Thou shalt not die: no asps of Egypt creep Close at thy heels to taint the delicate air;No sullen-blooming poppies stain thy hair, Those scarlet heralds of eternal sleep.
Lily of love, pure and inviolate!
Tower of ivory! red rose of fire!
Thou hast come down our darkness to illume:
For we, close-caught in the wide nets of Fate, Wearied with waiting for the World's Desire, Aimlessly wandered in the House of gloom, Aimlessly sought some slumberous anodyne For wasted lives, for lingering wretchedness, Till we beheld thy re-arisen shrine, And the white glory of thy loveliness.
Poem: The Burden Of ItysThis English Thames is holier far than Rome, Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea Breaking across the woodland, with the foam Of meadow-sweet and white anemone To fleck their blue waves, - God is likelier there Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear!
Those violet-gleaming butterflies that take Yon creamy lily for their pavilion Are monsignores, and where the rushes shake A lazy pike lies basking in the sun, His eyes half shut, - he is some mitred old Bishop in PARTIBUS! look at those gaudy scales all green and gold.
The wind the restless prisoner of the trees Does well for Palaestrina, one would say The mighty master's hands were on the keys Of the Maria organ, which they play When early on some sapphire Easter morn In a high litter red as blood or sin the Pope is borneFrom his dark House out to the Balcony Above the bronze gates and the crowded square, Whose very fountains seem for ecstasy To toss their silver lances in the air, And stretching out weak hands to East and West In vain sends peace to peaceless lands, to restless nations rest.
Is not yon lingering orange after-glow That stays to vex the moon more fair than all Rome's lordliest pageants! strange, a year ago I knelt before some crimson Cardinal Who bare the Host across the Esquiline, And now - those common poppies in the wheat seem twice as fine.
The blue-green beanfields yonder, tremulous With the last shower, sweeter perfume bring Through this cool evening than the odorous Flame-jewelled censers the young deacons swing, When the grey priest unlocks the curtained shrine, And makes God's body from the common fruit of corn and vine.
Poor Fra Giovanni bawling at the mass Were out of tune now, for a small brown bird Sings overhead, and through the long cool grass I see that throbbing throat which once I heard On starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady, Once where the white and crescent sand of Salamis meets sea.
Sweet is the swallow twittering on the eaves At daybreak, when the mower whets his scythe, And stock-doves murmur, and the milkmaid leaves Her little lonely bed, and carols blithe To see the heavy-lowing cattle wait Stretching their huge and dripping mouths across the farmyard gate.
And sweet the hops upon the Kentish leas, And sweet the wind that lifts the new-mown hay, And sweet the fretful swarms of grumbling bees That round and round the linden blossoms play;And sweet the heifer breathing in the stall, And the green bursting figs that hang upon the red-brick wall,And sweet to hear the cuckoo mock the spring While the last violet loiters by the well, And sweet to hear the shepherd Daphnis sing The song of Linus through a sunny dell Of warm Arcadia where the corn is gold And the slight lithe-limbed reapers dance about the wattled fold.
And sweet with young Lycoris to recline In some Illyrian valley far away, Where canopied on herbs amaracine We too might waste the summer-tranced day Matching our reeds in sportive rivalry, While far beneath us frets the troubled purple of the sea.
But sweeter far if silver-sandalled foot Of some long-hidden God should ever tread The Nuneham meadows, if with reeded flute Pressed to his lips some Faun might raise his head By the green water-flags, ah! sweet indeed To see the heavenly herdsman call his white-fleeced flock to feed.
Then sing to me thou tuneful chorister, Though what thou sing'st be thine own requiem!