The Girl I Left Behind Me
With sweet Regret — (the dearest thing that Yesterday has left us) —
We often turn our homeless eyes to scenes whence Fate has reft us.
Here sitting by a fading flame, wild waifs of song remind me
Of Annie with her gentle ways, the Girl I left behind me.
I stood beside the surging sea, with lips of silent passion —
I faced you by the surging sea, O brows of mild repression!
I never said — “my darling, stay!” — the moments seemed to bind me
To something stifling all my words for the Girl I left behind me.
The pathos worn by common things — by every wayside flower,
Or Autumn leaf on lonely winds, revives the parting hour.
Ye swooning thoughts without a voice — ye tears which rose to blind me,
Why did she fade into the Dark, the Girl I left behind me.
At night they always come to me, the tender and true-hearted;
And in my dreams we join again the hands which now are parted;
And, looking through the gates of Sleep, the pleasant Moon doth find me
For ever wandering with my Love, the Girl I left behind me.
You know my life is incomplete, O far-off faint Ideal!
When shall I reach you from a depth of darkness which is real?
So I may mingle, soul in soul, with her that Heaven assigned me;
So she may lean upon my love, the Girl I left behind me.
Campaspe
Turn from the ways of this Woman! Campaspe we call her by name -
She is fairer than flowers of the fire -
she is brighter than brightness of flame.
As a song that strikes swift to the heart
with the beat of the blood of the South,
And a light and a leap and a smart, is the play of her perilous mouth.
Her eyes are as splendours that break in the rain at the set of the sun,
But turn from the steps of Campaspe - a Woman to look at and shun!
Dost thou know of the cunning of Beauty? Take heed to thyself and beware
Of the trap in the droop in the raiment - the snare in the folds of the hair!
She is fulgent in flashes of pearl, the breeze with her breathing is sweet,
But fly from the face of the girl - there is death in the fall of her feet!
Is she maiden or marvel of marble? Oh, rather a tigress at wait
To pounce on thy soul for her pastime - a leopard for love or for hate.
Woman of shadow and furnace! She biteth her lips to restrain
Speech that springs out when she sleepeth,
by the stirs and the starts of her pain.
As music half-shapen of sorrow, with its wants and its infinite wail,
Is the voice of Campaspe, the beauty at bay with her passion dead-pale.
Go out from the courts of her loving, nor tempt the fierce dance of desire
Where thy life would be shrivelled like stubble
in the stress and the fervour of fire!
I know of one, gentle as moonlight - she is sad as the shine of the moon,
But touching the ways of her eyes are: she comes to my soul like a tune -
Like a tune that is filled with faint voices
of the loved and the lost and the lone,
Doth this stranger abide with my silence: like a tune with a tremulous tone.
The leopard, we call her, Campaspe! I pluck at a rose and I stir
To think of this sweet-hearted maiden - what name is too tender for her?
