The New Sirens - A Palinode

In the cedar shadow sleeping,     Where cool grass and fragrant glooms     Oft at noon have lurd me, creeping     From your darkend palace rooms:     I, who in your train at morning     Strolld and sang with joyful mind,     Heard, at evening, sounds of warning;     Heard the hoarse boughs labour in the wind.     Who are they, O pensive Graces,     For I dreamd they wore your forms     Who on shores and sea-washd places     Scoop the shelves and fret the storms?     Who, when ships are that way tending,     Troop across the flushing sands.     To all reefs and narrows wending,     With blown tresses, and with beckoning hands     Yet I see, the howling levels     Of the deep are not your lair;     And your tragic-vaunted revels     Are less lonely than they were.     In a Tyrian galley steering     From the golden springs of dawn,     Troops, like Eastern kings, appearing,     Stream all day through your enchanted lawn.     And we too, from upland valleys,     Where some Muse, with half-curvd frown,     Leans her ear to your mad sallies     Which the charmd winds never drown;     By faint music guided, ranging     The scard glens, we wanderd on:     Left our awful laurels hanging,     And came heapd with myrtles to your throne.     From the dragon-warderd fountains     Where the springs of knowledge are:     From the watchers on the mountains,     And the bright and morning star:     We are exiles, we are falling,     We have lost them at your call.     O ye false ones, at your calling     Seeking ceild chambers and a palace hall.     Are the accents of your luring     More melodious than of yore?     Are those frail forms more enduring     Than the charms Ulysses bore?     That we sought you with rejoicings     Till at evening we descry     At a pause of Siren voicings     These vext branches and this howling sky?     Oh! your pardon. The uncouthness     Of that primal age is gone:     And the skin of dazzling smoothness     Screens not now a heart of stone.     Love has flushd those cruel faces;     And your slackend arms forego     The delight of fierce embraces:     And those whitening bone-mounds do not grow.     Come, you say; the large appearance     Of mans labour is but vain:     And we plead as firm adherence     Due to pleasure as to pain.     Pointing to some world-worn creatures,     Come, you murmur with a sigh:     Ah! we own diviner features.     Loftier bearing, and a prouder eye.     Come, you say, the hours are dreary:     Life is long, and will not fade:     Time is lame, and we grow weary     In this slumbrous cedarn shade.     Round our hearts, with long caresses,     With low sighs hath Silence stole;     And her load of steaming tresses     Weighs, like Ossa, on the aery soul.     Come, you say, the Soul is fainting     Till she search, and learn her own:     And the wisdom of mans painting     Leaves her riddle half unknown.     Come, you say, the brain is seeking,     When the princely heart is dead:     Yet this gleand, when Gods were speaking,     Rarer secrets than the toiling head.     Come, you say, opinion trembles,     Judgement shifts, convictions go:     Life dries up, the heart dissembles:     Only, what we feel, we know.     Hath your wisdom known emotions?     Will it weep our burning tears?     Hath it drunk of our love-potions     Crowning moments with the weight of years?     I am dumb. Alas! too soon, all     Mans grave reasons disappear:     Yet, I think, at Gods tribunal     Some large answer you shall hear.     But for me, my thoughts are straying     Where at sunrise, through the vines,     On these lawns I saw you playing,     Hanging garlands on the odorous pines.     When your showering locks enwound you.     And your heavenly eyes shone through:     When the pine-boughs yielded round you,     And your brows were starrd with dew:     And immortal forms to meet you     Down the statued alleys came:     And through golden horns, to greet you.     Blew such music as a God may frame.     Yes, I muse:And, if the dawning     Into daylight never grew     If the glistering wings of morning     On the dry noon shook their dew     If the fits of joy were longer     Or the day were sooner done     Or, perhaps, if Hope were stronger     No weak nursling of an earthly sun . . .             Pluck, pluck cypress. O pale maidens,                     Dusk the hall with yew!     But a bound was set to meetings,     And the sombre day draggd on:     And the burst of joyful greetings.     And the joyful dawn, were gone:     For the eye was filld with gazing,     And on raptures follow calms:     And those warm locks men were praising     Droopd, unbraided, on your listless arms.     Storms unsmoothd your folded valleys,     And made all your cedars frown;     Leaves are whirling in the alleys     Which your lovers wanderd down.     Sitting cheerless in your bowers,     The hands propping the sunk head,     Do they gall you, the long hours?     And the hungry thought, that must be fed?     Is the pleasure that is tasted     Patient of a long review?     Will the fire joy hath wasted,     Musd on, warm the heart anew?     Or, are those old thoughts returning,     Guests the dull sense never knew,     Stars, set deep, yet inly burning,     Germs, your untrimmd Passion overgrew?     Once, like me, you took your station     Watchers for a purer fire:     But you droopd in expectation,     And you wearied in desire.     When the first rose flush was steeping     All the frore peaks awful crown,     Shepherds say, they found you sleeping     In a windless valley, further down.     Then you wept, and slowly raising     Your dozd eyelids, sought again,     Half in doubt, they say, and gazing     Sadly back, the seats of men.     Snatchd an earthly inspiration     From some transient human Sun,     And proclaimd your vain ovation     For the mimic raptures you had won.             Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens,                     Dusk the hall with yew!     With a sad, majestic motion     With a stately, slow surprise     From their earthward-bound devotion     Lifting up your languid eyes:     Would you freeze my louder boldness     Dumbly smiling as you go?     One faint frown of distant coldness     Flitting fast across each marble brow?     Do I brighten at your sorrow     O sweet Pleaders? doth my lot     Find assurance in to-morrow     Of one joy, which you have not?     O speak once! and let my sadness,     And this sobbing Phrygian strain,     Shamd and baffled by your gladness,     Blame the music of your feasts in vain.     Scent, and song, and light, and flowers     Gust on gust, the hoarse winds blow.     Come, bind up those ringlet showers!     Roses for that dreaming brow!     Come, once more that ancient lightness,     Glancing feet, and eager eyes!     Let your broad lamps flash the brightness     Which the sorrow-stricken day denies!     Through black depths of serried shadows,     Up cold aisles of buried glade;     In the mist of river meadows     Where the looming kine are laid;     From your dazzled windows streaming,     From the humming festal room,     Deep and far, a broken gleaming     Reels and shivers on the ruffled gloom.     Where I stand, the grass is glowing:     Doubtless, you are passing fair:     But I hear the north wind blowing;     And I feel the cold night-air.     Can I look on your sweet faces,     And your proud heads backward thrown,     From this dusk of leaf-strewn places     With the dumb woods and the night alone?     But, indeed, this flux of guesses     Mad delight, and frozen calms     Mirth to-day and vine-bound tresses,     And to-morrow, folded palms     Is this all? this balancd measure?     Could life run no easier way     Happy at the noon of pleasure,     Passive, at the midnight of dismay?     But, indeed, this proud possession     This far-reaching magic chain,     Linking in a mad succession     Fits of joy and fits of pain:     Have you seen it at the closing?     Have you trackd its clouded ways?     Can your eyes, while fools are dozing,     Drop, with mine, adown lifes latter days?     When a dreary light is wading     Through this waste of sunless greens     When the flashing lights are fading     On the peerless cheek of queens     When the mean shall no more sorrow     And the proudest no more smile     While the dawning of the morrow     Widens slowly westward all that while?     Then, when change itself is over,     When the slow tide sets one way,     Shall you find the radiant lover,     Even by moments, of to-day?     The eye wanders, faith is failing:     O, loose hands, and let it be!     Proudly, like a king bewailing.     O, let fall one tear, and set us free!     All true speech and large avowal     Which the jealous soul concedes:     All mans heart, which brooks bestowal:     All frank faith, which passion breeds:     These we had, and we gave truly:     Doubt not, what we had, we gave:     False we were not, nor unruly:     Lodgers in the forest and the cave.     Long we wanderd with you, feeding     Our sad souls on your replies:     In a wistful silence reading     All the meaning of your eyes:     By moss-borderd statues sitting,     By well-heads, in summer days.     But we turn, our eyes are flitting.     See, the white east, and the morning rays!     And you too, O weeping Graces,     Sylvan Gods of this fair shade!     Is there doubt on divine faces?     Are the happy Gods dismayd?     Can men worship the wan features,     The sunk eyes, the wailing tone,     Of unspherd discrownd creatures,     Souls as little godlike as their own?     Come, loose hands! The wingd fleetness     Of immortal feet is gone.     And your scents have shed their sweetness,     And your flowers are overblown.     And your jewelld gauds surrender     Half their glories to the day:     Freely did they flash their splendour,     Freely gave it, but it dies away.     In the pines the thrush is waking     Lo, yon orient hill in flames:     Scores of true love knots are breaking     At divorce which it proclaims.     When the lamps are pald at morning,     Heart quits heart, and hand quits hand.     Cold it, that unlovely dawning,     Loveless, rayless, joyless you shall stand.     Strew no more red roses, maidens,     Leave the lilies in their dew:     Pluck. pluck cypress, O pale maidens!     Dusk, O dusk the hall with yew!     Shall I seek, that I may scorn her,     Her I lovd at eventide?     Shall I ask, what faded mourner     Stands, at daybreak, weeping by my side?             Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens!                     Dusk the hall with yew!