Poems. Edward Dowden

      If any sense in mortal dust remains

      When mine has been refined from flower to flower,

      Won from the sun all colours, drunk the shower

      And delicate winy dews, and gained the gains

      Which elves who sleep in airy bells, a-swing

      Through half a summer day, for love bestow,

      Then in some warm old garden let me grow

      To such a perfect, lush, ambrosian thing

      As this. Upon a southward-facing wall

      I bask, and feel my juices dimly fed

      And mellowing, while my bloom comes golden grey:

      Keep the wasps from me! but before I fall

      Pluck me, white fingers, and o’er two ripe-red

      Girl lips O let me richly swoon away!

      If while I sit flatter’d by this warm sun

      Death came to me, and kissed my mouth and brow,

      And eyelids which the warm light hovers through,

      I should not count it strange. Being half won

      By hours that with a tender sadness run,

      Who would not softly lean to lips which woo

      In the Earth’s grave speech? Nor could it aught undo

      Of Nature’s calm observances begun

      Still to be here the idle autumn day.

      Pale leaves would circle down, and lie unstirr’d

      Where’er they fell; the tired wind hither call

      Her gentle fellows; shining beetles stray

      Up their green courts; and only yon shy bird

      A little bolder grow ere evenfall.

      This is the year’s despair: some wind last night

      Utter’d too soon the irrevocable word,

      And the leaves heard it, and the low clouds heard;

      So a wan morning dawned of sterile light;

      Flowers drooped, or showed a startled face and white;

      The cattle cowered, and one disconsolate bird

      Chirped a weak note; last came this mist and blurred

      The hills, and fed upon the fields like blight.

      Ah, why so swift despair! There yet will be

      Warm noons, the honey’d leavings of the year,

      Hours of rich musing, ripest autumn’s core,

      And late-heaped fruit, and falling hedge-berry,

      Blossoms in cottage-crofts, and yet, once more,

      A song, not less than June’s, fervent and clear.

      She stood upon the wall of windy Troy,

      And lifted high both arms, and cried aloud

      With no man near:—

      “Troy-town and glory of Greece

      Strive, let the flame aspire, and pride of life

      Glow to white heat! Great lords be strong, rejoice,

      Lament, know victory, know defeat—then die;

      Fair is the living many-coloured play

      Of hates and loves, and fair it is to cease,

      To cease from these and all Earth’s comely things.

      I, Helena, impatient of a couch

      Dim-scented, and dark eyes my face had fed,

      And soft captivity of circling arms,

      Come forth to shed my spirit on you, a wind

      And sunlight of commingling life and death.

      City and tented plain behold who stands

      Betwixt you! Seems she worth a play of swords,

      And glad expense of rival hopes and hates?

      Have the Gods given a prize which may content,

      Who set your games afoot,—no fictile vase,

      But a sufficient goblet of great gold,

      Embossed with heroes, filled with perfumed wine?

      How! doubt ye? Thus I draw the robe aside

      And bare the breasts of Helen.

      Yesterday

      A mortal maiden I beheld, the light

      Tender within her eyes, laying white arms

      Around her sire’s mailed breast, and heard her chide

      Because his cheek was blood-splashed,—I beheld

      And did not wish me her. O, not for this

      A God’s blood thronged within my mother’s veins!

      For no such tender purpose rose the swan

      With ruffled plumes, and hissing in his joy

      Flashed up the stream, and held with heavy wings

      Leda, and curved the neck to reach her lips,

      And stayed, nor left her lightly. It is well

      To have quickened into glory one supreme,

      Swift hour, the century’s fiery-hearted bloom,

      Which falls,—to stand a splendour paramount,

      A beacon of high hearts and fates of men,

      A flame blown round by clear, contending winds,

      Which gladden in the contest and wax strong.

      Cities of Greece, fair islands, and Troy town,

      Accept a woman’s service; these my hands

      Hold not the distaff, ply not at the loom;

      I store from year to year no well-wrought web

      For daughter’s dowry; wide the web I make,

      Fine-tissued, costly as the Gods desire,

      Shot with a gleaming woof of lives and deaths,

      Inwrought with colours flowerlike, piteous, strange.

      Oblivion yields before me: ye winged years

      Which make escape from darkness, the red light

      Of a wild dawn upon your plumes, I stand

      The mother of the stars