Lyrics from "Ferishtah's Fancies"

Round us the wild creatures, overhead the trees, 
Underfoot the moss-tracks, life and love with these ! 
I to wear a fawn-skin, thou to dress in flowers : 
All the long lone Summer-day, that greenwood life of ours ! 

Rich-pavilioned, rather, still the world without, 
Inside gold-roofed silk-walled silence round about ! 
Queen it thou on purple, I, at watch and ward 
Couched beneath the columns, gaze, thy slave, love's guard ! 

So, for us no world ? Let throngs press thee to me ! 
Up and down amid men, heart by heart fare we ! 
Welcome squalid vesture, harsh voice, hateful face ! 
God is soul, souls I and thou : with souls should souls have place. 

Wish no word unspoken, want no look away!
What if words were but mistake, and looks too sudden, say ! 
Be unjust for once, Love ! Bear it well I may !
Do me justice always ? Bid my heart their shrine 
Render back its store of gifts, old looks and words of thine 
Oh, so all unjust the less deserved, the more divine ? 

You groped your way across my room i' the dear dark dead of night ; 
At each fresh step a stumble was : but, once your lamp alight, 
Easy and plain you walked again : so soon all wrong grew right! 
What lay on floor to trip your foot? Each object, late awry, 
Looked fitly placed, nor proved offence to footing free for why? 
The lamp showed all, discordant late, grown simple symmetry. 
Be love your light and trust your guide, with these explore my heart ! 
No obstacle to trip you then, strike hands and souls apart ! 
Since rooms and hearts are furnished so, light shows you, needs love start ? 

Man I am and man would be, Love merest man and nothing more. 
Bid me seem no other ! Eagles boast of pinions let them soar! 
I may put forth angel's plumage, once unmanned, but not before. 
Now on earth, to stand suffices, nay, if kneeling serves, to kneel: 
Here you front me, here I find the all of heaven that earth can feel: 
Sense looks straight, not over, under, perfect sees beyond appeal. 
Good you are and wise, full circle : what to me were more outside ? 
Wiser wisdom, better goodness ? Ah, such want the angel's wide 
Sense to take and hold and keep them ! Mine at least has never tried. 

Fire is in the flint : true, once a spark escapes, 
Fire forgets the kinship, soars till fancy shapes 
Some befitting cradle where the babe had birth 
Wholly heaven's the product, unallied to earth. 
Splendors recognized as perfect in the star ! 
In our flint their home was, housed as now they are.

So, the head aches and the limbs are faint! 
Flesh is a burthen even to you! 
Can I force a smile with a fancy quaint? 
Why are my ailments none or few?

In the soul of me sits sluggishness:
Body so strong and will so weak!
The slave stands fit for the labor yes, 
But the master's mandate is still to seek. 

You, now what if the outside clay 
Helped, not hindered the inside flame?
My dim to-morrow your plain to-day, 
Yours the achievement, mine the aim?

So were it rightly, so shall it be!
Only, while earth we pace together 
For the purpose apportioned you and me, 
Closer we tread for a common tether. 

You shall sigh "Wait for his sluggish soul! 
Shame he should lag, not lamed as I!" 
May not I smile "Ungained her goal: 
Body may reach her by-and-by?" 

When I vexed you and you chid me, 
And I owned my fault and turned 
My cheek the way you bid me, 
And confessed the blow well earned, 
My comfort all the while was 
Fault was faulty near, not quite ! 

Do you wonder why the smile was ? 
O'erpunished wrong grew right. 
But faults you ne'er suspected, 
Nay, praised, no faults at all, 
Those would you had detected 
Crushed eggs whence snakes could crawl ! 

Once I saw a chemist take a pinch of powder 
Simple dust it seemed and half-unstop a phial: 
Out dropped harmless dew. " Mixed nothings make" quoth he 
"Something!" So they did: a thunderclap, but louder 
Lightning-flash, but fiercer put spectators' nerves to trial: 
Sure enough, we learned what was, imagined what might be. 

Had I no experience how a lip's mere tremble, 
Look's half hesitation, cheek's just change of color, 
These effect a heartquake, how should I conceive 
What a heaven there may be ? Let it but resemble 
Earth myself have known ! No bliss that' s finer, fuller, 
Only bliss that lasts, they say, and fain would I believe. 

Verse-making was least of my virtues : I viewed with despair 
Wealth that never yet was but might be all that verse-making were 
If the life would but lengthen to wish, let the mind be laid bare. 
So I said "To do little is bad, to do nothing is worse" -- And made verse. 
Love-making, how simple a matter ! No depths to explore, 
No heights in a life to ascend ! No disheartening Before, 
No affrighting Hereafter, love now will be love evermore. 
So I felt " To keep silence were folly : " all language above, I made love.

Not with my Soul, Love ! bid no Soul like mine 
Lap thee around nor leave the poor Sense room ! 
Soul, travel-worn, toil- weary, would confine 
Along with Soul, Soul's gains from glow and gloom, 
Captures from soarings high and divings deep. 
Spoil-laden Soul, how should such memories sleep ? 
Take Sense, too let me love entire and whole 
    Not with my Soul ! 

Eyes shall meet eyes and find no eyes between, 
Lips feed on lips, no other lips to fear !
No past, no future so thine arms but screen 
The present from surprise ! not there, 'tis here 
Not then, 'tis now: back, memories that intrude ! 
Make, Love, the universe our solitude,
And, over all the rest, oblivion roll
    Sense quenching Soul ! 

Ask not one least word of praise ! 
Words declare your eyes are bright ? 
What then meant that summer day's 
Silence spent in one long gaze ? 
Was my silence wrong or right ? 

"Why from the world," Ferishtah smiled, "should thanks 
Go to this work of mine ? If worthy praise,
Praised let it be and welcome : as verse ranks, 
So rate my verse : if good therein outweighs 
Aught faulty judged, judge justly ! Justice says : 
Be just to fact, or blaming or approving : 
But generous ? No, nor loving ! 

"Loving ! what claim to love has work of mine ? 
Concede my life were emptied of its gains 
To furnish forth and fill work's strict confine,
Who works so for the world's sake he complains 
With cause when hate, not love, rewards his pains. 
I looked beyond the world for truth and beauty : 
Sought, found and did my duty." 

Oh, Love no, Love ! All the noise below, Love, 
Groanings all and moanings none of Life I lose ! 
All of Life 's a cry just of weariness and woe, Love 
"Hear at least, thou happy one ! " How can I, Love, but choose ? 
Only, when I do hear, sudden circle round me
Much as when the moon's might frees a space from cloud. 
Iridescent splendors : gloom would else confound me 
Barriered off and banished far bright-edged the blackest shroud ! 
Thronging through the cloud-rift, whose are they, the faces 
Faint revealed yet sure divined, the famous ones of old ? 
"What" they smile "our names, our deeds so soon erases 
Time upon his tablet where Life's glory lies enrolled ? 
"Was it for mere fool's-play, make-believe and mumming, 
So we battled it like men, not boylike sulked or whined ? 
Each of us heard clang God's e Come ! ' and each was coming : 
Soldiers all, to forward-face, not sneaks to lag behind ! 
"How of the field's fortune ? That concerned our Leader! 
Led, we struck our stroke nor cared for doings left and right : 
Each as on his sole head, failer or succeeder, 
Lay the blame or lit the praise : no care for cowards: fight!" 
Then the cloud-rift broadens, spanning earth that's under, 
Wide our world displays its worth, man's strife and strife's success : 
All the good and beauty, wonder crowning wonder, 
Till my heart and soul applaud perfection, nothing less. 
Only, at heart's utmost joy and triumph, terror 
Sudden turns the blood to ice : a chill wind disencharms 
All the late enchantment ! What if all be error 
If the halo irised round my head were, Love, thine arms?