Chapter I: Front Matter

Lyrics

_From The Spring_ _of Botticelli._

“_Surely the very Spring here half afraid is:
Out of her bosom
Drops not a blossom.
Mutely she passes through._...”
]

Lyrics

Selected from the Works of
A. MARY F. ROBINSON
(Madame James Darmesteter)

CAMEO SERIES

FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
NEW YORK, MDCCCXCI ❧

_Contents._

[_The Lyrics hitherto unpublished are indicated by a star._]

MUSIC:—
PAGE
_Music_ 3
_A Pastoral of Parnassus_ 4
_Going South_ 7
_Spring Under Cypresses_ 8
_La Belle au Bois Dormant_ 10
_Dawn-Angels_ 13
_A Pastoral_ 14
_Paradise Fancies_ 15
_To a Dragon Fly_ 17
_Celia’s Home-Coming_ 19
_Posies_ 21
_Thanksgiving for Flowers_ 23
_Poplar Leaves_ 24
_A Rifiorita_ 25
_Le Roi Est Mort_ 26
_Lethe_ 27
_Sonnet_ 28
_Two Lovers_ 29
_Treasure Song_ 31
_Love, Death, and Art_ 32
_Friendship_ 33
_Wild Cherry Branches_ 35
* _The Springs of Fontana_ 38

ROSA ROSARUM:—
_Rosa Rosarum_ 43
_Florentine May_ 45
_Serenade_ 47
_Invocations_ 48
_Aubade Triste_ 49
_A Jonquil_ 50
_A Song_ 51
_Stornelli and Strambotti_ 52
_Tuscan Olives_ 54
_Apprehension_ 58
_Adam and Eve_ 60
_Love Without Wings_ 61
_Tuscan Cypress_ 65
_Arnold Von Winkelried_ 72
_Night_ 73
_Honour_ 74
_Semitones_ 75
_An Oasis_ 77
_Tuberoses_ 78
_In Affliction_ 81
_Remembrance_ 82
_Art and Life_ 83
_Temple Garlands_ 84
_Pallor_ 85
_Song_ 86
_Personality_ 87

STARS:—
_The Stars_ 91
_Etruscan Tombs_ 93
_Venetian Nocturne_ 97
* _The Dead Friend_ 98
_Sonnet_ 100
_Song_ 101
_A Classic Landscape_ 102
_Old Songs_ 104
* _Versailles_ 105
_Melancholia_ 106
_Under the Trees_ 107
_Fire-flies_ 109
_Spring_ 113
_Sacrifice_ 115
_Writing History_ 116
_The Alembic_ 117
_The Wall_ 118
_The Idea_ 119
_The Ideal_ 120
_God in a Heart_ 122
_Calais Beacon_ 124
* _The Mushrooms of the Mine_ 126
_An Orchard at Avignon_ 129
* _Twilight_ 131
_Darwinism_ 133
_Antiphon to the Holy Spirit_ 135
* _Epilogue_ 139

“_The earth we pace
Again appears to be
An unsubstantial faery place._”
WORDSWORTH.

Music.

_Music._

Before the dawn is yet the day
I lie and dream so deep,
So drowsy-deep I cannot say
If yet I wake or sleep.

But in my dream a tune there is,
And rings so fresh and sweet
That I would rather die than miss
The utmost end of it.

And yet I know not an it be
Some music in the lane,
Or but a song that rose with me
From sleep, to sink again.

And so, alas, and even so
I waste my life away;
Nor if the tune be real I know,
Or but a dream astray.

_A Pastoral of Parnassus._

“_Ma io perchè venirvi? O chi’l concede?_”

At morning dawn I left my sheep
And sought the mountains all aglow;
The shepherds said, “The way is steep:
Ah, do not go!”

I left my pastures fresh with rain,
My water-courses edged with bloom,
A larger breathing space to gain
And singing room.

Then of a reed I wrought a flute,
And as I went I sang and played.
But though I sang, my heart was mute
And sore afraid,

Because the great hill and the sky
Were full of glooms and glorious
Beyond all light or dark that I
Imagined thus.

My sense grew pure through love and fear;
I saw God burn in every briar.
Then sudden voices, strong and clear,
Flashed up like fire.

And turning where that music rang
I saw aloft, half out of sight,
The watching poets; and they sang
Through day and night.

And very sweet—ah, sweet indeed—
Their voices sounded high and deep.
I blew an echo on my reed
As one asleep.

I heard. My heart grew cold with dread,
For what would happen if they heard?
Would not these nightingales strike dead
Their mocking-bird?

Then from the mountain’s steepest crown,
Where white cliffs pierce the tender grass,
I saw an arm reach slowly down,
Heard some word pass.

“The end is come,” I thought, “and still
I am more happy, come what may,
To die upon Parnassus hill
Than live away.”

Then hands and faces luminous
And holy voices grew one flame—
“Come up, poor singer, and sing with us!”
They sang; I came.

So ended all my wandering;
This is the end and this is sweet,—
All night, all day, to listen and sing
Below their feet.

_Going South._

A little grey swallow,
I fled to the vales
Of the nightingales
And the haunts of Apollo.

Behind me lie the sheer white cliffs, the hollow
Green waves that break at home, the northern gales,
The oaks above the homesteads in the vales,
For all my home is far, and cannot follow.

O nightingale voices!
O lemons in flower!
O branches of laurel!

You all are here, but ah not here my choice is:
Fain would I pluck one pink-vein’d bloom of sorrel,
Or watch the wrens build in our hazel bower.

_Spring Under Cypresses._

Under the cypresses, here in the stony
Woods of the mountain, the Spring too is sunny:
Rare Spring and early,
Birds singing sparely,
Pale sea-green hellebore smelling of honey.

Desolate, bright, in the blue Lenten weather,
Cones of the cypresses sparkle together,
Shining brightly.
Loosely and lightly,
The winds lift the branches and stir them and feather.

Where the sun pierces, the sharp boulders glitter
Desolate, bright; and the white moths flitter
Pallidly over
The bells that cover
With faint-smelling green all the fragrant brown litter.

Down in the plain the sun ripens for hours—
Look! in the orchards a mist of pale flowers—
Past the rose-hedges
A-bloom to the edges,
A smoke of blue olives, a vision of towers!

Here only hellebore grows, only shade is;
Surely the very Spring here half afraid is:
Out of her bosom
Drops not a blossom,
Mutely she passes through—she and her ladies.

Mutely? Ah, no; for a pause, and thou hearest
One bird who sings alone—one bird, the dearest.
Nay, who shall name it,
Call it or claim it?
Such birds as sing at all sing here their clearest.

Ah, never dream that the brown meadow thrushes,
Finches, or happy larks sing in these hushes.
Only some poet
Of birds, flying to it,
Sings here alone, and is lost to the bushes.

_La Belle au Bois Dormant._

Down the enchanted Forest grey,
Hark, a dreamy note is borne!
’Tis the winding of a horn
Far away!
Boughs of oak and boughs of thorn
Stir and sway.

Yet the wood is haunted,
Silent many a year;
Only long-enchanted
Dreamers linger here.

’Tis a Forest thick and dim,
Overgrown and hoar indeed,
Hung with lichen, choked with weed,
To the brim.
Sleeps the knight and sleeps the steed
Under him.

Here the pale princesses
Lying on the green,
Pillow with their tresses
Their enchanted Queen.

Where the barren branches meet
Still they sleep, and none behold
Robes of dim brocaded gold,
Sandalled feet,
Languid arms and lips a-cold
Pale and sweet.

Here the wind is noiseless,
Here the fountain stops,
Hanging blank and voiceless
Her enchanted drops.

Hark, along the unwonted gale
Rings the winding of a horn;
Rings thro’ all a world forlorn
Glad Reveil.
Till the blossom studs the thorn,
Thick as hail.

Hark the awaken’d thrushes!
Lo! the deer awake,
Leaping from the rushes,
Through the windy brake.

Till beneath the flowering tree,
Novel music in her ears,
Lo, asleep a thousand years,

It is She!
Blow thy clarion, Spring; she hears!
She is free!

Break, O bower above her,
Briar and thorn divide.
Hark, the Eternal Lover
Calls the Enchanted Bride!

_Dawn-Angels._

All night I watched awake for morning,
At last the East grew all a-flame,
The birds for welcome sang, or warning,
And with their singing morning came.

Along the gold-green heavens drifted
Pale wandering souls that shun the light,
Whose cloudy pinions torn and rifted,
Had beat the bars of Heaven all night.

These clustered round the moon, but higher
A troop of shining spirits went,
Who were not made of wind or fire,
But some divine dream-element.

Some held the Light, while those remaining
Shook out their harvest-coloured wings
A faint unusual music raining
(Whose sound was Light) on earthly things.

They sang, and as a mighty river
Their voices washed the night away,
From East to West ran one white shiver,
And waxen strong their song was Day.

_A Pastoral._

It was Whit Sunday yesterday,
The neighbours met at church to pray;
But I remembered it was May
And went a-wandering far away.

I rested on a shady lawn,
Behind I heard green branches torn,
And through the gap there looked a Faun,
Green ivy hung from either horn.

We built ourselves a flowery house
With roof and walls of tangled boughs,
But while we sat and made carouse
The church bells drowned our songs and vows.

The light died out and left the sky,
We sighed and rose and said good-bye.
We had forgotten—He and I,
That he was dead, that I must die.

_Paradise Fancies._

I.

Through Paradise garden
A minstrel strays,
An old golden viol
For ever he plays.

Birds fly to his head,
Beasts lie at his feet,
For none of God’s angels
Make music so sweet.

And here, far from Zion
And lonely and mute,
I listen and long
For my heart is the lute.