| XIX My most distinguished guest and learnèd friend, The pallid hare that runs before the day Having brought your earnest counsels to an end Now have I somewhat of my own to say: That is folly to be sunk in love, And madness plain to make the matter known, These are no mysteries you are verger of; Everyman's wisdoms these are, and my own. If I have flung my heart unto a hound I have done ill, it is a certain thing; Yet breathe I freer, walk I more sound On my sick bones for this brave reasoning? Soon I must say, "'Tis prowling Death I hear!" Yet come no better off, for my quick ear. XX Think not, nor for a moment let your mind, Wearied with thinking, doze upon the thought That the work's done and the long day behind, And beauty, since 'tis paid for, can be bought. If in the moonlight from the silent bough Suddenly with precision speak your name The nightingale, be not assured that now His wing is limed and his wild virtue tame. Beauty beyond all feathers that have flown Is free; you shall not hood her to your wrist, Nor sting her eyes, nor have her for your own In any fashion; beauty billed and kissed Is not your turtle; tread her like a dove — She loves you not; she never heard of love. XXI Gone in good sooth you are: not even in a dream You come. As if the strictures of the light, Laid on our glances to their disesteem, Extended even to shadows and the night; Extended even beyond that drowsy sill Along whose galleries open to the skies All maskers move unchallenged and at will, Visor in hand or hooded to the eyes. To that pavilion the green sea in flood Curves in, and the slow dancers dance in foam; I find again the pink camellia-bud On the wide step, beside a silver comb . . . But it is scentless; up the marble stair I mount with pain, knowing you are not there. XXII Now by this moon, before this moon shall wane I shall be dead or I shall be with you! No moral concept can outweigh the pain Past rack and wheel this absence puts me through; Faith, honour, pride, endurance, what the tongues Of tedious men will say, or what the law — For which of these do I fill up my lungs With brine and fire at every breath I draw? Time, and to spare, for patience by and by, Time to be cold and time to sleep alone; Let me no more until the hour I die Defraud my innocent senses of their own. Before this moon shall darken, say of me: She's in her grave, or where she wants to be. XXIII I know the face of falsehood and her tongue Honeyed with unction, plausible with guile, And dear to men, whom count me not among, That owe their daily credit to her smile; Such have been succoured out of great distress By her contriving, if accounts be true: Their deference now above the board, I guess, Discharges what beneath the board id due. As for myself, I'd liefer lack her aid Than her presence; let this building fall: But never let me lift my latch, afraid To hear her simpering accents in the hall, Nor force an entrance past mephitic airs Of stale patchouli hanging on my stairs. XXIV Whereas morning in a jeweled crown I bit my fingers and was hard to please, Having shook disaster till the fruit fell down I feel tonight more happy and at ease: Feet running in the corridors, men quick- Buckling their sword-belts bumping down the stair, Challenge, and rattling bridge-chain, and the click Of hooves on pavement — this will clear the air. Private this chamber as is has not been In many a month of muffled hours; almost, Lulled by the uproar, I could lie serene And sleep, until all's won, until all's lost, And the doors' opened and the issue shown, And I walk forth Hell's mistress . . . or my own. XXV Peril upon the paths of this desire Lies like the natural darkness of the night, For me unpeopled; let him hence retire Whom as a child a shadow could affright; And fortune speed him from this dubious place Where roses blenched or blackened of their hue, Pallid and stemless float on undulant space, Or clustered hidden shock the hand with dew. Whom as a child the night's obscurity Did not alarm, let him alone remain, Lanterned but by the longing in the eye, And warmed but by the fever in the vein, To lie with me, sentried from the wrath and scorn By sleepless Beauty and her polished thorn. XXVI Women have loved before as I love now; At least, in lively chronicle of the past — Of Irish waters by a Cornish prow Or Trojan waters by a Spartan mast Much to their cost invaded — here and there, Hunting the amorous line, skimming the rest, I find some woman bearing as I bear Love like a burning city in the breast. I think however that of all alive I only in such utter, ancient way Do suffer love; in me alone survive The unregenerate passions of a day When treacherous queens, with death upon the tread, Heedless and wilful, took their knights to bed. XXVII Moon, that against the lintel of the west Your forehead lean until the gate be swung, Longing to leave the world and be at rest, Being worn with faring and no longer young, Do you recall at all the Carian hill Where worn with loving, loving late you lay, Halting the sun because you lingered still, While wondering candles lit the Carian day? Ah, if indeed this memory to your mind Recall some sweet employment, pity me, That even now the dawn's dim herald see! I charge you, goddess, in the name of one You loved as well: endure, hold off the sun. |
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