The Project Gutenberg eBook of Poems New and Old This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: Poems New and Old Author: John Freeman Release date: July 15, 2004 [eBook #12026] Most recently updated: December 14, 2020 Language: English Credits: Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Karen Dalrymple and PG Distributed Proofreaders *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS NEW AND OLD *** Produced by Charles Aldarondo, Karen Dalrymple and PG Distributed Proofreaders POEMS NEW AND OLD PRESS NOTICES Mr. Freeman's landscapes have an individuality which entitles him to his own place as a poet of nature.... The appreciation of his lofty ardours, his desolate landscapes and his strange, though beautiful, rhythms and forms of verse, is not one which springs up instantly in the mind; but once it has arisen it does not diminish.--_New Statesman_. I think that whatever limitations our age and our poetry may have, Mr. Freeman's poetry, and much else that is now being written, will find in all succeeding generations readers to whom it will give companionship and comfort.--Mr. J.C. Squire, in _Land and Water_. This book must be read steadily through; quotation can reveal little of its scope, its richness.... When a man, in poems that are clearly fragments of autobiography, thus surrenders to the world the life of his spirit, the beauty of what he writes is inseparable from its truth. Truth endures, and a prophet would have a sad foreboding of posterity if he did not believe that of this day's poets Mr. Freeman will not be among the forgotten.--_Times Literary Supplement_. This rarefied air is something to which the reader must adjust himself; but he finds the process of adjustment made easy by a peculiar fascination in the atmosphere which Mr. Freeman creates. If it is aloof from ordinary experience, it is by so much the more individual; and in it there are to be found thrills and feelings, an understanding of a particular aspect of nature, which have not hitherto been reported in poetry--_Westminster Gazette_. POEMS NEW AND OLD By John Freeman London: Selwyn and Blount, Ltd. 21, York Buildings, Adelphi, W.C. 2 1920 _ "----He still'd All sounds in air; and left so free mine ears That I might hear the music of the spheres, And all the angels singing out of heaven, Whose tunes were solemn, as to passion given."_ NOTE. With the exception of two or three poems which have appeared in newspapers, or in an anthology entitled _Twelve Poets_, the verses in the first part of this volume have not hitherto been printed. The second part contains _Memories of Childhood and Other Poems_, and the third part retrieves many verses from _Presage of Victory_ (1916), _Stone Trees_ (1916), _Fifty Poems_ (1911) and _Twenty Poems_ (1909). Chronological order has not been carefully observed, or avoided, in the arrangement of the third part, but the earlier pieces will easily be distinguished by those who may wish to distinguish them. CONTENTS PART I The Evening Sky Beechwood Thy Hill Leave Not The Caves I Will Ask In Those Old Days The Ash Imagination No More Adieu The Visit Travelling The Song of the Forest Out of the East PART II The Wakers Memories of Childhood: I.--Childhood Calls II.--The Answer III.--The First House IV.--The Other House V.--The Fire VI.--The Kite VII.--The Chair VIII.--The Swing IX.--Fear X.--The Streets XI.--When Childhood Died XII.--All that I was I am The Shock The Unloosening Wild Heart: I.--Dark and Strange II.--Wild Heart III.--Home for Love IV.--The Alde V.--Against the Cold Pale Sky VI.--The Dark Fire VII.--The Kestrel VIII.--The Image IX.--Perversities--I. X.--Perversities--II. XI.--The Valley XII.--The Dark Night of the Mind The Body The Tossing Mountains The Pond Ten O'clock No More From Wear to Thames Time from his Grave Wilder Music Grasses Fair and Brief Nightfall The Slaves The Fugitive The Unthrift The Wren The Winds The Wanderer Merrill's Garden The Lime Tree Dark Chestnut Lonely Airs The Creeper Smoke Queens The Red House The Beam Last Hours The Wish Nowhere, Everywhere Take Care, Take Care Nearness The Second Flood The Glass But Most Thy Light In that Dark Silent Hour Once There was Time Scatter the Silver Ash like Snow Justification I have Never Loved You Yet The Pigeons And These for You: I.--Not With These Eyes II.--Asking Forgiveness Judgment Day Lighting the Fire Recovery Eyes Fulfilment Bring your Beauty Memorial The Human Music The Candle Old Fires The Crowns The Bright Rider To the Heavenly Power Snows The Thorn Change Beyond the Barn Let Honour Speak Talk The Undying The Native Country PART III Stone Trees It was the Lovely Moon The Hounds Hector Listening Stones The Enemies The Silvery One The Flute Stars Ten O'clock and Four O'clock The Yew November Skies Delight Change Sleeping Sea The Weaver of Magic The Darksome Nightingale Under the Linden Branches Strife Foreboding Discovery More than Sweet The Brightness The Holy Mountains Rapture Music Comes The Idiot The Mouse Happiness Comfortable Light Hallo! Fear Waking The Fall Stay! Shadows Walking at Eve The Physician Vision and Echo Revisitation Unpardoned Some Hurt Thing The Waits In the Lane The Last Time You that Were "The Light that Never was on Sea or Land" At Evening's Hush Happy Death Wisdom and a Mother The Thrush Sings To My Mother The Unuttered Fair Eve The Snare O Hide Me in Thy Love Prayer to my Lord The Tree Earth to Earth On a Piece of Silver The Escape Wonder Lambourn Town The Lamp Who is it that Answers? Waiting Absence Sleep Your Shadow The Full Tide Hands The Night Watch The Haunted Shadow Alone and Cold Inevitable Change Loneliness I heard a Voice upon the Window beat First Love The Call The Shade Happy is England Now The Stars in their Courses Sweet England Presage of Victory The Return English Hills Homecoming England's Enemy From Piccadilly in August Evening Beauty: Blackfriars Sailing of the _Glory_ At the Dock "The Men who loved the Cause that Never Dies" PART I THE EVENING SKY Rose-bosom'd and rose-limb'd With eyes of dazzling bright Shakes Venus mid the twinèd boughs of the night; Rose-limb'd, soft-stepping From low bough to bough Shaking the wide-hung starry fruitage--dimmed Its bloom of snow By that sole planetary glow. Venus, avers the astronomer, Not thus idly dancing goes Flushing the eternal orchard with wild rose. She through ether burns Outpacing planetary earth, And ere two years triumphantly returns, And again wave-like swelling flows, And again her flashing apparition comes and goes. This we have not seen, No heavenly courses set, No flight unpausing through a void serene: But when eve clears, Arises Venus as she first uprose Stepping the shaken boughs among, And in her bosom glows The warm light hidden in sunny snows. She shakes the clustered stars Lightly, as she goes Amid the unseen branches of the night, Rose-limb'd, rose-bosom'd bright. She leaps: they shake and pale; she glows-- And who but knows How the rejoiced heart aches When Venus all his starry vision shakes; When through his mind Tossing with random airs of an unearthly wind, Rose-bosom'd, rose-limb'd, The mistress of his starry vision arises, And the boughs glittering sway And the stars pale away, And the enlarging heaven glows As Venus light-foot mid the twinèd branches goes. BEECHWOOD Hear me, O beeches! You That have with ageless anguish slowly risen From earth's still secret prison Into the ampler prison of aery blue. Your voice I hear, flowing the valleys through After the wind that tramples from the west. After the wind your boughs in new unrest Shake, and your voice--one voice uniting voices A thousand or a thousand thousand--flows Like the wind's moody; glad when he rejoices In swift-succeeding and diminishing blows, And drooping when declines death's ardour in his breast; Then over him exhausted weaving the soft fan-like noises Of gentlest creaking stems and soothing leaves Until he rest, And silent too your easied bosom heaves. That high and noble wind is rootless nor From stable earth sucks nurture, but roams on Childless as fatherless, wild, unconfined, So that men say, "As homeless as the wind!" Rising and falling and rising evermore With years like ticks, æons as centuries gone; Only within impalpable ether bound And blindly with the green globe spinning round. He, noble wind, Most ancient creature of imprisoned Time, From high to low may fall, and low to high may climb, Andean peak to deep-caved southern sea, With lifted hand and voice of gathered sound, And echoes in his tossing quiver bound And loosed from height into immensity; Yet of his freedom tires, remaining free. --Moulding and remoulding imponderable cloud, Uplifting skiey archipelagian isles Sunnier than ocean's, blue seas and white isles Aflush with blossom where late sunlight glowed;-- Still of his freedom tiring yet still free, Homelessly roaming between sky, earth and sea. But you, O beeches, even as men, have root Deep in apparent and substantial things-- Earth, sun, air, water, and the chemic fruit Wise Time of these has made. What laughing Springs Your branches sprinkle young leaf-shadows o'er That wanting the leaf-shadows were no Springs Of seasonable sweet and freshness! nor If Summer of your murmur gathered not Increase of music as your leaves grow dense, Might even kine and birds and general noise of wings Of summer make full Summer, but the hot Slow moons would pass and leave unsatisfied the sense. Nor Autumn's waste were dear if your gold snow Of leaves whirled not upon the gold below; Nor Winter's snow were loveliness complete Wanting the white drifts round your breasts and feet. To hills how many has your tossed green given Likeness of an inverted cloudy heaven; How many English hills enlarge their pride Of shape and solitude By beechwoods darkening the steepest side! I know a Mount--let there my longing brood Again, as oft my eyes--a Mount I know Where beeches stand arrested in the throe Of that last onslaught when the gods swept low Against the gods inhabiting the wood. Gods into trees did pass and disappear, Then closing, body and huge members heaved With energy and agony and fear. See how the thighs were strained, how tortured here. See, limb from limb sprung, pain too sore to bear. Eyes once looked from those sockets that no eyes Have worn since--oh, with what desperate surprise! These arms, uplifted still, were raised in vain Against alien triumph and the inward pain. Unlock your arms, and be no more distressed, Let the wind glide over you easily again. It is a dream you fight, a memory Of battle lost. And how should dreaming be Still a renewed agony? But O, when that wind comes up out of the west New-winged with Autumn from the distant sea And springs upon you, how should not dreaming be A remembered and renewing agony? Then are your breasts, O unleaved beeches, again Torn, and your thighs and arms with the old strain Stretched past endurance; and your groans I hear Low bent beneath the hoofs by that fierce charioteer Driven clashing over; till even dreaming is Less of a present agony than this. Fall gentler sleep upon you now, while soft Airs circle swallow-like from hedge to croft Below your lowest naked-rooted troop. Let evening slowly droop Into the middle of your boughs and stoop Quiet breathing down to your scarce-quivering side And rest there satisfied. Yet sleep herself may wake And through your heavy unlit dome, O Mount of beeches, shake. Then shall your massy columns yield Again the company all day concealed.... Is it their shapes that sweep Serene within the ambit of the Moon Sentinel'd by shades slow-marching with moss-footed hours that creep From dusk of night to dusk of day--slow-marching, yet too soon Approaching morn? Are these their grave Remembering ghosts? ... Already your full-foliaged branches wave, And the thin failing hosts Into your secrecies are swift withdrawn Before the certain footsteps of the dawn. But you, O beeches, even as men have root Deep in apparent and substantial things. Birds on your branches leap and shake their wings, Long ere night falls the soft owl loosens her slow hoot From the unfathomed fountains of your gloom. Late western sunbeams on your broad trunks bloom, Levelled from the low opposing hill, and fold Your inmost conclave with a burning gold. ... Than those night-ghosts awhile more solid, men Pass within your sharp shade that makes an arctic night Of common light, And pause, swift measuring tree by tree; and then Paint their vivid mark, Ciphering fatality on each unwrinkled bark Across the sunken stain That every season's gathered streaming rain Has deepened to a darker grain. You of this fatal sign unconscious lift Your branches still, each tree her lofty tent; Still light and twilight drift Between, and lie in wan pools silver sprent. But comes a day, a step, a voice, and now The repeated stroke, the noosed and tethered bough, The sundered trunk upon the enormous wain Bound kinglike with chain over chain, New wounded and exposed with each old stain. And here small pools of doubtful light are lakes Shadowless and no more that rude bough-music wakes. So on men too the indifferent woodman, Time, Servant of unseen Master, nearing sets His unread symbol--or who reads forgets; And suns and seasons fall and climb, Leaves fall, snows fall, Spring flutters after Spring, A generation a generation begets. But comes a day--though dearly the tough roots cling To common earth, branches with branches sing-- And that obscure sign's read, or swift misread, By the indifferent woodman or his slave Disease, night-wandered from a fever-dripping cave. No chain's then needed for no fearful king, But light earth-fall on foot and hand and head. Now thick as stars leaves shake within the dome Of faintly-glinting dusking monochrome; And stars thick hung as leaves shake unseen in the round Of darkening blue: the heavenly branches wave without a sound, Only betrayed by fine vibration of thin air. Gleam now the nearer stars and ghosts of farther stars that bare, Trembling and gradual, brightness everywhere.... When leaves fall wildly and your beechen dome is thinned, Showered glittering down under the sudden wind; And when you, crowded stars, are shaken from your tree In time's late season stripped, and each bough nakedly Rocks in those gleamless shallows of infinity; When star-fall follows leaf-fall, will long Winter pass away And new stars as new leaves dance through their hasty May? --But as a leaf falls so falls weightless thought Eddying, and with a myriad dead leaves lies Bewildered, or in a little air awhile is caught Idly, then drops and dies. Look at the stars, the stars! But in this wood All I can understand is understood. Gentler than stars your beeches speak; I hear Syllables more simple and intimately clear To earth-taught sense, than the heaven-singing word Of that intemperate wisdom which the sky Shakes down upon each unregarding century, There lying like snow unstirred, Unmelting, on the loftiest peak Above our human and green valley ways. Lowlier and friendlier your beechen branches speak To men of mortal days With hearts too fond, too weak For solitude or converse with that starry race. Their shaken lights, Their lonely splendours and uncomprehended Dream-distance and long circlings 'mid the heights And deeps remotely neighboured and attended By spheres that spill their fire through these estranging nights:-- Ah, were they less dismaying, or less splendid! But as one deaf and mute sees the lips shape And quiver as men talk, or marks the throat Of rising song that he can never hear, Though in the singer's eyes her joy may dimly peer, And song and word his hopeless sense escape-- Sweet common word and lifted heavenly note-- So, beneath that bright rain, While stars rise, soar and stoop, Dazzled and dismayed I look and droop And, blinded, look again. "Return, return!" O beeches sing you then. I like a tree wave all my thoughts with you, As your boughs wave to other tossed boughs when First in the windy east the dawn looks through Night's soon-dissolving bars. Return, return? But I have never strayed: Hush, thoughts, that for a moment played In that enchanted forest of the stars Where the mind grows numb. Return, return? Back, thoughts, from heights that freeze and deeps that burn, Where sight fails and song's dumb. And as, after long absence, a child stands In each familiar room And with fond hands Touches the table, casement, bed, Anon each sleeping, half-forgotten toy; So I to your sharp light and friendly gloom Returning, with first pale leaves round me shed, Recover the old joy Since here the long-acquainted hill-path lies, Steeps I have clambered up, and spaces where The Mount opens her bosom to the air And all around gigantic beeches rise. THY HILL LEAVE NOT Thy hill leave not, O Spring, Nor longer leap down to the new-green'd Plain. Thy western cliff-caves keep O Wind, nor branch-borne Echo after thee complain With grumbling wild and deep. Let Blossom cling Sudden and frozen round the eyes of trees, Nor fall, nor fall. Be still each Wing, Hushed each call. So was it ordered, so Hung all things silent, still; Only Time earless moved on, stepping slow Up the scarped hill, And even Time in a long twilight stayed And, for a whim, that whispered whim obeyed. There was no breath, no sigh, No wind lost in the sky Roamed the horizon round. The harsh dead leaf slept noiseless on the ground, By unseen mouse nor insect stirred Nor beak of hungry bird. Then were voices heard Mingling as though each Earth and grass had individual speech. --Has evening fallen so soon, And yet no Moon? --No, but hark: so still Was never the Spring's voice adown the hill! I do not feel her waters tapping upon The culvert's under stone. --And if 'tis not yet night a thrush should sing. --Or if 'tis night the owl should his far echo bring Near, near.--And I Should know the hour by his long-shaking distant cry. --But how should echo be? The air is dead, No song, no wing, --No footfall overhead Of beast,--Or labourer passing, and no sound Of labourer's Good-night, good-night, good-night! --That we, here underground, Take to ourselves and breathe unheard Good-night! --O, it is lonely now with not one sound Neath that arched profound, --No throttled note Sweet over us to float, --No shadow treading light Of man, beast, bird. --If, earth in dumb earth, lie we here unstirred, --Why, brother, it were death renewed again If sun nor rain, --O death undying, if no dear human touch nor sound Fall on us underground! THE CAVES Like the tide--knocking at the hollowed cliff And running into each green cave as if In the cave's night to keep Eternal motion grave and deep;-- That, even while each broken wave repeats Its answered knocking and with bruised hand beats Again, again, again, Tossed between ecstasy and pain; Still in the folded hollow darkness swells, Sinks, swells, and every green-hung hollow fills, Till there's no room for sound Save that old anger rolled around; So into every hollow cliff of life, Into this heart's deep cave so loud with strife, In tunnels I knew not, In lightless labyrinths of thought, The unresting tide has run and the dark filled, Even the vibration of old strife is stilled; The wave returning bears Muted those time-breathing airs. --How shall the million-footed tide still tread These hollows and in each cold void cave spread? How shall Love here keep Eternal motion grave and deep? I WILL ASK I will ask primrose and violet to spend for you Their smell and hue, And the bold, trembling anemone awhile to spare Her flowers starry fair; Or the flushed wild apple and yet sweeter thorn Their sweetness to keep Longer than any fire-bosomed flower born Between midnight and midnight deep. And I will take celandine, nettle and parsley, white In its own green light, Or milkwort and sorrel, thyme, harebell and meadowsweet Lifting at your feet, And ivy blossom beloved of soft bees; I will take The loveliest-- The seeding grasses that bend with the winds, and shake Though the winds are at rest. "For me?" you will ask. "Yes! surely they wave for you Their smell and hue, And you away all that is rare were so much less By your missed happiness." Yet I know grass and weed, ivy and apple and thorn Their whole sweet would keep Though in Eden no human spirit on a shining morn Had awaked from sleep. IN THOSE OLD DAYS In those old days you were called beautiful, But I have worn the beauty from your face; The flowerlike bloom has withered on your cheek With the harsh years, and the fire in your eyes Burns darker now and deeper, feeding on Beauty and the remembrance of things gone. Even your voice is altered when you speak, Or is grown mute with old anxiety For me. Even as a fire leaps into flame and burns Leaping and laughing in its lovely flight, And then under the flame a glowing dome Deepens slowly into blood-like light:-- So did you flame and in flame take delight, So are you hollow'd now with aching fire. But I still warm me and make there my home, Still beauty and youth burn there invisibly For me. Now my lips falling on your silver'd skull, My fingers in the valleys of your cheeks, Or my hands in your thin strong hands fast caught, Your body clutched to mine, mine bent to yours: Now love undying feeds on love beautiful, Now, now I am but thought kissing your thought ... --And can it be in your heart's music speaks A deeper rhythm hearing mine: can it be Indeed for me? THE ASH The undecaying yew has shed his flowers Long since in golden showers. The elm has robed her height In green, and hangs maternal o'er the bright Starred meadows, and her full-contented breast Lifts and sinks to rest. Shades drowsing in the grass Beneath the hedge move but as the hours pass. Beech, oak and beam have all put beauty on In the eye of the sun. Because the hawthorn's sweet All the earth is sweet and the air, and the wind's feet. In the wood's green hollows the earth is sweet and wet, For scarce one shaft may get The sudden green between: Only that warm sweet creeps between the green; Or in the clearing the bluebells lifting high Make another azure sky. All's leaf and flower except The sluggish ash that all night long has slept, And all the morning of this lingering spring. Every tree else may sing, Every bough laugh and shake; But the ash like an old man does not wake Even though draws near the season's poise and noon Of heavy-poppied swoon ... Still the ash is asleep, Or from his lower upraised palms now creep First green leaves, promising that even those gaunt Tossed boughs shall be the haunt Of Autumn starlings shrill Mid his full-leaved high branches never still. If to any tree, 'Tis to the ash that I might likened be-- Masculine, unamenable, delaying, With palms uplifted praying For another life and Spring Yet unforeshadowed; but content to swing Stiff branches chill and bare In this fine-quivering air That others' love makes sweetness everywhere. IMAGINATION To make a fairer, A kinder, a more constant world than this; To make time longer And love a little stronger, To give to blossoms And trees and fruits more beauty than they bear, Adding to sweetness The aye-wanted completeness, To say to sorrow, "Ease now thy bosom of its snaky burden"; (And sorrow brightened, No more stung and frightened), To cry to death, "Stay a little, O proud Shade, thy stony hand"; (And death removing Left us amazed loving);-- For this and this, O inward Spirit, arm thyself with power; Be it thy duty To give a body to beauty. Thine to remake The world in thy hid likeness, and renew The fading vision In spite of time's derision. Be it thine, O spirit, The world of sense and thought to exalt with light; Purge away blindness, Terror and all unkindness. Shine, shine From within, on the confused grey world without That, growing clearer, Grows spiritual and dearer. NO MORE ADIEU Unconscious on thy lap I lay, A spiritual thing, Stirless until the yet unlooked-for day Of human birth Should call me from thy starry twilight, Earth. And did thy bosom rock and clear voice sing? I know not--now no more a spiritual thing. Nor then thy breathed Adieu I rightly knew. --Until those human kind arms caught And nursed my head Upon her breast who from the twilight brought This stranger me. Mother, it were yet happiness to be Within your arms; but now that you are dead Your memory sleeps in mine; so mine is comforted, Though I breathed dear Adieu Unheard by you. And I have gathered to my breast Wife, mistress, child, Affections insecure but tenderest Of all that clutch Man's heart with their "Too little!" and "Too much!" O, what anxieties, what passions wild Bind and unbind me, what storms never to be stilled Until Adieu, Adieu Breathe the night through. O, when all last farewells are said To these most dear; O, when within my purged heart peace is shed; When these old sweet Humanities move out on hushing feet, And all is hush; then in that silence clear Who is it comes again--near and near and near, Even while the sighed Adieu Fades the hush through? O, is it on thy breast I fall, A spiritual thing Once more, and hear with ear insensual The voice of primal Earth Breathed gently as on Eden faint airs forth; And so contented to thy bosom cling, Though all those loves are gone nor faithful echoes ring, Nor fond Adieu, Adieu My parted spirit pursue? --So hidden in green darkness deep, Feel when I wake The tides of night and day upon thee sweep, And know thy forehead bared before the East, And hear thy forests hushing in the West And in thy bosom, Earth, the slow heart shake: But hear no more the infinite forest murmurs break Into Adieu, Adieu, No more Adieu! THE VISIT I reached the cottage. I knew it from the card He had given me--the low door heavily barred, Steep roof, and two yews whispering on guard. Dusk thickened as I came, but I could smell First red wallflower and an early hyacinth bell, And see dim primroses. "O, I can tell," I thought, "they love the flowers he loved." The rain Shook from fruit bushes in new showers again As I brushed past, and gemmed the window pane. Bare was the window yet, and the lamp bright. I saw them sitting there, streamed with the light That overflowed upon the enclosing night. "Poor things, I wonder why they've lit up so," A voice said, passing on the road below. "Who are they?" asked another. "Don't you know?" Their voices crept away. I heard no more As I crossed the garden and knocked at the door. I waited, then knocked louder than before, And thrice, and still in vain. So on the grass I stepped, and tap-tapped on the rainy glass. Then did a girl without turning towards me pass From the room. I heard the heavy barred door creak, And a voice entreating from the doorway speak, "Will you come this way?"--a voice childlike and quick. The way was dark. I followed her white frock, Past the now-chiming, sweet-tongued unseen clock, Into the room. One figure like a rock Draped in an unstarred night--his mother--bowed Unrising and unspeaking. His aunt stood And took my hand, murmuring, "So good, so good!" Never such quiet people had I known. Voices they scarcely needed, they had grown To talk less by the word than muted tone. "We'll soon have tea," the girl said. "Please sit here." She pushed a heavy low deep-seated chair I knew at once was his; and I sat there. I could not look at them. It seemed I made Noise in that quietness. I was afraid To look or speak until the aunt's voice said, "You were his friend." And that "You were!" awoke My sense, and nervousness found voice and spoke Of what he had been, until a bullet broke A too-brief friendship. The rock-like mother kept Night still around her. The aunt silently wept, And the girl into the screen's low shadow stept. "You were great friends," said with calm voice the mother. I answered, "Never friend had such another." Then the girl's lips, "Nor sister such a brother." Her words were like a sounding pebble cast Into a hollow silence; but at last She moved and bending to my low chair passed Swift leaf-like fingers o'er my face and said, "You are not like him." And as she turned her head Into full light beneath the lamp's green shade I saw the sunken spaces of her eyes. Then her face listening to my dumb surprise. "Forgive," she said, "a blind girl's liberties." "You were his friend; I wanted so to see The friends my brother had. Now let's have tea." She poured, and passed a cup and cakes to me. "These are my cakes," she smiled; and as I ate She talked, and to the others cup and plate Passed as they in their shadow and silence sat. "Thanks, we are used to each other," she said when I Rose in the awkwardness of seeing, shy Of helping and of watching helplessly. And from the manner of their hands 'twas clear They too were blind; but I knew they could hear My pitiful thoughts as I sat aching there. ... I needs must talk, until the girl was gone A while out of the room. The lamp shone on, But the true light out of the room was gone. "Rose loved him so!" her mother said, and sighed. "He was our eyes, he was our joy and pride, And all that's left is but to say he died." She ceased as Rose returned. Then as before We talked and paused until, "Tell me once more, What was it he said?" And I told her once more. She listened: in her face was pride and pain As in her mind's eye near he stood and plain.... Then the thin leaves fell on my cheek again And on my hands. "He must have loved you well," She whispered, as her hands from my hands fell. Silence flowed back with thoughts unspeakable. It was a painful thing to leave them there Within the useless light and stirless air. "Let me show you the way. Mind, there's a stair "Here, then another stair ten paces on.... Isn't there a moon? Good-bye." And she was gone. Full moon upon the drenched fruit garden shone. TRAVELLING They talked of old campaigns, nineteen-fourteen And Mons and watery Yser, nineteen-fifteen And Neuve Chapelle, 'sixteen, 'seventeen, 'eighteen And after. And they grumbled, leaving home, Then talked of nineteen-nineteen, nineteen-twenty And after. Their thoughts wandered, leaving home Among familiar places and known years; Anticipating in the river, of time Rocks, rapids, shallows, idle glazing pools Mirroring their dark dreams of heaven and earth. --And then they parted, one to Chatham, one To Africa, Constantinople one, One to Cologne; and all to an unknown year, Nineteen-nineteen perhaps, or another year. THE SONG OF THE FOREST _(11th November, 1918)_ I To Thee, Most Holy, Most Obscure, light-hidden, Shedding light in the darkness of the mind As gold beams wake the air to birds a-wing; To Thee, if men were trees, would forests bow In all our land, as under a new wind; To Thee, if trees were men, would forests sing Lifting autumnal crowns and bending low, Rising and falling again as inly chidden, Singing and hushing again as inly bidden. To Thee, Most Holy, men being men upraise Bright eyes and waving hands of unarticulating praise. II To Thee, Most Holy, Most Obscure, who pourest Thy darkness into each wild-heaving human forest, While some say, "'Tis so dark God cannot live," And some, "It is so dark He never was," And few, "I hear the forest branches give Assurèd signs His wind-like footsteps pass;" To Thee, now that long darkness is enlightened, Lift men their hearts, shaking the death-chill dews. Even sad eyes with morning light are brightened, And in this spiritual Easter's lovely hues Are no more with death's arctic shadow frightened. III Here in this morning twilight gleaming pure Mid the high forest boughs and making clear The motion the night-wakeful brain had guessed; Here in this peace that wonders, Is it Peace? And sighs its satisfaction on the shivering air; Here, O Most Holy, here, O bright Obscure, Every deep root within the earth's quick breast Knows that the long night's ended and sore agitations cease, And every leaf of every human tree In England's forest stirs and sings, Light Giver, now to Thee. IV I cannot syllable that unworded praise-- An ashen sapling bending in Thy wind, Uplifting in Thy light new-budded leaves; Nor for myself nor any other raise My boughs in music, though the woodland heaves-- O with what ease of pain at length resigned, What hope to the old inheritance restored! Thy praise it is that men at last are glad. Long unaccustomed brightness in their eyes Needs must seem beautiful in thine, bright Lord, And to forget the part that sorrow had In every shadowed breast, where still it lies, Is there not praise in such forgetfulness? For to grieve less means not that love is less. V --Nor for myself nor any other. Yet I cannot but remember all that passed Since justice shook these bosoms, and the fret Of indignation stirred them and they cast Forgot aside all lesser wrongs, and rose Against the spiritual evil of that threat That made them of dishonour slaves or foes. And who may but with pride remember how Not by ten righteous justice might be saved, But by unsaintly millions moving all As the tide moves when myriad tossed waves flow One way, and on the crumbling bastions fall; Then sinking backwards unopposed and slow Over the ruined towers where those vain angers raved. VI Creep tarnished gilded figures to their holes Who once walked like great men upon the earth Flickering their false shadows. Fear, like a hound, Hunts them, and there's a death in every sound; And had they souls sorrow would prick their souls At every heavy sigh the wind waved forth. ... Into their holes they've crept, and they will die. Of them no more and never any more. Their leper-gilt is gone, and they will lie Poisoning a little earth and nothing more. VII --That justice has been saved and wrong been slain, That the slow fever-darkness ends in day, Nor madness shakes the pillared world again With the same blind proud fury; that in vain Whispers the Tempter now, "So pass away Strength, honesty and hope, and nothing left but pain!" That the many-voiced confusion of the night Clears in the winging of a spirit bright With new-recovered joy;--for this, O Light, Light Giver, Night Dispeller, praise should be. But praise is dumb from burning hearts to Thee. VIII But as a forest bending in the wind Murmurs in all its boughs after the wind, Sounds uninterpreted and untaught airs; So now when Thy wind over England stirs, The proud and untranslating sounds of praise Mingle tumultuous over our human ways; And magnifying echoes of Thy wind Rouse in the profoundest forests of the mind. IX And in the secret thicket where Thy light Is dimmed with starry shining of the night, Hearing these mingled airs from every wood Thou'lt smile serenely down, murmuring, "'Tis good." While Angels in the thicket borders curled Amid the farthest gold beams of Thy hair, Seeing on one drooped beam this distant world Floating illumined, cry, "Bright Lord, how fair!" OUT OF THE EAST When man first walked upright and soberly Reflecting as he paced to and fro, And no more swinging from wide tree to tree, Or sheltered by vast boles from sheltered foe, Or crouched within some deep cave by the sea Stared at the noisy waste of water's woe Where the earth ended, and far lightning died Splintered upon the rigid tideless tide; When man above Time's cloud lifted his head And speech knew, and the company of speech, And from his alien presence wild beasts fled And birds flew wary from his arrow's reach, And cattle trampling the long meadow weed Did sentry in the wind's path set; when each Horn, hoof, claw, sting and sinew against man Was turned, and the old enmity began; When, following, beneath the hand of kings Moved men their parting ways, and some passed on To forest refuge, some by dark-browed springs, And some to high remoter pastures won, And some o'er yellow deserts spread their wings, Thinning with time and thirst and so were gone Forgotten; when between each wandered host The seldom travellers faltered and were lost;-- In those old days, upon the soft dew'd sward That held its green between the thicket's cloud, Walked two men musing ere the wide moon poured Her full-girthed weightless flood. And one was bowed With years past knowledge, and his face was scored Where light or deep had every long year ploughed-- Pain, labour, present peril, distant dread Scored in his brow and bending his shagged head. Palsy his frame shook as a harsh wind shakes Complaining reeds fringing a frozen river; His eye the aspect had of frozen lakes Whereunder the foiled waters swirl and quiver; His voice the deep note that the north wind takes Drawn through bare beechwoods where forlorn birds shiver-- Deep and unfaltering. A younger man Listened, while warmer currents in him ran. "Was not my son even as myself to me, As you to him showed his own life again? Now he is dead, and all I looked to see In him removes to you--less near and plain, Confused with other blood; and what will be I groping cannot tell, and grope in vain. For men have turned to other ways than mine: Yourself are less fulfilment than a sign, "Sign of a changing world. And change I fear. I have seen old and young like brief gnats die, And have faced death by plague and flood and spear: I have seen mine own familiar people lie In generations reaped; and near and near Age leads on Death--I hear his husky sigh. Yet Death I fear not, but these clouds of change Sweeping the old firm world with new and strange. "Son of my son, to whom the world shines new, You are strange to me for whom the world is old. Your thoughts are not my thoughts, and unto you The past, sole warmth for me, is void and cold. Another passion pours your spirit through, Another faith has leapt upon the fold And wrestles with the ancient faith. 'And lo!' Lightly men say, 'Even the gods come and go!'" He paused awhile in pacing and hung still, Amid the thickening shades a darker shade. Down the steep valley from the barren hill A herd of deer with antlered leader made Brief apparition. Mist brimmed up until Only the great round heights yet solid stayed-- Then they too changed to spectral, and upon The changing mist wavered, and were gone.... "Standing to-day your father's grave beside, I knew my heart with his was covered there; O, more than flesh did in the cold earth hide-- My past, his promise. There was none to care Save for the body of a prince that died As princes die; there was none whispered, 'Where Moves now among us his unburied part? What breast beats with the pulses of his heart?' "--Vain thoughts are these that but a dying man Searches among the dark caves of his mind! But as I stood, the very wind that ran Between the files breathed more than common wind, As though the gods of men when Time began, Fathers of fathers of old humankind, Startled, heard now the changeful future knock; And their lament it was from rock to rock "Tossed with the wind's long echo ... O, speak not, Nor tell me with my loss I am so dazed, That my tongue speaks unfaithfully my thought; That you, you too, within his shadow raised, Stand bare now, wanting all you held or thought, By aimless love or prisoned grief amazed. Tell me not: let me out of silence speak, Or let me still my thoughts in silence break." And so both stood, and not a word to say, By silence overborne, until at last The young man breathed, "Look how the end of day Falls heavily, as though the earth were cast Into a shapeless soundless pit, where ray Of heavenly light never the verge has past. Yet will the late moon's light anon shine here, And then gray light, and then the sun's light clear. "Sire, 'twas my father died, and like night's pit Soundless and shapeless yawn my orphaned years. And yet I know morn comes and brings with it Old tasks again, and new joys, hopes and fears. Or sword or plough these fingers will find fit, And morrows end with other cries and tears, With women's arms and children's voices and The sacred gods blessing the new-sown land. "But look, upon your beard the dew is bright, Chill is the winter fall: let us go in." Then moved they slowly downward till a light Shining the door-post and thonged door between Showed the square Prince's House. Out of the night They passed the sudden rubied warmth within. Curled shadowy by the wall a servant slept: A sleepy hound from the same corner crept. Soon were they couched. The young man fell asleep; While the old Prince drowsing uneasily, Tossing on the crest of agitations deep, Dreamed waking, waking dreamed. Then memory The unseen hound, did from her corner creep Into his bosom and stirred him with her sigh Soundless. And he arose and answering pressed Her beloved head yet closer to his breast.... Happy those years returned when first he strode Beside his father's knees, or climbed and felt The warm strength of those arms, or singing rode High on his shoulders; or in winter pelt Of dread beasts wrapt, set as his father showed Snares in the frosty grass, and at dawn knelt Beside the snares, and shouting homeward tore, Winged with such pride as seldom manhood wore. --How many, many, many years ago! There was no older man now walked the earth. Had all those years sunk to a bitter glow, Like the fire lingering yet upon the hearth? Ah, he might warm his hands there still, and so Must warm his heart now in this wintry dearth, Till the reluming sunken fire should give Warmth to his ageing wits and bid him live. Even this house! It was his father told How in the days half lost in icy time Men first forsook their wormy caves and cold To build where the wind-footed cattle climb; And noise of labour broke the silence old By such unbroken since the sparkling prime Of the world's spring. And so the house arose, A builded cave, perpetual as the snows On the remotest summits of the range Hemming the north. Then house by house appeared 'Neath valley-eaves, and change following on change Unnoted tamed earth's shaggy front. Men heard Strange voices syllabling with accents strange, By travellers breathed who, startled, paused and feared Seeing the smoke of habitations curled Above this hollow of an unrumoured world. Startled, they paused and spoke by doubtful sign, Answered by hesitating sign, until Moved one with aspect fearless and benign, And met one fearless, while all else hung still. And then was welcome, rest, and meat and wine And intercourse of uncouth word, as shrill Voice with deep voice was mingled. So they stayed And to astonished eyes strange arts betrayed. By them the oarage of the wind was taught, And how the quick tail steered the cockled boat. They netted fruitful streams, and smiling brought Their breaking wickers home, too full to float. And opening the earth's rich womb they wrought Arms from the sullied ore; and labouring smote The mountain's bosom, till a path was seen Stony amid the flushed snow and flushed green. Then first upon earth's wave the silver share Floated, by the teamed oxen drawn; then first Were seed-time rites, and harvest rites when bare The cropped fields lay, and gathered tumult--nurst Long in the breasts of men that laboured there-- Now in the broad ease of fulfilment burst; And when the winter tasks failed in days chill, Weaving of bright-hued yarn, and chattering shrill; And the loved tones of music sounded sweet Unwonted, when the new-stopped pipe was heard Rising and falling, and the falling feet Of sudden dancers. And old men were stirred With old men's memories of ancient heat When youth sang in their bosoms like a bird.... Sweet that divine musician, Memory, Fingering her many-reeded melody. Then as he stared into the wasting glow And watched the fire faint in the whitening wood, Came starker shadows moving vast and slow, And echoes of wild strife and smell of blood, Twitching of slain men, cries of parting woe, Bruised bodies ghastly in the mountain flood; Burials and burnings, triumph with terrors blent, And widowed languors and night-long lament. Like seeds long buried, these dead memories Upthrust in their new green and spread to flower: An eager child against his father's knees Leaning, he had listened many an evening hour. Now these remote reworded histories Entangled with his own renewed their power, Breathing an antique virtue through his mind, As through dense yew boughs breathes the undying wind. Sighing, he rose up softly. On the wall A dark shape shambled aimless to and fro; Head bent, eyes inward-seeing, rugged, tall, Himself a shadow moved with musings slow Amid his cumbered past, and heard sweet call Of mother voice, and mother folk, and flow Of gentle and proud speech and tender laughter, Story and song, fault and forgiveness after; And a voice graver, gentler than a man Might hear from any but a woman beloved, Stilling and awakening the blood that ran Like ocean tide, as neared she or removed ... Faded that music. Then a voice began Paining within his heart, yet unreproved; For dear the anguish is that steals upon A father's spirit lamenting his lost son. --The latest born and latest lost of those Of his strong and her gentle being born. By earthquake, pestilence, by human foes Long were they dead; and yet not all forlorn He grieved, for at his side the youngest rose Bright as a willow gilded by dewy morn.... Felled now the tree, silent that music, still The motion that did all the vale-air fill. Once more they bore the body from the hunt Where he alone had died. Once more he heard The wail and sigh, and saw once more their front Of drooping grief; once more the wailing stirred Old hounds to baying wilder than was wont; Fell once more like slow, sullen rain each word Reluctant, telling to his senses strayed, How while the gods drowsed and men hung afraid. Slain was the Prince unwary by the paw Of a springing beast that died in giving death. Again the featureless torn face he saw, The ribboned bosom emptied of warm breath; Again the circle sudden hush'd with awe, And smothered moaning heard the hush beneath. Again, again, and every night again, Vision renewed and voice recalled in vain. Again those dear and lamentable rites Within the winter stems of forest shade, The pile, the smokeless flame, the thousand lights, The one light that in all the thousand played; Deep burthened voices while, around the heights Lifting, young trebles their wild echo made; Then the returning torches at the pyre Lit, when the eye glowed faint within the fire. * * * * * Even as a man that by slow steps may climb An unknown mountain path with tired tread By ice-fringed brook and close herb white with rime, Sees sudden far below a strange land spread Immense; so from his lonely crag of Time The Prince, his eye bewildered and adread, Gazed at the vast, with mist and storm confused, Cloud-racked, and changing even while he mused. Ending were the old wise and stable ways. Adventurers into distant lands had fared, From distant lands adventurers with gaze Proud and unenvying on his kingdom stared, And sojourning had shaken quiet days With restless knowledge, and strange worship reared Of foreign altars, idols, prayers and songs And sacrifice as to such gods belongs. And all unsatisfied his people grown Would move from this rejected mountain range By yearlong valley journeys slowly down, Sun-following, till surfeited with change, Mid idle pastures pitched or fabled town, Subdued to climes and kings and customs strange, At length their very name should die away And all their remnant be a vague "Men say." "Men say!" he sighed, and from that lofty verge Of inward seeing drooped his doubtful sight. Sweet was it from such reverie to emerge And breathe once more the thoughtless air of night, And watch the fire-slave through fresh billets urge The sleeping flame, until the vivid light And toothed shadows wearied.... And then crept The hounds a little nearer, and all slept. * * * * * But the young man still lay in quiet sleep, Or half-sleep, and a dream-born cloud enwreathed With memories, hopes and longings hidden deep In his flown mind. Another air he breathed, Saw from an unsubstantial mountain sweep In purest light, soon in low shadow sheathed, Semblance of faint-known faces, or beloved Daily-acquainted still, or long removed. Even as sacred fire in fennel stalks Through windy ways is borne and densest night, Till where the outpost shivering sentry walks Beating the minutes into hours, the light Touches the guarded pile and, flaring, balks Beasts padding near and each unvisioned sprite By old dread apprehended; and new gladness Shakes in the village prone in winter sadness:-- So through the young man's dream the kingly flame In his own breast was undiminished borne. And other peoples catching from his fame A noble heat, in neighbouring lands forlorn, Would glow with new power and the ancient name Bless, that had brightened through their narrow morn. And purer yet and steadier would pass on The sacred flame to son and son and son. Or with contracting mind he saw the host Of mountain warriors banded, moving down Untrodden ways, as on young buds a frost Falls, and the spring lies stiff. The air was sown With strife, the fields with blood, the night with ghost Wandering by ghost, and wounded men were strown Surprised, unweaponed; and chill air congealed Each hurt, and with the blood their breath was sealed. And the loved tones of music sounded fierce When the returning files with aspect proud Approached, and brandished their rich trophied spears. Sweet the pipes' spearlike music, sweet and loud, And music of smitten arms was sweet to tears; Sweet the dance unto smiling gods new vowed, Sweet the recounting song and choral cries, And age's quaverings and girls' envious sighs. --So of himself, a father-king, he dreamed, Holding an equal nation in his eye. O with what golden points the future gleamed! Rustled the years like laden mule-trains by, Each with its burthen of old time redeemed.... Splendour on splendour poured, and so would lie Unnoted and unmeasured:--metals, herds, Distant-sought wonders, strange growths, beasts and birds. Within the summer of that splendid shade Might men live happy and nought left to fear, Or if an antique restless spirit played Fretful within their bones, and change drew near Drumming wild airs, and another music made, A father-king, speaking assured and clear, Bidding them follow he would lead them forth Through the yet undiscovered frowning north. And the last fire on the warm stones would burn, And the smoke linger on the mountain skies. And seeing, they would muse yet of return And then forget their sadness in the cries Confused of the great caravan; and so turn Towards the next sun-setting and the next sunrise Many and many a day and wind and wind Through foreign earth, as a dream through the mind. Flowing on with the changes of its thought. And doubtful kings entreating them to stay Would sleep the easier when they lingered not; And sullen tribes menacing would make way, And broad slow rivers in their tide be caught, And the long caravan o'er the ford all day And all day and all day pass; while the tide slept In sluggish shallows, or through marsh-reeds crept. So would they on and on, with death and birth For wayfellows and nightly stars for guide, While seasons bloomed and faded on the earth, And jealous gods their wandering gods would chide. Until, weary of endless going forth Dark-locust-like, the old fret would subside, And young men with aged men and women cry, "In this full-rivered pasture let us lie! "Here let us lie, and wanderings be at rest!" Midmost a cedar grove high sacrifice Needs then be made, that gods be manifest; And while the smoke spread in long twilit skies, "Here let us lie, and wanderings be at rest," Would old men breathe repeated between sighs. "In this green world and cool," would mothers say, "Rest we, nor with thin babes yet longer stray." --So stealing from the mind of the old King Exhausted, into the sleeping young man's brain Crept the same dream and lifted on new wing And took from his swift passions a new stain, Sanguine and azure, and first fluttering Rose then on easy vans that bore again The sleeper past his common thought's confine:-- So borne, so soaring, in that air divine, He saw his people stayed, their journeys ended.... There should they, no more fretful, dwell for ever In the full-nourished pasture where untended Herds multiplied, and famine threatened never, And where high border-hills glittered with splendid Sparse-covered veins washed by the hill-born river. So stead by stead arose, and men there moved Satisfied, and no more vain longings roved. Again the silver plough gleamed in the sod, And seed from old fields slept in furrows new. Then when Spring's rain and sun together trod And interweaved swift steps the meadow through, Old rites revived; they bore the shapen god With green stalks and first-budded boughs, and drew Together youth and age. And sowers leapt High o'er the seed in earth's cold bosom wrapt:-- So in the golden-hued and burning hours Of harvest, leapt on high the full-eared corn. Friendly to pious hands those imaged Powers Of rain and sun. And when the grain was borne By oxen trailing tangled straws and flowers, With leaves and dying blossoms on each horn, Friendly the gods commingling in the shades Of moon and torch and smoke-delaying glades. Fell slowly sunset; the starred evening cool Drooped round as mid his people the king rode, Blessing and blessed, and in the faithful pool Of their old loves his clear reflection glowed Like summer's golden moon:--in wise and fool, Noble and mean, accustomed reverence showed Clear-shining; so he reached the unbarred hall Where lamps, lords, servitors flashed festival, Remembering old journeys and their end. Bright-throned he sat there, with those lords around Snow-polled, co-eval, as with friends their friend Feasting. Arose at length the awaited sound Of bardic chanting, bidding their thoughts descend Into the chamber where the Past lay bound, Wanting but music's finger; so upspringing, The Past stormed all their minds in that loud singing. And strangers, furred and tawny, seated there, Far travellers from the sunrise, looking on The feasting and the splendour, and with ear Uncertain listening to the solemn tone Of most dear Memory, envied all and sware A sudden fealty. But the bard sang on While silver beakers brimmed untouched; and darkened The proud remembering eyes of men that hearkened. Then came once more those strangers leading long Migration of their subject folk. They stayed And medley'd and were mingled, and their throng Melted in his like snows, and so were made One with them, and forgot their useless tongue, Nor now their ancient bloody worship paid To painted gods:--name, language, story died When their last faithless exile parting sighed. So year on year, century on century In his imagination of delight Followed, in a new world all innocency And simpleness, and made for beings bright, Where man to man was friend, unfearful, free, And natural griefs alone darkened their night, And natural joys as the wide air were common, And kindness was the bond of all kin human. * * * * * --When the loved reeds of music sounded clear From birds' breasts quivering in tall woodland trees That rustled leafless in the winter air, And with morn's new voice shrilled the western breeze: Folding her wings the dream crept from his ear To hang where bats drowse until daylight dies. Then he from sleep's dear vanity awaking Watched a sole sunbeam the roof-shadows raking. PART II THE WAKERS The joyous morning ran and kissed the grass And drew his fingers through her sleeping hair, And cried, "Before thy flowers are well awake Rise, and the lingering darkness from thee shake. "Before the daisy and the sorrel buy Their brightness back from that close-folding night, Come, and the shadows from thy bosom shake, Awake from thy thick sleep, awake, awake!" Then the grass of that mounded meadow stirred Above the Roman bones that may not stir Though joyous morning whispered, shouted, sang: The grass stirred as that happy music rang. O, what a wondrous rustling everywhere! The steady shadows shook and thinned and died, The shining grass flashed brightness back for brightness, And sleep was gone, and there was heavenly lightness. As if she had found wings, light as the wind, The grass flew, bent with the wind, from east to west, Chased by one wild grey cloud, and flashing all Her dews for happiness to hear morning call.... But even as I stepped out the brightness dimmed, I saw the fading edge of all delight. The sober morning waked the drowsy herds, And there was the old scolding of the birds. MEMORIES OF CHILDHOOD TO MARJORY I CHILDHOOD CALLS Come over, come over the deepening river, Come over again the dark torrent of years, Come over, come back where the green leaves quiver, And the lilac still blooms and the grey sky clears. Come, come back to the everlasting garden, To that green heaven, and the blue heaven above. Come back to the time when time brought no burden And love was unconscious, knowing not love. II THE ANSWER O, my feet have worn a track Deep and old in going back. Thought released turns to its home As bees through tangling thickets come. One way of thought leads to the vast Desert of the mind, and there is lost, But backward leads to a dancing light And myself there, stiff with delight. O, well my thought has trodden a way From this brief day to that long day. III THE FIRST HOUSE That is the earliest thing that I remember-- The narrow house in the long narrow street, Dark rooms within and darkness out of doors Where grasses in the garden lift in the wind, Long grasses clinging round unsteady feet. The sunlight through one narrow passage pours, As through the keyhole into a dusty room, Striking with a golden rod the greening gloom. The tall, tall timber-stacks have yet been kind, Letting the sun fling his rod clear between, Lest there should be no gold upon the green, And no light then for a child to dream upon, And day be of day's brightness all forlorn. I saw those timber piles first dark and tall, And then men clambered up, and stumbled down, Each with a heavy and long timber borne Upon broad shoulders, leather-covered, bent. Hour after hour, day after day they went, Until the piles were gone and a new sky Stretched high and white above the garden wall. And then fresh piles crept slowly up and up, The strong men staggering, more cruelly bowed, Till at last they lay idle on the top Looking down from their height on things so small, While I looked wondering and fearful up At the strong men at rest on the new-built cloud. But there was other gold than the sun's sparse gold-- Florence's hair, its brightness lying still Upon my mind as then upon the grass. Now the grass covers it and I am old, Remembering but her hair and that long grass, And the great wood-stacks threatening to fall-- When all dark things will. IV THE OTHER HOUSE That other house, in the same crowded street, One red-tiled floor had, answering to my feet, And a bewildering garden all of light and heat. Only that red floor and garden now remain, One glowing firelike in my glowing brain, One with smell, colour, sun and cloud revived again. Yet in the garden the sky was very small, Closed by some darkness beyond the low brown wall; But from the west the gold could long unhindered fall. Of human faces I remember none Amid the garden; but myself alone With creeping-jenny, sunflower, marigold, snapdragon-- These all my love, these now all my light, Bringing their kindness to any painful night. The sun brushed all their brightness with his skirt more bright. And I was happy when I knew it not, Dreaming of nothing more than that small plot, And the high sky and sun that floated bright and hot. But what night was, save dark, I did not know. The blind shut out the stars: the moon would go Staring, unstared at, moon and stars unnoted flow. Until one night, into the strange street led, To stare at a strange light from the Factory shed, Wheeling and darting, withdrawn, and sudden again outsped-- No one knew why--but I knew darkness then, And saw the stars that hung so still; but when I lay abed the old starless dark came back again. Night is not night without the stars and moon. I knew them not, or I forgot too soon, And now remember only the glowing sun of noon, The red floor, and yellow flowers, and a lonely child, And a whistle morn and noon and evening shrilled, And darkness when the household murmurs even were stilled. V THE FIRE Near the house flowed, or paused, the black Canal, Edged by the timber piles so black and tall. From the rotten fence I watched the horses pull Along the footpath, slow and beautiful, Moving with strength and ease, in their great size And untired movement wonderful to my eyes; Their dull brass clanking as each shaggy foot Stamped the soft cinder track as fine as soot. The driver lurched old and forbidding by, Not seeing the child that feared to meet his eye. I watched the rope dip, tighten, and the water flash In falling, and then heard the hiss and splash; I watched the barge drag slowly on and on, Not dreaming how lovely a ship could ride the water upon, Not dreaming how lovely flowing water was, Sung to by trees and fingered by long grass, Or running from the bosom of a hill Down, where it flows so deep that it seems still. But it was by that rotten fence one night I saw the timber piles break into light, Suddenly leaping into a heavenly flame That played with the wind and one with the wind became. Pile to pile gave its fire, till they were like Bright angels with flashing swords before they strike, Terrible and lovely. But men those angels fought, Small and humble and patient all night wrought, And all day wrought and night and day again, And night and day, pouring their hissing rain, Until the angels tired and one by one died. Then their black spectres haunted the waterside, Charred ruins, broken-limbed, no more erect, Or heaped black dust, with cold white ashes flecked. But I had seen the angel-quelling men, With blackened and bruised face, the horses thin, The glittering harness, the leaky, bubbling mains, The broad smoke, and the steam from the leaping rains:-- O I had seen what I should not forget, Men that defeated ruinous angels and shall still defeat. VI THE KITE It was a day All blue and lifting white, When I went into the fields with Frank To fly his kite. The fields were aged, bare, Shut between houses everywhere. All the way there The wind tugged at the kite to take it Untethered, toss and break it; But Frank held fast, and I Walked with him admiringly; In his light brave and fine How bright was mine! We tailed the kite While the wind flapped its purple face And yellow head. Frank's yellow head Was scarcely higher, and not so bright. "Let go!" he cried, and I let go And watched the kite Swaying and rising so That I was rooted to the place, Watching the kite Rise into the blue, Lifting its head against the white Against the sun, Against the height That far-off, farther drew; Shivering there In that fine air As we below shivered with delight And fear. There it floated Among the birds and clouds at ease Of others all unnoted, Swimming above the ranked stiff trees. And I lay down, looking up at the sky, The clouds and birds that floated By others still unnoted, And that swaying kite Specking the light: Looking up at the sky, The birds and clouds that drew Nearer, leaving the blue, Stooping, and then brushing me, With such tenderness touching me That I had still lain there In those fields bare, Forgetting the kite; For every cloud was now a kite Streaming with light. VII THE CHAIR The chair was made By hands long dead, Polished by many bodies sitting there, Until the wood-lines flowed as clean as waves. Mine sat restless there, Or propped to stare Hugged the low kitchen with fond eyes Or tired eyes that looked at nothing at all. Or watched from the smoke rise The flame's snake-eyes, Up the black-bearded chimney leap; Then on my shoulder my dull head would drop. And half asleep I heard her creep-- Her never-singing lips shut fast, Fearing to wake me by a careless breath. Then, at last, My lids upcast, Our eyes met, I smiled and she smiled, And I shut mine again and truly slept. Was I that child Fretful, sick, wild? Was that you moving soft and soft Between the rooms if I but played at sleep? Or if I laughed, Talked, cried, or coughed, You smiled too, just perceptibly, Or your large kind brown eyes said, O poor boy! From the fireside I Could see the narrow sky Through the barred heavy window panes, Could hear the sparrows quarrelling round the lilac; And hear the heavy rains Choking in the roof-drains:-- Else of the world I nothing heard Or nothing remember now. But most I loved To watch when you stirred Busily like a bird At household doings; with hands floured Mixing a magic with your cakes and tarts. O into me, sick, froward, Yourself you poured; In all those days and weeks when I Sat, slept, woke, whimpered, wondered and slept again. Now but a memory To bless and harry me Remains of you still swathed with care; Myself your chief care, sitting by the hearth Propped in the pillowed chair, Following you with tired stare, And my hand following the wood lines By dead hands smoothed and followed many years. VIII THE SWING It was like floating in a blessed dream to roam Across green meadows, far from home, With only trees and quivering sky to hedge the sight, Dazzling the eyes with strange delight. Such wide, wide fields I had never seen, and never dreamed Could be; and wonderful it seemed To wander over green and under green and run Unwatched even of the shining sun. One tree there was that held a wrinkled creaking bough Far over the grass, hanging low; And a swing from it hanging drew us near and made New brightness beneath that doming shade. For there my sisters swung long hours delightedly, And there delighted clambered I; And all our voices shrilled as one when up we flung And into the stinging sharp leaves swung. Then in a garden dense with bramble and sweet flowers Where honeysuckle a new sweetness pours, We sat and ate and drank. Well I remember how We were all shaded by one bough Bending with red fruit over our uplifted eyes, Teasing our well-watched covetousness. And then we went back happy to the empty swing, But I was tired of everything Except the grass and trees and the wide shadows there Widening slowly everywhere. It was like swinging in a solemn dream to roam In a strange air, far from home-- Until I saw the shadows suddenly wake and move, And float, float down from above. Then I ran quickly back, round the large gloomy trees, O with what shivering unease! And stumbled where they waited, and was far too glad, Finding them, to be afraid or sad. --Then waited an unforgetting year once more to see So wide a sky, so great a tree. IX FEAR Surely I must have ailed On that dark night, Or my childish courage failed Because there was no light; Or terror must have come With his chill wing, And made my angel dumb, Or found him slumbering. Because I could not sleep Terror began to wake, Close at my side to creep And sting me like a snake. And I was afraid of death, But when I thought of pain-- O, language no word hath To recall that thought again! Into my heart fear crawled And wreathed close around, Mortal, convulsive, cold, And I lay bound. Fear set before my eyes Unimaginable pain; Approaching agonies Sprang nimbly into my brain. Just as a thrilling wind Plucks every mournful wire, So terror on my wild mind Fingered, with ice and fire. O, not death I feared, But the anguish of the body; My dizzying passions heard, Saw my own bosom bloody. I thought of years of woe, Moments prolonged to years, Heard my heart racing so, Redoubling all those fears. Yet still I could not cry, Not a sound the stillness broke; But the dark stirred, and my Negligent angel woke. X THE STREETS Marlboro' and Waterloo and Trafalgar, Tuileries, Talavera, Valenciennes, Were strange names all, and all familiar; For down their streets I went, early and late (Is there a street where I have never been Of all those hundreds, narrow, skyless, straight?)-- Early and late, they were my woods and meadows; The rain upon their dust my summer smell; Their scant herb and brown sparrows and harsh shadows Were all my spring. Was there another spring? I knew their noisy desolation well, Drinking it up as a child drinks everything, Knowing no other world than brick and stone, With one rich memory of the earth all bright. Now all is fallen into oblivion-- All that I was, in years of school and play, Things that I hated, things that were delight, Are all forgotten, or shut all away Behind a creaking door that opens slow. But there's a child that walks those streets of war, Hearing his running footsteps as they go Echoed from house to house, and wondering At Marlboro', Waterloo and Trafalgar; And at night, when the yellow gas lamps fling Unsteady shadows, singing for company; Yet loving the lighted dark, and any star Caught by sharp roofs in a narrow net of sky. XI WHEN CHILDHOOD DIED I can recall the day When childhood died. I had grown thin and tall And eager-eyed. Such a false happiness Had seized me then; A child, I saw myself Man among men. Now I see that I was Ignorant, surprised, As one for the surgeon's knife Anæsthetized. So that I did not know What loomed before, Nor how, a child, I became A child no more. The world's sharpened knife Cut round my heart; Then something was taken And flung apart. I did not, could not know What had been done. Under some evil drag I lived as one At home in the seeming world; Then slowly came Through years and years to myself And was no more the same. I know now an ill thing was done To a young child By the world's wary knife Maimed and defiled. I can recall the day Almost without anger or pain, When childhood did not die But was slain. XII ALL THAT I WAS I AM Hateful it seems now, yet was I not happy? Starved of the things I loved, I did not know I loved them, and was happy lacking them. If bitterness comes now (and that is hell) It is when I forget that I was happy, Accusing Fate, that sits and nods and laughs, Because I was not born a bird or tree. Let accusation sleep, lest God's own finger Point angry from the cloud in which He hides. Who may regret what was, since it has made Himself himself? All that I was I am, And the old childish joy now lives in me At sight of a green field or a green tree. THE SHOCK Thinking of these, of beautiful brief things, Of things that are of sense and spirit made, Of meadow flowers, dense hedges and dark bushes With roses trailing over nests of thrushes; Of dews so pure and bright and flush'd and cool, And like the flowers as brief as beautiful; Thinking of the tall grass and daisies tall And whispered music of the waving bents; Of these that like a simple child I love Since they are life and life is flowers and grass; Thinking of trees, and water at their feet Answering the trees with murmur childlike sweet; Thinking of those high thoughts that passed like the wind Yet left their brightness lying on the mind, As the white blossoms the raw airs shake down That lie awhile yet lovely on the chill grass; Thinking of the dark, where all these end like cloud, And the stars watch like Knights to Honour vowed, Of those too lovely colours of the East, And the too tender loveliness of grey: Thinking of all, I was as one that stands 'Neath the bewildering shock of breaking seas; Mortal-immortal things had lost their power, I knew no more than sweetness in the flower; No more than colour in the changing light, No more than order in the stars of night; A breathing tree was but gaunt wood and leaves; All these had lost their old power over me. I had forgotten that ever such things were: Immortal-mortal, I had been but blind ... O the wild sweetness of the renewing sense That swept me and drove all but sweetness hence! ... As beautiful as brief--ah! lovelier, Being but mortal. Yet I had great fear-- That I should die ere these sweet things were dead, Or live on knowing the wild sweetness fled. THE UNLOOSENING Winter was weary. All his snows were failing-- Still from his stiff grey head he shook the rime Upon the grasses, bushes and broad hedges, But all was lost in the new touch of Time. And the bright-globèd hedges were all ruddy, As though warm sunset glowed perpetual. The myriad swinging tassels of first hazel, From purple to pale gold, were swinging all In the soft wind, no more afraid of Winter. Nor chaffinch, wren, nor lark was now afraid. And Winter heard, or (ears too hard of hearing) Snuffed the South-West that in his cold hair played. And his hands trembled. Then with voice a-quaver He called the East Wind, and the black East ran, Roofing the sky with iron, and in the darkness Winter crept out and chilled the earth again. And while men slept the still pools were frozen, Mosses were white, with ice the long grasses bowed; The hawthorn buds and the greening honeysuckle Froze, and the birds were dumb under that cloud. And men and beasts were dulled, and children even Less merry, under that low iron dome. Early the patient rooks and starlings gathered; Any warm narrow place for men was home. And Winter laughed, but the third night grew weary, And slept all heavy, till the East Wind thought him dead. Then the returning South West in his nostrils Breathed, and his snows melted. And his head Uplifting, he saw all the laughing valley, Heard the unloosened waters leaping down Broadening over the meadows; saw the sun running From hill to hill and glittering upon the town. All day he stared. But his head drooped at evening, Bent and slow he stumbled into the white Cavern of a great chalk hill, hedged with tall bushes, And in its darkness found a darker night Among the broken cliff and falling water, Freezing or falling quietly everywhere; Locked in a long, long sleep, his brain undreaming, With only water moving anywhere. Old men at night dreamed that they saw him going, And looked, and dared not look, lest he should turn. And young men felt the air beating on their bodies, And the young women woke from dreams that burn. And children going through the fields at morning Saw the unloosened waters leaping down, And broke the hazel boughs and wore the tassels Above their eyes--a pale and shaking crown. WILD HEART I DARK AND STRANGE When first Love came, then was I but a boy Swept with delirium of undreamt joy. Now Love comes to a man serious with change Of life and death--and makes the world dark and strange. II WILD HEART Wild heart, wild heart, Where does the wind find home? Wild heart, wild heart, Where does the wild blood rest? Home, home, Rest, rest-- Unto you I come And catch you to my breast. Wild heart, wild heart, There the wind will sleep. Wild heart, wild heart, And the blood gently flow. Come, come, Unresting rest Within my heart's cave deep Where thoughts like bright stars glow. Wild heart, wild heart, Here, here is your home. Wild heart, wild heart, With that winged star I come. Home, home, Rest in unrest-- Unto you, wild heart, I come. My wild heart is your home. III HOME FOR LOVE Because the earth is vast and dark And wet and cold; Because man's heart wants warmth and light Lest it grow old; Therefore the house was built--wall, roof And brick and beam, By a lost hand following the lost Delight of a dream, And room and stair show how that hand Groped in eager doubt, With needless weight of teasing timber Matching his thought-- Such fond superfluousness of strength In wall and wood As his half-wise, half-fearful eye Deemed only good. His brain he built into the house, Laboured his bones; He burnt his heart into the brick And red hearth-stones. It is his blood that makes the house Still warm, safe, bright, Honest as aim and eye and hand, As clean, as light. Because the earth is vast and dark The house was built-- Now with another heart and fire To be fulfilled. IV THE ALDE How near I walked to Love, How long, I cannot tell. I was like the Alde that flows Quietly through green level lands, So quietly, it knows Their shape, their greenness and their shadows well; And then undreamingly for miles it goes And silently, beside the sea. Seamews circle over, The winter wildfowl wings, Long and green the grasses wave Between the river and the sea. The sea's cry, wild or grave, From, bank to low bank of the river rings; But the uncertain river though it crave The sea, knows not the sea. Was that indeed salt wind? Came that noise from falling Wild waters on a stony shore? Oh, what is this new troubling tide Of eager waves that pour Around and over, leaping, parting, recalling?... How near I moved (as day to same day wore) And silently, beside the sea! V AGAINST THE COLD PALE SKY Against the cold pale sky The elm tree company rose high. All the fine hues of day That flowered so bold had died away. Only chill blue, faint green, And deepening dark blue were seen. There swinging on a bough That hung or floated broad and low. The lamp of evening, bright With more than planetary light, Was beautiful and free-- A white bird swaying on the tree. You watched and I watched, Our eyes and hearts so surely matched. We saw the white bird leap, leap Shining in his journey steep Through that vast cold sky. Our hearts knew his unuttered cry-- A cry of free delight Spreading over the clustering night. Pole Hill grave and stark Stared at the valley's tidal dark, The Darent glimmered wan; But that eager planet winging on, And singing on, went high Into the deeps and heights of sky. And our thoughts rising too Brightened the mortal darkness through Trembled and danced and sang Till the mute invisible heavens rang. VI THE DARK FIRE Love me not less Yet ease me of this fever, That in my wondering heart Burns, sinks, burns again ever. Is it your love In me so fiercely burning, Or my love leaping to you Then requickened returning? Come not to me, Bring not your body nearer, Though you overleapt the miles I could not behold you clearer. I could not clasp you Than in my thought more surely; Breast to breast, heart to heart Might cling no more securely. I do not know you, Seeing you, more than unseeing. What you are that you are Here in my spiritual being. Leave me you cannot, Nor can I remove me From the sevenfold dark fire You have lit here since you love me. Yet love unsure No wilder could be burning. Come, go, come, go, There's neither leaving nor returning. Love me, love me more. O, not my heart shall quaver If the dark fire more deep Sinks and is sevenfold sevenfold graver. VII THE KESTREL In a great western wind we climbed the hill And saw the clouds run up, ride high and sink; And there were shadows running at our feet Till it seemed the very earth could not be still, Nor could our hearts be still, nor could we think Our hearts could ever be still, our thought less fleet Than the dizzy clouds, less than the flying wind. Eastward the valley and the dark steep hill And other hills and valleys lost behind In mist and light. The hedges were not yet bare Though the wind picked at them as he went by. The woods were fire, a fire that dense or clear Burned steady, but could not burn up the shadows Rooted where the trees' roots entangled lie, In darkness; or a flame burned solitary In the middle of the highest of brown meadows, Burned solitary and unconsuming where A red tree stooped to its black shadow and The kestrel's shadow hunted the kestrel up the hill. We climbed, and as we stood (where yet we stand And of the visioned sun and shadow still drink) Happiness like a shadow chased our thought That tossed on free wings up and down the world; Till by that wild swift-darting shadow caught Our free spirits their free pinions furled. Then as the kestrel began once more the heavens to climb A new-winged spirit rose clear above the hills of time. VIII THE IMAGE I am a river flowing round your hill, Holding your image in my lingering water, With imaged white clouds rising round your head; And I am happy to bear your image still. Though a loud ruffling wind may break and scatter That happiness, I know it is not fled. But when the wind is gone or gentled so That only the least quivering quivers on, Your image recomposes in my breast With those high clouds, quiet and white as snow-- Spiritual company; and when day's gone And those white clouds have stepped into the west; And the dark blue filling the heavens deep Is bright with stars that sing above your head, Their light lies in the deep of my dark eyes With your dark shape, a shadow of your sleep ... I am happy still, watching the bright stars tread Around your shadow that in my bosom lies. IX PERVERSITIES I Now come, And I that moment will forget you. Sit here And in your eyes I shall not see you. Speak, speak That I no more may hear your music. Into my arms, Till I've forgotten I ever met you. I shall not have you when I hold you Body to body, Though your firm flesh, though your strong fingers Be knit to these. On a wild hill I shall be chasing The thought of you; False will be those true things I told you: I shall forget you. No, do not come. Where the wind hunts, there shall I find you. In cool gray cloud Where the sun slips through I shall see you, Or where the trees Are silenced, and darken in their branches. Your coming would Loosen, when my thought still would bind you. Against my shoulder your warm shoulder When last you leaned-- Think, were you nearer then and dearer, Or I more glad? O eternal love, your body brings you No nearer. Trust me, be bold, be even a little bolder And do not come. X PERVERSITIES II Yet when I am alone my eyes say, Come. My hands cannot be still. In that first moment all my senses ache, Cells, that were empty fill, The clay walls shake, And unimprisoned thought runs where it will. Runs and is glad and listens and doubts, and glooms Because you are not here. Then once more rises and is clear again As sense is never clear, And happy, though in vain These eyes wait and these arms to bring you near. Yet spite of thought my arms and eyes say, Come, Pained with such discontent. For though thought have you all my senses ache-- O, it was not meant My body should never wake But on thought's tranquil bosom rest content. XI THE VALLEY Between the beechen hill and the green down The valley pastures sink; And the green river runs through their warm green Northward into the sea. Dark is the beechen hill these winter days, The trees swallow the light And make an evening there when morning shines And the down heaves to the south. Only when the sun's low a fire creeps through The dark of the beechen hill; While the green down, misty from head to foot, Grows huge and dim with sleep. Then in the valley by the yet shining river, Under the noisy elms, I know how like twin shadows over me Rising high, east and west, Are Love's dark hills, quiet, unchanging, vast, Sleeping beneath the stars; While I with those stars in my bosom shining Move northward to the sea. XII THE DARK NIGHT OF THE MIND I could not love if my thought loved not too, Nor could my body touch the body of you, Unless first in the dark night of the mind Love had fulfilled what Love had well designed. Was it in thought or flesh we walked, when low The sun dropped, and the white scar on the hill Sank into the dark trees? Could we indeed so quietly go Body by body into that heavenly glow? The elms that rose so vast above the mill Near leafless were and still; But from the branches with such loud unease Black flocking starlings mixed their warring cries That seemed the greater noise of the creaking mill; And every branch and extreme twig was black With birds that whistled and heard and whistled back, Filling with noise as late with wings the skies. Was it their noise we heard, Or clamour of other thoughts in our quiet mind that stirred? Then through the climbing hazel hedge new thinned By the early and rapacious wind, We saw the silver birches gleam with light Of frozen masts in seas all wild and green. O, were they truly trees, or some unseen Thought taking on an image dark and bright? And did those bodies see them, or the mind? And did those bodies face once more the hill To bathe in night, or on a darker road Our spirits unseeing unwearying rise and rise Where these feet never trod? From that familiar outer darkness I Would rise to the inner, deeper, darker sky And find you in my spirit--or find you not, O, never, never, if not in my thought. THE BODY When I had dreamed and dreamed what woman's beauty was, And how that beauty seen from unseen surely flowed, I turned and dreamed again, but sleeping now no more: My eyes shut and my mind with inward vision glowed. "I did not think!" I cried, seeing that wavering shape That steadied and then wavered, as a cherry bough in June Lifts and falls in the wind--each fruit a fruit of light; And then she stood as clear as an unclouded moon. As clear and still she stood, moonlike remotely near; I saw and heard her breathe, I years and years away. Her light streamed through the years, I saw her clear and still, Shape and spirit together mingling night with day. Water falling, falling with the curve of time Over green-hued rock, then plunging to its pool Far, far below, a falling spear of light; Water falling golden from the sun but moonlike cool: Water has the curve of her shoulder and breast, Water falls as straight as her body rose, Water her brightness has from neck to still feet, Water crystal-cold as her cold body flows. But not water has the colour I saw when I dreamed, Nor water such strength has. I joyed to behold How the blood lit her body with lamps of fire And made the flesh glow that like water gleamed cold. A flame in her arms and in each finger flame, And flame in her bosom, flame above, below, The curve of climbing flame in her waist and her thighs; From foot to head did flame into red flame flow. I knew how beauty seen from unseen must rise, How the body's joy for more than body's use was made. I knew then how the body is the body of the mind, And how the mind's own fire beneath the cool skin played. O shape that once to have seen is to see evermore, Falling stream that falls to the deeps of the mind, Fire that once lit burns while aught burns in the world, Foot to head a flame moving in the spirit's wind! If these eyes could see what these eyes have not seen-- The inward vision clear--how should I look for joy, Knowing that beauty's self rose visible in the world Over age that darkens, and griefs that destroy? THE TOSSING MOUNTAINS They were like dreams that in a drowsy hour A sad old God had dreamed in loneliness of power. They were like dreams that in his drowsy mind Rose slowly and then, darkening, made him wise and blind-- So that he saw no more the level sun, Nor the small solid shadow of unclouded noon. The dark green heights rose slowly from the green Of the dark water till the sky was narrowly seen; Only at night the lifting walls were still, And stars were bright and calm above each calm dark hill. ... I could not think but that a God grown old Saw in a dream or waking all this round of bold And wavelike hills, and knew them but a thought, Or but a wave uptost and poised awhile then caught Back to the sea with waves a million more That rise and pause and break at last upon the shore. A God, a God saw first those hills that I Saw now immense upholding the starry crowded sky: His breath the mist that clung their shoulders round, His slow unconscious sigh that easeless floating sound. Ere mine his thought failed under each rough height And then was brave, seeing the stars climb calm and bright. Ere they were named he named them in his mood, Like varying children of one giant warring brood-- Broad-Foot, Cloud-Gatherer, Long-Back, Winter-Head, Bravery and Bright-Face and that long Home of the Dead; And their still waters glittering in his glance Named Buckler, Silver Dish, Two Eyes and Shining Lance, Names unrecorded, but the circling wind Remembers and repeats them to the listening mind.... That mind was mine. At Shining Lance I stared Between Long-Back and Winter-Head as the new sun bared The Lake and heights of shadow and the wan gold Deepened and new warmth came into the light's sharp cold. And the near trees shivered no more but shook Their music over Shining Lance; and the excited brook Freshened in the sun's eye and tossed his spray High and sparkling, and then sprang dancing, dancing away. But Winter-Head and Long-Back, gravely bright, Stood firm as if for ever and a day and a night-- As they were more than a wave before 'tis caught Back to the tossing tide, more than a flying thought, More than a dream that an old God once dreamed When visionary not at all visionary seemed. THE POND Gray were the rushes Beside the budless bushes, Green-patched the pond. The lark had left soaring Though yet the sun was pouring His gold here and beyond. Bramble-branches held me, But had they not compelled me Yet had I lingered there Hearing the frogs and then Watching the water-hen That stared back at my stare. There amid the bushes Were blackbird's nests and thrush's, Soon to be hidden In leaves on green leaves thickening, Boughs over long boughs quickening Swiftly, unforbidden. The lark had left singing But song all round was ringing, As though the rushes Were sighingly repeating And mingling that most sweet thing With the sweet note of thrushes. That sweetness rose all round me, But more than sweetness bound me, A spirit stirred; Shadowy and cold it neared me, Then shrank as if it feared me-- But 'twas I that feared. TEN O'CLOCK NO MORE [1] The wind has thrown The boldest of trees down. Now disgraced it lies, Naked in spring beneath the drifting skies, Naked and still. It was the wind So furious and blind That scourged half England through, Ruining the fairest where most fair it grew By dell and hill. And springing here, The black clouds dragging near, Against this lonely elm Thrust all his strength to maim and overwhelm In one wild shock. As in the deep Satisfaction of dark sleep The tree her dream dreamed on, And woke to feel the wind's arms round her thrown And her head rock. And the wind raught Her ageing boughs and caught Her body fast again. Then in one agony of age, grief, pain, She fell and died. Her noble height, Branches that loved the light, Her music and cool shade, Her memories and all of her is dead On the hill side. But the wind stooped. With madness tired, and drooped In the soft valley and slept. While morning strangely round the hush'd tree crept And called in vain. The birds fed where The roots uptorn and bare Thrust shameful at the sky; And pewits round the tree would dip and cry With the old pain. "Ten o'clock's gone!" Said sadly every one. And mothers looking thought Of sons and husbands far away that fought:-- And looked again. [Footnote 1: _Ten o'clock_ is the name of a tall tree that crowned the eastern Cotswolds.] FROM WEAR TO THAMES Is it because Spring now is come That my heart leaps in its bed of dust? Is it with sorrow or strange pleasure To watch the green time's gathering treasure? Or is there some too sharp distaste In all this quivering green and gold? Something that makes bare boughs yet barer, And the eye's pure delight the rarer? Not that the new found Spring is sour.... The blossom swings on the cherry branch, From Wear to Thames I have seen this greenness Cover the six-months-winter meanness. And windflowers and yellow gillyflowers Pierce the astonished earth with light: And most-loved wallflower's bloody petal Shakes over that long frosty battle. But this leaping, sinking heart Finds question in grass, bud and blossom-- Too deeply into the earth is prying, Too sharply hears old voices crying. There is in blossom, bud and grass Something that's neither sorrow nor joy, Something that sighs like autumn sighing, And in each living thing is dying. It is myself that whispers and stares Down from the hill and in the wood, And in the untended orchard's shining Sees the light through thin leaves declining. Let me forget what I have been What I can never be again. Let me forget my winter's meanness In this fond, flushing world of greenness. Let me forget the world that is The changing image of my thought, Nor see in thicket and hedge and meadow Myself, a grave perplexèd shadow; And O, forget that gloomy shade That breathes his cloud 'twixt earth and light ... All, all forget but sun and blossom, And the bird that bears heaven in his bosom. TIME FROM HIS GRAVE When the south-west wind came The air grew bright and sweet, as though a flame Had cleansed the world of winter. The low sky As the wind lifted it rose trembling vast and high, And white clouds sallied by As children in their pleasure go Chasing the sun beneath the orchard's shadow and snow. Nothing, nothing was the same! Not the dull brick, not the stained London stone, Not the delighted trees that lost their moan-- Their moan that daily vexed me with such pain Until I hated to see trees again; Nor man nor woman was the same Nor could be stones again, Such light and colour with the south-west came. As I drank all that brightness up I saw A dark globe lapt in fold on fold of gloom, With all her hosts asleep in that cold tomb, Sealed by an iron law. And there amid the hills, Locked in an icy hollow lay the bones Of one that ghostly and enormous slept Obscure 'neath wrinkled ice and bedded stones. But as spring water the old dry channel fills, Came the south-west wind filling all the air. Then Time rose up, ghostly, enormous, stark, With cold gray light in cold gray eyes, and dark Dark clouds caught round him, feet to rigid chin. The wind ran flushed and glorious in, Godlike from hill to frozen hill-top stepp'd, And swiftly upon that bony stature swept. Then a long breath and then quick breaths I heard, In those black caves of stillness music stirred, Those icy heights were riven: From crown to clearing hollow grass was green; And godlike from flushed hill to hill-top leapt Time, youthful, quick, serene, Dew flashing from his limbs, light from his eyes To the sheeny skies. A lark's song climbed from earth and dropped from heaven, Far off the tide clung to the shore Now silent nevermore. ... Into what vision'd wonder was I swept, Upon what unimaginable joyance had I leapt! WILDER MUSIC Came the same cuckoo's cry All day across the mead. Flitted the butterfly All day dittering over my head. Came a bleak crawk-caw Between tall broad trees. Came shadows, floating, drifting slowly down Large leaves from darker trees. Rose the lark with the rising sun, Rose the mist after the lark, O wild and sweet the clamour begun Round the heels of the limping dark. Rose after white cloud white cloud, Nodded green cloud to green; The stiff and dark earth stirred, breathing aloud, And dew shook from the green. Remained the eyes that stared, Ears that ached to hear; Remained the nerve of being, bared, Stung with delight and fear. Beauty flushed, ran and returned, Like a music rose and fell; Staring and blind and deaf I listened and burned-- A wilder music fell. GRASSES O cover me, long gentle grasses, Cover me with your seeding heads, Cover me with your shaking limbs, Cover me with your light soft hands, Cover me as the delicious long wind passes Over you and me, green grasses. 'Tis of your blood I would be drinking, To your soft shrilling listening now, And your thin fingers peering through At the deep forests of the sky. O satisfy my peevish thought past thinking, My sense with your sense linking. Already are your brown roots creeping Around the roots of my mind's mind, Into the darkness hidden within The rayed dark of unconsciousness; And your long stems in a bright wind are leaping Over me uneasily sleeping. O cover me, long gentle grasses, As one day over a quiet flesh You will shake, shake and dance and sing; And body too still and spirit astir Will hear you in every firm bright wind that passes Over you, loved green grasses. FAIR AND BRIEF So fair, that all the morning aches With such monotony! So brief, that sadness breaks The brittle spell. Nothing so fair, nothing so brief: The sun leaps up and falls. The wind tosses every leaf: Every leaf dies. Blossom, a white cloud in the air, Is blown like a cloud away. Must all be brief, being fair? Nothing remain? Yes, night and that high regiment Of stars that wheel and march, Ever their bright lines bent To a secret thought; Moving immutable, bright and grave, Fair beyond all things fair; Though all else vanish, save Imagination's dream. NIGHTFALL I Eve goes slowly Dancing lightly Clad with shadow up the hills; Birds their singing Cease at last, and silence Falling like fine rain the valley fills. Not a bat's cry Stirs the stillness Perfect as broad water sleeping, Not a moth's wings Flit in the gathering darkness, Not a mouselike moonray ev'n comes creeping. Then a light shines From the casement, Wreathed with jasmine boughs and stars, Palely golden As the late eve's primrose, Glimmers through green leafy prison bars. II Only joy now Come in silence, Come before your look's forgot; Come and hearken While the lonely shadow Broadens on the hill and then is not. Now the hour is, Here the place is, Here am I who saw thee here. Evening darkens All is still and marvellous, Now the sharp stars in the deep sky peer. Come and fill me As the wind fills Leafy wide boughs of a tree; Come and windlike Cleanse my slumbrous branches, Come and moonlike bathe the leaves of me. III Eve has gone and Night follows, Every bush is now a ghost; Every tree looms Lofty large and sombre; All day's simple friendliness is lost. See the poplars Black in blackness, In all their leaves there is no sigh. 'Neath that darkling Cedar who dare wander Now, or under the vast oak would lie!... Till that tingling Silence broken Every clod renews its breath; Birds, leaves, grasses Heave as one, then sleep on Full of sweeter sleep and unlike death. IV Only joy now Come like music Falling clear from strings of light; Come like shadow Drinking up late sunrays, Come like moonrays sweeping the round night. See how night is Opening flowerlike: Open so thy bosom to me. See how earth falls Easeful into silence: Let my moth-wing'd thought so fall on thee. While the lamp's beam Primrose golden Now is like a shifting spear Borne in battle, Seen awhile then hidden, Bold then beaten--now long lost, and here! THE SLAVES The tall slaves bow if that capricious King But glances as he passes; Their dark hoods drawing over abashed faces They bow humbly, unappealingly. The dark robes round their shuddering bodies cling, They bow and but whisper as he passes. They have not learned to look into his eyes, If he insults to answer, To stand with head erect and angry arching bosom: They bow humbly, unappealingly, As though he mastered earth and the violet inky skies, And whisper piteously for only answer. So they stand, tall slaves, ashamed of their great height, And if he comes raving, Shouting from the west, furious and moody, They bow more humbly, unappealingly, Ashamed to remember how they lived in that calm light; They droop until he passes, tired of raving. Only when he's gone they lift their darkened brows, Light comes back to their eyes, Their leaves caress the light, the light laves their branches, They move loverlike, appealingly; Slaves now no more the poplars lift and shake their boughs, And there's a heaven of evening in their eyes. THE FUGITIVE In the hush of early even The clouds came flocking over, Till the last wind fell from heaven And no bird cried. Darkly the clouds were flocking, Shadows moved and deepened, Then paused; the poplar's rocking Ceased; the light hung still Like a painted thing, and deadly. Then from the cloud's side flickered Sharp lightning, thrusting madly At the cowering fields. Thrice the fierce cloud lighten'd, Down the hill slow thunder trembled; Day in her cave grew frightened, Crept away, and died. THE UNTHRIFT Here in the shade of the tree The hours go by Silent and swift, Lightly as birds fly. Then the deep clouds broaden and drift, Or the cloudless darkness and the worn moon. Waking, the dreamer knows he is old, And the day that he dreamed was gone Is gone. THE WREN Within the greenhouse dim and damp The heat floats like a cloud. Pale rose-leaves droop from the rust roof With rust-edged roses bowed. As I go in Out flies the startled wren. By the tall dark fir tree he sings Morn after morn still, Shy and bold he flits and sings Tinily sweet and shrill. As I go out His song follows me about ... About the orchard under trees Beaded with cherries bright, Past the rat-haunted Honeybourne And up those hills of light: As up I go His notes more sweetly flow. Or down those dark hills when night's there Full of dark thoughts and deep, A thin clear soundless music comes Like stars in broken sleep. When I come down All those dark thoughts are flown. And now that sweetness is more sweet, Here where the aeroplanes Labouring and groaning in the height Lift their lifeless vans:-- Sweet, sweet to hear The far off wren singing clear. THE WINDS In these green fields, in this green spring, In this green world of burning sweet That drives its sour from everything And burns the Arctic with new heat, That seems so slow and flies so fleet On half-seen wing; In this green world the birds are all With motion mad, are wild with song; The grass leaps like a sudden wall Flung up against a foe that long Strode round and wrought his frosty wrong. The bright winds call, The bright winds answer; the clouds rise White from the grave, shaking their head, Strewing the grave-clothes through the skies, In languid drifting shadow shed Upon the fields where, slowly spread, Each shadow dies. In every wood is green and gold, The unbridged river runs all green With queenly swan-clouds floating bold Down to the mill's swift guillotine. Beyond the mill each murdered queen Floats white and cold. --If I could rise up in a cloud And look down on the new earth in flight, Shadow-like cast my thought's thin shroud Back upon these fields of light; And hear the winds of day and night Meet, singing loud! THE WANDERER Over the pool of sleep The night mists creep, Then faint thin light and then clear day, Noontide, and lingering afternoon; Then that Wanderer, the Moon Wandering her old wild way. How many spirits follow Her in that dark hollow! Like a lost lamb she roams on high Through the cold and soundless sky, And stares down into her deep Reflection in the pool of sleep. How many follow Her in that lone hollow! She sees them not nor would she hear Though both shape and sound were clear, But stares, stares into the pool Of her fear and beauty full. Far in strange gay skies She pales and dies, Forgetting that bright transitory Reflection of astonished glory, Nor heeds the spirits that follow Her into day's bright hollow. MERRILL'S GARDEN There is a garden where the seeded stems of thin long grass are bowed Beneath July's slow rains and heat and tired children's trailing feet; And the trees' neglected branches droop and make a cloud beneath the cloud, And in that dark the crimson dew of raspberries shines more sweet than sweet. The flower of the tall acacia's gone, the acacia's flower is white no more, The aspen lifts his pithless arms, the aspen leaves are close and still; The wind that tossed the clouds along, gray clouds and white like feathers bore, Lets even a feather faintly fall and smoke spread hugely where it will. But though the acacia's flower is gone and raspberries bear bright fruit untasted, Beauty lives there, oh rich and rare, past the sum of eager June. The lime tree's pyramid of flower and leaf and yellow flower unwasted Rises at eve and bars the breast wild-heaving of the timid moon. Now the tall pear-trees unrebuked lift their green fingers to the sky; Their lower boughs are crossed like arms of templars in long stony sleep. Their arms are crossed as though the wind, returning from wild war on high, Had touched them with an angry breath, or whispered from his cavern deep. A foxglove lifts her bells and bells silent above the singing grass, Still the old marigold her light sprinkles like riches to the poor. Snapdragon still his changeling blossom shakes with the burden of the bees, And the strong bindweed creeps and winds and springs on high a conqueror. * * * * * Would now her eyes grieve to behold snapdragon, foxglove, marigold Daily diminish in their sweet and bindweed wreathing over all-- Weed and grass and weed and grass, friendless, melancholy, cold, Wreathing the earth like wreathing snow from bare wall to low greening wall? Old were her eyes that lingered on old trees and grass and flowers trim. She smelt the ripe pears when they drooped and fell and broke upon the path. Old were her thoughts of things of old; her present thoughts were few and dim; Her eyes saw not the things she saw; she listened, to no living breath. Her youth and prime and autumn time bloomed in her thought all light and sweet: No wallflower more of sweet could hold, of sunny light no marigold. Fruit on her mind's boughs ripened full, in summer's and calm autumn's heat: Then fell, for there came none to pick; but winter came, and she was old. Now if her sons come they will find--not her: her empty garden only, The wallflower done and snapdragon still swinging with the greedy bees, Marigold glittering in the grass, scant foxglove ringing faintly, lonely, Close red fruit beading the long boughs and bindweed wreathing where it please. A tawny lean cat _Marmalade_ slinks like a panther through the tall Thin bending grass and watches long a scholar thrush rehearsing song; Or children running in the sun hunt and hunt a well lost ball; But most the garden sleeps away the day, but still, when eves are long, When eves are long and no moon rises, and nervous, still, is all the air, That small stiff figure moves again, silent amid the hushing grass; In the firm-carven lime tree's shade she moves, and meets her old thoughts there, Then in the deepening dark is lost, or her light steps unnoted pass. Only that careless garden keeps secure her memory though it sleeps, And the bright flowers and tyrant weed and tall grass shaking its loud seed Less lovely were if wanting her who like a living thought still creeps And sees what once she saw and music hears of her living sons and dead. THE LIME TREE That lime tree on the distant rising ground (If it was a lime tree) showed her yellow leaves Above the renewed green of wet August grass-- First Autumn yellow that on first Autumn eves Too soon was found. Comfortless lime tree! Scarce an aspen leaf Like a green butterfly flitted to the ground; There was no sign of Autumn in the grass. Even the long garden beds their beauty brief-- Their mignonette, Nasturtium and sweet-william and red stocks, And clover crouching in the border grass, And blood-like fuschia, eve's primrose and white phlox And honeysuckle--waved all their smell and hue Morn and eve anew. But that far lime tree yellowing by the oak, Warning oak, elm and poplar and each fresh tree Shaking in the south wind delightedly, And clover in the closeness of the grass, Warns also me. And now when all the trees are standing still Beneath the purple and white of the west sky, And time is standing still--as stand it will-- That early yellowing lime with palsied fingers Cannot be still. DARK CHESTNUT Thou shaking thy dark shadows down, Like leaves before the first leaves fall, Pourest upon the head of night Her loveliest loveliness of all-- Dark leaves that tremble When soft airs unto softer call. O, darker, softer fall her thoughts Upon the cold fields of my mind, Weaving a quiet music there Like leaf-shapes trembling in least wind: Dark thoughts that linger When the light's gone and the night's blind. I see her there beneath your boughs. Dark chestnut, though you see her not; Her white face and white hands are clear As the moon in your stretched arms caught; But stranger, clearer, The living shadows of her thought. LONELY AIRS Ah, bird singing late in the gloam While the evening shadow thickens, And the dizzy bat-wings roam, And the faint starlight quickens; And her bud eve's primrose bares Before night's cold fingers come: Thine are such lonely airs, Bird singing late in the gloam! THE CREEPER It covered all The cold east wall, Its green, thin gold, purple, brown, And flame running up and down; Lifting its quiet bosom to every wind that crept Up the high wall and in its darkness slept. Then when the wind slept all the creeper turned To undiminishing fire that burned and burned and burned. But one black night (For not in the light May such treacheries be done) Came with dishonoured weapon one And cut the stem just where the branches thin Their million-leaf'd wild wandering begin: Cut the firm stem quite through, and so it bled, And all the million leaves shivered and hung there dead. The wall how cold, The house how old Became when that warm bright fire died, And the fond wind could no more hide. And it was strange that so much death could be From one dark night-hour's darker felony; And how the leaves being dead could not cast down Their colours in bright pools of red and gold and brown. --It did not die, But flamed on high Morn after morn, even when white snow Covered all brightness, high and low; And in the night when the snow glimmered wan Still beautiful as a fire its brightness shone: Its million quiet leaves quivering in my mind, When from no earthly meadows crept the remembered wind. SMOKE They stood like men that hear immortal speech Moving among their branches, and like trees We stood and watched them, and in our still branches Echoes of that immortal music stirred. October days had touched their breasts with light, With yellow light and red light and wan green; And the gray cloud that grew from low to high Made the warm light more warm, the green more wan. We stood and watched them and in our still branches We felt the warm light glow, though now the rain Was loud upon the leaves. And standing there You cried, "O, that sweet smell, where is the fire? Where is the fire?" For sharp upon the rain The smell came of a wood fire and clung round Hanging upon our branches, till we saw No more those lighted trees nor heard the rain-- Knew only the deep echoes and the smell Of a wood fire that breathed its smoke across From some near hearth, or undiscovered world. QUEENS The red sun stared unwinking at the East Then slept under a cloak of hodden gray; The rimy fields held the last light of day, A little tender yet. And I remember How black against the pale and wintry west Stood the confused great army of old trees, Topping that lean, enormous-shouldered hill With crossing lances shivering and then still. I looked as one that sees Queens passing by and lovelier than he dreamed, With fringe of silver light following their feet, And all those lances vail'd, and solemn Knights Watching their Queens as with eyes grave and sweet They left for the gray fields those airy heights. Nothing had lovelier seemed-- Not April's noise nor the early dew of June, Nor the calm languid cow-eyed Autumn Moon, Nor ruffling woods the greenest I remember-- Than this pale light and dark of cold December. THE RED HOUSE On the wide fields the water gleams like snow, And snow like water pale beneath pale sky, When old and burdened the white clouds are stooped low. Sudden as thought, or startled near bird's cry, The whiteness of first light on hills of snow New dropped from skiey hills of tumbling white Streams from the ridge to where the long woods lie; And tall ridge-trees lift their soft crowns of white Above slim bodies all black or flecked with snow. By the tossed foam of the not yet frozen brook Black pigs go straggling over fields of snow; The air is full of snow, and starling and rook Are blacker amid the myriad streams of light. Warm as old fire the Red House burns yet bright Beneath the unmelting snows of pine and larch, While February moves as slow, as slow As Spring might never come, never come March. Amid such snows, by generations haunted, By echoes, memories and dreams enchanted, Firm when dark winds through the night stamp and shout, Brightest when time silvers the world all about, That old house called _The Heart_ burns, burns, and still Outbraves the mortal threat of the hanging hill. THE BEAM The dead white on the fields' dead white Turned the peace to misery. Tall bony trees their wild arms thrust Into the cold breast of the night. Brightly the stars shone in their dust. The hard wind's gust Scratched like a bird the frozen snow. Against the dead light grew the gold, Lifting its beam to that high dust; The lamp within the hut's small pane Called the world to life again. Arms of the trees atremble thrust Defiance at the cold Night of narrow shrouding snow. A human beam, small spear of light, Lifting its beauty to that high Indifference of starry dust. The aching trees were comforted, And their brave arms more deeply thrust Into the sky. Earth's warm light fingered the dead snow. LAST HOURS A gray day and quiet, With slow clouds of gray, And in dull air a cloud that falls, falls All day. The naked and stiff branches Of oak, elm, thorn, In the cold light are like men aged and Forlorn. Only a gray sky, Grass, trees, grass again, And all the air a cloud that drips, drips, All day. Lovely the lonely Bare trees and green grass-- Lovelier now the last hours of slow winter Slowly pass. THE WISH That you might happier be than all the rest, Than I who have been happy loving you, Of all the innocent even the happiest-- This I beseeched for you. Until I thought of those unending skies-- Of stagnant cloud, or fleckless dull blue air, Of days and nights delightless, no surprise, No threat, no sting, no fear; And of the stirless waters of the mind, Waveless, unfurrowed, of no living hue, With dead eaves dropping slowly in no wind, And nothing flowering new. And then no more I wished you happiness, But that whatever fell of joy or woe I would not dare, O Sweet, to wish it less, Or wish you less than you. NOWHERE, EVERYWHERE Flesh and blood, bone and skin, Are the house that beauty lives in. Formed in darkness, grown in light Are they the substance of delight. Who could have dreamed the things he sees In these strong lovely presences-- In cheeks of children, thews of men, Women's bodies beloved of men? Who could have dreamed a thing so wise As that clear look of the child's eyes? Who the thin texture of her hand But with a hand's touch understand? Shaped in eternity were these Body's miracles, where the seas Their continuous rhythm learned, And the stars in their bright order burned. From stars and seas was motion caught When flesh, blood, bone and skin were wrought Into swift lovely liveliness. Oh, but beauty less and less Than beauty grows. The cheeks fall in, Colour dies from the smooth skin, And muscles slack and bones are brittle; Veins and arteries little by little Delay the tides of the blood: That is a ditch that was a flood. Then all but dry bones disappears, White bones that lie a hundred years Cheated of resurrection.... Where is that beauty gone? Escaped even while we watched it so, And none guessed the way it would go? Only it's fled, and here alone Lie blood and skin and flesh and bone. Where is the beauty that was here? --Nowhere, everywhere. TAKE CARE, TAKE CARE Bind up, bind up your dark bright hair And hide the smouldering sunken fire. Let it be held no more than fair, Nor yourself guess how rare, how rare Its movement, colour and deep fire. Your eyes they have their consciousness, Your lips their grave reflective smile, Your hands their cunning for distress: Your hair has only beauteousness And hid flame for its only guile. That glowing hair on shoulders white Is pride past sum: take care, take care! Even to dream of wish'd delight Too much perturbs the ebb of night-- Bind up, bind up your burning hair! NEARNESS Thy hand my hand, Thine eyes my eyes, All of thee Caught and confused with me: My hand thy hand My eyes thine eyes, All of me Sunken and discovered anew in thee.... No: still A foreign mind, A thought By other yet uncaught; A secret will Strange as the wind: The heart of thee Bewildering with strange fire the heart in me. Hand touches hand, Eye to eye beckons, But who shall guess Another's loneliness? Though hand grasp hand Though the eye quickens, Still lone as night Remain thy spirit and mine, past touch and sight. THE SECOND FLOOD How could I know, how could I guess That here was your great happiness-- In mine? And how could I know Your love infinite must grow? Suddenly at dawn I wake To see the cruse of colour break Over the East, and then the gray Creep up with light of common day ... No, no, no! again that bright Flashing, flushing, flooding light Leading on day, until I ache With love to see the dark world wake. O, with such second flood your love Painted my earth and heaven above, With such wild magnificence As bruised my heart in every sense, In every nerve. Was ever man Fit this renewed love to sustain? Now in these days when Autumn's leaf Is red and gold, and for a brief Day the earth flowers ere it dies, What if Spring came with new surprise, Came ere the aspen shivered bare Or the beech coins glittered in cold air, Before the rough wind the maple stripped And this bare moon on bare boughs stepped! Vain thought--O, yet not wholly vain: Even to me Love has come again, Moving from your quick breast where he Fluttered in his wondering infancy. THE GLASS Your face has lost The clearness it once wore, And your brow smooth and white Its look of light; Your eyes that were So careless, are how deep with care! O, what has done This cruelty to you? Is it only Time makes strange Your look with change, Or something more Than the worst pang Time ever bore?-- Regret, regret! So bitter that it changes Bright youth to madness, Poisoning mere sadness ... O, vain glass that shows Less than the bitterness the heart knows. BUT MOST THY LIGHT I know how fire burns, How from the wrangling fumes Rose and amber blooms, And slowly dies. Nothing's so swift as fire, There's nothing alive so fierce. The lifted lances pierce, Sink, and upspring. Like an Indian sword it leaps Out of the smoking sheath. Even the winged feet of death Learn speed from fire; And pain its cunning learns; Languor its sweet From the decaying heat That never dies. I know how fire burns Unguessed, save for tears, When the thousand-fanged flame spears The body's guard; Or when the mind, the mind Is ever-glowing wood, And fire runs in the blood Lunatic, blind; When remorse burns and burns And burns always, always-- The fire that surest slays Or surest numbs. I know how fire burns But how I cannot tell. And Heaven burns like Hell Yet the Heart endures. 'Tis the immortal Flame In mortal life that's bitter, Or than all sweet sweeter Though life burns down. Teach me, fire, but this, Nor alone destroying burn:-- Of thy warmth let me learn, But most thy light. IN THAT DARK SILENT HOUR In that dark silent hour When the wind wants power, And in the black height The sky wants light, Stirless and black In utter lack, And not a sound Escapes from that untroubled round:-- To wake then In the dark, and ache then Until the dark is gone-- Lonely, yet not alone; Hearing another's breath All the quiet beneath, Knowing one sleeps near That day held dear And dreams held dear; but now In this sharp moment--how Share the moment's sweetness, Forgo its completeness, Nor be alone Now the dark is grown Spiritual and deep More than in dreams and sleep? O, it is pain, 'tis need That so will plead For a little loneliness. If it be pain to miss Loved touch, look and lip, Companionship Yet is verier pain Then, then In that dark silent hour When the wind wants power, And you, near or far, sleep, And your released thoughts toward me creep While I, imprisoned, awake, Ache--ache To be for one Long, little moment with myself alone. ONCE THERE WAS TIME Let no tears fall If then they fell not. If eyes told nothing, Now let them tell not. Once there was time For words, looks and tears: That time is past, is past-- Heart, thou shalt tell not! Beyond any speech Is silence bitter, As between love and love Nothing is sweeter. Once there was time, time yet For words, looks and tears ... Past, past, past, past-- Nothing so bitter! Now if tears come That then fell never; If eyes such sad, sad things Look now for ever; If words, looks or tears Tremble with telling, Oh, what returning voice is it whispers _Never, never, never!_ SCATTER THE SILVER ASH LIKE SNOW O, what insect is it That burrows in the heart and frets The heart's near nerves, Leaving its unclean Stigmata in the mind serene, Making the proud how mean? It is not common hate, Anger has not such deadly cunning To annul, to chill. Wild anger is not So cunning even while so hot; Hate is too soon forgot. There is no sword so sharp With lightnings as the wanton tongue; Nothing that burns like words-- Bubbling flames that spread In the now unspiritual head, By sleepless fevers fed. O evil words that are The knives of desolating thought! And though words be still The hot eyes yet dart Burning deaths from this mad heart Into that torn heart. O Love, forget, forget, Put by that glittering edge, put by; Slay the insect with light; Smother that smoky glow, Scatter the silver ash like snow When thy spring airs blow! JUSTIFICATION From far-off it came near Deep-charactered and clear, Until I saw the features close to mine And the eyes unhappy shine. It was Sorrow's face, Wanting kindness and grace, And wanting strength of silence, and the power To abide a luckier hour. The first fear turned to hating As I saw him dumbly waiting, For it was my true likeness that he wore And would wear evermore:-- My face that was to be When his years' misery With here a little and there a little had made My strong spirit afraid. I saw his face and hated, Seeing mine so sad-fated. And then I struck and killed him, knowing that he Had else slain me. I HAVE NEVER LOVED YOU YET I have never loved you yet, if now I love. If Love was born in that bright April sky And ran unheeding when the sun was high, And slept as the moon sleeps through Autumn nights While those dear steady stars burn in their heights: If Love so lived and ran and slept and woke And ran in beauty when each morning broke, Love yet was boylike, fervid and unstable, Teased with romance, not knowing truth from fable. But Winter after Autumn comes and stills The petulant waters and the wild mind fills With silence; and the dark and cold are bitter, O, bitter to remember past days sweeter. Then Spring with one warm cloudy finger breaks The frost and the heart's airless black soil shakes; Love grown a man uprises, serious, bright With mind remembering now things dark and light. O, if young Love was beautiful, Love grown old Experienced and grave is not grown cold. Life's faithful fire in Love's heart burns the clearer With all that was, is and draws darkling nearer. I have never loved you yet, if now I love. THE PIGEONS The pigeons, following the faint warm light, Stayed at last on the roof till warmth was gone, Then in the mist that's hastier than night Disappeared all behind the carved dark stone, Huddling from the black cruelty of the frost. With the new sparkling sun they swooped and came Like a cloud between the sun and street, and then Like a cloud blown from the blue north were lost, Vanishing and returning ever again, Small cloud following cloud across the flame That clear and meagre burned and burned away And left the ice unmelting day by day. ... Nor could the sun through the roof's purple slate (Though his gold magic played with shadow there And drew the pigeons from the streaming air) With any fiery magic penetrate. Under the roof the air and water froze, And no smoke from the gaping chimney rose. The silver frost upon the window-pane Flowered and branched each starving night anew, And stranger, lovelier and crueller grew; Pouring her silver that cold silver through, The moon made all the dim flower bright again. ... Pouring her silver through that barren flower Of silver frost, until it filled and whitened A room where two small children waited, frightened At the pale ghost of light that hour by hour Stared at them till though fear slept not they slept. And when that white ghost from the window crept, And day came and they woke and saw all plain, Though still the frost-flower blinded the window-pane, And touched their mother and touched her hand in vain, And wondered why she woke not when they woke; And wondered what it was their sleep that broke When hand in hand they stared and stared, so frightened; They feared and waited, and waited all day long While all the shadows went and the day brightened, All the ill shadows but one shadow strong. Outside were busy feet and human speech And daily cries and horns. Maybe they heard, Painfully wondering still, and each to each Leaning, and listening if their mother stirred-- Cold, cold, Hungering as the long slow hours grew old, Though food within the cupboard idle lay Beyond their thought, or but beyond their reach. The soft blue pigeons all the afternoon Sunned themselves on the roof or rose at play, Then with the shrinking light fluttered away; And once more came the icy hearted moon, Staring down at the frightened children there That could but shiver and stare. ... How many hours, how many days, who knows? Neighbours there were who thought they had gone away To return some luckier or luckless day. No sound came from the room: the cold air froze The very echo of the children's sighs. And what they saw within each other's eyes, Or heard each other's heart say as they peered At the dead mother lying there, and feared That she might wake, and then might never wake, Who knows, who knows? None heard a living sound their silence break. In those cold days and nights how many birds Flittering above the fields and streams all frozen Watched hungrily the tended flocks and herds-- Earth's chosen nourished by earth's wise self-chosen! How many birds suddenly stiffened and died With no plaint cried, The starved heart ceasing when the pale sun ceased! And when the new day stepped from the same cold East The dead birds lay in the light on the snow-flecked field, Their song and beautiful free winging stilled. I walked under snow-sprinkled hills at night, And starry sprinkled, skies deep blue and bright. The keen wind thrust with his knife against the thin Breast of the wood as I went tingling by And heard a weak cheep-cheep--no more--the cry Of a bird that crouched the smitten wood within.... But no one heeded that sharp spiritual cry Of the two children in their misery, When in the cold and famished night death's shade More terrible the moon's cold shadows made. How was it none could hear That bodiless crying, birdlike, sharp and clear? I cannot think what they, unanswered, thought When the night came again and shadows moved As the moon through the ice-flower stared and roved, And that unyielding Shadow came again. That Shadow came again unseen and caught The children as they sat listening in vain, Their starved hearts failing ere the Shadow removed. And when the new morn stepped from the same cold East They lay unawakening in the barren light, Their song and their imaginations bright, Their pains and fears and all bewilderment ceased.... While the brief sun gave New beauty to the death-flower of the frost, And pigeons in the frore air swooped and tossed, And glad eyes were more glad and grave less grave. There is not pity enough in heaven or earth, There is not love enough, if children die Like famished birds--oh, less mercifully. A great wrong's done when such as these go forth Into the starless dark, broken and bruised, With mind and sweet affection all confused, And horror closing round them as they go. There is not pity enough! And I have made, children, these verses for you, Lasting a little longer than your breath, Because I have been haunted with your death; So men are driven to things they hate to do. Jesus, forgive us all our happiness, As Thou dost blot out all our miseries. AND THESE FOR YOU I NOT WITH THESE EYES Let me not see your grief! O, let not any see That grief, Nor how your heart still rocks Like a temple with long earthquake shocks. Let me not see Your grief. These eyes have seen such wrong, Yet remained cold: Ills grown strong, Corruption's many-headed worm Destroying feet that moved so firm-- Shall these eyes see Your grief? And that black worm has crawled Into the brain Where thought had walked Nobly, and love and honour moved as one, And brave things bravely were begun.... Now, can thought see Unabashed your grief? Into that brain your grief Has run like cleansing fire: Your grief Through these unfaithful eyes has leapt And touched honour where it lightly slept. Now when I see In memory your grief There is no thought that's not Yours, yours, No love that sleeps, No spiritual door that opens not In the green quiet village of thought Shining with light, And silent to your silence. II ASKING FORGIVENESS I did not say, "Yes, we had better part Since love is over or must be suppressed." I did not say, "I'll hold you in my heart Saint-like, and in the thought of your thought rest, And pray for you and wish you happiness In a better love than mine." I was another man to another woman, Tears falling or burnt dry were nothing then. I struck your heart, I struck your mind; inhuman, Future and past I stabbed and stabbed again, Cursing the very thought of your happiness In another love than mine: --Then left you sick to death, and I like death. It was a broken body bore me away-- A broken mind--poisoned by my own breath, And love self-poisoned.... Was it but yesterday? --Forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive, Forgive! JUDGMENT DAY When through our bodies our two spirits burn Escaping, and no more our true eyes turn Outwards, and no more hands to fond hands yearn; Then over those poor grassy heaps we'll meet One morning, tasting still the morning's sweet, Sensible still of light, dark, rain, cold, heat; And see 'neath the green dust that dust of gray Which was our useless bodies laid away, Mocked still with menace of a Judgment Day. We then that waiting dust at last will call, Each to the other's,--"Rise up at last, O small Ashes that first-love held loveliest of all! "'Tis Judgment Day, arise!" And they will arise, The dust will lift, and spine, ribs, neck, head, knees At the sound remember their old unities, And stand there, yours with mine, as once they stood Beloved, obeyed, despised, with that swift blood, Those looks and trembling lips, heart's pause and thud. * * * * * "And was it these that love-galled thought pursued And with his immortality indued, Nor was by their mortality quite subdued? "This was the bony hand that held my hand, The shoulders whereon all my world might stand: They fell, but in their fall was I unmanned? "This was the breast my eyes delighted in, The ribs were faint as now under the skin: They mouldered, but not my love mouldered within. "Away, away! This was not truly thee-- A mortal bravery, Time's delinquency, A dream that held me from thee, thee from me. "It was not in these bodies that we drew Near, nearer: never, never by these we knew Transfusion past all sense of 'I' and 'You.' "It was youth's blindness held the body so dear: Slowly, slowly, year after bewildered year, The dark thinned and the eyes of love grew clear, "And thought following thought, enlinking each, Ran where the delighting body could not reach, And had speech when there was no voice for speech; "So that we scarce grieved when those bodies died, And our eyes more than our true spirits cried; But as when trees fall, the free wind that sighed "Awhile in their fond branches ceases not, But sings a moment over the cumbered spot, Then flies away:--our unentangled thought, "Our vivid spirits of love, unbroken moved And lifted no more sense-confined, and roved And knew till then we had not utterly loved ... "Leave now this dust!" And then the dust will sink, The upheaved mound to its old shape will shrink, And we shall turn again from Time's dusk brink. * * * * * Will it be thus? It will be thus. Even now, Though body to body submissively still bow, 'Tis not on body's blood that our loves grow. Though I am old and you are old, though nerves Slacken, and beauty slowly lose its curves, And greedy Time the bone and sinew starves, Like some lean Captain gloating over a town That has not fallen, but will fall, every stone O'erthrust and every bravery overthrown; Who entering the defeated walls at last Finds emptiness, and hears an escaping blast, Triumphant from the shining east hills cast, And knows defeat in victory.... O that rare Music is ours, is ours--prelusive air Caught from the Judgment music high and severe. Will it indeed be thus? Yes, thus! The body burns, Not with desire, and into pale smoke turns, And there is only flame towards flame that yearns. While that ill lecherous Time among the stones Sits musing and rocking his old brittle bones, Irked by long shadows, mocked by those bright far tones. LIGHTING THE FIRE You were a gipsy as you bent Your dark hair over the black grate. Hardly the west light above the hill Showed your shadow, crooked and still. The bellows hissed, and one bright spark Deepened the hasty dark. The bellows hissed, and the old smell Crept on the air of smoking peat, And round the spark a bubbling flame Grew bright and loud. Sweeping the gloom Lunatic shadows fled and came Whirling about the room. Then as you raised your head I saw In the clear light of the bubbling fire Your dark hair all lined with the gray Sprinkled by years and sorrow and pain ... Till as the bellows idle lay Shadow swept back again. RECOVERY Where are you going with eyes so dull, You whose eyes were beautiful, You whose hair with the light was gay, And now is thin and harsh and gray? Is it age alone or age and tears That has slowly rubbed your beauty away? Where were you going when your swift eyes Were like merry birds under May skies?-- In your cheeks the colours fluttering brave As you danced with the wind and ran with the wave. From what bright star was your brightness caught? What to your music the music gave? Now is your beauty a thing of old, The fire is sunken, the ashes cold. But if sweet singing on your ear stray, Or the praise is uttered of yesterday, Or of courage and nobleness one word said-- Like a cloud Time's ravage is brushed away. EYES A winter sky of pale blue and pale gold, Bare trees, a wind that made the wood-path cold, And one slow-moving figure, gray and old. We met where the soft path falls from the wood Down to the village. As I came near she stood And answered when I spoke, drawing the hood Back from her face. I saw only her eyes, Large and sad. I could not bear those eyes. They were like new graves. I could not bear her eyes. But what we said as each passed on is gone. We looked and spoke and passed like strangers on, I to the high wood, she towards the paling sun. And there, where the clear-heavened small pool lies, And the tallest beeches brush the bending skies, In pool and tree I saw again her eyes. FULFILMENT Happy are they whom men and women love, And you were happy as a river that flows Down between lonely hills, and knows The pang and virtue of that loneliness, And moves unresting on until it move Under the trees that stoop at the low brink And deepen their cool shade, and drink And sing and hush and sing again, Breathing their music's many-toned caress; While the river with his high clear music speaks Sometimes of loneliness, of hills obscure, Sometimes of sunlight dancing on the plain, Or of the night of stars unbared and deep Multiplied in his depths unbared and pure; Sometimes of winds that from the unknown sea creep, Sometimes of morning when most clear it breaks Spilling its brightness on his breast like rain:-- And then flows on in loneliness again Towards the unknown near sea. Was it in mere happiness or pain? There were things said that spoke of naked pain, With nothing between the wound and the sharp-edged world; Things seen that told of such perplexity As darkened night with night: but was that pain? And there were things created all delight, Making delight fruitful a hundred fold: Sweetness of earth, energy of sun and rain, Colour and shape, flowers and grasses bright, And the clear firm body of a bare lovely hill, And woods around its feet fast caught and curled, And the cold sweets of lonely travelled night.... And was that happiness?--or something more, That gathered happiness and pain like flowers Half perished, and let them perish; and brightened still In those dark mental journeys of cold hours That found you what you were and left you stronger, Shutting a door and opening a door?... O door that you have passed so quickly through, Ere we well knew what man you were, nor knew What you had shown in life but a little longer! It was not pain nor happiness for you, Not any named delight or pang of sense, But swift fulfilment past all sense or thought Of what you were with all that time could make you; No separate gift, spiritual influence, But something wrought From your own heart, with all that life could make you. BRING YOUR BEAUTY Bring your beauty, bring your laughter, bring even your fears, Bring the grief that is, the joy that was in other years, Bring again the happiness, bring love, bring tears. There was laughter once, there were grave, happy eyes, Talk of firm earth, old earth-sweeping mysteries: There were great silences under clear dark skies. Now is silence, now is loneliness complete; all is done. The thrush sings at dawn, too sweet, up creeps the sun: But all is silent, silent, for all that was is done. Yet bring beauty and bring laughter, and bring even tears, And cast them down; strew your happiness and fears, Then leave them to the darkness of thought and years. Fears in that darkness die; they have no spring. Grief in that darkness is a bird that wants wing.... O love, love, your brightness, your beauty bring. MEMORIAL The wild October sky Rises not so high, The tree's roots that creep Into the earth's body thrust not so deep As our high and dark thought. Yet thought need not roam Far off to bring you home. The sky is our wild mind, Your roots are round our spirits twined, To ours are your hearts caught. O, never buried dead! The living brain in the head Is not so quick as you Burning our conscious darkness through With brightness past our thought. THE HUMAN MUSIC At evening when the aspens rustled soft And the last blackbird by the hedge-nest laughed, And through the leaves the moon's unmeaning face Looked, and then rose in dark-blue leafless space; Watching the trees and moon she could not bear The silence and the presence everywhere. The blackbird called the silence and it came Closing and closing round like smoke round flame. Into her heart it crept and the heart was numb, Even wishes died, and all but fear was dumb-- Fear and its phantoms. Then the trees were enlarged, And from their roundness unguessed shapes emerged, Or no shape but the image of her fear Creeping forth from her mind and hovering near. If a bat flitted it was an evil thing; Sadder the trees grew with every shadowy wing-- Their shape enlarged, their arms quivered, their thought Stirring in the leaves a silent anguish wrought. "What are they thinking of, the evil trees, Nod-nodding, standing in malignant ease? Something against man's mortal heart was sworn Once, when their dark Powers were conceived and born; And in such fading or such lightless hours The world is delivered to these plotting Powers." No physical swift blow she dreaded, not Lightning's quick mercy; but her heart grew hot And cold and hot with uncomprehended sense Of an assassin spiritual influence Moving in the unmoving trees.... Till, as she stared, Her eyes turned cowards at last, and no more dared. Yet could she never rise and shut the door: Perhaps those Powers would batter at the door, And that were madness. So right through the house She set the doors all wide when she could arouse The body's energy to serve the mind. Then the air would move, and any little wind Would cleanse awhile the darkness and diminish Her fear, and the dumb shadow-war would finish. But it was not the trees, the birds, the moon; Birds cease, months fly, green seasons wither soon: Nature was constant all the seasons through, Sinister, watchful, and a thick cloud drew Over the mind when its simplicity Challenged what seemed with thought of what must be.... She wondered, seeing how a child could play Lightly in a shady field all day: For in that golden, brief, benignant weather When spring and summer calling run together And the sun's fresh and hot, she saw deep guile In the sweetness of that unconditioned smile. Sweetness not sweetness was but indifference Or wantonness disguised, to her grave sense; And if she could have seen the things she felt She'd looked for darkness, and lit shapes that knelt Appealing, unregarded, at a high Altar uprising from the pit to the sky.... Had the trees consciousness, with flowers and clouds And winds that hung like thin clouds in the woods, And stars and silence:--had they each a mind Bending on hers, clear eyes on her eyes blind? In the green dense heights--elm, oak, ash, yew or beech She scarce saw--was there not a brain in each, An undiscovered centre of quick nerves By which (like man) the tree lives, masters, serves, Waxes and wanes? Oppressed her mind would shrink From thought, and into her trembling body sink. Something of this had childhood taught her when Sickly she lay and peered again and again At gray skies and white skies and void bright blue, And watched the sun the bare town-tree boughs through, And then through leafy boughs and once more bare. Or in the west country's heavy hill-drawn air Had felt the green grass pushing within her veins, Tangling and strangling: and the warm spring rains Tapping all night upon her childish head: She shivered, lying lonely on her bed, With all that life all round and she so weak, Longing to speak--yet what was there to speak? And as she grew and health came and love came And life was happier, happier, still the same Inhuman spirit rose whenever she Held in her thoughts more than her eyes could see. Behind the happiest hours the dark cloud hung Distant or nearing, and its dullness flung On the south meadows of her thought, the fairest Shrinking in shadow; aspirations rarest Falling, like shot birds in a reedy fen, Slain by the old Enemy of men. Life ebbed while men strove for the means of life; The grudging earth turned labour into strife. The moving hosts within the heavy clod Seemed infinite in malice; frost and flood, Season and inter-season, were conspired In smiling or sour mockery; and untired And undelighted, man scratched and scratched on, And what he did, by Nature was undone. She saw men twisted more than rocks or trees, Bruised, numbed, by age and labour and the disease Of labour in the cold fields; women worn By many child-bearings, and their self-scorn Because of time and their lost woman's powers. Bitter was Nature to women; for those hours Of the spirit's and the body's first delight Passed soon, and the long day, evening, night Of life uncherished; bitterest when even That brief hour was denied, of dancing heaven, Dewy love, and fulfilled desires. But age Of all ills made her pity and anger rage. To see and smell the calm months bud and bloom, April's first warmth, June's hues and slow perfume, The sweetness drifting by in those long hours While, out of her she nursed, the vital powers Were pressed by pain and pressed by pain renewed, Till, closing the life-long vicissitude, Came starving death with full-heaped summer, and Wrung the last pangs that spirit could withstand ... Or to see age in its prison slowly freeze With impotence more disastrous than disease, While trees flowered on, or all the winter through Upheld brave arms and with spring flowered anew Above those living graves and graves of the dead;-- 'Twas all such bitterness, but she nothing said. She saw men as courageous boats that sailed On all the seas, and some a far port hailed Perhaps to sail again, or anchor there Forever; some would quietly disappear In stormless waters, and some in storms be broken And all be hidden and no clear meaning spoken, Nor any trace upon the waters linger. Where the boat went the wind with hasty finger, Savage and sly as aught of land could be, Erased the little wrinkling of the sea. O, in such enmity was man enisled, Such loneliness, by foolish shades beguiled, That it was bravery to see and live, But cowardice to see and to forgive, The wrong of evil, the wrong of death to life, The defeat of innocence, the waste of strife,-- The heavy ills of time, injustice, pain-- In field and forest and flood rose huge and plain, Brushing her mind with darkness, till she thought Not with her brain, but all her nerves were wrought Into an apprehension burning strong, Unslackening, of mortality's old wrong. But if her eyes she raised to those clear lonely Altitudes of stars and ether only, Her eyes fell and rebuked her as forbidden With human mind to question what was hidden. At summer dusk the broad moon rising high Put gentleness in the vast strength of the sky, Easing its weight; or the hot summer sun Made noonday kind, and the hours lightly run. But in those blazing midnights of the stars Gathered and brightening for immortal wars With spears and darts and arrows of sharp light, She read the indifference of the infinite, The high strife flashing through eternity While on the earth stared mortals but as she. O 'twas a living world that rose around And in her sentience burned a hollow wound. Such easy brightness as the poets see, Or easy gloom, or hues of faerie, She never saw, but into her own heart peered To find what spirit indeed it was she feared:-- Whether in antique days a divine foe Sprung branchlike from dense woods had wrought her woe; Whether in antique days a pagan rite (Herself a pagan still) unfilmed her sight And taught her secrets never to be forgot, And by man's generation pardoned not.... The same blood in ancestral veins ran fleet As now made hers a road for pain's quick feet. Into the marrow of her hidden life Had poured the agony of their termless strife With immaterial and material things; And as a bird an unlearned music sings Because a million generations sang, So in her breast the old alarum rang, So the old sorrowfulness in her thought Renewed, and apprehensions all untaught; As if indeed a creature primitive Still did she in the world's dim morning live, That wanted human warmth and gentleness To make its solitude a little less. Kindness gave solitude the lovely light She loved, and made less terrible black midnight. Even as a bird its unlearned music pours Though windows all be blind and shut the doors, And sings on still though no faint sound be heard But wind and leaves and another lonely bird: So poured she untaught kindness all around And in that human music comfort found-- Music her own and music heard from others, Prime music of all lovers, children, mothers, Precarious music between all men sounding, The horror of silent and dark Powers confounding. Singing that music she could bravely live; Hearing it, find less sorrow to forgive. THE CANDLE Time like a cloud Has risen from the East And whelmed the sky over Even to the wide-arched West, Darkening the blue, Embrowning the early gold, Until no more the eternal Sun Looks simply through. In each man's eyes The cloud is set, With but the chill light Of silver January skies. On each man's heart Time's firm shadow falls, And the mind throws but a candle's beam On the dark walls. But on those walls Man paints his dream Rejoicing purely In the faithful candle's beam: Lives by its beauty, Pictures his heart's delight, And with that only beam outbraves Time's gathering night. O spiritual flame, Calm, faithful, bright! Time may whelm over All but this candle's light: Shadow but shadow is; Dark though it lies 'Tis blazon'd with man's long-dreamed dreams, Pierced by his eyes. OLD FIRES The fire burns low Where it has burned ages ago, Sinks and sighs As it has done to a hundred eyes Staring, staring At the last cold smokeless glow. Here men sat Lonely and watched the golden grate Turn at length black; Heard the cooling iron crack: Shadows, shadows, Watching the shadows come and go. And still the hiss I hear, the soft fire's sob and kiss, And still it burns And the bright gold to crimson turns, Sinking, sinking, And the fire shadows larger grow. O dark-cheeked fire, Wasting like spent heart's desire, You that were gold, And now crimson will soon be cold-- Cold, cold, Like moon-shadows on new snow. Shadows all, They that watched your shadows fall. But now they come Rising around me, grave and dumb.... Shadows, shadows, Come as the fire-shadows go. And stay, stay, Though all the fire sink cold as clay, Whispering still, Ancestral wise Familiars--till, Staring, staring, Dawn's wild fires through the casement glow. THE CROWNS Cherry and pear are white, Their snows lie sprinkled on the land like light On darkness shed. Far off and near The orchards toss their crowns of delight, And the sun casts down Another shining crown. The wind tears and throws down Petal by petal the crown Of cherry and pear till the earth is white, And all the brightness is shed In the orchards far off and near, That tossed by the road and under the green hill; And the wind is fled. Far, far off the wind Has shaken down A brightness that was as the brightness of cherry or pear When the orchards shine in the sun. --Oh there is no more fairness Since this rareness, The radiant blossom of English earth--is dead! THE BRIGHT RIDER All the night through I drank Sleep like water or cool cider; Life flowed over and I sank Down below the night of clouds.... Then on a pale horse was rider Through long brushing woods Where the owl in silence broods, Quavers, and is quiet again; Where the grass dark and rank Breathes on the still air its rain. Rain and dark and green and sound Closing slowly round Swept me as I rode, And rode on until I came Where a white cold river flowed Under woods thin and bare In the moon's long candle flame. Through the woods the wind crawled Leviathan, and here and there Branches creaked and old winds howled Sick for home. All the night I saw the river, As a girl that sees beside her Love, between fear and fear Riding, and is dumb. The white horse turned to cross the river, But the waters like a wall Rose and hung dark over all; And as they fell the river wider Wider grew, and sky was bare Save of the sick candle's stare. Death the divider Glittered cold and dark and deep Under banks of fear. But that rider Trembling, bright, rode on, Trembling and bright rode on Through green lanes of sleep. TO THE HEAVENLY POWER When this burning flesh Burns down in Time's slow fire to a glowing ash; When these lips have uttered The last word, and the ears' last echoes fluttered; And crumbled these firm bones As in the chemic air soft blackened stones; When all that was mortal made Owns its mortality, proud yet afraid; Then when I stumble in The broad light, from this twilight weak and thin, What of me will change, What of that brightness will be new and strange? Shall I indeed endure New solitude in that high air and pure, Aching for these fingers On which my assurèd hand now shuts and lingers? Now when I look back On manhood's and on childhood's far-stretched track, I see but a little child In a green sunny world-home; there enisled By another, cloudy world Of unsailed waters all around him curled, And he at home content With the small sky of wonders over him bent:-- Lonely, yet not alone Since all was friendly being all unknown; To-day yesterday forgetting, And never with to-morrow's sorrow fretting; Not seeing good from ill Since but to breathe and run and sleep was well; Asking nor fearing nought Since the body's nerves and veins held all his thought.... Such a child again shall I Stray in some valley of infinity, Where infinite finite seems And nothing more immortal than my dreams? Where earthly seasons play Still with their snows and blossoms and night and day, And no unsetting sun Brightens the white cloud and awakes the moon? In such half-life's half-light To cloak with mortal an immortal sight? With uninformed desire, Shorn passion, gentle mind, contented fire, Ignorant love; to run But with the little journeys of the sun, And at evening sleep With birds and beasts, and stars rocked in the deep? But maybe this man's mind Will leave not its maturity behind, And nothing will forget Of all that teased or eased it here, while yet A mortal dress it wore; And these quick-darting thoughts and probings sore More sharply then will turn; And lonelier and yet hungrier the heart burn. O, I would not forget Earth is too rich, too dark, too sour, too sweet:-- Nor be divorcèd quite From the late tingling of the nerves' delight. Less I would never be Than the deep-graving years have made of me-- A memory, pulse, mind, Seed and harvest, a reaper and sower blind. I shall no more be I If I forget the world's joy and agony; If I forget how strong Is the assault of scarce-rebukèd wrong. I shall no more be I If my ears hear not earth's embittered cry Perpetual; and forget The unrighteous shackles on man's ankle set; If no more my heart beat Quicker because on earth is something sweet; I shall no more be I If the ancestral voices no more sigh Familiar in my brain, And leave me to cold silence and its pain, And the bewildered stare On an unhomely land in biting air: If the blood no more vex The heart with the importunities of sex, If indeed marriage bind No more body to body, mind to mind, And love be powerless, cold, That once by love's strength only was controlled, And that chief spiritual force Be dam'd back and stretch frozen to its source.... To the Heavenly Power I cry, Foiled by these dreams of immortality, "Let all be as Thou wilt, And the foundations in Thy dark mind built; Even infinity Be but imagination's dream of Thee; And let thought still, still Vainly its waves on night's cliff break and spill. "But, Heavenly Power," I'd cry, Knowing how, near or far, He still is nigh, "When this burning flesh Is burnt away to a little driven ash, What thing soever shall rise From that cold ash unseen to unseen skies, Grant that so much of me Shall rise as may remember Thy world, and Thee." SNOWS Now the long-bearded chilly-fingered winter Over the green fields sweeps his cloak and leaves Its whiteness there. It caught on the wild trees, Shook whiteness on the hedges and left bare South-sloping corners and south-fronting smooth Barks of tall beeches swaying 'neath their whiteness So gently that the whiteness does not fall. The ash copse shows all white between gray poles, The oaks spread arms to catch the wandering snow. But the yews--I wondered to see their dark all white, To see the soft flakes fallen on those grave deeps, Lying there, not burnt up by the yews' slow fire. Could Time so whiten all the trembling senses, The youth, the fairness, the all-challenging strength, And load even Love's grave deeps with his barren snows? Even so. And what remains? The hills of thought That shape Time's snows and melt them and lift up Green and unchanging to the wandering stars. THE THORN The days of these two years like busy ants Have gone, confused and happy and distressed, Rich, yet sad with aching wants, Crowded, yet lonely and unblessed. I stare back as they vanish in a swarm, Seeming how purposeless, how mean and vain, Till creeping joy and brief alarm Are gone and prick me not again. The days are gone, yet still this heart of fire Smouldering, smoulders on with ancient love; And the red embers of desire I would not, oh, nor dare remove! Where is the bosom my head rested on, The arms that caught my boy's head, the soft kiss? Where is the light of your eyes gone?-- For now I know what darkness is.... It is the loneliness, the loneliness, Since she that brought me here has left me here With the sharp need of her to press Sudden upon the nerve of fear; It is the loneliness that wounds me still, Shut from the generations that are past, That with their blood my warm veins fill And on my spirit their spirit cast; That haunt me so and yet how strangely keep Beyond communion, alone, alone, Like that huge ancient hill asleep, With to-day's noisy winds o'erblown. There from the hill is sprung a single thorn, Wind-twisted, straining from the earth to the skies, Thin branches pleading with wild morn And root that pressed in darkness lies. From the unknown of earth and heaven are brought Her strength, her weakness, death and bravest life; Shadow and light and wind have wrought Beauty from change, calm out of strife. That tree upon the unchanging hill am I, Alone upon the dark unwhispering hill:-- You in the stirless cold past lie, But I ache warm and lonely still. There's not a storm tossing among my boughs, Nor gentle air drawn under quiet skies, There's not an idle cloud that flows Across the mind, nor bird that cries, But says (if I have eyes, or ears to hear), "You in this mortal being are alone." And morn and noon and night-stars clear Repeat, "Alone, alone, alone." Yet the tree in wild storm her dark boughs shakes, Thrusting her roots in the earth, her arms to heaven, Fresh washed with dew when morning breaks; And new light back to the light is given. * * * * * Is it that I that loved have yet forgot? Is it that I that looked have yet been blind? Longing, have yet remembered not Nor heard you whispering in my mind? But at a word you are nearer now than when We sat and spoke, or merely looked and thought, Knowing all speech superfluous then, Since what we needed, silence brought;-- And your warm bosom my head rested on, The arms that caught my boy's head, the soft kiss, The brown grave eyes that gently shone-- Are here again, and brightness is. Two years have gone, but nearer now are you, Being dearer now; and this false loneliness Is but a dream that cloudlike grew, Then growing cloudlike less and less Passes away, leaving me like the tree Bright with the sun and wind and lingering dew; Homely is all the world for me Being sweeter with the sense of you. CHANGE Just as this wood, cast on the snaky fire, Crushes the curling heads till smoke is thickened And the ash sinks beneath the billet's weight, And then again the hissing heads are quickened: Just as this wood, by fretful fangs new stung, Glows angrily, then whitens in the grate And slowly smouldering smoulders away, And dies defeated every famished tongue And nothing's left but a memory of heat And the sunk crimson telling warmth was sweet: Just as this wood, once green with Spring's swift fire Dies to a pinch of ashes cold and gray.... Just as this wood---- BEYOND THE BARN I rose up with the sun And climbed the hill. I saw the white mists run And shadows run Down into hollow woods. I went with the white clouds That swept the hill. A wind struck the low hedge trees And clustering trees, And rocked in each tall elm. The long afternoon was calm When down the hill I came, and felt the air cool, The shadows cool; And I walked on footsore, Saying, "But two hours more, Then, the last hill.... Surely this road I know, These hills I know, All the unknown is known, "And that barn, black and lone, High on the hill-- There the long road ends, The long day ends, And travelling is over." ... Nor thought nor travelling's over. Here on the hill The black barn is a shivering ruin, A windy cold ruin. I must go on and on, Where often my thought has gone, Up hill, down hill, Beyond this ruin of Time; Forgetting Time I must follow my thought still. LET HONOUR SPEAK Let Honour speak, for only Honour can End nobly what in nobleness began. Nor hate nor anger may, though just their cause, This strife prolong, if Honour whisper, Pause! Let Honour speak. For Honour keeps the ashes of the dead, Accounts the anguish of all widowhead, All childlessness, all sacrifice, defeat, And all our dead have died for, though to live was sweet. Let Honour speak, Nor weariness nor weakness murmur, Stay! Nor for this _Now_ England's _To be_ betray. All else be dumb, for only Honour can End nobly what in nobleness began. TALK So many were there talking that I heard Nothing at first quite plain, as I sat down; Until from this man's gibe and that keen word, Another's chilly smile or peevish frown, I caught their talk--but added none of mine. They said how she still fumbled with her fate, How she had banished visitants divine, How long her sleep had been, her sloth how great, How others had drawn near and passed her by, While she luxuriously had dreamed, dreamed on, She, she her own eternal enemy, And wanting brain, brain, brain would be undone. The glasses tinkled as they talked and laughed, And if the door a moment hung ajar The noises of the street, remotely soft, Crept in as from a world sunken afar. And still they talked, and then well pleased were pleased To talk of other things--another's wife, Money that ministers to a mind diseased, And queer extravagant whims of death and life.... But I rose up, flushed at the careless slander, Heedless what other laughing things were said, And my bruised thoughts began to lift and wander Far off, as from that jargoning I fled. I saw the sharp green hills, the silver clouds At rest upon the hills, the silver streams Creeping between prone shoulders of dark woods. I saw wide marshlands laved with level beams Of the last light; I saw ships on the sea That foamed hard by, stinging the fretful shore; I smelt old ships on the deserted quay That English sailors sailed, and will no more; I thought of men I loved, and of dead men I had longed to know--and each heroic ghost Rose and moved on, and left me alone again Aching for love and splendour glimpsed and lost. God knows what things I thought when anger broke Her narrow dam and swept my spirit clean. Yet I for very shame not a word spoke, But to my heart's heart caught the things I had seen, And _England, England!_ murmuring, stood and stared, Swept like a lover with sweet influence In brain and bone--and happy that I had spared Her nobleness the indignity of defence. THE UNDYING In thin clear light unshadowed shapes go by Small on green fields beneath the hueless sky. They do not stay for question, do not hear Any old human speech: their tongue and ear Seem only thought, for when I spoke they stirred not And their bright minds conversing my ear heard not. --Until I slept or, musing, on a heap Of warm crisp fern lay between sense and sleep Drowsy, still clinging to a strand of thought Spider-like frail and all unconscious wrought. For thinking of that unforgettable thing, The war, that spreads a loud and shaggy wing On things most peaceful, simple, happy and bright, Until the spirit is blind though the eye is light; Thinking of all that evil, envy, hate, The cruelty most dark, most desolate; Thinking of the English dead--"How can you dead," I muttered, "with your life and young joy shed, How can you but in these new lands of life Relume the fiery passion of old strife-- Just anger, mortal hate, the natural scorn Of men true-born for all things foully born?" For I had thought that not death's touch could still In man's clean spirit the hate of good for ill. But now to see their shapes go lightly by On those vast fields, clear 'neath the hueless sky, With not one furious gesture, and (when seen With but the broad dark hedgerow space between) No eye's disdain, no thin drawn face of grief, But pondering calm or lightened look and brief Smile almost gay;--yet all seen in the air That driv'n mist makes unreal everywhere-- "So strange," I breathed, "How can you English dead Forget them for whose life your life was shed?" It was no voice that answered, yet plain word Less plain is than the unspoken that I heard, As I lay there on the dry heap of fern And watched them pass, mix, disappear and return, And felt their mute speech into empty senses burn: "Earth's is the strife. The Heavenly Powers that sent The gray globe spinning in the firmament, The Heavenly Powers that soon or late will stay The spinning, as a child that tires of play, And globe by spent globe put forgot away In some vast airless hollow: could they see Or seeing endure immortal misery Made out of mortal, and undying hate Earth's perishing agonies perpetuate? O spirits unhappy, if from earth men brought The mind's disease, the sickness of mad thought! Sooner the Heavenly Powers would let them lie Eternally unrising 'neath a sky Arctic and lonely, where death's starven wind Raged full-delighted:--sooner would those kind Serenities man's generation cast Back into nothingness, than heaven should waste With finite anguish infinitely prolonged Until the Eternal Spring were stained and wronged. O, even the Heavenly Powers at such a breath From mortal shores would fade and fade to death." --Was it a voice or but a thought I heard, Mine or another's, in my boughs that stirred Waking the leafy darkness of the mind? Was it a voice, or but a new-roused wind That answered--"O, I know, I know, I know! The oldest rivers into the full sea flow And there are lost: so everything is lost, On midnight waves into oblivion tost. Yet--the high passion, the pity, the joy and pride, The righteousness for which these men have died, The courage, the uncounted sacrifice, The love and beauty, all that's beyond all price; That this, the immortal heart of mortal man, Should be--O tell me what, tell me again, again-- Petals lost on the river of the years When April sweetness pauses, fades and disappears! That this high Quarrel should be quenched in death As some vexed petty plaint unworthy breath; That the blood and the tears should never rise Renewed, accusing in grave judgment skies ... Tell me again--O, rather tell me not Lest that ill telling never be forgot." And then I rose from that warm ferny heap And my thoughts climbed from the abyss of sleep. No more in human guise did cloud-shapes pass, Nor sighed with sad intelligence the grass. I saw the hueless sky break into blue, And I remembered how that heaven I knew When, a small child, I gazed at the great height, And thought of nothing but the blue and white, Pools of sweet blue swimming in fields of light. And as tired men from mine and stithy turn While still the midnight fires unslackened burn Flushing their road, and so reach home and then Dream of old childhood's days and dream again; So I forgot those inward fires and found Old happiness like dew lying all around. Under the hedge I stood and far below Saw on the Worcester Plain the swift clouds flow Like ships on seas no greener than the Plain That shone between October sun and rain; And thinking how time's plenteousness would bring Back and more bright the young delicious Spring, Between wet brambles thrust my hand, and tasted Ripe berries on neglected boughs that wasted. THE NATIVE COUNTRY Where is that country? The unresting mind Like a lapwing nears and leaves it and returns. I know those unknown hill-springs where they rise, I know the answer of the elms to the wind When the wind on their heaving bosom lies And sleeps. I know the grouping pines that crown The long green hill and fling their darkness down, A never-dying shadow; and well I know How in the late months the whole wide woodland burns Unsmoking, and the earth hangs still as still. I know the town, the hamlets and the lone Shelterless cottage where the wind's least tone Is magnified, and his far-flung thundering shout Brings near the incredible end of the world. I know! Even in sleep-walk I should linger about Those lanes, those streets sure-footed, and by the unfenced stream go, Hearing the swift waters past the locked mill flow. Where is that country? It lies in my mind, Its trees and grassy shape and white-gashed hill And springs and wind and weather; its village stone And solitary stone are in my mind; And every thought familiarly returns To find its home, and birdlike circling still Above the smouldering beeches of November And the bare elms and rattled hedgerows of December. That native country lies deep in my mind For every thought and true affection's home. And like that mental land are you become, Part of that land, and I the thought that turns Towards home. And as in that familiar land I find Myself among each tree, spring, road and hill, And at each present step my past footsteps remember; So you in all my inward being lies, In you my history, my earth and stream and skies. Your late fire is it that in my boughs yet burns, Your stone that to my passing footfall cries. PART III STONE TREES Last night a sword-light in the sky Flashed a swift terror on the dark. In that sharp light the fields did lie Naked and stone-like; each tree stood Like a tranced woman, bound and stark. Far off the wood With darkness ridged the riven dark. And cows astonished stared with fear, And sheep crept to the knees of cows, And conies to their burrows slid, And rooks were still in rigid boughs, And all things else were still or hid. From all the wood Came but the owl's hoot, ghostly, clear. In that cold trance the earth was held It seemed an age, or time was nought. Sure never from that stone-like field Sprang golden corn, nor from those chill Gray granite trees was music wrought. In all the wood Even the tall poplar hung stone still. It seemed an age, or time was none ... Slowly the earth heaved out of sleep And shivered, and the trees of stone Bent and sighed in the gusty wind, And rain swept as birds flocking sweep. Far off the wood Rolled the slow thunders on the wind. From all the wood came no brave bird, No song broke through the close-fall'n night, Nor any sound from cowering herd: Only a dog's long lonely howl When from the window poured pale light. And from the wood The hoot came ghostly of the owl. IT WAS THE LOVELY MOON It was the lovely moon--she lifted Slowly her white brow among Bronze cloud-waves that ebbed and drifted Faintly, faintlier afar. Calm she looked, yet pale with wonder, Sweet in unwonted thoughtfulness, Watching the earth that dwindled under Faintly, faintlier afar. It was the lovely moon that lovelike Hovered over the wandering, tired Earth, her bosom gray and dovelike, Hovering beautiful as a dove.... The lovely moon:--her soft light falling Lightly on roof and poplar and pine-- Tree to tree whispering and calling, Wonderful in the silvery shine Of the round, lovely, thoughtful moon. THE HOUNDS Far off a lonely hound Telling his loneliness all round To the dark woods, dark hills, and darker sea; And, answering, the sound Of that yet lonelier sea-hound Telling his loneliness to the solitary stars. Hearing, the kennelled hound Some neighbourhood and comfort found, And slept beneath the comfortless high stars. But that wild sea-hound Unkennelled, called all night all round-- The unneighboured and uncomforted cold sea. HECTOR Sleep, sleep, you great and dim trees, sleeping on The still warm, tender cheek of night, And with her cloudy hair Brushed: sleep, for the violent wind is gone; Only remains soft easeful light, And shadow everywhere, And few pale stars. Hardly has eve begun Dreaming of day renewed and bright With beams than day's more fair; Scarce the full circle of the day is run, Nor the yellow moon to her full height Risen through the misty air. But from the increasing shadowiness is spun A shadowy shape growing clear to sight, And fading. Was it Hector there, Great-helmed, severe?--and as the last sun shone Seeming in solemn splendour dight Such as dream heroes bear; And such his shape as heroes stare upon In sleep's tumultuary fight When a cry's heard, "Beware!" ... --'Twas Hector, but the moment-splendour's gone: Shadow fast deepens into night, Night spreads--cold, wide, bare. LISTENING There is a place of grass With daisies like white pools, Or shining islands in a sea Of brightening waves. Swallows, darting, brush The waves of gentle green, As though a wide still lake it were, Not living grass. Evening draws over all, Grass and flowers and sky, And one rich bird prolongs the sweet Of day on the edge of dark. The grass is dim, the stars Lean down the height of heaven; And the trees, listening in all their leaves, Scarce-breathing stand. Nothing is as it was: The bird on the bough sings on; The night, pure from the cloud of day, Is listening. STONES Small yellow stones That, lifted, through my idle fingers fall Leaving a score-- And these I toss between the parted lips Of the lapping sea, And the sea tosses again with millions more-- Yellow and white stones; Then drawing back her snaky long waves all, Leaves the stones Yellow and white upon the sandy shore.... As they were bones Yellow and white left on the silent shore Of an unfoaming far unvisioned Sea. THE ENEMIES The angry wind That cursed at me Was nothing but an evil sprite Vexed with any man's delight. And strange it seemed That a dark wind Should run down from a mountain steep And shout as though the world were asleep. But when he ceased And silence was-- Who could but fear what evil sprite Crept through the tunnels of the night? THE SILVERY ONE Clear from the deep sky pours the moon Her silver on the heavy dark; The small stars blink. Against the moon the maple bough Flutters distinct her leafy spears; All sound falls weak.... Weak the train's whistle, the dog's bark, Slow steps; and rustling into her nest At last, the thrush. All's still; only earth turns and breathes. Then that amazing trembling note Cleaves the deep wave Of silence. Shivers even that silvery one; Sigh all the trees, even the cedar dark ----O joy, and I. THE FLUTE It was a night of smell and dew When very old things seemed how new; When speech was softest in the still Air that loitered down the hill; When the lime's sweetness could but creep Like music to slow ears of sleep; When far below the lapping sea Lisped but of tired tranquillity.... No, 'twas a night that seemed almost Of real night the little ghost, As though a painter painted it Out of the shallows of his wit-- The easy air, the whispered trees, Faint prattle of strait distant seas, Pettiness all: but hark, hark! Large and rich in the narrow dark Music rose. Was music never Braver in her pure endeavour Against the meanness of the world. Her purple banner she unfurled Of stars and suns upon the night Amazed with the strange living light. The notes rose where the dark trees knelt; Their fiery joy made stillness melt As flame in woods the low boughs burns, Sere leaves, dry bushes, flame-shaped ferns. The notes rose as great birds that rise Majestically in lofty skies, And in white clouds are lost; and then Briefly they hushed, and woke again Renewed. Slowly silence came As smoke after sinking flame That spreads and thins across the sky When day pales before it die. STARS The naked stars, deep beyond deep, Burn purely through the nervèd night. Over the narrow sleep Of men tired of light; Deep within deep, as clouds behind Huge grey clouds hidden gleaming rise, Untroubled by sharp wind In cold desert skies. Cold deserts now with infinite host Of gathered spears at watch o'er small Armies of men lost In glooms funereal. O bitter light, all-threatening stars, O tired ghosts of men that sleep After stern mortal wars 'Neath skies chill and steep. These mortal hills, this flickering sea, This shadowy and thoughtful night, Throb with infinity, Burn with immortal light. TEN O'CLOCK AND FOUR O'CLOCK It stands there Tall and solitary on the edge Of the last hill, green on the green hill. Ten o'clock the tree's called, no one knows why. Perhaps it was planted there at ten o'clock Or someone was hanged there at ten o'clock-- A hundred such good reasons might be found, But no one knows. It vexed me that none knew, Seeing it miles and miles off and then nearer And nearer yet until, beneath the hill, I looked up, up, and saw it nodding there, A single tree upon the sharp-edged hill, Holding its leaves though in the orchard all Leaves and fruit were stripped or hung but few Red and yellow over the littered grass. --It vexed me, the brave tree and senseless name, As I went through the valley looking up And then looked round on elm and beech and chestnut And all that lingering flame amid the hedge That marked the miles and miles. Then I forgot: For through the apple-orchard's shadow I saw Between the dark boughs of the cherry-orchard A great slow fire which Time had lit to burn The mortal seasons up, and leave bare black Unchanging Winter. _Weston-sub-Edge._ THE YEW The moon gave no light. The clouds rode slowly over, broad and white, From the soft south west. The wind, that cannot rest, Soothed and then waked the darkness of the yew Until the tree was restless too. Of all the winds I knew I thought, and how they muttered in the yew, Or raved under the eaves, Or nosed the fallen dry leaves, Or with harsh voice holloa'd the orchard round, With snapped limbs littering the ground. And I thought how the yew Between the window and the west his shadow threw, Grave and immense, Darkening the dark past thought and sense, And how the moon would make the darkness heavenly bright: But the moon gave no light. NOVEMBER SKIES Than these November skies Is no sky lovelier. The clouds are deep; Into their gray the subtle spies Of colour creep, Changing that high austerity to delight, Till even the leaden interfolds are bright. And, where the cloud breaks, faint far azure peers Ere a thin flushing cloud again Shuts up that loveliness, or shares. The huge great clouds move slowly, gently, as Reluctant the quick sun should shine in vain, Holding in bright caprice their rain. And when of colours none, Not rose, nor amber, nor the scarce late green, Is truly seen,-- In all the myriad gray, In silver height and dusky deep, remain The loveliest, Faint purple flushes of the unvanquished sun. DELIGHT Winter is fallen On the wretched grass, Dark winds have stolen All the colour that was. No leaf shivers: The bare boughs bend and creak as the wind moans by Fled is the fitful gleam of brightness From the stooping sky. A robin scatters Like bright rain his song, Of merry matters The sparrows gossip long. Snow in the sky Lingers, soon to cover the world with white, And hush the slender enchanting music And chill the delight. But snow new fallen On the stiffened grass Gives back beauty stolen By the winds as they pass:-- Turns the climbing hedge Into a gleaming ladder of frozen light: And hark, in the cold enchanted silence A cry of delight! CHANGE A late and lonely figure stains the snow, Into the thickening darkness dims and dies. Heavily homeward now the last rooks go, And dull-eyed stars stare from the skies. A whimpering wind Sounds, then's still and whimpers again. Yet 'twas a morn of oh, such air and light! The early sun ran laughing over the snow, The laden trees held out their arms all white And whiteness shook on the white below. Lovely the shadows were, Deep purple niches, 'neath a dome of light. And now night's fall'n, the west wind begins to creep Among the stiff trees, over the frozen snow; An hour--and the world stirs that was asleep, A trickle of water's heard, stealthy and slow, First faintly here and there, And then continual everywhere. And morn will look astonished for the snow, And the warm, wind will laugh, "It's gone, gone, gone!"-- And will, when the immortal soft airs blow, This mortal face of things change and be gone So--and with none to hear How in the night the wind crept near? SLEEPING SEA The sea Was even as a little child that sleeps And keeps All night its great unconsciousness of day. No spray Flashed when the wave rose, drooped, and slowly drew away. No sound From all that slumbering, full-bosomed water came; The sea Lay mute in childlike sleep, the moon was a gold candle-flame. No sound Save when a faint and mothlike air fluttered around. No sound: But as a child that dreams and in his full sleep cries, So turned the sleeping sea and heaved her bosom of slow sighs. THE WEAVER OF MAGIC Weave cunningly the web Of twilight, O thou subtle-fingered Eve! And at the slow day's ebb With small blue stars the purple curtain weave. If any wind there be, Bid it but breathe lightly as woodland violets o'er the sea; If any moon, be it no more than a white fluttering feather. Call the last birds together. O Eve, and let no wisp Of day's distraction thine enchantment mar; Thy soft spell lisp And lure the sweetness down of each blue star. Then let that low moan be A while more easeful, trembling remote and strange, far oversea; So shall the easeless heart of love rest then, or only sigh, Hearing the swallows cry! THE DARKSOME NIGHTINGALE Why dost thou, darksome Nightingale, Sing so distractingly--and here? Dawn's preludings prick my ear, Faint light is creeping up the vale, While on these dead thy rarer Song falls, dark night-farer. Were it not better thou shouldst sing Where the drenched lilac droops her plume, Spreading frail banners of perfume? Or where the easeless pines enring The river-lullèd village Whose lads the lilac pillage? Oh, if aught songful these hid bones Might reach, like the slow subtle rain, Surely the dead had risen again And listened, white by the white stones; Back to rich life song-charmed, By ghostly joys alarmed. This may not be. And yet, oh still Pour like night dew thy richer speech Some late-lost youth perchance to reach, Or unloved girl; and stir and fill Their passionless cold bosoms Under red wallflower blossoms! UNDER THE LINDEN BRANCHES Under the linden branches They sit and whisper; Hardly a quiver Of leaves, hardly a lisp or Sigh in the air. Under the linden branches They sit, and shiver At the slow air's fingers Drawn through the linden branches Where the year's sweet lingers; And sudden avalanches Of memories, fears, Shake from the linden branches Upon them sitting With hardly a sigh or a whisper Or quiver of tears. STRIFE The wind fought with the angry trees. All morning in immense unease They wrestled, and ruin strawed the ground, And the north sky frowned. The oak and aspen arms were held Defiant, but the death was knelled Of slender saplings, snappy boughs, Twigs brittle as men's vows. How moaned the trees the struggle through! Anger almost to madness grew. The aspen screamed, and came a roar Of the great wind locked in anguish sore, Desolate with defeat ... and then Quiet fell again: The trees slept quiet as great cows That lie at noon under broad boughs. How pure, how strange the calm; but hist!... Was it the trees by the wind kissed? Or from afar, where the wind's hid, A throb, a sob? FOREBODING O linger late, poor yellow whispering leaves! As yet the eves Are golden and the simple moon looks through The clouds and you. O linger yet although the night be blind, And in the wind You wake and lisp and shiver at the stir And sigh of her Whose rimy fingers chill you each and all: And so you fall As dead as hopes or dreams or whispered vows.... O _then_ the boughs That bore your busy multitude shall feel The cold light steal Between them, and the timorous child shall start, Hearing his heart Drubbing affrighted at the frail gates, for lo, The ghostly glow Of the wild moon, caught in the barren arms Of leafless branches loud with night's alarms! DISCOVERY Beauty walked over the hills and made them bright. She in the long fresh grass scattered her rains Sparkling and glittering like a host of stars, But not like stars cold, severe, terrible. Hers was the laughter of the wind that leaped Arm-full of shadows, flinging them far and wide. Hers the bright light within the quick green Of every new leaf on the oldest tree. It was her swimming made the river run Shining as the sun; Her voice, escaped from winter's chill and dark, Singing in the incessant lark.... All this was hers--yet all this had not been Except 'twas seen. It was my eyes, Beauty, that made thee bright; My ears that heard, the blood leaping in my veins, The vehemence of transfiguring thought-- Not lights and shadows, birds, grasses and rains-- That made thy wonders wonderful. For it has been, Beauty, that I have seen thee, Tedious as a painted cloth at a bad play, Empty of meaning and so of all delight. Now thou hast blessed me with a great pure bliss, Shaking thy rainy light all over the earth, And I have paid thee with my thankfulness. MORE THAN SWEET The noisy fire, The drumming wind, The creaking trees, And all that hum Of summer air And all the long inquietude Of breaking seas---- Sweet and delightful are In loneliness. But more than these The quiet light From the morn's sun And night's astonished moon, Falling gently upon breaking seas. Such quietness Another beauty is-- Ah, and those stars So gravely still More than light, than beauty pour Upon the strangeness Of the heart's breaking seas. THE BRIGHTNESS Away, away-- Through that strange void and vast Brimmed with dying day; Away, So that I feel Only the wind Of the world's swift-rolling wheel. See what a maze Of whirling rays! The sharp wind Weakens; the air Is but thin air, Not fume and flying fire.... O, heart's desire, Now thou art still And the air chill. And but a stem Of clear cold light Shines in this stony dark. Farewell, world of sense, Too fair, too fair To be so false! Hence, hence Rosy memories, Delight of ears, hands, eyes. Rise When I bid, O thou Tide of the dark, Whelming the pale last, Reflection of that vast Too-fair deceit. Ah, sweet To miss the vexing heat Of the heart's desire: Only to know All's lost, lost.... Sweet To know the lack of sweet. --Thou fool! See how the steady dark Is filled with eyes-- Eyes that smile, Hot, then how cool! Eyes that were stars till thou Mad'st them eyes. O, the tormenting Look, the unrelenting Passionate kiss Of their wild light on thine-- Light of thine eyes! As if one could Loathe the world for too much sweetness! All the air's a flame, Wonderful--yet the same Thou'st hated, Being briefly sated With sweet of sweetness. Forgive a heart whose madness Was not of madness born, But of mere wild Waste of desire.... Who does not know One speaks so, or so, Out of mere passion That sees not love From hate, nor life from death, Nor hell from heaven? In the East--oh, that flashed Brightness, past The loveliness even Of sunset's flush! THE HOLY MOUNTAINS The holy mountains, The gay streams, Heavy shadows, And tall, trembling trees; The light that sleeps Between the heavy shadows, Wind that creeps Faintly, from far-off seas---- The mountains' light, Waters' noise, Trees' shadows, Clear, slow, calm air, Are dreams, dreams, And far, far-fallen echoes Of secret worlds And inconceivable dark seas. RAPTURE If thou hast grief And passion vex the spirit that is in thee-- There was a stony beach Where the heat flickered and the little waves Whispered each to each. Dove-coloured was that stony beach, And white birds hungering hovered over The shining waves; And men had kindled there A great fierce heap of golden flame-- Spoiled grasses with dead buttercups and pale clover. The agonising flame Yearned in its vitals towards the quiet air And died in a little smoke. And on the coloured beach the black warm ash Remained. Then on that warm ash Another heap of grasses was outpoured, And instant came Another knot of struggling yellow smoke That burst into new agonies of flame, Dying into a drift of smoke; And on the coloured beach the black cold ash Remained. Or is thy grief too deep, Passion too dear, the spirit in thee asleep?-- Twelve deep and sombre, still, Expectant, hushed, The miles-long crowd stood--and then listening. The nervous drums, The unendurable, low reeds: Silence--and then the nearing drums Again, again the thrilling reeds, And then (The deep crowd hushed) Following an almightier King That rode unseen, Drew near the tributary magnificence.... Hushed, hushed, The deep crowd stood, devouring, listening; But a child on his father's shoulder cried, "Hurrah, hurrah!"-- Only have thou no fear Pride, but no fear. MUSIC COMES Music comes Sweetly from the trembling string When wizard fingers sweep Dreamily, half asleep; When through remembering reeds Ancient airs and murmurs creep, Oboe oboe following, Flute answering clear high flute, Voices, voices--falling mute, And the jarring drums. At night I heard First a waking bird Out of the quiet darkness sing.... Music comes Strangely to the brain asleep! And I heard Soft, wizard fingers sweep Music from the trembling string, And through remembering reeds Ancient airs and murmurs creep; Oboe oboe following, Flute calling clear high flute, Voices faint, falling mute, And low jarring drums; Then all those airs Sweetly jangled--newly strange, Rich with change.... Was it the wind in the reeds? Did the wind range Over the trembling string; Into flute and oboe pouring Solemn music; sinking, soaring Low to high, Up and down the sky? Was it the wind jarring Drowsy far-off drums? Strangely to the brain asleep Music comes. THE IDIOT He stands on the kerb Watching the street. He's always watching there, Listening to the beat Of time in the street, Listening to the thronging feet, Laughing at the world that goes Scowling or laughing by. He sees Time go by, An old lonely man, Crooked and furtive and slow. He laughs as he sees Time shambling by While he stands at his ease, Until Time smiles wanly back At his laughing eye. Greed's great paunch, Lean Envy's ill looks, Fond forgetful Love, He reads them like books: Whatever their tongue He reads them like children's books, Stands staring and laughing there As all they go by. O, he laughs as he sees The fat and the thin, The simple, the solemn and wise Nod-nodding by. He stares in their eyes, Till they're angry and murmur, _Poor fool!_ And he hears and he laughs again From the depth of his folly. Even when with heavy Plume and pall The sleeky coaches roll by, Coffin, flowers and all, He laughs, for he sees Crouched on the coffin a small Yellowy shape go by-- Death, uneasy and melancholy. THE MOUSE Standing close by you In the cold light Of two tall candles That measure the dark of night, I hear the mouse, The only thing that's moving In the quiet house. Don't you hear it, That furious mouse? How can you sleep so deep And that noise in the house? Won't you stir At the furious scratching In the cupboard there? No! a sharper sound Would wake you not; Not the sweetest fluting Tease you back to thought. Yet the scratching mouse Makes all my flesh a nervous Haunted house. O, the dream, the dream Must be sweet and deep If life's scratching's heard not On your cold sleep. Yet if you should hear it, So furious and fretful-- How could you bear it? HAPPINESS I have found happiness who looked not for it. There was a green fresh hedge, And willows by the river side, And whistling sedge. The heaviness I felt was all around. No joy sang in the wind. Only dull slow life everywhere, And in my mind. Then from the sedge a bird cried; and all changed. Heaviness turned to mirth: The willows the stream's cheek caressed, The sun the earth. What was it in the bird's song worked such change? The grass was wonderful. I did not dream such beauty was In things so dull. What was it in the bird's song gave the water That living, sentient look? Lent the rare brightness to the hedge? That sweetness shook Down on the green path by the running water? Or the small daisies lit With light of the white northern stars In dark skies set? What was it made the whole world marvellous? Mere common things were joys. The cloud running upon the grass, Children's faint noise, The trees that grow straight up and stretch wide arms, The snow heaped in the skies, The light falling so simply on all; My lifted eyes That all this startling aching beauty saw? I felt the sharp excess Of joy like the strong sun at noon-- Insupportable bliss! COMFORTABLE LIGHT Most comfortable Light, Light of the small lamp burning up the night, With dawn enleagued against the beaten dark; Pure golden perfect spark; Or sudden wind-bright flame, That but the strong-handed wind can urge or tame; Chill loveliest light the kneeling clouds between, Silverly serene; Comfort of happy light, That mouse-like leaps amid brown leaves, cheating sight; Clear naked stars, burning with swift intense Earthward intelligence;-- Sensitive, single Points in the dark inane that purely tingle With eager fire, pouring night's circles through Their living blue; Dark light still waters hold; Broad silver moonpath trodden into gold: Candle-flame glittering through the traveller's night-- Most comfortable light.... And lovelier, the eye Where light from darkness shines unfathomably, Light secret, clear, shallow, profound, known, strange, Constant alone in change:-- Not that wild light that turns Hunted from dying eyes when the last fire burns; O, not that bitter light of wounded things, When bony anguish springs Sudden, intolerable; Nor light of mad eyes gleaming up from hell.... Come not again, wild light! Shine not again, Hill-flare of pain! But thou, most holy light.... Not the noon blaze that stings, too fiercely bright, Not that unwinking stare of shameless day; But thou, the gray, Nun-like and silent, still, Fine-breathed on many an eastern bare green hill; Keen light of gray eyes, cool rain, and stern spears; Sad light, but not to tears:-- --O, comfort thou of eyes Watching expectant from chill northern skies, Excellent joy for lids heavy with night-- Strange with delight! HALLO! "Hallo, hallo!" impatiently he cried, And I replied, Sleepily, "Hallo--hallo!" No sound then; and I stretched My hand for the receiver, all my nerves Tingling and listening. My hand clutched nothing, and I lit The candle--strange! I could have sworn it was the shouting wire.... But no! Besides, a bare and unfamiliar room And he, why, long-forgotten, maybe dead. Yet all around, Filling the silence up with tiny sound, A million tremulous thin echoings, "Hallo--hallo-- Hallo!" FEAR There was a child that screamed, And if it was the gathering tingling dark, Or if it was the tingling silences Between few words, Or if the water's drip and quivering drip-- Who knows? Or if the child half sleeping suddenly dreamed-- Who knows? for she knew not, but was afraid, And then angry with fear, And then it seemed afraid of all the voices Echoing hers. And then afraid again of that drip, drip Of water somewhere near. Yet a man dying would not with such fear Scream out at hell. Easier it were to die than to endure, Unless death brought the instant consciousness Of all the wrongs of all lost years Falling like water, drip after trembling drip Upon the naked anguish of the soul. But death's stupidity Is gentle to the lunatic last wits. Little of terror, little of consciousness, But stupor, a great ease, Narrowing silences, And silence; And then no more the drip, drip of the years, No more the strangeness, agonies and fears; No more the noise, but one imponderable unhaunted Hush.... I heard the child that cried Chattering a moment after in the light, And singing out of such contentment as Lamps and familiar voices bring. She needs must sing Now that sharp, spiny agony thrust no more, Nor water fell, drip, drip by quivering drip; Her face was bright, Unapprehensive as a day in spring. WAKING Lying beneath a hundred seas of sleep With all those heavy waves flowing over me, And I unconscious of the rolling night Until, slowly, from deep to lesser deep Risen, I felt the wandering seas no longer cover me But only air and light.... It was a sleep So dark and so bewilderingly deep That only death's were deeper or completer, And none when I awoke stranger or sweeter. Awake, the strangeness still hung over me As I with far-strayed senses stared at the light. I--and who was I? Saw--oh, with what unaccustomed eye! The room was strange and everything was strange Like a strange room entered by wild moonlight; And yet familiar as the light swept over me And I rose from the night. Strange--yet stranger I. And as one climbs from water up to land Fumbling for weedy steps with foot and hand, So I for yesterdays whereon to climb To this remote and new-struck isle of time. But I found not myself nor yesterday-- Until, slowly, from deep to lesser deep Risen, I felt the seas no longer over me But only air and light. Yes, like one clutching at a ring I heard The household noises as they stirred, And holding fast I wondered. What were they? I felt a strange hand lying at my side, Limp and cool. I touched it and knew it mine. A murmur, and I remembered how the wind died In the near aspens. Then Strange things were no more strange. I travelled among common thoughts again; And felt the new forged links of that strong chain That binds me to myself, and this to-day To yesterday. I heard it rattling near With a no more astonished ear. And I had lost the strangeness of that sleep, No more the long night rolled its great seas over me. --O, too anxious I! For in this press of things familiar I have lost all that clung Round me awaking of strangeness and such sweetness Nothing now is strange Except the man that woke and then was I. THE FALL From that warm height and pure, The peak undreamed of out of heavy air Rising to heaven more strange and rare; From that amazed brief sojourn, exquisite, insecure; Fallen from thence to this, From all immortal sunk to mortal sweet, To slow gross joys from joy so fleet, Fallen to mere remembrance of unsustainable bliss.... O harsh, O heavy air, Difficult endurance, pain of common things! The slow sun east to westward swings, The flat-faced moon climbs labouring with a senseless stare. From that inconceivable height---- O inward eyes that saw and ears that heard, Spiritual swift wings that stirred In that warm-flushing air and unendurable light; When I was as mere down On a swift-running youthful wind uptaken Over tall trees, white mountains, shaken, Into the uttermost azure lifted, lifted alone. From that peak can it be That I am fallen, fallen that was so high? Or was that truly, surely I? Who is it crawls here now, sad, uncontentedly? Fallen from that high content, --Fool, thou that wast content merely with bliss! Happy those lovers that will not kiss; Never to be fulfilled was the heart's endless passion meant. Never on joys attainable To linger, never on easy near delight-- O bitter, unreached infinite, Merciful defeat, availless anguish, hunger unendurable! O who shall be in longing wise, Skilled in refusal, in embracing free, Glad with earth's innocent ecstasy, Yet all the uncomprehended heaven in his eyes! STAY Stay, thou desired one, stay! Brighten the curious darkness of the world. Cold through the chill dark swings the sleeping world, Sense-heavy, dreaming dully of clear day. No moon, no stars, no sound of wind or seas: Wearily sleeping in immense unease, Dreams, dreams the world of day. Stay, thou adored one, stay, Who on the dark hang'st lamps of gold delight, Gold flames amid the purple pit of night. Stay, stay, Who the cool dawn's most lovely gray Mak'st lovelier with rose of far away. Stay, thou, who buildest wonder of things mean (More truly so they're seen). Stay--nay, fly not, nay--stay; Youth gone, remain thou yet and yet. Though the world spin in darkness and forget The light, Stay thou, whose coming's joy and flight despair. Thou unimaginably more than fair, Brief unsustainable strange dream, stay yet! Lamping the world's close unsustainable dark With golden unimaginable day. SHADOWS The shadow of the lantern on the wall, The lantern hanging from the twisted beam, The eye that sees the lantern, shadow and all. The crackle of the sinking fire in the grate, The far train, the slow echo in the coombe, The ear that hears fire, train and echo and all. The loveliness that is the secret shape Of once-seen, sweet and oft-dreamed loveliness, The brain that builds shape, memory, dream and all.... A white moon stares Time's thinning fabric through, And makes substantial insubstantial seem, And shapes immortal mortal as a dream; And eye and brain flicker as shadows do Restlessly dancing on a cloudy wall. WALKING AT EVE Walking at eve I met a little child Running beside a tragic-featured dame, Who checked his blitheness with a quick "For shame!" And seemed by sharp caprice froward and mild. Scarce heeding her the sweet one ran, beguiled By the lit street, and his eyes too aflame; Only, at whiles, into his eyes there came Bewilderment and grief with terror wild. So, Beauty, dost thou run with tragic life; So, with the curious world's caress enchanted, Even of ill things thine ecstasy dost make; Yet at the touch of fear and vital strife The splendours thy young innocency forsake, And with thy foster-mother's woe thou art haunted. THE PHYSICIAN She comes when I am grieving and doth say, "Child, here is that shall drive your grief away." When I am hopeless, kisses me and stirs My breast with the strong lively courage of hers. Proud--she will humble me with but a word, Or with mild mockery at my folly gird; Fickle--she holds me with her loyal eyes; Remorseful--tells of neighbouring Paradise; Envious--"Be not so mad, so mad," she saith, "Envied and envier both race with Death" She my good Angel is: and who is she?-- The soul's divine Physician, Memory. VISION AND ECHO I have seen that which sweeter is Than happy dreams come true. I have heard that which echo is Of speech past all I ever knew. Vision and echo, come again, Nor let me grieve in easeless pain! It was a hill I saw, that rose Like smoke over the street, Whose greening rampires were upreared Suddenly almost at my feet; And tall trees nodded tremblingly Making the plain day visionary. But ah, the song, the song I heard And grieve to hear no more! It was not angel-voice, nor child's Singing alone and happy, nor Note of the wise prophetic thrush As lonely in the leafless bush. It was not these, and yet I knew That song; but now, alas, My unpurged ears prove all too gross To keep the nameless air that was And is not; and my eyes forget The vision that I follow yet. Yet though forgetful I did see. And heard, but cannot tell, And on my forehead felt an air Unearthly, on my heart a spell. I have seen that which deathless is, And heard--what I for ever miss! REVISITATION It is here--the lime-tree in the garden path, The lilac by the wall, the ivied wall That was so high, the heavy, close-leaved creeper, The harsh gate jarring on its hinges still, The echoing clean flags--all The same, the same, and never more the same. That mound was once a hill, The old lime-tree a forest (now as small As the poor lilac by the ivied wall), And this neglected narrow greenery A wilderness, and I its king and keeper; Lying upon the grass I saw the sky And all its clouds: the garden edged the sky. The harsh gate jars upon its hinges still. UNPARDONED Gentle as the air that kisses The splendid and ignoble with one breath, Gentle as obliterating Death-- Though you be gentler yet, In days when the old, old things begin to fret The backward-looking consciousness, Will you forget? Or if remembering, will you forgive? But there is one severer. Stung by your forgivingness so great Shall I forgive you then?-- Basest of men Would rise in bitterness and sting again. Not if you should forget Could I forget: Or if remembering, myself could I forgive? Never! And yet such things have been, And ills as dark forgiven or forgot. But in those black hours when the heart burns hot And there's no nerve that's not Quick with the sense of things unheard, unseen-- A terrible voice that's mine yet not mine cries, "Can that Eternal Righteousness Remembering forgive?" SOME HURT THING I came to you quietly when you were lying In perfect midnight sleep. Your dark soft hair was all about your pillow, So black upon the white. I could not see your face except the lovely Curve of the pale cheek; Your head was bent as though your stirless slumber Was sea-like heavy and deep. The wind came gently in at the wide window, Shaking the candle-light And shadows on the wall; and there was silence, Or sound but far and weak. By the bedside your daytime toys were gathered: The bright bell-ringing wheel, Dolls clad in violent yellow and vermilion, Strings of gay-coloured beads.... But you were far and far from these beside you, Entranced with other joys In fresh fields, among other children running: Your voice, I knew, must peal Purely among their high unearthly voices Over green daisied meads, While I stood watching your scarce-heaving slumber Beside your human toys---- And heard, faint from the woods all through the night, The cry of some hurt thing that moaned for light. THE WAITS Frost in the air and music in the air, And the singing is sweet in the street. She wakes from a dream to a dream--O hark! The singing so faint in the dark. The musicians come and stand at the door, A fiddler and singers three, And one with a bright lamp thrusts at the dark, And the music comes sudden--O hark! She hears the singing as sweet as a dream And the fiddle that climbs to the sky, With head 'neath the curtain she stares out--O hark! The music so strange in the dark. She listens and looks and sees but the sky, While the fiddle is sweet in the porch, And she sings back into the singing dark Hark, herald angels, hark! IN THE LANE The birds return, The blossom brightens again the cherry bough. The hedges are green again In the airless lane, And hedge and blossom and bird call, Now, now, now! O birds, return! Who will care if the blossom die on the bough, Or the hedge be bare again In the screaming lane? For what they were these are not, are not now. The one gone makes All that remain seem strange and lonely now. She will not walk here again In the blossoming lane:-- And there's a dead bough in every blossoming bough. THE LAST TIME For the last time, The last, last time, The last ... All those last times have I lived through again, And every "last" renews itself in pain-- Yes, each returns, and each returns in vain: You return not, the last remains the last, And I remain to cast Weak anchors of my love in shifting sands Of faith:-- The anchors drag, nothing I see save death. Together we Talked and were glad. I could not see That one black gesture menaced you and me! We kissed, and parted; I left you, and was even merry-hearted.... And now my love is thwarted That reaches back to you and searches round, And dares not look on that harsh turfless mound. And that last time We walked together and the air acold Hummed shrill around; the time that you Walked heavily, And I dared not to see, Nor dared you then to speak of what must be. We knew not what the shut days would unfold-- Nay, could not know till all the days were told.... But that last time we walked together, and --And walk no more together, nor clasp hand In hand, just stiffly as we used to do. Never in dreams, O happy, never in stealing dreams We meet; never again I live by night the day's slow-dying pain ... The last, last time, The last-- That time _is_ past; yet in too-golden day My heart goes from me whispering, "Where are you--you--you--you?" And comes back easeless to an easeless breast. But at night I rest Dreamless as derelict ships ride out to sea Empty, and no bird even on the snapp'd mast Pauses: into oblivion her shadow's cast; Into the empty night goes lonely she, And into sleep go--oh, more lonely I. YOU THAT WERE You that were Half my life ere life was mine; You that on my shape the sign Set of yours; You that my young lips did kiss When your kiss summed up my bliss.... Ah, once more You to kiss were all my bliss! You whom I Could forget--strange, could forget Even for days (ah, now the fret Of my grief!); You who loved me though forgot; Welcomed still, reproaching not.... Ah, that now That forgetting were forgot! You that now On my shoulder as I go Put your hand that wounds me so; You that brush Yet my lips with that one last Kiss that bitters all things past.... How shall I Yet endure that kiss the last? You that are Where the feet of my blind grief Find you not, nor find relief; You that are Where my thought flying after you Broken falls and flies anew, Now you're gone My love accusing aches for you. _March 4, 1911._ "THE LIGHT THAT NEVER WAS ON SEA OR LAND" O gone are now those eager great glad days of days, but I remember Yet even yet the light that turned the saddest of sad hours to mirth; I remember how elate I swung upon the thrusting bowsprits, And how the sun in setting burned and made the earth all unlike earth. O gone are now those mighty ships I haunted days and days together, And gone the mighty men that sang as crawled the tall craft out to sea; And fallen ev'n the forest tips and changed the eyes that watched their burning, But still I hear that shout and clang, and still the old spell stirs in me. And as to some poor ship close locked in water dense and dark and vile The wind comes garrulous from afar and sets the idle masts a-quiver; And ev'n to her so foully docked, swift as the sun's first beam at dawn The sea-bird comes and like a star wheels by and down along the river;-- So to me the full wind blows from far strange waters echoingly, And faint forgotten longings break the fast-sealed pools within my breast; So to me when sunset glows the scream comes of the white sea-bird, And all those ancient raptures wake and wakes again the old unrest. I see again the masts that crowd and part lie trees in living wind, I hear again the shouts and cries and lip-lap of the waveless pool; I see again the smalling cloud of sail that into distance fades, I am again the boy whose eyes with tears of grief and hope are full. AT EVENING'S HUSH Now pipe no more, glad Shepherd, Your joys from this fair hill Through golden eves and still: There sounds from yon dense quarry A burden harsh and sorry. No piping now, poor Shepherd. Men strive with violent hand, And anger stirs the bland Blithe heaven that ne'er yet trembled, Save with great spirits assembled. No more, no more, sad Shepherd, Let thy bright fingers stray Idly in the old way; No more their nimble glancing Set gleeful spirits a-dancing. Put by thy pipe, O Shepherd! There needs no note of thine For men deaf, undivine.... And lest brute hands should take it, O sorrowful Shepherd, break it! HAPPY DEATH Bugle and battle-cry are still, The long strife's over; Low o'er the corpse-encumbered hill The sad stars hover. It is in vain, O stars! you look On these forsaken: Awhile with blows on blows they shook, Or struck unshaken. Needs now no pity of God or man ... Tears for the living! They have 'scaped the confines of life's plan That holds us grieving. The unperturbed soft moon, the stars, The breeze that lingers, Wake not to ineffectual wars Their hearts and fingers. Warriors o'ercoming and o'ercome, Alike contented, Have marched now to the last far drum, Praised, unlamented. Bugle and battle-cry are still, The long strife's over; Oh, that with them I had fought my fill And found like cover! WISDOM AND A MOTHER Why, mourner, do you mourn, nor see The heavenly Earth's felicity? I mourn for him, my Dearest, lost, Who lived a frail life at my cost. A grief like yours how many have known! Were that a balm to ease my own! Or rather might I not accuse The Hand that does not even choose, But, taking blindly, took my best, And as indifferently takes the rest ... Like mine? Is there denied to me Even Sorrow's singularity? THE THRUSH SINGS Singeth the Thrush, forgetting she is dead.... How could you, Thrush, forget that she is dead? Or though forgetting, sing--and she is dead? O hush, Untimely, truant Thrush! Singeth the Thrush, "I sing that she is dead!" Thou thoughtless Thrush, she loved you who is dead, Singeth the Thrush, "I sing her praise though dead." O hush, Untimely, grievous Thrush! Singeth the Thrush, "I sing your happy dead, I sing her who is living, and no more dead, I sing her joy--she is no longer dead." O hush, Enough, thou heavenly Thrush! TO MY MOTHER No foreign tribute from a stranger-hand, Mother, I bring thee, whom not Heaven's songs Would as an alien reach.... Ah, but how far From Heaven's least heavenly is the changing note And changing fancy of these fitful cries! Mother, forgive them, as the best of me Has ever pleaded only for thy pardon, Not for thy praise. Mother, there is a love Men give to wives and children, lovers, friends; There is a love which some men give to God. Ah! between this, I think, and that last love, Last and too-late-discovered love of God, There shines--and nearer to the love of God-- The love a man gives only to his mother, Whose travail of dear thought has never end Until the End. Oh that my mouth had words Comfortable as thy kisses to the boy Who loved while he forgot thee! Now I love, Sundered and far, with daily heart's remembrance The face the wind brings to me, the sun lights, The birds and waters sing; the face of thee Whom I love with a love like love of God. THE UNUTTERED For so long and so long had I forgot, Serenely busied With thousand things; at whiles desire grew hot And my soul dizzied With hapless and insatiable salt thirst. Nor was I humbled Saving with shame that, running with the worst My feet yet stumbled. Pride and delight of life enchained my heart, My heart enchanted, And oh, soft subtle fingers had their part, And eyes love-haunted. But while my busy mind was thus intent, Or thus surrendered, What was it, oh what strange thing was it sent Through all that hindered A thrill that woke the buried soul in me?-- It seemed there fluttered A thought--or was it a sudden fear?--of Thee, Remote, unuttered. FAIR EVE Fair Eve, as fair and still As fairest thought, climbs the high sheltering hill; As still and fair As the white cloud asleep in the deep air. As cool, as fair and cool, As starlight swimming in a lonely pool; Subtle and mild As through her eyes the soul looks of a child. A linnet sings and sings, A shrill swift cleaves the air with blackest wings; White twinkletails Run frankly in their meadow as day fails. On such a night, a night That seems but the full sleep of tired light, I look and wait For what I know not, looking long and late. Is it for a dream I look, A vision from the Tree of Heaven shook, As sweetness shaken From the fresh limes on lonely ways forsaken? A dream of one, maybe, Who comes like sudden wind from oversea? Or most loved swallow Whom all fair days and golden musics follow?-- More sudden yet, more strange Than magic airs on magic hills that range:-- Of one who'll steep The soul in soft forgetfulness ere it sleep. Yes, down the hillside road, Where Eve's unhasty feet so gently trod, Follow His feet Whose leaf-like echoes make even spring more sweet. THE SNARE Loose me and let me go! I am not yours. I do not know Your dark name ev'n, O Powers That out of the deep rise And wave your arms To weave strange charms. Though the snare of eyes You weave for me, As a pool lies In wait for the moon when she Out of the deep will rise; And though you set Like mist your net; And though my feet you catch, O dark, strange Powers, You may not snatch My soul, or call it yours. Out of your snare I rise And pass your charms, Nor feel your harms. You loose me and I go: O see the arms Spread for me! lo, His lips break your charms. From the deep did He rise And round me set His Love for net. O HIDE ME IN THY LOVE O hide me in Thy love, secure From this earth-clinging meanness. Lave my uncleanness In Thy compassionating love! Bury this treachery as deep As mercy is enrooted. My days ill-fruited Shake till the shrivelled burden fall. Put by those righteous arrows, Lord, Put even Thy justice by Thee; So I come nigh Thee As came the Magdalen to Thy feet. And like a heavy stone that's cast In a pool, on Thee I throw me, And feel o'erflow me Ripples of pity, deep waves of love. PRAYER TO MY LORD If ever Thou didst love me, love me now, When round me beat the flattering vans of life, Kissing with rapid breath my lifted brow. Love me, if ever, when the murmur of strife, In each dark byway of my being creeps, When pity and pride, passion and passion's loss Wash wavelike round the world's eternal cross, Till 'mid my fears a new-born love indignant leaps. If ever Thou canst love me, love me yet, When sweet, impetuous loves within me stir And the frail portals of my spirit fret-- The love of love, that makes Heaven heavenlier, The love of earth, of birds, children and light, Love of this bitter, lovely native land.... O, love me when sick with all these I stand And Death's far-rumoured wings beat on the lonely night. THE TREE Oh, like a tree Let me grow up to Thee! And like a Tree Send down my roots to Thee. Let my leaves stir In each sigh of the air, My branches be Lively and glad in Thee; Each leaf a prayer, And green fire everywhere ... And all from Thee The sap within the Tree. And let Thy rain Fall--or as joy or pain So that I be Yet unforgot of Thee. Then shall I sing The new song of Thy Spring, Every leaf of me Whispering Love in Thee! EARTH TO EARTH What is the soul? Is it the wind Among the branches of the mind? Is it the sea against Time's shore Breaking and broken evermore? Is it the shore that breaks Time's sea, The verge of vast Eternity? And in the night is it the soul Sleep needs must hush, must needs kiss whole? Or does the soul, secure from sleep, Safe its bright sanctities yet keep? And oh, before the body's death Shall the confined soul ne'er gain breath, But ever to this serpent flesh Subdue its alien self afresh? Is it a bird that shuns earth's night, Or makes with song earth's darkness bright? Is it indeed a thought of God, Or merest clod-fellow to clod? A thought of God, and yet subdued To any passion's apish mood? Itself a God--and yet, O God, As like to earth as clod to clod? ON A PIECE OF SILVER So! the fierce acid licks the silver clean, Unwonted plain the superscription's seen Round the cleared head; the metal, virgin-bright, Shines a mild Moon to the Sun candle-light. And in these floating stains, this evil murk, All your change-crowded, moment-histories lurk, Voluble Silverling! Dost yield me now Your chance-illumined record, and allow Prying of idle eyes?... you came a boon To men as weary as any the weak moon Shines on but cheers not; you were life in death; Almost a God to give the prize of breath, Almost a God to give the prize of joy, Almost a God--but God! the veriest toy Child's fingers break, from death to buy back life, Turn the keen trouble of grief's eager knife, Or sense-confounded hearts heal of the ancient strife. O Coin that men have toiled for, lacked and mourned, Sold life for and sold honour, won and scorned; O Coin that oft hast been a spinning Fate, Yet impotent _her_ bitterness to abate; O Coin that Love contemns, reckoning nought (But with you, ah, Love's best is sold and bought)-- Heart of the harlot, you; the Judas blood Hell's devils leech on; you the Price of God! THE ESCAPE Like one who runs Fearful at night, he knows not why, Dreading the loneliness, yet shuns The highway's casual company; Wherefore he hastes, The friendly gloom of ancient trees Unheeding, and the shining wastes Lying broad and quiet as the seas; The beauty of night Hating for very fear, until Beyond the bend a lowly light Beams single from a lowly sill; And the poor fool, Flying the sacred, solemn dark, Leaves gladly the large, cool Night for that serviceable spark; And thankful then To have 'scaped the peril of the way, Turns not his timid steps again That night, but waits the common day;-- So I, as weak, Have fled the great hills of Thy love, Too faint to hear what Thou dost speak, Too feeble with fear to look above, And hasten to win Some flickering, brief security, In sinful sleep or waking sin, From the enfolding thought of Thee! WONDER Following upon the faint wind's fickle courses A feather drifts and strays. My thought after her thought Floated--how many ways and days! She swayed me as the wind swayeth a feather. I was a leaf upon Her breath, a dream within Her dream. The dream how soon was done! For now all's changed, not Time's change more wondrous, I am her sun, and she (Herself doth swear) the moon; Or she the ship upon my sea. How should this be? I know not; I so grossly Mastering her spirit pure. O, how can her bird's breast My nervous and harsh hand endure? Tell me if this be love indeed, fond lovers, That high stoop to low, Soul be to flesh subdued; That the sun around the earth should go? I know not: I but know that love is misery, O'erfilled with delight. Day follows night: her love Is gay as day, yet strange as night. LAMBOURN TOWN The rain beat on me as I walked, In the roadside it ran and muttered. It seemed the rain to the wind talked Of storm: in the wind the wild cloud fluttered. Across the down, now bleak and loud, I went and the rain ran with me. How swift the rain, how low the cloud! No heavenly comfort could I see, Nor comfort of low beaming light From any casement creeping out. The swift rain on the patient night Swept, and anon would great winds shout. Rain, rain, nought else, until I turned The thrusting shoulder of the down, And through the mist of rain there burned The few green lanterns of the town. And in the rain the night was lit With my love's eyes burning for me; Her white face in the dark was sweet, Her hands like moonflowers quiveringly Fell upon mine, and each was dashed With rain blown in from streaming eaves, While overhead the broad flood plashed Noisily on the broad plane leaves. Within we heard the gurgle-glock In the pipe, the tip-tap on the sill Like the same ticking of the clock; We heard the water-butt o'erspill, The wind come blustering at the door, The whipped white lilac thrash the wall; The candle flame upon the floor Crept between shadows magical.... In the black east a pallid ray Rose high; and sweeping o'er the down The slow increase of stormless day Lit the wet roofs of Lambourn town. THE LAMP The lamp shone golden where she slept, Shining against deep-folded shadows. There was no stir but her slow breathing Save when a long sigh crept Between her lips. Her hair spread dark in that faint light, Her shut eyes showed the long dark lashes-- Still now, that with her laughter quivered. On the white sheet lay white And limp her hands. Golden against the shadow shone The lamp's small flame, till dawn was brightening, And on the flame a gold beam slanted. The shadows lingering on Grew faint and thin. Sleeping she murmured, stirred and sighed, A dream from her sleep-vision faded. Her earthly eyes 'neath languid eyelids Wakened: her bosom cried, "Come back, come back, "Come back, my dream!" Rising she drest Her beauty's lamp with cunning fingers. She had the look of birds a-flutter Round dewy trees with breast Throbbing with song. WHO IS IT THAT ANSWERS? The clouds no more are flocking After the flushing sun; Bees end their long droning, The bat's hunt is begun; And the tired wind that went flittering Up and down the hill Lies like a shadow still, Like a shadow still. Who is it that's calling Out of the deepening dark, Calling, calling, calling?-- No!--yet hark! The sleepy wind wakes, carrying Up and down the hill A voice how small and still, How sweet and still! Who is it that answers Out of a quiet cloud-- "Stay, oh stay! I come, I come!" Cried at last aloud? My voice, my heart went answering Up and down the hill-- Mine so strange and still, Mine grave and still. WAITING Rich in the waning light she sat While the fierce rain on the window spat. The yellow lamp-glow lit her face, Shadows cloaked the narrow place She sat adream in. Then she'd look Idly upon an idle book; Anon would rise and musing peer Out at the misty street and drear; Or with her loosened dark hair play, Hiding her fingers' snow away; And, singing softly, would sing on When the desire of song had gone. "O lingering day!" her bosom sighed, "O laggard Time!" each motion cried. Last she took the lamp and stood Rich in its flood, And looked and looked again at what Her longing fingers' zeal had wrought; And turning then did nothing say, Hiding her thoughts away. ABSENCE Distance no grace can lend you, but for me Distance yet magnifies your mystery. With you, and soon content, I ask how should In your two eyes be hid my heaven of good? How should your own mere voice the strange words speak That tease me with the sense of what's to seek In all the world beside? How your brown hair, That simply and neglectfully you wear, Bind my wild thoughts in its abundant snare? With you, I wonder how you're stranger than Another woman to another man; But parted--and you're as a ship unknown That to poor castaways at dawn is shown As strange as dawn, so strange they fear a trick Of eyes long-vexed and hope with falseness sick. Parted, and like the riddle of a dream, Dark with rich promise, does your beauty seem. I wonder at your patience, stirless peace, Your subtle pride, mute pity's quick release. Then are you strange to me and sweet as light Or dew; as strange and dark as starless night. Then let this restless parting be forgiven: I go from you to find in you strange heaven. SLEEP Not a dream brush your sleep, Not a thought wake and creep In upon your spirit's slumber; Not a memory encumber, Nor a thievish care unbar Sleep's portcullis that no star Nor sentry hath. I'll not speak With my soul even: no, nor seek Other happiness for you When you this happy sleep sleep through. Let no least desire waver Between us, nor impatience quaver; No sudden nearness of me flush Your veins with welcome.... Hush, hush! Be still, my thoughts, lest you creep Unawares into her sleep. YOUR SHADOW From Swindon out to White Horse Hill I walked, in morning rain, And saw your shadow lying there. As clear and plain As lies the White Horse on the Hill I saw your shadow lying there. Over the wide green downs and bleak, Unthinking, free I walked, And saw your shadow fluttering by. Almost it talked, Answering what I dared not speak While thoughts of you ran fluttering by.... So on to Baydon sauntered, teased With that pure native air. Sometimes the sweetness of wild thyme The strings of care Did pluck; sometimes my soul was eased With more than sweetness of wild thyme. Sometimes within a pool I caught Your face, upturned to mine. And where sits Chilton by the waters Your look did shine Wildly in the mill foam that sought To hide you in those angry waters. And yet, O Sweet, you never knew Those downs, the thymy air That with your spirit haunted is-- Yes, everywhere! Ah, but my heart is full of you, And with your shadow haunted is. THE FULL TIDE Now speaks the wave, whispering me of you; In all his murmur your music murmurs too. O 'tis your voice, my love, whispering in The wave's voice, even your voice so far and thin; And mine to yours answering clear is heard In the high lonely voice of the last bird. And when, my love, the full tide runneth again, Shall yet the seabird call, call, call in vain? Will not the tide wake in my heart and stir The old rich happiness that's sunken there? Thou moon of love, bid the retreated tide Return, for which the wandering bird has cried. HANDS Your hands, your hands, Fall upon mine as waves upon the sands. O, soft as moonlight on the evening rose, That but to moonlight will its sweet unclose, Your hands, your hands, Fall upon mine, and my hands open as That evening primrose opens when the hot hours pass. Your hands, your hands, They are like towers that in far southern lands Look at pale dawn over gloom-valley'd miles, White temple towers that gleam through mist at whiles. Your hands, your hands, With the south wind fall kissing on my brow, And all past joy and future is summed in this great "Now!" THE NIGHT WATCH Beneath the trees with heedful step and slow At night I go, Fearful upon their whispering to break Lest they awake Out of those dreams of heavenly light that fill Their branches still With a soft murmur of memoried ecstasy. There 'neath each tree Nightlong a spirit watches, and I feel His breath unseal The fast-shut thoughts and longings of tired day, That flutter away Mothlike on luminous soft wings and frail And moonlike pale. There in the flowering chestnuts' bowering gloom And limes' perfume Wandering wavelike through the moondrawn night That heaves toward light, There hang I my dark thoughts and deeper prayers; And as the airs Of star-kissed dawn come stirring and o'er-creep The ford of sleep, Thy shape, great Love, grows shadowy in the East, Thine accents least Of all those warring voices of false morn: And oh, forlorn Thy hope, thy courage vanishing, thine eyes Sad with surprise. Oh, with the dawn I know, I know how vain Is love that's fain To beat and beat against her obstinate door. For as once more It groans, she passes out not heeding me, Nay, will not see:-- As when a man, rich and of high estate, Sees at his gate (Or will not see) a famishing poor wretch, Whose longings fetch Old anger from his pain-imprisoning breast, Till sad despair his anger puts to rest. THE HAUNTED SHADOW Fair Trees, O keep from chattering so When I with my more fair do go Beneath your branches; For if I laugh with her your sigh Her rare and sudden mirth puts by, Or your too noisy glee will take Persuasion from my lips and make Her deaf as winter. O be not as the pines--that keep The shadow-charmèd light asleep-- Perverse and sombre! For when we in the pinewood walked And of young love and far age talked, Their solemn haunted shadow broke Her peace--ah, how the sharp sob shook Her shadowed bosom! ALONE AND COLD Do not, O do not use me As you have used others. Better you did refuse me: You have refused others. Better, far better hope to banish A small child than, grown old, Hope should decay, his vigour vanish, And I be left alone and Cold, cold. Ah, use no guile nor cunning If you should even yet love me. Hark, Time with Love is running, Death cloud-like floats above me. Love me with such simplicity As children, frankly bold, Do love with; oh, never pity me, Though I be left alone and Cold, cold. INEVITABLE CHANGE Young as the Spring seemed life when she Came from her silent East to me; Unquiet as Autumn was my breast When she declined into her West. Such tender, such untroubling things She taught me, daughter of all Springs; Such dusty deathly lore I learned When her last embers redly burned. How should it hap (Love, canst thou say?) Such end should be to so pure day? Such shining chastity give place To this annulling grave's disgrace? Such hopes be quenched in this despair, Grace chilled to granite everywhere? How should--in vain I cry--how should That be, alas, which _only_ could! LONELINESS How green and strange the light is, Creeping through the window. Lying alone in bed, How strange the night is! How still and chill the air is. It seems no sound could live Here in my room That now so bare is. All bright and still the room is, But easeless here am I. Deep in my heart Cold lonely gloom is! I HEARD A VOICE UPON THE WINDOW BEAT I heard a voice upon the window beat And then grow dim, grow still. Opening I saw the snowy sill Marked with the robin's feet. Chill was the air and chill The thoughts that in my bosom beat. I thought of all that wide and hopeless snow Crusting the frozen lands. Of small birds that in famished bands A-chill and silent grow. And how Earth's myriad hands Clutched only hills of frosted snow. And then I thought of Love that beat and cried Famishing at my breast; How I, by chilling care distrest, Denied him, and Love died.... O, with what sore unrest Love's ghost woke with the bird that cried! FIRST LOVE I "No, no! Leave me not in this dark hour," She cried. And I, "Thou foolish dear, but call not dark this hour; What night doth lour?" And nought did she reply, But in her eye The clamorous trouble spoke, and then was still. O that I heard her once more speak, Or even with troubled eye Teach me her fear, that I might seek Poppies for misery. The hour was dark, although I knew it not, But when the livid dawn broke then I knew, How while I slept the dense night through Treachery's worm her fainting fealty slew. O that I heard her once more speak As then--so weak-- "No, no! Leave me not in this dark hour." That I might answer her, "Love, be at rest, for nothing now shall stir Thy heart, but my heart beating there." II Come back, come back--ah, never more to leave me! Come back, even though your constant longing grieve me, Longing for other looks and hands than mine. By all that's most divine In your frank human beauty, come and cover With that deceiving smile the love your lover Has taught you, and the light that in your eyes Tells of the painful joys that make your ruinous Paradise. Come back, that so, upon the shining meadow When the sun draws the magic of your shadow, Or when the red fire's gradual sinking light Yields up the room to night; Seeing you thus or thus I may recapture The very sharpness of remembered rapture:-- So it may seem, by exquisite deceit, You are yet mine, I yours, and life yet rare and sweet. Come back--no, come not back now, come back never; That day you went I knew it was for ever. I know you, how the spectre of cold shame Would chill you if you came. Lo, here first love's first memory abideth; Here in my heart the image of you yet hideth. But though you should come back and hope thrilled me anew, First love would yet be dead--oh, it would not be you! III O but what grace if I could but forget you! You have made league with all familiar things-- The thrush that still, evening and morning, sings, The aspen leaves that sigh "My dear!" with your true voice when I pass by.... O, and that too-long-dying flush of tender sky That minds me, and with sense too grave for tears, Of those forever dead too-blissful years. Yet 'twere a miracle could I forget you, Since even dead things, once sensible of you, Yield up your ghost; as all the garden through Murmurs the rose, "'Twas she Shook in her palm the dew that shone in me;" And on the stairs your recent footstep echoingly Sounds yet again, and each dark doorway speaks Of you toward whom my sharpened longing seeks. O that I could forget or not regret you! Could I but see you as I have seen a fair Child under apple-burdened boughs that bear Morn's autumn beauty, and Seeing her saw all heaven at my hand, And all day long that happy child before me stand.... Not thus I see you, but as one drowning sees Home, friends--and loves his very enemies! THE CALL Is it the wind that stirs the trees, Is it the trees that scratch the wall, Is it the wall that shakes and mutters, Is it a dumb ghost's call? The wind steals in and twirls the candle, The branches heave and brush the wall, But more than tree or wild wind mutters This night, this night of all. "Open!" a cry sounds, and I gasp. "Open!" and hands beat door and wall. "Open!" and each dark echo mutters. I rise, a shape and shadow tall. "Open!" Across the room I falter, And near the door crouch by the wall; Thrice bolt the door as the voice mutters "Open!" and frail strokes fall. "Open!" The light's out, and I shrink Quaking and blind against the wall; "Open!" no sound is, yet it mutters Within me now, this night of all. Was it the wind that stirred the trees, Was it the trees that scratched the wall, Was it the wall that shook and muttered. Or Love's last, ghostly call? THE SHADE I saw him as he went With merry voice and eye. I met him when he came Back, tired but the same-- The same clear voice, bright eye, Merry laugh, quick reply. And now, if I but look Unnoting at a book, Or from the window stare At dark woods newly bare, I see that shining eye, The same as when he went: --But whose is the low sigh, The cold shade o'er me bent? HAPPY IS ENGLAND NOW There is not anything more wonderful Than a great people moving towards the deep Of an unguessed and unfeared future; nor Is aught so dear of all held dear before As the new passion stirring in their veins When the destroying Dragon wakes from sleep. Happy is England now, as never yet! And though the sorrows of the slow days fret Her faithfullest children, grief itself is proud. Ev'n the warm beauty of this spring and summer That turns to bitterness turns then to gladness Since for this England the beloved ones died. Happy is England in the brave that die For wrongs not hers and wrongs so sternly hers; Happy in those that give, give, and endure The pain that never the new years may cure; Happy in all her dark woods, green fields, towns, Her hills and rivers and her chafing sea. Whate'er was dear before is dearer now. There's not a bird singing upon his bough But sings the sweeter in our English ears: There's not a nobleness of heart, hand, brain But shines the purer; happiest is England now In those that fight, and watch with pride and tears. THE STARS IN THEIR COURSES And now, while the dark vast earth shakes and rocks In this wild dream-like snare of mortal shocks, How look (I muse) those cold and solitary stars On these magnificent, cruel wars?-- Venus, that brushes with her shining lips (Surely!) the wakeful edge of the world and mocks With hers its all ungentle wantonness?-- Or the large moon (pricked by the spars of ships Creeping and creeping in their restlessness), The moon pouring strange light on things more strange, Looks she unheedfully on seas and lands Trembling with change and fear of counterchange? O, not earth trembles, but the stars, the stars! The sky is shaken and the cool air is quivering. I cannot look up to the crowded height And see the fair stars trembling in their light, For thinking of the starlike spirits of men Crowding the earth and with great passion quivering:-- Stars quenched in anger and hate, stars sick with pity. I cannot look up to the naked skies Because a sorrow on dark midnight lies, Death, on the living world of sense; Because on my own land a shadow lies That may not rise; Because from bare grey hillside and rich city Streams of uncomprehending sadness pour, Thwarting the eager spirit's pure intelligence ... How look (I muse) those cold and solitary stars On these magnificent, cruel wars? Stars trembled in broad heaven, faint with pity. An hour to dawn I looked. Beside the trees Wet mist shaped other trees that branching rose, Covering the woods and putting out the stars. There was no murmur on the seas, No wind blew--only the wandering air that grows With dawn, then murmurs, sighs, And dies. The mist climbed slowly, putting out the stars, And the earth trembled when the stars were gone; And moving strangely everywhere upon The trembling earth, thickened the watery mist. And for a time the holy things are veiled. England's wise thoughts are swords; her quiet hours Are trodden underfoot like wayside flowers, And every English heart is England's wholly. In starless night A serious passion streams the heaven with light. A common beating is in the air-- The heart of England throbbing everywhere. And all her roads are nerves of noble thought, And all her people's brain is but her brain; And all her history, less her shame, Is part of her requickened consciousness. Her courage rises clean again. Even in victory there hides defeat; The spirit's murdered though the body survives, Except the cause for which, a people strives Burn with no covetous, foul heat. Fights she against herself who infamously draws The sword against man's secret spiritual laws. But thou, England, because a bitter heel Hath sought to bruise the brain, the sensitive will, The conscience of the world, For this, England, art risen, and shalt fight Purely through long profoundest night, Making their quarrel thine who are grieved like thee; And (if to thee the stars yield victory) Tempering their hate of the great foe that hurled Vainly her strength against the conscience of the world. I looked again, or dreamed I looked, and saw The stars again and all their peace again. The moving mist had gone, and shining still The moon went high and pale above the hill. Not now those lights were trembling in the vast Ways of the nervy heaven, nor trembled earth: Profound and calm they gazed as the soft-shod hours passed. And with less fear (not with less awe, Remembering, England, all the blood and pain) How look, I cried, you stern and solitary stars On these disastrous wars! _August, 1914._ SWEET ENGLAND I heard a boy that climbed up Dover's Hill Singing _Sweet England_, sweeter for his song. The notes crept muffled through the copse, but still Sharply recalled the things forgotten long, The music that my own boy's lips had known, Singing, and old airs on a wild flute blown; And other hills, more grim and lonely far, And valleys empty of these orchard trees; A sheep-pond filled with the moon, a single star I had watched by night searching the wreckful seas; And all the streets and streets that childhood knew In years when London streets were all my view. And I remembered how that song I heard, _Sweet England_, sung by children on May-day, Nor any song was sweeter of a bird Than that half-grievous air from children gay-- For then, as now, youth made the sadness bright, Till the words, _Sweet, Sweet England_, shone with light. Now, listening, I forgot how men yet fought For this same England, till the song was done And no sound lingered but the lark's, that brought New music down from fields of cloud and sun, Or the sad lapwing's over fields of green Crying beneath the copse, near but unseen. Then I remembered. All wide England spread Before me, hill and wood and meadow and stream And ancient roads and homes of men long dead, And all the beauty a familiar dream. On the green hills a cloud of silver grey Gave gentle light stranger than light of day. And clear between the hills, past the near crest And many hills, the hungry cities crept, Noble and mean, oppressive and oppressed, Where dreams unrealized of England slept: And they too England, packed in dusty street With men that half forgot England was sweet. Now men were far, but like a living brain Quick with their thought, the earth, hills, air and light Were quivering as though a shining rain Falling all round made even the light more bright; And trees and water and heath and hedge-flowers fair With more than natural sweetness washed the air. From hill to hill a sparkling web it swung, A snare for happiness, lit with lovely dews. The very smoke of cities now was hung But like a grave girl's dress of tranquil hues: And how (I thought) can England, seen thus bright, Lifting her clear frank head, but love the light?-- No, not her brain! that bright web was the shadow Of the high spirit in their spirit shining Who on scarred foreign hill and trenchèd meadow Kept the faith yet, unfearful, unrepining;-- Her faith that with the dark world's liberty Mingles as earth's great rivers with the sea. O with what gilding ray was the land agleam! It was not sun and dew, bush, bough and leaf, But human spirits visible as in a dream That turns from glad to aching, being too brief: Courage and beauty shining in such brightness That all the thoughtful woods were no more lightless. But most the hills a splendour had put on Of golden honour, bright and high and calm And like old heroes young men dream upon When midnight stirs with magic sword and palm;-- With the fled mist all meanness put away And the air clear and keen as salt sea-spray.... And yet no dream; no dream! I saw the whole, The reap'd fields, idle kine and wandering sheep. A weak wind through the near tall hedge-tree stole, And died where Dover's Hill rose bare and steep; I saw yet what I saw an hour ago, But knew what save by dreams I did not know-- _Sweet England!_--wild proud heart of things unspoken Spirit that men bear shyly and love purely; That dies to live anew a life unbroken As spring from every winter rising surely: _Sweet England_ unto generations sped, Now bitter-sweetest for her daily dead. _September, 1916._ PRESAGE OF VICTORY I Then first I knew, seeing that bent grey head, How England honours all her thousand dead. Then first I knew how faith through black grief burns, Until the ruined heart glows while it yearns For one that never more returns-- Glows in the spent embers of its pride For one that careless lived and fearless died. And then I knew, then first, How everywhere Hope from her prison had burst-- On every hill, wide dale, soft valley's lap, In lonely cottage clutch'd between huge downs, And streets confused with streets in clanging towns-- Like spring from winter's jail pouring her sap Into the idle wood of last year's trees. Then first I knew how the vast world-disease Would die away, and England upon her seas Shake every scab of sickness; toward new skies Lifting a little holier her head, With honesty the brighter in her eyes, And all that urgent horror well forgot, The dark remembered not; Only remembered then, with bosom yet hot, The blood that on how many a far field lies, The bones enriching not our English earth That brought them to such splendid birth And the last sacrifice. II Then first I knew, seeing that head bent low, How gravely all her days she needs must go, Bearing an image in her faded breast.... O, the dark unrest Of thoughts that never cease their flight, Never vanishing, yet never still, Like birds that wail round the bewildering nest! But other nestlings never shall be hers, Only a painful image his place fill, Only a memory remain for her thin bosom to nurse In all that dark unrest Of sleepless and tormented night. III Yet from _her_ eyes presage of victory Looked steadfast out at mine. It is not to be thought of (said her eyes) That only a foul blotch the sun may shine On England, through low poisonous thick skies! Never, O never again This pain, this pain! Else from that foreign earth his bones would rise And thrust in anger at the bitter skies. It is not to be thought of that such prayer Should fall unheeded back through heavy air. But I have heard, in the night I have heard, When not a leaf in all the orchard stirred, And even the water of the bourne hung still, And the old twitching, creaking house was still, And all was still, What was it I heard? It could not be his voice, come from so far; I know 'twas not a bird. It _was_ his voice, or that lone watchful star Creeping above the casement bar, Saying: Fear thou no ill, No ill! Then all the silence was an echoing round, The water and dumb trees their antique murmur found, And clear as music came the repeated Sound: Fear thou no ill, no ill! Was it her eyes or her tongue told me this? IV Yet but sad comfort from such pain is caught.... I went out from the house and climbed the coombe, And where the first light of sweet morning hung I found the light I sought. From somewhere south a bugle's note was flung, From somewhere north a sombre boom; On the opposing hills white flecks and grey Spotted the misty green, And blue smoke wraiths around the tall trees clung. Presently rose thick dust clouds from the green: Came up, or seemed to come, the instant beat Of marching feet; Then with the clouds the beating died away, And nothing was seen But broken hills and the new flush of day. V All round the folding hills were like green waves, Tossing awhile together ere they fall And fling their salt on the steep stony beach. The sound I heard was sound of Roman feet-- I saw the sparkling light on Roman glaives, I heard the Roman speech Answering the wild Iberian battle-call: They passed from sight on the long street. And I saw then the Mercian Kings that strode Proudly from the small city of grey stone And climbed the folding hills, Past the full springs that bubbled and flowed Through the soft valley and on to Avon stream. They passed--as all things pass and seem No other than a dream, All but the shining and the echo gone. But still I listened and looked. Their voice it was Blown through the valley grass; Their dust it was that sprang from the hard road Where now these English legions flowed, Waking the quiet like a steady wind. That ancient soldiery before me passed With all that followed them, and these the last Of my own generation, my own mind; Their strength and courage rooted deep in the earth That brings men to such splendid birth And no vain sacrifice ... It was as when the land all darkness lies, And shades, nor only shades, move freely out And through the trees are heard and all about Their ancient ways, 'neath the old stars and skies. So now in morning's light I knew them there Leading the men that marched and marched away, And mounted up the hill, and down the hill Passed from my eyes and ears, and left the air Trembling everywhere, And then how still! VI Then first I knew the joy that yet should be Ringing from camped hill and guarded sea With England's victory. The dust had stirred, the infinite dust had stirred, It was the courage of the past I heard, The virtue of those buried bones again Animate in these marching Englishmen; And nothing wanted if the dead but nerved The living hands that the same England served. With new-washed eyes I saw as I went down On the hill crest the oak-grove's crown, With new delighted ear heard the lark sing-- That mad delighted thing; The very smoke that rose was strangely blue, But most the orchard brightened wonderfully new, Where the wild spring, ere winter snow well gone, Scattered her whiter, briefer snow-cloud down. And England lovelier looked than when Her dead roused not her living men. _May, 1916._ THE RETURN I heard the rumbling guns. I saw the smoke, The unintelligible shock of hosts that still, Far off, unseeing, strove and strove again: And Beauty flying naked down the hill. From morn to eve: and then stern night cried Peace! And shut the strife in darkness; all was still. Then slowly crept a triumph on the dark-- And I heard Beauty singing up the hill. ENGLISH HILLS O that I were Where breaks the pure cold light On English hills, And peewits rising cry, And gray is all the sky. Or at evening there When the faint slow light stays, And far below Sleeps the last lingering sound, And night leans all round. O then, O there 'Tis English haunted ground. The diligent stars Creep out, watch, and smile; The wise moon lingers awhile. For surely there Heroic shapes are moving, Visible thoughts, Passions, things divine, Clear beneath clear star-shine. O that I were Again on English hills, Seeing between Laborious villages Her cool dark loveliness. HOMECOMING When I came home from wanderings In a tall chattering ship, I thought a hundred happy things, Of people, places, and such things As I came sailing home. The tall ship moved how slowly on With me and hundreds more, That thought not then of wanderings, But of unwhispered, longed-for things, Familiar things of home. For not in miles seemed other lands Far off, but in long years As we came near to England then; Even the tall ship heard secret things As she moved trembling home. It was at dawn. The chattering ship Was strangely hushed; faint mist Crept everywhere, and we crept on, And every eye was creeping on The mist, as we moved home.... Until we saw, far, very far, Or dreamed we saw, her cliffs, And thought of sweet, intolerable things, Of England--dark, unwhispered things, Such things, as we crept home. ENGLAND'S ENEMY She stands like one with mazy cares distraught. Around her sudden angry storm-clouds rise, Dark, dark! and comes the look into her eyes Of eld. All that herself herself hath taught She cons anew, that courage new be caught Of courage old. Yet comfortless still lies Snake-like in her warm bosom (vexed with sighs) Fear of the greatness that herself hath wrought. No glory but her memory teems with it, No beauty that's not hers; more nobly none Of all her sisters runs with her; but she For her old destiny dreams herself unfit, And fumbling at the future doubtfully Muses how Rome of Romans was undone. FROM PICCADILLY IN AUGUST Now the trees rest: the moon has taught them sleep, Like drowsy wings of bats are all their leaves, Clinging together. Girls at ease who fold Fair hands upon white necks and through dusk fields Walk all content,--of them the trees have taken Their way of evening rest; the yellow moon With her pale gold has lit their dreams that lisp On the wind's murmuring lips. And low beyond Burn those bright lamps beneath the moon more bright, Lamps that but flash and sparkle and light not The inward eye and musing thought, nor reach Where, poplar-like, that tall-built campanile Lifts to the neighbouring moon her head and feels The pale gold like an ocean laving her. EVENING BEAUTY: BLACKFRIARS Nought is but beauty weareth, near and far, Under the pale, blue sky and lonely star. This is that quick hour when the city turns Her troubled harsh distortion and blind care Into brief loveliness seen everywhere, While in the fuming west the low sun smouldering burns. Not brick nor marble the rich beauty owns, Not this is held in starward-pointing stones. Sun, wind and smoke the threefold magic stir, Kissing each favourless poor ruin with kiss Like that when lovers lovers lure to bliss, And earth than towered heaven awhile is heavenlier. Tall shafts that show the sky how far away! The thousand-window'd house gilded with day That fades to night; the arches low, the streamer Everywhere of the ruddy'd smoke.... Is aught Of loveliness so rich e'er sold and bought? Look visions fairer in the eyes of any dreamer? Needs must so rare a beauty be so brief! Night comes, of this delight the subtle thief. Thou canst not, Night, this same rich thievery keep; Seize it and look! 'tis gone, ere seized is gone-- Only in our warm bosoms lingering on, A nest of precious dreams when our lids droop in sleep. So in her darkening loveliness is she seen Like an autumnal passion-haunted queen, Who hears, "A captain-king is at the gate"-- "'Tis Antony, Antony!" Then hastens she, Beauty to beauty adding yet, till--see, A queen within the queen perilous with love and fate! SAILING OF THE _GLORY_ Merrily shouted all the sailors As they left the town behind; Merrily shouted they and gladdened At the slip-slap of the wind. But envious were those faint home-keepers, Faint land-lovers, as they saw How the _Glory_ dipped and staggered-- Envying saw Pass the ship while all her sailors Merrily shouted. Far and far on eastern waters Sailed the ship and yet sailed on, While the townsmen, faint land-lovers, Thought, "How long is't now she's gone? Now, maybe, Bombay she touches, Now strange craft about her throng"; Till she grew but half-remembered, Gone so long: Quite forgot how all her sailors Merrily shouted. Far in unfamiliar waters Ship and shipmen harbourage found, Where the rocks creep out like robbers After travellers tempest-bound. Then those faint land-lovers murmured Doleful thanks not dead were they:-- Ah, yet envious, though the _Glory_ Sunken lay, Hearing again those farewell voices Merrily shouting. AT THE DOCK They loiter round the Dock that holds yon Ship Shuddering at the dark pool's defiled lip From springing bows to foam-deriding stern; They have left her, and await her call "Return!" Like any human mistress she has cast Careless her ancient lovers, till at last Perforce she calls them, and perforce they come Like any human lovers.... Ah, what home Know these, save in the Ship, the Ship! She groans Day and night with travail of their strenuous bones. They know her for their mother, sister, spouse, Heart of their passion, idol of their vows; They ward her, and she is their sure defence 'Gainst the sad waters' leagued malevolence. The Ship, the Ship: they are her slaves, and she Their Liege, their Faith, their Fate, their History. Lo! they have bought her buoyancy with their blood And their ribs cling the keel that cleaves the flood. Their watches in the night, their loneliness, Their toil, hunger and thirst, their heart's distress, Their hands, their feet, far eye and smitten head Whereon the Sea's upgathered weight is shed; With these the Ship, the Ship is laid and rigged, Launched and steered out; with these her living grave is digged, They lean close over her--and long, perhaps, For the broad seas and the loud wind that claps Boisterous hands on the Ship's course; and wait Her call who calls them with the voice of Fate. "THE MEN WHO LOVED THE CAUSE THAT NEVER DIES" O come you down from the far hills Whereon you fought, triumphed and died, Men at whose names the quick blood thrills And the heart's troubled in our side. Your shadows o'er our fields ere night Draw from the shadow of old trees; Ghost-hallowed run the streams, and light Hangs halo-wise in the great peace. Warriors of England whom we praise (Ah, vain all praise!), your spirit is not Lost in the meanness of these days, Not wholly is your charge forgot. And this perplexity of strife Not all estrangèd leaves our heart; England is ours yet, and her life Has yet in ours the purest part. But come you down and stand you yet A little closer to our side, Or in the darkness we forget The cause for which Earth's noblest died. _Printed at The Chapel River Press, Kingston, Surrey._ *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS NEW AND OLD *** Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution. START: FULL LICENSE THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK To protect the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting the free distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or any other work associated in any way with the phrase “Project Gutenberg”), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project Gutenberg™ License available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license. Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works 1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property (trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. 1.B. “Project Gutenberg” is a registered trademark. It may only be used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg™ electronic works even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project Gutenberg™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below. 1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation (“the Foundation” or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the United States and you are located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project Gutenberg™ mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg™ name associated with the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg™ License when you share it without charge with others. 1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project Gutenberg™ work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any country other than the United States. 1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: 1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg™ License must appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ work (any work on which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” appears, or with which the phrase “Project Gutenberg” is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, copied or distributed: This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. 1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase “Project Gutenberg” associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg™ trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. 1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is posted with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked to the Project Gutenberg™ License for all works posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. 1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg™ License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™. 1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project Gutenberg™ License. 1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg™ work in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website (www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg™ License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. 1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg™ works unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. 1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing access to or distributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works provided that: • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, but he has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in Section 4, “Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.” • You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg™ License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg™ works. • You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of receipt of the work. • You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free distribution of Project Gutenberg™ works. 1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. 1.F. 1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain “Defects,” such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment. 1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the “Right of Replacement or Refund” described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE. 1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further opportunities to fix the problem. 1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you ‘AS-IS’, WITH NO OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. 1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. 1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone providing copies of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect you cause. Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™ Project Gutenberg™ is synonymous with the free distribution of electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from people in all walks of life. Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg™’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ collection will remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure and permanent future for Project Gutenberg™ and future generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org. Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service. The Foundation’s EIN or federal tax identification number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state’s laws. The Foundation’s business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread public support and donations to carry out its mission of increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be freely distributed in machine-readable form accessible by the widest array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations ($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt status with the IRS. The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate. While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who approach us with offers to donate. International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. Please check the Project Gutenberg web pages for current donation methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate. Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. Most people start at our website which has the main PG search facility: www.gutenberg.org. This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.