The Book of Jade

To the Memory
of
Charles Baudelaire

Prelude

I am a little tired of all things mortal;
I see through half-shut eyelids languorous
The old monotonous
Gold sun set slowly through the western portal,
Where I recline upon my deep dîwân,
In Ispahân.

I am a little weary of the Persian
Girl that I lov’d; I am quite tir’d of love;
And I am weary of
The smoking censers, and the sweet diversion
Of stroking Leila’s jasmine-scented hair,
I thought so fair.

At last I think I am quite tired of beauty;
Why do the stars shine always in the sky?
I think if I might die,
Something more sweet, less tiring than the duty
Of kissing her, might be; I am tired of myrrh,
And kissing her.

Khaled, come, come, and slowly move the scented
Gold narghilé away; let the lyres cease.
And now a little peace!
For see, moon-faced Leila hath repented
Of singing Hafiz’ songs melodiously,
And languidly.

Surely all things are vain, and great thanksgiving
Is due not; surely all things now are vain;
And all my heart is fain
Of something, something, far too great for living;
Nothing is very sad, nor wonderful,
Nor beautiful.

Well now, since all things are not worth the winning,
Goodbye! With these I have a little play’d;
And once, alas, I pray’d
That gorgeous, golden sins be mine for sinning;
But now I would not leave my palanquin
For any sin.

And long ago I prov’d in great compassion
For man, that Brahm is not nor ever was;
But now, alas, alas
I would he were, that in the olden fashion
I might laugh once again ere all is said;
But Brahm is dead.

Then with philosophy I bor’d me duly;
And since I could not slumber all the time,
I, in sweet golden rhyme,
On white papyrus scented with patchouli
Wrote masterpieces starry-beautiful.
The earth was full.

So beauty wearied me; in order slowly
Love, Joy, and Victory came unto me;
I kiss’d them languidly;
And Virtue came, and Duty, stiff and holy;
To these I said—Pray come another day;
And turn’d away.

Now since of all I am a little weary,
And since on earth I must a while sojourn,
And since a while must burn
The censer of my long existence dreary,
All things shall walk, that own my mastery,
In luxury.

My Ennui shall in vestments falling lowly,
Stiff, purple, trailing, long, episcopal
Sweep through her palace hall,
Like to a consecrated bishop holy;
My Sin from golden goblets of Byzant
Shall drink absinthe.

And my gold-crowned wanton goddess Pleasure,
(My candles are all burning at her shrine)
Shall be made drunk with wine,
And walk unto the velvet-falling measure
Of golden-voiced, solemn-sounding shawms.
No rhyme for shawms.

All they that wait upon me in my glory,
My purple Pride, and my Luxuriousness,
And my Voluptuousness,
Shall show within their faces transitory
Something more subtile than all life can give,
While I shall live …

Ah, all is liv’d, all eaten, all is drunken!
Soul, is there anything now left for thee
Excepting sanctity?
Nay, ev’n we too have been in virtue sunken,
We have been holy priest, we have confess’d,
Said, Missa Est.

I have drunk out of heavy goblets golden,
As from some hellish tabernaculum
Cannabis, conium;
I know quite all the poisons, all the olden
Sins, all the ténébreux dark secrets hid,
And things forbid.

I have had all things unto mortals given,
I all the women, all the passion I,
All the satiety;
I have had all the pleasures known in heaven,
Paradisiacal, purpureal,
Exstatical.

With all the sciences I am acquainted,
Alas! I know quite all the languages,
All the philosophies,
Alas! and all the pictures that are painted,
And all the palac’d capitals that be
Have wearied me.

Alas, all art, all knowledge, and all passion
I have had: I have heard all the symphonies;
I have sail’d all the seas;
I have drain’d all life’s cup in languid fashion;
And I am come to Persiä again,
Land of cocagne.

Part I

Ashtoreth

In thy blue pallid gown that shimmereth
So pale thou standest in the wan moonlight,
Where the gold censer near thy body white
Wraps thee around with its perfumed breath;

So wan thy high tiara glimmereth
Above thy mystical far eyes of light,
Thou seemest some dead goddess of the night,
O starry love, O changeless Ashtoreth.

Pallid thou standest in thy divinity,
Like some moon-idol of the buried time,
Before whose face priests sing in solemn chime.

So I prostrate before thy deity,
Unto thy face have solemn praises sung,
And in my hands a golden censer swung.

Parfait Amour

It is not that thy face is fair
As dying sunsets are,
Nor that thy lovely eyelids wear
The splendour of a star;
’Tis the deep sadness of thine eyes
Hath my heart captive led,
And that within thy soul I prize
The calmness of the dead.

O holy love, O fair white face,
O sweet lost soul of thine!
Thy bosom is an altar-place,
Thy kisses holy wine;
Sweet incense offer’d for my bliss
Is thy corrupted breath,
And on thy stained lips I kiss
The holy lips of Death!

Wherefore because thy heart is all
Fill’d full of mournfulness,
And thy gold head as with a pall
Hung o’er with sinfulness;
Because thy soul is utterly
Sinful unto the core—
Therefore my heart is bound to thee,
Dear love, forevermore!

Opium

Naught is more sweet than gently to let dream
The pallid flower of life asleep alway;
Where the dim censer sends up far from day
Unceasingly its still-ascending stream,

O where the air winds its myrrh-scented steam
About thy naked body’s disarray,
Shall not today’s gold to thy shut eyes seem
Born and forgot in the dead ages gray?

Sunk from life’s mournful loud processional,
For thee shall not with high uplifted urn
The Night pour out dreams that awake and say,

—We were, O pallid maiden vesperal,
Before the world; we also in our turn
By the vain morning gold scatter’d away.

Sombre Sonnet

I love all sombre and autumnal things,
Regal and mournful and funereal,
Things strange and curious and majestical,
Whereto a solemn savor of death clings:

Coerulian serpents mark’d with azure rings;
Awful cathedrals where rich shadows fall;
Hoarse symphonies sepulchral as a pall;
Mad crimes adorn’d with bestial blazonings.

Therefore I love thee more than aught that dies,
Within whose subtile beauty slumbereth
The twain solemnity of life and death;

Therefore I sit beside thee far from day
And look into thy holy eyes alway,
Thy desolate eyes, thine unillumin’d eyes.

Languor

Although thy face be whiter than the dawn,
Fairer than aught the dawning hath descried,
Hast thou not now, O dear love deified,
Enough of kisses upon thy forehead wan?

The days and nights, like beads to pray upon,
Pass by before our eyes and not abide,
And so these things shall be till we have died,
Until our bodies to the earth are gone.

I think how pleasant such a thing must be,
That all thy lovely limbs should fall away,
And drop to nothing in their soft decay.

Then may thy buried body turn to me,
With new love on thy changed lips like fire,
And kiss me with a kiss that shall not tire.

Ennui

I sat in tall Gomorrah on a day,
Boring myself with solitude and dreams,
When, like strange priests, with sacerdotal tread,
The seven mortal sins, in rich array,

Came in and knelt: one old, and weak, and gray,
One that was shrouded like a person dead,
And one whose robes cast reddish-purple gleams
Upon her scornful face at peace alway.

They swung before me amschirs of strange gold,
And one most beautiful began to pray,
Dreamily garmented in pallid blue.

But I said only—I have dream’d of you.
Naught really is; all things are very old,
And very foolish. Please to go away.

Litany

All the authors that there are bore Me;
All the philosophies bore Me;
All the statues and all the temples bore Me;

—All the authors that there are bore Thee;
All the philosophies bore Thee;
All the statues and all the temples bore Thee.

All the women of the earth weary Me;
The fruit of the vine wearieth Me;
All the symphonies weary Me.

—All the women of the earth weary Thee;
The fruit of the vine wearieth Thee;
All the symphonies weary Thee.

Victory and defeat fatigue Me;
Gladness and sorrowing fatigue Me;
Life and death fatigue Me.

—Victory and defeat fatigue Thee;
Gladness and sorrowing fatigue Thee;
Life and death fatigue Thee.

The earth and the heavens weary Me;
The sun by day and the moon by night weary Me;
All the great stars of heaven weary Me.

—The earth and the heavens weary Thee;
The sun by day and the moon by night weary Thee;
All the great stars of heaven weary Thee.

The glorious company of the Apostles tireth Me;
The goodly fellowship of the Prophets tireth Me;
The noble army of Martyrs tireth Me.

—The glorious company of the Apostles tireth Thee
The goodly fellowship of the Prophets tireth Thee;
The noble army of Martyrs tireth Thee.

All the race of men weary Me;
The Cherubim and the Seraphim weary Me;
Myself wearieth Me.

—All the race of men weary Thee;
The Cherubim and the Seraphim weary Thee;
Thyself wearieth Thee.

Harvard

On His Twenty-First Year

Tired Muse, put faded roses on thy brow,
Put thy bare arms about the harp, and sing:
—I am a little bor’d with everything.
Past the clos’d jalousies the mlengkas go;

They are not beautiful; no Greek they know;
They go about and howl and make a fuss;
I gaze through sâd-shap’d eyelids languorous,
Far off from Ispahân where roses blow.

Professors sit on lofty stools upcurl’d,
Through Yankee noses drooling all day long;
I find all these things quite ridiculous.

Before despis’d old age comes over us,
Let us step into the great world ere long.
We shall be very grand in the great world!

Pride

They come and go, they pass before my soul,
Desire and Love, weak Anguish and Distress,
Shame and Despair: in phantom crowds they press,
Life’s poor processional, Time’s lowly dole.

Mournful their voices as slow bells that toll,
Voices of them that curse and do not bless;
Ineffable things wrapp’d round with loathsomeness,
The deeds that I have done in Fate’s control.

They leer and moan, they shriek and threat and lower,
Ignoble faces that the sky do mar;
My changeless soul from her high pride of power

Looks down unmov’d. So the calm evening star
Upon the wallowing peaceless sea looks down,
Set far aloft within the heaven’s crown.

Song of Golden Youth

Quelle bêtise! O Muse, no longer lappt in sadness let us lie,
Bring the jars of old Falernum, bring the roses ere they die!
I love laughter, I love kisses, I love Lili, I love love,
But these dingy funeral dirges ennuyer us by-and-by;
Fellows, disinvoltamente, when the lords of life depart,
Lift the wine-cup to your haughty lips, and sing, Goodbye, goodbye!
We have laughter on our lips, and in our hearts the laughing spring,
Nothing greatly can afflict us, nor our spirits mortify;
All the laws and regulations under scornful feet we tread,
We laugh loud at all the virtues underneath the shining sky;
I have heard, when haughty Tarquin did his horrid deed of sin,
That Lucretia’s lily fingers slapp’d his face vivaciously;
Though of all my life dear Lili make a gay dégringolade,
Yet to my ennuis doth Lili sing an endless lullaby;
We are Greeks and we are Tartars, we know all the languages,
To the girls of Persia, India, China, we know how to sigh;
If the heartless heart of Lili tediously cruel prove,
Go and dance the tarantella with the girls of Hôkusai!
In the golden-citied world from Paris unto Tokiô
We are quite at home, we saunter languidly through tall Shanghai;
Chairete! the shaw of rosy Persia is a gentleman,
Charming people in Benares where the Ganges loiters by;
Allah akbar! O great world, O golden-tower’d cities gay,
Into all your gates with laughter and with roses enter I!

Kalliste, your Persian ghazal cease to sing: the sun is low,
And the sacred hour of absinthe now is very very nigh.

Mais Moi Je Vis La Vie en Rouge

Your soul is like a purple flower,
Mary, whose eyes are amethyst,
Whose lips are like red wine when kist,
With sweet life and sweet death for dower;
There are who will have none of these,
Who walk in peace all day upright,
And in the night pray on their knees—
The pleasures of the life in white.

All cloth’d with virtues manifold
Are these—their souls are like white snow;
Fair love, around thy heart I know
My heart is bound with chains of gold.
Sweet youths whose life is in the spring,
The water is all wine they drink,
They sorrow not at anything—
The pleasures of the life in pink.

Your gold hair’s like an aureole,
Your lips are gold wine bought and sold,
Pure golden kisses bought for gold;
Each breast is like a golden bowl.
These things are for a scorn to those
That read great books both night and day,
That say, Joy dieth as the rose—
The pleasures of the life in gray.

Sweet youths, white ladies, scholars sour,
Rejoice, and hasten on your way;
Mary, whose skin is white as whey,
Your soul is like a purple flower.

Louanges d’Elle

—O Muse of mine that sittest orientally
With a green emerald snake about the waist of thee,
With henna-tinted feet, and almond eyes that dream,
Put down the opium-pipe of jade and ivory,
For she that is most fair is fain to hear thy song:
Awake, O Muse, and sing her praises solemnly,
That to the laughing heart of California
Hath added all the grace of France and Italy;
She who, to put to sleep my pitiless ennuis
Is come from distant Paris and from Varsovie;
Athens is in her heart, and Paris in her eyes,
Dear European angel from beyond the sea!

—There is no use to sing; she is not to be sung;
What mortal praise can come unto her glory near?
And she hath quite forgot her natal English tongue;
She is too far, too high, thy languid praise to hear,
Too delicate, too strange, too wicked, too divine,
Too heavenly, too sweet, too bad, too fair, too dear!
“N’est-elle pas l’oasis où tu rêves et la gourde
Où tu humes à longs traits le vin du souvenir?”

Hélas

—Why sittest thou, O Muse, in grief enfolden?
—Thou hast me promis’d jewels rich and rare
To wear within my hair;
And for my slaves the kings of kingdoms olden;

And to abide in lofty castles golden,
Because I am most fair.
And lo, I have no sandals for my feet,
And little bread to eat.

Of that far golden Irem I am dreaming,
Whence for few kisses I did follow thee;
Fair is that spot to see,

With far-off waving palms and towers gleaming;
Great deserts round that isle of blissful seeming
Lie stretching endlessly.

Sonnet

When I Contemplate How My State Is Low

When I contemplate how my state is low,
And how my pride that had the earth for throne
In this dark city sitteth all alone,
My heart is fain for death to end its woe;

Then when I think how all the great below
Had only sorrow and grief through all their days,
I, that with these shall some time stand in place,
My fortune like their bitter fortune know.

Among whom also holy Baudelaire,
Though unto him the loftiest lot was given
To hear the blessed muses sing in heaven,

Past his few days in anguish and despair;
Yet did he not bow down his mournful head
Until Peace found him in his glory dead.

So thou in this low lair,
Although in sorrow and grief thou dost remain,
Though of all things whereof thy soul was fain
Remaineth only pain,
Yet be not thou, O soul, disconsolate:
Forget not thou thy far-exalted state.

Sonnet

Be Not Cast Down My Heart, and Be Not Sad

Be not cast down my heart, and be not sad,
That thou like common men must sorrow know;
Not only they that live and die below,
But ev’n the gods thy supreme sorrow had;

Not unto Tammuz was this fortune given,
Not to know grief; whom starry Ashtoreth
Sought through the seven-gated realm of death,
Far from the great moon and the stars of heaven.

Osiris also could not but to die;
He reigneth king among the perisht dead;
And Christ, when his long grief was finished,

Hid his great glory in the lowly ground.
All these had sorrow, that were great and high;
These also were august, these also crown’d.

Rondeau

As shadows pass, in the misty night,
Over the wan and moonlit grass,
So passeth our glory out of sight,
As shadows pass.

A little darkness, a little light,
Sorrow and gladness, a weary mass,
Glimmer and falter and pass in blight.

So all our life, in waning flight,
Fadeth and faltereth, alas;
Passeth our sorrow and our delight,
As shadows pass.

Autumn Song

Weep, far autumnal skies,
Shrouded in misty air;
Weep, for thy solemn dearth,
And for thy chill despair,
Earth.

O stricken forest-trees,
Dead leaves that falter down
Solemnly to your sleep,
Golden, and red, and brown,
Weep.

Ballad

The lady rode ’neath the strange sky’s pall
Through the leafy woods funereal,
And all the length of her moonlit way
Was wanly white as the light of day;
Solemnly rob’d she rode along,
Unmindful of their droning throng
That throng’d her shadowy path, alas,
As though to see her funeral pass;
So through the mournful forest slow
Her palfrey’s silken feet did go,
Bearing her solemnly like a god
Over the shadow-haunted sod;
She laught to see the dead desire
That even now her life should tire,
She laught to think that to the earth
They call’d her that was full of mirth,
And though before her horse’s head
Throng’d the wan legions of the dead
Wanly attempting to stop her way,
She halted not for their legions gray,
But rode through the midnight’s mystic noon
Under the far gaze of the moon.
Then out from the dying woods at last
Into the moonlit plain she passt;
The misty stars were almost dead
Sunk in the heavens overhead,
While low down in the solemn skies
The white moon wan’d as one that dies.
Solemnly through the misty air
She rode with gold gems in her hair;
Bright were her holy eyes divine,
And red her lips as the red red wine.
At last in the unceasing night
Down from her palfrey she doth alight
By the strange murmuring of the sea;
She climbs the tall stair fearlessly,
And cometh at last to her chamber high
Beneath the wide face of the sky.
At last her journey being done,
She hath her golden stays undone,
And being a little wearied,
Hath laid her naked on her bed,
Thinking to slumber like the dead.

Changelessness

When Death shall touch thy body beautiful,
And thou that art of all the earth most fair
Shalt close thine eyes upon the shining air,
An unadorned gold urn to make full;

When that thou liest quietly inurn’d
In the dark bosom of the earth divine,
Being turned unto a heap of ashes fine,
For love of whose white face all men have burn’d;

Then in the earth, O beautiful white love,
Thy beauty shall not wholly end and cease,
When that thou art gone to endless peace;

Though all things beneath the sky above
Fade away, it knoweth not to die,
But abideth changeless endlessly.

Madonna

Anguish and Mourning are as gold to her;
She weareth Pain upon her as a gem,
And on her head Grief like a diadem;
And as with frankincense and tropic myrrh

Her face is fragrant made with utter Woe;
And on her purple gorgeous garment’s hem
Madness and Death and all the ways of them
Emblazoned in strange carousal show.

Within her delicate face are all things met,
And all the sad years and the dolorous days
Are but as jewels round her forehead set,

Add but a little glory to her face,
A little languor to her half-clos’d eyes,
That smile so strangely under the far skies.

Poppy Song

O poppy-buds, that in the golden air
Wave heavy hanging censers of delight,
Give me an anodyne for my despair;
O crimson poppy-blooms, O golden blight,
O careless drunken heavy poppy-flowers,
Make that the day for me be as the night.
Give me to lie down in your drowsy bowers,
That having breathed of your rich perfume,
My soul may have all-rest through all the hours;
So shall I lie within my little room,
While the poor tyrants of the world go by,
Restfully shrouded in your velvet gloom,
Beneath the wide face of the cloudless sky.

—Even so, when thou shalt eat of us,
Even so, thy life shall be a sleep,
Empty of all things fierce and piteous;
Even as a sailor on the tossing deep
Hears vaguely the vain tumult on the shore,
Shouts of the fighters, songs of them that reap.
Life is all vanity, a loathed sore,
A scatter’d dust, a vain and soiled heap.—
Thou shalt have golden rest forevermore.

O poppy-flowers, golden, sleepy, sweet,
O yellow tawny fading blooms of gold,
Give unto me your holy fruit to eat;
Make me forget all things above the mould;
Make me forget that dolorous vow that sears,
Not to be lesser than the great of old;
Make me forget the heavy old dead years,
And all that lives from out the writhing past,
Old struggles, dead ambitions, buried tears;
And that white face that I shall see the last.

—Sweet is forgetfulness, most sweet to lie,
Sunken from sorrow, in our pleasant vale,
Where but the sun shines, and the clouds go by;
Even as to them that through deep waters sail
The toiling shore fades and becomes a sky,
And evermore behind the billows fail.
Sweet to forget the death-like things that were,
Green pastures where the clouds sail by on high,
Dead sundawns over pathless prairies fair,
And suns long sunk beneath the wall of the sky.

Under the sun my spirit lies alone,
Drunken with slumber and mild exstasy …
Sleep, sweet sleep, long unto mine eyes unknown.
Drops on me as ripe fruit drops from a tree;
My dim eyes see the valley poppy-strown;
The clouds fade and the gold sun over me,
And the world’s murmur sounds within my lair
Like the far tossing of some infinite sea;
Within the heavy slumber-laden air
All fades, all fades, and grows afar afar,
Leaving my soul alone, empty of care,
Even as happy long-dead bodies are.
Even so I slumber in my tireless close,
While the whole world fades like a fading star,
Dies like the perfume of a dying rose.

Consolation

Among all sorrows that my heart hath known,
Among all sorrows that my spirit keep
Forever buried ’neath their mountains steep,
Standeth one consolation, one alone.

I know that earth shall be for death a throne,
And evermore within their burials deep
The banded nations of the earth shall sleep,
Sunken in sepulchres of sculptur’d stone.

Then all the world shall be a quietness:
Dead women beautiful with their delights;
All they that had such striving and distress,

And endless weariness in all the lands,
White faces, eager heart-strings, soiled hands;
And peace shall hold the valleys and the heights.

Liebes-Tod

Evening Song

Lo, all the passionate pale evening
I lay between the breasts of my beloved,
Among the lilies, in the lily garden.
The sky was pale, and all the sunset faded,
And all the stars I saw not in the heaven,
Because the glory of her face above me
I saw alone, wrapt in a dream of slumber;
And lo, she was more fair than all the lilies,
Among the lilies, in the lily garden.
And all her hair was golden chains to bind me,
And all her mouth was crimson fire to burn me,
And all the world became as wind before me,
But as the wind before her face that passes,
Among the lilies, in the lily garden.
And lo, her face was fairer than the stars are,
And lo, her breasts were whiter than the moon is,
Whiter than the moon, and tipp’d with crimson coral.
And low she bow’d her body, low before me,
And gave me of her joy unto fulfilling:
She bow’d her head whereto the stars do homage,
Before whose face the years wax dim and fading,
Before whose eyes the ages pass and vanish;
Bow’d her low down before me like a lily,
Among the lilies, in the lily garden.
And now at last I care not if the morning
Come at all, or the pale stars have setting,
Nay I care not if the whole world perish,
Perish and die, or if the white stars falter,
Nay I care not if the night forever
Hold me by her, and all things have ceasing;
Yea, because her lips are more than roses,
Yea, because her breasts are more than Heaven,
Yea, because her face is more than God is,
Among the lilies, in the lily garden.

Song of the Stars in Praise of Her

O starry light of the dim universe!
The night adoreth thee, the planets high
That reign far off within the desert sky
Praise thee as with the sound of dulcimers,
And all the temples of the night rehearse
Thy solemn glory everlastingly!

O thou for whom the moon’s pale-lighted star
And all the planets and the milky gleam,
But as a little of thy praising seem,
And the great lights that swim through heaven afar
But the reflection of thy glory are;
Thou only art; these are but shine and dream;

Thou art that light that doth the stars illume,
Thou art the glimmer of the moon divine;
All these are but the garment that is thine;
Thou art the wonder and the glow, the bloom,
Thou art the lonely lamp in night’s great gloom,
Thou art the skyey light, the starry shine.

Starlight is but the glory of thy face,
The shimmer of the silver planets pale
Is but the dim effulgence of thy veil;
And the great passing of the nights and days
Is all but as the perfume of thy praise.
O Holy, Holy, Holy, hail, O hail!

Aubade

The lady awoke before the cold gray dawn,
And had no joy thereof;
—What joy is mine of all the joy of love,
When love is gone?

Lo, all the air is strange unto mine eyes,
Lo, all the stars are dead;
Only the moon appeareth overhead
As one that dies.

Lo, all the garden lieth desolate,
And very strange to see,
Wherein, the roses and the grass for me
Blossom’d of late.

O rose-garden wherein my roses grew,
O odorous dim ways,
Why are ye strange to me as perish’d days,
And cold with dew?

Through the wide window creeps the cold sweet air,
Faint with sweet rose-perfume,
It stealeth o’er my body in the gloom,
And o’er my hair.

Surely I have drunk full of love’s delight,
But now my lips are cold,
While the pale day in silence doth behold
The dying night.

Remember

Remember, ye whom the skies delight,
Whose faces flame with the falling sun,
That after sunset cometh the night,
That sorrow followeth all delight,
When love, and lover, and lov’d are one.

O ye whose days are as sands that run,
One house there is unknown of delight,
One garden is there belov’d of none,
One place there is unseen of the sun,
Remember, ye whom the skies delight.

Song

She Hath Liv’d the Life of a Rose

She hath liv’d the life of a rose,
She that was fair,
Blown on by the summer air,
Grown tall in a golden close.

An ending is set to delight;
Now thou art as grass,
As the leaves, as the blossoms that pass,
Made pale at the touch of the night.

Song

Cometh a Day and a Night

Cometh a day and a night,
When the lamps of life burn dim,
When peace is secur’d for delight,
And poppies for the red-rose flower;
When the lamps of life burn dim,
Cometh a day and a night,
A day and a night and an hour.

Cometh the end of the years,
When the cheeks have the lilies’ bloom,
When slumber is given for tears,
And the breasts to the worm belong;
When the cheeks have the lilies’ bloom,
Cometh the end of the years,
As silence after the song.

Cometh a day and a night
For him to whom all is thrown,
Whose own is the bosom white,
Whose own are the lips of gold;
For him to whom all is thrown,
Cometh a day and a night,
To have and to own and to hold.

Constancy

Surely thy face, love, is a little pale,
And somewhat wan thy lips that were so red,
And though my kisses might raise up the dead,
To waken thy deep sleep they naught avail.

Before thy stillness some poor men might quail,
But I shall not desert thy holy bed,
Although thy passionate lips have no word said,
And thine adored breasts are cold like hail.

Thou art gone down to Death, thou art gone down,
And the dead things shall nestle in thy hair,
And the dust shall profane thy golden crown,

And the worms shall consume thy perfect face;
Even so: but Death shall bring thee no disgrace,
And to the stars I cry, Thou art most fair!

Requiem

White-rose perfume
Go with thee on thy way
Unto thy shaded tomb;
Low music fall
Lightly as autumn leaves
About thy solemn pall;
Faint incense rise
From many a censer swung
Above thy closed eyes;
And the sounds of them that pray
Make thy low bier an holy thing to be,
That all the beauty underneath the sun
Carries unto the clay.

Odour of musk and roses
Make sweet thy crimson lips
Whereon my soul hath gone to deep eclipse;
Poppies’ and violets’ scent
Be for thy burial lent
And every flower that sweetest smell discloses.
Upon thy breast,
Before which all my spirit hath bow’d down,
White lilies rest;
And for a crown upon thy mortal head
Be poppies red.

And for eternal peace
Be poppies strown upon thy holy eyes,
Till also these shall cease
Turning to that which man is when he dies.
And poppies on thine unassuaged mouth
Be strown, until death shall be done with thee,
Until the white worms shall be one with thee.

Autumn Burial

The moon shone full that night,
And fill’d with misty light
The solemn clouds hung white
Above her pall;
Waiting the golden dawn
The silent woods stood wan,
While through their aisles mov’d on
Her funeral.

Palely their torches flare,
While rob’d in white they bear
Her corpse that was most fair
Of them that die,
By sleeping forests tall
And woods funereal
Through the decaying fall
Beneath the sky.

The orbed moon looks down
Upon her golden crown,
From out the forest brown
The wood-things stare;
The holy stars behold
Her woven hair of gold,
And slumbering and cold
Her bosom bare.

The moon shines full o’erhead,
And they with bowed head
About her body dead
In silence stand;
There where no foot hath trod
They bury her with sod
Alone with only God
In all the land.

Tall forests stand around
About her grassy mound
And over all the ground
Lie shadows hoar.
She ’neath the passing moon
Sees not the shadows strewn
Sunk in her golden swoon
Forevermore.

Sonnet of Burial

Now that the earth thy buried corpse doth hold,
Now that thy soul that hath so much desired,
Is gone down to the places of the tired,
Far from the dawning and the star-light cold;

Thine eyes shall not again the sun behold;
Now shall thy body that all men hath fired
Have ceasing, and thy grave shall be admired,
That doth the fairest thing o’ the earth enfold.

Now that thine ashes are all buried,
And thou art gone to slumber with the blessed,
Thy buried body shall be no more distressed;

Being now number’d with the placid dead,
Thine eyes forever more have ceas’d from weeping,
For evermore thy spirit shall have sleeping.

Nocturne

Lo, how the moon, beloved,
Far in the heavens gleaming,
Over the ocean dreaming
Her pallid light doth throw;

Lo, where the endless ocean,
Where softly the night wind bloweth,
Into the darkness floweth,
Thither at last I go.

Listen, how sweet the ocean
Unto our spirits sigheth,
And lo, where our pinnace lieth
Awaiting, with sails unfurl’d;

Come thou with me, beloved,
Come thou with heart unquailing,
There where no ships come sailing,
Out of the dreary world.

Come thou with me, beloved,
Out of the world and its seeming,
Where all things are only dreaming,
And shadows all we know;

The heart hath not found its longing
Here, nor shall find it ever;
Behold of my life’s endeavour
Remaineth only woe.

Behold, my desire, my anguish,
Trouble and toil surpassing,
Are all but as shadows passing,
Shadows the fame thereof;

Here, where the heart attaineth
Not, what the heart desireth,
Where beauty too early tireth,
And kisses mean not love.

Here where what man hath desired,
He shall not find forever,
But ever and only ever
Unending vanity;

Not in this world, beloved,
My only longing hideth,
But in farther lands abideth
And over a wider sea.

There, when the spring shall blossom,
There, when the winter is vanisht,
My spirit that long was banisht
Shall come to its home, though late;

There in mine olden kingdom,
Where nothing is transitory,
I in exceeding glory
Shall hold mine ancient state.

Here let us leave our anguish,
Here at the hour of leaving,
Leave we our woe and grieving
Like garments long outworn;

Leave we our mortal sorrow,
Our longing and our repenting,
The anguish and the lamenting
That made our hearts to mourn.

Others may weep and anguish,
Others may talk of laughter,
And ever a little after
Sorrow is theirs the more;

But we two have done with laughter
And sadness that hath no reason,
We two in the springtime season
Push out from the weary shore.

Past are the storms of winter,
Past is the rainy weather,
Past are the snows, together
With sadness and sorrowing;

Past are the rains, beloved,
Past is the time of weeping,
And lo, o’er the green earth sleeping,
Laugheth the world-wide Spring!

Come thou with me, beloved,
O let us now be starting!
All things, at the hour of parting,
Shall be made new for thee;

Listen, how sweet the ocean
Unto our spirits calleth;
Softly the starlight falleth
Over the dreaming sea.

Fadeth the land, beloved,
That long hath our spirits tired,
Before us lies that desired
Far country, strange and new;

Far off lies that dream’d-of country
Eternally fair and blessed
Eternally undistressed,
Far over the ocean blue.

Knowst thou the land, beloved?
Year-long with gentle motion
There the unending ocean
Batheth the tropic shore;

There never storms blow loudly,
There never wet rain falleth,
There never loud wind calleth,
Nor stormy waters roar.

Fairer the stars that lighten
There, than to us is given,
There in a fairer heaven
Shineth a larger moon;

Fair stand the castles golden
There, and o’er stranger flowers
There through the long long hours
The wandering breezes swoon.

There in that land, beloved,
Is never a sound of living,
Never is heard thanksgiving
There, nor the noise of moan;

There naught is heard of sorrow,
And nothing is there begotten;
There, with all life forgotten,
We two shall come alone.

There, O my one beloved,
Through twilight never-closing,
We two shall sit reposing,
Forever, thou with me;

There ’neath the stars eternal,
We two shall sit, we only,
While from the heavens, lonely,
The moon sinks in the sea.