Amy Levy
(1861-1889)
Love, Dreams, & Death
New Love, New LifeImpotens
Youth and Love
The Dream
On the Threshold
The Birch-Tree at Loschwitz
In the Night
Borderland
At Dawn
Last Words
June
A Reminiscence
The Sequel to "A Reminiscence"
In the Mile End Road
Contradictions
Twilight
In September
Ah Love! could you and I with Him conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits--and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!
--Omar Khayyám.
New Love, New Life
I
SHE, who so long has lainStone-stiff with folded wings,
Within my heart again
The brown bird wakes and sings.
Brown nightingale, whose strain
Is heard by day, by night,
She sings of joy and pain,
Of sorrow and delight.
II
'Tis true,--in other daysHave I unbarred the door ;
He knows the walks and ways--
Love has been here before.
Love blest and love accurst
Was here in days long past ;
This time is not the first,
But this time is the last.
Impotens
IF I were a woman of old,What prayers I would pray for you, dear ;
My pitiful tribute behold--
Not a prayer, but a tear.
The pitiless order of things,
Whose laws we may change not nor break,
Alone I could face it--it wrings
My heart for your sake.
Youth and Love
WHAT does youth know of love ?Little enough, I trow !
He plucks the myrtle for his brow,
For his forehead the rose.
Nay, but of love
It is not youth who knows.
The Dream
Believe me, this was true last night,Tho' it is false to-day.
A.M.F. Robinson.
A FAIR dream to my chamber flew :
Such a crowd of folk that stirred,
Jested, fluttered ; only you,
You alone of all that band,
Calm and silent, spake no word.
Only once you neared my place,
And your hand one moment's space
Sought the fingers of my hand ;
Your eyes flashed to mine ; I knew
All was well between us two.
* * * * *
On from dream to dream I past,
But the first sweet vision cast
Mystic radiance o'er the last.
* * * * *
When I woke the pale night lay
Still, expectant of the day ;
All about the chamber hung
Tender shade of twilight gloom ;
The fair dream hovered round me, clung
To my thought like faint perfume :--
Like sweet odours, such as cling
To the void flask, which erst encloses
Attar of rose ; or the pale string
Of amber which has lain with roses.
On the Threshold
O GOD, my dream ! I dreamed that you were dead ;Your mother hung above the couch and wept
Whereon you lay all white, and garlanded
With blooms of waxen whiteness. I had crept
Up to your chamber-door, which stood ajar,
And in the doorway watched you from afar,
Nor dared advance to kiss your lips and brow.
I had no part nor lot in you, as now ;
Death had not broken between us the old bar ;
Nor torn from out my heart the old, cold sense
Of your misprision and my impotence.
The Birch-Tree at Loschwitz
AT Loschwitz above the cityThe air is sunny and chill ;
The birch-trees and the pine-trees
Grow thick upon the hill.
Lone and tall, with silver stem,
A birch-tree stands apart ;
The passionate wind of spring-time
Stirs in its leafy heart.
I lean against the birch-tree,
My arms around it twine ;
It pulses, and leaps, and quivers,
Like a human heart to mine.
One moment I stand, then sudden
Let loose mine arms that cling :
O God ! the lonely hillside,
The passionate wind of spring !
In the Night
CRUEL? I think there never was a cheatingMore cruel, thro' all the weary days than this !
This is no dream, my heart kept on repeating,
But sober certainty of waking bliss.
Dreams? O, I know their faces -- goodly seeming,
Vaporous, whirled on many-coloured wings ;
I have had dreams before, this is no dreaming,
But daylight gladness that the daylight brings.
What ails my love ; what ails her ? She is paling ;
Faint grows her face, and slowly seems to fade !
I cannot clasp her--stretch out unavailing
My arms across the silence and the shade.
Borderland
AM I waking, am I sleeping ?As the first faint dawn comes creeping
Thro' the pane, I am aware
Of an unseen presence hovering,
Round, above, in the dusky air :
A downy bird, with an odorous wing,
That fans my forehead, and sheds perfume,
As sweet as love, as soft as death,
Drowsy-slow through the summer-gloom.
My heart in some dream-rapture saith,
It is she. Half in a swoon,
I spread my arms in slow delight.--
O prolong, prolong the night,
For the nights are short in June !
At Dawn
IN the night I dreamed of you ;All the place was filled
With your presence ; in my heart
The strife was stilled.
All night I have dreamed of you ;
Now the morn is grey.--
How shall I arise and face
The empty day?
Last Words
Dead! all's done with!R. Browning.
THESE blossoms that I bring,
This song that here I sing,
These tears that now I shed,
I give unto the dead.
There is no more to be done,
Nothing beneath the sun,
All the long ages through,
Nothing--by me for you.
The tale is told to the end ;
This, ev'n, I may not know--
If we were friend and friend,
If we were foe and foe.
All's done with utterly,
All's done with. Death to me
Was ever Death indeed ;
To me no kindly creed
Consolatory was given.
You were of earth, not Heaven. . . .
This dreary day, things seem
Vain shadows in a dream,
Or some strange, pictured show ;
And mine own tears that flow,
My hidden tears that fall,
The vainest of them all.
June
LAST June I saw your face three times ;Three times I touched your hand ;
Now, as before, May month is o'er,
And June is in the land.
O many Junes shall come and go,
Flow'r-footed o'er the mead ;
O many Junes for me, to whom
Is length of days decreed.
There shall be sunlight, scent of rose ;
Warm mist of summer rain ;
Only this change--I shall not look
Upon your face again.
A Reminiscence
IT is so long gone by, and yetHow clearly now I see it all !
The glimmer of your cigarette,
The little chamber, narrow and tall.
Perseus ; your picture in its frame ;
(How near they seem and yet how far !)
The blaze of kindled logs ; the flame
Of tulips in a mighty jar.
Florence and spring-time : surely each
Glad things unto the spirit saith.
Why did you lead me in your speech
To these dark mysteries of death ?
The Sequel to "A Reminiscence"
NOT in the street and not in the square,The street and square where you went and came ;
With shuttered casement your house stands bare,
Men hush their voice when they speak your name.
I, too, can play at the vain pretence,
Can feign you dead ; while a voice sounds clear
In the inmost depths of my heart : Go hence,
Go, find your friend who is far from here.
Not here, but somewhere where I can reach !
Can a man with motion, hearing and sight,
And a thought that answered my thought and speech,
Be utterly lost and vanished quite ?
Whose hand was warm in my hand last week ? . . .
My heart beat fast as I neared the gate--
Was it this I had come to seek,
"A stone that stared with your name and date ;"
A hideous, turfless, fresh-made mound ;
A silence more cold than the wind that blew ?
What had I lost, and what had I found ?
My flowers that mocked me fell to the ground--
Then, and then only, my spirit knew.
In the Mile End Road
HOW like her ! But 'tis she herself,Comes up the crowded street,
How little did I think, the morn,
My only love to meet !
Whose else that motion and that mien ?
Whose else that airy tread ?
For one strange moment I forgot
My only love was dead.
Contradictions
NOW, even, I cannot think it true,My friend, that there is no more you.
Almost as soon were no more I,
Which were, of course, absurdity !
Your place is bare, you are not seen,
Your grave, I'm told, is growing green ;
And both for you and me, you know,
There's no Above and no Below.
That you are dead must be inferred,
And yet my thought rejects the word.
Twilight
SO Mary died last night ! To-dayThe news has travelled here.
And Robert died at Michaelmas,
And Walter died last year.
I went at sunset up the lane,
I lingered by the stile ;
I saw the dusky fields that stretched
Before me many a mile.
I leaned against the stile, and thought
Of her whose soul had fled--
I knew that years on years must pass
Or e'er I should be dead.
In September
THE sky is silver-grey ; the longSlow waves caress the shore.--
On such a day as this I have been glad,
Who shall be glad no more.