John Collings Squire

“ Sinks, as the night grows pale, and dim
The stars, and dawn comes tremulous.
Should we not pride ourselves that we,
We two alone, have wrenched one whole
Deep hour from Fate, and mingled us
Soul and body, body and soul? ”

“ In the watery skies
Weave soft spells over my sight,
As thy false eyes do
When they flicker through
Their tears with a dim, strange light.
There all is beauty and symmetry,
Pleasure and calm and luxury. ”

“ Beneath the grass and the lush greenery
A mouldering in death!
When thy sweet flesh the worms devour with kisses,
Tell them, O beauty mine,
Of rotting loves I keep the bodily blisses
And essence all-divine! ”

“ Frail men may scarce endure.
Their necks are white as snow,
Their hair as yellow gold,
Their teeth are set a-row
As pearls of price untold;
They have all charms of body and face—
That fade when one grows old. ”

“ THE MURDERER’S WINE
My wife is dead and I am free,
Now I may drink to my content;
When I came back without a cent
Her piteous outcries tortured me.
Now I am happy as a king,
The air is pure, the sky is clear ”

“ Thou rul’st with hand that careless makes or mars,
Nor to our prayers vouchsafest any sound.
Thou walkest over dead men, mocking them,
Beauty! and horror decks the throat of thee,
And glittering murder, thy most precious gem,
On thy proud belly dances amorously. ”

“ My soul beloved floats upon thy scent
As other souls have music for a bed.
I will go out where full-veined man and tree
Swoon daylong in the sultry summer’s heat—
Strong tresses be the barque which carries me:
Thou boldest a bright dream, O ebon sea,
Of sails, flames, rowers, on a splendid fleet ”

“ And feeds on us as worms upon a corse,
Maggots upon a tree?
How stifle this implacable Remorse?
What wine, what drug, what philtre known of man
Will drown this ancient foe,
Ruthless and ravenous as a courtesan,
Sure as an ant, and slow?
What wine? What drug? What philtre known of man?
O tell, fair sorceress, tell if thou dost know
This soul distraught with pain
As a dying soldier crushed and bruised below
Steel hooves and wounded men!
O tell, fair sorceress, tell if thou dost know. ”

“ And it is but a patch which mars
The beauty of a field of stars.
II
It stands so lonely in the sky
The sparrows never come anigh,
The glossy starlings seldom stop
To preen and chatter on the top. ”

“ It may never be,
For I cannot draw one veil
From your mystery,
For your brow is lineless
But your heart is old,
And the wind is rising
Fast, and growing cold,
And in the crowded rooms
Swells the merry din. ”

“ Out in the fields, at times,
When you are too tired to speak
And I cease from stringing you rhymes
And kissing your mouth and cheek,
When the sun beats down so hot
That you lie with half-closed eyes
Drinking in what air’s to be got,
I move from your breast, half rise ”

“ Sinks slowly, and the flesh moulders away within,
Crumbling into dust;
Strong arm and lofty brow
Which made the nations bow,
Wrapt in eternal gloom
Crumble into dust;
Yea, face and breasts and womb
Which moved men’s love and lust,
Alike within the tomb
Fall to a little dust.
O solitary hearts that no pain sears,
I give you gifts of grief through all my years;
O poor transformèd eyes that may not weep,
I bring you many tears ”

“ Man shall be freer, saner,
And, of himself sustainer,
Shall wipe away all tears.
We who have but begun,
We who as yet are few,
Send out our hearts to you
Whose cause and ours is one,
Who long have dauntless prest
Onward toward the quest. ”