i'r 5" r/^2 sr' THE BOOK OF NATURE ^ THE BOOK OF NATURE 1910-1912 BY JOHN GOULD FLETCHER LONDON CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD 1913 TO M. F. AND A. F. T. I FED my soul on vast green towering trees Beneath which roses made eternal June, And, lured by drowsy song of drunken bees, I fell asleep and spent long years aswoon. Then from wild peaks, wine-red in day's decline, I drank ; and still the acrid taste remains Of all that ever-flowing endless line Of scanty, sun-parched, aromatic plains. I clad myself in all the shimmering veils Of sound which breezes weave in upland pines : Or the harsh clash of waves which, sped by gales. Upon a flat shore crash in foaming lines. I warmed myself before the terrible fires Of life, which roar in many a city vast : Before all pains and joys of man's desires, His dubious future and his tragic past. And then I roused myself in stubborn will : And, fenced with pride which baffles woe and wrong, I fashioned images joyous, terrible. And sent them forth to walk on feet of song. They come to where, beneath the green trees' shade, Bloom roses of June, dream-passionate and sweet. From other songs and worlds all unafraid They come, to kneel as slaves before your feet. *f77:i.3 CONTENTS PART I THE MONTHS IN ITALY JANUARY : THE COMING OF THE SNOW FEBRUARY : THE WINTER PEACE . MARCH : THE MONTH OF STORMS APRIL : THE BLOSSOMING . MAY : THE COMING OF SUMMER JUNE : HYMN TO THE SUN INTERLUDE : THE STORM . JULY : THE MONTH OF THE SUN. AUGUST : THE MONTH OF THE MOON SEPTEMBER : THE HARVEST OCTOBER : THE NORTH WIND'S GIFT NOVEMBER: THE BURNING OF THE BOUGHS DECEMBER : THE HEARTH FESTIVAL 3 4 6 7 8 lO 12 '3 14 •5 i6 17 i8 PART II SICILIAN KEEDS SEA-SOUNDING BELLS A PANTHEIST'S WISH LINES WRITTEN AT TAORMINA, SICILY , b vii 21 22 23 VIll THE BOOK OF NATURE SONG OF THE SUMMER BREEZES . 25 THE SECRET OF THE HILLS 26 SUMMER SILENCE . 27 THE BACCHANAL . 28 THE DEAD CITY 30 GIRGENTI .... 33 THE FLOCKS OF PAN 35 PART III ENGLAND THE CRY OF NATURE LINES WRITTEN AT STONEHENGE MIDSUMMER DAWN AT SEA TO A SKYLARK ON A HILLSIDE IN THE WOOD FULL MOON . SUN AFTER RAIN HAZE ON THE HILLS DEATH OF THE SUMMER, I912 EPITAPH ON THE SUMMER OF 1912 THE SUMMONS OF AUTUMN A SONG OF AUTUMN THE WIND'S BOOTY, SUMMER'S SOUVENIR A BALLAD OF DEAD AUTUMNS VOICES ON THE WIND MIDWINTER SUNSET NATURE'S DEATH . 39 4» 42 43 44 45 47 48 49 5° 51 52 53 55 57 58 60 61 62 CONTENTS IX PART IV ITALY— BAVARIA— SWITZERLAND- PROVENCE— AMERICA r.\(^K VENICE ....... 67 THE VOICE IN THE PINES . 68 THE LURE OF EVENING . 69 ROME .... 70 CYPRESSES .... 72 VALLEY AND PEAK . 74 GOLDEN LEAVES 75 THE VOICE OF THE TORRENT 76 ALPINE VIOLETS n VOICES .... 78 THE HOME OF MEMORY . 79 THE WOMAN OF THE MOUNTAINS 81 PROVENCE .... 83 SONG OF THE SUN-INTOXICATED . 84 MIDSUMMER ..... 8s NIGHT IN THE WILDERNESS 86 PART V TWO DAYS AT VERSAILLES \C)th May igi2 I. THE POPPY SONG II. THE SADNESS OF SUMMER . III. TO A ROSE OF THE TRIANON IV. DY THE FOUNTAIN V. VOICES IN THE WOOD VI. THE FOUNTAINS OF SUNSET . VII. MIDSUMMER TWILIGHT 91 92 93 94 95 96 THE BOOK OF NATURE 21 si October 191 2 I. EPILOGUE TO THE POPPY SONG II. AUTUMN ELEGY III. TO A ROSE OF THE AUTUMN IV. BY THE FOUNTAIN V. VOICES OF AUTUMN . VL AUTUMN EVENING VIL FAREWELL TO VERSAILLES . EPILOGUE TO 'TWO DAYS AT VERSAILLES' EPILOGUE TO 'THE BOOK OF NATURE' . PAGB 97 99 100 lOI 102 103 104 105 106 PART I THE MONTHS IN ITALY JANUARY : THE COMING OF THE SNOW The long thin swaying curtains of the rain Are tangled in the bare boughs of the plain. Down-sloping from the sky, grey-mottled o'er, Their fringes trail the sodden valley floor. Heavy with woe, they dusk the day's grey light ; Heavy, they stir and rustle all the night : And the steep crumbling bridge that leads to town Quivers beneath the torrent rushing down. Some mystery is now shaping 'neath these veils ; Which none may see, till, rent by northern gales, They suddenly fly apart : then, 'yond them, lo ! The high, untrodden peaks of sparkling snow 1 Tfl£ MONTHS IN ITALY FEBRUARY : THE WINTER PEACE The great trees lift unbending stems From out the hard, dry, stiffly-frozen ground Upon their brows brown winter diadems Of withered leaves are bound. They stand where the bare upland ends Into a pale sky smooth and clear, And guard, like a bronze-hammered fence. The great gap over there. Beyond, as faded tapestry Within a cool and empty room, A vast blue valley floor I see Rise to its mountain home. The white-walled towns outspread below Within the blue depths palely shine : — Above, the peaks, like wraiths of snow, Rest in an endless line. Beyond the uplands safely passed. Beyond the slopes, beyond the trees. Upon the valley floor at last There dwells the winter's peace. FEBRUARY: THE WINTER PEACE 5 Poised between past and what is new, The great world sleeps, nor dreams of spring ; Wrapt in its robe of white and blue, The winter's blossoming. Now life throbs faint unconscious bliss, Suspended pain, suspended breath — A void of timeless time it is, The winter's death. THE MONTHS IN ITALY MARCH : THE MONTH OF STORMS I FLED from blustering March To where the heavens arch With blue of summer day : March caught me on the way. Sudden he blew his horn ; Straight was the sky uptorn : Northward he shook his locks, Southward he smote the rocks ; Sped by in pelting sleet, With winds were shod his feet, A cloud his charioteer Over the shivering mere . . . O could I be a wind on a March day, Filled with pure joy of an unconscious being, I would arise and hasten onward, seeing Whereto the month of storms hurries away. APRIL: THE BLOSSOMING APRIL: THE BLOSSOMING To the bees' resounding hum Lo, they come ! First, upon the bare hillside Rosy spikes, the almond's pride ; Piercing with empurpled glow Windswept dark-blue skies that show Far-off faint peaks white with snow : Next the cherry from which song Shakes the white shower all day long, Ringing to stir the sluggish growth Of a thousand others bursting forth On the glowing green hillside, Which becomes a mosaic pied, A vast galaxy of hues Whose perfume breezes catch and lose. Later, peach pours forth her breath : Dandelions powder the grass beneath. Day 's too short to count each head Green or golden, blue or red : 'Mid the life-flushed rout I see Asphodels that sway in glee, Spring's mad immortality ! THE MONTHS IN ITALY MAY: THE COMING OF SUMMER The flowers have fallen in fickle showers : And festival green has crept unseen Over the valley and hill. Birds speed with rhythm the rollicking hours, But where is the grave, the grave of my flowers ? Ask of the rippling grass-grown slopes Where, one by one, like accomplished hopes, Flaunt flame-coloured sun-worshipping poppies That in the wind are never still. June and July are already with us ! See, too, the swallow that, amorous. Rises and scuds continually Across the sky like a sail on the sea. The gorgeous pageant of tragedy Opens, in regal panoply ! O for the wild unconquerable rhythms Of summer ; the grass and the trees, The booming chorus of bees, The solos of echoing birds ! O for a flight like the woodlings — Centaurs and Fauns, Hamadryades, MAY : THE COMING OF SUMMER Galloping on to where Orpheus sings ; O for the ships straining weary wings Far upon motionless, unreal seas, And the blazing and drunken hours of ease : Like the flushed stir of painful passion In the poppy-petals under the sun, And the long sleep when passion is done, When the petals droop, and are folded each one, And toil is done, and the dream begun. 10 THE MONTHS IN ITALY JUNE: HYMN TO THE SUN Sun that created me, Sun that maintains me, Sun that shall destroy me, Glory and honour to thee, O Sun. Sun from whose empty white unity Are scattered abroad the infinite colours ; Even as all human deeds, thoughts, passions, Unite to dissolve in thee every instant : That makest the grass ripe for the mower, The fruit ready to fall from the tree ; That guidest for ever time's leaping shuttle Through the same warp for myriads of years. I, blazing particle of thy sea of fire, Ray of thy light, spark of the furnace undying, Part of the all, cry too, victorious, an instant, Glory and honour to thee, O Sun. JUNE: HYMN TO THE SUN ii II Not as in grey northern regions, Where sad sickly men put life itself to the question, Would I live, but in uttermost power : Borne up, overwhelmed by thee ! Thou must vanish from me in the passionate sacrifice Of thy life for my sake, and for all men about me : Thou must rise once again to conquer and slay us, And repeat the cycle unchanging. I know that no more than the silent grass which the mower Reaps, can I stand in the years which are to come : But that grass too will newly spring on the same spot. As I, perhaps, shall return through thee, O sun ! Sun that created me, Sun that maintains me, Sun that shall destroy me, Glory and honour to thee, O Sun. 12 THE MONTHS IN ITALY INTERLUDE: THE STORM Thunder ; through the wide arches of the south The grey storm-stallions now confused mix, Tossing their manes with screams and bites and kicks, While lightning drips like foam from every mouth. Bullets of hail meet javelins of rain Along the black entrenchments of the sky, The torrent tugs, too, at its boulder chain, Growling in horrible fury to be free. Now 'mid the charges and the cannonade, Tosses the wind like a vast flag unfurled 'Mid battle-song of wrack and havoc made, Change and destruction cast upon the world : Where man, with trembling body, shaken breath. Gaspingly struggles in the grip of death. JULY : THE MONTH OF THE SUN 13 JULY : THE MONTH OF THE SUN Within the steep and steel-blue dome of sky There is no stir nor murmur, swift yr soft : The sun bears steadily his torch aloft, Striding up to the zenith, where on high The sleepless God whose worshipper he is Watches another day flash past in flame : A day whose glory, worship, perfect fame, Are but to breathe in an immobile bliss. Now bees and brutes and men leave drink and food ; Sunk in a mighty reverie the earth, Teeming with passionate joy, perfected pain, Wings on its tireless path so oft pursued. Through day and night, through death and life and birth. Through suns supreme and thunder-showers of rain. 14 THE MONTHS IN ITALY AUGUST: THE MONTH OF THE MOON Over the ashen hills, the sun-browned fields, Over the windless peaks devoid of snow, A vast and silent phantom glideth low, Silvering the land and all the fruit she yields. What dost thou seek, pale lonely wanderer. Upon the earth while all men are asleep? Perchance dost draw up treasures from the deep, Or from some white road steal a wayfarer ; The tinkle, too, of a hidden fountain's plash, The feathery foliage of an ancient pine, White garden walls with yawning gates are thine : But the fierce blare of day, the sunset's clash To thee are foreign, as on land and sea Passion and sleep dost equally intertwine. SEPTEMBER: THE HARVEST 15 SEPTEMBER: THE HARVEST Summer's scorching kiss Has unclothed the land : Here on every hand Brown and bare she is. Waters drowsily flow ; Winds forget to sigh 'Gainst the gatherer's cry As they homeward go. Earth's unstinted gift, Crimson, black and gold, All that they can hold, Now the bronze arms lift : Crushing heaps of grape Summer's drunken sun Prisoned past escape, Foaming in the tun. i6 THE MONTHS IN ITALY OCTOBER : THE NORTH WIND'S GIFT Wind, wind, southward scurrying What in the north are you fleeing from ? ' From the mountains shrouded in darkness Round the summer's iron-barred tomb.' Wind, wind, darkly whirling, What is your purpose ? Where do you go ? * To the valleys dim and sombre, There to scatter, scatter the snow.' Wind, wind, stony-hearted. You take the green, what do you leave? ' Passionate tears for flowers departed : Vain wrath, remorse, and icy grief.' NOVEMBER: BURNING OF BOUGHS 17 NOVEMBER: THE BURNING OF THE BOUGHS Along the mournful leafless plains The wood-smoke drifts athwart the rains ; For all the summer's growth is past, And cut, and into one pile cast : The leaves, the straw, the canes, the shoots, The bark, willow and olive roots, All sapless now, like spring's blue air, And summer's fierce and calm despair ! We must repent such worthlessness. If we would win the winter's peace ; Give over the hours of love gone by, The leafy hours, now dead and dry : Be then our joy, our song, our lust. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. i8 THE MONTHS IN ITALY DECEMBER: THE HEARTH FESTIVAL There are midwinter sunsets, fierce and red, And there are early twilights and long nights, And there is goodly talk about the fire. There is endless rain blown up and down the vales, There are storms and torrents ravening on the hills, And there is goodly talk about the fire. There are the kettles singing on the sticks. There are roast chestnuts and the ancient wine, And there is goodly talk about the fire. PART II SICILIAN REEDS SEA-SOUNDING BELLS Leaping forth from their steep battlemented nest on the hillside, Seaward the bells float, on strong rever- berant pinions : Lingering enmingled in silvery dreams of the olives ; Rustling the yellow stalks of the grain, fluttering lightly the vine-leaves ; Low-rolling over the hoarse uproar of the surf ; Soaring over sails and cordage in great ships becalmed off shore ; Groaning in deep narrow crannies of island crags ; They pass, in long, low quivers of melodious laughter : Till far on a sailless sea drifting and fading, Or by swift eddies of warm breeze caught, jangled and broken, Their sonorous tympani vanish beneath the wind's shrill violins. 22 SICILIAN REEDS A PANTHEIST'S WISH Were I a rock, a flower, a tree, a brook, a reed. Were I the slightest quivering blade of grass, Or the lone shepherd's flute-notes as they pass Towards the sky, then that were bliss indeed : Were I the filmy cloud overhead sailing To sunburnt peaks and drowsy, dreamy plains; I would not care what fate for me remains, Nor spend my idle hours in useless wailing. Were I a cricket sun-intoxicated. Or, best of everything upon the earth, A bacchanal poppy blazing in the sun, I would not care what early doom was fated, But would rejoice with nature in new birth, And every hour count life as fresh begun. LINES WRITTEN AT TAORMINA 23 LINES WRITTEN AT TAORMINA, SICILY Here on the dark rocks Of the land's verge, I hear the wind's shout, The murmur of surge. Like a rabble afar, Its applauding cries, Millions in number, Confusedly rise. So the myriad-voiced Cold ancient one Sends up his song Of praise to the sun. The winds above him Stride and are free. They pry in the rocks, Where wallows the sea : 24 SICILIAN REEDS Till into dark clefts They suddenly fall, And he seizes them swiftly While, over all. Smilingly white Over deep-blue shade, The far snow-peak Nods a drowsy head. SONG OF THE SUMMER BREEZES 25 SONG OF THE SUMMER BREEZES We dance with pulsating feet Through the wild wilderness. We, the sons of delight, Who know not any sorrow, Who take no thought of the morrow, Indifferent to day or night, Warmed by the sun's caress. Finding existence sweet. We make our bacchanals Wherever the dark grape is swaying Heavy with juice, on the vine. Or the shepherd's flute-note calls. The sunlight, the joy of the ocean, Weaves itself with our motion : But the nymphs of the rocks, half divine, Detain us, intoxicated. — And we sleep until day is belated. a6 SICILIAN REEDS THE SECRET OF THE HILLS The hours that made up centuries are past. Like old winds dancing down a bright sea- Our little hour of revel comes at last- But lo, the hills all armoured in dark gold ! Still safely in dim treasuries they hold Sunlight and silence, as in hours of old. SUMMER SILENCE 27 SUMMER SILENCE The cypress trees against the sky Are funeral urns of tragedy ; Old ashes rest within their covers, Over them silent the swallow hovers. The olive leaves against the sky Are like men's dreams before they die : Little grey birds in flocks a-winging On noiseless wings : silent their singing. The asphodel in stillness quivers, Where over empty stony rivers And bare heat-vales, and sailless seas. Brood ruins on dead memories. Amid them poppies on the ground Like blood fresh-spilt from a death-wound. Offer with fiery passion dumb Their drowsy cups of opium. Over dream-pale and death-red flowers, On rock and olive, falls in showers The plaintive cry of some wild bird Which but makes silence the more heard. 28 SICILIAN REEDS THE BACCHANAL The waves run shouting down the beach, the sea is full of light, The wind is scattering flower-petals, petals red and white, The brown earth quivers in the sun. Be sober, you who may : But we with draughts of ruby wine make revelry to-day ! 'Tis red as leaping sunset, its heart is liquid fire — A hot kiss, and a sudden glance from eyes that speak desire : A quick embrace amid the rout that reels in disarray — All these are in that ruby wine that we swill down to-day ! Now giddy onward whirls the dance, such frenzy ne'er was seen : The hollow click of castanets, the tinkling tambourine, THE BACCHANAL 29 The twittering flute, the gaudy scarves that flutter bright and gay, All these are here, and here is wine, the wine we drink to-day ! The gods upon Olympus with ambrosia pelt the sky ; While tossed about our laughing throng the orange-blossoms fly ; And asphodels are flying 'mong the shades so pale and grey, For all have drunk the ruby wine, the wine we drink to-day. 30 SICILIAN REEDS THE DEAD CITY (Messina, 1 908-1 911) Vast shattered heaps of stone In giant pose are thrown : Or stand, gaunt and alone, Above this realm of death. They pierce on either hand To where the sky is spanned With flying rain-clouds fanned By sunset's kindling breath. And that sky never weeps. Over these twisted heaps The stifling dust-cloud creeps With the sad wanderer home. A city 'twas, whose walls (Where now the silence falls) Clashed with a million calls, Greater than Tyre or Rome. Now 'mid this disarray — Hid shamefully away From the white blaze of day — A people skulk afar : THE DEAD CITY 31 Each in some cavern hides Through the long still night-tides ; The day still them divides, They know not that they are. Beneath are gloomy graves. In noisome vaults or caves Lie bodies, under waves Of rock reared high in pain : — Less pain for those who strove In vain, with hate or love, Than that life cannot move, Can never strive again. For nowhere now I see Life's supreme cruelty : But falls the dark sad sea Of death, indifferent, On gardens growing wild, And palaces up-piled. And torturous slums defiled. And crazy tenement. To who dares enter there, A theatre, vast and bare. Yawns blackly to the air With seats and stage complete. 32 SICILIAN REEDS No paling footlights' spark Gleams through the still cool dark ; No applause now to mark, No stamping eager feet ! And here the glittering shrine, House of the Powers divine. Lifts high its tower-line. Its domes half fallen away. Within, amid debris, Marble and gold I see Appeal in mockery To the dumb motionless day. Such is your end at last ! Dreams beautiful and vast, Dead since a dateless past. Dead 'neath your heaps of stone. Beneath these slabs no ghost Glides up, nor marching host, To mourn and wail their lost ; For fear and hope are gone. \ J GIRGENTI 23 GIRGENTI TiiK fairest city of all mortals stands, Lifting its golden temples to the sun In roofless splendour, o'er the valley lands In which the waves of wind 'mid green wheat run Down to the dunes, and the white tideless sands, Beyond which painted galleys plunge as one. BroWn height on height uprears sky-dwelling shrines : The dreamer there divines Afar the ruddy sacrificial flame. The blue smoke from each fane Waving into the zenith, hazy-veiled, And that low chant whereby the gods are hailed. Afar they dwell, the lofty limitless gods : To aspire to them a hope Of lonely men in the shadow of those hills Which gaze on fertile miles Where men for ages live and die and grope Beneath their frequent frowns and favouring nods. c 34 SICILIAN REEDS Afar behind these motionless veils of grey, They dance, perchance, in endless festivals Through the skies' glittering halls ! Or gaze, with light untold, Towards an age of gold : Perchance they sleep, each on a separate star, Perchance on earth they are : I know not. If I did, would it heal care? I only know earth bares her nakedness Before the sun's great glass. The land is ever silent, and the air Is peace, and peace the shimmering sea doth bless. Beautiful is the earth, fertile and bare ; The flowers everywhere Which, as in millions of ages unrevealed, Dream even yet of gold and emerald. THE FLOCKS OF PAN 35 THE FLOCKS OF PAN We are the great God's flocks Browsing amid the rocks : Where olives, a straggling line, Wind upwards to his shrine. There, set on a golden seat. Hairy Pan guards us well ; The waves with their rippling wheat, The rocks with their asphodel. Pan ! Pan ! On the crags above deep river-valleys We drowse in the sun, while the galleys Flash past in purple and gold To the blue sea below our fold. The God, half asleep is he ; And of Syrinx, perhaps, is his dream : For the reeds by the bed of the stream Murmur and sigh restlessly, ' Pan ! Pan ! ' 36 SICILIAN REEDS But now there 's a breath on the breeze ; A whisper amid the trees : And over a russet crag A red face with horns and a rag Of beard, leers down at us. 'Tis Pan, the horrible. Goat-legged, amorous ! Flee over rock and dell ! Pan! Pan! PART III ENGLAND THE CRY OF NATURE Hkar now great Nature cry Gladly, exultantly: — ' Man dreams of mastery Never his own. Rather, my slave he is : I grant him pain or bliss, As I choose, stab or kiss, Holding the throne. ' His thraldom is not o'er. As in the years before, Me yet he must adore Ere aught he do. I keep or break his state : I yield unequal fate : Pain, sorrow, shame and hate I but renew. ' Fight mc with tooth or glaive Conquer both wind and wave ! All things of mine shalt have : But how couldst live, 40 ENGLAND Fool, if I gave them not ? What then would be thy lot ? On a drear desert spot Well wouldst thou thrive ! * What are thy ideas crude — What, but the echoes rude And false of the foolish mood I put thee in ? What is thy freedom great? Better a servile state Than freedom won by weight Of thine own sin.' Hear now great Nature cry Gladly, exultantly : — ' Century on century I keep thee still : Till thou hast brought to waste All that I gave, at last. Then I slay, without haste : Complete my will ! ' LINES WRITTEN AT STONEHENGE 41 LINES WRITTEN AT STONEHENGE Across the low-curved billows grey That sweep in swell and hollow round This summit, lii^hts and shadows play In gold and blue upon the ground. Dark russet groves in the hollows are : But else, the earth is free and bare. A sound of far-off cattle-bells ; A skylark's broken burst of song ; A pearl-white cloud that slowly swells To centaur-shape : and, far along, The rustling of an idle breeze ! So has it been for centuries ! And lo ! this summit which no man For ages has inhabited ! — And here the dark trilithons stand — The relics of what Titans dead? No human hand could dare to raise Such temples to the green God's praise. TO A SKYLARK 43 TO A SKYLARK Othou unwearied one, tread the dance of the sun, On a height of great wonder and of wild delight To the rhythm of the day and the mad wind's sway. Not a thrush with his warning shall thy note ever hush With its ecstasy profound, rippling, bubbling wells of sound : — Silence now that meditation that he mutters from his bush, Like a Buddhist monk a-dreaming of Nirvana afar I Let thy wings and thy feet and thy voice together greet The grassy plain's great bound, the skies' blue profound, That at its wooded edge weaves a vast circle round. Like a rocket in its flight, a balloon, or a kite, In the rhythm of thy voice now rejoice. 44 ENGLAND ON A HILLSIDE Alone upon a hill's dark brow I lay. 'Twas afternoon, and now I had walked wood and farmstead o'er, Dusty and heartsick and footsore. The bees boomed through the blossoming gorse Heavily, dully, hot and hoarse, And the skylarks' clear bell-notes rang From far off faintly, as they sang : The thunder-clouds rode from the sea 'Mid muttered tumult, solemnly ; And the winds from the skylands brought Over the illimitudes, a thought : — A thought I could not understand, That earth lay shadowed 'neath God's hand. IN THE WOOD 45 IN THE WOOD In the wood am I ; I, the most estranged From Nature of her births : My thoughts toward barren dearths Of aspiration changed, And my life's ending nigh. I am a stranger here, I feel the selfsame fear Of ten thousand years ago : When tribes went ill at ease Among the sinister trees That seemed to watch and know. I feel that old unrest, 'Spite a longing in my breast To be at one with them : One-half rebellious is, One-half would share the bliss Of every green-clad stem. 46 ENGLAND And yet, of every prize That in earth's keeping lies, Give me a lonely spot : Where the wind in the tree-top dies, And the far-off bird-calls rise. And thought is not. FULL MOON 47 FULL MOON Full moon, and night's great hush On grass and flower and bush : The motionless calm of the trees Standing in shadowy peace Down the long road, far away To the white borders of day. Through a sparkling ocean of air The moonlight is scattered, where There is only smiling sleep, And the stars that move on the deep. But the flowers then, men say. Meditate on the day. 48 ENGLAND SUN AFTER RAIN After the long rain The sun sprang forth again, The light that conquers pain. A church-bell far away Melodiously asway Threw out a throbbing gay. Like fountain-spray in air, The light was shattered where Before 'twas bleak and bare. The whole sky shook with light The earth quivered with might : And nowhere was there night. HAZE ON THE HILLS 49 HAZE ON THE HILLS It is the thin haze-mist Which, near or distant, clings Upon the bare rough hills, Half veiling shapes of things. It makes the ranges seem Like a great sea bronze-cast ; It throws pale lights amid Their roller-shadows vast. Like a thin spray it is. As it melts out here and there To the sunlit windless air, In the sky-realms of bliss. Into those pale sky-realms Half hid by grey, that fill With shadowy light the sea That, mystically, is still. D 50 ENGLAND DEATH OF THE SUMMER, 1912 She lieth dead, her dark hair all astream, A silver shape wrapt in soft folds of rain. And from her grey eyes faded is the dream Of that dim peace which asks not joy or pain. EPITAPH ON THE SUMMER OF 1912 51 EPITAPH ON THE SUMMER OF 1912 Strayed far from out her father Sun's domain, Lifelong she wept ; but all her tears were vain. Her broken-hearted mother Earth now rears This stone to her, and wets it with her tears. 52 ENGLAND THE SUMMONS OF AUTUMN My boyhood passed as a storm of spring : My youth as a vague, calm summer day : But ended now is all my play, For autumn's frost has gripped my soul, And my pulses leap beneath its sting. Pinnacles of incomplete rhyme I will rear up to catch the sun. Higher than any man has done. And I will see broad glinting gleams Of the infinite gold that far-up streams, Beyond dark clouds of space and time. Pale amber dawn of springtime is long since left behind me. And summer's noontide rose has scattered its petals now, And the clarions of the autumn solemn and sonorous wind me : * Forth, go forth with the vine upon thy brow, Forth to the fluttering pennons of the forest red with pain ; Forth, to the fury of the rain ! ' A SONG OF AUTUMN 53 A SONG OF AUTUMN I Thk world 's a great pain-maddcncd tragic dance, Wherein grey satyrs, withered maenads prance : So do not yield to nobler things your soul, But drain the grape lees lurking in the bowl. Indifferent to to-day's, to-morrow's fate, Now let the frost upon the wine-cup wait : And waste 'mid autumn's downward-shuddering leaves. The last of summer's heavy harvest sheaves. The cups to their old spell our hearts have strung, Unrevered wrinkles look now almost young ; Let us to our last bacchanal advance : The world 's a great pain-maddened tragic dance ! II The leaves gyrate in fury round and round ; They harshly rattle with a dry thin sound. 'Tis like cracked evil laughter, shrill as sin, Of chattering witches at the devil's inn. 54 ENGLAND These are my songless days, not fled away But blown about me in the death of day : Blown by the wind that chills my lagging feet, And stings my face with frozen tears of sleet. Ironically old memories circling whirl About my brain like this brown withered swirl ; No more my sun burns on the peaks of gold, Dark rooms and firelight loves the heart that 's old : Let loose upon the land the grey sharp blast, And blow my leaves away from first to last ! For they are dead, and I am dead as well — A dry leaf whirled about a sunless hell. The leaves gyrate in fury round and round ; They harshly rattle with a dry thin sound. THE WIND'S BOOTY 55 THE WIND'S BOOTY Autumn's heavy galleon -hosts Rock and reel on the stormy main Of the chilly sky. By rocky coasts They hurl bombardments of dark rain The wind, a swaggering roisterer, On their flank has roused a stir. Through their decks in a cataract Rush his bold blaspheming tones : Wealth of all the Indies sacked, Weight of golden leaves at once, Hurriedly he strips away In his desperate foray. Some he bears, the buccaneer. To a favoured cranny hid Chartless, rocky shoals amid, Where he buries them each year. But the most away he flings As he staggers on and sings. 56 ENGLAND Far behind him the cloud's swift Men-o'-war and brigantines On the skyline slowly lift Ponderous sail, in long dark lines And from out their straining sides Leaps the grey smoke of broadsides. SUMMER'S SOUVENIR 57 SUMMER'S SOUVENIR Thk winter wind Wearily sighs Through heavy oak boughs, Where the dead leaf dies. Across the dull sky The dark clouds go ; Like withered witches They brew the snow. On the walls of my heart Hangs summer's face : An old portrait With a shy, wild grace. It is curtain-covered And hidden away, And 1 watch it moulder Day after day. 58 ENGLAND A BALLAD OF DEAD AUTUMNS I SIT and watch the dark glow of the fruit, And drowsily mark the dropping of the leaves ; And now and then I idly touch a lute Half strung, whose music, 'gainst the wind that grieves, Is like the sob of some poor penitent In a cathedral, 'gainst the organ tones Of some vast chant of wrath and stormy moans : Lost soon, like to that summer which is spent. And gone, as all the rest must go, I fear ; — For flowers fade and fruit is rotten soon. — Henceforth I care not for that coming year ! For I am weary of autumns past and gone. For what then, in this sunlight pale and late And hazy, do I lazily singing wait? I wait to see the birds in dark clouds fly. The fruits fall and the latest flowers die ; To taste the bitter berries of the wood. Shining and hard, like frozen drops of blood ; ^^^^ A BALLAD OF DEAD AUTUMNS 59 To smell the dark-blue acrid incense-drift Of smouldering leaves, afloat in every rift ; To hear, amid the dry leaves on the ground, The wind that scurries with a burrowing sound ; To feel the wrinkled frost, with teeth sharp-set, Freezing those pools of tears which linger yet Within my heart, where the trees, gaunt and greyed. Repeat their weary, endless colonnade Towards the horizon, red with setting sun — The setting sun of autumns past and gone. 6o ENGLAND VOICES ON THE WIND Wind and the whirling of white mists Through the desolate night. And there are voices on the wind : Roaring horns, hoarse cries of battle ! The dark wind, Endlessly whirling the white mists. The pale mists Wavering, unsteady, break before dawn : They hurriedly vanish. The low talk, the sombre yells of despair, These are lost on the long wind : But the jarring thunder of sea-chariots racing Shoreward, yet holds my soul and keeps it from gaining sleep. MIDWINTER SUNSET 6i MIDWINTER SUNSET The clouds blown together, like ragged whorls of smoke, Stretch long and twisted fingers up in the west: And in their grip hangs weltering, half extin- guished, The ruby of the sun. The wind like a cripple rolls over dark purple moors ; And in the hollows the old bare beeches sing A ballad of winter, while in their dry, stirring leaves A frightened squirrel scurries off in dismay. 62 ENGLAND NATURE'S DEATH I STAND where beats the sea Tireless, again and again : Tis crying tragically Its old mysterious pain. Beat by the shattered spray, Stunned by the endless roar, I watch the storm-clouds grey That trail upon the shore. /^ Black riven crags of rock Repel each wave's mad spring Great Nature, shock on shock. Rages in suffering. Man dreams to tame or slay Her mad unbounded might : One little hour of day Is his, ere falls the night. Weaving rebellious hymns Of hopeless blasphemy, Great Nature too hath dreams, God's power to defy. NATURE'S DEATH 63 In vain her storms may screech, In vain her winds may fight, Their echoes cannot reach Into the void of night. The only cure is death. And as I watch this sea, I know how soon its breath Spent and forgot must be : The end of all at last No eye may mark, or hand ; A salt and glittering waste, ) A skull upon the sand. / PART IV ITALY — BAVARIA— SWITZERLAND PROVENCE— AMERICA VENICE I HAVE seen Venice old and grey with years Losing her faded gewgaws one by one. Nothing more sad than this to me appears Betwixt the morning and the evening sun. It seemed to me my heart enrobed with tears Was ceasing to long for all things under the sun : When nothing now the heart of Venice hears But one great stir and frenzy to have done ! If all the things we once so loved in life Seem now but trash to be swept into the sea : Let Death, that pallid ennui, free from strife, In taking Venice not pass over me ! O life of commonplace vast joys and tears, O city whose proud dream of life is done, Let the snow fall like ashes through the years, For these have vanished, leaving me alone. 68 ITALY THE VOICE IN THE PINES It is evening, and I rest beneath the pines. Through their meshes a star in the grey-blue sky Twinkles : the saffron robes of departing day Are trailed down the western skies in melancholy guise : A voice is singing to me over and over again : — ' My garments are woven of the dark-green fronds of the pine ; I am brief trembling joy and sorrow frail and forlorn. I shake about me the mystery of my hair, Fragrant with shadowy sighs and rustling with myriads of tears. ' THE LURE OF EVENING 69 THE LURE OF EVENING TnK pale sun strikes a last sad f^limmer of gold From the worn and decrepit sides of crumbling palaces, Flaunting their shameless pride of slatternliness, Frowning in monomaniac obsessions of the past. Yet even after their walls have drunken the latest sorrows, Have swallowed the final glow of impurity, poverty, lust, And relapsed into the dumb melancholy of senility, A brass laugh rings in the silence : — There is a gleam of eyes, a rustle of skirts, a flirt of fans. After us, let there come exhaustion, madness, and death. 70 ITALY ROME Thy frowning walls are stained with blood : Thy palaces are yellow with lust : Thy earth is but the ages' dust. And yet o'er all these, Nature wild Smiles like an untaught wondrous child. I see thee in those ages red When thy forum grows stripped and dead. A temple empty at midday : Bronze portals, columns wrenched away ; Beneath in shadow, nothing loth, Snores a drunken Ostrogoth. Through Colosseum arches grim Roll the sad echoes of a hymn From a basilica built new. Where gold mosaics gleam on blue. And after this, thy second death. When the fierce sirocco breath Of the Renaissance flickers down, And there is left over the town A funeral autumn, purple-brown, ROME 71 The eighteenth century. Palaces red Glower fanatically, crumble dead ; Weeds and dust cover the street ; Arid fountains cease to beat ; Twixt dome and obelisk lines stretch out ; Fluttering from tiicm a coloured clout ; A dirty hovel clings beside A vast triumphal arch's pride : On a Corinthian capital A beggar pipes a pastoral. Such, O Rome, are my strange dreams That I dream when I walk in thee : And yet I see thee differently : Thou that wast once a world, and now no more a home For what thou wert ! Art sacked anew, O Rome ! O deathless city set in a sunny waste Which has been dead — how many ages past? Why dreaming of thee, do I dream ever of death ? But such a question is but a waste of breath. Thou hast no answer. Grant, O smiling Despair, Dreams born of that sleep which is silent to joy and care. 72 ITALY CYPRESSES Cypresses motionless, double-rank arrayed, Knights clad in tarnished bronze and silver mail : Funereal plumes nod on each towering head. Fluting, the breezes low and solemn wail. Tunes tinged with delicate, fastidious old romance, Elegies of pride, of passion-crimson lust. Whispers of gallantry and ancient dalliance, Quiver now amid them, shaking out their dust. Weedy dim pathways wind amid their stems. Leading to pleasure-courts of long and lazy hours. Where from old fountains, crowned with diadems, Into green basins languid water pours. Here are carven trophies, antique helms and spears. Like to these cypresses in a long line cast. Masks too, grotesque with rage or twisted leers, Mock with their hollow mouths the splendour of the past. CYPRESSES 73 Winds from the bare brown hazy hills awake And, half laughing, scratch the heads of these old trees. Solemn as bearded gods, the sunburnt summits shake, Counselling age and endless rest and peace. 74 BAVARIA VALLEY AND PEAK In the valleys there is balm : And yet the valleys seem To me devoid of calm. I am burdened with tragic dream. But when twilight quietly knocks At the door of my soul, then O To fly to the icy rocks, And the eternal snow ! GOLDliN LEAVES 75 GOLDEN LEAVES The dead leaves drift on the walks ; The dead leaves litter the pond ; They float down like mad butterflies, Golden hordes to the southward bound. On the trees in gold clusters they hang : On the turf in gold carpets they rest. The gold of the year swept away Into pawnbroker Time's old chest. 76 SWITZERLAND THE VOICE OF THE TORRENT It is the voice of tlie torrent that between its iron- black crags Rends its own beauty asunder, to innumerable splinters and jags, Lacing itself with white scars of foam in its mad- ness to reach its rest. It is the voice of the chasm : — ' O Sun, be thou ever blest. That drew me up and in lightning-sent vapours new-fashioned me ; That hurried me on in black hordes from the lip of thy sea In a myriad self-destructive migrations towards the peak afar, That hurled me to darkness upon a frozen scaur In thy superb everlasting death-struggle with Death ; That receivest now my hoarse monotonous breath, O Baal, and the smoke and the blown spray of sacrifice ! Take all of these which are thine where the black pines rise, As thou tak'st in the South that life which thou promisest me. That peace of thy sultry passionate summer sea.' ALPINE VIOLETS 77 ALPINE VIOLETS (Imitated from Uu Bellay) You tiny flames of blue, Whose naive barbaric hue On grey rock-slope, Seem like the sky let through A painted window new, Grant me your hope ! I weave thin coronets. Slim madrigalettes, Loose coronals of rhyme, For you, whose blossoming Turns summer into spring, Defeating Time. Where 'gainst the frozen snows, Rosy blue, each one glows Amid sparse grass : Like young girls with tossed hair Ring-dancing ; O, from there I would not pass ! 78 SWITZERLAND VOICES The voices of the grass are harsh and shrill : Cold and flute-like are the voices on the hill. A bodiless sighing is the voice amid the boughs : Clamorous are the voices where the torrent flows. A tapping and a clapping are the voices of the creek : And an empty silence is the voice upon the peak. THE HOME OF MEMORY 79 THE HOME OF MEMORY Memory is a shape that dwells Between the leaves of certain trees, That, slightly shifted by the breeze, Let in long slanting planes of light. Or she cries in the ever-white Robe of the waterfall which moves From the chasm to the groves, Or she shines in the stars at night. Often, too, with a touch of pain. She moans amid loose-ravelled rain Entangled, raking the pine-beam roof Of a lone cabin high and aloof ; Or rapidly she climbs the peaks Where the sun in glory seeks The vast wastes of untrodden snow. — There Memory doth naked ^o. Memory is alone the child Of solitude and the dark wild : Green or grey or white she moves, And stays not, even for those she loves. X 8o SWITZERLAND But in the city, where the glare And steam of life infects the air, Pain has conquered Memory : Man's desire is to cease to be. THE WOMAN OF TUB MOUNTAINS Si THH WOMAN OF THE MOUNTAINS From a height on the sunlit mountains I have looked afar, And I liave seen that the ranges But one vast woman are. In nudity tremendous, Sleeping as if long dead, Her body, white as marble, Rests on its dark-green bed — A Titancss left slumbering Long since her earthly day ; Her grim, bronze-muscled kinsmen Are utterly swept away. Smooth glaciers form her shining flanks, Dark peaks her tangled hair. And rose-tipped snowy summits Are her breasts, which are still and bare. Sometimes the sky weaves over her A robe of cloud in shame, Down summer and winter drifting It goes : she rests the same. F 82 SWITZERLAND Beneath her superb chasteness Forces wait to be called to birth Forces of iron and lightning That yet shall sway the earth. For an infinite eternity My soul can wait on the peak, Weaving wild songs of slumber Till she wakens : she I seek. PROVENCE 83 PROVENCE Blanchkd castles crumbling on dark-red rocks : Desolation under bronze skies : Fever's mad monotonies : Wine of life that burns the throat. Long ago there were fountains here, Shivering and shuddering with dark-green waves. And colonnades, and cool arcades, And shadowy lakes in the long ago. But the sun has baked the roof, And the wind has eaten thereof: Time has undone the woof, And Death has danced on love ! Now all is but a monotonous song Of memory and ennui, A dry and dancing melody Which the wind whistles all day long. 84 PROVENCE SONG OF THE SUN-INTOXICATED Thee, Nature, do I drink As of some stolen wine. From the risk I do not shrink : Let the punishment be mine ! O tigress, if you will, Destroy my being quite, But let the sunlight fill My veins ere falls the night. And, would you see me happy. Then crush within my mouth Your grey snows of the Northland, And your red grapes of the South ! MIDSUMMER 85 MIDSUMMER The waves shake the loner wet beach, Crashing in thunderous monotone : The dazzling sails far out of reach Are tossed about and blown. The sun, like a million hammer-falls, Bangs on the anvil of my brain ; Daggers of pain at the eyeballs Stab, again and again : And all is brutal joy, despite The poison and sweat on which I sup When the black sword of the night Shears off the sun, and the blood spouts up. 86 AMERICA NIGHT IN THE WILDERNESS Night, and wilderness everywhere ! A wilderness that shares my care : For the wind in the weary pine tree wakes, In its feather bed it tosses and shakes. One star like a taper at the head Gleams low, unflickeringly, and red : Death watches the patient, half-way dead. As for me, passion has drained me dry : Black, bitter dregs in my heart now lie, And the awful thirst of fierce despair I cannot shake off anywhere ! ' O let dawn come or let me die ! ' I groan : and is there no reply ? A cloud rolls over the single star : Blackness — void — silence — near and far. . PART V TWO DAYS AT VERSAILLES 1 9th MAY 191 2 I. THE POPPY SONG In the grass that is scorched by the sun The poppy blossoms, one by one ; And its wonderful tragic singing Flames to a lonely crimson tone. * Around me plays the southern breeze : And I see, through the far blue trees, The far facades of palaces, And gaunt terraces, ill at ease. ' Pan is stone, and the dryads sleep. And they never hear the tears I weep As I watch the far-off shadows While from tree to tree they creep. • Summers forgotten are as this is. There is one word for woe and bliss : Better to sleep and to lie forgetful On the gold dust of princesses ! 90 TWO DAYS AT VERSAILLES * I am summer's earliest fruit : Amid the seeded grass I shoot. I am summer's earliest sorrow : And sleep has drugged my pain at the root. ' Far and far darts the silent swallow Into the weft of the skies' pale haze. I burn with a dream I cannot follow, Time is hollow and death is hollow. ' Far away the breezes thunder Through the green surf of the ancient elms. I cannot rise, I am sucked under, Time is wonder and death is wonder. ' Time can heal all right and wrong. Time is a sudden burst of song From a wild bird down distant woodlands, Ever flitting, nor staying long.' THE SADNESS OF SUMMER 91 II. THE SADNESS OF SUMMER To my soul which is as drunken With summer's anguish of silent leaves, Dead infantas go trailing by, And the swallow is one that grieves For a past, which the trees have not forgotten, For they suck in its strength with their leaves dead and rotten. O the long, long silent sadness Of summer which weeps not for evermore ! Like a boat adrift on the dark sea's gladness The sunlight seeks in vain a shore : And back through the thin dry sky it must pass, From the drooping trees and the withered grass. Brood in unechoing branches, woe : But let no words mark what must be. Wait till the fading yet darkening glow Of the sun gone down in the west you see : Then in tearless sobs let your grief pass away In the arms of old twilight, deaf and grey. 92 TWO DAYS AT VERSAILLES in. TO A ROSE OF THE TRIANON Tell me, O exquisite rose that abidest Here, 'mid the relics of a beauty faded, From what dust hast thou gathered that proud essence Of perfume and colour that thou giv'st to the world ? Thou that hast sucked the heat of the rain-washed marbles, Tremulously flushing with crimson in the sunlight, Careless thou bloomest, rose of love unaltered, Though all men's hate and pride about thee fall in ruin — As though all the ages were not — as though the world were made new. BY THE FOUNTAIN 93 IV. BY THE FOUNTAIN I LAY beside a fountain, listening in the shadow To a murnier of far-off voices that faded and then restirred : And it scorned to mc that a i^reat song of passion and praise they were making, Afar where I could scarce hear them, for the wind tossed their singing away. Around me were lichened benches covered with flower-petals ; Fallen and withering petals showered from stooping trees, Trailing green locks in the pool, as they gazed at their reflections. Through the thick tangles of their tousled hair. And there were pedestals, but lacking statues ; And there were naiads moulded in greenish bronze : 1 lay beside the fountain and I tossed up flower- petals Into the air, but marked not the spot whereon they fell : Till the fountain tossed up too its filmy veil of water, That shook the air and shattered the murmurs beyond the leaves. 94 TWO DAYS AT VERSAILLES V. VOICES IN THE WOOD Voices heard afar in the wood Hollowly echo into my ear ; Voices that seek for something lost, Voices that ask but obtain no reply. ' Have I lost or gained? Did 1 live or die?' Such is the burden they seem to bear. But time is a wild bee buzzing by, And deaf to the voices in the air. THE FOUNTAINS OF SUNSET 95 VI. THE FOUNTAINS OF SUNSET In gold columns the fountains mount to the air, Drifting westward, like a swarm of golden bees. In undulant waves, like a gold burden of hair. They shoot up above the green grottoes, the day being done, And the light retreating from under the shadowy trees ; Their noise is of seven harp-players playing as one : And the sun-motes around, like a swarm of golden bees, Lazily swim in the circling meshes thereof ; Dancing and drifting and lingering, seeking a breeze. The sun himself drew up that water which fills your love ; And soon as his gold-sparkling chariot hurries away, You shall flutter your plumage, O fountains, like a trapped dove. Over the velvety fingers of night, there shall flow your grey spray. 96 TWO DAYS AT VERSAILLES VIL MIDSUMMER TWILIGHT Now softly touch theorbos old and shrill, And let the hautboys sob for passing eves Of white midsummer, since my spirit grieves That the great bowl of sky which the light fills Should slowly overflow on ripened sheaves, Vibrating slackly like the arms of mills Weary of waltzing with the wind that thrills The great green world, the rivers, and the leaves. O let the music mark the day's slow passing To those dim vaults where rest all peaceful days, Humbly awaiting the horn that shall them raise. . . Meanwhile the clouds' giant-builded towers are massing Westward like pyres along the sun's last streams ; To ashes they drop, in the cold sea of dreams. EPILOGUE TO THE POPPY SONG 97 2ist OCTOBER 1912 I. EPILOGUE TO THE POPPY SONG The poppy has gone out of the grass, Summer 's as if it never was. And the ranked trees, like sombre torches. Shake a dry rain of leaves on the grass. Bowed statues mourn or shrink in fear : The long horizons draw more near, Under the trailing loose grey cloud-racks That move over acres sere. Nature wakes from her summer dream. Only the dark yews changeless seem ; Over grey terraces unechoing Thus they sing their tragic dream : — 'The wind in the treetop makes a dry sound, The dead leaf rattles along the ground. And sliding down the broad grey stairways. It rolls around, and then around — * The wind blows northward gusts of rain. Solitude, a dim shape of pain. Scatters the pale and ashy sunlight Amid the pale and ashy rain. G 98 TWO DAYS AT VERSAILLES ' The earth is golden, blue, and brown. The leaves slip nonchalantly down, Past pompous and empty palace-fronts That have forgotten their renown. * Beauty is a white shape of stone In an old garden left alone, Under her feet lies the husk of the poppy. And the leaves are falling, one by one. ' But the rain has blackened her now, And the green moss grows on her brow. And her shattered arms she holds up In a great vague gesture of tragic woe. * Beauty is but a transient death. She is frozen by the chill breath Of the wind, that spatters the sparse raindrops Upon the beautiful golden leaf. ' Ennui is the end of all : Beauty falls as the last leaves fall. We shall be weary but unsleeping When white snows drift and dark winds call.' AUTUMN ELEGY 99 II. AUTUMN ELEGY There was music in my heart Till the wind began to rouse In the autumnal boughs That hung over the house ; There was music in my heart, Song to my lips would often come : But I listened to the wind. 'Tis the wind has made me dumb. There was colour in my heart Till the rain shook out her pall — Folds of grey that fell on all The gardens, with their statues tall ; There was colour in my heart, But the rose burst in the rain, And the flame to embers sank : Colour never came again. There was dancing in my heart, Revelry the hours made ; In gold sunlight, in green shade. How they chattered, laughed, and played ! There was dancing in my heart : There they whirled until the last. They are stiff and smiling now. And the dead leaves hide them fast. lOO TWO DAYS AT VERSAILLES in. TO A ROSE OF THE AUTUMN Late rose that lingerest strangely in old gardens, Amid the sombre splendours of the autumn, What dost thou here, flushed crimson mouth of passion ? The laughter has fled : the dancers have de- parted ; There are no breezes to kiss thee ; here dost solicit in vain Love by the wind-ruffled pools, where no flung jets from the fountains Aspire to the pale, cool-mottled, windy, and chilly sky. Of blossoms of love art the last : see, the mad dead leaves dance about thee ! Soon thy translucent ruby vase shall be swayed, cracked, and shattered : And thy petals shall drift over the fresh-fallen snow. BY THE FOUNTAIN ioi IV. BY THE FOUNTAIN I TOO in Arcadia was — how many months ago? Time has woven new mystery, beauty is faded now ; The hours like the jets of fountains upwards and outwards flow. Then all the birds sang daylong, making a merry carouse ; Now a late bird cries plaintively from sighing and sobbing boughs. Then the fountain sparkled with jewels : now no more the water flows. Then I was young : there was dancing and sing- ing, too, in my heart. Now I am old and silent : I voyage alone and apart. Towards midwinter sunset, through chill dead leaves of art. My song is as vain as the wind is : but Nature, for my sake. Will bury me deep in the frozen earth, where I may never wake By unfinished marble fountains that Time has forgotten to take. G 2 I02 TWO DAYS AT VERSAILLES V. VOICES OF AUTUMN The rain spattered the pond, The wind shook at the trees : But late, in the hours beyond, The sun came, bringing peace. Peace to the sodden walks, Peace to the shivering trees. Peace to the withered stalks ; Everywhere there was peace. AUTUMN EVENING 103 VI. AUTUMN EVENING It is the mclanclioly evening light, W^hicli slowly spills over dark russet trees That languidly lift their heavy leaves to tiie breeze And let them fall, ere downward whirls the night. It is the melancholy of my heart : Frozen to marble shapes half-glimpsed between A fountain's exquisite ecstasy of green. On terraces of trim rococo art. It is the melancholy of the earth : The bleak north wind that shatters the golden boughs, And brings upon the harvest frosty dearth, And leaves a ruin of the lofty house. I04 TWO DAYS AT VERSAILLES VIL FAREWELL TO VERSAILLES Farewell, O dim horizons of the past, Multitudinous mirages that could not last ! You were as white swans sailing through A basin's cool profound of blue. Or towers of white cloud blotted out Swiftly, by a storm rack's rout. Farewell, pursued but flying hours : I shall dream to-night beneath snow or flowers. Farewell, futility ! I may not tell To thee, alas ! my last farewell : Farewell, O alleys infinite. That drew outward this my sight. Farewell, chill winter winds that range. Sun-drunken summers, green and strange ; Farewell, you scarlet or opal hours : I shall dream to-nig^ht beneath snow or flowers. EPILOGUE 105 EPILOGUE TO •TWO DAYS AT VERSAILLES'^ My heart is like some sad capricious king Set in the midst of a revolted state, Who sees not where to turn, nor what may bring The morrow's news to fix uncertain fate. Pricked by suspense with maddening gadfly-sting, He sees his gardens growing desolate 'Neath autumn's chilly touch, which swift can bring Blood-lustre to the lips of leaves that late Hung in green wreaths, 'mid bracts of blossoming. He sees them : yet he still must hesitate Until his people, drunken with fury, spring Towards the throne: he hears their last 'too late,' And nevermore those gardens know that king. Louis XVI. left Versailles for the last time ou October 6, 1789. io6 EPILOGUE EPILOGUE TO 'THE BOOK OF NATURE' I SANG thee passionately many and many days, From where the winter, casting his grey shroud, Stepped forth in the shrill and maddening dance of the spring, Through the summer's stately tragical pomp- parade, To the autumn's smouldering waltz of colour whirled In melancholy fashion, through the air : I sang thee until winter came again With slow, restrained, stern, fixed, and measured steps Broken by bursts of despair. Yet still I sang : And carried my love of thee to many lands. Peak, vineyard, rock-bound northern coast, broad beach Streaming in sunlight ; barren and arid waste, Classical sea in moonlight tossed, have hearkened To my wild chanting ; yet they naught replied TO 'THE BOOK OF NATURE' 107 Nor offered thanks : for they knew, even as I, Their being, their sun, their darkness, was the reward. And now, for the last time, I look on that face From which I have gathered many marvellous dreams, Before which dreams are dreams and nothing more. Reality of all ! I cannot praise ; But I can obey thy word now plainly spoken : — ' Thou who from man's sick frailty towards me turned And gat from me stern strength : see, thou art man ! Turn back and sing to my receiving ears The folly of thy fellows, sky-sublime ; Their wisdom, which is basest folly : these Would I hear from thy lips, for thou art man ; Unchangeably created so, and ruled : If for no other purpose, then, that I May smile at thee, seeing thee fool complete, Perfect in every detail, highest art Of vanity, before which naught is vain.' December n, 1912. Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press inner ttst 3h I oj iuw^j v: t»- .uj in tt) 3Kr&<78tD:"Q:!nK aift I :>.F: -^I r>.wf^^ sstr n# L. Ml V » — SiUMltZihfcl """^-.yfvA ^.fc_ - 1 -j^ I