Read Ebook: Robert Louis Stevenson an Elegy; and Other Poems by Le Gallienne Richard

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COR CORDIUM

O GOLDEN DAY! O SILVER NIGHT! LOVE'S EXCHANGE TO A SIMPLE HOUSEWIFE LOVE'S WISDOM HOME LOVE'S LANDMARKS IF, AFTER ALL...! SPIRIT OF SADNESS AN INSCRIPTION SONG

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

AN ELEGY

High on his Patmos of the Southern Seas Our northern dreamer sleeps, Strange stars above him, and above his grave Strange leaves and wings their tropic splendours wave, While, far beneath, mile after shimmering mile, The great Pacific, with its faery deeps, Smiles all day long its silken secret smile.

Son of a race nomadic, finding still Its home in regions furthest from its home, Ranging untired the borders of the world, And resting but to roam; Loved of his land, and making all his boast The birthright of the blood from which he came, Heir to those lights that guard the Scottish coast, And caring only for a filial fame; Proud, if a poet, he was Scotsman most, And bore a Scottish name.

Death, that long sought our poet, finds at last, Death, that pursued him over land and sea: Not his the flight of fear, the heart aghast With stony dread of immortality, He fled 'not cowardly'; Fled, as some captain, in whose shaping hand Lie the momentous fortunes of his land, Sheds not vainglorious blood upon the field, Death! why at last he finds his treasure isle, And he the pirate of its hidden hoard; Life! 'twas the ship he sailed to seek it in, And Death is but the pilot come aboard, Methinks I see him smile a boy's glad smile On maddened winds and waters, reefs unknown, As thunders in the sail the dread typhoon, And in the surf the shuddering timbers groan; Horror ahead, and Death beside the wheel: Then--spreading stillness of the broad lagoon, And lap of waters round the resting keel.

Strange Isle of Voices! must we ask in vain, In vain beseech and win no answering word, Save mocking echoes of our lonely pain From lonely hill and bird? Island beneath whose unrelenting coast, As though it never in the sun had been, The whole world's treasure lieth sunk and lost, Unsunned, unseen. For, either sunk beyond the diver's skill, There, fathoms deep, our gold is all arust, Or in that island it is hoarded still. Yea, some have said, within thy dreadful wall There is a folk that know not death at all, The loved we lost, the lost we love, are there. Will no kind voice make answer to our cry, Give to our aching hearts some little trust, Show how 'tis good to live, but best to die? Some voice that knows Whither the dead man goes: We hear his music from the other side, Maybe a little tapping on the door, A something called, a something sighed-- No more. O for some voice to valiantly declare The best news true! Then, Happy Island of the Happy Dead, How gladly would we spread Impatient sail for you!

O vanished loveliness of flowers and faces, Treasure of hair, and great immortal eyes, Are there for these no safe and secret places? And is it true that beauty never dies? Soldiers and saints, haughty and lovely names, Women who set the whole wide world in flames, Poets who sang their passion to the skies, And lovers wild and wise: Fought they and prayed for some poor flitting gleam, Was all they loved and worshipped but a dream? Is Love a lie and fame indeed a breath, And is there no sure thing in life--but death? Or may it be, within that guarded shore, He meets Her now whom I shall meet no more Till kind Death fold me 'neath his shadowy wing: She whom within my heart I softly tell That he is dead whom once we loved so well, He, the immortal master whom I sing.

Immortal! yea, dare we the word again, If aught remaineth of our mortal day, That which is written--shall it not remain? That which is sung, is it not built for aye? Faces must fade, for all their golden looks, Unless some poet them eternalise, Make live those golden looks in golden books; Death, soon or late, will quench the brightest eyes-- 'Tis only what is written never dies. Yea, memories that guard like sacred gold Some sainted face, they also must grow old, Pass and forget, and think--or darest thou not!-- On all the beauty that is quite forgot.

Strange craft of words, strange magic of the pen, Whereby the dead still talk with living men; Whereby a sentence, in its trivial scope, May centre all we love and all we hope; And in a couplet, like a rosebud furled, Lie all the wistful wonder of the world.

Old are the stars, and yet they still endure, Old are the flowers, yet never fail the spring: Why is the song that is so old so new, Known and yet strange each sweet small shape and hue? How may a poet thus for ever sing, Thus build his climbing music sweet and sure, As builds in stars and flowers the Eternal mind? Ah, Poet, that is yours to seek and find! Yea, yours that magisterial skill whereby God put all Heaven in a woman's eye, Nature's own mighty and mysterious art That knows to pack the whole within the part: The shell that hums the music of the sea, The little word big with Eternity, The cosmic rhythm in microcosmic things-- One song the lark and one the planet sings, One kind heart beating warm in bird and tree-- To hear it beat, who knew so well as he?

Virgil of prose! far distant is the day When at the mention of your heartfelt name Shall shake the head, and men, oblivious, say: 'We know him not, this master, nor his fame.' Not for so swift forgetfulness you wrought, Day upon day, with rapt fastidious pen, Turning, like precious stones, with anxious thought, This word and that again and yet again, Seeking to match its meaning with the world; Nor to the morning stars gave ears attent, That you, indeed, might ever dare to be With other praise than immortality Unworthily content.

Not while a boy still whistles on the earth, Not while a single human heart beats true, Not while Love lasts, and Honour, and the Brave, Has earth a grave, O well-beloved, for you!

AN ODE TO SPRING

Is it the Spring? Or are the birds all wrong That play on flute and viol, A thousand strong, In minstrel galleries Of the long deep wood, Epiphanies Of bloom and bud.

Grave minstrels those, Of deep responsive chant; But see how yonder goes, Dew-drunk, with giddy slant, Yon Shelley-lark, And hark! Him on the giddy brink Of pearly heaven His fairy anvil clink.

Or watch, in fancy, How the brimming note Falls, like a string of pearls, From out his heavenly throat; Or like a fountain In Hesperides, Raining its silver rain, In gleam and chime, On backs of ivory girls-- Twice happy rhyme!

Ah, none of these May make it plain, No image we may seek Shall match the magic of his gurgling beak.

And many a silly thing That hops and cheeps, And perks his tiny tail, And sideway peeps, And flitters little wing, Seems in his consequential way To tell of Spring.

The river warbles soft and runs With fuller curve and sleeker line, Though on the winter-blackened hedge Twigs of unbudding iron shine, And trampled still the river sedge.

And O the Sun! I have no friend so generous as this Sun That comes to meet me with his big warm hands. And O the Sky! There is no maid, how true, Is half so chaste As the pure kiss of greening willow wands Against the intense pale blue Of this sweet boundless overarching waste.

And see!--dear Heaven, but it is the Spring!-- See yonder, yonder, by the river there, Long glittering pearly fingers flash Upon the warm bright air: Why, 'tis the heavenly palm, The Christian tree, Whose budding is a psalm Of natural piety: Soft silver notches up the smooth green stem-- Ah, Spring must follow them, It is the Spring!

O Spirit of Spring, Whose strange instinctive art Makes the bird sing, And brings the bud again; O in my heart Take up thy heavenly reign, And from its deeps Draw out the hidden flower, And where it sleeps, Throughout the winter long, O sweet mysterious power Awake the slothful song!

TREE-WORSHIP

Vast and mysterious brother, ere was yet of me So much as men may poise upon a needle's end, Still shook with laughter all this monstrous might of thee, And still with haughty crest it called the morning friend.

Thy latticed column jetted up the bright blue air, Tall as a mast it was, and stronger than a tower; Three hundred winters had beheld thee mighty there, Before my little life had lived one little hour.

With rocky foot stern-set like iron in the land, With leafy rustling crest the morning sows with pearls, Huge as a minster, half in heaven men saw thee stand, Thy rugged girth the waists of fifty Eastern girls.

Knotted and warted, slabbed and armoured like the hide Of tropic elephant; unstormable and steep As some grim fortress with a princess-pearl inside, Where savage guardian faces beard the bastioned keep:

So hard a rind, old tree, shielding so soft a heart-- A woman's heart of tender little nestling leaves; Nor rind so hard but that a touch so soft can part, And Spring's first baby-bud an easy passage cleaves.

I picture thee within with dainty satin sides, Where all the long day through the sleeping dryad dreams, But when the moon bends low and taps thee thrice she glides, Knowing the fairy knock, to bask within her beams.

And all the long night through, for him with eyes and ears, She sways within thine arms and sings a fairy tune, Till, startled with the dawn, she softly disappears, And sleeps and dreams again until the rising moon.

But with the peep of day great bands of heavenly birds Fill all thy branchy chambers with a thousand flutes, And with the torrid noon stroll up the weary herds, To seek thy friendly shade and doze about thy roots--

Till with the setting sun they turn them once more home; And, ere the moon dawns, for a brief enchanted space, Weary with million miles, the sore-spent star-beams come, And moths and bats hold witches' sabbath in the place.

And then I picture thee some bloodstained Holyrood, Dread haunted palace of the bat and owl, whence steal, Shrouded all day, lost murdered spirits of the wood, And fright young happy nests with homeless hoot and squeal.

Then, maybe, dangling from thy gloomy gallows boughs, A human corpse swings, mournful, rattling bones and chains-- His eighteenth century flesh hath fattened nineteenth century cows-- Ghastly Aeolian harp fingered of winds and rains.

Poor Rizpah comes to reap each newly-fallen bone That once thrilled soft, a little limb, within her womb; And mark yon alchemist, with zodiac-spangled zone, Wrenching the mandrake root that fattens in the gloom.

So rounds thy day, from maiden morn to haunted night, From larks and sunlit dreams to owl and gibbering ghost; A catacomb of dark, a maze of living light, To the wide sea of air a green and welcome coast.

I seek a god, old tree: accept my worship, thou! All other gods have failed me always in my need; I hang my votive song beneath thy temple bough, Unto thy strength I cry--Old monster, be my creed!

Give me to clasp this earth with feeding roots like thine, To mount yon heaven with such star-aspiring head, Fill full with sap and buds this shrunken life of mine, And from my boughs oh! might such stalwart sons be shed.

With loving cheek pressed close against thy horny breast, I hear the roar of sap mounting within thy veins; Tingling with buds, thy great hands open towards the west, To catch the sweetheart winds that bring the sister rains.

O winds that blow from out the fruitful mouth of God, O rains that softly fall from His all-loving eyes, You that bring buds to trees and daisies to the sod-- O God's best Angel of the Spring, in me arise.

A BALLAD OF LONDON

Ah, London! London! our delight, Great flower that opens but at night, Great City of the Midnight Sun, Whose day begins when day is done.

Lamp after lamp against the sky Opens a sudden beaming eye, Leaping alight on either hand, The iron lilies of the Strand.

Like dragonflies, the hansoms hover, With jewelled eyes, to catch the lover; The streets are full of lights and loves, Soft gowns, and flutter of soiled doves.

The human moths about the light Dash and cling close in dazed delight, And burn and laugh, the world and wife, For this is London, this is life!

Upon thy petals butterflies, But at thy root, some say, there lies A world of weeping trodden things, Poor worms that have not eyes or wings.

From out corruption of their woe Springs this bright flower that charms us so, Men die and rot deep out of sight To keep this jungle-flower bright.

Paris and London, World-Flowers twain Wherewith the World-Tree blooms again, Since Time hath gathered Babylon, And withered Rome still withers on.

Sidon and Tyre were such as ye, How bright they shone upon the Tree! But Time hath gathered, both are gone, And no man sails to Babylon.

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