.
Give me to lie down in your drowsy bowers,
That having breathed of your rich perfume,
My soul may have all-rest through all the hours;
So shall I lie within my little room,
While the poor tyrants of the world go by,
Restfully shrouded in your velvet gloom,
Beneath the wide face of the cloudless sky.

—Even so, when thou shalt eat of us,
Even so, thy life shall be a sleep,
Empty of all things fierce and piteous;
Even as a sailor on the tossing deep
Hears vaguely the vain tumult on the shore,
Shouts of the fighters, songs of them that reap.
Life is all vanity, a loathed sore,
A scatter'd dust, a vain and soiled heap.—
Thou shalt have golden rest forevermore.

O poppy-flowers, golden, sleepy, sweet,
O yellow tawny fading blooms of gold,
Give unto me your holy fruit to eat;
Make me forget all things above the mould;
Make me forget that dolorous vow that sears,
Not to be lesser than the great of old;
Make me forget the heavy old dead years,
And all that lives from out the writhing past,
Old struggles, dead ambitions, buried tears;
And that white face that I shall see the last.

—Sweet is forgetfulness, most sweet to lie,
Sunken from sorrow, in our pleasant vale,
Where but the sun shines, and the clouds go by;
Even as to them that through deep waters sail
The toiling shore fades and becomes a sky,
And evermore behind the billows fail.
Sweet to forget the death-like things that were,
Green pastures where the clouds sail by on high,
Dead sundawns over pathless prairies fair,
And suns long sunk beneath the wall of the sky.

Under the sun my spirit lies alone,
Drunken with slumber and mild exstasy....
Sleep, sweet sleep, long unto mine eyes unknown.
Drops on me as ripe fruit drops from a tree;
My dim eyes see the valley poppy-strown;
The clouds fade and the gold sun over me,
And the world's murmur sounds within my lair
Like the far tossing of some infinite sea;
Within the heavy slumber-laden air
All fades, all fades, and grows afar afar,
Leaving my soul alone, empty of care,
Even as happy long-dead bodies are.
Even so I slumber in my tireless close,
While the whole world fades like a fading star,
Dies like the perfume of a dying rose.




CONSOLATION


Among all sorrows that my heart hath known,
Among all sorrows that my spirit keep
Forever buried 'neath their mountains steep,
Standeth one consolation, one alone.

I know that earth shall be for death a throne,
And evermore within their burials deep
The banded nations of the earth shall sleep,
Sunken in sepulchres of sculptur'd stone.

Then all the world shall be a quietness:
Dead women beautiful with their delights;
All they that had such striving and distress,

And endless weariness in all the lands,
White faces, eager heart-strings, soiled hands;
And peace shall hold the valleys and the heights.




LIEBES-TOD


I

Thy splendour-lighted face before mine eyes
Shines like a flaming sunset evermore;
Thee only I behold on the earth's floor,
Thee only I behold within the skies;

Thy coming on is like a conqueror,
Before thy footsteps the world's glory dies,
Within mine ears thy voice doth ever rise
Like a loud ocean beating on the shore.

Thou art made kindred with eternity,
Daughter of glory, daughter of consolations;
Thy face is set above the constellations;

Of Death! O love! be I made one with thee,
That on thy holy lips and in thy love
The world may perish and the light thereof!


II

Lo, now my life is gone unto eclipse
Upon thy perilous bosom; lo, I die,
Faint with the utter whole of exstasy,
With unassuaged lips against thy lips,

That can give no more joy; lo, at the place
Of utter joy, lo, at joy's far-off throne,
Which none shall reach, with eyes now weary grown,
I lie slain at its utmost golden base.

Yea, we have call'd the white stars to behold
Our pale and fainting faces sick with joy;
Oregal lips that shall death's sting destroy,

I have suck'd bare life's cup upon thy breath!
Kiss me to death! Lo, now our lips are cold,
Wilt thou not bring new joy, O Death, O Death?




EVENING SONG


Lo, all the passionate pale evening
I lay between the breasts of my beloved,
Among the lilies, in the lily garden.
The sky was pale, and all the sunset faded,
And all the stars I saw not in the heaven,
Because the glory of her face above me
I saw alone, wrapt in a dream of slumber;
And lo, she was more fair than all the lilies,
Among the lilies, in the lily garden.
And all her hair was golden chains to bind me,
And all her mouth was crimson fire to burn me,
And all the world became as wind before me,
But as the wind before her face that passes,
Among the lilies, in the lily garden.
And lo, her face was fairer than the stars are,
And lo, her breasts were whiter than the moon is,
Whiter than the moon, and tipp'd with crimson coral.
And low she bow'd her body, low before me,
And gave me of her joy unto fulfilling:
She bow'd her head whereto the stars do homage,
Before whose face the years wax dim and fading,
Before whose eyes the ages pass and vanish;
Bow'd her low down before me like a lily,
Among the lilies, in the lily garden.
And now at last I care not if the morning
Come at all, or the pale stars have setting,
Nay I care not if the whole world perish,
Perish and die, or if the white stars falter,
Nay I care not if the night forever
Hold me by her, and all things have ceasing;
Yea, because her lips are more than roses,
Yea, because her breasts are more than Heaven,
Yea, because her face is more than God is,
Among the lilies, in the lily garden.




SONG OF THE STARS IN PRAISE OF HER


O starry light of the dim universe!
The night adoreth thee, the planets high
That reign far off within the desert sky
Praise thee as with the sound of dulcimers,
And all the temples of the night rehearse
Thy solemn glory everlastingly!

O thou for whom the moon's pale-lighted star
And all the planets and the milky gleam,
But as a little of thy praising seem,
And the great lights that swim through heaven afar
But the reflection of thy glory are;
Thou only art; these are but shine and dream;

Thou art that light that doth the stars illume,
Thou art the glimmer of the moon divine;
All these are but the garment that is thine;
Thou art the wonder and the glow, the bloom,
Thou art the lonely lamp in night's great gloom,
Thou art the skyey light, the starry shine.

Starlight is but the glory of thy face,
The shimmer of the silver planets pale
Is but the dim effulgence of thy veil;
And the great passing of the nights and days
Is all but as the perfume of thy praise.
O Holy, Holy, Holy, hail, O hail!




AUBADE


The lady awoke before the cold gray dawn,
And had no joy thereof;
—What joy is mine of all the joy of love,
When love is gone?

Lo, all the air is strange unto mine eyes,
Lo, all the stars are dead;
Only the moon appeareth overhead
As one that dies.

Lo, all the garden lieth desolate,
And very strange to see,
Wherein, the roses and the grass for me
Blossom'd of late.

O rose-garden wherein my roses grew,
O odorous dim ways,
Why are ye strange to me as perish'd days,
And cold with dew?

Through the wide window creeps the cold sweet air,
Faint with sweet rose-perfume,
It stealeth o'er my body in the gloom,
And o'er my hair.

Surely I have drunk full of love's delight,
But now my lips are cold,
While the pale day in silence doth behold
The dying night.




REMEMBER


Remember, ye whom the skies delight,
Whose faces flame with the falling sun,
That after sunset cometh the night,
That sorrow followeth all delight,
When love, and lover, and lov'd are one.

O ye whose days are as sands that run,
One house there is unknown of delight,
One garden is there belov'd of none,
One place there is unseen of the sun,
Remember, ye whom the skies delight.




SONG


She hath liv'd the life of a rose,
She that was fair,
Blown on by the summer air,
Grown tall in a golden close.

An ending is set to delight;
Now thou art as grass,
As the leaves, as the blossoms that pass,
Made pale at the touch of the night.




SONG


Cometh a day and a night,
When the lamps of life burn dim,
When peace is secur'd for delight,
And poppies for the red-rose flower;
When the lamps of life burn dim,
Cometh a day and a night,
A day and a night and an hour.

Cometh the end of the years,
When the cheeks have the lilies' bloom,
When slumber is given for tears,
And the breasts to the worm belong;
When the cheeks have the lilies' bloom,
Cometh the end of the years,
As silence after the song.

Cometh a day and a night
For him to whom all is thrown,
Whose own is the bosom white,
Whose own are the lips of gold;
For him to whom all is thrown,
Cometh a day and a night,
To have and to own and to hold.




CONSTANCY


Surely thy face, love, is a little pale,
And somewhat wan thy lips that were so red,
And though my kisses might raise up the dead,
To waken thy deep sleep they naught avail.

Before thy stillness some poor men might quail,
But I shall not desert thy holy bed,
Although thy passionate lips have no word said,
And thine adored breasts are cold like hail.

Thou art gone down to Death, thou art gone down,
And the dead things shall nestle in thy hair,
And the dust shall profane thy golden crown,

And the worms shall consume thy perfect face;
Even so: but Death shall bring thee no disgrace,
And to the stars I cry, Thou art most fair!




REQUIEM


White-rose perfume
Go with thee on thy way
Unto thy shaded tomb;
Low music fall
Lightly as autumn leaves
About thy solemn pall;
Faint incense rise
From many a censer swung
Above thy closed eyes;
And the sounds of them that pray
Make thy low bier an holy thing to be,
That all the beauty underneath the sun
Carries unto the clay.

Odour of musk and roses
Make sweet thy crimson lips
Whereon my soul hath gone to deep eclipse;
Poppies' and violets' scent
Be for thy burial lent
And every flower that sweetest smell discloses.
Upon thy breast,
Before which all my spirit hath bow'd down,
White lilies rest;
And for a crown upon thy mortal head
Be