A selection of his poems
Stella Maris
From Vagabunduli Libellus, 1884. The "star of the sea" is identified by Symonds in the Memoirs as the Venetian gondolier Angelo Fusato, but he laments that "many of these sonnets were mutilated in order to adapt them to the female sex" and thus make them suitable for publication. In the Memoirs he lists precisely those sonnets which chart the progress of his affair in the spring of 1881, and I have selected those in which the sex of his beloved is obviously male.
I
I mused on these last miseries of mankind:
On souls that, fainting, feed a nameless thirst;
On hearts that long, with self-loathed longing cursed;
On loves that know themselves shameful and blind
Fierce cruel loves that crucify the mind;
Dry hearts that throb and throb, yet cannot burst;
Souls that will hope, when hope is proved the worst
Of torments: and I cried, Dwells there behind
This world of phantoms which allure and fade -
This bubble-world, wherein 't is hell to feel,
Since action bred by feeling breaks the seal
Which seemed to claps truth in the dreams we made -
Dwells there, unseized, unseen, what, once displayed,
Would prove our Maya-world of wishes real?
II
My spirit adream in Venice by the sea,
Roofed with that crystal dome of luminous sky,
Where the towered islands of enchantment lie,
Dallied with dark seductive reverie;
For soothing my life's smart with sympathy,
In self-contented calm, with curious eye,
Into despair's abyss I dared to pry,
Nor feared that Maya might descend on me.
Then o'er a level space of storm-swept sand,
Unsought, unsummoned, crept the stealthy shade,
And beckoned me with thin compulsive hand,
And showed me Thee! And, lo, thou wast arrayed
In flame by my soul's conflagration fanned!
The charm was woven, and my will obeyed.
XII
Hushed is the music, all those crowds are gone.
Flown are the passing strangers, whose dark eyes
Were bent my soul of souls to scrutinise,
Darting their wistful flame from foreheads wan.
Moonlight with lamplight blending slants upon
The tower that rears yon angel to the skies,
Where the grey miracle of Venice lies
Bare to the starts 'neath heaven's pavilion.
I only wake. I at this hour, when morn
Whitens the first faint pallor of the north,
Walk amid ghosts, and restless wander forth,
Pacing the sombre verge of waves forlorn.
These wait for day, disquieted. I wait,
And want thee, and repine, and weep my fate.
XIII
Restless I wander through these windy ways
And water-paths, where Auster swells the tide
Surging from Adria's sand-banks o'er the wide
Salt lakes low-lying and Venetian maze
Of marble basements. Like a ghost at gaze
Hurrying I thread the labyrinth hungry-eyed,
Seeking the one to whom my heart's voice cried
Through dim-remembered antenatal days.
Week-long I watch and wander; find not thee:
Nay, though one spoken word might bring thee near,
My lips are mute. Surely 'twas shown to me,
How without speech, some while, like morning clear,
Thy swift bright eyes unsummoned o'er the sea,
Should dawn, and mine make answer: I am here.
XVIII
Yea, 'twas for Thee we waited. Thou didst lean
Forth from inanimate loveliness, a soul
Completing and interpreting the whole
Of that which Venice and her people mean.
For me no longer like a painted scene
Or undecipherable antique scroll,
Rise palace-fronts around and waters roll,
Idle imagination's void demesne.
Spirit in thee meets spirit. That last bliss
We long for, when we gaze with ardent eyes,
Striving the world's delight to humanise;
Hands that will claps our hands, lips that might kiss,
A heart that with our heart can sympathise;
I find in thee: but, ah, need more than this!
XX
Thou art so frank, so musical; thy smile
And speech responsive to the negligent
Lilt of thy limbs; thy laughter rippling sent
Like waves in summer round a windless isle;
That I dare half believe no purposed wile,
Dark scheme or greed for gain or discontent,
Lurk in thy breast, but fair thoughts innocent,
Unbargained love and friendship void of guile.
Dare I believe this? Dare I dream that thou,
The dawn-star of this Maya-city spread
A foam-film on the waters, 'neath that brow
Alive with latent lightnings, and the head
Medusa-like where smouldering passions glow,
Hidest no mystery, no deep shame, no dread?
XXI
What force compels my soul in Thee to find
The out-flood of her pent-up harmonies?
Why wakest thou the notes she pined to seize,
Locked in the lonely caverns of her mind?
What is there in thee that thou canst unbind
The sealèd fount of sacred memories,
Stirring dim musical remembrances
Of life in God ere earth's life made me blind?
Is it the rhythm of thy strength at rest,
Or rhythm of thy limbs so lightly swung,
Or of the heart atremble in thy breast,
Or of swift words that dance upon thy tongue?
Nay, these were well: yet 't was upon thine eyes
Gazing, my soul remembered Paradise.
XXII
Give me thyself! It were as well to cry:
Give me the splendour of this night of June!
Give me yon star upon the swart lagoon
Trembling in unapproached serenity!
Our gondola that four swift oarsmen ply,
Shoots from the darkening Lido's sandy dune,
Splits with her steel the mirrors of the moon,
Shivers the star-beams that before us fly.
Give me thyself! This prayer is even a knell,
Warning me back to mine own impotence.
Self gives not self; and souls sequestered dwell
In the dark fortalice of thought and sense,
Where, though life's prisoners call from cell to cell,
Each pines alone and may not issue thence.
XXIV
Art thou love-worthy? Shall a wretch set free
By those thy succourable fervid eyes,
Which with his long life-torment sympathise,
Crying: We comprehend thy pain and thee! -
Shall such a wretch weigh if thou worthy be,
Nor welcome love, though even in reckless wise
Love wing his wavering way through stormy skies,
Shrouded in doubt and instability?
Not I! No more I seek than what thou bringest;
And all thou askest, thou shalt have from me.
Give me thyself! Nay, if to gold thou clingest,
Gold in abundance I will shower on thee!
Thine eyes my hope are. It were heaven to gain
Communion with thee, even in the clasp of pain!
XXV
Spare me not thou! I would not have thee hide
The furnace of that fierce imperious gaze,
Nor pray thee for love's sake to veil the rays
Streaming from thy white soul, thou deified
Dream of lust intellectual, carnal pride!
What though I swoon on the world's stony ways
Desiring thee, though 'wildered in thy maze
Of loveliness I roam unsatisfied:
Though thou shouldst be for me incarnate hell,
Damnation palpable, a living flame,
Grave of mine honour, murderer of my name;
Nay, though thy love be thirst insatiable,
Want unassuaged and passion without aim;
Thine am I, thine, thou irresistible!
XLV
Take it, oh take it, take thy gold! The shame
Shall rest with me, the bitter barren bliss
Of dreaming on a joy so brief as this.
Thou hast no suffering, and, I think, no blame.
Abide for me the everlasting flame,
The worm that dies not, and the snakes that hiss
Round souls that seek impossibilities,
Lost in their lake of longing without aim.
Is there no spell then to assuage this smart?
None; for we truly know not what we crave.
Knowing, we might appease the clamorous heart:
But lust contents it not; and storms that rave
O'er the soul's seas, are stilled by no fine art.
Ah God, will peace be found even in the grave?
XLVI
Prate not of peace! Peace hides in prison cells
And beds of sickness. 'Tis not peace I want,
But life in floods, fretful, extravagant,
Boiling perennial from the world's hot wells:
Such life as in thy nerve, thy sinew, dwells,
Child of the waves and sun-god, arrogant
With blood and brine, like sea-winds petulant,
Rude as sea-billows when the tempest swells.
Thou then hast sold thyself? And I have bought -
Bought what? The intolerable sense of sin.
This anguish is too sharp. Souls cannot win
Life from the bargain base their greeds have wrought.
Flesh fattens flesh; but flesh-fed souls go thin.
That golden glorious body gave me naught.
L
Musing on Venice and the thought of thee,
Thou resolute angel, sleep o'erspread my brain;
Brief solace blossomed from the root of pain,
For in my dream thou wert at one with me:
No longer restless like that clear blue sea,
No longer lost in schemes of sordid gain,
No longer unattainable by strain
Of futile arms and false love's mockery;
But tranquil, with thy large eyes fixed on mine;
Love's dove-wings moving on thy soul's abyss;
Thy lips half-opened, and thy breast divine
Scarce heaving with an unacknowledged bliss;
And all the golden glory that is thine,
Communicated in a long close kiss.
LXII
Hush, I have fallen; my feet are on firm ground;
Chimaera like the thunderstorm withdraws;
And I am left to sober natural laws,
A calm grey sky, a landscape cloud-embrowned.
How looks the plain, the footing I have found?
Stern, but not desolate; and through the flaws
Of tempest shines one star, whose lustre draws
My tortured soul into her peace profound.
Praise, praise to God! Surely 'twas God who willed
This whirlwind where my life was well-nigh lost.
I feel Him; with heaven's hope my heart is filled.
Where God is, I am, and Thou art. The cost
Shall not be counted, when at length in Him
Both blend, as blend we must, spirit and limb.
LXIII
Who reads may wonder that so crude a fact -
Mere love 'twixt man and man, lawless, unwed -
Should by sheer force of scrupulous thought be led
To such fine issues. 'Twas a trivial act.
From the bare natural feast of sense and tact
Springs healthy flesh new-born, exhilarated:
Why should the heart then starve? Why prowl, unfed,
Lion-like, through waste wild, cave, cataract?
Verily, there's the problem. Yet should he
Have found, or dreamed to find in him the goal,
Whither he voyaged with a hungering soul;
But finding it, have found therewith that he
Loved not as he loved - think you then his whole
Life-wisdom saved him from blank misery?
To make this last sonnet suitable for publication, Symonds wrote "man and maid" in line 2 and "her" and "she" in lines 10 and 12.
A Portrait
From Vagabunduli Libellus, 1884; a portrait of Angelo Fusato as the sea-god of Venice.
Wide lucid eyes in cavernous orbits set,
Aflame like living opals or the sea,
Vibrant with floods of electricity,
The soul projected in each fiery jet:
This thy fierce fascination haunts me yet;
And I have dreamed all Venice into thee,
Her domes of pearl, her heaven's immensity,
And superhuman saints of Tintoret.
Hoarse-voiced art thou as Tritons of her brine;
Swift as man-snaring murderous ocean shark;
White as foam-wreaths brown over Lido's line;
Stealthy as bats that skim those waves at dark;
Storm-browed with curls of thunder; leonine
As the winged guardian war-beast of St Mark.
The Sleeper
A friend at Davos counselled Symonds that Christian Buol had twice been fined for brawls upon the open street, and might prove dangerous if he got into a quarrel. But "love and instinct gained the day", and Buol accompanied Symonds, his wife and three daughters, and his cousin Isabella Gamble and a maid, on their journey to Italy in 1878, where the two men slept together frequently (unpublished section of the Memoirs). The following stanzas describe "one perfect moment enjoyed by me on that May Italian journey with my friend Christian". Privately printed sheets were pasted into the manuscript of his Memoirs, and are here published for the first time. I have altered the eighth line, which begins "By death or sign", which I think is the printer's misreading of Symonds's hand-writing for "By breath or sigh", and that Symonds did not notice the error when he pasted the poem into the Memoirs.
Half-light of dawn in the hushed upper room,
Where all night long two comrades, side by side,
Have slumbered in the summer-scented gloom,
Fanned by faint breezes from a window wide.
He sleeps, and stirs not. He meanwhile awake,
Steadfastly gazing and with mind intent
To drink soul-deep of beauty, dares not break
By breath or sigh his own heart's ravishment.
Bare arms light folded on the broad bare chest;
Dark curls crisp clustering round the athlete's head;
Shoulder and throat heroic; all is rest,
Marble with loveliest hues of life o'erspread.
Life in the glowing cheeks, the hands sun-brown,
The warm blood tingling to each finger-tip;
Life in youth's earliest bloom of tender down,
Tawny on chin and strong short upper lip:
Life in the cool white, flushed with faintest rose,
Of flank and heaving bosom, where each vein,
Half seen, a thread of softest violet, flows,
Like streaks that some full-throated lily stain.
Deep rest, and draught of slumber. Not one dream
Ruffles the mirror of that sentient sea,
Whereon the world and all its pride will gleam,
When the soul starts from sleep, so royally.
Hush! 'Tis a bell of morning. Far and near,
From sea-set tower and island chimes reply:
Thrills the still air with sound divinely clear;
And the stirred sleeper wakens with a sigh.
Source: For a complete and incredibly good page about Symonds see the site of Rictor Norton at http://www.infopt.demon.co.uk/symindex.htm
Go to Symonds' page.
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