The heart until it bleeds, Ray-fringed eyelids of the morn
Roof not a glance so keen as thine : If aught of prophecy be mine, Thou wilt not live in vain.
Low-cowering shall the Sophist sit; Falsehood shall bare her plaited brow: Fair-fronted Truth shall droop not now With shrilling shafts of subtle wit. Nor martyr-flames nor trenchant swords Can do away that ancient lie:
A gentler death shall Falsehood die, Shot through and through with cunning words.
Weak Truth, a-leaning on her crutch, Wan, wasted Truth, in her utmost need, Thy kingly intellect shall feed,
Until she be an athlete bold, And weary with a finger's touch Those writhed limbs of lightning speed; Like that strange angel which of old, Until the breaking of the light, Wrestled with wandering Israel,
Past Yabbok brook the livelong night, And heaven's mazed signs stood still In the dim tract of Penuel.
THOU art not steeped in golden languors, No tranced summer calm is thine, Ever varying Madeline.
Through light and shadow thou dost range, Sudden glances, sweet and strange,
Delicious spites, and darling angers,
And airy forms of flitting change.
Smiling, frowning, evermore, Thou art perfect in love-lore. Revealings deep and clear are thine Of wealthy smiles: but who may know Whether smile or frown be fleeter? Whether smile or frown be sweeter, Who may know?
Frowns perfect-sweet along the brow Light-glooming over eyes divine, Like little clouds sun-fringed, are thine, Ever varying Madeline.
Thy smile and frown are not aloof From one another,
Each to each is dearest brother; Hues of the silken sheeny woof Momently shot into each other. All the mystery is thine; Smiling, frowning, evermore, Thou art perfect in love-lore, Ever varying Madeline.
A subtle, sudden flame, By veering passion fanned,
About thee breaks and dances When I would kiss thy hand, The flush of angered shame
O'erflows thy calmer glances, And o'er black brows drops down A sudden-curved frown:
But when I turn away, Thou, willing me to stay,
Wooest not, nor vainly wranglest, But, looking fixedly the while, All my bounding heart entanglest In a golden-netted smile; Then in madness and in bliss, If my lips should dare to kiss
Thy taper fingers amorously, Again thou blushest angerly; And o'er black brows drops down A sudden-curved frown.
WHEN cats run home and light is come, And dew is cold upon the ground, And the far-off stream is dumb, And the whirring sail goes round, And the whirring sail goes round; Alone and warming his five wits The white owl in the belfry sits.
When merry milkmaids click the latch, And rarely smells the new-mown hay, And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch Twice or thrice his roundelay, Twice or thrice his roundelay;
Alone and warming his five wits The white owl in the belfry sits.
TAY tuwhits are lulled, I wot, Thy tuwhoos of yesternight, Which upon the dark afloat, So took echo with delight, So took echo with delight, That her voice, untuneful grown, Wears all day a fainter tone.
I would mock thy chant anew; But I cannot mimic it; Not a whit of thy tuwhoo, Thee to woo to thy tuwhit, Thee to woo to thy tuwhit, With a lengthened loud halloo, Tuwhoo, tuwhit, tuwhit, tuwhoo-o-o.
WHEN the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free In the silken sail of infancy,
The tide of time flowed back with me, The forward-flowing tide of time; And many a sheeny summer-morn, Adown the Tigris I was borne, By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold, High-walled gardens green and old; True Mussulman was I and sworn, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Anight my shallop, rustling through The low and bloomed foliage, drove The fragrant, glistening deeps, and clove The citron-shadows in the blue: By garden porches on the brim, The costly doors flung open wide, Gold glittering through lamplight dim, And broidered sofas on each side: In sooth it was a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Often, where clear-stemmed platans guard The outlet, did I turn away
The boat-bead down a broad canal From the main river sluiced, where all The sloping of the moonlit sward Was damask-work, and deep inlay Of braided blooms unmown, which crept Adown to where the waters slept. A goodly place, a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.
A motion from the river won Ridged the smooth level, bearing on My shallop through the star-strown calm, Until another night in night
I entered, from the clearer light, Imbowered vaults of pillared palm, Imprisoning sweets, which, as they clomb Heavenward, were stayed beneath the dome Of hollow boughs. A goodly time, For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.
Still onward; and the clear canal Is rounded to as clear a lake. From the green rivage many a fall Of diamond rillets musical, Through little crystal arches low Down from the central fountain's flow Fallen silver-chiming, seemed to shake The sparkling flints beneath the prow. A goodly place, a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.
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