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<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 56074 ***</div>
<div class="figcenter newpage hideepub">
<img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Cover" />
</div>
<hr />
<div class="figcenter newpage">
<img src="images/i_title.jpg" alt="Title Page" />
</div>
<hr />
<p class="half-title bold in0">PAN-WORSHIP<br />AND OTHER POEMS</p>
<hr />
<h1>PAN-WORSHIP<br />
AND OTHER POEMS</h1>
<p class="center bold in0">BY<br />
<span class="large">ELEANOR FARJEON</span><br />
<span class="vspace"> </span><br />
LONDON<br />
<span class="large">ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET, W.</span><br />
1908</p>
<hr />
<p class="newpage center bold in0">TO MY FATHER</p>
<hr />
<div class="chapter">
<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
</div>
<table summary="Contents">
<tr>
<td class="tdl"> </td>
<td class="tdr"><span class="xsmall">PAGE.</span></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">Pan-Worship</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_9">9</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">Vagrant Songs</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">King Laurin's Garden</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_18">18</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">The Mysterious Forest</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_21">21</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">The Old Grey Queen</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_22">22</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">The Quest</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_24">24</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">The Unspoken Word</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_26">26</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">In the Oculist's Anteroom</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">Little Dream-Brother</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_34">34</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">Faust and Margaret</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_36">36</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">Dream-Ships</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">The Moral</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">Colour-Tones</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">From an old Garden</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_42">42</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">A Sheaf of Nature-Songs</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_59">59</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="tdl">Apollo in Pherae</td>
<td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_72">72</a></td>
</tr>
</table>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2>PAN-WORSHIP</h2>
</div>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">In Arcady there lies a crystal spring</div>
<div class="i0">Ring'd all about with green melodious reeds</div>
<div class="i0">Swaying seal'd music up and down the wind.</div>
<div class="i0">Here on its time-defacèd pedestal</div>
<div class="i0">The image of a half-forgotten God</div>
<div class="i0">Crumbles to its complete oblivion.</div>
<div class="i0">The faithful and invariable earth</div>
<div class="i0">Tilts at the shrine her sacrificial cup,</div>
<div class="i0">Spilling libations from the brim that runs</div>
<div class="i0">The golden nectar of her daffodils</div>
<div class="i0">And rivulets of summer-breathing flow'rs.</div>
<div class="i0">O evanescent temples built of man</div>
<div class="i0">To deities he honoured and dethroned!</div>
<div class="i0">Earth shoots a trail of her eternal vine</div>
<div class="i0">To crown the head that men have ceased to honour.</div>
<div class="i0">Beneath the coronal of leaf and lichen</div>
<div class="i0">The mocking smile upon the lips derides</div>
<div class="i0">Pan's lost dominion; but the pointed ears</div>
<div class="i0">Are keen and prick'd with old remember'd sounds.</div>
<div class="i0">All my breast aches with longing for the past!</div>
<div class="i0">Thou God of stone, I have a craving in me</div>
<div class="i0">For knowledge of thee as thou wert in old</div>
<div class="i0">Enchanted twilights in Arcadia.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a></span>
<div class="i0">Arcadia! it is the very music</div>
<div class="i0">Of the first spring-tide rippling its first wave</div>
<div class="i0">Over the naked, laughing baby world ...</div>
<div class="i0">Come again, thou sparkling spring-tide, come again,</div>
<div class="i0">Rush in and flood this autumn from my soul!</div>
<div class="i0">These waters welling at a dead God's shrine,</div>
<div class="i0">These happy waters bubbling limpid kisses,</div>
<div class="i0">Even with such bright and eager lips made wet</div>
<div class="i0">The hem of the earth's garment in the days</div>
<div class="i0">When earth was youthful and the Gods of Greece</div>
<div class="i0">In starry constellation crowned Olympus.</div>
<div class="i0">What drifting mists have veil'd the Olympian fires?</div>
<div class="i0">What of the Gods of Greece? and what of Greece?</div>
<div class="i0">O virgin Greece, standing with naked feet</div>
<div class="i0">In the morning dews of the world against the light</div>
<div class="i0">Of an infant dawn! old Greece, ever-young Greece,</div>
<div class="i0">The pagan in my blood, the instinct in me</div>
<div class="i0">That yearns back, back to nature-worship, cries</div>
<div class="i0">Aloud to thee! I would stoop to kiss those feet,</div>
<div class="i0">Sweet white wet feet washed with the earth's first dews:—</div>
<div class="i0">And leaning ear to grass I would re-catch</div>
<div class="i0">Echoes of footsteps sounding down dim ages</div>
<div class="i0">For ever the music once they made on thee:</div>
<div class="i0">The flaming step of the young Apollo when,</div>
<div class="i0">With limbs like light and golden locks toss'd back</div>
<div class="i0">On a smooth ivory shoulder, he avenged</div>
<div class="i0">His mother's wrongs on Python: the dreaming step</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span>
<div class="i0">Of Hylas in the woods of Mysia</div>
<div class="i0">Leading to sleep beneath sweet sylvan waters:</div>
<div class="i0">The laughing step of untrammell'd Atalanta</div>
<div class="i0">Spurning the ground before her golden capture:</div>
<div class="i0">Child-Proserpina stepping like a flower,</div>
<div class="i0">And the singing step of Syrinx fleeing—what?</div>
<div class="i0">If thou couldst speak, neglected, sneering stone,</div>
<div class="i0">Thou wouldst know how to answer me. Wilt thou</div>
<div class="i0">Not speak?... How still it is!... The noise of the world</div>
<div class="i0">Is shut about with silence!... If I kneel,</div>
<div class="i0">Bend and adore, make sacrifice to thee,</div>
<div class="i0">If to thy long-deserted fane I bring</div>
<div class="i0">Tribute of milk and honey—then if I snap</div>
<div class="i0">That loveliest pipe of all at the spring's margin</div>
<div class="i0">And let the song of Syrinx from its hollow,</div>
<div class="i0">Nay, even the nymph's sweet self—O Pan, old Pan,</div>
<div class="i0">Shall I not see thee stirring in the stone,</div>
<div class="i0">Crack thy confinement, leap forth—<i>be</i> again?</div>
<div class="i0">I can believe it, master of bright streams,</div>
<div class="i0">Lord of green woodlands, king of sun-spread plains</div>
<div class="i0">And star-splashed hills and valleys drenched in moonlight!</div>
<div class="i0">And I shall see again a dance of Dryads</div>
<div class="i0">And airy shapes of Oreads circling free</div>
<div class="i0">To shy sweet pipings of fantastic fauns</div>
<div class="i0">And lustier-breathing satyrs ... God of Nature,</div>
<div class="i0">Thrice hailing thee by name with boisterous lungs</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span>
<div class="i0">I will thrill thee back from the dead ages, thus:</div>
<div class="i0"><i>Pan! Pan! O Pan! bring back thy reign again</i></div>
<div class="i0"><i>Upon the earth!</i>...</div>
<div class="i19">Numb pointed ears, ye hear</div>
<div class="i0">Only the wash and whisper of far waters,</div>
<div class="i0">The pale green waters of thin distant Springs</div>
<div class="i0">Under the pale green light of distant moons</div>
<div class="i0">Washing upon the shores of the old, old world</div>
<div class="i0">With a foam of flowers, a foam of whispering flowers....</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2>VAGRANT SONGS</h2>
</div>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">I</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">But yesterday the winds of March</div>
<div class="i0">Bent back the barren branches of the larch ...</div>
<div class="i8">But O! to-day</div>
<div class="i0">The bareness from the earth is swept away.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">Deep through my swelling breast I hear</div>
<div class="i0">The wild call of the gipsy time o' year—</div>
<div class="i8">O, Vagrant Spring,</div>
<div class="i0">Brother o' mine, I'm for the gipsying!</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">The greening earth I stand upon</div>
<div class="i0">Tingles my feet: Brother, we must begone!</div>
<div class="i8">Younger and younger,</div>
<div class="i0">All my heart cries aloud with Wander-Hunger</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span></p>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">II</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Of troubles know I none,</div>
<div class="i0">Of pleasures know I many—</div>
<div class="i0">I rove beneath the sun</div>
<div class="i0">Without a single penny.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">A king might envy long</div>
<div class="i0">The fare my board adorning—</div>
<div class="i0">Upon a throstle's song</div>
<div class="i0">I broke my fast this morning;</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">My lunch, a girl's quick smile,</div>
<div class="i0">As I'm a living sinner;</div>
<div class="i0">She walked with me a mile ...</div>
<div class="i0">I kissed her for my dinner.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Of troubles know I none,</div>
<div class="i0">Of pleasures know I many—</div>
<div class="i0">I fare beneath the sun</div>
<div class="i0">Without a single penny!</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">III</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">O, how she laughs with me,</div>
<div class="i0">Eats with me, quaffs with me,</div>
<div class="i0">Smiles to me, sighs to me,</div>
<div class="i0">Questions, replies to me,</div>
<div class="i0">Answers my every mood,</div>
<div class="i0">Finds good what I find good,</div>
<div class="i4">Earth, the green Mother!</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span>
<div class="i0">Where shall man live and die</div>
<div class="i0">Having my treasury</div>
<div class="i0">Which never gold could buy—</div>
<div class="i0">Water and air and sky</div>
<div class="i0">And Earth's great sympathy—</div>
<div class="i0">Save he do live as I?</div>
<div class="i4">Join with me, Brother!</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">If you be sickening</div>
<div class="i0">Here's for your quickening!</div>
<div class="i0">Here at the heart of it</div>
<div class="i0">You shall be part of it,</div>
<div class="i0">And the good smell of rain</div>
<div class="i0">Shall make you whole again—</div>
<div class="i4">Join with me, Brother!</div>
<div class="i0">Here the life-sap runs green,</div>
<div class="i0">Here the life-ways are clean,</div>
<div class="i0">Here just one bird that sings</div>
<div class="i0">Re-starts your sluggish springs,</div>
<div class="i0">Here under moon and sun</div>
<div class="i0">You, I and She are one,</div>
<div class="i4">Earth, the green Mother!</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span></p>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">IV</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">I lay me on the ground</div>
<div class="i15">Under the dark,</div>
<div class="i0">And Heaven's purple arc</div>
<div class="i0">Drew its deep curtains round</div>
<div class="i0">My weary head and shut away the sound.</div>
<div class="i0">The golden star-lights crept</div>
<div class="i15">Over the hill ...</div>
<div class="i0">I lay so very still</div>
<div class="i0">I heard them as they stepped ...</div>
<div class="i0">"Sleep!" breathed the Earth. Upon her breast I slept.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">V</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">I'll stay one night beneath your roof,</div>
<div class="i0">And longer I will stay for no man,</div>
<div class="i0">And as for love, I'm loving-proof—</div>
<div class="i4">Turn by your eyes, White Woman.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">The Wander-fever's in my blood,</div>
<div class="i0">I have no time for simple loving—</div>
<div class="i0">The hot Earth is in roving mood,</div>
<div class="i4">And I too must be roving.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0"><i>If</i> I should love you ... soon, ah, soon</div>
<div class="i0">I'd break your heart to go a-roaming,</div>
<div class="i0">And chasing shadows of the moon</div>
<div class="i4">Think never once of homing.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Why will you wring my breast with tears?</div>
<div class="i0">Tears will not quench the Wander-fever.</div>
<div class="i0">Why will you fill my soul with fears</div>
<div class="i4">When I will go for ever?</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">I whom the Earth's green passions move</div>
<div class="i0">Have put away all passions human ...</div>
<div class="i0">I will not love!... I <i>dare</i> not love ...</div>
<div class="i4">Turn by your eyes, White Woman.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">VI</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">I went far and cold</div>
<div class="i0">Over upland wold</div>
<div class="i0">Where the story of spring's breathing</div>
<div class="i0">Scarcely yet was told.</div>
<div class="i0">Shifting monotone</div>
<div class="i0">Of the pale wind's moan</div>
<div class="i0">Through my hair at dusk went wreathing,</div>
<div class="i0">And I walked alone.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Far below and far</div>
<div class="i0">Where the homesteads are</div>
<div class="i0">One small ruddy candle twinkled,</div>
<div class="i0">Warmer than a star.</div>
<div class="i0">When the day was gone,</div>
<div class="i0">Softly one by one</div>
<div class="i0">Homing-lights the valley sprinkled ...</div>
<div class="i0">And I wandered on.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2>KING LAURIN'S GARDEN</h2>
</div>
<p class="center bold in0">(<i>A Styrian Peasant-Girl Dreams at her Wheel</i>)</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">King Laurin has a garden of roses</div>
<div class="i0">Where warm sweet odours do idly flow</div>
<div class="i0">Wave upon wave through the charmèd air ...</div>
<div class="i0">It is sin to wish for the garden of roses</div>
<div class="i0">In the heart of wild mountains where no men go.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Laurin is king of a rosy garden.</div>
<div class="i0">The lure of the roses is rare, O rare!</div>
<div class="i0">They tremble and brighten and throb and glow ...</div>
<div class="i0">I may not think of King Laurin's garden.</div>
<div class="i0">A danger, they tell me, for maids is there.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">There are four high gates to the garden of roses,</div>
<div class="i0">For the treasure of bloom a golden guard,</div>
<div class="i0">A precious cup for the rose-wine red.</div>
<div class="i0">O the golden gates of the garden of roses!</div>
<div class="i0">They are bright and beautiful, tall and barred.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">There is no strong wall round the rosy garden;</div>
<div class="i0">From gate to gate runs a woven thread,</div>
<div class="i0">Yellow and silken and fine, for ward.</div>
<div class="i0">Who snaps the ward of the rosy garden</div>
<div class="i0">With his hand and his foot shall he pay, 'tis said.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Laurin who rules the garden of roses</div>
<div class="i0">Is an elf-king, therefore he has no soul.</div>
<div class="i0">(<i>The good priest shudders at Laurin's name.</i>)</div>
<div class="i0">Poor soulless elf of the garden of roses!</div>
<div class="i0">Shall I pray for King Laurin at Vesper-toll?</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">They say no prayers in the rosy garden</div>
<div class="i0">Where life is the flash of a fragrant flame</div>
<div class="i0">Like the heart of a flower on fire: the whole</div>
<div class="i0">Of forbidden sweet is the rosy garden</div>
<div class="i0">I may not think of and feel no shame.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">For in King Laurin's garden of roses</div>
<div class="i0">Waking thought shall be stilled asleep,</div>
<div class="i0">And the still heart dream itself half-awake ...</div>
<div class="i0">O the soft, soft dreams of the garden of roses!</div>
<div class="i0">They creep ... (<i>I look not</i>) ... but they steal and creep.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Laurin the king of the rosy garden</div>
<div class="i0">Has a magic girdle that none can break.</div>
<div class="i0">It makes the pulse of his life to leap</div>
<div class="i0">With twelve men's strength. In the rosy garden</div>
<div class="i0">He is feared and feared for the girdle's sake.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Laurin the king of the garden of roses</div>
<div class="i0">Has a magic crown where strange birds so sing</div>
<div class="i0">That resistance and doubt by their song once kissed</div>
<div class="i0">Melt into trance. In the garden of roses</div>
<div class="i0">He is loved and loved for his crowned bird-ring.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Laurin the king of the rosy garden</div>
<div class="i0">Has a magic cloak the colour of mist,</div>
<div class="i0">And he goes invisibly wandering</div>
<div class="i0">Far from the bourne of the rosy garden</div>
<div class="i0">Like a cloud of pearl and of amethyst.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">He seeks a bride for his garden of roses,</div>
<div class="i0">For the soulless spirit a human girl ...</div>
<div class="i0">(<i>The priest bids me wear my cross and pray</i>) ...</div>
<div class="i0">He will bear her back to his garden of roses</div>
<div class="i0">In the mist of his magic grey-and-pearl.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Kunhild was borne to the rosy garden,</div>
<div class="i0">The sister of Dietrich of Bern, one day.</div>
<div class="i0">A fair green mead and a cloud's dim swirl,</div>
<div class="i0">And Kunhild awoke in the rosy garden ...</div>
<div class="i0">But she stood by a linden-tree first, they say.</div>
</div>
<div class="tb">
* <span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">*</span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0"><i>King Laurin has a garden of roses</i></div>
<div class="i0"><i>Full of warm odours</i> ... I'll sit and spin</div>
<div class="i0">As my Mother bids me ... <i>O wine-red glow</i></div>
<div class="i0"><i>Of half-waked dreams in the garden of roses</i> ...</div>
<div class="i0">Spin, wheel!... <i>fine thread, bright like silk, and thin</i>.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0"><i>A grey mist steals from the rosy garden</i></div>
<div class="i0"><i>In the heart of wild mountains where no men go</i> ...</div>
<div class="i0">To think of the garden they say is sin—</div>
<div class="i0">I'll dream no more of King Laurin's garden ...</div>
<div class="i0"><i>See! in our meadow green lindens grow</i>....</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2>THE MYSTERIOUS FOREST</h2>
</div>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">I stood on the verge of the mysterious forest,</div>
<div class="i0">Sunlight lay behind me on the meadows,</div>
<div class="i0">But all the world of the mysterious forest</div>
<div class="i0">Was a world of wraiths and shadows.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">The dim trees beckoned, beckoned with their branches,</div>
<div class="i0">I said: "The sun's behind me on the meadows."</div>
<div class="i0">A dim voice calling, calling through the branches</div>
<div class="i0">From the world of wraiths and shadows.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">I saw a pale young Queen, her eyes were mournful,</div>
<div class="i0">Steal ghostwise ... is the sun yet on the meadows?...</div>
<div class="i0">More phantoms passed and all their eyes were mournful</div>
<div class="i0">In the world of wraiths and shadows.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">I see a blue light in the mysterious forest,</div>
<div class="i0">The cold night lies behind me on the meadows.</div>
<div class="i0">The branches beckon in the mysterious forest ...</div>
<div class="i0">They beckon, beckon, beckon, call and beckon</div>
<div class="i0">From the world of wraiths and shadows.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2>THE OLD GREY QUEEN</h2>
</div>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">The Princess looked from the old grey tower;</div>
<div class="i0">She was a-weary of being there.</div>
<div class="i0">She wore no crown but her own gold hair,</div>
<div class="i0">And the old grey Queen had shut her there,</div>
<div class="i10">She was so like a flower.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">"The young King's-Son comes over the sea</div>
<div class="i0">From the West," said the Queen who was grey and old.</div>
<div class="i0">"In an unlit hall were not grey as gold?</div>
<div class="i0">In an unlit hall what are young and old?</div>
<div class="i10">We'll greet i' the dark," said she.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">The Princess looked from the old grey tower ...</div>
<div class="i0">Lo! a milk-white sail on the sunlit ocean.</div>
<div class="i0">Fluttered her heart to its fluttering motion,</div>
<div class="i0">And the King's-Son looked from the golden ocean ...</div>
<div class="i10">She was so like a flower.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">"Why do the grey seas break and boom?</div>
<div class="i0">And why is the starless dusk so grey?</div>
<div class="i0">And why does the young King's-Son delay?</div>
<div class="i0">Shall I," said the Queen who was old and grey,</div>
<div class="i10">"Sit all night i' the gloom?"</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">The grey seas broke on an empty tower</div>
<div class="i0">Like pain that knocks on an empty breast.</div>
<div class="i0">Lo! a milk-white sail that flew the crest</div>
<div class="i0">Of Love and of Youth met breast to breast</div>
<div class="i0">Melted away in the golden West....</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">The old grey Queen beat her empty breast:</div>
<div class="i10">"She was so like a flower."</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2>THE QUEST</h2>
</div>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">A Knight rides forth upon a Quest,</div>
<div class="i0">And his young Squire follows after;</div>
<div class="i0">The Knight's eyes dwell on a star's white crest,</div>
<div class="i0">And the Squire's eyes dwell on laughter.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">"What of the Quest that claims our swords?"</div>
<div class="i0">The young Squire asks his master.</div>
<div class="i0">The Knight says, "'Tis too high for words,"</div>
<div class="i0">And they speed their horses faster.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">A beggar hails them: "Alms! alms, Sir Knight,</div>
<div class="i0">Or loose my life with your dagger!"</div>
<div class="i0">The Knight sees only a star's white light,</div>
<div class="i0">And the Squire's purse pays the beggar.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">A sturdy robber the highroad bars:</div>
<div class="i0">"Sir Knight, our debts we'll settle!"</div>
<div class="i0">The Knight hears only the song of stars,</div>
<div class="i0">And the Squire's blade wins the battle.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">A lady looks from a castle wall:</div>
<div class="i0">"Sir Knight, in pity stay thee!</div>
<div class="i0">Untrammel me who lie here in thrall,</div>
<div class="i0">And I in love will pay thee."</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">The Knight is set on a goal heaven-high</div>
<div class="i0">Where a silver star is risen,</div>
<div class="i0">And the young Squire it is springs by</div>
<div class="i0">To free the maid from prison.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">"Take, good Sir Knight, my pleasure and pride,</div>
<div class="i0">The meed of valiant striving!</div>
<div class="i0">Here wait the lips of your glad bride</div>
<div class="i0">Whose name is Joy-of-Living."</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Starward, starward the rapt Knight goes,</div>
<div class="i0">The star's true image missing.</div>
<div class="i0">The lady laughs like a lovely rose</div>
<div class="i0">And the Squire's lips do the kissing.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">"What, boy, are you my love doth woo?</div>
<div class="i0">What's he that would not woo it?"</div>
<div class="i0">"He's John-a-Dreams-o'-Dering-do,</div>
<div class="i0">And I'm Dick-up-an'-Do-it."</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2>THE UNSPOKEN WORD</h2>
</div>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">THE MAN'S SIDE</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Two years I have lived in a dream</div>
<div class="i0">And have dared not to end it—</div>
<div class="i0">Owned wealth in a measure supreme</div>
<div class="i0">And been fearful to spend it.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">You, woman of beauty and love</div>
<div class="i0">In such noble wise fashioned,</div>
<div class="i0">Are my dreams and my rich treasure-trove.</div>
<div class="i0">I am shamed that, impassioned,</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">In secret I levy demands</div>
<div class="i0">Upon more than you've given—</div>
<div class="i0">Crave yourself, heart and soul, eyes and hands,</div>
<div class="i0">Which in sum make up heaven.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Unconscious of aught, through these days</div>
<div class="i0">You have let me be near you,</div>
<div class="i0">Knowing not how your thousand sweet ways</div>
<div class="i0">Only serve to endear you</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">To all in your orbit who move,</div>
<div class="i0">In such innocence wronging</div>
<div class="i0">As friendship what really is love</div>
<div class="i0">And unsatisfied longing.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Yet, your friendship—to be just your friend—</div>
<div class="i0">So caps love in another,</div>
<div class="i0">That I would my love, burned to its end,</div>
<div class="i0">In its own smoke might smother,</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Lest I in an outbreak one day</div>
<div class="i0">Ask of friendship aught stronger—</div>
<div class="i0">When you may forbid me to say</div>
<div class="i0">Even "friend" any longer.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">So I come in the old way and go,</div>
<div class="i0">While my heart's quickened beatings</div>
<div class="i0">Are hidden, and you never know</div>
<div class="i0">What I glean from our meetings;</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">How a word, a look even, which seems</div>
<div class="i0">So unconsciously meted,</div>
<div class="i0">Builds new dreams on the wreckage of dreams</div>
<div class="i0">That were never completed.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">You once dropped a flower—did not see</div>
<div class="i0">That I hid in my bosom</div>
<div class="i0">What was more than Golconda to me,</div>
<div class="i0">And to you a bruised blossom.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Ten seconds I once held your hand</div>
<div class="i0">While you pulled from the river</div>
<div class="i0">A lily. Could you understand</div>
<div class="i0">Why my own hand should quiver?</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Small matters these things you account</div>
<div class="i0">Who so lightly diffuse them,</div>
<div class="i0">But to all my life's joy they amount—</div>
<div class="i0">And my fear is, to lose them.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">One day, when your eyes are still kind</div>
<div class="i0">And your voice is still tender,</div>
<div class="i0">I shall slip the control of my mind,</div>
<div class="i0">All my future surrender,</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Obeying the primal desire</div>
<div class="i0">To fall down and adore you,</div>
<div class="i0">And outpour in one instant of fire</div>
<div class="i0">All the love I have for you.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">'Twill be death, and far worse, at your feet</div>
<div class="i0">When my lips cease to blunder</div>
<div class="i0">And I look up your dear eyes to meet</div>
<div class="i0">Overrunning with wonder.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Thereafter—what? Nothing, I fear—</div>
<div class="i0">Even dreams will have vanished</div>
<div class="i0">When I by my act from your sphere</div>
<div class="i0">Shall for ever be banished.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Dear, that is the moment I dread—</div>
<div class="i0">When you hear my confession,</div>
<div class="i0">When the word I withhold has been said</div>
<div class="i0">And my love finds expression;</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">But till then (and God knows how I seek</div>
<div class="i0">To postpone and postpone it),</div>
<div class="i0">Till my love grows too strong, lips too weak</div>
<div class="i0">To much longer disown it,</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">I shall come, if I may, day by day,</div>
<div class="i0">My small gleanings to gather,</div>
<div class="i0">While you think of me—how shall we say?</div>
<div class="i0">As a brother or father;</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">And you never will guess, till you learn</div>
<div class="i0">From a heart brimming over,</div>
<div class="i0">That I've met you at every turn</div>
<div class="i0">As a passionate lover.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">THE WOMAN'S SIDE</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">How long will you hold back, belov'd? How long</div>
<div class="i4">Leave the supreme, the final word unspoken?</div>
<div class="i4">The barrier of silence hold unbroken?</div>
<div class="i4">Men—you, too, being a man—have called you strong,</div>
<div class="i0">A doer of big deeds, great acts. But they are wrong.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">You lack in courage. I, being woman, know</div>
<div class="i4">How often woman shapes man's enterprises,</div>
<div class="i4">Cloaking her work in manifold disguises</div>
<div class="i4">Lest he should chafe too large a debt to owe—</div>
<div class="i0">Strikes every blow up to the very hundredth blow</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a></span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">That shall at last resolve, achieve, complete</div>
<div class="i4">The foregone nine-and-ninety. This, grown wiser,</div>
<div class="i4">She leaves with him for fear he should despise her.</div>
<div class="i4"><i>He</i> wins the credit for the final feat—</div>
<div class="i0">Thought of <i>his</i> triumph, not hers, made all her toiling sweet.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">Belov'd, how long before you understand?</div>
<div class="i4">Why, I have known two years you were my lover,</div>
<div class="i4">That all my being to yours was given over!</div>
<div class="i4">The thing your heart most yearns for lies at hand</div>
<div class="i0">Awaiting only this, that you shall make demand.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">Have I not worked for all betwixt us two</div>
<div class="i4">Since first I saw your love spring into being,</div>
<div class="i4">And you became too faint of heart for seeing</div>
<div class="i4">That the one peach you longed to garner grew,</div>
<div class="i0">Ripened, and mellowed here only for you, for you?</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">You would have drawn abashed from out my life</div>
<div class="i4">Had I permitted; it became <i>my</i> mission</div>
<div class="i4">To bring the golden moment to fruition</div>
<div class="i4">Through, ah, how many hours of wistful strife</div>
<div class="i0">With you, who guessed not, even, the tender struggle rife</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">Between us. When I met you with a smile,</div>
<div class="i4">"Love's not for me," you thought, "yet while she kindly</div>
<div class="i4">Still looks and speaks, I'll stay." And went thus blindly</div>
<div class="i4">Taking for innocence what sprang from guile</div>
<div class="i0">That I might hold you by me just a little while.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">The day I dropped a flower upon the path,</div>
<div class="i4">Did you not know it was the thing I aimed for</div>
<div class="i4">When you behind me loitered (somewhat lamed for</div>
<div class="i4">A good excuse), secured it free from scath</div>
<div class="i0">And hid it close, to reap therefrom love's aftermath</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">In hours when I was absent? Why, I <i>meant</i>,</div>
<div class="i4">Belov'd, that you should have this one flower-treasure</div>
<div class="i4">(Stolen, you thought!) out of my heart's full measure—</div>
<div class="i4">Meant that your solitary nights be spent</div>
<div class="i0">Cheek to its petals pressed where all my love lay pent.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">And then, the day you helped me from the boat,</div>
<div class="i4">"It is but chance," you thought, "I hold her fingers</div>
<div class="i4">In mine past custom's limit, while she lingers</div>
<div class="i4">To cull the waterlily there afloat."</div>
<div class="i0">It was not chance, belov'd. And still you would not note.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">I have done all a woman may do, dear,</div>
<div class="i4">With eyes and hands and tones of voice have spoken,</div>
<div class="i4">In all but words have given you the token</div>
<div class="i4">And seal of love. What is it then you fear?</div>
<div class="i0">Can you not take one step, the goal being now so near?</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">Just the last word to utter, just the last</div>
<div class="i4">Step to be taken—it is very little!</div>
<div class="i4">Can you believe Love's structure is so brittle?</div>
<div class="i4">All I have builded in these two years past</div>
<div class="i0">Fall tottering at one word? It is of stronger cast.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">You would not have me speak. That part is yours.</div>
<div class="i4">My share is finished and I wait for you now.</div>
<div class="i4">The time to act has come—what will you do now?</div>
<div class="i4">Dear, even I'd say the word that all ensures</div>
<div class="i0">But that were more than love itself of love endures.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">I had to spend my strength when you were weak,</div>
<div class="i4">Be guide along the road from its beginning</div>
<div class="i4">To the last barrier. Am I worth the winning?</div>
<div class="i4">But <i>you</i> must turn the key. It will not creak.</div>
<div class="i0">Beloved, I am waiting still ... will you not speak?</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2>IN THE OCULIST'S ANTEROOM</h2>
</div>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">I</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Not to be able to see!...</div>
<div class="i0">Almost as well not be.</div>
<div class="i0">And that man in there in his single hand</div>
<div class="i0">Holds all God's light,</div>
<div class="i0">Or just so much, you understand,</div>
<div class="i0">As may be drunk in by another's sight—</div>
<div class="i0">Dear God, will he give the light to me?</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Or will a fathomless night</div>
<div class="i0">Drop its veil across the sight</div>
<div class="i0">Of my straining eyes, to become mere husks</div>
<div class="i0">Whence the kernel slips,</div>
<div class="i0">Knowing none of God's dawns and only God's dusks ...</div>
<div class="i0">That man has them all at his finger-tips.</div>
<div class="i0">Dear God! will he clear the dusk from the light?</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">II</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">He has spoken. The man with his cold voice has spoken.</div>
<div class="i0">The seal of suspense lies here shattered and broken,</div>
<div class="i0"><i>And I know</i> ... And I know</div>
<div class="i0">What the coming years hold which an hour since were dumb to me—</div>
<div class="i0">God! how precious the jewel of your light has become to me</div>
<div class="i0">Where's my hat? Let me go.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2>LITTLE DREAM-BROTHER.</h2>
</div>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Little dream-brother that died</div>
<div class="i0">When I was not a year out of heaven,</div>
<div class="i0">I heard you when you tried</div>
<div class="i0">To come to me yestereven.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">As I lay in bed</div>
<div class="i0">Midway 'twixt nothingness and waking,</div>
<div class="i0">I heard the window shaking</div>
<div class="i0">And the beat of wings upon the pane.</div>
<div class="i0">"It is not the rain,</div>
<div class="i0">But my little dream-brother out there," I said.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">I turned in bed:</div>
<div class="i0">"Come in, little dream-brother."</div>
<div class="i0">"I can only come in by the gates of sleep</div>
<div class="i0">And by no other.</div>
<div class="i0">Through the niche of the tiniest dream I can creep—</div>
<div class="i0">Sleep, sister, do sleep," you said.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">And so through the night we waited—</div>
<div class="i0">You on the window-threshold there</div>
<div class="i0">In the wet windy weather,</div>
<div class="i0">And I abed—with breath bated,</div>
<div class="i0">Just to catch the first moment of sleep unaware</div>
<div class="i0">And fly kissing together.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a></span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">But sleep would not come till seven,</div>
<div class="i0">When the shivering day</div>
<div class="i0">Looked up all chilly and grey.</div>
<div class="i0">"Creep into bed,</div>
<div class="i0">Little dream-brother, under my arm</div>
<div class="i0">And I'll keep you warm."</div>
<div class="i0">But you shook your head:</div>
<div class="i0">"It's bed-time in heaven,</div>
<div class="i0">Sister. Goodbye," you said.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">There was not a whole year between you</div>
<div class="i0">And me, little dream-brother.</div>
<div class="i0">I cannot remember even to have seen you ...</div>
<div class="i0">And now I might be your mother.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2>FAUST AND MARGARET</h2>
</div>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">"Devil," he said, "Love's Heaven—</div>
<div class="i0">Shall man not therefor lose his soul?"</div>
</div>
<div class="tb">
* <span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">*</span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">"God," she whispered, "is Love Heaven?</div>
<div class="i0">Is Heaven a place of dole?"</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">(<i>And so she gave his Heaven to the man</i></div>
<div class="i0"><i>Because the man did crave it.</i></div>
<div class="i0"><i>And so because she never asked Hell's ban</i></div>
<div class="i0"><i>He gave it.</i>)</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">"Devil!" he said, "Love's Hell!</div>
<div class="i0">Man's wild-beast-thirst, how slake it?</div>
<div class="i0">Take the tenderest thing, thus—thus!</div>
<div class="i0">Passion-torture it a spell,</div>
<div class="i0">And break it!"</div>
</div>
<div class="tb">
* <span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">*</span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">"God," she whispered, "Love is Heaven.</div>
<div class="i0">Love's not what Love is made for us,</div>
<div class="i0">But what we make it."</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">(<i>And so her dead soul found what it had given,</i></div>
<div class="i0"><i>And what he builded, there his damned soul ended....</i></div>
<div class="i0"><i>And do you think that either Hell or Heaven</i></div>
<div class="i0"><i>These sinners' suffering-on-earth amended?</i>)</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2>DREAM-SHIPS</h2>
</div>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">I set my dream-ships floating</div>
<div class="i0">Upon the tides of sleep.</div>
<div class="i0">Beneath whose moving waters</div>
<div class="i0">Unfathomed currents creep;</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">And one was made of roses</div>
<div class="i0">With flowering mast and spars,</div>
<div class="i0">And one was made of music,</div>
<div class="i0">And one was made of stars:</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">One was all joy and sorrow</div>
<div class="i0">Made from my own heart-strings,</div>
<div class="i0">And one was like a cradle</div>
<div class="i0">With sails like angels' wings.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">O little ships that wander</div>
<div class="i0">All lonely on the deep,</div>
<div class="i0">And only come to haven</div>
<div class="i0">Upon the tides of sleep.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2>THE MORAL</h2>
</div>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">The youth cried in anguish: "God,</div>
<div class="i0">My life is bowed down beneath</div>
<div class="i0">Its woe! I am no mere clod—</div>
<div class="i0">There's fire in my blood and breath.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">"You, Who made me of flesh, not stone,</div>
<div class="i0">Of quivering tissues—dare</div>
<div class="i0">You leave me to face alone</div>
<div class="i0">A grief past my strength to bear?</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">"Life might be veriest heaven,</div>
<div class="i0">Life can be veriest hell—</div>
<div class="i0">In <i>Your</i> hands rests what is given.</div>
<div class="i0">God, I hold You responsible!"</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Then the man who was growing grey</div>
<div class="i0">Observed: "In an idle mood</div>
<div class="i0">God blew bubbles one day</div>
<div class="i0">And loosed the glistening brood</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">On the welkin, one by one—</div>
<div class="i0">Myriads of worlds they sped:</div>
<div class="i0">There were planets and moon and sun,</div>
<div class="i0">And one was the globe we tread."</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a></span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Then the Spirit that Nullifies,</div>
<div class="i0">Men term Death, asked: "How long?" (One fears</div>
<div class="i0">God shrugged.) "While I blink my eyes—</div>
<div class="i0">Shall we say a billion years?"</div>
</div>
<div class="tb">
* <span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">* </span><span class="in2">*</span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">The youth on the fable broke,</div>
<div class="i0">And scorn in his accents ran:</div>
<div class="i0">"What is all this to me? I spoke</div>
<div class="i0">To God of <i>Myself</i>, old man."</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2>COLOUR-TONES</h2>
</div>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">I</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">A visionary filmy sheen</div>
<div class="i0">Scarce palpable of silver-green</div>
<div class="i0">Limns barren furrow and bare branch.</div>
<div class="i0">One month more, and the welcoming</div>
<div class="i0">Gates o' the world will open wide</div>
<div class="i0">To let the full deep vernal tide</div>
<div class="i0">Sweep overland, an avalanche</div>
<div class="i0">Of green, absorbing in its rush</div>
<div class="i0">This silver-misty verdure ... Hush!</div>
<div class="i0">This is the old earth's dream of Spring.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">II</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">In Cobham woods the bluebells run</div>
<div class="i0">Celestial rillets, streams and rivers,</div>
<div class="i0">Or else a purple lake they lie,</div>
<div class="i0">Or little azure pool;</div>
<div class="i0">The blue flood shimmers in the sun</div>
<div class="i0">Or under the wind's breathing shivers,</div>
<div class="i0">While drops cerulean-tincted spill</div>
<div class="i0">Among the grass. Then very still</div>
<div class="i0">The dim sweet waters grow and cool</div>
<div class="i0">Like shadows of the sky.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span></p>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">III</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">The yellow light of daffodils</div>
<div class="i0">The lawns beneath the fruit-trees fills,</div>
<div class="i0">The yellow light of early spring</div>
<div class="i0">Swims in the shining upper air,</div>
<div class="i0">And all about the fragrant fair</div>
<div class="i0">Blossoming boughs of sunlit white</div>
<div class="i0">Like clouds of heavenly incense swing</div>
<div class="i0">'Twixt yellow light and yellow light.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2>FROM AN OLD GARDEN</h2>
</div>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">OUTSIDE</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Trees have grown to the edge of the gate</div>
<div class="i0">Where grey-bearded lichens cling;</div>
<div class="i0">The greenwoods stand in a ring,</div>
<div class="i0">Holding the garden-pearl in their centre</div>
<div class="i0">A jewel inviolate.</div>
<div class="i0">Heart of mine, shall we enter?</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">There is a charm of sleep in the air,</div>
<div class="i0">Weft of Time's humming loom.</div>
<div class="i0">There in the green half-gloom</div>
<div class="i0">I think some intangible spirit hovers ...</div>
<div class="i0">They say the dim wraiths dwell there</div>
<div class="i0">Of countless, long-dead lovers.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Warp of sleep and woof of love:</div>
<div class="i0">The flush of a live rose glows</div>
<div class="i0">By the pallid death of the rose,</div>
<div class="i0">A song next the hush that stilled its numbers:</div>
<div class="i0">Such is the web Time wove.</div>
<div class="i0">Dare we disturb their slumbers?</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">We stand on the outskirts, you and I—</div>
<div class="i0">Shall we not venture in?</div>
<div class="i0">They will condone the sin,</div>
<div class="i0">Those dim, dead lovers, will smile and pardon,</div>
<div class="i0">For our honeymoon hangs in the sky.</div>
<div class="i0">Heart of mine, into the garden!</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span></p>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">INSIDE</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">You and I here!</div>
<div class="i0">Shut the gate behind us.</div>
<div class="i0">Nothing to fear</div>
<div class="i0">And none to find us.</div>
<div class="i0">We are all the world, dear!</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">'Tis a cloister of dreams,</div>
<div class="i0">This dear old garden;</div>
<div class="i0">The sundial seems</div>
<div class="i0">To stand as their warden.</div>
<div class="i0">How Love's star gleams!</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">We'll sup on the rose,</div>
<div class="i0">Our tent is this willow—</div>
<div class="i0">Lie close, Love, close!</div>
<div class="i0">There's grass for our pillow.</div>
<div class="i0">How Love's star glows!</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">You and I here</div>
<div class="i0">And the world behind us!</div>
<div class="i0">Nothing to fear</div>
<div class="i0">And none to find us—</div>
<div class="i0">Shut the gate, dear.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span></p>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">FLOW'R AND SONG</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Song and flow'r and flow'r and song,</div>
<div class="i0">So soothed the summer drifts along:</div>
<div class="i4">Within our hearts a flow'r</div>
<div class="i4">Unfolding hour by hour,</div>
<div class="i4">While a song half-conscious slips</div>
<div class="i4">Over my dear one's lips.</div>
<div class="i0">Flow'r and song and song and flow'r,</div>
<div class="i0">So filled runs by each swift, sweet hour:</div>
<div class="i4">Close to my breast you twine</div>
<div class="i4">Your flow'r-lips laid on mine,</div>
<div class="i4">And I catch before we part</div>
<div class="i4">The song-beats of your heart.</div>
<div class="i0">Flow'r and song in our garden-close</div>
<div class="i0">Like wedded lovers have grown one word.</div>
<div class="i0">I could weave you a wreath from the notes of that bird,</div>
<div class="i0">And pluck you a song from the heart of this rose.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">DWELLERS IN THE GARDEN</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">Who dwelt here of old?</div>
<div class="i0">Hush! If I lift from the misty years</div>
<div class="i0">The veil of dead smiles and forgotten tears,</div>
<div class="i0">I think I can picture a little maid</div>
<div class="i4">Crowned with plaits of gold,</div>
<div class="i0">Passing alone down each green arcade</div>
<div class="i4">While the sundial told</div>
<div class="i0">In silence its hours of shine and shade.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a></span>
<div class="i0">Young she was as the peep of dawn,</div>
<div class="i0">And as a year-old dappled fawn</div>
<div class="i0">Was shy and tender and innocent.</div>
<div class="i0">And all her days were in waiting spent</div>
<div class="i0">Amongst her flowers in a day-dream she</div>
<div class="i0">Builded herself. So continuously</div>
<div class="i0">In waiting and waiting the days went by—</div>
<div class="i0">We know what she waited, love, you and I.</div>
<div class="i0">The flowers had nothing to teach to her—</div>
<div class="i0">In her sleep she could hear the grasses stir,</div>
<div class="i0">She had secrets with every rose in the place,</div>
<div class="i0">The lilies kept smiles for her lily-face,</div>
<div class="i0">She could think their thoughts and utter their speech,</div>
<div class="i0">Had a sister's tender look for each,</div>
<div class="i0">And knew why the trailing clematis</div>
<div class="i0">Dropped on the sundial a purple kiss—</div>
<div class="i0">As surely as we know why, she knew.</div>
<div class="i0">And so in her house of dreams she grew,</div>
<div class="i0">And so the star-lighted nights slipped by.</div>
<div class="i0">We know what she waited for—you and I—</div>
<div class="i4">Who dwelt here of old.</div>
<div class="i4">There's her tale half-told.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">What more to unfold?</div>
<div class="i0">When he came at last did they ride away,</div>
<div class="i0">Or, day succeeding each happy day,</div>
<div class="i0">Did they stay with two heartfuls of love to brim</div>
<div class="i0">The garden wherein she had waited him?</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span>
<div class="i0">Well, this I know. If they stayed or went,</div>
<div class="i0">After their term of life was spent</div>
<div class="i0">They returned to roam by her lily-pond,</div>
<div class="i0">On to the rosery set beyond,</div>
<div class="i0">Haunt her favourite paths and nooks,</div>
<div class="i0">Re-read the fairy-tales which her books,</div>
<div class="i0">The flowers, had yielded her in such store</div>
<div class="i0">When he was the hero of all their lore.</div>
<div class="i0">Hand in hand they go as of old,</div>
<div class="i4">He brave and bold,</div>
<div class="i4">She crowned with gold.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Ah, love, they are neither the first nor last!</div>
<div class="i0">For all of those, having loved and passed,</div>
<div class="i0">In spirit come back when their dust is cold,</div>
<div class="i4">Who dwelt here of old.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">A ROSE-SONG</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Oh, what a realm, what a riot of roses!</div>
<div class="i0">Here we stand</div>
<div class="i0">Right in the heart of a great rose-land!</div>
<div class="i0">Over our head the blossom-world closes,</div>
<div class="i0">Under our feet—</div>
<div class="i0">Walls, ceil and carpet are flowery-sweet.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Snowy and crimson and pink and golden</div>
<div class="i0">Twine and trail,</div>
<div class="i0">Vivid as life is, as death is, pale.</div>
<div class="i0">Here they bloom as they bloomed in olden</div>
<div class="i0">Days when we</div>
<div class="i0">Were unborn shades, and the shades that be</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Had right in these grounds to resent intrusion.</div>
<div class="i0">Now you and I</div>
<div class="i0">Jealously cherish our privacy.</div>
<div class="i0">How came these roses by their profusion,</div>
<div class="i0">Tier on tier</div>
<div class="i0">Of bloom on bloom running uncurb'd here?</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">I think I can guess what they would answer,</div>
<div class="i0">Whence they came,</div>
<div class="i0">Pallid petal and flower of flame,</div>
<div class="i0">Inscribed with such lore as the old romancer</div>
<div class="i0">Of Italy</div>
<div class="i0">Left the world to make love-songs by.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">We are born, these pink roses say, of kisses,</div>
<div class="i0">Dye of the blush.</div>
<div class="i0">What though time's passage their soft lisp hush?</div>
<div class="i0">The seeds were scattered of lovers' blisses,</div>
<div class="i0">And year by year</div>
<div class="i0">We renew their tender caresses here.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a></span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">We are born of joy, say these petals yellow,</div>
<div class="i0">Tinge of delight.</div>
<div class="i0">What though love's sunshine be lapped in night?</div>
<div class="i0">We, sprung from its seeds, rich-toned and mellow,</div>
<div class="i0">Perpetuate</div>
<div class="i0">The days when the orbit of love waxed great.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">We are born, these red ones say, of passion,</div>
<div class="i0">Flush of the heart.</div>
<div class="i0">What though the sound of love's steps depart?</div>
<div class="i0">The seeds were sown, and we in this fashion</div>
<div class="i0">Immortalize</div>
<div class="i0">Remembrance thereof in the heart's own dyes.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">We are born, say these snow-white blooms, of the spirit,</div>
<div class="i0">Children of death.</div>
<div class="i0">What is the ceasing of mere life-breath?</div>
<div class="i0">Love is sustained by its own pure merit,</div>
<div class="i0">Its memory</div>
<div class="i0">Renewed and renewed to infinity.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Belov'd, we are adding to these rose-bowers.</div>
<div class="i0">When we have passed</div>
<div class="i0">Here our hearts' treasure will lie amassed.</div>
<div class="i0">Pink, gold, crimson and snowy flowers,</div>
<div class="i0">Thus and thus,</div>
<div class="i0">To the limit of time will bloom for us.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span></p>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">BY THE FOUNTAIN</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Come down, dear, to the fountain's pool with me,</div>
<div class="i0">And help me guess how long since last it tinkled</div>
<div class="i0">And trickled out thin streams of minstrelsy—</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">How long since last the grass with pearls it sprinkled.</div>
<div class="i0">It was yet young the day it fell asleep,</div>
<div class="i0">For time has left its glassy face unwrinkled.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Ah, could we where the shadows lie most deep</div>
<div class="i0">Peering discern the dear forgotten faces</div>
<div class="i0">Of girls who o'er the brink were wont to peep,</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">With shy eyes seeking in the depths the graces</div>
<div class="i0">Made dear and lovely to them by love's praise.</div>
<div class="i0">Can all have passed away and left no traces?</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">They dreamed, as we too dream, through summer days,</div>
<div class="i0">And hid their white thoughts in such water-lilies</div>
<div class="i0">As float here now. Flowers do not change their ways.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Ah, love, to-day the lucent water still is</div>
<div class="i0">As tho' no rosy finger-tips had dipped</div>
<div class="i0">And dabbled it, and hushed the fountain's rill is.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Their feet across the velvet greensward tripped,</div>
<div class="i0">Their bosoms pressed the crumbling grey-stone basin,</div>
<div class="i0">They fed the ruddy goldfish laughing-lipped ...</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Is not one left? Look, look! I seem to trace in</div>
<div class="i0">The murky deeps some shape of hoary carp—</div>
<div class="i0">Too late! for now I only see your face in</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">The water, smiling questions. He was sharp,</div>
<div class="i0">That king-fish, but I caught his gold crown's glimmer ...</div>
<div class="i0">Oh, fountain, tune again for us your harp,</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Fling through the air for us your diamond shimmer</div>
<div class="i0">Of spray. Two new young lovers seek your shrine.</div>
<div class="i0">Those loves of old with years grow fainter, dimmer,</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">But ours is warm and living and divine,</div>
<div class="i0">And time has not yet breathed upon its lustre,</div>
<div class="i0">And I am hers and she is all of mine!</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">And here we kneel where once old loves would muster,</div>
<div class="i0">Shut in the lilies one new secret up,</div>
<div class="i0">And add her image to the beauty-cluster</div>
<div class="i0">Of those whose eyes lie mirrored in your cup.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span></p>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">TIME AND LOVE</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Old sundial, you stand here for Time:</div>
<div class="i0">For Love, the vine that round your base</div>
<div class="i0">Its tendrils twines, and dares to climb</div>
<div class="i0">And lay one flower-capped spray in grace</div>
<div class="i0">Without the asking on your cold</div>
<div class="i0">Unsmiling and unfrowning face.</div>
<div class="i0">Yet, sundial, even Time may mould.</div>
<div class="i0">In years to come the foot shall stumble</div>
<div class="i0">Upon your shattered ruins where</div>
<div class="i0">This vine will flourish still, as rare,</div>
<div class="i0">As fresh, as fragrant as of old.</div>
<div class="i4">Love will not crumble.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Kisses have worn your stones away,</div>
<div class="i0">Lov'd lips you did not pulse beneath;</div>
<div class="i0">Dropt tears have hastened your decay</div>
<div class="i0">And brought you one step nigher death;</div>
<div class="i0">And you have heard, unthrilled, unmoved,</div>
<div class="i0">The music of Love's golden breath</div>
<div class="i0">And seen the light in eyes that loved.</div>
<div class="i0">You think you hold the core and kernel</div>
<div class="i0">Of all the world beneath your crust,</div>
<div class="i0">Old dial? But when you lie in dust,</div>
<div class="i0">This vine will bloom, strong, green, and proved.</div>
<div class="i4">Love is eternal.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a></span></p>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">RIFLED FLOWERS</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Why is the lily's cheek waxen with grief?</div>
<div class="i8">A brown-and-gold thief</div>
<div class="i8">Dived down to her core</div>
<div class="i8">And burgled her store.</div>
<div class="i0">Bowed with her sweetness she saw him depart,</div>
<div class="i4">But her soul was too pure to complain.</div>
<div class="i4">Dear, drop a kiss in her heart</div>
<div class="i0">And make the sweet lily all honey again.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Why does the fox-glove droop low, bell and leaf?</div>
<div class="i8">A silver-winged thief</div>
<div class="i8">Who delved in her pollen</div>
<div class="i8">With gold powder swollen</div>
<div class="i0">Fled in new blossoms her wealth to disburse</div>
<div class="i4">And left her not one yellow grain.</div>
<div class="i4">Sweet, blow a kiss in her purse</div>
<div class="i0">And fill the dear fox-glove with treasure again.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span></p>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">FAIRY-TIME</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Lie very still, love, where I fold</div>
<div class="i0">You close: the clocks strike fairy-time.</div>
<div class="i0">The thin, sweet tinkle of their chime</div>
<div class="i0">Is like a thread of gold</div>
<div class="i0">Woven through the heart of night</div>
<div class="i0">For our delight.</div>
<div class="i0">And following the elfin call</div>
<div class="i0">Faint noises, half-tones, rise and fall—</div>
<div class="i0">The whirr and flit of fairy wings</div>
<div class="i0">Pass and re-pass,</div>
<div class="i0">And we can hear among the grass</div>
<div class="i0">Musicians tune their buzzing strings,</div>
<div class="i0">And small feet tapping on the ground</div>
<div class="i0">The measures of a fairy round.</div>
<div class="i0">Out of the roses stream wee elves,</div>
<div class="i0">Sweet peas are fairies in themselves,</div>
<div class="i0">And myriad water-sprites</div>
<div class="i0">From dreaming water-lilies rise,</div>
<div class="i0">Such glistening, ephemeral mites,</div>
<div class="i0">Flashing like spray across our eyes.</div>
<div class="i0">Watch how all whirl, dissolve, and mix</div>
<div class="i0">Again, foot it so daintily,</div>
<div class="i0">Play such quaint, pretty tricks—</div>
<div class="i0">Some on wild moths go riding by,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span>
<div class="i0">Breaking them in with rein and bit</div>
<div class="i0">Of gossamer: some lurk and flit,</div>
<div class="i0">Making pretence at hide and-seek</div>
<div class="i0">Behind the daisies, laugh and peek</div>
<div class="i0">Like children: disregarding rules,</div>
<div class="i0">Play leap-frog with the spotted stools</div>
<div class="i0">Of fungus, each night newly-sprung</div>
<div class="i0">For them to sport among ...</div>
<div class="i0">Suddenly all grow hushed with awe—</div>
<div class="i0">Come closer, dear!</div>
<div class="i0">The voice of one who broke the law</div>
<div class="i0">Of Fairyland sounds harsh and near,</div>
<div class="i0">And overhead a dark shape flies.</div>
<div class="i0">Bound in a hollow oak by day</div>
<div class="i0">He, like the wizard Merlin, lies,</div>
<div class="i0">But is condemned to pass the night</div>
<div class="i0">In restless flight</div>
<div class="i0">Until the dawn looms grey....</div>
<div class="i0">There! he has passed. And in a trice</div>
<div class="i0">They all forget him, joining hands</div>
<div class="i0">Once more in glittering, laughing bands,</div>
<div class="i0">Employing every strange device</div>
<div class="i0">And twist and twirl</div>
<div class="i0">And mazy whirl</div>
<div class="i0">To build their graceful, freakish dance—</div>
<div class="i0">Like moonbeam motes they glide and glance</div>
<div class="i0">Under the starshine. Seize this chance</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span>
<div class="i0">Of watching them. To-morrow we</div>
<div class="i0">No trace shall see</div>
<div class="i0">Of all their revels save—who knows?—</div>
<div class="i0">A broken toadstool, or the spun</div>
<div class="i0">Fine silken spider's web undone,</div>
<div class="i0">The shattered petals of a rose</div>
<div class="i0">Tom in the careless frolic, or</div>
<div class="i0">The bloom brushed from some untamed wing</div>
<div class="i0">Of moth, and on their dancing-floor</div>
<div class="i0">Staining the grass a bright green ring.</div>
<div class="i0">Lie close, and let us look our fill</div>
<div class="i0">To-night. Be very still.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">THE WANING YEAR</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">Two little things, dear, I have seen</div>
<div class="i0">To-day that overflowed my breast with sorrow—</div>
<div class="i0">We may not stay here many another morrow.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">Amongst the leafage, by its green</div>
<div class="i0">Still-living sisters tenderly enfolden,</div>
<div class="i0">I saw one single leaf grown dry and golden.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">And down the alleys of the rose</div>
<div class="i0">Passing, I saw one lightly breathed-on blossom</div>
<div class="i0">Fall instantly deflowered to earth's brown bosom.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">Compassionate summer ere she goes</div>
<div class="i0">Strikes tender notes surcharged with wistful warnings ...</div>
<div class="i0">Dear heart, we must begone ere many mornings.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span></p>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">SHADOWS</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">We thought we were here alone,</div>
<div class="i0">Had spent our summer of love</div>
<div class="i0">By all other hearts unknown,</div>
<div class="i0">Of all other eyes unseen—</div>
<div class="i0">But something came to disprove</div>
<div class="i0">Last night what we thought had been.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">The shadows fell one by one—</div>
<div class="i0">We have watched them fall before</div>
<div class="i0">And fancied ourselves alone;</div>
<div class="i0">But they seemed to waver and move</div>
<div class="i0">Last night, and to wander o'er</div>
<div class="i0">Our green-tented couch of love.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">You were asleep, and I</div>
<div class="i0">Would not disturb your dreams</div>
<div class="i0">Lest the shadowy shapes should fly.</div>
<div class="i0">I saw them gather and mount</div>
<div class="i0">In ever-increasing streams—</div>
<div class="i0">More lovers than I could count.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">They circled around our bed</div>
<div class="i0">And watched us a little while</div>
<div class="i0">From the sides and foot and head;</div>
<div class="i0">And some of that shadow-band</div>
<div class="i0">Were wistful, and some would smile,</div>
<div class="i0">But all seemed to understand.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Then I felt light fingers twine</div>
<div class="i0">In my hair, and soft breath enwreathe</div>
<div class="i0">My brow ... lips were laid to mine ...</div>
<div class="i0">But none of the hands was this,</div>
<div class="i0">Nor the breath the breath you breathe,</div>
<div class="i0">The kisses were not your kiss.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Then ... you turned on your side to press</div>
<div class="i0">More close with the smile that slips</div>
<div class="i0">From its hiding at my caress,</div>
<div class="i0">And you breathed my name in my ear</div>
<div class="i0">As though I had kissed your lips ...</div>
<div class="i0">But I had not kissed you, dear.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">THE LAST NIGHT</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">Well, is it done? is it over?</div>
<div class="i0">Three months in these groves I have been your lover,</div>
<div class="i0">Added my voice to the echoing chorus</div>
<div class="i4">Of those who loved here before us.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">We have pressed the paths made sweet</div>
<div class="i0">By the pressure of bygone lovers' feet,</div>
<div class="i0">Have lain amid flowerless violet-beds</div>
<div class="i4">Where they laid their happy heads;</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">We have flung a red-rose petal</div>
<div class="i0">On the glass of the pond and watched it settle,</div>
<div class="i0">Then drift like a boat down one of her streams</div>
<div class="i4">With our cargo of hopes and dreams.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a></span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">So many have come and gone,</div>
<div class="i0">Have done the things which we two have done:</div>
<div class="i0">Have leaned in revery sweet and solemn,</div>
<div class="i4">Hands laced, on the sundial's column:</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">Have found their three months as brief</div>
<div class="i0">As the life of a blade of grass, a leaf—</div>
<div class="i0">As eternal, too, as the leafage is</div>
<div class="i4">Have found their three months of bliss.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">For us it is finished and over.</div>
<div class="i0">Our three months are spent when as lover and lover</div>
<div class="i0">We may roam these groves. But to-night we are nearest,</div>
<div class="i4">This being our last night, dearest,</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">The spirits of those who wander</div>
<div class="i0">Near our lily-pond, by our sundial yonder,</div>
<div class="i0">In our rose-realm ... Farewells are not easily spoken,</div>
<div class="i4">So their silence remains unbroken.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i4">But I see through a mist of tears</div>
<div class="i0">This garden after a million years,</div>
<div class="i0">Where two shades more move eternally ...</div>
<div class="i4">Heart of mine, they are you and I.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter"></div>
<h2>A SHEAF OF NATURE-SONGS</h2>
<p class="center bold p2t">(Overstrand, 1905.)</p>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">I</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">They were gathered up in the moods</div>
<div class="i0">Which I found in the solitudes</div>
<div class="i0">Of the shore and the fields and the woods,</div>
<div class="i0">Of the dawn and the noon and the even,</div>
<div class="i0">Of the earth and the sea and of heaven.</div>
<div class="i0">And some lack rhythm and metre,</div>
<div class="i0">And none of the songs is sweeter,</div>
<div class="i0">Or as sweet (by the infinite span</div>
<div class="i0">Which divides the work of man</div>
<div class="i0">From the work of his God), as the thing</div>
<div class="i0">Which was the fountain and spring</div>
<div class="i0">Whence my heart drew its need to sing.</div>
<div class="i0">But because wherever I went</div>
<div class="i0">Much song in my heart was pent:</div>
<div class="i0">Because the sea and the sky</div>
<div class="i0">Filled my breast with such melody:</div>
<div class="i0">Because the woodlands and all</div>
<div class="i0">God's earth became musical</div>
<div class="i0">As they entered into my soul:</div>
<div class="i0">Because I captured the whole</div>
<div class="i0">Of Nature for my possession:</div>
<div class="i0">I sang just to find expression</div>
<div class="i0">For the joy and the love and the pride of it—</div>
<div class="i0">Else all song in me might have died of it.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span></p>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">II</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">The infinite sky overhead</div>
<div class="i0">And on the horizon</div>
<div class="i0">The infinite sea.</div>
<div class="i0">Green billowing grass for my bed—</div>
<div class="i0">At last I am out of my prison</div>
<div class="i0">And free!</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">An insect creeps over my page,</div>
<div class="i0">An infinite mite</div>
<div class="i0">With all life folded under its wings.</div>
<div class="i0">I am of no sex, of no age,</div>
<div class="i0">Here out of sight</div>
<div class="i0">Of the world, all alone with God's infinite things.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Oh, the world of small leafage</div>
<div class="i0">Peopling the bank where I lean,</div>
<div class="i0">And the one white daisy</div>
<div class="i0">With its wisdom of things supernal.</div>
<div class="i0">They live out their brief age,</div>
<div class="i0">Brief but eternal,</div>
<div class="i0">And time itself recedes and grows hazy</div>
<div class="i0">In this little infinite world of green.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Behind me the copse</div>
<div class="i0">Like a round cup dips</div>
<div class="i0">Filled with a pool of soft shadows,</div>
<div class="i0">And to me in the meadows</div>
<div class="i0">One shy bird-voice from the tree-top drips</div>
<div class="i0">And into the hollow of shadows it melts and drops.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">They are all around me</div>
<div class="i0">And all above me,</div>
<div class="i0">Half-seen, half-heard,</div>
<div class="i0">Flower and leaf and insect and bird,</div>
<div class="i0">Wild, timid creatures,</div>
<div class="i0">Simple and friendly and shy;</div>
<div class="i0">And so still I lie</div>
<div class="i0">Where they have found me</div>
<div class="i0">That I think in time they may learn to love me,</div>
<div class="i0">For they are Nature's</div>
<div class="i0">And so am I.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">One by one she unfolds each feature,</div>
<div class="i0">The Infinite Mother</div>
<div class="i0">To her child.</div>
<div class="i0">There was a new bird-call,</div>
<div class="i0">And there was another!</div>
<div class="i0">I too shall learn to grow simple and shy and wild ...</div>
<div class="i0">Only Nature and Nature and nothing but Nature,</div>
<div class="i0">And I alone in the heart of it all.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span></p>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">III</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">They who dwell in the southlands say,</div>
<div class="i0">Little green England of mine, that you</div>
<div class="i0">Are misty and colourless, cold and grey.</div>
<div class="i4">If it be true</div>
<div class="i0">And they can know it who dwell afar,</div>
<div class="i0">You only are grey as diamonds are.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">To-day in the warm soft evening light</div>
<div class="i0">You are a zone of delicate tints;</div>
<div class="i0">On the rim of the sea the sun is bright,</div>
<div class="i4">And shoots and glints</div>
<div class="i0">Sparkles of gold through its splendid blue.</div>
<div class="i0">Who say you are colourless know not you.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Opal gleams on the sunset sky</div>
<div class="i0">Where a wave of the liquid sapphire flows;</div>
<div class="i0">One bright cloud on its flood drifts by</div>
<div class="i4">Of pearl and rose;</div>
<div class="i0">The air is radiant and crystalline</div>
<div class="i0">As rare jewels delved from a fairy mine.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">A breeze just shivers the green of the corn</div>
<div class="i0">And sweeps it into a silver sea;</div>
<div class="i0">Infinite sensitive shades new-born</div>
<div class="i4">On hill and lea</div>
<div class="i0">Over the land's lap flit and pass</div>
<div class="i0">Like elusive tints in Venetian glass</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Nature has painted you in pastel,</div>
<div class="i0">You are her palette of tender hues,</div>
<div class="i0">Little green England of mine, where dwell</div>
<div class="i4">Change, and infuse,</div>
<div class="i0">The million lights of the polar-star,</div>
<div class="i0">And you only are grey as diamonds are.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span></p>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">IV</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i8">If I could unravel</div>
<div class="i8">The music of the grass,</div>
<div class="i8">Beyond those confines travel</div>
<div class="i8">Which mortals cannot pass,</div>
<div class="i8">I think that I should capture all</div>
<div class="i8">The secret of things musical—</div>
<div class="i0">All music ever will be, and all it ever was.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i8">Ear close to earth inclining</div>
<div class="i8">I hear her wordless song</div>
<div class="i8">Of threads past man's divining</div>
<div class="i8">Woven the grass among.</div>
<div class="i8">Beneath these fragrant, tangled weeds</div>
<div class="i8">She sings the strain to which her seeds</div>
<div class="i0">March into life, push upward to heaven, and grow strong.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i8">Then like a voice replying</div>
<div class="i8">Follows her cradle-croon</div>
<div class="i8">Lulling tired things that, dying,</div>
<div class="i8">Back to their Mother swoon.</div>
<div class="i8">For where the worlds of grasses spring</div>
<div class="i8">Both life and death their choral sing,</div>
<div class="i0">The spheres' eternal roundel circling an afternoon.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i8">The music of existence</div>
<div class="i8">Moves underneath my ear—</div>
<div class="i8">From how remote a distance</div>
<div class="i8">Comes that which sounds so near!</div>
<div class="i8">Could I the human barrier pass</div>
<div class="i8">By the fine measure of one grass</div>
<div class="i0">I then might comprehend what now I only hear.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i8">There's such melodious stirring</div>
<div class="i8">Of hidden, secret things,</div>
<div class="i8">There's such harmonious whirring</div>
<div class="i8">Of faint mysterious wings;</div>
<div class="i8">And underneath this leaf is curled</div>
<div class="i8">The song, I think, of all the world—</div>
<div class="i0">Up-turned, should I discover the seed from which it springs?</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i8">If I could unravel</div>
<div class="i8">The music of the grass,</div>
<div class="i8">Beyond those confines travel</div>
<div class="i8">Which mortals cannot pass,</div>
<div class="i8">I think that I should capture all</div>
<div class="i8">The secret of things musical—</div>
<div class="i0">All music ever will be, and all it ever was.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span></p>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">V</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Hark!</div>
<div class="i0">It is afternoon,</div>
<div class="i0">Yet that must be a lark.</div>
<div class="i0">No other bird flies up so high</div>
<div class="i0">And shakes its sparkling spray of song</div>
<div class="i0">Through the grey clouds in the sky,</div>
<div class="i0">No other bird has just that thrilling</div>
<div class="i0">Note in trilling,</div>
<div class="i0">Or can sustain so long</div>
<div class="i0">Its liquid flood of mirth:</div>
<div class="i0">As rare a boon</div>
<div class="i0">To thirsty ears as God's dew is to earth.</div>
<div class="i0">Yet it is afternoon.</div>
<div class="i0">I thought the larks, all scorning</div>
<div class="i0">The jaded hours, sang only in the morning.</div>
<div class="i0">And I, whose first flushed youth is going,</div>
<div class="i0">Who watch the swift noon growing</div>
<div class="i0">Upon me, hour by hour,</div>
<div class="i0">Feeling that I must always stand apart</div>
<div class="i0">From earth's sweet singers, because I lacked the pow'r</div>
<div class="i0">To loose the morning song-burst from my heart—</div>
<div class="i0">Oh, songster of the mellowing hour of day,</div>
<div class="i0">Shall I, too, late or soon,</div>
<div class="i0">Learn from your throat the way</div>
<div class="i0">To loose my power of song even in my afternoon?</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a></span></p>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">VI</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">The day was a lifeless day.</div>
<div class="i0">Under a tree I lay</div>
<div class="i0">And round me its branches bent</div>
<div class="i0">Touching the earth like a tent.</div>
<div class="i0">There was no stir of breeze;</div>
<div class="i0">I was shut in with trees,</div>
<div class="i0">Locked from the world by these;</div>
<div class="i0">Dead leaves were piled on the ground,</div>
<div class="i0">And the forest lay in a swound,</div>
<div class="i0">Throbbed with nor pulse nor breath,</div>
<div class="i0">And I thought: "It is waiting Death."</div>
<div class="i0">So I lay there, still and oppressed,</div>
<div class="i0">While the silence grew in my breast.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Presently as I lay</div>
<div class="i0">I heard from far away</div>
<div class="i0">Little pattering feet</div>
<div class="i0">Over the dry leaves beat;</div>
<div class="i0">Tripping along pell-mell,</div>
<div class="i0">Thicker and faster they fell</div>
<div class="i0">Than tongue could count or tell.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a></span>
<div class="i0">And I fancied the birds and deer</div>
<div class="i0">And rabbits, too awed for fear,</div>
<div class="i0">Were creeping my aid to plead</div>
<div class="i0">Impelled by our common need—</div>
<div class="i0">Till into my sheltered place</div>
<div class="i0">One raindrop splashed on my face.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">I lay there tented and dry</div>
<div class="i0">While the dews, dropped out of the sky,</div>
<div class="i0">Made music upon the sheaves</div>
<div class="i0">Of last year's stacked-up leaves—</div>
<div class="i0">No steps of wild things that trod,</div>
<div class="i0">But the whispering voice of God</div>
<div class="i0">In grave commune with the sod,</div>
<div class="i0">Messenger-angels rife</div>
<div class="i0">With words not of Death but Life,</div>
<div class="i0">Bidding the old brown Earth</div>
<div class="i0">Prepare for her great re-birth</div>
<div class="i0">And look to Heaven in pride</div>
<div class="i0">Renewed and revivified.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Then I heard far under the soil</div>
<div class="i0">The seedlings stir and toil,</div>
<div class="i0">And blade and bulb and root</div>
<div class="i0">Put forth each one new shoot,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span>
<div class="i0">And I felt deep down and deep</div>
<div class="i0">A million pulses leap</div>
<div class="i0">Out of their term of sleep,</div>
<div class="i0">And I thought the acorn spoke</div>
<div class="i0">With the voice of the full-grown oak,</div>
<div class="i0">And the cone wore the crown divine</div>
<div class="i0">Of the red-stemmed, crested pine,</div>
<div class="i0">And the haw held all the blush</div>
<div class="i0">And bloom of the wild-rose bush.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">What helped these young things to grow?</div>
<div class="i0">Dead leaves of a year ago,</div>
<div class="i0">Leaves heaped up in their crowds</div>
<div class="i0">And spread like funeral-shrouds;</div>
<div class="i0">Yet life sprang out of their death</div>
<div class="i0">As the blade slips out of its sheath,</div>
<div class="i0">Life was fostered beneath</div>
<div class="i0">The leaves here rotting away</div>
<div class="i0">And emerged from their decay.</div>
<div class="i0">Are all things that seem to die</div>
<div class="i0">Renewed to infinity,</div>
<div class="i0">And the bodies and souls of men</div>
<div class="i0">Made and re-made again?</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">With the scent of the rain-wet loam</div>
<div class="i0">In my nostrils, I turned me home.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span></p>
<p class="center bold in0 p2t">VII</p>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">I lay on the shore beside the sea,</div>
<div class="i0">And the young moon climbed the hill of the sky</div>
<div class="i0">And paused a space to look down on me</div>
<div class="i6">Alone with my misery</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Then on the fallow blue fields above</div>
<div class="i0">The young moon sowed its seed of stars;</div>
<div class="i0">Light gleamed from the mirror of her named Love</div>
<div class="i6">And flashed from the shield of Mars.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">The stars sprang up from the silver seed</div>
<div class="i0">Wherever that silver sower trod.</div>
<div class="i0">Through the windows of heaven watching my need</div>
<div class="i6">I knew them the eyes of God.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Little blue waves with blown foam capped</div>
<div class="i0">Crept on the solitary shore</div>
<div class="i0">Which the sea's white lips still licked and lapped</div>
<div class="i6">For ever and evermore.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">The silver moon waxed strong and older;</div>
<div class="i0">I thought I saw it stop to fling</div>
<div class="i0">A silver sickle over its shoulder</div>
<div class="i6">And commence its harvesting.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">The strong moon ploughed through the fields of heaven,</div>
<div class="i0">Its eternal labour but half-begun.</div>
<div class="i0">My breast dropped its load of earthy leaven</div>
<div class="i6">As the stars dropped one by one.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">I had sat there hugging my trivial cross,</div>
<div class="i0">My infinitesimal mortal pains,</div>
<div class="i0">Reckoning up how my mortal loss</div>
<div class="i6">Outmeasured my mortal gains.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">I saw the moon reaping God's blue fields</div>
<div class="i0">Night after night sown thick with seeds.</div>
<div class="i0">I saw the crop which God's harvest yields</div>
<div class="i6">Not in men's dreams, but deeds.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">The old moon climbed down the hill of the sky,</div>
<div class="i0">The strong young day flashed up in flame.</div>
<div class="i0">The moon dropped into the sea, and I</div>
<div class="i6">Bowed down my head in shame.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">72</a></span></p>
<div class="chapter">
<h2>APOLLO IN PHERAE</h2>
</div>
<div class="center">
<div class="poem">
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0"><i>Asklepios! dead son! Asklepios!</i></div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">I was a God. I am a God. I tend</div>
<div class="i0">Admetos' flocks upon the meek green earth,</div>
<div class="i0">And sun-fires course in all the veins of me.</div>
<div class="i0">I watch mild sheep a-browse in tame, sweet pastures</div>
<div class="i0">Or dipping in quiet waters. Yesterday</div>
<div class="i0">I blazed the heavenly arc from east to west;</div>
<div class="i0">Men saw me pinnacled on the crest of noon</div>
<div class="i0">Crown'd with celestial flame ...</div>
<div class="i34"><i>Asklepios!</i></div>
<div class="i0">To-day the discrown'd gold of my hair is strewn</div>
<div class="i0">In the green lap of grasses, my bowed brow</div>
<div class="i0">Leans on the good strong shoulder of the earth</div>
<div class="i0">Even as a stricken mortal's might, that seeks</div>
<div class="i0">His comfortable mother in his grief.</div>
<div class="i0">Earth, earth, what flower from seed wilt thou put forth</div>
<div class="i0">Fed by the waters of mine eyes, that most</div>
<div class="i0">Shoot lightnings? dews wrung from the Sun-god's eyes,</div>
<div class="i0">Divinely wrathful, mortally unhappy!</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0"><i>Asklepios! my son! Asklepios!</i></div>
<div class="i0">I am a God. Admetos is a King.</div>
<div class="i0">The God came to the King's doors overnight</div>
<div class="i0">And knocked and was admitted; and the King</div>
<div class="i0">Knew me and asked my will.</div>
<div class="i25">"To be thy servant</div>
<div class="i0">Throughout a year of days," I answered him.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a></span>
<div class="i0">"Phœbus-Apollo, how shall this thing be?"</div>
<div class="i0">I said: "I slew a smith, a monstrous clod,</div>
<div class="i0">Not God or mortal, one that had done evil.</div>
<div class="i0">I am the avenger of evil among the Gods,</div>
<div class="i0">For this one and for that I have stretched my bow</div>
<div class="i0">And winged my arrow through the heart of Wrong;</div>
<div class="i0">But this was evil done unto myself,</div>
<div class="i0">And Vengeance wore the sleek face of Advantage,</div>
<div class="i0">Wherefor Zeus robs me of my Godhead, King,</div>
<div class="i0">And I will be thy shepherd for a year."</div>
<div class="i0">He stood half wonderstruck, half shamed-protesting,</div>
<div class="i0">But I bade him bring me out among his flocks</div>
<div class="i0">And speak no more.</div>
<div class="i16">"I will have peace," I said.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">"Fear not, and bid thy people not to fear;</div>
<div class="i0">For I am worn with too much strife and passion,</div>
<div class="i0">And no more hurt shall come from that I do.</div>
<div class="i0">Thou shalt not suffer by this term of service,</div>
<div class="i0">But see thy lands grow rich and bountiful,</div>
<div class="i0">And where thou lov'st I'll win thy love for thee,</div>
<div class="i0">And life shall prosper with thee,</div>
<div class="i27">"Life is sweet!</div>
<div class="i0">Make it not too sweet, God, lest when death come</div>
<div class="i0">It look more bitter than my soul can bear."</div>
<div class="i0">"Even death, Admetos, I'll delay for thee.</div>
<div class="i0">Now, peace! I am done with vengeance for a space."</div>
<div class="i0">Thus I am come again upon the earth</div>
<div class="i0">Even as a common man ...</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a></span>
<div class="i27"><i>Asklepios!</i></div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">The people eye me timidly, and dare</div>
<div class="i0">Not consort with the God they may not worship.</div>
<div class="i0">Even so it was in those first days of life</div>
<div class="i0">When I was a boy in Delos with my Mother,</div>
<div class="i0">And only half aware I was a God.</div>
<div class="i0">O this unconquerable loneliness</div>
<div class="i0">That binds the crown of Godhead on our brows!</div>
<div class="i0">Yet easier the aloofness of the people</div>
<div class="i0">Than the familiar face of the half-God Pan.</div>
<div class="i0">I met in the woods the brute-divinity,</div>
<div class="i0">Who fleered an impudent hoof, a satyr-smile</div>
<div class="i0">Licking his lips:</div>
<div class="i14">"What, Helios! is the sun</div>
<div class="i0">Debased to something lower than the earth?</div>
<div class="i0">What! are we two, I of the beast's grain, thou</div>
<div class="i0">The delicate, disdainful spirit of flame,</div>
<div class="i0">The seed of mischief and the seed of Zeus,</div>
<div class="i0">Brought equal at the last? Nay, is the beast</div>
<div class="i0">Sun's master, Helios? Shepherds are my subjects.</div>
<div class="i0">I do not sway high kingdoms of the air—</div>
<div class="i0">I drag my hoofs in the clay. I do not fashion</div>
<div class="i0">Songs for the stars upon a golden lyre—</div>
<div class="i0">I (as did Marsyas, ha?) scrape out rough tunes</div>
<div class="i0">On common reeds. I am not beautiful,</div>
<div class="i0">I have not eyes like June-blue heavens on fire,</div>
<div class="i0">Nor hair filched from the harvest of the sun,</div>
<div class="i0">Nor a white matchless shape, supple and swift</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span>
<div class="i0">And strong and splendid. I am an earthy thing,</div>
<div class="i0">Half goat and half coarse boor, not fit to touch</div>
<div class="i0">The sun's moon-sister—(yet, who knows? who knows!</div>
<div class="i0">Let her keep watch on Latmos how she will</div>
<div class="i0">Above the slumbers of her pretty shepherd!)</div>
<div class="i0">No, Pan is not as Helios! Helios is</div>
<div class="i0">A shepherd, sister'd by a shepherd's wanton,</div>
<div class="i0">And Pan's a King, and shepherds are his subjects!"</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Zeus, did it feed thy pride on proud Olympos,</div>
<div class="i0">Did it pleasure thee to hear the brutish God,</div>
<div class="i0">The disgustful animal we chafe to name</div>
<div class="i0">A God even as ourselves, thus flout thy son?</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0"><i>Asklepios! dead son! Asklepios!</i></div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Doomed to the solitariness of greatness</div>
<div class="i0">We watch, we lonely Gods on shrouded heights,</div>
<div class="i0">The careful, padded steps, the little lives,</div>
<div class="i0">The little trivial lives of men and women</div>
<div class="i0">That fear our anger and entreat our favour;</div>
<div class="i0">And while we are indifferent all is well,</div>
<div class="i0">And if we rise to hate all is not ill,</div>
<div class="i0">But when we stoop to meet uplifted eyes</div>
<div class="i0">Of bright aspiring fools that will not choose</div>
<div class="i0">To tread life's inconspicuous middle ways—</div>
<div class="i0">O, when we love we bring our lov'd ones woe</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">I had a son, his name was Phaeton.</div>
<div class="i0">Could he be of my being and not be proud?</div>
<div class="i0">He was all inspiration, and he mounted</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a></span>
<div class="i0">Up to the highest and reached his hands for the sun</div>
<div class="i0">And shouted: "I will light the fires in heaven!"</div>
<div class="i0">But he was three-parts man to one-part God,</div>
<div class="i0">So men and Gods shrugged his brief blaze of glory</div>
<div class="i0">Into extinction ... Thus I lost my son,</div>
<div class="i0">Phaeton, killed thro' overmuch ambition.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">I had a son, his name was Orpheus.</div>
<div class="i0">Could he be of my being and not love?</div>
<div class="i0">His love was rooted deeplier than Hell.</div>
<div class="i0">He said: "I will pluck back my love from Hell</div>
<div class="i0">Tho' it upheave all Hell in the plucking." When</div>
<div class="i0">He failed, being one-part man to three-parts God,</div>
<div class="i0">He chose the swift way to regain his love</div>
<div class="i0">And died a vile death ... Thus I lost my son,</div>
<div class="i0">Orpheus, killed thro' too great love and longing.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">I had a son. He was Asklepios,</div>
<div class="i0">Could he be of my being and not <span class="smcap">know</span>?</div>
<div class="i0">His wisdom girdled life and death in one;</div>
<div class="i0">Life smiled on him, because he smiled on death</div>
<div class="i0">And said: "Life is less conquerable than death."</div>
<div class="i0">He said: "I will reverse the word of death."</div>
<div class="i0">He said: "I will make the dead to live again."</div>
<div class="i0">Two days ago Asklepios lived ...</div>
<div class="i31">The King</div>
<div class="i0">Of the nether-world, that wears the face of night</div>
<div class="i0">And hates me, wearing day's face, called on Zeus:</div>
<div class="i0">"This mortal steals upon my sovereignty,</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span>
<div class="i0">Stands brazen champion for the world of flesh,</div>
<div class="i0">Determines souls that waver towards the Styx—</div>
<div class="i0">Worse! hales the souls back from beyond the Styx,</div>
<div class="i0">Bringing the dead to life. This is more craft,</div>
<div class="i0">Brother, than we may suffer in a man.</div>
<div class="i0">Shall he with careless finger sway at will</div>
<div class="i0">The Balance of Destiny? Avenge me, Zeus!"</div>
<div class="i0">A Cyclops forged a thunder-bolt for Zeus,</div>
<div class="i0">And, black-browed, Zeus did launch it ... Thus I lost</div>
<div class="i0">My son Asklepios, killed thro' too much knowledge.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0"><i>Asklepios! my dead Asklepios!</i></div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Let the dark King of Stygia howl for aid</div>
<div class="i0">To Olympos! I am King of Heaven and ask</div>
<div class="i0">No aid! I wreak my vengeance for myself.</div>
<div class="i0">I rose up in the wrath of my bereavement</div>
<div class="i0">And set an arrow to the silver bow</div>
<div class="i0">That none save I can bend, and let it fly.</div>
<div class="i0">I might not slay the wielder of the bolt,</div>
<div class="i0">But I did slay the forger of the bolt.</div>
<div class="i0">And when I saw the Cyclops pierced and dead</div>
<div class="i0">I came to Zeus and told him of my deed:</div>
<div class="i0">"Father, 'gainst whom my bow was never turned,</div>
<div class="i0">Father, that hast destroyed thine own son's son,</div>
<div class="i0">I defy thy doing and have destroyed thy tool."</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Then while the Gods stood all aghast, Zeus spake:</div>
<div class="i0">"Go from among this immortal company</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span>
<div class="i0">Which thou hast sinned against in daring so</div>
<div class="i0">To sin against <i>me</i> that am the head of all,</div>
<div class="i0">And learn to quell thy too fierce spirit, learn</div>
<div class="i0">To teach thy riotous blood obedience,</div>
<div class="i0">Serving the sons of men one year of days.</div>
<div class="i0">Go hence! thou art not of us for twelve moons."</div>
<div class="i0">I nothing said, and went. For when we Gods</div>
<div class="i0">Revolt among ourselves the end is near,</div>
<div class="i0">And Zeus must levy justice as he will.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0"><i>Asklepios! my dead Asklepios!</i></div>
<div class="i0"><i>Had an hundred bolts been forged instead of one</i></div>
<div class="i0"><i>I had slain an hundred Cyclops for thy sake</i></div>
<div class="i0"><i>And suffered an hundred years of degradation!</i></div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Earth that receivest my body for a space,</div>
<div class="i0">I first saw light upon thee. Comfort me,</div>
<div class="i0">And tame a little the untamed blood in me.</div>
<div class="i0">Better will I endure to learn of thee</div>
<div class="i0">Than of the envious Gods, whom this disgrace</div>
<div class="i0">Serves for a secret feast to glut their hearts on.</div>
<div class="i0">For we have loved each other, thou and I,</div>
<div class="i0">And I have belted thee with golden arms,</div>
<div class="i0">And I have claspt thee daily with hot kisses,</div>
<div class="i0">And felt thee leap and pulse and answer to me</div>
<div class="i0">Like a shy maid grown bold and glad with love.</div>
<div class="i0">There's that in the core of thee that is so kin</div>
<div class="i0">To the core of me, it holds us twain inseverable,</div>
<div class="i0">Tho' from a billion blue-gold caverns of air</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span>
<div class="i0">Translucent waves of space roll up an ocean</div>
<div class="i0">'Twixt earth and sun: our hearts beat time together.</div>
<div class="i0">My sister of the spheres has no such power</div>
<div class="i0">To quicken thee, be lov'd of thee and love thee.</div>
<div class="i0">She rains down light like argent snows; and thou,</div>
<div class="i0">Part shadow'd, part-illumin'd, wholly chill'd,</div>
<div class="i0">Submitt'st thyself to call her queen, who asks</div>
<div class="i0">No ardent service of thee, earth, as I do.</div>
<div class="i0">Yet, chaste twin-sister, we were of one birth;</div>
<div class="i0">Thy veins run all the silver, mine the gold.</div>
<div class="i0">What marvel Leto had nine days labour of us,</div>
<div class="i0">Strenuously thus disparting snow from flame,</div>
<div class="i0">To give the Gods one daughter all pure ice,</div>
<div class="i0">One son all perfect fire?...</div>
<div class="i28">O Thunderer!</div>
<div class="i0">That spark of immortal fire which, pregnant in her,</div>
<div class="i0">Evolved into my Godhead, issuèd</div>
<div class="i0">Out of <i>thy</i> Godhead; my humiliation</div>
<div class="i0">Is thy humiliation, Zeus! I stand</div>
<div class="i0">Supremest in thy shining progeny:</div>
<div class="i0">I am thy glittering symbol fix'd in heaven</div>
<div class="i0">To draw the dazed, adoring eyes of men:</div>
<div class="i0">I am thy arm of vengeance, I the hand</div>
<div class="i0">Bestowing thy good gifts: I am thy Voice</div>
<div class="i0">Of mystic prophecy and divination</div>
<div class="i0">Thro' which thou keep'st thy fingers on men's souls.</div>
<div class="i0">Daughters and sons thou hast whose attributes,</div>
<div class="i0">This one by twisty cunning, this by love</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a></span>
<div class="i0">Too often base, this by remorseless carnage</div>
<div class="i0">Not bearing the high name of vengeance, these</div>
<div class="i0">By the insidious lusts of gold and wine,</div>
<div class="i0">Serve to express thee to the bodies of men;</div>
<div class="i0">But I express thee to the ghost in them,</div>
<div class="i0">For there is none whose vesture is like mine</div>
<div class="i0">Weft only of the spirit's highest tissues,</div>
<div class="i0">So that the world beholding thee thro' me</div>
<div class="i0">Beholds thee at thy zenith, and exalted</div>
<div class="i0">Out of the flesh struggles to sense an instant</div>
<div class="i0">The music, fire and essence of Olympos.</div>
<div class="i0">This Thunderer, wilt thou smirch? More dim, more dim</div>
<div class="i0">Than the imperial spark thou quenchest in me</div>
<div class="i0">Thou mak'st thy imperial fires whence I did spring,</div>
<div class="i0">The fount of us so indissoluble</div>
<div class="i0">That what shames thee shames me.</div>
<div class="i27">Earth, is this vengeance?</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Nay, I see clearer. Rest unstained of me,</div>
<div class="i0">Thou God that art the father of my being.</div>
<div class="i0">The spirit of me, which is <i>Thou</i>, makes cause with thee</div>
<div class="i0">Against me. We must be inviolable</div>
<div class="i0">Or men will point their fingers—when We fall.</div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0"><i>Asklepios! farewell, Asklepios!</i></div>
</div>
<div class="stanza">
<div class="i0">Earth, I will serve on thee my year of days</div>
<div class="i0">Nor chafe beneath them like a petulant boy.</div>
<div class="i0">Ay, tho' Zeus force my Godhead into bonds</div>
<div class="i0">I will yet bear my bondage like a God.</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr />
<div class="chapter">
<div class="transnote">
<h2 class="nobreak p1">Transcriber's Note</h2>
<p class="in0">Obvious punctuation and spelling errors have been repaired.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 56074 ***</div>
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