Collected Works (Vol. III)

4 THE STAR AND THE GARTER Or be our lonely haunt the sand Of the Sahara: let us go Where some oasis, subtly planned For love, invites the afterglow ! There let us live alone, except Some bearded horseman, pennoned, ride Over the waste of ochre, swept By wind in waves, and sit beside Our tent a little, bring us news Of the great world we have lost for—this ! What fool exclaims—‘‘to lose!”? To lose ? Ay ! earth and heaven for one small kiss ! But he shall sing beside our fire The epic of the world’s desire; How Freedom fares, how Art yet revels Sane in the dance of dogs and devils. His thunder voice shall climb and crash, Scourge liars with tongue’s lightning lash, Through ranks of smitten tyrants drive, Till bosoms heave, and eyes outflash, And it is good to be alive. He shall ride off at dawn, and we Shall look upon our life again 3; You old, and all your beauty be Broken, and mine a broken brain. Yet we shall know; delighting still In the sole laughter death derides In vain; the indomitable will, Still burning in the spirit, guides Our hearts to truth ; we see, we know How foolish were the things he said, And answer in the afterglow How good it is that we are dead. Will you not come? Or, where the surf Beats on the coral, and the palm Sways slowly in the eternal calm Of spring, I know a mound of turf Good for our love to lie on; good For breezes, and for sun and shade ; To hear the murmur of the flood ; To taste the kava subtly made To rouse to Bacchic ecstasy, Since Dionysus silently Faded from Greece, now only smiles Amid the soft Hawaian isles; Good, above all the good, to keep Our bodies when we sleep the sleep. VIII, MAKE me a roseleaf with your mouth, And I will waft it through the air To some far garden of the South, The herald of our happening there! Fragrant, caressing, steals the breeze ; Curls into kisses on your lips :— I know interminable seas, Winged ardour of the stately ships, Space of incalculable blue And years enwreathed in one close crown, And glimmering laughters echoing you From reverend shades of bard’s renown :-— Nature alive and glad to hymn Your beauty, my delight: her God Weary, his old eyes sad and dim In his intolerable abode. All things that are, unknown and known, Bending in homage to your eyes ; We wander wondering, lift alone The world’s grey load of agonies. Make me a roseleaf with your mouth, That all the savour steal afar Unto the sad awaiting South, Where sits enthroned the answering Star. IX. WILL you not come: the unequal fever Of Paris hold our lives for ever? Were it not better to exceed The avenging thought, the unmeaning deed, Make one strong act at least? How small, How idiot our lives! These folk That think they live—which dares at all To act? The suicide that broke His chain, and lies so waxen pale In the Morgue to-day? Did he then fail? Ay, he was beaten. But to live, Slink on through what the world can give,