Amy Levy
(1861-1889)
Moods and Thoughts
I sent my Soul through the Invisible
Some letter of that After-life to spell ;
And by and by my Soul returned to me,
And answered, "I Myself am Heaven and Hell."
Omar Khayyám.
The Old House
Lohengrin
Alma Mater
In the Black Forest
Captivity
The Two Terrors
The Promise of Sleep
The Last Judgment
Felo de Se
The Lost Friend
Cambridge in the Long
To Vernon Lee
The Old Poet
On the Wye in May
Oh, is it Love?
In the Nower
The End of the Day
The Old House
IN through the porch and up the silent stair ;Little is changed, I know so well the ways ;--
Here, the dead came to meet me ; it was there
The dream was dreamed in unforgotten days.
But who is this that hurries on before,
A flitting shade the brooding shades among ?--
She turned,--I saw her face,--O God, it wore
The face I used to wear when I was young !
I thought my spirit and my heart were tamed
To deadness ; dead the pangs that agonise.
The old grief springs to choke me,--I am shamed
Before that little ghost with eager eyes.
O turn away, let her not see, not know !
How should she bear it, how should understand ?
O hasten down the stairway, haste and go,
And leave her dreaming in the silent land.
Lohengrin
BACK to the mystic shore beyond the mainThe mystic craft has sped, and left no trace.
Ah, nevermore may she behold his face,
Nor touch his hand, nor hear his voice again !
With hidden front she crouches ; all in vain
The proffered balm. A vessel nears the place ;
They bring her young, lost brother ; see her strain
The new-found nursling in a close embrace.
God, we have lost Thee with much questioning.
In vain we seek Thy trace by sea and land,
And in Thine empty fanes where no men sing.
What shall we do through all the weary days ?
Thus wail we and lament. Our eyes we raise,
And, lo, our Brother with an outstretched hand !
Alma Mater
A haunted town thou art to me.Andrew Lang.
TO-DAY in Florence all the air
Is soft with spring, with sunlight fair ;
In the tall street gay folks are met ;
Duomo and Tower gleam overhead,
Like jewels in the city set,
Fair-hued and many-faceted.
Against the old grey stones are piled
February violets, pale and sweet,
Whose scent of earth in woodland wild
Is wafted up and down the street.
The city's heart is glad ; my own
Sits lightly on its bosom's throne.
* * * * * * *
Why is it that I see to-day,
Imaged as clear as in a dream,
A little city far away,
A churlish sky, a sluggish stream,
Tall clust'ring trees and gardens fair,
Dark birds that circle in the air,
Grey towers and fanes ; on either hand,
Stretches of wind-swept meadow-land ?
* * * * * * *
Oh, who can sound the human breast ?
And this strange truth must be confessed ;
That city do I love the best
Wherein my heart was heaviest !
In the Black Forest
I LAY beneath the pine trees,And looked aloft, where, through
The dusky, clustered tree-tops,
Gleamed rent, gay rifts of blue.
I shut my eyes, and a fancy
Fluttered my sense around :
"I lie here dead and buried,
And this is churchyard ground.
"I am at rest for ever ;
Ended the stress and strife."
Straight I fell to and sorrowed
For the pitiful past life.
Right wronged, and knowledge wasted ;
Wise labour spurned for ease ;
The sloth and the sin and the failure ;
Did I grow sad for these ?
They had made me sad so often ;
Not now they made me sad ;
My heart was full of sorrow
For joy it never had.
Captivity
THE lion remembers the forest,The lion in chains ;
To the bird that is captive a vision
Of woodland remains.
One strains with his strength at the fetter,
In impotent rage ;
One flutters in flights of a moment,
And beats at the cage.
If the lion were loosed from the fetter,
To wander again ;
He would seek the wide silence and shadow
Of his jungle in vain.
He would rage in his fury, destroying ;
Let him rage, let him roam !
Shall he traverse the pitiless mountain,
Or swim through the foam ?
If they opened the cage and the casement,
And the bird flew away ;
He would come back at evening, heartbroken,
A captive for aye.
Would come if his kindred had spared him,
Free birds from afar--
There was wrought what is stronger than iron
In fetter and bar.
I cannot remember my country,
The land whence I came ;
Whence they brought me and chained me and made me
Nor wild thing nor tame.
This only I know of my country,
This only repeat :--
It was free as the forest, and sweeter
Than woodland retreat.
When the chain shall at last be broken,
The window set wide ;
And I step in the largeness and freedom
Of sunlight outside ;
Shall I wander in vain for my country ?
Shall I seek and not find ?
Shall I cry for the bars that encage me
The fetters that bind ?
The Two Terrors
TWO terrors fright my soul by night and day :The first is Life, and with her come the years ;
A weary, winding train of maidens they,
With forward-fronting eyes, too sad for tears ;
Upon whose kindred faces, blank and grey,
The shadow of a kindred woe appears.
Death is the second terror ; who shall say
What form beneath the shrouding mantle nears ?
Which way she turn, my soul finds no relief,
My smitten soul may not be comforted ;
Alternately she swings from grief to grief,
And, poised between them, sways from dread to dread.
For there she dreads because she knows ; and here,
Because she knows not, inly faints with fear.
The Promise of Sleep
Put the sweet thoughts from out thy mind,The dreams from out thy breast ;
No joy for thee--but thou shalt find
Thy rest
ALL day I could not work for woe,
I could not work nor rest ;
The trouble drove me to and fro,
Like a leaf on the storm's breast.
Night came and saw my sorrow cease ;
Sleep in the chamber stole ;
Peace crept about my limbs, and peace
Fell on my stormy soul.
And now I think of only this,--
How I again may woo
The gentle sleep-- who promises
That death is gentle too.
The Last Judgment
WITH beating heart and lagging feet,Lord, I approach the Judgment-seat.
All bring hither the fruits of toil,
Measures of wheat and measures of oil ;
Gold and jewels and precious wine ;
No hands bare like these hands of mine.
The treasure I have nor weighs nor gleams :
Lord, I can bring you only dreams.
In days of spring, when my blood ran high,
I lay in the grass and looked at the sky,
And dreamed that my love lay by my side--
My love was false, and then she died.
All the heat of the summer through,
I dreamed she lived, that her heart was true
Throughout the hours of the day I slept,
But woke in the night, at times, and wept.
The nights and days, they went and came,
I lay in shadow and dreamed of fame ;
And heard men passing the lonely place,
Who marked me not and my hidden face.
My strength waxed faint, my hair grew grey ;
Nothing but dreams by night and day.
Some men sicken, with wine and food ;
I starved on dreams, and found them good.
* * * * * * *
This is the tale I have to tell--
Show the fellow the way to hell.
Felo de Se
With Apologies to Mr. SwinburneFOR repose I have sighed and have struggled ; have sigh'd and have struggled in vain
I am held in the Circle of Being and caught in the Circle of Pain.
I was wan and weary with life ; my sick soul yearned for death ;
I was weary of women and war and the sea and the wind's wild breath ;
I cull'd sweet poppies and crush'd them, the blood ran rich and red :--
And I cast it in crystal chalice and drank of it till I was dead.
And the mould of the man was mute, pulseless in ev'ry part,
The long limbs lay on the sand with an eagle eating the heart.
Repose for the rotting head and peace for the putrid breast,
But for that which is "I" indeed the gods have decreed no rest ;
No rest but an endless aching, a sorrow which grows amain :--
I am caught in the Circle of Being and held in the Circle of Pain.
Bitter indeed is Life, and bitter of Life the breath,
But give me life and its ways and its men, if this be Death.
Wearied I once of the Sun and the voices which clamour'd around :
Give them me back--in the sightless depths there is neither light nor sound.
Sick is my soul, and sad and feeble and faint as it felt
When (far, dim day) in the fair flesh-fane of the body it dwelt.
But then I could run to the shore, weeping and weary and weak ;
See the waves' blue sheen and feel the breath of the breeze on my cheek :
Could wail with the wailing wind ; strike sharply the hands in despair ;
Could shriek with the shrieking blast, grow frenzied and tear the hair ;
Could fight fierce fights with the foe or clutch at a human hand ;
And weary could lie at length on the soft, sweet, saffron sand. . . .
I have neither a voice nor hands, nor any friend nor a foe ;
I am I--just a Pulse of Pain--I am I, that is all I know.
For Life, and the sickness of Life, and Death and desire to die ;--
They have passed away like the smoke, here is nothing but Pain and I.
The Lost Friend
The people take the thing of course,
They marvel not to see
This strange, unnatural divorce
Betwixt delight and me.
I KNOW the face of sorrow, and I know
Her voice with all its varied cadences ;
Which way she turns and treads ; how at her ease
Things fit her dreary largess to bestow.
Where sorrow long abides, some be that grow
To hold her dear, but I am not of these ;
Joy is my friend, not sorrow ; by strange seas,
In some far land we wandered, long ago.
O faith, long tried, that knows no faltering !
O vanished treasure of her hands and face !--
Beloved--to whose memory I cling,
Unmoved within my heart she holds her place.
And never shall I hail that other "friend,"
Who yet shall dog my footsteps to the end.
Cambridge in the Long
WHERE drowsy sound of college-chimesAcross the air is blown,
And drowsy fragrance of the limes,
I lie and dream alone.
A dazzling radiance reigns o'er all--
O'er gardens densely green,
O'er old grey bridges and the small,
Slow flood which slides between.
This is the place ; it is not strange,
But known of old and dear.--
What went I forth to seek ? The change
Is mine ; why am I here ?
Alas, in vain I turned away,
I fled the town in vain ;
The strenuous life of yesterday
Calleth me back again.
And was it peace I came to seek ?
Yet here, where memories throng,
Ev'n here, I know the past is weak,
I know the present strong.
This drowsy fragrance, silent heat,
Suit not my present mind,
Whose eager thought goes out to meet
The life it left behind.
Spirit with sky to change ; such hope,
An idle one we know ;
Unship the oars, make loose the rope,
Push off the boat and go. . . .
Ah, would what binds me could have been
Thus loosened at a touch !
This pain of living is too keen,
Of loving, is too much.
To Vernon Lee
ON Bellosguardo, when the year was young,We wandered, seeking for the daffodil
And dark anemone, whose purples fill
The peasant's plot, between the corn-shoots sprung.
Over the grey, low wall the olive flung
Her deeper greyness ; far off, hill on hill
Sloped to the sky, which, pearly-pale and still,
Above the large and luminous landscape hung.
A snowy blackthorn flowered beyond my reach ;
You broke a branch and gave it to me there ;
I found for you a scarlet blossom rare.
Thereby ran on of Art and Life our speech ;
And of the gifts the gods had given to each--
Hope unto you, and unto me Despair.
The Old Poet
I WILL be glad because it is the Spring ;I will forget the winter in my heart--
Dead hopes and withered promise ; and will wring
A little joy from life ere life depart.
For spendthrift youth with passion-blinded eyes,
Stays not to see how woods and fields are bright ;
He hears the phantom voices call, he flies
Upon the track of some unknown delight.
To him the tender glory of the May,
White wonder of the blossom, and the clear,
Soft green leaves that opened yesterday,
This only say : Forward, my friend, not here !
They breathe no other messages than this,
They have no other meaning for his heart ;
Unto his troubled sense they tell of bliss,
Which make, themselves, of bliss the better part.
Yea, joy is near him, tho' he does not know ;
Her unregarded shape is at his side,
Her unheard voice is whispering clear and low,
Whom, resting never, seeks he far and wide.
So once it was with us, my heart ! To-day
We will be glad because the leaves are green,
Because the fields are fair and soft with May,
Nor think on squandered springtimes that have been.
On the Wye in May
NOW is the perfect moment of the year.Half naked branches, half a mist of green,
Vivid and delicate the slopes appear ;
The cool, soft air is neither fierce nor keen,
And in the temperate sun we feel no fear ;
Of all the hours which shall be and have been,
It is the briefest as it is most dear,
It is the dearest as the shortest seen.
O it was best, belovèd, at the first.--
Our hands met gently, and our meeting sight
Was steady ; on our senses scarce had burst
The faint, fresh fragrance of the new delight. . . .
I seek that clime, unknown, without a name,
Where first and best and last shall be the same.
Oh, is it Love?
O IS it Love or is it Fame,This thing for which I sigh ?
Or has it then no earthly name
For men to call it by ?
I know not what can ease my pains,
Nor what it is I wish ;
The passion at my heart-strings strains
Like a tiger in a leash.
In the Nower
To J. De P.DEEP in the grass outstretched I lie,
Motionless on the hill ;
Above me is a cloudless sky,
Around me all is still :
There is no breath, no sound, no stir,
The drowsy peace to break :
I close my tired eyes--it were
So simple not to wake.
The End of the Day
To B. T.
DEAD-TIRED, dog-tired, as the vivid day
Fails and slackens and fades away.--
The sky that was so blue before
With sudden clouds is shrouded o'er.
Swiftly, stilly the mists uprise,
Till blurred and grey the landscape lies.
* * * * * * *
All day we have plied the oar ; all day
Eager and keen have said our say
On life and death, on love and art,
On good or ill at Nature's heart.
Now, grown so tired, we scarce can lift
The lazy oars, but onward drift.
And the silence is only stirred
Here and there by a broken word.
* * * * * * *
O, sweeter far than strain and stress
Is the slow, creeping weariness.
And better far than thought I find
The drowsy blankness of the mind.
More than all joys of soul or sense
Is this divine indifference ;
Where grief a shadow grows to be,
And peace a possibility.