Collected Works (Vol. III)

LOVE-SONGS 67 XXVI. WHEN the wearily falling blossom of mid- night Stirs the face of a sleeper, Mother of Sorrow ! Look thou down in the dawn of heavier dewfall. Tears of widow despair, O mutely lamenting Crouched in heavenly bowers over the carven Gateway’s ivory flower, tears of revival Fall, oh fall, to the black abodes of the lonely. I await, I await, I sing not for sorrow, Train the fugitive lights of music across me, Seek by force to avail me, vainly attempting Song with feather detested, agony futile: Ply these piteous exercises of cunning, Hateful—ay ! to myself! To me it were better Only to woo in the silence, magical silence, Silence eloquent, wert thou here or afar, love. Woo thee, nay! but abide in certain re- cession ; Stilled to the splendid currents fervid of passion ; Float to seas of an unassailable silence Down the river of love. The words are awakened : Let the soul beasleep. The dawn is upon us. XXVII. Ecstasy, break through poetry's beautiful barriers, Intricate webs, labyrinthine mazes of music ! Leap, love, lightning’s self, and, athwart the appalling Evil clouds of an agony bound by existence, Enter, avail me, exult! In the masses of matter Nothing avails; in the splendour spirit is, nothing. Give me love; I am weary of giants colossal, Royal, impossible things; I am fain of a bosom Always breathing sleep, and the symphony, silence. Years are forgotten ; abide, deep love, I am happy. 1 An acrostic. XXVIII. CouLD ivory blush with a stain of the sunset on highlands Of snow: could the mind of me span The tenderness born of the dew in immaculate islands Virgin of maculate man : Could I mingle the Alps and Hawaii; Strath Ness and A’pura?! and Baie; Kashmir and Japan : Could lilies attain to the life of the Gods: could a comet Attain to the calm of the moon: I would mingle them all in a kiss, and draw from it The soul of a sensitive tune. All lovers should hear it and know it: not needing the words of a poet In ebony hewn. Obeam of discovery under the eyelids awaking The sense of delight! O assent Slow dawning through cream into roses ! white bosom shaking The myrtles of magical scent In the groves of the heart! O the pleasure that runs over all overmeasure, The wine of Event ! O Overmastered the hurl of the world in the hush of our rapture ; Entangled the bird of success Inthesnare of bewildering fancies. Wecapture Delight in the toils of a tress Rough gilded of sunlight and umber with virginal shadows of slumber— Ah ! sorrow, regress ! Till the idle abyss of eternity swoon to our pinions With music of wings as we fly Through the azure of dreams, and the purple of mighty dominions Exalted, afoam in the sky ; And to us it were wiser and sweeter to ruin the race of the metre, And song were to die. 1 Anuradapura, the ruined sacred city of Ceylon.