XXI
Say over again, and yet once over again,
That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated
Should seem 'a cuckoo-song,' as thou dost treat it,
Remember, never to the hill or plain,
Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain
Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed.
Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted
By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt's pain
......
Her courts are by the flux of flaming ways,
Between the rivers and the illumined sky
Whose fervid depths reverberate from on high
Fierce lustres mingled in a fiery haze.
They mark it inland; blithe and fair of face
Her suitors follow, guessing by the glare
Beyond the hilltops in the evening air
How bright the cressets at her portals blaze.
On the pure fronts Defeat ere many a day
Falls like the soot and dirt on city-snow;
......
Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day
And make me travel forth without my cloak,
To let base clouds o'ertake me in my way,
Hiding thy brav'ry in their rotten smoke?
'Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break,
To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face,
For no man well of such a salve can speak
That heals the wound and cures not the disgrace.
Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss.
......
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
......
If thou survive my well-contented day
When that churl Death my bones with dust shall cover,
And shalt by fortune once more re-survey
These poor rude lines of thy deceasèd lover,
Compare them with the bett'ring of the time,
And though they be outstripped by every pen,
Reserve them for my love, not for their rhyme,
Exceeded by the height of happier men.
O, then vouchsafe me but this loving thought:
"Had my friend's Muse grown with this growing age,
......
If you can ignore your true culture,
Then you are mentally ill.
If you are lacking true superstructure,
Better then you take suicide pill.
Never use your dream infrastructure,
Not every blank you must fill.
Backbone no longer agriculture,
For corruption pays all the bill.
In the blaze of the buttercup morning,
Bluejays were reeling in rich lapis skies,
And for miles lush nature was adorning,
In the golden age of hued butterflies!
Yellow and lovely were the flower fields,
Reaching forever at bright edge of day,
Yet long before dawn was destiny sealed,
With the promise of the endless bouquet.
......
I was cooped inside all the afternoon,
Missing tree and bush and garden madness;
But from my window I saw abstract blooms,
In rain's watercolors, nature's canvas!
They brightened the day, in absence of sun,
While the storm distorted without mercy,
Views of bold colors, from the lush season,
As the frantic blooms made many a curtsey.
......
Dusty rose and orange gold when daybreaks;
And burnished reds and mauve at setting sun.
The mountains in shades of beauty awakes;
And retires to the same when day is done.
The mountains are massed in riotous blooms,
While sometimes obscured by lemony clouds,
As heady scents drift all the afternoons,
And into nights, appearing in dark shrouds.
......
Life's golden hours take one through so many,
Our footsteps echoing through time's hallways.
Peach dawn through sunset, legs running plenty,
Like brilliant seasons searching for always!
In and out of each other's lives we turn,
Touched with puzzlement by each mystery,
And with our heart's passions slowly we burn,
'Til glowing sunset years' tinged memory!
......