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b.1870
LONDON
SEE what a mass of gems the city wears
Upon her broad live bosom! row on row
Rubies and emeralds and amethysts glow.
See! that huge circle, like a necklace, stares
With thousands of bold eyes to heaven, and dares
The golden stars to dim the lamps below
And in the mirror of the mire I know
The moon has left her image unawares.
That’s the great town at night: I see her breasts,
Prick’d out with lamps they stand like huge black towers,
I think they move! I hear her panting breath.
And that’s her head where the tiara rests.
And in her brain, through lanes as dark as death,
Men creep like thoughts ... The lamps are like pale
flowers.
I HAVE been profligate of happiness
And reckless of the world’s hostility,
The blessêd part has not been given to me
Gladly to suffer fools, I do confess
I have enticed and merited distress,
By this, that I have never bow’d the knee
Before the shrine of wise Hypocrisy,
Nor worn self-righteous anger like a dress.
Yet write you this, sweet one, when I am dead:
‘Love like a lamp sway’d over all his days
And all his life was like a lamp-lit chamber,
Where is no nook, no chink unvisited
By the soft affluence of golden rays,
And all the room is bathed in liquid amber.’
I KNOW a green grass path that leaves the field,
And like a running river, winds along
Into a leafy wood where is no throng
Of birds at noon-day, and no soft throats yield
Their music to the moon. The place is seal’d,
An unclaim’d sovereignty of voiceless song,
And all the unravish’d silences belong
To some sweet singer lost or unreveal’d.
So is my soul become a silent place.
Oh may I wake from this uneasy night
To find a voice of music manifold.
Let it be shape of sorrow with wan face,
Or Love that swoons on sleep, or else delight
That is as wide-eyed as a marigold.
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