I have drunk your tears with insatiate lips; I have broken like a toy the heart of your life; What have I given? your last query!

The cup of my heart filled I with love; The chalice of soul with the substance of my G.o.d, For thee to drink my life's first love.

Thou drankest as one that comes from a desert, Thou spiltest the nectar heedless, like mad; Yet I cursed not, nor shed tears; But loved thee, longed to live for thy love.

Alas! thy tears grew salt, thy love thy self's greedy grasp,-- O, it is the end; let us part!

The morning of indifference wings the gray sky; The bird-song of the other dawns the raven's shriek now,-- Shed no more tears, I tire of my drink; Break not thy heart; thy soul? Let it be still!

Beyond the gray-cloud is the land of sunrise: Let us part, dear, let us be wise.

61

SOUND b.u.t.tERFLIES

(IN A FOUNTAIN)

Like interpenetrating bells of silver, The water-drops ring and melt Into new drops, like new notes From an untiring lyre, That in colored succession Paint our heart-beats From the gold of sunrise into sunset fire; Yet, not like that, this brush of water-drops Limns on the silver rim of Joy The dark b.u.t.terflies of Desire.

62

Even in sadness thou art beside me, In gladness, none so happy as thee; I love thee; May my love kiss the feet of thy love of me.

My dreams are thine, day or night, My sleep sings in silence to the night Of thy delight; May thy heart's gifts like stars my heart's heaven bedight!

Though a sigh rises in my soul this hour; Closes its petals in the west the golden day-flower; In my bower Let thy love pour its rainbow shower.

63

By the sea of sleep walks white-robed Night; The breeze but the faint rustle of her drapery That calls the mist-made bark of dream From the cavern of the Unknown to sail to us, Laden with endless star-like fancies.

And She! the magician, walks on and on Over the sapphire embankment of the sky Like a moving magnet drawing behind her a million dream-argosies.

64

FAREWELL

(AFTER A HINDUSTANI SONG)

Farewell, fairest of loves!

Life's most fanciful of gifts, Joy and treasure, love and wonder, Waking's elusive reality, Dream's ever-yielding divinity.

Even thou must pa.s.s Beyond time's starless bar: Thy eyes, their lambent flames Shall no more illumine my night; Nor thy brow, home of many moods, Tranquil yet tormented as a sea, Shall ever wear the coronal of my kiss.

Ah, kisses! blisses of fire, Pa.s.sion's long lingering melody Played by thy lips on mine.

Even they must die-- Intangible realities of rapture, Ever present wonders of desire-- Now like autumn leaves Fly with the west-wind of fear.

No, not fear that takes thee from me, Nor love's slayer, satiety; Yet art gone; thou art going.

Oh, not to crush thy heart on mine: Thy b.r.e.a.s.t.s made but for my hands, No more to quiver in rapture therein!

Who wills this cruel decree?

The warmth of thy body, The staggering storm of thy yielding, The intoxicating perfume of thy mouth: These, and many other endless Viols and lutes of pa.s.sion, love, life, Delights of a thousand heavens, Who robs them of me?

Fate! that fool in the court of love, Who hath no wit for laughter, Steals it all from me In the mid-hour of life; And as it befits his mind, Scatters it all over the turbid Stream of fear and lies.

65

SATIETY

All thy gifts must die, All thy thoughts must fail; Such were the decree writ by time With shadows on the scroll of fate.

Even thy memory recedes into forgetting, Thy l.u.s.trous words star-like set, Ah, sweet! autumn's breath withers all, Even the west-wind fears to tread.

All yield to the power of relentless time That no love nor pa.s.sion can stay, Blown like dried leaves we now On the granite pavement of fate.

No more thy lip-touch on my brow, Nor thy hands pleading caresses, Thy gifts fall and fade into nothing, Thy vision grows dim in life's sunset-west.

66

Drowsy the noonday air, Under the trees the still shadow Like a fugitive fragment of night Seeks shelter from the sun.

The bird has ceased singing, The beggar unable to bear The wealth of the sun Spreads his torn garment,

To find peace in The benign shadow of sleep.

Ah, lone soul like him, I spread this rag of my song.

Under the tree of life Over which blazes the sun of fate.

The calm of its shadow Protects me, but where my peace?

67

CHATTERTON

For summers seventeen This flower of spring Scattered fragrance That dwelt in its petals seventeen.