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The Poems And Prose Of Ernest Dowson

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And Dowson, in his verse (the "Verses" of 1896, "The Pierrot of the
Minute," a dramatic phantasy in one act, of 1897, the posthumous volume
"Decorations"), was the same scrupulous artist as in his prose, and more
felicitously at home there. He was quite Latin in his feeling for youth,
and death, and "the old age of roses," and the pathos of our little hour
in which to live and love; Latin in his elegance, reticence, and simple
grace in the treatment of these motives; Latin, finally, in his sense of
their sufficiency for the whole of one's mental attitude. He used the
commonplaces of poetry frankly, making them his own by his belief in them:
the Horatian Cynara or Neobule was still the natural symbol for him when he
wished to be most personal. I remember his saying to me that his ideal of a
line of verse was the line of Poe:

"The viol, the violet, and the vine";

and the gracious, not remote or unreal beauty, which clings about such
words and such images as these, was always to him the true poetical beauty.
There never was a poet to whom verse came more naturally, for the song's
sake; his theories were all æsthetic, almost technical ones, such as a
theory, indicated by his preference for the line of Poe, that the letter
"v" was the most beautiful of the letters, and could never be brought into
verse too often. For any more abstract theories he had neither tolerance
nor need. Poetry as a philosophy did not exist for him; it existed solely
as the loveliest of the arts. He loved the elegance of Horace, all that was
most complex in the simplicity of Poe, most birdlike in the human melodies
of Verlaine. He had the pure lyric gift, unweighted or unballasted by any
other quality of mind or emotion; and a song, for him, was music first, and
then whatever you please afterwards, so long as it suggested, never told,
some delicate sentiment, a sigh or a caress; finding words, at times, as
perfect as the words of a poem headed, "O Mors! quam amara est memoria tua
homini pacem habenti in substantiis suis."

There, surely, the music of silence speaks, if it has ever spoken. The
words seem to tremble back into the silence which their whisper has
interrupted, but not before they have created for us a mood, such a mood
as the Venetian Pastoral of Giorgione renders in painting. Languid, half
inarticulate, coming from the heart of a drowsy sorrow very conscious
of itself, and not less sorrowful because it sees its own face looking
mournfully back out of the water, the song seems to have been made by some
fastidious amateur of grief, and it has all the sighs and tremors of the
mood, wrought into a faultless strain of music. Stepping out of a paradise
in which pain becomes so lovely, he can see the beauty which is the other
side of madness, and, in a sonnet, "To One in Bedlam," can create a more
positive, a more poignant mood, with fine subtlety.

Here, in the moment's intensity of this comradeship with madness, observe
how beautiful the whole thing becomes; how instinctively the imagination
of the poet turns what is sordid into a radiance, all stars and flowers
and the divine part of forgetfulness! It is a symbol of the two sides of
his own life: the side open to the street, and the side turned away from
it, where he could "hush and bless himself with silence." No one ever
worshipped beauty more devoutly, and just as we see him here transfiguring
a dreadful thing with beauty, so we shall see, everywhere in his work, that
he never admitted an emotion which he could not so transfigure. He knew his
limits only too well; he knew that the deeper and graver things of life
were for the most part outside the circle of his magic; he passed them by,
leaving much of himself unexpressed, because he would not permit himself
to express nothing imperfectly, or according to anything but his own
conception of the dignity of poetry. In the lyric in which he has
epitomised himself and his whole life, a lyric which is certainly one of
the greatest lyrical poems of our time, "Non sum qualis eram bonae sub
regno Cynarae," he has for once said everything, and he has said it to an
intoxicating and perhaps immortal music.

Here, perpetuated by some unique energy of a temperament rarely so much the
master of itself, is the song of passion and the passions, at their eternal
war in the soul which they quicken or deaden, and in the body which they
break down between them. In the second book, the book of "Decorations,"
there are a few pieces which repeat, only more faintly, this very personal
note. Dowson could never have developed; he had already said, in his
first book of verse, all that he had to say. Had he lived, had he gone on
writing, he could only have echoed himself; and probably it would have been
the less essential part of himself; his obligation to Swinburne, always
evident, increasing as his own inspiration failed him. He was always
without ambition, writing to please his own fastidious taste, with a kind
of proud humility in his attitude towards the public, not expecting or
requiring recognition. He died obscure, having ceased to care even for the
delightful labour of writing. He died young, worn out by what was never
really life to him, leaving a little verse which has the pathos of things
too young and too frail ever to grow old.

ARTHUR SYMONS.
1900.




THE POEMS OF ERNEST DOWSON



TO MISSIE (A. P.)




IN PREFACE: FOR ADELAIDE


To you, who are my verses, as on some very future day, if you ever care
to read them, you will understand, would it not be somewhat trivial to
dedicate any one verse, as I may do, in all humility, to my friends?
Trivial, too, perhaps, only to name you even here? Trivial, presumptuous?
For I need not write your name for you at least to know that this and all
my work is made for you in the first place, and I need not to be reminded
by my critics that I have no silver tongue such as were fit to praise you.
So for once you shall go indedicate, if not quite anonymous; and I will
only commend my little book to you in sentences far beyond my poor compass
which will help you perhaps to be kind to it:

"_Votre personne, vos moindres mouvements me semblaient avoir dans le monde
une importance extrahumaine. Mon coeur comme de la poussière se soulevait
derrière vos pas. Vous me faisiez l'effet d'un clair-de-lune par une nuit
d'été, quand tout est parfums, ombres douces, blancheurs, infini; et les
délices de la chair et de l'âme étaient contenues pour moi dans votre nom
que je me répétais en tachant de le baiser sur mes lèvres.

"Quelquefois vos paroles me reviennent comme un écho lointain, comme le son
d'une cloche apporté par le vent; et il me semble que vous êtes là quand
je lis des passages de l'amour dans les livres.... Tout ce qu'on y blâme
d'exagéré, vous me l'avez fait ressentir._"

PONT-AVEN, FINISTÈRE, 1896.




VERSES

_Vitae summa brevis spem nos vetat incohare longam_

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter.
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.

They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
Within a dream.


A CORONAL

WITH HIS SONGS AND HER DAYS TO HIS LADY AND TO LOVE

Violets and leaves of vine,
Into a frail, fair wreath
We gather and entwine:
A wreath for Love to wear,
Fragrant as his own breath,
To crown his brow divine,
All day till night is near.
Violets and leaves of vine
We gather and entwine.

Violets and leaves of vine
For Love that lives a day,
We gather and entwine.
All day till Love is dead,
Till eve falls, cold and gray,
These blossoms, yours and mine,
Love wears upon his head,
Violets and leaves of vine
We gather and entwine.

Violets and leaves of vine,
For Love when poor Love dies
We gather and entwine.
This wreath that lives a day
Over his pale, cold eyes,
Kissed shut by Proserpine,
At set of sun we lay:
Violets and leaves of vine
We gather and entwine.


NUNS OF THE PERPETUAL ADORATION

Calm, sad, secure; behind high convent walls,
These watch the sacred lamp, these watch and pray:
And it is one with them when evening falls,
And one with them the cold return of day.

These heed not time; their nights and days they make
Into a long, returning rosary,
Whereon their lives are threaded for Christ's sake;
Meekness and vigilance and chastity.

A vowed patrol, in silent companies,
Life-long they keep before the living Christ.
In the dim church, their prayers and penances
Are fragrant incense to the Sacrificed.

Outside, the world is wild and passionate;
Man's weary laughter and his sick despair
Entreat at their impenetrable gate:
They heed no voices in their dream of prayer.

They saw the glory of the world displayed;
They saw the bitter of it, and the sweet;
They knew the roses of the world should fade,
And be trod under by the hurrying feet.

Therefore they rather put away desire,
And crossed their hands and came to sanctuary
And veiled their heads and put on coarse attire:
Because their comeliness was vanity.

And there they rest; they have serene insight
Of the illuminating dawn to be:
Mary's sweet Star dispels for them the night,
The proper darkness of humanity.

Calm, sad, secure; with faces worn and mild:
Surely their choice of vigil is the best?
Yea! for our roses fade, the world is wild;
But there, beside the altar, there, is rest.


VILLANELLE OF SUNSET

Come hither, Child! and rest:
This is the end of day,
Behold the weary West!

Sleep rounds with equal zest
Man's toil and children's play:
Come hither, Child! and rest.

My white bird, seek thy nest,
Thy drooping head down lay:
Behold the weary West!

Now are the flowers confest
Of slumber: sleep, as they!
Come hither, Child! and rest.

Now eve is manifest,
And homeward lies our way:
Behold the weary West!

Tired flower! upon my breast,
I would wear thee alway:
Come hither, Child! and rest;
Behold, the weary West!


MY LADY APRIL

Dew on her robe and on her tangled hair;
Twin dewdrops for her eyes; behold her pass,
With dainty step brushing the young, green grass,
The while she trills some high, fantastic air,
Full of all feathered sweetness: she is fair,
And all her flower-like beauty, as a glass,
Mirrors out hope and love: and still, alas!
Traces of tears her languid lashes wear.

Say, doth she weep for very wantonness?
Or is it that she dimly doth foresee
Across her youth the joys grow less and less
The burden of the days that are to be:
Autumn and withered leaves and vanity,
And winter bringing end in barrenness.


TO ONE IN BEDLAM

With delicate, mad hands, behind his sordid bars,
Surely he hath his posies, which they tear and twine;
Those scentless wisps of straw, that miserably line
His strait, caged universe, whereat the dull world stares,

Pedant and pitiful. O, how his rapt gaze wars
With their stupidity! Know they what dreams divine
Lift his long, laughing reveries like enchaunted wine,
And make his melancholy germane to the stars'?

O lamentable brother! if those pity thee,
Am I not fain of all thy lone eyes promise me;
Half a fool's kingdom, far from men who sow and reap,
All their days, vanity? Better than mortal flowers,
Thy moon-kissed roses seem: better than love or sleep,
The star-crowned solitude of thine oblivious hours!


AD DOMNULAM SUAM

Little lady of my heart!
Just a little longer,
Love me: we will pass and part,
Ere this love grow stronger.

I have loved thee, Child! too well,
To do aught but leave thee:
Nay! my lips should never tell
Any tale, to grieve thee.

Little lady of my heart!
Just a little longer,
I may love thee: we will part,
Ere my love grow stronger.

Soon thou leavest fairy-land;
Darker grow thy tresses:
Soon no more of hand in hand;
Soon no more caresses!

Little lady of my heart!
Just a little longer,
Be a child: then, we will part,
Ere this love grow stronger.


AMOR UMBRATILIS

A gift of Silence, sweet!
Who may not ever hear:
To lay down at your unobservant feet,
Is all the gift I bear.

I have no songs to sing,
That you should heed or know:
I have no lilies, in full hands, to fling
Across the path you go.

I cast my flowers away,
Blossoms unmeet for you!
The garland I have gathered in my day:
My rosemary and rue.

I watch you pass and pass,
Serene and cold: I lay
My lips upon your trodden, daisied grass,
And turn my life away.

Yea, for I cast you, sweet!
This one gift, you shall take:
Like ointment, on your unobservant feet,
My silence, for your sake.


AMOR PROFANUS

Beyond the pale of memory,
In some mysterious dusky grove;
A place of shadows utterly,
Where never coos the turtle-dove,
A world forgotten of the sun:
I dreamed we met when day was done,
And marvelled at our ancient love.

Met there by chance, long kept apart,
We wandered through the darkling glades;
And that old language of the heart
We sought to speak: alas! poor shades!
Over our pallid lips had run
The waters of oblivion,
Which crown all loves of men or maids.

In vain we stammered: from afar
Our old desire shone cold and dead:
That time was distant as a star,
When eyes were bright and lips were red.
And still we went with downcast eye
And no delight in being nigh,
Poor shadows most uncomforted.

Ah, Lalage! while life is ours,
Hoard not thy beauty rose and white,
But pluck the pretty, fleeting flowers
That deck our little path of light:
For all too soon we twain shall tread
The bitter pastures of the dead:
Estranged, sad spectres of the night.


VILLANELLE OF MARGUERITE'S

"A little, _passionately, not at all?_"
She casts the snowy petals on the air:
And what care we how many petals fall!

Nay, wherefore seek the seasons to forestall?
It is but playing, and she will not care,
A little, passionately, not at all!

She would not answer us if we should call
Across the years: her visions are too fair;
And what care we how many petals fall!

She knows us not, nor recks if she enthrall
With voice and eyes and fashion of her hair,
A little, passionately, not at all!

Knee-deep she goes in meadow grasses tall,
Kissed by the daisies that her fingers tear:
And what care we how many petals fall!

We pass and go: but she shall not recall
What men we were, nor all she made us bear:
"_A little, passionately, not at all!_"
And what care we how many petals fall!


YVONNE OF BRITTANY

In your mother's apple-orchard,
Just a year ago, last spring:
Do you remember, Yvonne!
The dear trees lavishing
Rain of their starry blossoms
To make you a coronet?
Do you ever remember, Yvonne?
As I remember yet.

In your mother's apple-orchard,
When the world was left behind:
You were shy, so shy, Yvonne!
But your eyes were calm and kind.
We spoke of the apple harvest,
When the cider press is set,
And such-like trifles, Yvonne!
That doubtless you forget.

In the still, soft Breton twilight,
We were silent; words were few,
Till your mother came out chiding,
For the grass was bright with dew:
But I know your heart was beating,
Like a fluttered, frightened dove.
Do you ever remember, Yvonne?
That first faint flush of love?

In the fulness of midsummer,
When the apple-bloom was shed,
Oh, brave was your surrender,
Though shy the words you said.
I was glad, so glad, Yvonne!
To have led you home at last;
Do you ever remember, Yvonne!
How swiftly the days passed?


YVONNE OF BRITTANY

In your mother's apple-orchard
It is grown too dark to stray,
There is none to chide you, Yvonne!
You are over far away.
There is dew on your grave grass, Yvonne!
But your feet it shall not wet:
No, you never remember, Yvonne!
And I shall soon forget.


BENEDICTIO DOMINI

Without, the sullen noises of the street!
The voice of London, inarticulate,
Hoarse and blaspheming, surges in to meet
The silent blessing of the Immaculate.

Dark is the church, and dim the worshippers,
Hushed with bowed heads as though by some old spell.
While through the incense-laden air there stirs
The admonition of a silver bell.

Dark is the church, save where the altar stands,
Dressed like a bride, illustrious with light,
Where one old priest exalts with tremulous hands
The one true solace of man's fallen plight.

Strange silence here: without, the sounding street
Heralds the world's swift passage to the fire:
O Benediction, perfect and complete!
When shall men cease to suffer and desire?


GROWTH

I watched the glory of her childhood change,
Half-sorrowful to find the child I knew,
(Loved long ago in lily-time)
Become a maid, mysterious and strange,
With fair, pure eyes--dear eyes, but not the eyes I knew
Of old, in the olden time!

Till on my doubting soul the ancient good
Of her dear childhood in the new disguise
Dawned, and I hastened to adore
The glory of her waking maidenhood,
And found the old tenderness within her deepening eyes,
But kinder than before.


AD MANUS PUELLAE

I was always a lover of ladies' hands!
Or ever mine heart came here to tryst,
For the sake of your carved white hands' commands;
The tapering fingers, the dainty wrist;
The hands of a girl were what I kissed.

I remember an hand like a _fleur-de-lys_
When it slid from its silken sheath, her glove;
With its odours passing ambergris:
And that was the empty husk of a love.
Oh, how shall I kiss your hands enough?

They are pale with the pallor of ivories;
But they blush to the tips like a curled sea-shell:
What treasure, in kingly treasuries,
Of gold, and spice for the thurible,
Is sweet as her hands to hoard and tell?

I know not the way from your finger-tips,
Nor how I shall gain the higher lands,
The citadel of your sacred lips:
I am captive still of my pleasant bands,
The hands of a girl, and most your hands.


FLOS LUNAE

I would not alter thy cold eyes,
Nor trouble the calm fount of speech
With aught of passion or surprise.
The heart of thee I cannot reach:
I would not alter thy cold eyes!

I would not alter thy cold eyes;
Nor have thee smile, nor make thee weep:
Though all my life droops down and dies,
Desiring thee, desiring sleep,
I would not alter thy cold eyes.

I would not alter thy cold eyes;
I would not change thee if I might,
To whom my prayers for incense rise,
Daughter of dreams! my moon of night!
I would not alter thy cold eyes.

I would not alter thy cold eyes,
With trouble of the human heart:
Within their glance my spirit lies,
A frozen thing, alone, apart;
I would not alter thy cold eyes.


NON SUM QUALIS ERAM BONAE SUB REGNO CYNARAE

Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine
There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed
Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;
And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat,
Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay;
Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
When I awoke and found the dawn was gray:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, all the time, because the dance was long:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,
But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,
Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine;
And I am desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.


VANITAS

Beyond the need of weeping,
Beyond the reach of hands,
May she be quietly sleeping,
In what dim nebulous lands?
Ah, she who understands!

The long, long winter weather,
These many years and days,
Since she, and Death, together,
Left me the wearier ways:
And now, these tardy bays!

The crown and victor's token:
How are they worth to-day?
The one word left unspoken,
It were late now to say:
But cast the palm away!

For once, ah once, to meet her,
Drop laurel from tired hands:
Her cypress were the sweeter,
In her oblivious lands:
Haply she understands!

Yet, crossed that weary river,
In some ulterior land,
Or anywhere, or ever,
Will she stretch out a hand?
And will she understand?


EXILE

By the sad waters of separation
Where we have wandered by divers ways,
I have but the shadow and imitation
Of the old memorial days.

In music I have no consolation,
No roses are pale enough for me;
The sound of the waters of separation
Surpasseth roses and melody.

By the sad waters of separation
Dimly I hear from an hidden place
The sigh of mine ancient adoration:
Hardly can I remember your face.

If you be dead, no proclamation
Sprang to me over the waste, gray sea:
Living, the waters of separation
Sever for ever your soul from me.

No man knoweth our desolation;
Memory pales of the old delight;
While the sad waters of separation
Bear us on to the ultimate night.


SPLEEN

I was not sorrowful, I could not weep,
And all my memories were put to sleep.

I watched the river grow more white and strange,
All day till evening I watched it change.

All day till evening I watched the rain
Beat wearily upon the window pane.

I was not sorrowful, but only tired
Of everything that ever I desired.

Her lips, her eyes, all day became to me
The shadow of a shadow utterly.

All day mine hunger for her heart became
Oblivion, until the evening came,

And left me sorrowful, inclined to weep,
With all my memories that could not sleep.


O MORS! QUAM AMARA EST MEMORIA TUA HOMINI PACEM HABENTI IN SUBSTANTIIS SUIS

Exceeding sorrow
Consumeth my sad heart!
Because to-morrow
We must depart,
Now is exceeding sorrow
All my part!

Give over playing,
Cast thy viol away:
Merely laying
Thine head my way:
Prithee, give over playing,
Grave or gay.

Be no word spoken;
Weep nothing: let a pale
Silence, unbroken
Silence prevail!
Prithee, be no word spoken,
Lest I fail!

Forget to-morrow!
Weep nothing: only lay
In silent sorrow
Thine head my way:
Let us forget to-morrow,
This one day!


_Ah, dans ces mornes séjours
Les jamais sont les toujours_
PAUL VERLAINE

You would have understood me, had you waited;
I could have loved you, dear! as well as he:
Had we not been impatient, dear! and fated
Always to disagree.

What is the use of speech? Silence were fitter:
Lest we should still be wishing things unsaid.
Though all the words we ever spake were bitter,
Shall I reproach you dead?

Nay, let this earth, your portion, likewise cover
All the old anger, setting us apart:
Always, in all, in truth was I your lover;
Always, I held your heart.

I have met other women who were tender,
As you were cold, dear! with a grace as rare.
Think you, I turned to them, or made surrender,
I who had found you fair?

Had we been patient, dear! ah, had you waited,
I had fought death for you, better than he:
But from the very first, dear! we were fated
Always to disagree.

Late, late, I come to you, now death discloses
Love that in life was not to be our part:
On your low lying mound between the roses,
Sadly I cast my heart.

I would not waken you: nay! this is fitter;
Death and the darkness give you unto me;
Here we who loved so, were so cold and bitter,
Hardly can disagree.


APRIL LOVE

We have walked in Love's land a little way,
We have learnt his lesson a little while,
And shall we not part at the end of day,
With a sigh, a smile?

A little while in the shine of the sun,
We were twined together, joined lips, forgot
How the shadows fall when the day is done,
And when Love is not.

We have made no vows--there will none be broke,
Our love was free as the wind on the hill,
There was no word said we need wish unspoke,
We have wrought no ill.

So shall we not part at the end of day,
Who have loved and lingered a little while,
Join lips for the last time, go our way,
With a sigh, a smile?

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