Collected Works (Vol. I)

DE PROFUNDIS 109 Where he lay sleeping. Purity And joy beyond the speech of man Dwelt on his face, divinely wan. ‘* How beautiful is sleep!” he saith, Bends over him. There is no breath, No sound, no motion: it 1s death. And gazing on the happy head ‘* How beautiful is Death!” he said. A SONNET IN SPRING. O CHAINLESS Love, the frost is in my brain, Whose swift desires and swift intelligence Are dull and numb to-day; because the sense Only responds to the sharp key of pain. O free fair Love, as welcome as the rain On thirsty fallows, come, and let us hence Far where the veil of Summer les immense, A haze of heat on ocean’s purple plain. O wingless Love, let us away together Where the sure surf rings round the beaten strand ; Where the sky stands, a dome of flawless weather, And the stars join in one triumphal band, Because we broke the inexorable tether That bound our passion with an iron hand. DE PROFUNDIS.! BLoob, mist, and foam, then darkness. On my eyes Sits heaviness, the poor worn body lies Devoid of nerve and muscle ; it were death Save for the heart that throbs, the breast that sighs. The brain reels drowsily, the mind is dulled, Deadened and drowned by noises that are lulled By the harsh poison of the hateful breath. All sense and sound and seeming is annulled. 1 Composed while walking home through the starry streets from an evil evening in St. Petersburg, Vv. 1-3 are the feelings, vv. »gy., the refiections thus engendered. Within a body dead a deadened brain Beats with the burden of a shameful pain, The sullen agony that dares to think, And think through sleep, and wake to think again. Fools ! bitter fools! Our breaths and kisses seem Constrained in devilry, debauch, and dream : Lives logged in the morass of meat and drink, Loves dipped in Phlegethon,' the perjured stream. Behold we would that hours and minutes pass, Watch the sands falling in the eager glass; To wile their weariness is pleasure’s bliss ; But ah! the years! like smoke They fade, alas ! We weep them as they slip away ; we gaze Back on the likeness of the former days— The hair we fondle and the lips we kiss— Roses grow ycllow and no purple stays. Ah! the old years! Come back, ye vanished hours We wasted; flowers ! What boots the weariness of olden time Now, when old age, a tempest-fury, lowers? come, grow red, ye faded Up to high God beyond the weary land The days drift mournfully ; His hoary hand Gathers them. — Is My foolish rhyme Dreams they are links upon an endless band. it so? The planets draw in endless orbits round The sun 3 itself revolves in the profound Deep wells of space3 the comet’s mystic track sy the strong rule ofa closed curve is bound. | "The fiery river of Tades.