Richard Le Gallienne

“ A long-shut rose of youth, as to the goal
Of death he sped, as once to love's own tryst he stole.
He caught a sound as of a rose's breath,
He caught another breath of deeper lung,
Rose-leaves and oak-leaves on the wind of death;
He drew aside the arras where they clung
In the dim light, so lovely and so young—
They lay in sin as in a cradle there,
Twin babes that in one bosom nestling hung:
Even Lanciotto paused, ah, will he spare?
Who could not quite forgive a wrong that is so fair! ”

“ She dare not hear the little innocent bird,
And a white flower made her poor head to hang—
To be so white! once she was white as curd,
But now—'Alack!' 'Alack!' She speaks no other word.
The pearly line on yonder hills afar
Within the dawn, when mounts the lark and sings
By the great angel of the morning star,—
That was his love, and all free fair fresh things
That move and glitter while the daylight springs:
To thus know love, and yet to spoil love thus!
To lose the dream—O silly beating wings—
Great dream so splendid and miraculous:
O Lord, O Lord, have mercy, have mercy upon us. ”

“ Where every bosom heateth with a star—
At Rimini, anigh that crumbling strand
The Adriatic filcheth near and far—
In that same past where Dante's dream-days are,
That one Francesca gave her youthful gold
Unto an aged carle to bolt and bar;
Though all the love which great young hearts can hold,
How could she give that love unto a miser old?
Nay! but young Paolo was the happy lad,
A youth of dreaming eye yet dauntless foot,
Who all Francesca's wealth of loving had;
One brave to scale a wall and steal the fruit,
Nor fear because some dotard owned the root ”

“ PARABLES I Dear Love, you ask if I be true,
If other women move
The heart that only beats for you
With pulses all of love.
Out in the chilly dew one morn
I plucked a wild sweet rose,
A little silver bud new-born
And longing to unclose.
I took it, loving new-born things,
I knew my heart was warm,
'O little silver rose, come in
And shelter from the storm.'
And soon, against my body pressed,
I felt its petals part,
And, looking down within my breast
I saw its golden heart.
O such a golden heart it has,
Your eyes may never see,
To others it is always shut,
It opens but for me. ”

“ A thousand love beside,
Dear women love to press thee too
Against a sweeter side.
Art thou not happy, Poet?
I sometimes dream that I
For such a fragrant fame as thine
Would gladly sing and die.
Say, wilt thou change thy glory
For this same youth of mine?
And I will give my days i' the sun
For that great song of thine.
MATTHEW ARNOLD (DIED, APRIL 15, 1888) Within that wood where thine own scholar strays,
O! Poet, thou art passed, and at its bound
Hollow and sere we cry, yet win no sound
But the dark muttering of the forest maze
We may not tread, nor pierce with any gaze ”

“ A love like ours, what gift, whate'er it be,
Hold more significance 'twixt thee and me
Than paltry words a truth miraculous;
Or the poor signs that in astronomy
Tell giant splendours in their gleaming might:
Yet love would still give such, as in delight
To mock their impotence—so this for thee.
This song for thee! our sweetest honeycomb
Of lovesome thought and passion-hearted rhyme,
Builded of gold and kisses and desire,
By that wild poet who so many a time
Our hungering lips have blessed, until a fire
Burnt speech up and the wordless hour had come. ”

“ And all the magnitude, great Love, of thee?
Ah, is there aught can image thee aright
In earth or heaven, how great or fair it be?
We watch the acorn grow into the tree,
We watch the patient spark surprise the mine,
But what are oaks to thy Ygdrasil-tree?
What the mad mine's convulsive strength to thine,
That wrecks a world but bids heaven's soaring steeples shine?
A god that hath no earthly metaphor,
A blinding word that hath no earthly rhyme,
Love! we can only call and no name more ”

“ For not a blind was lower than its wont—
'The lodgers would not like them down,' you know—
And in all rooms, save one, the boisterous life
Blazed like the fires within the several grates—
Save one where lay the poor dead silent thing,
A closest chill as who hath sat at night
With love beside the ingle knows the ashes
In the morning.
Death was at '48,'
Yet Life and Love and Sunlight were there too. ”

“ So all day long doth her holy face
Bring fragrance to the barren place,
And whensoe'er it comes nearest me,
My loom it weaveth busily.
Some days there be when the loom is still
And my soul is sad as an autumn hill,
But how to tell the blessed time
When my heart is one glowing prayer of rhyme!
Think on the humming afternoon
Within some busy wood in June,
When nettle patches, drunk with the sun,
Are fiery outposts of the shade ”

“ OLD LOVE-LETTERS You ask and I send. It is well, yea! best:
A lily hangs dead on its stalk, ah me!
A dream hangs dead on a life it blest.
Shall it flaunt its death where sad eyes may see
In the cold dank wind of our memory?
Shall we watch it rot like an empty nest?
Love's ghost, poor pitiful mockery—
Bury these shreds and behold it shall rest.
And shall life fail if one dream be sped? ”

“ Whose youth is as a lark all lost to singing there?
In opportunity of dear-bought joy
Rich were this twain, for old Lanciotto, he
Who was her lord, was brother of her boy,
And in one home together dwelt the three,
With brothers two beside; and he and she
Sat at one board together, in one fane
Their voices rose upon one hymn, ah me!
Beneath one roof each night their limbs had lain,
As now in death they share the one eternal pain.
As much as common men can love a flower
Unto Lanciotto was Francesca dear,
'Tis not on such Love wields his jealous power ”

“ Glad as yon lark there splashing in the light:
Are these old things indeed unwearied,
Yet I, so soon grown tired, would creep away to bed!
AUTUMN The year grows still again, the surging wake
Of full-sailed summer folds its furrows up,
As after passing of an argosy
Old Silence settles back upon the sea,
And ocean grows as placid as a cup.
Spring, the young morn, and Summer, the strong noon,
Have dreamed and done and died for Autumn's sake:
Autumn that finds not for a loss so dear
Solace in stack and garner hers too soon—
Autumn, the faithful widow of the year. ”

“ And, choosing—which with willingness would lose?
Would we as children be content to stay,
Because the children are as birds all day;
Or would we still as youngling lovers kiss,
Fearing the ardours of the greater bliss?
The maid be still a maid and never know
Why mothers love their little blossoms so
Or can the mother be content her bud
Shall never open out of babyhood? ”

“ And all my soul sprang up to mix with thee—
'Kiss me, my love!
Ah, Love, thy face how fair!'
So did I cry, but still thou wert not there.
THE CONSTANT LOVER I see fair women all the day,
They pass and pass—and go;
I almost dream that they are shades
Within a shadow-show. ”

“ BEAUTY ACCURST I am so fair that wheresoe'er I wend
Men yearn with strange desire to kiss my face,
Stretch out their hands to touch me as I pass,
And women follow me from place to place.
A poet writing honey of his dear
Leaves the wet page,—ah! leaves it long to dry.
The bride forgets it is her marriage-morn,
The bridegroom too forgets as I go by.
Within the street where my strange feet shall stray
All markets hush and traffickers forget,
In my gold head forget their meaner gold,
The poor man grows unmindful of his debt. ”

“ Six pearl-bright years aflower with gold of joy,
Sprung from the heart of those brave tear-fed years:
But what that seventh single stamen is
My little wit must leave for thee to tell.
But neither poet nor a sibyl thou!
What brave conceit had he, my poet, built;
No jugglery of numbers that mean nought,
That can mean nought for ever, unto us. ”

“ You dream like mad, you love like tinder, you aspire like a star-struck moth—for what? That you may hive little lyrics, and sell to a publisher for thirty pieces of silver.
Hard by us here is a 'bee-farm.' It always reminds me of a publisher's. The bee has loved a thousand flowers, through a hundred afternoons, he has filled little sacred cells with the gold of his stolen kisses—for what? ”

“ And Death i' the piece giveth each little strand
More deep significance—love for the whole
Must make us tender for the parts, methinks,
As in some souls the equal law holds true,
Sorrow for one makes sorrow for the world. ”

“ O happy grace of lovers of old time,
Living to love like gods, and dead to live
Symbols and saints for us who follow them;
Even bitter Death must sweets to lovers give:
See how they wear their tears for diadem,
Throned on the star of an unshaken rhyme. ”

“ And dream and glory hers for garmenting;
Her birth—O Lady, wilt thou say me nay?—
Of thine own womb, of thine own nurturing—
Send me a maiden meet for love, I pray!
ENVOI Sweet Queen who sittest at the heart of spring,
My life is thine, barren or blossoming ”

“ And burnt your little rhyme?
'O be my friend, and teach me to be thine.'
* * * * *
By many hands the work of God is done,
Swart toil, pale thought, flushed dream, he spurneth none:
Yea! and the weaver of a little rhyme
Is seen his worker in his own full time. ”

“ Each left for each been love's true messenger:
They surely had not kept that winter all the year.
Yea! love lay hushed and waiting like a seed,
Some laggard of the season still abed
Though the sun calls and gentle zephyrs plead,
And Hope that waited long must deem it dead ”

“ The god is there, the great voice speaks on high,
We pray, 'What art thou, Lord?' but win us no reply.
So in the dark grew Love, but feared to flower,
Dreamed to himself, but never spake a word,
Burned like a prisoned fire from hour to hour,
Sang his dear song like an unheeded bird;
Waiting the summoning voice so long unheard,
Waiting with weary eyes the gracious sign
To bring his rose, and tell the dream he dared,
The tremulous moment when the star should shine,
And each should ask of each, and each should answer
—'Thine.'
Winter to-day, but lo! ”

“ It drops again, like yon returning lark.
O be a dove, dear name, and find her breast,
There croon and croodle all the lonely day;
Go tell her that I love her still the best,
So many days, so many miles, away.
POSTSCRIPT _So sang young Love in high and holy dream
Of a white Love that hath no earthly taint,
So rapt within his vision he did seem
Less like a boyish singer than a saint.
Ah, Boy, it is a dream for life too high,
It is a bird that hath no feet for earth:
Strange wings, strange eyes, go seek another sky
And find thy fellows of an equal birth. ”

“ Lies in the silver pathway of the light.
(LILLEHAMMER, August 22, 1892.)
BEATRICE (FOR THE BEATRICE CELEBRATION, 1890) Nine mystic revolutions of the spheres
Since Dante's birth, and lo! a star new-born
Shining in heaven: and like a lark at morn
Springing to meet it, straight in all men's ears,
A strange new song, which through the listening years
Grew deep as lonely sobbing from the thorn
Rising at eve, shot through with bitter scorn,
Full-throated with the ecstasy of tears. ”

“ Yea, thou hast seen the last love fade, and now
Behold the last of many a secret rhyme!
A LIBRARY IN A GARDEN 'A Library in a garden! The phrase seems to contain the whole felicity of man.'—Mr. EDMUND GOSSE in Gossip in a Library.
A world of books amid a world of green,
Sweet song without, sweet song again within
Flowers in the garden, in the folios too:
O happy Bookman, let me live with you!
ON THE MORALS OF POETS One says he is immoral, and points out
Warm sin in ruddy specks upon his soul:
Bigot, one folly of the man you flout
Is more to God than thy lean life is whole. ”

“ Warm and content amid the nested trees.
Young Seraph, go and lake thy song to heaven,
We would not grow unhappy with our lot,
Leave us the simple love the earth hath given—
Sing where thou wilt, so that we hear thee not_. ”

“ Dear witch, I said the body was enough.
How young, how simple as a suckling child!
And then I dreamed—'an incest 'twixt the body and the soul:'
Let's wed, I thought, the seraph with the dog,
And wait the purple thing that shall be born. ”

“ Thou too hast looked on me, as thou hadst said,
And though the joy was pain, the pain was bliss,
Bliss that more happy lovers well may miss:
Captives feast richly on a little bread,
So are we very rich who are so poor. ”

“ The souls were many leagues upon the hellward way.
YOUNG LOVE N.B.—This sequence of poems has appeared in former editions under the title of 'Love Platonic.'
I 1
Surely at last, O Lady, the sweet moon
That bringeth in the happy singing weather
Groweth to pearly queendom, and full soon
Shall Love and Song go hand in hand together;
For all the pain that all too long hath waited
In deep dumb darkness shall have speech at last,
And the bright babe Death gave the Love he mated
Shall leap to light and kiss the weeping past. ”

“ Can we ever forget those old mornings when we rose with the lark, and, while the earliest sunlight slanted through the sleeping house, stole to the little bookclad study to read—Heaven bless us!—you, perhaps, Mary Wollstonecraft, and I, Livy, in a Froben folio of 1531!!
Will you accept these old verses in memory of those old mornings? Ah, then came in the sweet o' the year.
Yours now as then_,
R. Le G.
May 14th, 1892.
CONTENTS _Epistle Dedicatory,
To the Reader_,
I. PAOLO AND FRANCESCA, II. YOUNG LOVE— i. Preludes,
ii. Prelude—'I make this rhyme,'
iii. ”