Andrew Lang

“ The maiden wild roses will wreathe for the Hours;
But the wise man will ask, ere libation he pay,
For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.
Oh! grant me a life without pleasure or blame
(As mortals count pleasure who rush through their day
With a speed to which that of the tempest is tame) !
O grant me a house by the beach of a bay,
Where the waves can be surly in winter, and play
With the sea-weed in summer, ye bountiful powers!
And I'd leave all the hurry, the noise, and the fray,
For a house full of books, and a garden of flowers.
ENVOY.
Gods, grant or withhold it ”

“ We must live our lives, though the sun be set,
Must meet in the masque where parts we play,
Must cross in the maze of Life's minuet;
Our yea is yea, and our nay is nay:
But while snows of winter or flowers of May
Are the sad year's shroud or coronet,
In the season of rose or of violet,
I shall never forget till my dying day!
ENVOY.
Queen, when the clay is my coverlet,
When I am dead, and when you are grey,
Vow, where the grass of the grave is wet,
"I shall never forget till my dying day!"
BALLADE OF HIS CHOICE OF A SEPULCHRE.
Here I'd come when weariest! ”

“ And lawless lives of men, and haunted groves,
Wherein a God may dwell, and where the Dryad roves.
The Gods are careless of the days and death
Of toilsome men, beyond the western seas;
The Gods are heedless of their painful breath,
And love them not, for they are not as these;
But in the golden west they live and lie at ease.
Yet the Phæacians well they love, who live
At the light's limit, passing careless hours,
Most like the Gods; and they have gifts to give,
Even wine, and fountains musical, and flowers,
And song, and if they will, swift ships, and magic powers. ”

“ Or lands where dreams are ended,
And works and days are done.
A BALLAD OF DEPARTURE. [1]
Fair white bird, what song art thou singing
In wintry weather of lands o'er sea?
Dear white bird, what way art thou winging,
Where no grass grows, and no green tree ?
I looked at the far off fields and grey,
There grew no tree but the cypress tree,
That bears sad fruits with the flowers of May,
And whoso looks on it, woe is he.
And whoso eats of the fruit thereof
Has no more sorrow, and no more love;
And who sets the same in his garden stead,
In a little space he is waste and dead. ”

“ We that with like hearts love, we lovers twain,
New wedded in the village by thy fane,
Lady of all chaste love, to thee it is
We bring these amaranths, these white lilies,
A sign, and sacrifice; may Love, we pray,
Like amaranthine flowers, feel no decay;
Like these cool lilies may our loves remain,
Perfect and pure, and know not any stain;
And be our hearts, from this thy holy hour,
Bound each to each, like flower to wedded flower.
APRIL.
Remy Belleau, 1560. ”

“ To shun thy shafts, to 'scape thy hellish thrall,
Escobar makes a primrose path to heaven!
BALLADE OF BLIND LOVE.
Who have loved and ceased to love, forget
That ever they loved in their lives, they say;
Only remember the fever and fret,
And the pain of Love, that was all his pay;
All the delight of him passes away
From hearts that hoped, and from lips that met—
Too late did I love you, my love, and yet
I shall never forget till my dying day.
Too late were we 'ware of the secret net
That meshes the feet in the flowers that stray ”

“ Perchance in sunset's golden pale
He listens to the nightingale,
Amid the perfumed air.
Come, he has fled; you are not you,
And I no more am I;
Delight is changeful as the hue
Of heaven, that is no longer blue
In yonder sunset sky.
ELLE.
Nay, if we seek we shall not find,
If we knock none openeth;
Nay, see, the sunset fades behind
The mountains, and the cold night wind
Blows from the house of Death.
ROMANCE.
My Love dwelt in a Northern land. ”

“ Clings to thy shoon in sudden shower's downpour,
And running still thou stumblest, or the ray
Of blazing suns doth bite and burn thee sore,
And blind thee till, forgetful of thy lore,
Thou dost most mournfully misjudge a "skyer,"
And lose a match the Fates cannot restore,—
"This is the end of every man's desire!"
ENVOY.
Alas, yet liefer on Life's hither shore
Would I be some poor Player on scant hire,
Than King among the old, who play no more,—
"This is the end of every man's desire!"
BALLADE OF THE BOOK-MAN'S PARADISE. ”

“ And the returning swallows, and spring-flowers,
Till forth to seek a shadow-queen she strayed,
A shadowy land; and now hath overweighed
Her singing chaplet with the snow and showers.
And running rivers for the bitter brine
She left, and by the margin of life's sea
Sings, and her song is full of the sea's moan,
And wild with dread, and love of Proserpine;
And whoso once has listened to her, he
His whole life long is slave to her alone.
LOVE'S EASTER.
SONNET.
Love died here
Long ago;
O'er his bier,
Lying low,
Poppies throw;
Shed no tear;
Year by year,
Roses blow! ”

“ To the young flowers that beneath
Their bud sheath
Are guarded in their tender time;
April, pride of fields that be
Green and free,
That in fashion glad and gay
Stud with flowers red and blue,
Every hue,
Their jewelled spring array;
April, pride of murmuring
Winds of spring,
That beneath the winnowed air
Trap with subtle nets and sweet
Flora's feet,
Flora's feet, the fleet and fair;
April, by thy hand caressed,
From her breast
Nature scatters everywhere
Handfuls of all sweet perfumes,
Buds and blooms,
Making faint the earth and air. ”

“ Ah, flowers and dance! ah, sun and snow!
Glad life, sad life we did forego
To dream of quietness and rest;
Ah, would the fleet sweet roses here
Poured light and perfume through the drear
Pale year, and wan land of the west.
Sad youth, that let the spring go by
Because the spring is swift to fly,
Sad youth, that feared to mourn or love,
Behold how sadder far is this,
To know that rest is nowise bliss,
And darkness is the end thereof.
THE SHADE OF HELEN.
Some say that Helen went never to Troy, but abode in
Egypt ”

“ BALLADE OF THE VOYAGE TO CYTHERA.
AFTER THÉODORE DE BANVILLE.
I know Cythera long is desolate;
I know the winds have stripp'd the gardens green.
Alas, my friends! beneath the fierce sun's weight
A barren reef lies where Love's flowers have been,
Nor ever lover on that coast is seen! ”

“ Shredded and flown, play things for the wind's playtime,
We dream that all white butterflies above,
Who seek through clouds or waters souls to love,
And leave their lady mistress in despair,
To flit to flowers, as kinder and more fair,
Are but torn love-letters, that through the skies
Flutter, and float, and change to Butterflies. ”

“ Where the soft night is born, and sunset dies;
The eastern shores see faint tides fade away,
That wash the lands where laughter, tears, and sighs,
Make life,—the lands beneath the blue of common, skies. ”

“ Clothes with flowers
Over all her locks of gold
My sweet Lady; and her breast
With the blest
Buds of summer manifold.
April, with thy gracious wiles,
Like the smiles,
Smiles of Venus; and thy breath
Like her breath, the Gods' delight,
(From their height
They take the happy air beneath;) ”

“ My Love returns no more again!
The windy lights of Autumn flare:
I watch the moonlit sails go by;
I marvel how men toil and fare,
The weary business that they ply!
Their voyaging is vanity,
And fairy gold is all their gain,
And all the winds of winter cry,
"My Love returns no more again!" ”

“ Birds are older by far than your ancestors are, and made
love and made war ere the making of Man!
For when all things were dark, not a glimmer nor spark,
and the world like a barque without rudder or sail
Floated on through the night, 't was a Bird struck a
light, 't was a flash from the bright feather'd Tonatiu's [3]
tail!
Then the Hawk [4] with some dry wood flew up in the
sky, and afar, safe and high, the Hawk lit Sun and
Moon,
And the Birds of the air they rejoiced everywhere, and
they recked not of care that should come on them
soon. ”

“ The mystic land of the holy cell,
Where the Rites unspoken securely dwell,
And the gifts of the Gods that know not stain
And a people of mortals that know not fear.
For the temples tall, and the statues fair,
And the feasts of the Gods are holiest there,
The feasts of Immortals, the chaplets of flowers
And the Bromian mirth at the coming of spring,
And the musical voices that fill the hours,
And the dancing feet of the Maids that sing!
[1] Aphrodite—Avril. ”

“ By the example of certain Grecian mariners, who, being safely returned from the war about Troy, leave yet again their old lands and gods, seeking they know not what, and choosing neither to abide in the fair Phæacian island, nor to dwell and die with the Sirens, at length end miserably in a desert country by the sea, is set forth the Vanity of Melancholy. And by the land of Phæacia is to be understood the place of Art and of fair Pleasures; and by Circe's Isle, the places of bodily delights, whereof men, falling aweary attain to Eld, and to the darkness of that age. ”

“ Why the Hawk 't was again, and great Indra to men
would appear, now and then, in the shape of a Quail,
While the Thlinkeet's delight is the Bird of the Night,
the beak and the bright ebon plumage of Yehl. [8]
And who for man's need brought the famed Suttung's
mead? why 't is told in the creed of the Sagamen
strong,
'T was the Eagle god who brought the drink from the
blue, and gave mortals the brew that's the fountain
of song. [9]
Next, who gave men their laws? ”

“ With water-weeds twined in their locks of gold,
The strange cold forest-fairies dance in glee;
Sylphs over-timorous and over-bold
Haunt the dark hollows where the dwarf may be,
The wild red dwarf, the nixies' enemy;
Then 'mid their mirth, and laughter, and affright,
The sudden Goddess enters, tall and white,
With one long sigh for summers pass'd away ”

“ But he shaved with a shell when he chose,—
'T was the manner of Primitive Man. ”

“ Of the flowers that shone
And your own sweet queen—
"They are dead and gone!"
Say, grave priests, praying
In dule and teen,
From cells decaying
What have ye seen
Of the proud and mean,
Of Judas and John,
Of the foul and clean?—
"They are dead and gone!"
Say, kings, arraying
Loud wars to win,
Of your manslaying
What gain ye glean?
"They are fierce and keen,
But they fall anon,
On the sword that lean,—
They are dead and gone!"
ENVOY.
Through the mad world's scene,
We are drifting on,
To this tune, I ween,
"They are dead and gone!"
BALLADE OF ÆSTHETIC ADJECTIVES. ”

“ Ah, would the bright red prows might bring us nigh
The dreamy isles that the Immortals keep!
But with a mist they hide them wondrously,
And far the path and dim to where they sleep,—
The loved, the shadowy lands along the shadowy deep. ”

“ They hear like ocean on a western beach
The surge and thunder of the Odyssey. ”

“ The faint light fade, and the wan stars quiver,
Twain grown one in the solitude.
A PORTRAIT OF 1783.
Your hair and chin are like the hair
And chin Burne-Jones's ladies wear;
You were unfashionably fair
And sad you were when girls are gay,
You read a book about Le vrai
Mérite de l'homme, alone in May.
What can it be,
Le vrai mérite de l'homme? Not gold,
Not titles that are bought and sold,
Not wit that flashes and is cold,
But Virtue merely! ”

“ There's a joy without canker or cark,
There's a pleasure eternally new,
'T is to gloat on the glaze and the mark
Of china that's ancient and blue; ”

“ Here's a pot with a cot in a park,
In a park where the peach-blossoms blew,
Where the lovers eloped in the dark,
Lived, died, and were changed into two
Bright birds that eternally flew
Through the boughs of the may, as they sang;
'T is a tale was undoubtedly true
In the reign of the Emperor Hwang. ”

“ The Rights of Man were lords of men,
When virtue won her own again
In '93.
THE BARBAROUS BIRD-GODS: A SAVAGE PARABASIS.
[The myth in the "Birds" of Aristophanes, which represents Birds as older
than the Gods, may have been a genuine Greek tradition. The following
lines show how prevalent is the myth among widely severed races. The
Mexican Bird-gods I omit; who can rhyme to Huitzilopochtli?] ”

“ Tonatiu, the Thunder Bird; well known to the Dacotahs and Zulus.
[4] The Hawk, in the myth of the Galinameros of Central California, lit up the Sun.
[5] Pundjel, the Eagle Hawk, is the demiurge and "culture-hero" of several Australian tribes.
[6] The Creation of Man is thus described by the Australians.
[7] In Andaman, Thlinkeet, Melanesian, and other myths, a Bird is the Prometheus Purphoros ”