Ma non lo dire.
My young lord’s the lover
Of earth and sky above,
Of youth’s sway and youth’s play,
Of songs and flowers and love.
Yet for love’s desires 5
Green youth lacks the daring;
Though one dream of fire,
All his hours ensnaring,
Burns the boy past bearing-
The dream that girls inspire. 10
My young lord’s the lover
Of every burning thought
That Love’s will, that Love’s skill
Within his breast has wrought.
Lovely girl, look on him 15
Soft as music’s measure;
Yield him, when you’ve won him,
Joys and toys at pleasure;
But to win your treasure,
Softly look upon him. 20
My young lord’s the lover
Of every tender grace
That woman, to woo man,
Can wear in form or face.
Take him to your bosom 25
Now, girl, or never;
Let not your new blossom
Of sweet kisses sever;
Only guard for ever
Your boast within your bosom. 30
YOUTH AND LORDSHIP
È giovine il signore,
Ed ama ben le cose
Che Amor nascose,
Che mostragli Amore.
Deh trionfando
Non farne pruova;
Ahimè! che quando
Gioja più giova,
Allor si trova
Presso al finire.
È giovine il signore,
Ed ama tante cose,
Le rose, le spose,
Quante gli dona Amore.
My young lord’s the lover
Of every secret thing,
Love-hidden, love-bidden
This day to banqueting.
Lovely girl, with vaunting 35
Never tempt to-morrow:
From all shapes enchanting
Any joy can borrow,
Still the spectre Sorrow
Rises up for haunting. 40
And now my lord’s the lover
Of ah! so many a sweet, -
Of roses, of spouses,
As many as love may greet.
SOOTHSAY
Let no man ask thee of anything
Not yearborn between Spring and Spring.
More of all worlds than he can know,
Each day the single sun doth show.
A trustier gloss than thou canst give 5
From all wise scrolls demonstrative,
The sea doth sigh and the wind sing.
Let no man awe thee on any height
Of earthly kingship’s mouldering might.
The dust his heel holds meet for thy brow 10
Hath all of it been what both are now;
And thou and he may plague together
A beggar’s eyes in some dusty weather
When none that is now knows sound or sight.
Crave thou no dower of earthly things 15
Unworthy Hope’s imaginings.
To have brought true birth of Song to be
And to have won hearts to Poesy,
Or anywhere in the sun or rain
To have loved and then beloved again, 20
Is loftiest reach of Hope’s bright wings.
The wild waifs cast up by the sea
Are diverse ever seasonably.
Even so the soul-tides still may land
A different drift upon the sand. 25
But one the sea is evermore:
And one be still, ‘twixt shore and shore,
As the sea’s life, thy soul in thee.
Say, hast thou pride? How then may fit
Thy mood with flatterers’ silk-spun wit? 30
Haply the sweet voice lifts thy crest,
A breeze of fame made manifest.
Nay, but then chaf’st at flattery? Pause:
Be sure thy wrath is not because
It makes thee feel thou lovest it. 35
Let thy soul strive that still the same
Be early friendship’s sacred flame.
The affinities have strongest part
In youth, and draw men heart to heart:
As life wears on and finds no rest, 40
The individual in each breast
Is tyrannous to sunder them.
In the life-drama’s stern cue-call,
A friend’s a part well-prized by all:
And if thou meet an enemy, 45
What art thou that none such should be?
Even so: but if the two parts run
Into each other and grow one,
Then comes the curtain’s cue to fall.
Whate’er by other’s need is claimed 50
More than by thine, - to him unblamed
Resign it: and if he should hold
What more than he thou lack’st, bread, gold,
Or any good whereby we live,-
To thee such substance let him give 55
Freely: nor he nor thou be shamed.
Strive that thy works prove equal: lest
That work which thou hast done the best
Should come to be to thee at length
(Even as to envy seems the strength 60
Of others) hateful and abhorr’d,-
Thine own above thyself made lord, -
Of self-rebuke the bitterest.
Unto the man of yearning thought
And aspiration, to do nought 65
Is in itself almost an act, -
Being chasm-fire and cataract
Of the soul’s utter depths unseal’d.
Yet woe to thee if once thou yield
Unto the act of doing nought! 70
How callous seems beyond revoke
The clock with its last listless stroke!
How much too late at length! - to trace
The hour on its forewarning face,
The thing thou hast not dared to do! 75
Behold, this may be thus! Ere true
It prove, arise and bear thy yoke.
Let lore of all Theology
Be to thy soul what it can be:
But know, - the Power that fashions man 80
Measured not out thy little span
For thee to take the meting-rod
In turn, and so approve on God
Thy science of Theometry.
To God at best, to Chance at worst, 85
Give thanks for good things, last as first.
But windstrown blossom is that good
Whose apple is not gratitude.
Even if no prayer uplift thy face,
Let the sweet right to render grace 90
As thy soul’s cherished child be nurs’d.
Didst ever say, ‘Lo, I forget’?
Such thought was to remember yet.
As in a gravegarth, count to see
The monuments of memory. 95
Be this thy soul’s appointed scope: -
Gaze onward without claim to hope,
Nor, gazing backward, court regret.
ROSE MARY
Of her two fights with the Beryl-stone:
Lost the first, but the second won.
ROSE MARY: PART I
‘Mary mine that art Mary’s Rose,
Come in to me from the garden-close.
The sun sinks fast with the rising dew,
And we marked not how the faint moon grew
But the hidden stars are calling you. 5
‘Tall Rose Mary, come to my side,
And read the stars if you’d be a bride.
In hours whose need was not your own,
While you were a young maid yet ungrown,
You’ve read the stars in the Beryl-stone. 10
‘Daughter, once more I bid you read;
But now let it be for your own need:
Because to-morrow, at break of d
ay,
To Holy Cross he rides on his way,
Your knight Sir James of Heronhaye. 15
‘Ere he wed you, flower of mine,
For a heavy shrift he seeks the shrine.
Now hark to my words and do not fear;
Ill news next I have for your ear;
But be you strong, and our help is here. 20
On his road, as the rumour’s rife,
An ambush waits to take his life.
He needs will go, and will go alone;
Where the peril lurks may not be known;
But in this glass all things are shown.’ 25
Pale Rose Mary sank to the floor: -
‘The night will come if the day is o’er!’
‘Nay, heaven takes counsel, star with star,
And help shall reach your heart from afar:
A bride you’ll be, as a maid you are.’ 30
The lady unbound her jewelled zone
And drew from her robe the Beryl-stone.
Shaped it was to a shadowy sphere, -
World of our world, the sun’s compeer,
That bears and buries the toiling year. 35
With shuddering light ’twas stirred and strewn
Like the cloud-nest of the wading moon:
Freaked it was as the bubble’s ball,
Rainbow-hued through a misty pall
Like the middle light of the waterfall. 40
Shadows dwelt in its teeming girth
Of the known and unknown things of earth;
The cloud above and the wave around, -
The central fire at the sphere’s heart bound,
Like doomsday prisoned underground. 45
A thousand years it lay in the sea
With a treasure wrecked from Thessaly;
Deep it lay ‘mid the coiled sea-wrack,
But the ocean-spirits found the track:
A soul was lost to win it back. 50
The lady upheld the wondrous thing: -
‘Ill fare’ (she said) ‘with a fiend’s-fairing:
But Moslem blood poured forth like wine
Can hallow Hell, ‘neath the Sacred Sign;
And my lord brought this from Palestine. 55
‘Spirits who fear the Blessed Rood
Drove forth the accursed multitude
That heathen worship housed herein, -
Never again such home to win,
Save only by a Christian’s sin. 60
‘All last night at an altar fair
I burnt strange fires and strove with prayer;
Till the flame paled to the red sunrise,
All rites I then did solemnize;
And the spell lacks nothing but your eyes.’ 65
Low spake maiden Rose Mary: -
‘O mother mine, if I should not see!’
‘Nay, daughter, cover your face no more,
But bend love’s heart to the hidden lore,
And you shall see now as heretofore.’ 70
Paler yet were the pale cheeks grown
As the grey eyes sought the Beryl-stone:
Then over her mother’s lap leaned she,
And stretched her thrilled throat passionately,
And sighed from her soul, and said, ‘I see.’ 75
Even as she spoke, they two were ‘ware
Of music-notes that fell through the air;
A chiming shower of strange device,
Drop echoing drop, once twice and thrice,
As rain may fall in Paradise. 80
An instant come, in an instant gone,
No time there was to think thereon.
The mother held the sphere on her knee: -
‘Lean this way and speak low to me,
And take no note but of what you see.’ 85
‘I see a man with a besom grey
That sweeps the flying dust away.’
‘Ay, that comes first in the mystic sphere;
But now that the way is swept and clear,
Heed well what next you look on there.’ 90
‘Stretched aloft and adown I see
Two roads that part in waste-country:
The glen lies deep and the ridge stands tall;
What’s great below is above seen small,
And the hill-side is the valley-wall.’ 95
‘Stream-bank, daughter, or moor and moss,
Both roads will take to Holy Cross.
The hills are a weary waste to wage;
But what of the valley-road’s presage?
That way must tend his pilgrimage.’ 100
‘As ‘twere the turning leaves of a book,
The road runs past me as I look;
Or it is even as though mine eye
Should watch calm waters filled with sky
While lights and clouds and wings went by.’ 105
‘In every covert seek a spear;
They’ll scarce lie close till he draws near.’
‘The stream has spread to a river now;
The stiff blue sedge is deep in the slough,
But the banks are bare of shrub or bough.’ 110
‘Is there any roof that near at hand
Might shelter yield to a hidden band?’
On the further bank I see but one,
And a herdsman now in the sinking sun
Unyokes his team at the threshold-stone.’ 115
‘Keep heedful watch by the water’s edge,-
Some boat might lurk ‘neath the shadowed sedge.’
One slid but now ‘twixt the winding shores,
But a peasant woman bent to the oars
And only a young child steered its course. 120
‘Mother, something flashed to my sight! -
Nay, it is but the lapwing’s flight. -
What glints there like a lance that flees? -
Nay, the flags are stirred in the breeze,
And the water’s bright through the dart-rushes. 125
‘Ah! vainly I search from side to side: -
Woe’s me! and where do the foemen hide?
Woe’s me! and perchance I pass them by,
And under the new dawn’s blood-red sky
Even where I gaze the dead shall lie.’ 130
Said the mother: ‘For dear love’s sake,
Speak more low, lest the spell should break.’
Said the daughter: ‘By love’s control,
My eyes, my words, are strained to the goal;
But oh! the voice that cries in my soul!’ 135
‘Hush, sweet, hush! be calm and behold.’
‘I see two floodgates broken and old:
The grasses wave o’er the ruined weir,
But the bridge still leads to the breakwater:
And - mother, mother, O mother dear!’ 140
The damsel clung to her mother’s knee,
And dared not let the shriek go free;
Low she crouched by the lady’s chair,
And shrank blindfold in her fallen hair,
And whispering said, ‘The spears are there!’ 145
The lady stooped aghast from her place,
And cleared the locks from her daughter’s face.
‘More’s to see, and she swoons, alas!
Look, look again, ere the moment pass!
One shadow comes but once to the glass. 150
‘See you there what you saw but now?’
‘I see eight men ‘neath the willow bough.
All over the weir a wild growth’s spread:
Ah me! it will hide a living head
As well as the water hides the dead. 155
‘They lie by the broken water-gate
As men who have a while to wait.
The chief’s high lance has a blazoned scroll,
He seems some lord of tithe and toll
With seven squires to his bannerole. 160
‘The little pennon quakes in the air,
I cannot trace the blazon there: -
Ah! now I can se
e the field of blue,
The spurs and the merlins two and two;-
It is the Warden of Holycleugh!’ 165
‘God be thanked for the thing we know!
You have named your good knight’s mortal foe.
Last Shrovetide in the tourney-game
He sought his life by treasonous shame;
And this way now doth he seek the same. 170
‘So, fair lord, such a thing you are!
But we too watch till the morning star.
Well, June is kind and the moon is clear:
Saint Judas send you a merry cheer
For the night you lie at Warisweir! 175
‘Now, sweet daughter, but one more sight,
And you may lie soft and sleep to-night.
We know in the vale what perils be:
Now look once more in the glass, and see
If over the hills the road lies free.’ 180
Rose Mary pressed to her mother’s cheek,
And almost smiled but did not speak;
Then turned again to the saving spell,
With eyes to search and with lips to tell
The heart of things invisible. 185
‘Again the shape with the besom grey
Comes back to sweep the clouds away.
Again I stand where the roads divide;
But now all’s near on the steep hillside,
And a thread far down is the rivertide.’ 190
‘Ay, child, your road is o’er moor and moss,
Past Holycleugh to Holy Cross.
Our hunters lurk in the valley’s wake,
As they knew which way the chase would take:
Yet search the hills for your true love’s sake.’ 195
‘Swift and swifter the waste runs by,
And nought I see but the heath and the sky;
No brake is there that could hide a spear,
And the gaps to a horseman’s sight lie clear;
Still past it goes, and there’s nought to fear.’ 200
‘Fear no trap that you cannot see, -
They’d not lurk yet too warily.
Below by the weir they lie in sight,
And take no heed how they pass the night
Till close they crouch with the morning light.’ 205
‘The road shifts ever and brings in view
Now first the heights of Holycleugh:
Dark they stand o’er the vale below,
And hide that heaven which yet shall show
The thing their master’s heart doth know. 210
‘Where the road looks to the castle steep,
There are seven hill-clefts wide and deep:
Six mine eyes can search as they list,
But the seventh hollow is brimmed with mist:
If aught were there, it might not be wist.’ 215
‘Small hope, my girl, for a helm to hide
In mists that cling to a wild moorside:
Soon they melt with the wind and sun,
Complete Poetical Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti Page 19
