Mild gods that gave thee birth, a flower—
Sundering sorrows mark thine hour!
Thou shalt appear in many places,
Love shalt thou love, but not fair faces,
Yet before each soul must thou falter,
And seek a still diviner altar;
Fierier, fiercer, shalt thou give
Thy piteous, brave prerogative,
Forewarn, forget, remember, stay
The inevitable, narrowing day,
Unbare to Love’s infuriate might
Thy bosom and thy limbs of light,
Then under starred and moon-hung skies
Bow pale-cheeked to men’s blasphemies....’
But in my heart there seemed to creep
Something of marble, more of sleep;
Dust on the eyelids, fringed and low,
And on the mouth, curved like a bow,
And on the breasts where no breath stirred,
To flutter like a Grecian bird;
But in the silence my lips spake
And said: ‘I died for Beauty’s sake;
I perished so that men might give,
Strange, fleeting, poignant, fugitive,
Voice to their vision;’ — all things else,
Save silence weaving miracles,
I had forgotten. Under me
The dead lay still eternally,
Sundering sorrows mark thine hour!
Thou shalt appear in many places,
Love shalt thou love, but not fair faces,
Yet before each soul must thou falter,
And seek a still diviner altar;
Fierier, fiercer, shalt thou give
Thy piteous, brave prerogative,
Forewarn, forget, remember, stay
The inevitable, narrowing day,
Unbare to Love’s infuriate might
Thy bosom and thy limbs of light,
Then under starred and moon-hung skies
Bow pale-cheeked to men’s blasphemies....’
But in my heart there seemed to creep
Something of marble, more of sleep;
Dust on the eyelids, fringed and low,
And on the mouth, curved like a bow,
And on the breasts where no breath stirred,
To flutter like a Grecian bird;
But in the silence my lips spake
And said: ‘I died for Beauty’s sake;
I perished so that men might give,
Strange, fleeting, poignant, fugitive,
Voice to their vision;’ — all things else,
Save silence weaving miracles,
I had forgotten. Under me
The dead lay still eternally,
23
