THE TREE OF LIFE * THE TREE OF LIFE BY JOHN GOULD FLETCHER " And the tree of life was in the midst of the garden " LONDON CHATTO & WINDUS 1918 T* To MY WIFE 520173 CONTENTS PAGE PRELUDES 9 BOOK I. THE ASTER FLOWER 13 \ MEMORY: THE WALK ON THE BEACH 14 * THE WALK IN THE GARDEN 1 6 THE ASTER FLOWER 1 8 AUTUMNAL CLOUDS IQ NIGHT SONG 21 NIGHT SONG 22 THREE NIGHTS 23 -THE DAHLIAS 25 THE CONFLICT 26 THE ORDEAL 27 THE VISION 28 THE CONQUEST 2Q FAITH 30 THE SILENCE 31 AFTER PARTING 32 REUNION 33 BOOK II. FRUIT OF FLAME 35 THE VOYAGE 36 ~ ON THE BEACH 38 THE SECOND WALK IN THE GARDEN 40 IN THE OPEN AIR 44 IN THE HOUSE 46 ON THE VERANDAH 47 THE PARTING 49 AFTER 52 IN THE GARDEN OF DREAMS 53 . THE EMPTY HOUSE 55 THE OFFERING 56 THE RETURN TO LIFE 58 vii t AGE BOOK III. FROM EMPTY DAYS 59 PART I. THE TREE OF LIFE 60 PART II. ALONE IN THE GARDEN 64 PART III. LOVE AND DEATH 68 PART IV. THE EMPTY DAYS 7 2 PART V. THE LAST BATTLE 77 BOOK IV. DREAMS IN THE NIGHT 83 THE COMING OF NIGHT 84 THE NEW LIFE 87 THE SKY-GARDEN 88 THE ONSET 89 THE CRISIS 9 1 FAILURE 92 DISUNION 93 THE NIGHT OF RENUNCIATION 95 IN MEMORY OF A NIGHT 9& EPILOGUE I QI BOOK V. TOWARDS THE DARKNESS 103 FALLING LEAVES I4 AUTUMN SUNSET I5 EBB-TIDE IQ 6 THE WALK IN THE CITY IO8 THE EVERLASTING .FLOWER HO SONG OF PARTING IXI SECOND SONG OF PARTING 1 12 NOVEMBER DAYS 1 13 THREE NIGHTS 1 15 THE LAST COALS Il8 TIME S HARVEST H9 THE FINAL DOUBT I2O REUNION 121 POSTLUDES 123 EPILOGUE 125 K| viii PRELUDES STROPHE night wind stirred uneasily in the black boughs ; And as I listened to it, I knew all the sorrows of the world Were creeping into my heart. Seven great sorrows : Sorrow of hunger, Sorrow of seeking, Sorrow of parting, Sorrow of remembering, Sorrow of old age, Sorrow of darkness. And as each came I saw the old years grinning at me ; So I clenched my fists, And ground my teeth, And waited Till they had all entered. Then I shut my heart on them ; And I laughed, Laughed, For I knew there was no more sorrow for me in the world. ANTISTROPHE The rain beat steadily in the street, midnight had long since passed, And as I walked along, Weary and wishing for sleep, I heard seven great joys Suddenly laugh tumultuously in the cavernous night : 10 Joy of being, 07 of achieving, oy of loving desperately, oy of giving oneself utterly to trie last ; oy of knowing fully one must face a final struggle, ^ oy of completion, Joy of death. But when I tried to run away from these terrible joys, I was taken And was burned in the braziers of love that the night might be less dark. Yet all the while I danced and sang, Because my sorrows were dead and because joy filled my heart. EPODE The clouds and the winds of the night fled silently away before dawn That uprose Clear and confidently smiling, upon her forehead a star. She came to be for ever and ever Sorrow and joy to me and to all other men Sorrow and joy. }oy in the day and sorrow in the night, oy in the dusk and sorrow in the dawn, Joy of love and battle, Sorrow of weariness and desire ; A shadow at noon and a red torch in the twilight, For ever and for ever sorrow and joy. Joy took the hands of sorrow : sorrow kissed the brow of joy : II Joy taught old sorrow laughter : sorrow wiped joy s tears away : Joy died to make sorrow happy : out of sorrow was born new joy. I watched them for ever and ever for life and death were now past, For life and death were grown one to me, and that one was sorrow and joy. My sorrow and joy were united : and out of them all love took flight. 12 BOOK I THE ASTER FLOWER MEMORY : THE WALK ON THE BEACH evening, blue, voluptuous, of June JL Settled slowly on the beach with pulsating wings, Like a sea-gull come to rest : far, far-off twinkled Gold lights from the towers of a city and a passing ship. The dark sea rolled its body at the end of the beach, The warm soft beach which it was too tired to climb, And we two walked together there Arm in arm, having nothing in our souls but love. Your face shaded by the hat looked up at me ; Your pale face framed in the dark gold of your hair, Your face with its dumb unforgettable look in the eyes, A look I have only once seen, that I shall see never again. Our steps were lost on the long vast carpet of sand, Our souls were lost in the sky where the stars came out ; Our bodies clung together : time was not. Love came and passed : our lives were cleaned and changed. The winter will spill upon us soon its dark cruse laden with rain, Time has broken our moorings ; we have drifted apart ; love is done. I can only dream in the long still nights that we rest heart to heart, I can only wake to the knowledge that my love is lost and won. H We were as two weak swallows, together to south ward set, Blown apart, vainly crying to each other while at strife with the seas. We go out in the darkness ; we speak but in memories ; But I have never forgotten and I shall never forget. THE WALK IN THE GARDEN STILL and windless was the day, The great green trees dreamed and gloomed And drooped over each alleyway Silent cascades of weary leaves ; They yellowed slowly, Some of them blazed like orange suns. The asters, violet and melancholy, Would have dropt their petals had breezes come. Aloft in the sky Drowsily rode Toppling peaks, autumnal cloud ; Cream-coloured snow dissolving Into chill chasms of blue. On through the sky We watched them go, How we wished we could climb their glistening sides And rest on their summits together ! Hand in hand We went all day, For us was every flower a love- token ; Every tree a shower of jewels for you, Every cloud a column of hope for me. Every shadow a kiss, Every sunbeam a joy, And the sunlight flowed over and through us Like a sea of golden dust washing two rocks The sun threw over us Carelessly his beauty. 16 You were I and I was you ; We were one together : Wherever we went there was love for us, Flowers and sunlight. Yet there were spies and bonds on our love, To snatch kisses from our hands, To steal our joy, In the melancholy splendour Of the autumnal garden Under the distant trees. Still and windless was the day, The great dark trees stood waiting ; Drooping their heavy-barked shoulders Beneath the burden of yellow leaves. In the afternoon a vast cloud rose, And brandished his lightning- whip once over us : A flash and a clang, While the rain s song hummed through the air. The shower passed, The west blazed as if it had received the kiss of darkness. Then all too soon it grew to dusk ; Time was not time and life were a dream A dream of the light that woke in your eyes, A dream of the joy that sang in my heart ; A dream of the autumnal garden. When the dusk came, our two souls flitted Outwards for ever and ever together : Wfe did not heed the chill blue darkness, For the night had no more power over us/ THE ASTER FLOWER PALE on its stalk, the aster flower Exhales its beauty to the night ; The dry leaves scatter on the grass, Brown flecks on bits of jade. The haze of autumn hides the trees, To-night shall be turned the hour-glass of my life ; Now all my thoughts going homewards In the distance are singing songs of you. Purple and gold, the aster flower Is an image of my autumnal love : Its golden centre is like a torch To kindle joy in trie long still night, A torch of love with violet rays, Grief at its enigmatic heart : Frail clustered flower of my dreams, You shall bloom to-night, you shall bloom to-night ! The city is like an aster flower, Out of the city I come to you, Out of the purple heart of the night, Swifter than song, lighter than light. Purple and gold, my aster flower, I am the wind of the autumn night : I look in your eyes, you breathe my breath, We rest together till dawn has come. 18 AUTUMNAL CLOUDS A UTUMNAL clouds, /~\ Giant sheers of sunlight ! In the evening poise your vaporous pinnacles Above the low horizon of October plains And wait there until morning. Then leap forward, O hollow-flanked hounds of the sky, Upon your prey, and bite it in red joy ! Long have I searched for you, O clouds of change, Tiger-striped clouds that in the sunset Open your scarlet mouths and clash your teeth of flame ! Long have I expected you, O clouds, to spit your rain Upon the trees bored with too long a blossoming, Sending showers of sodden leaves reeling upon the grass, To lie there like fallen kisses. Autumnal clouds, Giant gods of sunset ! See, beneath you, gardens full of hollow voices Of passion crying wearily for each other ; See, beneath you, lakes like blue eyes where in mist The somnolent trees cover hidden whispers of love ; See, beneath you, white swans diving and flashing Like dreams of hands that meet and clasp and part from each other. Come shake the woods and fill its trees with voices Menacing and full of evil ; You shall not destroy this one immortal heart Which I pour out to you, autumnal clouds, To you and to the winter that shall be. Soon shall I see you now, magnificent clouds, Move rank on rank in armour of pearl and gold Across the noisy earth shaken with tempest ! Soon shall your batteries break upon my heart, Where it waits calm, wrapt in a dream of peace. Amid the city hurling its towers at the sky. Soon shall I hear your feet upon the roof-tops ; Soon shall I see your hands beat at the windows ; Soon shall your gVeat arms clasp me ; I shall die ; Die in a dream which cannot be of the earth. Autumnal clouds, Look ! far there in the sunlight ! The glory floods you now, I see you plainly : You are no more clouds to me, you are a woman, White and rosy and gold and blue and beautiful. You move across the sky, the dusk is at your feet, The night is in your arms, the moon is on your breast, The stars are in your eyes, the dawn is on your hair. Drench me, drown me, darken me, make me drunken with deep red torrents of joy, Till I forget all things in the world but this, The glory of God everlasting, the fire of passion and death. 20 NIGHT SONG ASK me no more but love, See, the west is all roses ! Darkness comes down from above ; No more the hour closes ; Ask me no more but love, I have no other might. Sun of my dusk, dream of my dawn, I come to you Sure as the stars to-night ! 21 NIGHT SONG v \ * I ^HE white stars over the city ride, JL And in this plunging bus I too Ride on with them I wish that you Were sitting here, here at my side. The houses hunched about the street Leap back, make way for this red horse That snorting, puffs along his course ; To-morrow, we again may meet. There is a magic jolt and hiss : Strange beings enter, sit, and stare. I scarcely know that they are there. To you and to the stars, this kiss ! 22 THREE NIGHTS . K I DEAR Love, I can only stretch out useless arms Desiring you, I can only writhe and toss in sleeplessness While you are far away. I can only cry to you in the long, long night ; You are not there. I can only dream that we are walking together, I waken soon from that dream. Dear one, dear marvellous woman of pale gold, I cannot give you aught : And yet I feel your dauntless love about me Filling my night. Dear one, come rock my tired brain to sleep, Let me not think Of the cruelty, the bitterness, the scorn Which are all that I have given you to-night ; Of the shame, the suffering, and the dearth of love, Which I some day must give and you must take. II O, you are too strong for me, you shame me quite, Whatever I have done has been overpaid By you : love halts and is dismayed Before your love s triumphant force and right. I am blinded, I am weak, sad, hurt, afraid, O love, keep back some little love for me, For I come, yes I come, though fearfully, Groping and halting ; stumbling and dismayed. 23 My love, now let your hair like a great sun Blaze on my heart now let us rest as one. Heeding not the chill night, nor its mystery, Nor what has been, nor is, nor what may be. Ill I cannot struggle with you now, Nor with myself, For we are one. I am yours utterly, You are mine : We lie together In God s hand. You can only give me All of yourself, even to death ; I can only give you All of my soul, my strength, my love ; We can only give each other, Give and take love to the last. 24 THE DAHLIAS SCARLET and green, the dahlias Topple over in their beds ; The rains of autumn pound their heads. I am the rain that falls Regardless, Wishing to perish In you. + And you are a scarlet dahlia Holding your crushed and bleeding mouth Up to the rain That laughs at your pain. THE CONFLICT I HAVE fled away into deserts, I have hidden myself from you, Lo, you always at my side ! I cannot shake myself free. In the evening stillness With your cold eyes you sit watching, Longing, hungering still for me ; I will open my heart and give you All my blood, at last. 26 THE ORDEAL I HAVE humbled my proud soul into the dust for your sake, Give me my soul again ! In torment and in suffering I have pressed from me my soul, Give me my soul again ! My travail and my anguish have not been as the travail of women, But a self-consuming annihilation : Give me my soul again. Ah, now you give me my soul again, You give, you give utterly, My soul transformed, exalted, made more perfect ; Filled with the love that is greater to-day than the love of yesterday. THE VISION TWO lovers sit together, About them crackles, flames, and rushes a glory of deathless light, Attracting all men s eyes to them ; Sending everyone away with a new joy at his heart. They do not heed it, they rest arm in arm, they are content : One in thought, one in being, one in impulse. Although death should tear them apart, or hatred, they are immortal : Between them is created dawn and darkness. 28 THE CONQUEST ALL things have I put away from me but love ; Life, death, honour, fortune, day and night ; Flames of fire, Dying day. The song that I sing is not mine now, the song of art. It is the echo of the everlasting song That is silent in my heart. All things have I put away from me but love, Love that comes and is forgotten, that is born and that dies anew : Love that perfectly expresses itself, Love that is nothing and that is all things to me. All things have I put away from me but love. Love comes unbidden and gives me everything : Life and the dream of life that still can conquer death. FAITH THE dark clouds gather around my path, they bar me in every way, Every way but westward, where is the great sun s death ; But I do not fear those great dark clouds, nor the tragic death of a day, My heart beats fully and steadily, faith is new-born with each breath ; Faith in that part of me which was not mine, which was given to me to use, Which shall live on though all the suns fall dead into the night ; Faith in a love which rules all things : for though I fall and lose, I shall live on for ever, for I have held with the light. THE SILENCE THE silence that I hear is more than words ; The silence that I breathe is more than thought ; The silence that I know is more than life ; It is a silence of all silences. For ever and ever, to eternity It goes, and I go with it, well content. AFTER PARTING WERE the last kiss not bitter, The first would have been less sweet ; Were the last word not broken, The first would not have been glad. Had love not taken us apart, He never "would have brought us together ; Had there been no sorrow, There would have been less joy. There is nothing on earth beyond the power of Love, He is the greatest of Gods for ever and ever, A beacon troubling the hearts of audacious seamen, A shadow falling on souls of those scorched with the noonday. And though he has taken us apart for an endless season, Never forget that we have loved and suffered, Never forget I shall always be the same. REUNION NIGHT after night I always come to you, Darkness and distance do not ever divide us ; Nor the rainstorms nor bleak hills nor seas nor lightnings : We lie together always until dawn, Cheerfully, joyously, taking love from each other, Naked as truth are our souls, Our bodies are naked and pure. I enter into your house without knocking, With a smile you always greet me : I know well you are all the world to me, You know well I am all the world to We know well we are together, Love made us one hate cannot ever change us. We have not parted and we shall not part. Night after night I always come to you, For I have given to you my soul to cherish ; It is lost in you like a ship in the immense ocean. You are the star to which my course is pointed, You are the port to which my prow is lifted, You are the beacon of my nights, the sun of my lone dayspring, For my soul is safe with you unto eternity, You will look after it you will not let it stray aside. Only to come and take of my soul from your lips, That is all I need and I come surely ; I shall be with you night on night for always : You too will always see your soul in my own eyes. 33 c You will run towards me on glad feet, smiling, I know you are coming with the lamp, my darling ; Night after night I shall visit you for always : And in this knowledge I can rest content. 34 BOOK II FRUIT OF FLAME THE VOYAGE WE have no longer will to be Evil or good, kind or unkind ; Love grips and binds us terribly, To be together, of one mind : Till all the red-gold summer long, Drifts by in one wild crash of song ; Till autumn s brown and purple coast, Finds us with mastheads broken, lost. Here is no sea unguessed by us, No cool horizon unattained ; Through the troughed breakers, glorious, Our course is bent, our sails are strained. Noon clasps the morning drowsily ; Proud afternoon, light-footed, gay, Dances to evening ere we see How brief, how vain has been our day. What shoals, what sunless gulfs beneath May lie, we know not. Till the breath Of God that blows us to our port Is slacked, we go on. Tis our sport And tis our toil. Love never fails. And as the breeze kisses the sails, So do I kiss you till at last We dare forget all dangers past. We have no longer will to be Too full of hope, too high of heart ; We crowd to each convulsively Till broken, stunned, we fall apart. 36 Yet sometimes lightning flicks and flares, And sometimes storms break over our rest, And sometimes suddenly from each breast, Peep forth unbidden, old despairs. Yet I have known the best of you ; And you have known the best of me : What matter, then, if this old sea Cast us together with no clue ? What matter, then, if some grey sun Find me alone, no white sail blent With my horizon ? I have known What tis to live, I am content. 37 ON THE BEACH WE lay together on the beach, About us wavered and drifted the glittering stream of life : The furious energy of childhood, The mad assaults of lovers, The tedious cares and worries of middle age, The shock, and the final darkness. And the sea rose and fell all about us, Grey water upon grey water, Darkly punctuating our utterance With its bleak menace of death. I am a ship departing ; Long farewells on the horizon : A tall dark ship Feeling in its inmost fibres the wash of the sea. And you are a weed on the beaches, Or a strange beautiful sea-creature, Pink and blue, dying Because I am so far away. The haze drifts about on the sea ; And the islands that rose in the morning, Headland beyond white headland, Are swallowed up i.n the afternoon. Yet there seems floating near me Something blue in the vast grey stillness ; And a lace handkerchief of white foam Held close in a pale still hand. Wi.th the blue glint of a diamond The sun strikes upon the water ; 38 Enkindling me, summoning me To happiness and to despair ; To strange calm sorrows, And to joys passing away with wet eyes. Rings and dapples of foam Seem washing over my heart, And on my lips are the salt lips of the sea 39 THE SECOND WALK IN THE GARDEN WHEN we entered into the eastern gate, Like a wall of flame Pink peach-blossoms ran to the gate to welcome us, With the bright blue speedwell underneath. Like white doves clustered, Great flowers dreamed in the grass ; And daffodils shook out yellow bells All over the lawns for me. Such was our garden : Our garden made perfect and new in the spring, When the last cloud had vanished. We entered into it the same yet altered, With the knowledge of suffering dark in our hearts, And with hands a little more weary. We went into it together, And saw the-flowers and spoke no word But turned reluctantly homewards ; Yet it was as the promise of new life to us, Or like the breath of a faint perfume Stolen into the emptiness Of the unclouded sky. Beyond the eastern gate there was a fountain, Casting its scarf of white spray up in the air Amid the evergreen trees. The wind struck it and it fell Clashing Hither and thither ; And as it swayed, there came A broad rainbow band of colour 40 Vibrating downwards : Crimson, our passion s waking ; Orange, its autumn sunset ; Golden, the new dawn that came for us ; Green, the returning spring-tide ; Blue, the fair dream of a rainy summer ; Deep blue, an autumn sky at evening ; Violet, a regal death. And beyond the pool of the fountain There was thick heavy rain of plum-blossom, Like millions of red kisses scattered On the grasses for you and for me. Such was the garden of our dreams, But there was another garden yet for us, An inner garden we had never entered, Held close in pale, crystalline walls : Whereto the sun piercing Made a cool mellow reflection of itself, Diffused as through dark blue water. There was not either day or night for us, But only afternoon in midsummer, And there always blossomed Trees holding torches of scarlet flame, Whorls of crimson bloom Emerging from glossy-green leaves ; Vast evergreen boughs That puffed out violet trumpets to us ; And towers of verdure Crackling with unreal white stars. It was as the promise of new life to us From some mountainous Eastern region Which has been hidden for ever since the first of all earth s dawns. 4 1 We went back to the eastern gate, Through an avenue of live-oaks ; Where here and there a far cedar jutted out against the sky, In dark blue remembrance Of some impossible dream Far in the past, and of gardens beyond our desire. Then from the garden far away we journeyed, Breaking our vision with clamour, With the tedious jangle and tumult of another life : Once more, and for love s sake only, We bound ourselves in slavery To the wearisome necessities of our day. Yet did the vague garden remain in our souls, Despite the too noisy high-roads Whose dust we had to trample ; Despite the fetid prisons In which we bound ourselves day and night ; Despite the great black silence Of motionless boughs towards evening ; Despite the pale stars glimmering Far beyond our longing and our despair. And it was as a promise of new life to us When the darkness gathered over the roof-tops, And the last glimmer of sunlight died far away in the west. For all the night long there were dreams, Moon-gardens filled with great white flowers, Moon-terraces swimming in still grey mist, Whereon the stars sparkled in bare branches. Millions of pallid fountains Swirled and fell mid the cry of the nightingales ; And out of the darkness rising, 4-2 Slowly stept forth some perfect tree Offering marvellous silver and gold foliage to us : Like the promise of a new life, When we had slept arid dreamed our last sad dream, And all our kisses had fallen into darkness ; A promise of new joy, When the morning stars sang together from heaven s golden battlements, And all the desirable earth lay new made in the dawn. 43 IN THE OPEN AIR IT is only in the open air That our love can be given to us : We must be free each instant, And over our heads see the sky. The roystering cry of the vagabond wind Wakens the gipsy song in our hearts, The sun on the black horizon Is the camp-fire at which we may sleep. I am the wind, And you are the slender birch for me ; Over the hilltops I shall seek you, You will wait drooping at last. You caress me with eager fingers, I breathe into your entangled boughs : In the sunlight we laugh together, And breathe side by side in the night. Golden clouds we have seen racing Full-bellied up the blue waveless sky, All of our hearts have soared on to them Like skylarks striving in flight. We have taken the old green earth For our great lawless adventure, And seen in the white- thorn blossoming The pale smile of the Crucified. It is only in the open air -That our love may be given to us ; No house may for long time hold us, Love does not dwell in houses. 44 Freely over the pathless earth Rove our two hearts together Joy and song in the morning, At nightfall kisses and sleep. 45 IN THE HOUSE AT the windows the storm beats, hoarse, In the grate there glows one flame ; One flame of ours to mock the force Of the wind s raging, bleak, insane. The poor weak love from out our hearts Leaps, like a red flame, into night ; It yet shall make the earth alight Ere death approaches, life departs. Spite shock and storm and the last blow, In you I wake, in you I sleep ; Our two hearts answer, deep to deep ; From night to dawn at last we go. ON THE VERANDAH LARKSPUR ; windy July ; Trees riding up from the south ward, Green waves frozen before they fell, Shattered with grey rifts of light : Flickering in amber sunbeams, Glinting with gold as the sunset passed, We sat together and saw them change, And in our hearts was peace. In calm and opulent terraces The sky unrolled ribbed cloud for us ; Marble-veined azure, peacefully walled. Two and two went the grave white angels Smiling and sometimes speaking to us : The lower ones brooding in shadow, The upper ones romping in sunlight Where like white ladders the light ran up From the cellars to upper balconies, Where with wind-blown daisies frail gardens bloomed in mid-air. We watched them from the verandah, Sitting together, you holding my hand ; The wind flapped the heavy bough-curtains, And all our thoughts were at rest. We were not troubled with anything, We knew that this day was made for us, We knew that new days would come in time, The future and the past were now one. Long we watched dark swallows hovering Swift up the wind-waves of the sky, 47 Fluttering, soaring, and calling, Wheeling like well-ordered oarsmen. They passed through the sunpool washing the trees, Rippling with warm heat over the world, Caressing and changing the final faint clouds, Before they receded to rest. Evening bells sounded hollow, forlorn, Out of a valley wreathed in white mist ; It was the time you must quit my side. You went without pain or regret. Such a perfect understanding ruled over our hearts, That, parting, I felt that you still held my hand ; For all of my life was known by you In such serene comprehensive surrender, That I slept every night with no false dreams to mar my sleep. THE PARTING DARKNESS, and a multitude Assembled in the darkness ; Chaos of flickering torches Melted down to one seething fire, Tumult of hollow voices Trailing down to one last wild cry ; Strata of vast black clouds Blotting out earth and its beings from sight ; Hissing lashes of uncoiled rain, Thunder leaping hot from the darkness. We are parting, parting forever : We can never meet again, never, never, never ; Through bloody struggle must our hearts, once joined, now sever : We are parting, parting forever. I questioned the wild white summit, " Heard you her voice ?" All I got for my answer was the swallow s wild cries descending Into the foldings of the overbhadowed hills : I looked in the dust of the long road for print of her footstep, But I only saw the shaking grass by the roadside, And the tiny quivers of heat as the wind settled down into silence : I dreamed in the wind-beaten inn of a perfume of summer, But I woke to the presence of stale pipes reeking about me, 49 D And the odours of greasy plates carelessly slipped off to the kitchen : I sought over the whole wide world for traces of her presence, And the whole world rejected me, its outlaw, its castaway. Sunlight and a terrible throng Assembled in the sunlight : Giants glittering in steel mail, Peak upon peak quick- towering Full-armed, around my horizon, Watching me with lowering brows. I looked on them all and I knew that death there was waiting, Chill helpless death with the wind whipping snow in my face, And I knew too I could not even say one good-bye at the last, For all that I had was shrouded in death s long white hair. We were parted, parted forever, We could never meet again, never, never, never ; Not one little instant could we kiss and then dissever, We were parted, parted forever. Day and darkness, day and night, I have sought for what I might never find ; The sunlight tossed glints of gold just to mock me, When I seized it, I found it was only dust. The wind threw me furtive kisses, Which soon turned bitter and salt on my lips. 50 The pine boughs wove a green house for me, But the glow on its hearth was from wet rotted leaves. Now we are parted. Love forever Has made us one. Death must our whole love sever. In the dawn-glimmer, in the twilight, one for ever Walks by my side I see her not no, never, never, never. As the leaf that falls at midsummer, As the flower that closes with sunset, As the whisper of rain in the midnight, As the candle that is put out before dawn, So does your memory abide with me. It is a feeble glimmer of light, known of no one, in a dark chamber, I watch it in agony growing ever dimmer and fainter, While the sound of your footsteps echoes down the long corridors, dying to silence. AFTER I AM here at your grave, At your grave I am here. They have buried you, my dear, Buried and hidden you away in the darkness. At your grave I am here, I have nothing left. Not a tear. I have neither hope nor fear ; Let the world slide away into darkness. I am here at your grave, At your grave I am here. I have failed you, my dear, The flowers I wanted to bring you are all broken. There is nothing left to me now ; Not a sob nor a tear. Desolate I am here, And the trembling chords of my heart are all broken, I am here at your grave, At your grave I am here. You have not forgotten me, my dear, Though you lie all hidden away in the darkness. There is one flower left for me : In the wet Spring it is blooming on your grave, On your grave. It is here. And the rest is long lost in the darkness. IN THE GARDEN OF DREAMS I WANDERED in the garden of my dreams : Magnolias shook out waxen petals that burst Against the glittering upthrust of strong green leaves. There were glassy glaucous pools of green-blue water, And columned poplars broken in the sky ; And in the midst a sarcophagus, A rosy and golden sarcophagus, A tomb of marble and bronze for us To watch the swallows fly. Heroes and warriors in armour Guarded our solemn rest. There we lay together safely, Stone breast against stone breast ; Griffins with clutching paws Lifted their beaks on high ; And in the midst a sarcophagus, An impenetrable sarcophagus, A tomb aloof, alone, for us To watch the swallows fly. I see sometimes sunlight flecking The warm curves of your breast ; But you never turn to me with a smile, And say, " Dear one, how do you rest ?" The magnolias drop cupped waxen petals Against the breeze, with a sigh : And in the midst is a sarcophagus, A golden, cold sarcophagus, A lofty forgotten tomb for us To watch the swallows fly. 53 At night the stars like great white swans Swim lazily overhead ; The guardians, weary of endless dawns, Droop each a heavy head ; The bat flits amid the cypresses, But we sleep deep on high ; And we are safe in our sarcophagus, Our deep pale-grey sarcophagus, Our tomb in the twilight made for us, To watch, till the swallows fly. 54 THE EMPTY HOUSE I HAVE come back like a thief, silently, To my house which is locked and dumb. Up the portico crawls the ivy, There is no one at all at home. Only the grating cry of a lock, And the wind scurrying and sidling near, Only the intimate eager oppression Of some one wanting to speak to me. I have looked out of the self-same windows, But they seemed to be trying to be dull to my eyes ; I have seen people passing up and down the long streets, But they seemed not to notice my house here at all. Was this a dream-house ? Or was I the dream ? Wind and the dancing sunlight gave no answer. I only knew that I was abandoned, Betrayed by these back-shrinking walls. I have come back like a thief, silently, To my home. But I dare not go up the stairs just yet, For fear that in some room I will find someone stiff and ghastly Under a sheet ; I will sit at the stair-head and wait, Till a ghost, in the twilight, Looks out at me. THE OFFERING IT was when the autumn shook its heavy haze- curtains about us, (Dead leaves, dry leaves) It was when the evenings were silent and their shadows came quick and easy, That we walked in the garden together. The autumn breeze lifted the fringes of its temple- brocades with a whisper ; And summoned us in to its secret. No leaf fell from the mournful and shadow-clogged tree- tops, No wild birds woke with a cry. A cluster of sweet fresh violets Gathered from cool spring valleys, I lay on that autumn s grave. Solitude and darkness Have drawn over me deep curtains And in their folds I can sleep. It was in the evening pent evening of passion and sorrow (Dead leaves, dry leaves) It was when the swollen rain-clouds waited upon the horizon, That we parted from each other at last. I found myself alone in that garden, Dull mist hid the blurred tree- tops ; In the dim lake a heron slowly fluttered. All my bitter secret forebodings Rose and plucked me at the heart. 56 In dew-sprent sprays of heather Wherein wild bees have murmured, I gather you to my breast. Beyond morose black headlands I know grim seas are calling, My time is up I must go. It was when the autumn drew its purple dream- curtains together, (Dead leaves, dry leaves) It was when the year turned seaward, like a great silent river proceeding, That my memories returned to me. Dark troops of memory, Drear rain dashing against spent boughs, It was in the autumn, in the evening, That the clouds closed about my life. A lonely violet aster With heart of smouldering pollen I press into your hand. I have nothing more to offer but this, This and the mad and secret Love you have taken from me. 5? THE RETURN TO LIFE WE lay on the beach again together, We who had passed through so many sunless hours With clutched hands, impotently striving For a happiness unattainable in this world ; Having leapt from the white peaks of longing, Having shot the green rapids of passion, Having swept down the broad stream boiling and curdling About our bannered prows day after day, Having come to the sluggish deltas of parting, And from thence having found the open sea, All land departed and the scream of the gulls in our ears ; We came at last to that lonely beach And lay down on it, together, saying no word, Having lost all desire but for sunlight, And the clash of the breakers boiling up on the white cliff above us. BOOK III FROM EMPTY DAYS PART I. THE TREE OF LIFE I I " HE paper lies on my desk, J[ The ink invites me to write on it : Only to write and rest, That is all I require. But in the night Dreams will arise ; The dark pool of my heart is not empty, for all I have written, It is still troubled with sighs. No matter what I write, What fugitive shapes I try to make firm and death less ; What is my endless toil but dull syllables drumming Down the blue walls of time which echo them not ? No matter what I dream ; What strange new visions rise unsought in me, New love can never be the old love fallen, Which yesterday, secretly, my grey thoughts bore to the tomb. II Two loves lie buried In one sepulchre. The first was a man s fiery might of passion, That flowed and soon was quenched in sorrow s darkness. 60 The second was the trustfulness of a woman, That glowed in steady beauty Till the harsh feet of hatred trampled it in the dust. Between them, united, There sprouts a seed : Symbol of life they never attained. It grows a tree, A strong yew-tree, With changeless leaves. In the winter When all the other leaves have fallen, The tree of life, with bitter fruit, Like glowing drops of blood, marks love s forgotten tomb. Ill When I burned the letters that had come to me from far off, There arose in the air orange flame and violet smoke ; Like the passion that awoke in me of old and sang and crackled, Like the sorrow that strangled it and then ebbed away to death. A faint perfume stole out of the ashes, An incense-scent from purple wax that bore your dear hand s pressure, A breath of hope from Eden stealing into the winter, While the unwatched gates swung open and the tireless flame-sword slept. 61 And then joy and agony were mingled in me in tumult, A great troop of memories rose, blue wraiths, weeping and tearing their hair. They fled away again to you, I had no strength to follow, I turned and was shut again in the old grey cage of despair. IV White stars are shattered Against the cold colonnades ; There is a smell of spice that floats up from the garden. desolate night, That sees me here lonely and sorrowful, Barren as a tree in midwinter, Why do you mock me with fugitive hopes of love ? 1 have suffered too much already, Why should I suffer any longer ? Let the bitter, windless darkness Enter into my heart and take possession wholly, With a grim unsatisfied hunger, gnawing the loose cords of life. Yet some day my soul will strain at its anchorage, Some day the last cord will be loosened, And I shall pass, silently, Shaking my sails, to the mist-hidden depths of the sea. 62 Meanwhile, the night is very beautiful, With its tragic jewels scattered Beyond my frustrate ambition, above my broken desires ; Let me live constant, Cold and still as a star and distant, Knowing other lovers marvel at the bright immortal m Which I have wrested from death. White stars are shattered Against the cold colonnades ; Dark evergreen fronds in the garden Stir the graves of my memories. PART II. ALONE IN THE GARDEN I WHEN we are dead, and all our hopes are forgotten, Then we shall love again ; We shall be as two trees growing together In the sun and in the rain ; You a magnolia, pale and beautiful with flowers, But whose petals fade at a breath ; And I a sombre and unchanging cypress Whose shade is still as death. Many lovers in the evening will walk under our branches, But me they shall pick the most ; For the mangolia-buds are only beautiful when living, When dead they dry and rust ; But the pressed cypress still is green and fragrant, It withers not at all, And it shall bring back to their minds the last incredible instant Of a love beyond recall. Meanwhile we live apart, and so I send you Day after day, my memories ; Like the faint incense-breath that stirs and rustles Through the fretted cypress leaves. Into the tomb that is always cold and open Your petals fell apart ; And out of these my roots have drawn the fragrance That wells from out my heart. 11 I can recall That as we walked That last sad day, Beneath the clouds That stood and drooped and wept for us, We came to where Cedars were gathered In a multitude, Black columns about our pathway. And as we stood amid them, :i Look !" you cried, " this is the temple of love, And there is no fire on its altars !" I did not recall your words, nor know their meaning, Till we had long inevitably been parted, And I abode deathless in living death. Ill So glad would we be, Could we stand together Hand in hand Not speaking one word ; The clouds rolled apart, Our lives united, Eternal rest Within our hearts : But as it is you are like a ghost to me, Whose presence troubles me, but whom I cannot lose, Words, memories, warm caresses do not snare you, Why do you tempt me always, you grey dream ? 65 So bitter are we, Our prayers dissevered, Long hours of toil And no reward ; That could we rest No more apart, The grave might take us, And none complain. IV There is a song that has no beginning or ending Or tune, or words ; Echoes of it are heard On a deserted shore when the sun is descending, Or when upon some day of bluest midsummer The crickets chirp in the long grass alone, And men are all sleeping, then it goes like a burning Wave of sound to the sun. This song is like a fragment slipped from blue mountains of marble, Over which a sculptor long dreams : Seeing strange perfect things disengage themselves slowly, And then drift back again. Idly he lifts his chisel should he break it ? He stops and hesitates ; For the dreams that were his are vanished, un completed, He rests now, without fate. So let no one think there is beginning or ending Or change to this my book ; 66 It is all sunlight steadily and calmly reflected On the surface of a dark pool ; Everything in it has been said for so many millions of ages That it has no longer a past ; All is what flamed in me ; to-morrow, doubtless, From my dead heart to yours it will flame. PART III. LOVE AND DEATH I T \ THEN the body is refreshed, V \ When the brain is rested, When the scarlet and crimson dawn looks through the silence Of earth yet sleeping then the world seems new. And so it is I always come to you, After sweet sleep has blown along its porches Dark cloudy dreams and bubbles of dreams that break. You are the new-born love that is made for me, And once again to you I spread my pinions, And once again my aspirations break. When the body is weary, When the brain is empty, When the rusty, dusty west receives the sunset, Then all the earth welcomes enclosing night. And so it is I always long for you, And feel once more inseparably divided, When the stars like teardrops hang on night s cheeks, paling, And the moon opens to me a new- dug grave. When the body is dead, When light is fallen, When tears and memories are put away, Like flowers one can no more keep : 68 Then, only then, I shall return to you, A pale ghost whom you looked for very often ; And you will first think of me as a stranger, But after you will seek to touch my face. II On the breakwater where I stood last night, Questioning the soft velvety greyness of the ocean, I saw the new moon drop sadly into the darkness, The first moon of the New Year. Men wish when they see the new moon ; But I had no wish in my heart, I did not know what to desire for you. Oh, I wish that you were dead ; Peacefully and calmly sleeping Where none of the crosses of my love could burden you any more. Then this my life would become A violent flame downswirling, And into hell at last it would break, Because you could not abide. Oh, better to wish you life, Strength, courage to bear and suffer, Wave upon wave, cold waters of separation, Chill merciless drifts of death. Then all your life must be A faint star reflecting itself, Half- muffled by the dull grey bitterness That grows over your soul ! Oh, I wish that we both could have new life ; That there beyond the stars, We still might come to be All love designed us one star at the full One night of moon and stars ; One new-made night the crescent of love above us, Under our feet full tide that buries speech. Ill Love is an illusion of illusions : A rainbow shape that is made By happiness descending into dark shade ; A reflection of the sun For those who are safe from its rays ; But when the light penetrates, triumphant, Love is done. Love is a harsh blazing torrent Breaking upon the black rocks ; In its agony and tumult of passion, Fretting away every day. Thousands of pilgrims go towards it, But it has no drink for their lips, At noon it is only a failing trickle, And at evening a dry glaring bed. 70 Love is a sorrow of sorrows, A grey frozen column of tears. It melts not, year after year : Inaccessible, carven in ice, Towards it no one strives ; But to those who see it in the distance, it is never forgotten, And for it they abandon their lives. IV Like a shadow that darts through the sunlight, Like wind that arises and settles, Waving and shaking green tapestries of leaves, So death moves nonchalantly Through the world, breaking the frail woof of love ; But soon all is made over, All is resettled, all grows changeless, Only a broken strand swings wide from the frame work s cross. 7 1 PART IV. THE EMPTY DAYS I ALONG the street In the afternoon, Dismally perched on a crazy cart That creaks and wobbles dolefully, With a starved white horse Between the shafts, Goes the giver of empty days. The while he goes he blows his horn. In the afternoon, Golden and blue, It bellows out Over the world, It swells unechoing, Toneless and void. But the people in the city scarcely stir to listen to it, They know that he has nothing to offer them at all ; They know that long ago, on some black-visaged instant, Their lives were crushed, their courage failed ; They have not even tears to weep at his slow passing, The towers of aspiring reach wearily beyond to silence, And between them and those towers there passes very slowly Only the image of another empty day. Along the street In the afternoon, Passes his shadow gaunt as death ; 72 As he sits above The shafts, and rocks His crazy head ; But it is not death he sells but days, Long days, unchanged ; grey, futile days. So no one buys from him any more, They would all rather have death instead. To me he has given love that has failed and fallen Into a soulless, cloudless depth of blue despair ; To me he too has offered A Dead-Sea husk of memory that burns and dries my throat ; The ashes of opportunity burnt out, of experience shattered, Drawn from the fires that once beat up and flared about me, Until my foot no longer kicked a blue glow from their stillness, Nor a single spark of warmth, nor a pang of misery. Along the street In the afternoon, Blowing his futile horn that tears an ache from my heart His trump of doom Jogging behind a sickly horse, And grinning at me, Goes the giver of empty days. II Lonely sea that stretches out millions of curled tossing breakers, To where my loved one waits ; 73 Sea untravelled, sea that awaits in silence, Open to me your gates ; Lend me your winds again that to the one I have not forgotten I may come and take a kiss ; Sea over which the light and shade fall evenly, Grant me this. Love has bound us together with scarlet threads of suffering, Death only will make us twain. Sea that has forgotten even the cause of its passion, Tell me again What white thing is that flitting out there in the distance, What broken white thing that seeks ? Cold sea gleaming beneath your drifting shadows, Why do you bare your teeth ? Lonely sea, forgotten, sailless in the morning, Under unblinking sky ; Sea where the night has stalked weeping and raging with passion, Into your dawn I fly ; Out over glittering cold inhuman distances, To the gate where the eas^jiisplays Its immense beauty of violet-shrouded silence, I go from my empty days. Ill The day when they brought the evil news to me, Was one great turquoise over which the sun 74 Threw a strange network of golden threads that glinted On the horizon, held in the cup of the sea ; And after the evil news was brought to me, I went out to the beach where in the wet The sun splashed coppery paints over the blue Curled ruffles of the wave that beat beneath. The horizon was hung in veils of violet haze ; They enclosed me from the one I sought apart. I should have stayed with her ah, the crape smoke Of my regrets that blew across the seas ! But I would come again a failing wave After the full- tide mark was left upon the shore ! I had no love, nor hope, nor joy, nor heart ; I only knew, dully, that all was dead ; I only knew, dully, that earth was fair ; I only knew, dully, my toil was lost. IV Quite patiently, Content to wait Without complaint ; I sit and watch the empty days. I am as one that is blinded By marching too long against the sun ; Seeking too lofty cities That are carven on its face. Oh, sun of mine, enter my burnt- out heart ; Kindle the altar-fires Death-flaming in the stillness Of those black, polished walls. 75 Quite patiently, Content to dream, Without a word I sit and watch the day grow noon. Out of the deep blue lake my memories rise ; They follow me beyond the rocky crest That swings up past the pines, Where in an empty temple Once long ago I stood with one Whom I may never meet again. Windflowers shatter in the quiet garden ; The asters break their stalks, The roses crumple, fall. Quite patiently Content with death ; Knowing I failed, I pass through afternoon which is a dream. Dim memories of the morning Stir and rustle in my heart ; Where is my day ? A bit of wreckage floated about the seas, For days on days ; I moulder at last on some sand-pit, unnoted, And about me settle thoughts, my pale-grey gulls, Quite patiently, Content to wait ; I sit and watch the evening star ^ Slide, one white tear, into the night. PART V. THE LAST BATTLE I MY heart is one shaken with wind and spray, From battling with the storms of love that rise in it, And leap and rend their way To the lighthouse, wrecked, unlit. My heart is one mad gale, With creamy frothing breakers That vein irregular blue. My heart is like high clouds That sometimes lift far mountain pinnacles, And sometimes sweep in one bleak smudgy tumult Over the sea. My heart is all one love ; It rages, suffers, laughs, and dances, It whirls back on itself, And still it leaps the higher Seeking death. II Up the rude western sea, Past the harsh mountain-crest, The horsemen in the west Go charging. Down the worn-out sea, Files of phantom cavalry, Stumbling horse and broken spear. Appear. 77 And the noise of the breakers is like the clamour of muddy hoofs galloping, As they go out to a battle without a name ; The sky grows darker as they whistle and scurry through it ; Death or life it does not matter they are the same. Ill ji My song is changing now ; its light is dying As some drear winter dusk athwart the trees ; Afar grey sleet across the sky is flying. Now darkness sweeps the world of memories. Alone, alone at last, by all forsaken, Everywhere sorrow, darkness everywhere ; I stand by the wind and the rain trampled and shaken, And lift to the empty sky my last despair. I thank You, O my God, for love s creation ; The flame that set my soul and flesh alight ;. The vaunt, the glory, and the exultation, That whirled me into everlasting night. L.thank You, O my God, for all You gave me ; For one strong arm stretched out in my control, When I was lost and not one thing could save me But love full-spent upon my worthless soul. I thank You, O my God, for my betraying, For that black stroke of death which brought me this, And hurled me back from happiness unstaying Into the last depths of the smeared abyss. 78 I thank You, O my God, for pains increasing, Till from my heart broke strangling sobs of song ; Which growing fainter, thinner, rapidly ceasing, The silence now will break the last ere long. Whelmed in my Hell with hope that wraps me, purely, I know in Hell that I must cry to You ; I thank You, O my God, that I know surely That nothing changes here, nor naught is new. Beyond the dreary plain, the black horizon ; It takes my sorrow as it takes my breath In frozen changelessness, that never dies on My life s aspiring thanks to You for death ! I that have offered song to the world s laughter, Have spent my strength why, no one understands ; Give pain and sin and all that followed after, My love, my life, my hope, into Your Hands. IV I had nothing but my love With which to face the world, But for this I was defenceless, A broken reed of song. You came and gave your part Of love to join with mine ; My strength has been more great Because you stood with me. Fate, sorrow, suffering, chance, Have drifted us far apart ; 79 Like a river of flame to seaward The sunset steadily pours ; Maybe you live and feel The selfsame pain as I, Maybe you sleep at last, Safe as beyond the stars. \ I have nothing but my love With which to face the world ; But for this I am defenceless, And ended is my song. But of all the love we held, And of all the love we lost, I have forgotten nothing, And nothing I regret. V As each of these lines was written, I knew all the while That no one would understand them or trouble to read them at all. The one to whom they were written was taken from me, And the others would frown or yawn Or turn back to their lives, unconscious of lost delight. Yet Love demanded That I hang these withered garlands In his abandoned temple ; That all my memories should glow of you ; Branches broken from gardens that are demolished, 80 Souvenirs from dusty attics, Jewels from hands that are still. The lovers of to-morrow will tear down all these fragments, And hang new glittering trophies Before the changeless shrine. But what I wrought will burn upon the altar, And make Love s godhead seem more great, across the cool blue smoke. These are my dreams, Silver and golden, Kisses at twilight, Chase in the noonday, Smiling, stark-naked. Now my dream-prison is broken, I go out into silence. You will remember the flame that beat back of these words, You will gather together the dreams that were lost in the silence. 81 BOOK IV DREAMS IN THE NIGHT THE COMING OF NIGHT THE night has come, and it has rolled over and over upon me, Blotting my. old life out ; Till sundered by walls of darkness, I stand detached and I see it Rise in dim shapes through the gloom. It is so unutterably perfect and beyond me That I am no longer part of it ; It is a glory lived by some fresh passionate spirit I once saw in my dreams. The trees spread their motionless branches, Covered from tip to tip with silent green growing leaves ; Over the lawns the moonlight Walks like a woman pursuing her reluctant lover. Black shadows and green flashes, The loneliness of night and the large seas of blue air; Until the dawn I shall not ever escape you, Till the day breaks you must abide with me. Silently and resistlessly I hear you creeping" Towards the moonlight that lies thick on the layers of leaves ; Silently your footstep Brushes by like a wind coming suddenly out of the darkness ; Silently your eyes flash Out of the silent depths of dark blue heavens ; And the deep perfume of the grass and of the trees growing in silence, Is nothing to me but the breath of your hair out spread. Silently out of the night, I lift my wings, I beat my wings : I am all love which is deathless, above the tomb. I am the leaf and the flower above the leaf ; Again and again, We meet, we part, we come together ; You stand by a bench one instant And I am holding your hand ; Down there in the lake the water ripples and tosses And the banks run laughing to the water : Now together in my study Arm in arm we lean out to the night, To the song of a bird^in the fresh awakening branches. Now we are still, For summer pours its heat cloud over us, And in its folds we sleep. Now when the autumn shakes her dry torch- embers Over the trees, We part with many tears, Bitter, black rain of sorrow eating into the earth. But we have met again to-night. The song is mine, the joy is mine ; Lo, all the earth is weaving leaves for us ; Leaves which are kisses and lives in one immortal night. O, I am weary, and IJfaint at last, The web of song and dreams is broken ; It spreads out over the world like a great sheet of smooth water. The moonlight has silvered its surface, But below its surface it is all blue and deathless ; A sea of love that stirs not, for it is infinite. In its unutterable stillness I know we sleep safe and calm to-night ; While all the world along, our love goes seeking, finding New lovers to rejoice, new sorrows to awaken, Until the dawn I shall not ever escape you ; Till the day breaks you must abide with me. 86 THE NEW LIFE TO-NIGHT on wings of the storm, old griefs assail me$ My blooms of desire are torn, they* shatter and fall. Rattling at my windows, roaring in black deafening torrents, Without there is nothing but the night s tem pestuous call. But the winds of the spring, battling against the dry leaden sky, bring to me, Flying afar from the storm, Your words, letters of love to give me comfort, To hold me to love s strength long gone. I am all yours, and I will stretch myself out upon you, Like the wind stretching itself out on the greening earth, And out of the fierce dry sorrow of my longing New life will come. : Fever has burnt out my heart now its last sparks are blown out to you, On the long winds leaping like greyhounds out of the seas. I lie on earth s hot breast, exhausted, panting, exultant, Breathing for ages those long dark torrents of rain Which you pour out upon me, in which I can sink at the last. THE SKY-GARDEN \\ /HILE the days are growing slowly to mid- V V summery days of flame, And the clouds like banks of pearl are blown into the sky, Sky of crystal, turquoise, glass ; When the horse-chestnut lights a hundred candles up against its pale green leaves, And the sky is floating out to sunset with a thousand clouds of flame, Into the sky then freed from mortal weight I pass. It is a garden full of lazy scents where peach-trees all day long Glow amid a turquoise stretch of hyacinths ashake, Reflecting cloudless skies amid their woven green ; And like a cloud they drift together ; through them pours the sun, Sprinkling its light upon them where they sleep, serene. And you are in that sky with me, a breeze-blown shape of cloud, By the side of dark blue lakes we stand and under the flaming trees We watch and wonder always that the earth is still so fair ; And we see the rivers winding out to sunset, golden- prowed, And your cool body is pressed to mine, and peace is everywhere. 88 THE ONSET r I ^HE trees droop their thin wiry tendril-like X boughs, Printing upon the evening the serrated black of their leaves ; The trees are motionless. Out over there the palaces of my dreams Are masses of fuming purple against the glowing banks of clouds Dying to faint rose in the low monotonous west. I know that I must wait I know that you are coming, Winging your way, swifter, far swifter than light ; A blue arrow threading The cold grey depths of burnt out sky. Now the trees seem waking ; one hears a low sifting and rustling, But yet the limbs do not stir ; Not one leaf of the multitude displaces itself ; They are printed blacker than ever against the vaguer gloom. My heart begins thumping and pounding, For I fear you, yes, unutterably I fear you : Love of the flesh is fearful ; how much more that of the spirit Which knocks at my door to-night ! Now a dim orange glow burns in my still palace of dreams. And the stars come out suddenly, and strive to hide themselves Amidst leaves which, seem to fall and crash upon With a loud clang of metal upon the pavements of t darkness. Back over the roof from eastward something white must be rising, For a greyish blue smoke from the terraces Suddenly waves upward to meet it. O, for the lightning blade that will suddenly thrust at my heart, And for the flood of love that will follow upon it ! 90 THE CRISIS THE leaves are so close to the window. That I cannot see the sky ; I can feel the thick dry air between their outstretched surfaces Pressing upon my heart ; I can feel the heavy boughs shooting upwards through the darkness ; Their weight almost stifles me, If I strive to shift them. Far downwards in the crumbled earth and the rocks below. Thin nerve-like roots Writhe about reaching for water-drops and coolness. I feel them pumping thin sap up to me, Bitter sweet sap of hope ; But far above where my eyes can never see them, The last loose daring leaves Wait for a wind of love that never comes. FAILURE YOU must be dead ; you do not come. The night is cold and bleak and dumb, Except for bells which solemnly Glide down like boulders into the sea. I can hear nothing more. Night has no shore. You must be dead ; you do not pass Between the tree- tops and the grass ; No glittering film from your wings has yet Brushed against those walls of jet. I can see nothing more. Night has no shore. You must be dead. Up from the ground Warm velvet shadows rise : no sound. The deep purple light of the sky is gone, In all the world I am alone. I feel my heart distant and low Pounding out : tick, tick, tick. I know I can feel no more. Night has no shore. 92 DISUNION I CAN see nothing. All around is darkness. I am at last alone. Night before last your face at the window Cried to me farewell, and the next night There was nothing but the grinding and the pounding, The roaring and soaring and rattling, Of wheels carrying me back over deserts, Out of which I came to dream of you. Far behind me now are those green gardens In which our words were fireflies glinting above the grass : Meeting and touching and parting, Returning to the darkness. Far away in the blue distance Ragged and superb rise up the palaces of my dreams : Their windows empty and eyeless, Their furniture torn and broken, Desecrated by the tramp of muddy boots and the gaping of multitudes. The golden chain you threw to me, Out over seas, has snapt at last. And I am now alone with the cold and silent night. Within this morbid palace, With lights and song and people regarding me coldly, I learn another dream : A dream of the man who dared to dream such dreams of joy and passion, 93 Who made of love an image and who worshipped it at night. And I see that man go stumbling Madly once more out to-night, Around his neck and loins the weight of a black sorrow, Living, eating in his flesh, Never to fall away from his bitter heart in death. I can see nothing. All around is darkness. The darkness waits for me, It is as lonely as I am : All hope dissolved, abandoned, My work of faith fallen into the seas that hid it. I watch the cold expectant darkness, Indifferently, not caring If it holds death or life for me. It is the same as it was a million years ago. One life the more or less, one heart-break what do they matter ? Without, in gold and orange lamps, Goes dancing madly by the dry-lipped sleepless night. 94 THE NIGHT OF RENUNCIATION THE night has come on which all my dreams are broken ; The night is here and when its darkness fills me, I shall be standing at the midway of my path and I shall see about me Upon one side the light, and on the other side darkness. The trees can go no higher, Their topmost boughs have reached midsummer glory : Love is complete, and unless it alter itself and vanish, There will be no flowers to spring next year from the sheltering earth. Night of renunciation night on which my strange dreams perish ; Night when no longer we can come to each other ; Night in which we have looked into the farthest depths of our souls, And have seen only silence and darkness ; Night of completion night on which the earth is breathless, While love sleeps on in dreamless sleep, helpless, his arrows broken ; Until the dawn I must watch patiently for you, Till the day breaks you too must wait for me. There is no wind in the silence ; Only the white stars patiently, feebly, Glimmering through the veil of heat that hides the motionless earth. There is no love now unaccomplished, 95 No sigh from any restless soul turning backward to the darkness, Only despair that divides and contentment full- completed. The sky burns up to a sheet of flame at sunset ; Hangs blue and falls As if all its force were finished. I am waiting for the dawn with its torch of autumn, To kindle the boughs and send racing the red drift of leaves. Night of renunciation sleepless, motionless Night when all the world is a dead weight hanging upon me, Of which incessantly I must despoil myself, for it grows with my darkness. Night of silence night in which I only dream of silence Night beyond the last farewell night in which we lie together But as two dead shapes lie in one tomb not stirring to touch each other. Night in which no syllable, look, or thought of love can help us, Night in which all time becomes a great wheel turning us captive : Until the dawn I must watch patiently for you, Till the day breaks you too must wait for me. Three times now, the torch of love Kindled, has burnt to ashes ; Three times has the coming autumn Proclaimed itself, through the shaking midsummer leaves. At first it was my own heart breaking, Out of which the flame departed : But the second torch, more beautiful, Caught its light from the dying embers. Then came that separation like your death, Out of which the last torch furiously Glowed and spluttered in the darkness ; Now the summer full-awaking, Lacking light, can only dream : Dream of fires that have faded, Till that dream itself is lost. Night of renunciation night of eternal darkness When shall we ever cross it, this great black river of silence, Which I feel rising and rising and enfolding close about us ? Something in me stirs very near to death, But greater than death, greater even than love ; Something beyond all hope, all joy, all passion, all sorrow, Something that silently moves me onward towards a perfect darkness : A force unknown, unnamed the strong will of the universe That bears me helplessly forward to new life or to death. Until the dawn I must watch patiently for you, Till the day breaks you too must wait for me. 97 IN MEMORY OF A NIGHT IT was an hour before the dawn, Barely a little hour before the dawn, Long ago ; The moon was a full-sailed frigate in the ashen bay of the sky, Swinging low, The moon was slipping out with the cargo of my dreams. I knew not if I waked or dreamed, nor cared to live or die. Flicker and lurch of the train, That tore me amain Out of the steep dense-clustered trees Into a valley walled with far light, Breakers of night Rising from buried seas. It was an hour before the dawn, Barely a little hour before the dawn, That we lay clasping each other and dreamed awake at the last ; Lip to eager lip and bodies pressing together, One warm shuddering caress but now all that is past : It is the dawn and I cannot rest, The night is a dry fire gnawing through my breast. A taxicab crashing Down long deserted streets : Files of light racing together to hurl themselves under the wheels ; The whole immense city tearing itself from me, Because in the distance I see Something that not even the city, nor seeking, nor my song reveals. It is an hour before the dawn ; One fleeting beautiful hour before the dawn When the noise of the city and the false acclamations of men fall away from me ; I stand on a cool wind-washed summit, Below me the whole green earth enkindles with ecstacy of light, The sun throws a kiss over dark chasms packed with sullen sleep- mists rolling together, And I hear the noise of far rain beating clamorous over the city, And its sound is the falling of folded centuries slowly unclosing and dropping away. In the midst of the city I builded, Amid soft lights and smiles and rich flowers assembled, My palace of dreams : There were feasts in my palace at evening and song and full welcome of friends, And new universes half hidden in the closing delights of a kiss ; But now is an end of all this, It is vanished like an old song that no one ends. Flicker and toss of the train, That tore me amain Back to cold darkness from the warm light ; We who have laughed at the night, 99 Lip to eager lip and bodies pressing together, Soft warm tremulous caresses of hand and of breast, In the day s lurid pageant of gold and blue, we shall seek, but shall not find, rest. It was an hour before the dawn, Barely a little hour before the dawn ; Long ago. Long ago the sunlight kissed me now I go as blind. Would that I could find If it was an empty dream, or was it as it seems ? The moon is rising high Out of the last bay of the eastern sky, With the cargo of my dreams. 100 EPILOGUE YEARS have passed over me, whirling their whiplashes of days, since last I have written these lines. Charioteers whooping, hallooing their red wheels a flash in the dust ; The screaming and the neighing of horses biting each other I did not heed, nor the dull echoes grinding and rumbling Far down the pavements of eternity. All these were nothing to me, But a shaking of torches out on the shores of the night ; Hissing sparks falling into the water wet hands struggling, falling, and a low cry Spreading out in great circles on stillness. Then the night closed down with its silence, While the years went on screaming and curling their whips, on to their dark goal overhead. There is no vision afloat in the boat of the night ; No ear ever hears Distant waves breaking sullenly upon some low craggy shore, Or tinkle of mandolines floating in harbours of dreams. Outwards the clouds stream Stretching out their dark necks and galloping, galloping forward, While adrift With the lamp long burnt out, and naught but the creak of the ropes 101 To mark each slow moment that gropes, Ebbing out faintly, like afterglow s glimmer long held in the arms of the west, We drift or we rest ; Youth having passed away, age slowly passing, and whither no soul of us knows : But love never shows, Through a rift in the west, Dreams of some harbour whose red lamps repose On the face of the waters, summoning our griefs to its breast. But when the Sons of the Morning shall blow their great golden trumpets, rending the red mist asunder, And the trees with their flame-leaves of emerald and scarlet shall leap out again at the sky, All our dead passion and sorrow shall break into flame in our hearts ; And the ashes thereof shall be strewn neath the feet of our God Who shall walk out of the firmament, taking each life to His breast ; And our souls like two flames irresistibly kindled, having burnt through the last walls of space, Shall shine in a circle of fire about His all-glorious Head, Who has ordered to sorrows an ending, and that Heaven and Earth be made new. 102 BOOK V TOWARDS THE DARKNESS FALLING LEAVES SUMMER comes to an end Swift, with a sudden gasp ; Over the hills there are trees. Pillars of cloudy fire. Into the sky, the clouds Southwards swing gold torches ; Fever flits through my brain, Dry winds and scurrying leaves. Autumn stirs in my heart ; Autumn the wind has blown Out of me memories, Broken fragments of song. In every leaf I can read Knowledge I would not heed ; Swirling leaves, yellow and red, Why do you fall and fall ? Time has gone by ; no recall ; Fall, for my hope is quite dead. 104 AUTUMN SUNSET MY poor sick brain is weary now and long harassed with grieving, Nothing at all has it now gained from love or hate or praise ; Its futile task it cannot find : it would be done with grieving, And so it goes down puddled roads towards the empty days. The days await it far out there, the sad days empty- handed, They huddle together gainst the storm, my days of misery. They are weary, weary ; and they gaze to where my last hopes stranded, And shivering wait the certain hour when they are not to be. My poor sick brain is spinning now dreams of unreal aspiring, Dreams of impossible summers, dance- dreams of old delight. Aloft the sullen stormy west with crimson glare is firing, The lowering clouds like jagged teeth close down, and it is night. 105 EBB-TIDE EBB-TIDE at ending of the sea, Which wrecked our castles on the sands We drift apart mysteriously, With empty eyes, with open hands, Knowing not what could make us so, Not able to check the current s might ; The force that set our hearts aglow, Now dwindling down to endless night. It is as if we never met : Was t I who loved, and I who lost ? Were yours the lips on which I set That kiss which, lit with passion, cost Half life, half reason ? Now, alas, The vision fades, the glory s gone, The image shatters with the glass, The empty frame is all I own. Ebb-tide, the dying of the sea ; A weedy stretch of gloomy beach Torn by the gale and, mystery, A wave that sparkles out of reach. All we have left is rubbish now, Mere wrecks of glory, lifeless, wet ; The chalice spoilt, the broken vow, Bury them together, let s forget ! The year is whirling withered leaves ; The last one falls soon when tis gone, No matter who suffers or who grieves, Time blows a truce, our love is done. 1 06 The dream of summer far-off stands ; Its hours are spent beyond recall, Only the dull and lifeless sands, And darkness rising as we fall. Ebb-tide, the waning of the light ; I cannot hope, I cannot weep. Only at middle of the night Shall rise the dream that conquers sleep ; And that, too, fails soon, like false light. We could not keep love, twas too fair ; Within each empty heart to-night Only the ashes of despair ! Perhaps the tide will rise once more, Perhaps ere death will call us in, We ll hear again its fading roar, But then too old, too cold to win. The sparkling glimmering mystery That swept us on, is gone from sight. Ebb-tide at ending of the sea, My love, my lost, good- night, good-night. 107 THE WALK IN THE CITY GREY and haggard was the day ; The trees stood black and bare and cold, And on the tracery of their boughs Hung drops half-frozen, colourless. The walks were wet with sodden leaves ; I woke and found the emptiness That hung so long about my heart Was dead, inert, as yesterday. The sky was swathed in smudgy cloud ; It seemed to me a pauper s sky ; A mean plain canvas, flat and bare As the grey streets on which it hung. Loosely it flapped still to and fro ; There seemed no sun nor joy behind This dull wet rag that swayed and dripped, Stained with the smoke of sordid streets. And I was there alone : There was no one Who in this prison wanted to be my friend. Dull, grubby faces without end Stared stupidly at me, as if I were a stone. For had I turned and said to anyone, " I am lonely because I have lost the sun," They straightway would have thought me mad. Such things no one in all the city said. And then I remembered long ago a day There was when two souls walking together met And I was one I could remember yet, That in an instant I was borne away And grew no more myself but free as air. 108 As for that other there, She, too, was not herself nor were we two. We were but one-for one mad instant. Yet we knew Even then our love might finish in despair. Chill and haggard was the day ; The stiff black trees seemed trying To pierce the ragged tent of sky With their wet branches, seeking light. But duller, soggier, it grew, It flapped no more ; the wind was dead ; And a fine spiritless drizzle began To thicken the slime upon the streets. Then slow as a dead- march faded the light, Time went on onward came the dark ; The old, old night of heavy sleep, The night I hated at the dawn. When the dusk came I seemed to hear Afar a dull heartbroken cry, Heavy as the fall of earth that s rolled Upon a coffin lid at dusk. But I did not move, not speak, nor weep, Nor did I care that it grew dark ; Alone I sat with burning eyes, And in my heart was nothingness. 109 THE EVERLASTING FLOWER BROKEN from off its stalk, the everlasting flower In a corner of my trunk, displays its whiteness ; It rests on letters which I never read. Its stiff white petals, colourless, harsh, rustling, Seem to be made of some thin snowy paper. It is as brittle as if pressed from glass. Like to a lotus bud tis shaped the petals Close tightly round a centre sealed, unopened, Wherein are hidden grey and feathery seeds. Snapped from its stalk, the everlasting flower Tossed in the trunk- tray where repose your letters, Is but a symbol of my dying heart, Which without heat or light or joy, dreams only Pale bloodless dreams above your faded writing, Dried long ago and now grown meaningless. So in the tray s shut narrow grey compartment, The everlasting flower marks in silence The tomb of two hearts which once loved as one. 1 10 SONG OF PARTING OUT of the desert I came to you, Long ago : You were a palm-tree by the desert Waiting for me. With full hands you gave me happiness, Cool water, rest and song. All that you had you gave to me, All I shall ever have. Back to the desert I went for your sake Long ago ; For the wind was rising and blowing Red sands over your spring ; Perhaps I could face the storm and break it Perhaps I would only fail. It was because I loved you so well That I went out alone. Out of the desert I cried to you Long ago ; But there came back no cry to answer me, No sound of the wind in your leaves ; Only sand heaped and drifting, Sand and a lost road and silence, And the knowledge that our parting Would never end, but endure. in SECOND SONG OF PARTING I WHO am living, go to join the dead, For my heart is dead already ; in the silence I hear no beat from out its empty shell, No stir, no sound, no motion ; The dead arise in multitudes, They encompass me on every side. Each effort that I make to live Is broken by the memory Of something that. is gone. Now every door I try is locked : I am shut in by a wall of dead. I am entombed in the long-dead past As frozen in some great block of stone. Why should I hope ? All hope is false ; Why should I weep, when all I know Is uselessness of further life, And uselessness of more regret ? 112 NOVEMBER DAYS -^ STILL days of late November, Days when no motionless twig of all the leafless branches Stirs underneath the even grey of sky ; Days that are but a lifting up, a falling away of pale . Indifferent, without sorrow, Within my heart are dreams vague dreams that will not die. Long, long ago, Within a garden shade two souls met smiling, Two souls in which love blazed and flared and broke in waves of light, Like autumn s dry gold flickering in the leaves. Long, long ago, one heart Burnt out and smouldering, turned away from love, And lay long quenched beneath cold rains of sorrow, Having gained naught from life but foolish dreams. Brief days of late November, You stifle now the rapture and the failure Under your noonday, with thick folds of gloom. You bury love, yet living, Within a vault of darkness, Where not a cry comes from the sealed-up tomb. In after days The spring will break and from its heart come blazing Flowers of rose and crimson, glowing bright ; But even these andthe ripe fruits that shall follow, The thick ripe fruits red-crowded, heavy, cloying, Cannot recall the magic of old dreams. 113 H Sad days of late November, See now again love fails, in you there s parting, The dying out of the calm steadfast fire. Great seas of darkness roll between us, sundered, And for awhile love s last spark seems extinguished. Would that it never stirred again to life ! The spring returns, And with the spring a white cross lifts itself, The symbol of the resurrection dawn ; A love awakes that is not of this world, A love of hope, of patience, and of suffering : Time s acid eats away our crumbling strength. Dead days of late November, In which the world goes slowly and reluctantly, Out of a dream of summer, back to sleep ; Return of that bleak presage of the future When in a lonely world of endless winter Sunless and loveless I shall strive and weep. I hear the snow, It whispers tonelessly, As it sifts slowly down Upon the frozen earth from the cold sky : Slipping and whispering, dropping without effort, It makes the long road where my feet have wandered Over the plain, an unmarked drift of white. 114 THREE NIGHTS I WHEN the night comes, I do not care How long its sleep may be ; Let it but sweep this grey world of despair, Away from me : The Dead- Sea coasts whose emptiness Of grey : black soil I roamed all day in bitterness Of weary, fruitless toil. Let me lie down nor heed the stars Indifferent, cold, Weaving gold threads beyond the bars Of this prison dull and old. Let neither song nor kiss nor speech here shake My heavy rest ; And let no dream, like a grey snake, Crawl again to my breast. Let me not wake and wish that it were day, For to lie in the night unsleeping, Dead as the dead love that I cannot hide away, Makes me mad for weeping ; But let all my life become a veil of sleep Unbroken by thoughts out-streaming Towards that day when love seemed fair to keep, Though even this was only senseless dreaming. II Come not back to me to-night ! For you are only an empty dream : And when you are gone, r Long time I lie With open hands ; Come not back to me to-night ! For the way is long, And there is snow on the roads, And the track is lost. Love, even love, has left me now ; Yesterday I buried him, In a grey churchyard, under the frozen earth. It is evening and the light is far spent, And the black cedars above him, Swept in the weary wind, create this song. Come not back to me any more : For the door Of my heart is closed, it is so cold. And within, Motionless within, I sit by an empty hearth ashiver, I who am very old. Ill I hear the witches on the wind, Laughing at the fall of night ; Their long howls make me start with fright. The day has ebbed so rapidly That it is dusk before I know : My heart is like a leafless tree. The wind whispers for the snow, But the snow will never come. Knock at my door, and you will see That I am dumb. 116 Darkness and the tedious refrain Of the wind and the rain. This is all I have, This as I crouch in pain Beside love s empty grave. 117 THE LAST COALS " I "HE last coals are dying in the grate, autumn is J^ now far spent ; Soon for me there will be winter, winter over the entire earth. I gather the coals together, I rake them down in the grate, So that no tiny morsel may rest which has not felt the fire. The flame flickers and tosses bluely, a moment longer in pain, Then it falls away to nothingness, grey ashes blur its heart. One dim red glow I can go out sleepless with the remembrance Of the fire, our glorious warming blaze that has burnt down to this in the night. 118 TIME S HARVEST T~^IME is the slow dropping of numberless tears, JL It is the vain repetition of regrets that we were born, It is the sunset s fury painted each day on the darkness, It is the taking out to burial of our hopes, one after one, It is the calendar where each day mocks us again With an utterly unimportant change for all days are now the same. Time is a withered dotard gleaning a barren field towards evening : Ear after ear he takes the spoilt frost-blackened grain. What will he do with it when it is not fit for eating ? We do not know we have loved, we have lost, we shall never love again. 119 THE FINAL DOUBT BEFORE the dawn the sky was covered with clouds, And when I rose the grey and even shrouds Hooded the light, and made it weak and pale. And all day long I sat like a thief in gaol : Knowing no westward sunset would flare out, Nor anything solve my impenitent final doubt ; Love was not, and all life was a worthless lie, Since God had broken two hearts, and let divine love die. 120 REUNION BEYOND the end of the world, There is a grey plain treeless, houseless, barren Where the souls of those departed Wait for the Judgment Day. The sun never shines there : All the day long the drizzling rain falls From the clouds ^chasing each other. Only sometimes at sunset Great red stormy gleams swirl upward^ Shadows before God s face. And all day long the tired souls wander Over the stony ridges, down the grassless valleys ; But in the night, by the banks of dim rivers, They crouch motionless, huddling their heads in their graveclothes, Soothing their souls with silent regret for life, While the smoke-black storm-clouds, swinging their wide banners headlong, Let fall through them greenish gleams of watery moonlight. There every river is bank- full of tears : Brackish, greyish water. There all day and all night the wind carries up through the air Voices, crying emptily to each other. The souls are weary of that place ; They pray for life again with faint regret. 121 But until man s will is broken, Until his desires fall like broken toys at his feet. Until God s judgment on time is accomplished, Until the stars are made new, They must abide and wait. Only sometimes through the dim night-season, And most of all in the hour before dawn, They see falling downwards through the air, The newly dead who come to them. Like whirling blue wisps of smoke In the ash-grey dawn light, The dead fall apart from the flying cloud- mass And are cast to the centre at hazard. This is the last place where we may meet ; And should you come to me Out of the cloud, and I see you falling In the shape of one wrapt for burial, With shut eyes and motionless lips, Far from my weary feet ; Perhaps for a little while I might desire to seek you, But after I shall turn, and hide my face. 122 POSTLUDES: STROPHE r I ^HE winds of the night swept over the sky bare X of clouds, And in the evening There was nothing but the silence and the beating of my heart. I grew to hate this closing hour. For every night I knew my heart grew cold and bitter As the last fragments of sunset held between the wintry hills. Still, and more still now everything grew about me ; Long cries of sorrow falling, long dark thoughts arising, Immobility and silence. Now all my sorrows which I thought were lost Returned again, and found an empty hearthstone At which I did not care whether they stayed or no. ANTISTROPHE At dawn I woke and waking longed for sleep again : For endless sleep, and holding back of time ; For far down the grey corridors of the future, I saw a new life coming rapidly towards me, Bringing with it seven terrible shapes, that had neither joy nor sorrow Nor good nor evil in them : Denial of life, of God, of hope, of being ; Wasted achievement ; 123 Hate and the lust that feeds it ; Revenge on life, stupid and senseless vengeance ; A struggle without a purpose ; Boredom ; and final death. All this was useless for me to escape, Useless for me to do anything but bear it ; For long ago, the chance of death passed over, And I was now too broken, too lost, to care for death. EPODE Silence about, within, beneath, and over me, Forever and ever silence. Sunlight and dark clouds, Days that have lost all meaning, Stars that will have nothing to say to me, Winds that will not answer, Love and hate, joy and sorrow that died before they were born, For no one could share them. What does it matter whether I go on or not ? It does not matter nothing matters. Silence, eternal silence, Life that is living death ; Death that is motionless waiting, Love that is death. All things that are silence, All, that are death. 124 EPILOGUE : MIDWINTER LOVE I ^T^HE city rested, white and still JL As a range of marble mountains ; The unstained snow on every roof Was chequered with blue shadows ; White smoke flashed upwards through the branches Of the trees outlined in white ; And slowly rolled to the hard gold ball Of the sun in cloudless sky. We did not see each other : We scarcely looked ; we did not touch One hand to hand throughout the day. But there was that in your thoughts of me, And there was something in the silences, Which made us yet more closely one Than the earth and the frozen snow. II We were as eagles, as eagles Wheeling together over a peak ; Rejoicing in the beat of our wings, Straining to each other, grappling Claw to claw to break our flight : There was no thought of yielding, Wing to wing we circled ever, And beneath the stinging clash of our onset Earth stood silent and looked on. 125 And ever as we sank and rose, The sun poured down the sky on us ; A wide smooth battleground, filled with light Blue-white and icy and motionless ; A space for wings to skim and tread, For nostrils to breathe the unbreathed air, For eyes to penetrate the depths, And see below peak after peak Fold over in ranges of snow- tipped waves ; A world we won, a world made new. Ill The night closed down and all the day Went singing forth into the night ; And the wind rose and blew away Day s banners in one crimson flight. And then we were alone, And knew this was the end. So, silently, as friend to friend, We clasped each other s hands an instant, And parted, never looking back. In the harsh north Where the granite avalanche falls in the track Of the mountain stream, There you are alone ; While towards the south I yet go on, To some arid empty peak Under the fire of the Southern Cross : But we do not feel our loss, We do not speak. Whipped by the wind, stung by the rain, 126 Blinded by sacramental suns, We wait and watch the days march past, And the nights come forth and the crowded stars Blaze cold and still and separate, And perfect as our perfect dream. THE END 127 PRINTED BY BILLING AND SONS, LTD., GUILDFORD, ENGLAND. THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW CIRCULATIpTTDEPARTMENT 202 Mam Library LOAN PERIOD HOME USE iiflH 4 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS Renewals and Recharges may be made 4 days prior to the due date. Books may be Renewed by calling 642-3405. ~DUE AS STAMPED BELOW RECEIVED NOV U 1 1087 NOV 1 8 ?0! FORM NO. DD6, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY BERKELEY, CA 94720 U.C. 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