Poems. Arnold Matthew
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step so firm, its eye so bright,
Because on its hot brow there blows
A wind of promise and repose
From the far grave, to which it goes;
Because it has the hope to come,
One day, to harbor in the tomb?
Ah, no! the bliss youth dreams is one
For daylight, for the cheerful sun,
For feeling nerves and living breath;
Youth dreams a bliss on this side death.
It dreams a rest, if not more deep,
More grateful than this marble sleep;
It hears a voice within it tell—
Calm’s not life’s crown, though calm is well. ’Tis all, perhaps, which man acquires, But ’tis not what our youth desires.
A MEMORY-PICTURE.
Laugh, my friends, and without blame
Lightly quit what lightly came;
Rich to-morrow as to-day,
Spend as madly as you may!
I, with little land to stir,
Am the exacter laborer.
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!
Once I said, “A face is gone
If too hotly mused upon;
And our best impressions are
Those that do themselves repair.”
Many a face I so let flee—
Ah!-is faded utterly.
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!
Marguerite says, “As last year went,
So the coming year’ll be spent;
Some day next year, I shall be,
Entering heedless, kissed by thee.”
Ah, I hope! yet, once away,
What may chain us, who can say?
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!
Paint that lilac kerchief, bound
Her soft face, her hair around;
Tied under the archest chin
Mockery ever ambushed in.
Let the fluttering fringes streak
All her pale, sweet-rounded cheek.
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!
Paint that figure’s pliant grace
As she toward me leaned her face,
Half refused and half resigned,
Murmuring, “Art thou still unkind?”
Many a broken promise then
Was new made—to break again.
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!
Paint those eyes, so blue, so kind,
Eager tell-tales of her mind;
Paint, with their impetuous stress
Of inquiring tenderness,
Those frank eyes, where deep doth be
An angelic gravity.
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!
What! my friends, these feeble lines
Show, you say, my love declines?
To paint ill as I have done,
Proves forgetfulness begun?
Time’s gay minions, pleased you see,
Time, your master, governs me;
Pleased, you mock the fruitless cry—
“Quick, thy tablets, Memory!”
Ah, too true! Time’s current strong
Leaves us true to nothing long.
Yet, if little stays with man,
Ah, retain we all we can!
If the clear impression dies,
Ah, the dim remembrance prize!
Ere the parting hour go by,
Quick, thy tablets, Memory!
THE NEW SIRENS.
In the cedar-shadow sleeping,
Where cool grass and fragrant glooms
Late at eve had lured me, creeping
From your darkened palace rooms—
I, who in your train at morning
Strolled and sang with joyful mind,
Heard, in slumber, sounds of warning;
Saw the hoarse boughs labor in the wind.
Who are they, O pensive Graces,
(For I dreamed they wore your forms)
Who on shores and sea-washed places
Scoop the shelves and fret the storms?
Who, when ships are that way tending,
Troop across the flushing sands,
To all reefs and narrows wending,
With blown tresses, and with beckoning hands?
Yet I see, the howling levels
Of the deep are not your lair;
And your tragic-vaunted revels
Are less lonely than they were.
Like those kings with treasure steering
From the jewelled lands of dawn,
Troops, with gold and gifts, appearing,
Stream all day through your enchanted lawn.
And we too, from upland valleys,
Where some Muse with half-curved frown
Leans her ear to your mad sallies
Which the charmed winds never drown;
By faint music guided, ranging
The scared glens, we wandered on,
Left our awful laurels hanging,
And came heaped with myrtles to your throne.
From the dragon-wardered fountains
Where the springs of knowledge are,
From the watchers on the mountains,
And the bright and morning star;
We are exiles, we are falling,
We have lost them at your call—
O ye false ones, at your calling
Seeking ceiled chambers and a palace-hall!
Are the accents of your luring
More melodious than of yore?