Heliodore
Who will remember Heliodore?
The nightingales, the nightingales
That sing tonight in vain for thee,
Whose nights no singing shall restore?
The myrtle that in vain has shed
Bloom for thy bridal feet to tread
That wander dim and sunless vales
Far off, too far for love and me?
What music has Persephone,
What golden glade, what balmy grove
To bower sweet birds in lutany?
What lip or lyre speaks low in love,
Where grey ghosts after and before
Weave thee a mournful canopy
Of hemlock and of hellebore?
Is this thy maiden company?
Are these thy roses, Heliodore?
Who will remember Heliodore?
No rain of Autumn's weaving
On twilight's loom with shuttle slow;
No plaint of sad birds' grieving,
Makes with thy name a deeper woe.
The earth that holds thee tranced and deep
In death's far, grey and dreamless sleep
Will not remember Heliodore.
For thou wilt be no more to her
Than dust of ferns, or shades that stir
The sands on Lethe's long cold shore,
Than crumbling bones of beast or bird,
Than perfume vague of musk or myrth
Clinging to lip of shell or sherd.
Those eyes, that strange curled flame of hair,
Shall be to her as Helen's were —
Dust in the dust — she will not care
If those sweet limbs and mouth be those
Of fawn or flower or Dryad, nor
Discern thy beauty from the rose,
Nor thee from lilies, Heliodore.
Who will remember Heliodore?
Not this sea, not this shore,
Not this forgetting wind and tree!
The dreaming sand will wait once more
The sighing, swift, returning sea,
Tomorrow's sun will take the moon,
Tomorrow's bloom will burn the bee,
The dawn will give the young day's boon
To midnight's savage empery;
The Dryades will tread the green
With dancing fauns, Hippocrene
Will wait the noon to dance between
The white feet of Melpomene. ...
But not for thine ... but not for thee!
Who will remember Helidore?
What if my heart remember thee
In Thessaly? What lyre have I
To trance Alecto's furious hair?
What ghost shall see thee gliding by
To laughter and to love once more,
To the old mortal days that were? ...
I cannot wake thee, Heliodore.
A day, a year, and I shall be
As unremembering as they
Who share thy sweet oblivion.
Silence and song shall be as one,
Moonrise as sunset, night as day,
Rivers as rocks and stars as stones ...
And the last flower may cease to grow,
The last bird sing, the last wind blow,
I shall not heed, I shall not know
That thou wert, or that I was, once.
In vain, in vain dost thou implore
Thine old song's rapture, Heliodore!
O Love, Love, loved immeasurably
Through all my singing, thou shalt see
How far, how utterly at last
Art thou from all remembrance cast
When Love himself forgetteth thee,
And these, thy lips, can sing no more,
When I am dead as thou are dead
Dumb as thy dumb mouth, Heliodore.
The nightingales, the nightingales
That sing tonight in vain for thee,
Whose nights no singing shall restore?
The myrtle that in vain has shed
Bloom for thy bridal feet to tread
That wander dim and sunless vales
Far off, too far for love and me?
What music has Persephone,
What golden glade, what balmy grove
To bower sweet birds in lutany?
What lip or lyre speaks low in love,
Where grey ghosts after and before
Weave thee a mournful canopy
Of hemlock and of hellebore?
Is this thy maiden company?
Are these thy roses, Heliodore?
Who will remember Heliodore?
No rain of Autumn's weaving
On twilight's loom with shuttle slow;
No plaint of sad birds' grieving,
Makes with thy name a deeper woe.
The earth that holds thee tranced and deep
In death's far, grey and dreamless sleep
Will not remember Heliodore.
For thou wilt be no more to her
Than dust of ferns, or shades that stir
The sands on Lethe's long cold shore,
Than crumbling bones of beast or bird,
Than perfume vague of musk or myrth
Clinging to lip of shell or sherd.
Those eyes, that strange curled flame of hair,
Shall be to her as Helen's were —
Dust in the dust — she will not care
If those sweet limbs and mouth be those
Of fawn or flower or Dryad, nor
Discern thy beauty from the rose,
Nor thee from lilies, Heliodore.
Who will remember Heliodore?
Not this sea, not this shore,
Not this forgetting wind and tree!
The dreaming sand will wait once more
The sighing, swift, returning sea,
Tomorrow's sun will take the moon,
Tomorrow's bloom will burn the bee,
The dawn will give the young day's boon
To midnight's savage empery;
The Dryades will tread the green
With dancing fauns, Hippocrene
Will wait the noon to dance between
The white feet of Melpomene. ...
But not for thine ... but not for thee!
Who will remember Helidore?
What if my heart remember thee
In Thessaly? What lyre have I
To trance Alecto's furious hair?
What ghost shall see thee gliding by
To laughter and to love once more,
To the old mortal days that were? ...
I cannot wake thee, Heliodore.
A day, a year, and I shall be
As unremembering as they
Who share thy sweet oblivion.
Silence and song shall be as one,
Moonrise as sunset, night as day,
Rivers as rocks and stars as stones ...
And the last flower may cease to grow,
The last bird sing, the last wind blow,
I shall not heed, I shall not know
That thou wert, or that I was, once.
In vain, in vain dost thou implore
Thine old song's rapture, Heliodore!
O Love, Love, loved immeasurably
Through all my singing, thou shalt see
How far, how utterly at last
Art thou from all remembrance cast
When Love himself forgetteth thee,
And these, thy lips, can sing no more,
When I am dead as thou are dead
Dumb as thy dumb mouth, Heliodore.
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