by George Moore
Our love grew as bitter as dust;
And we gazed on unreachable heaven,
Leaving our bodies to rust.
We arise from the earth, for we must,
With lips all alive with desire,
With sense o’erladen with lust; —
Like the fire
Of a pyre,
Like the tones of a vibrating lyre,
Like the moon,
In a swoon
Of love on the bosom of night,
Our senses are panting, are trembling, and fainting, i’ a dream of delight.
(A Voice.)
Oh, take ye and eat,
Our love is most sweet;
Our lips are as honey, our bosom the milk of desire.
(Voices from above.)
Come, kiss ere the dawn be risen,
Our kisses are strange and unknown;
Come, sleep in our bosom’s fair prison,
Till pleasure be bloomless and blown.
(Another Voice.)
Our limbs are as white
As snow in the night;
Our breath is as balm when the soul sinks down to expire. —
(Voices from below.)
We mete out a measure of passion,
A measure of mixed gall and wine;
And love we re-model and fashion,
Till love doth sink down supine.
(Semi-chorus of Nuns and Maidens.)
To love’s translucid waters
We immaculate daughters
Pass on, arrayed and garlanded as brides;
Athirst with love’s sweet want,
Around the sacred font
We kneel, and pray for love and what besides,
With bent reverted heads —
And faces veiled, awaiting Love’s communion
[breads,
ANTONIO. I hear sweet singing in the upper air,
That fills mine ear with strange, sweet harmony;
My soul doth beat her wings in vain endeavour
To break the prison bars, that sepulchre
The spirit in this tenement of clay,
And wander forth in the untainted air.
ORISINO. My heart is dead. It is not mortal music.
ANTONIO. List well. Their voices are with lightning crowned; —
They roll like thunder on the midnight wind,
Ebbing and flowing like advancing tides;
And, as each white crest rears, and falling swells
In wild majestic consonance, pausing
A moment, that the two united streams
May fall in justly-balanced unison,
Note how each separate wave of sound doth rise
In one undeviating mystic measure.
ORISINO. A moment hence those clouds of phantom forms
Did whiten in their flight the vault of heaven.
They seem to pass away, and I to think —
That all was but a dream’s imaginings.
But, lo! they are now nearer than before.
My God I they seem to sweep, to touch the earth.
I hear a rush of wings. A sense of dread
That lifts the hair on end, an icy glare
And the damp smell of clay cling round my lips.
Does not one glide from their receding ranks?
Methinks I see a woman standing there.
Woman or ghost, I know not which, or what,
This night has been so terrible.
ANTONIO. O where?
ORISINO. Beneath the moon.
ANTONIO. That white-robed maiden there,
So wild, so strangely, beautifully bright:
Her faultless form is seen so varyingly,
Seeming beneath her transitory robe
Like restless gossamer; her pale white hands
Are moveless as dead things; her eyelashes
Are worn away with tears. From her faint lips
Colour and smile seem to have fled for ever.
Toward us she doth glide. Her golden hair
Cloud-like floats down the wind of her own speed.
’Tis she whom I have waited for so long,
It is my sister.
(Rushes forward into her arms, but starts back as soon as he touches her.)
ORISINO. The time is now arrived, his days are counted.
(He draws his dagger. GINEVRA waves her hand, the dagger falls)
The terror of the night unnerves my will,
I shake as if with ague, my hand, palsied,
Palls like a dead thing useless: but the sight
Of their incestuous love sends new blood back,
Filling the wells and springs of my weak heart.
(He draws his sword, she waves her hand, and the sword breaks)
What devilish spells are these?, But though he be
Leagued by a million bonds to the Evil One, He shall not now escape my just vengeance.
Thy spells are vain, my hands will strangle thee.
(Tries to advance, but retreats instead.)
SCENE III.
Room in the house of ANTONIO.
ANTONIO and GINEVRA sitting on a couch.
ANTONIO. My love doth take one like the sea; it swells — [dreams
With wash of thickening waters, when sweet
Make its heart leap with such a might of joy
As hurls its waves together, and then again
When they have fled into their furthest caves,
And left its bosom glassy as a mirror,
I gaze therein upon the tearful face
Of my despair. Thou art too lovely, sweet.
I can but close my eyes, and dream a dream
Of many strange and feverish agonies.
O love! thou knowest not how weak I am;
How overlaid my soul is with desire
That longs yet loathes. This hour has come at last.
How I have sighed for it! how it has been
Bound up within my life as the end of all!
The supreme, gracious end that life might pour
Into her vase, till all was overflowed
With very sweetness. Turn meward thy lips,
That chalice ruby-wrought. Let loose, let slide
Thy girdle’s clasp, I fain would kiss thy bosom,
Those snow-white roses, blooming into red.
There let me lay my head, and dream away
What we call life; and firewise let love burn
And smoulder into ash. Nay, nay, my sweet,
Let me weave thy soft hair around thy hands,
Tying the other braid across my throat,
I would so sweet a rope might strangle me.
(He kisses her.)
Thy cheeks are cold, more chilly than the snow;
Thine eyes are glassy like a midnight sea,
And thy lips hold a pale and moony smile,
As in a dream’s strange wild imaginings.
I clasp thy fair sweet body in my arms,
But it doth freeze my breast that burns with love.
Oh! why that wild and wonder-stricken air?
Knowest not me! thine own Antonio.
Lie closer on me, breathe the fire
Of love in thee.
Is this the wandering
Of insane brain? Ginevra! art thou dead
Before the fulfilment of my love? Ginevra!
Speak one low whispered word to me, and say
That thou dost live.
SCENE IV.
Outside the door of ANTONIO’S chamber.
ORISINO (listening). I hear their mingling voices,
Like cooing doves in newly-budding trees:
I hear kiss laid on kiss, sigh breathed on sigh.
What super-human power has charmed my will?
I will, but cannot act. Most merciful God
Thou hast revealed to me the agony
And bloody sweat of dire Gethsemane,
The scourging of the pillar, the crown of thorns,
The cracking, s
plitting nerves, and racked joints
Of three hours’ crucifixion. Thine anguish
I here do feel, O God! bound, crucified.
Scene inside.
(ANTONIO kisses GINEVRA, but starts back if stung.)
ANTONIO. The same cold corpse-like chill, the livid hue, —
The wan and sunken outline as before.
Ginevra! art thou dead? Ginevra, speak!
Speak, or my brain goes mad with agony.
GINEVRA. When from her antenatal dreams the moth
Doth prune her trembling wing, and soars away
Amid the sunny skies and sweet spring flowers,
She leaves behind an empty chrysalis:
Like her, we mortals cast a shell called life,
When the soul spreads her pinions heavenward
To flowerful fields of immortality.
The gates of love are the outer gates of heaven,
Each thought a step toward the spirit divine,
Each deed a link of one stupendous chain
Stretching from depth to height. Good bye, O! brother,
Soon we beyond the portals of the tomb
Shall meet for ever.
(GINEVRA vanishes.)
ANTONIO. — I must be mad, or dream;
I stretch my arms and clasp but yielding air.
The lips and hands I kissed, the eyes that gazed
In love and fear, the faultless, peerless form
That these arms held in amorous embrace,
Are dissolved into unsubstantial air.
I must be mad or dream. Here is the place
Her leaned back head did bow the pillows in
When my lips closed upon the fragrant flower
Of her sweet breast, kissed till the pained blood quivered.
Art thou gone? speak; my brain reels dizzy, speak!
My breath doth take me by the throat, a chill
Lays icy hand upon me, the pavement sinks
Beneath my feet, my eyes are blind with blood.
I strive to catch my thoughts that swoop meward
Like hawks that stoop, but to the lure to strike,
And tear at it with ravening beak and talon,
And then uncaptured slide back in high air.
ORISINO (rushing in). Thy spells are broken now, my will asserts
Again its sovereignty. Incestuous villain! yield!
My sword doth guard. No more canst thou flee me
Than thou canst flee thy shadow, which is Death.
ANTONIO. My brain is fire, and every thought a flame,
Whose flickering forked tongues do burn and smite
As the foul kisses of some leprous bride.
I cannot follow thy loud storm of words;
Go hence, leave me, to-morrow we will speak.
ORISINO. Draw sword, defend thyself, and yield her me.
I come not here with fair and specious words,
But drunken with my hate’s fierce fumes, and with
Plain passion, that doth seek its ends by straight,
Not crooked path.
ANTONIO. Thy wandering windy words
Do drift their way but slowly thro’ the sense,
And I have neither strength nor will to seek
Their meaning. Go; my brain is in a whirl
Of trouble-tost tempestuous thoughts. Begone!
ORISINO (advancing). Defend thyself, if thou would’st seek to save
Thy venemous life, or I will tread thee out
Like crawling reptile.
ANTONIO. — I scarcely fathom yet
What thou dost will. Why seekest thou to fight thee
With me, thy friend? Thou art but drunk, go hence!
ORISINO. Liar! I own no friendship bond with
“Defend thyself,” are the last words I speak,
Until I lean hellward to curse thee there.
ANTONIO. Assuredly, I have no humour now
To bandy words with thee as thou wiliest.
(They fight, ANTONIO is killed).
ANNIE.
O LIST, beloved, calm your tremulous heart,
Your tears are vain, you will forget full soon;
Love is but like a sensual, sweet tune
That stills the sense; for when the last notes part,
We wake to consciousness with a faint start.
The love birds pair and build again in June,
And weave new dreams beneath a latter moon.
Courage, ’tis but a momentary smart.
Your lips are sweet, and your sad face as fair
As pale white rose that blooms into a red;
And those curled locks of hyacinthine hair,
That drape in golden fleece thy neck and head,
Still hold my sense and heart within their snare
Though destiny another word has said.
My heart is like a crystal filled with tears,
That the least breath will break. Speak not a word,
For each doth pierce me like a sharpened sword
That quickens in the sense. My open ears
Hear but the sighing sound of stricken fears,
And my eyes see but ghosts who lean meward
Wringing their hands. Too weak am I, O Lord!
To bear the burden of the looming years.
I dare not raise my face to look at ye,
Ye years still dreaming in futurity,
Ye barren days and fruitless nights unborn.
The dark wall of the present is too steep —
No gleam of sun or moon therein doth creep —
And veils a night that ne’er will look on dawn.
Nay, think it not so hard, I loved you well
And even now I will aver that love
Still lives. Nay, gaze not so like wounded dove,
But kiss me, sweet, before we say farewell.
God wot, it was not my unguided will
That led me to the altar. My soul was rife
With grief when my lips spoke the name of Wife,
For I loved you and love you even still.
Nay, do not weep. Nay, clasp your hands not so.
Your grief is mine, your sorrow is mine own.
And wrings my soul with the like suffering.
Come, Annie, kiss me once before I go, —
And think of me when sitting here alone,
As I of thee, though life may sigh or sing.
My heart is like a crystal filled with tears,
That the least breath will break. Speak not a word,
For each doth pierce me like a sharpened sword
That quickens in the sense. My open ears
Hear but the sighing sound of stricken fears,
And my eyes see but ghosts who lean meward
Wringing their hands. Too weak am I, O Lord!
To bear the burden of the looming years.
I dare not raise my face to look at ye, —
Ye years still dreaming in futurity,
Ye barren days and fruitless nights unborn.
The dark wall of the present is too steep —
No gleam of sun or moon therein doth creep —
And veils a night that ne’er will look on dawn.
Nay, think it not so hard, I loved you well
And even now I will aver that love
Still lives. Nay, gaze not so like wounded dove,
But kiss me, sweet, before we say farewell.
God wot, it was not my unguided will
That led me to the altar. My soul was rife
With grief when my lips spoke the name of Wife,
For I loved you and love you even still.
Nay, do not weep. Nay, clasp your hands not so.
Your grief is mine, your sorrow is mine own,
And wrings my soul with the like suffering.
Come, Annie, kiss me once before I go, —
And think of me when sitting here alone,
As I of thee, though life may sigh or sing.
My sw
eet, kill me not so, but lay the steel
Against my heart.
Fear not, I will not cry, I will not feel
Nor even start.
I will but clasp and kiss thee till I die;
It will be worth
More than my life, for I shall know that I
Kept thee till death.
And if thou wilt, then lay me in some place
Where thou must pass
Often, and cull the flowers that interlace
- Amid the grass.
I shall be happy; they will be from me
An offering,
And whisper, sweet, the love I keep for thee
All blossoming.
Believe me, Annie,
’Tis want of money
That forces us apart:
It is not any
Capriciousness of heart.
Pity me, Annie.
Believe me, Annie,
There are not many
Truer loves on earth than mine;
Flowers in a cranny
Of desert wall must pine.
Pity me, Annie.
It is weary regretting,
There is no forgetting
Of sorrows.
Come days and come nights,
Ye bring undelights
And morrows.
Come winter and spring,
No summer can bring
Me gladness.
Come months and come years,
Ye bring me new tears
Of sadness.
Yet beneath and above,
Float the spirits of love
Condoling.
And when they have passed,
Death comes up at last
Consoling.
How sweet it is to lie
Amid the soft cool grass,
And watch the evening sky
Change grey, and changing pass.
I listen to the drowsy bee
And wonder what are we;
I listen to the stream,
It murmurs like a dream;
And listlessly I linger
Weaving with busy finger
These varied flowers into
A wreath of varied hue;
And as I weave, I throw
Into the stream below
The flowers I refuse,
As men throw the love they use.
Some how it happeneth
They weave a fairy wreath,
The basil and mignonette,
The rose and the violet,
The graceful eglantine
With the scented jessamine,
And hundred other buds
Entwine within the floods.
Now all the flowers lie
Opposed harmoniously,
And seem to glide and dance
In love and radiance;
One flower alone is left
Within my lap bereft;
It is the sorrowing aloe
Crowned with unearthly halo
Of a hundred weary years;
I will water it with tears