Natalia’s Resurrection: Sonnet XXVI
Yet so it was. Adrian had hardly set
His lips to those cold lips where death had been,
His eyes those clammy eyelids scarce had wet
With his warm tears and poured his soul between,
Nor yet with eager hands had he undone
That bosom's fastness of its snowy fold,
Ere, lo, on his rapt ear there fell a moan
As of one waking in the night grown cold.
And, even as he held her in his arms,
And gazed into her face by the dim light,
He saw her blue eyes open in alarms,
As wondering who was with her in the night,
And a long shudder pass through all her frame,
And her lips move as half she breathed his name.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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A Woman’s Sonnets: IX
The day draws nigh, methinks, when I could stay
Calm in thy presence with no dream of ill,
When, having put all earthliness away,
I could be near thee, touching thee, and still
Feel no mad throbbing at my foolish heart,
No sudden rising of unbidden tears,
Could mark thee come and go, to meet our part,
Without the gladness and without the fears.
Have patience with me then for this short space.
I shall be wise, but may not yet unmoved
See a strange woman put into my place
And happy in thy love, as I was loved:
This were too much. Ah, let me not yet see
The love--light in thine eyes, and not for me.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Esther, A Sonnet Sequence: LI
When I hear laughter from a tavern door,
When I see crowds agape and in the rain
Watching on tiptoe and with stifled roar
To see a rocket fired or a bull slain,
When misers handle gold, when orators
Touch strong men's hearts with glory till they weep,
When cities deck their streets for barren wars
Which have laid waste their youth, and when I keep
Calmly the count of my own life and see
On what poor stuff my manhood's dreams were fed
Till I too learned what dole of vanity
Will serve a human soul for daily bread,
--Then I remember that I once was young
And lived with Esther the world's gods among.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Esther, A Sonnet Sequence: XXXII
I had stopped to read a handbill of the play,
Caught by the lettering. Thus it was I read,
``Programme of this night's pieces, Saturday
The twentieth of October, `X. Y. Z.,'
A piece in one act, and `Les Bergers Fous,'
These to be followed by the well--known `drame'
Of `Manon Lescaut,' here brought out anew
For the first time at Lyons.'' And a name
Followed in giant type of one who then
Illustrious stood in all the world of folly,
The most sublime Comedian known to men,
``Mademoiselle Esther, Muse of Melancholy.''
She in her part of Manon, so 'twas writ,
Three nights would play in honour infinite.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Honour Dishonoured
Honoured I lived e'erwhile with honoured men
In opulent state. My table nightly spread
Found guests of worth, peer, priest and citizen,
And poet crowned, and beauty garlanded.
Nor these alone, for hunger too I fed,
And many a lean tramp and sad Magdalen
Passed from my doors less hard for sake of bread.
Whom grudged I ever purse or hand or pen?
To--night, unwelcomed at these gates of woe
I stand with churls, and there is none to greet
My weariness with smile or courtly show
Nor, though I hunger long, to bring me meat.
God! what a little accident of gold
Fences our weakness from the wolves of old!
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Natalia’s Resurrection: Sonnet X
But with full daylight finding no relief,
Though he had spent the newness of his fears
And looked with altered eyes upon his grief,
For sorrow often drowses in its tears,
And men sleep deepest on a wound, he rose
And taking horse made in all haste for Rome,
Thinking if thus he might assuage his woes
By visiting his dead Natalia's tomb
And asking of her dear new--buried lips
What secret thought had been of love and him
When the world left her in its last eclipse.
And still in passionate words he made his theme,
That she was waiting yet to hear his cry:
``O my soul's soul, I did not bid thee die.''
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part I: To Manon: IX
ON HER WAYWARDNESS
This is rank slavery. It better were
To till the thankless earth with sweat of brow,
Following dull oxen 'neath a goad of care
To a boor's grave agape behind the plough.
It better were to linger in some slow
Unnatural case, the sport of flood or fire,
To be undone by some inhuman vow
And robbed in youth of youth and its desire.
It better were to perish than thus live
Thy pensioner and bondsman, day by day
Doing fool's service thus for love of thee.
How shall I save thee if thou wilt not grieve
Even for shames like these? How shall I slay
The foes thou lovest, thou, their enemy?
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Esther, A Sonnet Sequence: XVI
Oh, 'tis a terrible thing in early youth
To be assailed by laughter and mute shame,
A terrible thing to be befooled forsooth
By one's own foolish face betrayed in flame.
The little traitor, when she saw me dumb,
Went on to clap her hands, till all and each
Took up the jest and called on me to come
And prove my courage in the manly breach.
The imperious queen stood waiting for me there,
Pointing and beckoning, and the crowd closed in.
Under the cover of a wilder air
From the brass band, the darkness and the din,
I know not how it was, in fear or fun,
I touched that monster's knee, and all was done.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Natalia’s Resurrection: Sonnet XVI
Among the rest ('twas thus his dream went on
While Adrian slept) in more than courteous mood
And smiling welcome, fairer scarce was none,
That noble knight Natalia's husband stood,
A gentle man whom of a truth in life,
Alas for jealous youth and wit too keen!
Adrian loved little though he loved his wife,
But now beheld as the most blest of men,--
Because Natalia was not dead, he thought,
Seeing him thus unconscious of all grief,--
And in that cloudless face where pain was not
Adrian found omen to his soul's relief,
And looked beyond if haply he should see
Her face too following fixed in constancy.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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O For A Soul
O for a soul surrendered of all guile!
A plain white soul with nothing on it writ,
No creed of mockery to make men smile,
No boast of wisdom travestied as wit;
Only a clean soul where the infinite
Calm of the heavens, as on some tropic isle,
Should have looked down and on the face of it,
Inscribed in sunlight, ``Nothing here was vile.''
--Thus to my life I argue it to--day,
Thus chide my heart its too long vanity,
Its lawless strength, its insolence of play,
Its ancient rage of storm--tossed chivalry.
And yet, God wot, should Love's wind breathe my way,
My heart would rise still, a tumultuous Sea.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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