beauty

The love in her eyes lay sleeping,
As stars that unconscious shine,
Till, under the pink lids peeping,
I wakened it up with mine;
And we pledged our troth to a brimming oath
In a bumper of blood-red wine.
Alas! too well I know
That it happened long ago;
Those memories yet remain,
And sting, like throbs of pain,
And I'm alone below,
But still the red wine warms, and the rosy goblets glow;
If love be the heart's enslaver,
'Tis wine that subdues the head.

All the heights of the high shores gleam
   Red and gold at the sunset hour:
There comes the spell of a magic dream,
   And the Harbour seems a lotus-flower;

A blue flower tinted at dawn with gold,
   A broad flower blazing with light at noon,
A flower forever with charms to hold
   His heart, who sees it by sun or moon.

Its beauty burns like a ceaseless fire,
   And tower looks over the top of tower;
For all mute things it would seem, aspire
   To catch a glimpse of the lotus-flower.

NOT in the sky,
Where it was seen
So long in eminence of light serene,—
Nor on the white tops of the glistering wave,
Nor down in mansions of the hidden deep,
Though beautiful in green
And crystal, its great caves of mystery,—
Shall the bright watcher have
Her place, and, as of old, high station keep!

Gone! gone!
Oh! nevermore, to cheer
The mariner, who holds his course alone
On the Atlantic, through the weary night,
When the stars turn to watchers, and do sleep,

Foundered March 24. 1878


1

The Eurydice—it concerned thee, O Lord:
Three hundred souls, O alas! on board,
Some asleep unawakened, all un-
warned, eleven fathoms fallen

2

Where she foundered! One stroke
Felled and furled them, the hearts of oak!
And flockbells off the aerial
Downs’ forefalls beat to the burial.

3

For did she pride her, freighted fully, on
Bounden bales or a hoard of bullion?—
Precious passing measure,

Here at the Super Duper, in a glass tank
Supplied by a rill of cold fresh water
Running down a glass washboard at one end
And siphoned off at the other, and so
Perpetually renewed, a herd of lobster
Is made available to the customer
Who may choose whichever one he wants
To carry home and drop into boiling water
And serve with a sauce of melted butter.

Meanwhile, the beauty of strangeness marks
These creatures, who move (when they do)
With a slow, vague wavering of claws,

Those lit eyes go before me, in full view,
(Some cunning angel magnetised their light) -
Heavenly twins, yet my own brothers too,
Shaking their diamond blaze into my sight.

My steps from every trap or sin to save,
In the strait road of Beauty they conduct me,
They are my servants, and I am their slave,
Obedient in whatever they instruct me.

Delightful eyes, you burn with mystic rays
Like candles in broad day; red suns may blaze,
But cannot quench their still, fantastic light.

All the long day the vapours played
At blindfold in the city streets,
Their elfin fingers caught and stayed
The sunbeams, as they wound their sheets
Into a filmy barricade
'Twixt earth and where the sunlight beats.

A vagrant band of mischiefs these,
With wings of grey and cobweb gown;
They live along the edge of seas,
And creeping out on foot of down,
They chase and frolic, frisk and tease
At blind-man's buff with all the town.

And when at eventide the sun

Go, soul, the body's guest,
Upon a thankless errand;
Fear not to touch the best;
The truth shall be thy warrant:
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.

Say to the court, it glows
And shines like rotten wood;
Say to the church, it shows
What's good, and doth no good:
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lie.

Tell potentates, they live
Acting by others' action;
Not loved unless they give,
Not strong but by a faction.
If potentates reply,

Saint Laura, in her sleep of death,
Preserves beneath the tomb
---'Tis willed where what is willed must be---
In incorruptibility
Her beauty and her bloom.

So pure her maiden life had been,
So free from earthly stain,
'Twas fixed in fate by Heaven's own Queen,
That till the earth's last closing scene
She should unchanged remain.

Within a deep sarcophagus
Of alabaster sheen,
With sculptured lid of roses white,
She slumbered in unbroken night
By mortal eyes unseen.

I am the one who loved her as my life,
Had watched her grow to sweet young womanhood;
Won the dear privilege to call her wife,
And found the world, because of her, was good.
I am the one who heard the spirit voice,
Of which the paleface settlers love to tell;
From whose strange story they have made their choice
Of naming this fair valley the "Qu'Appelle."

She had said fondly in my eager ear--
"When Indian summer smiles with dusky lip,
Come to the lakes, I will be first to hear