THERE is a power whose inspiration fills Spirit of Beauty, whose sweet impulses, I, too, among the visionary throng Youth's flowers like childhood's fade and are forgot. I have fared too far to turn back now; my breast |
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I KNOW a village in a far-off land Here, among trees whose overhanging shade But here where little lizards bask and blink And crowning other parts the wild white rose Wherein no lack of flowers the verdurous night And under the deep grass blue hare-bells hide, That sprung like Hermes from his natal cave Here many a day right gladly have I sped, Pillowed at case to hear the merry tune And, parting tangled bushes as I passed And here where the blanched lilies of the vale For oft I think, in years long since gone by, Thrice dear to them whose votive fingers decked When twilight deepened, in the gathering shade And the strange tempest that a touch imparts Love's soul that is the depth of starry skies They knew; and here where morning-glories cling But their choice seat was where the garden wall, Still round the turrets of this antique tower And whoso mounts by this dismantled stair For through that frame the ivied arches make, And over plain and far sierra spread Dear were such evenings to this gentle pair; And out of this old house a flowery fane, Tree-ferns, therefore, and potted palms they brought, And there was spread, upon the ample floors, And there was many a dainty attitude, Close by upon a beryl column, clad And there were shapes of Beauty myriads more, 'Twas such a bower as Youth has visions of, Or most like Vivien, the enchanting fay, For here, their pleasure was to come and sit Whereon the shafts of ardent light, far-flung Tinging each altitude of heaven in turn, And they would watch the first faint stars appear, So dusk would come and mingle lake and shore, Sometimes the peasant, coming late from town And he would pause under the garden wall, O lyre that Love's white holy hands caress, The wake of color that follows her when May For thee the mountains open glorious gates, Yet not without one fond memorial Speak of one then who had the lust to feel, A nympholept, through pleasant days and drear That coming one whose feet in other days I sometimes think a conscious happiness And such were theirs: the traveller without, And still they think a spirit haunts the place: But this I know not, for what time the wain Waves of faint sound would pulsate from afar |
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THEIR strength had fed on this when Death's white arms Deep in a chamber that no cheerful ray They answered not. As one reclining in the banquet hall, Stung with shame--- |
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THERE was a boy---not above childish fears With steps that faltered now and straining ears, Timid, irresolute, yet dauntless still, Who one bright dawn, when each remotest hill Stood sharp and clear in Heaven's unclouded blue And all Earth shimmered with fresh-beaded dew, Risen in the first beams of the gladdening sun, Walked up into the mountains. One by one Each towering trunk beneath his sturdy stride Fell back, and ever wider and more wide The boundless prospect opened. Long he strayed, From dawn till the last trace of slanting shade Had vanished from the canyons, and, dismayed At that far length to which his path had led, He paused---at such a height where overhead The clouds hung close, the air came thin and chill, And all was hushed and calm and very still, Save, from abysmal gorges, where the sound Of tumbling waters rose, and all around The pines, by those keen upper currents blown, Muttered in multitudinous monotone. Here, with the wind in lovely locks laid bare, With arms oft raised in dedicative prayer, Lost in mute rapture and adoring wonder, He stood, till the far noise of noontide thunder, Rolled down upon the muffled harmonies Of wind and waterfall and whispering trees, Made loneliness more lone. Some Panic fear Would seize him then, as they who seemed to hear In Tracian valleys or Thessalian woods The god's hallooing wake the leafy solitudes; I think it was the same: some piercing sense Of Deity's pervasive immanence, The Life that visible Nature doth indwell Grown great and near and all but palpable . . . He might not linger, but with wingèd strides Like one pursued, fled down the mountain-sides--- Down the long ridge that edged the steep ravine, By glade and flowery lawn and upland green, And never paused nor felt assured again But where the grassy foothills opened. Then, While shadows lengthened on the plain below And the sun vanished and the sunset-glow Looked back upon the world with fervid eye Through the barred windows of the western sky, Homeward he fared, while many a look behind Showed the receding ranges dim-outlined, Highland and hollow where his path had lain, Veiled in deep purple of the mountain rain. |
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To see the clouds his spirit yearned toward so And roused by street-cries in strange tongues when day These were his joys. Oft under bulging crates, There where the meadows waken in its rays, White dunes that breaking show a strip of sea, And coast-towns where the vultures back and forth And the wine-cellar and the chorus there, Back of his footsteps as he journeyed fell And like the west behind a sundown sea From every branch a blossom for his brow That Loveliness whose being sun and star, That veiled divinity whose beams transpire His heart the love of Beauty held as hides |
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THE need to love that all the stars obey Before the beauty of the west on fire, I sought the City and the hopes it held: A truant from the fields and rustic joy, Often the veil has trembled at some tide Clouds, window-framed, beyond the huddled eaves An organ-grinder's melancholy tune And my soul once more would be wrapped entire Shone that lost Paradise; but, if it did, And I have followed Fame with less devotion, And aught the world contends for to mine eye |
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OVER the radiant ridges borne out on the offshore wind, I have strayed from the trodden highway for walking with upturned
eyes Evening of ample horizons, opaline, delicate, pure, World of romance and profusion, still round my journey spread I never could rest from roving nor put from my heart this
need Over the azure expanses, on the offshore breezes borne, |
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OFT when sweet music undulated round, And in the country, leaf and flower and air The little cloud-gaps in the east that filled And in the city, dominant desire Mystical, feminine, provoking, nude, Draped in the rainbow on the summer hills, The gold all color and grace are folded o'er, Round thee revolves, illimitably wide, Thou art the poem on the cosmic page--- Thou art the rose that the world's smiles and tears Thou art the idol in the altar-niche Thou art the secret in the crystal where, And soft and warm as in the magic sphere, |
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ALL that's not love is the dearth of my days, Let me survive not the lovable sway The delicate hues of its sevenfold rings No more would I linger past Love's ardent bounds |
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FIRST, London, for its myriads; for its height, Fair loiterer on the threshold of those days And coming where the crossroads separate Oh, go to Paris. . . . In the midday gloom So high that you can hear a mating dove And have a little balcony to bring There of an evening you shall sit at ease And looking out over the domes and towers You cannot fail to think, as I have done, . Come out into the evening streets. The green light The belfry on Saint Severin strikes eight across the Now crowded diners fill the floor of brasserie and res- Where rows of tables from the street are screened with And old men stand with menu-cards, inviting passers- But, having drunk and eaten well, 'tis pleasant then to Here saunter types of every sort. The shoddy jostle Slavs with their peasant, Christ-like heads, and cour- And painters with big, serious eyes go rapt in dreams, And lovers wander two by two, oblivious among the All laughing lips you move among, all happy hearts "Comment ça va!" "Mon vieux!" "Mon
cher!" A law that's sane, a Love that's free, and men of every The open café-windows frame loungers at their liqueurs
And in the brilliant-lighted door of cinemas the barker But follow past the flaming lights, borne onward with Here all Bohemia flocks apace; you could not often Under the glare and noise and heat the galaxy of dancing From tables packed around the wall the crowds that That, settling where the coils unroll, tangle with pink Here Mimi ventures, at fifteen, to make her début
in Her hair, a tight hat just allows to brush beneath the Uncorseted, her clinging dress with every step and turn As guiding Gaby or Lucile she dances, emulating them Each turn a challenge, every pose an invitation to com- And, flaunting all the hue that lies in childish cheeks But now the blood from every heart leaps madder Caught in the spell of pulsing sound, impatient elbows Surrender, swift to be possessed, the silken supple forms
Crowds congregate and make a ring. Four deep they Lithe limbs relaxed, exalted eyes fastened on vacancy, Or, rapt in some Arabian Night, to rock there, cradled And only when the measures cease and terminate the Midnight adjourns the festival. The couples climb Close-folded in desire they pass, or stop to drink and The "Closerie" or "La Rotonde," where
smoking, under Make one of them and come to know sweet Paris---not But taking some white proffered hand that from Earth's And that divine enchanted life that lurks under Life's Shall, knocking, open to your hands, for Love is all its And when all else is gray and void in the vast gulf of When vaulted with the city skies, on its cathedral floors
At Love's high altar fit to stand, with fire and incense . ................Have ye gazed
on its grandeur ................A city resplendent, ................'Tis the city
of Lovers, ................It was thither,
ambitious, ................Under arbor and
trellis, |
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My spirit only lived to look on Beauty's face, I have roamed far in search; white road and plunging bow Hot are enamored hands, the fragrant zone unbound, The flowers in the fields, the surf upon the sands, A noise of summer wind astir in starlit trees, I woke amid the pomp of a proud palace; writ Their robes and rings were mine to draw from shimmering trays--- I rose; far music drew my steps in fond pursuit And there were verdurous courts that scalloped arches wreathed, I paused where shadowy walls were hung with cloths of gold, I hungered; at my hand delicious dainties teemed--- I yearned for passionate Love; faint gauzes fell away. Joys that had smiled afar, a visionary form, Joy, that where summer seas and hot horizons shone I was so happy there; so fleeting was my stay, Speak not of other worlds of happiness to be, Flowerlike I hope to die as flowerlike was my birth. I see no dread in death, no horror to abhor. Unto the fields and flowers this flesh I found so fair Yea, where the banquet-hall is brilliant with young men, Unto the flush of dawn and evening I commend Unto angelic Earth, whereof the lives of those |
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IN that fair capital where Pleasure, crowned . There was a time when I thought much of Fame, But swifter than my fingers pushed their plan, And now, too late to see my vision, rise, My friends were duped, my favorers deceived; . For there were nights . . . my love to him whose brow . What is Success ? Out of the endless ore O Love, whereof my boyhood was the dream, |
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