The Bird-Catcher Read Online Free PDF Page A

embossed with bees and flowers,
    And, drop by drop, with trembling hand distilled
    The priceless attar, whose insidious powers,
    Helen, I place at your command, though chilled
    With aching doubts lest you, while up in town,
    Shedding its sunny fragrance on the air,
    Should trap the dashing Captain Archie Brown
    Or twang the heartstrings of some millionaire.

Serenade
    I am the voice in the night, the voice of darkness;
    Listen, O shy one, listen, my voice shall find you.
    As the rose springs from the earth,
    So love blooms from the dark unknown.
    Hark to the voice of love that springs in the darkness.
    O timid, O craven.
    Though you have barred your doors against earth and heaven
    You shall not escape me.
    See, like a thin blue flame
    My voice burns up to your window,
    Steals through the fast-closed casement, stirs in the curtains,
    Flushes to rose the pale and delicate lamplight.
    O fear, O wonder, the bright flame circles about you,
    Flashes above you, burns deep down to your heart.
    You struggle, you cry, cry out of a heart tormented:
    â€œAh Terror, ah Death, have mercy!”
    O timid and craven heart, it is love that takes you:
    Give yourself up to the flame. I am life, not death.
    O slim moon veiled in the cloud, shy fawn in the thicket,
    Lily hid in the water, come from your hiding.
    Why is your hair like silk and your flesh like a flower?
    Not for your own delight nor the cold delight of your mirror:
    Not for the kisses of death.
    I am a cry in the night, a song in the darkness.
    O timid, O craven,
    Vain, how vain is your hiding.
    For the night brims up with my singing, my voice enfolds you,
    And how shall you flee when the whole night turns to music?

The House of Love
    Â Â Â Â As a bird’s wing,
    Against the soft warm body gathering
    Its folded feathers, closes and is still
    When the wind-wandering bird has dropped to rest
    On the green bough beside her hidden nest;
    Â Â Â Â So my blind will
    Wanders no more, nor beats the empty air,
    Nor follows hot-foot to their phantom lair
    Beguilement of the ear, lust of the eye
    Â Â Â Â And all such pageantry
    As lures men from fulfilment of desire;
    Wanders no more, but entering that small house
    Which Love has made his palace, lights the fire,
    Bars door and shutter, sets the wine and bread
    Â Â Â Â Where the tall candles shed
    Soft lustre, and stands ready to carouse
    With her who is the mistress of the house.

Autumn
    All day the plane-trees have shaken from shadow to sun
    Their long depending boughs, and one by one
    From early-falling limes the yellow leaves
    Have eddied to earth. But still warm noon deceives
    Old fears of death. But when with the twilight came
    From the dim garden an air like sharp cold flame
    And bitter with burnt leaves, I knew once more
    That the walls were down between love and the silent, frore
    Wastes of eternity. O lean above me,
    Screening my eyes with your hair like a dark willow
    From the cold glare of death. O you that love me,
    Lean with your body’s weight, that the cold billow
    Not yet may lift me away, though love and light,
    Roses and fruit and leaves prepare to-night
    With unreturning wings
    To launch upon the eternal flux of things.

The Immortals
    Beloved, in this world of sense
    We have the one omnipotence.
    None but we lovers can erase
    The foolish laws of time and space
    Or gather by their wedded power
    Eternity into an hour.
    So to the four winds let us cast
    Vague future and abysmal past
    And, proud of body, leave behind
    The fretful ghosts of soul and mind;
    Nay even scorn the ageless joys
    Of lovely sights and the soft noise
    Of waving branches, streams that sing,
    And music of the trembling string,
    And all sweet scents and tastes that creep
    Through brain to spirit. Alone we’ll keep
    (Since ours is the one certain bliss
    To come together in a kiss)
    Locked in our frail and narrow clutch
    The world-creating sense of touch.
    All things are ours because we love.
    Not men nor wrathful