Here some time flowed my springs and sent a cry Of joy before them up the shining air, While morn was new, and heaven all blue and bare; Here dipped the swallow to a tenderer sky, And o’er my flowers lean’d some pure mystery Of liquid eyes and golden-glimmering hair; For which now, drouth and death, a bright despair, Shards, choking slag, the world’s dust small and dry. Yet turn not hence thy faithful foot, O thou, Diviner of my buried life; pace round, Poising the hazel-wand; believe and wait, Listen and lean; ah, listen! even now Stirrings and murmurings of the underground Prelude the flash and outbreak of my fate.
Fair sword of doom, and bright with martyr blood, Thee Regnault saw not as mine eyes have seen; No Judith of the Faubourg, mænad-queen, Pale on her tumbril-throne, when the live flood Foams through revolted Paris, unwithstood, Is of thy kin. Blossom and bud between, Clear-brow’d Salome, with her silk head’s sheen, Lips where a linnet might have pecked for food, Pure curves of neck, and dimpling hand aloft, Moved like a wave at sunrise. Herod said-- “A boon for maiden freshness! Ask of me What toy may please, though half my Galilee;” And with beseeching eyes, and bird-speech soft, She fluted: “Give me here John Baptist’s head.”
Now on life’s crest we breathe the temperate air; Turn either way; the parted paths o’erlook; Dear, we shall never bid the Sphinx despair, Nor read in Sibyl’s book.
The blue bends o’er us; good are Night and Day; Some blissful influence from the starry Seven Thrilled us ere youth took wing; wherefore essay The vain assault on heaven?
And what great Word Life’s singing lips pronounce, And what intends the sealing kiss of Death, It skills us not; yet we accept, renounce, And draw this tranquil breath.
Enough, one thing we know, haply anon All truths; yet no truths better or more clear Than that your hand holds my hand; wherefore on! The downward pathway, Dear!
Rude is the dwelling, low the door, No chamber this where men may feast, I strew clean rushes on the floor, Set wide my window to the East.
I can but set my little room In order, then gaze forth and wait; I know not if the Guest will come, Who holds aloft his starry state.
Lord, when my hour to part is come, And all the powers of being sink, When eyes are filmed, and lips are dumb, And scarce I hang upon the brink.