Looking through the sunshot deep, Where our sea-maid lies asleep, Throat upflung, as white as lime, With the clear waves keeping time To the heaving of her breast-- Here we see to veil her rest Every jewel-tint of green: Jade, smaragdus, tourmaline, Beryl and green sapphire’s light, Streaky solid malachite, Chrysoprase and peacock-sheen Of the opal’s shifting green-- Patched and barred with purple dye Where the rocks like watch-dogs lie, Waiting crouched beneath the wave, Hungry, cruel as the grave....
Colour floods our souls until They must brim and overspill, Cups too small to bear away Half the beauty of the day. But when walking bound with heat Shackled in the airless street, When the sky has lost its light And o’er all the dust is white-- We shall turn to dreams of this As a damned soul thinks of bliss, And the loveliness we fail Now to grasp shall count full tale.
MONTORO’S SONG AGAINST COUNT ALVARO DE LUNA, HIGH CONSTABLE OF CASTILE
“King, a flock is feeding down the cliff unheeding and upon the hill, with your crook to shepherd it....” --It is yours, O Favourite. Ask for what you will.
“In your crown a jewel blazes fierce and cruel-- kingship to fulfil. Such a royal stone is it....” --It is yours, O Favourite. Ask for what you will.
“King, see, your rejected sceptre lies neglected on the throne-steps still. Long you have forgotten it....” --It is yours, O Favourite. Ask for what you will.
“King, in kingly measure I have spent my treasure, haste my stores to fill! Be my Envoy leal and fit--” --I shall do so, Favourite. Ask for what you will.
“King, tell me I am dreaming; I see the tapers gleaming; a scaffold boding ill with the headsman swart by it--” --It is yours, O Favourite, ask for what you will.
Into the soft mist the fishing-boats go, As silent as moonlight, as silent as snow; Just where the pale sea melts into the sky, Silver-grey birds of the autumn, they fly Slowly and smoothly and statelily past Till their wide pinions are hidden at last.
From the high rock whence I watch on the hill Down to the sea, all is muffled and still. Never a leaflet stirs soft overhead, Everything living is frozen or fled, Fled through the mist to more wonderful things.... Am I the only soul left without wings?