What's life, what's life, little heart? To beat and be glad of breath
While death waits on either side,-before and behind us,
THE GARDEN OF PROSERPINE
HERE, where the world is quiet, Here, where all trouble seems Dead winds' and spent waves' riot In doubtful dreams of dreams, I watch the green field growing For reaping folk and sowing, For harvest-time and mowing, A sleepy world of streams.
I am tired of tears and laughter, And men that laugh and weep; Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap: I am weary of days and hours, Blown buds of barren flowers, Desires and dreams and powers, And everything but sleep.
Here life has death for neighbor, And far from eye or ear Wan waves and wet winds labor, Weak ships and spirits steer; They drive adrift, and whither They wot not who make thither; But no such winds blow hither, And no such things grow here.
No growth of moor or coppice, No heather-flower or vine, But bloomless buds of poppies, Green grapes of Proserpine,
Pale beds of blowing rushes, Where no leaf blooms or blushes Save this whereout she crushes For dead men deadly wine.
Pale, without name or number, In fruitless fields of corn, They bow themselves and slumber All night till light is born; And like a soul belated, In hell and heaven unmated, By cloud and mist abated
Comes out of darkness morn.
Though one were strong as seven, He too with death shall dwell, Nor wake with wings in heaven, Nor weep for pains in hell; Though one were fair as roses, His beauty clouds and closes; And well though love reposes,
In the end it is not well.
Pale, beyond porch and portal,
Crowned with calm leaves, she stands
Who gathers all things mortal
With cold immortal hands;
Her languid lips are sweeter
Than Love's, who fears to greet her, To men that mix and meet her From many times and lands.
She waits for each and other, She waits for all men born; Forgets the earth her mother,
'The life of fruits and corn; And spring and seed and swallow Take wing for her and follow Where summer song rings hollow
And flowers are put to scorn.
There go the loves that wither, The old loves with wearier wings; And all dead years draw thither, And all disastrous things; Dead dreams of days forsaken, Blind buds that snows have shaken, Wild leaves that winds have taken, Red strays of ruined springs.
We are not sure of sorrow, And joy was never sure; To-day will die to-morrow;
Time stoops to no man's lure; And Love, grown faint and fretful, With lips but half regretful Sighs, and with eyes forgetful
Weeps that no loves endure.
From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be,
That no life lives forever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea.
Then star nor sun shall waken, Nor any change of light: Nor sound of waters shaken, Nor any sound or sight: Nor wintry leaves nor vernal, Nor days nor things diurnal; Only the sleep eternal
In an eternal night.
Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]
BENEATH the softly falling snow,
The wood whose shy anemones We plucked such little while ago Becomes a wood of Christmas trees.
Our paths of rustling silken grass Will soon be ermine bands of white Spotted with tiny steps that pass On silent errands in the night.
The river will be locked in hush, But frosted like a fairy lawn With knots of crystal flowers that flush By moonlight, blanching in the dawn.
Flown are our minstrels, golden-wing And rosy-breast and ruby-throat,
But all the pines are murmuring
A sweet, orchestral under-note.
So trustfully our hands we lay
Within the old, kind hands of Time,
Who holds on his mysterious way
From rime to bloom, from bloom to rime,
And lets us run beside his knee
O'er rough and smooth, and touch his load,
And play we bear the burden, we,
And revel in the changing road.
Till ivory dawn and purple noon And dove-gray eve have one by one Traced on the skies their ancient rune, And all our little strength is done.
Then Time shall lift a starry torch In signal to his gentle Twin, Who, stooping from a shining porch, Gathers the drowsy children in.
I wonder if, through that strange sleep, Unstirred by clock or silver chime, Our dreams will not the cadence keep Of those unresting feet of Time,
And follow on his beauteous path
From snow to flowers, from flowers to snow,
And marvel what high charge he hath,
Whither the fearless footsteps go.
Katharine Lee Bates [1859
THE GREAT MISGIVING
"NOT ours," say some, "the thought of death to dread; Asking no heaven, we fear no fabled hell: Life is a feast, and we have banqueted— Shall not the worms as well?
"The after-silence, when the feast is o'er, And void the places where the minstrels stood, Differs in naught from what hath been before, And is nor ill nor good."
Ah, but the Apparition-the dumb sign- The beckoning finger bidding me forgo The fellowship, the converse, and the wine, The songs, the festal glow!
And ah, to know not, while with friends I sit, And while the purple joy is passed about, Whether 'tis ampler day divinelier lit
Or homeless night without;
And whether, stepping forth, my soul shall see New prospects, or fall sheer—a blinded thing! There is, O grave, thy hourly victory,
And there, O death, thy sting.
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