That sang of old to some forgotten touch.
The lamp I give, but not the glimmering flame
Some alien fire must light, some alien dusk
Enisle, ere it illume your land and sea.
The shell I give you, Ares, not the song
Of murmuring winds and waves once haunting it;
The cage, but not love’s wings that come and go.
I give you them, light brother, as the earth
Gives up the dew, the mountain-side the mist!
Farewell sad face, that gleamed so like a flower
Through Paphian groves to me of old—farewell!
Some Fate beyond our dark-robed Three ordained
This love should wear the mortal rose and not
Our timeless amaranth. ’Twas writ of old, and lay
Not once with us. As we ourselves have known,
And well your sad Dodonian mother found,
From deep to deep the sails of destined love
Are blown and tossed by tides no god controls;
And at the bud of our too golden life
Eats this small canker of mortality!
I loved her once, O Ares—
I loved her once as waters love the wind;
I sought her once as rivers seek the sea;
And her deep eyes, so dream-besieged, made dawn
And midnight one. Flesh of my flesh she was,
And we together knew dark days and glad.
Then fell the change;—some hand unknown to us
4
