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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79394 ***
+
+
+
+
+                              FIRST POEMS
+
+                                   BY
+                              RUTH PITTER
+
+                                 LONDON
+                              CECIL PALMER
+                OAKLEY HOUSE, BLOOMSBURY STREET, W.C. 1
+
+                                 FIRST
+                                EDITION
+                                  1920
+                                  COPY
+                                 RIGHT
+
+          PRINTED BY BEN JOHNSON AND CO. LTD., YORK AND LONDON
+
+
+
+
+FAIRY-GOLD
+
+
+    I have a brother cleped Fairy-Gold,
+    Who dwelleth not in housen nor with men,
+    But in the dim wood and the forest hold;
+    Full fair is he in form: full young, full old;
+    Of all the wild things in the grot and glen,
+    Of many a brown shy wood-bird am I told,
+    Of every leaf and blade on fell and fen,
+    I have a brother cleped Fairy-Gold.
+
+    And all that e’er was made in nature’s mould,
+    And everything of beauty she doth own
+    Is but a part of gentle Fairy-Gold,
+    Whose murmured tale to those who hear is told,
+    Whose varied beauty to the wind is thrown,
+    Whose eyes smile forth from copses dark and old--
+    Or are they flowers in wind-swept riot grown?
+    Both flowers, and eyes of laughing Fairy-Gold.
+
+    The kind earth to her bosom doth him fold,
+    Her light swift hands, the breezes, stroke his hair,
+    Which glow of yellow wheat doth catch and hold,
+    And down in rich and heavy locks is rolled:
+    He is for mortal eyes but all too fair,
+    He hath not age: I in his haunts am told
+    By myriad voices whispering in the air,
+    I have a brother cleped Fairy-Gold.
+
+                   1912.
+
+
+
+
+THE GOD
+
+
+    What eyes look thus upon the earth,
+    What eyes, which lack the smart of tears?
+    Even the eyes of the god’s soul.
+    O wisdom, sweet of many lives,
+    O love of many thousand years!
+
+    Whose mind hath not the biting woe,
+    Whose mind is all unstirred of fears?
+    Even the mind of the tried god.
+    O knowledge of thy many lives,
+    O calm of many thousand years!
+
+    Who knoweth the lore of all the stars,
+    Who hath the eyes of all the seers?
+    Even the god who passeth all,
+    O thought and light of many lives,
+    Perfect from many thousand years!
+
+                   1913.
+
+
+
+
+THE SWAN
+
+
+    With his red beak and marble plume,
+    Uttering his wild, his pulsant cry,
+    The Swan into the wild did fly.
+    Into the fiery dawn rode he,
+    And many burning cherubim
+    That know the face of the Most High,
+    In godlike flight did go with him.
+
+                   1913.
+
+
+
+
+THE OAK
+
+
+    O blessed and thrice blessed evermore
+    To grow old in the chaste immutable silence,
+    Thinking thine own thoughts! At the golden door
+    Of thine own glade the quiet sunbeams pour,
+    And thou look’st out across the hazy plain
+    From the cool greenness of thine ancient throne:
+    Where is the biting winter? neither pain
+    Nor vain regrets in thy deep heart remain,
+    Nor dost thou count the weary drooping years
+    In slow and miserly cycle one by one.
+
+                   1913.
+
+
+
+
+SONG
+
+
+    Grieve no more for the silent dead;
+    They have fled from the earth--
+            Yea, have fled!
+    Nay, never grieve more.
+    All our crystal and golden lore,
+    What does it boot to grief or mirth?
+
+    These but leaves of the autumn are,
+    Gone far from our ken--
+            Yea, gone far!
+    Past, and too soon forgot:
+    Dry thy tears and grieve thou not,
+    Think no more upon troubled men.
+
+                   1912.
+
+
+
+
+EXILE
+
+
+    The pine wood ceased on the crest of the down;
+    Flames of heather and furze had died
+    With the vanished light of the burning day,
+    And all was still; but far away
+    Glimmered the roofs of a fairy town.
+
+    The exile climbed from the sombre trees
+    To the open hill; and the rags he bore,
+    Fluttering out along the sky,
+    Black as all else that passed thereby,
+    Waved like slashed trappings in the breeze.
+
+    He paused: that happy and halcyon land
+    Wavered with colour like the sea,
+    Trembled with hues we cannot know,
+    Gleamed with many a spire of snow
+    Fashioned from air by an airy hand.
+
+    He watched it there with his half-shut eyes
+    Till the rapt glow in heaven did fade,
+    And every roof all gemmed and bright
+    Melted into the sapphire night,
+    And the wan mists did all arise.
+
+    The wind awoke, and with mighty tone
+    Ran on the hill and into the dark,
+    Calling well to his playmates there,
+    Stirring the draping rags and hair,
+    And saying with deep voice, Begone.
+
+                   1913.
+
+
+
+
+HARMONY
+
+
+    I heard a child upon an instrument
+    Make broken melody,
+    And sighed for all the glory that might be
+    Could that clear soul with cunning art be blent:
+    But never man did see
+    So high perfection in simplicity,
+    And my hope went.
+
+                   1912.
+
+
+
+
+THE BOOK
+
+
+    When one looketh in a well
+    He in the shining surface sees
+    The sky’s face and the clustered trees
+    Reflected in the dark roundel,
+    And clouds that in the heaven dwell,
+    But tenderer, and passing clear;
+    Such are the words that wanton here.
+
+                   1914.
+
+
+
+
+THE ELFIN HEART
+
+
+    They that have the elfin heart
+        Cannot weep;
+    In the desert they would sleep
+    While the lion watched apart;
+    And when tears of mortals start
+        Silence keep.
+
+    They have eyen dark and deep,
+        And their look
+    As a pool in forest brook,
+    As a tarn on mountain steep,
+    As a spell, doth calmness keep,
+        Sealéd book!
+
+    Who are they? O brethren, tell!
+        Do ye know
+    Why the winter’s folding snow
+    And the wild wolves’ hungry yell
+    Fright them not, and where they go
+        Sans farewell?
+
+    All their ways with flowers strow,
+        For they see
+    What to us is mystery,
+    Far forgotten, long ago;
+    Neither have they friend nor foe;
+    Elfin heart I may not know
+        Pity me!
+
+                   1914.
+
+
+
+
+THE DEAD FAY
+
+
+    At matins and evensong
+    Pray ye for a faery soul!
+    If the day be long
+    With grief and dole
+    May your hearts be strong;
+    Pray ye deep and well,
+    Yea, pray deep,
+    For low in the dell
+    Doth a dead fay sleep.
+
+    Light and shimmering dance;
+    Light danced he on moor and lea!
+    O’er the river’s glance,
+    And the green sea:
+    And now lies still
+    By the bitter cress and brier,
+    By the slow and shallow rill,
+    That from out the thymy hill
+    Flows, from elfin forge and fire;
+    Pray aloud, and say,
+    “Farewell, O thou dancing fay!”
+
+    Canst thou, priest, for wandering sprite
+    Say a mass?
+    He dwelt not in house at night,
+    But, in light
+    Eager mazes swiftly going,
+    Danced on mountain and morass;
+    Give him, father, of thy prayer,
+    For he was most brightly fair:
+    Yet, priest, if thou will not pray,
+    Thou’lt not compass his undoing.
+
+    At matins and evensong,
+    With mass and requiem
+    Say, “For soul of errant fay,
+    For a leaf plucked from the stem,
+    For a spirit bright as day
+    Do we pray”:
+    And the brier and bitter cress
+    By his side
+    Both put on a sober dress;
+    In the tide
+    Of the slow and shallow rill
+    Every herb his tears doth spill:
+    Every herb that decks the dell
+    Scattereth all his gems, and saith,
+    “Weep we for a faery’s death!
+    Fay, farewell!”
+
+
+
+
+THE CARELESS SPIRIT
+
+
+    The little bright fairy
+    Never singeth “Ave Mary,”
+    For in the wood both blithe and dim
+    What needs he of chant or hymn?
+    But every flower shall be his bed,
+    And he shall sing
+    A song of every living thing,
+    And on the moss shall fleetly tread;
+    But since thou be not fairy,
+    On thy knees sing “Ave Mary.”
+
+    The steadfast violet
+    Shall upon his brow be set,
+    Even though he faithless be
+    Ever to flit from tree to tree;
+    But he shall rest upon the one
+    That blossoms white,
+    The hawthorn, tree of dear delight,
+    And there shall sing unto the sun:
+    But shivering misers, thin and wary,
+    Needs must sing an “Ave Mary.”
+
+                   1914.
+
+
+
+
+FAREWELL
+
+
+    My portion has been joy, but woe
+    Will come full soon.
+    Serene as any winter moon
+    Have been my years, and coursing slow.
+    But all my vestment gold and blue
+    I must put off, and take to me
+    Your sad dull raiment void of hue,
+    O paradise, from thee I go,
+    And world so grievous, hail to thee!
+
+    O fools that never look with pain
+    On what has been!
+    My playmates all, with joyous mien,
+    Haste to their realm of mist and rain;
+    While I do grieve to pipe no more
+    Of all that glad and gay may be
+    And all that world of happy lore;
+    From sunny woods I am not fain
+    To voyage on the winter sea.
+
+                   1914.
+
+
+
+
+SEPTEMBER NIGHT
+
+
+    If that you ride by road or lane
+    In the September dark,
+    When there is neither mist nor rain,
+    And nothing can you mark
+    But a tall darkness for a tree,
+    And for the road a gleam of white,
+    And scent of leaves breathed heavily,
+    It is a fairy night.
+
+    Brief is the kingdom--nine hours long--
+    That the good people hold,
+    But it is full of whispered song,
+    In the crisp breezes cold.
+    And every dell, a darkling round
+    Of shadow, when the moon is none,
+    Holdeth a little chattering sound,
+    Which cometh, and is gone.
+
+                   1914.
+
+
+
+
+JUNE
+
+
+    Now from remotest hiding-place
+    Comes every fay, comes every flower’s soul.
+    Lo by the brooks, how disks of moonlit lace
+    Veil all the waters’ hidden, sleeping face:
+    And from the summer’s long-forgotten store
+    Is given lavish dole:
+    June now doth scatter gold behind her and before.
+
+    The daisy, like a cherubim’s countenance
+    Shining, and girt with rayed and shining wings,
+    And melilot, slender and yellow-haired,
+    And light-hung grasses in their airy dance,
+    And flowering reed that by the river sings,
+    And buttercups, in web of light ensnared,
+    And the chaste flower-de-luce so clear in hue,
+    Stand all like thoughtful sprites upon the mead,
+    Wondering at heaven, so smiling in their view;
+    Nor to the autumn give they any heed.
+
+                   1914.
+
+
+
+
+IN THE FIELD
+
+
+    If the dandelion tall
+    Hath a yellow and shining head,
+    It is because he hath lately seen
+    One who came, passed and fled
+    Swiftly under the side of the wall
+    In a gold crown and a robe of green.
+
+    And if the heather and green gorse dark
+    Can shine at will in colours fair,
+    It is because far Paradise floor
+    Hanging aloft in the evening air,
+    They have seen, and hasten to mark
+    Themselves its pavement and wall and door.
+
+    If there are small flowers blue and red,
+    Five-fold about their inner whorl,
+    And dight so well in leaf and blade,
+    It is that they have seen unfurl
+    High in the dark arch overhead,
+    Many a five-fold Star displayed.
+
+    And if the tree on the eastern hill
+    Looketh him forth so steadfastly
+    And silently doth ponder all,
+    It is because the spirits free
+    That the whole earth do make and fill,
+    In all his branches cry and call.
+
+                   1914.
+
+
+
+
+THE KNIGHTLY DAMOISEAU
+
+
+    There was a knightly damoiseau,
+    And Godfrey de la Tour he hight,
+    Who forth to range the wood did go,
+    Most brightly clad and bravely dight;
+    His surcoat silken, broad and white,
+    Embroidered was like hawthorn tree,
+    That blossometh in the yellow light
+    Pleasing the errant fly and bee.
+
+    And forth along the waters’ marge,
+    With rushes set and fleurs-de-lys,
+    He rode with spear and leathern targe;
+    And well and manfully rode he
+    By flowering bush and budding tree,
+    Till the blue heaven ’gan to gloam,
+    Then turned him back and hied him home.
+
+                   1914.
+
+
+
+
+RONDEAU, TO THE LUTE
+
+
+    Sing sweet, my Lute, beside the way,
+    For thou and I must earn our bread.
+    Thou wilt be still when I am dead;
+    So, that thy singing with thee stay,
+
+    Sounding from morn to even gray,
+    Nor leave thee mourning music fled,
+    Sing sweet, my Lute, beside the way,
+    For thou and I must earn our bread.
+
+    Perchance some pensive slender fay,
+    Hearing us from his hidden bed,
+    Shall compass us with power dread,
+    That singing we shall fade away.
+
+    Sing sweet, my Lute, beside the way,
+    For thou and I must earn our bread.
+
+                   1915.
+
+
+
+
+ANDANTE
+
+
+    Now doth the heaviness of summer bloom
+    Die on the air, and from the neighbour wood
+    The brown earth good
+    Breathes sweeter incense, born of many leaves;
+    And every insect grieves
+    At coming frost, chill in the holly’s gloom;
+    Flutters in paler light, then wraps her round
+    In her torn summer robe, and dies forlorn
+    Upon the dew-sprent ground.
+
+    The blue mist in the valley rises slow;
+    Rises till she attain the topmost tree
+    Of all that be
+    Upon the slopes of mead and stubble-field;
+    Then when the sun has wheeled
+    His round, now short and drooping very low,
+    Lies still and fills the vale from side to side,
+    And scents it with all sweets the heavens know
+    In any countryside.
+
+                   1915.
+
+
+
+
+MAN
+
+
+    Thy feet are set among the moss
+      That dwelleth on the clay,
+    Which is a cold uncomely dross;
+      Thine heart will ever stay
+    Among the flowers, two cubits high.
+      And thy majestic brow
+    Fronteth the awful arch of sky,
+      That is both high and low.
+
+    But thy most wonderful regard
+      Searcheth the universe;
+    Gold is, nor silver, cold and hard,
+      In this thy treasure-purse;
+    But a most puissant conquering love,
+      And royal air, whose state,
+    Mounting the whole of earth above,
+      Looks in at heaven’s gate.
+
+                   1915.
+
+
+
+
+THE THORN
+
+
+    Down the dim wood, and in the dreaming ways,
+    High on the mountain mead and heathy hill,
+    Dwelleth the holy thorn beloved of fays,
+    Fit shelter for their frail eternal days.
+
+    And all his aspect is so wondrous still
+    That he might be a threaded tapestry
+    Wove part by ladies,’ part by fairies’ skill
+    To music of a slow and marish rill.
+
+    In his small blossoms greatest beauties be;
+    Five moonlight leaves, and tinct anon with red,
+    Likest in hue to syrens of the sea,
+    Whose limbs are rose, and polished ivory.
+
+    Perfumed is he, as fits a fairy’s bed,
+    And honeyed for a fairy’s sustenance.
+    All night he watches fays: when night is dead
+    Holy he keeps the ground whence they have fled.
+
+    Tend the tall thorn, and so avoid mischance,
+    High hedges and close bowers make ye of him,
+    That spirits may thy ghostly good enhance,
+    And fairy fend from thee the charging lance.
+
+    Within thy chapel walls, with incense dim,
+    Suffer his leaf and flowery stem to blow,
+    Upon the altar, and the carved font’s rim,
+    So that wild fays may hear thy living hymn.
+
+    And when across the greenwood thou dost go
+    And seest his ruby fruit, bethink thee well,
+    “Even a spirit hath his proper woe,
+    Which I by these his heartës drops do know.”
+
+    What is that woe is proof to woven spell?
+    What grief is never cured of singing lays?
+    Not to the mortal ear may spirits tell
+    That grief, which ringeth them eternal knell,
+    And makes of their wild eyes perpetual pain,
+    Which dieth not, as ours, and lives again,
+    But ever sighs upon the summer breeze,
+    And groaneth in the trees:
+    Still though thou be, verily thou art forlorn,
+    Beloved thorn!
+
+                   1915.
+
+
+
+
+THE REALM
+
+
+    England hath many an honest hand,
+      Or bare or silken gloved:
+    But what is there within the land
+      That she should be so well beloved?
+
+    And she hath many an haughty town
+      That liveth in her law,
+    But fairer is the linnet brown,
+      That singeth in the leafy shaw.
+
+    And she hath many a nobleman,
+      Ay, many, and to spare!
+    But better is the plowman Dan,
+      Though that he drive the earthy share:
+
+    For towns and noblemen are made
+      By silly fortune’s dole,
+    But birds, and they who wield the spade,
+      They are green England’s singing soul.
+
+                   1915.
+
+
+
+
+THE TOILER IN THE DARK
+
+
+    Beloved, cease thy slavery.
+      Dear and most godlike, never keep
+    Thine heart for sorrows less than thee.
+      Thou who by day wouldst cease to weep,
+    But who dost hug the dark, be free!
+
+    Thy countenance most kingly bends
+      Towards the earth; thy tressed hair
+    With tarnished gauds, unworthy, blends;
+      On shining shoulders dost thou bear
+    The woes and whelming tyrannies
+    Of this poor flesh that strives and dies:
+
+    Not knowing that all thy many bands
+      Are rotten through, and those grim shades
+    That ride thy back and bind thine hands,
+      Are of that realm that truth invades
+    And conquers with a heavenly might;
+    Lift up thine eyes: behold, the light!
+
+                   1915.
+
+
+
+
+THE KING
+
+
+    Never to rule with an iron stave,
+      Nor a sceptre of gold,
+    But with the skirt of his blue robe brave
+      To keep thee from the cold,
+    And for to hold thee from the grave
+      Within his vesture’s fold,
+    Was made that sovereign that men have
+      These many summers told.
+
+    And never with gems crowned to be,
+      Nor with sable invest,
+    But with a branch of the brier tree
+      To adorn head and breast;
+    Yea, with a rod of the red rose,
+      And a wreath of the white,
+    He shall the whole of thee enclose
+      For a passing delight.
+
+                   1915.
+
+
+
+
+ENCHANTED
+
+
+    Of wight waylaid of faery, and of enchantments enchainéd,
+      What singeth one unto the height of heaven?
+    “This one boldly hath battled and this refrainéd”;
+            O easily maketh a little man
+            The lay of a lounging courtesan!
+      But for a bewitching and a spell must seemly song be given.
+
+    The long and lingering eventide
+      In the wood did gild the grass;
+    And she, like to a shining bride,
+      To a moveless flame did pass,
+      And dead leaves were fashioned brass.
+
+    Thou Perkin, as men called thee,
+      Fully well didst know thy doom;
+    As stilly and as silently
+      As eglantine doth hold her bloom
+      Goldenly upon a gloom:
+
+    And with foreknowledge didst go
+      To the castles of thy kin,
+    That for lessening of their woe
+      Have no soul and little sin;
+      Prithee keep thou safe within!
+
+    Free of murder and of malice
+      Flowereth the common weed;
+    From a featly fashioned chalice
+      Faery foxglove sows her seed,
+      And is a royal herb indeed:
+
+    Didst thou of her purple reap,
+      That thou mightest never turn
+    To a warmly thatchéd sleep
+      And the cottage hearths that burn
+      Peat and furze and forest fern?
+
+    Ay perchance; what is a fire
+      Made of turves, of heavy smoke,
+    Smouldering in a cabined byre,
+      To the fires of faery folk
+      That the husbandmen invoke?
+
+    Pacing down the alleys green
+      Thou didst go, and now art lost
+    The beeches and the briers between,
+      And the dewy ways are crossed
+      Only by thy gentle ghost.
+
+    The large-eyed cony followeth
+      Where do walk thy quiet feet,
+    And unfearing of her death
+      Culleth her accustomed meat
+      In the even passing sweet.
+
+    The cloud beside the hill doth stand;
+      Thou beyond them both dost dwell
+    In a far and fairy land;
+      And yet dost sit beside the well
+      Darkling in the dimpled dell.
+
+    Thou dost turn thy wildling look
+      Gravely on a passing face;
+    Never man, in any book,
+      That most still regard may trace;
+      Stay thou thus a little space
+      Blessing all the neighbour place.
+
+                   1915.
+
+
+
+
+THE SINGER
+
+
+    Amidst all grief shalt thou be void of woe,
+      And nevermore thy chanting shalt thou cease,
+    For thee I have ordained, that thou go
+      Most mightily, and heal with all my peace,
+    That the fair sum of me may well increase;
+      And when my children weep the bitter frost
+    Clad foolishly in rags, in lieu of fleece,
+      Sing to them that they be not wholly lost.
+
+    I make to me my ministers, and they
+      Charitably do walk in many a guise,
+    By many a leafy path and paved way,
+      With brooding peace enthroned in their eyes;
+    How the vast earth is clamorous with cries
+      Of all her creatures miserably tossed!
+    But these that I have signalled to arise
+      Sing to them that they be not wholly lost.
+
+    It is not seemly the elect should weep,
+      They have no heritage in agony.
+    Calmly thine heart in thy still bosom keep
+      And let importunate sorrow pass thee by;
+    More than thy brethren have, the very sky
+      Is thine, with many stars and clouds embossed;
+    Out of this wealth and all this majesty
+      Sing to them that they be not wholly lost.
+
+    Prince of the earth, when such as thee do die,
+      Laid in rich pall, with gentle hands there crossed,
+    All my clear sprites in Paradise that lie
+      Sing to them that they be not wholly lost.
+
+                   1916.
+
+
+
+
+ALONE
+
+
+    Along the west way of the wood,
+      When light doth gild its floor,
+    My spirit saith, “O solitude!”
+      And shuts her chamber door;
+
+    And doth a solemn silence keep.
+      I think that she doth pray,
+    But whether she doth smile or weep
+      I may not know nor say.
+
+    My body standeth still, mine eyes
+      About the hills do range;
+    I shall not know her mysteries,
+      For they are passing strange;
+
+    But the eve falleth, quiet as death,
+      Or as a faery’s glance;
+    When from her door she issueth
+      She is all radiance.
+
+                   1916.
+
+
+
+
+A CITY CHURCHYARD
+
+
+    Why liest here, when there are lands
+    Filled with peace and beauties free?
+    “Since my sleep contenteth me,
+    Here do I fold my hands,
+    Here upon my quiet breast,
+    And here do rest.”
+
+    But the long and sounding shore
+    Calleth from afar; O hear!
+    “I am void of any fear,
+    Healed are my troubles sore;
+    My feet sans motion are composed
+    And mine eyes are closed.”
+
+                   1916.
+
+
+
+
+THE WATERS OF PARADISE.
+
+
+    In Paradise there is a sea
+      Blue as the turkis stone,
+    And many passing wonders be
+      Hid in its depths alone;
+    But seen of all the folk of neighbour land,
+    Whose quiet feet do walk the yellow strand.
+
+    And since that shore is void of man
+      No sail about it flies,
+    But hundred-hued Leviathan
+      Like a prone rainbow lies,
+    And looketh on the weaving waters wan
+      With stilly emerald eyes.
+
+    And though no sail move on the deep
+      As calm as any mere,
+    A radiant folk, who may not weep,
+      Without a sail do steer,
+    And very pleasant ways and winding keep
+      Above the solemn clear.
+
+    Par miracle, I once did go
+      And stood upon the shore;
+    A gemmy archipelago
+      The gemmy waters bore,
+    And all those sprites that are unchained of woe
+      Do dwell there evermore.
+
+    Like to the summer leaves that make
+      A little whispering,
+    These folk that dwellen in the lake
+      Full fairly say and sing,
+    As waters blown at night, that wake
+      With a sweet murmuring.
+
+                   1916.
+
+
+
+
+THE QUIET THOUGHT.
+
+
+    Doth the loud world aye clamour in thine ears?
+      Nay, never weep; for the loud world doth pass.
+    Faint in the distance die her shrieking fears,
+      Leaving serenest silence, and the grass
+    Waveth her plumy ranks of tender spears
+      Above the green and blossoming morass.
+
+    Weary thy body; yea, and so thine heart,
+      But these be none of thee, for thou dost dwell
+    Unsullied in a clearer space apart,
+      In a great beauty words may never tell,
+    Nor any of the shifts of petty art;
+      And of this heritage bethink thee well.
+
+    Know thou art for the healing of mankind,
+      For his soul’s health was made thy clarity,
+    And for the fearless faring of his mind,
+      By many a winding way to wenden free:
+    Sense to the dead, and vision to the blind,
+      Think on these riches, this nobility.
+
+    Through all the woe thou seest, calm abide,
+      (O worthless woe, that maketh men to weep!)
+    Since thou hast sanctuary. Beatified,
+      Ay, happy ever rests thy spirit deep,
+    Like the clear snow on silent pastures wide,
+      Joyful as love, and calm as sacred sleep.
+
+                   1916.
+
+
+
+
+TO RIGHTEOUSNESS OUTCAST AND DISGUISED.
+
+
+    So, sweet, they have forsworn thee. Thou dost roam
+    Clad in foul motley, yea, in beggars’ weeds,
+    Thou dear delight of angels in fair deeds,
+    Thou purity! Thou messenger from home,
+    The which is heaven, and all whose silent meads
+    Are peopled with thy children white as ocean foam.
+
+    As she might charm the waves to constancy
+    Singeth sad Philomel in woeful guise,
+    Still is she left forlorn; and so thine eyes
+    For all their godhead turn not men to thee:
+    And thou are like the weary dove that flies
+    Between the gray heaven and the desert gulfs of sea.
+
+    Think not upon us, lady, lest thou weep:
+    Since that we sully thee, hie hence away:
+    Spend not thine heart from day to weary day
+    On the salt shores from which thou mayest not reap;
+    Go to thy babes, thy little ones, and say,
+    “Sweetings, I grow your herbs and flowers while ye sleep.”
+
+                   1917.
+
+
+
+
+SPRITE ALONE
+
+
+    Sad is thy voice as the thin cry of the plover
+    On the ridged loam
+    All the chill ghostly night: but when ’tis over
+    Thou shalt hie home.
+
+    Cease thou to roam
+    When the willow wavers with a whispered warning
+    That on the foam
+    Of his tossed streams doth shine the silver morning;
+
+    Then rest, rover,
+    And stay, feet.
+    The woe is over,
+    The day flies fleet;
+    The lands and the waters,
+    The dark and the morn
+    Full fairly do meet;
+    Heaven’s sons and daughters
+    Themselves do adorn
+    To wander through the flowery woods, and the sloped fields of corn.
+
+                   1917.
+
+
+
+
+PRAYER FOR A FAIR PEOPLE
+
+
+    We thy beloved are most poor,
+      That entertain not innocence.
+    We are not steadfast to endure;
+      Make thou the men, when we go hence,
+    With a great spirit of thee and sure,
+      Joy that shall need no penitence.
+
+    Make them than all their love more saint,
+      Make them than yellow gold more fair:
+    Now have I ended all my plaint,
+      Now have I made thee all my prayer;
+    And the last incense, thin and faint,
+      Smokes upward from mine altar stair.
+
+                   1917.
+
+
+
+
+THE PROMISED REST.
+
+
+    Yea, thou shalt have thy peace, thy calm delight,
+    Dim sanctuary, thy canopy of leaves;
+    The light web that the summer starlight weaves
+    And the wild wayfaring of waters bright,
+    And songs of husbandmen among the sheaves:
+    Thus may thou be with many glories dight,
+    Thus sit and sing under thy forest eaves.
+
+                   1917.
+
+
+
+
+THE EARTH AND THE HEAVEN IN THE EVENING
+
+
+    The Earth draws off her robe of broidered flowers,
+      And in green kirtle standeth for a space
+    Ere she doth wrap her for the silent hours
+      In her white shift of mist, and veils her face;
+    She standeth in her kirtle green, and saith
+    Her evening prayer, whose incense is her breath.
+
+    Here are no unquiet sounds and no alarms;
+      Hence all that is not gentle doth depart.
+    She takes her weary children in her arms
+      That she may warm them at her kindly heart;
+    Are any poor, knowing that they all lie
+    Lapped in her light embraces silently?
+
+    The Heaven doth wear upon her holy breast
+      The argent moon, her badge; her livery,
+    That is a royal, rich and azure vest,
+      Shows she doth serve a might majesty;
+    And a fair weed, purple and cinnamon,
+    She now above that silken vest doth on.
+
+    How might man image her in his own guise?
+      As a crowned spirit quiet as forest lawns,
+    Void of all woe and of all sad surprise,
+      Facing eternal sunsets and bright dawns,
+    And brooding o’er him that he may not mark
+    The outer tempests and the empty dark.
+
+                   1917.
+
+
+
+
+MELILOTE
+
+
+    There is a lady queen that dwells
+      In the green midmost of the vales,
+    Under the faery fells:
+    She hath five singers, O fairer than asphodels!
+      And a teller of tales.
+
+    The five singers are passing young;
+      Harvests, and mists of magic years,
+    And the clear throstle’s tongue
+    That in the same thicket for seven summers hath sung,
+      These are their only peers;
+
+    Mayhap with voices of the shore,
+      Embroidery of the sea’s one sigh,
+    The listener weepeth sore,
+    For his estate, that lacketh tuneful lore,
+      As the song paceth by.
+
+    Yea, but the teller of tales is old.
+      Less fair is he, but comforteth.
+    When thou art sore acold
+    Sit by him on the hearth, to be made hot and bold,
+      And to laugh at thy death:
+
+    This is thy mortal fashioning.
+      Think ye the queen, hight Melilote,
+    Weepeth to hear them sing,
+    These five, and laugheth with an outworn thing
+      Clad in a greasy coat?
+
+                   1917.
+
+
+
+
+THY SONG IS LIKE A LEMON TREE
+
+
+    Thy song is like a lemon tree;
+    Lyon ly! the golden air!
+    Art thou not of Gascony?
+    It burgeoneth so merrily
+    And of blossom is not bare:
+    And it chaunteth, lyon ly,
+    Lyon ly, et lon lon laire.
+
+    Thy lay is like the flying swan;
+    Ly, lon lon, l’estrangère,
+    Thou are fair to look upon!
+    Where might man thy singing con,
+    So to kill his every care?
+    Lyon ly, et lon lon lon,
+    Lyon ly, et lon lon laire.
+
+    Thy song sounded right hardily;
+    Lyon ly, the lovely fair!
+    And thou lookest scornfully.
+    Art thou not of Gascony?
+    Certes not of other-where!
+    Well, farewell; et lyon ly,
+    Lyon ly, et lon lon laire.
+
+                   1917.
+
+
+
+
+SONG
+
+
+    The end of true love is to sit and mourn;
+      Heigh ho, the end of love!
+    Under the shadow of the naked thorn,
+      With his thin boughs above.
+
+    The end of true love is to lie and weep;
+      Heigh ho, to weep alone!
+    On the cold bosom of the mountain steep,
+      By a gray boulder stone.
+
+    The end of true love is to fare forth far;
+      Heigh ho, the empty ways!
+    To the bare places where the great winds are.
+      And there to spend his days.
+
+    The end of true love is a sorry end;
+      Heigh ho, the weary death!
+    Marvel it is that everyman should tend
+      Poor love which vanisheth.
+
+    Love’s is a life not any leech may save;
+      So, since he’s fair,
+    And thou must full soon lay him in his grave,
+      Be love thy care.
+
+                   1917.
+
+
+
+
+THE POOR POET
+
+
+    The voices from the bough
+    Do carol clear enow:
+    The eglantine in many a bush
+    Doth to the light her blossoms push;
+    While I sing diligently
+    And strive for my poor bread.
+
+    The bough to the birds all
+    Is a high heavenly hall,
+    And to the enamelled eglantine
+    The ceiling of her quiet shrine;
+    But I say sorrowfully,
+    Ah me, the homeless head!
+
+    The sparrow hath his mate
+    And is not desolate:
+    The flower, complete unto herself,
+    Never pursues a wraithy elf:
+    O black-eyed Melancholy,
+    I never shall be wed!
+
+                   1917.
+
+
+
+
+THE FRIENDS
+
+
+    For thee are chosen want and wayfaring
+    In place of goods and ease thou dost desire,
+    Nor shall thy days the meanest comfort bring.
+
+    Hidden from thee, that lookest on the mire,
+    Is every comeliness: thy very tears
+    Wake not a weeping string in heaven’s quire;
+
+    But are distilled from all thy suffered years
+    As an ungracious and unwishéd rain,
+    When every hill a robe of torrent wears:
+
+    And not of anything art thou so fain
+    As of dull Death. So art thou justified,
+    For he shall bid thine angel sing again:
+
+    Shall set for thee his pleasant portals wide,
+    And thou that fleddest the rude breath of woe
+    Yet scaped him not, shalt see beatified
+
+    His direful children: smiling shalt thou go
+    And say, “Want, am I welcome, friend? And lo,
+    Sorrow my sister, Plague mine housefellow.”
+
+                   1917.
+
+
+
+
+WELL BELOVED
+
+
+    O well-beloved is the wood;
+      It is a wonder to walk therein.
+    Peopled of spirits is every rood.
+      And evil spirits are they or good?
+    Neither evil are they nor good,
+      They know not any sin.
+
+    Fitfully do thy footsteps fall
+      On echoing path or mossy lawn;
+    And if thine eyes behold, in all
+    The hoary thickets is festival;
+    The silent people hold festival,
+      And thither are thou drawn.
+
+    Go near softly and eat with them.
+      Take your fill of fairies’ meat.
+    Wear the wreathy diadem
+    Of the blossoming hawthorn stem,
+    Of the enchanted hawthorn stem
+      That smelleth passing sweet.
+
+    Better are all these misty eyne
+      That smile not, and do never weep,
+    Than those bright mortal eyes of thine
+    That with all joys and woes must shine,
+    That with full many tears must shine
+      And then be closed in sleep:
+
+    Better these slender limbs and pale
+      Than all thy lovely white and red.
+    Thrice ten years shall be thy tale
+    Till thy fairness all must fail,
+    Then two score; and thou must fail,
+      And soon be vanishéd:
+
+    Vanish’d behind the mantle of morn,
+      Lightly lost as a gossamer
+    That like a ghostly robe is borne
+    When autumn seemeth most forlorn,
+    In the ways of the woods forlorn
+      A moment’s passenger:
+
+    Profits me nought to look on thee,
+      I will go to the other folk,
+    Neither sadly nor merrily
+    Dwelling beside the twisted tree;
+    Quiet-hued as any winter tree,
+      Slight as a spire of smoke;
+
+    Heeding no heaven, no stately art,
+      Silent they roam the leafy chace.
+    They die not, nor do they depart.
+    Fleet fly the sylvan hind and hart;
+    Gentle as hind, and swift as hart,
+      They dwell in their own place.
+
+
+
+
+THE LUTE
+
+
+                Sweet Voice, do thou begin
+                      With sorrow
+                Singing of the sour herb sin;
+    Fair-blossomed now and small, but on the morrow
+                Most harshly fruited
+                And deeply rooted:
+                Sigh thou, “O peace,
+    Parch up the evil herb and wither him.”
+    Nay, gentle Lute, hear there the Cherubim!
+                    So; cease.
+
+                Dost thou not mark the Air,
+                      That Majesty,
+                That Paragon of grave and fair?
+    Keen exaltatiön and coron’d beauty:
+                Sweet melancholy
+                At length made wholly
+                The mate of peace;
+    Well dost thou say, “Impatient of my State,
+    Silent henceforth I stand at heaven’s gate:”
+                      So; cease.
+
+
+
+
+THE COMPANION OF YOUTH
+
+
+    Never is seen thy countenance
+    In the summer-burthened glades
+    Where no leaf hath power to dance;
+    In the bosom of the shades
+    The melancholy heat lies still,
+    And the one flower that burgeon will
+    Is a blossom born of bale,
+    The enchanter’s nightshade pale,
+    Darkly leaved, and wan of face,
+    With a grief-begotten grace;
+    Faint with thirst of the night dew
+    The leafy branches let not through;
+    Her aspect says thou art afar,
+    Where cold and fair retreated are.
+
+    When the earth with leaves is strown,
+    Thou shalt think on the high lane,
+    And upon these fields, thine own,
+    And swiftly shalt return again;
+    Where the loam is fret with moles,
+    Where the leaden beechen boles
+    Shine on the steep bank dight with red,
+    Down upon a hanging bough
+    Thou shalt lean thy radiant head
+    Resting on thy folded hands,
+    While a gentle sun and low
+    Shows thee all thy misty lands.
+    I come upon thee suddenly,
+    Clothed upon with mellow light,
+    And silence that is melody,
+    And coldness that is warm delight;
+    And upon thy kingdom look
+    Where the quiet woods are hung,
+    As it were a magic book
+    Written in a vanished tongue.
+
+    When spring first hath power to smile,
+      And russet twigs are bright with gold,
+    Half veiling, for a dazzling mile,
+      The airy distance blue and cold,
+    Out of the byways dost thou run,
+      And in the royal path dost rove,
+    Saying unto a wandering one,
+      “Go make me songs to praise my love;
+    Chant and chime, pipe and blow,
+      Make what sounds shall seem thee good,
+    As the sea-wave smitten to snow,
+      Or a fountain in a wood;
+    But silent shalt thou have no blame,
+      She requireth not thy singing,
+    And thou knowest not her name,
+      Though with her name the ways are ringing;
+    Yet soothly thou shalt find it graven
+    On the stones of thy last haven.”
+
+    But thou art kindliest and quietest
+      When it is winter, and the white frost lies
+    Like heaven’s hand upon the meadow’s breast.
+      Serene and virginal the taper’d skies;
+    The naked trees, as sprites unchained of flesh,
+      Are thy denial of mortality,
+    With locks adorned of gems in every mesh.
+      Thou risest from the dark as I pass by,
+    And through the chaste airs measurest with mine
+      Thine unheard steps, and nothing sing’st nor sayest.
+    The galaxy full loftily doth shine:
+      Would these were all my days! Still mute thou stayest--
+      Depart not hence; go with me while thou mayest.
+
+                   1917.
+
+
+
+
+THE MAID’S BURIAL
+
+
+    No flower hath shed the sheath;
+      The wood is all brown.
+    When you have passed the heath.
+      Then lay her down.
+
+    There the beloved head
+      And the still breast,
+    When the last foot hath fled,
+      Sleep shall, and rest.
+
+    Freshly the spring wind
+      Bloweth for her sake;
+    Cold, but exceeding kind,
+      Ere any bud awake.
+
+    Chill is the thin breeze
+      That wafteth off the deep,
+    Yet marreth no man’s ease
+      Nor drives him home to sleep:
+
+    Graciously doth it go,
+      And savour doth afford
+    Of early blossoms mixt with snow,
+      Though neither be abroad.
+
+                   1918.
+
+
+
+
+THE MISSAL
+
+
+    It is as though some babe, that loveth hues
+        Gay as a tincture here may be,
+    Took the strong noon unto the early dews
+    And fashioned wisdom fair and faithfully;
+    Lo, how above their gemmy vesture glances
+    The august look of steadfast countenances.
+
+    Like the pearled flower that opens on the prime,
+        Like a high city seen from far
+    Through leagues of virgin air, so they through time,
+    Pensively as through even looks the star,
+    Remote and wan: and every shining tress
+    Lieth in grave and ordered loveliness.
+
+    The entrailéd thorn, the dolphin and the pard,
+        The rose and royal unicorn,
+    Life and his labour, valour and his reward,
+    Plain in the venerable page are borne:
+    But that fair aspect most delighteth; when
+    Man may not see that innocence again.
+
+                   1918.
+
+
+
+
+SEEK THE WIDE SOLACE.
+
+
+    Seek the wide solace, never leave her shore.
+      Stretch not thine hands abroad in misery
+    To have them filled with woe for evermore.
+      Fold then thine hands; thy spirit tranquilly
+              This shall believe,
+      Pitiful of thine heart to see him grieve:
+
+    The silly strife, the dirge of ease and mirth,
+      The mournful murmur of unquiet sleep,
+    Like brawling brooks that scar the constant earth,
+      Shall fall on silence in the brooding deep;
+              Vanish, well lost
+      As changeling is into the faery host:
+
+    And all those swift and broken waters, fain
+      Of a full rest now that their rest looks fair,
+    Not as their own bright tears shall be the rain,
+      Nor climb in clouds the weary steeps of air,
+              But to and fro
+      As an assoiled sleeping heart shall go;
+
+    With such majestic air and simple state
+      That they shall look as one face to the sun,
+    And with one only voice shall sing their fate;
+      Graciously moving here and there, as one
+              Grave in his pace,
+    Whose way lies not in any market-place.
+
+                   1918.
+
+
+
+
+ELFESHILL
+
+
+    Fair is the gentle field that lies
+    Between the wood both great and old,
+    And the thin shaw whose saplings hold
+    All shy and secret harmonies;
+    There by that field they hear themselves
+    Sigh spells into the air, above
+    The place that hath an hill of elves
+    Standing in the midst thereof.
+
+    Round is the hill, and deep in flowers,
+    And soundeth, with a pleasant tone,
+    And many a burthen of his own,
+    The enchanted Tune of Seven Towers:
+    Upon his gracious head the eve
+    Quickens the coloured light, and still
+    When other hills are dark, doth leave
+    A glimmer to the elfeshill.
+
+    The dun cow
+    Standeth half seen;
+    The lily calf
+    Moveth on the magic green:
+    Which mayest thou love most,
+    Their eyes or their calm breath?
+    The wraith of all that thou hast lost
+    Here doth hasten to his death.
+
+    Yea, thus the ghost is fled,
+    Like imagin’d ivory
+    Over the hill’s head;
+    Farewell his memory;
+    Faintly the leaves chill
+    Waft spells into the air, above
+    The field that hath an elfeshill
+    Standing in the midst thereof.
+
+                   1918.
+
+
+
+
+THE SORROW OF TRUTH.
+
+
+    Light aspens stand above the silken grass,
+    And send upon the twilight their wan look,
+    More wan for the long thought of what doth pass.
+    There in the stream, half river and half brook,
+    They gaze, entwining all their sister arms,
+    And pale to read the dream within his glass.
+    Together in the bank their feet are set,
+    While all the air low mourneth, and chill harms
+    Hover where the bright heads are closely met.
+
+    For they have seen that sprite of even go
+    By their light stems, that makes disconsolate
+    What is of earth, whether of mire or snow,
+    For that he showeth him his poor estate;
+    Innocent making sorrow with sweet mirth,
+    As on warped limbs the winds of heaven blow.
+    The slender trees stand fast in the cold clay,
+    That is their death and was their silent birth,
+    And the brave look abroad is cast away.
+
+    And the sprite passeth, coming to that place
+    Where the folk sit, and entereth thereto
+    To talk of byres, and grain that swells apace:
+    But in the ancient murmur something new
+    Strikes on their hearts, and they turn wondering
+    And with a fixed regard, to read his face.
+    He standeth in the shadow by the door,
+    And while his vesture is a radiant thing,
+    All that is rich of theirs is grievous poor.
+
+    Yea, poor and thin as leaves of the last year,
+    Made for woe’s children by her starvéd hand,
+    Faint mottled with all livid hues and drear,
+    Like to dried blood and the pale thirsting sand:
+    And in the midst of these each countenance
+    Looketh upon the sprite, anon with fear,
+    Anon with hunger and great eagerness,
+    Yet with no understanding: woeful glance!
+    Thus the poor stones unwillingly might bless
+    With trembling love that is both faint and far
+    The light that they with their swart bodies mar,
+    The sun that sheweth their uncomeliness.
+
+
+
+
+PAST
+
+
+    More than we know thou knewest
+      Of all light and sweetness,
+    Thou that fairly grewest
+      To thy brief completeness:
+    Hear how the hills mourn for thee!
+      Thou hearest but thou heedest not.
+    Were the green hills born for thee
+      Lightly thus to be forgot?
+
+    Knowing but small fairness,
+      Seeing but the shadow
+    Even of earth’s rareness
+      In an earthly meadow,
+    Yet we live in thought thereof,
+      And our deepest heart of being
+    Hath a garment wrought thereof,
+      Meetly fair for heaven’s seeing.
+
+    But thy vail is finer,
+      More thou hadst: yet fleddest
+    To a thing diviner
+      Than the light thou sheddest:
+    Vain is the sweet praise of thee,
+      What we sing but poor thou deemest,
+    Alien from the ways of thee;
+      But we thirst for what thou dreamest.
+
+    Haply now thou sendest
+      Down the airs of even,
+    Word of where thou wendest
+      In the ways of heaven;
+    But the quiet hath taken thee,
+      And though quick with longing calleth
+    Many a voice to waken thee,
+      Silence on thine answer falleth.
+
+    More than we know thou knewest
+      Of all light and sweetness,
+    Thou that fairly grewest
+      To thy brief completeness:
+    Hear how the hills mourn for thee!
+      Thou hearest but thou heedest not.
+    Were the green hills born for thee
+      Lightly thus to be forgot?
+
+                   1918.
+
+
+
+
+THINK THOU UPON THE BITTER STRAND
+
+
+    Think thou upon the bitter strand
+      Where the down sleeps leaning towards the sea,
+    And of the vanished fair who rode in the land
+      Swiftly and far and wide and merrily:
+
+    And again think on bright hair,
+      That was yellow, before it became dust,
+    As broom looketh that blows in the upland air,
+      But never think upon the hearts of the just:
+
+    For thou mayest pity the salt shore
+      And the dead fair, her gay locks vanished and gone,
+    But the just keep their hearts for evermore,
+      Nor art thou filled with thinking thereupon.
+
+                   1918.
+
+
+
+
+THE CONSUMMATION
+
+
+    Looks royal, songs for heaven meet,
+      Thou wishest, thinking on his worth
+    Whose faintest image is more sweet
+      Than all thy dearest loves on earth.
+
+    The royal look is marred with years,
+      The song celestial is made
+    Into a litany of tears,
+      Into a blossom of the shade.
+
+    Thou art fordone: thine heart is rent
+      To praise who hath no fear nor shame.
+    Yet when thine utmost life is spent
+      Thou hast not even said his name:
+
+    But peace, the triumph is not ripe.
+      Canst thou not sleep a little space,
+    Or dream upon the oaten pipe
+      Till there appear the wishéd face?
+
+    Then well sufficing shall arise
+      From thy quiet heart that was so wrung,
+    A look in those translated eyes,
+      A word in that diviner tongue.
+
+                   1918.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79394 ***