French ivory to-day
(Poor perished beauty's deathless mirror-cases!)
Reveal to me the delicate amorous play
Of reed-like flowering folk with pointed faces.
Lovers ride hawking; over chess delight;
The Castle of Ladies renders up its keys,
Its roses all being flung; a gracious knight
Kneels to his garlander mid orchard-trees.
Passionate pilgrims, do ye keep so fast
Your dream of miracles and heights? Ah, shent
And sore-bewildered shall ye couch at last
In bitter beds of disillusionment.
In the Black Orchard the foul raven grieves
White Love, on some Montfaucon of the thieves.

X

THE MIRROR-CASES

II

O treasonable heart and perverse words,
Ye darken beauty with your plots of pain!
What languors beat through me like muted chords?
I know indeed that suffering shall profane
These lovers, sweet as viols or violet-spices.
Strangely must end their dreamy chess-playing,
Strange wounds amaze their broidered Paradises,
And stain the falconry and garlanding.
Their bodies must be broken as on wheels,
Their souls be carded with implacable shame,--
Molten like wax, be crushed beneath the seals
Of sin and penance. Yet, with wings aflame,
Love, Love more lovely, like a triumpher,
Shall break his malefactor's sepulchre.

XI

THE PASSION-FLOWER

The passion-flower bears in her violet Cup
The senses of her bridal, and they seem
Symbols of sacred pangs,--Love lifted up
To expiate the beauty of his dream.
Come and adore, ye crafty imagers,
This piece of ivory and amethyst.
Let Music, Colour, decorated Verse,
Meditate, each like some sad lutanist,
This Paten, and the marvels it uncovers,
Identities of joy and anguish. Rod,
Nails, bitter garlands, all ecstatic lovers
Blindly repeat the dolours of a God.
Subdue this mournful matter unto Art,
Ivory, amethyst, serene of heart.

XII

THE VOICE OF LOVE

I

"Mine, mine!" saith Love, "Deny me many times.
Yet mine that body wherein mine arrow thrills,
And mine the fugitive soul that bleeding climbs
Hunting a vision on the frozen hills.
Mine are her stigmata, sad rhapsodist.--
And when to the delighted bridal-bowers
They bring thee starlike through the silver mist
Of music and canticles and myrtle-flowers,
And the dark hour bids the consentless heart
Surrender to disillusion, since in all
The labyrinth of deed no counterpart