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diff --git a/12031-0.txt b/12031-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9d22595 --- /dev/null +++ b/12031-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4826 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12031 *** + +COLLECTED POEMS + +1901-1918 + +BY + +WALTER DE LA MARE + +IN TWO VOLUMES + +VOL. I + + +1920 + + * * * * * + + + + +CONTENTS + + +POEMS: 1906 + +LYRICAL POEMS-- + SHADOW + UNREGARDING + THEY TOLD ME + SORCERY + THE CHILDREN OF STARE + AGE + THE GLIMPSE + REMEMBRANCE + TREACHERY + IN VAIN + THE MIRACLE + KEEP INNOCENCY + THE PHANTOM + VOICES + THULE + THE BIRTHNIGHT: TO F. + THE DEATH-DREAM + "WHERE IS THY VICTORY?" + FOREBODING + VAIN FINDING + NAPOLEON + ENGLAND + TRUCE + EVENING + NIGHT + THE UNIVERSE + GLORIA MUNDI + IDLENESS + GOLIATH + +CHARACTERS FROM SHAKESPEARE-- + FALSTAFF + MACBETH + BANQUO + MERCUTIO + JULIET'S NURSE + IAGO + IMOGEN + POLONIUS + OPHELIA + HAMLET + +SONNETS-- + THE HAPPY ENCOUNTER + APRIL + SEA-MAGIC + THE MARKET-PLACE + ANATOMY + EVEN IN THE GRAVE + BRIGHT LIFE + HUMANITY + VIRTUE + +MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD-- + REVERIE + THE MASSACRE + ECHO + FEAR + THE MERMAIDS + MYSELF + AUTUMN + WINTER + ENVOI: TO MY MOTHER + + +THE LISTENERS: 1914 + +THE THREE CHERRY TREES +OLD SUSAN +OLD BEN +MISS LOO +THE TAILOR +MARTHA +THE SLEEPER +THE KEYS OF MORNING +RACHEL +ALONE +THE BELLS +THE SCARECROW +NOD +THE BINDWEED +WINTER +THERE BLOOMS NO BUD IN MAY +NOON AND NIGHT FLOWER +ESTRANGED +THE TIRED CUPID +DREAMS +FAITHLESS +THE SHADE +BE ANGRY NOW NO MORE +EXILE +WHERE? +MUSIC UNHEARD +ALL THAT'S PAST +WHEN THE ROSE IS FADED +SLEEP +THE STRANGER +NEVER MORE SAILOR +ARABIA +THE MOUNTAINS +QUEEN DJENIRA +NEVER-TO-BE +THE DARK CHÂTEAU +THE DWELLING-PLACE +THE LISTENERS +TIME PASSES +BEWARE! +THE JOURNEY +HAUNTED +SILENCE +WINTER DUSK +THE GHOST +AN EPITAPH +"THE HAWTHORN HATH A DEATHLY SMELL" + + +MOTLEY: 1918 + +THE LITTLE SALAMANDER +THE LINNET +THE SUNKEN GARDEN +THE RIDDLERS +MOONLIGHT +THE BLIND BOY +THE QUARRY +MRS. GRUNDY +THE TRYST +ALONE +THE EMPTY HOUSE +MISTRESS FELL +THE GHOST +THE STRANGER +BETRAYAL +THE CAGE +THE REVENANT +MUSIC +THE REMONSTRANCE +NOCTURNE +THE EXILE +THE UNCHANGING +INVOCATION +EYES +LIFE +THE DISGUISE +VAIN QUESTIONING +VIGIL +THE OLD MEN +THE DREAMER +MOTLEY +THE MARIONETTES +TO E.T.: 1917 +APRIL MOON +THE FOOL'S SONG +CLEAR EYES +DUST TO DUST +THE THREE STRANGERS +ALEXANDER +THE REAWAKENING +THE VACANT DAY +THE FLIGHT +FOR ALL THE GRIEF +THE SCRIBE +FARE WELL + + * * * * * + + + + +POEMS: 1906 + +TO HENRY NEWBOLT + + + * * * * * + + + + +LYRICAL POEMS + + + * * * * * + + + + +THEY TOLD ME + + +They told me Pan was dead, but I + Oft marvelled who it was that sang +Down the green valleys languidly + Where the grey elder-thickets hang. + +Sometimes I thought it was a bird + My soul had charged with sorcery; +Sometimes it seemed my own heart heard + Inland the sorrow of the sea. + +But even where the primrose sets + The seal of her pale loveliness, +I found amid the violets + Tears of an antique bitterness. + + + + +SORCERY + + +"What voice is that I hear + Crying across the pool?" +"It is the voice of Pan you hear, +Crying his sorceries shrill and clear, + In the twilight dim and cool." + + "What song is it he sings, + Echoing from afar; +While the sweet swallow bends her wings, +Filling the air with twitterings, + Beneath the brightening star?" + +The woodman answered me, + His faggot on his back:-- +"Seek not the face of Pan to see; +Flee from his clear note summoning thee + To darkness deep and black!" + + "He dwells in thickest shade, + Piping his notes forlorn +Of sorrow never to be allayed; +Turn from his coverts sad + Of twilight unto morn!" + +The woodman passed away + Along the forest path; +His ax shone keen and grey +In the last beams of day: + And all was still as death:-- + +Only Pan singing sweet + Out of Earth's fragrant shade; +I dreamed his eyes to meet, +And found but shadow laid + Before my tired feet. + +Comes no more dawn to me, + Nor bird of open skies. +Only his woods' deep gloom I see + Till, at the end of all, shall rise, +Afar and tranquilly, +Death's stretching sea. + + + + +THE CHILDREN OF STARE + + + Winter is fallen early + On the house of Stare; +Birds in reverberating flocks + Haunt its ancestral box; + Bright are the plenteous berries + In clusters in the air. + + Still is the fountain's music, + The dark pool icy still, +Whereupon a small and sanguine sun + Floats in a mirror on, + Into a West of crimson, + From a South of daffodil. + + 'Tis strange to see young children + In such a wintry house; +Like rabbits' on the frozen snow + Their tell-tale footprints go; + Their laughter rings like timbrels + 'Neath evening ominous: + + Their small and heightened faces + Like wine-red winter buds; +Their frolic bodies gentle as + Flakes in the air that pass, + Frail as the twirling petal + From the briar of the woods. + + Above them silence lours, + Still as an arctic sea; +Light fails; night falls; the wintry moon + Glitters; the crocus soon + Will ope grey and distracted + On earth's austerity: + + Thick mystery, wild peril, + Law like an iron rod:-- +Yet sport they on in Spring's attire, + Each with his tiny fire + Blown to a core of ardour + By the awful breath of God. + + + + +AGE + + +This ugly old crone-- +Every beauty she had +When a maid, when a maid. +Her beautiful eyes, +Too youthful, too wise, +Seemed ever to come +To so lightless a home, +Cold and dull as a stone. +And her cheeks--who would guess +Cheeks cadaverous as this +Once with colours were gay +As the flower on its spray? +Who would ever believe +Aught could bring one to grieve +So much as to make +Lips bent for love's sake +So thin and so grey? +O Youth, come away! +As she asks in her lone, +This old, desolate crone. +She loves us no more; +She is too old to care +For the charms that of yore +Made her body so fair. +Past repining, past care, +She lives but to bear +One or two fleeting years +Earth's indifference: her tears +Have lost now their heat; +Her hands and her feet +Now shake but to be +Shed as leaves from a tree; +And her poor heart beats on +Like a sea--the storm gone. + + + + +THE GLIMPSE + + +Art thou asleep? or have thy wings +Wearied of my unchanging skies? +Or, haply, is it fading dreams + Are in my eyes? + +Not even an echo in my heart +Tells me the courts thy feet trod last, +Bare as a leafless wood it is, + The summer past. + +My inmost mind is like a book +The reader dulls with lassitude, +Wherein the same old lovely words + Sound poor and rude. + +Yet through this vapid surface, I +Seem to see old-time deeps; I see, +Past the dark painting of the hour, + Life's ecstasy. + +Only a moment; as when day +Is set, and in the shade of night, +Through all the clouds that compassed her, + Stoops into sight + +Pale, changeless, everlasting Dian, +Gleams on the prone Endymion, +Troubles the dulness of his dreams: + And then is gone. + + + + +REMEMBRANCE + + +The sky was like a waterdrop + In shadow of a thorn, +Clear, tranquil, beautiful, + Dark, forlorn. + +Lightning along its margin ran; + A rumour of the sea +Rose in profundity and sank + Into infinity. + +Lofty and few the elms, the stars + In the vast boughs most bright; +I stood a dreamer in a dream + In the unstirring night. + +Not wonder, worship, not even peace + Seemed in my heart to be: +Only the memory of one, + Of all most dead to me. + + + + +TREACHERY + + +She had amid her ringlets bound +Green leaves to rival their dark hue; +How could such locks with beauty bound + Dry up their dew, + Wither them through and through? + +She had within her dark eyes lit +Sweet fires to burn all doubt away; +Yet did those fires, in darkness lit, + Burn but a day, + Not even till twilight stay. + +She had within a dusk of words +A vow in simple splendour set; +How, in the memory of such words, + Could she forget + That vow--the soul of it? + + + + +IN VAIN + + +I knocked upon thy door ajar, +While yet the woods with buds were grey; +Nought but a little child I heard + Warbling at break of day. + +I knocked when June had lured her rose +To mask the sharpness of its thorn; +Knocked yet again, heard only yet + Thee singing of the morn. + +The frail convolvulus had wreathed +Its cup, but the faint flush of eve +Lingered upon thy Western wall; + Thou hadst no word to give. + +Once yet I came; the winter stars +Above thy house wheeled wildly bright; +Footsore I stood before thy door-- + Wide open into night. + + + + +THE MIRACLE + + +Who beckons the green ivy up + Its solitary tower of stone? +What spirit lures the bindweed's cup + Unfaltering on? +Calls even the starry lichen to climb +By agelong inches endless Time? + +Who bids the hollyhock uplift + Her rod of fast-sealed buds on high; +Fling wide her petals--silent, swift, + Lovely to the sky? +Since as she kindled, so she will fade, +Flower above flower in squalor laid. + +Ever the heavy billow rears + All its sea-length in green, hushed wall; +But totters as the shore it nears, + Foams to its fall; +Where was its mark? on what vain quest +Rose that great water from its rest? + +So creeps ambition on; so climb + Man's vaunting thoughts. He, set on high, +Forgets his birth, small space, brief time, + That he shall die; +Dreams blindly in his dark, still air; +Consumes his strength; strips himself bare; + +Rejects delight, ease, pleasure, hope, + Seeking in vain, but seeking yet, +Past earthly promise, earthly scope, + On one aim set: +As if, like Chaucer's child, he thought +All but "O Alma!" nought. + + + + +KEEP INNOCENCY + + +Like an old battle, youth is wild +With bugle and spear, and counter cry, +Fanfare and drummery, yet a child +Dreaming of that sweet chivalry, +The piercing terror cannot see. + +He, with a mild and serious eye +Along the azure of the years, +Sees the sweet pomp sweep hurtling by; +But he sees not death's blood and tears, +Sees not the plunging of the spears. + +And all the strident horror of +Horse and rider, in red defeat, +Is only music fine enough +To lull him into slumber sweet +In fields where ewe and lambkin bleat. + +O, if with such simplicity +Himself take arms and suffer war; +With beams his targe shall gilded be, +Though in the thickening gloom be far +The steadfast light of any star! + +Though hoarse War's eagle on him perch, +Quickened with guilty lightnings--there +It shall in vain for terror search, +Where a child's eyes beneath bloody hair +Gaze purely through the dingy air. + +And when the wheeling rout is spent, +Though in the heaps of slain he lie; +Or lonely in his last content; +Quenchless shall burn in secrecy +The flame Death knows his victors by. + + + + +THE PHANTOM + + +Wilt thou never come again, +Beauteous one? +Yet the woods are green and dim, +Yet the birds' deluding cry +Echoes in the hollow sky, +Yet the falling waters brim +The clear pool which thou wast fain +To paint thy lovely cheek upon, + Beauteous one! + +I may see the thorny rose + Stir and wake +The dark dewdrop on her gold; +But thy secret will she keep +Half-divulged--yet all untold, +Since a child's heart woke from sleep. + +The faltering sunbeam fades and goes; +The night-bird whistles in the brake; + The willows quake; +Utter darkness walls; the wind + Sighs no more. +Yet it seems the silence yearns +But to catch thy fleeting foot; +Yet the wandering glowworm burns +Lest her lamp should light thee not-- +Thee whom I shall never find; +Though thy shadow lean before, +Thou thyself return'st no more-- + Never more. + +All the world's woods, tree o'er tree, + Come to nought. +Birds, flowers, beasts, how transient they, +Angels of a flying day. +Love is quenched; dreams drown in sleep; +Ruin nods along the deep: +Only thou immortally + Hauntest on +This poor earth in Time's flux caught; +Hauntest on, pursued, unwon, +Phantom child of memory, + Beauteous one! + + + + +VOICES + + +Who is it calling by the darkened river + Where the moss lies smooth and deep, +And the dark trees lean unmoving arms, + Silent and vague in sleep, +And the bright-heeled constellations pass + In splendour through the gloom; +Who is it calling o'er the darkened river + In music, "Come!"? + +Who is it wandering in the summer meadows + Where the children stoop and play +In the green faint-scented flowers, spinning + The guileless hours away? +Who touches their bright hair? who puts + A wind-shell to each cheek, +Whispering betwixt its breathing silences, + "Seek! seek!"? + +Who is it watching in the gathering twilight + When the curfew bird hath flown +On eager wings, from song to silence, + To its darkened nest alone? +Who takes for brightening eyes the stars, + For locks the still moonbeam, +Sighs through the dews of evening peacefully + Falling, "Dream!"? + + + + +THULE + + +If thou art sweet as they are sad + Who on the shores of Time's salt sea +Watch on the dim horizon fade + Ships bearing love to night and thee; + +If past all beacons Hope hath lit + In the dark wanderings of the deep +They who unwilling traverse it + Dream not till dawn unseal their sleep; + +Ah, cease not in thy winds to mock + Us, who yet wake, but cannot see +Thy distant shores; who at each shock + Of the waves' onset faint for thee! + + + + +THE BIRTHNIGHT: TO F. + + +Dearest, it was a night +That in its darkness rocked Orion's stars; +A sighing wind ran faintly white +Along the willows, and the cedar boughs +Laid their wide hands in stealthy peace across +The starry silence of their antique moss: +No sound save rushing air +Cold, yet all sweet with Spring, +And in thy mother's arms, couched weeping there, + Thou, lovely thing. + + + + +THE DEATH-DREAM + + +Who, now, put dreams into thy slumbering mind? +Who, with bright Fear's lean taper, crossed a hand +Athwart its beam, and stooping, truth maligned, +Spake so thy spirit speech should understand, +And with a dread "He's dead!" awaked a peal +Of frenzied bells along the vacant ways +Of thy poor earthly heart; waked thee to steal, +Like dawn distraught upon unhappy days, +To prove nought, nothing? Was it Time's large voice +Out of the inscrutable future whispered so? +Or but the horror of a little noise +Earth wakes at dead of night? Or does Love know +When his sweet wings weary and droop, and even +In sleep cries audibly a shrill remorse? +Or, haply, was it I who out of dream +Stole but a little where shadows course, +Called back to thee across the eternal stream? + + + + +"WHERE IS THY VICTORY?" + + +None, none can tell where I shall be +When the unclean earth covers me; +Only in surety if thou cry +Where my perplexed ashes lie, +Know, 'tis but death's necessity +That keeps my tongue from answering thee. + +Even if no more my shadow may +Lean for a moment in thy day; +No more the whole earth lighten, as if, +Thou near, it had nought else to give: +Surely 'tis but Heaven's strategy +To prove death immortality. + +Yet should I sleep--and no more dream, +Sad would the last awakening seem, +If my cold heart, with love once hot, +Had thee in sleep remembered not: +How could I wake to find that I +Had slept alone, yet easefully? + +Or should in sleep glad visions come: +Sick, in an alien land, for home +Would be my eyes in their bright beam; +Awake, we know 'tis not a dream; +Asleep, some devil in the mind +Might truest thoughts with false enwind. + +Life is a mockery if death +Have the least power men say it hath. +As to a hound that mewing waits, +Death opens, and shuts to, his gates; +Else even dry bones might rise and say,-- +"'Tis _ye_ are dead and laid away." + +Innocent children out of nought +Build up a universe of thought, +And out of silence fashion Heaven: +So, dear, is this poor dying even, +Seeing thou shall be touched, heard, seen, +Better than when dust stood between. + + + + +FOREBODING + + +Thou canst not see him standing by-- +Time--with a poppied hand +Stealing thy youth's simplicity, +Even as falls unceasingly + His waning sand. + +He will pluck thy childish roses, as + Summer from her bush +Strips all the loveliness that was; +Even to the silence evening has + Thy laughter hush. + +Thy locks too faint for earthly gold, + The meekness of thine eyes, +He will darken and dim, and to his fold +Drive, 'gainst the night, thy stainless, old + Innocencies; + +Thy simple words confuse and mar, + Thy tenderest thoughts delude, +Draw a long cloud athwart thy star, +Still with loud timbrels heaven's far + Faint interlude. + +Thou canst not see; I see, dearest; + O, then, yet patient be, +Though love refuse thy heart all rest, +Though even love wax angry, lest + Love should lose _thee_? + + + + +VAIN FINDING + + +Ever before my face there went + Betwixt earth's buds and me +A beauty beyond earth's content, + A hope--half memory: +Till in the woods one evening-- + Ah! eyes as dark as they, +Fastened on mine unwontedly, + Grey, and dear heart, how grey! + + + + +NAPOLEON + + +"What is the world, O soldiers? +It is I: +I, this incessant snow, + This northern sky; +Soldiers, this solitude + Through which we go + Is I." + + + + +ENGLAND + + +No lovelier hills than thine have laid + My tired thoughts to rest: +No peace of lovelier valleys made + Like peace within my breast. + +Thine are the woods whereto my soul, + Out of the noontide beam, +Flees for a refuge green and cool + And tranquil as a dream. + +Thy breaking seas like trumpets peal; + Thy clouds--how oft have I +Watched their bright towers of silence steal + Into infinity! + +My heart within me faults to roam + In thought even far from thee: +Thine be the grave whereto I come, + And thine my darkness be. + + + + +TRUCE + + +Far inland here Death's pinions mocked the roar + Of English seas; +We sleep to wake no more, + Hushed, and at ease; +Till sound a trump, shore on to echoing shore, +Rouse from a peace, unwonted then to war, + Us and our enemies. + + + + +EVENING + + +When twilight darkens, and one by one, +The sweet birds to their nests have gone; +When to green banks the glow-worms bring +Pale lamps to brighten evening; +Then stirs in his thick sleep the owl +Through the dewy air to prowl. + +Hawking the meadows swiftly he flits, +While the small mouse atrembling sits +With tiny eye of fear upcast +Until his brooding shape be past, +Hiding her where the moonbeams beat, +Casting black shadows in the wheat. + +Now all is still: the field-man is +Lapped deep in slumbering silentness. +Not a leaf stirs, but clouds on high +Pass in dim flocks across the sky, +Puffed by a breeze too light to move +Aught but these wakeful sheep above. + +O what an arch of light now spans +These fields by night no longer Man's! +Their ancient Master is abroad, +Walking beneath the moonlight cold: +His presence is the stillness, He +Fills earth with wonder and mystery. + + + + +NIGHT + + +All from the light of the sweet moon + Tired men lie now abed; +Actionless, full of visions, soon + Vanishing, soon sped. + +The starry night aflock with beams + Of crystal light scarce stirs: +Only its birds--the cocks, the streams, + Call 'neath heaven's wanderers. + +All silent; all hearts still; + Love, cunning, fire fallen low: +When faint morn straying on the hill + Sighs, and his soft airs flow. + + + + +THE UNIVERSE + + +I heard a little child beneath the stars + Talk as he ran along +To some sweet riddle in his mind that seemed + A-tiptoe into song. + +In his dark eyes lay a wild universe,-- + Wild forests, peaks, and crests; +Angels and fairies, giants, wolves and he + Were that world's only guests. + +Elsewhere was home and mother, his warm bed:-- + Now, only God alone +Could, armed with all His power and wisdom, make + Earths richer than his own. + +O Man!--thy dreams, thy passions, hopes, desires!-- + He in his pity keep +A homely bed where love may lull a child's + Fond Universe asleep! + + + + +GLORIA MUNDI + + +Upon a bank, easeless with knobs of gold, + Beneath a canopy of noonday smoke, +I saw a measureless Beast, morose and bold, + With eyes like one from filthy dreams awoke, +Who stares upon the daylight in despair +For very terror of the nothing there. + +This beast in one flat hand clutched vulture-wise + A glittering image of itself in jet, +And with the other groped about its eyes + To drive away the dreams that pestered it; +And never ceased its coils to toss and beat +The mire encumbering its feeble feet. + +Sharp was its hunger, though continually + It seemed a cud of stones to ruminate, +And often like a dog let glittering lie + This meatless fare, its foolish gaze to sate; +Once more convulsively to stoop its jaw, +Or seize the morsel with an envious paw. + +Indeed, it seemed a hidden enemy + Must lurk within the clouds above that bank, +It strained so wildly its pale, stubborn eye, + To pierce its own foul vapours dim and dank; +Till, wearied out, it raved in wrath and foam, +Daring that Nought Invisible to come. + +Ay, and it seemed some strange delight to find + In this unmeaning din, till, suddenly, +As if it heard a rumour on the wind, + Or far away its freer children cry, +Lifting its face made-quiet, there it stayed, +Till died the echo its own rage had made. + +That place alone was barren where it lay; + Flowers bloomed beyond, utterly sweet and fair; +And even its own dull heart might think to stay + In livelong thirst of a clear river there, +Flowing from unseen hills to unheard seas, +Through a still vale of yew and almond trees. + +And then I spied in the lush green below + Its tortured belly, One, like silver, pale, +With fingers closed upon a rope of straw, + That bound the Beast, squat neck to hoary tail; +Lonely in all that verdure faint and deep, +He watched the monster as a shepherd sheep. + +I marvelled at the power, strength, and rage + Of this poor creature in such slavery bound; +Tettered with worms of fear; forlorn with age; + Its blue wing-stumps stretched helpless on the ground; +While twilight faded into darkness deep, +And he who watched it piped its pangs asleep. + + + + +IDLENESS + + +I saw old Idleness, fat, with great cheeks +Puffed to the huge circumference of a sigh, +But past all tinge of apples long ago. +His boyish fingers twiddled up and down +The filthy remnant of a cup of physic +That thicked in odour all the while he stayed. +His eyes were sad as fishes that swim up +And stare upon an element not theirs +Through a thin skin of shrewish water, then +Turn on a languid fin, and dip down, down, +Into unplumbed, vast, oozy deeps of dream. +His stomach was his master, and proclaimed it; +And never were such meagre puppets made +The slaves of such a tyrant, as his thoughts +Of that obese epitome of ills. +Trussed up he sat, the mockery of himself; +And when upon the wan green of his eye +I marked the gathering lustre of a tear, +Thought I myself must weep, until I caught +A grey, smug smile of satisfaction smirch +His pallid features at his misery. +And laugh did I, to see the little snares +He had set for pests to vex him: his great feet +Prisoned in greater boots; so narrow a stool +To seat such elephantine parts as his; +Ay, and the book he read, a Hebrew Bible; +And, to incite a gross and backward wit, +An old, crabbed, wormed, Greek dictionary; and +A foxy Ovid bound in dappled calf. + + + + +GOLIATH + + +Still as a mountain with dark pines and sun +He stood between the armies, and his shout +Rolled from the empyrean above the host: +"Bid any little flea ye have come forth, +And wince at death upon my finger-nail!" +He turned his large-boned face; and all his steel +Tossed into beams the lustre of the noon; +And all the shaggy horror of his locks +Rustled like locusts in a field of corn. +The meagre pupil of his shameless eye +Moved like a cormorant over a glassy sea. +He stretched his limbs, and laughed into the air, +To feel the groaning sinews of his breast, +And the long gush of his swollen arteries pause: +And, nodding, wheeled, towering in all his height. +Then, like a wind that hushes, gazed and saw +Down, down, far down upon the untroubled green +A shepherd-boy that swung a little sling. +Goliath shut his lids to drive that mote, +Which vexed the eastern azure of his eye, +Out of his vision; and stared down again. +Yet stood the youth there, ruddy in the flare +Of his vast shield, nor spake, nor quailed, gazed up, +As one might scan a mountain to be scaled. +Then, as it were, a voice unearthly still +Cried in the cavern of his bristling ear, +"His name is Death!" ... And, like the flush +That dyes Sahara to its lifeless verge, +His brows' bright brass flamed into sudden crimson; +And his great spear leapt upward, lightning-like, +Shaking a dreadful thunder in the air; +Spun betwixt earth and sky, bright as a berg +That hoards the sunlight in a myriad spires, +Crashed: and struck echo through an army's heart. +Then paused Goliath, and stared down again. +And fleet-foot Fear from rolling orbs perceived +Steadfast, unharmed, a stooping shepherd-boy +Frowning upon the target of his face. +And wrath tossed suddenly up once more his hand; +And a deep groan grieved all his strength in him. +He breathed; and, lost in dazzling darkness, prayed-- +Besought his reins, his gloating gods, his youth: +And turned to smite what he no more could see. +Then sped the singing pebble-messenger, +The chosen of the Lord from Israel's brooks, +Fleet to its mark, and hollowed a light path +Down to the appalling Babel of his brain. +And like the smoke of dreaming Souffrière +Dust rose in cloud, spread wide, slow silted down +Softly all softly on his armour's blaze. + + * * * * * + + + + +CHARACTERS FROM SHAKESPEARE + + + * * * * * + + + + +FALSTAFF + + +'Twas in a tavern that with old age stooped +And leaned rheumatic rafters o'er his head-- +A blowzed, prodigious man, which talked, and stared, +And rolled, as if with purpose, a small eye +Like a sweet Cupid in a cask of wine. +I could not view his fatness for his soul, +Which peeped like harmless lightnings and was gone; +As haps to voyagers of the summer air. +And when he laughed, Time trickled down those beams, +As in a glass; and when in self-defence +He puffed that paunch, and wagged that huge, Greek head, +Nosed like a Punchinello, then it seemed +An hundred widows swept in his small voice, +Now tenor, and now bass of drummy war. +He smiled, compact of loam, this orchard man; +Mused like a midnight, webbed with moonbeam snares +Of flitting Love; woke--and a King he stood, +Whom all the world hath in sheer jest refused +For helpless laughter's sake. And then, forfend! +Bacchus and Jove reared vast Olympus there; +And Pan leaned leering from Promethean eyes. +"Lord!" sighed his aspect, weeping o'er the jest, +"What simple mouse brought such a mountain forth?" + + + + +MACBETH + + +Rose, like dim battlements, the hills and reared +Steep crags into the fading primrose sky; +But in the desolate valleys fell small rain, +Mingled with drifting cloud. I saw one come, +Like the fierce passion of that vacant place, +His face turned glittering to the evening sky; +His eyes, like grey despair, fixed satelessly +On the still, rainy turrets of the storm; +And all his armour in a haze of blue. +He held no sword, bare was his hand and clenched, +As if to hide the inextinguishable blood +Murder had painted there. And his wild mouth +Seemed spouting echoes of deluded thoughts. +Around his head, like vipers all distort, +His locks shook, heavy-laden, at each stride. +If fire may burn invisible to the eye; +O, if despair strive everlastingly; +Then haunted here the creature of despair, +Fanning and fanning flame to lick upon +A soul still childish in a blackened hell. + + + + +BANQUO + + +What dost thou here far from thy native place? +What piercing influences of heaven have stirred +Thy heart's last mansion all-corruptible to wake, +To move, and in the sweets of wine and fire +Sit tempting madness with unholy eyes? +Begone, thou shuddering, pale anomaly! +The dark presses without on yew and thorn; +Stoops now the owl upon her lonely quest; +The pomp runs high here, and our beauteous women +Seek no cold witness--O, let murder cry, +Too shrill for human ear, only to God. +Come not in power to wreak so wild a vengeance! +Thou knowest not now the limit of man's heart; +He is beyond thy knowledge. Gaze not then, +Horror enthroned lit with insanest light! + + + + +MERCUTIO + + +Along an avenue of almond-trees +Came three girls chattering of their sweethearts three. +And lo! Mercutio, with Byronic ease, +Out of his philosophic eye cast all +A mere flowered twig of thought, whereat-- +Three hearts fell still as when an air dies out +And Venus falters lonely o'er the sea. +But when within the further mist of bloom +His step and form were hid, the smooth child Ann +Said, "La, and what eyes he had!" and Lucy said, +"How sad a gentleman!" and Katherine, +"I wonder, now, what mischief he was at." +And these three also April hid away, +Leaving the Spring faint with Mercutio. + + + + +JULIET'S NURSE + + +In old-world nursery vacant now of children, +With posied walls, familiar, fair, demure, +And facing southward o'er romantic streets, +Sits yet and gossips winter's dark away +One gloomy, vast, glossy, and wise, and sly: +And at her side a cherried country cousin. +Her tongue claps ever like a ram's sweet bell; +There's not a name but calls a tale to mind-- +Some marrowy patty of farce or melodram; +There's not a soldier but hath babes in view; +There's not on earth what minds not of the midwife: +"O, widowhood that left me still espoused!" +Beauty she sighs o'er, and she sighs o'er gold; +Gold will buy all things, even a sweet husband, +Else only Heaven is left and--farewell youth! +Yet, strangely, in that money-haunted head, +The sad, gemmed crucifix and incense blue +Is childhood once again. Her memory +Is like an ant-hill which a twig disturbs, +But twig stilled never. And to see her face, +Broad with sleek homely beams; her babied hands, +Ever like 'lighting doves, and her small eyes-- +Blue wells a-twinkle, arch and lewd and pious-- +To darken all sudden into Stygian gloom, +And paint disaster with uplifted whites, +Is life's epitome. She prates and prates-- +A waterbrook of words o'er twelve small pebbles. +And when she dies--some grey, long, summer evening, +When the bird shouts of childhood through the dusk, +'Neath night's faint tapers--then her body shall +Lie stiff with silks of sixty thrifty years. + + + + +IAGO + + +A dark lean face, a narrow, slanting eye, +Whose deeps of blackness one pale taper's beam +Haunts with a fitting madness of desire; +A heart whose cinder at the breath of passion +Glows to a momentary core of heat +Almost beyond indifference to endure: +So parched Iago frets his life away. +His scorn works ever in a brain whose wit +This world hath fools too many and gross to seek. +Ever to live incredibly alone, +Masked, shivering, deadly, with a simple Moor +Of idiot gravity, and one pale flower +Whose chill would quench in everlasting peace +His soul's unmeasured flame--O paradox! +Might he but learn the trick!--to wear her heart +One fragile hour of heedless innocence, +And then, farewell, and the incessant grave. +"O fool! O villain!"--'tis the shuttlecock +Wit never leaves at rest. It is his fate +To be a needle in a world of hay, +Where honour is the flattery of the fool; +Sin, a tame bauble; lies, a tiresome jest; +Virtue, a silly, whitewashed block of wood +For words to fell. Ah! but the secret lacking, +The secret of the child, the bird, the night, +Faded, flouted, bespattered, in days so far +Hate cannot bitter them, nor wrath deny; +Else were this Desdemona.... Why! +Woman a harlot is, and life a nest +Fouled by long ages of forked fools. And God-- +Iago deals not with a tale so dull: +To have made the world! Fie on thee, Artisan! + + + + +IMOGEN + + +Even she too dead! all languor on her brow, +All mute humanity's last simpleness,-- +And yet the roses in her cheeks unfallen! +Can death haunt silence with a silver sound? +Can death, that hushes all music to a close, +Pluck one sweet wire scarce-audible that trembles, +As if a little child, called Purity, +Sang heedlessly on of his dear Imogen? +Surely if some young flowers of Spring were put +Into the tender hollow of her heart, +'Twould faintly answer, trembling in their petals. +Poise but a wild bird's feather, it will stir +On lips that even in silence wear the badge +Only of truth. Let but a cricket wake, +And sing of home, and bid her lids unseal +The unspeakable hospitality of her eyes. +O childless soul--call once her husband's name! +And even if indeed from these green hills +Of England, far, her spirit flits forlorn, +Back to its youthful mansion it will turn, +Back to the floods of sorrow these sweet locks +Yet heavy bear in drops; and Night shall see +Unwearying as her stars still Imogen, +Pausing 'twixt death and life on one hushed word. + + + + +POLONIUS + + +There haunts in Time's bare house an active ghost, +Enamoured of his name, Polonius. +He moves small fingers much, and all his speech +Is like a sampler of precisest words, +Set in the pattern of a simpleton. +His mirth floats eerily down chill corridors; +His sigh--it is a sound that loves a keyhole; +His tenderness a faint court-tarnished thing; +His wisdom prates as from a wicker cage; +His very belly is a pompous nought; +His eye a page that hath forgot his errand. +Yet in his brain--his spiritual brain-- +Lies hid a child's demure, small, silver whistle +Which, to his horror, God blows, unawares, +And sets men staring. It is sad to think, +Might he but don indeed thin flesh and blood, +And pace important to Law's inmost room, +He would see, much marvelling, one immensely wise, +Named Bacon, who, at sound of his youth's step, +Would turn and call him Cousin--for the likeness. + + + + +OPHELIA + + +There runs a crisscross pattern of small leaves +Espalier, in a fading summer air, +And there Ophelia walks, an azure flower, +Whom wind, and snowflakes, and the sudden rain +Of love's wild skies have purified to heaven. +There is a beauty past all weeping now +In that sweet, crooked mouth, that vacant smile; +Only a lonely grey in those mad eyes, +Which never on earth shall learn their loneliness. +And when amid startled birds she sings lament, +Mocking in hope the long voice of the stream, +It seems her heart's lute hath a broken string. +Ivy she hath, that to old ruin clings; +And rosemary, that sees remembrance fade; +And pansies, deeper than the gloom of dreams; +But ah! if utterable, would this earth +Remain the base, unreal thing it is? +Better be out of sight of peering eyes; +Out--out of hearing of all-useless words, +Spoken of tedious tongues in heedless ears. +And lest, at last, the world should learn heart-secrets; +Lest that sweet wolf from some dim thicket steal; +Better the glassy horror of the stream. + + + + +HAMLET + + +Umbrageous cedars murmuring symphonies +Stooped in late twilight o'er dark Denmark's Prince: +He sat, his eyes companioned with dream-- +Lustrous large eyes that held the world in view +As some entrancèd child's a puppet show. +Darkness gave birth to the all-trembling stars, +And a far roar of long-drawn cataracts, +Flooding immeasurable night with sound. +He sat so still, his very thoughts took wing, +And, lightest Ariels, the stillness haunted +With midge-like measures; but, at last, even they +Sank 'neath the influences of his night. +The sweet dust shed faint perfume in the gloom; +Through all wild space the stars' bright arrows fell +On the lone Prince--the troubled son of man-- +On Time's dark waters in unearthly trouble: +Then, as the roar increased, and one fair tower +Of cloud took sky and stars with majesty, +He rose, his face a parchment of old age, +Sorrow hath scribbled o'er, and o'er, and o'er. + + * * * * * + + + + +SONNETS + + + * * * * * + + + + +THE HAPPY ENCOUNTER + + +I saw sweet Poetry turn troubled eyes + On shaggy Science nosing in the grass, + For by that way poor Poetry must pass +On her long pilgrimage to Paradise. +He snuffled, grunted, squealed; perplexed by flies, + Parched, weatherworn, and near of sight, alas, + From peering close where very little was +In dens secluded from the open skies. + +But Poetry in bravery went down, + And called his name, soft, clear, and fearlessly; +Stooped low, and stroked his muzzle overgrown; +Refreshed his drought with dew; wiped pure and free + His eyes: and lo! laughed loud for joy to see +In those grey deeps the azure of her own. + + + + +APRIL + + +Come, then, with showers; I love thy cloudy face + Gilded with splendour of the sunbeam thro' + The heedless glory of thy locks. I know +The arch, sweet languor of thy fleeting grace, +The windy lovebeams of thy dwelling-place, + Thy dim dells where in azure bluebells blow, + The brimming rivers where thy lightnings go +Harmless and full and swift from race to race. + +Thou takest all young hearts captive with thine eyes; + At rumour of thee the tongues of children ring +Louder than bees; the golden poplars rise + Like trumps of peace; and birds, on homeward wing, +Fly mocking echoes shrill along the skies, + Above the waves' grave diapasoning. + + + + +SEA-MAGIC + +TO R.I. + + +My heart faints in me for the distant sea. + The roar of London is the roar of ire + The lion utters in his old desire +For Libya out of dim captivity. +The long bright silver of Cheapside I see, + Her gilded weathercocks on roof and spire + Exulting eastward in the western fire; +All things recall one heart-sick memory:-- + +Ever the rustle of the advancing foam, + The surges' desolate thunder, and the cry + As of some lone babe in the whispering sky; +Ever I peer into the restless gloom + To where a ship clad dim and loftily +Looms steadfast in the wonder of her home. + + + + +THE MARKET-PLACE + + +My mind is like a clamorous market-place. + All day in wind, rain, sun, its babel wells; + Voice answering to voice in tumult swells. +Chaffering and laughing, pushing for a place, +My thoughts haste on, gay, strange, poor, simple, base; + This one buys dust, and that a bauble sells: + But none to any scrutiny hints or tells +The haunting secrets hidden in each sad face. + +Dies down the clamour when the dark draws near; + Strange looms the earth in twilight of the West, +Lonely with one sweet star serene and clear, + Dwelling, when all this place is hushed to rest, + On vacant stall, gold, refuse, worst and best, +Abandoned utterly in haste and fear. + + + + +ANATOMY + + +By chance my fingers, resting on my face, + Stayed suddenly where in its orbit shone + The lamp of all things beautiful; then on, +Following more heedfully, did softly trace +Each arch and prominence and hollow place + That shall revealed be when all else is gone-- + Warmth, colour, roundness--to oblivion, +And nothing left but darkness and disgrace. + +Life like a moment passed seemed then to be; + A transient dream this raiment that it wore; +While spelled my hand out its mortality + Made certain all that had seemed doubt before: +Proved--O how vaguely, yet how lucidly!-- + How much death does; and yet can do no more. + + + + +EVEN IN THE GRAVE + + +I laid my inventory at the hand + Of Death, who in his gloomy arbour sate; + And while he conned it, sweet and desolate +I heard Love singing in that quiet land. +He read the record even to the end-- + The heedless, livelong injuries of Fate, + The burden of foe, the burden of love and hate; +The wounds of foe, the bitter wounds of friend: + +All, all, he read, ay, even the indifference, + The vain talk, vainer silence, hope and dream. +He questioned me: "What seek'st thou then instead?" + I bowed my face in the pale evening gleam. +Then gazed he on me with strange innocence: +"Even in the grave thou wilt have thyself," he said. + + + + +BRIGHT LIFE + + +"Come now," I said, "put off these webs of death, + Distract this leaden yearning of thine eyes + From lichened banks of peace, sad mysteries +Of dust fallen-in where passed the flitting breath: +Turn thy sick thoughts from him that slumbereth + In mouldered linen to the living skies, + The sun's bright-clouded principalities, +The salt deliciousness the sea-breeze hath! + +"Lay thy warm hand on earth's cold clods and think + What exquisite greenness sprouts from these to grace +The moving fields of summer; on the brink + Of archèd waves the sea-horizon trace, +Whence wheels night's galaxy; and in silence sink + The pride in rapture of life's dwelling-place!" + + + + +HUMANITY + + +"Ever exulting in thyself, on fire + To flaunt the purple of the Universe, + To strut and strut, and thy great part rehearse; +Ever the slave of every proud desire; +Come now a little down where sports thy sire; + Choose thy small better from thy abounding worse; + Prove thou thy lordship who hadst dust for nurse, +And for thy swaddling the primeval mire!" + +Then stooped our Manhood nearer, deep and still, + As from earth's mountains an unvoyaged sea, +Hushed my faint voice in its great peace until + It seemed but a bird's cry in eternity; +And in its future loomed the undreamable, + And in its past slept simple men like me. + + + + +VIRTUE + + +Her breast is cold; her hands how faint and wan! + And the deep wonder of her starry eyes + Seemingly lost in cloudless Paradise, +And all earth's sorrow out of memory gone. +Yet sings her clear voice unrelenting on + Of loveliest impossibilities; + Though echo only answer her with sighs +Of effort wasted and delights foregone. + +Spent, baffled, 'wildered, hated and despised, + Her straggling warriors hasten to defeat; +By wounds distracted, and by night surprised, + Fall where death's darkness and oblivion meet: +Yet, yet: O breast how cold! O hope how far! +Grant my son's ashes lie where these men's are! + + * * * * * + + + + +MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD + + + * * * * * + + + + +REVERIE + + +Bring not bright candles, for his eyes + In twilight have sweet company; +Bring not bright candles, else they fly-- + His phantoms fly-- +Gazing aggrieved on thee! + +Bring not bright candles, startle not + The phantoms of a vacant room, +Flocking above a child that dreams-- + Deep, deep in dreams,-- +Hid, in the gathering gloom! + +Bring not bright candles to those eyes + That between earth and stars descry, +Lovelier for the shadows there, + Children of air, +Palaces in the sky! + + + + +THE MASSACRE + + +The shadow of a poplar tree + Lay in that lake of sun, +As I with my little sword went in-- + Against a thousand, one. + +Haughty and infinitely armed, + Insolent in their wrath, +Plumed high with purple plumes they held + The narrow meadow path. + +The air was sultry; all was still; + The sun like flashing glass; +And snip-snap my light-whispering steel + In arcs of light did pass. + +Lightly and dull fell each proud head, + Spiked keen without avail, +Till swam my uncontented blade + With ichor green and pale. + +And silence fell: the rushing sun + Stood still in paths of heat, +Gazing in waves of horror on + The dead about my feet. + +Never a whir of wing, no bee + Stirred o'er the shameful slain; +Nought but a thirsty wasp crept in, + Stooped, and came out again. + +The very air trembled in fear; + Eclipsing shadow seemed +Rising in crimson waves of gloom-- + On one who dreamed. + + + + +ECHO + + +"Who called?" I said, and the words + Through the whispering glades, +Hither, thither, baffled the birds-- + "Who called? Who called?" + +The leafy boughs on high + Hissed in the sun; +The dark air carried my cry + Faintingly on: + +Eyes in the green, in the shade, + In the motionless brake, +Voices that said what I said, + For mockery's sake: + +"Who cares?" I bawled through my tears; + The wind fell low: +In the silence, "Who cares? who cares?" + Wailed to and fro. + + + + +FEAR + + +I know where lurk +The eyes of Fear; +I, I alone, +Where shadowy-clear, +Watching for me, +Lurks Fear. + +'Tis ever still +And dark, despite +All singing and +All candlelight, +'Tis ever cold, +And night. + +He touches me; +Says quietly, +"Stir not, nor whisper, +I am nigh; +Walk noiseless on, +I am by!" + +He drives me +As a dog a sheep; +Like a cold stone +I cannot weep. +He lifts me +Hot from sleep + +In marble hands +To where on high +The jewelled horror +Of his eye +Dares me to struggle +Or cry. + +No breast wherein +To chase away +That watchful shape! +Vain, vain to say +"Haunt not with night +The Day!" + + + + +THE MERMAIDS + + +Sand, sand; hills of sand; + And the wind where nothing is +Green and sweet of the land; + No grass, no trees, + No bird, no butterfly, +But hills, hills of sand, + And a burning sky. + +Sea, sea, mounds of the sea, + Hollow, and dark, and blue, +Flashing incessantly + The whole sea through; + No flower, no jutting root, +Only the floor of the sea, + With foam afloat. + +Blow, blow, winding shells; + And the watery fish, +Deaf to the hidden bells, + In the water splash; +No streaming gold, no eyes, + Watching along the waves, +But far-blown shells, faint bells, + From the darkling caves. + + + + +MYSELF + + +There is a garden, grey + With mists of autumntide; +Under the giant boughs, + Stretched green on every side, + +Along the lonely paths, + A little child like me, +With face, with hands, like mine, + Plays ever silently; + +On, on, quite silently, + When I am there alone, +Turns not his head; lifts not his eyes; + Heeds not as he plays on. + +After the birds are flown + From singing in the trees, +When all is grey, all silent, + Voices, and winds, and bees; + +And I am there alone: + Forlornly, silently, +Plays in the evening garden + Myself with me. + + + + +AUTUMN + + +There is a wind where the rose was; +Cold rain where sweet grass was; + And clouds like sheep + Stream o'er the steep +Grey skies where the lark was. + +Nought gold where your hair was; +Nought warm where your hand was; + But phantom, forlorn, + Beneath the thorn, +Your ghost where your face was. + +Sad winds where your voice was; +Tears, tears where my heart was; + And ever with me, + Child, ever with me, +Silence where hope was. + + + + +WINTER + + +Green Mistletoe! +Oh, I remember now +A dell of snow, +Frost on the bough; +None there but I: +Snow, snow, and a wintry sky. + +None there but I, +And footprints one by one, +Zigzaggedly, +Where I had run; +Where shrill and powdery +A robin sat in the tree. + +And he whistled sweet; +And I in the crusted snow +With snow-clubbed feet +Jigged to and fro, +Till, from the day, +The rose-light ebbed away. + +And the robin flew +Into the air, the air, +The white mist through; +And small and rare +The night-frost fell +In the calm and misty dell. + +And the dusk gathered low, +And the silver moon and stars +On the frozen snow +Drew taper bars, +Kindled winking fires +In the hooded briers. + +And the sprawling Bear +Growled deep in the sky; +And Orion's hair +Streamed sparkling by: +But the North sighed low, +"Snow, snow, more snow!" + + * * * * * + + + + +ENVOI + + + * * * * * + + + + +TO MY MOTHER + + +Thine is my all, how little when 'tis told + Beside thy gold! +Thine the first peace, and mine the livelong strife; +Thine the clear dawn, and mine the night of life; + Thine the unstained belief, + Darkened in grief. + +Scarce even a flower but thine its beauty and name, + Dimmed, yet the same; +Never in twilight comes the moon to me, +Stealing thro' those far woods, but tells of thee, + Falls, dear, on my wild heart, + And takes thy part. + +Thou art the child, and I--how steeped in age! + A blotted page +From that clear, little book life's taken away: +How could I read it, dear, so dark the day? + Be it all memory + 'Twixt thee and me! + + * * * * * + + + + +THE LISTENERS: 1914 + + + * * * * * + + + + +THE THREE CHERRY TREES + + + There were three cherry trees once, + Grew in a garden all shady; +And there for delight of so gladsome a sight, + Walked a most beautiful lady, + Dreamed a most beautiful lady. + + Birds in those branches did sing, + Blackbird and throstle and linnet, +But she walking there was by far the most fair-- + Lovelier than all else within it, + Blackbird and throstle and linnet. + + But blossoms to berries do come, + All hanging on stalks light and slender, +And one long summer's day charmed that lady away, + With vows sweet and merry and tender; + A lover with voice low and tender. + + Moss and lichen the green branches deck; + Weeds nod in its paths green and shady: +Yet a light footstep seems there to wander in dreams, + The ghost of that beautiful lady, + That happy and beautiful lady. + + + + +OLD SUSAN + + +When Susan's work was done, she would sit, +With one fat guttering candle lit, +And window opened wide to win +The sweet night air to enter in. +There, with a thumb to keep her place, +She would read, with stern and wrinkled face, +Her mild eyes gliding very slow +Across the letters to and fro, +While wagged the guttering candle flame +In the wind that through the window came. +And sometimes in the silence she +Would mumble a sentence audibly, +Or shake her head as if to say, +"You silly souls, to act this way!" +And never a sound from night I would hear, +Unless some far-off cock crowed clear; +Or her old shuffling thumb should turn +Another page; and rapt and stern, +Through her great glasses bent on me, +She would glance into reality; +And shake her round old silvery head, +With--"You!--I thought you was in bed!"-- +Only to tilt her book again, +And rooted in Romance remain. + + + + +OLD BEN + + +Sad is old Ben Tristlewaite, + Now his day is done, +And all his children + Far away are gone. + +He sits beneath his jasmined porch, + His stick between his knees, +His eyes fixed vacant + On his moss-grown trees. + +Grass springs in the green path, + His flowers are lean and dry, +His thatch hangs in wisps against + The evening sky. + +He has no heart to care now, + Though the winds will blow +Whistling in his casement, + And the rain drip through. + +He thinks of his old Bettie, + How she'd shake her head and say, +"You'll live to wish my sharp old tongue + Could scold--some day." + +But as in pale high autumn skies + The swallows float and play, +His restless thoughts pass to and fro, + But nowhere stay. + +Soft, on the morrow, they are gone; + His garden then will be +Denser and shadier and greener, + Greener the moss-grown tree. + + + + +MISS LOO + + +When thin-strewn memory I look through, +I see most clearly poor Miss Loo, +Her tabby cat, her cage of birds, +Her nose, her hair, her muffled words, +And how she would open her green eyes, +As if in some immense surprise, +Whenever as we sat at tea +She made some small remark to me. + +'Tis always drowsy summer when +From out the past she comes again; +The westering sunshine in a pool +Floats in her parlour still and cool; +While the slim bird its lean wires shakes, +As into piercing song it breaks; +Till Peter's pale-green eyes ajar +Dream, wake; wake, dream, in one brief bar. +And I am sitting, dull and shy, +And she with gaze of vacancy, + +And large hands folded on the tray, +Musing the afternoon away; +Her satin bosom heaving slow +With sighs that softly ebb and flow. +And her plain face in such dismay, +It seems unkind to look her way: +Until all cheerful back will come +Her gentle gleaming spirit home: +And one would think that poor Miss Loo +Asked nothing else, if she had you. + + + + +THE TAILOR + + +Few footsteps stray when dusk droops o'er +The tailor's old stone-lintelled door. +There sits he stitching half asleep, +Beside his smoky tallow dip. +"Click, click," his needle hastes, and shrill +Cries back the cricket beneath the sill. +Sometimes he stays, and over his thread +Leans sidelong his old tousled head; +Or stoops to peer with half-shut eye +When some strange footfall echoes by; +Till clearer gleams his candle's spark +Into the dusty summer dark. +Then from his crosslegs he gets down, +To find how dark the evening is grown; +And hunched-up in his door he will hear +The cricket whistling crisp and clear; +And so beneath the starry grey +Will mutter half a seam away. + + + + +MARTHA + + +"Once ... once upon a time ..." + Over and over again, +Martha would tell us her stories, + In the hazel glen. + +Hers were those clear grey eyes + You watch, and the story seems +Told by their beautifulness + Tranquil as dreams. + +She would sit with her two slim hands + Clasped round her bended knees; +While we on our elbows lolled, + And stared at ease. + +Her voice and her narrow chin, + Her grave small lovely head, +Seemed half the meaning + Of the words she said. + +"Once ... once upon a time ..." + Like a dream you dream in the night, +Fairies and gnomes stole out + In the leaf-green light. + +And her beauty far away + Would fade, as her voice ran on, +Till hazel and summer sun + And all were gone: + +All fordone and forgot; + And like clouds in the height of the sky, +Our hearts stood still in the hush + Of an age gone by. + + + + +THE SLEEPER + + +As Ann came in one summer's day, + She felt that she must creep, +So silent was the clear cool house, + It seemed a house of sleep. +And sure, when she pushed open the door, + Rapt in the stillness there, +Her mother sat, with stooping head, + Asleep upon a chair; +Fast--fast asleep; her two hands laid + Loose-folded on her knee, +So that her small unconscious face + Looked half unreal to be: +So calmly lit with sleep's pale light + Each feature was; so fair +Her forehead--every trouble was + Smoothed out beneath her hair. +But though her mind in dream now moved, + Still seemed her gaze to rest-- +From out beneath her fast-sealed lids, + Above her moving breast-- +On Ann; as quite, quite still she stood; + Yet slumber lay so deep +Even her hands upon her lap + Seemed saturate with sleep. +And as Ann peeped, a cloudlike dread + Stole over her, and then, +On stealthy, mouselike feet she trod, + And tiptoed out again. + + + + +THE KEYS OF MORNING + + +While at her bedroom window once, + Learning her task for school, +Little Louisa lonely sat + In the morning clear and cool, +She slanted her small bead-brown eyes + Across the empty street, +And saw Death softly watching her + In the sunshine pale and sweet. + +His was a long lean sallow face; + He sat with half-shut eyes, +Like an old sailor in a ship + Becalmed 'neath tropic skies. +Beside him in the dust he had set + His staff and shady hat; +These, peeping small, Louisa saw + Quite clearly where she sat-- + +The thinness of his coal-black locks, + His hands so long and lean +They scarcely seemed to grasp at all + The keys that hung between: +Both were of gold, but one was small, + And with this last did he +Wag in the air, as if to say, + "Come hither, child, to me!" + +Louisa laid her lesson book + On the cold window-sill; +And in the sleepy sunshine house + Went softly down, until +She stood in the half-opened door, + And peeped. But strange to say, +Where Death just now had sunning sat + Only a shadow lay: +Just the tall chimney's round-topped cowl, + And the small sun behind, +Had with its shadow in the dust + Called sleepy Death to mind. +But most she thought how strange it was + Two keys that he should bear, +And that, when beckoning, he should wag + The littlest in the air. + + + + +RACHEL + + +Rachel sings sweet-- + Oh yes, at night, +Her pale face bent + In the candle-light, +Her slim hands touch + The answering keys, +And she sings of hope + And of memories: +Sings to the little + Boy that stands +Watching those slim, + Light, heedful hands. +He looks in her face; + Her dark eyes seem +Dark with a beautiful + Distant dream; +And still she plays, + Sings tenderly +To him of hope, + And of memory. + + + + +ALONE + + +A very old woman +Lives in yon house. +The squeak of the cricket, +The stir of the mouse, +Are all she knows +Of the earth and us. + +Once she was young, +Would dance and play, +Like many another +Young popinjay; +And run to her mother +At dusk of day. + +And colours bright +She delighted in; +The fiddle to hear, +And to lift her chin, +And sing as small +As a twittering wren. + +But age apace +Comes at last to all; +And a lone house filled +With the cricket's call; +And the scampering mouse +In the hollow wall. + + + + +THE BELLS + + +Shadow and light both strove to be +The eight bell-ringers' company, +As with his gliding rope in hand, +Counting his changes, each did stand; +While rang and trembled every stone, +To music by the bell-mouths blown: +Till the bright clouds that towered on high +Seemed to re-echo cry with cry. +Still swang the clappers to and fro, +When, in the far-spread fields below, +I saw a ploughman with his team +Lift to the bells and fix on them +His distant eyes, as if he would +Drink in the utmost sound he could; +While near him sat his children three, +And in the green grass placidly +Played undistracted on, as if +What music earthly bells might give +Could only faintly stir their dream, +And stillness make more lovely seem. +Soon night hid horses, children, all +In sleep deep and ambrosial. +Yet, yet, it seemed, from star to star, +Welling now near, now faint and far, +Those echoing bells rang on in dream, +And stillness made even lovelier seem. + + + + +THE SCARECROW + + +All winter through I bow my head + Beneath the driving rain; +The North Wind powders me with snow + And blows me back again; +At midnight 'neath a maze of stars + I flame with glittering rime, +And stand, above the stubble, stiff + As mail at morning-prime. +But when that child, called Spring, and all + His host of children, come, +Scattering their buds and dew upon + These acres of my home, +Some rapture in my rags awakes; + I lift void eyes and scan +The skies for crows, those ravening foes, + Of my strange master, Man. +I watch him striding lank behind + His clashing team, and know +Soon will the wheat swish body high + Where once lay sterile snow; +Soon shall I gaze across a sea + Of sun-begotten grain, +Which my unflinching watch hath sealed + For harvest once again. + + + + +NOD + + +Softly along the road of evening, + In a twilight dim with rose, +Wrinkled with age, and drenched with dew, + Old Nod, the shepherd, goes. + +His drowsy flock streams on before him, + Their fleeces charged with gold, +To where the sun's last beam leans low + On Nod the shepherd's fold. + +The hedge is quick and green with brier, + From their sand the conies creep; +And all the birds that fly in heaven + Flock singing home to sleep. + +His lambs outnumber a noon's roses, + Yet, when night's shadows fall, +His blind old sheep-dog, Slumber-soon, + Misses not one of all. + +His are the quiet steeps of dreamland, + The waters of no-more-pain, +His ram's bell rings 'neath an arch of stars, + "Rest, rest, and rest again." + + + + +THE BINDWEED + + +The bindweed roots pierce down + Deeper than men do lie, +Laid in their dark-shut graves + Their slumbering kinsmen by. + +Yet what frail thin-spun flowers + She casts into the air, +To breathe the sunshine, and + To leave her fragrance there. + +But when the sweet moon comes, + Showering her silver down, +Half-wreathèd in faint sleep, + They droop where they have blown. + +So all the grass is set, + Beneath her trembling ray, +With buds that have been flowers, + Brimmed with reflected day. + + + + +WINTER + + +Clouded with snow + The cold winds blow, +And shrill on leafless bough +The robin with its burning breast + Alone sings now. + + The rayless sun, + Day's journey done, +Sheds its last ebbing light +On fields in leagues of beauty spread + Unearthly white. + + Thick draws the dark, + And spark by spark, +The frost-fires kindle, and soon +Over that sea of frozen foam + Floats the white moon. + + + + +THERE BLOOMS NO BUD IN MAY + + +There blooms no bud in May + Can for its white compare +With snow at break of day, + On fields forlorn and bare. + +For shadow it hath rose, + Azure, and amethyst; +And every air that blows + Dies out in beauteous mist. + +It hangs the frozen bough + With flowers on which the night +Wheeling her darkness through + Scatters a starry light. + +Fearful of its pale glare + In flocks the starlings rise; +Slide through the frosty air, + And perch with plaintive cries. + +Only the inky rook, + Hunched cold in ruffled wings, +Its snowy nest forsook, + Caws of unnumbered Springs. + + + + +NOON AND NIGHT FLOWER + + + Not any flower that blows + But shining watch doth keep; +Every swift changing chequered hour it knows +Now to break forth in beauty; now to sleep. + + This for the roving bee + Keeps open house, and this +Stainless and clear is, that in darkness she +May lure the moth to where her nectar is. + + Lovely beyond the rest + Are these of all delight:-- +The tiny pimpernel that noon loves best, +The primrose palely burning through the night. + + One 'neath day's burning sky + With ruby decks her place, +The other when Eve's chariot glideth by +Lifts her dim torch to light that dreaming face. + + + + +ESTRANGED + + +No one was with me there-- +Happy I was--alone; +Yet from the sunshine suddenly + A joy was gone. + +A bird in an empty house +Sad echoes makes to ring, +Flitting from room to room + On restless wing: + +Till from its shades he flies, +And leaves forlorn and dim +The narrow solitudes + So strange to him. + +So, when with fickle heart +I joyed in the passing day, +A presence my mood estranged + Went grieved away. + + + + +THE TIRED CUPID + + +The thin moonlight with trickling ray, +Thridding the boughs of silver may, +Trembles in beauty, pale and cool, +On folded flower, and mantled pool. +All in a haze the rushes lean-- +And he--he sits, with chin between +His two cold hands; his bare feet set +Deep in the grasses, green and wet. +About his head a hundred rings +Of gold loop down to meet his wings, +Whose feathers, arched their stillness through, +Gleam with slow-gathering drops of dew. +The mouse-bat peers; the stealthy vole +Creeps from the covert of its hole; +A shimmering moth its pinions furls, +Grey in the moonshine of his curls; +'Neath the faint stars the night-airs stray, +Scattering the fragrance of the may; +And with each stirring of the bough +Shadow beclouds his childlike brow. + + + + +DREAMS + + +Be gentle, O hands of a child; +Be true: like a shadowy sea +In the starry darkness of night + Are your eyes to me. + +But words are shallow, and soon +Dreams fade that the heart once knew; +And youth fades out in the mind, + In the dark eyes too. + +What can a tired heart say, +Which the wise of the world have made dumb? +Save to the lonely dreams of a child, + "Return again, come!" + + + + +FAITHLESS + + +The words you said grow faint; + The lamps you lit burn dim; +Yet, still be near your faithless friend + To urge and counsel him. + +Still with returning feet + To where life's shadows brood, +With steadfast eyes made clear in death + Haunt his vague solitude. + +So he, beguiled with earth, + Yet with its vain things vexed, +Keep even to his own heart unknown + Your memory unperplexed. + + + + +THE SHADE + + +Darker than night; and oh, much darker she, +Whose eyes in deep night darkness gaze on me. +No stars surround her; yet the moon seems hid +Afar somewhere, beneath that narrow lid. +She darkens against the darkness; and her face +Only by adding thought to thought I trace, +Limned shadowily: O dream, return once more +To gloomy Hades and the whispering shore! + + + + +BE ANGRY NOW NO MORE + + +Be angry now no more! + If I have grieved thee--if +Thy kindness, mine before, +No hope may now restore: + Only forgive, forgive! + +If still resentment burns + In thy cold breast, oh if +No more to pity turns, +No more, once tender, yearns + Thy love; oh yet forgive!... + +Ask of the winter rain +June's withered rose again: +Ask grace of the salt sea: +She will not answer thee. +God would ten times have shriven +A heart so riven; +In her cold care thou would'st be +Still unforgiven. + + + + +EXILE + + +Had the gods loved me I had lain + Where darnel is, and thorn, +And the wild night-bird's nightlong strain + Trembles in boughs forlorn. + +Nay, but they loved me not; and I + Must needs a stranger be, +Whose every exiled day gone by + Aches with their memory. + + + + +WHERE? + + +Where is my love-- + In silence and shadow she lies, +Under the April-grey, calm waste of the skies; + And a bird above, + In the darkness tender and clear, +Keeps saying over and over, Love lies here! + + Not that she's dead; + Only her soul is flown +Out of its last pure earthly mansion; + And cries instead + In the darkness, tender and clear, +Like the voice of a bird in the leaves, Love-- + Love lies here. + + + + +MUSIC UNHEARD + + +Sweet sounds, begone-- + Whose music on my ear +Stirs foolish discontent + Or lingering here; +When, if I crossed + The crystal verge of death, +Him I should see. + Who these sounds murmureth. + +Sweet sounds, begone-- + Ask not my heart to break +Its bond of bravery for + Sweet quiet's sake; +Lure not my feet + To leave the path they must +Tread on, unfaltering, + Till I sleep in dust. + +Sweet sounds, begone! + Though silence brings apace +Deadly disquiet + Of this homeless place; +And all I love + In beauty cries to me, +"We but vain shadows + And reflections be." + + + + +ALL THAT'S PAST + + +Very old are the woods; + And the buds that break +Out of the brier's boughs, + When March winds wake, +So old with their beauty are-- + Oh, no man knows +Through what wild centuries + Roves back the rose. + +Very old are the brooks; + And the rills that rise +Where snow sleeps cold beneath + The azure skies +Sing such a history + Of come and gone, +Their every drop is as wise + As Solomon. + +Very old are we men; + Our dreams are tales +Told in dim Eden + By Eve's nightingales; +We wake and whisper awhile, + But, the day gone by, +Silence and sleep like fields + Of amaranth lie. + + + + +WHEN THE ROSE IS FADED + + +When the rose is faded, + Memory may still dwell on +Her beauty shadowed, + And the sweet smell gone. + +That vanishing loveliness, + That burdening breath +No bond of life hath then + Nor grief of death. + +'Tis the immortal thought + Whose passion still +Makes of the changing + The unchangeable. + +Oh, thus thy beauty, + Loveliest on earth to me, +Dark with no sorrow, shines + And burns, with Thee. + + + + +SLEEP + + +Men all, and birds, and creeping beasts, + When the dark of night is deep, +From the moving wonder of their lives + Commit themselves to sleep. + +Without a thought, or fear, they shut + The narrow gates of sense; +Heedless and quiet, in slumber turn + Their strength to impotence. + +The transient strangeness of the earth + Their spirits no more see: +Within a silent gloom withdrawn, + They slumber in secrecy. + +Two worlds they have--a globe forgot + Wheeling from dark to light; +And all the enchanted realm of dream + That burgeons out of night. + + + + +THE STRANGER + + +Half-hidden in a graveyard, + In the blackness of a yew, +Where never living creature stirs, + Nor sunbeam pierces through, + +Is a tomb, green and crooked,-- + Its faded legend gone,-- +With but one rain-worn cherub's head + Of smouldering stone. + +There, when the dusk is falling, + Silence broods so deep +It seems that every wind that breathes + Blows from the field of sleep. + +Day breaks in heedless beauty, + Kindling each drop of dew, +But unforsaking shadow dwells + Beneath this lonely yew. + +And, all else lost and faded, + Only this listening head +Keeps with a strange unanswering smile + Its secret with the dead. + + + + +NEVER MORE SAILOR + + +Never more, Sailor, +Shall thou be +Tossed on the wind-ridden, +Restless sea. +Its tides may labour; +All the world +Shake 'neath that weight +Of waters hurled: +But its whole shock +Can only stir +Thy dust to a quiet +Even quieter. +Thou mock'st at land +Who now art come +To such a small +And shallow home; +Yet bore the sea +Full many a care +For bones that once +A sailor's were. +And though the grave's +Deep soundlessness +Thy once sea-deafened +Ear distress, +No robin ever +On the deep +Hopped with his song +To haunt thy sleep. + + + + +ARABIA + + +Far are the shades of Arabia, + Where the Princes ride at noon, +'Mid the verdurous vales and thickets, + Under the ghost of the moon; +And so dark is that vaulted purple + Flowers in the forest rise +And toss into blossom 'gainst the phantom stars + Pale in the noonday skies. + +Sweet is the music of Arabia + In my heart, when out of dreams +I still in the thin clear mirk of dawn + Descry her gliding streams; +Hear her strange lutes on the green banks + Ring loud with the grief and delight +Of the dim-silked dark-haired Musicians + In the brooding silence of night. + +They haunt me--her lutes and her forests; + No beauty on earth I see +But shadowed with that dreams recalls + Her loveliness to me: +Still eyes look coldly upon me, + Cold voices whisper and say-- +"He is crazed with the spell of far Arabia, + They have stolen his wits away." + + + + +THE MOUNTAINS + + +Still, and blanched, and cold, and lone, + The icy hills far off from me +With frosty ulys overgrown + Stand in their sculptured secrecy. + +No path of theirs the chamois fleet + Treads, with a nostril to the wind; +O'er their ice-marbled glaciers beat + No wings of eagles in my mind-- + +Yea, in my mind these mountains rise, + Their perils dyed with evening's rose; +And still my ghost sits at my eyes + And thirsts for their untroubled snows. + + + + +QUEEN DJENIRA + + +When Queen Djenira slumbers through + The sultry noon's repose, +From out her dreams, as soft she lies, + A faint thin music flows. + +Her lovely hands lie narrow and pale + With gilded nails, her head +Couched in its handed nets of gold + Lies pillowed on her bed. + +The little Nubian boys who fan + Her cheeks and tresses clear, +Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful voices + Seem afar to hear. + +They slide their eyes, and nodding, say, + "Queen Djenira walks to-day +The courts of the lord Pthamasar + Where the sweet birds of Psuthys are." + +And those of earth about her porch + Of shadow cool and grey +Their sidelong beaks in silence lean, + And silent flit away. + + + + +NEVER-TO-BE + + +Down by the waters of the sea +Reigns the King of Never-to-be. +His palace walls are black with night; +His torches star and moon's light, +And for his timepiece deep and grave +Beats on the green unhastening wave. + +Windswept are his high corridors; +His pleasance the sea-mantled shores; +For sentinel a shadow stands +With hair in heaven, and cloudy hands; +And round his bed, king's guards to be, +Watch pines in iron solemnity. + +His hound is mute; his steed at will +Roams pastures deep with asphodel; +His queen is to her slumber gone; +His courtiers mute lie, hewn in stone; +He hath forgot where he did hide +His sceptre in the mountain-side. + +Grey-capped and muttering, mad is he-- +The childless King of Never-to-be; +For all his people in the deep +Keep, everlasting, fast asleep; +And all his realm is foam and rain, +Whispering of what comes not again. + + + + +THE DARK CHÂTEAU + + +In dreams a dark château + Stands ever open to me, +In far ravines dream-waters flow, + Descending soundlessly; +Above its peaks the eagle floats, + Lone in a sunless sky; +Mute are the golden woodland throats + Of the birds flitting by. + +No voice is audible. The wind + Sleeps in its peace. +No flower of the light can find + Refuge beneath its trees; +Only the darkening ivy climbs + Mingled with wilding rose, +And cypress, morn and evening, time's + Black shadow throws. + +All vacant, and unknown; + Only the dreamer steps +From stone to hollow stone, + Where the green moss sleeps, +Peers at the rivers in its deeps, + The eagle lone in the sky, +While the dew of evening drips, + Coldly and silently. + +Would that I could steal in!-- + Into each secret room; +Would that my sleep-bright eyes could win + To the inner gloom; +Gaze from its high windows, + Far down its mouldering walls, +Where amber-clear still Lethe flows, + And foaming falls. + +But ever as I gaze, + From slumber soft doth come +Some touch my stagnant sense to raise + To its old earthly home; +Fades then that sky serene; + And peak of ageless snow; +Fades to a paling dawn-lit green, + My dark château. + + + + +THE DWELLING-PLACE + + +Deep in a forest where the kestrel screamed, + Beside a lake of water, clear as glass, +The time-worn windows of a stone house gleamed + Named only "Alas." + +Yet happy as the wild birds in the glades + Of that green forest, thridding the still air +With low continued heedless serenades, + Its heedless people were. + +The throbbing chords of violin and lute, + The lustre of lean tapers in dark eyes, +Fair colours, beauteous flowers, faint-bloomed fruit + Made earth seem Paradise + +To them that dwelt within this lonely house: + Like children of the gods in lasting peace, +They ate, sang, danced, as if each day's carouse + Need never pause, nor cease. + +Some to the hunt would wend, with hound and horn, + And clash of silver, beauty, bravery, pride, +Heeding not one who on white horse upborne + With soundless hoofs did ride. + +Dreamers there were who watched the hours away + Beside a fountain's foam. And in the sweet +Of phantom evening, 'neath the night-bird's lay, + Did loved with loved-one meet. + +All, all were children, for, the long day done, + They barred the heavy door against lightfoot fear; +And few words spake though one known face was gone, + Yet still seemed hovering near. + +They heaped the bright fire higher; poured dark wine; + And in long revelry dazed the questioning eye; +Curtained three-fold the heart-dismaying shine + Of midnight streaming by. + +They shut the dark out from the painted wall, + With candles dared the shadow at the door, +Sang down the faint reiterated call + Of those who came no more. + +Yet clear above that portal plain was writ, + Confronting each at length alone to pass +Out of its beauty into night star-lit, + That word "Alas!" + + + + +THE LISTENERS + + +"Is there anybody there?" said the Traveller, + Knocking on the moonlit door; +And his horse in the silence champed the grasses + Of the forest's ferny floor: +And a bird flew up out of the turret, + Above the Traveller's head: +And he smote upon the door again a second time; + "Is there anybody there?" he said. +But no one descended to the Traveller; + No head from the leaf-fringed sill +Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes, + Where he stood perplexed and still. +But only a host of phantom listeners + That dwelt in the lone house then +Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight + To that voice from the world of men: +Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair, + That goes down to the empty hall, +Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken + By the lonely Traveller's call. +And he felt in his heart their strangeness, + Their stillness answering his cry, +While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf, + 'Neath the starred and leafy sky; +For he suddenly smote on the door, even + Louder, and lifted his head:-- +"Tell them I came, and no one answered, + That I kept my word," he said. +Never the least stir made the listeners, + Though every word he spake +Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house + From the one man left awake: +Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup, + And the sound of iron on stone, +And how the silence surged softly backward, + When the plunging hoofs were gone. + + + + +TIME PASSES + + + There was nought in the Valley + But a Tower of Ivory, +Its base enwreathed with red + Flowers that at evening + Caught the sun's crimson +As to Ocean low he sped. + + Lucent and lovely + It stood in the morning +Under a trackless hill; + With snows eternal + Muffling its summit, +And silence ineffable. + + Sighing of solitude + Winds from the cold heights +Haunted its yellowing stone; + At noon its shadow + Stretched athwart cedars + Whence every bird was flown. + + Its stair was broken, + Its starlit walls were +Fretted; its flowers shone + Wide at the portal, + Full-blown and fading, +Their last faint fragrance gone. + + And on high in its lantern + A shape of the living +Watched o'er a shoreless sea, + From a Tower rotting + With age and weakness, + Once lovely as ivory. + + + + +BEWARE! + + +An ominous bird sang from its branch, + "Beware, O Wanderer! +Night 'mid her flowers of glamourie spilled + Draws swiftly near: + +"Night with her darkened caravans, + Piled deep with silver and myrrh, +Draws from the portals of the East, + O Wanderer near." + +"Night who walks plumèd through the fields + Of stars that strangely stir-- +Smitten to fire by the sandals of him + Who walks with her." + + + + +THE JOURNEY + + +Heart-sick of his journey was the Wanderer; + Footsore and parched was he; +And a Witch who long had lurked by the wayside, + Looked out of sorcery. + +"Lift up your eyes, you lonely Wanderer," + She peeped from her casement small; +"Here's shelter and quiet to give you rest, young man, + And apples for thirst withal." + +And he looked up out of his sad reverie, + And saw all the woods in green, +With birds that flitted feathered in the dappling, + The jewel-bright leaves between. + +And he lifted up his face towards her lattice, + And there, alluring-wise, +Slanting through the silence of the long past, + Dwelt the still green Witch's eyes. + +And vaguely from the hiding-place of memory + Voices seemed to cry; +"What is the darkness of one brief life-time + To the deaths thou hast made us die? + +"Heed not the words of the Enchantress + Who would us still betray!" +And sad with the echo of their reproaches, + Doubting, he turned away. + +"I may not shelter beneath your roof, lady, + Nor in this wood's green shadow seek repose, +Nor will your apples quench the thirst + A homesick wanderer knows." + +"'Homesick' forsooth!" she softly mocked him: + And the beauty in her face +Made in the sunshine pale and trembling + A stillness in that place. + +And he sighed, as if in fear, that young Wanderer, + Looking to left and to right, +Where the endless narrow road swept onward, + Till in distance lost to sight. + +And there fell upon his sense the brier, + Haunting the air with its breath, +And the faint shrill sweetness of the birds' throats, + Their tent of leaves beneath. + +And there was the Witch, in no wise heeding; + Her arbour, and fruit-filled dish, +Her pitcher of well-water, and clear damask-- + All that the weary wish. + +And the last gold beam across the green world + Faltered and failed, as he +Remembered his solitude and the dark night's + Inhospitality. + +And he looked upon the Witch with eyes of sorrow + In the darkening of the day; +And turned him aside into oblivion; + And the voices died away.... + +And the Witch stepped down from her casement: + In the hush of night he heard +The calling and wailing in dewy thicket + Of bird to hidden bird. + +And gloom stole all her burning crimson, + Remote and faint in space +As stars in gathering shadow of the evening + Seemed now her phantom face. + +And one night's rest shall be a myriad, + Midst dreams that come and go; +Till heedless fate, unmoved by weakness, bring him + This same strange by-way through: + +To the beauty of earth that fades in ashes, + The lips of welcome, and the eyes +More beauteous than the feeble shine of Hesper + Lone in the lightening skies: + +Till once again the Witch's guile entreat him; + But, worn with wisdom, he +Steadfast and cold shall choose the dark night's + Inhospitality. + + + + +HAUNTED + + +The rabbit in his burrow keeps +No guarded watch, in peace he sleeps; +The wolf that howls in challenging night +Cowers to her lair at morning light; +The simplest bird entwines a nest +Where she may lean her lovely breast, +Couched in the silence of the bough. +But thou, O man, what rest hast thou? + +Thy emptiest solitude can bring +Only a subtler questioning +In thy divided heart. Thy bed +Recalls at dawn what midnight said. +Seek how thou wilt to feign content, +Thy flaming ardour's quickly spent; +Soon thy last company is gone, +And leaves thee--with thyself--alone. + +Pomp and great friends may hem thee round, +A thousand busy tasks be found; +Earth's thronging beauties may beguile +Thy longing lovesick heart awhile; +And pride, like clouds of sunset, spread +A changing glory round thy head; +But fade will all; and thou must come, +Hating thy journey, homeless, home. + +Rave how thou wilt; unmoved, remote, +That inward presence slumbers not, +Frets out each secret from thy breast, +Gives thee no rally, pause, nor rest, +Scans close thy very thoughts, lest they +Should sap his patient power away, +Answers thy wrath with peace, thy cry +With tenderest taciturnity. + + + + +SILENCE + + +With changeful sound life beats upon the ear; + Yet, striving for release, + The most seductive string's + Sweet jargonings, + The happiest throat's + Most easeful, lovely notes +Fall back into a veiling silentness. + +Even 'mid the rumour of a moving host, + Blackening the clear green earth, + Vainly 'gainst that thin wall + The trumpets call, + Or with loud hum + The smoke-bemuffled drum: +From that high quietness no reply comes forth. + +When, all at peace, two friends at ease alone + Talk out their hearts,--yet still + Between the grace-notes of + The voice of love + From each to each + Trembles a rarer speech, +And with its presence every pause doth fill. + +Unmoved it broods, this all-encompassing hush + Of one who stooping near, + No smallest stir will make + Our fear to wake; + But yet intent + Upon some mystery bent + Harkens the lightest word we say, or hear. + + + + +WINTER DUSK + + +Dark frost was in the air without, + The dusk was still with cold and gloom, +When less than even a shadow came + And stood within the room. + +But of the three around the fire, + None turned a questioning head to look, +Still read a clear voice, on and on, + Still stooped they o'er their book. + +The children watched their mother's eyes + Moving on softly line to line; +It seemed to listen too--that shade, + Yet made no outward sign. + +The fire-flames crooned a tiny song, + No cold wind moved the wintry tree; +The children both in Faërie dreamed + Beside their mother's knee. + +And nearer yet that spirit drew + Above that heedless one, intent +Only on what the simple words + Of her small story meant. + +No voiceless sorrow grieved her mind, + No memory her bosom stirred, +Nor dreamed she, as she read to two, + 'Twas surely three who heard. + +Yet when, the story done, she smiled + From face to face, serene and clear, +A love, half dread, sprang up, as she + Leaned close and drew them near. + + + + +THE GHOST + + + Peace in thy hands, + Peace in thine eyes, + Peace on thy brow; +Flower of a moment in the eternal hour, + Peace with me now. + + Not a wave breaks, + Not a bird calls, + My heart, like a sea, +Silent after a storm that hath died, + Sleeps within me. + + All the night's dews, + All the world's leaves, + All winter's snow +Seem with their quiet to have stilled in life's dream + All sorrowing now. + + + + +AN EPITAPH + + +Here lies a most beautiful lady, +Light of step and heart was she; +I think she was the most beautiful lady +That ever was in the West Country. +But beauty vanishes; beauty passes; +However rare--rare it be; +And when I crumble, who will remember +This lady of the West Country? + + + + +"THE HAWTHORN HATH A DEATHLY SMELL" + + +The flowers of the field + Have a sweet smell; +Meadowsweet, tansy, thyme, + And faint-heart pimpernel; +But sweeter even than these, + The silver of the may +Wreathed is with incense for + The Judgment Day. + +An apple, a child, dust, + When falls the evening rain, +Wild brier's spicèd leaves, + Breathe memories again; +With further memory fraught, + The silver of the may +Wreathed is with incense for + The Judgment Day. + +Eyes of all loveliness-- + Shadow of strange delight, +Even as a flower fades + Must thou from sight; +But oh, o'er thy grave's mound, + Till come the Judgment Day, +Wreathed shall with incense he + Thy sharp-thorned may. + + * * * * * + + + + +MOTLEY: 1918 + + + * * * * * + + + + +THE LITTLE SALAMANDER + +TO MARGOT + + +When I go free, +I think 'twill be +A night of stars and snow, +And the wild fires of frost shall light +My footsteps as I go; +Nobody--nobody will be there +With groping touch, or sight, +To see me in my bush of hair +Dance burning through the night. + + + + +THE LINNET + +Upon this leafy bush + With thorns and roses in it, +Flutters a thing of light, + A twittering linnet. +And all the throbbing world + Of dew and sun and air +By this small parcel of life + Is made more fair; +As if each bramble-spray +And mounded gold-wreathed furze, + Harebell and little thyme, + Were only hers; +As if this beauty and grace + Did to one bird belong, +And, at a flutter of wing, + Might vanish in song. + + + + +THE SUNKEN GARDEN + + +Speak not--whisper not; +Here bloweth thyme and bergamot; +Softly on the evening hour, +Secret herbs their spices shower. +Dark-spiked rosemary and myrrh, +Lean-stalked, purple lavender; +Hides within her bosom, too, +All her sorrows, bitter rue. + +Breathe not--trespass not; +Of this green and darkling spot, +Latticed from the moon's beams, +Perchance a distant dreamer dreams; +Perchance upon its darkening air, +The unseen ghosts of children fare, +Faintly swinging, sway and sweep, +Like lovely sea-flowers in its deep; +While, unmoved, to watch and ward, +Amid its gloomed and daisied sward, +Stands with bowed and dewy head +That one little leaden Lad. + + + + +THE RIDDLERS + + +"Thou solitary!" the Blackbird cried, +"I, from the happy Wren, +Linnet and Blackcap, Woodlark, Thrush, +Perched all upon a sweetbrier bush, +Have come at cold of midnight-tide +To ask thee, Why and when +Grief smote thy heart so thou dost sing +In solemn hush of evening, +So sorrowfully, lovelorn Thing-- +Nay, nay, not sing, but rave, but wail, +Most melancholic Nightingale? +Do not the dews of darkness steep +All pinings of the day in sleep? +Why, then, when rocked in starry nest +We mutely couch, secure, at rest, +Doth thy lone heart delight to make +Music for sorrow's sake?" +A Moon was there. So still her beam, +It seemed the whole world lay in dream, +Lulled by the watery sea. +And from her leafy night-hung nook +Upon this stranger soft did look +The Nightingale: sighed he:-- + +"'Tis strange, my friend; the Kingfisher +But yestermorn conjured me here +Out of his green and gold to say +Why thou, in splendour of the noon, +Wearest of colour but golden shoon, +And else dost thee array +In a most sombre suit of black? +'Surely,' he sighed, 'some load of grief, +Past all our thinking--and belief-- +Must weigh upon his back!' +Do, then, in turn, tell me, If joy +Thy heart as well as voice employ +Why dost thou now most Sable, shine +In plumage woefuller far than mine? +Thy silence is a sadder thing +Than any dirge I sing!" + +Thus, then, these two small birds, perched there, +Breathed a strange riddle both did share +Yet neither could expound. +And we--who sing but as we can, +In the small knowledge of a man-- +Have we an answer found? +Nay, some are happy whose delight +Is hid even from themselves from sight; +And some win peace who spend +The skill of words to sweeten despair +Of finding consolation where +Life has but one dark end; +Who, in rapt solitude, tell o'er +A tale as lovely as forlore, +Into the midnight air. + + + + +MOONLIGHT + + +The far moon maketh lovers wise + In her pale beauty trembling down, +Lending curved cheeks, dark lips, dark eyes, + A strangeness not her own. +And, though they shut their lids to kiss, + In starless darkness peace to win, +Even on that secret world from this + Her twilight enters in. + + + + +THE BLIND BOY + + +"I have no master," said the Blind Boy, + "My mother, 'Dame Venus' they do call; +Cowled in this hood she sent me begging + For whate'er in pity may befall. + +"Hard was her visage, me adjuring,-- + 'Have no fond mercy on the kind! +Here be sharp arrows, bunched in quiver, + Draw close ere striking--thou art blind.' + +"So stand I here, my woes entreating, + In this dark alley, lest the Moon +Point with her sparkling my barbed armoury + Shine on my silver-lacèd shoon. + +"Oh, sir, unkind this Dame to me-ward; + Of the salt billow was her birth ... +In your sweet charity draw nearer + The saddest rogue on Earth!" + + + + +THE QUARRY + + +You hunted me with all the pack, + Too blind, too blind, to see +By no wild hope of force or greed + Could you make sure of me. + +And like a phantom through the glades, + With tender breast aglow, +The goddess in me laughed to hear + Your horns a-roving go. + +She laughed to think no mortal ever + By dint of mortal flesh +The very Cause that was the Hunt + One moment could enmesh: + +That though with captive limbs I lay, + Stilled breath and vanquished eyes, +He that hunts Love with horse and hound + Hunts out his heart and eyes. + + + + +MRS. GRUNDY + + +"Step very softly, sweet Quiet-foot, +Stumble not, whisper not, smile not: +By this dark ivy stoop cheek and brow. +Still even thy heart! What seest thou?..." + +"High-coifed, broad-browed, aged, suave yet grim, +A large flat face, eyes keenly dim, +Staring at nothing--that's me!--and yet, +With a hate one could never, no, never forget ..." + +"This is my world, my garden, my home, +Hither my father bade mother to come +And bear me out of the dark into light, +And happy I was in her tender sight. + +"And then, thou frail flower, she died and went, +Forgetting my pitiless banishment, +And that Old Woman--an Aunt--she said, +Came hither, lodged, fattened, and made her bed. + +"Oh yes, thou most blessed, from Monday to Sunday, +Has lived on me, preyed on me, Mrs. Grundy: +Called me, 'dear Nephew'; on each of those chairs +Has gloated in righteousness, heard my prayers. + +"Why didst thou dare the thorns of the grove, +Timidest trespasser, huntress of love? +Now thou hast peeped, and now dost know +What kind of creature is thine for foe. + +"Not that she'll tear out thy innocent eyes, +Poison thy mouth with deviltries. +Watch thou, wait thou: soon will begin +The guile of a voice: hark!..." "Come in, Come in!" + + + + +THE TRYST + + +Flee into some forgotten night and be +Of all dark long my moon-bright company: +Beyond the rumour even of Paradise come, +There, out of all remembrance, make our home: +Seek we some close hid shadow for our lair, +Hollowed by Noah's mouse beneath the chair +Wherein the Omnipotent, in slumber bound, +Nods till the piteous Trump of Judgment sound. +Perchance Leviathan of the deep sea +Would lease a lost mermaiden's grot to me, +There of your beauty we would joyance make-- +A music wistful for the sea-nymph's sake: +Haply Elijah, o'er his spokes of fire, +Cresting steep Leo, or the heavenly Lyre, +Spied, tranced in azure of inanest space, +Some eyrie hostel, meet for human grace, +Where two might happy be--just you and I-- +Lost in the uttermost of Eternity. +Think! In Time's smallest clock's minutest beat +Might there not rest be found for wandering feet? +Or, 'twixt the sleep and wake of Helen's dream, +Silence wherein to sing love's requiem? +No, no. Nor earth, nor air, nor fire, nor deep +Could lull poor mortal longingness asleep. +Somewhere there Nothing is; and there lost Man +Shall win what changeless vague of peace he can. + + + + +ALONE + + +The abode of the nightingale is bare, +Flowered frost congeals in the gelid air, +The fox howls from his frozen lair: + Alas, my loved one is gone, + I am alone: + It is winter. + +Once the pink cast a winy smell, +The wild bee hung in the hyacinth bell, +Light in effulgence of beauty fell: + Alas, my loved one is gone, + I am alone: + It is winter. + +My candle a silent fire doth shed, +Starry Orion hunts o'erhead; +Come moth, come shadow, the world is dead: + Alas, my loved one is gone, + I am alone: + It is winter. + + + + +THE EMPTY HOUSE + + +See this house, how dark it is +Beneath its vast-boughed trees! +Not one trembling leaflet cries +To that Watcher in the skies-- +"Remove, remove thy searching gaze, +Innocent, of heaven's ways, +Brood not, Moon, so wildly bright, +On secrets hidden from sight." + +"Secrets," sighs the night-wind, +"Vacancy is all I find; +Every keyhole I have made +Wails a summons, faint and sad, +No voice ever answers me, + Only vacancy." +"Once, once ..." the cricket shrills, +And far and near the quiet fills +With its tiny voice, and then + Hush falls again. + +Mute shadows creeping slow +Mark how the hours go. +Every stone is mouldering slow. +And the least winds that blow +Some minutest atom shake, +Some fretting ruin make +In roof and walls. How black it is +Beneath these thick-boughed trees! + + + + +MISTRESS FELL + + +"Whom seek you here, sweet Mistress Fell?" +"One who loved me passing well. +Dark his eye, wild his face-- +Stranger, if in this lonely place +Bide such an one, then, prythee, say +I am come here to-day." + +"Many his like, Mistress Fell?" +"I did not look, so cannot tell. +Only this I surely know, +When his voice called me, I must go; +Touched me his fingers, and my heart +Leapt at the sweet pain's smart." + +"Why did he leave you, Mistress Fell?" +"Magic laid its dreary spell.-- +Stranger, he was fast asleep; +Into his dream I tried to creep; +Called his name, soft was my cry; +He answered--not one sigh. + +"The flower and the thorn are here; +Falleth the night-dew, cold and clear; +Out of her bower the bird replies, +Mocking the dark with ecstasies, +See how the earth's green grass doth grow, +Praising what sleeps below! + +"Thus have they told me. And I come, +As flies the wounded wild-bird home. +Not tears I give; but all that he +Clasped in his arms, sweet charity; +All that he loved--to him I bring +For a close whispering." + + + + +THE GHOST + + +"Who knocks?" "I, who was beautiful, + Beyond all dreams to restore, +I, from the roots of the dark thorn am hither. + And knock on the door." + +"Who speaks?" "I--once was my speech + Sweet as the bird's on the air, +When echo lurks by the waters to heed; + 'Tis I speak thee fair." + +"Dark is the hour!" "Ay, and cold." + "Lone is my house." "Ah, but mine?" +"Sight, touch, lips, eyes yearned in vain." + "Long dead these to thine ..." + +Silence. Still faint on the porch + Brake the flames of the stars. +In gloom groped a hope-wearied hand + Over keys, bolts, and bars. + +A face peered. All the grey night + In chaos of vacancy shone; +Nought but vast sorrow was there-- + The sweet cheat gone. + + + + +THE STRANGER + + +In the woods as I did walk, + Dappled with the moon's beam, +I did with a Stranger talk, + And his name was Dream. + +Spurred his heel, dark his cloak, + Shady-wide his bonnet's brim; +His horse beneath a silvery oak + Grazed as I talked with him. + +Softly his breast-brooch burned and shone; + Hill and deep were in his eyes; +One of his hands held mine, and one + The fruit that makes men wise. + +Wondrously strange was earth to see, + Flowers white as milk did gleam; +Spread to Heaven the Assyrian Tree, + Over my head with Dream. + +Dews were still betwixt us twain; + Stars a trembling beauty shed; +Yet--not a whisper comes again + Of the words he said. + + + + +BETRAYAL + + +She will not die, they say, +She will but put her beauty by + And hie away. + +Oh, but her beauty gone, how lonely +Then will seem all reverie, + How black to me! + +All things will sad be made +And every hope a memory, + All gladness dead. + +Ghosts of the past will know +My weakest hour, and whisper to me, + And coldly go. + +And hers in deep of sleep, +Clothed in its mortal beauty I shall see, + And, waking, weep. + +Naught will my mind then find +In man's false Heaven my peace to be: + All blind, and blind. + + + + +THE CAGE + + +Why did you flutter in vain hope, poor bird, + Hard-pressed in your small cage of clay? +'Twas but a sweet, false echo that you heard, + Caught only a feint of day. + +Still is the night all dark, a homeless dark. + Burn yet the unanswering stars. And silence brings +The same sea's desolate surge--sans bound or mark-- + Of all your wanderings. + +Fret now no more; be still. Those steadfast eyes, + Those folded hands, they cannot set you free; +Only with beauty wake wild memories-- + Sorrow for where you are, for where you would be. + + + + +THE REVENANT + + +O all ye fair ladies with your colours and your graces, + And your eyes clear in flame of candle and hearth, +Toward the dark of this old window lift not up your smiling faces, + Where a Shade stands forlorn from the cold of the earth. + +God knows I could not rest for one I still was thinking of; + Like a rose sheathed in beauty her spirit was to me; +Now out of unforgottenness a bitter draught I'm drinking of, + 'Tis sad of such beauty unremembered to be. + +Men all all shades, O Woman.--Winds wist not of the way they blow. + Apart from your kindness, life's at best but a snare. +Though a tongue now past praise this bitter thing doth say, I know + What solitude means, and how, homeless, I fare. + +Strange, strange, are ye all--except in beauty shared with her-- + Since I seek one I loved, yet was faithless to in death. +Not life enough I heaped, so thus my heart must fare with her, + Now wrapt in the gross clay, bereft of life's breath. + + + + +MUSIC + + +When music sounds, gone is the earth I know, +And all her lovely things even lovelier grow; +Her flowers in vision flame, her forest trees, +Lift burdened branches, stilled with ecstasies. + +When music sounds, out of the water rise +Naiads whose beauty dims my waking eyes, +Rapt in strange dreams burns each enchanted face, +With solemn echoing stirs their dwelling-place. + +When music sounds, all that I was I am +Ere to this haunt of brooding dust I came; +While from Time's woods break into distant song +The swift-winged hours, as I hasten along. + + + + +THE REMONSTRANCE + + +I was at peace until you came +And set a careless mind aflame. +I lived in quiet; cold, content; +All longing in safe banishment, +Until your ghostly lips and eyes + Made wisdom unwise. + +Naught was in me to tempt your feet +To seek a lodging. Quite forgot +Lay the sweet solitude we two +In childhood used to wander through; +Time's cold had closed my heart about; + And shut you out. + +Well, and what then?... O vision grave, +Take all the little all I have! +Strip me of what in voiceless thought +Life's kept of life, unhoped, unsought!-- +Reverie and dream that memory must + Hide deep in dust! + +This only I say:--Though cold and bare +The haunted house you have chosen to share, +Still 'neath its walls the moonbeam goes + And trembles on the untended rose; + +Still o'er its broken roof-tree rise +The starry arches of the skies; +And in your lightest word shall be + The thunder of an ebbing sea. + + + + +NOCTURNE + + +'Tis not my voice now speaks; but a bird +In darkling forest hollows a sweet throat-- +Pleads on till distant echo too hath heard + And doubles every note: +So love that shrouded dwells in mystery + Would cry and waken thee. + +Thou Solitary, stir in thy still sleep; +All the night waits thee, yet thou still dream'st on. +Furtive the shadows that about thee creep, +And cheat the shining footsteps of the moon: +Unseal thine eyes, it is my heart that sings, + And beats in vain its wings. + +Lost in heaven's vague, the stars burn softly through +The world's dark latticings, we prisoned stray +Within its lovely labyrinth, and know + Mute seraphs guard the way +Even from silence unto speech, from love +To that self's self it still is dreaming of. + + + + +THE EXILE + + +I am that Adam who, with Snake for guest, +Hid anguished eyes upon Eve's piteous breast. +I am that Adam who, with broken wings, +Fled from the Seraph's brazen trumpetings. +Betrayed and fugitive, I still must roam +A world where sin, and beauty, whisper of Home. + +Oh, from wide circuit, shall at length I see +Pure daybreak lighten again on Eden's tree? +Loosed from remorse and hope and love's distress, +Enrobe me again in my lost nakedness? +No more with wordless grief a loved one grieve, +But to Heaven's nothingness re-welcome Eve? + + + + +THE UNCHANGING + + +After the songless rose of evening, + Night quiet, dark, still, +In nodding cavalcade advancing + Starred the deep hill: +You, in the valley standing, + In your quiet wonder took +All that glamour, peace, and mystery + In one grave look. +Beauty hid your naked body, + Time dreamed in your bright hair, +In your eyes the constellations + Burned far and fair. + + + + +INVOCATION + + +The burning fire shakes in the night, + On high her silver candles gleam, +With far-flung arms enflamed with light, + The trees are lost in dream. + +Come in thy beauty! 'tis my love, + Lost in far-wandering desire, +Hath in the darkling deep above + Set stars and kindled fire. + + + + +EYES + + +O strange devices that alone divide +The seër from the seen-- +The very highway of earth's pomp and pride +That lies between +The traveller and the cheating, sweet delight +Of where he longs to be, +But which, bound hand and foot, he, close on night, +Can only see. + + + + +LIFE + + +Hearken, O dear, now strikes the hour we die; +We, who in our strange kiss +Have proved a dream the world's realities, +Turned each from other's darkness with a sigh, +Need heed no more of life, waste no more breath +On any other journey, but of death. + +And yet: Oh, know we well +How each of us must prove Love's infidel; +Still out of ecstasy turn trembling back +To earth's same empty track +Of leaden day by day, and hour by hour, and be +Of all things lovely the cold mortuary. + + + + +THE DISGUISE + + +Why in my heart, O Grief, +Dost thou in beauty hide? +Dead is my well-content, +And buried deep my pride. +Cold are their stones, beloved, +To hand and side. + +The shadows of even are gone, +Shut are the day's clear flowers, +Now have her birds left mute +Their singing bowers, +Lone shall we be, we twain, +In the night hours. + +Thou with thy cheek on mine, +And dark hair loosed, shall see +Take the far stars for fruit +The cypress tree, +And in the yew's black +Shall the moon be. + +We will tell no old tales, +Nor heed if in wandering air +Die a lost song of love +Or the once fair; +Still as well-water be +The thoughts we share! + +And, while the ghosts keep +Tryst from chill sepulchres, +Dreamless our gaze shall sleep, +And sealed our ears; +Heart unto heart will speak, +Without tears. + +O, thy veiled, lovely face-- +Joy's strange disguise-- +Shall be the last to fade +From these rapt eyes, +Ere the first dart of daybreak +Pierce the skies. + + + + +VAIN QUESTIONING + + +What needest thou?--a few brief hours of rest +Wherein to seek thyself in thine own breast; +A transient silence wherein truth could say +Such was thy constant hope, and this thy way?-- + O burden of life that is + A livelong tangle of perplexities! + +What seekest thou?--a truce from that thou art; +Some steadfast refuge from a fickle heart; +Still to be thou, and yet no thing of scorn, +To find no stay here, and yet not forlorn?-- + O riddle of life that is + An endless war 'twixt contrarieties. + +Leave this vain questioning. Is not sweet the rose? +Sings not the wild bird ere to rest he goes? +Hath not in miracle brave June returned? +Burns not her beauty as of old it burned? + O foolish one to roam + So far in thine own mind away from home! + +Where blooms the flower when her petals fade, +Where sleepeth echo by earth's music made, +Where all things transient to the changeless win, +There waits the peace thy spirit dwelleth in. + + + + +VIGIL + + +Dark is the night, + The fire burns faint and low, +Hours--days--years, + Into grey ashes go; +I strive to read, + But sombre is the glow. + +Thumbed are the pages, + And the print is small; +Mocking the winds + That from the darkness call; +Feeble the fire that lends + Its light withal. + +O ghost, draw nearer; + Let thy shadowy hair, +Blot out the pages + That we cannot share; +Be ours the one last leaf + By Fate left bare! + +Let's Finis scrawl, + And then Life's book put by; +Turn each to each + In all simplicity: +Ere the last flame is gone + To warm us by. + + + + +THE OLD MEN + + +Old and alone, sit we, + Caged, riddle-rid men; +Lost to Earth's "Listen!" and "See!" + Thought's "Wherefore?" and "When?" + +Only far memories stray + Of a past once lovely, but now +Wasted and faded away, + Like green leaves from the bough. + +Vast broods the silence of night, + The ruinous moon +Lifts on our faces her light, + Whence all dreaming is gone. + +We speak not; trembles each head; + In their sockets our eyes are still; +Desire as cold as the dead; + Without wonder or will. +And One, with a lanthorn, draws near, + At clash with the moon in our eyes: +"Where art thou?" he asks: "I am here," + One by one we arise. + +And none lifts a hand to withhold + A friend from the touch of that foe: +Heart cries unto heart, "Thou art old!" + Yet, reluctant, we go. + + + + +THE DREAMER + + +O thou who giving helm and sword, + Gav'st, too, the rusting rain, +And starry dark's all tender dews + To blunt and stain: + +Out of the battle I am sped, + Unharmed, yet stricken sore; +A living shape amid whispering shades + On Lethe's shore. + +No trophy in my hands I bring, + To this sad, sighing stream, +The neighings and the trumps and cries + Were but a dream. + +Traitor to life, of life betrayed: + O, of thy mercy deep, +A dream my all, the all I ask + Is sleep. + + + + +MOTLEY + + +Come, Death, I'd have a word with thee; +And thou, poor Innocency; +And love--a Lad with broken wing; +And Pity, too: +The Fool shall sing to you, +As Fools will sing. + +Ay, music hath small sense, +And a tune's soon told, +And Earth is old, +And my poor wits are dense; +Yet have I secrets,--dark, my dear, +To breathe you all: Come near. +And lest some hideous listener tells, +I'll ring my bells. + +They are all at war!-- +Yes, yes, their bodies go +'Neath burning sun and icy star +To chaunted songs of woe, +Dragging cold cannon through a mire +Of rain and blood and spouting fire, +The new moon glinting hard on eyes +Wide with insanities! + +Hush!... I use words +I hardly know the meaning of; +And the mute birds +Are glancing at Love +From out their shade of leaf and flower, +Trembling at treacheries +Which even in noonday cower. +Heed, heed not what I said +Of frenzied hosts of men, +More fools than I, +On envy, hatred fed, +Who kill, and die-- +Spake I not plainly, then? +Yet Pity whispered, "Why?" + +Thou silly thing, off to thy daisies go. +Mine was not news for child to know, +And Death--no ears hath. He hath supped where creep +Eyeless worms in hush of sleep; +Yet, when he smiles, the hand he draws +Athwart his grinning jaws-- +Faintly the thin bones rattle, and--There, there; +Hearken how my bells in the air +Drive away care!... + +Nay, but a dream I had +Of a world all mad. +Not simply happy mad like me, +Who am mad like an empty scene +Of water and willow tree, +Where the wind hath been; +But that foul Satan-mad, +Who rots in his own head, +And counts the dead, +Not honest one--and two-- +But for the ghosts they were, +Brave, faithful, true, +When, head in air, +In Earth's clear green and blue +Heaven they did share +With beauty who bade them there ... +There, now! Death goes-- +Mayhap I've wearied him. +Ay, and the light doth dim, +And asleep's the rose, +And tired Innocence +In dreams is hence ... +Come, Love, my lad, +Nodding that drowsy head, +'Tis time thy prayers were said! + + + + +THE MARIONETTES + + +Let the foul Scene proceed: + There's laughter in the wings; +'Tis sawdust that they bleed, + But a box Death brings. + +How rare a skill is theirs + These extreme pangs to show, +How real a frenzy wears + Each feigner of woe! + +Gigantic dins uprise! + Even the gods must feel +A smarting of the eyes + As these fumes upsweal. + +Strange, such a Piece is free, + While we Spectators sit, +Aghast at its agony, + Yet absorbed in it! + +Dark is the outer air, + Cold the night draughts blow +Mutely we stare, and stare + At the frenzied Show. + +Yet heaven hath its quiet shroud + Of deep, immutable blue-- +We cry "An end!" We are bowed + By the dread, "'Tis true!" + +While the Shape who hoofs applause + Behind our deafened ear, +Hoots--angel-wise--"the Cause!" + And affright even fear. + + + + +TO E.T.: 1917 + + +You sleep too well--too far away, + For sorrowing word to soothe or wound; +Your very quiet seems to say + How longed-for a peace you have found. + +Else, had not death so lured you on, + You would have grieved--'twixt joy and fear-- +To know how my small loving son + Had wept for you, my dear. + + + + +APRIL MOON + + +Roses are sweet to smell and see, + And lilies on the stem; +But rarer, stranger buds there be, + And she was like to them. + +The little moon that April brings, + More lovely shade than light, +That, setting, silvers lonely hills + Upon the verge of night-- + +Close to the world of my poor heart + So stole she, still and clear; +Now that she's gone, O dark, and dark, + The solitude, the fear. + + + + +THE FOOL'S SONG + + + Never, no never, listen too long, +To the chattering wind in the willow, the night bird's song. + + 'Tis sad in sooth to lie under the grass, +But none too gladsome to wake and grow cold where life's shadows pass. + + Dumb the old Toll-Woman squats, +And, for every green copper battered and worn, doles out Nevers and Nots. + + I know a Blind Man, too, +Who with a sharp ear listens and listens the whole world through. + + Oh, sit we snug to our feast, +With platter and finger and spoon--and good victuals at least. + + + + +CLEAR EYES + + +Clear eyes do dim at last, + And cheeks outlive their rose. +Time, heedless of the past, + No loving-kindness knows; +Chill unto mortal lip + Still Lethe flows. + +Griefs, too, but brief while stay, + And sorrow, being o'er, +Its salt tears shed away, + Woundeth the heart no more. +Stealthily lave those waters + That solemn shore. + +Ah, then, sweet face burn on, + While yet quick memory lives! +And Sorrow, ere thou art gone, + Know that my heart forgives-- +Ere yet, grown cold in peace, + It loves not, nor grieves. + + + + +DUST TO DUST + + +Heavenly Archer, bend thy bow; +Now the flame of life burns low, +Youth is gone; I, too, would go. + +Even Fortune leads to this: +Harsh or kind, at last she is +Murderess of all ecstasies. + +Yet the spirit, dark, alone, +Bound in sense, still hearkens on +For tidings of a bliss foregone. + +Sleep is well for dreamless head, +At no breath astonishèd, +From the Gardens of the Dead. + +I the immortal harps hear ring, +By Babylon's river languishing. +Heavenly Archer, loose thy string. + + + + +THE THREE STRANGERS + + +Far are those tranquil hills, + Dyed with fair evening's rose; +On urgent, secret errand bent, + A traveller goes. + +Approach him strangers three, + Barefooted, cowled; their eyes +Scan the lone, hastening solitary + With dumb surmise. + +One instant in close speech + With them he doth confer: +God-sped, he hasteneth on, + That anxious traveller ... + +I was that man--in a dream: + And each world's night in vain +I patient wait on sleep to unveil + Those vivid hills again. + +Would that they three could know + How yet burns on in me +Love--from one lost in Paradise-- + For their grave courtesy. + + + + +ALEXANDER + + +It was the Great Alexander, + Capped with a golden helm, +Sate in the ages, in his floating ship, + In a dead calm. + +Voices of sea-maids singing + Wandered across the deep: +The sailors labouring on their oars + Rowed, as in sleep. + +All the high pomp of Asia, + Charmed by that siren lay, +Out of their weary and dreaming minds, + Faded away. + +Like a bold boy sate their Captain, + His glamour withered and gone, +In the souls of his brooding mariners, + While the song pined on. + +Time, like a falling dew, + Life, like the scene of a dream, +Laid between slumber and slumber, + Only did seem.... + +O Alexander, then, + In all us mortals too, +Wax thou not bold--too bold + On the wave dark-blue! + +Come the calm, infinite night, + Who then will hear +Aught save the singing + Of the sea-maids clear? + + + + +THE REAWAKENING + + +Green in light are the hills, and a calm wind flowing + Filleth the void with a flood of the fragrance of Spring; +Wings in this mansion of life are coming and going, + Voices of unseen loveliness carol and sing. + +Coloured with buds of delight the boughs are swaying, + Beauty walks in the woods, and wherever she rove +Flowers from wintry sleep, her enchantment obeying, + Stir in the deep of her dream, reawaken to love. + +Oh, now begone sullen care--this light is my seeing; + I am the palace, and mine are its windows and walls; +Daybreak is come, and life from the darkness of being + Springs, like a child from the womb, when the lonely one calls. + + + + +THE VACANT DAY + + +As I did walk in meadows green + I heard the summer noon resound +With call of myriad things unseen + That leapt and crept upon the ground. + +High overhead the windless air + Throbbed with the homesick coursing cry +Of swallows that did everywhere + Wake echo in the sky. + +Beside me, too, clear waters coursed + Which willow branches, lapsing low, +Breaking their crystal gliding forced + To sing as they did flow. + +I listened; and my heart was dumb + With praise no language could express; +Longing in vain for him to come + Who had breathed such blessedness + +On this fair world, wherein we pass + So chequered and so brief a stay; +And yearned in spirit to learn, alas, + What kept him still away. + + + + +THE FLIGHT + + +How do the days press on, and lay + Their fallen locks at evening down, +Whileas the stars in darkness play + And moonbeams weave a crown-- + +A crown of flower-like light in heaven, + Where in the hollow arch of space +Morn's mistress dreams, and the Pleiads seven + Stand watch about her place. + +Stand watch--O days no number keep + Of hours when this dark clay is blind. +When the world's clocks are dumb in sleep + 'Tis then I seek my kind. + + + + +FOR ALL THE GRIEF + + +For all the grief I have given with words + May now a few clear flowers blow, +In the dust, and the heat, and the silence of birds, + Where the lonely go. + +For the thing unsaid that heart asked of me + Be a dark, cool water calling--calling +To the footsore, benighted, solitary, + When the shadows are falling. + +O, be beauty for all my blindness, + A moon in the air where the weary wend, +And dews burdened with loving-kindness + In the dark of the end. + + + + +THE SCRIBE + + +What lovely things + Thy hand hath made: +The smooth-plumed bird + In its emerald shade, +The seed of the grass, + The speck of stone +Which the wayfaring ant + Stirs--and hastes on! + +Though I should sit + By some tarn in thy hills, +Using its ink + As the spirit wills +To write of Earth's wonders, + Its live, willed things, +Flit would the ages + On soundless wings. +Ere unto Z + My pen drew nigh; +Leviathan told, + And the honey-fly: +And still would remain + My wit to try +My worn reeds broken, + The dark tarn dry, +All words forgotten-- + Thou, Lord, and I. + + + + +FARE WELL + + +When I lie where shades of darkness +Shall no more assail mine eyes, +Nor the rain make lamentation + When the wind sighs; +How will fare the world whose wonder +Was the very proof of me? +Memory fades, must the remembered + Perishing be? + +Oh, when this my dust surrenders +Hand, foot, lip, to dust again, +May these loved and loving faces + Please other men! +May the rustling harvest hedgerow +Still the Traveller's Joy entwine, +And as happy children gather + Posies once mine. + +Look thy last on all things lovely, +Every hour. Let no night +Seal thy sense in deathly slumber + Till to delight +Thou have paid thy utmost blessing; +Since that all things thou wouldst praise +Beauty took from those who loved them + In other days. + + * * * * * + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two +Volumes, by Walter de la Mare + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12031 *** |