Read Ebook: Rose Leaf and Apple Leaf by Rodd Rennell Wilde Oscar Author Of Introduction Etc

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Ebook has 201 lines and 20126 words, and 5 pages

Do you see down there where the high cliffs shrink, And the ripples break on the bay, Our old sea boat at the white foam brink With the sail slackened down half-way?

Shall we get hence? O fair heart's brother! You are weary at heart with me, We two alone in the world, no other: Shall we go to our wide kind sea?

Shall we glide away in this white moon's track? Does it not seem fair in your eyes! --To drift and drift with our white sail black In the dreamful light of the skies,

Till the pale stars die, and some far fair shore Comes up through the morning haze, And wandering hearts shall not wander more Far off from the mad world's ways.

Or still more fair--when the dim scared night Grows pale from the east to the west-- If the waters gather us home, and the light Break through on the waves' unrest,

And there in the gleam of the gold-washed sea, Which the smile of the morning brings, Our souls shall fathom the mystery, And the riddle of all these things.

IN A CHURCH

This was the first shrine lit for Queen Marie; And I will sit a little at her feet, For winds without howl down the narrow street And storm-clouds gather from the westward sea.

Sweet here to watch the peasant people pray, While through the crimson-shrouded window falls Low light of even, and the golden walls Grow dim and dreamful at the end of day,

Till from these columns fades their marble sheen, And lines grow soft and mystical,--these wraiths That watch the service of the changing faiths, To Mary mother from the Cyprian queen.

But aye for me this old-word colonnade Seems open to blue summer skies once more, These altars pass, and on the polished floor I see the lines of chequered light and shade;

I seem to see the dark-browed Lybian lean To cool the tortured burning of the lash, I see the fountains as they leap and flash, The rustling sway of cypress set between.

And now yon friar with the bare feet there, Is grown the haunting spirit of the place; Ah! brown-robed friar with the shaven face, The saints are weary of thy mumbled prayer.

From matins' bell to the slow day's decline He sits and thumbs his endless round of beads, Drawls out the dreary cadence of his creeds And nods assent to each familiar line.

But she the goddess whose white star is set, Whose fane was pillaged for this sombre shrine, Could she look down upon those lips of thine, And hear thee mutter, would she still regret?

There came a sound of singing on my ear, And slowly glided through the far-off door A glimmer of grey forms like ghosts, they bore A dead man lying on his purple bier.

Some poor man's soul, so little candle smoke Went curling upwards by the uncased shroud, And then a sudden thunder-clap broke loud, And drowned the droning of the priest who spoke.

So all the shuffling feet passed out again To lightnings flashing through the wet and wind, And while I lingered in the gate behind The dead man travelled through the storm and rain.

ROME, 1881.

AT LANUVIUM

Spring grew to perfect summer in one day, And we lay there among the vines, to gaze Where Circe's isle floats purple, far away Above the golden haze:

And on our ears there seemed to rise and fall The burden of an old world song we knew, That sang, "To-day is Neptune's festival, And we, what shall we do?"

Go down brown-armed Campagna maid of mine, And bring again the earthen jar that lies With three years' dust above the mellow wine; And while the swift day dies,

You first shall sing a song of waters blue, Paphos and Cnidos in the summer seas, And one who guides her swan-drawn chariot through The white-shored Cyclades;

And I will take the second turn of song, Of floating tresses in the foam and surge Where Nereid maids about the sea-god throng; And night shall have her dirge.

"IF ANY ONE RETURN"

I would we had carried him far away To the light of this south sun land. Where the hills lean down to some red-rocked bay And the sea's blue breaks into snow-white spray As the wave dies out on the sand.

Not there, not there, where the winds deface! Where the storm and the cloud race by! But far away in this flowerful place Where endless summers retouch, retrace, What flowers find heart to die.

And if ever the souls of the loved, set free, Come back to the souls that stay, I could dream he would sit for a while with me Where I sit by this wonderful tideless sea And look to the red-rocked bay,

And I think I should feel as the sun went round That he was not there any more, But dews were wet on the grass-grown mound On the bed of my love lying underground, And evening pale on the shore.

SONNETS

"UNE HEURE VIENDRA QUI TOUT PAIERA"

It was a tomb in Flanders, old and grey, A knight in armour, lying dead, unknown Among the long-forgotten, yet the stone Cried out for vengeance where the dead man lay;

No name was chiselled at his side to say What wrongs his spirit thirsted to atone, Only the armour with green moss o'ergrown, And those grim words no years had worn away.

It may be haply in the songs of old His deeds were wonders to sweet music set, His name the thunder of a battle call, Among the things forgotten and untold; His only record is the dead man's threat,-- "An hour will come that shall atone for all!"

ACTEA

When the last bitterness was past, she bore Her singing Caesar to the Garden Hill, Her fallen pitiful dead emperor. She lifted up the beggar's cloak he wore --The one thing living he would not kill-- And on those lips of his that sang no more, That world-loathed head which she found lovely still, Her cold lips closed, in death she had her will.

Oh wreck of the lost human soul left free To gorge the beast thy mask of manhood screened! Because one living thing, albeit a slave, Shed those hot tears on thy dishonoured grave, Although thy curse be as the shoreless sea, Because she loved, thou art not wholly fiend.

IMPERATOR AUGUSTUS

Is this the man by whose decree abide The lives of countless nations, with the trace Of fresh tears wet upon the hard cold face? --He wept, because a little child had died.

They set a marble image by his side, A sculptured Eros, ready for the chase; It wore the dead boy's features, and the grace Of pretty ways that were the old man's pride.

And so he smiled, grown softer now, and tired Of too much empire, and it seemed a joy Fondly to stroke and pet the curly head, The smooth round limbs so strangely like the dead, To kiss the white lips of his marble boy And call by name his little heart's-desired.

"ATQUE IN PERPETUUM FRATER AVE ATQUE VALE"

This was the end love made,--the hard-drawn breath, The last long sigh that ever man sighs here; And then for us, the great unanswered fear, Will love live on,--the other side of death?

Only a year, and I had hoped to spend A life of pleasant communing, to be A kindred spirit holding fast to thee, We never thought that love had such an end.

This was the end love made, for our delight, For one sweet year he cannot take away;-- Those tapers burning in the dim half-light, Those kneeling women with a cross that pray, And there, beneath green leaves and lilies white, Beyond the reach of love, our loved one lay.

ON THE BORDER HILLS

So the dark shadows deepen in the trees That crown the border mountains, all the air Is filled with mist-begotten phantasies, Shaped and transfigured in the sunset glare. What wildly spurring warrior-wraiths are these? What tossing headgear, and what red-gold hair? What lances flashing, what far trumpet's blare That dies along the desultory breeze?

Slow night comes creeping with her misty wings Up to the hill's crest, where the yew trees grow; About their shadow-haunted circle clings The rumour of an unrecorded woe, Old as the battle of those border kings Slain in the darkling hollow-lands below.

SONGS

LONG AFTER

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