gracious knight
     Kneels to his garlander mid orchard-trees.
Passionate pilgrims, do ye keep so fast
     Your dream of miracles and heights? Ah, shent
And sore-bewildered shall ye couch at last
     In bitter beds of disillusionment.
In the Black Orchard the foul raven grieves
White Love, on some Montfauçon of the thieves.

X

THE MIRROR-CASES

II

O treasonable heart and perverse words,
     Ye darken beauty with your plots of pain!
What languors beat through me like muted chords?
     I know indeed that suffering shall profane
These lovers, sweet as viols or violet-spices.
     Strangely must end their dreamy chess-playing,
Strange wounds amaze their broidered Paradises,
     And stain the falconry and garlanding.
Their bodies must be broken as on wheels,
     Their souls be carded with implacable shame,—
Molten like wax, be crushed beneath the seals
     Of sin and penance. Yet, with wings aflame,
Love, Love more lovely, like a triumpher,
Shall break his malefactor's sepulchre.

XI

THE PASSION-FLOWER

The passion-flower bears in her violet Cup
     The senses of her bridal, and they seem
Symbols of sacred pangs,—Love lifted up
     To expiate the beauty of his dream.
Come and adore, ye crafty imagers,
     This piece of ivory and amethyst.
Let Music, Colour, decorated Verse,
     Meditate, each like some sad lutanist,
This Paten, and the marvels it uncovers,
     Identities of joy and anguish. Rod,
Nails, bitter garlands, all ecstatic lovers
     Blindly repeat the dolours of a God.
Subdue this mournful matter unto Art,
Ivory, amethyst, serene of heart.

XII

THE VOICE OF LOVE

I

"Mine, mine!" saith Love, "Deny me many times.
     Yet mine that body wherein mine arrow thrills,
And mine the fugitive soul that bleeding climbs
     Hunting a vision on the frozen hills.
Mine are her stigmata, sad rhapsodist.—
     And when to the delighted bridal-bowers
They bring thee starlike through the silver mist
     Of music and canticles and myrtle-flowers,
And the dark hour bids the consentless heart
     Surrender to disillusion, since in all
The labyrinth of deed no counterpart
     Can pattern Passion's archetype, nor shall
The chalice of sense endure her flaming wine,
Superb and bitter dreamer, thou most art mine."

XIII

THE VOICE OF LOVE

II

"Mine, mine!" saith Love, "Although ye serve no more
     Mine images of ivory and bronze
With flute-led dances of the days of yore,
     But leave them to barbarian orisons
Of dull hearth-loving hearts, mistaking me:
     Yet from mine incense ye shall not divorce
Remembrance. Fools, these recantations be
     Ardours that prove you still idolators;
And, though ye hurry through the circling hells
     Of bright ambition like hopes and energies,
That haste bewrays you. My great doctrine dwells
     Immortal in those fevered heresies,
And all the inversions of my rites proclaim
The mournful memory of mine altar-flame."

XIV

DREAM-GHOSTS

White house of night, too much the ghosts come through
     Your crazy doors, to vex and startle me,
Touching with curious fingers cold as dew
     Kissing with unloved kisses fierily
That dwell, slow fever, through my veins all day,
     And fill my senses as the dead their graves.
They are builded in my castles and bridges? Yea,
     Not therefore must my dreams become their slaves.
If once we passed some kindness, must they still
     Sway me with weird returns and dim disgust?—
Though even in sleep the absolute bright Will
     Would exorcise them, saying, "These are but dust,"
They show sad symbols, that, when I awaken,
I never can deny I have partaken.

XV

MEMORIA SUBMERSA

Can souls forget what bodies keep the while?
     Is this among their dark antinomies?
The spiritual joy is volatile:
     The flesh is faithful to her memories.
This living silk, this inarticulate
     Remembrance of the nerves enwinds us fast:
Delicate cells, obscure and obstinate,
     Secrete the bitter essence of the Past.
Ah! Was the fading web of rose and white
     All macerated by the kisses of old
As rare French queens with perfume? (So, by night,
     They lived like lilies mid their cloth-of-gold.)
Within the sense, howe'er the soul abjure,
Like flavours and fumes these ancient things endure.

XVI

A PORTRAIT BY VENEZIANO

Strange dancing-girl with curls of golden wire,
     With strait white veil, and sinister jewel strung
Upon your brows, your sombre eyes desire
     Some secret thing. Garlanded leaves are young
Around your head, and, in your beauty's hours,
     Venice yet loved that joy's enthusiast
Be frail, fantastic as gilt iris-flowers.
     O startling reveller from out the Past,
Long, long ago through lanes of chrysophrase
     The Dark Eros compelled his exquisite
Evil apostle. This painter made your praise,
     A piece of art, a curious delight.
But your ghost wanders. Yesterday your sweet
Accusing eyes challenged me in the street.

XVII

THE ENIGMA

Eternally grieving and arraigning eyes,
     Why vex my heart? What is it I can do?
Can I call back the hounds of Time with sighs,
     Or find inviolate peace to bring you to,
Pluck frenzy from the amazed soul of man,
     Or curb the horses of raging poverty
That trample you until—escape who can,—
     Or spill the honey from rich revelry
And strip the silken days?—Alas! alas!
     I am so dream-locked that I cannot know
Why it is not much easier to pass
     To death than let love's haughty cloister show
A common hostel for such taverners.—
Ye know, who are perhaps my ransomers.

XVIII

THE DOUBT

I am pure, because of great illuminations
     Of dreamy doctrine caught from poets of old,
Because of delicate imaginations,
     Because I am proud, or subtle, or merely cold.
Natheless my soul's bright passions interchange
     As the red flames in opal drowse and speak:
In beautiful twilight paths the elusive strange
     Phantoms of personality I seek.
If better than the last embraces I
     Love the lit riddles of the eyes, the faint
Appeal of merely courteous fingers,—why,
     Though 'tis a quest of souls, and I acquaint
My heart with spiritual vanities,—
Is there indeed no bridge twixt me and these?

XIX

THE SEEKER

Curious and wistful through your soul I go.
     With silver-tinkling feet I penetrate
Sealed chambers, and a puissant incense throw
     Upon the smouldering braziers, love and hate:
And chaunt the grievèd verses of a dirge
     For dying gods, remembering flutes and shawms:
With perverse moods I trouble you, and urge
     The sense to beauty. Give me some sweet alms,
Some reverie, some pang of a damasked sword,
     Some poignant moment yet unparalleled
In my dream-broidered chronicles,