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Short Poems from Manuscripts Circa 1900 1901
(On Basanti’s birthday — Jyestha 1900)
Of Spring is her name for whose bud and blooming We praise today the Giver, — Of Spring and its sweetness clings about her For her face is Spring and Spring’s without her, As loth to leave her.
See, it is summer; the brilliant sunlight Lies hard on stream and plain, And all things wither with heats diurnal; But she! how vanished things and vernal In her remain.
And almost indeed we repine and marvel To watch her bloom and grow; For half we had thought our sweet bud could never Bloom out, but must surely remain for ever The child we know.
But now though summer must come and autumn In God’s high governing Yet I deem that her soul with soft insistence Shall guard through all change the sweet existence And charm of Spring.
O dear child soul, our loved and cherished, For this thy days had birth, Like some tender flower on a grey stone portal To sweeten and flush with childhood immortal The ageing earth.
Page – 185 There are flowers in God’s garden of prouder blooming Brilliant and bold and bright, The tulip and rose are fierier and brighter, But this has a softer hue, a whiter And milder light.
Long be thy days in rain and sunshine, Often thy spring relume, Gladdening thy mother’s heart with thy beauty, Flowerlike doing thy gentle duty To be loved and bloom.
Many boons the new years make us But the old world’s gifts were three, Dove of Cypris, wine of Bacchus, Pan’s sweet pipe in Sicily.
Love, wine, song, the core of living Sweetest, oldest, musicalest. If at end of forward striving These, Life’s first, proved also best?
An Impression
Hark in the trees the low-voiced nightingale Has slain the silence with a jubilant cry; How clear in the hushed night, yet voluble And various as sweet water wavering by, That murmurs in a channel small Beneath a low grey wall, Then sings amid the fitful rye.
Page – 186 O sweet grave Siren of the night, Astarte’s eremite, Thou feedest every leaf with solemn glee. Lo, the night-winds sigh happier, being chid by thee.
Child of the infant years, Euphrosyne, Bird of my boyhood, youth’s blithe deity! If I have hymned thee not with lyric phrase, Preferring Eros or Aglaia’s praise, Frown not, thou lovely spirit, leave me not. Man worships the ungrasped. His vagrant thought Still busy with the illimitable void Lives all the time by little things upbuoyed Which he contemns; the wife unsung remains Sharing his pleasures, taking half his pains While to dream faces mounts the poet’s song. Yet she makes not their lyric right her wrong, Knowing her homely eyes his sorrow’s star Smiles at the eclipsing brow untouched by care. Content with human love lightly she yields The immortal fancy its Elysian fields.
She in her garden, near the high grey wall, Sleeping; a silver-bodied birch-tree tall That held its garments o’er her wide and green, Building a parapet of shade between, Forbade the amorous sun to look on her. No fold of gracious raiment was astir. The wind walked softly; silent moved a cloud Listening; of all the tree no leaf was loud But guarded a divine expectant hush Thrilled by the silence of a hidden thrush.
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Moulded of twilight and the vesper star Midnight in her with noon made quiet war; — Moulded twixt life and death, Love came between; Then the night fell; twilight faded, the star had been.
Of Ilion’s ashes was thy sceptre made; ‘Tis meet thou lose it now in Ilion’s fall.
O lady Venus, shine on me, O rose-crowned goddess from thy seas Radiant among the Cyclades! Rose-crowned, puissant like the sea.
And bring thy Graces three, The swift companions of thy mirthful mind. Bring thy sweet rogue with thee, Thy careless archer, beautiful and blind.
A woman’s royal heart Bid him to wound and bind her who is free; Bind her for me! Nor for the sweet bright crimson blood may start In little rillets from the little heart Spare her thy sport to be, Goddess, she spared not me.
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If thou wouldst traverse Time with vagrant feet Nor make the poles thy limit fill not then Thy wallet with the fancy’s cloying sweet Which is no stay to heaven-aspiring men, But follow wisdom since alone the wise Can walk through fire with unblinking eyes.
Awake, awake, O sleeping men of Troy, That sleep and know not in the grasp of Hell I perish in the treacherous lonely night To foes betrayed, environed and undone. O Trojans, will ye sleep until the doom Have slipped its leash and bark upon your doors? Not long will ye, unless in Pluto’s realm, Have slumber, since forsaken among foes I drink the bitter cup of lonely death Unheeded and from helping faces far. O Trojans, Trojans, yet again I call! Swift help we need or Ilion’s days are done.
Cool may you find the youngling grass, my herd, Cool with delicious dew, while I here dream And listen to the sweet and garrulous bird That matches its cool note with Thea’s stream. Boon Zephyr now with waist ungirdled runs And you, O luminous nurslings, wider blow, O nurslings of light rain and vernal suns,
Page – 189 When bounteous winds about the garden go. Apt to my soul art thou, blithe honeyed moon, O lovely mother of the rose-red June. Zephyr that all things soothes, enhances all, Dwells with thee softly, the near cuckoo drawn To farther groves with sweet inviting call And dewy buds upon the blossoming lawn. But ah, today some happy soft unrest Aspires and pants in my unquiet breast, As if some light were from the day withdrawn, As if the flitting Zephyr knew a lovelier word Than it had spoken yet, and flower and bird Kept still some grace that yet is left to bloom, Had still a note I never yet have heard, That, blossoming, would the wide air more illume, That, spoken, would advance the sweet Spring’s bounds With large serener lights and joy of exquisite sounds.
Nor have I any in whose ears to tell This gracious grief and so by words have peace, Save the cold hyacinth in the breezy dell And the sweet cuckoo in the sunlit trees Since the sharp autumn days when with increase Of rosy-lighted cheeks attained the ground Weary of waiting and by wasps hung round The bough’s fair hangings and Thea fell with these, My mother, with twelve matron summers crowned. Four times since then the visits of green spring Have blessed the hillsides with fresh blossoming And four times has the winter chilled the brooks, Since sole I dwell with my rude father cheered By no low-worded speech or sunny looks. Yet are we rich enough, fruitful our herd And yields us brimming pails, and store we still Numberless baskets with white cheese and fill Our cave with fruits for winter, and since wide-feared My father Sinnis, none have care our wealth to spoil.
Page – 190 Therefore I pass sweet days with easy toil, Nor other care have much but milk the kine And call them out to graze in soft sunshine And stall them when the evening-star grows large. All else is pleasure, budded wreaths to twine And please my soul beside my horned charge And bathe in the delicious brook that speeds, Iris and water-lily capped and green with reeds.
Nor need we flocks for clothing nor the shears; For when the echoes in the mountain rocks Mimic the groaning wain that moving peers Between thick trees or under granite blocks, Our needs my father takes, nor any yet Scaped him who breaks the wrestler as these twines Of bloom I break, so he with little sweat, And tears the women with dividing pines. Therefore thin gleaming robes and ruddy wines We garner, flickering swords in jewelled case And burning jewels and the beautiful gold Whereof bright plenty now our caverns hold And ornaments of utter exquisiteness. But if these brilliants of their pleasure fail, The lily blooms from vale to scented vale And crocus lifts in Spring its golden fire. Our midnight hears the warbling nightingale, The cuckoo calls as he would never tire; Along our hills we pluck the purple grapes, And in the night a million stars arise To watch us with their ancient friendly eyes. Such flowering ease I have and earth’s sweet shapes, And riches, and the green and hived springs. Ah then what longing wakes for new and lovelier things.
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Since I have seen your face at the window, sweet Love, you have thrown a spell on my heart, on my feet. My heart to your face, my feet to your window still Bear me by force as if by an alien will.
O witch of beauty, O Circe with innocent eyes, You have suddenly caught me fast in a net of sighs. When I look at the sunlight, I see your laughing face; When I purchase a flower, it is you in your radiant grace.
I have tried to save my soul alive from your snare, I will strive no more; let it flutter and perish there. I too will seize your body alive, O my dove, And teach you all the torture and sweetness of love.
When you looked from the window out on the trampling city, Did you think to take my heart and pay me with pity? But you looked on one who has ever mocked at sin And gambled with life to lose her all or win.
I will pluck you forth like a fluttering bird from her nest. You shall lie on Love’s strong knees, in his white warm breast, Afraid, with delighted lids that will not close. You shall grow white one moment, the next a rose.
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So that was why I could not grasp your heart Between my hands and feel it nestle in, Contented. O you kept it in your breast Most secretly, were skilful in your sin, Farthest away, most intimately caressed. But if I sought for it with this sharp knife Here, here, thou harlot? What, you tremble, you shriek, Would you be skilful still? You love your life For his sake then? For his sake! No. I’ll wait Till you have fathomed all my depths of hate. Weep not, nor pray; you have tasted to the brim The glory of my love, and laughed, oh laughed! Now drink my hatred to the dregs, this time You shall not easily reject the draught. God! now I hate you whom I once so loved. God! the abhorred whiteness of these limbs Where I have wasted all my glorious heart In kisses. Dreams, ah Heaven, sweet hateful dreams! Nay, I shall live, ’tis thou that must depart. Why, he has kissed them too. Will not this edge Dig out his kisses from the bleeding flesh? Call not on God, thou soul self-doomed to Hell, Against whose blessings thou hast dared rebel. Thou liv’st but while I hold myself in leash. His name! Thou lovely devil, from thy breast I’ll tear his name out. He! then now, then now And thus and thus… O heaven! how beautiful her murdered brow! Will not thine eyes open and look at me with love, Surely they hold not his vile image yet, For Death should leave thee pure. But I forget. He lives and God signs to me from above Beckoning to me to strike. When it is done, I will come back and kiss you only once.
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World’s delight, spring’s sweetness, music’s charm Lie within my arm. Earth that is and heaven to come are here with me Mastered on my knee. Open thy red petals, shrinking rose, And thy heart disclose. Pant thy fragrance up to me, O my delight, All the perfumed night. Thou possessed and I possessing, earth Opened for our mirth. Flowers dropping on us from delighted trees, Revels of the breeze, All for me because I hold their Circe white, Queen of their delight. Wanton, thou shalt know at last a chain Golden to restrain. Not a minute of thee shall escape my kiss, Captive made to bliss, Not a wandering breath but love shall seize With his ecstasies, All thy body be a glorious happy lyre Played on by desire And thy soul shall be my absolute kingdom still To misrule at will. Wast thou hoping to escape at last? Nay, I held thee fast. Thou shalt know what love is, all his bliss and pain, Fondling and disdain. Jealousy and joy shall seize on thee by turns Till thy whole heart burns. I will learn now all that is to know In this golden show. I will gather all there are of sweets to take In this scented brake. All thy soul’s reserves of honied shame
Page – 194 Seized as by a flame Shall be mine and falter naked to the light And discovered quite. I will burn thee up as with a fire Of unquenched desire. I will ravage like a conqueror all thy soul And annex the whole. To escape from joys too fierce that burn Thou in vain shalt turn. Puissant Fate shall rescue not thy soul from mine Nor decree divine Nor shall Death release thy hunted heart from fear; I shall still be near.
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