Collected Works (Vol. III)

THE STAR AND THE GARTER Now you are angry? Be content! Not fee the assistant accident That shows our quarry—love—at bay? My silver-throated queen, away ! Huntress of heaven, by my side, As moon by meteor, rushing, ride ! Among the stars, ride on! ride on! (Then, maybe, bid the boy begone !) V. I Am a boy inthis. Alas! Look round on all the world of men ! The boys are oft of genus ‘‘ ass.” Think yourself lucky, lady, then, If I at least am boy. You laugh? Not you! Is this love’s epitaph, God’s worm erect on Herod’s throne? ‘* Ah, if I only had not known!” All wrong, belovéd! Truth be ours, The one white flower (of all the flowers) You ever cared for! Ignorance May set its puppets up to dance; We know who pulls the strings. No sage ; A man unwashed, the bearded brute ! His wife, the mother-prostitute ! Behind the marionetted stage See the true Punch-and-Judy show, Turn copper so to silver! Know, And who can help forgiving? So Said some French thinker! Here’s a drench Of verse unquestionably French To follow ! so, while youth is youth, And time is time, and I am I, Too busy with my work to lie, Or love lie’s prize—or work’s, forsooth !— Too strong to care which way may go The ensuing history of woe, Though I were jaw, and you were tooth ; So, more concerned with seeking sense Than worried over consequence, I'll speak, and you shall hear, the truth. 1 ‘*Comprendre, c’est pardonner.” —MME. DE STAEL., VI. TRUTH, like old Gaul, is split in three.? A lesson in anatomy, A sketch of sociology, A tale of love to end. But sce! What stirs the electric flame of eyes? One word—that word. Be destinv’s Inviolate fiat rolled athwart . The clouds and cobwebs of our speech, And image, integrate of thought, This ebony anthem, each to each :— To lie, invulnerable, alone, Valkyrie and hero, in the zone, Shielded by lightnings of our wit, Guarded by fires of intellect Far on the mountain-top, elect Of all the hills divinely lit By rays of moonrise! © the moon! O the interminable tune Of whispered kisses! Love exults, Intolerant of all else than he, And ecstasy invades, insults, Outshines the waves of harmony, Lapped in the sun of day ; the tides Of wonder flow, the shore subsides ; And over all the horizon Glows the last glimmer of the sun. Ah ! when the moon arises, she Shall look on nothing but the sea. VII. | O LOVE! and were I with thee ever! Come with me over the round earth, O’er lake and fountain, sea and river ! Girdle the world with angel girth Of angel voyage! Shall we roam In teeming jungles poisonous? Or make ourselves an eyrie-home Where the black ice roars ravenous In glittering avalanche? Or else Hide in some corrie on the fells Of heather and bracken, or delight In grottos built of stalactite? 1 ‘Gallia est divisa in tres partes.” —Cesar de Bello Gallico, i. 1.