Collected Works (Vol. III)

THE STAR AND THE GARTER Remind, recall, hint? Never! Stuff! You are, as aye, alone, elect. Shall we then dive in Paris sewers? Ay! but not find you there, nor yet Your likeness. Did you then forget You are my love? Arise and shine ! It was your blasphemy, not mine. XIX, A FAINT sweet smell of ether haunts Yet the remembrance. Hear the wizard His lone and melancholy chaunts Roared in the rain-storm and the blizzard ! The ancient and devoted dizzard ! Appear, thou dream of loveliness! She wore a rose and amber dress, With broidery of old gold. Her hair Was long and starry, gilded red. Her face was laughter, shapen fair By the sweet things she thought and said. Her whiteness rustled as she walked. Her hair sang tunes across the air. She sighed, laughed, whispered, never talked. She smiled, and loves devout and rare Flickered about the room. She stayed Still in the dusk: her body sang Out full and clear ‘‘O love me!” Rang The silver couplets undismayed, Bright, bold, convincing. In her eyes Glittered enamelled sorceries. She was a piece of jewel work Sold by a Christian to a Turk, She had fed on air that day: the flowers About her curled, ambrosial bowers Of some divine perfume: the soul Of ether made her wise ; control Of strong distilled delight. She showered Wit and soft laughter and desire About her breasts in bliss embowered, And subtle and devouring fire Leapt in live sparks about her limbs. Her spirit shields me, and bedims My sight: she needs me: I need her. Destiny ; manhood; fear; delight; Desire; accomplishment ; ere night Dipped her pale plumes to greet the sun She was not ; all is past and done. A dream? I wake from blissful sleep, But is it real? Well, I keep An accidental souvenir Whence thus to chronicle small beer 31 There is the garter. Launched our boat, The stately pinnace once afloat, You shall hear all ; we will not land On this or that mediate strand, Until the voyage be done, and we Pass from the river to the sea, And find some isle’s seclided nook More sacred than we first forsook. XX. YEs, there are other phases, dear ! Here is a pocket-book, and here Lies a wee letter. Floral thyrse ?? Divine-tipped narthex of the pine,? Or morphia’s deceitful wine? The French is ill, the spelling worse !— But this is horrible! This, me? The upholder of propriety, Who actually proposed to form A Club to shield us from the swarm Of common people of no class Who throng the Quartier Montparnasse ! I wear a collar :? loudly shout That folk are pigs that go without,— And here you find me up a tree To make my concierge blush for me! A girl ‘‘ uncombed, so badly dressed, So rudely mannered—and the rest ; Not at all proper. Fie! away! What would your lady mother say ?” I tell you, I was put to it To wake a wonder of my wit 1 See Othello, II. i. She is mine: she calls me: sob and stir 2 Ty . . 1e thyrsus and narthex were carried by Strange pulses of old passionate the Mzenads, the maiden devotees of Bacchus. Imperial ecstasies of fate. 3 The poet libels himself; he rarely did so.