I LOVED illustrious cities and the crowds
That eddy through their incandescent nights.
I loved remote horizons with far clouds
Girdled, and fringed about with snowy heights.
I loved fair women, their sweet, conscious ways
Of wearing among hands that covet and plead
The rose ablossom at the rainbow's base
That bounds the world's desire and all its need.
Nature I worshipped, whose fecundity
Embraces every vision the most fair,
Of perfect benediction. From a boy
I gloated on existence. Earth to me
Seemed all-sufficient and my sojourn there

Canto III.

The Girdle, or Love-Token.

1.

Short Taste of Pleasures , how dost thou torment
A liquorish Soul, when once inflam'd by thee!
Desire's sweet-cruel edge might soon relent
Didst thou not whet it to that keen degree
That nothing but complete fruition will
The longing of its wakened stomach fill.

2.

The Seaman, who hath with unwearied pain
Wrought through a thousand storms, and gain'd the sight

I SEND you roses—red, like love,
And white, like death, sweet friend:
Born in your bosom to rejoice,
Languish, and droop, and end.

If the white roses tell of death,
Let the red roses mend
The talk with true stories of love
Unchanging till the end.

Red and white roses, love and death—
What else is left to send?
For what is life but love, the means,
And death, true Wife, the end?

A WORLD of leafage murmurous and a twinkle;
The green, delicious plenitude of June;
Love and laughter and song
The blue day long
Going to the same glad, golden tune—
The same glad tune!

Clouds on the dim, delighting skies a sprinkle;
Poplars black in the wake of a setting moon;
Love and languor and sleep
And the star-sown deep
Going to the same good, golden tune—
The same good tune!

Love , which is lust, is the Lamp in the Tomb.
Love, which is lust, is the Call from the Gloom.

Love, which is lust, is the Main of Desire.
Love, which is lust, is the Centric Fire.

So man and woman will keep their trust,
Till the very Springs of the Sea run dust.

Yea, each with the other will lose and win,
Till the very Sides of the Grave fall in.

For the strife of Love's the abysmal strife,
And the word of Love is the Word of Life.

And they that go with the Word unsaid,
Though they seem of the living, are damned and dead.

After the grim daylight,
Night—
Night and the stars and the sea!
Only the sea, and the stars
And the star-shown sails and spars—
Naught else in the night for me!

Over the northern height,
Light—
Light and the dawn of a day
With nothing for me but a breast
Laboured with love's unrest,
And the irk of an idle May!

Erechtheus next th' Athenian Sceptre sway'd,
Whose Rule the State with joynt Consent obey'd;
So mix'd his Justice with his Valour flow'd,
His Reign one Scene of Princely Goodness shew'd.
Four hopeful Youths, as many Females bright,
Sprung from his Loyns, and sooth'd him with Delight.
Two of these Sisters, of a lovelier Air,
Excell'd the rest, tho' all the rest were fair.
Procris , to Cephalus in Wedlock ty'd,
Bless'd the young Silvan with a blooming Bride:
For Orithyia Boreas suffer'd Pain,

I dreamed again, and lo, a solemn glory
Transfigured earth and sea;
The vibrant universe revealed a story
Of love and power to me.
Oh, never was such light on earth beholden,
Save when the sacred gleam,
Upon the spirits of the seers olden,
Breathed mystery and dream.

I think that haply angel hands had chanced
The door of some bright zone
Of heaven to open, so to me there glanced
The radiance of the throne.
'Twas not as earth-light that must go unbending
Into the fields afar,
But all diffuse, it spread abroad unending

I dreamed that I was God, the great All-seeing;
The ceaseless urge was mine
That fires the throbbing, blood-red heart of Being,
The Alchemist divine.
I saw and knew that lesser good is evil,
The evil lesser good;
That love can change the basest hell-upheaval
To human brotherhood.

I heard the tramp of onward-marching nations,
I saw their mirth and tears;
I felt the passions of the generations
That thundered down the years;
I clashed as foe with foeman, fire-hearted,
I heard the war-guns boom,

A QUARRELI WITH LOUE

O H that I could write a story
Of Loues dealing with affection:
How hee makes the spirit sory,
That is toucht with his infection.

But he doth so closely winde him
In the plaits of will ill pleased,
That the heart can neuer finde him
Till it be too much diseased.

Tis a subtill kinde of spirit,
Of a venome kinde of nature;
That can like a conny ferret,
Creepe vnwares vpon a creature.

Neuer eye that can beholde it,
Though it worketh first by seeing;