Arthur Symons: Verses about Happiness

Once I smiled when I saw you, when I saw you smile I was glad,
And the joy of my heart was as foam that the sea-wind shakes from the sea;
But the smile of your eyes grows strange, and the smile that my lips have had
Trembles back to my heart, and my heart trembles in me.

Once you laughed when you met me, when you met me your voice was gay
As the voice of a bird in the dawn of the day on a sunshiny tree;
But the sound of your voice grows strange, and the words that you do not say
Thrill from your heart to mine, and my heart trembles in me.

Against the world I closed my heart,
And, half in pride and half in fear,
I said to Love and Lust: Depart;
None enters here.

A gipsy witch has glided in,
She takes her seat beside my fire;
Her eyes are innocent of sin,
Mine of desire.

She holds me with an unknown spell,
She folds me in her heart's embrace;
If this be love, I cannot tell:
I watch her face.

Her sombre eyes are happier
Than any joy that e'er had voice;
Since I am happiness to her,
I too rejoice.

And I have closed the door again,
Against the world I close my heart;
I hold her with my spell; in vain
Would she depart.

I hold her with a surer spell,
Beyond her magic, and above:
If hers be love, I cannot tell,
But mine is love.

It was a day of sun and rain,
Uncertain as a child's swift moods;
And I shall never spend again
So blithe a day among the woods.

Was it because the Gods were pleased
That they were awful in our eyes,
Whom we in very deed appeased
With barley-cakes of sacrifice?

The forest knew her and was glad,
And laughed for very joy to know
Her child was with her; then, grown sad,
She wept, because her child must go.

And Alice, like a little Faun,
Went leaping over rocks and ferns,
Coursing the shadow-race from dawn
Until the twilight-flock returns.

And she would spy and she would capture
The shyest flower that lit the grass;
The joy I had to watch her rapture
Was keen as even her rapture was.

The forest knew her and was glad,
And laughed and wept for joy and woe.
This was the welcome that she had
Among the woods of Fontainebleau.

I drank your flesh, and when the soul brimmed up
In that sufficing cup,
Then, slowly, steadfastly, I drank your soul;
Thus I possessed you whole;
And then I saw you, white, and vague, and warm,
And happy, as that storm
Enveloped you in its delirious peace,
And fearing but release,
Perfectly glad to be so lost and found,
And without wonder drowned
In little shuddering quick waves of bliss;
Then I, beholding this
More wonderingly than a little lake
That the white moon should make
Her nest among its waters, being free
Of the whole land and sea,
Remembered, in that utmost pause, that heaven
Is to each angel given
As wholly as to Michael or the Lord,
And of the saints' reward
There is no first or last, supreme delight
Being one and infinite.
Then I was quieted, and had no fear
That such a thing, so dear
And so incredible, being thus divine,
Should be, and should be mine,
And should not suddenly vanish away.
Now, as the lonely day
Forgets the night, and calls the world from dreams,
This, too, with daylight, seems
A thing that might be dreaming; for my soul
Seems to possess you whole,
And every nerve remembers: can it be
This young delight is old as memory?