Deep within the August woods;
Some that hum while rest may steep
Weary labour laid a-heap;
Interludes, 20
Some, of grievous moods that weep.
Poets’ fancies all are there:
There the elf-girls flood with wings
Valleys full of plaintive air;
There breathe perfumes; there in rings 25
Whirl the foam-bewildered springs;
Siren there
Winds her dizzy hair and sings.
Thence the one dream mutually
Dreamed in bridal unison,
Less than waking ecstasy;
Half-formed visions that make moan
In the house of birth alone;
And what we
At death’s wicket see, unknown. 35
But for mine own sleep, it lies
In one gracious form’s control,
Fair with honourable eyes,
Lamps of an auspicious soul:
O their glance is loftiest dole, 40
Sweet and wise,
Wherein Love descries his goal.
Reft of her, my dreams are all
Clammy trance that fears the sky:
Changing footpaths shift and fall; 45
From polluted coverts nigh,
Miserable phantoms sigh;
Quakes the pall,
And the funeral goes by.
Master, is it soothly said 50
That, as echoes of man’s speech
Far in secret clefts are made,
So do all men’s bodies reach
Shadows o’er thy sunken beach, -
Shape or shade 55
In those halls pourtrayed of each?
Ah! might I, by thy good grace
Groping in the windy stair,
(Darkness and the breath of space
Like loud waters everywhere,) 60
Meeting mine own image there
Face to face,
Send it from that place to her!
Nay, not I; but oh! do thou,
Master, from thy shadowkind 65
Call my body’s phantom now:
Bid it bear its face declin’d
Till its flight her slumbers find,
And her brow
Feel its presence bow like wind. 70
Where in groves the gracile Spring
Trembles, with mute orison
Confidently strengthening,
Water’s voice and wind’s as one
Shed an echo in the sun.
Soft as Spring,
Master, bid it sing and moan.
Song shall tell how glad and strong
Is the night she soothes away;
Moan shall grieve with that parched tongue 80
Of the brazen hours of day:
Sounds as of the springtide they,
Moan and song,
While the chill months long for May.
Not the prayers which with all leave 85
The world’s fluent woes prefer, -
Not the praise the world doth give,
Dulcet fulsome whisperer; -
Let it yield my love to her,
And achieve 90
Strength that shall not grieve or err.
Wheresoe’er my dreams befall,
Both at night-watch, (let it say,)
And where round the sundial
The reluctant hours of day, 95
Heartless, hopeless of their way,
Rest and call; -
There her glance doth fall and stay.
Suddenly her face is there:
So do mounting vapours wreathe 100
Subtle-scented transports where
The black firwood sets its teeth.
Part the boughs and look beneath, -
Lilies share
Secret waters there, and breathe. 105
Master, bid my shadow bend
Whispering thus till birth of light,
Lest new shapes that sleep may send
Scatter all its work to flight; -
Master, master of the night, 110
Bid it spend
Speech, song, prayer, and end aright.
Yet, ah me! if her head
There another phantom lean
Murmuring o’er the fragrant bed,- 115
Ah! and if my spirit’s queen
Smile those alien words between, -
Ah! poor shade!
Shall it strive, or fade unseen?
How should love’s own messenger 120
Strive with love and be love’s foe?
Master, nay! If thus, in her,
Sleep a wedded heart should show, -
Silent let mine image go,
Its old share 125
Of thy spell-bound air to know.
Like a vapour wan and mute,
Like a flame, so let it pass;
One low sigh across her lute,
One dull breath against her glass; 130
And to my sad soul, alas!
One salute
Cold as when death’s foot shall pass.
Then, too, let all hopes of mine,
All vain hopes by night and day, 135
Slowly at thy summoning sign
Rise up pallid and obey.
Dreams, if this is thus, were they: -
Be they thine.
And to dreamland pine away. 140
Yet from old time, life, not death,
Master, in thy rule is rife:
Lo! through thee, with mingling breath,
Adam woke beside his wife.
O Love bring me so, for strife, 145
Force and faith,
Bring me so not death but life!
Yea, to Love himself is pour’d
This frail song of hope and fear.
Thou art Love, of one accord 150
With kind Sleep to bring her near
Still-eyed, deep-eyed, ah how dear!
Master, Lord,
In her name implor’d, O hear!
THE WOODSPURGE
The wind flapped loose, the wind was still,
Shaken out dead from tree and hill:
I had walked on at the wind’s will, -
I sat now, for the wind was still.
Between my knees my forehead was, - 5
My lips, drawn in, said not Alas!
My hair was over in the grass,
My naked ears heard the day pass.
My eyes, wide open, had the run
Of some ten weeds to fix upon; 10
Among those few, out of the sun,
The woodspurge flowered, three cups in one.
From perfect grief there need not be
Wisdom or even memory:
One thing then learnt remains to me, - 15
The woodspurge has a cup of three.
BEAUTY AND THE BIRD
She fluted with her mouth as when one sips,
And gently waved her golden head, inclin’d
Outside his cage close to the window-blind;
Till her fond bird, with little turns and dips,
Piped low to her of sweet companionships. 5
And when he made an end, some seed took she
And fed him from her tongue, which rosily
Peeped as a piercing bud between her lips.
And like the child in Chaucer, on whose tongue
The Blessed Mary laid, when he was dead, 10
A grain, - who straightway praised her name in song:
Even so, when she, a little lightly red,
Now turned on me and laughed, I heard the throng
Of inner voices praise her golden head.
JENNY
‘Vengeance of Jenny’s case! Fie on her! Never name her, child!’ — Mistress Quickly
Lazy laughing languid Jenny,
Fond of a kiss and fond of a guinea,
Whose head upon my knee to-night
Rests for a while, as if grown light
With all our dances a
nd the sound 5
To which the wild tunes spun you round:
Fair Jenny mine, the thoughtless queen
Of kisses which the blush between
Could hardly make much daintier;
Whose eyes are as blue skies, whose hair 10
Is countless gold incomparable:
Fresh flower, scarce touched with signs that tell
Of Love’s exuberant hotbed: - Nay,
Poor flower left torn since yesterday
Until to-morrow leave you bare; 15
Poor handful of bright spring-water
Flung in the whirlpool’s shrieking face;
Poor shameful Jenny, full of grace
Thus with your head upon my knee; -
Whose person or whose purse may be 20
The lodestar of your reverie?
This room of yours, my Jenny, looks
A change from mine so full of books,
Whose serried ranks hold fast, forsooth,
So many captive hours of youth, - 25
The hours they thieve from day and night
To make one’s cherished work come right,
And leave it wrong for all their theft,
Even as to-night my work was left:
Until I vowed that since my brain 30
And eyes of dancing seemed so fain,
My feet should have some dancing too: -
And thus it was I met with you.
Well, I suppose ’twas hard to part,
For here I am. And now, sweetheart, 35
You seem too tired to get to bed.
It was a careless life I led
When rooms like this were scarce so strange
Not long ago. What breeds the change, - 40
The many aims or the few years?
Because to-night it all appears
Something I do not know again.
The cloud’s not danced out of my brain, -
The cloud that made it turn and swim 45
While hour by hour the books grew dim.
Why, Jenny, as I watch you there, -
For all your wealth of loosened hair,
Your silk ungirdled and unlac’d
And warm sweets open to the waist, 50
All golden in the lamplight’s gleam, -
You know not what a book you seem,
Half-read by lightning in a dream!
How should you know, my Jenny? Nay,
And I should be ashamed to say: - 55
Poor beauty, so well worth a kiss!
But while my thought runs on like this
With wasteful whims more than enough,
I wonder what you’re thinking of.
If of myself you think at all, 60
What is the thought? - conjectural
On sorry matters best unsolved? -
Or inly is each grace revolved
To fit me with a lure? - or (sad
To think!) perhaps you’re merely glad 65
That I’m not drunk or ruffianly
And let you rest upon my knee.
For sometimes, were the truth confess’d,
You’re thankful for a little rest, -
Glad from the crush to rest within,
From the heart-sickness and the din 70
Where envy’s voice at virtue’s pitch
Mocks you because your gown is rich;
And from the pale girl’s dumb rebuke,
Whose ill-clad grace and toil-worn look
Proclaim the strength that keeps her weak 75
And other nights than yours bespeak;
And from the wise unchildish elf
To schoolmate lesser than himself
Pointing you out, what thing you are: -
Yes, from the daily jeer and jar, 80
From shame and shame’s outbraving too,
Is rest not sometimes sweet to you? -
But most from the hatefulness of man
Who spares not to end what he began.
Whose acts are ill and his speech ill, 85
Who, having used you at his will,
Thrusts you aside as when I dine
I serve the dishes and the wine.
Well, handsome Jenny mine, sit up,
I’ve filled our glasses, let us sup, 90
And do not let me think of you,
Lest shame of yours suffice for two.
What, still so tired? Well, well then, keep
Your head there, so you do not sleep;
But that the weariness may pass 95
And leave you merry, take this glass.
Ah! lazy lily hand, more bless’d
If ne’er in rings it had been dress’d
Nor ever by a glove conceal’d!
Behold the lilies of the field, 100
They toil not neither do they spin;
(So doth the ancient text begin, -
Not of such rest as one of these
Can share.) Another rest and ease
Along each summer-sated path 105
From its new lord the garden hath,
Than that whose spring in blessings ran
Which praised the bounteous husbandman,
Ere yet, in days of hankering breath,
The lilies sickened unto death. 110
What, Jenny, are your lilies dead?
Aye, and the snow-white leaves are spread
Like winter on the garden-bed.
But you had roses left in May, -
They were not gone too. Jenny, nay, 115
But must your roses die, and those
Their purfled buds that should unclose?
Even so; the leaves are curled apart,
Still red as from the broken heart,
And here’s the naked stem of thorns. 120
Nay, nay, mere words. Here nothing warns
As yet of winter. Sickness here
Or want alone could waken fear, -
Nothing but passion wrings a tear.
Except when there may rise unsought 125
Haply at times a passing thought
Of the old days which seem to be
Much older than any history
That is written in any book;
When she would lie in fields and look 130
Along the ground through the blown grass,
And wonder where the city was,
Far out of sight, whose broil and bale
They told her then for a child’s tale.
Jenny, you know the city now. 135
A child can tell the tale there, how
Some things which are not yet enroll’d
In market-lists are bought and sold
Even till the early Sunday light,
When Saturday night is market-night 140
Everywhere, be it dry or wet,
And market-night in the Haymarket.
Our learned London children know,
Poor Jenny, all your pride and woe;
Have seen your lifted silken skirt 145
Advertise dainties through the dirt;
Have seen your coach-wheels splash rebuke
On virtue; and have learned your look
When, wealth and health slipped past, you stare
Along the streets alone, and there, 150
Round the long park, across the bridge,
The cold lamps at the pavement’s edge
Wind on together and apart,
A fiery serpent for your heart.
Let the thoughts pass, an empty cloud! 155
Suppose I were to think aloud, -
What if to her all this were said?
Why, as a volume seldom read
Being opened halfway shuts again,
So might the pages of her brain 160
Be parted at such words, and thence
Close back upon the dusty sense.
For is there hue or shape defin’d
In Jenny’s desecrated mind,
Where all contagious currents meet, 165
A Lethe of the middle street?
Nay, it reflects not any face,
Nor sound is in its sluggish pace,
But as they coil those eddies clot,
And night and day remember not. 170
Why, Jenny, you’re asleep at last! -
Asleep, poor Jenny, hard and fast, -
So young and soft and tired; so fair,
With chin thus nestled in your hair,
Mouth quiet, eyelids almost blue 175
As if some sky of dreams shone through!
Just as another woman sleeps!
Enough to throw one’s thoughts in heaps
Of doubt and horror, - what to say
Or think, - this awful secret sway, 180
The potter’s power over the clay!
Of the same lump (it has been said)
For honour and dishonour made,
Two sister vessels. Here is one.
My cousin Nell is fond of fun, 185
And fond of dress, and change, and praise,
So mere a woman in her ways:
And if her sweet eyes rich in youth
Are like her lips that tell the truth,
My cousin Nell is fond of love. 190
And she’s the girl I’m proudest of.
Who does not prize her, guard her well?
The love of change, in cousin Nell,
Shall find the best and hold it dear:
The unconquered mirth turn quieter 195
Not through her own, through others’ woe:
The conscious pride of beauty glow
Beside another’s pride in her,
One little part of all they share.
For Love himself shall ripen these 200
In a kind soil to just increase
Through years of fertilizing peace.
Of the same lump (as it is said)
For honour and dishonour made,
Two sister vessels. Here is one. 205
It makes a goblin of the sun.
So pure, - so fall’n! How dare to think
Of the first common kindred link?
Yet, Jenny, till the world shall burn
It seems that all things take their turn; 210
And who shall say but this fair tree
May need, in changes that may be,
Your children’s children’s charity?
Scorned then, no doubt, as you are scorn’d!
Shall no man hold his pride forewarn’d 215
Till in the end, the Day of Days,
At Judgement, one of his own race,
As frail and lost as you, shall rise, -
His daughter, with his mother’s eyes?
How Jenny’s clock ticks on the shelf! 220
Might not the dial scorn itself
That has such hours to register?
Yet as to me, even so to her
Are golden sun and silver moon,
In daily largesse of earth’s boon, 225
Counted for life-coins to one tune.
And if, as blindfold fates are toss’d,
Through some one man this life be lost,
Complete Poetical Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti Page 11
