Collected Works (Vol. I)

10 THE TALE OF ARCHAIS Ere the crimson lips have planted Paler roses, warmer grapes, Ere the maiden breasts have panted, And the sunny shapes F lit around to bless the hour, Comes men know not what false flower : Ere the cup is drained, the wine Grows unsweet, that was divine. All the subtle airs are proven False at dewfall, at the dawn Sin and sorrow, interwoven, Like a veil are drawn Over love and all delight; Grey desires invade the white. Love and life are but a span ; Woe is me! and woe is man! The sound stood trembling in the forest dim Lingering a little, yet there taketh him A strong man’s one short moment of despair. He fell, the last of Titans, his loose hair Tangled in roses ; while his heart and mind Broken and yet imperishable, blind, Hateful, desire they know not what, and turn Lastly to pray for death ; his wild eyes burn, And bitter tears divide his doubtful breath. So grew his anguish to accomplish death, Had not the goddess with the rosy shoon Stoop’d o’er the silver surface of the moon To touch his brow with slumber, like a kiss Whose dreams perfused the name of Archais, Till the sweet odour dulled his brain, and sleep Loosened his limbs, most dreamless and most deep. The mosses serve .him for a bed ; the trees Wave in the moonlight, daughters of the breeze ; Hardly the pleasant waters seem to shake, And only nightingales, for slumber’s sake, Lull the soft stars and seas, and matchless music make. And now the sun is risen above the deep ; The mists pass slowly on the uplands steep ; Far snows are luminous with rosy flecks Of lambent light, and shadow tints and decks Their distant hollows with black radiance, While the delivered fountains flash and glance Adown the hills and through the woods of pine And stately larch, with cadences divine And trills and melodies instinct with light and wine. The sun, arising, sees the sleeping youth And lumes his locks with evanescent gold, While birds and breezes, watching, hold them mute, And light and silence, the twin-born oftruth, Reign o’er the meadow, and possess the wold. The poet bows his head, and lays aside his lute. ParRT ITI. WHEN God bethought [im, and the world began, IIe made moist clay, and breathed on it, that man Might be ost frail and feeble, and like earth Shrink at Death's finger from the hour of birth ; And like the sea by limits of pale sand Be utterly confined; but so He planned To vivify the body with the soul, That fire and air were wedded to control The heavy bulk beneath them, so His breath Touched the warm clay and violated death, Gave to the spirit wings and hade it rise To seek its Maker with aspiring eyes, Gave to the body strength to hold awhile The spirit, till the passions that defile Should waste and wither, and the free soul soar. But evil lusted with the soul, and bore A thousand children deadlier than death ; The sin that enters with the eager breath Of perfect love ; the sin that seeks its home In lights and longings frailer than the foam ; The sin that loves the hollows of the night, The sin that fears; the sin that hates the light ; The sin that looks with wistful eyes ; the sin That trembles on the olive of the skin;