We, cast forth from the Beryl?
CHIMES
I
Honey-flowers to the honey-comb
And the honey-bee’s from home.
A honey-comb and a honey-flower,
And the bee shall have his hour.
A honeyed heart for the honey-comb, 5
And the humming bee flies home.
A heavy heart in the honey-flower,
And the bee has had his hour.
II
A honey-cell’s in the honeysuckle,
And the honey-bee knows it well. 10
The honey-comb has a heart of honey,
And the humming bee’s so bonny.
A honey-flower’s the honeysuckle,
And the bee’s in the honey-bell.
The honeysuckle is sucked of honey, 15
And the bee is heavy and bonny.
III
Brown shell first for the butterfly
And a bright wing by and by.
Butterfly, good-bye to your shell,
And, bright wings, speed you well. 20
Bright lamplight for the butterfly
And a burnt wing by and by.
Butterfly, alas for your shell,
And, bright wings, fare you well.
IV
Lost love-labour and lullaby, 25
And lowly let love lie.
Lost love-morrow and love-fellow
And love’s life lying low.
Lovelorn labour and life laid by
And lowly let love lie. 30
Late love-longing and life-sorrow
And love’s life lying low.
V
Beauty’s body and benison
With a bosom-flower new-blown.
Bitter beauty and blessing bann’d 35
With a breast to burn and brand.
Beauty’s bower in the dust o’erblown
With a bare white breast of bone.
Barren beauty and bower of sand
With a blast on either hand. 40
VI
Buried bars in the breakwater
And bubble of the brimming weir.
Body’s blood in the breakwater
And a buried body’s bier.
Buried bones in the breakwater 45
And bubble of the brawling weir.
Bitter tears in the breakwater
And a breaking heart to bear.
VII
Hollow heaven and the hurricane
And hurry of the heavy rain. 50
Hurried clouds in the hollow heaven
And a heavy rain hard-driven.
The heavy rain it hurries amain
And heaven and the hurricane.
Hurrying wind o’er the heaven’s hollow 55
And the heavy rain to follow.
A SEA-SPELL
(FOR A PICTURE)
Her lute hangs shadowed in the apple-tree,
While flashing fingers weave the sweet-strung spell
Between its chords; and as the wild notes swell,
The sea-bird for those branches leaves the sea.
But to what sound her listening ear stoops she? 5
What netherworld gulf-whispers doth she hear,
In answering echoes from what planisphere,
Along the wind, along the estuary?
She sinks into her spell: and when full soon
Her lips move and she soars into her song, 10
What creatures of the midmost main shall throng
In furrowed surf-clouds to the summoning rune:
Till he, the fated mariner, hears her cry,
And up her rock, bare-breasted, comes to die?
PARTED PRESENCE
Love, I speak to your heart,
Your heart that is always here.
Oh draw me deep to its sphere,
Though you and I are apart;
And yield, by the spirit’s art, 5
Each distant gift that is dear.
O love, my love, you are here!
Your eyes are afar to-day,
Yet, love, look now in mine eyes.
Two hearts sent forth may despise 10
All dead things by the way.
All between is decay,
Dead hours and this hour that dies,
O love, look deep in mine eyes!
Your hands to-day are not here, 15
Yet lay them, love, in my hands.
The hourglass sheds its sands
All day for the dead hours’ bier;
But now, as two hearts draw near,
This hour like a flower expands. 20
O love, your hands in my hands!
Your voice is not on the air,
Yet, love, I can hear your voice:
It bids my heart to rejoice
As knowing your heart is there, - 25
A music sweet to declare
The truth of your steadfast choice.
O love, how sweet is your voice!
To-day your lips are afar,
Yet draw my lips to them, love. 30
Around, beneath, and above,
Is frost to bind and to bar;
But where I am and you are,
Desire and the fire thereof.
O kiss me, kiss me, my love! 35
Your heart is never away,
But ever with mine, for ever,
For ever without endeavour,
To-morrow, love, as to-day;
Two blent hearts never astray, 40
Two souls no power may sever,
Together, O my love, for ever!
A DEATH-PARTING
Leaves and rain and the days of the year,
(Water-willow and wellaway,)
All these fall, and my soul gives ear,
And she is hence who once was here.
(With a wind blown night and day.) s
Ah! but now, for a secret sign,
(The willow’s wan and the water white,)
In the held breath of the day’s decline
Her very face seemed pressed to mine.
(With a wind blown day and night.) 10
O love, of my death my life is fain;
(The willows wave on the water-way,)
Your cheek and mine are cold in the rain,
But warm they’ll be when we meet again.
(With a wind blown night and day.) 15
Mists are heaved and cover the sky;
(The willows wail in the waning light,)
O loose your lips, leave space for a sigh, -
They seal my soul, I cannot die.
(With a wind blown day and night.) 20
Leaves and rain and the days of the year,
(Water-willow and wellaway,)
All still fall, and I still give ear,
And she is hence, and I am here.
(With a wind blown night and day.) 25
THREE SHADOWS
I looked and saw your eyes
In the shadow of your hair,
As a traveller sees the stream
In the shadow of the wood;
And I said, ‘My faint heart sighs, 5
Ah me! to linger there,
To drink deep and to dream
In that sweet solitude.’
I looked and saw your heart
In the shadow of your eyes, 10
As a seeker sees the gold
In the shadow of the stream;
And I said, ‘Ah me! what art
Should win the immortal prize,
Whose want must make life cold 15
And Heaven a hollow dream?’
I looked and saw your love
In the shadow of your heart,
As a diver sees the pearl
In the shadow of the sea; 20
And I murmured, not above
My breath, but all apart, -
‘Ah! you can love, true girl,
And is your love for me?’
ADIEU
Waving whispering trees,
What do you say to the breeze
>
And what says the breeze to you?
‘Mid passing souls ill at ease,
Moving murmuring trees, 5
Would ye ever wave an Adieu?
Tossing turbulent seas,
Winds that wrestle with these,
Echo heard in the shell, -
‘Mid fleeting life ill at ease, 10
Restless ravening seas,-
Would the echo sigh Farewell?
Surging sumptuous skies,
For ever a new surprise,
Clouds eternally new, - 15
Is every flake that flies,
Widening wandering skies,
For a sign - Farewell, Adieu?
Sinking suffering heart
That know’st how weary thou art, - 20
Soul so fain for a flight, -
Aye, spread your wings to depart,
Sad soul and sorrowing heart,-
Adieu, Farewell, Good-night.
ASTARTE SYRIACA
(FOR A PICTURE)
Mystery! lo! betwixt the sun and moon
Astarte of the Syrians: Venus Queen
Ere Aphrodite was. In silver sheen
Her twofold girdle clasps the infinite boon
Of bliss whereof the heaven and earth commune: 5
And from her neck’s inclining flower-stem lean
Love-freighted lips and absolute eyes that wean
The pulse of hearts to the spheres’ dominant tune.
Torch-bearing, her sweet ministers compel
All thrones of light beyond the sky and sea 10
The witnesses of Beauty’s face to be:
That face, of Love’s all-penetrative spell
Amulet, talisman, and oracle,-
Betwixt the sun and moon a mystery.
FIAMMETTA
(FOR A PICTURE)
Behold Fiammetta, shown in Vision here.
Gloom-girt ‘mid Spring-flushed apple-growth she stands;
And as she sways the branches with her hands,
Along her arm the sundered bloom falls sheer,
In separate petals shed, each like a tear; 5
While from the quivering bough the bird expands
His wings. And lo! thy spirit understands
Like shaken and shower’d and flown, and Death drawn near.
All stirs with change. Her garments beat the air:
The angel circling round her aureole 10
Shimmers in flight against the tree’s grey bole:
While she, with reassuring eyes most fair,
A presage and a promise stands; as ‘twere
On Death’s dark storm the rainbow of the Soul.
THE WHITE SHIP: HENRY I OF ENGLAND - 25TH NOVEMBER, 1120
By none but me can the tale be told,
The butcher of Rouen, poor Berold.
(Lands are swayed by a King on a throne.)
’Twas a royal train put forth to sea,
Yet the tale can be told by none but me. 5
(The sea hath no King but God alone.)
King Henry held it as life’s whole gain
That after his death his son should reign.
’Twas so in my youth I heard men say,
And my old age calls it back to-day. 10
King Henry of England’s realm was he,
And Henry Duke of Normandy.
The times had changed when on either coast
‘Clerkly Harry’ was all his boast.
Of ruthless strokes full many an one 15
He had struck to crown himself and his son;
And his elder brother’s eyes were gone.
And when to the chase his court would crowd,
The poor flung ploughshares on his road,
And shrieked: ‘Our cry is from King to God!’ 20
But all the chiefs of the English land
Had knelt and kissed the Prince’s hand.
And next with his son he sailed to France
To claim the Norman allegiance:
And every baron in Normandy 25
Had taken the oath of fealty.
’Twas sworn and sealed, and the day had come
When the King and the Prince might journey home:
For Christmas cheer is to home hearts dear,
And Christmas now was drawing near. 30
Stout Fitz-Stephen came to the King, -
A pilot famous in seafaring;
And he held to the King, in all men’s sight,
A mark of gold for his tribute’s right.
‘Liege Lord! my father guided the ship 35
From whose boat your father’s foot did slip
When he caught the English soil in his grip,
‘And cried: “By this clasp I claim command
O’er every rood of English land!”
‘He was borne to the realm you rule o’er now 40
In that ship with the archer carved at her prow:
‘And thither I’ll bear, an it be my due,
Your father’s son and his grandson too.
‘The famed White Ship is mine in the bay;
From Harfleur’s harbour she sails to-day, 45
‘With masts fair-pennoned as Norman spears
And with fifty well-tried mariners.’
Quoth the King: ‘My ships are chosen each one,
But I’ll not say nay to Stephen’s son.
‘My son and daughter and fellowship 50
Shall cross the water in the White Ship.’
The King set sail with the eve’s south wind,
And soon he left that coast behind.
The Prince and all his, a princely show,
Remained in the good White Ship to go. 55
With noble knights and with ladies fair,
With courtiers and sailors gathered there,
Three hundred living souls we were:
And! Berold was the meanest hind
In all that train to the Prince assign’d. 60
The Prince was a lawless shameless youth;
From his father’s loins he sprang without ruth:
Eighteen years till then he had seen,
And the devil’s dues in him were eighteen.
And now he cried: ‘Bring wine from below; 65
Let the sailors revel ere yet they row:
Our speed shall o’ertake my father’s flight
Though we sail from the harbour at midnight.’
The rowers made good cheer without check;
The lords and ladies obeyed his beck; 70
The night was light, and they danced on the deck.
But at midnight’s stroke they cleared the bay,
And the White Ship furrowed the water-way.
The sails were set, and the oars kept tune
To the double flight of the ship and the moon: 75
Swifter and swifter the White Ship sped
Till she flew as the spirit flies from the dead:
As white as a lily glimmered she
Like a ship’s fair ghost upon the sea.
And the Prince cried, ‘Friends, ’tis the hour to sing! 80
Is a songbird’s course so swift on the wing?’
And under the winter stars’ still throng,
From brown throats, white throats, merry and strong,
The knights and the ladies raised a song.
A song, - nay, a shriek that rent the sky, 85
That leaped o’er the deep! - the grievous cry
Of three hundred living that now must die.
An instant shriek that sprang to the shock
As the ship’s keel felt the sunken rock.
’Tis said that afar - a shrill strange sigh - 90
The King’s ships heard it and knew not why.
Pale Fitz-Stephen stood by the helm
‘Mid all those folk that the waves must whelm.
A great King’s heir for the waves to whelm,
And the helpless pilot pale at the helm! 95
The ship was eager and sucked athirst,
<
br /> By the stealthy stab of the sharp reef pierc’d:
And like the moil round a sinking cup
The waters against her crowded up.
A moment the pilot’s senses spin, - 100
The next he snatched the Prince ‘mid the din,
Cut the boat loose, and the youth leaped in.
A few friends leaped with him, standing near.
‘Row! the sea’s smooth and the night is clear!’
‘What! none to be saved but these and I?’ 105
‘Row, row as you’d live! All here must die!’
Out of the churn of the choking ship,
Which the gulf grapples and the waves strip,
They struck with the strained oars’ flash and dip.
’Twas then o’er the splitting bulwarks’ brim 110
The Prince’s sister screamed to him.
He gazed aloft, still rowing apace,
And through the whirled surf he knew her face.
To the toppling decks clave one and all
As a fly cleaves to a chamber-wall. 115
I Berold was clinging anear;
I prayed for myself and quaked with fear,
But I saw his eyes as he looked at her.
He knew her face and he heard her cry,
And he said, ‘Put back! she must not die!’ 120
And back with the current’s force they reel
Like a leaf that’s drawn to a water-wheel.
‘Neath the ship’s travail they scarce might float,
But he rose and stood in the rocking boat.
Low the poor ship leaned on the tide: 125
O’er the naked keel as she best might slide,
The sister toiled to the brother’s side.
He reached an oar to her from below,
And stiffened his arms to clutch her so.
But now from the ship some spied the boat, 130
And ‘Saved!’ was the cry from many a throat.
And down to the boat they leaped and fell:
It turned as a bucket turns in a well,
And nothing was there but the surge and swell.
The Prince that was and the King to come, 135
There in an instant gone to his doom,
Despite of all England’s bended knee
And maugre the Norman fealty!
He was a Prince of lust and pride;
He showed no grace till the hour he died. 140
When he should be King, he oft would vow,
He’d yoke the peasant to his own plough.
O’er him the ships score their furrows now.
God only knows where his soul did wake,
But I saw him die for his sister’s sake. 145
By none but me can the tale be told,
The butcher of Rouen, poor Berold.
Complete Poetical Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti Page 22
