Poems and Ballads and Atalanta in Calydon Read online

  THESE POEMS

  ARE AFFECTIONATELY AND ADMIRINGLY

  DEDICATED

  POEMS AND BALLADS

  A Ballad of Life

  I found in dreams a place of wind and flowers,

  Full of sweet trees and colour of glad grass,

  In midst whereof there was

  A lady clothed like summer with sweet hours.

  Her beauty, fervent as a fiery moon,

  Made my blood burn and swoon

  Like a flame rained upon.

  Sorrow had filled her shaken eyelids’ blue,

  And her mouth’s sad red heavy rose all through

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  Seemed sad with glad things gone.

  She held a little cithern by the strings,

  Shaped heartwise, strung with subtle-coloured hair

  Of some dead lute-player

  That in dead years had done delicious things.

  The seven strings were named accordingly;

  The first string charity,

  The second tenderness,

  The rest were pleasure, sorrow, sleep, and sin,

  And loving-kindness, that is pity’s kin

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  And is most pitiless.

  There were three men with her, each garmented

  With gold and shod with gold upon the feet;

  And with plucked ears of wheat

  The first man’s hair was wound upon his head:

  His face was red, and his mouth curled and sad;

  All his gold garment had

  Pale stains of dust and rust.

  A riven hood was pulled across his eyes;

  The token of him being upon this wise

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  Made for a sign of Lust.

  The next was Shame, with hollow heavy face

  Coloured like green wood when flame kindles it.

  He hath such feeble feet

  They may not well endure in any place.

  His face was full of grey old miseries,

  And all his blood’s increase

  Was even increase of pain.

  The last was Fear, that is akin to Death;

  He is Shame’s friend, and always as Shame saith

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  Fear answers him again.

  My soul said in me; This is marvellous,

  Seeing the air’s face is not so delicate

  Nor the sun’s grace so great,

  If sin and she be kin or amorous.

  And seeing where maidens served her on their knees,

  I bade one crave of these

  To know the cause thereof.

  Then Fear said: I am Pity that was dead.

  And Shame said: I am Sorrow comforted.

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  And Lust said: I am Love.

  Thereat her hands began a lute-playing

  And her sweet mouth a song in a strange tongue;

  And all the while she sung

  There was no sound but long tears following

  Long tears upon men’s faces, waxen white

  With extreme sad delight.

  But those three following men

  Became as men raised upon among the dead;

  Great glad mouths open and fair cheeks made red

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  With child’s blood come again.

  Then I said: Now assuredly I see

  My lady is perfect, and transfigureth

  All sin and sorrow and death,

  Making them fair as her own eyelids be,

  Or lips wherein my whole soul’s life abides;

  Or as her sweet white sides

  And bosom carved to kiss.

  Now therefore, if her pity further me,

  Doubtless for her sake all my days shall be

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  As righteous as she is.

  Forth, ballad, and take roses in both arms,

  Even till the top rose touch thee in the throat

  Where the least thornprick harms;

  And girdled in thy golden singing-coat,

  Come thou before my lady and say this;

  Borgia, thy gold hair’s colour burns in me,

  Thy mouth makes beat my blood in feverish rhymes;

  Therefore so many as these roses be,

  Kiss me so many times.

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  Then it may be, seeing how sweet she is,

  That she will stoop herself none otherwise

  Than a blown vine-branch doth,

  And kiss thee with soft laughter on thine eyes,

  Ballad, and on thy mouth.

  A Ballad of Death

  Kneel down, fair Love, and fill thyself with tears,

  Girdle thyself with sighing for a girth

  Upon the sides of mirth,

  Cover thy lips and eyelids, let thine ears

  Be filled with rumour of people sorrowing;

  Make thee soft raiment out of woven sighs

  Upon the flesh to cleave,

  Set pains therein and many a grievous thing,

  And many sorrows after each his wise

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  For armlet and for gorget and for sleeve.

  O Love’s lute heard about the lands of death,

  Left hanged upon the trees that were therein;

  O Love and Time and Sin,

  Three singing mouths that mourn now underbreath,

  Three lovers, each one evil spoken of;

  O smitten lips wherethrough this voice of mine

  Came softer with her praise;

  Abide a little for our lady’s love.

  The kisses of her mouth were more than wine,

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  And more than peace the passage of her days.

  O Love, thou knowest if she were good to see.

  O Time, thou shalt not find in any land

  Till, cast out of thine hand,

  The sunlight and the moonlight fail from thee,

  Another woman fashioned like as this.

  O Sin, thou knowest that all thy shame in her

  Was made a goodly thing;

  Yea, she caught Shame and shamed him with her kiss,

  With her fair kiss, and lips much lovelier

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  Than lips of amorous roses in late spring.

  By night there stood over against my bed

  Queen Venus with a hood striped gold and black,

  Both sides drawn fully back

  From brows wherein the sad blood failed of red,

  And temples drained of purple and full of death.

  Her curled hair had the wave of sea-water

  And the sea’s gold in it.

  Her eyes were as a dove’s that sickeneth.

  Strewn dust of gold she had shed over her,

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  And pearl and purple and amber on her feet.

  Upon her raiment of dyed sendaline

  Were painted all the secret ways of love

  And covered things thereof,

  That hold delight as grape-flowers hold their wine;

  Red mouths of maidens and red feet of doves,

  And brides that kept within the bride-chamber

  Their garment of soft shame,

  And weeping faces of the wearied loves

  That swoon in sleep and awake wearier,

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  With heat of lips and hair shed out like flame.

  The tears that through her eyelids fell on me

  Made mine own bitter where they ran between

  As blood had fallen therein,

  She saying; Arise, lift up thine eyes and see

  If any glad thing be or any good

  Now the best thing is taken forth of us;

  Even she to whom all praise

  Was as one flower in a great multitude,

  One glorious flower of many and glorious,

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  One day found gracious among many days:

  Even she whose handmaiden was Love – to whom

  At kissing times across her stateliest bed

  Kings bowed themselves and
shed

  Pale wine, and honey with the honeycomb,

  And spikenard bruised for a burnt-offering;

  Even she between whose lips the kiss became

  As fire and frankincense;

  Whose hair was as gold raiment on a king,

  Whose eyes were as the morning purged with flame,

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  Whose eyelids as sweet savour issuing thence.

  Then I beheld, and lo on the other side

  My lady’s likeness crowned and robed and dead.

  Sweet still, but now not red,

  Was the shut mouth whereby men lived and died.

  And sweet, but emptied of the blood’s blue shade,

  The great curled eyelids that withheld her eyes.

  And sweet, but like spoilt gold,

  The weight of colour in her tresses weighed.

  And sweet, but as a vesture with new dyes,

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  The body that was clothed with love of old.

  Ah! that my tears filled all her woven hair

  And all the hollow bosom of her gown –

  Ah! that my tears ran down

  Even to the place where many kisses were,

  Even where her parted breast-flowers have place,

  Even where they are cloven apart – who knows not this?

  Ah! the flowers cleave apart

  And their sweet fills the tender interspace;

  Ah! the leaves grown thereof were things to kiss

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  Ere their fine gold was tarnished at the heart.

  Ah! in the days when God did good to me,

  Each part about her was a righteous thing;

  Her mouth an almsgiving,

  The glory of her garments charity,

  The beauty of her bosom a good deed,

  In the good days when God kept sight of us;

  Love lay upon her eyes,

  And on that hair whereof the world takes heed;

  And all her body was more virtuous

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  Than souls of women fashioned otherwise.

  Now, ballad, gather poppies in thine hands

  And sheaves of brier and many rusted sheaves

  Rain-rotten in rank lands,

  Waste marigold and late unhappy leaves

  And grass that fades ere any of it be mown;

  And when thy bosom is filled full thereof

  Seek out Death’s face ere the light altereth,

  And say ‘My master that was thrall to Love

  Is become thrall to Death.’

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  Bow down before him, ballad, sigh and groan,

  But make no sojourn in thy outgoing;

  For haply it may be

  That when thy feet return at evening

  Death shall come in with thee.

  Laus Veneris

  Lors dit en plourant; Hélas trop malheureux homme et mauldict pescheur, oncques ne verrai-je clémence et miséricorde de Dieu. Ores m’en irai-je d’icy et me cacherai dedans le mont Horsel, en requérant de faveur et d’amoureuse merci ma doulce dame Vénus, car pour son amour serai-je bien à tout jamais damné en enfer. Voicy la fin de tous mes faicts d’armes et de toutes mes belles chansons. Hélas, trop belle estoyt la face de ma dame et ses yeulx, et en mauvais jour je vis ces chouses-là. Lors s’en alla tout en gémissant et se retourna chez elle, et là vescut tristement en grand amour près de sa dame. Puis après advint que le pape vit un jour esclater sur son baston force belles fleurs rouges et blanches et maints boutons de feuilles, et ainsi vit-il reverdir toute l’escorce. Ce dont il eut grande crainte et moult s’en esmut, et grande pitié lui prit de ce chevalier qui s’en estoyt départi sans espoir comme un homme misérable et damné. Doncques envoya force messaigers devers luy pour le ramener, disant qu’il aurait de Dieu grace et bonne absolution de son grand pesché d’amour. Mais oncques plus ne le virent; car toujours demeura ce pauvre chevalier auprès de Vénus la haulte et forte déesse ès flancs de la montagne amoureuse.

  Livre des grandes merveilles d’amour, escript en latin et en françoys par Maistre Antoine Gaget. 1530.

  Asleep or waking is it? for her neck,

  Kissed over close, wears yet a purple speck

  Wherein the pained blood falters and goes out;

  Soft, and stung softly – fairer for a fleck.

  But though my lips shut sucking on the place,

  There is no vein at work upon her face;

  Her eyelids are so peaceable, no doubt

  Deep sleep has warmed her blood through all its ways.

  Lo, this is she that was the world’s delight;

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  The old grey years were parcels of her might;

  The strewings of the ways wherein she trod

  Were the twain seasons of the day and night.

  Lo, she was thus when her clear limbs enticed

  All lips that now grow sad with kissing Christ,

  Stained with blood fallen from the feet of God,

  The feet and hands whereat our souls were priced.

  Alas, Lord, surely thou art great and fair.

  But lo her wonderfully woven hair!

  And thou didst heal us with thy piteous kiss;

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  But see now, Lord; her mouth is lovelier.

  She is right fair; what hath she done to thee?

  Nay, fair Lord Christ, lift up thine eyes and see;

  Had now thy mother such a lip – like this?

  Thou knowest how sweet a thing it is to me.

  Inside the Horsel here the air is hot;

  Right little peace one hath for it, God wot;

  The scented dusty daylight burns the air,

  And my heart chokes me till I hear it not.

  Behold, my Venus, my soul’s body, lies

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  With my love laid upon her garment-wise,

  Feeling my love in all her limbs and hair

  And shed between her eyelids through her eyes.

  She holds my heart in her sweet open hands

  Hanging asleep; hard by her head there stands,

  Crowned with gilt thorns and clothed with flesh like fire,

  Love, wan as foam blown up the salt burnt sands –

  Hot as the brackish waifs of yellow spume

  That shift and steam – loose clots of arid fume

  From the sea’s panting mouth of dry desire;

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  There stands he, like one labouring at a loom.

  The warp holds fast across; and every thread

  That makes the woof up has dry specks of red;

  Always the shuttle cleaves clean through, and he

  Weaves with the hair of many a ruined head.

  Love is not glad nor sorry, as I deem;

  Labouring he dreams, and labours in the dream,

  Till when the spool is finished, lo I see

  His web, reeled off, curls and goes out like steam.

  Night falls like fire; the heavy lights run low,

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  And as they drop, my blood and body so

  Shake as the flame shakes, full of days and hours

  That sleep not neither weep they as they go.