The red rose clouds, without law or leader, Gather and float in the airy plain;The nightingale sings to the dewy cedar, The cedar scatters his scent to the main.
The strange flowers' perfume turns to singing, Heard afar over moonlit seas;The Siren's song, grown faint in winging, Falls in scent on the cedar trees.
As waifs blown out of the sunset, flying, Purple, and rosy, and grey, the birds Brighten the air with their wings; their crying Wakens a moment the weary herds.
Butterflies flit from the fairy garden, Living blossoms of flying flowers;1
Great fruits, fragrant, green and golden, Gleam in the green, and droop and fall;Blossom, and bud, and flower unfolden, Swing, and cling to the garden wall.
Deep in the woods as twilight darkens, Glades are red with the scented fire;Far in the dells the white maid hearkens, Song and sigh of the heart's desire.
Ah, and as moonlight fades in morning, Maiden's song in the matin grey, Faints as the first bird's note, a warning, Wakes and wails to the new-born day.
The waking song and the dying measure Meet, and the waxing and waning light Meet, and faint with the hours of pleasure, The rose of the sea and the sky is white.
THE DEPARTURE FROM PHAEACIA.
THE PHAEACIANS.
WHY from the dreamy meadows, More fair than any dream, Why will you seek the shadows Beyond the ocean stream?
Through straits of storm and peril, Through firths unsailed before, Why make you for the sterile, The dark Kimmerian shore?
There no bright streams are flowing, There day and night are one, No harvest time, no sowing, No sight of any sun;No sound of song or tabor, No dance shall greet you there;No noise of mortal labour, Breaks on the blind chill air.
Are ours not happy places, Where Gods with mortals trod?
Saw not our sires the faces Of many a present God?
THE SEEKERS.
NAY, now no God comes hither, In shape that men may see;They fare we know not whither, We know not what they be.
Yea, though the sunset lingers Far in your fairy glades, Though yours the sweetest singers, Though yours the kindest maids,Yet here be the true shadows, Here in the doubtful light;Amid the dreamy meadows No shadow haunts the night.
We seek a city splendid, With light beyond the sun;Or lands where dreams are ended, And works and days are done.
A BALLAD OF DEPARTURE.
FAIR white bird, what song art thou singing In wintry weather of lands o'er sea?
Dear white bird, what way art thou winging, Where no grass grows, and no green tree?
I looked at the far off fields and grey, There grew no tree but the cypress tree, That bears sad fruits with the flowers of May, And whoso looks on it, woe is he.
And whoso eats of the fruit thereof Has no more sorrow, and no more love;And who sets the same in his garden stead, In a little space he is waste and dead.
THEY HEAR THE SIRENS FOR THE SECOND TIME.
THE weary sails a moment slept, The oars were silent for a space, As past Hesperian shores we swept, That were as a remembered face Seen after lapse of hopeless years, In Hades, when the shadows meet, Dim through the mist of many tears, And strange, and though a shadow, sweet.
So seemed the half-remembered shore, That slumbered, mirrored in the blue, With havens where we touched of yore, And ports that over well we knew.
Then broke the calm before a breeze That sought the secret of the west;And listless all we swept the seas Towards the Islands of the Blest.
Beside a golden sanded bay We saw the Sirens, very fair The flowery hill whereon they lay, The flowers set upon their hair.
Their old sweet song came down the wind, Remembered music waxing strong, Ah now no need of cords to bind, No need had we of Orphic song.
It once had seemed a little thing, To lay our lives down at their feet, That dying we might hear them sing, And dying see their faces sweet;But now, we glanced, and passing by, No care had we to tarry long;Faint hope, and rest, and memory Were more than any Siren's song.
CIRCE'S ISLE REVISITED.
AH, Circe, Circe! in the wood we cried;
Ah, Circe, Circe! but no voice replied;
No voice from bowers o'ergrown and ruinous As fallen rocks upon the mountain side.
There was no sound of singing in the air;Failed or fled the maidens that were fair, No more for sorrow or joy were seen of us, No light of laughing eyes, or floating hair.
The perfume, and the music, and the flame Had passed away; the memory of shame Alone abode, and stings of faint desire, And pulses of vague quiet went and came.
Ah, Circe! in thy sad changed fairy place, Our dead Youth came and looked on us a space, With drooping wings, and eyes of faded fire, And wasted hair about a weary face.
Why had we ever sought the magic isle That seemed so happy in the days erewhile?
Why did we ever leave it, where we met A world of happy wonders in one smile?
Back to the westward and the waning light We turned, we fled; the solitude of night Was better than the infinite regret, In fallen places of our dead delight.
THE LIMIT OF LANDS.
BETWEEN the circling ocean sea And the poplars of Persephone There lies a strip of barren sand, Flecked with the sea's last spray, and strown With waste leaves of the poplars, blown From gardens of the shadow land.
With altars of old sacrifice The shore is set, in mournful wise The mists upon the ocean brood;Between the water and the air The clouds are born that float and fare Between the water and the wood.
Upon the grey sea never sail Of mortals passed within our hail, Where the last weak waves faint and flow;We heard within the poplar pale The murmur of a doubtful wail Of voices loved so long ago.
We scarce had care to die or live, We had no honey cake to give, No wine of sacrifice to shed;There lies no new path over sea, And now we know how faint they be, The feasts and voices of the Dead.
Ah, flowers and dance! ah, sun and snow!
Glad life, sad life we did forego To dream of quietness and rest;Ah, would the fleet sweet roses here Poured light and perfume through the drear Pale year, and wan land of the west.
