ff-.:^:^ ■•^fi,. />^* ■-':-'T*---M^ .u-^;uLij^vr' ■±^. 'V .-^^^^^-'-r^r ;■: v^;^ -^ ^if^~r '■^■■■>\:-^^i^-^-*w>m^:. LIBRARY OF THE University of California. Class //\ 4>'^ POEMS Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/bernpoemsOOmialrich POEMS BY A. BERNARD MIALL JOHN LANE, THE BOD LEY HEAD, LONDON AND NEW YORK i8gg GfAfffl/li. TO \ W. HUGH CHESSON Dittisham, Oct. 22, 1898. 18141fi - IE (universityJ POHMl^. The Sea of Death Falls like the voice of stars and sky and air, And, as in dreams, I know that all is well, Beyond all speech, all dreaming, well ; and I Am fallen in bliss so perfecfl, that it comes As naturally to me as my breath ; Whereat I waken in that twilit place. And think to walk among the fields of corn Or seek a happier sea. Then, as a dream To drowsing men is sweet beyond belief. Yet, when the dreamer fully wakens, gone. Utterly past ; only the great desire Of that he knows is joy is left in him While the dream hangs behind the gates of sleep, So the soft shock of that desired truth Scatters the flock of all my wary sense. And I awake, and know the truth I heard And knew, is gone ; above in bluest sky White stars are desolate, in blood-red sea White corpses veer upon a stagnant tide. 10 The Crucified THE CRUCIFIED *|J> Y the sea hang the dead, the crucified. hey rest ; the years blow by them ; they are still. The years roll past them from the seas of Time, The years fashioned without them pass them by, The years they know not in Eternity Are born in grayness, and are gathered up, And swept as clouds along the foamless sea, And break behind them into tides of light That they may see not ; into rustling rain That shall not cool their foreheads or gray lips. That lean for ever to the silent sea Whereby their ancient crosses are made sure ; That no ship ever sailed, nor any wave Ruffled, nor cry of bird nor man disturbed ; Whereby they rest ; yet are not of the sea. Nor of the years, nor anything that is. Theirs is not pain, nor sorrow ; yet their pain Shall live for ever, and shall testify The misery of all unfruitful things. And all dead sorrow never comforted. II The Crucified For roses wither, and the kindly earth Receives their petals as the snow-soft ewe Her trembling young ; or maidens gather them, To shed some treasured sweetness of old scent ; The grape is trodden under dancing feet, And thereof cometh wine ; the seething corn Falls, and is pleasant bread ; the night is born Because the sunset lessens from the sky, And happy memories follow happiness, And weariness grows peace ; yea, all these things Being born to die, in dying are fulfilled, For they have seed, for they are bom in death ; And it is good ; but pain shall never die. That is a barren stem without a flower, That has no fruit, but is already crowned. The dead sleep on for ever ; on their eyes Lies a great weariness, because their eyes Never shall see ; their lips, that shall not speak, Are hopeless ; and their hands, that long ago Strove with the nails in agony, are still. And have no strength, for they shall strive no more. Over their bodies lies the weariness Of all that shall not be : for these have been. 12 The Crucified The flowers that were their hearts are fall'n to dust, Blossom and evil weed and delicate flower, And at their birth their tears and laughter died. The winds have lost the echoes of their songs, And all their ancient wisdom is as dust ; Only, around their brows, the crown of thorns, Only the nails immoveable through their limbs, Only the cross, the circumstance of pain. That lives, and has no power to harm the dead That shall not dream, nor wake ; who are wrapped in rest And shall not wake to know it ; who rest not. They have forgotten all, and all their joy Is dead, and all their pain unsolaced yet Is no more pain ; but ah ! their endless rest Is no repose for these : there are none such. The flowers that were their hearts have fall'n to dust, And the good seed has flourished, and the earth Is fragrant with the fairness of their hearts, And shadowed by the coolness of their dreams. Therefore, when we are glad of any spring, Or any delicate flower or soft song, 13 The Crucified Shall we not say : Remember now their sleep, Think of the silent ones whose voices now Are heard; they taught us to call fairness fair ^ And all the wonder of the earth is theirs. Yea, roses fall, and thereof roses spring, And all their gladness laughs until to-day ; Only the cross decays, only the nails Are rusted to the core : only the crown Of thorns is a dead thing and out of mind For us : and yet these things shall never change. O vanity of living and of death ! Their pain is dead, it is clean out of mind, They are forgotten, and their gladness lives, And sweeps away behind them with the years. O happiness of living and of death ! All pain shall die, for this has of itself No life, being evil ; and at length shall die. Only the roses of our rose-gardens Shall gladden days that are not, that shall be Made shadowy with the sweetness of their dreams And ours ; and theirs shall mingle with our own, And these be one, and we be one with them. H The JVatcher THE WATCHER *T=v IGH in the silence of embattled towers, ^ When night held all the heavens and wet earth, She stood, awaiting the faint flower of day In pure chill eastern heavens, where remote ' Light waxed austere through some expe(5lant while, Till the grey river of dawn above the hills Drew on a soft similitude of flame And rose to utter radiance, and the sun Struck on the towers, and those expe(5lant lips. Then she that waited, leaning to the east, Held her tired mouth forth to the paling sun, Whose fresh light lived among her fallen hair, And laved her throat and bosom and pure brows With softness of sweet colour ; and the day Woke shortl)^ at the coming of the sun. From all wide hills and leafy valley roads, After the birds had sung a little while To the wet earth yet sleeping, flowed the bruit Of men fast journeying ; the wind of the day Wafted a murmur and clatter of many hooves Up to that watcher in the silent towers ; 15 The IVatcher With sound of singing in the distant ways, And sound of laughter on the awakened hills, But yet no song was as the song she knew. Men brake out of all woodland ways, and high On shadowy hills came darkly from the sun. And made the morning flash with burning steel> All the hot forenoon journeying by the tower, Whereon she watching heard the laugh and song And graver speech rise mingled ; till her heart Grew sick and laboured at the approach of noon, For no way came the banner that she knew, Also among brown faces on the road That face she loved, set with expecflant mien, That face her heart ached after, and her eyes, Was not discerned in all the indifferent throng* Also the odour of hot summer grass, The kindly breath of the hill-scented wind, And flowerful perfume of the cooler ways. Mocked her with perfedl incense ; till the noon Struck, and upon the first note of the bell Her heart smote thickly on her tender side And stayed her hearing with hard muffled blows ; For then no foot fell on the castle steps. Though all wide gates lay open ; and the square Of shadow where the stairway entered up i6 The Watcher Gave up no sound at all, no sight but black. Thereat at noon she turned her weeping face Toward the west, and watched with hopeless eyes The silent fields that journeyed to the west. The golden lands of the departing sun. All afternoon, by white and cloudy ways, Men hurried westward, bowed in driven dust, Shrinking in drifting smoke, and when the sun Slowly and with intolerable light Pained the near heavens till their life ran out In fiery death along the level earth, Clouds hurried from the backward east, and wind. Sending a herald of confused sound, Smote on the towers, and, shrieking toward the west. Rapt the shrill moan of desolated woods And bore it forth in greyness ; and the day Was drowned in rain, and night came down the wind. Then she that watched, with blown hair rained upon And garments pressed against her by the wind. Cast forth her arms helpless along the walls. And sank to kneeling and most bitter tears, 17 The Fortunate Islands Hiding her face from the grey rustling rain. Majestic clouds, borne on the urgent air, Brought up the night within their nets of rain, And darkness darkness overtook. The night Was fallen as if day had never been, And she, forsaken, abandoned to the rain, Covered her eyes, or lifted up her face To gaze into the roaring wet abyss When the sun vanished, when the day went by, Nor turned her to the east, whereto the sun Was bounden with his majesties of gold, And the unwelcome and incredible day. THE FORTUNATE ISLANDS V/I'HEN flushed as a rose's petal the moon floats low in the east. In a lavender twilight falling, refreshened the birds awake. Stirring the heart of the silence as night airs trouble the lake That all the day long lay dreaming, now that the heat has ceased. i8 The Forttmate Islands I am sick for a fortunate land, be it west that it lie or east, Where life is a lovely thing to possess for its own fair sake. I am sick for the dim sweet isle girt round with a rainy sea Mingled of many colours, flashing or windy or white, Or still as the face of the maiden you love at the fall of night, The fortunate far-oflf isle where the blest un- dying be. But I think no sail ever sailed or shone on the changing sea, Tho' the sound thereof and the savour shadow me day and night. But here in the passage of seasons, the watching of infinite seas, We have seen or have dreamed we beheld the islands that know not of change ; Crowned with their shadowy trees, past over the seas that range, 19 c — 2 The Fortunate Islands And girded about with a drowsy mist and a golden ease, Made sweet with the odour of hot thick flowers and the drone of bees, The islands unchanging endure in the stress of the seas that change. Ah, there in the light of the moon, in the islands of all desired, The days that are dead are possessed, and the days that never will be. In the islands at rest like a sleep on the breast of the tranquil sea, Like a kiss upon shadowy eyes, as a dream falls down on the tired, The islands of all things dead and the haven of all desired, Where the dead would ever have been, where ever the weary would be. All the day long there the sunlight, deep in the green deep ways. Lies with the strenuous silence of one not tired, but at peace, 20 The Fortunate Islands And ceases at length as kisses content of their answer cease ; There for delight of the day none numbers the passage of days, None of the folk that wend in the windless whis- pering ways, Till the stars awake in a dream, till the dream of their waking cease. For a magical slumber is woven of music of winds breathed o*er The sigh of the trees abandoned no wind of the day has fanned, And the coolness of odorous dew shed over the charmed land. And the langourous ripple of waves awake on a drowsed shore, While the stars shake low in the sea till the hush of the night is o'er, Till as fair a day as another tread over them toward the land. And these need hardly remember, they need not to hope at all. For the dawn of their skies is the birth of a life enduring the day, 21 The Fortunate Islands And whether the sun shall set or endure they shall hardly say, And the darkness is only peace refashioned about dewfall ; They rejecTt not the perfecfl: hour at hand for the hunger of all, The day is utterly theirs, and theirs is the happier way. O slender and white and supple, O heavy and sweet of hair, With the floating purple of dreams and desire for your garniture, Were ever your loves less lovely, being for ever sure, Your days less desirable ever, being for ever fair? Is the end attained of desire less dear than desiring there, Less fair than a last forgetting the knowledge that lives endure ? There do ye weary of pleasure complete or con- ceive a desire For a thing unknown, untasted, for days that tarry or cease ? 22 The Fortunate Islands Shall a twilight ever untroubled fail of familiar peace, Or the sun by unfailing splendour veil or de- crease his fire ? Nay, have ye hearkened, as we, to the voice of a last desire For the coast of an ultimate island, a stillness of infinite peace ? We have dreamed that at fall of the dew down- shed in your shrouded land Your most quiet hands and happy forth- holding as languidly Your tresses lift in the coolness, ye gaze apart to the sea, Mournful indeed for us, who know not if we understand, But I know no sail ever sailed or shone by the fortunate land. Not one of all songs ever lost on the water strayed over the sea. 33 The Message of Nature THE MESSAGE OF NATURE *T' CAME to thee enraptured, and I found Thy wind swift laughter and thy sun a smile, And all thy thick trees amorous of the air ; Even the old leaves rain-rotten on the ground Had but to wait a short appointed while Again to be alive in thee and fair. came to thee in anguish, and I found Thy wind a lament full of all affright, Thy desolated woods a stricken race ; And all of thee was born to die : the ground Conceived and thrust doomed things into the light, And flaunted death in every living face. I came to thee with neither joy nor grief. Too wise to hope, too stubborn to despair ; I found thee vacant as my own soul was. Void of significance flapped every leaf. Wind was a mere dull passage of dead air, And hills were heaps of earth overrun with grass. 24 The Mirror mid the Veil THE MIRROR AND THE VEIL JJJO the holy place of the forest Laughing I went : Over the heart of Nature Laughing I bent, To see what she hid there, But in the happy place All that was reflecSled Was my laughing face. To the strong heart of the forest Weeping I went, To find of Nature The secret of her content ; Low in the mournful pool In that despairing place All I saw reflecSled Was my weeping face. Neither weeping nor laughing, With neither hope nor despair, Forth I went to the forest To seek a solace there ; 35 The Recluse Dead lay the water I was gazing on ; My face looked up with neither hate Nor love thereon. Of renunciation I took the shadowy veil ; I bound it over my face And I knew that I should not fail ; Down I saw thro' the waters, Down to the secret deep, Where the soul of Nature broodeth, The wisdom that knows not sleep. THE RECLUSE *T* WAS impatient of the wrestling seas : *^ My heart shall be a valley calm, I said, Where salt vexed waters enter to become A mirror to the stars that every breeze Bade them forget : where ever overhead The woods that overhang the woods are dumb, 26 The Recluse But gazing on the tide with fond desire Where the gold glories of the sun were hung, My heart reludtant strove to hold it back, The flood confounding with the heaven's fire, Bars I put forth, with rushes green I clung, Thick ranks of weed and beds of sullen wrack. So thus it was, that at my river's mouth The keen bright brine exhausted o'er the bar Ran slack and halted : pool on stagnant pool Now lies that river choked upon the south No tides may cleanse, where never hang the stars, Whose feverous valley never wind may cool. So thus it is, the slow long-pulsed hours Pass with no keeper but a swooning breath Of sun-sick waters, and the river lies Choked with hot weeds, dry reeds and rotting flowers. Foul scurf of salt and fetid flats of death, And shows no recognition of the skies. 27 The Shy Thoughts THE SHY THOUGHTS 'T'N the garden of your mind All the thoughts that have no voice Shiver softly in the wind, Brooding with a gentle noise, Watching you with wary eyes. Gorgeous birds of Paradise : Argent-eyed and of soft feather, Coloured with all hues together Of flowers that open in twilight weather On an olden tapestry : He that walks the garden ways Seeeth every bird that sways Dimly sidelong from his eye : But if he turn, With beating heart, To mark the magic birds with hues that pulse and burn, — Ah ! with a start The charm goes by ! — They rise on rustling frightened wings that but obscure the sky. 28 In Vino Veritas IN VINO VERITAS TN the old house, I heard them say, A hoard of gold was hid away : I set the mouldered house afire. The flames red-rustled all the day ; At eve, in fuming ashes grey, I sought and found my heart's desire. They said there was a healing well In the old garden ; none could tell, The weeds were woven and wound so rank. In flame the last leaf writhed and fell, The last wet stem crackled its knell : I found the healing well, and drank. A truth of old I could not find, Forgotten in a careful mind, Altho' famiHar to my youth ; I drank red wine ; the world as wind Whirled, and my eyes no more were blind : In the thick dark outshone the truth. 29 Bemdy BEAUTY ^j^HERE is the Lady Beauty ? She is not Dead or grown old, tho' few may find her now. Still, in remoteness, with a patient brow, She waits among the hills, in what fair spot Those know that worship her, they love that bow, His is her house that grows a worshipper, She is not fled ; we have forgotten her. She waits for us ; 'tis we that have forgot. Till men shall hunger for her perfect face, Shall make of her demesne their dwelling-place, She waits, her face fanned by the eternal wind : Till men shall flee to her for love or fear, For her dear sake hold one another dear, And, in her service, shall become her kind. THE WINDS OF THE CROSSWAYS /jPjl HERE the moon lies low in the lake And the stars are mirrored white The blind white faces Arise in another birth ; 30 The Winds of the Crossways They are gathered, they fear and awake, They are borne on the shadow of night, From the far waste places, The desolate ends of the earth ; And another thing I hear Than the hiss of the reeds and heath, For a voice is awake in the south In a song of a pleasant fire ; Thro' the lands fulfilled of fear And delight, and the odour of death, The words of a passionate mouth Are borne on the wind of desire. O lovty Id your hands go about my headt your heavy hair fall t For I would not see the faces, I would not hear the call. The wide skies are woven Of purple and gold in the west ; They are covered of face and grey That walk in the splendid light. Where bright ways are cloven In clouds that are dark with rest ; They are wise in the wisdom of day, They are worn in the fever of night. 3X The Winds of the Crossways Ah, which of them all rejoices, That were, or that have not been ? They are clad in the glory of kings, They are filled with words unsaid ; The softest song of their voices Is broken with tears between In the country of outworn things, In the ways of the unborn dead. O love^ let your hands go about my head, your heavy hair fall. For I would not see their faces, I would not hear them call. By the shores of the freshening dawn Is a falling of golden light Shed over the faces That watch for the quickening sun \ And these are bitter and drawn With dread of the ultimate night, And the desolate paths and places To tread ere the day be done : But these are glad and aglow For the smiting of many lyres And the tumult of imminent feet That approach in the van of the day 5 32 The Winds of the Crossways But what if the daybreak grow To the glimmer of sullen fires, And the songs be no more sweet, And the singers pass away ? love, let your hands go about my head^ your hearuy hair fall, For I would not see their faces, I would not hear them call. In the high cold ways Of the listening mountain lands. Where fields of a virgin snow Endure in the sun's embrace. Thro' passing of sterile days Those tarry with quiet hands. That we dared of old to know, To speak with them, face to face ; In the ways too steep and chill For men that are weary or weep They dream, and they come not forth. They dream, and themselves behold ; When the voice of the south is still From the hills that may never sleep The wind bears out of the north Their songs austere and cold. 33 The Winds of the Crossways O love, let your hands go about my head, your heavy hair fall. For I cannot see their faces, I dare not hear them calk At the crossways four we are bom : Shall we weary or wander away To be lost in a still desire, In passion, or vain regret, Or in barren hopes and forlorn ? Let us live in the passing day, That it bring with the morning fire Life, till the sun be set. I would live in the passing day : Ah, make it suffice to me ! Be the winds' wings waking or furled, Be they weary or cruel or kind. Let us tarry where way meets way That the winds of the ways may be Only the winds of the world. And the roses we of the wind. Ah love / let your hands go about my head, your heavy hair fall, Till I hear your quiet breathing, and hear nought else at all. 34 BOOK II THE DEMAND *J> E near me, near me always, my Delight ! I must have joy complete, or none : I am not happy by you, day or night. For thought how soon my happy hour is done ! For other hearts are other joys ; for me, Have I one comfort, save with you to be ? Not one, not one ! Be near me always ! For in vainly trying To find some little ease away, I, being young, do sudden fall a-crying " How glad a thought ! " or ** Ah, how kind a day ! " And turn with happy laughter, so to share My joy — with whom ? Ah, one who is not there ! Be not away ! 37 The Challenge THE CHALLENGE Qf O wholly fair are you, That you are far too fair. Be to your beauty true, Lest I despair. For if I find a flower When winter dawns are late. Or live a perfe<5l hour In years that are desolate, Or tread a quiet path by men untrod, Girded by troubled ways of men around. Are not these perfecfl things a meting-rod, That all is measured by and wanting found ? Be true, O sweet, be true, For all, because of you. Is weighed and wanting found. Be not so fair, sweet eyes, Or, heart, be fairer far, O eyes that put her heart to shame,, That her heart's ways no fairer are. Be not so fair, or, being fair, be thou, O heart, the same. 38 Blanche BLANCHE I^^OD did not make her very wise, ^^ But carved a strangeness round her mouth ; He put her great sorrow in her eyes, And softness for men's souls in drouth, And on her face, for all to see. The seal of awful tragedy. God did not make her very fair, But white and lithe and strange and sweet ; A subtle fragrance in her hair, A slender swiftness in her feet, And in her hands a slow caress : God made these for my steadfastness. God did not give to her a heart. But there is that within her face To make men long to muse apart Until they goodness find and grace, And think to read and worship there All good : yet she is scarcely fair. 39 The Burden of Pity THE BURDEN OF PITY 'y/jw'AL.K straitly in your ways, O sweet, I said, for pity of my love. There was one pathway for your feet, One valley in cool hills above, A way that I found out for you In dreams, because my love was true. Beloved, will you think that God In His own shape had fashioned man, And watched the path His creature trod That ended foul, that fair began. With great love, though His eyes were dim With pity : could you weep for Him ? But I a perfe(5l image wrought Of all I would have had you be. In likeness of my holiest thought ; You have grown less than this to me, And I more pitiful than God, Knowing the way you should have trod. Yet I will hold your heart as pure As I have wished it every day. And name your faults the signature Of pains that came and passed away ; 40 ^Forget And I will love you more, my sweet, For every wound on your white feet. And every stain shall be a mouth To sing of what you should have grown If winds blew ever from the South, If you had never been alone. My love, that came too late to aid. For pity shall be threefold made. Yet O, wild rose the wind has flawed, But else more fair than all your kind, O snowflake on white eyelids thawed To leave a falling tear behind, O wherefore are you not complete. Or, being ruined, wherefore sweet ? FORGET ^pORGET the silent river and the lights of '^ gold, Forget the dusty trees and the haunted, slum- bering town. 41 Forget And, O poor heart, remember the starlight on the fold Where the sheep lay a-sleeping and the dew fell down. Forget the weary morrow and the day gone by, And remember how the daybreak flowers above the sea Where of old I heard the waters and the pee- wit's cry, Half waking, half asleep, where I fain would be. Forget, forget that in the town behind Your first love lies awake, or is weeping yet ; Dream that once in wandering in the twilight and the wind You met her far away, or dream we never met. Forget, forget that she is near and weeping. Dream that we are hearkening the foam of the sea, Lying in the grass where the wind is creeping, Singing a low song to my tired love and me. 42 A Commonplace Tragedy Dream her lips are soft with happy laughter, Dream her eyes are dim with happy tears, Dream, O dream no waking follows after. Dream beyond the limit and control of years. Sleep, O sleep, forget you ever met her ; Sweet it were to dream in sleep were she at rest; Heart that cannot comfort her or yet forget her, Be utterly at peace ; oh, this were best. A COMMONPLACE TRAGEDY *|J> ECAUSE I found you full oi care '^■^^ I gave my happy heart, And after bore an equal share. Perchance the greater part. There was no use in this, I know, Tho' all that I could do. For none the happier did you grow, But I grew sad as you. 43 The Strand Because no lighter grew your lot, No comfort could I see : So dull a heart you wanted not, And gave it back to me. It was too sad to bear alone ; What should I find to do With my poor heart so heavy grown But bring it back to you ? THE STRAND JtJHE wet wind wanders o'er the street ; Along the pavements wet. Above, below the shuffling feet. The yellow lamps are set. Dusk in the reaches of the sky. Dusk in the quieter ways, And as I pass the theatres by A golden dusk of haze. 44 The Strand Onward, on the faces go, On the unflagging feet ; No face among them all I know, No step for me to greet. I saw two lovers meet and kiss, A lamp was bright above ; Her lips were like the lips I miss. Your lips, O girl I love. I saw two lovers turn away And leave the rumbling Strand ; As you and I on many a day, I saw them hand in hand. Hand in hand as we, my dear. As we shall never go ; Along the alley cold and drear I heard them laughing low. I had your heart — but now, but now, I would not ask so much ; But yet, to kiss your quiet brow, And O, to feel your touch. 45 The Burden of Loving The yellow lights of the roaring Strand Are dim with more than rain. They two were walking hand in hand. But when shall we again ? THE BURDEN OF LOVING TOU that I love and have lost, would God I could love you anew, Would God I could lighten your sorrow, be merely glad at your joy ; I am haunted by phantom flowers that had blown when the skies were blue If you had been naught but a maid, if I had been naught but a boy, Bfut your tears were the whole world's tears, tho' yours had been bitter alone, And your smile was the mournful token of all that was never for me ; It was more than your sorrow that fevered my nights, for I heard the dead folk moan, The comfortless dead underground, and the pitiful dead to be. 46 Ingratitude I have learned a wisdom at length — to take the day that is here, And to drink the whole of the draught — but, alas ! for it is not joy — And the wine is spilt, and I turn to a wish and a dream more dear — That you were naught but a maid, that I were naught but a boy. INGRATITUDE ^T^ AD I but never heard a word or a song ^ Praising the Spring, and she in passing along Had found me a mourner where Love lay sleep- ing, Had I not turned to laughter from weeping ? But as a pilgrim spent on the parched grass, Who hears that a bountiful lady shortly shall pass, Gold and food and a gourd of water bearing : His heart is cheered and he beholds her nearing, 47 A Laodicean And she, disregardful, unladen, passes him by, Her beauty such as to hearten a man to die, But he with aching throat what she refuses Sobs after, and the joy she is he loses : So Spring this blind inheritance my heart Proclaims the bringer of Love, nor knows her apart : The face that appears not, the lips beyond my kiss I mourn, and the joy and solace she is I miss. A LAODICEAN ^ LOVED you not so long ago, But whether I love to-day It were not wise to ask or know By either yea or nay. And I to-day was glad we met. But whether *t was because I loved you once or love you yet, What matter which it was ? 48 Love the Jailer Of old our love was more precise, Yet I was often sad, And so to-day we'll be not nice ; Loving or no, I'm glad. LOVE THE JAILER ^TEEN, loved, possessed, familiar, lastly used ''^ And weary in dim chambers of my heart, Your mournful face seeks others set apart, Fearing to know a prison in my heart. There is nought else, for there was nought refused. I hung the pallid chambers of my heart With coloured legends of old fashioning ; I set bright pidlured loves ; made music sing In slow hushed rhythms of my fashioning To drown the distant murmur of the mart. Loved and departed, or by very love Veiled, or by passion once made briefly dear; 49 Persistency Shall all loved things at length grow love- less here ? I pray thro' loving I am somewhat dear, That you may love me yet for sake of love. j;di '^ I PERSISTENCY DID not sleep : in the dewy morn passed among the shivering corn. I looked on the heavens full of peace, And longed for my foolish love to cease. So splendid did the sun upstart, I thought his joy would break my heart. I looked on the brooding clouds above, And said, '* I am weary of my love." A thrush beyond the waves of wheat Sang, " Love a love more sweet." A seabird called above the sea, Crying, " O faint heart, be free ! " 50 Persistency In the hot noontide crooned the dove, " Turn, turn to a tenderer love." The lark sang up against the sun, " Turn, turn to a lighter one." All the hot afternoon I lay By the white breakers in the bay, And with the burden of the sea I sang with laughter, ** I am free." At eve I heard the night-wind stream Over the hills in a drowsy dream. ** At last," I said, " the past is dead,** And happy laid upon my bed. But ah ! the surging of the sea Sang of a bygone thing to me, And I awoke and cried at night : " I love you, love, with all my might." 51 E— 2 The Burden of Constancy THE BURDEN OF CONSTANCY *T' HAVE no cause to love you, yet The fear of wronging long regret, The wasted years, the words bygone That your light feet have trampled on, Make my love sure as when we met. I loved you never with mere lust Of eyes or flesh, but love I must With all my broken body and soul, For you alone can know the whole, Who all but shaped my soul from dust. As men who deem a God has made Their lives, and turn to him, afraid. You, who have made my life, I love, Whom even as God no prayers move. Who damned me and are undismayed. My heart is bare for you to see, Yet, having marred, you know not me : See, I am but the self of woe, And there is nothing else to know, No, nothing else that I may be. 52 The Burden of Singing One passion only rules my blood, The longing to be understood, The last desire of broken lives, The ultimate dumb desire, that gives My life in keeping to your mood. THE BURDEN OF SINGING y?^HERE lived a singer long ago Whereof the words are all forgot. Except a song I chance to know : I pray that you forget it not. Let no man say when I am dead That I in song forgot my woe, Or say, as happier men have said, One joy the singers only know. I sang of laughter, and my eyes Wept, for my laughter long had end : I sang of tears, and they must rise, For sorrow was my chosen friend. 53 The Bttrden of Singing " I sang of love, and wept to know How love had bruised with his feet My lips that sang ; I sang of woe And added to my load of it. ** And if I called a woman fair, I thought of what one's fairness meant, And, if I praised her perfecfl hair. Shivered at one remembered scent. *' He has, that Sorrow comes unto, One road of grey oblivion, Where even woe seems hardly true So be he do but wander on, " And live the life of beasts that die. And all that harbours memory shun, Fearing to speak, and so did I, Did what I feared, and was undone, " For all I spoke of in my speech I had, or lost, or had it not, So, as my lot was evil, each Was bitter, and the sweet forgot." 54 A Prayer A PRAYER "T^ORGIVE me, friend, you must, ^ That I have called you crueller than fate. Cruel was I to trust So heavy a life to hands so delicate. Tho' life be broken quite, Forgive me that I chid with bitter tongue You, for it was not right Thus to chide one so wondering and young. Forgive me, that at last I may forget that I have ever grown Bitter, or blindly cast My faults at your pure feet, that were my own. Forgive me, that to shame you I said, " This have you done, now this undo." O, what was I to blame you, That dared not keep my heart, but gave it you ? My heart I gave, and leant On your girl's bosom — fool was I and blind ! I have my punishment : You, some reward, since you have made me kind. 55 The Burden of Memory O child, forgive me now As I would — ah, that I had aught to pardon I My hurt I pray somehow The years may heal ;. my heart, that they may harden. THE BURDEN OF MEMORY *TJ> ELOVED, I was tired of Love *^^^ That bare upon his wrist a dove And came with roses red and bays To end the old forgotten days, For he took on a sadder wear, And on his brow the thorns were bare. And he that was so wont to sing Had not a single joyous thing, For worn by longing for your face He dreamed of you in every place. And sickened of his dreamy care And anger held him, and he bare A hooded falcon for his dove. Beloved, I was tired of Love. 56 The Burden of Memory Beloved, I am tired of Love And weary of the skies above, Weary of day, weary of night. Of love, of living, of delight. For in the heart of Love is pain That may not turn to joy again, For though my head lay on your breast By your lingering hands caressed. Shadowed in a dreamless night, Pain would grow to mar delight. For I should think of all the years Wherein you gave me only tears, Despair and longing and regret, That follow and o'ertake me yet. The years that I grew weary of Till more desirable than love Grew peace, the peace that could not live Without you, that you would not give. Beloved, were we old and gray The night were better than the day, And fairer than immortal breath The rustle of the wings of Death. Beloved, were you ages long Shut imder ground, whereto no song 57 The Btirde7i of Memory Of bird could ever reach, nor wind Blow, nor summer days be kind, Where all years in darkness passed, No thought, no sight, no dream at last, No longing for the sky so near, But only madness dull and fear. So your soul was only woe. And woe wherever you might go. Think you, if after ages one Led you thither to the sun, Bidding you see the dancing trees And scent the flowers upon the breeze, And cry to hear the soaring lark You had forgotten in the dark. Yea, bade you laugh, and walk, and speak. You who were old and grey and weak. Bade you, whose soul was only woe. And woe wherever you might go, Be glad for freedom and the light, You would but sicken for the night. Wherein you were not grey and weak, And had no need to laugh or speak. And you would cover up your eyes From the cruel splendid skies. And if your blood began to beat 58 The Bttrden of Memory Again, as once when all was sweet, Or any joy in you to stir, Then joy would be far bitterer And far more terrible than pain. But how to cast it out again ? For now the night were worse than day For longing, you would see no way Where peace might be ; even so am I Afraid of joy, afraid to fly. For how shall I of joy be sure. Or a disheartened heart endure The fire of joy it cannot trust, And has not heart to say " I must" ? Belovdd, you at last are kind : Ah, would that you and I could find Without the fear of love, a way To find a peace in every day : For now in love is never peace. For fear his joy should ever cease. Belov6d, I would hold your hand. And wander to a dreaming land, Out of the day, out of the sun. Where all tranquil nights are one : To wander by a desolate shore 59 The Burden of Memory And hear the wind that passes o'er The seas unfathomable sway, The languid grasses long and grey, To tread a way no life has trod. Hidden from the eyes of God, Where no stars are sown on high To watch us always from the sky. But an icy moon doth slumber O'er the hills there are none may number, Deep in the violet heavens dim, A pearly phantom round her rim, And there along the whispering strand We two should wander hand in hand, To hear the fall of the surf that sings In dreams of unremembered things. Or watch for long enchanted years The silver foam of magic meres, That always murmur to the moon. Or hear the doves unwaking croon Among the shimmering woods that know No light of sun, no fall of snow, But the lone echo of the seas : And always happy winds of peace Then to waters we shall come To lie above the charmed foam, 60 The Fruit of Travail My head on yoxir most quiet breast, To wait the sure unfailing rest : For by the dim sea we shall lie. Till even the moon shall fail on high, Till nought endure but thoughtless night, Far out of memory, out of sight Of God or all the watchful eyes Of silver set about the skies ; There we shall fall asleep at last. All passion peace, all kisses past, My head on your belov6d breast Until the eternal shadowy rest. When we shall be so full of peace That even the sense thereof shall cease. THE FRUIT OF TRAVAIL *T~t ORD, I had known Thy cross, I had worn •"^"^ Thy plaited crown, I had borne the appointed burden, and I fainted for the end, 6i The Fruit of Travail And thus I cried, and crying saw my blood run down : '* What fruit shall travail bear unless Thine anger mend ? " For I had known a mercy, a thing of mine, not thine ; *' The crown shall give me wisdom in the wear- ing," I had said, " Though my song be but lamenting, yet my tears shall be divine, And my wisdom shall not perish, though my pain and I be dead." Now that Thy hand is lifted and a peace is come to me, Ah, canst Thou heal the ruin Thy hands have made complete ? This is the end — a bleeding heart, and eyes that cannot see, And a bruised body and soul, and broken hands and feet. Now that Thy hand is lifted, what shall the solace be ? Where is the wisdom learned, the staff that shall not break ? 62 The Dead Soul This 1 have learned — that thought is driven far from me : This is the end — a voice of tears that cannot speak. THE DEAD SOUL Jt^HE sorrow of one beloved, The hell of helpless men, Came to my soul and crushed it ; I could not love her then. I, never wearied of beauty When I was only a boy. Cover my face when it passes. And turn from the path of joy. All that is grave I shrink from, For truth is a piteous thing, And things that are light have often A deadly hidden sting. But only my soul is covered In darkness, while my eyes Fall upon laughing lovers Or wander among the skies. 63 Threnody My mind has not forgotten The songs it sang of old ; It sings them yet in the darkness To a soul that is dead and cold. And I too in the darkness Listen above the grave ; The songs are all of the beauty And joys that others have. And all my life I shall hear it, The voice of honeyed lies, Singing the joy of living To the soul that will never rise. THRENODY ^f ILENCE has come, and sleep, ^^ On eyes no more to weep, On quiet lips that keep All words unsaid ; Her rose of days undone Gone by is all she won, All things in her begun Lie dead, lie dead. 64 Threnody She shall not hear again The rustle of driven rain Athwart the flooded pane In midnight hours, Nor hear from her last bed The great wind overhead Sweep thro' the waifs of dead And scattered flowers. For her nor day nor night, Nor sorrow, nor delight, Nor summer, nor the white Pure fields of snow ; Nor weariness, nor rest. Nor light of east nor west, Her dwelling is that best Where all men go. Who wept shall no more weep, Who slept shall ever sleep, Past dreaming in the deep Last sleep of all ; They hope not, nor regret, They meet who never met, They part who never yet Went past recall. 65 The Stranger She is at rest, and tho' She goes where all men go, Nor they nor she shall know, Or voice, or touch ; Their days are all forgot, Sad comfort is their lot, Who sleeping know it not ; There are now none such. THE STRANGER 'TT"! ET me not see your eyes, Nay, grant me not a word, Lest that my heart be stirred That silent lies. Let be : I, knowing you. Must love ; to love were vain. Will you for love give pain, For roses, rue ? You have no love to give : What should you want with it ? Giving, I have no wit To happy live. 66 The Stranger Will you unarm me quite ? Behold my only hope : With Love strongly to cope, Put him to flight ; Lest he, quite undismayed, Stow my soul's riches by In one frail bark that I Cannot unlade ; And grave with cruel art Your print on all my gold, Whose wealth were quickly told Did you depart. Ah, go ! lest love and pain Make me, who day by day Live lightly as I may, Grow grave again. Let be : tired hearts are brittle. This were so bitter, too : For all my Hfe's love you Would care so little. 67 A Ballad of Light Living A BALLAD OF LIGHT LIVING "TTpH, days of Spring, have pity on us ^ For whom all promise is given in vain ; When all of the earth is amorous For love of the wind and the silver rain, Vex not our hearts, grown dull too long To laugh for joy when the woods are bright, Or dream in hours of twilight song : Awake us not whose lives are light. O, Summer, in thy time of heat, When days are only cool at morn, And slowly move the wanderer's feet Among the quivering floods of corn, Pass by all us in thy perfedl pride Of splendid day and murmuring night. Wrapping our hearts in a drowsy tide ; Awake us not whose lives are light. Thou, Autumn, prideful harvester. Go by, let be thy maddening wealth, Pass in a time of rain and stir And wind, or like a thief by stealth. 68 A Ballad of Light Living Pass by us while we haply sleep, Or feign by day, or dream by night, And send us dreams too slight or deep To waken us whose lives are light. And Winter ! season of the time That fell when Spring had marred our years. Pass thro' no days of flowarful rime, But in a shrieking blast of tears Drive thro' thy realm in hate and wrath That harm us not whose woes are slight. But strew not peace about thy path To waken us whose lives are light. For we are they that have gathered flowers To find them fade and the thorns remain ; We have watered in futile ways and hours Joys that have left us no fruit but pain ; We have cast out fear and despair and sorrow, Love and laughter and all delight, We have set us a watch on the day and the morrow, Whose hearts are sick and whose lives are light. 69 To One Awakening L'Envoi. Princes, and all who are wise in grief, Heed lest the year, by day or night, By splendour of star or ripple of leaf Awaken ye whose Hves are light. TO ONE AWAKENING *TT'OU who are gay and brave and young, ^ You who dwell your dreams among, I would fashion for your sake A land where never dreams awake ; They who are wise with dreaming eyes Awaken, and they are not wise ; They who in peace of heart are sure Awake to doubt if they be pure ; They who are gay, they who are strong Awake, and ends their joy of song. You who are still and grave and sweet Shall light of soul and heavy of feet Grow, and hollow be of heart If you from your dreams depart. 70 To One Awakening Dream, and shun the bitter days ! For your ways are not their ways, For your wisdom is not theirs ; Dreams, desires, hopes and prayers, All you have of good and fair Shall not count as either there ; Neither glad nor pure nor wise Shall you seem with waking eyes. Child ! if I could make for you A world of dreaming deeps of blue, Of forest days of emerald light, Of peace and shadow and delight ; Of wandering roads where every day Sets the wanderer on the way To a more fresh and happy peace Till day and night and faring cease : A faultless pulsing sea of blue, A land of scent and song and dew, A heaven of stars like dew of fire, A heart of ever new desire, — This would I make — but ah ! behold, This is the earth I know of old. Purged of the life you cannot see. But shall, despite my love and me : 71 Elegy This very earth, just undefiled Of all you go to learn, poor child ! You shall forsake your prophecy, The world you know, that is to be ; You shall adventure forth at last To learn your sad forgotten past : And how a stranger will you fare, And how shall you be happy there ? Would I could fashion for your sake A land where never dreams awake ! ELEGY ^p^USH ye, hush ye, all that are mourning ^ The dusky head of Autumn asleep ; She in her pride had given ye warning. Yea, done on mourning for her slumber deep ; Wise is Autumn, a lover discreet, Lest her high beauty too familiar grow These days of the new waiting shall ye go With winter not so sweet, Cloked in cloud and with covered head. 72 Elegy Gray-eyed, companioned, With austere wind and white unmurmuring snow. Ye that loved her well that has left us, Come where her loitering feet were stayed Here, where the slumber that lately bereft us Then when she left us, comforted her with shade ; Deep in the silence of sombre pines, Wherein her passage and her days went past, And all wild things her lovers saw her last ; Where fruitless ivy twines Among the mosses her gracious feet Last trod, and last found sweet. Where she the vesture of her pageant cast. Hush ye, hush ye, O let no singing Trouble the groves with her slumber quiet. No flute, no viol, no cymbals ringing To waken echo winging with a whispering riot Thro' vistas holding with her and God Silence as joy : the silence that is old As the strange light that lit the lifeless wold That yet no foot had trod : And silence bring ye too for offering, 73 Elegy That holy healing thing Which is of her, let your full hearts enfold, Now no longer her that is sleeping Mourn or lament ye, she cometh again ; Now the songs of the winter weeping Sound in the sleeping trouble of weary rain ; She that over the hills a-cold Cometh is born of this high silence too, So shall ye welcome her with love, and rue No more your loves untold Of her, which love forsworn shall make Love one day for her sake By broken troth renewed more sweetly true. Come ! for the one that cometh forget her, Think no more upon her forgot. With Winter walk as ye had not met her, Yea, tho' the sense forget her, the heart shall not ; Come with joy, for again ye meet With memory awakened yet more kind With winged eagerness, her face to find As wildly, strangely sweet. Ah God ! as your first loves shall seem Across the Lethean stream, The dear lips cool with the eternal wind. 74 IVoodlands WOODLANDS ^T^ERE is no solitude : the eyes of Pan •■^^ Watch in the dusky frondage of the ferns, But I am fled from soHtary man, Who to his kin forsaken ne'er returns : His kin, that are the still eternal skies, The windy hills, the many-meadowed dale, The sun-steeped plains, and harvest of the year. And night and shadow and light on hill and vale ; And all he sees not with his exiled eyes, That waits his wisdom and his coming here. O strong, sweet spirit of the seasoned earth, That I might ever in thy beauty dwell ! To learn not over-mournfully the birth Of years, and death of all desirable ; Thou canst but lend sweet memories amid strife. And bring in time of sighing peaceful breath ; For in the world men have but heavy hearts, They, scarcely living, have forgotten death, And, dying, hardly may remember Hfe, And they have parcelled life in little parts. Memory shall come, and with it weariness. And all the woe of a disordered world. 75 The Drifting Rain It will be half a pain, half happiness, To know that here the flowers are dew-pearled. That here the wild rose has its perfecfl birth, And the bright sunlight trembles on the grass ; O, but to lie among the grasses deep. Here, where no kindred foot should ever pass — O God, to lie against the cool, sweet earth. At rest for ever, and to know I sleep ! THE DRIFTING RAIN Jnr'NDER the grave unblemished bluff of oaks The windy river smokes With drifting rain ; The grey salt river ebbing to the sea, Wrinkled with misery, Shivers with pain. Down the deep valley of the sombre wood The pale grey drifting pillars of lofty rain, Like shades of gods that are weary of love and pain. Sad, mighty spirits that have known all vain And pace the seaward flood, 76 Wood and Wind Are fleeing, ah me! are leaving the earth for ever, Fleeing down the valley of the dolorous river. Fleeing out for ever to the dim and rainy sea Where life, nor lo"'^e, nor pain of love may be. Would I could go with them, Sharing your peace ! Would I could know with them All vacant seas ! I, who am weary, how weary none knows. Of regretting a voice that is mute, and the worm at the heart of the rose. WOOD AND WIND Jt^HE autumn leaves were driven by my feet, The autumn wind went thro' the hollow wood. Singing a lusty song among the trees. The old red leaves fled with a rustling fleet Thro' the reverberating soHtude, Where the wind sang with an imperious ease. 77 Wood and IVind Only in shadowy places, where the thick Entangled underwoods to no keen breath Trembled, and gave the wind no year-long growth, The rotten leaves hung motionless and sick From branches never cleansed of festering death, In dimness never wakened out of sloth. My heart lay sick with memories of old, Of love and life, each grown a painful thing : Too fond was I to wish me rid of them. My heart was fearful of the winter's cold, The desolate days wherein no bird may sing, Nor any green quicken on any stem. ** But now," I said, " I will take up my heart Out of the shadow of rain-dropping boughs, And rest it in the unbroken wind of years. And from all lamentable memories part ; Cleanse me, O wind of life ! till spring shall rouse A softening laughter from the winter's tears." *' Art thou so sure," my heart made answer to me, "That spring shall come to me with riotous green, 78 Winter's Joy Or shall I, casting the dead spring away, Thus, by vain hoping, hopelessly undo me ? How dare I cleanse me for the fate unseen?'* " Ay me, which fate ? " was all that I could say. WINTER'S JOY *Tj> Y wold and holt and valley "^^^ Scampered the scouring breeze, No flush was on the heather, No leaf was on the trees. The sea and heaven of winter Met in a steeled embrace ; The wind leapt off the Channel And shouted in my face. Far thro' the seething coppice The whispering drift was brown, Asway were all the branches, And every leaf was down. 79 Winters Joy But all the trees were shouting, And all the hills were sweet ; The rascal wind was humming A tune to stir my feet. The wind of time was blowing And buffeting my mind ; It tore my sad old memories And swept them out behind. And oh, I said, if winter Doth not abash the earth, If being poor as Adam She shows a sturdy mirth. Take all my thickets harbour, O stately blast of Time ! Bare boughs may chaunt the carol Of poverty sublime ! For if in surly winter My heart shall dare to sing. Fate, thou art all defeated ! What will it be in spring ? 80 Renunciation RENUNCIATION "if^HE heavy elm above the roof All the autumn days Moaned in the wicked wind Out upon his ways. All night and every night At falling of the leaf I heard the ancient elm -tree Sobbing his grief. All his leaves that were so green Withered hung and brown ; Every roar the wind gave It showered a hundred down. Every leaf he cherished And every leaf must lose ; Till the last of all was gone His fate he would refuse. For half his leaves the south-west Had rudely torn away He mourned, and for the others That waited for their day. 8i Renunciation All night and every night At falling of the leaf I heard the ancient elm-tree Sobbing for grief. But on a windy morning When frost was on the pane And up the eastern heaven The moon began to wane I rose and there beheld him Dancing overhead, His latest leaf abandoned, His last hope dead. There he stood and whistled, Naked as a seed, Merrily, merrily, Merrily indeed. Gaily mother-naked Drummed and whistled he ; Fearing nought, for all had fallen, Lo, he was free ! 82 Renunciation Therefore I beseeching Turned me unto Fate : I have done with hoping The' I hoped of late, Naked came I hither, Naked will I be ; Take away my latest hope. Set thou me free ! Once I sought for many a thii,^ ; Tho' all of them I got, Saving one, for loss of that Bitter was my lot ! But if I ask for nothing All that I receive A rare thing shall seem to me, And how should I grieve ? If it be a rising Of clouds up the west, If it be the silence Of woods at rest, 83 G— 2 A Song in Winter If it be a passing face, Or a rosy sail, Or a dream in the dawn, Joy shall never fail : The wide skies above me. The wide earth below, Not a friend to love nie, Not a face to know. If I ask for nothing All that I shall have A rare thing shall seem to me Yea ; even the grave. A SONG IN WINTER *|j^ETWEEN high hedges dew-besprent '^ The road is white with frost ; In winds that veer in the heavens clegir The rook and his cry are tossed. 84 A Song in Winter The day is like a summer dawn, With pale and gentle sun ; An Arctic noon, or an afternoon In a land where life is done. Still and pale are the downs around, Pale and bare to the sky ; Pale and still is every hill, But the wind is awake on high. The morn is merry, the road is hard. And leads a pleasant way ; The robin strong he pipes a song Dear to my heart to-day. For I shall find her high on the down, Warm in the winter wind. With her young face fresh in her tresses' mesh, And eyes serene and kind. So ring to my foot, O frosty road, For merry your echoes are ; O robin, sing as tho* it were spring, Or a sweeter season far. 85 A Song of the West A SONG OF THE WEST r\ SWEET, sweet the tender rain, Cool to my hands and face, And the wind of the western seas again, And the old familiar place. Over the downs the clouds blow free, The wind sings out in the coppice ; Down by the tossing foam of the sea The sand seethes over the poppies. O, the joy of the great salt wind, And O, the joy of the rain ! You sing the sweet song to my mind I longed to hear again. O, the joy of the windy sea, Mad from the land to the sky ; You sing the joy of life to me, And O, the grey gull's cry ! But O, for the young girl coming to me. Coming to me again, Down by the hissing foam of the sea. Her brown face wet with the rain 1 86 The Blossom of Love Her hair is cold as a rainy night, Her cheeks are Hke the berry, And the flight of the foam is swift and white, Where the seas are mad and merry ! THE BLOSSOM OF LOVE /XlY heart was withered with a love, ^^^ The love was withering too : My heart was but a sorry tree For any fruit that grew. My heart was grown so frail, so weak, The flower perhaps had died ; But I was fain to set my heart Under the heavens wide. Because my love had wrecked my heart, I rose in wrath one day, And plucked the withered blossom ofi" That sucked its blood away. 87 The Hour My heart grew straight and fair and strong. The bitterest thing came now ; One night the blood-red blossom of love Burst forth on every bough. Blood-red, thick and sweet it blew. And every flower had breath To mock : " O fool, behold your heart Is strong enough for death 1'* THE HOUR yJ^HE air dreams under the roof of the summer trees, And the odour of leaves of the old year moulder- ing Faints as a sorrow lulled in a golden ease In the quiet of inviolate aisles where no voices sing. Where the leaves know no wind, nor the emerald fire a change ; There the live silence is stiller than death or night, 88 The Hottr Securer than peace, and fulfilled of a mystery, A slumbering sense of an imminent, old de- light, Known once and possessed, unremembered, too splendid and strange For lives that awaken or dream, or for days that be. And I, I am one with the silence ; all pleasure, all pain That are mine in the right of the past and the years to be, As a garment are shed, as the fashion of fallen rain That melts, and is not, and is one with the molten sea ; Here is nought of me now but is born of the day and hour, As the wave is conceived of the smiting of seas and wind. That lives till the feet of it shine on an alien shore. As the kiss of the earth and the summer beget the flower 89 A Wish That endures till the flight of the lover that none shall bind, I am changed till the hour be changed, and the noon no more. A WISH r\ LOVE, that you and I Were birds to follow the sun. High in the trackless sky Till time be done ! O love, that you and I Were fish that move in the deep, Till the deepest seas be dry. And the winds asleep ! For the loves that I love are two, That love not me. Freedom I love and you You who are free. 90 The Castaway And one of the loves were bitter, But I am the more undone, For Fate, lest I should outwit her, Made both as one. And I in fetters was born, And you born free, And you have nothing but scorn. But scorn, for me. O I would we were winds of the sky, Or streams of the deep, Till the stars flicker out on high, And God be a sleep. THE CASTAWAY 'T' was a falcon jessed by the fowler Fate ; Jessed and unflown, you had no eyes for me, You rather watched in the heavens delicate The lofty flight of rushing birds let free ; You had no eyes for me, whose eyes were blind. But watched the veering merles high in the streaming wind. 91 The Castaway I was a bird encaged, my song sad, My song remembering the lights of spring, So of my singing no delight you had, But all my music was a fretful thing ; You sent your eyes after the spiring lark Bewildering with joy the holy morning dark. I was a salmon trapped among the stakes In a thin pool forsaken of the sea, You heard the paean the wild water makes Far down the channel of its liberty ; You had no eyes for my leaping silver sides, But loved the keen dark forms deep in the swerving tides. How could you know the sun was more to me Than to the hawk that has him all the day ? That the unbrooked wayfarers of the sea Less knew her soul than me a castaway ? * That love was breaking my enchained heart, Love of the world you loved, wherein you lived your part ? You met me never abreast on the moving sky, Or in the cool deep waters of the main, 92 Then My broken singing was no tongue whereby To gladden you, or say what it was fain, Yet say, O sweet, when I am hushed in rest, My kinsmen were the chaunting rain, the un- reined wind of the west. I^OOL the wind in the poplars tall, ^^ Making them sway In laughter streaming above the wall, Ah, so gay ! The clouds were round and white and soft All over the sky, Dreaming of their own beauty aloft, Ah, so high I Blue the sea with rivers of green, With flecks of white ; We saw the sails that we had not seen. Ah, so bright 1 93 Then Sweet the grass of the diff in the sun, The hot hard grass ; The pink sea-daisies one by one Felt the wind pass. Cool your lips as the shy swift wind, Ah ! not more blue Were the skies than your eyes were, not more kind, Ah ! not more true. Do you remember the surge of the trees, The sea like a flower, The low red wall and the lovely breeze And the perfect hour ? — When, poor love, and on what a day. And by what shore ? — A day forgotten and far away, To come no more. 94 The Heart THE HEART /^F everything I had or sought I was more careless than I had thought. Therefore one day I drew apart And looked in silence on my heart. " What do you want, O heart ? " I said, *' The touch of a woman that is dead." " O foolish heart," I cried, ** be still ; Or love you another, if love you will." ** Nay," said my heart, " but the woman died With lies on her lips, and her tears undried." Since then I dare not walk apart, And look no more upon my heart. LAST WORDS Qf EAGULLS wheel across the sea, ^^^ Crying all the day. Calling, calling back to me One that's far away. 95 The Revenge Sister, he may come again To find a bolted door, And see thro' every dusty pane Dust on the naked floor. If he ask you of me, child, With eyes that do not weep, Tell him, tell him that I smiled When I fell asleep : Only if his eyes be dim Tell him, for my sake. That I had forgotten him, Lest his heart should break. THE REVENGE JJ^HE wind flew drumming over the hill. Calling the sky to follow. Above my head it whistled in The hedge along the hollow ; There was no man for a mile around But I, and the corpse on the ground. 96 The Revenge Above the hidden hillside lane The hedge was full of laughter, Laughter shook the skeleton boughs, Never a tear came after For him in the nettles bleeding still, Him I had come to kill. My heart was high, my soul was gay, And every care had vanished, I marvelled why the sky was grey When he from it was banished : The world was sweet, for he was dead ! I laughed in the wind, and fled. O the rush of the wrack o'er the tossing trees And the landward-huddling hedges. The lash of the thorns on my hasting knees And the swish of the stricken sedges ! The wind of the north was mad with joy, And I, dear God ! was a boy. 97 In Prison IN PRISON ^ AM half content by day, When the sun thro' the grating high Slowly makes a golden way Curved across the wall, and I Feel his warmth invade the wall. While I dream of hill and field. And the azure over all, Over all the trees that yield To the breeze that never blows Here within my prison cell ; I am glad to think on those, I remember them so well. But at fall of night the wind, Born of the unfettered sea. In the forest close behind Struggles for his liberty : I can hear him all the night, Cursing, hissing, roaring, shaking, Raging in his awful fight, Till my maddened heart is breaking But to hear him struggle so : O the glory tho' he fail ! The Bridal Night the splendid forest foe ! — 1 am checked by a rusty nail. All his fever, all his rage, All his wildness in my blood, Sting and burn as in my cage I lie like a log of wood : If I scream the walls are dumb, If I struggle, rusty chains Cut me round the wrist and thumb, If I cease my leaping veins Rage because they cannot burst. Madness will not come, nor age, I shall beat my brains out first . . . THE BRIDAL NIGHT The Bride. J^ARRY awhile, the fire is red, The dim air sweet With bruised reeds we slowly tread Under our feet ; 99 H — 2 The Bridal Night Wait awhile, wait in the gloom, No word repeat, The conscious silence in the room Seems to me meet, For now the merry guests are gone And we are left alone. With none to gaze or look upon But the man of stone Holding up the mantel high With the maiden slim. And the shadowy people shy On the arras dim. The Bridegroom, Nay, they tarry, the maidens fair. You to untire, With song that seems the soul of the air, The soul of desire, Combing with combs of gold your hair By the red fire. Where the bed is wide and white, All the hangings green. Green with gold, that every night You shall lie between. The Bridal Night The Ghost, The hour is nigh, the bell will ring, Prepared is the bed, The weary wind shall a bride-song sing Over your head. Four bare boards for a bed are met You shall lie between, Four bare boards, but the coverlet Soon shall be green With shining of sun and rustle of wet Fair to be seen. The Bridegroom, You are cold, my love, my love, you are cold ! The Bride. Nay, I am not. Take my hands, they are yours to hold ; See, they are hot. Hold them very close and long, Never let them go. The Bridegroom. Hark, the maidens raise the song. Singing high and low ! IPX The Bridal Night I kiss your hands, your eyes, your hair ; Belovdd, go ! TU Bride, The ivy taps on the casement there. The ivy, say! The song is over, or very low ; Nay, it has died away. The Ghost Mine is the only voice to know After to-day. The Bridegroom. Nay, they are singing loud their rime, Singing at the door ! The Ghost, Now the hour is ready to chime, Song you shall hear no more. The Bride, The song is done, or it is not time. 102 The Bridal Night The Bridegroom, Nay, but the songs implore ! Love, you are pale, you are cold, you are cold ! The Ghost, Cold you shall be evermore. A ring of gold binds him to you; Rings may be snapt in twain ; But we are bound with blood and dew Not to be dry again. The Bride, Ah God, the dew when love I knew. The sweet, the shame, and the pain I The Ghost, Ah God, the blood shed out for you The night that I was slain ! The Bridegroom* Nay, what dew, what pain, what shame ? What is your speech ? The Bride, The night you called me by my name Under the beech. 103 The Bridal Night The Ghost, The night your stealthy brothers came Silence to teach. The Bride, Let be my hands, let be my hair ! Nay, I but go To look thro* the curtained casement there. The Bridegroom, Nay, what to know ? V The Bride, Because, a maid, I never shall see The stars again. The Ghost. The stars were changed that night with me, When I was slain. The Bridegroom, Will you muse ? I will not speak Here by the fire. 104 The Bridal Night The Ghost. Only his heart shall the silence break, Mad with desire ; But harder yet my heart shall beat When you are dead, When hands to hands and feet to feet We two are wed. The Bride, What is the word of blood you speak? The Ghost. The word is true. A bond is on us, O false and meek, Of blood and of dew ; Now at the hour the revenge I seek, I am here for you. The Bride. They said you had gone over sea that day When I awoke. I thought you had loved and ridden away ; Then my heart broke. X05 The Bridal Night The Ghost, Ah God, you are true ! The Bride. You are true, my love ! The Bridegroom, my fair bride, Leave the night and the stars thereof, Come to my side ! The Ghost. Open the casement you lean above, Fling it back wide ! The Bridegroom, Why do you finger the silver ring That fastens close The latticed casement ? O hark, they sing The last hour goes ! The Bride. (The song of death is a sweeter thing,) 1 lean to gather a rose. 1 06 The Bridal NiM The Bridegroom. Open it not ! Nay, for the air Is chill to-night. The Bride. (Not so chill as the lodging where I shall alight.) It is open ! The Ghost Sweet, I gather your hair In both my hands. We go together, my bride, my fair. To what far lands ? Thy love has freed me, my love, my love, I, bound in my bed With the cold small worms, and the earth above. The Bridegroom, Dead! 107 BOOK III THE ESCAPE FROM FATE V/l |*i\.S it our cowardice, that we in terror Fled from the truth, our fate and ourselves refused ? Who dreamed the merciful error, The solace abused, Sought for its wages irrevocable despair, And trapped men refuged as a beast in its lair ? Why were we cursed with speech, why ever given The power of weaving the fatal veil of words No man of men has riven, Tho' with a hundred swords Of love, entreaty, shame, delight, and fire. That shattered, he has sought to free his soul's desire ? Speech is in vain, and silence. Only hearken, You never shall hear in quiet my soul outreach III The Escape from Fate Free of the shadows that darken Of sight, of speech ; We have fled the truth, and given ourselves the lie, And the lie is awake in the silence, and shall not die. The end is near, and we in going lightly Are cheated of the final peace of doom, The peace of men that nightly Clamoured and wept in gloom Till pity could weep no more, till fear was dumb, And death in mercy before itself was come. Now in the last fierce hours beyond remanding Vainly we seek for pity, in vain for love ; In vain, in vain demanding From the calm heavens above A passing hour of mercy ; to none but the grave This solace is granted, whose purchase we dared not brave. We shudder, and fear one another ; in fear we wonder If each is the thing that seems ; and yet each soul, 112 The Farewell Wiser than we, thereunder SuspecTts the whole, And yearns to the fellow it cannot see or hail ; For the words and the wisdom that come to us lightly, fail. rUE FAREWELL ^r\ SAD and light and sweet, O friend whom we must lose> It is a little thing to-day Thou dost my love refuse. For when I by thee sit, Tho' there be many there, An urgent siren-dreadful call Haunts the familiar air. It is thy soul that goes So soon to the strange place, Thy soul that thou in fear hast hid And wilt not see its face : 113 The Farewell That dare not go alone Unloved, unknown by thee, That calleth in a dreadful fear My soul to go from me : Wiser than thou, it rends My body and soul in twain ; I dare not meet thee now, my friend, Nor hear that call again : Lest my fond soul too soon Answer this piteous dread, Lest I should haunt thy helpless life Helpless, till thou wert dead. Love where thou wilt : I go. That fearful wooing I Dare not to dare : until I first Meet thee unveiled, good-bye. For, when thou goest forth. Out of the tides of space Thy cry will find me ; I shall come, O friend ! And see thy face. 114 /;/ Alienation IN ALIENATION 'T'N the dark summer heat The plane leaves beat, Flapping overhead in the trees of the square ; The city is asleep ; Dim night has fallen as deep Over the desert streets as in the starlit air. I stand beneath her chamber : the gaunt house Grins blank in every window : is she there ? The lamp under the leafage throws up the wall A sickly yellow glare, and over it all Flit hundreds of shadows of leaves, each like a gnawing mouse In a feverish dream, a mouse out of the night Come with a thousand others to gnaw the old house away : Over the house flickers the light The sinister shadows dance and flicker away. High up in silent air, Beloved, are you there ? If there you be, my sweet, Why is the ghostly street "5 In Alienation Full of the fear of death To me beneath ? And if you be not there But far, I know not where, What means this pain As though we had met again ? Will nothing break the horrible silence ? Hush ! The sound of my heart will wake the sleeping square ! And then at every window, dead and black, A face will flatten, O, faces everywhere. White, or grey, or sick with a yellow flush, In dread of the fearful darkness awake at their back, Will glare, and mutter, and gibber at me, and leer, The faces of all the dead that Hve in the square Blindly glaring at me, with hate unexprest, Because I have broken their rest I Ah God ! there was peace in the night ! but now there is none, Nor ever shall be, I think, to a naked soul. ii6 In Alienation There is peace in the sun, when all is bare to the light, When light covers up the world, and hides the whole Of the things that are ojat in the dark, the unseen fears, And the love that for very terror is void of tears. Your window is open, beloved : O, high overhead Do you slumber or wake, with darkness over your face, Or does the silence cover a desolate bed. Or does a stranger slumber perchance in your place ? Nay, but it ever was so ! I knew not, I, If the soul that I loved were indeed in your body sweet. Or far and unmet, and out of the reach of cry Or prayer, or of love : and here in the phantom street, Here my beloved's window I wait below, But if she be here I know not, I shall not know. Nay, in the ghostly gloom The window of her room 117 A Light Ending Looms dumbly open to a vacant sky : No sound, no sound, Dead houses all around Rise void of meaning : nothing lives but I. Only along the street The lamp-lit leaves beat. A LIGHT ENDING ^^Jj^HERE was a man who loved beyond his heart A woman there was little use to woo, For sorrowing had been her childhood's part, And her girl's part was death and sorrow too : So he went forth to buy oblivion With loveless kisses pitiful and wine, But he grew weary of his revelling. For always to his heart a voice would sing The tale of dreams that he must heat alone, Yet aye her fingers in his dream would twine. He came to her he loved beyond his dreams. And held his face against her breast, and wept. ii8 A Light Ending But she was weary of pity that ever seems Too weak to comfort, having never slept. "Vex me no more with tears, poor lover of mine," She said, " I am weary of a love too deep ; Let my few days be filled with laughter now, Lest thought, if any hour wax tired or slow. Seize on my soul : I will pour the last red wine In careful heedlessness : thereafter, sleep." She would have none of sorrow, save her own ; His she would none of ; his he could not hide, So he went hopelessly alone, alone. Treading the bitter ways where none abide For long, or madness takes them, or they die ; And so do many, but some pass away Into a barren land of thirsty fields, That no rain falls upon, that no fruit yields, And he beheld most foul insanity Crouch in the twilight of the unnatural day. So awful fear fell on him, and he fled. And brake into the land of hopeless men That walk with weary faces grey like lead, And whoso speaks they answer not again 119 A Light Ending Save by a shuddering silence, or by tears. And he would fain have heard some speech at last: ♦' Who bears such woe, and is not BRjad,'* he said, " Tell me his secret, or I am but dead." And so be waited, trembling with the fears Of that most bitter country he had passed. *' We will have none of thee, poor friend,** they said, ** Pitiful t«:other, vex us not with grief ; Our lives and hearts forgotten lie and dead. Our dreams gone past like any autumn leaf ; Thou art so newly from the lands of Hfe, Thy sorrow is too clamouring and mad ; We dare not look upon despair or fears, For we dare only watch, with envying tears. Those who have never rnet with woe or strife. Those who have not forgotten to be glad." He came to her he loved and said : " Behold, Take all the love I bear your weeping eyes. And all the happy love I bare of old. And all such tenderness no service buys : Cast them away, and I will say no word ; I20 A Light Ending I think you shall not know I am not glad. If you be pitiful, forget, and say : * This love, this life, this heart I cast away, Lest by their sorrow my poor heart be stirred, And pity that which once no pity had.' " She cast them forth, his love and life and heart, Cast all things forth except his lips and hands, And she was glad of him, who dwelt apart In ghastly haunted ways of ruinous lands, Even while his lips were fastened on her own. He spoke no word of sorrow ; all the while She, like a child in fear of a harsh voice, Would put the future from her, and rejoice, Making each day of hers a day alone ; She was half happy : he would sometimes smile. Her broken heart was full of dreams outworn, And he had only learned of life how sweet That might have been which now must be for- lorn ; And he was calm, however his heart beat. Lest he crying out with pity, she should know How pitiful she were ; and she would keep Within the Umit of the passing day ; Z2I The Voice at Night His arms would hold her all the painful way, Till all days grew indifferent and slow, Till the last day, of her eternal sleep. " And now," he said, " she is at rest, at peace, She is asleep in the last sleep of all. " O God," he said, ** that sleep shall never cease, No solace come to her, nor love at all ! O, she was never happy ! now her tears Shall never be atoned for : by her side Even my love for her she cannot know." He heard her life, born to be tortured, go Sobbing along the infinity of years, Till madness came, and by his hand he died. THE VOICE AT NIGHT ^J^HREE days you had been dead ; The doom Death spoke three years ago Had fallen on that so unwilling head. And you must go. Each day, dreadful and sweet, of those dead years I knew you dead : dried up were all my tears. 122 The Voice at Night In the close night I lay And waited for the dawn, that was not near. I heard a tree asway On a far hill ; but else a silence clear Filled all the valley, making that low noise A strange and fearful voice, Intolerably lonely as the white low stars That thro' fantastic bars Of orchard branches, or in blackness dead Glittering, and full of solitude unsaid, Shone thro' the casement open to the night As on my bed I waited for the light. O, it was then, was then. When life was like a dream and knew no tears, Unreal, void of all the things to men Desirable, and all the perished years : When the lone tree gave o'er. Over the sea of silence, beyond the shore, A silent cry, as tho* the heavens spoke, Fluttered upon my heart, that woke. And body and soul were aching toward the cry Imperious, that filled the eternal sky. I knew you ! tho* I said not Here, nor There. As happier lovers do 123 The Voice at Night I felt your presence, tho' it may be you Were gone more far Than is the furthest star. Only your cry kept on, That I too should be gone. Ah, it was you indeed ! And you had need of me, such utter need ! Was it, on some strange shore You broke upon the life none understands, The still and awful joy, to you not sweet, Tho' yours for evermore. And found, poor child ! the splendour cold and high Of what all alien sky ? — And held toward me those piteous girlish hands. In longing for a poor familiar kiss ? Ah ! was it this ? Or was it, when the last brief sleep was done. You knew your spirit and mine were one Past the last ruin of the last cold sun ? And you alone must wait Long years without the unresponsive gate That shall not open till it let both in 124 The Voice at Night Who only may begin The new strange life together — ah ! as one For ever, tho' the ways of stars be run ? Or was it in that hour when you awoke To gaze with other eyes, a new light broke, So that my soul you knew, made wise With the last wisdom of your final skies, And your soul spoke ? Ah ! then you knew (O could I think it !) all my love for you, And you must love me. Was it love Calling to me, from whence, beside, above ? Ah, you had need, have need of me ! Yea, and the veil of hes Is rent, and utterly your sight is wise. And yet, your voice that cries ! Is there none dead before you, none at all To comfort you with silence, that you call Thro' night, thro* day, out of the life of death With sweet and awful voice, that makes life's breath Come chill, and with dear dreadful pain Forth from my body divides my soul again ? 125 A Dream of One Dead Beloved, look. Now first I bow my neck beneath the once accurst, Accepted yoke : under the goad of Fate Abide my time, for all at last is well. Chide not the hours ! nor with presumptuous thirst Urge me to drag Him onward, tho* I tell The minutes of the years wherethro' we wait. A DREAM OF ONE DEAD *T~1 AST night I had a dream : I woke Out of most happy dark, And I was walking in a city street By a poor waste iron-bounded park ; Sadly I went, and spoke To one whose feet Were weak against the wind that swept along And crashed a windy song Thro' the sere poplars overhead that showered On us their leaves deflowered, Their pattering leaves deflowered. I know not what we said : but she, 126 The Revolt (She who is dead) Caught with one thin hand at her hat, And laughed at me, Because the wind would have his mastery, And she was wilful too : we laughed at that. Man knows, such little things Have stings. THE REVOLT Y WOKE in my cold bed. And heard the great wind pass Thro* bare elms overhead, And the rain on the sodden grass Pelting all the night. The wind had veered to the right. And the voice of the driven rain Leapt on the flooded pane. It was not the moan of the wind Nor the sobbing voice of the rain That troubled so my mind That I could not sleep again, 127 The Revolt But the thought of a day of old When the woods were wet and cold, When she and I in the light Of the fire dreamed at night. When I have tried to think How her lips used to smile When I would sit and drink Her beauty in the while, It was quite gone from me, But now I seemed to see, And heard her very voice — Alas, not to rejoice ! And in my pulsing eyes Swift looks of her dear face, As the red fire would rise In that forsaken place, Would mock me horribly, And there came over me A hopeless passion hot For her who now is not. And as I longed for her I bit my wrists, and said : 128 The Revolt " God, shall I taste this fear Again, that I thought dead ? That fear of every day To live with her away ? How did I bear that pain I cannot bear again ? '* Then the wind moaned on high, And I turned in my bed ; I could not scream or cry, But hard I beat my head Upon my pillow cold ; I moaned, and tried to hold My brows with fingers tense As tho' to dull their sense. The wind about the house Cried like a voice at last, And off my burning brows I took my hands, and cast My body on the floor. And cried out o'er and o'er, ** O love that I loved so, I shall go mad, I know ! " 129 The Revolt I could not hear the sleet, Nor wind, nor sound at all, But heard my pulses beat Pitiless, rhythmical, Like swift blows on my brain, And I sprang up again ; I saw dim shape on shape And horrid mouths agape. I could no darkness see, But grey shapes eddied nigh That glided up to me And passed my shoulders by. They rose up in the gloom And filled the reeling room. Quickly the lamp I lit, And I sat down by it. I called out in my fear : " O love, come back from death ! " Distantly I could hear The wind and my quick breath Above the echoing pain Swift throbbing in my brain. " Come back, O speak," I said, '* Or else I shall go mad." 130 The Revolt I opened then the chest Where the small desk was lard With all her letters prest. So much was I afraid Away I dared not look, Yet my whole body shook", I moaned in helpless fear Of all that I must bear, I took her letters out, words of one long dead ! 1 spread them all about Upon my quiet bed. The scent she favoured hung About them all ; I flung My arms upon the bed, And on them hid my head. I thrust my mouth hard down On sheets her hand had pressed : Poor letters creased and brown, Long carried in my breast \ Yet still a lingering scent Clung to them all, and went Like fire thro' every vein. I could not speak for pain. 131 K— 2 The Revolt My body all was grown One heart that beat and beat. I could not even moan, Grown numb with pain complete. Frail ribbons round them tied Brushed my hot face, and cried How long ago fell there The sweetness of her hair. I kissed one folded sheet, And opened it, and read. I know how my heart beat When yet she was not dead To see her writing, now How could I read it, how Her handwriting behold When she was dead and cold ? Then I was sick with fear Because these had such power To pain me every year, To torture me each hour. " O, shall I not be free Dead girl," I said, " from thee ? " I shrank, yet pressed my face Much harder on the place. 132 The Revolt Then suddenly I knew I should go mad or die. I shuddered, and I threw My head back ; not a cry Broke from me, and I took Each letter, all the book Of those few years we had — And still I was not mad. I gathered them and bound The ribbons over them ; I found a glove, and found A kerchief with a hem Of silk her fingers sewed. I took them all — a load Heavier than death or fate, And thrust them in the grate. I held a Hght to them, And watched them flame and burn, Letters and silk and hem. I could not move or turn, But said " Now shall not I Be free — this is a lie : Only I know I must Have nothing left but dust." 133 The Revolt The wind in the chimney roared The letters in a blaze Sent up their flame, and poured Their heat upon my face. Only when they were burned I staggered up and turned^ Now utterly bereft ; Nothing of her was left. Between the bars the ash Was red, the windows grey. The sodden elms awash Moaned for the birth of day. O come not, day I Yet O, Night, wilt thou never go ? day and night and year, 1 shall go mad with fear !: 134 BOOK IV WIND OF THE WEST ^r^HE long grey river sleeps, The stars are thick above, Only the west wind weeps Like a soul sick for love. Over the woodland ridge It sweeps on weary wings, And round the lonely bridge Whispers forgotten things. Rest on your weary wings, O hush, wind of the west. Your song of outworn things That will not let me rest. 137 Penumbra PENUMBRA ^fJ^HE far indifferent blue of night Broods on the marshes, faintly green, Veiled in the soft ambiguous light Of evening vapour whitely cool, Dreaming over the slumbering pool. Wrapping the rushes in between, The rushes rustling through the night. Night is brooding over the sky And in the heart of the shrouded lake ; The bat quivers in silence by ; The sound of frogs jars and is still, Elusive, like a faery mill ; And hesitating stars awake Dimly about a dreaming sky. THE NIGHT WIND V/^iHEN I came forth of the wood The western night was green. Over the night of the trees Where I had been. 138 The Night Wind All along the clearing Black with hissing ling The white ruts were sandy, Dimly glimmering. Out of the eastern blue, Where golden Jupiter swung, A cold wind was blowing, A cold song it sung. But all among the bushes Lurking in the dale The hot air of the daytime Lingered thro* the vale. And as the wind grew colder Every brooding pool Of hot earth-scented air Was ruffled by the cool. So as I went walking Struck in wafted bands, The hot sweet air and the cold air Across my face and hands. 139 After Rain AFTER RAIN 'T^O more the raindrops fall, ^ But pattering thro' the leaves Flash and are musical About the cottage eaves. Now clouds of argent snows That sail the fresher sky Blaze in the leafage close That rocks above my eye. The sparrows chirping fight Thro' many a heavy tree Afire with emerald light And shake the rain on me. Plaints of the brooding dove From many an orchard sound ; A star of white above The sea-gull swerves around. Far on the wooded height Whispers the questing wind, Who stoopeth not his flight But leaves the vale behind. 140 After Rain Between ambrosial trees Deep down the river looms ; Glossy and green as these, More full of richer glooms. Between the mirrored shows Of woods on either hand The sharp sea-water flows For miles and miles inland. Between the hanging woods Of either splendid side, Wherein the wood-dove broods And is not satisfied. Far, by the otter's lair. Under the summer sky, Under the oaks, I hear The porpoise plunge and sigh : Then charmed silence laves The river's every reach. Till the wide-ringed waves Lisp on the languid beach. 141 August AUGUST "it WANDERED where the pine-trees made A faultless house of sun and shade ; The pines were red thro' many a glade ; A russet carpet there was laid. By still gold pools of the sun's light The red trunks of the pines were bright : I saw wood-pigeons wheeling white, And heard them throbbing out of sight. The lacing pine- boughs were not proof To hot light shed thro' all their roof ; The place was all a woven woof Of drifting sun and shadow alooL The noonday stillness held its peace, But high in all the scented trees Its breath would shortly sigh and cease, As if half weary of great ease, I was most happy there to lie, To see small havens of blue sky In the dark roof of pine-boughs high, And watch the small birds flutter by. 142 Atigtist The wide space of my woodland house Was roofed with interwoven boughs ; The rich air could but hardly rouse Their silence, yet it reached my brows. Of yesterday I did not think, My chain of days was link by link Unwoven quite : I did not shrink From coming bitterness to drink. I saw the little midges dart Thro' shade and into sunlight start ; The day's great stillness was my heart, Of the sweet summer I was part. And when the sun had fallen low That place was all a wondrous glow. Like trees of fire the pines arow, Like a soft flame the air did flow. I nothing knew at all but peace, Faint sorrow that the day must cease, Tho' when the red sun went, the breeze Sighed softly with my greater ease. H3 The Circtilar Saw Still on the fragrant earth I lay ; I felt the little ants at play Upon my hands ; but when the day Was done, I dreaming came away. THE CIRCULAR SAW *TJ^ EC A USE the high long dreary London wall *^^^ Vexed us, when we came to the open gate Idly we turned aside, and suddenly stopped, With eyes enchanted, with voices ready to call One to the other for wonder : " Wait, O wait ! " Deep in a covered alley the hot sun dropped. Slant, fierce, and mellow, between high stacks Of yellow timber sweet : an alley where Brown-muscled men bore upon balks of pine Urging them on to the saw, where they severed like wax. With a rising muffled scream, a triumphant blare, Thrilling the throat and the bosom, and rich as a wine The scent of the spouting sawdust invaded the place, 144 The Circular Saw The soul of the magical forest, resinous, sweet, Subtly invaded the desolate, sordid street. But O the wonder ! for all the o'ershadowed space Was quick with the floating dust, a haze there grew, A haze green-golden, full of the fire of the sun ; From a fountain of creamy fire that o'erbrimmed it with gold It gushed, in a lift of eddies, so shot through With the further gloom that shadow and light in one. Like the ghost of a glorious opal famous of old, Like the deeps of a flickering ocean of sombre green. Curled and eddied, melted and licked and lapped. Enwrapping the phantom workers, their faces bright In the liquid light so marvellously entrapped, In the odorous whirling water imprisoned be- tween The resinous piles, a hive of fantastic light. Dancing within itself and over the ground. While ever the screaming, rending, blaring saw spun round. 145 The Circular Saw *' The sea !" we cried, " the sea, deep under the sea ! " (And beyond, at a shadowy wharf, a vessel there lay With spars aslant, like a wreck of an olden day ;) Not strange had it seemed if out of the further gloom A gentle, cumbersome beast had begun to loom In air — nay, it was water — poised, pushing about The flickering bottom with meditative snout, Till he lit on the thing enchanted come down in the sea, The shrieking shapen bulk with the voice of a storm. The wrestUng creatures possessed, of unpiscine form, And the flapping snapping belt, like a devilish weed ; Till, gazing a moment, with wise and shallow eyes. His body shuddered, his great tail with speed Swung, and he oared his lithe precipitate way Back to the further gloom, in fluttered surprise. To the kind accustomed regions of lesser day. But we gazed on in amaze at a scene so fair. 146 The Laughter of Summer Bathing our sense in the flood of the golden- green Warm wavering colour, and said not it was air, Till a patient horse drew a laden waggon between. Till, drunk with the wine of the forest, come forth from the sea To the thin and comfortless air of the city, we Left the wide gate, and under the dreary wall Passed thro* the clattering street where the hawkers call. rUE LAUGHTER OF SUMMER 'XI' LL day the pine-forest lay still J^ From hill to hidden hill. Faintly under the sea-blue sky The delicate meshes of black were pushed, put by> By a breath of the outer air, too faint to sigh, And the forest again lay still. Only the stir of a bird on a brittle bough Broke the warm silence, silent now X47 L— a The Laughter of Sttmmer Till after the noon was high ; Then, in the dreamless blue, the enlaced sky, Rose a white cloud in the west, and floated by. Soft and full and pure and high, With a milky haze behind It wandered in a lofty wind. Then, far away, I heard a low-breathed sigh Of many trees asway Under the sky : So, to a vale asleep. When the hush of night is deep. The sea that wakes alone Softly doth moan. Then over all the wood, above, around, A slow mysterious sound Spread thro' the air ; About an ancient house At night the wind may rouse Such voices when the fire is red and boughs are bare. Then one by one The trees that all the day 148 The Laughter of Summer Were drowsy with the sun Put sleep away ; The pine I lay beneath Shook all its rustling wreath Of shadowy wealth above As tho' by stealth, And one by one the trees Sighed as for perfe(5t ease Or perfecfl love. So thro' the forest, one by one, Under the prevalent summer sun The trees awoke ; Now near, now far away A stately pine asway The silence of the day Joyfully broke ; Until the distant breathing, All the sky and earth enwreathing, Surging thro' the forest drew, Thro* the drowsy vistas nearer. And the magic music clearer Ever grew. Till before the enraptured wave All the lofty listeners gave, 149 The Laughter of Summer And behind me and around me and above the paean flew. Now the world was all in motion. All the stately trunks asway, Dancing with a grave devotion To the rapture of the day, All their tossing crowns above Soft with laughter, glad with love ; All the rippling wood was dancing And the seas of sunlight glancing Hither, thither, on the ground. And the music all entrancing With a cool and hushing sound Revelled thro' the awakened shadows, all the velvet ways around. Ah ! said I, the hidden god All the holy morning trod In the brooding ways remote Where the only song afloat Was the song of the drowsy dove. In the hot thick boughs above : She was singing all alone, All alone under the sky, 150 The Laughter of Summer Because none other doth intone Her song of peace alone ; None other could sing and cross the prevalent hour With music of harsh delight or turbulent power ; And he, the lord of the wood, Beheld how all was good, Throughout the velvet-silent russet ways Full of rich odour, and splashed with lights ablaze Spilt on the floor moss-flowered, as fire on the slender trees, And over all an irresistible peace, That said in its own heart, it ever had been And never should cease ; And yet in a sweetness of wonder beheld its own heart. As one who discovers the dawn with new-found eyes By love's lips kissed, in a hushed surprise ; There did he tarry, there joy apart, Until the peace of the morning, like wine in his heart. Forsook its own self as the flower forsaketh the bud, 151 The Laughter of Stimmer Brimmed over and thrilled for joy of the perfe(5l wood; Ah, joy too great to bear, Too sweet, with none to share ! For then with a swift desire, sweet laughter into the air Himself he cast, O into the trees and the sky, And into the cloud serene, meditative on high, Into the proud shy hearts of the still ecstatic trees. Into that reverent and most delighted breeze, — Ah ! and with what caress, Out of the sea-blue sky. Came he back to the thick hushed forest, with the wind's feet, And hovered a moment in quiet, and found all sweet, And, with a sigh. Abandoned himself to the abandoning trees, and searched the most secluded ways and shy ! Fawning, caressing, danced the abandoned trees, And he in their hearts, and in the delighted breeze, For now the joy too sweet to bear With none at all to share 152 The Rain All the flickering forest knoweth,all the streaming odorous air, And his holy secret rapture All things do share, And lead a magic dance Whom his laughter doth entrance, It is chanted in a paean through the enraptured world around. Ah, behold his lordly rapture That his creatures do recapture, That for love has taken to it earthly raiment, caught, and found ! THE RAIN ^TTpLL the green of the garden is chill, *^ All the grey of the sky is still, And across the window, down to the lawn The patient glittering rain is drawn, Darkly falling all over the sky, Falling, falhng in shadowy threads, White as it passes the poplars by In glittering phantom threads, 153 The Rain Straight and long it falls from on high, On the flowers, on their forsaken heads ; Plashing the moss-green tiles of the houses With multitudinous cold grey fingers, And ever rouses That patient, weary song, Which, all the morning long, Continually drowsing like the sea, Became its very song to me ; The song that lingers Through the dull afternoon, yet brings to me No salt, no life, no savour of the sea. The birds are hushed in the trees That sang in the rain of dawn, And all the sodden lawn Lies empty, and the still wet leaves around Mutter their charm of unremitting sound. That, as the sullen sky Droops like a net to hold a soul to ground. So, with its patient and continual drone, Weaves a dull spell to prison up the sense. Till I can conjure me to call my own No summer's rapture, April's innocence Of memoried song ; 154 The Rain But all a long life long, So mutters the rain, Plashing the leaves, crackling upon the pane, I have sat at a window open high Half on a garden, half on the sky ; And the green garden one That never heard a song or saw the sun, And the grey sky One that has never seen a cloud sail by. What should I do without the wind ? I, so weary all the day, Grew, I think, half dazed of mind, Yet did not wish the rain away ; I did not murmur of the rain, It seemed so vain To think the eternal rain could cease Its dreary, maddening peace ; But as it plashed upon the mournful trees There came a languid breeze, Cold as the breath of deathly rain It came, and died, and rose again ; And all the poplars nodded slowly, swinging With a rhythmic, stately motion. Slowly rocking, sternly singing. 155 White Fire Strong with life and light with laughter, full of clamour and commotion ; So the awakening trees Surged before the breeze, Laughing through the strong embraces of the wind that left the ocean. WHITE FIRE ^■p^ Y night as the moon went over the edge of '^^^ the earth The slack sea- water out of the troubled sea Entered the sombre valley ; the thrush's mirth Rang over a mile of water clearly to me : He was hidden deep in a dewy wood On a mirrored hill o'erhanging the glossy flood. The thrush gave over; the grey of the sky o'ercast Grew utter night ; such night on the waters now Scarce the inverted woods appeared in the flood ; at last The wind was risen, shaking from many a bough 156 White Fire Down-dripping dew in music upon the night Of flower and fern that dreamed of the summer light. Swiftly out of the east from a dip of the hill Flowed the cool air of the starless heavens deep, But yet the glassy face of the flood lay still, The peace preserving of most equal sleep ; Only a sudden ripple on the languid weed Salt-smelling, hissed on the shore, and the ear gave heed. And the eye went blindly after the ear — and lo ! White fire in the flood ! the ripples of milky flame Whispered enchanted ashore in a holy glow, Till the border of bubbling surf was a thing without name, A lace of stars blown by a magic wind, A heaven too careless of splendour for life to bind. I trod on the wrack of the dim shore, salt and sweet; At every step the utter dark of the beach 157 The Snow In a silver galaxy blazed ; if under my feet, Or far as the mind of a mortal never can reach, The eye could say not : I dreamed that I was a god. And thousands of stars were born to die as I trod. THE SNOW *"rT*LL the windless winter day ^^'^ The plain lay still ; I heard a horse a mile away Cantering over a frozen hill. Not a bird, not a beast was seen, But only a ruffled crow, Huddling his feathers or turning his head Drowsily to and fro ; The world was dead, The heavens were grey, And even the meadows were hardly green. But lately arose a wind in icy flight ; We thought it had carried away the sky at night 158 The Snow To show us the dazzling moon : But no ! idly it lifted the hoary straws Hung on the hedges, and the frozen grass And rank enrim^d meadow- rushes felt it pass, Whistling a fitful tune With doleful pause ; Until the wind, although the lofty sky Went by, brought up a new grey sky And this and that so high they seemed in their passage asleep. Till, down the division deep, The fluttering snow adventured, late in the after- noon. All was grey as on we strode The hard swift-echoing road, Keeping a lusty pace ; Then, when the light grew sullen, we felt the familiar brush, Forgotten, softer than rain to the face. And lo! uplooking, the vault immense was a-flush Where all had been grey, with a sickly yellowish glare. Where, saiHng downward, loosely sinking in air, 159 The Snow Like a million feathers a-flutter, shadowy, slow, PUoated and fell in a down-insistent flight, the snow. And the wind having done what it listed, wan- dered away. To be felt no more, neither heard ; And a veil came falling over the failing day, Propping incessantly downward, unpierced, un- stirred. Like a myriad threads of ethereal wool enwound Perpetually, from the heavens to the ground. As though the meadows, out of the frozen cloud, Were weaving a deathly shroud. On by the whitening hedges On the road that rang like metal We strode, and heard in the sedges The soft snow settle ; Like a nation of icy ghosts of white moths flying Brushing for ever our faces, flew in a steady fall The slow soft-settling flakes more thickly lying, And ere the fall of the night had covered all ; All sound was over ; our quick steps were soft. And thicker the flakes, unreeling the skies aloft, 1 60 The Snow Gently whirling as they were faUing, floating down in a lazy swirl, Till all the night was drift of white, all the world a shower a-whirl. With lashes blinking, with lips the snow-flakes drinking, Nothing we saw but the white downward-floating night. Seeming to strive through the earth to take its flight. With a steady soft commotion, in a maze oi downward motion, As though in a phantom ocean were sinking, sinking, White flowers of winter's birth, blown over-sea in a gust of mirth, Strewn by a tempest far overhead, to drift down in the water dead. But, ere we knew it, a shadow on either side Of high barns uplooming told of the village nigh. And quickly we reached the inn, and waited outside Lifting our brows to the full down-sailing sky. i6i The Snow With faces the flakes refreshed as they thawed aglow We met the lonely downfall, whitely coating Meadow and road and roof with its gentle float- ing, Gable and eave and thatch, railing, sill, and latch, With high imponderous ridges of fragile snow ; Loosely lying on every twig, till the slenderest one was big. And the blackest white, and the laurel-shrubs Set by the door in their frozen tubs Grow each like a snow-clad hill. And lo ! the night we thought so still Is full of a whisper hushed, a word unsaid, A greeting the snow has brought from the skies of the dead. Lightly floating on high, falling soft and loose. Dark in the vault of the sky the flakes as they slowly sail Down to the ground, pale, as though their fate to refuse : But yet the insistent shower falls and falls. On meadow, on road, on roof, on walls, 162 The Snow Falls, floats, and falls ; All through the air, all through the sky, Below, on high, and everywhere Now, and as here, And every moment following as this ; And each flake settles with a soft hushed hiss ; The world is full of the rustle of falling snow. Sde ! ddy fddeth as though the snow Brought all the white of the heavens to lay it low And left the heavens dark. Now all the ways are white ; the snow all night Will fall perpetually, unhurried, light, August, and in its icy solitude Content, and leave no path unstrewed. Come ! for the day is over, the windows glow Through the unreeling downfall of the snow Wound like a smoky web across — yet hark ! Hush ! on all roads, on meadow, on roof, on tree, The secret whisper of the mystery. 163 M — 2 Night in Autumn NIGHT IN AUTUMN JtJHE wind has risen to-night ; The trees above me roar ; I stand alone In the seething darkness of the wood : no light Shines from her room : inhuman the night has grown, A night of only blackness, rage, and death, Whose voice, with desolate breath. Laments along the woods, and from the sea Complains incessantly. O surging, baffled voice of the wind, Be still, be still that I may call to her, Still, as to hear the fall of an autumn leaf ! In silence breathed below the o'ershadowing house Her whispered name should rouse No echo, but only her : Be still, O voice of everlasting grief, O voice of troubled earth and empty sky, Be still, go by ! Be still, be still, O, passing down the night 164 Night m Autumn Let utter silence fall on wood and hill Like sleep from love ; let all be silent quite, That I, alone in this great soUtude, May verily know how good Her nearness is ; she in her chamber high, With happy sleep upon as gracious eyes, Waked by the sudden quiet of the sky Perchance would rise To marvel at the silence of the night, And hear the lone sea murmur out of sight. Perchance then I would call to her, and she Look down on me. Wind, wind, if she loved me not, I would bid you fill your song with bitter grief, With melancholy cries of love forgot. And shudder with despair by every tossing leaf ; I would bid you from the limits of the sea Gather your moan, and through the wailing land Plunge like a wandering soul, lost and mad with despair ; I would bid you with your desolation cover me, Surging up with terror upon every hand. And with your clamour of tormented air Drown my voice quite, lest in my agony 165 Night in Autumn Its lamentable sound should madden me, And I should sob among the driven' leaves, Among the driven leaves as lost as I ; I would bid you sweep about her shadowy eaves, Singing the loneliness of all the sky, Singing to her the anguish of my passion In what imperious fashion She could not choose but understand, while I Low in the leaves that whirl should he. My aching body stricken through with love. Knowing my love and I to be no more To her than the fall of the foam along the shore Or the accustomed wind of the skies above. O, but she loves me, loves me, triumphing wind ! Therefore break into her maiden sleep, Then, to her amazed mind You, filling all the ways of the heavens deep, Shall sing to her for me ! Sweep from the verge of the heaving desolate sea, Shout through the forest, exult along the sky, And sing your song on high ! Go tell her how my blood in all my veins Sings and exults, as through the o'erwhelmed plains i66 The Wind You masterfully rush : impetuous as your breath, Ensured, irrevocable and fast as death, Tell her my love is : O, vast voice of night, Tell her my love is wild and swift as you, Sweep on, my bidding do ! Possess her enraptured heart, O fill her with ecstasy, tell How I love, as none may utter but you, y^a, wildly well Sing, O song of ecstatic triumph, exulting delight ! THE WIND Q MOON-ENCHANTED night ! O night of the reveUing wind, and the laughing light Flooding the ether, high and inviolate, Behind whose mysteries reticent wait Stars unseen for the wonder of the moon : O swift imperious tune ! O wild incessant song, thrilHng the surging trees, With an echo rapt from the foam of enchanted seas. 167 The Wind Rejoice, O night, and silver moon, rejoice, In the magical hours that endure while the sun is away. When the earth wears a light eye never conceived by day. And the wind has a stranger voice. Vaguely, indefinitely green and gray The spectral meadows roll away, away, And heave as a gUmmering sea under the windy sky. Tossing, tossing on high Shiver the trees, dancing and mad with joy, Dancing, dancing to the song of the wind en- trancing The heart of the night and my heart, my heart with joy ! Well sings the wind, O a song for leaping blood, A song of the joy of life, and the splendour of love ! The brave wind shouts in the flickering ways of the wood, He plashes with mad glad hands the boughs of the trees above, i68 The IVind And high in the upper air Sweeps through the heavens bare, Flows, majestical, out of the western blue, And riots in lands where the peace of the night is new. No peace is here to-night ! O away with peace, for this is a night of delight ! My soul is away with the revelling joy of the wind, The wind and I are one abandoned kind, My heart is strange with the glamour of the moon, My heart is laughing like the foam of the sea, That seethes to the wind, at one with its tune, At one with the heart in me. Shine, silver moon, blow, shouting wind, Sweep, laughing flood, across the untroubled sky ! Lo, the woods heave, the summer leaves are whirled Like birds in terrible fright across the light Of the icy moon, and the wind behind Catches them, mingles them, hurls them on high ! Lo, how the leaves are whirled ! 169 The Wind Whirl my old years away, O enraptured wind ! Let them be clean forgotten, blown out of mind! Then shall I hear you sing : " Awake, O mortal, awake to the magical earth. Awake, O harp, to the hands of the laughing wind, O, a proud life is before you ! the infinite skies. The seas and the sun and the earth to delight your eyes. And I to sing to your heart, Till you go to the darkness who came of the darkness at birth With a song of its peace in your heart : Yea, as a harp in the hands of the harper cries, Sing ye for joy under my laughing skies.'* O swift imperious song ! my uplifted heart Sings, and whom shall I sing to, indifferent wind ? Not now to you, singing your infinite song ! Go, mighty wind, and call to her I love, Call her out in the rioting, moon-enchanted night, Sing to her, stoop to her, sweeping wildly above : O, set her heart a-dancing like the shivering light of delight Shaken on the tresses of the singing trees — 170 The JVind Have you beheld her, have you caressed her, O wind ? Her heart is deep as your own, O sing to her heart ! Moon, do you shine on her ; moon, do you see her face ? Kiss her eyes, kiss her lips, for they have your magical grace, And breathe through the tangle of her fallen hair, O wind, And set her feet a-dancing, and the sweet blood of her heart ! Bring her to me, O call her hither, wind of the west ! Charm her to me with a charm, O moon of the sky ! Set her white spirit laughing with this your mystical laughter, O, set her singing, that I may follow after When I hear her voice in the voice of the wind caressed. Rapt and caressed as he riots the woodlands by : Bring her to me with laughter on her mouth, Bring her to me with laughter in her eyes, 171 The Wind And a light on her face from the magical moon in the south, And caught in her hair the coolness of all the skies : Bring her to me with fallen hair afloat Over her singing throat. Lo, in the heaving boughs the moon, a silver fiery tear, Sweeps and flashes and rocks as I run by ways that rustle and shake, And a sound of enraptured weeping and of tear- ful laughter make : Call hither the girl I love, O west wind, bring her here ! Whirl her old years away, O majestic wind, Let them be all forgotten, blown out of mind ! Sing then, wind, imperious, laughing, sweet and strong. Sing then, wind, and this shall be your song : " Awake, O lovers, awake, awake to the magical night ! Awake, O harps, to my fingers of delight ! O, a proud life is before you ; the infinite skies, 172 The IVind The sun and the hills and the seas to delight your eyes, As you wander, wander through the immortal earth To the silence of infinite sleep from the silence of birth, With the ancient joy of the ancient earth for your part, O driven leaves of the wind, be glad, be merry at heart 1 " FINIS 173 YC158061 jRARY UN' ^^fe^^^fe^^gJ^^fe^^^^sfcMJ^^Sfe^^ POEMS BYA.B.MIALL