Classic Poem

BEING A CELEBRATION, IN SIX SONGS, OF A MASQUE OF DANCING, NAMED THE SEASONS .

I. TO HIS MUSE, BY WAY OF PROLOGUE .

Go! bid Love stay,
And make a maddening rhyme
Unto the dancing feet;
That may perchance repeat,
Within some other brain, another time,
This measure done, forgotten, put away!

Ah! if it might, might in an hastening year
Re-woo its magic from the ravening past;
Make suddenly the movement the delight,
The gaiety, the freshness, re-appear:
Although no longer than a thought it last!
Ah, if it might!
II. OF THIS LAND OF LOVE'S

This is Love's land, and here we find
The birds and flowers, that are his own;
Nothing there is unlike his mind,
Nothing, but he therein is shown;
For wings, and leaves, and blossoms, prove
Themselves the very heart of Love.

Here are the seasons, that Love's year,
Nay, that each hour of Love, must know;
Though they the gaudy June do bear,
They bring him wintry times also:
Still, still, methinks, he would not change;
Though, in their stead, 'twere his to range
Through the deep grass, by flowery roads.
Where gleam the white feet of the Gods.

III. THE MEASURE .

Between the pansies and the rye,
Flutters my purple butterfly;

Between her white brow and her chin,
Does Love his fairy wake begin:

By poppy-cups and drifts of heather,
Dances the sun and she together;

But o'er the scarlet of her mouth,
Whence those entreated words come forth,
Love hovers all the live-long day,
And cannot, through its spell, away;
But there, where he was born, must die,
Between the pansies and the rye.

IV. TO HERRICK .

In vain, at all to my content,
Have I my thoughts through nature sent
To search, with keenest glance,
All things on high, around, below,
But for one figure, that would show
Corinna in the dance.

Either my brain is dull, or we
With narrow bounds content must be;
Contented, too, to find
The same sweet flowers, that used to win
The eyes of poets dead, within
The meadows of the mind:

For only this worn image wrought,
In marble words, the eluding thought
Justly; and one, I fear,
Familiar as the trees or sky;
" She dances like my heart, when I
" Set eyes upon my dear. "

Still might I say, as well I could,
When thinking of a summer wood;
And, truly, one believes
It is the best yet hit upon:
" She dances like the dancing sun,
" Among the dancing leaves. "

But even this, expressing much,
Yet wants, I think, the human touch,
Which all such styles demand;
For though it laughs upon the wing
Of verse, 'tis but a pretty thing,
And lacks the master hand.

Ah! Herrick, now where are those rhymes,
Which we in former, thoughtless, times
Had deemed omnipotent
To tell, as never yet was told
In song, all things, which Life of old
Has unto Beauty lent?

Truly, to thee each joy, that stirs
That secret, wayward, heart of hers,
Is clay upon the wheel:
These you can fashion as you list;
But not the turning of her wrist,
The glancing of her heel.

V. " IF SHE BE MADE OF WHITE AND RED. "

If she be made of white and red,
As all transcendent beauty shows;
If heaven be blue above her head,
And earth be golden, as she goes:
Nay, then thy deftest words restram;
Tell not that beauty, it is vain.

If she be filled with love and scorn,
As all divinest natures are;
If 'twixt her lips such words are born,
As can but Heaven or Hell confer:
Bid Love be still, nor ever speak,
Lest he his own rejection seek.

VI. TO HIS MUSE IN INTERCESSION FOR LOVE .

Now all be hushed; all, all be wholly still;
For Love is far too glad for song or speech,
Love that hath stayed: now let him have his will;
The mouth, the eyes, the cheek, he did beseech.

Why should he sing? Is it not song enough,
That she, between those sighs that ever start
Suddenly from him, as from Boreas rough,
Should hear the measure from his beating heart?

Therefore constrain him, that he speak no word,
Till the consuming stillness do eclipse
All but delight: then shall no sound be heard,
Save only falling hair, and nestling lips.