path: root/77817-0.txt

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77817 ***




  ESCAPE
  AND FANTASY




  [Illustration]

  THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
  NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO · DALLAS
  ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO

  MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
  LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
  MELBOURNE

  THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
  TORONTO




  ESCAPE
  AND FANTASY

  Poems

  BY
  GEORGE ROSTREVOR

  New York
  THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
  1919
  _All rights reserved_




  COPYRIGHT, 1919,
  BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

  Set up and printed from type. Published February, 1919.


  Norwood Press
  J.S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
  Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.




  TO
  MARION




CONTENTS


                            PAGE

  THE CHANGE                   9

  ORPHEUS                     11

  THE RIVER                   16

  MOMENTS                     17

  THOUGHTS                    19

  TIDAL, KING OF NATIONS      20

  THE VOICE (AN ECSTASY)      23

  SPRING RAIN IN LONDON       35

  LOTUS EATERS                36

  THE GREY BIRD               37

  ELYSIUM                     40

  ETERNITY                    41

  THE SEA-MAID                43

  THE CELL                    47

  THE ASCETICS                48

  CONSPIRACIES                50

  A RHYME OF FAITH            52

  THE SHINING POND            53

  THE HAUNTED STREET          56




THE CHANGE


    All the daytime I belong
    To the solemn-coated throng
    Who with grave, stupendous looks
    Study cash and ledger books,
    Or who go,
    Staid and slow,
    On sad business to and fro.

    But when twilight comes, I range
    Over topics new and strange,
    Wasting all my leisure hours
    On fay birds and phantom flowers,
    Or I sing
    Some mad fling
    Through the impish evening.

    Yes, and when the moon goes by
    Rocking in a foamy sky,
    Then I swear I’m more akin
    To the laughing Cherubin
    Than to those grave men who go,
    To and fro, to and fro,
    On sad business to and fro.




ORPHEUS


    Hush, thou noisy nightingale,
    Let thy sorrowful song be mute.
    Orpheus, with his lute,
    Sings to the vale.

    Weather-smitten, travel-worn,
    Fever-eyed and frail is he,
    Orpheus, Orpheus, the forlorn
    Of Eurydice.

    Trembling like a crazy shadow
    When a gust is in the trees,
    Phantom-like he flees
    Over mere and meadow.

    Twinkle on the lute his fingers.
    Hark! a ghostly music swings,
    Echoes, falls, echoes, lingers,
    Orpheus sings:--

    To-day, to-morrow,
    There is sorrow,
    But when Night,
    Holy Night,
    Putteth on
    Her sober gown,
    Then is there delight.

    Take thy fill
    Of rest, rest,
    O separate will,--
    Wayward, wayward, wayward will
    Of each wild creature, take thy rest
    Lulled on the breast
    Of the cool dark hill.

    Very deep,
    O baffled will,
    Be thy sleep
    On the sombre hill.
    But heart of the world, awake, awake,
    For Orpheus’ sake!

    Hungry lion, do not howl!
    Supple tiger tawny-barred,
    Chattering monkey, chequered snake,
    Privy wolf and spotted pard,
    Creatures that do use to prowl
    Through the forest, let you lie,--
    Not a sound, not a cry,--
    Soothèd by my lullaby.

    Cease, unquiet owl, to moan,
    Folded keep thy stealthy wings;
    Nightjar, stay thy monotone,
    Listen, listen, Orpheus sings.
    Shut you every wakeful eye
    Soothèd by my lullaby.

    Very deep
    Be thy sleep,
    Cruel, cruel, cruel will,
    Very deep
    Be thy sleep
    On the sombre hill.

    But, O heart, awake, awake,
    Wake and leap for Orpheus’ sake!
    Heart of all the world, awake
    For Orpheus’ sake!

    Cloudy waters of the sky
    Flow no longer; listening stars
    Stop their silver-wheelèd cars,
    Conquered by my lullaby.
    Each one, smitten by my spell,
    Holds him like a sentinel.

    Beauty on the brow of Night
    So complete is that despair,
    Gazing like a statue there,
    Changes to a grave delight.
    Never hath the swart Night been
    So unparalleled a queen.

    Very deep
    Is thy sleep,
    Wayward, wayward, wayward will,
    Very deep
    Is thy sleep
    On the sombre hill.
    But the heart, the heart is awake,
    Beating high for Orpheus’ sake,
    Everywhere awake, awake,
    For Orpheus’ sake.




THE RIVER


    Why, O River, on thy breast,
    Why do the trees so sweetly rest?

    Why so royal does the black barge sail
    On thy water smooth and pale?

    Why does the rough-tongued river-man sing
    Like a minstrel to a king?

    Why, O quiet River, do I
    See in thee so clear a sky?




MOMENTS


    I’ve seen the rich dark earth fling up
    Cuckoo-flower and buttercup,
    I’ve heard the meadows burst with song
    Of thrush and blackbird all day long,
    I’ve seen the burning sun go by
    With a pomp of cloud in the roofless sky,
    I’ve heard the wind whistle and shout
    And toss the tallest oaks about,
    I’ve seen, I’ve heard the flash and the call
    Of the distant thundering waterfall ...

    My soul turns back to me again
    At twilight. All the day like rain
    It has scattered itself in drops and flashes
    And moments of colour, and sudden splashes,
    Has flown and mixed with the single notes
    Quick-pouring from the song-birds’ throats,
    Losing itself and multiplying,
    Living a thousand lives and dying.

    My busy eyes at the fall of day
    I close: I shut the world away.
    Now no star may pierce the gloom
    Of my fragile-curtained room,
    But flowers more wonderful and trees more tall
    Bloom in the dark there; sweet dews fall;
    Silence cries with the ghost of sound;
    Flashes of colour and tune are found
    Linked in one. I hear, I hear
    The voice of Spring cry out to me there,
    And the voice of Spring is the voice of Love
    Crying below, around, above,
    While--in the dark of my body--his eyes
    Burn more deep than star-flushed skies.




THOUGHTS


    If in a giant brain
    The thoughts of the world could lie,
    How darkly would each cell be lit,
    What phantoms pale would people it,
    Flocking, flocking by:
    Thoughts of things that jerk or leap,
    Things that flit in the sky or creep
    In the atomy dust, or swarm in the deep,
    Leviathan or fly!

    Fugitive, feeble, vain--
    The giant would fall asleep,
    And they in millions would be gone
    For ever to oblivion,
    Far down deep:
    Thought of toad and thought of lark,
    Crab and crocodile and shark,
    Armadillo, aard-vark,
    Terrapin and sheep.




TIDAL, KING OF NATIONS

  ... _and Tidal, king of nations_--

  GENESIS xiv


    Tidal, King of Nations,
    Sent a proclamation forth
    To the tribes of the South
    And the clans of the North;

    His word flew and travelled
    Quick as a gathering flame,
    The far-off people shook
    At the rumour of his name.

    Tidal, King of Nations,
    Thy name is for thee,
    Shadowy and vast,
    An immortality.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Tidal, King of Nations--
    Lo, at the sound
    Terrible armies leap
    Crying from the ground.

    High in the midst, on
    A white throne is He,
    Set as a firm rock
    In the surge of the sea.

    Clear as the moon his brow is,
    But in his secret eyes
    Shadow within shadow dark
    The future lies.

    In his hand glitters
    The phantom of a sword;
    The warring peoples cry
    And hail him for lord:

    But within his dark eyes
    Where future time grows
    Are gentleness, mercy,
    Peace and repose.

    The nations bow and tremble,
    They do not understand,
    They only see the gleam
    Of the wrath in his hand.

           *       *       *       *       *

    Tidal, King of Nations,
    Thy name is for thee,--
    Oh, far-off brotherhood!--
    An immortality.




THE VOICE

(AN ECSTASY)


I

_The Prelude_

    I saw the regal sun look down
    And crown the earth with a golden crown:
    I saw his bright embraces fill
    The valley and assail the hill;
    I saw him kiss the hill I knew
    Where matted gorse and heather grew.

    I heard a child go whistling by
    To school--I heard the ploughmen cry
    To their horses--in the yard
    A bantam-cock was crowing hard--
    A pensive and complacent hen
    Began to drawl .. drawl ... drawl .... and then
    A puppy yapping with delight
    Chased and hustled her in flight.

    I took me to a tangled lane
    Hoping for quietness--in vain;
    I only in the world was mute.
    The blackbird laughed upon his flute,
    And starlings talked in wayward wise
    On creaking boughs, and up the skies
    The trembling, quick, delirious lark
    Sang until my soul was dark.

    So morning, noon and all day long
    The world was multiplied with song
    And I, distracted, could not sing;
    At length, toward the evening,
    I climbed the little hill I knew
    Where matted gorse and heather grew.

    Slowly,
    Slowly,
    Slowly at last the evening fell;
    Slowly beneath her drowsy spell
    The teeming brain of the world was quieted:
    The noise of day was dead.

    Now might a single human thought
    Flying out, keen-wrought,
    Usurp dominion of the sky, and fill
    The void of the world with a chant of love, and move it to one will.

    So from my ingathered soul
        Softly sang I to my Love--
    Softly, yet I heard the whole
        Shining world, beneath, above,
    Echo me and ring and ring
    Through the quiet evening.

    First I sang how she doth dwell
        Carven so within my mind
    That her tokens I do spell
        And her vital beauty find
    Paining me, oh everywhere
    Phantom-bright upon the air.

    Morning winds with liquid tune
        Her abounding joy express;
    Azure-folded deeps of June
        Tell me of her tenderness;
    Laughingly the waterbrooks
    Mirror her untainted looks.

    Trembling shadows wake in me
        Sense of the outflowing tide
    Of her hidden rarity,
        Till I dream her at my side,--
    And her prayed-for kisses rain
    Through and through me, sharp with pain.

          Hushed the melody I sang,
          Earth around me rang and rang.


II

_The Ecstasy_

    Quick a current of delight
        Through my body laughed and leapt,
    Took the dazzle from my sight,
        From the earth my senses swept;
    Through the ringing air I sped,
    Loosened as from bars of lead.

    And my singing soul became
        Infinite; the sea, the sky,
    Were my flesh, the mighty frame
        Of the Universe was I;
    Mystic voices in me stirred,
    And I cried, and I heard.

    Crying how my Lady shone
    Fairer than the dawn upon
        Snowy-crested Himalay;
    How she fed with golden fire
    Red lamps of the Earth’s desire,
        White lamps of the Milky Way.

    Crying how, if she must die,
    Sudden from the naked sky
        Star and sun must fade and fall,
    And from every naked tree
    Foliage drop, and her death be
        Earth’s and Heaven’s funeral.

    So did I her glory sing
    Through the quiet evening.
    Every note and echo fell
    Crystal as a chiming bell,
    Strong and singular of beat,
    Gay and simple, clear and sweet,
    Gentle, yet with even sound
    Calling to the southern bound
    Of the world, and crying forth
    Undiminished to the north.

    And in those harmonious skies
    All tempestuous energies
    To such equipoise were wrought
    Never a jarring atom fought.
    There was neither jolt nor strain,
    Shock, nor weight, nor clash, nor pain,
    But I saw great Saturn float
    Buoyant as a wandering mote
    On a sunbeam, or like down
    Of thistle indolently blown.

    And I felt the deepening night
    Saturated so with light
    That the very darkness seemed
    Light that more intensely dreamed;
    And the light was filled with sense
    Of Being and Omnipotence,--
    Gathered now at instant will
    To a single point, until
    I was conscious of each bird,
    Beast or creeping thing that stirred
    In a lane or covert. Then
    Consciousness would flow again
    Evenly, and life would be
    From all separation free:
    Only my Belovèd shone,--
    She and I, complete, alone.

    And looking down with happy eyes
    From my kingdom of the skies,
    I saw my lady stoop and give
    Glorious life for the world to live.

    I saw how from the lullèd earth
        Meeting her gaze the darkness fell
    And light celestial sprang to birth,
        And flowers changed the path of hell;
    And to her lips she lifted up
        Th’ essential world, created new,
    And drank and drained the sacred cup
        As sunfire drinks the morning dew.

    From meadows of the noble dead,
        From fields where baffled and forlorn
    The conqueror lays his uncrowned head,
        The very life of peace was born:
    And in my lady’s heart of love
        So soft, so dim that peace was felt
    As when dusk enters a deep grove
        Where, all day long, shadows have dwelt.

    From lives of sick men, clean with pain,
        She drew a virtue like the rare
    Odour of windflowers washed with rain
        Afloat upon the sensitive air;
    And sick men felt in their hot room
        The cooling garden-breezes blow,
    And heaven pierce the fading gloom
        With javelins of silver snow.

    I saw the sere ungarnished tree
        A treasury of green unlock,
    And pastures crown the foaming sea,
        And flame enliven the dull rock;
    And frozen rivers were unsealed,
        And waters through the desert ran,
    And like a meteor shone revealed
        The mystic in the common man;

    Whose soul enchanted, winged with dream
        And eyed with splendour, thrust her course
    Rapid upon the darkling stream,
        Sped by her own unconscious force,--
    Content at last, content to ride
        Free from the well-loved daily bond
    Of time and place, on the full tide
        Of Oceans unexplored beyond.

    And there was song from every land,
        In every tongue, in every key,
    And every tiny lyric spanned
        The chasms of infinity:
    Yet I the Lover sang alone
        To my Belovèd: all the throng
    Of praising voices made but one
        Hushed undercurrent of my song:

    “O thou Belovèd of the Lover, thou,
    Health-giver, Purifier, Strengthener,
    Fountain, and spring, and river of the Sun.
    O thou Belovèd of the Lover, strong
    As morning or the full inflowing tide,
    Calm as the evening sky above a lake.
    Thou who art one and changeless, O Belovèd,
    O thou Belovèd who art calm and strong.
    O calm Belovèd, where all passion lies
    Too deep to stir, and strong, O thou Belovèd
    In frailty that shatters force. O Love!
    Belovèd of the Lover, everlasting,
    Beyond all Death, all Change, O Love Belovèd,
    Be with the Lover always, calm and strong.”


III

_The Return_

    So did I in Heaven sing,
    And the lilac evening
    Deeper, deeper, deeper shone.
    Fairer yet and yet more fair
    Burned my kingdom of the air.

    So I sang--or _did_ I sing?
    I, who still was listening.
    So I sang--yet _was_ it mine,
    The Song, the Singing Voice divine?

    Sudden, in a fit of mirth,
    I that was so mighty grown
    Bent me low to see the Earth
    And the little hill I knew
    Where the gorse and heather grew.

    Then I cried and Heaven cried
    Loud with laughter, for I spied
    How my puny body lay
    In a coat of sombre grey
    Six foot long amid the heather
    With its two arms locked together,
    With its pinpoint eyes that burned
    Motionless and solemn turned
    In a brave unconscious stare
    On the diamonded air.

    Still I looked, and in a while
    Saw the growing of a smile
    On the lips and then a yawn,
    Then a difficult breath long-drawn--
    One deep breath, and then an arm
    Stretched out, and, as if alarm
    Seized it, the whole body shook.

    Then could I no longer look,
    For I felt my limbs and knew
    I was narrowed down again
    To my body, and I grew
    Quiet, fearing the disdain
    Of the stars who looked on me
    Fallen from their company.

    But I heard no sound of scorn,
    Only a far echo borne
    Of the Voice whose singing moves
    And quickens every thing that loves.




SPRING RAIN IN LONDON


    Hardly awake, I saw in the street
        The shining raindrops pelt;
    And lulled by their quick monotonous beat
        I let my languid eyes half close. I felt

    The tinkle of a rivulet
        Bubbling lazily down a hill,
    Where the turf was a couch for dark violet
        And flame-eyed tormentil.

    I saw the sun leaping through a cloud--
        Apollo shooting at the bladed corn--
    And the lark, a dizzy fanatic, hailing loud
        The golden god reborn.




LOTUS EATERS


    I grew so quiet as I walked along,
      My mind so much a mirror to the wood,
    So passively open to the colour and song
      And the whole company of solitude

    That past time fell from me, and time to come
      No longer drew me with its magnet power:
    My whole self lazily to a bee’s low hum
      Listened, and watched him fumble at a flower.

    The present held me. I was just aware
      Of the ripple and stir of muscles where my hand
    Lay slack against my side. I sucked live air,
      And drew sweet moisture from the clayey sand.

    Now do I know how horses live, and cows,
      Minute to minute of the shining day,
    Solemn with gaze contented as they browse
      Finding their lotus in the fields of May.




THE GREY BIRD


    The wind blows
    Heavy with spice.
    Among macaws and birds of paradise
    With plumage grey he goes.

    Silence hangs like a cloud;
    Yet lives innumerable teem.
    The wild eyes of the crowd
    Of watching creatures with a sullen gleam
    The forest haunt.
    The birds flaunt
    Their vivid hues, and scream,
    Yet leave the smothering silence still supreme.

    And the bird with the grey wing
    Unnoticed flies. No finery or glow
    Has he to show,
    Nor in this land unhallowed will he sing.
    But in the tropic heat,
    When March is ablaze,
    Strange instincts beat
    In his breast.
    He is full of amaze,
    He suffers a sweet unrest,
    And though
    Unheeded still he flutter to and fro,
    Yet in foreknowledge of a gentle Spring
    He turns and fondles oft in his warm throat
    The pure, the lovely note
    He soon shall sing--
    When, in a land of the West,
    In England, over the foam,
    After long voyage his tired wings come to rest
    And his glad heart finds home.

    Then hark how he shall spill
    His liquid miracle,
    Hark to the thrill
    Of the secret song,
    The gay tune hid so long!
    See on a twig scarce bent,
    Mid leafage cool
    Of oak or birch
    Or willow-fringe about a reedy pool,
    How he shall choose his perch
    And make wild music out of souls content.
    How he shall love!
    How he shall sing!
    How he shall rove
    With a careless wing!
    How in this Isle
    Of Splendid Voice,
    Home from exile
    He shall rejoice!
    How his golden song shall be spent
    Forgetting the foul, fierce continent!




ELYSIUM


    Hushed their feet fall
        On the dewy grass:
    In robe rhythmical
        Shining they pass:

    Lovers who for bliss
        Grave and rare and deep
    Need no clasp, or kiss,
        Or lovers’ sleep.




ETERNITY


    Men who are wise in secret lore
        Well argue and avow
    That fugitive Time shall be no more--
    No change, no after, no before,
        But one eternal Now.

    Yet I will dream Eternity
        Only a nobler Time,
    Where all the past shall gathered be
    And hours all of memory
        In each new hour chime:

    Triumphing easily over Death;
        Showing the sign of power
    Of one who goes with even breath,
    Who hurrieth not nor lingereth,
        Harmonious with his hour:

    A march, full-speed, from thought to thought,
        A music more sublime
    Than holy poet ever caught
    From magic choirs, and tuned and wrought
        In miracle of rhyme.




THE SEA-MAID


    I heard an immortal, under the sea,
        Singing the beauty of change and death.
    Oh lovelier than light was she,
        And Araby was in her breath.

    She lay in a hollow of stainless air
        Roofed and walled with a crystal gleam;
    No light wind stirred to quiver her hair
        Or loose from her eyes the banded dream.

    Her voice was the piping voice of a child,
        Shrill, pathetic. I do not know
    Whether I wept or whether I smiled
        To hear her chant of curious woe.

            The sea-maid sang,
                “Never shall I die.
                The evil eye,
            The spine, the fang

            Have not any power,--
                No spell, no charm
                May wither or harm
            My beauty’s flower.

            For, I suppose,
                I am fair, more fair
            Than any rose
                Or earth-bloom rare,

            Or maid of the earth,
                Or, faint and far,
            Heaven’s dark birth
                Of a radiant star.

            And yet they are crowned
                With a joy not mine,
                With a light divine
            Who have found, have found

            The secret of change,--
                They are born, they grow,
                They are dark, they glow,
            They are new, wild, strange.

            But I remain
                Immortal, I
            Who am fain, oh fain
                To change or die.

           *       *       *       *       *

            Once was a time
                I found the wreck
            Of a ship sublime
                With a masted deck:

            I peeped through the hull
                And what should it hold
                But shimmering gold
            And a shining skull

            And broken glass
                And twisted steel,
                And a steering-wheel
            Of oak and brass.

    I loved them and watched them day by day,
    I watched their beautiful slow decay.
    I watched them soften and break and rust,
    And thicken with weeds and fall to dust.

    But when they were crumbled quite, there came
    The fish that are centuries-through the same,
    Their lifted lids that ought to be wise
    Arching high over vacant eyes.

    With gaping mouth and sloping chin,
    And face fixed hard in a solemn grin,
    They softly murmured, _The passing hour
    Over our beauty has no power_.

    I turned. I looked in my crystal glass.
    My splendour was bright as ever it was.
    And I wept, and I weep, that I should remain
    Immortal, unchanging, without a stain.”




THE CELL


    When from the hush of this cool wood
        I go, Lord, to the noisy mart,
    Give me among the multitude,
        I pray, a lonely heart.

    Yea, build in me a secret cell
        Where quietness shall be a song:
    In that green solitude I’ll dwell.
        And praise Thee all day long.




THE ASCETICS


    Ages long the hills have stood
    A solitary brotherhood,
    Ages long with sinews bare
    They have shouldered the keen air,
    They have wrestled with the skies
    Hiddenly for a dark prize.

    Merry Spring with her wanton train
    Tiptoes, tiptoes by in vain;
    Ye, O hills, never behold
    Her brave dust of green and gold
    Flashing by, the pride, the mirth,
    The myriad fluttering of the earth.

    This wild magic ye have lost--
    Tell me, at so bitter cost,
    What the guerdon ye have won?
    “Speech with the moon, speech with the sun;
    Valiancy to meet unbowed
    The challenge of the thundercloud,
    And, to quicken us for fresh wars,
    Gay communion with the stars.”




CONSPIRACIES


    The valley seemed a single throat
        Singing when the blackbird sang,
    So true complete and pure his note,
        And through so clean an air it rang:
    Trees in a golden rapture stood
        Unshaken; their dark shadows fell
    And lay locked by the river-flood
        In level quiet: blackbird’s bell
    And hollow-shining air and tree
    And river made conspiracy
        And cast on me a spell.

    Deep in my heart the holy stream,
        The stream of quietude, was born,
    Whose waters wandering clouds of dream
        And marvellous idle shapes adorn;
    My breath was like the breath of a child
        Asleep,--yet rooted in repose,
    Multitudinous swift and wild
        My branching, flowering thoughts arose.
    So heart, breath, mind, while I spoke no word,
    Conspired. Suddenly I heard
        My song with the blackbird’s close.




A RHYME OF FAITH


    Say ye “Lo the heavens frown,
        Soon the thundercloud shall burst,
    Towering faith shall be flung down.
        We--thank God--expect the worst.”

    Cowardly blasphemers, hark!
        _Credo_ shall my motto be,
    _Credo_--all the sky is dark--
        _Quia Impossibile_.




THE SHINING POND


    Against the sky’s pale rim
    The cottage and the trees stood dim.
    But in the glow,
    More tense,
    Of the little shining pond that lay below,
    The darkened outlines were drawn clear,
    Sharp to my sense.

    And gazing there
    My vision became
    Empty and passive, no more than a frame
    For the silver water that burned and burned ....

    At last, when I turned,
    My soul was a mirror, on whose surface lay
    Without a flaw
    Each momentary thing I saw,--
    Then slipped away.

    And I heard
    Each faint noise,
    Hardly listening.

    I heard
    The noise of the cockchafers around me,--
    Not only the sound
    As they boomed in their flight,
    Above, in the dim light,
    But as they busily stirred
    Loosening
    Heavy body and horny wing,
    Blundering free
    Out of the thicket of the may-tree.

    I saw the flower look up pale-eyed
    From the tangled grass,
    And the pale moth climb up, half awake, with quivering wing,
    And still to the side
    Of the sedges cling,--
    Then like a ghost through the brown air pass.

    And nowhere,
    Everywhere,
    The fall,
    Hollow and clear,
    Of the cuckoo’s sounding call.

    And yet so quiet ... every tree
    (But most the poplar tree,
    Shooting up
    Confidently
    To the sky’s white cup)
    Appeared eternal.

    Suddenly, out beyond
    The dark, I heard a chime.
    It told of eternity, not of time,
    It told that the quiet hour was one
    With the quiet ages gone,
    With the quiet hours to be
    Eternally.

    Shadow crept over the shining pond.
    I fell into a deep
    Trance, an illumined sleep.




THE HAUNTED STREET


    Only the faint-echoing fall of my feet
    Sounded in the empty street,
    Where noisily an hour or so ago
    The townpeople wandered--men, all sorts and types,
    Swinging leisurely to and fro,
    Laughing and lounging, pulling at their pipes;
    Big-featured women; boys with caps aslant
    To hint them men of the world; slim girls with scant
    White summer dresses that in dubious light
    Fluttered and gleamed to the sight
    Like pallid moth-wings.
                  Now the populous street
    Was empty: not a phantom lingered there,
    Not a ghost of sound on the air
    Save, as I passed, for my echoing feet.

    The moon was hidden; hardly a candle shone
    At any upper window, and the stars
    Were dim as candles: from the shops and bars
    The glimmer of light was gone.
    A few arc-lamps at intervals threw
    Mock moonlight on the mimic waterway
    Of the wheel-burnished road;
    And the road lay
    Cool and rejoicing, lightened of its load
    Of travelling life--as a tired face may lie
    Smooth of its furrows, the unquiet day
    Forgotten, the importunity
    Of thought and emotion folded away
    And shuttered off by Sleep.

    Only my footsteps sounded in the road.

    Suddenly I stopped. For I felt a faint light creep
    Up to me and touch me, and lo, behind a cloud-veil
    The harvest Moon gradually climbing the ascent
    To the open firmament!
    The vapours like lit foam
    Dripped and glittered, as I watched her battle against the tide,
    Then huddled again more close and strove to hide
    Her scattering silver with dull monochrome;
    Yet with a final stroke did she prevail,
    Unflinching out of the stormy water sail,
    Astonish the dark night, and roam
    Splendid in triumph on her ocean-home.

    And, as I watched, it seemed
    My eyes were nothing but hollows filled to the brim with light,
    And my body was unsubstantial, and the flood unearthly streamed
    Through and through me, body and soul, immovable, absorbed in sight.

    Along the sombre rank
    Of ordinary houses the lustre spread
    Until their level surfaces showed blank
    And staring-white, and dead.
    No longer now as images of Sleep
    Could I feel them, folding away
    In recesses deep
    The voices and the passing feet of day:
    Rather I felt them solid, cold, intense,
    Shining on the glass of my moonlit sense
    Like naked tombstones. They seemed to me
    The only reality:
    My conscious being
    Was from its centre all
    Diverted to its outward wall,
    From the thinking and willing soul to the touching, seeing,
    Receptive surface. I lost
    All sense of separation. I was one
    With the tomblike stone.
    The bar of my humanity I crossed,
    Drawn outward as the houses drew more near,
    Till they and I for body had only a gleaming wall,
    For spirit a vague fear.

    The pulse of Time stopped.

    There was no sound
    Anywhere,
    No motion in the street around,
    In my soul’s eclipse I could not stir.

    Yet some hidden impulse suddenly broke the spell,
    For inward, inward, struggling through the barrier
    Of my dumb sense I drove. I smote the silent bell
    At the door of my heart angrily, bidding it answer me
    With a semblance of actual sound. Driven by the tyranny
    Of tangible outward horror into my soul I fought,
    Striving to win the images that dwell
    In the quiet inmost rooms of intricate-carven thought.

    There I conjured a vision of summer’s ripe content,
      Gold corn in the valley, gold gorse on the hill,
    The gold sun shining, the air full of scent,
      The common turf paved with gold tormentil;
    The air basking lazily, full of the sound of bees,
    And a slow stream washing the boughs of trailing willow-trees.

    There I found a garden where tall hollyhocks
      And double-flowered larkspurs towered side by side,
    Groups of slender columbine and crimson-hearted phlox,
      Old-fashioned lavender and pink and London pride:
    And in that close and quiet garden did I find
    The faces of my dearest friends, intimate and kind.

    But a hurry of other faces like a shadow-show,
    Faces remote and strange, crowded unbidden before me,
    Faces at first I did not know ...
    Yet some of them bore me
    Manifest hate or love,--gazing on me
    As a familiar friend or enemy.
    Gradually I felt the answering passions stir
    And days forgotten from a buried past rise;
    Gradually
    Like objects with pale outlines whitening the gloom
    Of a dark room,
    Out of a misty blurr
    The faces grew familiar to my eyes.

    And yet, as I dimly knew
    With a dazed, half-conscious knowing,
    These images coming and going,--
    These faces old and young
    That grew
    In a moment, unfolded
    And faded,--out of a past that never was mine were sprung:
    Not mine, although they so remoulded me
    Under their strong control
    That memory seemed to be slowly drawn up out of my soul
    To join them and make them a part
    Of my own years,
    Linking them to the passions of my heart,
    Old hopes and old fears.

    In a while shone out
    Distinct among them all, beneath a rout
    Of dusky hair, one face
    Of quick eager impulsive grace;
    And memory arose in me till I burned
    With a full-kindled fire
    Of worship and love, seeing no failure, no flaw
    In her loveliness....
                    then memory turned,
    Memory and the strength of desire,
    To hate, fierce hate, hate fiercer for a memory of shame,
    Of a wrong that I had done to her. I saw
    With different eyes her beauty and I hated it.
    Darkness and agony were in me: I shook: I bit on my lip; there was dew
    Of sweat on my hand, on my forehead; I knew
    My soul no longer was mine but lit with the flame
    Of alien passions, possessing me, driving me ...

    Emptily,
    Emptily on either side the motionless line
    Of tomblike houses gaped upon me--
    Their emptiness spoke, they gave me an answer, they told
    That only the cold
    Bodies of those who slept
    Lay in their hold:
    The hot unsleeping passions were abroad
    Thronging the white road,
    Pressing around me, into me. They had crept
    Deep into me more subtle than sleep;
    My soul was strangled: I could not shake them off: I struggled in vain ...

    But with a saving throb of pain
    The power of motion came to me again,
    And down the length of that echoing street of dread,
    While the beautiful mockery of the white moon still looked down
    On the sleeping town,
    Quick in the stillness I fled.


Printed in the United States of America.




TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES


The Sea-Maid: quote marks in the poem have been left as-is.

The use of ellipsis has been edited to match the original book.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 77817 ***