The Garden

There's an ancient, ancient garden that I see sometimes in dreams,
Where the very Maytime sunlight plays and glows with spectral gleams;
Where the gaudy-tinted blossoms seem to wither into grey,
And the crumbling walls and pillars waken thoughts of yesterday.
There are vines in nooks and crannies, and there's moss about the pool,
And the tangled weedy thicket chokes the arbour dark and cool:
In the silent sunken pathways springs a herbage sparse and spare,
Where the musty scent of dead things dulls the fragrance of the air.
There is not a living creature in the lonely space around,
And the hedge~encompass'd a quiet never echoes to a sound.
As I walk, and wait, and listen, I will often seek to find
When it was I knew that garden in an age long left behind;
I will oft conjure a vision of a day that is no more,
As I gaze upon the grey, grey scenes I feel I knew before.
Then a sadness settles o'er me, and a tremor seems to start -
For I know the flow'rs are shrivell'd hopes - the garden is my heart.

Love and Thought

Two well-assorted travellers use
The highway, Eros and the Muse.
From the twins is nothing hidden,
To the pair is nought forbidden;
Hand in hand the comrades go
Every nook of Nature through:
Each for other they were born,
Each can other best adorn;
They know one only mortal grief
Past all balsam or relief;
When, by false companions crossed,
The pilgrims have each other lost.

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Yet time to turn

Brighter than snow on glittering Alps, the soul
Of my lost love was, bluer than the haze
Of those same hills, more violent and deep
Her eyes' clear gaze,
Dreaming of hidden wonders; and the goal
Of life grew luminous o'er Time's empurpled steep.

She loved me then; she loves me now, afar.
Ah, she knew not! and I, so steeped and stained
With fierce sins, knew myself unworthy of
The heart I gained,
And, a lost mariner whose polar star
He is ashamed to look to, cast away her love.

I would not have her love a thing so vile,
I would not link her life with such as mine!
O cursed sin, to leave my soul too high
To cheat the shrine!
I drave Love forth, Love lingered yet awhile
So that I might not quite win Hell before I die.

O little root of nobleness left thus
Dead since it has no power to grow, to bloom;
Live, since I may not bury it within
The gaping tomb
Where virtue lies, that I, imperious,
Long since interred with hope, and all life's joy save sin.

Aleister Crowley (1875-1947)

Causerie

Vous êtes un beau ciel d'automne, clair et rose!
Mais la tristesse en moi monte comme la mer,
Et laisse, en refluant, sur ma lèvre morose
Le souvenir cuisant de son limon amer.

– Ta main se glisse en vain sur mon sein qui se pâme;
Ce qu'elle cherche, amie, est un lieu saccagé
Par la griffe et la dent féroce de la femme.
Ne cherchez plus mon cœur; les bêtes l'ont mangé.

Mon cœur est un palais flétri par la cohue;
On s'y soûle, on s'y tue, on s'y prend aux cheveux!
– Un parfum nage autour de votre gorge nue!…

Ô Beauté, dur fléau des âmes, tu le veux!
Avec tes yeux de feu, brillants comme des fêtes,
Calcine ces lambeaux qu'ont épargnés les bêtes!


Ein Herbsthimmel bist du: schön, rosig und hell!
Doch in mir steigt die See der Traurigkeit
Und lässt auf meinen Lippen, wenn sie fällt,
Den Schlamm des Grams zurück, die Bitterkeit. –

Vergeblich streift dein Händchen die erstarrte Brust;
Das, was du suchst, Liebchen, längst ist's zerrissen
Durch die Krallen und grausamen Zähne der Lust.
Das Herz, das du suchst, haben Bestien gerissen.

Ein Palast ist mein Herz, den die Massen befleckten,
Man besäuft sich, erschlägt sich, kriegt sich in die Haare! –
Wie duftet dein Busen, dein bloßer, erregend! …

O Schöne, Seelenqual, du willst mir's nicht ersparen!
Mit feurigen Augen – wie strahlen sie festlich –
Verbrenne, was Bestien verschonten, die Reste!


Charles Baudelaire

Laeta; a Lament

How sad droop the willows by Zulal’s fair side,
Where so lately I stray’d with my raven-hair’d bride:
Ev’ry light-floating lily, each flow’r on the shore,
Folds in sorrow since Laeta can see them no more!

Oh, blest were the days when in childhood and hope
With my Laeta I rov’d o’er the blossom-clad slope,
Plucking white meadow-daisies and ferns by the stream,
As we laugh’d at the ripples that twinkle and gleam.

Not a bloom deck’d the mead that could rival in grace
The dear innocent charms of my Laeta’s fair face;
Not a thrush thrill’d the grove with a carol so choice
As the silvery strains of my Laeta’s sweet voice.

The shy Nymphs of the woodland, the fount and the plain,
Strove to equal her beauty, but strove all in vain;
Yet no envy they bore her, while fruitless they strove,
For so pure was my Laeta, they could only love!

When the warm breath of Auster play’d soft o’er the flow’rs,
And young Zephyrus rustled the gay scented bow’rs,
Ev’ry breeze seem’d to pause as it drew near the fair,
Too much aw’d at her sweetness to tumble her hair.

How fond were our dreams on the day when we stood
In the ivy-grown temple beside the dark wood;
When our pledges we seal’d at the sanctify’d shrine,
And I knew that my Laeta forever was mine!

How blissful our thoughts when the wild autumn came,
And the forests with scarlet and gold were aflame;
Yet how heavy my heart when I first felt the fear
That my starry-eyed Laeta would fade with the year!

The pastures were sere and the heavens were grey
When I laid my lov’d Laeta forever away,
And the river god pity’d, as weeping I pac’d
Mingling hot bitter tears with his cold frozen waste.

Now the flow’rs have return’d, but they bloom not so sweet
As in days when they blossom’d round Laeta’s dear feet;
And the willows complain to the answering hill,
And the thrushes that once were so happy are still.

The green meadows and groves in their loneliness pine,
Whilst the Dryads no more in their madrigals join,
The breeze once so joyous now murmurs and sighs,
And blows soft o’er the spot where my lov’d Laeta lies.

So pensive I roam o’er the desolate lawn
Where we wander’d and lov’d in the days that are gone,
And I yearn for the autumn, when Zulal’s blue tide
Shall sing low by my grave at the lov’d Laeta’s side.

To One in Paradise

Thou wast all that to me, love,
For which my soul did pine-
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,
And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last!
Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise
But to be overcast!
A voice from out the Future cries,
"On! on!"- but o'er the Past
(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies
Mute, motionless, aghast!

For, alas! alas! me
The light of Life is o'er!
"No more- no more- no more-"
(Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the shore)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree
Or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my days are trances,
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy grey eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams-
In what ethereal dances,
By what eternal streams.

Edgar Allan Poe

A Valentine

For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,
Shall find her own sweet name, that nestling lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly the lines!- they hold a treasure
Divine- a talisman- an amulet
That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure-
The words- the syllables! Do not forget
The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor
And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a sabre,
If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
Of poets, by poets- as the name is a poet's, too,
Its letters, although naturally lying
Like the knight Pinto- Mendez Ferdinando-
Still form a synonym for Truth- Cease trying!
You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.

Edgar Allan Poe