LITMIR.BIZ

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and turning to his rest.

HE BIDS HIS BELOVED BE AT PEACE

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      I hear the Shadowy Horses, their long manes a-shake,

      Their hoofs heavy with tumult, their eyes glimmering white;

      The North unfolds above them clinging, creeping night,

      The East her hidden joy before the morning break,

      The West weeps in pale dew and sighs passing away,

      The South is pouring down roses of crimson fire:

      O vanity of Sleep, Hope, Dream, endless Desire,

      The Horses of Disaster plunge in the heavy clay:

      Beloved, let your eyes half close, and your heart beat

      Over my heart, and your hair fall over my breast,

      Drowning love’s lonely hour in deep twilight of rest,

      And hiding their tossing manes and their tumultuous feet.

HE REPROVES THE CURLEW

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      O, curlew, cry no more in the air,

      Or only to the waters in the West;

      Because your crying brings to my mind

      Passion-dimmed eyes and long heavy hair

      That was shaken out over my breast:

      There is enough evil in the crying of wind.

HE REMEMBERS FORGOTTEN BEAUTY

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      When my arms wrap you round I press

      My heart upon the loveliness

      That has long faded from the world;

      The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled

      In shadowy pools, when armies fled;

      The love-tales wrought with silken thread

      By dreaming ladies upon cloth

      That has made fat the murderous moth;

      The roses that of old time were

      Woven by ladies in their hair,

      The dew-cold lilies ladies bore

      Through many a sacred corridor

      Where such gray clouds of incense rose

      That only the gods’ eyes did not close:

      For that pale breast and lingering hand

      Come from a more dream-heavy land,

      A more dream-heavy hour than this;

      And when you sigh from kiss to kiss

      I hear white Beauty sighing, too,

      For hours when all must fade like dew,

      All but the flames, and deep on deep,

      Throne over throne where in half sleep,

      Their swords upon their iron knees,

      Brood her high lonely mysteries.

A POET TO HIS BELOVED

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      I bring you with reverent hands

      The books of my numberless dreams;

      White woman that passion has worn

      As the tide wears the dove-gray sands,

      And with heart more old than the horn

      That is brimmed from the pale fire of time:

      White woman with numberless dreams

      I bring you my passionate rhyme.

HE GIVES HIS BELOVED CERTAIN RHYMES

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      Fasten your hair with a golden pin,

      And bind up every wandering tress;

      I bade my heart build these poor rhymes:

      It worked at them, day out, day in,

      Building a sorrowful loveliness

      Out of the battles of old times.

      You need but lift a pearl-pale hand,

      And bind up your long hair and sigh;

      And all men’s hearts must burn and beat;

      And candle-like foam on the dim sand,

      And stars climbing the dew-dropping sky,

      Live but to light your passing feet.

TO MY HEART, BIDDING IT HAVE NO FEAR

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      Be you still, be you still, trembling heart;

      Remember the wisdom out of the old days:

      Him who trembles before the flame and the flood,

      And the winds that blow through the starry ways,

      Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood

      Cover over and hide, for he has no part

      With the proud, majestical multitude.

THE CAP AND BELLS

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      The jester walked in the garden:

      The garden had fallen still;

      He bade his soul rise upward

      And stand on her window-sill.

      It rose in a straight blue garment,

      When owls began to call:

      It had grown wise-tongued by thinking

      Of a quiet and light footfall;

      But the young queen would not listen;

      She rose in her pale night gown;

      She drew in the heavy casement

      And pushed the latches down.

      He bade his heart go to her,

      When the owls called out no more;

      In a red and quivering garment

      It sang to her through the door.

      It had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming,

      Of a flutter of flower-like hair;

      But she took up her fan from the table

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