Coningsby Dawson

“ THE MOON-MOTHER The world is a child who roams all day
Through windswept meadows of gold and gray.
The gold flowers fade; he foils to sleep,
And night is his cradle wide and deep.
The moon-mother creeps from behind God's throne
And steals up the skies to protect her own.
She leans her breast 'gainst his cradle-rim
While her small star-children gaze down on him.
Stars are his brothers; clouds his dreams ”

“ So 'tis Lorenzo's song they sing to-night,
That haunting song which long years since he sang
When, with his gallants through the torch-
smirched dusk,
He laughing rode toward the Carnival,
And young girls loosened all abroad their hair
And flung up petals through the cool moonlight,
Some of which falling rested on his face,
Some of which falling covered up his eyes;
And girls there were who kissed his drooping
hands
And clasped his stirrups, begging him to stay,
To halt one little moment, stay with them:
"Life is so short. Delay with us a while." ”

“ And God vouchsafe me one more summer's day
Of utter peace, perchance thy voice I'll hear
Trilling in confidence from some cool glade—
And thus my madman's prayer will be repaid.
Laughter breaks forth again; the world is glad.
There's music in the very rocks to-day.
Yea, through my sullen bars the red sun peers
And stains my confines with his golden smile;
God shakes His happiness abroad to-day.
See, I will rake this yellow harvest home
And treasure it against a sadder hour,
When Winter's mantled all our stars in night. ”

“ And small clenched hands and faces woe-begone,
Till through the creaking gloom there mounteth
one
Whom they in ignorance mistake for Death.
Nor are we braver when we older grow,
For still "'Tis Death!" we sob. "'Tis Death! Ah
woe,
Deep woe, is me!" whene'er thou drawest nigh:
Therefore, Oh Fear, full many times men die
And Dissolution's torments undergo.
Man, who was made in image like to God,
Whom angels tended wheresoe'er he trod
With glad huzzas and harpings all the way,
So that the untamed beasts allowed his sway,
Cringes a coward 'neath thine up-raised rod. ”

“ Which unseen challengers, the winds, do chase,
Drowning their anger to a tranquil depth,
Till in blue sky-weed unrevenged they lie
Like gaunt Armada galleons long since sunk.
So all is calm again, and I look out
With prison'd eyes upon Thy travelling world.
A breath of flowers is in the air to-day,
Spring flowers which have not bloomed for many
months,
Which, for my sake, have come to life this day.
I cannot see them, they grow far from here
With feet entangled in the green, gray earth. ”

“ Passions we left, and fears, and youthful sinnings;
Virtues we left, and early signs of grace.
Dreamings we brought and beauty of the May-
time,
All else we flung to where Time's whirlwinds race.
Timeless are we in this our godlike play-time,
Since Sleep has led us gently face to face.
Gray glide the mists around our ocean's edges,
Gray grope the tides across the gray-paved sea,
Gray clings the foam about our granite ledges,
Naught, naught remains to safeguard you from
me.
These axe the souls who watch us at our dreaming,
Spirits of mist, of spray-dashed crag and sea ”

“ But grief for thine and thy sad to-morrow
If my lord, thy father, fail to send
His cavalry."
'God will defend
His maid," she said, "God will provide.
But, if to Rimini I ride,
I shall be glad recalling this,
That thou did'st not withhold thy kiss
When all my loves had forsaken me."
Aye love, brief love, sweet love," sighed he,
Thou art more than life—far more, far more." ”

“ Day tottered tall, and breathed a shuddering
breath:
Wading, knee-deep, the turgid fords of Death,
He clomb the cloven cliff of Dawn—and leapt.
A hand of ivory caught up the rein;
The Chariot rolled back superb again.
HOME We shall not always dwell as now we dwell,
Together 'neath one home-protecting roof.
For some of us our lives may not go well:
'Gainst such small perils courage will be proof,
'Gainst stronger ills these memories may be proof;
To some of us this life may say farewell—
We cannot always dwell as now we dwell. ”

“ Touching the lips of others such as we,
Till I grew faint within my lonely heaven,
Sank through the cloudland stretched twixt you
and me,
Plunged through the thunder where firmaments
rocked riven,
So gave the kiss which set your spirit free.
We must go hence, when flames the tyrant morning,
We shall go hence at breaking of new day;
We, like the stars strange midnight lands adorning,
We must go hence, steal separately away.
Yet, like the stars, perchance we may glide burning
When round the earth the skies are growing gray ”

“ But bring not thee—therefore we grow afraid.
What things men fear they do not dare to say
Lest, thus provoked, Fate should no more delay
But run on them and wreak those ills they dread:
To Death we kneel, to God we bow the head;
Yet of our fears we have the most dismay.
We fear our fears, but thee, Oh Fear, we hate,
For thou with all our sins art intimate
As He who made us; crimes wrought long ago,
Follies and half-faults, each one thou dost know
And dost avenge with rods deliberate. ”

“ And shrieking wake, and clamour for new-day.
Only Man's bygone days are truly sweet:
This day is darkened by To-morrow's threat,
To-morrow by the menace of To-day;
From out the Past is fled away for aye
The grinding doubt of possible defeat.
Ah, were we wise, our lives 'tis thus we'd spend:
Because the Past glides onward without end,
Engulfing our To-day and our Hereafter,
We'd greet This Day, or Next, with careless
laughter
As 'twere the Past, and so our fortunes mend. ”

“ Your lips sigh,
"Time is fleet."
Stars repeat,
"Life is sweet—
Kiss her," they cry;
"In an unlit street
One day you must die."
Thus we meet.
HEART-BREAK Lord God of Cities, how long must we wait
Bound in our Babylons of tawdry sin;
Hast Thou so many other stars to win,
Is greed of conquest so insatiate? ”

“ With me the world's at day;
Yet in my heart I think 'tis night
While you are far away:
While you are far away, dear lad,
While you are far away,
There comes no dawn, nor change of light,
Nor any hope in day. ”

“ I chilled my hands against the cold-dead stars,
And lost my mind in unremembered Past,
Remote from God and out of human sight.
Lastly I took to painting down my thoughts,
And pictured for the King of Portugal
That fatal meadow in the Eden Land,
Where Man's first sweet and deadly sin was
wrought.
I, in this art, all others did excel;
Yet with success I was not satisfied
But hourly craved for the impossible—
To fashion men as real as flesh and blood. ”

“ Though passions will not rest,
Love, which is always best,
Honours brave lips at the end of the war.
QUEEN MARY OF HEAVEN She sits in God's garden,
Queen Mary of Heaven,
Where birds sing their steven
Hid in the cool tree;
And all the gold day-time,
From morning till even,
Earth's little strange children
Play round her knee. ”

“ Next I would make me wings, and I would fly
As do the morning birds straight t'ward the sun,
Piercing the mists, rise far above the clouds
To seek out where God walks and whom He loves.
I made me wings, but had not strength to fly.
Still discontent and tethered to this world,
I strove to wrench the secret out of Life,
And swept the far horizon of the stars
If there, at least, I might discern some sign
To tell me whence souls come, to where depart. ”

“ The quiet vale where grows the flower of white.
Like an unwise distiller of perfume
I've blended each new fragrance as it came,
Made something perfect for a day—two days;
Then ruined all by adding something fresh.
First I would be a scholar, so I learned
Latin and Greek, and Mathematic Law.
Then I would be a poet, so I wrote
"Chi non puô quel che vuol, quel che puo voglia;
Che quel che non si puô folle è volere.
Adunque saggio l'uomo è da tenere,
Che da quel che non puô sua vogler toglia." ”

“ From birth to death—a swallow's flight.
Stars burning fainter, onward we strive.
Cauldron of dawn! The East's alive.
Joy in the journey, joy at the last;
Day in its splendour—darkness past!
In life's beginning clouds to be trod ”

“ Who chisels Davids through the death-long night,
And paints Last Judgments through the livelong
day,
Pantingly running, pace on pace with Fame,
Racing dean-limbed toward his goal in life.
But I, poor changeling, wake, and dream, and
wake,
And dream again, retarded by desire. ”

“ Lest one, from all our world, should read thee right
And pity thee thy self-lured madman's fate,
Why did'st thou strive so well to tempt our hate?
Are we not comrades through the self-same night? ”

“ MAN'S BEGINNING
LOVE AT LAST
THE MIRROR OF THOUGHT
I'M SORRY
DREAMLAND LOVE
FLORENCE ON A CERTAIN NIGHT I
(October, 1504)
[Someone sings in the street below]
Fair-fleeting Youth must snatch at happiness,
He knows not if To-morrow curse or bless,
Nor round what bend upon his travel-way
The bandit Death lurks armed—of Yesterday
His palely featured griefs he knows too well;
Therefore with jests To-day, come Heaven, come Hell,
He plucks with either hand what joys he may. ”

“ For this I'll paint her portrait till 'tis done,
Singing, like Raphael, from gray dawn to dusk,
Pausing to kiss her forehead, lips, throat, eyes,
Learning their beauty, where mine own lips touch;
So I, like Angelo, with measured stride
Will race with Fame, until the prize is won.
Yea, men attain most only when they love. ”

“ Neither tomorrow, nor any day."
BELLUM AMORIS Oh, the romance of it,
Soul-thrilling trance of it,
Though lives are lost which no love can restore!
Hearts ride a-prance at it,
Taking their chance at it—
Wing-thriven hearts to the seat of Love's War.
Sorrow is theirs in store ”

“ Ever throughout the year 'tis thus
Till drones the dream-toned Angelus
Of Hallowe'en; then, underground,
Unto dead ears its voice doth sound
Like Christ's voice, crying, "Lazarus."
Palsied with haste the dead men rise
Groaning, because their unused eyes
Can scarce endure Earth's blackest night;
It wounds them as 'twere furious light
And stars were flame-clouds in the skies. ”

“ The skill'dest men in all our Tuscan vales,
Harpists, lute-players, masters of the viol,
To make soft music while on her I gaze.
For her content I ordered to be made
A fountain in the courtyard of my house
Whose waters falling, ere they dash to spray,
Smite on smooth spheres, which thus revolve and
hum
The chaunt the winds toll in our upland pines. ”

“ On Amo's banks in grand Lorenzo's time.
Thither, while yet a boy, I did resort
And out of terra-cotta caused to smile
Women whose beauty ne'er hath been surpassed,
Nor equalled in the flesh for Man's delight. ”

“ Watching the pleasure in each other's eyes.
Ah well, 'tis vain to talk! Two-thirds of life
Till now I've spent in spotless purity—
Affection's been retarded by desire
As has my work; my dreams have far excelled
The beauty God moulds into human shape.
The sweet perfection of the womankind
Who haunt my brain, has held me back from love.
This . . . this was so till Mona Lisa came.
Four years I've painted when it was her day,
A day of mist, of mingled rain and sun ”

“ Had dreamed of a day when they should wed.
Vain dream! Vain dream! now here, instead,
With Bianca fled to the hill-side tower
They should strain and hearken hour by hour,
With clutching hands and bated breath,
For man's last bride—the Woman, Death.
And thus they sat a lengthy while
Till one face lit with a wandering smile:
Come now, my lords," Bianca said,
Why sit ye heavy-eyed and sad?
Men say ye each have loved a maid ”

“ What, 'tis only just begun?
Well, that's a pity. Four years seems some time
To gape before a canvas with a brush.
Beg pardon. This is what I meant to say:
That since you could not paint her in her life,
You'll scarce be more successful now she's
dead . . .
You did not know? . . . Why, she's been dead
three months.
CENTURIES AGO In the solemn twilight, centuries ago,
God walked in His Garden, all His stars below;
God was very lonely, so He caused to grow
Man, in some ways like Him, centuries ago. ”

“ The day died bitter and unblest.
The mountains strained against the sky
And angrily, as they would try
To wrench from earth their trampled gowns.
An eagle o'er the upland downs
Hung poised, then beat his wings, as he
Refused to share man's cruelty. ”

“ Fiercely disguising, too much thou did'st dare;
We caught the jangle of the cap and bell,
And seeking, saw a quivering heart laid bare
When thou wast dead—a sequel which did spell
The pangs of love—"only a woman's hair."
[N. B. "In a note in his biography, Scott says that his friend, Doctor Tuke of Dublin, has a lock of Stella's hair, enclosed in a paper by Swift, on which are written, in the Dean's hand, the words: 'Only a woman's hair.' An instance, says Scott, of the Dean's desire to veil his feelings under the mask of cynical indifference."—Thackeray in his Essay on Dean Swift.] ”

“ Who makest impotent Man's royal might,
Turning to poverty his wealth of days
With hushed pursuit of him in all his ways,
Whence art thou come, from what dead land of
Night?
Speak, only speak, occult, accursèd shade,
Who ne'er to human eyes hast yet displayed
Thine awful shape ”