Radclyffe Hall: Verses about Love

The sun has set; Beloved see that star,
Wan with desire, pale in the afterglow,
Above the hill top hanging very low,
As though she stooped from her high regions far
To kiss this earth, because she loved it so !

While I, I feel the trembling touch of you,
Feel the dim magic of your eyes on me,
As though two stars had fallen in the sea,
And drowned themselves in his rejoicing blue,
Lighting his soul through all eternity !

High above a waveless sea,
On the hills of long ago.
There you lived awhile with me.
And we loved—I know.

For your hair I made a crown,
Twined it with these hands of mine,
Sun-warmed leaves and tendrils brown,
From the happy vine.

You were like some woodland thing,
Fear and rapture in your eyes,
Tender as a breath of Spring
Blown from April skies.

Then I called you, and you heard.
To your lover's arms you came :
Ah ! what was that magic word.
Your forgotten name !

Dear, give me the tips of your fingers
To hold in this scented gloom,
' Mid the sighs of the dying roses,
That steal through the breeze-swept room ;

I would have you but lightly touch me,
A phantom might stir the dress,
In its passing, of some lost lover
With just such a faint caress;

Or a butterfly wan with summer
Brush thus with his down-flecked wings
The bells of the altar lilies
He touches, and lightly rings.

So give me the tips of your fingers,
Not your hand, lest I break the spell
Of the moment with too much passion,
And lose what I love so well.

The thought of you has filled the night with wonder,
The dawn with praise,
Till all my senses thrill, like roses under
The morning's rays.

This love of ours has clad with new-found splendour
The hills and streams,
No forest glade but sighs of vast surrender,
In noontide dreams,

No star in heaven but grants a starry lover
Some tender boon,
No drifting cloud but longs to clasp and cover
His lady Moon.

No song of bird that is not song of mating,
In sylvan shade,
No sigh of wind that is not sigh of waiting
For bliss delayed.

The world itself a garden, where we wander
'Mid passion flowers,
Or pause to kiss a while, and fondly ponder
This joy of ours.

The Moon looked in at the window,
And smiled as I wrote to you,
She lay like a frail white maiden,
In shadowy folds of blue.

Her bosom was bare and tender,
And slight, for she still was young,
And down from her dainty shoulders
A mantle of starlight hung.

She wooed with a wanton ardour
The winds till they lulled to sighs,
And night was transformed with beauty,
For love of her limpid eyes.

The soul of the cloudy darkness
Awakened beneath her beams,
The sky swooned away with longing,
The Earth stirred in tender dreams.

Alas! for the moon was cruel,
Far colder than snow was she,
Her heart was a burnt-out Planet,
Her light but a fallacy:

And she looked at my open letter,
And called from her couch on high,
'Pray give my love to my Sister
Who is even more cold than I.'

Time hangs suspended 'mid the perfumed dusk,
With limpid wings, o'er which the first pale star
Gleams like a tear, within the tender, far
Desirous eyes of love-lorn Destiny.
The earth is dumb, the scents of many flowers
Flow out from petalled lips upon her breast,
In one unending sigh of happy rest.
The halting pageant of the passing hours
Unfurls its misty pennants to the sea.
The Nightingale has swooned for ecstasy,
And hides away amid the vine-clad bowers
Upon the terrace; Oh! impassioned dusk!
Speechless with longing, throbbing with delight
To fling thy beauty in the arms of night,
Thy rare, dim beauty sweet with breath of musk,
Thou shalt not know thy joy nor him requite
With tender ardour, ere there comes to me
Adown thy paths from out eternity,
My soul's twin soul, mine embodied bliss,
Torn from the countless ages by a kiss.

July 23rd, 1906

Across the hills a tender shadow stole,
Like thought upon the face of one loved well.
And thro' the silence rang some distant bell,
A vague sweet music in its every toll.

Glimmers of sunlight flecked with purple shade
Upon the nearer summits, and the view
Grown dim, unearthly, 'neath the silver-blue
Of incense mist, that rose while nature prayed.

Two stars with tremulous emotion shone
Close side by side, in the encircling dome,
While drifting clouds, their edges soft as foam,
Made couches, which the moon might rest upon.

In thro' the open window came the scent
Of lime trees, in the garden underneath,
And from my cigarette a little wreath
Of memories, to meet their fragrance went.

It was an evening full of bygone things,
That mingled with emotions newly born
As night will ever clasp and kiss the dawn,
And leave those kisses on her ardent wings.

A little white Cloud loved the Mountain,
She hung in the sky all day,
And gazed with rather a timid smile
To where, beneath her full many a mile,
The earth and the loved one lay.

The Mountain was silent and lonely,
And grim in the light of dawn,
And ever and aye he cast his eyes
In longing hope to the distant skies
Where little white clouds are born.

Till a breeze in the evening passing
Took pity upon her vow,
And very tenderly lifted down
The virgin Cloud, till her fleecy crown
Was set on the Mountain's brow.

And they loved with a silent ardour
So great that she soon was slain,
And drop by drop from her tender breast
The life-blood flowed o'er his rock-bound crest,
And fell to the earth in rain.

But she left him to keep for ever,
As solace in endless woe
Her soul, and now through the changing years,
Come shine, come shade, or come smiles, or tears,
It lies on his breast as snow.

Once o'er this hill whereon we stand,
Just you and I, hand clasp'd in hand
Amid the silence, and the space,
A mighty battle rent the air,
With dying curse and choking prayer;
'Mid shot and shell death stalked apace.

Is it conceivable to you—
So much at peace—because we two
Are close together, or to me?
The silent beauty of the noon
Seems like a Heaven-granted boon,
Aglow with tender ecstasy.

A little mist of hazy blue
Is slowly hiding from our view
The city's domes and slender spires,
As thro' a bridal veil the sun
Subdued and shy lights one by one
The virgin clouds with blushing fires.

The wind has fallen; very low
We hear his wings brush past, and know
He creeps away to dream and rest ;
How sweet to be alone, to feel
You breathe one longing sigh, and steal
A little closer to my breast.

Is anything worth while but this?
We may not perish for a kiss,
Yet thus it were not hard to die !
War strews the earth with countless dead,
And after all is done and said,
The end is love, and you and I !

Come with me, sweetheart, into Italy,
And press the burning goblet of the south
To those cold northern lips, until thy mouth
Relents beneath its draft of ecstasy.

Drink in the sun, made liquid in the breasts
Of purple grapes crushed lifeless for thy wine,
Until those over tranquil eyes of thine
Glow like twin lakes, on which the noontide rests.

Drink in the airs, those languid, vapoury sighs
Of Goddesses, whose souls live on in love,
Those amorous zephyrs, soft with plaint of dove
From flowery trees of Pagan Paradise :

Until thy brain grows hazy 'neath the fumes
Of pale camellias, passionately white,
Of scarlet roses dropping with delight
Their wanton petals in a shower of bloom.

Drink in the music of some ardent song,
Poured forth to die upon the wide, still lake,
Until the darkness seems to throb and break
In fiery stars whose pulses yearn and long.

And then drink in my love; the whole of me,
In one deep breath, one vast impassioned kiss,
That come what may, thou canst remember this :
That thou hast lived and loved in Italy.

To-day I hate that bitter creed,
Whereby the groaning soul is taught
That God Almighty finds the need
Of pain, ere true salvation 's wrought !

Dear God, who did create the trees,
The scented flowers, the misty view,
The uplands' breezy ecstasies,
The Ocean's iridescent blue,

The arches of the endless sky,
The magic of a day in Spring,
The down upon a butterfly,
The anthem that the skylarks sing.

All perfect growing harmonies,
Each tuneful sound and beauteous sight,
That lifts us from our miseries
To raptures of supreme delight,

Can I believe that Thou hast willed
Each bitter moment I have spent?
Whereby in anguish were fulfilled
Thy hard decrees of punishment?

To-day is June! Since early dawn
My heart has felt the sun's caress,
I bless the hour that I was born
To witness so much loveliness.

And I would have a God of love,
A tender God, who looks and smiles-
From some not distant throne above
Upon His fair created miles.

I know not who has placed the thorns
That pierce, on our human brow,
But I would pray on these sweet morns.
Dear God, Oh ! Let it not be Thou.

If I should pray, my prayer would be
For gratitude unlimited :
For gratitude so vast and deep,
That it would move my soul to weep
Great tears, and all the words I said
To be as organ notes sublime,
FuU-throati d flowing words of rhyme,
Whose like no mortal eye hath read.

Then would I kneel before the God
Whose matchless genius made the earth ;
The Poet-God, who sows the hours
With all the scented hosts of flowers.
Who gives the little winds their birth,
Who doth unloose the sea-song's might
To shake the very stars at night.
And fling the foam-flakes high in mirth.

Whose mind is fragrant as a grove
Of cedar trees in summer rain,
Whose thoughts dead poets gathered up,
And poured within the brimming cup
They offered to the world in vain.
Whose whisper masters caught, and wrote
Into their music note by note,
Immortal, haunting, strain on strain.

Whose image is revealed to all
Great lovers in the loved one's face.
Whose passion mystical and deep
Kindles the holy fires that sleep
Within the heart's most secret place.
Whose breath is incense on the shrine
Of earthly love, burning divine
And changeless, through all time and space !

A road disused these many years,
O'er which the grass has grown
Between two rows of silent pines,
That stretch in straight, unbroken lines

Away to plains unknown.
Long ruts that passing wagons made
In days whose records die
Form trenches for the frailer flowers,

That timid of more open bowers
Secure in hiding lie.
And in those deep impressions there,
Where patient beasts have trod,

With stems in dainty green array,
And faces turned to meet the day,
Grow sprays of golden-rod,
' Mid sunbeams slanting thro' the wood

The ardent Afternoon
Steals like a lover fond, and dumb,
Upon his mistress Earth, o'ercome
With many a tender boon ;

And that she sooner shall respond
To his awakening fires,
He summons from each fairy glade
Wee winged things, to serenade
This nymph of his desires.

So full of mystic power and life
Is this forgotten place
That I may scarcely dare intrude
My presence and my lighter mood,
Lest stepping I deface

Some masterpiece of moss or bloom,
That Dryad hands have wrought,
Perchance my very humanness
May make this potent charm the less,
That solitude has taught.

I fear to tread upon a branch,
For if beneath my feet
It breaks 'twould thus affright the bird
Whose tender music I have heard
In yonder green retreat;


And who am I that I should dare
Gainsay the Noon's behest;
Or penetrate this peaceful sphere,
And bring an agony of fear
To some dumb creature's breast?

Within this forest night and day
An endless hymn of praise
From out the heart of Nature wells,
That once again perfection dwells
In her profaned ways,

That living green conceals the scars
Made by relentless man,
While in the deepest sylvan glades
Sound faint and far thro' emerald shades
The crystal pipes of Pan.

If not from Phaon I must hope for ease,
Ah ! let me seek it from the raging seas :
To raging seas unpitied I'll remove;
And either cease to live or cease to love.
Ovid's Heroic Epistle, XV.


Immortal Lesbian! canst thou still behold
From some far sphere wherein thy soul doth sing
This earth, that once was thine, while glimmered gold
The joyous beams of youth's forgotten spring?

Can thine unfathomed eyes embrace this sea,
Whose ebb and flow once echoed in thy brain ?
Whose tides bear record of thine ecstasy
And thy despair, that in its arms hath lain?

Those love-burnt lips! Can death have quenched their fire?
Whose words oft stir our senses to unrest?
Whose eager ardour caught and held desire,
A searing flame against thy living breast?

Passion-wan Lesbian, in that awful place
Where spirits wander lost without a name
Thou still art Sappho, and thine ardent face
Lights up the gloom with love's enduring flame.

Oh! Goddess, woman, lover, all divine
And yet divinely mortal, where thou art
Comes not as cadence from some song of thine
Each throbbing beat that stirs the human heart ?

Canst thou forget us who are still thy friends,
Thy lovers, o'er the cloudy gulf of years?
Who live, and love, and dying make amends
For life's short pleasures thro' death's endless fears ?

Once thou didst seek the solace of thy kind,
The madness of a kiss was more to thee
Than Heaven or Hell, the greatness of thy mind
Could not conceive more potent ecstasy !

Life was thy slave, and gave thee of her store
Rich gifts and many, yet with all the pain
Of hopeless longing made thy spirit sore,
E'en thou didst yearn, and couldest not attain.

Oh ! Sappho, sister, by that agony
Of soul and body hast thou gained a place
Within each age that shines majestie'ly
Across the world from out the dusk of space.

Not thy deep pleasures, nor thy swiftest joys,
Have made thee thus, immortal and yet dear
To mortal hearts, but that which naught destroys,
The sacred image of thy falling tear.

Beloved Lesbian ! we would dare to claim
By that same tear fond union with thy lot;
Yet 'tis enough, if when we breathe thy name
Thy soul but listens, and forgets us not.

Oh ! weary ghosts, be still !
Sad spectres of long dead delights,
Wan spirits of the days and nights
Wherein of joy we drank our fill,
Lie deep beneath the sod of years.
To-day, to-day is mine !
Ye shall not blight its fragrant flowers,
Nor mar the passing of its hours,
That love has rendered all divine,
By woeful sighs and falling tears.

This is the sphere of life,
Wherein the long forgotten dead
Unwelcome should forbear to tread,
Within my veins hot blood runs rife,
But ye are colder than the grave !
What would ye have of me?
What price that penance did not pay,
What sacrifice of human clay?
Must my delight again set free
Be tethered to a witless slave?

While still upon this earth
Ye lived, and 'neath the joyous sun
Were warm and fair to look upon,
I blest the hour that gave ye birth,
And all my life laid at your feet.
The homage of my youth
I daily offered at your shrine,
Nor counted dear those gifts of mine
Which sapped the very strength of truth,
And left her poor and incomplete.

Nor did condemn the lust,
The soul destroying tyranny,
With which ye wrought my misery,
For in my heart was endless trust,
My spirit, dauntless, knew no fear.
Ye cry that ye were slain
Alas ! it was not I who slew,
For all my hopes were buried too
Within that hour of death and pain,
And there remained not e'en a tear.

Nay, it was fate whose hand
Upraised to strike the awful blow
Decreed that ye must die, and go
Lamented to that shadow land
Of lost illusions perished soon !
Wherein the once-time-young
Thro' countless ages seek, nor find,
Their vanished youth ; with wandering mind
They sing the songs that once they sung,
But never may complete the tune.

Hence—hence ! it is not yet
The hour wherein I too must pass,
The sand runs still within the glass,
And I would live and fain forget
Those bygone things that once ye were.
My lips have touched the rose,
And in its perfumed breast the dew
Has quenched my thirst; and lo! anew
The petals of my heart unclose,
My pulses throb, my senses stir.

Ye shall not steal this day,
For love has risen to my aid,
See, I am brave and undismayed!
Hence—hence ! all things must pass away,
Back to your graves, obscure and deep !
I read aloud love's prayer,
Lift not again your haunting eyes
T'wards my new-found Paradise,
Lie still beside my lost despair,
And I command you—Sleep, Sleep, Sleep!

I
Crush these voluptuous grapes between your teeth,
Your small, strong teeth ! and let their purple pain
Be offered in a sacrificial rain
Of sun-warmed essence; while I twine a wreath
Of all their leaves, and place it just beneath
Your high-combed curls, to rest upon the plain
Of your white temples : though the Nymphs disdain
To grace our modern banquet, they bequeath
A sylvan fancy to my wayward dream.
This glint of candles on the silver round
Is yellow moonlight, mirrored in lone stream,
These flowers are springing from the sensuous ground,
And we are Dryads, 'tis a fitting theme
For you to sing; come—thrill the night with sound.

II
The shaded lamps that make the room seem dim
Scarcely revealing pictures on the wall;
Yet one so placed to let a halo fall
Upon your hair; you smile! yes, it's a whim
A Poet's fancy with a moonlit rim
Perhaps—and yet a harmless wish withal.
Don't quarrel with it, just sit there, those tall
White lilies make a background for your slim
Young body. Let the blinds be up, and night
Gaze through the windows with her purple eyes,
Dropping some ardent star from out its height
For very eagerness of glad surprise
At so much beauty, till your song's delight
Shall waft it back into the listening skies !

III
Where shall I find a corner in this room
Almost in darkness? Ah! that deep recess
Of languid cushions, eager to caress
My weary limbs ! from out its dreaming gloom
Made holy by the incense of perfume,
All unobserved and happy I'll confess
My senses to those roses, passionless,
And listening in their bowl of silver doom.
Sing, sing, sweet friend, but soft, though eagerly !
With tender pauses in between the notes
Filled up with little sighs, unconsciously—
These rose-dropped petals, they are fairy boats
Our souls may sail on lakes of melody
Adown whose ripples youth eternal floats.

IV
Oh ! burning silence ! when the very air
Is warm with memories of sounds we love!
You cease to sing, yet from below, above,
Around me, in me, of me, everywhere,
That Music's spirit, tremulously fair
Flutters and flutters, like a wounded dove,
And cannot fly beyond this earthly groove !
Midway it pauses, hanging throbbing there.
I will not speak, lest it should seem profane
In such a presence; idle words of praise
Ye are but mortal sounds, with no refrain
That can endure beyond our passing days,
And so be silent ! silent with the pain
Of all deep feeling, that can find no phrase.

V
Kiss me good night, sweet minstrel, on the stairs !
I love your lips, they're neither pale nor red,
But like an after-glow, when day lies dead
Upon the mountains. Do they say soft prayers,
Those languid lips? to God, a God who cares,
And gathers such dear follies thread by thread
As each is woven in your mind, and shed
Like gold spun silk upon His field of tares?
You're silent! let it pass; who knows but you,
So strong in weakness, may compel God's ear
To listen for the smallest drop of dew
That all our thunders would disdain to hear :
And so, Sweet, if you pray, repeat anew
To God, that while you sang I wept a tear !

VI
This morning while I light my cigarette
In this dim study with its endless view
Stretching away to hills whose eyes are blue
With secret thoughts, my thoughts are all regret,
Regret for broken interludes! and yet—
If it were otherwise, who knows but you
Might grow to pall, as things familiar do,
While now it seems worth while to not forget !
And so good-bye, my friend, drift out in smoke,
Vague, and intangible, a fleeting joy
That some stray match of fate in passing woke,
To burn awhile, like this small soothing toy
Between my lips: Time's galling iron yoke
Is not for us, we made and we'll destroy.

And so we closed the book, wherein we wrote
How many words of ecstasy and pain,
How oft repeated passion's deep refrain,
Like ebb and flow of tide, whose echo smote
Upon the hearing of our listening sense.
These pages will become the prey of years,
And time, who stretches forth an envious hand,
Shall make impossible to understand
Our burning words, that shine with unshed tears,
Ay, and we two may offer no defence !

The early mornings of awakening Spring
That smote our inspiration and desire
They still shall call, yet find no answering fire
Within the eyes of two at least, who bring
But wormwood, from the once so flowering path.
And limpid winter twilights when we gazed
Thro' frosted panes across the purpling snow,
Or turned our eyes towards the cheerful glow
Of logs, whose kindly voices cracked and blazed
With invitation to the sheltered hearth—

They too shall come in season as before,
Yet we be absent, and within the room
Our vacant places cast a little gloom ;
Then shall there fall a shadow on the floor,
As of one passing, who is yet unseen.
Perchance a pilgrim wind will pause to look
Within this volume where our tale unfolds,
And sorry at the text he there beholds,
Rustle with sighs the vellum of this book,
But leave no trace of where his breath has been.

Perchance a rose that through the casement bent,
Might cast her ardent eyes upon this lay,
And being touched, hide one soft leaf away
Between its pages, out of sentiment,
Then toss her wanton fragrance to the South.
Aye, many roses shall be born to grace
The garden, and the day will still rejoice,
Yet never at the echo of thy voice,
Nor shall a rose lift up its longing face
That we may cool our lips upon its mouth.

And side by side with petals and with sighs,
With overweening tenderness and trust,
Shall rest the deadly layer of choking dust :
A weary skull, its sockets bare of eyes,
With grinning pathos from the title page
Will bear stark record of its master Death.
Sightless, yet seeing all Eternity,
With silent voice that rings more truthfully
Than any words we quickened with our breath
More full of wisdom than the speech of sage.

We two have loved, and have outlived the laws
Of love, e'en as these bones survive their flesh
With awful vigour gleaming strangely fresh
Amid the ruin of their natal cause,
A peg on which the gods may hang their wit !
We two have cast each other in the flame
Of searing passion, that we deemed was life.
Alas ! those fiery billows flowing rife
Upon the sand, they have defaced love's name,
And there remains no smallest trace of it.

And yet we live, and walk upon the earth,
Beneath the pall of dusk the dome of dawn,
And all created creatures being born
Must do, and thus atone their hour of birth,
A living sacrifice to what! Who knows?
Poor futile things, we make our little moan,
And clasp our puny hands in useless prayers
To that which neither wots of us nor cares,
And in our grief behold, we stand alone,
Till our complaining lips in anguish close.

My eyes shall still behold the stars above,
And you, how oft will count the hosts of night,
But never, never can we feel delight
In them together, swearing that our love
Is more enduring than eternal things !
Oh ! blessed madness that possessed the heart,
Oh ! sweet unreason that could cloud the mind,
Alas ! that we have left you far behind,
And growing wise must lose the dearer part,
Of which not even the faintest perfume clings.

What would we not surrender overjoyed,
To hear once more the music that is still;
We sweep the strings, but lo ! no answering thrill
From shattered harps, that eager hands destroyed,
From souls whom ravishment has smitten dumb.
Oh ! for one hour snatched from the throbbing past,
Replete with its embodied ecstasy!
How little would we count Eternity,
How ready be, to know that hour, our last,
No matter what the penalty to come.

Oh ! bitterness, that we ourselves did write
These pages with heart's blood, yet cannot feel
To-day one little tremor o'er us steal
Save of regret for so much past delight !
The cup is spilt of which we two partook.
For this last time, oh ! once beloved, stay
Close here beside me, while my drying pen
Has still the strength to write our last Amen.
'Tis written .... there is nothing left to say,
And so together .... thus, we close the book.

Ring on! Oh endless vesper bell!
What can you know of that deep Hell
Upon this Earth, where men may dwell.

Ring on ! Your calling is in vain,
What holy rite can lull the pain
Of mortal Sin's Immortal stain.
* * * *
It was the heavy hour of noon,
When Nature still as in a swoon
Reclines beneath the spell of June.

I left the Monastery gate,
And sought the forest shade, to wait
For even hour, and meditate.

Upon the beads hung from my side
A silver Christus crucified.
God mocked, and scourged, and denied !

My missal in my hand I took,
And read within the Holy Book
How vain the joys a monk forsook.

I thought of Heaven, and all therein
I hoped by penitence to win;
My heart was free from mortal sin.

When lo ! as of enchanted spheres
A languid music smote my ears,
With vast delight, and vaster fears.

It was as if all deadly wrong
Grown honied sweet in magic song
Caressed my senses, deep and long.

My eyes upon the missal bent
Sprang upward, and in ravishment
Beheld a gaze on me intent.

The figure of a tender maid,
Within the larches' trembling glade
Clothed in sunlight and in shade—

Was bending o'er me, and her breast
Full worthy of a King's behest
She offered, that my head might rest.

She was most pale, and frail, and white,
Like moonlit mist on Summer's night,
Like memory of wan delight.

And thro' the tendrils of her hair
There blew a breath of scented air,
Of all sweet things from everywhere.

A limpid magic were her eyes,
Two mountain lakes, where sunlight lies
Enamoured, and of passion dies.

From out her lips proceeded words
More soft than distant pipe of herds,
More tender than the song of birds.

I know not what the tongue she spake,
But all my senses leapt to ache
With longing, for her asking's sake.

As in a dream I rose and pressed
Her bending slimness to my breast:
With eager kiss my mouth caressed

The flaming redness of her own,
All else on earth had nothing grown,
Save that we two were there alone.

Within my ears the rush of streams,
My vision shot with lurid gleams,
My spirit bathed in burning dreams!

A vital fragrance round her clung,
As if from earth's deep veins was wrung
The sap of springs for ever young.

It turned my blood to living fire,
The universe immense, entire,
Was bound in me, and my desire.

No mortal man was I, while still
I kissed and wreaked my ardent will
Upon that form of tender ill.

She cast her magic over me,
Her spell of Immortality,
That lost my soul Eternity.

The sunlight faded, and the day
As one affrighted fled away,
Suddenly tremulous and gray.

An icy wind sprang up, and blew
A shuddering breath along the dew,
It chilled my body thro' and thro'.

I sought the shelter of her hair,
But lo ! my sinful breast was bare,
My arms outstretched to empty air.

I wept aloud, in anguish cried,
The echoes hastened to deride !
She came no longer to my side.

And in her stead, with agony
Of dumb regret, most bitterly
My soul came forth, and looked on me !
* * * *
Within the forest's depth a bird
Began to twitter, and I heard
Trees stirring at its tender word.

I woke as from a searing dream,
Beside my feet a little stream
Grew rosy with a sunset beam.

The earth gave forth her fragrant store;
Obedient to Eternal law,
All things were even as before,

All things save I, who moaned, and stood
A stranger, in the tranquil wood.
My spirit shrank away, nor could

Refresh itself at Nature's breast,
Its lips were burnt, denied, caressed
Of sin, unholy and unblessed !

I knew it then ! fulfilled desires
Are in themselves Hell's deepest fires,
And man when highest he aspires

The more may fall beneath his lust.
And yet, ah ! Heaven, the while I thrust
My sense in penitential dust

I knew that thro' my misery
A tremor stole persistently,
Of rapture at her memory.

Shall I confess with spirit bent
That hour of awful ravishment?
Dear God, but slwuld I not repent'?

'Twere better that we two should die
A thousand deaths, my soul and I,
Than live an everlasting lie !

Oh soul ! What would you have me say,
To Him whose hand shall never stay-
Its vengeance on this woeful day !
* * * *
Ring on ! oh endless vesper bell !
What can you know of that deep Hell
Upon this earth where men may dwell,
And God, does He know? Who can tell