Grown old, and faded, Sweet! and past desire, Let memory die, lest there be too much ruth, Remembering the old, extinguished fire Of our divine, lost youth. O red pomegranate of thy perfect mouth! My lips' life-fruitage, might I taste and die Here in thy garden, where the scented south Wind chastens agony; Reap death from thy live lips in one long kiss, And look my last into thine eyes and rest: What sweets had life to me sweeter than this Swift dying on thy breast? Or, if that may not be, for Love's sake, Dear! Keep silence still, and dream that we shall lie, Red mouth to mouth, entwined, and always hear The south wind's melody, Here in thy garden, through the sighing boughs, Beyond the reach of time and chance and change, And bitter life and death, and broken vows, That sadden and estrange. SERAPHITA Come not before me now, O visionary face! Me tempest-tost, and borne along life's passionate sea; Troublous and dark and stormy though my passage be; Not here and now may we commingle or embrace, Lest the loud anguish of the waters should efface The bright illumination of thy memory, Which dominates the night; rest, far away from me, In the serenity of thine abiding place! But when the storm is highest, and the thunders blare, And sea and sky are riven, O moon of all my night! Stoop down but once in pity of my great despair, And let thine hand, though over late to help, alight But once upon my pale eyes and my drowning hair, Before the great waves conquer in the last vain fight. EPIGRAM Because I am idolatrous and have besought, With grievous supplication and consuming prayer, The admirable image that my dreams have wrought Out of her swan's neck and her dark, abundant hair: The jealous gods, who brook no worship save their own, Turned my live idol marble and her heart to stone. QUID NON SUPREMUS, AMANTES? Why is there in the least touch of her hands More grace than other women's lips bestow, If love is but a slave in fleshly bands Of flesh to flesh, wherever love may go? Why choose vain grief and heavy-hearted hours For her lost voice, and dear remembered hair, If love may cull his honey from all flowers, And girls grow thick as violets, everywhere? Nay! She is gone, and all things fall apart; Or she is cold, and vainly have we prayed; And broken is the summer's splendid heart, And hope within a deep, dark grave is laid. As man aspires and falls, yet a soul springs Out of his agony of flesh at last, So love that flesh enthralls, shall rise on wings Soul-centred, when the rule of flesh is past. Then, most High Love, or wreathed with myrtle sprays, Or crownless and forlorn, nor less a star, Thee may I serve and follow, all my days, Whose thorns are sweet as never roses are! CHANSON SANS PAROLES