Complete Works of Isaac Rosenberg
Page 5
Which theirs would be no longer than a day,
And then — the streets and doom.
45 Lord! Lord! dear Lord!
I knew that life was bitter, but my soul
Recoiled, as anguish-smitten by sharp sword,
Grieving such body’s dole.
Then grief gave place
50 To a strange pulsing rapture as she spoke,
For I could catch the glimpses of God’s grace,
And desire awoke.
To take this trust,
And warm and gladden it with love’s new fires,
55 Burning the past to ashes and to dust
Through purified desires.
We walked our way.
One way hewn for us from the birth of Time.
For we had wandered into Love’s strange clime
60 Through ways sin waits to slay.
Love’s euphony,
In Love’s own temple that is our glad hearts,
Makes now long music wild deliciously,
Now Grief hath used his darts.
65 Love infinite,
Chastened by sorrow, hallowed by pure flame —
Not all the surging world can compass it,
Love — love — O! tremulous name.
God’s mercy shines.
70 And my full heart hath made record of this.
Of grief that burst from out its dark confines
Into strange sunlit bliss.
1910
A BALLAD OF TIME, LIFE AND MEMORY
Hold wide the door and watch who passes here
From dawn through day to dawn,
Bravely as though their journey but begun,
Through change unchanged still.
5 She, wild eyed, runs and laughs, or walks and weeps;
But him, swift footed, never can outrun,
Nor creep and he before.
And all she has and all she knows is his;
But not all his for her.
10 He gives her of the spices and the myrrh
And wonderful strange fruits,
He gives her more of tears, and girds her round
With yearning bitterness,
With fears that kill the hopes they feed upon,
15 With hopes that smile at fears and smile on her,
Till fears again prevail.
And as she goes the roses fall and die;
And as she goes she weeps.
But lo! behind, what dim processional?
20 What maiden sings and sighs?
And holds an urn, and as the roses fall,
And the wine pours and spills,
She gathers in her lap and breathes on them;
And in the urn the spilled wine glows again,
25 Lit by her eyes divine.
And all the roses at her touch revive,
And blush and bloom again.
And by her side, whose name is Memory,
The ghosts of all the hours,
30 Some smiling as they smiled within the sun,
Some, stained and wan with tears.
To those she gives the roses as they fall,
And bids them tune the praises of their prime.
To these their tears and dust.
35 And those are happy loves and wreathed joys.
And these are sorrows pale.
Even as she sings so Time himself makes pause,
Even Time, Death’s conqueror,
And Life’s reverted face grows tenderer,
40 While the soul dreams and yearns,
Watching the risen faces of the hours,
And shrivelled Autumn change her face to June’s,
And dead wine live again,
And dust discrowned know Life it knew before
45 Touched with a softened light.
There is no leaf upon the naked woods,
No bird upon the boughs,
And Time leads Life through many waste places,
And dreams and shapes of death.
50 Yet is the voice of Summer not quite dumb,
Although her lips be stilled and silenter.
For Memory bids her rise
To sing within the palace of the soul,
And Life and Time are still.
1910
DEATH
Death waits for me — ah! who shall kiss me first?
No lips of love glow red from out the gloom
That life spreads darkly like a living tomb
Around my path. Death’s gift is best not worst.
For even the honey on life’s lips is curst.
And the worm cankers in the ripest bloom.
Yea, from Birth’s gates to Death’s, Life’s travailed womb
Is big with Rest, for Death, her life, athirst.
Death waits, and when she has kissed life’s warm lips
With her pale mouth, and made him one with her;
Held to him Lethe’s wine whereof he sips;
And stilled Time’s wings, earth shadowing sleepless whir;
Outside of strife, beyond the world’s blood drips,
Shadowed by peace, Rest dwells and makes no stir.
1910
THE DEAD PAST
Ah! will I meet you ever — you who have gone from me,
You, the I that was then and a moment hath changed into you.
So many moments have passed and changed the I into we,
So many many times but alas I remember so few.
5 I know you are dead, long perished, the boy that babbled and played
With the toys like the wind with the flowers and the clouds play with the moon,
I know you are dead long ago and hid in the grove I made
Of regrets that were soon forgotten, as snow is forgotten by June.
You too are dead, the shining face that laughed and wept without thought
10 Uttered the words of the heart, wept or leapt as was right.
O, were you taken to heaven, by God in a whirlwind caught,
I do not know yours was best, you not conscious of your delight.
O my life’s dead Springtime — why will you haunt me like ghosts,
You little buds that have died — and blossom in memory,
15 Will I meet you in some dead land and see your face in hosts,
Saying ‘The past is the future and you and the future are we’?
1911
IN THE HEART OF THE FOREST
In the heart of the forest,
The shuddering forest,
The moaning and sobbing
Sad shuddering forest —
5 The dark and the dismal
Persistent sad sobbing
Throughout the weird forest.
Ah! God! they are voices —
Dim ghosts of the forest
10 Unrestfully sobbing
Through wistful pale voices,
Whose breath is the wind and whose lips the sad trees;
Whose yearning great eyes
Death haunted for ever
15 Look from the dark waters,
And pale spirit faces
Wrought from the white lilies.
MY DAYS
My days are but the tombs of buried hours;
Which tombs are hidden in the piled years;
But from the mounds there springeth up such flowers
Whose beauty well repays its cost of tears.
Time, like a sexton, pileth mould on mould,
Minutes on minutes till the tombs are high;
But from the dust there falleth grains of gold,
And the dead corpse leaves what will never die.
It may be but a thought, the nursling seed
Of many thoughts, of many a high desire;
Some little act that stirs a noble deed,
Like breath rekindling a smouldering fire.
They only live who have not lived in vain,
For in their works their life returns again.
1911
THE WORLD RUMBLES BY ME
The world rumbles by me — can I heed?
The rose it is crimson — and I bleed.
The rose of my heart glows deep afar;
And I grope in the darkness ‘twixt star and star.
5 Only in night grows the flower of peace,
Spreading its odours of rest and ease.
It dies in the day like light in the night.
It revives like tears in the eyes of delight.
For the youth at my heart beats wild and loud;
10 And raves in my ear of a girl and a shroud.
Of a golden girl with the soul in her eyes,
To teach me love and to make me wise.
With the fire on her lips and the wine in her hands,
To bind me strong in her silken bands.
15 For time and fate are striding to meet
One unseen with soundless feet.
The world rustles by me — let me heed.
Clutched in its madness till I bleed.
For the rose of my heart glows deep afar.
20 If I stretch my hand, I may clasp a star.
1911
TO MR. AND MRS. LOWY, ON THEIR SILVER WEDDING
‘Ye hearken as ye list’, saith Time to all.
‘Ye hear me as I pass or do not hear.
I gather all the fruits of all the year,
I hoard them when the barren seasons call.
Then, though I flew with Spring, with them I crawl.
To soothe their vacant eyes and feet of fear
I bid the Spring’s sweet ghost rise from her bier,
And tender Memory come with light footfall.
‘Then, when the seasons hang their heads in shame
And grief, I bring my store of hoarded fruit;
To warm the hands of age, youth’s rosy flame;
And to old love the young love at the root,
Hallowed by me to silver sweet acclaim —
Hush — lo! the bride and bridegroom — hush! — be mute.’
1911
LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM TO J.L.
The birds that sang in summer
Were silent till the spring;
For hidden were the flowers,
The flowers to whom they sing.
5 December’s jewelled bosom —
Closed mouth — hill-hidden vale —
Held seed full soon to blossom;
Held song that would not fail.
I, silent all the winter,
10 No flower for me to praise,
For this rich wealth of roses
My song shall I not raise?
The lilies and the roses,
White hands and damask cheeks;
15 The eyes where love reposes
And laughs before he speaks.
Could this make music to thee,
The music of sweet thought;
Thy laughing eyes might hearken
20 To sounds sweet visions wrought,
Till the deep roses tingle
The cheeks they nestle in,
While music still would mingle,
And pleasure still begin.
25 Thus, hidden in these pages
My thoughts shall silent lie
Till gentle fingers find them,
When idly bent to pry.
I see them fondly linger,
30 And quicken with their breath
The music of the singer,
Whose silence was its death.
1911
GOD LOOKED CLEAR AT ME THROUGH HER EYES
God looked clear at me through her eyes,
And when her fresh and sweet lips spake,
Through dawn-flushed gates of Paradise
Such silvern birds did wing and shake
5 God’s fervent music on my soul,
And with their jewelled quivering feet
Did rend apart the quiet stole
That shades from girl-fanned pulsing heat.
Upon a gold branch in my breast
10 They made their nest, while sweet and warm
Hung wav’ring thoughts like rose-leaves drest;
My soul the sky to keep from harm.
In the heart’s woods mysterious
Where feelings lie remote and far,
15 They fly with touch imperious,
And loose emotion’s hidden bar.
And to dark pools of brooding care,
And blinding wastes of loneliness,
They gleam a Paradisal air,
20 And warm with a divine caress.
1912
BIRTHDAY SONG
To thy cradle at thy birth
Did not all the fairies come,
Genie of heaven and earth
While ogres stood afar and dumb,
5 And thy cradle to embower
Spun a roof of sun and flowers,
Gave thee for thy lifelong dower
Beauteous gifts and beauteous hours?
Time stood by, a gardener mild,
10 Watched the bud unfold to rose,
June’s delight December’s child,
Red rose of December snows.
Twenty years and one year more
Time here layeth at thy feet;
15 But thy friends bring twenty score
Wishes that the rest be sweet.
THE PRESENT
Time, leveller, chaining fate itself to thee —
Hope frets her eager pettings on thy sand,
Wild waves that strive to overreach command
Of nature, much in sight. Eternity
Is but thyself made shoreless. Toward thy sea
The streams-to-be flow from the shadowland
Of rootless flowers no earthly breeze has fanned,
Weave with the past thy restless apathy.
Thou art the link ‘twixt after and before,
The one sole truth; the final ultimate
Endeavour of the ages. The loud roar
Of life around me is thy voice to fate
And Time — who looking on thee has grown hoar
While thou art yet — and freedom is so late.
NOCTURNE
Day, like a flower of gold fades on its crimson bed;
For the many chambered night unbars to shut its sweetness up;
From earth and heaven fast drawn together a heavy stillness is shed,
And our hearts drink the shadowy splendour from a brimming cup.
For the indrawn breath of beauty thrills the holy caves of night;
Shimmering winds of heaven fall gently and mysterious hands caress
Our wan brows with cooling rapture of the delicate starlight
Dropping from the night’s blue walls in endless veils of loveliness.
THE KEY OF THE GATES OF HEAVEN
A word leapt sharp from my tongue,
Could a golden key do more
Than open the golden door
For the rush of the golden song?
5 She spoke, and the spell of her speech —
The chain of the heart linked song —
Was on me swift and strong,
And Heaven was in my reach.
A word was the key thereof;
10 And my thought was the hand that turned.
And words that throbbed and burned,
Sweet birds from the shine of love,
Flew clear ‘tween the rosebud gate
That was parted beneath and above,
15 And a chain of music wove
More strong than the hand of fate.
THE CAGE
Air knows as you know that I sing in my cage of earth,
And my mouth dry with longing for your winsome mouth of mirth,
That passes ever my prison bars which will not fall apart,
Wearied unweariedly so long with the fretful music of my heart.
If you were a rose, and I, the wandering invisible air
To feed your scent and live, glad though you knew me not there,
Or the green of your stem that
your proud petals could never meet,
I yet would feel the caresses of your shadow’s ruby feet.
O splendour of radiant flesh, O your heavy hair uncurled,
Binding all that my hopes have fashioned to crown me King of the world,
I sing to life to befriend me; she sends me your mouth of mirth,
And you only laugh as you pass me, and I weep in my cage of earth.
1912
BACCHANAL
If life would come to me
As she has never come,
The music of the spring,
The fullness of its prime;
5 With roses in her hair,
With laughter on her lips,
Ah! life! — we’d dance a tune.
Ah! life! we’d live — we’d live.
If life would come to me
10 With roses in her lap,
With wine between her hands,
And a fire upon her lips;
We would burn Time in that fire,
We would drown care in that wine,
15 And with music and with laughter
We would scare black death away.
If life would only come
As I would have her come,
With sweet breasts for my bed,
20 And my food her fiery wine;
If life would only come,
For we live not till it comes,
And it comes not till we feel
Its fire through all our veins.
1912
NOW THE SPIRIT’S SONG HAS WITHERED
Now the spirit’s song has withered
As a song of last year’s June
That has made the air its tomb.
Shall we ever find it after
Sighing in some summer tune
That is sealed now in gloom,
Safe for light and laughter?
Now the sky blooms full of colour,
Houses glow and windows shine
Glittering with impatient wings.
Where they go to may I follow
Since mine eyes have made them mine?
Shall I ever find these things
Hid in hill or hollow?
1911-12
SO INNOCENT YOU SPREAD YOUR NET
So innocent you spread your net,
I knew not I was caught in it,
Till when I vainly tried to rise
I read the reason in your eyes.
Your silken smiles had bound me fast;