Classic Poem

Sing to me! Ah, remember how
Poor Heine here in Paris leant
Watching me play at the fall of day
And following where the music went,
Till that old cloud upon his brow
Was almost smoothed away.

"Do roses in the moonlight flame
Like this and this?" he said and smiled;
Then bent his head as o'er his dead
Brother might breathe some little child
The accustomed old half-jesting name,
With all its mockery fled,

Like summer lightnings, far away,
In heaven. O, what Bohemian nights
We passed down there for that brief year
When art revealed her last delights;
And then, that night, that night in May
When Hugo came to hear!

"Do roses in the moonlight glow
Like this and this?" I could not see
His eyes, and yet--they were quite wet,
Blinded, I think! What should I be
If in that hour I did not know
My own diviner debt?

For God has made this world of ours
Out of His own exceeding pain,
As here in art man's bleeding heart
Slow drop by drop completes the strain;
And dreams of death make sweet the flowers
Where lovers meet to part.

Recall, recall my little room
Where all the masters came that night,
Came just to hear me, Meyerbeer,
Lamartine, Balzac; and no light
But my two candles in the gloom;
Though she, she too was there,

George Sand. This music once unlocked
My heart, she took the gold she prized:
Her novel gleams no richer: dreams
Like mine are best unanalysed:
And she forgets her poor bemocked
Prince Karol, now, it seems.

I was Prince Karol; yes, and Liszt
Count Salvator Albani: she
My Floriani--all so far
Away!--My dreams are like the sea
That round Majorca sighed and kissed
Each softly mirrored star.

O, what a golden round of hours
Our island villa knew: we two
Alone with sky and sea, the sigh
Of waves, the warm unfathomed blue;
With what a chain of nights like flowers
We bound Love, she and I.

What music, what harmonious
Glad triumphs of the world's desire
Where passion yearns to God and burns
Earth's dross out with its own pure fire,
Or tolls like some deep angelus
Through Death's divine nocturnes.

"Do roses in the moonlight glow
Like this and this?" What did she think
Of him whose hands at Love's command
Made Life as honey o'er the brink
Of Death drip slow, darkling and slow?
Ah, did she understand?

She studied every sob she heard,
She watched each dying hope she found;
And yet she understood not one
Poor sorrow there that like a wound
Gaped, bleeding, pleading--for one word--
No? And the dream was done.

For her--I am "wrapped in incense gloom,
In drifting clouds and golden light;"
Once I was shod with fire and trod
Beethoven's path through storm and night:
It is too late now to resume
My monologue with God.

Well, my lost love, you were so kind
In those old days: ah, yes; you came
When I was ill! In dreams you still
Will come? (Do roses always flame
By moonlight, thus?) I, too, grow blind
With wondering if she will.

Yet, Floriani, what am I
To you, though love was life to me?
My life consumed like some perfumed
Pale altar-flame beside the sea:
You stood and smiled and watched it die!
You, you whom it illumed,
Could you not feed it with your love?
Am I not starving here and now?
Sing, sing! I'd miss no smile or kiss--
No roses in Majorca glow
Like this and this--so death may prove
Best--ah, how sweet life is!