The Two Dreams

I will that if I say a heavy thing     Your tongues forgive me; seeing ye know that spring     Has flecks and fits of pain to keep her sweet,     And walks somewhile with winter-bitten feet.     Moreover it sounds often well to let     One string, when ye play music, keep at fret     The whole song through; one petal that is dead     Confirms the roses, be they white or red;     Dead sorrow is not sorrowful to hear     As the thick noise that breaks mid weeping were;     The sick sound aching in a lifted throat     Turns to sharp silver of a perfect note;     And though the rain falls often, and with rain     Late autumn falls on the old red leaves like pain,     I deem that God is not disquieted.     Also while men are fed with wine and bread,     They shall be fed with sorrow at his hand.     There grew a rose-garden in Florence land     More fair than many; all red summers through     The leaves smelt sweet and sharp of rain, and blew     Sideways with tender wind; and therein fell     Sweet sound wherewith the green waxed audible,     As a birds will to sing disturbed his throat     And set the sharp wings forward like a boat     Pushed through soft water, moving his brown side     Smooth-shapen as a maids, and shook with pride     His deep warm bosom, till the heavy suns     Set face of heat stopped all the songs at once.     The ways were clean to walk and delicate;     And when the windy white of March grew late,     Before the trees took heart to face the sun     With ravelled raiment of lean winter on,     The roots were thick and hot with hollow grass.     Some roods away a lordly house there was,     Cool with broad courts and latticed passage wet     From rush-flowers and lilies ripe to set,     Sown close among the strewings of the floor;     And either wall of the slow corridor     Was dim with deep device of gracious things;     Some angels steady mouth and weight of wings     Shut to the side; or Peter with straight stole     And beard cut black against the aureole     That spanned his head from nape to crown; thereby     Marys gold hair, thick to the girdle-tie     Wherein was bound a child with tender feet;     Or the broad cross with blood nigh brown on it.     Within this house a righteous lord abode,     Ser Averardo; patient of his mood,     And just of judgment; and to child he had     A maid so sweet that her mere sight made glad     Men sorrowing, and unbound the brows of hate;     And where she came, the lips that pain made strait     Waxed warm and wide, and from untender grew     Tender as those that sleep brings patience to.     Such long locks had she, that with knee to chin     She might have wrapped and warmed her feet therein.     Right seldom fell her face on weeping wise;     Gold hair she had, and golden-coloured eyes,     Filled with clear light and fire and large repose     Like a fair hounds; no man there is but knows     Her face was white, and thereto she was tall;     In no wise lacked there any praise at all     To her most perfect and pure maidenhood;     No sin I think there was in all her blood.     She, where a gold grate shut the roses in,     Dwelt daily through deep summer weeks, through green     Hushed hours of rain upon the leaves; and there     Love made him room and space to worship her     With tender worship of bowed knees, and wrought     Such pleasure as the pained sense palates not     For weariness, but at one taste undoes     The heart of its strong sweet, is ravenous     Of all the hidden honey; words and sense     Fail through the tunes imperious prevalence.     In a poor house this lover kept apart,     Long communing with patience next his heart     If love of his might move that face at all,     Tuned evenwise with colours musical;     Then after length of days he said thus: Love,     For loves own sake and for the love thereof     Let no harsh words untune your gracious mood;     For good it were, if anything be good,     To comfort me in this pains plague of mine;     Seeing thus, how neither sleep nor bread nor wine     Seems pleasant to me, yea no thing that is     Seems pleasant to me; only I know this;     Loves ways are sharp for palms of piteous feet     To travel, but the end of such is sweet:     Now do with me as seemeth you the best.     She mused a little, as one holds his guest     By the hand musing, with her face borne down:     Then said: Yea, though such bitter seed be sown,     Have no more care of all that you have said;     Since if there is no sleep will bind your head,     Lo, I am fain to help you certainly;     Christ knoweth, sir, if I would have you die;     There is no pleasure when a man is dead.     Thereat he kissed her hands and yellow head     And clipped her fair long body many times;     I have no wit to shape in written rhymes     A scanted tithe of this great joy they had.     They were too near loves secret to be glad;     As whoso deems the core will surely melt     From the warm fruit his lips caress, hath felt     Some bitter kernel where the teeth shut hard:     Or as sweet music sharpens afterward,     Being half disrelished both for sharp and sweet;     As sea-water, having killed over-heat     In a mans body, chills it with faint ache;     So their sense, burdened only for loves sake,     Failed for pure love; yet so time served their wit,     They saved each day some gold reserves of it,     Being wiser in loves riddle than such be     Whom fragments feed with his chance charity.     All things felt sweet were felt sweet overmuch;     The rose-thorns prickle dangerous to touch,     And flecks of fire in the thin leaf-shadows;     Too keen the breathd honey of the rose,     Its red too harsh a weight on feasted eyes;     They were so far gone in loves histories,     Beyond all shape and colour and mere breath,     Where pleasure has for kinsfolk sleep and death,     And strength of soul and body waxen blind     For weariness, and flesh entoiled with mind,     When the keen edge of sense foretasteth sin.     Even this green place the summer caught them in     Seemed half deflowered and sick with beaten leaves     In their strayed eyes; these gold flower-fumd eves     Burnt out to make the suns love-offering,     The midnoons prayer, the roses thanksgiving,     The trees weight burdening the strengthless air,     The shape of her stilled eyes, her coloured hair,     Her bodys balance from the moving feet     All this, found fair, lacked yet one grain of sweet     It had some warm weeks back: so perisheth     On Mays new lip the tender April breath:     So those same walks the wind sowed lilies in     All April through, and all their latter kin     Of languid leaves whereon the autumn blows     The dead red raiment of the last years rose     The last years laurel, and the last years love,     Fade, and grow things that death grows weary of.     What man will gather in red summer-time     The fruit of some obscure and hoary rhyme     Heard last midwinter, taste the heart in it,     Mould the smooth semitones afresh, refit     The fair limbs ruined, flush the dead blood through     With colour, make all broken beauties new     For loves new lessonshall not such find pain     When the marred music labouring in his brain     Frets him with sweet sharp fragments, and lets slip     One word that might leave satisfied his lip     One touch that might put fire in all the chords?     This was her pain: to miss from all sweet words     Some taste of sound, diverse and delicate     Some speech the old love found out to compensate     For seasons of shut lips and drowsiness     Some grace, some word the old love found out to bless     Passionless months and undelighted weeks.     The flowers had lost their summer-scented cheeks,     Their lips were no more sweet than daily breath:     The year was plagued with instances of death.     So fell it, these were sitting in cool grass     With leaves about, and many a bird there was     Where the green shadow thickliest impleached     Soft fruit and writhen spray and blossom bleached     Dry in the sun or washed with rains to white:     Her girdle was pure silk, the bosom bright     With purple as purple water and gold wrought in.     One branch had touched with dusk her lips and chin,     Made violet of the throat, abashed with shade     The breasts bright plaited work: but nothing frayed     The suns large kiss on the luxurious hair.     Her beauty was new colour to the air     And music to the silent many birds.     Love was an-hungred for some perfect words     To praise her with; but only her low name     Andrevuola came thrice, and thrice put shame     In her clear cheek, so fruitful with new red     That for pure love straightway shames self was dead.     Then with lids gathered as who late had wept     She began saying: I have so little slept     My lids drowse now against the very sun;     Yea, the brain aching with a dream begun     Beats like a fitful blood; kiss but both brows,     And you shall pluck my thoughts grown dangerous     Almost away. He said thus, kissing them:     O sole sweet thing that God is glad to name,     My one gold gift, if dreams be sharp and sore     Shall not the waking time increase much more     With taste and sound, sweet eyesight or sweet scent?     Has any heat too hard and insolent     Burnt bare the tender married leaves, undone     The maiden grass shut under from the sun?     Where in this world is room enough for pain?     The feverish finger of love had touched again     Her lips with happier blood; the pain lay meek     In her fair face, nor altered lip nor cheek     With pallor or with pulse; but in her mouth     Love thirsted as a man wayfaring doth,     Making it humble as weak hunger is.     She lay close to him, bade do this and this,     Say that, sing thus: then almost weeping-ripe     Crouched, then laughed low. As one that fain would wipe     The old record out of old things done and dead,     She rose, she heaved her hands up, and waxed red     For wilful heart and blameless fear of blame;     Saying Though my wits be weak, this is no shame     For a poor maid whom love so punisheth     With heats of hesitation and stopped breath     That with my dreams I live yet heavily     For pure sad heart and faiths humility.     Now be not wroth and I will show you this.     Methought our lips upon their second kiss     Met in this place, and a fair day we had     And fair soft leaves that waxed and were not sad     With shaken rain or bitten through with drouth;     When I, beholding ever how your mouth     Waited for mine, the throat being fallen back,     Saw crawl thereout a live thing flaked with black     Specks of brute slime and leper-coloured scale,     A devils hide with foul flame-writhen grail     Fashioned where hells heat festers loathsomest;     And that brief speech may ease me of the rest,     Thus were you slain and eaten of the thing.     My waked eyes felt the new day shuddering     On their low lids, felt the whole east so beat,     Pant with close pulse of such a plague-struck heat,     As if the palpitating dawn drew breath     For horror, breathing between life and death,     Till the sun sprang blood-bright and violent.     So finishing, her soft strength wholly spent,     She gazed each way, lest some brute-hoovd thing,     The timeless travail of hells childbearing,     Should threat upon the sudden: whereat he,     For relish of her tasted misery     And tender little thornprick of her pain,     Laughed with mere love. What lover among men     But hath his sense fed sovereignly twixt whiles     With tears and covered eyelids and sick smiles     And soft disaster of a paind face?     What pain, established in so sweet a place,     But the plucked leaf of it smells fragrantly?     What colour burning mans wide-open eye     But may be pleasurably seen? what sense     Keeps in its hot sharp extreme violence     No savour of sweet things? The bereaved blood     And emptied flesh in their most broken mood     Fail not so wholly, famish not when thus     Past honey keeps the starved lip covetous.     Therefore this speech from a glad mouth began,     Breathed in her tender hair and temples wan     Like one prolonged kiss while the lips had breath:     Sleep, that abides in vassalage of death     And in deaths service wears out half his age,     Hath his dreams full of deadly vassalage,     Shadow and sound of things ungracious;     Fair shallow faces, hooded bloodless brows,     And mouths past kissing; yea, myself have had     As harsh a dream as holds your eyelids sad.     This dream I tell you came three nights ago:     In full mid sleep I took a whim to know     How sweet things might be; so I turned and thought;     But save my dream all sweet availed me not.     First came a smell of pounded spice and scent     Such as God ripens in some continent     Of utmost amber in the Syrian sea;     And breaths as though some costly rose could be     Spoiled slowly, wasted by some bitter fire     To burn the sweet out leaf by leaf, and tire     The flowers poor heart with heat and waste, to make     Strong magic for some perfumed womans sake.     Then a cool naked sense beneath my feet     Of bud and blossom; and sound of veins that beat     As if a lute should play of its own heart     And fearfully, not smitten of either part;     And all my blood it filled with sharp and sweet     As gold swoln grain fills out the huskd wheat;     So I rose naked from the bed, and stood     Counting the mobile measure in my blood     Some pleasant while, and through each limb there came     Swift little pleasures pungent as a flame,     Felt in the thrilling flesh and veins as much     As the outer curls that feel the combs first touch     Thrill to the roots and shiver as from fire;     And blind between my dream and my desire     I seemed to stand and held my spirit still     Lest this should cease. A child whose fingers spill     Honey from cells forgotten of the bee     Is less afraid to stir the hive and see     Some wasps bright back inside, than I to feel     Some finger-touch disturb the flesh like steel.     I prayed thus; Let me catch a secret here     So sweet, it sharpens the sweet taste of fear     And takes the mouth with edge of wine; I would     Have here some colour and smooth shape as good     As those in heaven whom the chief garden hides     With low grape-blossom veiling their white sides     And lesser tendrils that so bind and blind     Their eyes and feet, that if one come behind     To touch their hair they see not, neither fly;     This would I see in heaven and not die.     So praying, I had nigh cried out and knelt,     So wholly my prayer filled me: till I felt     In the dumb nights warm weight of glowing gloom     Somewhat that altered all my sleeping-room,     And made it like a green low place wherein     Maids mix to bathe: one sets her small warm chin     Against a ripple, that the angry pearl     May flow like flame about her: the next curl     Dips in some eddy coloured of the sun     To wash the dust well out; another one     Holds a straight ankle in her hand and swings     With lavish body sidelong, so that rings     Of sweet fierce water, swollen and splendid, fail     All round her fine and floated body pale,     Swayed flower-fashion, and her balanced side     Swerved edgeways lets the weight of water slide,     As taken in some underflow of sea     Swerves the banked gold of sea-flowers; but she     Pulls down some branch to keep her perfect head     Clear of the river: even from wall to bed,     I tell you, was my room transfigured so.     Sweet, green and warm it was, nor could one know     If there were walls or leaves, or if there was     No beds green curtain, but mere gentle grass.     There were set also hard against the feet     Gold plates with honey and green grapes to eat,     With the cool waters noise to hear in rhymes:     And a wind warmed me full of furze and limes     And all hot sweets the heavy summer fills     To the round brim of smooth cup-shapen hills.     Next the grave walking of a womans feet     Made my veins hesitate, and gracious heat     Made thick the lids and leaden on mine eyes:     And I thought ever, surely it were wise     Not yet to see her: this may last (who knows?)     Five minutes; the poor rose is twice a rose     Because it turns a face to her, the wind     Sings that way; hath this woman ever sinned,     I wonder? as a boy with apple-rind,     I played with pleasures, made them to my mind,     Changed each ere tasting. When she came indeed,     First her hair touched me, then I grew to feed     On the sense of her hand; her mouth at last     Touched me between the cheek and lip and past     Over my face with kisses here and there     Sown in and out across the eyes and hair.     Still I said nothing; till she set her face     More close and harder on the kissing-place,     And her mouth caught like a snakes mouth, and stung     So faint and tenderly, the fang scarce clung     More than a birds foot: yet a wound it grew,     A great one, let this red mark witness you     Under the left breast; and the stroke thereof     So clove my sense that I woke out of love     And knew not what this dream was nor had wit;     But now God knows if I have skill of it.     Hereat she laid one palm against her lips     To stop their trembling; as when water slips     Out of a beak-mouthed vessel with faint noise     And chuckles in the narrowed throat and cloys     The carven rims with murmuring, so came     Words in her lips with no word right of them,     A beaten speech thick and disconsolate,     Till his smile ceasing waxed compassionate     Of her sore fear that grew from anything     The sound of the strong summer thickening     In heated leaves of the smooth apple-trees:     The days breath felt about the ash-branches,     And noises of the noon whose weight still grew     On the hot heavy-headed flowers, and drew     Their red mouths open till the rose-heart ached;     For eastward all the crowding rose was slaked     And soothed with shade; but westward all its growth     Seemed to breathe hard with heat as a man doth     Who feels his temples newly feverous.     And even with such motion in her brows     As that man hath in whom sick days begin,     She turned her throat and spake, her voice being thin     As a sick mans, sudden and tremulous;     Sweet, if this end be come indeed on us,     Let us love more; and held his mouth with hers.     As the first sound of flooded hill-waters     Is heard by people of the meadow-grass,     Or ever a wandering waif of ruin pass     With whirling stones and foam of the brown stream     Flaked with fierce yellow: so beholding him     She felt before tears came her eyelids wet,     Saw the face deadly thin where life was yet,     Heard his throats harsh last moan before it clomb:     And he, with close mouth passionate and dumb,     Burned at her lips: so lay they without speech,     Each grasping other, and the eyes of each     Fed in the others face: till suddenly     He cried out with a little broken cry     This word, O help me, sweet, I am but dead.     And even so saying, the colour of fair red     Was gone out of his face, and his bloods beat     Fell, and stark death made sharp his upward feet     And pointed hands: and without moan he died.     Pain smote her sudden in the brows and side,     Strained her lips open and made burn her eyes:     For the pure sharpness of her miseries     She had no hearts pain, but mere bodys wrack;     But at the last her beaten blood drew back     Slowly upon her face, and her stunned brows     Suddenly grown aware and piteous     Gathered themselves, her eyes shone, her hard breath     Came as though one nigh dead came back from death;     Her lips throbbed, and life trembled through her hair.     And in brief while she thought to bury there     The dead man that her love might lie with him     In a sweet bed under the rose-roots dim     And soft earth round the branchd apple-trees,     Full of hushed heat and heavy with great ease,     And no man entering divide him thence.     Wherefore she bade one of her handmaidens     To be her help to do upon this wise.     And saying so the tears out of her eyes     Fell without noise and comforted her heart:     Yea, her great pain eased of the sorest part     Began to soften in her sense of it.     There under all the little branches sweet     The place was shapen of his burial;     They shed thereon no thing funereal,     But coloured leaves of latter rose-blossom,     Stems of soft grass, some withered red and some     Fair and fresh-blooded; and spoil splendider     Of marigold and great spent sunflower.     And afterward she came back without word     To her own house; two days went, and the third     Went, and she showed her father of this thing.     And for great grief of her souls travailing     He gave consent she should endure in peace     Till her lifes end; yea, till her time should cease,     She should abide in fellowship of pain.     And having lived a holy year or twain     She died of pure waste heart and weariness.     And for loves honour in her loves distress     This word was written over her tombs head;     Here dead she lieth, for whose sake Love is dead.