As a low-lit flame in a wind, back-blown till it shudder and leap; Let her lips not again lay hold on my soul, nor her poisonous kisses, To consume it alive and divide from thy bosom, Our Lady of Sleep. Ah daughter of sunset and slumber, if now it return into prison, Who shall redeem it anew? but we, if thou wilt, let us fly; Let us take to us, now that the white skies thrill with a moon unarisen, Swift horses of fear or of love, take flight and depart and not die. They are swifter than dreams, they are stronger than death; there is none that hath ridden, None that shall ride in the dim strange ways of his life as we ride; By the meadows of memory, the highlands of hope, and the shore that is hidden, Where life breaks loud and unseen, a sonorous invisible tide; By the sands where sorrow has trodden, the salt pools bitter and sterile, By the thundering reef and the low sea-wall and the channel of years, Our wild steeds press on the night, strain hard through pleasure and peril, Labour and listen and pant not or pause for the peril that nears; And the sound of them trampling the way cleaves night as an arrow asunder, And slow by the sand-hill and swift by the down with its glimpses of grass, Sudden and steady the music, as eight hoofs trample and thunder, Rings in the ear of the low blind wind of the night as we pass; Shrill shrieks in our faces the blind bland air that was mute as a maiden, Stung into storm by the speed of our passage, and deaf where we past; And our spirits too burn as we bound, thine holy but mine heavy-laden, As we burn with the fire of our flight; ah love, shall we win at the last? LOVE AT SEA We are in love's land to-day; Where shall we go? Love, shall we start or stay, Or sail or row? There's many a wind and way, And never a May but May; We are in love's hand to-day; Where shall we go? Our landwind is the breath Of sorrows kissed to death And joys that were; Our ballast is a rose; Our way lies where God knows And love knows where. We are in love's hand to-day-- Our seamen are fledged Loves, Our masts are bills of doves, Our decks fine gold; Our ropes are dead maids' hair, Our stores are love-shafts fair And manifold. We are in love's land to-day-- Where shall we land you, sweet? On fields of strange men's feet, Or fields near home? Or where the fire-flowers blow, Or where the flowers of snow Or flowers of foam? We are in love's hand to-day-- Land me, she says, where love Shows but one shaft, one dove, One heart, one hand. --A shore like that, my dear, Lies where no man will steer, No maiden land. _Imitated from Théophile Gautier._ APRIL FROM THE FRENCH OF THE VIDAME DE CHARTRES 12--?