Arthur Symons
In Fountain Court
The fountain murmuring of sleep, A drowsy tune; The flickering green of leaves that keep The light of June; Peace, through a slumbering afternoon, The peace of June. A waiting ghost, in the blue
At Fontainebleau
IT was a day of sun and rain, Uncertain as a child’s swift moods; And I shall never spend again So blithe a day among the woods. Was it because the Gods were pleased
In the Stalls
My life is like a music-hall, Where, in the impotence of rage, Chained by enchantment to my stall, I see myself upon the stage Dance to amuse a music-hall. ‘Tis I that smoke this
The Andante of Snakes
They weave a slow andante as in sleep, Scaled yellow, swampy black, plague-spotted white; With blue and lidless eyes at watch they keep A treachery of silence; infinite Ancestral angers brood in these dull
The Broken Tryst
That day a fire was in my blood; I could have sung: joy wrapt me round; The men I met seemed all so good, I scarcely knew I trod the ground. How easy seemed
Love and Sleep
I have laid sorrow to sleep; Love sleeps. She who oft made me weep Now weeps. I loved, and have forgot, And yet Love tells me she will not Forget. She it was bid
You Remain
As a perfume doth remain In the folds where it hath lain, So the thought of you, remaining Deeply folded in my brain, Will not leave me; all things leave me – You remain.
Gipsy Love
The gipsy tents are on the down, The gipsy girls are here; And it’s O to be off and away from the town With a gipsy for my dear! We’d make our bed in
Before the Squall
The wind is rising on the sea, The windy white foam-dancers leap; And the sea moans uneasily, And turns to sleep, and cannot sleep. Ridge after rocky ridge uplifts, Wild hands, and hammers at
The Old Women
They pass upon their old, tremulous feet, Creeping with little satchels down the street, And they remember, many years ago, Passing that way in silks. They wander, slow And solitary, through the city ways,
Kisses
Sweet, can I sing you the song of your kisses? How soft is this one, how subtle this is, How fluttering swift as a bird’s kiss that is, As a bird that taps at
By the Pool of the Third Rosses
I heard the sighing of the reed In the grey pool in the green land, The sea-wind in the long reeds sighing Between the green hill and the sand. I heard the sighing of
Javanese Dancers
Twitched strings, the clang of metal, beaten drums, Dull, shrill, continuous, disquieting: And now the stealthy dancer comes Undulantly with cat-like steps that cling; Smiling between her painted lids a smile, Motionless, unintelligible, she
The Loom of Dreams
I broider the world upon a loom, I broider with dreams my tapestry; Here in a little lonely room I am master of earth and sea, And the planets come to me. I broider
Amends to Nature
I have loved colours, and not flowers; Their motion, not the swallows wings; And wasted more than half my hours Without the comradeship of things. How is it, now, that I can see, With