Collected Works (Vol. I)

THE TALE OF ARCHAIS O gardened rosc ! The fern-fronds gird thy fragrant beauty round, Thy ways are bound With petals that unclose When the sun seeks his way Through night and sleep and love to all the dreams of day. Love, sleep, and death ! The three that melt together, mingle so Man may not know The little change of breath (Caught sigh that love desires,) When love grows sleep, and sleep at last in death expires. © lamp of love! The hissing spray shall jet thee with desire And foaming fire, And fire from thee shall move Her spirit to devour, And fuse and mingle us in one transcendent hour. Godhead is less Than mortal love, the garland of the spheres, Than those sweet tears That yield no bitterness To the luxurious cries That love shrills out in death, that murmur when love dies. Love dies in vain. For breezes hasten from the summer south To touch his mouth And bid him rise again, Tul, ere the dawn-star’s breath, Love kisses into sleep, Sleep swoons away to Death. So Zeus in her sweet arms slept daintily Till the sun crept into the midmost sky, And his own curse came back to sleep with him. Through the noon’s haze the world was vast and dim, The streams and trees and air were shimmering With summer heat and earth’s cool vapouring, When, round his limbs entwined, a fiery snake Hissed in his frightened ear the call ‘‘ Awake.” And Zeus arisen strives vainly to release His valiant body from the coils, nor cease lis angry struggles in their cruel hoid. But all implacable, unyielding, cold, Their sinuous pressure on his breast and thighs, The white teeth sharp and ready otherwise In one fierce snap to slay. There hissed ‘‘ Beware ! Fear Charicles avenging, and despair !”’ And Zeus beheld the springe his foot was in, And, once more wise, being out of love, would win His freedom on good terms. — His liberty lor Charicles’ he bartered. Willingly The boy accepts, yet in his eye remains A tender woman-feeling, and his pains, And even Archais’ woes he did forget In the sweet Lethe, that his lips had set To their ripe brim, that he had drained. But now, Freedom regained, more manly grows the brow ; He is again the free, the bold, the lover! Far o’er the green his new-starred eyes dis- cover A kirtle glancing in the breeze, a foot That lightly dances, though the skies be mute Of music. Forth she flies, the distant dove, And calls the woodland birds to sing of love ; Forth leaps the stag and calls his mates; the stream Flashes a silver sunbeam, a gold gleam Of leaping laughter, that the fish may know The goodly tidings; all the woodlands glow With olive and pure silver and red gold, And all sweet nature’s marvels manifold Combine together in the twilight dim To harmonise in the thalamic hymn.