in a golden veil

Stealest thou with faint footfall o'er the grass
As of old, to kiss from twilight unto dawn
The faded charms of thine Endymion?...

"O child of this sick century, I see
Thy grey-haired mother leering in her glass
And plastering the breast that suckled thee!"




TO THEODORE DE BANVILLE,

1842


So proud your port, your arm so powerful,
With such a grip you grip the goddess' hair,
That one might take you, from your casual air,
For a young ruffian flinging down his trull.

Your clear eye flashing with precocity,
You have displayed yourself proud architect
Of fabrics so audaciously correct
That we may guess what your ripe prime will be.

Poet, our blood ebbs out through every pore;
Is it, perchance, the robe the Centaur bore,
Which made a sullen streamlet of each vein,

Was three times dipped within the venom fell
Of those old reptiles fierce and terrible
Whom, in his cradle, Hercules had slain?




MUSIC


Oft Music, as it were some moving mighty sea,
Bears me towards my pale
Star: in clear space, or 'neath a vaporous canopy
On-floating, I set sail.

With heaving chest which strains forward, and lungs outblown,
I climb the ridgèd steeps
Of those high-pilèd clouds which 'thwart the night are thrown,
Veiling its starry deeps.

I suffer all the throes, within my quivering form,
Of a great ship in pain,
Now a soft wind, and now the writhings of a storm

Upon the vasty main
Rock me: at other times a death-like calm, the bare
Mirror of my despair.




THE CATS


The lover and the stern philosopher
Both love, in their ripe time, the confident
Soft cats, the house's chiefest ornament,
Who like themselves are cold and seldom stir.

Of knowledge and of pleasure amorous,
Silence they seek and Darkness' fell domain;
Had not their proud souls scorned to brook his rein,
They would have made grim steeds for Erebus.

Pensive they rest in noble attitudes
Like great stretched sphinxes in vast solitudes
Which seem to sleep wrapt in an endless dream;

Their fruitful loins are full of sparks divine,
And gleams of gold within their pupils shine
As 'twere within the shadow of a stream.




THE SADNESS OF THE MOON


This evening the Moon dreams more languidly,
Like a beauty who on mounded cushions rests,
And with her light hand fondles lingeringly,
Before she sleeps, the slope of her sweet breasts.

On her soft satined avalanches' height
Dying, she laps herself for hours and hours
In long, long swoons, and gazes at the white
Visions which rise athwart the blue like flowers.

When sometimes in her perfect indolence
She lets a furtive tear steal gently thence,
Some pious poet, a lone, sleepless one,

Takes in his hollowed hand this gem, shot through,
Like an opal stone, with gleams of every hue,
And in his heart's depths hides it from the sun.




MOESTA ET ERRABUNDA

Agatha, tell me, does thy heart not ache,
Plunged in this squalid city's filthy sea,
For another ocean where the splendours break
Blue, clear, and deep as is virginity.
Agatha, tell me, does thy heart not ache?

The sea, the sea unending, comforts us!
What demon gave the hoarse old sea who sings
To her mumbling hurricanes' organ thunderous
The god-like power to cradle sorrowful things?
The sea, the sea unending, comforts us.

Carry me, wagon, bear me, barque, away!
Far! Far! For here the mud is made of tears!
Does Agatha's sad heart not sometimes say:
"O far from shudderings and crimes and fears,
Carry me, wagon; bear me barque, away?"

How far thou art, O scented paradise,
O paradise where all is love and joy,
Where all is worthy love 'neath the azure skies,
And the heart drowns in bliss without alloy!
How far thou art, O scented paradise!

But the green paradise of childish loves,
The games, the songs, the kisses and the flowers,
The laughing draughts of wine in hidden groves,
The violins throbbing through the twilight hours,
—But the green paradise of childish loves,

The artless paradise of stealthy joys,
Is that already leagues beyond Cathay?
And can one, with a little plaintive noise,
Bring it again that is so far away—
The artless paradise of stealthy joys?




THE OWLS


'Neath their black yews in solemn state
The owls are sitting in a row
Like foreign gods; and even so
Blink their red eyes; they meditate.

Quite motionless they hold them thus
Until at last the day is done,
And driving down the slanting sun,
The sad night is victorious.

They teach the wise who gives them ear
That in this world he most should fear
All things which loud or restless be.

Who, dazzled by a passing shade,
Follows it, never will be free
Till the dread penalty be paid.

FINIS