On the Stage
Lights, in a multi-coloured mist,
From indigo to amethyst,
A whirling mist of multi-coloured lights;
And after, wigs and tights,
Then faces, then a glimpse of profiles, then
Eyes, and a mist again;
And rouge, and always tights, and wigs, and tights.
You see the ballet so, and so,
From amethyst to indigo;
You see a dance of phantoms, but I see
A girl, who smiles to me;
Her cheeks, across the rouge, and in her eyes
I know what memories,
What memories and messages for me.
poem by Arthur Symons
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Old Age
It may be, when this city of the nine gates
Is broken down by ruinous old age,
And no one upon any pilgrimage
Comes knocking, no one for an audience waits,
And no bright foraging troop of bandit moods
Rides out on the brave folly of any guest,
But weariness, the restless shadow of rest,
Hoveringly upon the city broods;
It may be, then, that those remembering
And sleepless watchers on the crumbling towers
Shall lose the count of the disastrous hours
Which God may have grown tired of reckoning.
poem by Arthur Symons
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On the Doorstep
Midnight long is over-past
As we loiter, and the rain falls fast,
As we loiter on your doorstep,
And the rain falls fast.
Will the watchful mother hear,
As we whisper, is your mother near,
Keeping there behind the curtain
An attentive ear?
But we have so much to say,
As we linger, ere I go my way,
In the dark upon your doorstep,
We could talk till day.
There is no one in the street,
As I hold you in my arms, my sweet,
As I kiss you on your doorstep,
As I kiss you for good-night, my sweet.
poem by Arthur Symons
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Paris
My Paris is a land where twilight days
Merge into violent nights of black and gold;
Where, it may be, the flower of dawn is cold:
Ah, but the gold nights, and the scented ways!
Eyelids of women, little curls of hair,
A little nose curved softly, like a shell,
A red mouth like a wound, a mocking veil:
Phantoms, before the dawn, how phantom-fair!
And every woman with beseeching eyes,
Or with enticing eyes, or amorous,
Offers herself, a rose, and craves of us
A rose's place among our memories.
poem by Arthur Symons
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Hesterna Rosa
When a girl's fancy flutters to a man,
It is but as a bird that flies and cries;
She has a winged thing's April memories
Of sunshine, and the morning Spring began.
Love at her heart, importuning a tryst,
Finds in her senses little heed of it;
But her bright lips most girlishly admit
The simple homeliness of being kissed.
Kiss and be friends, or, when the kissing closes,
Part, as we were together, merely friends;
Why should we weep because the summer ends,
And some sweet moments ended with the roses?
poem by Arthur Symons
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Montserrat
Peace waits among the hills;
I have drunk peace,
Here, where the blue air fills
The great cup of the hills,
And fills with peace.
Between the earth and sky,
I have seen the earth
Like a dark cloud go by,
And fade out of the sky;
There was no more earth.
Here, where the Holy Graal
Brought secret light
Once, from beyond the veil,
I, seeing no Holy Graal,
See divine light.
Light fills the hills with God,
Wind with his breath,
[...] Read more
poem by Arthur Symons
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In The Meadows At Mantua
But to have lain upon the grass
One perfect day, one perfect hour,
Beholding all things mortal pass
Into the quiet of green grass;
But to have lain and loved the sun,
Under the shadow of the trees,
To have been found in unison,
Once only, with the blessed sun;
Ah! in these flaring London nights,
Where midnight withers into morn,
How quiet a rebuke it writes
Across the sky of London nights!
Upon the grass at Mantua
These London nights were all forgot.
They wake for me again: but ah,
The meadow-grass at Mantua!
poem by Arthur Symons
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Degrees Of Love
When your eyes opened to mine eyes,
Without desire, without surprise,
I knew your soul awoke to see
All, dreams foretold, but could not be,
Yet loving me, not loving me.
When your eyes drooped before mine eyes,
As though some secret made them wise,
Some wisdom veiled them secretly,
I knew your heart began to be
In love with love, in love with me.
When your eyes tawned against mine eyes,
With beaten hunger, and with cries,
In bitter pride's humility,
Love, wholly mine, had come to be.
Hatred of love for loving me.
poem by Arthur Symons
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Before Meeting
I know not how our eyes first met,
I only know that, night by night,
For one long instant we forget
All but our instant of delight.
Child, I have never heard you speak,
I know not of your face by day,
Nor if the rose upon your cheek
With night's spent roses faints away.
So far apart from me you seem,
Ever about to be so near,
I must have dreamed you in some dream,
I do but dream that you are here.
Well, no awakening may there be!
I look to you in fairy-land,
From fairy-land you look to me,
We smile, and seem to understand.
poem by Arthur Symons
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Night and Wind
The night is light and chill,
Stars are awake in the sky,
There's a cloud over the moon;
Round the house on the hill
The wind creeps with its cry
Between a wail and a croon.
I hear the voice of the wind,
The voice of the wind in the night,
Cry and sob and weep,
As the voice of one that hath sinned
Moaning aloud in its might
In the night when he cannot sleep.
Sleep? No sleep is about.
What remembering sin
Wakes and watches apart?...
The wind wails without,
And my heart is wailing within,
And the wind is the voice of my heart.
poem by Arthur Symons
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