Читать книгу Victorian Narrative Verse - Charles Williams - Страница 3

Table of Contents

PROLOGUE

O Lady Flora, let me speak:

A pleasant hour has past away

While, dreaming on your damask cheek,

The dewy sister-eyelids lay.

As by the lattice you reclined,5

I went thro’ many wayward moods

To see you dreaming—and, behind,

A summer crisp with shining woods.

And I too dream’d, until at last

Across my fancy, brooding warm,10

The reflex of a legend past,

And loosely settled into form.

And would you have the thought I had,

And see the vision that I saw,

Then take the broidery-frame, and add15

A crimson to the quaint Macaw,

And I will tell it. Turn your face,

Nor look with that too-earnest eye—

The rhymes are dazzled from their place,

And order’d words asunder fly.20

THE SLEEPING PALACE

I

The varying year with blade and sheaf

Clothes and reclothes the happy plains;

Here rests the sap within the leaf,

Here stays the blood along the veins.

Faint shadows, vapours lightly curl’d,25

Faint murmurs from the meadows come,

Like hints and echoes of the world

To spirits folded in the womb.

II

Soft lustre bathes the range of urns

On every slanting terrace-lawn.30

The fountain to his place returns

Deep in the garden lake withdrawn.

Here droops the banner on the tower,

On the hall-hearths the festal fires,

The peacock in his laurel bower,35

The parrot in his gilded wires.

III

Roof-haunting martins warm their eggs:

In these, in those the life is stay’d.

The mantles from the golden pegs

Droop sleepily: no sound is made,40

Not even of a gnat that sings.

More like a picture seemeth all

Than those old portraits of old kings,

That watch the sleepers from the wall.

IV

Here sits the Butler with a flask45

Between his knees, half-drain’d; and there

The wrinkled steward at his task,

The maid-of-honour blooming fair:

The page has caught her hand in his:

Her lips are sever’d as to speak:50

His own are pouted to a kiss:

The blush is fix’d upon her cheek.

V

Till all the hundred summers pass,

The beams, that thro’ the Oriel shine,

Make prisms in every carven glass,55

And beaker brimm’d with noble wine.

Each baron at the banquet sleeps,

Grave faces gather’d in a ring.

His state the king reposing keeps.

He must have been a jovial king.60

VI

All round a hedge upshoots, and shows

At distance like a little wood;

Thorns, ivies, woodbine, mistletoes,

And grapes with bunches red as blood;

All creeping plants, a wall of green65

Close-matted, bur and brake and brier,

And glimpsing over these, just seen,

High up, the topmost palace-spire.

VII

When will the hundred summers die,

And thought and time be born again,70

And newer knowledge, drawing nigh,

Bring truth that sways the soul of men?

Here all things in their place remain,

As all were order’d, ages since.

Come, Care and Pleasure, Hope and Pain,75

And bring the fated fairy Prince.

THE SLEEPING BEAUTY

I

Year after year unto her feet,

She lying on her couch alone,

Across the purpled coverlet,

The maiden’s jet-black hair has grown,80

On either side her tranced form

Forth streaming from a braid of pearl:

The slumbrous light is rich and warm,

And moves not on the rounded curl.

II

The silk star-broider’d coverlid85

Unto her limbs itself doth mould

Languidly ever; and, amid

Her full black ringlets downward roll’d,

Glows forth each softly-shadow’d arm

With bracelets of the diamond bright:90

Her constant beauty doth inform

Stillness with love, and day with light.

III

She sleeps: her breathings are not heard

In palace chambers far apart.

The fragrant tresses are not stirr’d95

That lie upon her charmed heart.

She sleeps: on either hand upswells

The gold-fringed pillow lightly prest:

She sleeps, nor dreams, but ever dwells

A perfect form in perfect rest.100

THE ARRIVAL

I

All precious things, discover’d late,

To those that seek them issue forth;

For love in sequel works with fate,

And draws the veil from hidden worth.

He travels far from other skies—105

His mantle glitters on the rocks—

A fairy Prince, with joyful eyes,

And lighter-footed than the fox.

II

The bodies and the bones of those

That strove in other days to pass,110

Are wither’d in the thorny close,

Or scatter’d blanching on the grass.

He gazes on the silent dead:

‘They perish’d in their daring deeds.’

This proverb flashes thro’ his head,115

‘The many fail: the one succeeds.’

III

He comes, scarce knowing what he seeks:

He breaks the hedge: he enters there:

The colour flies into his cheeks:

He trusts to light on something fair;120

For all his life the charm did talk

About his path, and hover near

With words of promise in his walk,

And whisper’d voices at his ear.

IV

More close and close his footsteps wind;125

The Magic Music in his heart

Beats quick and quicker, till he find

The quiet chamber far apart.

His spirit flutters like a lark,

He stoops—to kiss her—on his knee.130

‘Love, if thy tresses be so dark,

How dark those hidden eyes must be!’

THE REVIVAL

I

A touch, a kiss! the charm was snapt.

There rose a noise of striking clocks,

And feet that ran, and doors that clapt,135

And barking dogs, and crowing cocks;

A fuller light illumined all,

A breeze thro’ all the garden swept,

A sudden hubbub shook the hall,

And sixty feet the fountain leapt.140

II

The hedge broke in, the banner blew,

The butler drank, the steward scrawl’d,

The fire shot up, the martin flew,

The parrot scream’d, the peacock squall’d,

The maid and page renew’d their strife,145

The palace bang’d, and buzz’d and clackt,

And all the long-pent stream of life

Dash’d downward in a cataract.

III

And last with these the king awoke,

And in his chair himself uprear’d,150

And yawn’d, and rubb’d his face, and spoke,

‘By holy rood, a royal beard!

How say you? we have slept, my lords.

My beard has grown into my lap.’

The barons swore, with many words,155

’Twas but an after-dinner’s nap.

IV

‘Pardy,’ return’d the king, ‘but still

My joints are something stiff or so.

My lord, and shall we pass the bill

I mention’d half an hour ago?’160

The chancellor, sedate and vain,

In courteous words return’d reply:

But dallied with his golden chain,

And, smiling, put the question by.

THE DEPARTURE

I

And on her lover’s arm she leant,165

And round her waist she felt it fold,

And far across the hills they went

In that new world which is the old:

Across the hills, and far away

Beyond their utmost purple rim,170

And deep into the dying day

The happy princess follow’d him.

II

‘I’d sleep another hundred years,

O love, for such another kiss;’

‘O wake for ever, love,’ she hears,175

‘O love, ’twas such as this and this.’

And o’er them many a sliding star,

And many a merry wind was borne,

And, stream’d thro’ many a golden bar,

The twilight melted into morn.180

III

‘O eyes long laid in happy sleep!’

‘O happy sleep, that lightly fled!’

‘O happy kiss, that woke thy sleep!’

‘O love, thy kiss would wake the dead!’

And o’er them many a flowing range185

Of vapour buoy’d the crescent-bark,

And, rapt thro’ many a rosy change,

The twilight died into the dark.

IV

‘A hundred summers! can it be?

And whither goest thou, tell me where?’190

‘O seek my father’s court with me,

For there are greater wonders there.’

And o’er the hills, and far away

Beyond their utmost purple rim,

Beyond the night, across the day,195

Thro’ all the world she follow’d him.

MORAL

I

So, Lady Flora, take my lay,

And if you find no moral there,

Go, look in any glass and say,

What moral is in being fair.200

Oh, to what uses shall we put

The wildweed-flower that simply blows?

And is there any moral shut

Within the bosom of the rose?

II

But any man that walks the mead,205

In bud or blade, or bloom, may find,

According as his humours lead,

A meaning suited to his mind.

And liberal applications lie

In Art like Nature, dearest friend;210

So ’twere to cramp its use, if I

Should hook it to some useful end.

L’ENVOI

I

You shake your head. A random string

Your finer female sense offends.

Well—were it not a pleasant thing215

To fall asleep with all one’s friends;

To pass with all our social ties

To silence from the paths of men;

And every hundred years to rise

And learn the world, and sleep again;220

To sleep thro’ terms of mighty wars,

And wake on science grown to more,

On secrets of the brain, the stars,

As wild as aught of fairy lore;

And all that else the years will show,225

The Poet-forms of stronger hours,

The vast Republics that may grow,

The Federations and the Powers;

Titanic forces taking birth

In divers seasons, divers climes;230

For we are Ancients of the earth,

And in the morning of the times.

II

So sleeping, so aroused from sleep

Thro’ sunny decads new and strange,

Of gay quinquenniads^[1] would we reap235

The flower and quintessence of change.

III

Ah, yet would I—and would I might!

So much your eyes my fancy take—

Be still the first to leap to light

That I might kiss those eyes awake!240

For, am I right or am I wrong,

To choose your own you did not care;

You’d have my moral from the song,

And I will take my pleasure there:

And, am I right or am I wrong,245

My fancy, ranging thro’ and thro’,

To search a meaning for the song,

Perforce will still revert to you;

Nor finds a closer truth than this

All-graceful head, so richly curl’d,250

And evermore a costly kiss

The prelude to some brighter world.

IV

For since the time when Adam first

Embraced his Eve in happy hour,

And every bird of Eden burst255

In carol, every bud to flower,

What eyes, like thine, have waken’d hopes?

What lips, like thine, so sweetly join’d?

Where on the double rosebud droops

The fullness of the pensive mind;260

Which all too dearly self-involved,

Yet sleeps a dreamless sleep to me;

A sleep by kisses undissolved,

That lets thee neither hear nor see:

But break it. In the name of wife,265

And in the rights that name may give,

Are clasp’d the moral of thy life,

And that for which I care to live.

EPILOGUE

So, Lady Flora, take my lay,

And, if you find a meaning there,270

O whisper to your glass, and say,

‘What wonder, if he thinks me fair?’

What wonder I was all unwise,

To shape the song for your delight

Like long-tail’d birds of Paradise,275

That float thro’ Heaven, and cannot light?

Or old-world trains, upheld at court

By Cupid-boys of blooming hue—

But take it—earnest wed with sport,

And either sacred unto you.280

[1] quinquenniads] periods of five years.