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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:38:43 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:38:43 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/12032-0.txt b/12032-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2f367c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/12032-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2222 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12032 *** + +COLLECTED POEMS + +1901-1918 + +BY + +WALTER DE LA MARE + +IN TWO VOLUMES + +VOL. II + + +1920 + + * * * * * + + + + +CONTENTS + + +SONGS OF CHILDHOOD: 1901 + + +TO JILL-- + SLEEPYHEAD + BLUEBELLS + LOVELOCKS + TARTARY + THE BUCKLE + THE HARE + BUNCHES OF GRAPES + JOHN MOULDY + THE FLY + SONG + I SAW THREE WITCHES + THE SILVER PENNY + THE RAINBOW + THE FAIRIES DANCING + REVERIE + THE THREE BEGGARS + THE DWARF + ALULVAN + THE PEDLAR + THE OGRE + DAME HICKORY + THE PILGRIM + THE GAGE + AS LUCY WENT A-WALKING + THE ENGLISHMAN + THE PHANTOM + THE MILLER AND HIS SON + DOWN-ADOWN-DERRY + THE SUPPER + THE ISLE OF LONE + SLEEPING BEAUTY + THE HORN + CAPTAIN LEAN + THE PORTRAIT OF A WARRIOR + HAUNTED + THE RAVEN'S TOMB + THE CHRISTENING + THE FUNERAL + THE MOTHER BIRD + THE CHILD IN THE STORY GOES TO BED + THE LAMPLIGHTER + I MET AT EVE + LULLABY + ENVOI + +[Transcriber's Note: Because the remainder of this volume is available +elsewhere in the PG archive, it is not included here.] + + * * * * * + + + + +SONGS OF CHILDHOOD: 1901 + +TO JILL + + + * * * * * + + + + +SLEEPYHEAD + + +As I lay awake in the white moonlight, +I heard a faint singing in the wood, + "Out of bed, + Sleepyhead, + Put your white foot, now; + Here are we + Beneath the tree + Singing round the root now." + +I looked out of window, in the white moonlight, +The leaves were like snow in the wood-- + "Come away, + Child, and play + Light with the gnomies; + In a mound, + Green and round, + That's where their home is." + + "Honey sweet, + Curds to eat, + Cream and frumenty, + Shells and beads, + Poppy seeds, + You shall have plenty." + +But, as soon as I stooped in the dim moonlight + To put on my stocking and my shoe, +The sweet shrill singing echoed faintly away, + And the grey of the morning peeped through, +And instead of the gnomies there came a red robin + To sing of the buttercups and dew. + + + + +BLUEBELLS + + +Where the bluebells and the wind are, + Fairies in a ring I spied, +And I heard a little linnet + Singing near beside. + +Where the primrose and the dew are-- + Soon were sped the fairies all: +Only now the green turf freshens, + And the linnets call. + + + + +LOVELOCKS + + +I watched the Lady Caroline +Bind up her dark and beauteous hair; +Her face was rosy in the glass, +And 'twixt the coils her hands would pass, + White in the candleshine. + +Her bottles on the table lay, +Stoppered, yet sweet of violet; +Her image in the mirror stooped +To view those locks as lightly looped + As cherry boughs in May. + +The snowy night lay dim without, +I heard the Waits their sweet song sing; +The window smouldered keen with frost; +Yet still she twisted, sleeked and tossed + Her beauteous hair about. + + + + +TARTARY + + +If I were Lord of Tartary, + Myself and me alone, +My bed should be of ivory, + Of beaten gold my throne; +And in my court would peacocks flaunt, +And in my forests tigers haunt, +And in my pools great fishes slant + Their fins athwart the sun. + +If I were Lord of Tartary, + Trumpeters every day +To every meal should summon me, + And in my courtyard bray; +And in the evening lamps would shine, +Yellow as honey, red as wine, +While harp, and flute, and mandoline, + Made music sweet and gay. + +If I were Lord of Tartary, + I'd wear a robe of beads, +White, and gold, and green they'd be-- + And clustered thick as seeds; +And ere should wane the morning-star, +I'd don my robe and scimitar, +And zebras seven should draw my car + Through Tartary's dark glades. + +Lord of the fruits of Tartary, + Her rivers silver-pale! +Lord of the hills of Tartary, + Glen, thicket, wood, and dale! +Her flashing stars, her scented breeze, +Her trembling lakes, like foamless seas, +Her bird-delighting citron-trees + In every purple vale! + + + + +THE BUCKLE + + +I had a silver buckle, + I sewed it on my shoe, +And 'neath a sprig of mistletoe + I danced the evening through. + +I had a bunch of cowslips, + I hid them in a grot, +In case the elves should come by night + And me remember not. + +I had a yellow riband, + I tied it in my hair, +That, walking in the garden, + The birds might see it there. + +I had a secret laughter, + I laughed it near the wall: +Only the ivy and the wind + May tell of it at all. + + + + +THE HARE + + +In the black furrow of a field + I saw an old witch-hare this night; +And she cocked a lissome ear, + And she eyed the moon so bright, +And she nibbled of the green; + And I whispered "Wh-s-st! witch-hare," +Away like a ghostie o'er the field + She fled, and left the moonlight there. + + + + +BUNCHES OF GRAPES + + +"Bunches of grapes," says Timothy; +"Pomegranates pink," says Elaine; +"A junket of cream and a cranberry tart + For me," says Jane. + +"Love-in-a-mist," says Timothy; +"Primroses pale," says Elaine; +"A nosegay of pinks and mignonette + For me," says Jane. + +"Chariots of gold," says Timothy; +"Silvery wings," says Elaine; +"A bumpity ride in a waggon of hay + For me," says Jane. + + + + +JOHN MOULDY + + +I spied John Mouldy in his cellar, + Deep down twenty steps of stone; +In the dusk he sat a-smiling, + Smiling there alone. + +He read no book, he snuffed no candle; + The rats ran in, the rats ran out; +And far and near, the drip of water + Went whispering about. + +The dusk was still, with dew a-falling, + I saw the Dog Star bleak and grim, +I saw a slim brown rat of Norway + Creep over him. + +I spied John Mouldy in his cellar, + Deep down twenty steps of stone; +In the dusk he sat a-smiling, + Smiling there alone. + + + + +THE FLY + + +How large unto the tiny fly + Must little things appear!-- +A rosebud like a feather bed, + Its prickle like a spear; + +A dewdrop like a looking-glass, + A hair like golden wire; +The smallest grain of mustard-seed + As fierce as coals of fire; + +A loaf of bread, a lofty hill; + A wasp, a cruel leopard; +And specks of salt as bright to see + As lambkins to a shepherd. + + + + +SONG + + +O for a moon to light me home! + O for a lanthorn green! +For those sweet stars the Pleiades, +That glitter in the darkling trees; + O for a lovelorn taper! O + For a lanthorn green! + +O for a frock of tartan! + O for clear, wild grey eyes! +For fingers light as violets, +'Neath branches that the blackbird frets; + O for a thistly meadow! O + For clear, wild grey eyes! + +O for a heart like almond boughs! + O for sweet thoughts like rain! +O for first-love like fields of grey +Shut April-buds at break of day! + O for a sleep like music! + Dreams still as rain! + + + + +I SAW THREE WITCHES + + + I saw three witches + That bowed down like barley, +And straddled their brooms 'neath a louring sky, + And, mounting a storm-cloud, + Aloft on its margin, +Stood black in the silver as up they did fly. + + I saw three witches + That mocked the poor sparrows +They carried in cages of wicker along, + Till a hawk from his eyrie + Swooped down like an arrow, +Smote on the cages, and ended their song. + + I saw three witches + That sailed in a shallop, +All turning their heads with a snickering smile, + Till a bank of green osiers + Concealed their grim faces, +Though I heard them lamenting for many a mile. + + I saw three witches + Asleep in a valley, +Their heads in a row, like stones in a flood, + Till the moon, creeping upward, + Looked white through the valley, +And turned them to bushes in bright scarlet bud. + + + + +THE SILVER PENNY + + +"Sailorman, I'll give to you + My bright silver penny, +If out to sea you'll sail me + And my dear sister Jenny." + +"Get in, young sir, I'll sail ye + And your dear sister Jenny, +But pay she shall her golden locks + Instead of your penny." + +They sail away, they sail away, + O fierce the winds blew! +The foam flew in clouds, + And dark the night grew! + +And all the wild sea-water + Climbed steep into the boat; +Back to the shore again + Sail they will not. + +Drowned is the sailorman, + Drowned is sweet Jenny, +And drowned in the deep sea + A bright silver penny. + + + + +THE RAINBOW + + +I saw the lovely arch + Of Rainbow span the sky, +The gold sun burning + As the rain swept by. + +In bright-ringed solitude + The showery foliage shone +One lovely moment, + And the Bow was gone. + + + + +THE FAIRIES DANCING + + +I heard along the early hills, + Ere yet the lark was risen up, +Ere yet the dawn with firelight fills + The night-dew of the bramble-cup,-- +I heard the fairies in a ring + Sing as they tripped a lilting round +Soft as the moon on wavering wing. + The starlight shook as if with sound, +As if with echoing, and the stars + Prankt their bright eyes with trembling gleams; +While red with war the gusty Mars + Rained upon earth his ruddy beams. +He shone alone, low down the West, + While I, behind a hawthorn-bush, +Watched on the fairies flaxen-tressed + The fires of the morning flush. +Till, as a mist, their beauty died, + Their singing shrill and fainter grew; +And daylight tremulous and wide + Flooded the moorland through and through; +Till Urdon's copper weathercock + Was reared in golden flame afar, +And dim from moonlit dreams awoke + The towers and groves of Arroar. + + + + +REVERIE + + +When slim Sophia mounts her horse + And paces down the avenue, +It seems an inward melody + She paces to. + +Each narrow hoof is lifted high + Beneath the dark enclustering pines, +A silver ray within his bit + And bridle shines. + +His eye burns deep, his tail is arched, + And streams upon the shadowy air, +The daylight sleeks his jetty flanks, + His mistress' hair. + +Her habit flows in darkness down, + Upon the stirrup rests her foot, +Her brow is lifted, as if earth + She heeded not. + +'Tis silent in the avenue, + The sombre pines are mute of song, +The blue is dark, there moves no breeze + The boughs among. + +When slim Sophia mounts her horse + And paces down the avenue, +It seems an inward melody + She paces to. + + + + +THE THREE BEGGARS + + +'Twas autumn daybreak gold and wild, + While past St. Ann's grey tower they shuffled, +Three beggars spied a fairy-child + In crimson mantle muffled. + +The daybreak lighted up her face + All pink, and sharp, and emerald-eyed; +She looked on them a little space, + And shrill as hautboy cried:-- + +"O three tall footsore men of rags + Which walking this gold morn I see, +What will ye give me from your bags + For fairy kisses three?" + +The first, that was a reddish man, + Out of his bundle takes a crust: +"La, by the tombstones of St. Ann, + There's fee, if fee ye must!" + +The second, that was a chestnut man, + Out of his bundle draws a bone: +"Lo, by the belfry of St. Ann, + And all my breakfast gone!" + +The third, that was a yellow man, + Out of his bundle picks a groat, +"La, by the Angel of St. Ann, + And I must go without." + +That changeling, lean and icy-lipped, + Touched crust, and bone, and groat, and lo! +Beneath her finger taper-tipped + The magic all ran through. + +Instead of crust a peacock pie, + Instead of bone sweet venison, +Instead of groat a white lily + With seven blooms thereon. + +And each fair cup was deep with wine: + Such was the changeling's charity, +The sweet feast was enough for nine, + But not too much for three. + +O toothsome meat in jelly froze! + O tender haunch of elfin stag! +O rich the odour that arose! + O plump with scraps each bag! + +There, in the daybreak gold and wild, + Each merry-hearted beggar man +Drank deep unto the fairy child, + And blessed the good St. Ann. + + + + +THE DWARF + + +"Now, Jinnie, my dear, to the dwarf be off, + That lives in Barberry Wood, +And fetch me some honey, but be sure you don't laugh,-- + He hates little girls that are rude, are rude, + He hates little girls that are rude." + +Jane tapped at the door of the house in the wood, + And the dwarf looked over the wall, +He eyed her so queer, 'twas as much as she could + To keep from laughing at all, at all, + To keep from laughing at all. + +His shoes down the passage came clod, clod, clod, + And when he opened the door, +He croaked so harsh, 'twas as much as she could + To keep from laughing the more, the more, + To keep from laughing the more. + +As there, with his bushy red beard, he stood, + Pricked out to double its size, +He squinted so cross, 'twas as much as she could + To keep the tears out of her eyes, her eyes, + To keep the tears out of her eyes. + +He slammed the door, and went clod, clod, clod, + But while in the porch she bides, +He squealed so fierce, 'twas as much as she could + To keep from cracking her sides, her sides, + To keep from cracking her sides. + +He threw a pumpkin over the wall, + And melons and apples beside, +So thick in the air that to see them all fall, + She laughed, and laughed, till she cried, cried, cried; + Jane laughed and laughed till she cried. + +Down fell her teardrops a pit-apat-pat, + And red as a rose she grew;-- +"Kah! kah," said the dwarf, "is it crying you're at? + It's the very worst thing you could do, do, do, + It's the very worst thing you could do." + +He slipped like a monkey up into a tree, + He shook her down cherries like rain; +"See now," says he, cheeping, "a blackbird I be, + Laugh, laugh, little Jinnie, again--gain--gain, + Laugh, laugh, little Jinnie, again." + +Ah me! what a strange, what a gladsome duet + From a house in the deeps of a wood! +Such shrill and such harsh voices never met yet +A-laughing as loud as they could, could, could, + A-laughing as loud as they could. + +Come Jinnie, come dwarf, cocksparrow, and bee, + There's a ring gaudy-green in the dell, +Sing, sing, ye sweet cherubs, that flit in the tree; + La! who can draw tears from a well, well, well, + Who ever drew tears from a well! + + + + +ALULVAN + +The sun is clear of bird and cloud, + The grass shines windless, grey and still, +In dusky ruin the owl dreams on, + The cuckoo echoes on the hill; +Yet soft along Alulvan's walks + The ghost at noonday stalks. + +His eyes in shadow of his hat + Stare on the ruins of his house; +His cloak, up-fastened with a brooch, + Of faded velvet grey as mouse, +Brushes the roses as he goes: + Yet wavers not one rose. + +The wild birds in a cloud fly up + From their sweet feeding in the fruit; +The droning of the bees and flies + Rises gradual as a lute; +Is it for fear the birds are flown, + And shrills the insect-drone? + +Thick is the ivy over Alulvan, + And crisp with summer-heat its turf; +Far, far across its empty pastures + Alulvan's sands are white with surf: +And he himself is grey as the sea, + Watching beneath an elder-tree. + +All night the fretful, shrill Banshee + Lurks in the ivy's dark festoons, +Calling for ever, o'er garden and river, + Through magpie changing of the moons: +"Alulvan, O, alas! Alulvan, + The doom of lone Alulvan!" + + + + +THE PEDLAR + + +There came a pedlar to an evening house; +Sweet Lettice, from her lattice looking down, +Wondered what man he was, so curious +His black hair dangled on his tattered gown: +Then lifts he up his face, with glittering eyes,-- +"What will you buy, sweetheart?--Here's honeycomb, +And mottled pippins, and sweet mulberry pies, +Comfits and peaches, snowy cherry bloom, +To keep in water for to make night sweet: +All that you want, sweetheart,--come, taste and eat!" + +Even with his sugared words, returned to her +The clear remembrance of a gentle voice: +"And O! my child, should ever a flatterer +Tap with his wares, and promise of all joys, +And vain sweet pleasures that on earth may be, +Seal up your ears, sing some old happy song, +Confuse his magic who is all mockery: +His sweets are death." Yet, still how she doth long +But just to taste, then shut the lattice tight, +And hide her eyes from the delicious sight! + +"What must I pay?" she whispered. "Pay!" says he, +"Pedlar I am who through this wood to roam, +One lock of her hair is gold enough for me, +For apple, peach, comfit, or honeycomb!" +But from her bough a drowsy squirrel cried, +"Trust him not, Lettice, trust, oh trust him not!" +And many another woodland tongue beside +Rose softly in the silence--"Trust him not!" +Then cried the Pedlar in a bitter voice, +"What, in the thicket, is this idle noise?" + +A late, harsh blackbird smote him with her wings, +As through the glade, dark in the dim, she flew; +Yet still the Pedlar his old burden sings,-- +"What, pretty sweetheart, shall I show to you? +Here's orange ribands, here's a string of pearls, +Here's silk of buttercup and pansy glove, +A pin of tortoiseshell for windy curls, +A box of silver, scented sweet with clove: +Come now," he says, with dim and lifted face, +"I pass not often such a lonely place." + +"Pluck not a hair!" a hidden rabbit cried, +"With but one hair he'll steal thy heart away, +Then only sorrow shall thy lattice hide: +Go in! all honest pedlars come by day." +There was dead silence in the drowsy wood; +"Here's syrup for to lull sweet maids to sleep; +And bells for dreams, and fairy wine and food +All day thy heart in happiness to keep";-- +And now she takes the scissors on her thumb,-- +"O, then, no more unto my lattice come!" + +Sad is the sound of weeping in the wood! +Now only night is where the Pedlar was; +And bleak as frost upon a quickling bud +His magic steals in darkness, O alas! +Why all the summer doth sweet Lettice pine? +And, ere the wheat is ripe, why lies her gold +Hid 'neath fresh new-plucked sprigs of eglantine? +Why all the morning hath the cuckoo tolled, +Sad, to and fro, in green and secret ways, +With solemn bells the burden of his days? + +And, in the market-place, what man is this +Who wears a loop of gold upon his breast, +Stuck heartwise; and whose glassy flatteries +Take all the townsfolk ere they go to rest +Who come to buy and gossip? Doth his eye +Remember a face lovely in a wood? +O people! hasten, hasten, do not buy +His woeful wares; the bird of grief doth brood +There where his heart should be; and far away +There mourns long sorrowfulness this happy day. + + + + +THE OGRE + + +'Tis moonlight on Trebarwith Vale, + And moonlight on an Ogre keen, +Who, prowling hungry through the dale, + A lone cottage hath seen. + +Small, with thin smoke ascending up, + Three casements and a door-- +The Ogre eager is to tap, + And here seems dainty store. + +Sweet as a larder to a mouse, + So to him staring down, +Seemed the small-windowed moonlit house, + With jasmine overgrown. + +He snorted, as the billows snort + In darkness of the night; +Betwixt his lean locks tawny-swart, + He glowered on the sight. + +Into the garden sweet with peas + He put his wooden shoe, +And bending back the apple trees + Crept covetously through; + +Then, stooping, with a gloating eye + Stared through the lattice small, +And spied two children which did lie + Asleep, against the wall. + +Into their dreams no shadow fell + Of his disastrous thumb +Groping discreet, and gradual, + Across the quiet room. + +But scarce his nail had scraped the cot + Wherein these children lay, +As if his malice were forgot, + It suddenly did stay. + +For faintly in the ingle-nook + He heard a cradle-song, +That rose into his thoughts and woke + Terror them among. + +For she who in the kitchen sat + Darning by the fire, +Guileless of what he would be at, + Sang sweet as wind or wire:-- + +"Lullay, thou little tiny child, + By-by, lullay, lullie; +Jesu in glory, meek and mild, + This night remember thee! + +"Fiend, witch, and goblin, foul and wild, + He deems them smoke to be; +Lullay, thou little tiny child, + By-by, lullay, lullie!" + +The Ogre lifted up his eyes + Into the moon's pale ray, +And gazed upon her leopard-wise, + Cruel and clear as day; + +He snarled in gluttony and fear-- + "The wind blows dismally-- +Jesu in storm my lambs be near, + By-by, lullay, lullie!" + +And like a ravenous beast which sees + The hunter's icy eye, +So did this wretch in wrath confess + Sweet Jesu's mastery. + +Lightly he drew his greedy thumb + From out that casement pale, +And strode, enormous, swiftly home, + Whinnying down the dale. + + + + +DAME HICKORY + + + "Dame Hickory, Dame Hickory, + Here's sticks for your fire, + Furze-twigs, and oak-twigs, + And beech-twigs, and briar!" +But when old Dame Hickory came for to see, +She found 'twas the voice of the False Faerie. + + "Dame Hickory, Dame Hickory, + Here's meat for your broth, + Goose-flesh, and hare's flesh, + And pig's trotters both!" +But when old Dame Hickory came for to see, +She found 'twas the voice of the False Faerie. + + "Dame Hickory, Dame Hickory, + Here's a wolf at your door, + His teeth grinning white, + And his tongue wagging sore!" +"Nay!" said Dame Hickory, "ye False Faerie! +But a wolf 'twas indeed, and famished was he. + + "Dame Hickory, Dame Hickory, + Here's buds for your tomb, +Bramble, and lavender, + And rosemary bloom!" +"Wh-s-st!" said Dame Hickory, "ye False Faerie, +Ye cry like a wolf, ye do, and trouble poor me." + + + + +THE PILGRIM + + +"Shall we carry now your bundle, +You old grey man? +Over hill and dale and meadow +Lighter than an owlet's shadow +We will whirl it through the air, +Through blue regions shrill and bare, +So you may in comfort fare-- +Shall we carry now your bundle, + You old grey man?" + +The Pilgrim lifted up his eyes +And saw three fiends, in the skies, +Stooping o'er that lonely place + Evil in form and face. + +"Nay," he answered, "leave me, leave me, + Ye three wild fiends! +Far it is my feet must wander, +And my city lieth yonder +I must bear my bundle alone, + Till the day be done." +The fiends stared down with leaden eye, +Fanning the chill air duskily, +'Twixt their hoods they stoop and cry:-- + +"Shall we smooth the path before you, + You old grey man? +Sprinkle it green with gilded showers, +Strew it o'er with painted flowers, +Lure bright birds to sing and flit +In the honeyed airs of it? +Shall we smooth the path before you, + Grey old man?" + +"O, 'tis better silence, silence, + Ye three wild fiends! +Footsore am I, faint and weary, +Dark the way, forlorn and dreary, +Beaten of wind, torn of briar, +Smitten of rain, parched with fire: +O, silence, silence, silence, + Ye three wild fiends!" + +It seemed a smoke obscured the air, +Bright lightning quivered in the gloom, +And a faint voice of thunder spake +Far in the lone hill-hollows--"Come!" +Then, half in fury, half in dread, +The fiends drew closer down, and said: + +"Nay, thou stubborn fond old man, + Hearken awhile! +Thorn, and dust, and ice and heat, +Tarry now, sit down and eat: +Heat, and ice, and dust and thorn; +Stricken, footsore, parched, forlorn-- +Juice of purple grape shall be +Youth and solace unto thee. +Music of tambour, wire and wind, +Ease shall bring to heart and mind; +Wonderful sweet mouths shall sigh +Languishing and lullaby; +Turn then! Curse the dream that lures thee; +Turn thee, ere too late it be, +Lest thy three true friends grow weary + Of comforting thee!" + +The Pilgrim crouches terrified +As stooping hood, and glassy face, +Gloating, evil, side by side, +Terror and hate brood o'er the place; +He flings his withered hands on high +With a bitter, breaking cry:-- +"Leave me, leave me, leave me, leave me, + Ye three wild fiends! +If I lay me down in slumber, +Then I lay me down in wrath; +If I stir not in dark dreaming, +Then I wither in my path; +If I hear sweet voices singing, +'Tis a demon's lullaby: +And, in 'hideous storm and terror,' + Wake but to die." + +And even as he spake, on high +Arrows of sunlight pierced the sky. +Bright streamed the rain. O'er burning snow +From hill to hill a wondrous bow +Of colour and fire trembled in air, +Painting its heavenly beauty there. +Wild flapped each fiend a batlike hood +Against that 'frighting light, and stood +Beating the windless rain, and then +Rose heavy and slow with cowering head, +Circled in company again, +And into darkness fled. + +Marvellous sweet it was to hear +The waters gushing loud and clear; +Marvellous happy it was to be +Alone, and yet not solitary; +Oh, out of terror and dark to come + In sight of home! + + + + +THE GAGE + + +"Lady Jane, O Lady Jane! +Your hound hath broken bounds again, + And chased my timorous deer, O; + If him I see, + That hour he'll dee; + My brakes shall be his bier, O." + +"Hoots! lord, speak not so proud to me! +My hound, I trow, is fleet and free, + He's welcome to your deer, O; + Shoot, shoot you may, + He'll gang his way, + Your threats we nothing fear, O." + +He's fetched him in, he's laid him low, +Drips his lifeblood red and slow, + Darkens his dreary eye, O; + "Here is your beast, + And now at least + My herds in peace shall lie, O." + +"'In peace!' my lord, O mark me well! +For what my jolly hound befell + You shall sup twenty-fold, O! + For every tooth + Of his, in sooth, + A stag in pawn, I hold, O. + +"Huntsman and horn, huntsman and horn, +Shall scour your heaths and coverts lorn, + Braying 'em shrill and clear, O; + But lone and still + Shall lift each hill, + Each valley wan and sere, O. + +"Ride up you may, ride down you may, +Lonely or trooped, by night or day, + My hound shall haunt you ever: + Bird, beast, and game + Shall dread the same, + The wild fish of your river." + +Her cheek burns angry as the rose, +Her eye with wrath and pity flows: + He gazes fierce and round, O-- + "Dear Lord!" he says, + "What loveliness + To waste upon a hound, O. + +"I'd give my stags, my hills and dales, +My stormcocks and my nightingales + To have undone this deed, O; + For deep beneath + My heart is death + Which for her love doth bleed, O." + +He wanders up, he wanders down, +On foot, a-horse, by night and noon: + His lands are bleak and drear, O; + Forsook his dales + Of nightingales, + Forsook his moors of deer, O, + +Forsook his heart, ah me! of mirth; +There's nothing gladsome left on earth; + All thoughts and dreams seem vain, O, + Save where remote + The moonbeams gloat, + And sleeps the lovely Jane, O. + +Until an even when lone he went, +Gnawing his beard in dreariment-- + Lo! from a thicket hidden, + Lovely as flower + In April hour, + Steps forth a form unbidden. + +"Get ye now down, my lord, to me! +I'm troubled so I'm like to dee," + She cries, 'twixt joy and grief, O; + "The hound is dead, + When all is said, + But love is past belief, O. + +"Nights, nights I've lain your lands to see, +Forlorn and still--and all for me, + All for a foolish curse, O; + Now here am I + Come out to die-- + To live unloved is worse, O!" + +In faith, this lord, in that lone dale, +Hears now a sweeter nightingale, + And lairs a tenderer deer, O; + His sorrow goes + Like mountain snows + In waters sweet and clear, O! + +What ghostly hound is this that fleet +Comes fawning to his mistress' feet, + And courses round his master? + How swiftly love + May grief remove, + How happy make disaster! + +Now here he smells, now there he smells, +Winding his voice along the dells, + Till grey flows up the morn, O + Then hies again + To Lady Jane + No longer now forlorn, O. + +Ay, as it were a bud, did break +To loveliness for her love's sake, + So she in beauty moving + Rides at his hand + Across his land, + Beloved as well as loving. + + + + +AS LUCY WENT A-WALKING + + +As Lucy went a-walking one morning cold and fine, +There sate three crows upon a bough, and three times three is nine: +Then "O!" said Lucy, in the snow, "it's very plain to see +A witch has been a-walking in the fields in front of me." + +Then slept she light and heedfully across the frozen snow, +And plucked a bunch of elder-twigs that near a pool did grow: +And, by and by, she comes to seven shadows in one place +Stretched black by seven poplar-trees against the sun's bright face. + +She looks to left, she looks to right, and in the midst she sees +A little pool of water clear and frozen 'neath the trees; +Then down beside its margent in the crusty snow she kneels, +And hears a magic belfry a-ringing with sweet bells. + +Clear sang the faint far merry peal, then silence on the air, +And icy-still the frozen pool and poplars standing there: +Then lo! as Lucy turned her head and looked along the snow +She sees a witch--a witch she sees, come frisking to and fro. + +Her scarlet, buckled shoes they clicked, her heels a-twinkling high; +With mistletoe her steeple-hat bobbed as she capered by; +But never a dint, or mark, or print, in the whiteness for to see, +Though danced she high, though danced she fast, though danced she lissomely. + +It seemed 'twas diamonds in the air, or little flakes of frost; +It seemed 'twas golden smoke around, or sunbeams lightly tossed; +It seemed an elfin music like to reeds and warblers rose: +"Nay!" Lucy said, "it is the wind that through the branches flows." + +And as she peeps, and as she peeps, 'tis no more one, but three, +And eye of bat, and downy wing of owl within the tree, +And the bells of that sweet belfry a-pealing as before, +And now it is not three she sees, and now it is not four-- + +"O! who are ye," sweet Lucy cries, "that in a dreadful ring, +All muffled up in brindled shawls, do caper, frisk, and spring?" +"A witch, and witches, one and nine," they straight to her reply, +And looked upon her narrowly, with green and needle eye. + +Then Lucy sees in clouds of gold green cherry trees upgrow, +And bushes of red roses that bloomed above the snow; +She smells, all faint, the almond-boughs blowing so wild and fair, +And doves with milky eyes ascend fluttering in the air. + +Clear flowers she sees, like tulip buds, go floating by like birds, +With wavering tips that warbled sweetly strange enchanted words; +And, as with ropes of amethyst, the boughs with lamps were hung, +And clusters of green emeralds like fruit upon them clung. + +"O witches nine, ye dreadful nine, O witches seven and three! +Whence come these wondrous things that I this Christmas morning see?" +But straight, as in a clap, when she of Christmas says the word, +Here is the snow, and there the sun, but never bloom nor bird; + +Nor warbling flame, nor gloaming-rope of amethyst there shows, +Nor bunches of green emeralds, nor belfry, well, and rose, +Nor cloud of gold, nor cherry-tree, nor witch in brindled shawl, +But like a dream that vanishes, so vanished were they all. + +When Lucy sees, and only sees three crows upon a bough, +And earthly twigs, and bushes hidden white in driven snow, +Then "O!" said Lucy, "three times three is nine--I plainly see +Some witch has been a-walking in the fields in front of me." + + + + +THE ENGLISHMAN + + +I met a sailor in the woods, + A silver ring wore he, +His hair hung black, his eyes shone blue, + And thus he said to me:-- + +"What country, say, of this round earth, + What shore of what salt sea, +Be this, my son, I wander in, + And looks so strange to me?" + +Says I, "O foreign sailorman, + In England now you be, +This is her wood, and there her sky, + And that her roaring sea." + +He lifts his voice yet louder, + "What smell be this," says he, +"My nose on the sharp morning air + Snuffs up so greedily?" + +Says I, "It is wild roses + Do smell so winsomely, +And winy briar, too," says I, + "That in these thickets be." + +"And oh!" says he, "what leetle bird + Is singing in yon high tree, +So every shrill and long-drawn note + Like bubbles breaks in me?" + +Says I, "It is the mavis + That perches in the tree, +And sings so shrill, and sings so sweet, + When dawn comes up the sea." + +At which he fell a-musing, + And fixed his eye on me, +As one alone 'twixt light and dark + A spirit thinks to see. + +"England!" he whispers soft and harsh, + "England!" repeated he, +"And briar, and rose, and mavis, + A-singing in yon high tree. + +"Ye speak me true, my leetle son, + So--so, it came to me, +A-drifting landwards on a spar, + And grey dawn on the sea. + +"Ay, ay, I could not be mistook; + I knew them leafy trees, +I knew that land so witchery sweet, + And that old noise of seas. + +"Though here I've sailed a score of years, + And heard 'em, dream or wake, +Lap small and hollow 'gainst my cheek, + On sand and coral break; + +"'Yet now,' my leetle son, says I, + A-drifting on the wave, +'That land I see so safe and green, + Is England, I believe. + +"'And that there wood is English wood, + And this here cruel sea, +The selfsame old blue ocean + Years gone remembers me. + +"'A-sitting with my bread and butter + Down ahind yon chitterin' mill; +And this same Marinere'--(that's me), + 'Is that same leetle Will!-- + +"'That very same wee leetle Will + Eating his bread and butter there, +A-looking on the broad blue sea + Betwixt his yaller hair!' + +"And here be I, my son, thrown up + Like corpses from the sea, +Ships, stars, winds, tempests, pirates past, + Yet leetle Will I be!" + +He said no more, that sailorman, + But in a reverie +Stared like the figure of a ship + With painted eyes to sea. + + + + +THE PHANTOM + + +"Upstairs in the large closet, child, + This side the blue room door, +Is an old Bible, bound in leather, + Standing upon the floor; + +"Go with this taper, bring it me; + Carry it so, upon your arm; +It is the book on many a sea + Hath stilled the waves' alarm." + +Late the hour, dark the night, + The house is solitary; +Feeble is a taper's light + To light poor Ann to see. + +Her eyes are yet with visions bright + Of sylph and river, flower and fay, +Now through a narrow corridor + She goes her lonely way. + +Vast shadows on the heedless walls + Gigantic loom, stoop low: +Each little hasty footfall calls + Hollowly to and fro. + +In the cold solitude her heart + Remembers sorrowfully +White winters when her mother was + Her loving company. + +Now in the dark clear glass she sees + A taper, mocking hers,-- +A phantom face of light blue eyes, + Reflecting phantom fears. + +Around her loom the vacant rooms, + Wind the upward stairs, +She climbs on into a loneliness + Only her taper shares. + +Out in the dark a cold wind stirs, + At every window sighs; +A waning moon peers small and chill + From out the cloudy skies, + +Casting faint tracery on the walls; + So stony still the house +From cellar to attic rings the shrill + Squeak of the hungry mouse. + +Her grandmother is deaf with age; + A garden of moonless trees +Would answer not though she should cry + In anguish on her knees. + +So that she scarce can breathe--so fast + Her pent up heart doth beat-- +When, faint along the corridor, + Falleth the sound of feet:-- + +Sounds lighter than silk slippers make + Upon a ballroom floor, when sweet +Violin and 'cello wake + Music for twirling feet. + +O! 'neath an old unfriendly roof, + What shapes may not conceal +Their faces in the open day, + At night abroad to steal? + +Even her taper seems with fear + To languish small and blue; +Far in the woods the winter wind + Runs whistling through. + +A dreadful cold plucks at each hair, + Her mouth is stretched to cry, +But sudden, with a gush of joy, + It narrows to a sigh. + +It is a phantom child which comes + Soft through the corridor, +Singing an old forgotten song, + This ancient burden bore:-- + +"Thorn, thorn, I wis, +And roses twain, + A red rose and a white, +Stoop in the blossom, bee, and kiss + A lonely child good-night. + +"Swim fish, sing bird, +And sigh again, + I that am lost am lone, +Bee in the blossom never stirred + Locks hid beneath a stone!"-- + +Her eye was of the azure fire + That hovers in wintry flame; +Her raiment wild and yellow as furze + That spouteth out the same; + +And in her hand she bore no flower, + But on her head a wreath +Of faded flowers that did yet + Smell sweetly after death.... + +Gloomy with night the listening walls + Are now that she is gone, +Albeit this solitary child + No longer seems alone. + +Fast though her taper dwindles down, + Heavy and thick the tome, +A beauty beyond fear to dim + Haunts now her alien home. + +Ghosts in the world, malignant, grim, + Vex many a wood and glen, +And house and pool--the unquiet ghosts, + Of dead and restless men. + +But in her grannie's house this spirit-- + A child as lone as she-- +Pining for love not found on earth, + Ann dreams again to see. + +Seated upon her tapestry stool, + Her fairy-book laid by, +She gazes into the fire, knowing + She has sweet company. + + + + +THE MILLER AND HIS SON + + +A twangling harp for Mary, + A silvery flute for John, +And now we'll play, the livelong day, + "The Miller and his Son."... + +"The Miller went a-walking + All in the forest high, +He sees three doves a-flitting + Against the dark blue sky: + +"Says he, 'My son, now follow + These doves so white and free, +That cry above the forest, + And surely cry to thee.' + +"'I go, my dearest Father, + But O! I sadly fear, +These doves so white will lead me far, + But never bring me near.' + +"He kisses the Miller, + He cries, 'Awhoop to ye!' +And straightway through the forest + Follows the wood-doves three. + +"There came a sound of weeping + To the Miller in his Mill: +Red roses in a thicket + Bloomed over near his wheel; + +"Three stars shone wild and brightly + Above the forest dim: +But never his dearest son + Returns again to him. + +"The cuckoo shall call 'Cuckoo!' + In vain along the vale-- +The linnet, and the blackbird, + The mournful nightingale; + +"The Miller hears and sees not, + Thinking of his son; +His toppling wheel is silent; + His grinding done. + +"'You doves so white,' he weepeth, + 'You roses on the tree, +You stars that shine so brightly, + You shine in vain for me! + +"'I bade him follow, follow!' + He said, 'O Father dear, +These doves so white will lead me far + But never bring me near.'"... + +A twangling harp for Mary, + A silvery flute for John, +And now we'll play, the livelong day, + "The Miller and his Son." + + + + +DOWN-ADOWN-DERRY + + +Down-adown-derry, + Sweet Annie Maroon, +Gathering daisies + In the meadows of Doone, +Hears a shrill piping, + Elflike and free, +Where the waters go brawling + In rills to the sea; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +Down-adown-derry, + Sweet Annie Maroon, +Through the green grasses + Peeps softly; and soon +Spies under green willows + A fairy whose song +Like the smallest of bubbles + Floats bobbing along; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +Down-adown-derry, + Her cheeks were like wine, +Her eyes in her wee face + Like water-sparks shine, +Her niminy fingers + Her sleep tresses preen, +The which in the combing + She peeps out between; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +Down-adown-derry, + Shrill, shrill was her tune:-- +"Come to my water-house, + Annie Maroon: +Come in your dimity, + Ribbon on head, +To wear siller seaweed + And coral instead"; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +"Down-adown-derry, + Lean fish of the sea, +Bring lanthorns for feasting + The gay Faërie; +'Tis sand for the dancing, + A music all sweet +In the water-green gloaming + For thistledown feet"; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +Down-adown-derry, + Sweet Annie Maroon +Looked large on the fairy + Curled wan as the moon; +And all the grey ripples + To the Mill racing by, +With harps and with timbrels + Did ringing reply; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +"Down-adown-derry," + Sang the Fairy of Doone, +Piercing the heart + Of sweet Annie Maroon; +And lo! when like roses + The clouds of the sun +Faded at dusk, gone + Was Annie Maroon; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +Down-adown-derry, + The daisies are few; +Frost twinkles powdery + In haunts of the dew; +And only the robin + Perched on a thorn, +Can comfort the heart + Of a father forlorn; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +Down-adown-derry, + There's snow in the air; +Ice where the lily + Bloomed waxen and fair; +He may call o'er the water, + Cry--cry through the Mill, +But Annie Maroon, alas! + Answer ne'er will; + Singing down-adown-derry. + + + + +THE SUPPER + + +A wolf he pricks with eyes of fire +Across the night's o'ercrusted snows. + Seeking his prey, + He pads his way +Where Jane benighted goes, + Where Jane benighted goes. + +He curdles the bleak air with ire, +Ruffling his hoary raiment through, + And lo! he sees + Beneath the trees +Where Jane's light footsteps go, + Where Jane's light footsteps go. + +No hound peals thus in wicked joy, +He snaps his muzzle in the snows, + His five-clawed feet + Do scamper fleet +Where Jane's bright lanthorn shows, + Where Jane's bright lanthorn shows. + +Now his greed's green doth gaze unseen +On a pure face of wilding rose, + Her amber eyes + In fear's surprise +Watch largely as she goes, + Watch largely as she goes. + +Salt wells his hunger in his jaws, +His lust it revels to and fro, + Yet small beneath + A soft voice saith, +"Jane shall in safety go, + Jane shall in safety go." + +He lurched as if a fiery lash +Had scourged his hide, and through and through + His furious eyes + O'erscanned the skies, +But nearer dared not go, + But nearer dared not go. + +He reared like wild Bucephalus, +His fangs like spears in him uprose, + Even to the town + Jane's flitting gown +He grins on as she goes, + He grins on as she goes. + +In fierce lament he howls amain, +He scampers, marvelling in his throes + What brought him there + To sup on air, +While Jane unharmèd goes, + While Jane unharmèd goes. + + + + +THE ISLE OF LONE + + +Three dwarfs there were which lived in an isle, + And the name of that Isle was Lone, +And the names of the dwarfs were Alliolyle, + Lallerie, Muziomone. + +Alliolye was green of een, + Lallerie light of locks, +Muziomone was mild of mien, + As ewes in April flocks. + +Their house was small and sweet of the sea, + And pale as the Malmsey wine; +Their bowls were three, and their beds were three, + And their nightcaps white were nine. + +Their beds they were made of the holly-wood, + Their combs of the tortoise's shell, +Three basins of silver in corners there stood, + And three little ewers as well. + +Green rushes, green rushes lay thick on the floor, + For light beamed a gobbet of wax; +There were three wooden stools for whatever they wore + On their humpity-dumpity backs. + +So each would lie on a drowsy pillow + And watch the moon in the sky-- +And hear the parrot scream to the billow, + The billow roar reply: + +Parrots of sapphire and sulphur and amber, + Scarlet, and flame, and green, +While five-foot apes did scramble and clamber, + In the feathery-tufted treen. + +All night long with bubbles a-glisten + The ocean cried under the moon, +Till ape and parrot, too sleepy to listen, + To sleep and slumber were gone. + +Then from three small beds the dark hours' while + In a house in the Island of Lone +Rose the snoring of Lallerie, Alliolyle, + The snoring of Muziomone. + +But soon as ever came peep of sun + On coral and feathery tree, +Three night-capped dwarfs to the surf would run + And soon were a-bob in the sea. + +At six they went fishing, at nine they snared + Young foxes in the dells, +At noon on sweet berries and honey they fared, + And blew in their twisted shells. + +Dark was the sea they gambolled in, + And thick with silver fish, +Dark as green glass blown clear and thin + To be a monarch's dish. + +They sate to sup in a jasmine bower, + Lit pale with flies of fire, +Their bowls the hue of the iris-flower, + And lemon their attire. + +Sweet wine in little cups they sipped, + And golden honeycomb +Into their bowls of cream they dipped, + Whipt light and white as foam. + +Now Alliolyle, where the sand-flower blows, + Taught three old apes to sing-- +Taught three old apes to dance on their toes + And caper around in a ring. + +They yelled them hoarse and they croaked them sweet, + They twirled them about and around, +To the noise of their voices they danced with their feet, + They stamped with their feet on the ground. + +But down to the shore skipped Lallerie, + His parrot on his thumb, +And the twain they scotched in mockery, + While the dancers go and come. + +And, alas! in the evening, rosy and still, + Light-haired Lallerie +Bitterly quarrelled with Alliolyle + By the yellow-sanded sea. + +The rising moon swam sweet and large + Before their furious eyes, +And they rolled and rolled to the coral marge + Where the surf for ever cries. + +Too late, too late, comes Muziomone: + Clear in the clear green sea +Alliolyle lies not alone, + But clasped with Lallerie. + +He blows on his shell plaintiff notes; + Ape, parraquito, bee +Flock where a shoe on the salt wave floats,-- + The shoe of Lallerie. + +He fetches nightcaps, one and nine, + Grey apes he dowers three, +His house as fair as the Malmsey wine + Seems sad as cypress-tree. + +Three bowls he brims with sweet honeycomb + To feast the bumble bees, +Saying, "O bees, be this your home, + For grief is on the seas!" + +He sate him lone in a coral grot, + At the flowing in of the tide; +When ebbed the billow, there was not, + Save coral, aught beside. + +So hairy apes in three white beds, + And nightcaps, one and nine, +On moonlit pillows lay three heads + Bemused with dwarfish wine. + +A tomb of coral, the dirge of bee, + The grey apes' guttural groan +For Alliolyle, for Lallerie, + For thee, O Muziomone! + + + + +SLEEPING BEAUTY + + +The scent of bramble fills the air, + Amid her folded sheets she lies, +The gold of evening in her hair, + The blue of morn shut in her eyes. + +How many a changing moon hath lit + The unchanging roses of her face! +Her mirror ever broods on it + In silver stillness of the days. + +Oft flits the moth on filmy wings + Into his solitary lair; +Shrill evensong the cricket sings + From some still shadow in her hair. + +In heat, in snow, in wind, in flood, + She sleeps in lovely loneliness, +Half-folded like an April bud + On winter-haunted trees. + + + + +THE HORN + + +Hark! is that a horn I hear, + In cloudland winding sweet-- +And bell-like clash of bridle-rein, + And silver-shod light feet? + +Is it the elfin laughter + Of fairies riding faint and high, +Beneath the branches of the moon, + Straying through the starry sky? + +Is it in the globèd dew + Such sweet melodies may fall? +Wood and valley--all are still, + Hushed the shepherd's call. + + + + +CAPTAIN LEAN + + +Out of the East a hurricane + Swept down on Captain Lean-- +That mariner and gentleman + Will never again be seen. + +He sailed his ship against the foes + Of his own country dear, +But now in the trough of the billows + An aimless course doth steer. + +Powder was violets to his nostrils, + Sweet the din of the fighting-line, +Now he is flotsam on the seas, + And his bones are bleached with brine. + +The stars move up along the sky, + The moon she shines so bright, +And in that solitude the foam + Sparkles unearthly white. + +This is the tomb of Captain Lean, + Would a straiter please his soul? +I trow he sleeps in peace, + Howsoever the billows roll! + + + + +THE PORTRAIT OF A WARRIOR + + +His brow is seamed with line and scar; + His cheek is red and dark as wine; +The fires as of a Northern star + Beneath his cap of sable shine. + +His right hand, bared of leathern glove, + Hangs open like an iron gin, +You stoop to see his pulses move, + To hear the blood sweep out and in. + +He looks some king, so solitary + In earnest thought he seems to stand, +As if across a lonely sea + He gazed impatient of the land. + +Out of the noisy centuries + The foolish and the fearful fade; +Yet burn unquenched these warrior eyes, + Time hath not dimmed, nor death dismayed. + + + + +HAUNTED + + +From out the wood I watched them shine,-- + The windows of the haunted house, +Now ruddy as enchanted wine, + Now dark as flittermouse. + +There went a thin voice piping airs + Along the grey and crooked walks,-- +A garden of thistledown and tares, + Bright leaves, and giant stalks. + +The twilight rain shone at its gates, + Where long-leaved grass in shadow grew; +And black in silence to her mates + A voiceless raven flew. + +Lichen and moss the lone stones greened, + Green paths led lightly to its door, +Keen from her hair the spider leaned, + And dusk to darkness wore. + +Amidst the sedge a whisper ran, + The West shut down a heavy eye, +And like last tapers, few and wan, + The watch-stars kindled in the sky. + + + + +THE RAVEN'S TOMB + + +"Build me my tomb," the Raven said, + "Within the dark yew-tree, +So in the Autumn yewberries + Sad lamps may burn for me. +Summon the haunted beetle, + From twilight bud and bloom, +To drone a gloomy dirge for me + At dusk above my tomb. +Beseech ye too the glowworm + To rear her cloudy flame, +Where the small, flickering bats resort, + Whistling in tears my name. +Let the round dew a whisper make, + Welling on twig and thorn; +And only the grey cock at night + Call through his silver horn. +And you, dear sisters, don your black + For ever and a day, +To show how true a raven + In his tomb is laid away." + + + + +THE CHRISTENING + + +The bells chime clear, +Soon will the sun behind the hills sink down; +Come, little Ann, your baby brother dear +Lies in his christening-gown. + +His godparents, +Are all across the fields stepped on before, +And wait beneath the crumbling monuments, +This side the old church door. + +Your mammie dear +Leans frail and lovely on your daddie's arm; +Watching her chick, 'twixt happiness and fear, +Lest he should come to harm. + +All to be blest +Full soon in the clear heavenly water, he +Sleeps on unwitting of it, his little breast +Heaving so tenderly. + +I carried you, +My little Ann, long since on this same quest, +And from the painted windows a pale hue +Lit golden on your breast; + +And then you woke, +Chill as the holy water trickled down, +And, weeping, cast the window a strange look, +Half smile, half infant frown. + +I scarce could hear +The shrill larks singing in the green meadows, +'Twas summertide, and, budding far and near, +The hedges thick with rose. + +And now you're grown +A little girl, and this same helpless mite +Is come like such another bud half-grown, +Out of the wintry night. + +Time flies, time flies! +And yet, bless me! 'tis little changed am I; +May Jesu keep from tears those infant eyes, +Be love their lullaby! + + + + +THE FUNERAL + + +They dressed us up in black, + Susan and Tom and me-- +And, walking through the fields + All beautiful to see, +With branches high in the air + And daisy and buttercup, +We heard the lark in the clouds-- + In black dressed up. + +They took us to the graves, + Susan and Tom and me, +Where the long grasses grow + And the funeral tree: +We stood and watched; and the wind + Came softly out of the sky +And blew in Susan's hair, + As I stood close by. + +Back through the fields we came, + Tom and Susan and me, +And we sat in the nursery together, + And had our tea. +And, looking out of the window, + I heard the thrushes sing; +But Tom fell asleep in his chair, + He was so tired, poor thing. + + + + +THE MOTHER BIRD + + +Through the green twilight of a hedge +I peered, with cheek on the cool leaves pressed, +And spied a bird upon a nest: +Two eyes she had beseeching me +Meekly and brave, and her brown breast +Throbbed hot and quick above her heart; +And then she opened her dagger bill,-- +'Twas not a chirp, as sparrows pipe +At break of day; 'twas not a trill, +As falters through the quiet even; +But one sharp solitary note, +One desperate, fierce, and vivid cry +Of valiant tears, and hopeless joy, +One passionate note of victory; +Off, like a fool afraid, I sneaked, +Smiling the smile the fool smiles best, +At the mother bird in the secret hedge +Patient upon her lonely nest. + + + + +THE CHILD IN THE STORY GOES TO BED + + +I prythee, Nurse, come smooth my hair, + And prythee, Nurse, unloose my shoe, +And trimly turn my silken sheet + Upon my quilt of gentle blue. + +My pillow sweet of lavender + Smooth with an amiable hand, +And may the dark pass peacefully by + As in the hour-glass droops the sand. + +Prepare my cornered manchet sweet, + And in my little crystal cup +Pour out the blithe and flowering mead + That forthwith I may sup. + +Withdraw my curtains from the night, + And let the crispèd crescent shine +Upon my eyelids while I sleep, + And soothe me with her beams benign. + +Dark looks the forest far-away; + O, listen! through its empty dales +Rings from the solemn echoing boughs + The music of its nightingales. + +Now quench my silver lamp, prythee, + And bid the harpers harp that tune +Fairies which haunt the meadowlands + Sing clearly to the stars of June. + +And bid them play, though I in dreams + No longer heed their pining strains, +For I would not to silence wake + When slumber o'er my senses wanes. + +You Angels bright who me defend, + Enshadow me with curvèd wing, +And keep me in the darksome night. + Till dawn another day do bring. + + + + +THE LAMPLIGHTER + + +When the light of day declines, +And a swift angel through the sky +Kindles God's tapers clear, +With ashen staff the lamplighter +Passes along the darkling streets +To light our earthly lamps; + +Lest, prowling in the darkness, +The thief should haunt with quiet tread, +Or men on evil errands set; +Or wayfarers be benighted; +Or neighbors, bent from house to house, +Should need a guiding torch. + +He is like a needlewoman +Who deftly on a sable hem +Stitches in gleaming jewels; +Or, haply, he is like a hero, +Whose bright deeds on the long journey +Are beacons on our way. + +And when in the East comes morning, +And the broad splendour of the sun, +Then, with the tune of little birds +Rings on high, the lamplighter +Passes by each quiet house, +And he puts out the lamps. + + + + +I MET AT EVE + + +I met at eve the Prince of Sleep, + His was a still and lovely face, +He wandered through a valley steep, + Lovely in a lonely place. + +His garb was grey of lavender, + About his brows a poppy-wreath +Burned like dim coals, and everywhere + The air was sweeter for his breath. + +His twilight feet no sandals wore, + His eyes shone faint in their own flame, +Fair moths that gloomed his steps before + Seemed letters of his lovely name. + +His house is in the mountain ways, + A phantom house of misty walls, +Whose golden flocks at evening graze, + And witch the moon with muffled calls. + +Upwelling from his shadowy springs + Sweet waters shake a trembling sound, +There flit the hoot-owl's silent wings, + There hath his web the silkworm wound. + +Dark in his pools clear visions lurk, + And rosy, as with morning buds, +Along his dales of broom and birk + Dreams haunt his solitary woods. + +I met at eve the Prince of Sleep, + His was a still and lovely face, +He wandered through a valley steep, + Lovely in a lonely place. + + + + +LULLABY + + +Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul; +The little mouse cheeps plaintively, +The night-bird in the chestnut-tree-- +They sing together, bird and mouse, +In starlight, in darkness, lonely, sweet, +The wild notes and the faint notes meet-- + Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul. + +Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul; +Amid the lilies floats the moth, +The mole along his galleries goeth +In the dark earth; the summer moon +Looks like a shepherd through the pane +Seeking his feeble lamp again-- + Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul. + +Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul; +Time comes to keep night-watch with thee, +Nodding with roses; and the sea +Saith "Peace! Peace!" amid his foam. +"O be still!" +The wind cries up the whispering hill-- + Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul. + + + + +ENVOI + + +Child, do you love the flower + Ashine with colour and dew +Lighting its transient hour? + So I love you. + +The lambs in the mead are at play, + 'Neath a hurdle the shepherd's asleep; +From height to height of the day + The sunbeams sweep. + +Evening will come. And alone + The dreamer the dark will beguile; +All the world will be gone + For a dream's brief while. + +Then I shall be old; and away: + And you, with sad joy in your eyes, +Will brood over children at play + With as loveful surmise. + + * * * * * + + + + + + +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 12032 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..432abaa --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #12032 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12032) diff --git a/old/12032-8.txt b/old/12032-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..03e33d3 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/12032-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2646 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes +by Walter de la Mare + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes + Volume II. + +Author: Walter de la Mare + +Release Date: April 14, 2004 [EBook #12032] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLLECTED POEMS 1901-1918 *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + +COLLECTED POEMS + +1901-1918 + +BY + +WALTER DE LA MARE + +IN TWO VOLUMES + +VOL. II + + +1920 + + * * * * * + + + + +CONTENTS + + +SONGS OF CHILDHOOD: 1901 + + +TO JILL-- + SLEEPYHEAD + BLUEBELLS + LOVELOCKS + TARTARY + THE BUCKLE + THE HARE + BUNCHES OF GRAPES + JOHN MOULDY + THE FLY + SONG + I SAW THREE WITCHES + THE SILVER PENNY + THE RAINBOW + THE FAIRIES DANCING + REVERIE + THE THREE BEGGARS + THE DWARF + ALULVAN + THE PEDLAR + THE OGRE + DAME HICKORY + THE PILGRIM + THE GAGE + AS LUCY WENT A-WALKING + THE ENGLISHMAN + THE PHANTOM + THE MILLER AND HIS SON + DOWN-ADOWN-DERRY + THE SUPPER + THE ISLE OF LONE + SLEEPING BEAUTY + THE HORN + CAPTAIN LEAN + THE PORTRAIT OF A WARRIOR + HAUNTED + THE RAVEN'S TOMB + THE CHRISTENING + THE FUNERAL + THE MOTHER BIRD + THE CHILD IN THE STORY GOES TO BED + THE LAMPLIGHTER + I MET AT EVE + LULLABY + ENVOI + +[Transcriber's Note: Because the remainder of this volume is available +elsewhere in the PG archive, it is not included here.] + + * * * * * + + + + +SONGS OF CHILDHOOD: 1901 + +TO JILL + + + * * * * * + + + + +SLEEPYHEAD + + +As I lay awake in the white moonlight, +I heard a faint singing in the wood, + "Out of bed, + Sleepyhead, + Put your white foot, now; + Here are we + Beneath the tree + Singing round the root now." + +I looked out of window, in the white moonlight, +The leaves were like snow in the wood-- + "Come away, + Child, and play + Light with the gnomies; + In a mound, + Green and round, + That's where their home is." + + "Honey sweet, + Curds to eat, + Cream and frumenty, + Shells and beads, + Poppy seeds, + You shall have plenty." + +But, as soon as I stooped in the dim moonlight + To put on my stocking and my shoe, +The sweet shrill singing echoed faintly away, + And the grey of the morning peeped through, +And instead of the gnomies there came a red robin + To sing of the buttercups and dew. + + + + +BLUEBELLS + + +Where the bluebells and the wind are, + Fairies in a ring I spied, +And I heard a little linnet + Singing near beside. + +Where the primrose and the dew are-- + Soon were sped the fairies all: +Only now the green turf freshens, + And the linnets call. + + + + +LOVELOCKS + + +I watched the Lady Caroline +Bind up her dark and beauteous hair; +Her face was rosy in the glass, +And 'twixt the coils her hands would pass, + White in the candleshine. + +Her bottles on the table lay, +Stoppered, yet sweet of violet; +Her image in the mirror stooped +To view those locks as lightly looped + As cherry boughs in May. + +The snowy night lay dim without, +I heard the Waits their sweet song sing; +The window smouldered keen with frost; +Yet still she twisted, sleeked and tossed + Her beauteous hair about. + + + + +TARTARY + + +If I were Lord of Tartary, + Myself and me alone, +My bed should be of ivory, + Of beaten gold my throne; +And in my court would peacocks flaunt, +And in my forests tigers haunt, +And in my pools great fishes slant + Their fins athwart the sun. + +If I were Lord of Tartary, + Trumpeters every day +To every meal should summon me, + And in my courtyard bray; +And in the evening lamps would shine, +Yellow as honey, red as wine, +While harp, and flute, and mandoline, + Made music sweet and gay. + +If I were Lord of Tartary, + I'd wear a robe of beads, +White, and gold, and green they'd be-- + And clustered thick as seeds; +And ere should wane the morning-star, +I'd don my robe and scimitar, +And zebras seven should draw my car + Through Tartary's dark glades. + +Lord of the fruits of Tartary, + Her rivers silver-pale! +Lord of the hills of Tartary, + Glen, thicket, wood, and dale! +Her flashing stars, her scented breeze, +Her trembling lakes, like foamless seas, +Her bird-delighting citron-trees + In every purple vale! + + + + +THE BUCKLE + + +I had a silver buckle, + I sewed it on my shoe, +And 'neath a sprig of mistletoe + I danced the evening through. + +I had a bunch of cowslips, + I hid them in a grot, +In case the elves should come by night + And me remember not. + +I had a yellow riband, + I tied it in my hair, +That, walking in the garden, + The birds might see it there. + +I had a secret laughter, + I laughed it near the wall: +Only the ivy and the wind + May tell of it at all. + + + + +THE HARE + + +In the black furrow of a field + I saw an old witch-hare this night; +And she cocked a lissome ear, + And she eyed the moon so bright, +And she nibbled of the green; + And I whispered "Wh-s-st! witch-hare," +Away like a ghostie o'er the field + She fled, and left the moonlight there. + + + + +BUNCHES OF GRAPES + + +"Bunches of grapes," says Timothy; +"Pomegranates pink," says Elaine; +"A junket of cream and a cranberry tart + For me," says Jane. + +"Love-in-a-mist," says Timothy; +"Primroses pale," says Elaine; +"A nosegay of pinks and mignonette + For me," says Jane. + +"Chariots of gold," says Timothy; +"Silvery wings," says Elaine; +"A bumpity ride in a waggon of hay + For me," says Jane. + + + + +JOHN MOULDY + + +I spied John Mouldy in his cellar, + Deep down twenty steps of stone; +In the dusk he sat a-smiling, + Smiling there alone. + +He read no book, he snuffed no candle; + The rats ran in, the rats ran out; +And far and near, the drip of water + Went whispering about. + +The dusk was still, with dew a-falling, + I saw the Dog Star bleak and grim, +I saw a slim brown rat of Norway + Creep over him. + +I spied John Mouldy in his cellar, + Deep down twenty steps of stone; +In the dusk he sat a-smiling, + Smiling there alone. + + + + +THE FLY + + +How large unto the tiny fly + Must little things appear!-- +A rosebud like a feather bed, + Its prickle like a spear; + +A dewdrop like a looking-glass, + A hair like golden wire; +The smallest grain of mustard-seed + As fierce as coals of fire; + +A loaf of bread, a lofty hill; + A wasp, a cruel leopard; +And specks of salt as bright to see + As lambkins to a shepherd. + + + + +SONG + + +O for a moon to light me home! + O for a lanthorn green! +For those sweet stars the Pleiades, +That glitter in the darkling trees; + O for a lovelorn taper! O + For a lanthorn green! + +O for a frock of tartan! + O for clear, wild grey eyes! +For fingers light as violets, +'Neath branches that the blackbird frets; + O for a thistly meadow! O + For clear, wild grey eyes! + +O for a heart like almond boughs! + O for sweet thoughts like rain! +O for first-love like fields of grey +Shut April-buds at break of day! + O for a sleep like music! + Dreams still as rain! + + + + +I SAW THREE WITCHES + + + I saw three witches + That bowed down like barley, +And straddled their brooms 'neath a louring sky, + And, mounting a storm-cloud, + Aloft on its margin, +Stood black in the silver as up they did fly. + + I saw three witches + That mocked the poor sparrows +They carried in cages of wicker along, + Till a hawk from his eyrie + Swooped down like an arrow, +Smote on the cages, and ended their song. + + I saw three witches + That sailed in a shallop, +All turning their heads with a snickering smile, + Till a bank of green osiers + Concealed their grim faces, +Though I heard them lamenting for many a mile. + + I saw three witches + Asleep in a valley, +Their heads in a row, like stones in a flood, + Till the moon, creeping upward, + Looked white through the valley, +And turned them to bushes in bright scarlet bud. + + + + +THE SILVER PENNY + + +"Sailorman, I'll give to you + My bright silver penny, +If out to sea you'll sail me + And my dear sister Jenny." + +"Get in, young sir, I'll sail ye + And your dear sister Jenny, +But pay she shall her golden locks + Instead of your penny." + +They sail away, they sail away, + O fierce the winds blew! +The foam flew in clouds, + And dark the night grew! + +And all the wild sea-water + Climbed steep into the boat; +Back to the shore again + Sail they will not. + +Drowned is the sailorman, + Drowned is sweet Jenny, +And drowned in the deep sea + A bright silver penny. + + + + +THE RAINBOW + + +I saw the lovely arch + Of Rainbow span the sky, +The gold sun burning + As the rain swept by. + +In bright-ringed solitude + The showery foliage shone +One lovely moment, + And the Bow was gone. + + + + +THE FAIRIES DANCING + + +I heard along the early hills, + Ere yet the lark was risen up, +Ere yet the dawn with firelight fills + The night-dew of the bramble-cup,-- +I heard the fairies in a ring + Sing as they tripped a lilting round +Soft as the moon on wavering wing. + The starlight shook as if with sound, +As if with echoing, and the stars + Prankt their bright eyes with trembling gleams; +While red with war the gusty Mars + Rained upon earth his ruddy beams. +He shone alone, low down the West, + While I, behind a hawthorn-bush, +Watched on the fairies flaxen-tressed + The fires of the morning flush. +Till, as a mist, their beauty died, + Their singing shrill and fainter grew; +And daylight tremulous and wide + Flooded the moorland through and through; +Till Urdon's copper weathercock + Was reared in golden flame afar, +And dim from moonlit dreams awoke + The towers and groves of Arroar. + + + + +REVERIE + + +When slim Sophia mounts her horse + And paces down the avenue, +It seems an inward melody + She paces to. + +Each narrow hoof is lifted high + Beneath the dark enclustering pines, +A silver ray within his bit + And bridle shines. + +His eye burns deep, his tail is arched, + And streams upon the shadowy air, +The daylight sleeks his jetty flanks, + His mistress' hair. + +Her habit flows in darkness down, + Upon the stirrup rests her foot, +Her brow is lifted, as if earth + She heeded not. + +'Tis silent in the avenue, + The sombre pines are mute of song, +The blue is dark, there moves no breeze + The boughs among. + +When slim Sophia mounts her horse + And paces down the avenue, +It seems an inward melody + She paces to. + + + + +THE THREE BEGGARS + + +'Twas autumn daybreak gold and wild, + While past St. Ann's grey tower they shuffled, +Three beggars spied a fairy-child + In crimson mantle muffled. + +The daybreak lighted up her face + All pink, and sharp, and emerald-eyed; +She looked on them a little space, + And shrill as hautboy cried:-- + +"O three tall footsore men of rags + Which walking this gold morn I see, +What will ye give me from your bags + For fairy kisses three?" + +The first, that was a reddish man, + Out of his bundle takes a crust: +"La, by the tombstones of St. Ann, + There's fee, if fee ye must!" + +The second, that was a chestnut man, + Out of his bundle draws a bone: +"Lo, by the belfry of St. Ann, + And all my breakfast gone!" + +The third, that was a yellow man, + Out of his bundle picks a groat, +"La, by the Angel of St. Ann, + And I must go without." + +That changeling, lean and icy-lipped, + Touched crust, and bone, and groat, and lo! +Beneath her finger taper-tipped + The magic all ran through. + +Instead of crust a peacock pie, + Instead of bone sweet venison, +Instead of groat a white lily + With seven blooms thereon. + +And each fair cup was deep with wine: + Such was the changeling's charity, +The sweet feast was enough for nine, + But not too much for three. + +O toothsome meat in jelly froze! + O tender haunch of elfin stag! +O rich the odour that arose! + O plump with scraps each bag! + +There, in the daybreak gold and wild, + Each merry-hearted beggar man +Drank deep unto the fairy child, + And blessed the good St. Ann. + + + + +THE DWARF + + +"Now, Jinnie, my dear, to the dwarf be off, + That lives in Barberry Wood, +And fetch me some honey, but be sure you don't laugh,-- + He hates little girls that are rude, are rude, + He hates little girls that are rude." + +Jane tapped at the door of the house in the wood, + And the dwarf looked over the wall, +He eyed her so queer, 'twas as much as she could + To keep from laughing at all, at all, + To keep from laughing at all. + +His shoes down the passage came clod, clod, clod, + And when he opened the door, +He croaked so harsh, 'twas as much as she could + To keep from laughing the more, the more, + To keep from laughing the more. + +As there, with his bushy red beard, he stood, + Pricked out to double its size, +He squinted so cross, 'twas as much as she could + To keep the tears out of her eyes, her eyes, + To keep the tears out of her eyes. + +He slammed the door, and went clod, clod, clod, + But while in the porch she bides, +He squealed so fierce, 'twas as much as she could + To keep from cracking her sides, her sides, + To keep from cracking her sides. + +He threw a pumpkin over the wall, + And melons and apples beside, +So thick in the air that to see them all fall, + She laughed, and laughed, till she cried, cried, cried; + Jane laughed and laughed till she cried. + +Down fell her teardrops a pit-apat-pat, + And red as a rose she grew;-- +"Kah! kah," said the dwarf, "is it crying you're at? + It's the very worst thing you could do, do, do, + It's the very worst thing you could do." + +He slipped like a monkey up into a tree, + He shook her down cherries like rain; +"See now," says he, cheeping, "a blackbird I be, + Laugh, laugh, little Jinnie, again--gain--gain, + Laugh, laugh, little Jinnie, again." + +Ah me! what a strange, what a gladsome duet + From a house in the deeps of a wood! +Such shrill and such harsh voices never met yet +A-laughing as loud as they could, could, could, + A-laughing as loud as they could. + +Come Jinnie, come dwarf, cocksparrow, and bee, + There's a ring gaudy-green in the dell, +Sing, sing, ye sweet cherubs, that flit in the tree; + La! who can draw tears from a well, well, well, + Who ever drew tears from a well! + + + + +ALULVAN + +The sun is clear of bird and cloud, + The grass shines windless, grey and still, +In dusky ruin the owl dreams on, + The cuckoo echoes on the hill; +Yet soft along Alulvan's walks + The ghost at noonday stalks. + +His eyes in shadow of his hat + Stare on the ruins of his house; +His cloak, up-fastened with a brooch, + Of faded velvet grey as mouse, +Brushes the roses as he goes: + Yet wavers not one rose. + +The wild birds in a cloud fly up + From their sweet feeding in the fruit; +The droning of the bees and flies + Rises gradual as a lute; +Is it for fear the birds are flown, + And shrills the insect-drone? + +Thick is the ivy over Alulvan, + And crisp with summer-heat its turf; +Far, far across its empty pastures + Alulvan's sands are white with surf: +And he himself is grey as the sea, + Watching beneath an elder-tree. + +All night the fretful, shrill Banshee + Lurks in the ivy's dark festoons, +Calling for ever, o'er garden and river, + Through magpie changing of the moons: +"Alulvan, O, alas! Alulvan, + The doom of lone Alulvan!" + + + + +THE PEDLAR + + +There came a pedlar to an evening house; +Sweet Lettice, from her lattice looking down, +Wondered what man he was, so curious +His black hair dangled on his tattered gown: +Then lifts he up his face, with glittering eyes,-- +"What will you buy, sweetheart?--Here's honeycomb, +And mottled pippins, and sweet mulberry pies, +Comfits and peaches, snowy cherry bloom, +To keep in water for to make night sweet: +All that you want, sweetheart,--come, taste and eat!" + +Even with his sugared words, returned to her +The clear remembrance of a gentle voice: +"And O! my child, should ever a flatterer +Tap with his wares, and promise of all joys, +And vain sweet pleasures that on earth may be, +Seal up your ears, sing some old happy song, +Confuse his magic who is all mockery: +His sweets are death." Yet, still how she doth long +But just to taste, then shut the lattice tight, +And hide her eyes from the delicious sight! + +"What must I pay?" she whispered. "Pay!" says he, +"Pedlar I am who through this wood to roam, +One lock of her hair is gold enough for me, +For apple, peach, comfit, or honeycomb!" +But from her bough a drowsy squirrel cried, +"Trust him not, Lettice, trust, oh trust him not!" +And many another woodland tongue beside +Rose softly in the silence--"Trust him not!" +Then cried the Pedlar in a bitter voice, +"What, in the thicket, is this idle noise?" + +A late, harsh blackbird smote him with her wings, +As through the glade, dark in the dim, she flew; +Yet still the Pedlar his old burden sings,-- +"What, pretty sweetheart, shall I show to you? +Here's orange ribands, here's a string of pearls, +Here's silk of buttercup and pansy glove, +A pin of tortoiseshell for windy curls, +A box of silver, scented sweet with clove: +Come now," he says, with dim and lifted face, +"I pass not often such a lonely place." + +"Pluck not a hair!" a hidden rabbit cried, +"With but one hair he'll steal thy heart away, +Then only sorrow shall thy lattice hide: +Go in! all honest pedlars come by day." +There was dead silence in the drowsy wood; +"Here's syrup for to lull sweet maids to sleep; +And bells for dreams, and fairy wine and food +All day thy heart in happiness to keep";-- +And now she takes the scissors on her thumb,-- +"O, then, no more unto my lattice come!" + +Sad is the sound of weeping in the wood! +Now only night is where the Pedlar was; +And bleak as frost upon a quickling bud +His magic steals in darkness, O alas! +Why all the summer doth sweet Lettice pine? +And, ere the wheat is ripe, why lies her gold +Hid 'neath fresh new-plucked sprigs of eglantine? +Why all the morning hath the cuckoo tolled, +Sad, to and fro, in green and secret ways, +With solemn bells the burden of his days? + +And, in the market-place, what man is this +Who wears a loop of gold upon his breast, +Stuck heartwise; and whose glassy flatteries +Take all the townsfolk ere they go to rest +Who come to buy and gossip? Doth his eye +Remember a face lovely in a wood? +O people! hasten, hasten, do not buy +His woeful wares; the bird of grief doth brood +There where his heart should be; and far away +There mourns long sorrowfulness this happy day. + + + + +THE OGRE + + +'Tis moonlight on Trebarwith Vale, + And moonlight on an Ogre keen, +Who, prowling hungry through the dale, + A lone cottage hath seen. + +Small, with thin smoke ascending up, + Three casements and a door-- +The Ogre eager is to tap, + And here seems dainty store. + +Sweet as a larder to a mouse, + So to him staring down, +Seemed the small-windowed moonlit house, + With jasmine overgrown. + +He snorted, as the billows snort + In darkness of the night; +Betwixt his lean locks tawny-swart, + He glowered on the sight. + +Into the garden sweet with peas + He put his wooden shoe, +And bending back the apple trees + Crept covetously through; + +Then, stooping, with a gloating eye + Stared through the lattice small, +And spied two children which did lie + Asleep, against the wall. + +Into their dreams no shadow fell + Of his disastrous thumb +Groping discreet, and gradual, + Across the quiet room. + +But scarce his nail had scraped the cot + Wherein these children lay, +As if his malice were forgot, + It suddenly did stay. + +For faintly in the ingle-nook + He heard a cradle-song, +That rose into his thoughts and woke + Terror them among. + +For she who in the kitchen sat + Darning by the fire, +Guileless of what he would be at, + Sang sweet as wind or wire:-- + +"Lullay, thou little tiny child, + By-by, lullay, lullie; +Jesu in glory, meek and mild, + This night remember thee! + +"Fiend, witch, and goblin, foul and wild, + He deems them smoke to be; +Lullay, thou little tiny child, + By-by, lullay, lullie!" + +The Ogre lifted up his eyes + Into the moon's pale ray, +And gazed upon her leopard-wise, + Cruel and clear as day; + +He snarled in gluttony and fear-- + "The wind blows dismally-- +Jesu in storm my lambs be near, + By-by, lullay, lullie!" + +And like a ravenous beast which sees + The hunter's icy eye, +So did this wretch in wrath confess + Sweet Jesu's mastery. + +Lightly he drew his greedy thumb + From out that casement pale, +And strode, enormous, swiftly home, + Whinnying down the dale. + + + + +DAME HICKORY + + + "Dame Hickory, Dame Hickory, + Here's sticks for your fire, + Furze-twigs, and oak-twigs, + And beech-twigs, and briar!" +But when old Dame Hickory came for to see, +She found 'twas the voice of the False Faerie. + + "Dame Hickory, Dame Hickory, + Here's meat for your broth, + Goose-flesh, and hare's flesh, + And pig's trotters both!" +But when old Dame Hickory came for to see, +She found 'twas the voice of the False Faerie. + + "Dame Hickory, Dame Hickory, + Here's a wolf at your door, + His teeth grinning white, + And his tongue wagging sore!" +"Nay!" said Dame Hickory, "ye False Faerie! +But a wolf 'twas indeed, and famished was he. + + "Dame Hickory, Dame Hickory, + Here's buds for your tomb, +Bramble, and lavender, + And rosemary bloom!" +"Wh-s-st!" said Dame Hickory, "ye False Faerie, +Ye cry like a wolf, ye do, and trouble poor me." + + + + +THE PILGRIM + + +"Shall we carry now your bundle, +You old grey man? +Over hill and dale and meadow +Lighter than an owlet's shadow +We will whirl it through the air, +Through blue regions shrill and bare, +So you may in comfort fare-- +Shall we carry now your bundle, + You old grey man?" + +The Pilgrim lifted up his eyes +And saw three fiends, in the skies, +Stooping o'er that lonely place + Evil in form and face. + +"Nay," he answered, "leave me, leave me, + Ye three wild fiends! +Far it is my feet must wander, +And my city lieth yonder +I must bear my bundle alone, + Till the day be done." +The fiends stared down with leaden eye, +Fanning the chill air duskily, +'Twixt their hoods they stoop and cry:-- + +"Shall we smooth the path before you, + You old grey man? +Sprinkle it green with gilded showers, +Strew it o'er with painted flowers, +Lure bright birds to sing and flit +In the honeyed airs of it? +Shall we smooth the path before you, + Grey old man?" + +"O, 'tis better silence, silence, + Ye three wild fiends! +Footsore am I, faint and weary, +Dark the way, forlorn and dreary, +Beaten of wind, torn of briar, +Smitten of rain, parched with fire: +O, silence, silence, silence, + Ye three wild fiends!" + +It seemed a smoke obscured the air, +Bright lightning quivered in the gloom, +And a faint voice of thunder spake +Far in the lone hill-hollows--"Come!" +Then, half in fury, half in dread, +The fiends drew closer down, and said: + +"Nay, thou stubborn fond old man, + Hearken awhile! +Thorn, and dust, and ice and heat, +Tarry now, sit down and eat: +Heat, and ice, and dust and thorn; +Stricken, footsore, parched, forlorn-- +Juice of purple grape shall be +Youth and solace unto thee. +Music of tambour, wire and wind, +Ease shall bring to heart and mind; +Wonderful sweet mouths shall sigh +Languishing and lullaby; +Turn then! Curse the dream that lures thee; +Turn thee, ere too late it be, +Lest thy three true friends grow weary + Of comforting thee!" + +The Pilgrim crouches terrified +As stooping hood, and glassy face, +Gloating, evil, side by side, +Terror and hate brood o'er the place; +He flings his withered hands on high +With a bitter, breaking cry:-- +"Leave me, leave me, leave me, leave me, + Ye three wild fiends! +If I lay me down in slumber, +Then I lay me down in wrath; +If I stir not in dark dreaming, +Then I wither in my path; +If I hear sweet voices singing, +'Tis a demon's lullaby: +And, in 'hideous storm and terror,' + Wake but to die." + +And even as he spake, on high +Arrows of sunlight pierced the sky. +Bright streamed the rain. O'er burning snow +From hill to hill a wondrous bow +Of colour and fire trembled in air, +Painting its heavenly beauty there. +Wild flapped each fiend a batlike hood +Against that 'frighting light, and stood +Beating the windless rain, and then +Rose heavy and slow with cowering head, +Circled in company again, +And into darkness fled. + +Marvellous sweet it was to hear +The waters gushing loud and clear; +Marvellous happy it was to be +Alone, and yet not solitary; +Oh, out of terror and dark to come + In sight of home! + + + + +THE GAGE + + +"Lady Jane, O Lady Jane! +Your hound hath broken bounds again, + And chased my timorous deer, O; + If him I see, + That hour he'll dee; + My brakes shall be his bier, O." + +"Hoots! lord, speak not so proud to me! +My hound, I trow, is fleet and free, + He's welcome to your deer, O; + Shoot, shoot you may, + He'll gang his way, + Your threats we nothing fear, O." + +He's fetched him in, he's laid him low, +Drips his lifeblood red and slow, + Darkens his dreary eye, O; + "Here is your beast, + And now at least + My herds in peace shall lie, O." + +"'In peace!' my lord, O mark me well! +For what my jolly hound befell + You shall sup twenty-fold, O! + For every tooth + Of his, in sooth, + A stag in pawn, I hold, O. + +"Huntsman and horn, huntsman and horn, +Shall scour your heaths and coverts lorn, + Braying 'em shrill and clear, O; + But lone and still + Shall lift each hill, + Each valley wan and sere, O. + +"Ride up you may, ride down you may, +Lonely or trooped, by night or day, + My hound shall haunt you ever: + Bird, beast, and game + Shall dread the same, + The wild fish of your river." + +Her cheek burns angry as the rose, +Her eye with wrath and pity flows: + He gazes fierce and round, O-- + "Dear Lord!" he says, + "What loveliness + To waste upon a hound, O. + +"I'd give my stags, my hills and dales, +My stormcocks and my nightingales + To have undone this deed, O; + For deep beneath + My heart is death + Which for her love doth bleed, O." + +He wanders up, he wanders down, +On foot, a-horse, by night and noon: + His lands are bleak and drear, O; + Forsook his dales + Of nightingales, + Forsook his moors of deer, O, + +Forsook his heart, ah me! of mirth; +There's nothing gladsome left on earth; + All thoughts and dreams seem vain, O, + Save where remote + The moonbeams gloat, + And sleeps the lovely Jane, O. + +Until an even when lone he went, +Gnawing his beard in dreariment-- + Lo! from a thicket hidden, + Lovely as flower + In April hour, + Steps forth a form unbidden. + +"Get ye now down, my lord, to me! +I'm troubled so I'm like to dee," + She cries, 'twixt joy and grief, O; + "The hound is dead, + When all is said, + But love is past belief, O. + +"Nights, nights I've lain your lands to see, +Forlorn and still--and all for me, + All for a foolish curse, O; + Now here am I + Come out to die-- + To live unloved is worse, O!" + +In faith, this lord, in that lone dale, +Hears now a sweeter nightingale, + And lairs a tenderer deer, O; + His sorrow goes + Like mountain snows + In waters sweet and clear, O! + +What ghostly hound is this that fleet +Comes fawning to his mistress' feet, + And courses round his master? + How swiftly love + May grief remove, + How happy make disaster! + +Now here he smells, now there he smells, +Winding his voice along the dells, + Till grey flows up the morn, O + Then hies again + To Lady Jane + No longer now forlorn, O. + +Ay, as it were a bud, did break +To loveliness for her love's sake, + So she in beauty moving + Rides at his hand + Across his land, + Beloved as well as loving. + + + + +AS LUCY WENT A-WALKING + + +As Lucy went a-walking one morning cold and fine, +There sate three crows upon a bough, and three times three is nine: +Then "O!" said Lucy, in the snow, "it's very plain to see +A witch has been a-walking in the fields in front of me." + +Then slept she light and heedfully across the frozen snow, +And plucked a bunch of elder-twigs that near a pool did grow: +And, by and by, she comes to seven shadows in one place +Stretched black by seven poplar-trees against the sun's bright face. + +She looks to left, she looks to right, and in the midst she sees +A little pool of water clear and frozen 'neath the trees; +Then down beside its margent in the crusty snow she kneels, +And hears a magic belfry a-ringing with sweet bells. + +Clear sang the faint far merry peal, then silence on the air, +And icy-still the frozen pool and poplars standing there: +Then lo! as Lucy turned her head and looked along the snow +She sees a witch--a witch she sees, come frisking to and fro. + +Her scarlet, buckled shoes they clicked, her heels a-twinkling high; +With mistletoe her steeple-hat bobbed as she capered by; +But never a dint, or mark, or print, in the whiteness for to see, +Though danced she high, though danced she fast, though danced she lissomely. + +It seemed 'twas diamonds in the air, or little flakes of frost; +It seemed 'twas golden smoke around, or sunbeams lightly tossed; +It seemed an elfin music like to reeds and warblers rose: +"Nay!" Lucy said, "it is the wind that through the branches flows." + +And as she peeps, and as she peeps, 'tis no more one, but three, +And eye of bat, and downy wing of owl within the tree, +And the bells of that sweet belfry a-pealing as before, +And now it is not three she sees, and now it is not four-- + +"O! who are ye," sweet Lucy cries, "that in a dreadful ring, +All muffled up in brindled shawls, do caper, frisk, and spring?" +"A witch, and witches, one and nine," they straight to her reply, +And looked upon her narrowly, with green and needle eye. + +Then Lucy sees in clouds of gold green cherry trees upgrow, +And bushes of red roses that bloomed above the snow; +She smells, all faint, the almond-boughs blowing so wild and fair, +And doves with milky eyes ascend fluttering in the air. + +Clear flowers she sees, like tulip buds, go floating by like birds, +With wavering tips that warbled sweetly strange enchanted words; +And, as with ropes of amethyst, the boughs with lamps were hung, +And clusters of green emeralds like fruit upon them clung. + +"O witches nine, ye dreadful nine, O witches seven and three! +Whence come these wondrous things that I this Christmas morning see?" +But straight, as in a clap, when she of Christmas says the word, +Here is the snow, and there the sun, but never bloom nor bird; + +Nor warbling flame, nor gloaming-rope of amethyst there shows, +Nor bunches of green emeralds, nor belfry, well, and rose, +Nor cloud of gold, nor cherry-tree, nor witch in brindled shawl, +But like a dream that vanishes, so vanished were they all. + +When Lucy sees, and only sees three crows upon a bough, +And earthly twigs, and bushes hidden white in driven snow, +Then "O!" said Lucy, "three times three is nine--I plainly see +Some witch has been a-walking in the fields in front of me." + + + + +THE ENGLISHMAN + + +I met a sailor in the woods, + A silver ring wore he, +His hair hung black, his eyes shone blue, + And thus he said to me:-- + +"What country, say, of this round earth, + What shore of what salt sea, +Be this, my son, I wander in, + And looks so strange to me?" + +Says I, "O foreign sailorman, + In England now you be, +This is her wood, and there her sky, + And that her roaring sea." + +He lifts his voice yet louder, + "What smell be this," says he, +"My nose on the sharp morning air + Snuffs up so greedily?" + +Says I, "It is wild roses + Do smell so winsomely, +And winy briar, too," says I, + "That in these thickets be." + +"And oh!" says he, "what leetle bird + Is singing in yon high tree, +So every shrill and long-drawn note + Like bubbles breaks in me?" + +Says I, "It is the mavis + That perches in the tree, +And sings so shrill, and sings so sweet, + When dawn comes up the sea." + +At which he fell a-musing, + And fixed his eye on me, +As one alone 'twixt light and dark + A spirit thinks to see. + +"England!" he whispers soft and harsh, + "England!" repeated he, +"And briar, and rose, and mavis, + A-singing in yon high tree. + +"Ye speak me true, my leetle son, + So--so, it came to me, +A-drifting landwards on a spar, + And grey dawn on the sea. + +"Ay, ay, I could not be mistook; + I knew them leafy trees, +I knew that land so witchery sweet, + And that old noise of seas. + +"Though here I've sailed a score of years, + And heard 'em, dream or wake, +Lap small and hollow 'gainst my cheek, + On sand and coral break; + +"'Yet now,' my leetle son, says I, + A-drifting on the wave, +'That land I see so safe and green, + Is England, I believe. + +"'And that there wood is English wood, + And this here cruel sea, +The selfsame old blue ocean + Years gone remembers me. + +"'A-sitting with my bread and butter + Down ahind yon chitterin' mill; +And this same Marinere'--(that's me), + 'Is that same leetle Will!-- + +"'That very same wee leetle Will + Eating his bread and butter there, +A-looking on the broad blue sea + Betwixt his yaller hair!' + +"And here be I, my son, thrown up + Like corpses from the sea, +Ships, stars, winds, tempests, pirates past, + Yet leetle Will I be!" + +He said no more, that sailorman, + But in a reverie +Stared like the figure of a ship + With painted eyes to sea. + + + + +THE PHANTOM + + +"Upstairs in the large closet, child, + This side the blue room door, +Is an old Bible, bound in leather, + Standing upon the floor; + +"Go with this taper, bring it me; + Carry it so, upon your arm; +It is the book on many a sea + Hath stilled the waves' alarm." + +Late the hour, dark the night, + The house is solitary; +Feeble is a taper's light + To light poor Ann to see. + +Her eyes are yet with visions bright + Of sylph and river, flower and fay, +Now through a narrow corridor + She goes her lonely way. + +Vast shadows on the heedless walls + Gigantic loom, stoop low: +Each little hasty footfall calls + Hollowly to and fro. + +In the cold solitude her heart + Remembers sorrowfully +White winters when her mother was + Her loving company. + +Now in the dark clear glass she sees + A taper, mocking hers,-- +A phantom face of light blue eyes, + Reflecting phantom fears. + +Around her loom the vacant rooms, + Wind the upward stairs, +She climbs on into a loneliness + Only her taper shares. + +Out in the dark a cold wind stirs, + At every window sighs; +A waning moon peers small and chill + From out the cloudy skies, + +Casting faint tracery on the walls; + So stony still the house +From cellar to attic rings the shrill + Squeak of the hungry mouse. + +Her grandmother is deaf with age; + A garden of moonless trees +Would answer not though she should cry + In anguish on her knees. + +So that she scarce can breathe--so fast + Her pent up heart doth beat-- +When, faint along the corridor, + Falleth the sound of feet:-- + +Sounds lighter than silk slippers make + Upon a ballroom floor, when sweet +Violin and 'cello wake + Music for twirling feet. + +O! 'neath an old unfriendly roof, + What shapes may not conceal +Their faces in the open day, + At night abroad to steal? + +Even her taper seems with fear + To languish small and blue; +Far in the woods the winter wind + Runs whistling through. + +A dreadful cold plucks at each hair, + Her mouth is stretched to cry, +But sudden, with a gush of joy, + It narrows to a sigh. + +It is a phantom child which comes + Soft through the corridor, +Singing an old forgotten song, + This ancient burden bore:-- + +"Thorn, thorn, I wis, +And roses twain, + A red rose and a white, +Stoop in the blossom, bee, and kiss + A lonely child good-night. + +"Swim fish, sing bird, +And sigh again, + I that am lost am lone, +Bee in the blossom never stirred + Locks hid beneath a stone!"-- + +Her eye was of the azure fire + That hovers in wintry flame; +Her raiment wild and yellow as furze + That spouteth out the same; + +And in her hand she bore no flower, + But on her head a wreath +Of faded flowers that did yet + Smell sweetly after death.... + +Gloomy with night the listening walls + Are now that she is gone, +Albeit this solitary child + No longer seems alone. + +Fast though her taper dwindles down, + Heavy and thick the tome, +A beauty beyond fear to dim + Haunts now her alien home. + +Ghosts in the world, malignant, grim, + Vex many a wood and glen, +And house and pool--the unquiet ghosts, + Of dead and restless men. + +But in her grannie's house this spirit-- + A child as lone as she-- +Pining for love not found on earth, + Ann dreams again to see. + +Seated upon her tapestry stool, + Her fairy-book laid by, +She gazes into the fire, knowing + She has sweet company. + + + + +THE MILLER AND HIS SON + + +A twangling harp for Mary, + A silvery flute for John, +And now we'll play, the livelong day, + "The Miller and his Son."... + +"The Miller went a-walking + All in the forest high, +He sees three doves a-flitting + Against the dark blue sky: + +"Says he, 'My son, now follow + These doves so white and free, +That cry above the forest, + And surely cry to thee.' + +"'I go, my dearest Father, + But O! I sadly fear, +These doves so white will lead me far, + But never bring me near.' + +"He kisses the Miller, + He cries, 'Awhoop to ye!' +And straightway through the forest + Follows the wood-doves three. + +"There came a sound of weeping + To the Miller in his Mill: +Red roses in a thicket + Bloomed over near his wheel; + +"Three stars shone wild and brightly + Above the forest dim: +But never his dearest son + Returns again to him. + +"The cuckoo shall call 'Cuckoo!' + In vain along the vale-- +The linnet, and the blackbird, + The mournful nightingale; + +"The Miller hears and sees not, + Thinking of his son; +His toppling wheel is silent; + His grinding done. + +"'You doves so white,' he weepeth, + 'You roses on the tree, +You stars that shine so brightly, + You shine in vain for me! + +"'I bade him follow, follow!' + He said, 'O Father dear, +These doves so white will lead me far + But never bring me near.'"... + +A twangling harp for Mary, + A silvery flute for John, +And now we'll play, the livelong day, + "The Miller and his Son." + + + + +DOWN-ADOWN-DERRY + + +Down-adown-derry, + Sweet Annie Maroon, +Gathering daisies + In the meadows of Doone, +Hears a shrill piping, + Elflike and free, +Where the waters go brawling + In rills to the sea; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +Down-adown-derry, + Sweet Annie Maroon, +Through the green grasses + Peeps softly; and soon +Spies under green willows + A fairy whose song +Like the smallest of bubbles + Floats bobbing along; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +Down-adown-derry, + Her cheeks were like wine, +Her eyes in her wee face + Like water-sparks shine, +Her niminy fingers + Her sleep tresses preen, +The which in the combing + She peeps out between; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +Down-adown-derry, + Shrill, shrill was her tune:-- +"Come to my water-house, + Annie Maroon: +Come in your dimity, + Ribbon on head, +To wear siller seaweed + And coral instead"; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +"Down-adown-derry, + Lean fish of the sea, +Bring lanthorns for feasting + The gay Faërie; +'Tis sand for the dancing, + A music all sweet +In the water-green gloaming + For thistledown feet"; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +Down-adown-derry, + Sweet Annie Maroon +Looked large on the fairy + Curled wan as the moon; +And all the grey ripples + To the Mill racing by, +With harps and with timbrels + Did ringing reply; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +"Down-adown-derry," + Sang the Fairy of Doone, +Piercing the heart + Of sweet Annie Maroon; +And lo! when like roses + The clouds of the sun +Faded at dusk, gone + Was Annie Maroon; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +Down-adown-derry, + The daisies are few; +Frost twinkles powdery + In haunts of the dew; +And only the robin + Perched on a thorn, +Can comfort the heart + Of a father forlorn; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +Down-adown-derry, + There's snow in the air; +Ice where the lily + Bloomed waxen and fair; +He may call o'er the water, + Cry--cry through the Mill, +But Annie Maroon, alas! + Answer ne'er will; + Singing down-adown-derry. + + + + +THE SUPPER + + +A wolf he pricks with eyes of fire +Across the night's o'ercrusted snows. + Seeking his prey, + He pads his way +Where Jane benighted goes, + Where Jane benighted goes. + +He curdles the bleak air with ire, +Ruffling his hoary raiment through, + And lo! he sees + Beneath the trees +Where Jane's light footsteps go, + Where Jane's light footsteps go. + +No hound peals thus in wicked joy, +He snaps his muzzle in the snows, + His five-clawed feet + Do scamper fleet +Where Jane's bright lanthorn shows, + Where Jane's bright lanthorn shows. + +Now his greed's green doth gaze unseen +On a pure face of wilding rose, + Her amber eyes + In fear's surprise +Watch largely as she goes, + Watch largely as she goes. + +Salt wells his hunger in his jaws, +His lust it revels to and fro, + Yet small beneath + A soft voice saith, +"Jane shall in safety go, + Jane shall in safety go." + +He lurched as if a fiery lash +Had scourged his hide, and through and through + His furious eyes + O'erscanned the skies, +But nearer dared not go, + But nearer dared not go. + +He reared like wild Bucephalus, +His fangs like spears in him uprose, + Even to the town + Jane's flitting gown +He grins on as she goes, + He grins on as she goes. + +In fierce lament he howls amain, +He scampers, marvelling in his throes + What brought him there + To sup on air, +While Jane unharmèd goes, + While Jane unharmèd goes. + + + + +THE ISLE OF LONE + + +Three dwarfs there were which lived in an isle, + And the name of that Isle was Lone, +And the names of the dwarfs were Alliolyle, + Lallerie, Muziomone. + +Alliolye was green of een, + Lallerie light of locks, +Muziomone was mild of mien, + As ewes in April flocks. + +Their house was small and sweet of the sea, + And pale as the Malmsey wine; +Their bowls were three, and their beds were three, + And their nightcaps white were nine. + +Their beds they were made of the holly-wood, + Their combs of the tortoise's shell, +Three basins of silver in corners there stood, + And three little ewers as well. + +Green rushes, green rushes lay thick on the floor, + For light beamed a gobbet of wax; +There were three wooden stools for whatever they wore + On their humpity-dumpity backs. + +So each would lie on a drowsy pillow + And watch the moon in the sky-- +And hear the parrot scream to the billow, + The billow roar reply: + +Parrots of sapphire and sulphur and amber, + Scarlet, and flame, and green, +While five-foot apes did scramble and clamber, + In the feathery-tufted treen. + +All night long with bubbles a-glisten + The ocean cried under the moon, +Till ape and parrot, too sleepy to listen, + To sleep and slumber were gone. + +Then from three small beds the dark hours' while + In a house in the Island of Lone +Rose the snoring of Lallerie, Alliolyle, + The snoring of Muziomone. + +But soon as ever came peep of sun + On coral and feathery tree, +Three night-capped dwarfs to the surf would run + And soon were a-bob in the sea. + +At six they went fishing, at nine they snared + Young foxes in the dells, +At noon on sweet berries and honey they fared, + And blew in their twisted shells. + +Dark was the sea they gambolled in, + And thick with silver fish, +Dark as green glass blown clear and thin + To be a monarch's dish. + +They sate to sup in a jasmine bower, + Lit pale with flies of fire, +Their bowls the hue of the iris-flower, + And lemon their attire. + +Sweet wine in little cups they sipped, + And golden honeycomb +Into their bowls of cream they dipped, + Whipt light and white as foam. + +Now Alliolyle, where the sand-flower blows, + Taught three old apes to sing-- +Taught three old apes to dance on their toes + And caper around in a ring. + +They yelled them hoarse and they croaked them sweet, + They twirled them about and around, +To the noise of their voices they danced with their feet, + They stamped with their feet on the ground. + +But down to the shore skipped Lallerie, + His parrot on his thumb, +And the twain they scotched in mockery, + While the dancers go and come. + +And, alas! in the evening, rosy and still, + Light-haired Lallerie +Bitterly quarrelled with Alliolyle + By the yellow-sanded sea. + +The rising moon swam sweet and large + Before their furious eyes, +And they rolled and rolled to the coral marge + Where the surf for ever cries. + +Too late, too late, comes Muziomone: + Clear in the clear green sea +Alliolyle lies not alone, + But clasped with Lallerie. + +He blows on his shell plaintiff notes; + Ape, parraquito, bee +Flock where a shoe on the salt wave floats,-- + The shoe of Lallerie. + +He fetches nightcaps, one and nine, + Grey apes he dowers three, +His house as fair as the Malmsey wine + Seems sad as cypress-tree. + +Three bowls he brims with sweet honeycomb + To feast the bumble bees, +Saying, "O bees, be this your home, + For grief is on the seas!" + +He sate him lone in a coral grot, + At the flowing in of the tide; +When ebbed the billow, there was not, + Save coral, aught beside. + +So hairy apes in three white beds, + And nightcaps, one and nine, +On moonlit pillows lay three heads + Bemused with dwarfish wine. + +A tomb of coral, the dirge of bee, + The grey apes' guttural groan +For Alliolyle, for Lallerie, + For thee, O Muziomone! + + + + +SLEEPING BEAUTY + + +The scent of bramble fills the air, + Amid her folded sheets she lies, +The gold of evening in her hair, + The blue of morn shut in her eyes. + +How many a changing moon hath lit + The unchanging roses of her face! +Her mirror ever broods on it + In silver stillness of the days. + +Oft flits the moth on filmy wings + Into his solitary lair; +Shrill evensong the cricket sings + From some still shadow in her hair. + +In heat, in snow, in wind, in flood, + She sleeps in lovely loneliness, +Half-folded like an April bud + On winter-haunted trees. + + + + +THE HORN + + +Hark! is that a horn I hear, + In cloudland winding sweet-- +And bell-like clash of bridle-rein, + And silver-shod light feet? + +Is it the elfin laughter + Of fairies riding faint and high, +Beneath the branches of the moon, + Straying through the starry sky? + +Is it in the globèd dew + Such sweet melodies may fall? +Wood and valley--all are still, + Hushed the shepherd's call. + + + + +CAPTAIN LEAN + + +Out of the East a hurricane + Swept down on Captain Lean-- +That mariner and gentleman + Will never again be seen. + +He sailed his ship against the foes + Of his own country dear, +But now in the trough of the billows + An aimless course doth steer. + +Powder was violets to his nostrils, + Sweet the din of the fighting-line, +Now he is flotsam on the seas, + And his bones are bleached with brine. + +The stars move up along the sky, + The moon she shines so bright, +And in that solitude the foam + Sparkles unearthly white. + +This is the tomb of Captain Lean, + Would a straiter please his soul? +I trow he sleeps in peace, + Howsoever the billows roll! + + + + +THE PORTRAIT OF A WARRIOR + + +His brow is seamed with line and scar; + His cheek is red and dark as wine; +The fires as of a Northern star + Beneath his cap of sable shine. + +His right hand, bared of leathern glove, + Hangs open like an iron gin, +You stoop to see his pulses move, + To hear the blood sweep out and in. + +He looks some king, so solitary + In earnest thought he seems to stand, +As if across a lonely sea + He gazed impatient of the land. + +Out of the noisy centuries + The foolish and the fearful fade; +Yet burn unquenched these warrior eyes, + Time hath not dimmed, nor death dismayed. + + + + +HAUNTED + + +From out the wood I watched them shine,-- + The windows of the haunted house, +Now ruddy as enchanted wine, + Now dark as flittermouse. + +There went a thin voice piping airs + Along the grey and crooked walks,-- +A garden of thistledown and tares, + Bright leaves, and giant stalks. + +The twilight rain shone at its gates, + Where long-leaved grass in shadow grew; +And black in silence to her mates + A voiceless raven flew. + +Lichen and moss the lone stones greened, + Green paths led lightly to its door, +Keen from her hair the spider leaned, + And dusk to darkness wore. + +Amidst the sedge a whisper ran, + The West shut down a heavy eye, +And like last tapers, few and wan, + The watch-stars kindled in the sky. + + + + +THE RAVEN'S TOMB + + +"Build me my tomb," the Raven said, + "Within the dark yew-tree, +So in the Autumn yewberries + Sad lamps may burn for me. +Summon the haunted beetle, + From twilight bud and bloom, +To drone a gloomy dirge for me + At dusk above my tomb. +Beseech ye too the glowworm + To rear her cloudy flame, +Where the small, flickering bats resort, + Whistling in tears my name. +Let the round dew a whisper make, + Welling on twig and thorn; +And only the grey cock at night + Call through his silver horn. +And you, dear sisters, don your black + For ever and a day, +To show how true a raven + In his tomb is laid away." + + + + +THE CHRISTENING + + +The bells chime clear, +Soon will the sun behind the hills sink down; +Come, little Ann, your baby brother dear +Lies in his christening-gown. + +His godparents, +Are all across the fields stepped on before, +And wait beneath the crumbling monuments, +This side the old church door. + +Your mammie dear +Leans frail and lovely on your daddie's arm; +Watching her chick, 'twixt happiness and fear, +Lest he should come to harm. + +All to be blest +Full soon in the clear heavenly water, he +Sleeps on unwitting of it, his little breast +Heaving so tenderly. + +I carried you, +My little Ann, long since on this same quest, +And from the painted windows a pale hue +Lit golden on your breast; + +And then you woke, +Chill as the holy water trickled down, +And, weeping, cast the window a strange look, +Half smile, half infant frown. + +I scarce could hear +The shrill larks singing in the green meadows, +'Twas summertide, and, budding far and near, +The hedges thick with rose. + +And now you're grown +A little girl, and this same helpless mite +Is come like such another bud half-grown, +Out of the wintry night. + +Time flies, time flies! +And yet, bless me! 'tis little changed am I; +May Jesu keep from tears those infant eyes, +Be love their lullaby! + + + + +THE FUNERAL + + +They dressed us up in black, + Susan and Tom and me-- +And, walking through the fields + All beautiful to see, +With branches high in the air + And daisy and buttercup, +We heard the lark in the clouds-- + In black dressed up. + +They took us to the graves, + Susan and Tom and me, +Where the long grasses grow + And the funeral tree: +We stood and watched; and the wind + Came softly out of the sky +And blew in Susan's hair, + As I stood close by. + +Back through the fields we came, + Tom and Susan and me, +And we sat in the nursery together, + And had our tea. +And, looking out of the window, + I heard the thrushes sing; +But Tom fell asleep in his chair, + He was so tired, poor thing. + + + + +THE MOTHER BIRD + + +Through the green twilight of a hedge +I peered, with cheek on the cool leaves pressed, +And spied a bird upon a nest: +Two eyes she had beseeching me +Meekly and brave, and her brown breast +Throbbed hot and quick above her heart; +And then she opened her dagger bill,-- +'Twas not a chirp, as sparrows pipe +At break of day; 'twas not a trill, +As falters through the quiet even; +But one sharp solitary note, +One desperate, fierce, and vivid cry +Of valiant tears, and hopeless joy, +One passionate note of victory; +Off, like a fool afraid, I sneaked, +Smiling the smile the fool smiles best, +At the mother bird in the secret hedge +Patient upon her lonely nest. + + + + +THE CHILD IN THE STORY GOES TO BED + + +I prythee, Nurse, come smooth my hair, + And prythee, Nurse, unloose my shoe, +And trimly turn my silken sheet + Upon my quilt of gentle blue. + +My pillow sweet of lavender + Smooth with an amiable hand, +And may the dark pass peacefully by + As in the hour-glass droops the sand. + +Prepare my cornered manchet sweet, + And in my little crystal cup +Pour out the blithe and flowering mead + That forthwith I may sup. + +Withdraw my curtains from the night, + And let the crispèd crescent shine +Upon my eyelids while I sleep, + And soothe me with her beams benign. + +Dark looks the forest far-away; + O, listen! through its empty dales +Rings from the solemn echoing boughs + The music of its nightingales. + +Now quench my silver lamp, prythee, + And bid the harpers harp that tune +Fairies which haunt the meadowlands + Sing clearly to the stars of June. + +And bid them play, though I in dreams + No longer heed their pining strains, +For I would not to silence wake + When slumber o'er my senses wanes. + +You Angels bright who me defend, + Enshadow me with curvèd wing, +And keep me in the darksome night. + Till dawn another day do bring. + + + + +THE LAMPLIGHTER + + +When the light of day declines, +And a swift angel through the sky +Kindles God's tapers clear, +With ashen staff the lamplighter +Passes along the darkling streets +To light our earthly lamps; + +Lest, prowling in the darkness, +The thief should haunt with quiet tread, +Or men on evil errands set; +Or wayfarers be benighted; +Or neighbors, bent from house to house, +Should need a guiding torch. + +He is like a needlewoman +Who deftly on a sable hem +Stitches in gleaming jewels; +Or, haply, he is like a hero, +Whose bright deeds on the long journey +Are beacons on our way. + +And when in the East comes morning, +And the broad splendour of the sun, +Then, with the tune of little birds +Rings on high, the lamplighter +Passes by each quiet house, +And he puts out the lamps. + + + + +I MET AT EVE + + +I met at eve the Prince of Sleep, + His was a still and lovely face, +He wandered through a valley steep, + Lovely in a lonely place. + +His garb was grey of lavender, + About his brows a poppy-wreath +Burned like dim coals, and everywhere + The air was sweeter for his breath. + +His twilight feet no sandals wore, + His eyes shone faint in their own flame, +Fair moths that gloomed his steps before + Seemed letters of his lovely name. + +His house is in the mountain ways, + A phantom house of misty walls, +Whose golden flocks at evening graze, + And witch the moon with muffled calls. + +Upwelling from his shadowy springs + Sweet waters shake a trembling sound, +There flit the hoot-owl's silent wings, + There hath his web the silkworm wound. + +Dark in his pools clear visions lurk, + And rosy, as with morning buds, +Along his dales of broom and birk + Dreams haunt his solitary woods. + +I met at eve the Prince of Sleep, + His was a still and lovely face, +He wandered through a valley steep, + Lovely in a lonely place. + + + + +LULLABY + + +Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul; +The little mouse cheeps plaintively, +The night-bird in the chestnut-tree-- +They sing together, bird and mouse, +In starlight, in darkness, lonely, sweet, +The wild notes and the faint notes meet-- + Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul. + +Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul; +Amid the lilies floats the moth, +The mole along his galleries goeth +In the dark earth; the summer moon +Looks like a shepherd through the pane +Seeking his feeble lamp again-- + Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul. + +Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul; +Time comes to keep night-watch with thee, +Nodding with roses; and the sea +Saith "Peace! Peace!" amid his foam. +"O be still!" +The wind cries up the whispering hill-- + Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul. + + + + +ENVOI + + +Child, do you love the flower + Ashine with colour and dew +Lighting its transient hour? + So I love you. + +The lambs in the mead are at play, + 'Neath a hurdle the shepherd's asleep; +From height to height of the day + The sunbeams sweep. + +Evening will come. And alone + The dreamer the dark will beguile; +All the world will be gone + For a dream's brief while. + +Then I shall be old; and away: + And you, with sad joy in your eyes, +Will brood over children at play + With as loveful surmise. + + * * * * * + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two +Volumes, by Walter de la Mare + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLLECTED POEMS 1901-1918 *** + +***** This file should be named 12032-8.txt or 12032-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/0/3/12032/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes + Volume II. + +Author: Walter de la Mare + +Release Date: April 14, 2004 [EBook #12032] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLLECTED POEMS 1901-1918 *** + + + + +Produced by Ted Garvin and PG Distributed Proofreaders + + + + + + + + +COLLECTED POEMS + +1901-1918 + +BY + +WALTER DE LA MARE + +IN TWO VOLUMES + +VOL. II + + +1920 + + * * * * * + + + + +CONTENTS + + +SONGS OF CHILDHOOD: 1901 + + +TO JILL-- + SLEEPYHEAD + BLUEBELLS + LOVELOCKS + TARTARY + THE BUCKLE + THE HARE + BUNCHES OF GRAPES + JOHN MOULDY + THE FLY + SONG + I SAW THREE WITCHES + THE SILVER PENNY + THE RAINBOW + THE FAIRIES DANCING + REVERIE + THE THREE BEGGARS + THE DWARF + ALULVAN + THE PEDLAR + THE OGRE + DAME HICKORY + THE PILGRIM + THE GAGE + AS LUCY WENT A-WALKING + THE ENGLISHMAN + THE PHANTOM + THE MILLER AND HIS SON + DOWN-ADOWN-DERRY + THE SUPPER + THE ISLE OF LONE + SLEEPING BEAUTY + THE HORN + CAPTAIN LEAN + THE PORTRAIT OF A WARRIOR + HAUNTED + THE RAVEN'S TOMB + THE CHRISTENING + THE FUNERAL + THE MOTHER BIRD + THE CHILD IN THE STORY GOES TO BED + THE LAMPLIGHTER + I MET AT EVE + LULLABY + ENVOI + +[Transcriber's Note: Because the remainder of this volume is available +elsewhere in the PG archive, it is not included here.] + + * * * * * + + + + +SONGS OF CHILDHOOD: 1901 + +TO JILL + + + * * * * * + + + + +SLEEPYHEAD + + +As I lay awake in the white moonlight, +I heard a faint singing in the wood, + "Out of bed, + Sleepyhead, + Put your white foot, now; + Here are we + Beneath the tree + Singing round the root now." + +I looked out of window, in the white moonlight, +The leaves were like snow in the wood-- + "Come away, + Child, and play + Light with the gnomies; + In a mound, + Green and round, + That's where their home is." + + "Honey sweet, + Curds to eat, + Cream and frumenty, + Shells and beads, + Poppy seeds, + You shall have plenty." + +But, as soon as I stooped in the dim moonlight + To put on my stocking and my shoe, +The sweet shrill singing echoed faintly away, + And the grey of the morning peeped through, +And instead of the gnomies there came a red robin + To sing of the buttercups and dew. + + + + +BLUEBELLS + + +Where the bluebells and the wind are, + Fairies in a ring I spied, +And I heard a little linnet + Singing near beside. + +Where the primrose and the dew are-- + Soon were sped the fairies all: +Only now the green turf freshens, + And the linnets call. + + + + +LOVELOCKS + + +I watched the Lady Caroline +Bind up her dark and beauteous hair; +Her face was rosy in the glass, +And 'twixt the coils her hands would pass, + White in the candleshine. + +Her bottles on the table lay, +Stoppered, yet sweet of violet; +Her image in the mirror stooped +To view those locks as lightly looped + As cherry boughs in May. + +The snowy night lay dim without, +I heard the Waits their sweet song sing; +The window smouldered keen with frost; +Yet still she twisted, sleeked and tossed + Her beauteous hair about. + + + + +TARTARY + + +If I were Lord of Tartary, + Myself and me alone, +My bed should be of ivory, + Of beaten gold my throne; +And in my court would peacocks flaunt, +And in my forests tigers haunt, +And in my pools great fishes slant + Their fins athwart the sun. + +If I were Lord of Tartary, + Trumpeters every day +To every meal should summon me, + And in my courtyard bray; +And in the evening lamps would shine, +Yellow as honey, red as wine, +While harp, and flute, and mandoline, + Made music sweet and gay. + +If I were Lord of Tartary, + I'd wear a robe of beads, +White, and gold, and green they'd be-- + And clustered thick as seeds; +And ere should wane the morning-star, +I'd don my robe and scimitar, +And zebras seven should draw my car + Through Tartary's dark glades. + +Lord of the fruits of Tartary, + Her rivers silver-pale! +Lord of the hills of Tartary, + Glen, thicket, wood, and dale! +Her flashing stars, her scented breeze, +Her trembling lakes, like foamless seas, +Her bird-delighting citron-trees + In every purple vale! + + + + +THE BUCKLE + + +I had a silver buckle, + I sewed it on my shoe, +And 'neath a sprig of mistletoe + I danced the evening through. + +I had a bunch of cowslips, + I hid them in a grot, +In case the elves should come by night + And me remember not. + +I had a yellow riband, + I tied it in my hair, +That, walking in the garden, + The birds might see it there. + +I had a secret laughter, + I laughed it near the wall: +Only the ivy and the wind + May tell of it at all. + + + + +THE HARE + + +In the black furrow of a field + I saw an old witch-hare this night; +And she cocked a lissome ear, + And she eyed the moon so bright, +And she nibbled of the green; + And I whispered "Wh-s-st! witch-hare," +Away like a ghostie o'er the field + She fled, and left the moonlight there. + + + + +BUNCHES OF GRAPES + + +"Bunches of grapes," says Timothy; +"Pomegranates pink," says Elaine; +"A junket of cream and a cranberry tart + For me," says Jane. + +"Love-in-a-mist," says Timothy; +"Primroses pale," says Elaine; +"A nosegay of pinks and mignonette + For me," says Jane. + +"Chariots of gold," says Timothy; +"Silvery wings," says Elaine; +"A bumpity ride in a waggon of hay + For me," says Jane. + + + + +JOHN MOULDY + + +I spied John Mouldy in his cellar, + Deep down twenty steps of stone; +In the dusk he sat a-smiling, + Smiling there alone. + +He read no book, he snuffed no candle; + The rats ran in, the rats ran out; +And far and near, the drip of water + Went whispering about. + +The dusk was still, with dew a-falling, + I saw the Dog Star bleak and grim, +I saw a slim brown rat of Norway + Creep over him. + +I spied John Mouldy in his cellar, + Deep down twenty steps of stone; +In the dusk he sat a-smiling, + Smiling there alone. + + + + +THE FLY + + +How large unto the tiny fly + Must little things appear!-- +A rosebud like a feather bed, + Its prickle like a spear; + +A dewdrop like a looking-glass, + A hair like golden wire; +The smallest grain of mustard-seed + As fierce as coals of fire; + +A loaf of bread, a lofty hill; + A wasp, a cruel leopard; +And specks of salt as bright to see + As lambkins to a shepherd. + + + + +SONG + + +O for a moon to light me home! + O for a lanthorn green! +For those sweet stars the Pleiades, +That glitter in the darkling trees; + O for a lovelorn taper! O + For a lanthorn green! + +O for a frock of tartan! + O for clear, wild grey eyes! +For fingers light as violets, +'Neath branches that the blackbird frets; + O for a thistly meadow! O + For clear, wild grey eyes! + +O for a heart like almond boughs! + O for sweet thoughts like rain! +O for first-love like fields of grey +Shut April-buds at break of day! + O for a sleep like music! + Dreams still as rain! + + + + +I SAW THREE WITCHES + + + I saw three witches + That bowed down like barley, +And straddled their brooms 'neath a louring sky, + And, mounting a storm-cloud, + Aloft on its margin, +Stood black in the silver as up they did fly. + + I saw three witches + That mocked the poor sparrows +They carried in cages of wicker along, + Till a hawk from his eyrie + Swooped down like an arrow, +Smote on the cages, and ended their song. + + I saw three witches + That sailed in a shallop, +All turning their heads with a snickering smile, + Till a bank of green osiers + Concealed their grim faces, +Though I heard them lamenting for many a mile. + + I saw three witches + Asleep in a valley, +Their heads in a row, like stones in a flood, + Till the moon, creeping upward, + Looked white through the valley, +And turned them to bushes in bright scarlet bud. + + + + +THE SILVER PENNY + + +"Sailorman, I'll give to you + My bright silver penny, +If out to sea you'll sail me + And my dear sister Jenny." + +"Get in, young sir, I'll sail ye + And your dear sister Jenny, +But pay she shall her golden locks + Instead of your penny." + +They sail away, they sail away, + O fierce the winds blew! +The foam flew in clouds, + And dark the night grew! + +And all the wild sea-water + Climbed steep into the boat; +Back to the shore again + Sail they will not. + +Drowned is the sailorman, + Drowned is sweet Jenny, +And drowned in the deep sea + A bright silver penny. + + + + +THE RAINBOW + + +I saw the lovely arch + Of Rainbow span the sky, +The gold sun burning + As the rain swept by. + +In bright-ringed solitude + The showery foliage shone +One lovely moment, + And the Bow was gone. + + + + +THE FAIRIES DANCING + + +I heard along the early hills, + Ere yet the lark was risen up, +Ere yet the dawn with firelight fills + The night-dew of the bramble-cup,-- +I heard the fairies in a ring + Sing as they tripped a lilting round +Soft as the moon on wavering wing. + The starlight shook as if with sound, +As if with echoing, and the stars + Prankt their bright eyes with trembling gleams; +While red with war the gusty Mars + Rained upon earth his ruddy beams. +He shone alone, low down the West, + While I, behind a hawthorn-bush, +Watched on the fairies flaxen-tressed + The fires of the morning flush. +Till, as a mist, their beauty died, + Their singing shrill and fainter grew; +And daylight tremulous and wide + Flooded the moorland through and through; +Till Urdon's copper weathercock + Was reared in golden flame afar, +And dim from moonlit dreams awoke + The towers and groves of Arroar. + + + + +REVERIE + + +When slim Sophia mounts her horse + And paces down the avenue, +It seems an inward melody + She paces to. + +Each narrow hoof is lifted high + Beneath the dark enclustering pines, +A silver ray within his bit + And bridle shines. + +His eye burns deep, his tail is arched, + And streams upon the shadowy air, +The daylight sleeks his jetty flanks, + His mistress' hair. + +Her habit flows in darkness down, + Upon the stirrup rests her foot, +Her brow is lifted, as if earth + She heeded not. + +'Tis silent in the avenue, + The sombre pines are mute of song, +The blue is dark, there moves no breeze + The boughs among. + +When slim Sophia mounts her horse + And paces down the avenue, +It seems an inward melody + She paces to. + + + + +THE THREE BEGGARS + + +'Twas autumn daybreak gold and wild, + While past St. Ann's grey tower they shuffled, +Three beggars spied a fairy-child + In crimson mantle muffled. + +The daybreak lighted up her face + All pink, and sharp, and emerald-eyed; +She looked on them a little space, + And shrill as hautboy cried:-- + +"O three tall footsore men of rags + Which walking this gold morn I see, +What will ye give me from your bags + For fairy kisses three?" + +The first, that was a reddish man, + Out of his bundle takes a crust: +"La, by the tombstones of St. Ann, + There's fee, if fee ye must!" + +The second, that was a chestnut man, + Out of his bundle draws a bone: +"Lo, by the belfry of St. Ann, + And all my breakfast gone!" + +The third, that was a yellow man, + Out of his bundle picks a groat, +"La, by the Angel of St. Ann, + And I must go without." + +That changeling, lean and icy-lipped, + Touched crust, and bone, and groat, and lo! +Beneath her finger taper-tipped + The magic all ran through. + +Instead of crust a peacock pie, + Instead of bone sweet venison, +Instead of groat a white lily + With seven blooms thereon. + +And each fair cup was deep with wine: + Such was the changeling's charity, +The sweet feast was enough for nine, + But not too much for three. + +O toothsome meat in jelly froze! + O tender haunch of elfin stag! +O rich the odour that arose! + O plump with scraps each bag! + +There, in the daybreak gold and wild, + Each merry-hearted beggar man +Drank deep unto the fairy child, + And blessed the good St. Ann. + + + + +THE DWARF + + +"Now, Jinnie, my dear, to the dwarf be off, + That lives in Barberry Wood, +And fetch me some honey, but be sure you don't laugh,-- + He hates little girls that are rude, are rude, + He hates little girls that are rude." + +Jane tapped at the door of the house in the wood, + And the dwarf looked over the wall, +He eyed her so queer, 'twas as much as she could + To keep from laughing at all, at all, + To keep from laughing at all. + +His shoes down the passage came clod, clod, clod, + And when he opened the door, +He croaked so harsh, 'twas as much as she could + To keep from laughing the more, the more, + To keep from laughing the more. + +As there, with his bushy red beard, he stood, + Pricked out to double its size, +He squinted so cross, 'twas as much as she could + To keep the tears out of her eyes, her eyes, + To keep the tears out of her eyes. + +He slammed the door, and went clod, clod, clod, + But while in the porch she bides, +He squealed so fierce, 'twas as much as she could + To keep from cracking her sides, her sides, + To keep from cracking her sides. + +He threw a pumpkin over the wall, + And melons and apples beside, +So thick in the air that to see them all fall, + She laughed, and laughed, till she cried, cried, cried; + Jane laughed and laughed till she cried. + +Down fell her teardrops a pit-apat-pat, + And red as a rose she grew;-- +"Kah! kah," said the dwarf, "is it crying you're at? + It's the very worst thing you could do, do, do, + It's the very worst thing you could do." + +He slipped like a monkey up into a tree, + He shook her down cherries like rain; +"See now," says he, cheeping, "a blackbird I be, + Laugh, laugh, little Jinnie, again--gain--gain, + Laugh, laugh, little Jinnie, again." + +Ah me! what a strange, what a gladsome duet + From a house in the deeps of a wood! +Such shrill and such harsh voices never met yet +A-laughing as loud as they could, could, could, + A-laughing as loud as they could. + +Come Jinnie, come dwarf, cocksparrow, and bee, + There's a ring gaudy-green in the dell, +Sing, sing, ye sweet cherubs, that flit in the tree; + La! who can draw tears from a well, well, well, + Who ever drew tears from a well! + + + + +ALULVAN + +The sun is clear of bird and cloud, + The grass shines windless, grey and still, +In dusky ruin the owl dreams on, + The cuckoo echoes on the hill; +Yet soft along Alulvan's walks + The ghost at noonday stalks. + +His eyes in shadow of his hat + Stare on the ruins of his house; +His cloak, up-fastened with a brooch, + Of faded velvet grey as mouse, +Brushes the roses as he goes: + Yet wavers not one rose. + +The wild birds in a cloud fly up + From their sweet feeding in the fruit; +The droning of the bees and flies + Rises gradual as a lute; +Is it for fear the birds are flown, + And shrills the insect-drone? + +Thick is the ivy over Alulvan, + And crisp with summer-heat its turf; +Far, far across its empty pastures + Alulvan's sands are white with surf: +And he himself is grey as the sea, + Watching beneath an elder-tree. + +All night the fretful, shrill Banshee + Lurks in the ivy's dark festoons, +Calling for ever, o'er garden and river, + Through magpie changing of the moons: +"Alulvan, O, alas! Alulvan, + The doom of lone Alulvan!" + + + + +THE PEDLAR + + +There came a pedlar to an evening house; +Sweet Lettice, from her lattice looking down, +Wondered what man he was, so curious +His black hair dangled on his tattered gown: +Then lifts he up his face, with glittering eyes,-- +"What will you buy, sweetheart?--Here's honeycomb, +And mottled pippins, and sweet mulberry pies, +Comfits and peaches, snowy cherry bloom, +To keep in water for to make night sweet: +All that you want, sweetheart,--come, taste and eat!" + +Even with his sugared words, returned to her +The clear remembrance of a gentle voice: +"And O! my child, should ever a flatterer +Tap with his wares, and promise of all joys, +And vain sweet pleasures that on earth may be, +Seal up your ears, sing some old happy song, +Confuse his magic who is all mockery: +His sweets are death." Yet, still how she doth long +But just to taste, then shut the lattice tight, +And hide her eyes from the delicious sight! + +"What must I pay?" she whispered. "Pay!" says he, +"Pedlar I am who through this wood to roam, +One lock of her hair is gold enough for me, +For apple, peach, comfit, or honeycomb!" +But from her bough a drowsy squirrel cried, +"Trust him not, Lettice, trust, oh trust him not!" +And many another woodland tongue beside +Rose softly in the silence--"Trust him not!" +Then cried the Pedlar in a bitter voice, +"What, in the thicket, is this idle noise?" + +A late, harsh blackbird smote him with her wings, +As through the glade, dark in the dim, she flew; +Yet still the Pedlar his old burden sings,-- +"What, pretty sweetheart, shall I show to you? +Here's orange ribands, here's a string of pearls, +Here's silk of buttercup and pansy glove, +A pin of tortoiseshell for windy curls, +A box of silver, scented sweet with clove: +Come now," he says, with dim and lifted face, +"I pass not often such a lonely place." + +"Pluck not a hair!" a hidden rabbit cried, +"With but one hair he'll steal thy heart away, +Then only sorrow shall thy lattice hide: +Go in! all honest pedlars come by day." +There was dead silence in the drowsy wood; +"Here's syrup for to lull sweet maids to sleep; +And bells for dreams, and fairy wine and food +All day thy heart in happiness to keep";-- +And now she takes the scissors on her thumb,-- +"O, then, no more unto my lattice come!" + +Sad is the sound of weeping in the wood! +Now only night is where the Pedlar was; +And bleak as frost upon a quickling bud +His magic steals in darkness, O alas! +Why all the summer doth sweet Lettice pine? +And, ere the wheat is ripe, why lies her gold +Hid 'neath fresh new-plucked sprigs of eglantine? +Why all the morning hath the cuckoo tolled, +Sad, to and fro, in green and secret ways, +With solemn bells the burden of his days? + +And, in the market-place, what man is this +Who wears a loop of gold upon his breast, +Stuck heartwise; and whose glassy flatteries +Take all the townsfolk ere they go to rest +Who come to buy and gossip? Doth his eye +Remember a face lovely in a wood? +O people! hasten, hasten, do not buy +His woeful wares; the bird of grief doth brood +There where his heart should be; and far away +There mourns long sorrowfulness this happy day. + + + + +THE OGRE + + +'Tis moonlight on Trebarwith Vale, + And moonlight on an Ogre keen, +Who, prowling hungry through the dale, + A lone cottage hath seen. + +Small, with thin smoke ascending up, + Three casements and a door-- +The Ogre eager is to tap, + And here seems dainty store. + +Sweet as a larder to a mouse, + So to him staring down, +Seemed the small-windowed moonlit house, + With jasmine overgrown. + +He snorted, as the billows snort + In darkness of the night; +Betwixt his lean locks tawny-swart, + He glowered on the sight. + +Into the garden sweet with peas + He put his wooden shoe, +And bending back the apple trees + Crept covetously through; + +Then, stooping, with a gloating eye + Stared through the lattice small, +And spied two children which did lie + Asleep, against the wall. + +Into their dreams no shadow fell + Of his disastrous thumb +Groping discreet, and gradual, + Across the quiet room. + +But scarce his nail had scraped the cot + Wherein these children lay, +As if his malice were forgot, + It suddenly did stay. + +For faintly in the ingle-nook + He heard a cradle-song, +That rose into his thoughts and woke + Terror them among. + +For she who in the kitchen sat + Darning by the fire, +Guileless of what he would be at, + Sang sweet as wind or wire:-- + +"Lullay, thou little tiny child, + By-by, lullay, lullie; +Jesu in glory, meek and mild, + This night remember thee! + +"Fiend, witch, and goblin, foul and wild, + He deems them smoke to be; +Lullay, thou little tiny child, + By-by, lullay, lullie!" + +The Ogre lifted up his eyes + Into the moon's pale ray, +And gazed upon her leopard-wise, + Cruel and clear as day; + +He snarled in gluttony and fear-- + "The wind blows dismally-- +Jesu in storm my lambs be near, + By-by, lullay, lullie!" + +And like a ravenous beast which sees + The hunter's icy eye, +So did this wretch in wrath confess + Sweet Jesu's mastery. + +Lightly he drew his greedy thumb + From out that casement pale, +And strode, enormous, swiftly home, + Whinnying down the dale. + + + + +DAME HICKORY + + + "Dame Hickory, Dame Hickory, + Here's sticks for your fire, + Furze-twigs, and oak-twigs, + And beech-twigs, and briar!" +But when old Dame Hickory came for to see, +She found 'twas the voice of the False Faerie. + + "Dame Hickory, Dame Hickory, + Here's meat for your broth, + Goose-flesh, and hare's flesh, + And pig's trotters both!" +But when old Dame Hickory came for to see, +She found 'twas the voice of the False Faerie. + + "Dame Hickory, Dame Hickory, + Here's a wolf at your door, + His teeth grinning white, + And his tongue wagging sore!" +"Nay!" said Dame Hickory, "ye False Faerie! +But a wolf 'twas indeed, and famished was he. + + "Dame Hickory, Dame Hickory, + Here's buds for your tomb, +Bramble, and lavender, + And rosemary bloom!" +"Wh-s-st!" said Dame Hickory, "ye False Faerie, +Ye cry like a wolf, ye do, and trouble poor me." + + + + +THE PILGRIM + + +"Shall we carry now your bundle, +You old grey man? +Over hill and dale and meadow +Lighter than an owlet's shadow +We will whirl it through the air, +Through blue regions shrill and bare, +So you may in comfort fare-- +Shall we carry now your bundle, + You old grey man?" + +The Pilgrim lifted up his eyes +And saw three fiends, in the skies, +Stooping o'er that lonely place + Evil in form and face. + +"Nay," he answered, "leave me, leave me, + Ye three wild fiends! +Far it is my feet must wander, +And my city lieth yonder +I must bear my bundle alone, + Till the day be done." +The fiends stared down with leaden eye, +Fanning the chill air duskily, +'Twixt their hoods they stoop and cry:-- + +"Shall we smooth the path before you, + You old grey man? +Sprinkle it green with gilded showers, +Strew it o'er with painted flowers, +Lure bright birds to sing and flit +In the honeyed airs of it? +Shall we smooth the path before you, + Grey old man?" + +"O, 'tis better silence, silence, + Ye three wild fiends! +Footsore am I, faint and weary, +Dark the way, forlorn and dreary, +Beaten of wind, torn of briar, +Smitten of rain, parched with fire: +O, silence, silence, silence, + Ye three wild fiends!" + +It seemed a smoke obscured the air, +Bright lightning quivered in the gloom, +And a faint voice of thunder spake +Far in the lone hill-hollows--"Come!" +Then, half in fury, half in dread, +The fiends drew closer down, and said: + +"Nay, thou stubborn fond old man, + Hearken awhile! +Thorn, and dust, and ice and heat, +Tarry now, sit down and eat: +Heat, and ice, and dust and thorn; +Stricken, footsore, parched, forlorn-- +Juice of purple grape shall be +Youth and solace unto thee. +Music of tambour, wire and wind, +Ease shall bring to heart and mind; +Wonderful sweet mouths shall sigh +Languishing and lullaby; +Turn then! Curse the dream that lures thee; +Turn thee, ere too late it be, +Lest thy three true friends grow weary + Of comforting thee!" + +The Pilgrim crouches terrified +As stooping hood, and glassy face, +Gloating, evil, side by side, +Terror and hate brood o'er the place; +He flings his withered hands on high +With a bitter, breaking cry:-- +"Leave me, leave me, leave me, leave me, + Ye three wild fiends! +If I lay me down in slumber, +Then I lay me down in wrath; +If I stir not in dark dreaming, +Then I wither in my path; +If I hear sweet voices singing, +'Tis a demon's lullaby: +And, in 'hideous storm and terror,' + Wake but to die." + +And even as he spake, on high +Arrows of sunlight pierced the sky. +Bright streamed the rain. O'er burning snow +From hill to hill a wondrous bow +Of colour and fire trembled in air, +Painting its heavenly beauty there. +Wild flapped each fiend a batlike hood +Against that 'frighting light, and stood +Beating the windless rain, and then +Rose heavy and slow with cowering head, +Circled in company again, +And into darkness fled. + +Marvellous sweet it was to hear +The waters gushing loud and clear; +Marvellous happy it was to be +Alone, and yet not solitary; +Oh, out of terror and dark to come + In sight of home! + + + + +THE GAGE + + +"Lady Jane, O Lady Jane! +Your hound hath broken bounds again, + And chased my timorous deer, O; + If him I see, + That hour he'll dee; + My brakes shall be his bier, O." + +"Hoots! lord, speak not so proud to me! +My hound, I trow, is fleet and free, + He's welcome to your deer, O; + Shoot, shoot you may, + He'll gang his way, + Your threats we nothing fear, O." + +He's fetched him in, he's laid him low, +Drips his lifeblood red and slow, + Darkens his dreary eye, O; + "Here is your beast, + And now at least + My herds in peace shall lie, O." + +"'In peace!' my lord, O mark me well! +For what my jolly hound befell + You shall sup twenty-fold, O! + For every tooth + Of his, in sooth, + A stag in pawn, I hold, O. + +"Huntsman and horn, huntsman and horn, +Shall scour your heaths and coverts lorn, + Braying 'em shrill and clear, O; + But lone and still + Shall lift each hill, + Each valley wan and sere, O. + +"Ride up you may, ride down you may, +Lonely or trooped, by night or day, + My hound shall haunt you ever: + Bird, beast, and game + Shall dread the same, + The wild fish of your river." + +Her cheek burns angry as the rose, +Her eye with wrath and pity flows: + He gazes fierce and round, O-- + "Dear Lord!" he says, + "What loveliness + To waste upon a hound, O. + +"I'd give my stags, my hills and dales, +My stormcocks and my nightingales + To have undone this deed, O; + For deep beneath + My heart is death + Which for her love doth bleed, O." + +He wanders up, he wanders down, +On foot, a-horse, by night and noon: + His lands are bleak and drear, O; + Forsook his dales + Of nightingales, + Forsook his moors of deer, O, + +Forsook his heart, ah me! of mirth; +There's nothing gladsome left on earth; + All thoughts and dreams seem vain, O, + Save where remote + The moonbeams gloat, + And sleeps the lovely Jane, O. + +Until an even when lone he went, +Gnawing his beard in dreariment-- + Lo! from a thicket hidden, + Lovely as flower + In April hour, + Steps forth a form unbidden. + +"Get ye now down, my lord, to me! +I'm troubled so I'm like to dee," + She cries, 'twixt joy and grief, O; + "The hound is dead, + When all is said, + But love is past belief, O. + +"Nights, nights I've lain your lands to see, +Forlorn and still--and all for me, + All for a foolish curse, O; + Now here am I + Come out to die-- + To live unloved is worse, O!" + +In faith, this lord, in that lone dale, +Hears now a sweeter nightingale, + And lairs a tenderer deer, O; + His sorrow goes + Like mountain snows + In waters sweet and clear, O! + +What ghostly hound is this that fleet +Comes fawning to his mistress' feet, + And courses round his master? + How swiftly love + May grief remove, + How happy make disaster! + +Now here he smells, now there he smells, +Winding his voice along the dells, + Till grey flows up the morn, O + Then hies again + To Lady Jane + No longer now forlorn, O. + +Ay, as it were a bud, did break +To loveliness for her love's sake, + So she in beauty moving + Rides at his hand + Across his land, + Beloved as well as loving. + + + + +AS LUCY WENT A-WALKING + + +As Lucy went a-walking one morning cold and fine, +There sate three crows upon a bough, and three times three is nine: +Then "O!" said Lucy, in the snow, "it's very plain to see +A witch has been a-walking in the fields in front of me." + +Then slept she light and heedfully across the frozen snow, +And plucked a bunch of elder-twigs that near a pool did grow: +And, by and by, she comes to seven shadows in one place +Stretched black by seven poplar-trees against the sun's bright face. + +She looks to left, she looks to right, and in the midst she sees +A little pool of water clear and frozen 'neath the trees; +Then down beside its margent in the crusty snow she kneels, +And hears a magic belfry a-ringing with sweet bells. + +Clear sang the faint far merry peal, then silence on the air, +And icy-still the frozen pool and poplars standing there: +Then lo! as Lucy turned her head and looked along the snow +She sees a witch--a witch she sees, come frisking to and fro. + +Her scarlet, buckled shoes they clicked, her heels a-twinkling high; +With mistletoe her steeple-hat bobbed as she capered by; +But never a dint, or mark, or print, in the whiteness for to see, +Though danced she high, though danced she fast, though danced she lissomely. + +It seemed 'twas diamonds in the air, or little flakes of frost; +It seemed 'twas golden smoke around, or sunbeams lightly tossed; +It seemed an elfin music like to reeds and warblers rose: +"Nay!" Lucy said, "it is the wind that through the branches flows." + +And as she peeps, and as she peeps, 'tis no more one, but three, +And eye of bat, and downy wing of owl within the tree, +And the bells of that sweet belfry a-pealing as before, +And now it is not three she sees, and now it is not four-- + +"O! who are ye," sweet Lucy cries, "that in a dreadful ring, +All muffled up in brindled shawls, do caper, frisk, and spring?" +"A witch, and witches, one and nine," they straight to her reply, +And looked upon her narrowly, with green and needle eye. + +Then Lucy sees in clouds of gold green cherry trees upgrow, +And bushes of red roses that bloomed above the snow; +She smells, all faint, the almond-boughs blowing so wild and fair, +And doves with milky eyes ascend fluttering in the air. + +Clear flowers she sees, like tulip buds, go floating by like birds, +With wavering tips that warbled sweetly strange enchanted words; +And, as with ropes of amethyst, the boughs with lamps were hung, +And clusters of green emeralds like fruit upon them clung. + +"O witches nine, ye dreadful nine, O witches seven and three! +Whence come these wondrous things that I this Christmas morning see?" +But straight, as in a clap, when she of Christmas says the word, +Here is the snow, and there the sun, but never bloom nor bird; + +Nor warbling flame, nor gloaming-rope of amethyst there shows, +Nor bunches of green emeralds, nor belfry, well, and rose, +Nor cloud of gold, nor cherry-tree, nor witch in brindled shawl, +But like a dream that vanishes, so vanished were they all. + +When Lucy sees, and only sees three crows upon a bough, +And earthly twigs, and bushes hidden white in driven snow, +Then "O!" said Lucy, "three times three is nine--I plainly see +Some witch has been a-walking in the fields in front of me." + + + + +THE ENGLISHMAN + + +I met a sailor in the woods, + A silver ring wore he, +His hair hung black, his eyes shone blue, + And thus he said to me:-- + +"What country, say, of this round earth, + What shore of what salt sea, +Be this, my son, I wander in, + And looks so strange to me?" + +Says I, "O foreign sailorman, + In England now you be, +This is her wood, and there her sky, + And that her roaring sea." + +He lifts his voice yet louder, + "What smell be this," says he, +"My nose on the sharp morning air + Snuffs up so greedily?" + +Says I, "It is wild roses + Do smell so winsomely, +And winy briar, too," says I, + "That in these thickets be." + +"And oh!" says he, "what leetle bird + Is singing in yon high tree, +So every shrill and long-drawn note + Like bubbles breaks in me?" + +Says I, "It is the mavis + That perches in the tree, +And sings so shrill, and sings so sweet, + When dawn comes up the sea." + +At which he fell a-musing, + And fixed his eye on me, +As one alone 'twixt light and dark + A spirit thinks to see. + +"England!" he whispers soft and harsh, + "England!" repeated he, +"And briar, and rose, and mavis, + A-singing in yon high tree. + +"Ye speak me true, my leetle son, + So--so, it came to me, +A-drifting landwards on a spar, + And grey dawn on the sea. + +"Ay, ay, I could not be mistook; + I knew them leafy trees, +I knew that land so witchery sweet, + And that old noise of seas. + +"Though here I've sailed a score of years, + And heard 'em, dream or wake, +Lap small and hollow 'gainst my cheek, + On sand and coral break; + +"'Yet now,' my leetle son, says I, + A-drifting on the wave, +'That land I see so safe and green, + Is England, I believe. + +"'And that there wood is English wood, + And this here cruel sea, +The selfsame old blue ocean + Years gone remembers me. + +"'A-sitting with my bread and butter + Down ahind yon chitterin' mill; +And this same Marinere'--(that's me), + 'Is that same leetle Will!-- + +"'That very same wee leetle Will + Eating his bread and butter there, +A-looking on the broad blue sea + Betwixt his yaller hair!' + +"And here be I, my son, thrown up + Like corpses from the sea, +Ships, stars, winds, tempests, pirates past, + Yet leetle Will I be!" + +He said no more, that sailorman, + But in a reverie +Stared like the figure of a ship + With painted eyes to sea. + + + + +THE PHANTOM + + +"Upstairs in the large closet, child, + This side the blue room door, +Is an old Bible, bound in leather, + Standing upon the floor; + +"Go with this taper, bring it me; + Carry it so, upon your arm; +It is the book on many a sea + Hath stilled the waves' alarm." + +Late the hour, dark the night, + The house is solitary; +Feeble is a taper's light + To light poor Ann to see. + +Her eyes are yet with visions bright + Of sylph and river, flower and fay, +Now through a narrow corridor + She goes her lonely way. + +Vast shadows on the heedless walls + Gigantic loom, stoop low: +Each little hasty footfall calls + Hollowly to and fro. + +In the cold solitude her heart + Remembers sorrowfully +White winters when her mother was + Her loving company. + +Now in the dark clear glass she sees + A taper, mocking hers,-- +A phantom face of light blue eyes, + Reflecting phantom fears. + +Around her loom the vacant rooms, + Wind the upward stairs, +She climbs on into a loneliness + Only her taper shares. + +Out in the dark a cold wind stirs, + At every window sighs; +A waning moon peers small and chill + From out the cloudy skies, + +Casting faint tracery on the walls; + So stony still the house +From cellar to attic rings the shrill + Squeak of the hungry mouse. + +Her grandmother is deaf with age; + A garden of moonless trees +Would answer not though she should cry + In anguish on her knees. + +So that she scarce can breathe--so fast + Her pent up heart doth beat-- +When, faint along the corridor, + Falleth the sound of feet:-- + +Sounds lighter than silk slippers make + Upon a ballroom floor, when sweet +Violin and 'cello wake + Music for twirling feet. + +O! 'neath an old unfriendly roof, + What shapes may not conceal +Their faces in the open day, + At night abroad to steal? + +Even her taper seems with fear + To languish small and blue; +Far in the woods the winter wind + Runs whistling through. + +A dreadful cold plucks at each hair, + Her mouth is stretched to cry, +But sudden, with a gush of joy, + It narrows to a sigh. + +It is a phantom child which comes + Soft through the corridor, +Singing an old forgotten song, + This ancient burden bore:-- + +"Thorn, thorn, I wis, +And roses twain, + A red rose and a white, +Stoop in the blossom, bee, and kiss + A lonely child good-night. + +"Swim fish, sing bird, +And sigh again, + I that am lost am lone, +Bee in the blossom never stirred + Locks hid beneath a stone!"-- + +Her eye was of the azure fire + That hovers in wintry flame; +Her raiment wild and yellow as furze + That spouteth out the same; + +And in her hand she bore no flower, + But on her head a wreath +Of faded flowers that did yet + Smell sweetly after death.... + +Gloomy with night the listening walls + Are now that she is gone, +Albeit this solitary child + No longer seems alone. + +Fast though her taper dwindles down, + Heavy and thick the tome, +A beauty beyond fear to dim + Haunts now her alien home. + +Ghosts in the world, malignant, grim, + Vex many a wood and glen, +And house and pool--the unquiet ghosts, + Of dead and restless men. + +But in her grannie's house this spirit-- + A child as lone as she-- +Pining for love not found on earth, + Ann dreams again to see. + +Seated upon her tapestry stool, + Her fairy-book laid by, +She gazes into the fire, knowing + She has sweet company. + + + + +THE MILLER AND HIS SON + + +A twangling harp for Mary, + A silvery flute for John, +And now we'll play, the livelong day, + "The Miller and his Son."... + +"The Miller went a-walking + All in the forest high, +He sees three doves a-flitting + Against the dark blue sky: + +"Says he, 'My son, now follow + These doves so white and free, +That cry above the forest, + And surely cry to thee.' + +"'I go, my dearest Father, + But O! I sadly fear, +These doves so white will lead me far, + But never bring me near.' + +"He kisses the Miller, + He cries, 'Awhoop to ye!' +And straightway through the forest + Follows the wood-doves three. + +"There came a sound of weeping + To the Miller in his Mill: +Red roses in a thicket + Bloomed over near his wheel; + +"Three stars shone wild and brightly + Above the forest dim: +But never his dearest son + Returns again to him. + +"The cuckoo shall call 'Cuckoo!' + In vain along the vale-- +The linnet, and the blackbird, + The mournful nightingale; + +"The Miller hears and sees not, + Thinking of his son; +His toppling wheel is silent; + His grinding done. + +"'You doves so white,' he weepeth, + 'You roses on the tree, +You stars that shine so brightly, + You shine in vain for me! + +"'I bade him follow, follow!' + He said, 'O Father dear, +These doves so white will lead me far + But never bring me near.'"... + +A twangling harp for Mary, + A silvery flute for John, +And now we'll play, the livelong day, + "The Miller and his Son." + + + + +DOWN-ADOWN-DERRY + + +Down-adown-derry, + Sweet Annie Maroon, +Gathering daisies + In the meadows of Doone, +Hears a shrill piping, + Elflike and free, +Where the waters go brawling + In rills to the sea; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +Down-adown-derry, + Sweet Annie Maroon, +Through the green grasses + Peeps softly; and soon +Spies under green willows + A fairy whose song +Like the smallest of bubbles + Floats bobbing along; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +Down-adown-derry, + Her cheeks were like wine, +Her eyes in her wee face + Like water-sparks shine, +Her niminy fingers + Her sleep tresses preen, +The which in the combing + She peeps out between; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +Down-adown-derry, + Shrill, shrill was her tune:-- +"Come to my water-house, + Annie Maroon: +Come in your dimity, + Ribbon on head, +To wear siller seaweed + And coral instead"; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +"Down-adown-derry, + Lean fish of the sea, +Bring lanthorns for feasting + The gay Faerie; +'Tis sand for the dancing, + A music all sweet +In the water-green gloaming + For thistledown feet"; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +Down-adown-derry, + Sweet Annie Maroon +Looked large on the fairy + Curled wan as the moon; +And all the grey ripples + To the Mill racing by, +With harps and with timbrels + Did ringing reply; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +"Down-adown-derry," + Sang the Fairy of Doone, +Piercing the heart + Of sweet Annie Maroon; +And lo! when like roses + The clouds of the sun +Faded at dusk, gone + Was Annie Maroon; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +Down-adown-derry, + The daisies are few; +Frost twinkles powdery + In haunts of the dew; +And only the robin + Perched on a thorn, +Can comfort the heart + Of a father forlorn; + Singing down-adown-derry. + +Down-adown-derry, + There's snow in the air; +Ice where the lily + Bloomed waxen and fair; +He may call o'er the water, + Cry--cry through the Mill, +But Annie Maroon, alas! + Answer ne'er will; + Singing down-adown-derry. + + + + +THE SUPPER + + +A wolf he pricks with eyes of fire +Across the night's o'ercrusted snows. + Seeking his prey, + He pads his way +Where Jane benighted goes, + Where Jane benighted goes. + +He curdles the bleak air with ire, +Ruffling his hoary raiment through, + And lo! he sees + Beneath the trees +Where Jane's light footsteps go, + Where Jane's light footsteps go. + +No hound peals thus in wicked joy, +He snaps his muzzle in the snows, + His five-clawed feet + Do scamper fleet +Where Jane's bright lanthorn shows, + Where Jane's bright lanthorn shows. + +Now his greed's green doth gaze unseen +On a pure face of wilding rose, + Her amber eyes + In fear's surprise +Watch largely as she goes, + Watch largely as she goes. + +Salt wells his hunger in his jaws, +His lust it revels to and fro, + Yet small beneath + A soft voice saith, +"Jane shall in safety go, + Jane shall in safety go." + +He lurched as if a fiery lash +Had scourged his hide, and through and through + His furious eyes + O'erscanned the skies, +But nearer dared not go, + But nearer dared not go. + +He reared like wild Bucephalus, +His fangs like spears in him uprose, + Even to the town + Jane's flitting gown +He grins on as she goes, + He grins on as she goes. + +In fierce lament he howls amain, +He scampers, marvelling in his throes + What brought him there + To sup on air, +While Jane unharmed goes, + While Jane unharmed goes. + + + + +THE ISLE OF LONE + + +Three dwarfs there were which lived in an isle, + And the name of that Isle was Lone, +And the names of the dwarfs were Alliolyle, + Lallerie, Muziomone. + +Alliolye was green of een, + Lallerie light of locks, +Muziomone was mild of mien, + As ewes in April flocks. + +Their house was small and sweet of the sea, + And pale as the Malmsey wine; +Their bowls were three, and their beds were three, + And their nightcaps white were nine. + +Their beds they were made of the holly-wood, + Their combs of the tortoise's shell, +Three basins of silver in corners there stood, + And three little ewers as well. + +Green rushes, green rushes lay thick on the floor, + For light beamed a gobbet of wax; +There were three wooden stools for whatever they wore + On their humpity-dumpity backs. + +So each would lie on a drowsy pillow + And watch the moon in the sky-- +And hear the parrot scream to the billow, + The billow roar reply: + +Parrots of sapphire and sulphur and amber, + Scarlet, and flame, and green, +While five-foot apes did scramble and clamber, + In the feathery-tufted treen. + +All night long with bubbles a-glisten + The ocean cried under the moon, +Till ape and parrot, too sleepy to listen, + To sleep and slumber were gone. + +Then from three small beds the dark hours' while + In a house in the Island of Lone +Rose the snoring of Lallerie, Alliolyle, + The snoring of Muziomone. + +But soon as ever came peep of sun + On coral and feathery tree, +Three night-capped dwarfs to the surf would run + And soon were a-bob in the sea. + +At six they went fishing, at nine they snared + Young foxes in the dells, +At noon on sweet berries and honey they fared, + And blew in their twisted shells. + +Dark was the sea they gambolled in, + And thick with silver fish, +Dark as green glass blown clear and thin + To be a monarch's dish. + +They sate to sup in a jasmine bower, + Lit pale with flies of fire, +Their bowls the hue of the iris-flower, + And lemon their attire. + +Sweet wine in little cups they sipped, + And golden honeycomb +Into their bowls of cream they dipped, + Whipt light and white as foam. + +Now Alliolyle, where the sand-flower blows, + Taught three old apes to sing-- +Taught three old apes to dance on their toes + And caper around in a ring. + +They yelled them hoarse and they croaked them sweet, + They twirled them about and around, +To the noise of their voices they danced with their feet, + They stamped with their feet on the ground. + +But down to the shore skipped Lallerie, + His parrot on his thumb, +And the twain they scotched in mockery, + While the dancers go and come. + +And, alas! in the evening, rosy and still, + Light-haired Lallerie +Bitterly quarrelled with Alliolyle + By the yellow-sanded sea. + +The rising moon swam sweet and large + Before their furious eyes, +And they rolled and rolled to the coral marge + Where the surf for ever cries. + +Too late, too late, comes Muziomone: + Clear in the clear green sea +Alliolyle lies not alone, + But clasped with Lallerie. + +He blows on his shell plaintiff notes; + Ape, parraquito, bee +Flock where a shoe on the salt wave floats,-- + The shoe of Lallerie. + +He fetches nightcaps, one and nine, + Grey apes he dowers three, +His house as fair as the Malmsey wine + Seems sad as cypress-tree. + +Three bowls he brims with sweet honeycomb + To feast the bumble bees, +Saying, "O bees, be this your home, + For grief is on the seas!" + +He sate him lone in a coral grot, + At the flowing in of the tide; +When ebbed the billow, there was not, + Save coral, aught beside. + +So hairy apes in three white beds, + And nightcaps, one and nine, +On moonlit pillows lay three heads + Bemused with dwarfish wine. + +A tomb of coral, the dirge of bee, + The grey apes' guttural groan +For Alliolyle, for Lallerie, + For thee, O Muziomone! + + + + +SLEEPING BEAUTY + + +The scent of bramble fills the air, + Amid her folded sheets she lies, +The gold of evening in her hair, + The blue of morn shut in her eyes. + +How many a changing moon hath lit + The unchanging roses of her face! +Her mirror ever broods on it + In silver stillness of the days. + +Oft flits the moth on filmy wings + Into his solitary lair; +Shrill evensong the cricket sings + From some still shadow in her hair. + +In heat, in snow, in wind, in flood, + She sleeps in lovely loneliness, +Half-folded like an April bud + On winter-haunted trees. + + + + +THE HORN + + +Hark! is that a horn I hear, + In cloudland winding sweet-- +And bell-like clash of bridle-rein, + And silver-shod light feet? + +Is it the elfin laughter + Of fairies riding faint and high, +Beneath the branches of the moon, + Straying through the starry sky? + +Is it in the globed dew + Such sweet melodies may fall? +Wood and valley--all are still, + Hushed the shepherd's call. + + + + +CAPTAIN LEAN + + +Out of the East a hurricane + Swept down on Captain Lean-- +That mariner and gentleman + Will never again be seen. + +He sailed his ship against the foes + Of his own country dear, +But now in the trough of the billows + An aimless course doth steer. + +Powder was violets to his nostrils, + Sweet the din of the fighting-line, +Now he is flotsam on the seas, + And his bones are bleached with brine. + +The stars move up along the sky, + The moon she shines so bright, +And in that solitude the foam + Sparkles unearthly white. + +This is the tomb of Captain Lean, + Would a straiter please his soul? +I trow he sleeps in peace, + Howsoever the billows roll! + + + + +THE PORTRAIT OF A WARRIOR + + +His brow is seamed with line and scar; + His cheek is red and dark as wine; +The fires as of a Northern star + Beneath his cap of sable shine. + +His right hand, bared of leathern glove, + Hangs open like an iron gin, +You stoop to see his pulses move, + To hear the blood sweep out and in. + +He looks some king, so solitary + In earnest thought he seems to stand, +As if across a lonely sea + He gazed impatient of the land. + +Out of the noisy centuries + The foolish and the fearful fade; +Yet burn unquenched these warrior eyes, + Time hath not dimmed, nor death dismayed. + + + + +HAUNTED + + +From out the wood I watched them shine,-- + The windows of the haunted house, +Now ruddy as enchanted wine, + Now dark as flittermouse. + +There went a thin voice piping airs + Along the grey and crooked walks,-- +A garden of thistledown and tares, + Bright leaves, and giant stalks. + +The twilight rain shone at its gates, + Where long-leaved grass in shadow grew; +And black in silence to her mates + A voiceless raven flew. + +Lichen and moss the lone stones greened, + Green paths led lightly to its door, +Keen from her hair the spider leaned, + And dusk to darkness wore. + +Amidst the sedge a whisper ran, + The West shut down a heavy eye, +And like last tapers, few and wan, + The watch-stars kindled in the sky. + + + + +THE RAVEN'S TOMB + + +"Build me my tomb," the Raven said, + "Within the dark yew-tree, +So in the Autumn yewberries + Sad lamps may burn for me. +Summon the haunted beetle, + From twilight bud and bloom, +To drone a gloomy dirge for me + At dusk above my tomb. +Beseech ye too the glowworm + To rear her cloudy flame, +Where the small, flickering bats resort, + Whistling in tears my name. +Let the round dew a whisper make, + Welling on twig and thorn; +And only the grey cock at night + Call through his silver horn. +And you, dear sisters, don your black + For ever and a day, +To show how true a raven + In his tomb is laid away." + + + + +THE CHRISTENING + + +The bells chime clear, +Soon will the sun behind the hills sink down; +Come, little Ann, your baby brother dear +Lies in his christening-gown. + +His godparents, +Are all across the fields stepped on before, +And wait beneath the crumbling monuments, +This side the old church door. + +Your mammie dear +Leans frail and lovely on your daddie's arm; +Watching her chick, 'twixt happiness and fear, +Lest he should come to harm. + +All to be blest +Full soon in the clear heavenly water, he +Sleeps on unwitting of it, his little breast +Heaving so tenderly. + +I carried you, +My little Ann, long since on this same quest, +And from the painted windows a pale hue +Lit golden on your breast; + +And then you woke, +Chill as the holy water trickled down, +And, weeping, cast the window a strange look, +Half smile, half infant frown. + +I scarce could hear +The shrill larks singing in the green meadows, +'Twas summertide, and, budding far and near, +The hedges thick with rose. + +And now you're grown +A little girl, and this same helpless mite +Is come like such another bud half-grown, +Out of the wintry night. + +Time flies, time flies! +And yet, bless me! 'tis little changed am I; +May Jesu keep from tears those infant eyes, +Be love their lullaby! + + + + +THE FUNERAL + + +They dressed us up in black, + Susan and Tom and me-- +And, walking through the fields + All beautiful to see, +With branches high in the air + And daisy and buttercup, +We heard the lark in the clouds-- + In black dressed up. + +They took us to the graves, + Susan and Tom and me, +Where the long grasses grow + And the funeral tree: +We stood and watched; and the wind + Came softly out of the sky +And blew in Susan's hair, + As I stood close by. + +Back through the fields we came, + Tom and Susan and me, +And we sat in the nursery together, + And had our tea. +And, looking out of the window, + I heard the thrushes sing; +But Tom fell asleep in his chair, + He was so tired, poor thing. + + + + +THE MOTHER BIRD + + +Through the green twilight of a hedge +I peered, with cheek on the cool leaves pressed, +And spied a bird upon a nest: +Two eyes she had beseeching me +Meekly and brave, and her brown breast +Throbbed hot and quick above her heart; +And then she opened her dagger bill,-- +'Twas not a chirp, as sparrows pipe +At break of day; 'twas not a trill, +As falters through the quiet even; +But one sharp solitary note, +One desperate, fierce, and vivid cry +Of valiant tears, and hopeless joy, +One passionate note of victory; +Off, like a fool afraid, I sneaked, +Smiling the smile the fool smiles best, +At the mother bird in the secret hedge +Patient upon her lonely nest. + + + + +THE CHILD IN THE STORY GOES TO BED + + +I prythee, Nurse, come smooth my hair, + And prythee, Nurse, unloose my shoe, +And trimly turn my silken sheet + Upon my quilt of gentle blue. + +My pillow sweet of lavender + Smooth with an amiable hand, +And may the dark pass peacefully by + As in the hour-glass droops the sand. + +Prepare my cornered manchet sweet, + And in my little crystal cup +Pour out the blithe and flowering mead + That forthwith I may sup. + +Withdraw my curtains from the night, + And let the crisped crescent shine +Upon my eyelids while I sleep, + And soothe me with her beams benign. + +Dark looks the forest far-away; + O, listen! through its empty dales +Rings from the solemn echoing boughs + The music of its nightingales. + +Now quench my silver lamp, prythee, + And bid the harpers harp that tune +Fairies which haunt the meadowlands + Sing clearly to the stars of June. + +And bid them play, though I in dreams + No longer heed their pining strains, +For I would not to silence wake + When slumber o'er my senses wanes. + +You Angels bright who me defend, + Enshadow me with curved wing, +And keep me in the darksome night. + Till dawn another day do bring. + + + + +THE LAMPLIGHTER + + +When the light of day declines, +And a swift angel through the sky +Kindles God's tapers clear, +With ashen staff the lamplighter +Passes along the darkling streets +To light our earthly lamps; + +Lest, prowling in the darkness, +The thief should haunt with quiet tread, +Or men on evil errands set; +Or wayfarers be benighted; +Or neighbors, bent from house to house, +Should need a guiding torch. + +He is like a needlewoman +Who deftly on a sable hem +Stitches in gleaming jewels; +Or, haply, he is like a hero, +Whose bright deeds on the long journey +Are beacons on our way. + +And when in the East comes morning, +And the broad splendour of the sun, +Then, with the tune of little birds +Rings on high, the lamplighter +Passes by each quiet house, +And he puts out the lamps. + + + + +I MET AT EVE + + +I met at eve the Prince of Sleep, + His was a still and lovely face, +He wandered through a valley steep, + Lovely in a lonely place. + +His garb was grey of lavender, + About his brows a poppy-wreath +Burned like dim coals, and everywhere + The air was sweeter for his breath. + +His twilight feet no sandals wore, + His eyes shone faint in their own flame, +Fair moths that gloomed his steps before + Seemed letters of his lovely name. + +His house is in the mountain ways, + A phantom house of misty walls, +Whose golden flocks at evening graze, + And witch the moon with muffled calls. + +Upwelling from his shadowy springs + Sweet waters shake a trembling sound, +There flit the hoot-owl's silent wings, + There hath his web the silkworm wound. + +Dark in his pools clear visions lurk, + And rosy, as with morning buds, +Along his dales of broom and birk + Dreams haunt his solitary woods. + +I met at eve the Prince of Sleep, + His was a still and lovely face, +He wandered through a valley steep, + Lovely in a lonely place. + + + + +LULLABY + + +Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul; +The little mouse cheeps plaintively, +The night-bird in the chestnut-tree-- +They sing together, bird and mouse, +In starlight, in darkness, lonely, sweet, +The wild notes and the faint notes meet-- + Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul. + +Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul; +Amid the lilies floats the moth, +The mole along his galleries goeth +In the dark earth; the summer moon +Looks like a shepherd through the pane +Seeking his feeble lamp again-- + Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul. + +Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul; +Time comes to keep night-watch with thee, +Nodding with roses; and the sea +Saith "Peace! Peace!" amid his foam. +"O be still!" +The wind cries up the whispering hill-- + Sleep, sleep, lovely white soul. + + + + +ENVOI + + +Child, do you love the flower + Ashine with colour and dew +Lighting its transient hour? + So I love you. + +The lambs in the mead are at play, + 'Neath a hurdle the shepherd's asleep; +From height to height of the day + The sunbeams sweep. + +Evening will come. And alone + The dreamer the dark will beguile; +All the world will be gone + For a dream's brief while. + +Then I shall be old; and away: + And you, with sad joy in your eyes, +Will brood over children at play + With as loveful surmise. + + * * * * * + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two +Volumes, by Walter de la Mare + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK COLLECTED POEMS 1901-1918 *** + +***** This file should be named 12032.txt or 12032.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/2/0/3/12032/ + +Produced by Ted Garvin and PG Distributed Proofreaders + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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