Yet when I heard your name the first far time It seemed like other names to me, and I Was all unconscious, as a dreaming river That nears at last its long predestined sea; And when you spoke to me, I did not know That to my life’s high altar came its priest. But now I know between my God and me You stand forever, nearer God than I, And in your hands with faith and utter joy I would that I could lay my woman’s soul.

Oh, my love To whom I cannot come with any gift Of body or of soul, I pass and go. But sometimes when you hear blown back to you My wistful, far-off singing touched with tears, Know that I sang for you alone to hear, And that I wondered if the wind would bring To him who tuned my heart its distant song. So might a woman who in loneliness Had borne a child, dreaming of days to come, Wonder if it would please its father’s eyes. But long before I ever heard your name, Always the undertone’s unchanging note In all my singing had prefigured you, Foretold you as a spark foretells a flame. Yet I was free as an untethered cloud In the great space between the sky and sea, And might have blown before the wind of joy Like a bright banner woven by the sun. I did not know the longing in the night— You who have waked me cannot give me sleep. All things in all the world can rest, but I, Even the smooth brief respite of a wave When it gives up its broken crown of foam, Even that little rest I may not have. And yet all quiet loves of friends, all joy In all the piercing beauty of the world I would give up—go blind forevermore, Rather than have God blot from out my soul Remembrance of your voice that said my name.

For us no starlight stilled the April fields, No birds awoke in darkling trees for us, Yet where we walked the city’s street that night Felt in our feet the singing fire of spring, And in our path we left a trail of light Soft as the phosphorescence of the sea When night submerges in the vessel’s wake A heaven of unborn evanescent stars.

 

VIGNETTES OVERSEAS

I

Off Gibraltar

BEYOND the sleepy hills of Spain,

The sun goes down in yellow mist, The sky is fresh with dewy stars

Above a sea of amethyst.

Yet in the city of my love

High noon burns all the heavens bare— For him the happiness of light,

For me a delicate despair.

 

II

Off Algiers

Oh give me neither love nor tears,

Nor dreams that sear the night with fire, Go lightly on your pilgrimage

Unburdened by desire.

Forget me for a month, a year,

But, oh, beloved, think of me When unexpected beauty burns

Like sudden sunlight on the sea.

 

III

Naples

Nisida and Prosida are laughing in the light, Capri is a dewy flower lifting into sight, Posilipo kneels and looks in the burnished sea, Naples crowds her million roofs close as close can be; Round about the mountain’s crest a flag of smoke is hung— Oh when God made Italy he was gay and young!

 

IV

Capri

When beauty grows too great to bear

How shall I ease me of its ache, For beauty more than bitterness

Makes the heart break.

Now while I watch the dreaming sea

With isles like flowers against her breast, Only one voice in all the world

Could give me rest.

 

V

Night Song at Amalfi

I asked the heaven of stars

What I should give my love— It answered me with silence,

Silence above.

I asked the darkened sea

Down where the fishers go— It answered me with silence,

Silence below.

Oh, I could give him weeping,

Or I could give him song— But how can I give silence My whole life long?

 

VI

Ruins of Paestum

On lowlands where the temples lie

The marsh-grass mingles with the flowers, Only the little songs of birds

Link the unbroken hours.

So in the end, above my heart

Once like the city wild and gay, The slow white stars will pass by night,

The swift brown birds by day.

 

VII

Rome

Oh for the rising moon

Over the roofs of Rome, And swallows in the dusk

Circling a darkened dome!

Oh for the measured dawns

That pass with folded wings— How can I let them go

With unremembered things?

 

VIII

Florence

The bells ring over the Anno,

Midnight, the long, long chime; Here in the quivering darkness

I am afraid of time.

Oh, gray bells cease your tolling,

Time takes too much from me, And yet to rock and river

He gives eternity.

 

IX

Villa Serbelloni, Bellaggio

The fountain shivers lightly in the rain,

The laurels drip, the fading roses fall, The marble satyr plays a mournful strain

That leaves the rainy fragrance musical.

Oh dripping laurel, Phoebus sacred tree,

Would that swift Daphne’s lot might come to me, Then would I still my soul and for an hour

Change to a laurel in the glancing shower.

 

X

Stresa

The moon grows out of the hills

A yellow flower, The lake is a dreamy bride

Who waits her hour.

Beauty has filled my heart,

It can hold no more, It is full, as the lake is full,

From shore to shore.

 

XI

Hamburg

The day that I come home,

What will you find to say,— Words as light as foam

With laughter light as spray?

Yet say what words you will

The day that I come home; I shall hear the whole deep ocean

Beating under the foam.

 

V

SAPPHO

 

SAPPHO

I

MIDNIGHT, and in the darkness not a sound, So, with hushed breathing, sleeps the autumn night; Only the white immortal stars shall know, Here in the house with the low-lintelled door, How, for the last time, I have lit the lamp. I think you are not wholly careless now, Walls that have sheltered me so many an hour, Bed that has brought me ecstasy and sleep, Floors that have borne me when a gale of joy Lifted my soul and made me half a god. Farewell! Across the threshold many feet Shall pass, but never Sappho’s feet again. Girls shall come in whom love has made aware Of all their swaying beauty—they shall sing, But never Sappho’s voice, like golden fire, Shall seek for heaven thru your echoing rafters. There shall be swallows bringing back the spring Over the long blue meadows of the sea, And south-wind playing on the reeds of rain, But never Sappho’s whisper in the night, Never her love-cry when the lover comes. Farewell! I close the door and make it fast.

The little street lies meek beneath the moon, Running, as rivers run, to meet the sea. I too go seaward and shall not return. Oh garlands on the doorposts that I pass, Woven of asters and of autumn leaves, I make a prayer for you: Cypris be kind, That every lover may be given love. I shall not hasten lest the paving stones Should echo with my sandals and awake Those who are warm beneath the cloak of sleep, Lest they should rise and see me and should say, “Whither goes Sappho lonely in the night?” Whither goes Sappho? Whither all men go, But they go driven, straining back with fear, And Sappho goes as lightly as a leaf Blown from brown autumn forests to the sea.

Here on the rock Zeus lifted from the waves, I shall await the waking of the dawn, Lying beneath the weight of dark as one Lies breathless, till the lover shall awake. And with the sun the sea shall cover me— I shall be less than the dissolving foam Murmuring and melting on the ebbing tide; I shall be less than spindrift, less than shells; And yet I shall be greater than the gods, For destiny no more can bow my soul As rain bows down the watch-fires on the hills. Yes, if my soul escape it shall aspire To the white heaven as flame that has its will. I go not bitterly, not dumb with pain, Not broken by the ache of love—I go As one grown tired lies down and hopes to sleep. Yet they shall say: “It was for Cercolas; She died because she could not bear her love.” They shall remember how we used to walk Here on the cliff beneath the oleanders In the long limpid twilight of the spring, Looking toward Lemnos, where the amber sky Was pierced with the faint arrow of a star. How should they know the wind of a new beauty Sweeping my soul had winnowed it with song? I have been glad tho’ love should come or go, Happy as trees that find a wind to sway them, Happy again when it has left them rest. Others shall say, “Grave Dica wrought her death. She would not lift her lips to take a kiss, Or ever lift her eyes to take a smile. She was a pool the winter paves with ice That the wild hunter in the hills must leave With thirst unslaked in the brief southward sun.” Ah Dica, it is not for thee I go; And not for Phaon, tho’ his ship lifts sail Here in the windless harbor for the south. Oh, darkling deities that guard the Nile, Watch over one whose gods are far away. Egypt, be kind to him, his eyes are deep— Yet they are wrong who say it was for him. How should they know that Sappho lived and died Faithful to love, not faithful to the lover, Never transfused and lost in what she loved, Never so wholly loving nor at peace. I asked for something greater than I found, And every time that love has made me weep, I have rejoiced that love could be so strong; For I have stood apart and watched my soul Caught in the gust of passion, as a bird With baffled wings against the dusty whirlwind Struggles and frees itself to find the sky. It is not for a single god I go; I have grown weary of the winds of heaven.