Poems. Arnold Matthew

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СКАЧАТЬ 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.

       Table of Contents

      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?

       Are those frail forms more enduring

       Than the charms Ulysses bore?

       That we sought you with rejoicings,

       Till at evening we descry

       At a pause of Siren voicings

       These vexed branches and this howling sky? …

      … … . …

      Oh, your pardon! The uncouthness

       Of that primal age is gone,

       And the skin of dazzling smoothness

       Screens not now a heart of stone.

       Love has flushed those cruel faces;

       And those slackened arms forego

       The delight of death-embraces,

       And yon whitening bone-mounds do not grow.

      “Ah!” you say; “the large appearance

       Of man’s labor is but vain,

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