You Remain

As a perfume doth remain
In the folds where it hath lain,
So the thought of you, remaining
Deeply folded in my brain,
Will not leave me; all things leave me -
You remain.

Other thoughts may come and go,
Other moments I may know
That shall waft me, in their going,
As a breath blown to and fro,
Fragrant memories; fragrant memories
Come and go.

Only thoughts of you remain
In my heart where they have lain,
Perfumed thoughts of you, remaining,
A hid sweetness, in my brain.
Others leave me; all things leave me -
You remain.

poem by Arthur Symons
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Madrigal

May we not love as others do,
Dearest, because we love,
A mistress I, a husband you?
Nay, our delights must prove
Either the double or the part
Of those who love with single heart.

Sweet friend, I find not any wrong
In your divided soul;
Nor you, that mine should not belong
Entire to one control.
Let simple lovers if they will
Contemn us, we outwit them still.

For small and poor and cold indeed
Is any heart that can
Hold but the measure of the need,
The joy, of any man.
Both spare and prodigal were we,
To love but you, to love but me.

poem by Arthur Symons
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Idealism

I know the woman has no soul, I know
The woman has no possibilities
Of soul or mind or heart, but merely is
The masterpiece of flesh: well, be it so.
It is her flesh that I adore; I go
Thirsting afresh to drain her empty kiss.
I know she cannot love: it is not this
My vanquished heart implores in overthrow.
Tyrannously I crave, I crave alone,
Her splendid body, Earth's most eloquent
Music, divinest human harmony;
Her body now a silent instrument,
That 'neath my touch shall wake and make for me
The strains I have but dreamed of, never known.

poem by Arthur Symons
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Love's Paradox

Once I smiled when I saw you, when I saw you smile I was glad,
And the joy of my heart was as foam that the sea-wind shakes from the sea;
But the smile of your eyes grows strange, and the smile that my lips have had
Trembles back to my heart, and my heart trembles in me.

Once you laughed when you met me, when you met me your voice was gay
As the voice of a bird in the dawn of the day on a sunshiny tree;
But the sound of your voice grows strange, and the words that you do not say
Thrill from your heart to mine, and my heart trembles in me.

poem by Arthur Symons
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Amends to Nature

I have loved colours, and not flowers;
Their motion, not the swallows wings;
And wasted more than half my hours
Without the comradeship of things.

How is it, now, that I can see,
With love and wonder and delight,
The children of the hedge and tree,
The little lords of day and night?

How is it that I see the roads,
No longer with usurping eyes,
A twilight meeting-place for toads,
A mid-day mart for butterflies?

I feel, in every midge that hums,
Life, fugitive and infinite,
And suddenly the world becomes
A part of me and I of it.

poem by Arthur Symons
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The Pale Woman

I spoke to the pale and heavy-lidded woman, and said:
O pale and heavy-lidded woman, why is your cheek
Pale as the dead, and what are your eyes afraid lest they speak?
And the woman answered me: I am pale as the dead,
For the dead have loved me, and I dream of the dead.

But I see in the eyes of the living, as a living fire,
The thing that my soul in triumph tells me I have forgot;
And therefore mine eyelids are heavy, and I raise them not,
For always I see in the eyes of men the old desire,
And I fear lest they see that I desire their desire.

poem by Arthur Symons
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Fête Champêtre

Under the shadow of the trees
We sat together, you and I;
Our hearts were sweetly ill at ease
Under the shadow of the trees.

In the green circle of the grass
We saw the fairies passing by;
The wake, the fairy wake it was
Upon the circle of green grass.

And softly with their fairy chain
They wove a circle round about,
And round our hearts; ah, not in vain
They bound us with their fairy chain!

With shadowy bonds thy bound us fast,
They wove their circle in and out;
Ah, Céleste, when the fairies passed,
With what strong bonds they bound us fast!

poem by Arthur Symons
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Caprice

Her mouth is all of roses,
Her eyes are violets;
And round her cheek at hide and seek
Love plays among the roses
That dimple on her cheek.

Her heart is all caprices,
Her will is yea and nay;
And with a smile can she beguile
My heart to the caprices
That dance upon her smile.

Her looks are merely sunshine,
Her tears are only rain;
But if she will I follow still
The flitting way of sunshine
Whatever way she will.

And if she will I love her,
And if she put me by,

[...] Read more

poem by Arthur Symons
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The Primrose Dance

Skirts like the amber petals of a flower,
A primrose dancing for delight
In some enchantment of a bower
That rose to wizard music in the night;

A rhythmic flower whose petals pirouette
In delicate circles, fain to follow
The vague aerial minuet,
The mazy dancing of the swallow;

A flower's caprice, a bird's command
Of all the airy ways that lie
In light along the wonder-land,
The wonder-haunted loneliness of sky:

So, in the smoke-polluted place,
Where bird or flower might never be,
With glimmering feet, with flower-like face,
She dances at the Tivoli.

poem by Arthur Symons
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On an Air of Rameau

A melancholy desire of ancient things
Floats like a faded perfume out of the wires;
Pallid lovers, what unforgotten desires,
Whispered once, are retold in your whisperings?

Roses, roses, and lilies with hearts of gold,
These you plucked for her, these she wore in her breast;
Only Rameau's music remembers the rest,
The death of roses over a heart grown cold.

But these sighs? Can ghosts then sigh from the tomb?
Life then wept for you, sighed for you, chilled your breath?
It is the melancholy of ancient death
The harpsichord dreams of, sighing in the room.

poem by Arthur Symons
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