Tithonus

So when the verdure of his life was shed,

With all the grace of ripened manlihead,

And on his locks, but now so lovable,

Old age like desolating winter fell,

Leaving them white and flowerless and forlorn:

Then from his bed the Goddess of the Morn

Softly withheld, yet cherished him no less

With pious works of pitying tenderness;

Till when at length with vacant, heedless eyes,

And hoary height bent down none otherwise

Than burdened willows bend beneath their weight

Of snow when winter winds turn temperate, -- -

So bowed with years -- - when still he lingered on:

Then to the daughter of Hyperion

This counsel seemed the best: for she, afar

By dove-gray seas under the morning star,

Where, on the wide world's uttermost extremes,

Her amber-walled, auroral palace gleams,

High in an orient chamber bade prepare

An everlasting couch, and laid him there,

And leaving, closed the shining doors. But he,

Deathless by Jove's compassionless decree,

Found not, as others find, a dreamless rest.

There wakeful, with half-waking dreams oppressed,

Still in an aural, visionary haze

Float round him vanished forms of happier days;

Still at his side he fancies to behold

The rosy, radiant thing beloved of old;

And oft, as over dewy meads at morn,

Far inland from a sunrise coast is borne

The drowsy, muffled moaning of the sea,

Even so his voice flows on unceasingly, -- -

Lisping sweet names of passion overblown,

Breaking with dull, persistent undertone

The breathless silence that forever broods

Round those colossal, lustrous solitudes.

Times change. Man's fortune prospers, or it falls.

Change harbors not in those eternal halls

And tranquil chamber where Tithonus lies.

But through his window there the eastern skies

Fall palely fair to the dim ocean's end.

There, in blue mist where air and ocean blend,

The lazy clouds that sail the wide world o'er

Falter and turn where they can sail no more.

There singing groves, there spacious gardens blow -- -

Cedars and silver poplars, row on row,

Through whose black boughs on her appointed night,

Flooding his chamber with enchanted light,

Lifts the full moon's immeasurable sphere,

Crimson and huge and wonderfully near.

An Ode to Antares

At dusk, when lowlands where dark waters glide

Robe in gray mist, and through the greening hills

The hoot-owl calls his mate, and whippoorwills

Clamor from every copse and orchard-side,

I watched the red star rising in the East,

And while his fellows of the flaming sign

From prisoning daylight more and more released,

Lift their pale lamps, and, climbing higher, higher,

Out of their locks the waters of the Line

Shaking in clouds of phosphorescent fire,

Rose in the splendor of their curving flight,

Their dolphin leap across the austral night,

From windows southward opening on the sea

What eyes, I wondered, might be watching, too,

Orbed in some blossom-laden balcony.

Where, from the garden to the rail above,

As though a lover's greeting to his love

Should borrow body and form and hue

And tower in torrents of floral flame,

The crimson bougainvillea grew,

What starlit brow uplifted to the same

Majestic regress of the summering sky,

What ultimate thing -- - hushed, holy, throned as high

Above the currents that tarnish and profane

As silver summits are whose pure repose

No curious eyes disclose

Nor any footfalls stain,

But round their beauty on azure evenings

Only the oreads go on gauzy wings,

Only the oreads troop with dance and song

And airy beings in rainbow mists who throng

Out of those wonderful worlds that lie afar

Betwixt the outmost cloud and the nearest star.

Like the moon, sanguine in the orient night

Shines the red flower in her beautiful hair.

Her breasts are distant islands of delight

Upon a sea where all is soft and fair.

Those robes that make a silken sheath

For each lithe attitude that flows beneath,

Shrouding in scented folds sweet warmths and tumid flowers,

Call them far clouds that half emerge

Beyond a sunset ocean's utmost verge,

Hiding in purple shade and downpour of soft showers

Enchanted isles by mortal foot untrod,

And there in humid dells resplendent orchids nod;

There always from serene horizons blow

Soul-easing gales and there all spice-trees grow

That Phoenix robbed to line his fragrant nest

Each hundred years in Araby the Blest.

Star of the South that now through orient mist

At nightfall off Tampico or Belize

Greetest the sailor rising from those seas

Where first in me, a fond romanticist,

The tropic sunset's bloom on cloudy piles

Cast out industrious cares with dreams of fabulous isles -- -

Thou lamp of the swart lover to his tryst,

O'er planted acres at the jungle's rim

Reeking with orange-flower and tuberose,

Dear to his eyes thy ruddy splendor glows

Among the palms where beauty waits for him;

Bliss too thou bringst to our greening North,

Red scintillant through cherry-blossom rifts,

Herald of summer-heat, and all the gifts

And all the joys a summer can bring forth -- ---

Be thou my star, for I have made my aim

To follow loveliness till autumn-strown

Sunder the sinews of this flower-like frame

As rose-leaves sunder when the bud is blown.

Ay, sooner spirit and sense disintegrate

Than reconcilement to a common fate

Strip the enchantment from a world so dressed

In hues of high romance. I cannot rest

While aught of beauty in any path untrod

Swells into bloom and spreads sweet charms abroad

Unworshipped of my love. I cannot see

In Life's profusion and passionate brevity

How hearts enamored of life can strain too much

In one long tension to hear, to see, to touch.

Now on each rustling night-wind from the South

Far music calls; beyond the harbor mouth

Each outbound argosy with sail unfurled

May point the path through this fortuitous world

That holds the heart from its desire. Away!

Where tinted coast-towns gleam at close of day,

Where squares are sweet with bells, or shores thick set

With bloom and bower, with mosque and minaret.

Blue peaks loom up beyond the coast-plains here,

White roads wind up the dales and disappear,

By silvery waters in the plains afar

Glimmers the inland city like a star,

With gilded gates and sunny spires ablaze

And burnished domes half-seen through luminous haze,

Lo, with what opportunity Earth teems!

How like a fair its ample beauty seems!

Fluttering with flags its proud pavilions rise:

What bright bazaars, what marvelous merchandise,

Down seething alleys what melodious din,

What clamor importuning from every booth!

At Earth's great market where Joy is trafficked in

Buy while thy purse yet swells with golden Youth!

Translations

Dante. Inferno, Canto XXVI

Florence, rejoice! For thou o'er land and sea

So spread'st thy pinions that the fame of thee

Hath reached no less into the depths of Hell.

So noble were the five I found to dwell

Therein -- - thy sons -- - whence shame accrues to me

And no great praise is thine; but if it be

That truth unveil in dreamings before dawn,

Then is the vengeful hour not far withdrawn

When Prato shall exult within her walls

To see thy suffering. Whate'er befalls,

Let it come soon, since come it must, for later,

Each year would see my grief for thee the greater.

      We left; and once more up the craggy side

By the blind steps of our descent, my guide,

Remounting, drew me on. So we pursued

The rugged path through that steep solitude,

Where rocks and splintered fragments strewed the land

So thick, that foot availed not without hand.

Grief filled me then, and still great sorrow stirs

My heart as oft as memory recurs

To what I saw; that more and more I rein

My natural powers, and curb them lest they strain

Where Virtue guide not, -- - that if some good star,

Or better thing, have made them what they are,

That good I may not grudge, nor turn to ill.

      As when, reclining on some verdant hill -- -

What season the hot sun least veils his power

That lightens all, and in that gloaming hour

The fly resigns to the shrill gnat -- - even then,

As rustic, looking down, sees, o'er the glen,

Vineyard, or tilth where lies his husbandry,

Fireflies innumerable sparkle: so to me,

Come where its mighty depth unfolded, straight

With flames no fewer seemed to scintillate

The shades of the eighth pit. And as to him

Whose wrongs the bears avenged, dim and more dim

Elijah's chariot seemed, when to the skies

Uprose the heavenly steeds; and still his eyes

Strained, following them, till naught remained in view

But flame, like a thin cloud against the blue:

So here, the melancholy gulf within,

Wandered these flames, concealing each its sin,

Yet each, a fiery integument,

Wrapped round a sinner.

                                       On the bridge intent,

Gazing I stood, and grasped its flinty side,

Or else, unpushed, had fallen. And my guide,

Observing me so moved, spake, saying: "Behold

Where swathed each in his unconsuming fold,

The spirits lie confined." Whom answering,

"Master," I said, "thy words assurance bring

To that which I already had supposed;

And I was fain to ask who lies enclosed

In the embrace of that dividing fire,

Which seems to curl above the fabled pyre,

Where with his twin-born brother, fiercely hated,

Eteocles was laid." He answered, "Mated

In punishment as once in wrath they were,

Ulysses there and Diomed incur

The eternal pains; there groaning they deplore

The ambush of the horse, which made the door

For Rome's imperial seed to issue: there

In anguish too they wail the fatal snare

Whence dead Deidamia still must grieve,

Reft of Achilles; likewise they receive

Due penalty for the Palladium."

"Master," I said, "if in that martyrdom

The power of human speech may still be theirs,

I pray -- - and think it worth a thousand prayers -- -

That, till this horned flame be come more nigh,

We may abide here; for thou seest that I

With great desire incline to it." And he:

"Thy prayer deserves great praise; which willingly

I grant; but thou refrain from speaking; leave

That task to me; for fully I conceive

What thing thou wouldst, and it might fall perchance

That these, being Greeks, would scorn thine utterance."

      So when the flame had come where time and place

Seemed not unfitting to my guide with grace

To question, thus he spoke at my desire:

"O ye that are two souls within one fire,

If in your eyes some merit I have won -- -

Merit, or more or less -- - for tribute done

When in the world I framed my lofty verse:

Move not; but fain were we that one rehearse

By what strange fortunes to his death he came."

The elder crescent of the antique flame

Began to wave, as in the upper air

A flame is tempest-tortured, here and there

Tossing its angry height, and in its sound

As human speech it suddenly had found,

Rolled forth a voice of thunder, saying: "When,

The twelvemonth past in Circe's halls, again

I left Gaeta's strand (ere thither came

Aeneas, and had given it that name)

Not love of son, nor filial reverence,

Nor that affection that might recompense

The weary vigil of Penelope,

Could so far quench the hot desire in me

To prove more wonders of the teeming earth, -- -

Of human frailty and of manly worth.

In one small bark, and with the faithful band

That all awards had shared of Fortune's hand,

I launched once more upon the open main.

Both shores I visited as far as Spain, -- -

Sardinia, and Morocco, and what more

The midland sea upon its bosom wore.

The hour of our lives was growing late

When we arrived before that narrow strait

Where Hercules had set his bounds to show

That there Man's foot shall pause, and further none shall go.

Borne with the gale past Seville on the right,

And on the left now swept by Ceuta's site,

`Brothers,' I cried, `that into the far West

Through perils numberless are now addressed,

In this brief respite that our mortal sense

Yet hath, shrink not from new experience;

But sailing still against the setting sun,

Seek we new worlds where Man has never won

Before us. Ponder your proud destinies:

Born were ye not like brutes for swinish ease,

But virtue and high knowledge to pursue.'

My comrades with such zeal did I imbue

By these brief words, that scarcely could I then

Have turned them from their purpose; so again

We set out poop against the morning sky,

And made our oars as wings wherewith to fly

Into the Unknown. And ever from the right

Our course deflecting, in the balmy night

All southern stars we saw, and ours so low,

That scarce above the sea-marge it might show.

So five revolving periods the soft,

Pale light had robbed of Cynthia, and as oft

Replenished since our start, when far and dim

Over the misty ocean's utmost rim,

Rose a great mountain, that for very height

Passed any I had seen. Boundless delight

Filled us -- - alas, and quickly turned to dole:

For, springing from our scarce-discovered goal,

A whirlwind struck the ship; in circles three

It whirled us helpless in the eddying sea;

High on the fourth the fragile stern uprose,

The bow drove down, and, as Another chose,

Over our heads we heard the surging billows close."

Ariosto. Orlando Furioso, Canto X, 91-99

Ruggiero, to amaze the British host,

And wake more wonder in their wondering ranks,

The bridle of his winged courser loosed,

And clapped his spurs into the creature's flanks;

High in the air, even to the topmost banks

Of crudded cloud, uprose the flying horse,

And now above the Welsh, and now the Manx,

And now across the sea he shaped his course,

Till gleaming far below lay Erin's emerald shores.

There round Hibernia's fabled realm he coasted,

Where the old saint had left the holy cave,

Sought for the famous virtue that it boasted

To purge the sinful visitor and save.

Thence back returning over land and wave,

Ruggiero came where the blue currents flow,

The shores of Lesser Brittany to lave,

And, looking down while sailing to and fro,

He saw Angelica chained to the rock below.

'Twas on the Island of Complaint -- - well named,

For there to that inhospitable shore,

A savage people, cruel and untamed,

Brought the rich prize of many a hateful war.

To feed a monster that bestead them sore,

They of fair ladies those that loveliest shone,

Of tender maidens they the tenderest bore,

And, drowned in tears and making piteous moan,

Left for that ravening beast, chained on the rocks alone.

Thither transported by enchanter's art,

Angelica from dreams most innocent

(As the tale mentioned in another part)

Awoke, the victim for that sad event.

Beauty so rare, nor birth so excellent,

Nor tears that make sweet Beauty lovelier still,

Could turn that people from their harsh intent.

Alas, what temper is conceived so ill

But, Pity moving not, Love's soft enthralment will?

On the cold granite at the ocean's rim

These folk had chained her fast and gone their way;

Fresh in the softness of each delicate limb

The pity of their bruising violence lay.

Over her beauty, from the eye of day

To hide its pleading charms, no veil was thrown.

Only the fragments of the salt sea-spray

Rose from the churning of the waves, wind-blown,

To dash upon a whiteness creamier than their own.

Carved out of candid marble without flaw,

Or alabaster blemishless and rare,

Ruggiero might have fancied what he saw,

For statue-like it seemed, and fastened there

By craft of cunningest artificer;

Save in the wistful eyes Ruggiero thought

A teardrop gleamed, and with the rippling hair

The ocean breezes played as if they sought

In its loose depths to hide that which her hand might not.

Pity and wonder and awakening love

Strove in the bosom of the Moorish Knight.

Down from his soaring in the skies above

He urged the tenor of his courser's flight.

Fairer with every foot of lessening height

Shone the sweet prisoner. With tightening reins

He drew more nigh, and gently as he might:

"O lady, worthy only of the chains

With which his bounden slaves the God of Love constrains,

"And least for this or any ill designed,

Oh, what unnatural and perverted race

Could the sweet flesh with flushing stricture bind,

And leave to suffer in this cold embrace

That the warm arms so hunger to replace?"

Into the damsel's cheeks such color flew

As by the alchemy of ancient days

If whitest ivory should take the hue

Of coral where it blooms deep in the liquid blue.

Nor yet so tightly drawn the cruel chains

Clasped the slim ankles and the wounded hands,

But with soft, cringing attitudes in vain

She strove to shield her from that ardent glance.

So, clinging to the walls of some old manse,

The rose-vine strives to shield her tender flowers,

When the rude wind, as autumn weeks advance,

Beats on the walls and whirls about the towers

And spills at every blast her pride in piteous showers.

And first for choking sobs she might not speak,

And then, "Alas!" she cried, "ah, woe is me!"

And more had said in accents faint and weak,

Pleading for succor and sweet liberty.

But hark! across the wide ways of the sea

Rose of a sudden such a fierce affray

That any but the brave had turned to flee.

Ruggiero, turning, looked. To his dismay,

Lo, where the monster came to claim his quivering prey!

On a Theme in the Greek Anthology

Thy petals yet are closely curled,

      Rose of the world,

Around their scented, golden core;

Nor yet has Summer purpled o'er

Thy tender clusters that begin

      To swell within

The dewy vine-leaves' early screen

      Of sheltering green.

O hearts that are Love's helpless prey,

      While yet you may,

Fly, ere the shaft is on the string!

The fire that now is smouldering

Shall be the conflagration soon

      Whose paths are strewn

With torment of blanched lips and eyes

      That agonize.

After an Epigram of Clement Marot

The lad I was I longer now

Nor am nor shall be evermore.

Spring's lovely blossoms from my brow

Have shed their petals on the floor.

Thou, Love, hast been my lord, thy shrine

Above all gods' best served by me.

Dear Love, could life again be mine

How bettered should that service be!

Last Poems (1916)

The Aisne (1914-15)

We first saw fire on the tragic slopes

      Where the flood-tide of France's early gain,

Big with wrecked promise and abandoned hopes,

      Broke in a surf of blood along the Aisne.

The charge her heroes left us, we assumed,

      What, dying, they reconquered, we preserved,

In the chill trenches, harried, shelled, entombed,

      Winter came down on us, but no man swerved.

Winter came down on us. The low clouds, torn

      In the stark branches of the riven pines,

Blurred the white rockets that from dusk till morn

      Traced the wide curve of the close-grappling lines.

In rain, and fog that on the withered hill

      Froze before dawn, the lurking foe drew down;

Or light snows fell that made forlorner still

      The ravaged country and the ruined town;

Or the long clouds would end. Intensely fair,

      The winter constellations blazing forth -- -

Perseus, the Twins, Orion, the Great Bear -- -

      Gleamed on our bayonets pointing to the north.

And the lone sentinel would start and soar

      On wings of strong emotion as he knew

That kinship with the stars that only War

      Is great enough to lift man's spirit to.

And ever down the curving front, aglow

      With the pale rockets' intermittent light,

He heard, like distant thunder, growl and grow

      The rumble of far battles in the night, -- -

Rumors, reverberant, indistinct, remote,

      Borne from red fields whose martial names have won

The power to thrill like a far trumpet-note, -- -

      Vic, Vailly, Soupir, Hurtelise, Craonne . . .

Craonne, before thy cannon-swept plateau,

      Where like sere leaves lay strewn September's dead,

      I found for all dear things I forfeited

A recompense I would not now forego.

For that high fellowship was ours then

      With those who, championing another's good,

      More than dull Peace or its poor votaries could,

Taught us the dignity of being men.

There we drained deeper the deep cup of life,

      And on sublimer summits came to learn,

      After soft things, the terrible and stern,

After sweet Love, the majesty of Strife;

There where we faced under those frowning heights

      The blast that maims, the hurricane that kills;

      There where the watchlights on the winter hills

Flickered like balefire through inclement nights;

There where, firm links in the unyielding chain,

Where fell the long-planned blow and fell in vain -- -

      Hearts worthy of the honor and the trial,

We helped to hold the lines along the Aisne.