g,
The intoxicating perfume of thy mouth:
These, and many other endless
Viols and lutes of passion, love, life,
Delights of a thousand heavens,
Who robs them of me?
Fate! that fool in the court of love,
Who hath no wit for laughter,
Steals it all from me
In the mid-hour of life;
And as it befits his mind,
Scatters it all over the turbid
Stream of fear and lies.

65

SATIETY

All thy gifts must die,
All thy thoughts must fail;
Such were the decree writ by time
With shadows on the scroll of fate.
Even thy memory recedes into forgetting,
Thy lustrous words star-like set,
Ah, sweet! autumn's breath withers all,
Even the west-wind fears to tread.
All yield to the power of relentless time
That no love nor passion can stay,
Blown like dried leaves we now
On the granite pavement of fate.
No more thy lip-touch on my brow,
Nor thy hands pleading caresses,
Thy gifts fall and fade into nothing,
Thy vision grows dim in life's sunset-west.

66

Drowsy the noonday air,
Under the trees the still shadow
Like a fugitive fragment of night
Seeks shelter from the sun.

The bird has ceased singing,
The beggar unable to bear
The wealth of the sun
Spreads his torn garment,

To find peace in
The benign shadow of sleep.
Ah, lone soul like him,
I spread this rag of my song.

Under the tree of life
Over which blazes the sun of fate.
The calm of its shadow
Protects me, but where my peace?

67

CHATTERTON

For summers seventeen
This flower of spring
Scattered fragrance
That dwelt in its petals seventeen.
Seventeen song-hours,
A heart never weary;
A soul with honey of all flowers
A song as enchanting as stars.

A boy never grown old,
A lute never tiring to sing,
A mind ne'er chilled
Though Hunger's hand lay cold.

Steely-cold on his breast,
Yet the boy sang;
Loved as alone a poet can
Endlessly, without rest.
Just seventeen!
Ne'er old, though time passes;
A golden lyre-string
Has not yet ceased ringing:

Rings through the heart of time
O'er the summit of death
To the music of the Nine
Into the heart of Eternal Rhyme.

68

A summer song it was,
Counting of many unseen stars
In an intangi