The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-24
a NEW POEM BY swINBURyE.
THE COMPLAINT or mONNA LISA.
DECAMERoN.

That life should lay such heavy hand on me.
Alas, Love, what is this thou wouldst with
me?
What honor shalt thou have to quench my
breath
Or what shall my heart broken profit thee?
o Love- O great god Love- what have done,
That thou shouldst hunger so after my death?
NV heart is harmless as my life's first day:
Seek out some false fair woman, and plague
her
Till her tears even as my tears fill her bed;
/ am the least flower in thy howery way,
But till my time be come that be dead
Let me live out my fower-time in the sun
Though my leaves shut before the sunfiower.
o Love, Love, Love, the kingly sunHower!
Shall he the sun hath looked on look on me,
That live down here in shade, out of the sun,
Here living in the sorrow and shadow OF
death
Shall he that feeds his heart full of the day
Care to give mine eyes light, or my lips
breath?
Because she loves him shall my lord love her
Who is a worm in my lords kingly way
l shall not see him or know him alive or
dead;
But thou, know thee, o Love, and pray to
thee
That in brief while my brief life-days be
done,
And the worm quickly make my marriage
bed.
For underground there is no sleepless bed,
But here since beheld my sunfower
These eyes have slept not, seeing all night
and day
His sun-like eyes, and face fronting the sun.
Wherefore if anywhere be any death,
would fain find and fold him fast to me-
That may sleep with the worlds eldest dead,
With her that died seven centuries since, and
her
frbot want loe+ piobt doy, ba nj r,bt ,,,o,5ar
ing way
For this is sleep indeed, whom labor is done,
Without love. without Dreams and without
breath,
And without thought, o name unnamed of
thee.
o, but forgetting all things, shall 1 thee? q
Wilt thou not be as now about my bed
There underground as here before the sun?
Shall not thy vision vex me alive and dead,
Thy moving vision without form or breath
1 read long since the bitter tale of her
Who read the tale of Launcelot on day,
And died, and had no quiet after death,
But was moved ever along weary way,
Lost with her love in the underworld; ah me,
o my king, o my lordly sunfower,
Would God to me too such a thing were done!
But if such sweet and bitter things be done,
Then, flying from life, 1 shall not fly from
thee
Thy vision will lay hold upon me dead,
And meet and mock me, and mar my peace in
death
Yet if, being wroth, God had such pity on
her,
Who was sinner and foolish in her day,
That even in hell they twain should breathe
one breath,
Why should he not in somewise pity me?
So if sleep not in my soft strait bed
i may look up and see my sunhower
AS he the sun in some divine strange way.
o poor my heart, well knowest thou in what
way
= This sore sweet evil unto us was done.
For on holy and heavy day
I was arisen out of my still small bed
To see the knights tilt, and one said to me
s'Theking, and seeing him, somewhat stopped
my breath,
And if the girl spake more, heard not her,
For only saw what shall see when dead,
kingly flower of knights, sunhower,
That shows against the sunlight like the sun,
And like o fire, heart, consuming thee,
The fire of love that lights the pyre Of death.
Howbeit, shall not die an evil death
Who have loved in such sad and sinless
way,
That this my love, lord, was no shame to
thee.
So when mine eyes are shut against the sun,
o my souls sun, o the worlds sunfower
Thou nor no man will quite despise me dead.
And dying pray with all my low last breath
That thy whole life may be as was that day,
That feast-day that made troth- plight death
and me,
Giving the world light of thy great deeds
done:
And that fair face Frightening thy bridal bed
That God be good as God hath been to her.
] That all things goodly and glad remain with
her,
All things that make glad life and goodIy
death;
That as bee sucks from sunhower
Honey, when summer draws delighted breath
Her soul may drink of thy soul in like way,
And love make life fruitful marriage-bed
Where day may bring forth fruits of Joy to
day,
And night to night till days and nights be
dead.
And as she gives light of her love to thee,
Give thou to her the old glory Of days long
done
And either give some heat of light to me,
To warm me where 1 sleep without the sun.
o sunhower made drunken with the sun,
U knight whose ladys heart draws thine to
her,
Great king, glad lover, I have word to thee.
There is weed lives out of the suns way,
Hid from the heat deep in the meadows bed,
That swoons and whitens at the winds least
breath,
A flower shaped, that all a summer day
Will gaze her soul out on the sunhower
For very love till twilight finds her dead
Dot l,.on raak a hao1 l.