by George Moore
And place it in my bower,
For I am an aloe flower,
And sisters we will be,
Peaceless and sorrowful we.
The ground is sparkling bright with dew,
The stars bathe in the silent stream,
The moon a light white, green, and blue,
Thro’ every copse and glade flings through,
And nightingales dream a singing dream
That fills the skies
With sad sweet harmonics.
The trembling odorous air is filled
And overlaid with too much sweet;
The wandering breeze is almost stilled,
Like a girl whose passion’s rage has killed
All consciousness, save love’s sweet heat.
Love doth present
To all his sacrament.
The castle is black against the sky,
Sleep reigns in every room save one,
But sitting in the garden, I,
Without a tear, without a sigh,
Watch like a calm-eyed sphinx of stone
That window’s light,
Where passes a bridal night.
I watch the moon with a steadfast eye,
She glides like a ghost away
Thro’ long unending reaches of sky
That seem like an azure bay; —
Half veiled in a veil of spray
In a swoon she is gliding by.
I follow her course with weary brain,
Unheeding the thoughts that sigh,
For I am tired of pleasure and pain,
And only long to die,
To sleep with no dream nigh,
Where love and longing are twain
My body wet with dew,
I shiver on the stair;
The wind is wandering thro’
My fluttering dress and hair.
I turn to look again
Upon the moon and sky;
I press my weary brain
And hopeless long to die.
For life is but a snare,
An empty, idle boast,
A chalice filled with care,
A fleeting shadowy ghost.
I am almost now afraid
To climb the echoing stair,
For every rustling air,
And wandering light and shade,
Seem to be mocking me and my despair.
The oriel window there
Weaves shadows on the floor;
The pallid moon doth stare
Right down the corridor,
Sealing with signet seal their chamber door.
Seeming to say, Beware!
His lips are not for thee,
Walk through thy life and wear
Humbly thy destiny,
Till opens imminent eternity.
The door is past, —
I stand aghast,
And, with emotion pale,
I draw the bed’s white veil.
Pace leaned on face,
In last embrace
They lie in the still gleam,
Like shadows of a dream.
Ay! she is fair,
Cheek, lips, and hair,
She smiles within her sleep,
As though she saw me weep.
His hands entwine
Linked in thine,
Life gave him unto thee,
But Death restores him me.
O for a heaven of singing,
Of delight and of love,
Where all the heavens are ringing
Beneath and above, —
With music as soft as the light of the wings of a dove.
Where roses for ever are blooming
‘Mid myrtles and vine,
Where stars and moon are illuming
The bowers where twine
The mystical eons, the glory of vision divine.
Where breezes for ever are sighing
Their love to the stream,
Whose murmur is ever replying
Like a dream to a dream,
Whose harmony wanders as fitful as wind-driven gleam.
Where passion and love never dwindle;
Where love is not lame;
Where delights for ever enkindle
And pass into flame, — [they came.
In splendours undying, for dying they come as
Where there is delight and no sorrow
‘Tween the bud and the fruit;
Where there is no past and no morrow,
Where the spirit is mute
Listening sadly to dreams between music of harp and of lute.
All this I can give to thee, dearest,
This fire will give death. — [fearest
Breathe, therefore; the fumes that thou
Are sweeter than breath, [than earth.
For they will give death and death is sweeter
Shadows and lights wax dimmer,
Shaping a mystic glimmer,
A gloom of sullen red;
The air grows heavy and thicker,
The lamplights tremble and flicker,
In the darkling and dead
Vapours that spread.
Between the mists unfolden,
Unto mine eyes beholden,
Pale phantoms lean to me;
Their hands for pity reaching,
Their voices grace beseeching;
I see them pass and flee
Sorrowfully.
How fair his face doth seem
Beneath the white moonbeam,
Like a sweet passing shape within a passing dream.
Oh! vase of burning tears
Bound in the frost of years,
Break now thine icy chains for the dawn of a new day nears.
The morn is breaking now,
Around, above, below,
Winnowing the white clouds as wind doth winnow snow.
Brow bound with golden plumes,
The sun again illumes
The orange widening sky, and Day his reign assumes.
A long, white shroud of light
Is spreading o’er the Night,
And all her raven tresses are turning gold and bright;
My dress I throw away,
For, sinless now, I may
Intwine my limbs in thy dispassionate cold clay.
The night’s dark race is run,
Day is not yet begun,
And side by side we lie the dead by the living one.
Oh! hail, Oh! hail, Oh! hail,
Deliverance cannot fail, —
Life closes her weary life at last, so weak and pale.
We shall wake to laugh or weep,
We shall know if death be deep,
Or we shall sleep perhaps a calm and dreamless sleep,
And men will shed their tears,
Aye, for a million years,
Till each in turn his burden lays at this goal of fears.
BERNICE.
To B — .
PALE in moonlight glistening
Water lilies lie,
I at window listening
Hear the fountain warble
Softly to the marble,
Breathing to the sky
Echoes of a cry.
Upon the purple bosom of the night
The moon is dreaming softly, she doth seem
Like a pale beauty languidly reclining
Amid rich silken cushioned canopies.’
The winds are hushed, no breeze disturbs the scene,
Only the warbling of the fountain’s song
And the full molten murmur of a bird
The silver silence break with melody.
The sultry air is filled with rose perfume
And soft-shed scent, whose wings up-bear my soul
Higher than wildest music ever flew,
Into a heaven where mystic chords unite
Shadow with heat, the day unto the night.
Here, in this garden, thro’ the odorous summer
I dream with ma
ny yearnings in my heart,
Strange bitter blossoms born of tears and fire,
Whose passionate and sweet solicitudes
Feed vulture-wise upon my bloodless life
Of sleepful vigils, and short starting sleeps,
And famine-smitten nights of impotence,
And hungering days yet knowing no desire.
Here in the shadow of the purple roses
I listen to the fountain murmuring
Softly, O softly, to the water lilies,
The secret of Bernice. I see her face
Arise from out the blanching water flowers,
Her face of white rose, gazing on me sadly.
O would I might forget, but when I hearken
Unto this fountain’s mazy murmuring,
I fain would hear her story, none is listening,
The old sad tale of Bernice and the lilies,
No one is listening, all is silent here.
Yea, I can tell it softly, breathe it low,
In under voice to this sweet purple rose.
One summer night, ah! years have passed since then
I sat by Bernice ‘neath the oriel window,
Drinking the dreamy splendour of the moon
And the delirious perfumes of the night,
Till in my feverish veins the blood took fire,
And love fell sick with famine for her face.
I held her feet between my hands, and laid
My head between her knees, and gazed upon
Her downward-gazing eyes in ecstacy.
I wound the heavy tresses of her hair
Across my face and tried to weep: passion
Had dried my tears, life longed unto death.
The demon of her destiny then spoke:
“The night is fair, let us stray down the garden,
And sit beside the fountain where the lilies
Lie gazing on the moon. It will be sweet
To bathe by night.” With linked hands we went
Unto the tiny lake of fountain born, —
And bathed unwatched amid the flowers
She was a vision of voluptuousness,
And o’er the water streamed her wondrous hair
Like braids of gold, she standing bosom-deep
Leaning from out the silver gleaming wave.
The love of all my years came over me,
A fiery breath, and all my thoughts and dreams
Took fire, those unreaped fields of vision were
But one flame burning in that instant hour.
Her lips were fast upon my face, I gazed
Within the vaporous languors of her eyes
Until love’s burden grew intolerable.
I know not how it was, her kisses stung,
Her bird-like throat full-filled with fluttering voice
Leaned over me, and all her sultry hair
Fell round my face. The perfume of the roses
Drove me mad. I know not how it was,
In kissing her, I held her face beneath
The pallid water-flowers, until it grew
More wan than they. The roses were asleep,
The moon saw not between the darkling trees,
Only the lilies saw her drowned face.
And now through all the odorous summer night
I hearken to the fountain’s warbling song,
Murmuring softly, O softly, to the lilies —
The secret of Bernice, my only love.
Paie in moonlight glistening
Water lilies lie, —
I at window listening
Hear the fountain warble,
Softly to the marble,
Breathing to the sky
Echoes of a cry.
SONNET. NIGHT PERFUME.
THE sky is one bare blank, one sheet of lead,
Without a star or cloud. Low laid the moon
O’er dark dim trees floats like a gold balloon;
No breeze doth sigh, a silence still and dead
Hangs like a raiment round the fair night’s head.
Even the fountain’s weary warbling tune
Tells us of quiet. With orange odours strewn,
And rose-shed scent the breathless air is spread.
We listen to the night, the gleaming meadow
Is filled with long bright lines of light and shadow
And glitters like the sea. Her balmy breath
Falls on my cheek, and in the mystic gloom
Of silk and muslin filled with her perfume,
I lay my head, and dream that love is death.
RONDO.
DID I love thee? I only did desire
To hold thy body unto mine,
And smite it with strange fire
Of kisses burning as a wine, —
And catch thy odorous hair, and twine
It thro’ my fingers amorously.
Did I love thee?
Did I love thee? I only did desire
To watch thine eyelids lilywise
Closed down, and thy warm breath respire
As it came thro’ the thickening sighs,
And speak my love in such fair guise
Of passion’s sobbing agony.
Did I love thee?
Did I love thee? I only did desire
To drink the perfume of thy blood
In vision, and thy senses tire
Seeing them shift from ebb to flood
In consonant sweet interlude,
And if love such a thing not be,
I loved not thee.
BALLAD OF A LOST SOUL.
ONE night a ghost laid hands on me,
The dernful spirit of my dream,
And led me wandering o’er the sea,
A sea divided by a gleam.
The wind scarce moved the burnt black heath
On dry cliff’s edge, the fluctuant tide
In green foam-whitened waves beneath,
Curled low against the steep rock’s side.
He sate me on a narrow ledge,
And at my feet he lay him there,
I could not flee, upon the ridge —
Of life he held me. In despair
I took my soul from out my heart
And flung it from me without care,
Skyward it flew like bow-shot dart,
Or wrist-cast hawk that springs in air;
Then, swooping into sudden sight
On straightened wings across my eyes,
Then wheeling, fled from left to right
Sailing incessantly the skies;
Thro’ pathless wastes of heaven unknown
My soul did wander thus in fear,
Seeking the yet unrisen sun,
Not knowing whither side to steer.
And sitting on the dusky height
Over the moon-unbeaconed sea,
I watched my soul’s unguided flight
In terror and expectancy;
Until a star arose above
The long wall of the green sea line,
I knew it was the planet of love
By its cold crescent crystalline.
Astarte-ward my soul then fell,
Beyond the light of Love’s bent face,
Like passing star, from heaven to hell
Adown the interlying space;
Betrothed unto new bridal bed
Abought slave kissed, and drugged, and sold
Poppy and red rose chapleted,
Cheek filleted and robed in gold.
The demon still glares in mine eyes,
Stretched lying at my pale weak feet,
He counts on finger tips my sighs,
And keeps my tears. He laughs a sweet
Low laugh within my stricken ears,
And leads me weeping in control
Along this shore whose waves are tears,
Until his shadow grows my soul.
SONNET. THE CORPSE.
WONDERING I gaze upon each lineament
Defaced by worm
s and swollen in decay,
And watch the rat-gnawed golden ringlets play
Around the sunken outline, shrivelled, bent
In hideous grimace. The bosom rent
Is opening rose-like ‘neath the sun’s warm ray,
And Nature, smiling on the new-born May,
Doth own this corpse a part of her intent.
I try to lift it from the ground, but lo,
The poor head falls. A locket thus detached
Lies in my hand; fear seizes hold on me,
I gaze upon it, trembling, for I know
The trinket well, one word thereon is scratched,
I read, and, bending, kiss her reverently.
A PAGE OF BOCCACE.
A CRIMSON light, all faint with delight,
Steals thro’ my lady’s room,
And the scented air is moved by the rare
Songs spun in the mystic loom
Of canaries’ throats, whose untaught notes
Float thro’ the glimmer and gloom.
Dreaming she lies with fast closed eyes
Within the dim alcove,
As I bend over her she seems to stir
With the instinct of my love,
For down the streams of her drifting dreams
I may be the spirit above.
The breath from her mouth is like air from the south.
It kisses my face and eyes,
And the touch of her hair which falls everywhere
In restless harmonies,
My spirit doth wake to joys that break
In a broken song of sighs.
She is bathed in the deep dream-mist of sleep
Guided by love’s faint ray,
In her lap’s soft bed lies a book half read,
A book I read yesterday;
It tells how human is soft sweet woman,
How her love doth pass away.
I gently took from her lap the book
And opened it at the place
That she waking might see how erringly
A woman may run in love’s race;
I awoke not her, but without a stir
I dreamingly kissed her face.
SONNET. THE SUICIDE.
LYING upon these slimy stones, I peer
Down in the inky tank of lonesome well,
Where never mirrored morn or star did dwell
No nightingale from cypress covert near
The heavy hanging solitude doth cheer,
Only a hooting owl is audible,
Passing on silent wing he wails my knell,
Seeming to have divined what led me here.
Leaning I drink — this well I take for grave,
Afar from prying ken in one black night,
Unhallowed by a foul religious rite
My bleaching bones will lie in demful wave,
