Ernest Christopher Dowson

Why am I sorry, Chloe? Because the moon is far:
And who am I to be straitened in a little earthly star?Because thy face is fair? And what if it had not been,
The fairest face of all is the face I have not seen.Because the land is cold, and however I scheme and plot,
I cannot find a ferry to the land where I am not.Because thy lips are red and thy breasts upbraid the snow?…

What land of Silence,
Where pale stars shine
On apple-blossom
And dew-drenched vine,…

Why is there in the least touch of her hands
More grace than other women's lips bestow,
If love is but a slave in fleshly bands
Of flesh to flesh, wherever love may go?Why choose vain grief and heavy-hearted hours…

Mark the day white, on which the Fates have smiled:
Eugenio and Egeria have a child.
On whom abundant grace kind Jove imparts
If she but copy either parent's parts.…

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,…

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,…

I took her dainty eyes, as well
As silken tendrils of her hair:
And so I made a Villanelle!I took her voice, a silver bell,
As clear as song, as soft as prayer;…

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,…

A song of the setting sun!
The sky in the west is red,
And the day is all but done;
While yonder up overhead,…

In your mother's apple-orchard,
Just a year ago, last spring:
Do you remember, Yvonne!
The dear trees lavishing…

All the moon-shed nights are over,
And the days of gray and dun;
There is neither may nor clover,
And the day and night are one.Not an hamlet, not a city…

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:…

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:…

When this, our rose, is faded,
And these, our days, are done,
In lands profoundly shaded
From tempest and from sun:…

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,…

With his songs and her days to his lady and to loveViolets and leaves of vine,
Into a frail, fair wreath
We gather and entwine:
A wreath for Love to wear,…

All that I had I brought,
Little enough I know;
A poor rhyme roughly wrought,
A rose to match thy snow:…

Before my light goes out for ever if God should give me a choice of
graces,
I would not reck of length of days, nor crave for things to be;
But cry: 'One day of the great lost days, one face of all the faces,…

Through the green boughs I hardly saw thy face,
They twined so close: the sun was in mine eyes;
And now the sullen trees in sombre lace
Stand bare beneath the sinister, sad skies.O sun and summer! Say in what far night,…

Sometimes, to solace my sad heart, I say,
Though late it be, though lily-time be past,
Though all the summer skies be overcast,
Haply I will go down to her, some day,…

Beyond the pale of memory,
In some mysterious dusky grove;
A place of shadows utterly,
Where never coos the turtle-dove,…

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 the deep violet air,
Not a leaf is stirred;
There is no sound heard,
But afar, the rare…

"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,…