Poems

Girl lips O let me richly swoon away!

VII. EARLY AUTUMN

If while I sit flatter’d by this warm sun
Death came to me, and kissed my mouth and brow,
And eyelids which the warm light hovers through,
I should not count it strange. Being half won
By hours that with a tender sadness run,
Who would not softly lean to lips which woo
In the Earth’s grave speech? Nor could it aught undo
Of Nature’s calm observances begun
Still to be here the idle autumn day.
Pale leaves would circle down, and lie unstirr’d
Where’er they fell; the tired wind hither call
Her gentle fellows; shining beetles stray
Up their green courts; and only yon shy bird
A little bolder grow ere evenfall.

VIII. LATER AUTUMN

This is the year’s despair: some wind last night
Utter’d too soon the irrevocable word,
And the leaves heard it, and the low clouds heard;
So a wan morning dawned of sterile light;
Flowers drooped, or showed a startled face and white;
The cattle cowered, and one disconsolate bird
Chirped a weak note; last came this mist and blurred
The hills, and fed upon the fields like blight.
Ah, why so swift despair! There yet will be
Warm noons, the honey’d leavings of the year,
Hours of rich musing, ripest autumn’s core,
And late-heaped fruit, and falling hedge-berry,
Blossoms in cottage-crofts, and yet, once more,
A song, not less than June’s, fervent and clear.

THE HEROINES

HELENA

(Tenth year of Troy-Siege)

She stood upon the wall of windy Troy,
And lifted high both arms, and cried aloud
With no man near:—
“Troy-town and glory of Greece
Strive, let the flame aspire, and pride of life
Glow to white heat! Great lords be strong, rejoice,
Lament, know victory, know defeat—then die;
Fair is the living many-coloured play
Of hates and loves, and fair it is to cease,
To cease from these and all Earth’s comely things.
I, Helena, impatient of a couch
Dim-scented, and dark eyes my face had fed,
And soft captivity of circling arms,
Come forth to shed my spirit on you, a wind
And sunlight of commingling life and death.
City and tented plain behold who stands
Betwixt you! Seems she worth a play of swords,
And glad expense of rival hopes and hates?
Have the Gods given a prize which may content,
Who set your games afoot,—no fictile vase,
But a sufficient goblet of great gold,
Embossed with heroes, filled with perfumed wine?
How! doubt ye? Thus I draw the robe aside
And bare the breasts of Helen.

Yesterday
A mortal maiden I beheld, the light
Tender within her eyes, laying white arms
Around her sire’s mailed breast, and heard her chide
Because his cheek was blood-splashed,—I beheld
And did not wish me her. O, not for this
A God’s blood thronged within my mother’s veins!
For no such tender purpose rose the swan
With ruffled plumes, and hissing in his joy
Flashed up the stream, and held with heavy wings
Leda, and curved the neck to reach her lips,
And stayed, nor left her lightly. It is well
To have quickened into glory one supreme,
Swift hour, the century’s fiery-hearted bloom,
Which falls,—to stand a splendour paramount,
A beacon of high hearts and fates of men,
A flame blown round by clear, contending winds,
Which gladden in the contest and wax strong.
Cities of Greece, fair islands, and Troy town,
Accept a woman’s service; these my hands
Hold not the distaff, ply not at the loom;
I store from year to year no well-wrought web
For daughter’s dowry; wide the web I make,
Fine-tissued, costly as the Gods desire,
Shot with a gleaming woof of lives and deaths,
Inwrought with colours flowerlike, piteous, strange.
Oblivion yields before me: ye winged years
Which make escape from darkness, the red light
Of a wild dawn upon your plumes, I stand
The mother of the stars and winds of heaven,
Your eastern Eos; cry across the storm!
Through me man’s heart grows wider; little town
Asleep in silent sunshine and smooth air,