Poems
And seven more loves attend at night
Around my couch with torches bright.
And seven more loves in my bed
Crown with vine my mournful head,
Pitying and forgiving all
My transgressions, great and small.
When wilt thou return and view
My loves, and them to life renew?
When wilt thou return and live?
When wilt thou pity as I forgive?
“Never, never I return.
Still for victory I burn.
Living, thee alone I’ll have,
And when dead I’ll be thy grave.
“Through the Heaven and Earth and Hell—
Thou shalt never, never quell,—
I will fly and thou pursue,
Night and morn the flight renew.”
Till I turn from female love
And root up the infernal grove
I shall never worthy be
To step into Eternity.
And I to end thy cruel mocks
Annihilate thee on the rocks,
And another form create
To be subservient to my fate.
Let us agree to give up love
And root up the infernal grove,
Then shall we return and see
The worlds of happy Eternity.
And throughout all Eternity
I forgive you, you forgive me.
As our dear Redeemer said:
This the wine and this the bread.
The Defiled Sanctuary
I saw a chapel all of gold
That none did dare to enter in,
And many weeping stood without,
Weeping, mourning, worshipping.
I saw a serpent rise between
The white pillars of the door,
And he forced and forced and forced
Till he the golden hinges tore:
And along the pavement sweet,
Set with pearls and rubies bright,
All his shining length he drew,—
Till upon the altar white
He vomited his poison out
On the bread and on the wine.
So I turned into a sty,
And laid me down among the swine.
Barren Blossom
I feared the fury of my wind
Would blight all blossoms fair and true,
And my sun it shined and shined,
And my wind it never blew.
But a blossom fair or true
Was not found on any tree;
For all blossoms grew and grew
Fruitless, false, though fair to see.
Opportunity
He who bends to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in eternity’s sunrise.
If you trap the moment before it’s ripe,
The tears of repentance you’ll certainly wipe;
But, if once you let the ripe moment go,
You can never wipe off the tears of woe.
Love’s Secret
Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told shall be;
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly.
I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart,
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears.
Ah! she did depart!
Soon after she has gone from me,
A traveller came by,
Silently, invisibly:
He took her with a sigh.
Fragment for “Jerusalem”
“I see, I see”, the Mother said,
“My children shall die for lack of bread!
What more has the merciless tyrant said?”
The Monk sat down on her stony bed.
His eye was dry, no tears could flow,
A hollow groan bespoke his woe.
· · · · ·
“When God commanded this hand to write
In the shadowy hours of deep midnight,
He told me that all I wrote should prove
The bane of all that on earth I love.
“My brother starved between two walls;
Thy children’s cry my soul appals.
I mock at the rack and the grinding chain;
My bent body mocks at their torturing pain.
“Thy father drew his sword in the North,
With his thousands strong he is marched forth.
Thy brother has armed himself in steel,
To avenge the wrongs thy children feel.
“But vain the sword and vain the bow,
They never can work war’s overthrow.
The hermit’s prayer and the widow’s tear
Alone can free the world from fear.”
The hand of vengeance sought the bed
To which the purple tyrant fled;
The iron hand crushed the tyrant’s head,
And became a tyrant in his stead.
Until the tyrant himself relent,
The tyrant who the first black bow bent,
Slaughter shall heap the bloody plain;
Resistance and war is the tyrant’s gain.
But the tear of love and forgiveness sweet,
And submission to death beneath his feet;
The tear shall melt the sword of steel,
And every wound it has made shall heal.
For the tear is an intellectual thing,
And a sigh is the sword of an Angel King;
And the bitter groan of a martyr’s woe
Is an arrow from the Almighty’s bow.
Cupid
Why was Cupid a boy,
And why a boy was he?
He should have been a girl,
For aught that I can see.
For he shoots with his bow,
And the girl shoots with her eye;
And they both are merry and glad,
And laugh when we do cry.
Then to make Cupid a boy
Was surely a woman’s plan,
For a boy never learns so much
Till he has become a man:
And then he’s so pierced with cares,
And wounded with arrowy smarts,
That the whole business of his life
Is to pick out the heads of the darts.
’Twas the Greeks’ love of war
Turned Cupid into a boy,
And woman into a statue of stone:
Away flew every joy.
The Golden Net
Beneath the white-thorn’s lovely may,
Three virgins at the break of day.—
“Whither, young man, whither away?
Alas for woe! alas for woe!”
They cry, and tears for ever flow.
The one was clothed in flames of fire,
The other clothed in iron wire;
The other clothed in tears and sighs.
Dazzling bright before my eyes,
They bore a net of golden twine
To hang upon the branches fine.
Pitying, I wept to see the woe
That love and beauty undergo—
To be consumed in flames of fire
And in unsatisfied desire,
And in tears clothed night and day
It melted all my soul away.
When they saw my tears, a smile
That did heaven itself beguile
Bore the golden net aloft,
As by downy pinions soft,
Over the morning of my day.
Underneath the net I stray,
Now entreating Flaming-fire,
Now entreating Iron Wire,
Now entreating Tears and Sighs.—
O, when will the morning rise?
The Cabinet
The maiden caught me in the wild,
Where I was dancing merrily;
She put me into her cabinet,
And locked me up with a golden key.
This cabinet is formed of gold,
And pearl and crystal shining bright,
And within it opens into a world
And a little lovely moony night.
Another England there I saw,
Another London with its Tower,
Another Thames and other hills,
And another pleasant Surrey bower.
Another maiden like herself,
Translucent, lovely, shining clear,
Threefold, each in the other closed—
O, what a pleasant trembling fear!
O, what a smile! A threefold smile
Filled me that like a flame I burned;
I bent to kiss the lovely maid,
And found a threefold kiss returned.
I strove to seize the inmost form
With ardour fierce and hands of flame,
But burst the crystal cabinet,
And like a weeping babe became:
A weeping babe upon the wild,
And weeping woman pale reclined,
And in the outward air again,
I filled with woes the passing wind.
William Bond
I wonder whether the girls are mad,
And I wonder whether they mean to kill,
And I wonder if William Bond will die,
For assuredly he is very ill.
He went to church on a May morning,
Attended by fairies one, two, and three,
But the angels of Providence drove them away,
And he returned home in misery.
He went not out to the field nor fold,
He went not out to the village nor town,
But he came home in a black, black cloud,
And took to his bed, and there lay down.
And an angel of Providence at his feet,
And an angel of Providence at his head,
And in the midst a black, black cloud,
And in the midst the sick man on his bed.
And on his right hand was Mary Green,
And on his left hand was his sister Jane,
And their tears fell through the black, black cloud
To drive away the sick man’s pain.
“O William, if thou dost another love,
Dost another love better than poor Mary,
Go and take that other to be thy wife,
And Mary Green shall her servant be.”
“Yes, Mary, I do another love,
Another I love far better than thee,
And another I will have for my wife:
Then what have I to do with thee?
“For thou art melancholy pale,
And on thy head is the cold moon’s shine,
But she is ruddy and bright as day,
And the sunbeams dazzle from her eyne.”
Mary trembled, and Mary chilled,
And Mary fell down on the right-hand floor,
That William Bond and his sister Jane
Scarce could recover Mary more.
When Mary woke and found her laid
On the right hand of her William dear,
On the right hand of his loved bed,
And saw her William Bond so near;
The fairies that fled from William Bond
Danced around her shining head;