The Pre-Raphaelites- From Rossetti to Ruskin
Page 9
Which echo childlike mimicks faintly round
Blending it with the lull of some far flood, –
30 Of one long shout heard in a quiet wood.
A gurgling laugh far off the fountain sent,
As if the mermaid shape that in it bent
Spoke with subdued and faintest melody:
And birds sang their whole hearts spontaneously.
35 When from your books released, pass here your hours,
Dear child, the sweet companion of these flowers,
These poplars, scented shrubs, and blossomed boughs
Of fruit-trees, where the noisy sparrows house,
Shaking from off the leaves the beaded dew.
40 Now while the air is warm, the heavens blue,
Give full abandonment to all your gay
Swift childlike impulses in rompish play; –
The while your sisters in shrill laughter shout,
Whirling above the leaves and round about, –
45 Until at length it drops behind the wall, –
With awkward jerks, the particoloured ball:
Winning a smile even from the stooping age
Of that old matron leaning on her page,
Who in the orchard takes a stroll or two,
50 Watching you closely yet unseen by you.
Then, tired of gambols, turn into the dark
Fir-skirted margins of your father’s park;
And watch the moving shadows, as you pass,
Trace their dim network on the tufted grass,
55 And how on birch-trunks smooth and branches old,
The velvet moss bursts out in green and gold,
Like the rich lustre full and manifold
On breasts of birds that star the curtained gloom
From their glass cases in the drawing room.
60 Mark the spring leafage bend its tender spray
Gracefully on the sky’s aërial grey;
And listen how the birds so voluble
Sing joyful pæans winding to a swell,
And how the wind, fitful and mournful, grieves
65 In gusty whirls among the dry red leaves;
And watch the minnows in the water cool,
And floating insects wrinkling all the pool.
So in your ramblings bend your earnest eyes.
High thoughts and feelings will come unto you, –
70 Gladness will fall upon your heart like dew, –
Because you love the earth and love the skies.
Fair pearl, the pride of all our family:
Girt with the plentitude of joys so strong,
Fashion and custom dull can do no wrong:
75 Nestling your young face thus on Nature’s knee.
GEORGE MEREDITH
From Modern Love
I
By this he knew she wept with waking eyes:
That, at his hand’s light quiver by her head,
The strange low sobs that shook their common bed
Were called into her with a sharp surprise,
5 And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes,
Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay
Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away
With muffled pulses. Then, as midnight makes
Her giant heart of Memory and Tears
10 Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat
Sleep’s heavy measure, they from head to feet
Were moveless, looking through their dead black years,
By vain regret scrawled over the blank wall.
Like sculptured effigies they might be seen
15 Upon their marriage-tomb, the sword between;
Each wishing for the sword that severs all.
II
It ended, and the morrow brought the task.
Her eyes were guilty gates, that let him in
By shutting all too zealous for their sin:
Each sucked a secret, and each wore a mask.
5 But, oh, the bitter taste her beauty had!
He sickened as at breath of poison-flowers:
A languid humour stole among the hours,
And if their smiles encountered, he went mad,
And raged deep inward, till the light was brown
10 Before his vision, and the world, forgot,
Looked wicked as some old dull murder-spot.
A star with lurid beams, she seemed to crown
The pit of infamy: and then again
He fainted on his vengefulness, and strove
15 To ape the magnanimity of love,
And smote himself, a shuddering heap of pain.
VI
It chanced his lips did meet her forehead cool.
She had no blush, but slanted down her eye.
Shamed nature, then, confesses love can die:
And most she punishes the tender fool
5 Who will believe what honours her the most!
Dead! is it dead? She has a pulse, and flow
Of tears, the price of blood-drops, as I know,
For whom the midnight sobs around Love’s ghost,
Since then I heard her, and so will sob on.
10 The love is here; it has but changed its aim.
O bitter barren woman! what’s the name?
The name, the name, the new name thou hast won?
Behold me striking the world’s coward stroke!
That will I not do, though the sting is dire.
15 – Beneath the surface this, while by the fire
They sat, she laughing at a quiet joke.
VII
She issues radiant from her dressing-room,
Like one prepared to scale an upper sphere:
– By stirring up a lower, much I fear!
How deftly that oiled barber lays his bloom!
5 That long-shanked dapper Cupid with frisked curls
Can make known women torturingly fair;
The gold-eyed serpent dwelling in rich hair
Awakes beneath his magic whisks and twirls.
His art can take the eyes from out my head,
10 Until I see with eyes of other men;
While deeper knowledge crouches in its den,
And sends a spark up: – is it true we are wed?
Yea! filthiness of body is most vile,
But faithlessness of heart I do hold worse.
15 The former, it were not so great a curse
To read on the steel-mirror of her smile.
IX
He felt the wild beast in him betweenwhiles
So masterfully rude, that he would grieve
To see the helpless delicate thing receive
His guardianship through certain dark defiles.
5 Had he not teeth to rend, and hunger too?
But still he spared her. Once: ‘Have you no fear?’
He said: ’twas dusk; she in his grasp; none near.
She laughed: ‘No, surely; am I not with you?’
And uttering that soft starry ‘you,’ she leaned
10 Her gentle body near him, looking up;
And from her eyes, as from a poison-cup,
He drank until the flittering eyelids screened.
Devilish malignant witch! and oh, young beam
Of heaven’s circle-glory! Here thy shape
15 To squeeze like an intoxicating grape –
I might, and yet thou goest safe, supreme.
XI
Out in the yellow meadows, where the bee
Hums by us with the honey of the Spring,
And showers of sweet notes from the larks on wing,
Are dropping like a noon-dew, wander we.
5 Or is it now? or was it then? for now,
As then, the larks from running rings pour showers;
The golden foot of May is on the flowers,
And friendly shadows dance upon her brow.
What’s this, when Nature swears there is no change
10 To challenge eyesig
ht? Now, as then, the grace
Of heaven seems holding earth in its embrace.
Nor eyes, nor heart, has she to feel it strange?
Look, woman, in the West. There wilt thou see
An amber cradle near the sun’s decline:
15 Within it, featured even in death divine,
Is lying a dead infant, slain by thee.
XVI
In our old shipwrecked days there was an hour,
When in the firelight steadily aglow,
Joined slackly, we beheld the red chasm grow
Among the clicking coals. Our library-bower
5 That eve was left to us: and hushed we sat
As lovers to whom Time is whispering.
From sudden-opened doors we heard them sing:
The nodding elders mixed good wine with chat.
Well knew we that Life’s greatest treasure lay
10 With us, and of it was our talk. ‘Ah, yes!
Love dies!’ I said: I never thought it less.
She yearned to me that sentence to unsay.
Then when the fire domed blackening, I found
Her cheek was salt against my kiss, and swift
15 Up the sharp scale of sobs her breast did lift: –
Now am I haunted by that taste! that sound!
XVII
At dinner, she is hostess, I am host.
Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keeps
The Topic over intellectual deeps
In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost.
5 With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball:
It is in truth a most contagious game:
HIDING THE SKELETON, shall be its name.
Such play as this the devils might appal!
But here’s the greater wonder; in that we,
10 Enamoured of an acting nought can tire,
Each other, like true hypocrites, admire;
Warm-lighted looks, Love’s ephemerioe,
Shoot gaily o’er the dishes and the wine.
We waken envy of our happy lot.
15 Fast, sweet, and golden, shows the marriage-knot.
Dear guests, you now have seen Love’s corpse-light shine.
XXI
We three are on the cedar-shadowed lawn;
My friend being third. He who at love once laughed
Is in the weak rib by a fatal shaft
Struck through, and tells his passion’s bashful dawn
5 And radiant culmination, glorious crown,
When ‘this’ she said: went ‘thus’: most wondrous she.
Our eyes grow white, encountering: that we are three,
Forgetful; then together we look down.
But he demands our blessing; is convinced
10 That words of wedded lovers must bring good.
We question; if we dare! or if we should!
And pat him, with light laugh. We have not winced.
Next, she has fallen. Fainting points the sign
To happy things in wedlock. When she wakes,
15 She looks the star that thro’ the cedar shakes:
Her lost moist hand clings mortally to mine.
XXVI
Love ere he bleeds, an eagle in high skies,
Has earth beneath his wings: from reddened eve
He views the rosy dawn. In vain they weave
The fatal web below while far he flies.
5 But when the arrow strikes him, there’s a change.
He moves but in the track of his spent pain,
Whose red drops are the links of a harsh chain,
Binding him to the ground, with narrow range.
A subtle serpent then has Love become.
10 I had the eagle in my bosom erst:
Henceforward with the serpent I am cursed.
I can interpret where the mouth is dumb.
Speak, and I see the side-lie of a truth.
Perchance my heart may pardon you this deed:
15 But be no coward: – you that made Love bleed,
You must bear all the venom of his tooth!
XXIX
Am I failing? For no longer can I cast
A glory round about this head of gold.
Glory she wears, but springing from the mould;
Not like the consecration of the Past!
5 Is my soul beggared? Something more than earth
I cry for still: I cannot be at peace
In having Love upon a mortal lease.
I cannot take the woman at her worth!
Where is the ancient wealth wherewith I clothed
10 Our human nakedness, and could endow
With spiritual splendour a white brow
That else had grinned at me the fact I loathed?
A kiss is but a kiss now! and no wave
Of a great flood that whirls me to the sea.
15 But, as you will! we’ll sit contentedly,
And eat our pot of honey on the grave.
XXXVII
Along the garden terrace, under which
A purple valley (lighted at its edge
By smoky torch-flame on the long cloud-ledge
Whereunder dropped the chariot) glimmers rich,
5 A quiet company we pace, and wait
The dinner-bell in prae-digestive calm.
So sweet up violet banks the Southern balm
Breathes round, we care not if the bell be late:
Though here and there grey seniors question Time
10 In irritable coughings. With slow foot
The low rosed moon, the face of Music mute,
Begins among her silent bars to climb.
As in and out, in silvery dusk, we thread,
I hear the laugh of Madam, and discern
15 My Lady’s heel before me at each turn.
Our tragedy, is it alive or dead?
XXXIX
She yields: my Lady in her noblest mood
Has yielded: she, my golden-crownëd rose!
The bride of every sense! more sweet than those
Who breathe the violet breath of maidenhood.
5 O visage of still music in the sky!
Soft moon! I feel thy song, my fairest friend!
True harmony within can apprehend
Dumb harmony without. And hark! ’tis nigh!
Belief has struck the note of sound: a gleam
10 Of living silver shows me where she shook
Her long white fingers down the shadowy brook,
That sings her song, half waking, half in dream.
What two come here to mar this heavenly tune?
A man is one: the woman bears my name,
15 And honour. Their hands touch! Am I still tame?
God, what a dancing spectre seems the moon!
XLV
It is the season of the sweet wild rose,
My Lady’s emblem in the heart of me!
So golden-crownëd shines she gloriously,
And with that softest dream of blood she glows:
5 Mild as an evening heaven round Hesper bright!
I pluck the flower, and smell it, and revive
The time when in her eyes I stood alive.
I seem to look upon it out of Night.
Here’s Madam, stepping hastily. Her whims
10 Bid her demand the flower, which I let drop.
As I proceed, I feel her sharply stop,
And crush it under heel with trembling limbs.
She joins me in a cat-like way, and talks
Of company, and even condescends
15 To utter laughing scandal of old friends.
These are the summer days, and these our walks.
DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI
The Blessed Damozel
The blessed damozel leaned out
From the gold bar of Heaven;
Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even;
5 She had three lilies in her hand,
And the stars in he
r hair were seven.
Her robe, ungirt from clasp to hem,
No wrought flowers did adorn,
But a white rose of Mary’s gift,
10 For service meetly worn;
Her hair that lay along her back
Was yellow like ripe corn.
Herseemed she scarce had been a day
One of God’s choristers;
15 The wonder was not yet quite gone
From that still look of hers;
Albeit, to them she left, her day
Had counted as ten years.
(To one, it is ten years of years.
20 … Yet now, and in this place,
Surely she leaned o’er me – her hair
Fell all about my face …
Nothing: the autumn-fall of leaves.
The whole year sets apace.)
25 It was the rampart of God’s house
That she was standing on;
By God built over the sheer depth
The which is Space begun;
So high, that looking downward thence
30 She scarce could see the sun.
It lies in Heaven, across the flood
Of ether, as a bridge.
Beneath, the tides of day and night
With flame and darkness ridge
35 The void, as low as where this earth
Spins like a fretful midge.
Around her, lovers, newly met
’Mid deathless love’s acclaims,
Spoke evermore among themselves
40 Their heart-remembered names;
And the souls mounting up to God
Went by her like thin flames.
And still she bowed herself and stooped
Out of the circling charm;
45 Until her bosom must have made
The bar she leaned on warm,
And the lilies lay as if asleep
Along her bended arm.
From the fixed place of Heaven she saw
50 Time like a pulse shake fierce
Through all the worlds. Her gaze still strove
Within the gulf to pierce
Its path; and now she spoke as when
The stars sang in their spheres.
55 The sun was gone now; the curled moon
Was like a little feather
Fluttering far down the gulf; and now
She spoke through the still weather.
Her voice was like the voice the stars
60 Had when they sang together.
(Ah sweet! Even now, in that bird’s song,
Strove not her accents there,
Fain to be hearkened? When those bells
Possessed the mid-day air,