The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part III: Gods And False Gods: LXXXI
TO ONE WHOM HE HAD LOVED TOO LONG
Why do I cling to thee, sad love? Too long
Thou bringest me neither pleasure to my soul
Nor profit to my reason save in song,
My daily utterance. See, thy beggar's dole
Of foolish tears cannot my tears cajole;
Thy laughter doth my laughter grievous wrong;
Thy anger angereth me; thou heapest coal
Of fire upon my head the drear night long
With thy forgiveness. What is this thou wilt?
Mine ears have ceased to hear, my tongue to speak,
And naught is left for my spent heart to do.
Love long has left the feast; the cup is spilt.
Let us go too. The dawn begins to break,
And there is mockery in this heaven of blue.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Youth And Knowledge
What price, child, shall I pay for your bright eyes
(How large a debt!) the light they shed on me?
What for your cheeks, so red in their surprise,
Your lips, your hands, your maiden gestures free,
Your fair brows crowned with grave nobility,
All the delight which in your presence lies,
The words unsaid, the deeds which dare not be,
The dreams undreamed, my meed of Paradise?
--Nay, I can pay naught; your poor bankrupt I,
Since gold may not nor frankincense nor myrrh
Serve my account nor any gift of kings.
Yet be my wealth yours, joys that fools deny,
Knowledge of life, love, power as presbyter,
The wit to teach youth's zeal to use its wings.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part I: To Manon: XIII
HE DARES NOT DIE
Four hours by the clock! How strange it is! Four hours
Since love and life, the future and the past,
Died with the shutting of these silent doors,
And thought became to me one purpose vast.
I have not moved from where she sat. The cast
Of her fingers on this cushion lightly scores
Its surface still; and still I hear the last
Tones of her laughter, and here lie her flowers.
Poor flowers! The ugliness of grief has wrought
Your change already. No besotted bloom
Of a false dawn has lured you to base life.
You at the pinch were brave and trifled not,
Going ungrudging to our common doom.
And I? Ah God! I have not faced the knife!
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part III: Gods And False Gods: LXVII
THE SAME CONTINUED
Your youth flowed on, a river chaste and fair,
Till thirty years were written to your name.
A wife, a mother, these the titles were
Which conquered for you the world's fairest fame.
In all things you were wise but in this one,
That of your wisdom you yourself did doubt.
Youth spent like age, no joy beneath the sun.
Your glass of beauty vainly running out.
Then suddenly again, ere well you knew,
Love looked upon you tenderly, yet sad:
``Are these wise follies, then, enough for you?''
He said;--``Love's wisdom were itself less mad.''
And you: ``What wouldst thou of me?'' ``My bare due,
In token of what joys may yet be had.''
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part IV: Vita Nova: CXIII
TO ONE WITH HIS SONNETS
This is the book. For evil and for good,
What my life was in it is written plain.
These are no dreams, but things of flesh and blood,
The past that lived and shall not live again.
This is the book. I dare not bid you read.
Too much of my poor soul you would unlock.
Your own soul, if it tender were, might bleed.
I could not bear that you should only mock.
My life lies here. And yet in vain, dear heart,
The tale is told. One page it yearns to see,
One play where one best actor should find part.
But that, alas for love! shall never be.
Yet, if a sign you seek between these lines,
One hidden lies for you, a sign of signs.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part II: To Juliet: XXXVIII
TO ONE NOW ESTRANGED
Why did you love me? Was it not enough
That the world loved you, all the world and I?
Or was your heart of so sublime a stuff
That it might trifle with inconstancy
And love and cease to love and yet not die?
Heaven was your throne by right of happiness
And Earth your footstool. All things great and high
Waited your bidding, love itself no less.
Yet, if you deigned to love, if from your place
In Heaven you stooped, if, when your heart was moved,
A thrill of human pleasure tinged your face,
If 'twas in weakness not in strength you loved,
Then there was cause to blush. Yet, loving, how
Shall you blush less to be apostate now?
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part IV: Vita Nova: CX
THE OASIS OF SIDI KHALED
How the earth burns! Each pebble underfoot
Is as a living thing with power to wound.
The white sand quivers, and the footfall mute
Of the slow camels strikes but gives no sound,
As though they walked on flame, not solid ground.
'Tis noon, and the beasts' shadows even have fled
Back to their feet, and there is fire around
And fire beneath, and overhead the sun.
Pitiful heaven! What is this we view?
Tall trees, a river, pools, where swallows fly,
Thickets of oleander where doves coo,
Shades, deep as midnight, greenness for tired eyes.
Hark, how the light winds in the palm--tops sigh.
Oh this is rest. Oh this is paradise.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Le Roi Est Mort. Vive Le Roi!
Why wait for Arthur? He too long has slept.
He shall not hear you--no, nor heed your moan,
More than the wail of those fair Queens that kept
Their watch for him what months in Avalon!
He shall not wake for any mother's son
Nor mother's daughter of them all in tears,
His knights, his ladies. How then for this one,
You the last blossom of our world's lost years?
--Ah, let him sleep. For see how in the wood,
Under the dead oak, green new saplings spring,
How the thorn blossoms, while birds cry aloud
In scorn of grief. And, Lady, by the rood!
There rides a knight, new--armed and questing proud,
Who shouts, ``The king is dead. Long live the King!''
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part I: To Manon: V
ON THE POWER OF HER BEAUTY
I am lighthearted now. An hour ago
There was a tempest in my heaven, a flame
Of sullen lightning under a bent brow
And a dull muttering which breathed no name.
Now all is changed. The very winds are tame,
And the birds sing aloud from every bough,
And my heart leaps. What empire dost thou claim,
Child, o'er this Earth, that nature serves thee so?
Sublime magician! Well may Earth and Heaven
Change at thy bidding, and the hearts of men.
Didst thou but know the power that beauty hath,
The sea should leave his bed, the rocks be riven,
And wise men, deeming chaos come again,
Should kneel before thee and conjure thy wrath.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Natalia’s Resurrection: Sonnet XXVII
She wakes, she breathes, she rises from her bed,
That bed of death where she has lain so long;
The flowers they set there fall from her fair head
Withered, while she, sweet soul, has known no wrong.
Forth from her grave miraculously white,
And all unstained by the dull earth's decay,
Natalia rises, a last star of night,
Just as the dawn is breaking into day.
Upon the stones they kneeled them down and prayed,
For hearts grow soft with a long danger past,
And both were young and for a while dismayed
At their great joy nor deemed they held it fast;
Then, having kissed and wept, they turned to go
Through the dark church with faltering steps and slow.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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