He found the long room as it was of old, Glimmering with sunset's gold; That made the tapestries seem full of eyes Strange with a wild surmise: Glaring upon a Psyche where she shone Carven of stainless stone, Holding a crystal heart where many a sun Seemed starrily bound in one: And near her, grim in rigid metal, stood An old knight in a wood, Groping his way: the bony wreck, that was His steed, at weary pause. And over these a canvas--one mad mesh Of Chrysoprase tints of flesh And breasts--Bohemian cups, whose glory gleamed For one who, brutish, seemed A hideous Troll, unto whose lustful arms She yielded glad her charms.
Then he remembered all _her_ shame; and knew The thing that he must do: These were but records of _his_ life: the whole Portrayed to him his soul.-- So, drawing forth the slim Bithynian phial, He drained it with a smile. And 'twixt the Knight and Psyche fell and died; The arras, evil-eyed, Glared grimly at him where all night he lay, And where a stealthy ray Pointed her to _him_--her, that nymph above, Who gave the Troll her love.
When pearl and gold, o'er deeps of musk, The moon curves, silvering the dusk,-- As in a garden, dreaming, A lily slips its dewy husk A firefly in its gleaming,-- I of my garden am a guest; My garden, that, in beauty dressed Of simple shrubs and oldtime flowers, Chats with me of the perished hours, When _she_ companioned me in life, Living remote from care and strife.
It says to me: "How sad and slow The hours of daylight come and go, Until the Night walks here again With moon and starlight in her train, And she and I with perfumed words Of winds and waters, dreaming birds, And flowers and crickets and the moon, For hour on hour, in soul commune.--" And you, and you, Sit here and listen in the dew For her, the love, you used to know, Who often walked here, long ago, Long ago; The young, sweet love you used to know Long ago Whom oft I watched with violet eye, Or eye of dew, as she passed by: As she passed by.
And I reply, with half a sigh:-- "You knew her too as well as I, That young sweet love of long-ago! That young sweet love, who walked here slow.-- Oh, speak no more of the days gone by, Dear days gone by, Lest I lay me down on your heart and die!"
