Flow on, ye lays so loved, so fair,
On to Oblivion's ocean flow!
May no rapt boy recall you e'er,
No maiden in her beauty's glow!
My love alone was then your theme,
But now she scorns my passion true.
Ye were but written in the stream;
As it flows on, then, flow ye too!
558
But little Carmine hath her face—
Of Emerald scant—her Gown—
Her Beauty—is the love she doth—
Itself—exhibit—Mine&md ash;
Broceliande! in the perilous beauty of silence and menacing shade,
Thou art set on the shores of the sea down the haze
of horizons untravelled, unscanned.
Untroubled, untouched with the woes of this world
are the moon-marshalled hosts that invade
Broceliande.
Only at dusk, when lavender clouds in the orient twilight disband,
Vanishing where all the blue afternoon they have drifted in solemn parade,
Sometimes a whisper comes down on the wind from the valleys of Fairyland ----
Bouquet said: “My floral ring
The homage of a heart encloses,
Whose thoughts to you go worshipping
In perfume from my blushing roses.”
Bracelet said: “My rubies red,
Though hard the gleam that each exposes,
Will last when flowers of Spring are fled
And dead are all the Summer roses.”
Beauty mused awhile, and said,
“Here’s poesy!” and sighed, “Here prose is
Bouquet! I choose the rubies red!—
In Winter they will buy me roses.”
Bound for your distant home
you were leaving alien lands.
In an hour as sad as I’ve known
I wept over your hands.
My hands were numb and cold,
still trying to restrain
you, whom my hurt told
never to end this pain.
But you snatched your lips away
from our bitterest kiss.
You invoked another place
than the dismal exile of this.
You said, ‘When we meet again,
in the shadow of olive-trees,
we shall kiss, in a love without pain,
under cloudless infinities.’
But there, alas, where the sky
GOD of this Planet! for the name best fits
The purblind view, which men of this "dim spot"
Can take of THEE, the GOD Of Suns and Spheres!
What desert forests, and what barren plains,
Lie unexplor'd by European eye,
In what our Fathers call'd the Great South Land!
Ev'n in those tracts, which we have visited,
Tho' thousands of thy vegetable works
Have, by the hand of Science (as 'tis call'd)
Been gather'd and dissected, press'd and dried,
Till all their blood and beauty are extinct;
And nam'd in barb'rous Latin, men's surnames,
THE LOVING ONE SPEAKS.
And wherefore sends not
The horseman-captain
His heralds hither
Each day, unfailing?
Yet hath he horses,
He writes well.
He waiteth Tali,
And Neski knows he
To write with beauty
On silken tablets.
I'd deem him present,
Had I his words.
The sick One will not,
Will not recover
From her sweet sorrow;
She, when she heareth
That her true lover
Grows well, falls sick.
Love for love, and moments sweet,
Lips returning kiss for kiss,
Word for word, and eyes that meet;
Breath for breath, and bliss for bliss.
Thus at eve, and thus the morrow!
Yet thou feeblest, at my lay,
Ever some half-hidden sorrow;
Could I Joseph's graces borrow,
All thy beauty I'd repay!
Oh, Bonnie Dundee! I will sing in thy praise
A few but true simple lays,
Regarding some of your beauties of the present day
And virtually speaking, there's none can them gainsay;
There's no other town I know of with you can compare
For spinning mills and lasses fair,
And for stately buildings there's none can excel
The beautiful Albert Institute or the Queen's Hotel,
For it is most handsome to be seen,
Where accommodation can be had for Duke, Lord or Queen,
And the four pillars of the front are made of Aberdeen granite, very fine,
How many million Aprils came
Before I ever knew
How white a cherry bough could be,
A bed of squills, how blue.
And many a dancing April
When life is done with me,
Will lift the blue flame of the flower
And the white flame of the tree.
Oh, burn me with your beauty, then,
Oh, hurt me, tree and flower,
Lest in the end death try to take
Even this glistening hour.
O shaken flowers, O shimmering trees,