Chapter XXX

A sun of passion is above;
Her home is here,—in cloudless eyes
She sees the birth-place of her love,
And snows dissolve in burning skies.
Palm-leaves above her seem to bow
When bridal roses wreathe her brow.

THE SIBYL

I

A maid who mindful of her playful time
Steps to her summer, bearing childhood on
To woman’s beauty, heedless of her prime:
The early day but not the pastime gone:
She is the Sibyl, uttering a doom
Out of her spotless bloom.

II

She is the Sibyl; seek not, then, her voice;—
A laugh, a song, a sorrow, but thy share,
With woes at hand for many who rejoice
That she shall utter; that shall many hear;
That warn all hearts who seek of her their fates,
Her love but one awaits.

III

She is the Sibyl; days that distant lie
Bend to the promise that her word shall give;
Already hath she eyes that prophesy,
For of her beauty shall all beauty live:
Unknown to her, in her slow opening bloom,
She turns the leaves of doom.

THE PAINTER

I

‘Summer has done her work,’ the painter cries,
And saunters down his garden by the shore.
‘The fig is cracked and dry; upon it lies,
In crystals, the sweet oozing of its core.
The peach melts in its dusk and yellow bloom,
Grapes cluster to the earth in diadems
Of dripping purple; from their slender stems,
’Mid paler leaves, the dark-green citrons loom.

II

‘Summer has done her work; she, lingering, sees
Her shady places glare: yet cooler grow
The breezes as they stir the sunny trees
Whose shaking twigs their ruby berries sow.
Ripe is the fairy-grass, we breathe its seeds,
But, hanging o’er the rocks that belt the shore,
Safe from the sea, above its bustling roar,
Here ripen, still, the blossom-swinging weeds.

III

‘Pale cressets on the summer waters shine,
No ripple there but flings its jet of fire.
Rich amber wrack still bronzing in the brine
Is tossed ashore in daylight to expire.
Here wallowing waves the rocky shoal enwreathe,
And in loose spray, cascades of bubbles fall,
And steeps of watery, coral-mantled wall
Drink of the billow, and the sunshine breathe.

IV

‘Summer has done her work, but mine remains.
How shall I shape these ever-murmuring waves,
How interweave these rumours and refrains,
These wind-tossed echoes of the listening caves?
The restless rocky roar, the billow’s splash,
And the all-hushing shingle—hark! it blends,
In open melody that never ends,
The drone, the cavern-whisper, and the clash.

V

‘And this wide ruin of a once new shore
Scooped by new waves to waves of solid rock,
Dark-shelving, white-veined, as if marbled o’er
By the fresh surf still trickling block to block!
O worn-out waves of night, long set aside—
The moulded storm in dead, contending rage,—
Like monster-breakers of a by-gone age!
And now the gentle waters o’er you ride.

VI

‘Can my hand darken in swift rings of flight
The air-path cut by the black sea-bird’s wings,
Then fill the dubious track with influent light,
While to my eyes the vanished vision clings?
While at their sudden whirr the billows start,
Can my hand hush the cymbal-sounding sea,
That breaks with louder roar its reverie
As those fast pinions into silence dart?

VII

‘Press on, ye summer waves, still gently swell,—
The rainbow’s parent-waters overrun!
Can my poor brush your snaky greenness tell,
Raising your sidelong bellies to the sun?
What touch can pour you in yon pool of blue
Circled with surging froth of liquid snow,
Which now dissolves to emerald, now below
Glazes the sunken rocks with umber hue?

VIII

‘Summer has done her work; dare I begin—
Painting a desert, though my pencil craves
To intertwine all tints with heaven akin?
Nature has flung her palette to the waves!
Then bid my eyes on cloudy landscape dwell,—
Not revel in thy blaze, O beauteous scene!
Between thy art and mine is nature’s screen,—
Transparent only to the soul,—farewell!

IX

‘Oh! could I paint thee with these ravished eyes,—
Catch in my hollow palm thy overflow,
Who broadcast fling’st away thy witcheries!
Yet would I not desponding turn and go.
Be it a feeble hand to thee I raise,
’Tis still the worship of the soul within:
Summer has done her work,—let mine begin,
Though as the grass it wither in thy blaze.’

THE SUN-WORSHIPPER

I

As a wild comet through the night she hies,
Her face bent towards the temple of the sun,
With golden hair that on the darkness lies
Like break of dawn when daylight, scarce begun,
Meanders into flame whose flashes run
Along the lower skies.

II

Soon as the sun lifts up the morning haze
She rushes towards him; sinks unto the ground
And, clasping the all-shining Presence, prays
In his first beams: again her god is found;
The startled shadows that her heart surround
Are dizzy in his rays.

III

‘Thee I adore, O Sun! this heart is thine!
The youth who blindly claims its ecstasy
Seeks not thy temple, honours not thy shrine;
He kneels not, utters not his vows to thee,
Who all the worlds beyond this world canst see,
And mak’st all things divine.’

IV

The sunflowers turn to heaven as still she kneels;
Shall then her heart its coming vow deplore?
Not uttered yet, all utterance it reveals,
And she restrains her ecstasy no more:
Her burning lips the hasty vow outpour
Which her heart-trouble seals.

V

‘Never, O Sun! till sinking in the west
Thou risest where thy wondrous setting spreads,
While all who love thee slumber in thy rest,
Shall he, who proudly in thy presence treads,
Enthrall me in the light his beauty sheds,
Or wed me to his breast!’

VI

Silence has tongues; she hears a sister say,
‘List to the voice of thy companion-mind!
Thy love is still the same as yesterday;
It has not passed, it only lags behind,
And thou art lonely as the wistful wind
Thou meet’st upon the way.’

VII

Yet she repeats her vow, her heart in pain,
To draw some love from heaven, as from the well
Whose radiant springs she once craved not in vain:
But ebbing hope allures her by its spell
To past despair, on other days to dwell,—
And suffer them again.

VIII

Across the hills of heliotrope she creeps,
Or winds within the many-shadowed wolds,
Till once again the sun her pathway sweeps,
And from her weary feet the way withholds;
The sacred flowers embrace her in their folds;
From dawn to dawn she sleeps.

IX

She sleeps; so still, not even her shadow veers,
Save when from side to side the moonflood roves;
But in sky-dreams the sun to her appears,
Yet with the visage of the one she loves;—
All through her sleep in phantom light he moves,
And still that face he bears.

X

She sleeps, and with the beaming of a bride
Beholds that face; ah! never to be wed!
Yet why a tear, no sorrow shall betide:
Though distant borne, his rays on her are shed;
Her soul, along his way of glory sped,
Shall in his light abide.