Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.
Edward Robert Bulwer Lytton, Earl of Lytton. 18311892794. A Night in Italy
SWEET are the rosy memories of the lips | |
That first kiss’d ours, albeit they kiss no more: | |
Sweet is the sight of sunset-sailing ships, | |
Altho’ they leave us on a lonely shore: | |
Sweet are familiar songs, tho’ Music dips | 5 |
Her hollow shell in Thought’s forlornest wells: | |
And sweet, tho’ sad, the sound of midnight bells | |
When the oped casement with the night-rain drips. | |
There is a pleasure which is born of pain: | |
The grave of all things hath its violet. | 10 |
Else why, thro’ days which never come again, | |
Roams Hope with that strange longing, like Regret? | |
Why put the posy in the cold dead hand? | |
Why plant the rose above the lonely grave? | |
Why bring the corpse across the salt sea-wave? | 15 |
Why deem the dead more near in native land? | |
Thy name hath been a silence in my life | |
So long, it falters upon language now, | |
O more to me than sister or than wife | |
Once … and now—nothing! It is hard to know | 20 |
That such things have been, and are not; and yet | |
Life loiters, keeps a pulse at even measure, | |
And goes upon its business and its pleasure, | |
And knows not all the depths of its regret…. | |
Ah, could the memory cast her spots, as do | 25 |
The snake’s brood theirs in spring! and be once more | |
Wholly renew’d, to dwell i’ the time that ‘s new, | |
With no reiterance of those pangs of yore. | |
Peace, peace! My wild song will go wandering | |
Too wantonly, down paths a private pain | 30 |
Hath trodden bare. What was it jarr’d the strain? | |
Some crush’d illusion, left with crumpled wing | |
Tangled in Music’s web of twinèd strings— | |
That started that false note, and crack’d the tune | |
In its beginning. Ah, forgotten things | 35 |
Stumble back strangely! and the ghost of June | |
Stands by December’s fire, cold, cold! and puts | |
The last spark out.—How could I sing aright | |
With those old airs haunting me all the night | |
And those old steps that sound when daylight shuts? | 40 |
For back she comes, and moves reproachfully, | |
The mistress of my moods, and looks bereft | |
(Cruel to the last!) as tho’ ’twere I, not she, | |
That did the wrong, and broke the spell, and left | |
Memory comfortless.—Away! away! | 45 |
Phantoms, about whose brows the bindweed clings, | |
Hopeless regret! In thinking of these things | |
Some men have lost their minds, and others may. | |
Yet, O for one deep draught in this dull hour! | |
One deep, deep draught of the departed time! | 50 |
O for one brief strong pulse of ancient power, | |
To beat and breathe thro’ all the valves of rhyme! | |
Thou, Memory, with thy downward eyes, that art | |
The cup-bearer of gods, pour deep and long, | |
Brim all the vacant chalices of song | 55 |
With health! Droop down thine urn. I hold my heart | |
One draught of what I shall not taste again | |
Save when my brain with thy dark wine is brimm’d,— | |
One draught! and then straight onward, spite of pain, | |
And spite of all things changed, with gaze undimm’d, | 60 |
Love’s footsteps thro’ the waning Past to explore | |
Undaunted; and to carve in the wan light | |
Of Hope’s last outposts, on Song’s utmost height, | |
The sad resemblance of an hour or more. | |
Midnight, and love, and youth, and Italy! | 65 |
Love in the land where love most lovely seems! | |
Land of my love, tho’ I be far from thee, | |
Lend, for love’s sake, the light of thy moonbeams, | |
The spirit of thy cypress-groves and all | |
Thy dark-eyed beauty for a little while | 70 |
To my desire. Yet once more let her smile | |
Fall o’er me: o’er me let her long hair fall…. | |
Under the blessèd darkness unreproved | |
We were alone, in that best hour of time | |
Which first reveal’d to us how much we loved, | 75 |
‘Neath the thick starlight. The young night sublime | |
Hung trembling o’er us. At her feet I knelt, | |
And gazed up from her feet into her eyes. | |
Her face was bow’d: we breathed each other’s sighs: | |
We did not speak: not move: we look’d: we felt. | 80 |
The night said not a word. The breeze was dead. | |
The leaf lay without whispering on the tree, | |
As I lay at her feet. Droop’d was her head: | |
One hand in mine: and one still pensively | |
Went wandering through my hair. We were together. | 85 |
How? Where? What matter? Somewhere in a dream, | |
Drifting, slow drifting down a wizard stream: | |
Whither? Together: then what matter whither? | |
It was enough for me to clasp her hand: | |
To blend with her love-looks my own: no more. | 90 |
Enough (with thoughts like ships that cannot land, | |
Blown by faint winds about a magic shore) | |
To realize, in each mysterious feeling, | |
The droop of the warm cheek so near my own: | |
The cool white arm about my shoulder thrown: | 95 |
Those exquisite fair feet where I was kneeling. | |
How little know they life’s divinest bliss, | |
That know not to possess and yet refrain! | |
Let the young Psyche roam, a fleeting kiss: | |
Grasp it—a few poor grains of dust remain. | 100 |
See how those floating flowers, the butterflies, | |
Hover the garden thro’, and take no root! | |
Desire for ever hath a flying foot: | |
Free pleasure comes and goes beneath the skies. | |
Close not thy hand upon the innocent joy | 105 |
That trusts itself within thy reach. It may, | |
Or may not, linger. Thou canst but destroy | |
The wingèd wanderer. Let it go or stay. | |
Love thou the rose, yet leave it on its stem. | |
Think! Midas starved by turning all to gold. | 110 |
Blessèd are those that spare, and that withhold; | |
Because the whole world shall be trusted them. | |
The foolish Faun pursues the unwilling Nymph | |
That culls her flowers beside the precipice | |
Or dips her shining ankles in the lymph: | 115 |
But, just when she must perish or be his, | |
Heaven puts an arm out. She is safe. The shore | |
Gains some new fountain; or the lilied lawn | |
A rarer sort of rose: but ah, poor Faun! | |
To thee she shall be changed for evermore. | 120 |
Chase not too close the fading rapture. Leave | |
To Love his long auroras, slowly seen. | |
Be ready to release as to receive. | |
Deem those the nearest, soul to soul, between | |
Whose lips yet lingers reverence on a sigh. | 125 |
Judge what thy sense can reach not, most thine own, | |
If once thy soul hath seized it. The unknown | |
Is life to love, religion, poetry. | |
The moon had set. There was not any light, | |
Save of the lonely legion’d watch-stars pale | 130 |
In outer air, and what by fits made bright | |
Hot oleanders in a rosy vale | |
Search’d by the lamping fly, whose little spark | |
Went in and out, like passion’s bashful hope. | |
Meanwhile the sleepy globe began to slope | 135 |
A ponderous shoulder sunward thro’ the dark. | |
And the night pass’d in beauty like a dream. | |
Aloof in those dark heavens paused Destiny, | |
With her last star descending in the gleam | |
Of the cold morrow, from the emptied sky. | 140 |
The hour, the distance from her old self, all | |
The novelty and loneness of the place | |
Had left a lovely awe on that fair face, | |
And all the land grew strange and magical. | |
As droops some billowy cloud to the crouch’d hill, | 145 |
Heavy with all heaven’s tears, for all earth’s care, | |
She droop’d unto me, without force or will, | |
And sank upon my bosom, murmuring there | |
A woman’s inarticulate passionate words. | |
O moment of all moments upon earth! | 150 |
O life’s supreme! How worth, how wildly worth, | |
Whole worlds of flame, to know this world affords. | |
What even Eternity can not restore! | |
When all the ends of life take hands and meet | |
Round centres of sweet fire. Ah, never more, | 155 |
Ah never, shall the bitter with the sweet | |
Be mingled so in the pale after-years! | |
One hour of life immortal spirits possess. | |
This drains the world, and leaves but weariness, | |
And parching passion, and perplexing tears. | 160 |
Sad is it, that we cannot even keep | |
That hour to sweeten life’s last toil: but Youth | |
Grasps all, and leaves us: and when we would weep, | |
We dare not let our tears fall, lest, in truth, | |
They fall upon our work which must be done. | 165 |
And so we bind up our torn hearts from breaking: | |
Our eyes from weeping, and our brows from aching: | |
And follow the long pathway all alone. |