The Project Gutenberg eBook of Motley and other poems, by Walter de la Mare 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: Motley and other poems Author: Walter de la Mare Release Date: July 4, 2022 [eBook #68458] Language: English Produced by: Al Haines *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOTLEY AND OTHER POEMS *** MOTLEY AND OTHER POEMS BY WALTER DE LA MARE LONDON CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD 1918 _Printed in Great Britain_ NOTE The author wishes to thank the Editors of the _English Review_, the _Times_, the _New Statesman_, _Form_, the _Gipsy_, the _Yale Review_, and the _Westminster Gazette_ for permission to reprint poems included in this volume. A selection from among the poems included in this volume has been published in a limited edition in a volume issued by the Beaumont Press. _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ THE LISTENERS and Other Poems. PEACOCK PIE. A Book of Rhymes. Also an Illustrated Edition, with Black and White Drawings by W. HEATH ROBINSON. POEMS. A CHILD'S DAY. A Book of Rhymes. Illustrated. HENRY BROCKEN. A Novel. CONTENTS THE LITTLE SALAMANDER THE LINNET THE SUNKEN GARDEN THE RIDDLERS MOONLIGHT THE BLIND BOY THE QUARRY MRS. GRUNDY THE TRYST ALONE EMPTY MISTRESS FELL THE GHOST THE STRANGER BETRAYAL THE CAGE THE REVENANT MUSIC THE REMONSTRANCE NOCTURNE THE EXILE THE UNCHANGING NIGHTFALL INVOCATION EYES LIFE THE DISGUISE VAIN QUESTIONING VIGIL THE OLD MEN THE DREAMER HAPPY ENGLAND MOTLEY THE MARIONETTES TO E. T.: 1917 APRIL MOON THE FOOL'S SONG CLEAR EYES DUST TO DUST THE THREE STRANGERS ALEXANDER THE REAWAKENING THE VACANT DAY THE FLIGHT THE TWO HOUSES FOR ALL THE GRIEF THE SCRIBE FARE WELL THE LITTLE SALAMANDER TO MARGOT When I go free, I think 'twill be A night of stars and snow, And the wild fires of frost shall light My footsteps as I go; Nobody--nobody will be there With groping touch, or sight, To see me in my bush of hair Dance burning through the night. THE LINNET Upon this leafy bush With thorns and roses in it, Flutters a thing of light, A twittering linnet. And all the throbbing world Of dew and sun and air By this small parcel of life Is made more fair; As if each bramble-spray And mounded gold-wreathed furze, Harebell and little thyme, Were only hers; As if this beauty and grace Did to one bird belong, And, at a flutter of wing, Might vanish in song. THE SUNKEN GARDEN Speak not--whisper not; Here bloweth thyme and bergamot; Softly on the evening hour, Secret herbs their spices shower, Dark-spiked rosemary and myrrh, Lean-stalked, purple lavender; Hides within her bosom, too, All her sorrows, bitter rue. Breathe not--trespass not; Of this green and darkling spot, Latticed from the moon's beams, Perchance a distant dreamer dreams; Perchance upon its darkening air, The unseen ghosts of children fare, Faintly swinging, sway and sweep, Like lovely sea-flowers in its deep; While, unmoved, to watch and ward, 'Mid its gloomed and daisied sward, Stands with bowed and dewy head That one little leaden Lad. THE RIDDLERS 'Thou solitary!' the Blackbird cried, 'I, from the happy Wren, Linnet and Blackcap, Woodlark, Thrush, Perched all upon a sweetbrier bush, Have come at cold of midnight-tide To ask thee, Why and when Grief smote thy heart so thou dost sing In solemn hush of evening, So sorrowfully, lovelorn Thing-- Nay, nay, not sing, but rave, but wail, Most melancholic Nightingale? Do not the dews of darkness steep All pinings of the day in sleep? Why, then, when rocked in starry nest We mutely couch, secure, at rest, Doth thy lone heart delight to make Music for sorrow's sake?' A Moon was there. So still her beam, It seemed the whole world lay a-dream, Lulled by the watery sea. And from her leafy night-hung nook Upon this stranger soft did look The Nightingale: sighed he:-- ''Tis strange, my friend; the Kingfisher But yestermorn conjured me here Out of his green and gold to say Why thou, in splendour of the noon, Wearest of colour but golden shoon, And else dost thee array In a most sombre suit of black? "Surely," he sighed, "some load of grief, Past all our thinking--and belief-- Must weigh upon his back!" Do, then, in turn, tell me, If joy Thy heart as well as voice employ, Why dost thou now, most Sable, shine In plumage woefuller far than mine? Thy silence is a sadder thing Than any dirge I sing!' Thus then these two small birds, perched there, Breathed a strange riddle both did share Yet neither could expound. And we--who sing but as we can, In the small knowledge of a man-- Have we an answer found? Nay, some are happy whose delight Is hid even from themselves from sight; And some win peace who spend The skill of words to sweeten despair Of finding consolation where Life has but one dark end; Who, in rapt solitude, tell o'er A tale, as lovely as forlore, Into the midnight air. MOONLIGHT The far moon maketh lovers wise In her pale beauty trembling down, Lending curved cheeks, dark lips, dark eyes, A strangeness not their own. And, though they shut their lids to kiss, In starless darkness peace to win, Even on that secret world from this Her twilight enters in. THE BLIND BOY 'I have no master,' said the Blind Boy, My mother, "Dame Venus," they do call; Cowled in this hood, she sent me begging For whate'er in pity may befall. 'Hard was her visage, me adjuring,-- "Have no fond mercy on the kind! Here be sharp arrows, bunched in quiver, Draw close ere striking--thou art blind." 'So stand I here, my woes entreating, In this dark alley, lest the Moon Point with her sparkling my barbed armoury, Shine on my silver-laced shoon. 'Oh, sir, unkind this Dame to me-ward; Of the salt billow was her birth.... In your sweet charity draw nearer The saddest rogue on Earth!' THE QUARRY You hunted me with all the pack, Too blind, too blind, to see By no wild hope of force or greed Could you make sure of me. And like a phantom through the glades, With tender breast aglow, The goddess in me laughed to hear Your horns a-roving go. She laughed to think no mortal e'er By dint of mortal flesh The very Cause that was the Hunt One moment could enmesh: That though with captive limbs I lay, Stilled breath and vanquished eyes, He that hunts Love with horse and hound Hunts out his heart and eyes. MRS. GRUNDY 'Step very softly, sweet Quiet-foot, Stumble not, whisper not, smile not: By this dark ivy stoop cheek and brow. Still even thy heart! What seest thou?' 'High-coifed, broad-browed, aged, suave yet grim, A large flat face, eyes keenly dim, Staring at nothing--that's me!--and yet, With a hate one could never, no, never forget...' 'This is my world, my garden, my home, Hither my father bade mother to come And bear me out of the dark into light, And happy I was in her tender sight. 'And then, thou frail flower, she died and went, Forgetting my pitiless banishment, And that Old Woman--an Aunt--she said, Came hither, lodged, fattened, and made her bed. 'Oh yes, thou most blessed, from Monday to Sunday Has lived on me, preyed on me, Mrs. Grundy: Called me, "dear Nephew"; on each of those chairs Has gloated in righteousness, heard my prayers. 'Why didst thou dare the thorns of the grove, Timidest trespasser, huntress of love? Now thou hast peeped, and now dost know What kind of creature is thine for foe. 'Not that she'll tear out thy innocent eyes, Poison thy mouth with deviltries. Watch thou, wait thou: soon will begin The guile of a voice: hark!...' 'Come in, Come in!' THE TRYST Flee into some forgotten night and be Of all dark long my moon-bright company: Beyond the rumour even of Paradise come, There, out of all remembrance, make our home: Seek we some close hid shadow for our lair, Hollowed by Noah's mouse beneath the chair Wherein the Omnipotent, in slumber bound, Nods till the piteous Trump of Judgment sound. Perchance Leviathan of the deep sea Would lease a lost mermaiden's grot to me, There of your beauty we would joyance make-- A music wistful for the sea-nymph's sake: Haply Elijah, o'er his spokes of fibre, Cresting steep Leo, or the heavenly Lyre, Spied, tranced in azure of inanest space, Some eyrie hostel, meet for human grace, Where two might happy be--just you and I-- Lost in the uttermost of Eternity. Think! in Time's smallest clock's minutest beat Might there not rest be found for wandering feet? Or, 'twixt the sleep and wake of a Helen's dream, Silence wherein to sing love's requiem? No, no. Nor earth, nor air, nor fire, nor deep Could lull poor mortal longingness asleep. Somewhere there Nothing is; and there lost Man Shall win what changeless vague of peace he can. ALONE The abode of the nightingale is bare, Flowered frost congeals in the gelid air, The fox howls from his frozen lair: Alas, my loved one is gone, I am alone: It is winter. Once the pink cast a winy smell, The wild bee hung in the hyacinth bell, Light in effulgence of beauty fell: Alas, my loved one is gone, I am alone: It is winter. My candle a silent fire doth shed, Starry Orion hunts o'erhead; Come moth, come shadow, the world is dead: Alas, my loved one is gone, I am alone; It is winter. THE EMPTY HOUSE See this house, how dark it is Beneath its vast-boughed trees! Not one trembling leaflet cries To that Watcher in the skies-- 'Remove, remove thy searching gaze, Innocent, of heaven's ways, Brood not, Moon, so wildly bright, On secrets hidden from sight.' 'Secrets,' sighs the night-wind, 'Vacancy is all I find; Every keyhole I have made Wail a summons, faint and sad, No voice ever answers me, Only vacancy.' 'Once, once...' the cricket shrills, And far and near the quiet fills With its tiny voice, and then Hush falls again. Mute shadows creeping slow Mark how the hours go. Every stone is mouldering slow. And the least winds that blow Some minutest atom shake, Some fretting ruin make In roof and walls. How black it is Beneath these thick-boughed trees! MISTRESS FELL 'Whom seek you here, sweet Mistress Fell?' 'One who loved me passing well. Dark his eye, wild his face-- Stranger, if in this lonely place Bide such an one, then, prythee, say _I_ am come here to-day.' 'Many his like, Mistress Fell?' 'I did not look, so cannot tell. Only this I surely know, When his voice called me, I must go; Touched me his fingers, and my heart Leapt at the sweet pain's smart.' 'Why did he leave you, Mistress Fell?' 'Magic laid its dreary spell.-- Stranger, he was fast asleep; Into his dream I tried to creep; Called his name, soft was my cry: He answered--not one sigh. 'The flower and the thorn are here; Falleth the night-dew, cold and clear; Out of her bower the bird replies, Mocking the dark with ecstasies, See how the earth's green grass doth grow, Praising what sleeps below! 'Thus have they told me. And I come, As flies the wounded wild-bird home. Not tears I give; but all that he Clasped in his arms, sweet charity; All that he loved--to him I bring For a close whispering.' THE GHOST 'Who knocks?' 'I, who was beautiful, Beyond all dreams to restore, I, from the roots of the dark thorn am hither, And knock on the door.' 'Who speaks?' 'I--once was my speech Sweet as the bird's on the air. When echo lurks by the waters to heed; 'Tis I speak thee fair.' 'Dark is the hour!' 'Ay, and cold.' 'Lone is my house.' 'Ah, but mine?' 'Sight, touch, lips, eyes yearned in vain.' 'Long dead these to thine... Silence. Still faint on the porch Brake the flames of the stars. In gloom groped a hope-wearied hand Over keys, bolts, and bars. A face peered. All the grey night In chaos of vacancy shone; Nought but vast Sorrow was there-- The sweet cheat gone. THE STRANGER In the woods as I did walk, Dappled with the moon's beam, I did with a Stranger talk, And his name was Dream. Spurred his heel, dark his cloak, Shady-wide his bonnet's brim; His horse beneath a silvery oak Grazed as I talked with him. Softly his breast-brooch burned and shone; Hill and deep were in his eyes; One of his hands held mine, and one The fruit that makes men wise. Wonderly strange was earth to see, Flowers white as milk did gleam; Spread to Heaven the Assyrian Tree, Over my head with Dream. Dews were still betwixt us twain; Stars a trembling beauty shed; Yet--not a whisper comes again Of the words he said. BETRAYAL She will not die, they say, She will but put her beauty by And hie away. Oh, but her beauty gone, how lonely Then will seem all reverie, How black to me! All things will sad be made And every hope a memory, All gladness dead. Ghosts of the past will know My weakest hour, and whisper to me, And coldly go. And hers in deep of sleep, Clothed in its mortal beauty I shall see, And, waking, weep. Naught will my mind then find In man's false Heaven my peace to be: All blind, and blind. THE CAGE Why did you flutter in vain hope, poor bird, Hard-pressed in your small cage of clay? 'Twas but a sweet, false echo that you heard, Caught only a feint of day. Still is the night all dark, a homeless dark. Burn yet the unanswering stars. And silence brings The same sea's desolate surge--_sans_ bound or mark-- Of all your wanderings. Fret now no more; be still. Those steadfast eyes, Those folded hands, they cannot set you free; Only with beauty wake wild memories-- Sorrow for where you are, for where you would be. THE REVENANT O all ye fair ladies with your colours and your graces, And your eyes clear in flame of candle and hearth, To'rd the dark of this old window lift not up your smiling faces, Where a Shade stands forlorn from the cold of the earth. God knows I could not rest for one I still was thinking of; Like a rose sheathed in beauty her spirit was to me; Now out of unforgottenness a bitter draught I'm drinking of, 'Tis sad of such beauty unremembered to be. Men all are shades, O Women.--Winds wist not of the way they blow. Apart from your kindness, life's at best but a snare. Though a tongue now past praise this bitter thing doth say, I know What solitude means, and how, homeless, I fare. Strange, strange, are ye all--except in beauty shared with her-- Since I seek one I loved, yet was faithless to in death. Not life enough I heaped, so thus my heart must fare with her, Now wrapt in the gross clay, bereft of life's breath. MUSIC When music sounds, gone is the earth I know, And all her lovely things even lovelier grow; Her flowers in vision flame, her forest trees, Lift burdened branches, stilled with ecstasies. When music sounds, out of the water rise Naiads whose beauty dims my waking eyes, Rapt in strange dream burns each enchanted face, With solemn echoing stirs their dwelling-place. When music sounds, all that I was I am Ere to this haunt of brooding dust I came; While from Time's woods break into distant song The swift-winged hours, as I hasten along. THE REMONSTRANCE I was at peace until you came And set a careless mind aflame. I lived in quiet; cold, content; All longing in safe banishment, Until your ghostly lips and eyes Made wisdom unwise. Naught was in me to tempt your feet To seek a lodging. Quite forgot Lay the sweet solitude we two In childhood used to wander through; Time's cold had closed my heart about; And shut you out. Well, and what then? ... O vision grave, Take all the little all I have! Strip me of what in voiceless thought Life's kept of life, unhoped, unsought!-- Reverie and dream that memory must Hide deep in dust! This only I say,--Though cold and bare The haunted house you have chosen to share, Still 'neath its walls the moonbeam goes And trembles on the untended rose; Still o'er its broken roof-tree rise The starry arches of the skies; And 'neath your lightest word shall be The thunder of an ebbing sea. NOCTURNE 'Tis not my voice now speaks; but as a bird In darkling forest hollows a sweet throat-- Pleads on till distant echo too hath heard And doubles every note: So love that shrouded dwells in mystery Would cry and waken thee. Thou Solitary, stir in thy still sleep; All the night waits thee, yet thou still dream'st on. Furtive the shadows that about thee creep, And cheat the shining footsteps of the moon: Unseal thine eyes, it is my heart that sings, And beats in vain its wings. Lost in heaven's vague, the stars burn softly thro' The world's dark latticings, we prisoned stray Within its lovely labyrinth, and know Mute seraphs guard the way Even from silence unto speech, from love To that self's self it still is dreaming of. THE EXILE I am that Adam who, with Snake for guest, Hid anguished eyes upon Eve's piteous breast. I am that Adam who, with broken wings, Fled from the Seraph's brazen trumpetings. Betrayed and fugitive, I still must roam A world where sin--and beauty--whisper of Home. Oh, from wide circuit, shall at length I see Pure daybreak lighten again on Eden's tree? Loosed from remorse and hope and love's distress, Enrobe me again in my lost nakedness? No more with wordless grief a loved one grieve, But to heaven's nothingness re-welcome Eve? THE UNCHANGING After the songless rose of evening, Night quiet, dark, still, In nodding cavalcade advancing Starred the deep hill: You, in the valley standing, In your quiet wonder took All that glamour, peace, and mystery In one grave look. Beauty hid your naked body, Time dreamed in your bright hair, In your eyes the constellations Burned far and fair. NIGHTFALL The last light fails--that shallow pool of day! The coursers of the dark stamp down to drink, Arch their wild necks, lift their wild heads and neigh; Their drivers, gathering at the water-brink, With eyes ashine from out their clustering hair, Utter their hollow speech, or gaze afar, Rapt in irradiant reverie, to where Languishes, lost in light, the evening star. Come the wood-nymphs to dance within the glooms, Calling these charioteers with timbrels' din; Ashen with twilight the dark forest looms O'er the nocturnal beasts that prowl within Thorn-roofed thicket, where sweet waters gush. Resounding roar wild torrent, hungry throat; While in the dew-drowsed branches' ebon hush, Pouring lament of joy, the night birds float. 'O glory of beauty which the world makes fair!' Pant they their serenading on the air. Sound the loud hooves, and all abroad the sky The lusty charioteers their stations take; Planet to planet do the sweet Loves fly, And in the zenith silver music wake. Cities of men, in blindness hidden low, Fume their faint flames to that arched firmament, But all the dwellers in the lonely know The unearthly are abroad, and weary and spent, With rush extinguished, to their dreaming go. And world and night and star-enclustered space The glory of beauty are in one enravished face. INVOCATION The burning fire shakes in the night, On high her silver candles gleam, With far-flung arms enflamed with light, The trees are lost in dream. Come in thy beauty! 'tis my love, Lost in far-wandering desire, Hath in the darkling deep above Set stars and kindled fire. EYES O strange devices that alone divide The seër from the seen-- The very highway of earth's pomp and pride That lies between The traveller and the cheating, sweet delight Of where he longs to be, But which, bound hand and foot, he, close on night, Can only see. LIFE Hearken, O dear, now strikes the hour we die; We, who in one strange kiss Have proved a dream the world's realities, Turned each from other's darkness with a sigh, Need heed no more of life, waste no more breath On any other journey, but of death. And yet: Oh, know we well How each of us must prove Love's infidel; Still out of ecstasy turn trembling back To earth's same empty track Of leaden day by day, and hour by hour, and be Of all things lovely the cold mortuary. THE DISGUISE Why in my heart, O Grief, Dost thou in beauty bide? Dead is my well-content, And buried deep my pride. Cold are their stones, beloved, To hand and side. The shadows of even are gone, Shut are the day's clear flowers, Now have her birds left mute Their singing bowers, Lone shall we be, we twain, In the night hours. Thou with thy cheek on mine, And dark hair loosed, shalt see Take the far stars for fruit The cypress tree, And in the yew's black Shall the moon be. We will tell no old tales, Nor heed if in wandering air Die a lost song of love Or the once fair; Still as well-water be The thoughts we share! And, while the ghosts keep Tryst from chill sepulchres, Dreamless our gaze shall sleep, And sealed our ears; Heart unto heart will speak, Without tears. O, thy veiled, lovely face-- Joy's strange disguise-- Shall be the last to fade From these rapt eyes, Ere the first dart of daybreak Pierce the skies. VAIN QUESTIONING What needest thou?--a few brief hours of rest Wherein to seek thyself in thine own breast; A transient silence wherein truth could say Such was thy constant hope, and this thy way?-- O burden of life that is A livelong tangle of perplexities! What seekest thou?--a truce from that thou art; Some steadfast refuge from a fickle heart; Still to be thou, and yet no thing of scorn, To find no stay here, and yet not forlorn?-- O riddle of life that is An endless war 'twixt contrarieties. Leave this vain questioning. Is not sweet the rose? Sings not the wild bird ere to rest he goes? Hath not in miracle brave June returned? Burns not her beauty as of old it burned? O foolish one to roam So far in thine own mind away from home! Where blooms the flower when her petals fade, Where sleepeth echo by earth's music made, Where all things transient to the changeless win, There waits the peace thy spirit dwelleth in. VIGIL Dark is the night, The fire burns faint and low, Hours--days--years, Into grey ashes go; I strive to read, But sombre is the glow. Thumbed are the pages, And the print is small; Mocking the winds That from the darkness call; Feeble the fire that lends Its light withal. O ghost, draw nearer; Let thy shadowy hair, Blot out the pages That we cannot share; Be ours the one last leaf By Fate left bare! Let's Finis scrawl, And then Life's book put by; Turn each to each In all simplicity: Ere the last flame is gone To warm us by. THE OLD MEN Old and alone, sit we, Caged, riddle-rid men; Lost to earth's 'Listen!' and 'See!' Thought's 'Wherefore?' and 'When?' Only far memories stray Of a past once lovely, but now Wasted and faded away, Like green leaves from the bough. Vast broods the silence of night, The ruinous moon Lifts on our faces her light, Whence all dreaming is gone. We speak not; trembles each head; In their sockets our eyes are still; Desire as cold as the dead; Without wonder or will. And One, with a lanthorn, draws near, At clash with the moon in our eyes: 'Where art thou?' he asks: 'I am here,' One by one we arise. And none lifts a hand to withhold A friend from the touch of that foe: Heart cries unto heart, 'Thou art old!' Yet reluctant, we go. THE DREAMER O thou who giving helm and sword, Gav'st, too, the rusting rain, And starry dark's all tender dews To blunt and stain: Out of the battle I am sped, Unharmed, yet stricken sore; A living shape 'mid whispering shades On Lethe's shore. No trophy in my hands I bring, To this sad, sighing stream, The neighings and the trumps and cries Were but a dream--a dream. Traitor to life, of life betrayed-- O, of thy mercy deep, A dream my all, the all I ask Is sleep. HAPPY ENGLAND Now each man's mind all Europe is: Boding and fear in dread array Daze every heart: O grave and wise, Abide in hope the judgment day. This war of millions in arms In myriad replica we wage; Unmoved, then, Soul, by earth's alarms The dangers of the dark engage. Remember happy England: keep For her bright cause thy latest breath; Her peace that long hath lulled to sleep, May now exact the sleep of death. Her woods and wilds, her loveliness, With harvest now are richly at rest; Safe in her isled securities, Thy children's heaven is her breast. O what a deep contented night The sun from out her Eastern seas Would bring the dust which in her sight Had given its all for these! MOTLEY Come, Death, I'd have a word with thee; And thou, poor Innocency; And Love--a lad with broken wing; And Pity, too: The Fool shall sing to you, As Fools will sing. Ay, music hath small sense, And a tune's soon told, And Earth is old, And my poor wits are dense; Yet have I secrets,--dark, my dear, To breathe you all: Come near. And lest some hideous listener tells, I'll ring my bells. They're all at war!-- Yes, yes, their bodies go 'Neath burning sun and icy star To chaunted songs of woe, Dragging cold cannon through a mire Of rain and blood and spouting fire, The new moon glinting hard on eyes Wide with insanities! Hush! ... I use words I hardly know the meaning of; And the mute birds Are glancing at Love From out their shade of leaf and flower, Trembling at treacheries Which even in noonday cower. Heed, heed not what I said Of frenzied hosts of men, More fools than I, On envy, hatred fed, Who kill, and die-- Spake I not plainly, then? Yet Pity whispered, 'Why?' Thou silly thing, off to thy daisies go. Mine was not news for child to know, And Death--no ears hath. He hath supped where creep Eyeless worms in hush of sleep; Yet, when he smiles, the hand he draws Athwart his grinning jaws-- Faintly the thin bones rattle, and--There, there; Hearken how my bells in the air Drive away care!... Nay, but a dream I had Of a world all mad. Not simple happy mad like me, Who am mad like an empty scene Of water and willow tree, Where the wind hath been; But that foul Satan-mad, Who rots in his own head, And counts the dead, Not honest one--and two-- But for the ghosts they were, Brave, faithful, true, When, head in air, In Earth's clear green and blue Heaven they did share With beauty who bade them there.... There, now! Death goes-- Mayhap I've wearied him. Ay, and the light doth dim, And asleep's the rose, And tired Innocence In dreams is hence.... Come, Love, my lad, Nodding that drowsy head, 'Tis time thy prayers were said! THE MARIONETTES Let the foul Scene proceed: There's laughter in the wings; 'Tis sawdust that they bleed, But a box Death brings. How rare a skill is theirs These extreme pangs to show, How real a frenzy wears Each feigner of woe! Gigantic dins uprise! Even the gods must feel A smarting of the eyes As these fumes upsweal. Strange, such a Piece is free, While we Spectators sit, Aghast at its agony, Yet absorbed in it! Dark is the outer air, Coldly the night draughts blow, Mutely we stare, and stare At the frenzied Show. Yet heaven hath its quiet shroud Of deep, immutable blue-- We cry 'An end!' We are bowed By the dread, ''Tis true!' While the Shape who hoofs applause Behind our deafened ear, Hoots--angel-wise--'the Cause!' And affright ev'n fear. TO E. T.: 1917 You sleep too well--too far away, For sorrowing word to soothe or wound; Your very quiet seems to say How longed-for a peace you have found. Else, had not death so lured you on, You would have grieved--'twixt joy and fear-- To know how my small loving son Had wept for you, my dear. APRIL MOON Roses are sweet to smell and see, And lilies on the stem; But rarer, stranger buds there be, And she was like to them. The little moon that April brings, More lovely shade than light, That, setting, silvers lonely hills Upon the verge of night-- Close to the world of my poor heart So stole she, still and clear; Now that she's gone, O dark, and dark, The solitude--the fear. THE FOOL'S SONG Never, no never, listen too long, To the chattering wind in the willows, the night bird's song. 'Tis sad in sooth to lie under the grass, But none too gladsome to wake and grow cold where life's shadows pass. Dumb the old Toll-Woman squats, And, for every green copper battered and worn, doles out Nevers and Nots. I know a Blind Man, too, Who with a sharp ear listens and listens the whole world through. Oh, sit we snug to our feast. With platter and finger and spoon--and good victuals at least. CLEAR EYES Clear eyes do dim at last, And cheeks outlive their rose. Time, heedless of the past, No loving-kindness knows; Chill unto mortal lip Still Lethe flows. Griefs, too, but brief while stay, And sorrow, being o'er, Its salt tears shed away, Woundeth the heart no more. Stealthily lave those waters That solemn shore. Ah, then, sweet face burn on, While yet quick memory lives! And Sorrow, ere thou art gone, Know that my heart forgives-- Ere yet, grown cold in peace, It loves not, nor grieves. DUST TO DUST Heavenly Archer, bend thy bow; Now the flame of life burns low, Youth is gone; I, too, would go. Ever Fortune leads to this: Harsh or kind, at last she is Murderess of all ecstasies. Yet the spirit, dark, alone, Bound in sense, still hearkens on For tidings of a bliss foregone. Sleep is well for dreamless head, At no breath astonished, From the Gardens of the Dead. I the immortal harps hear ring, By Babylon's river languishing. Heavenly Archer, loose thy string. THE THREE STRANGERS Far are those tranquil hills, Dyed with fair evening's rose; On urgent, secret errand bent, A traveller goes. Approach him strangers three, Barefooted, cowled; their eyes Scan the lone, hastening solitary With dumb surmise. One instant in close speech With them he doth confer: God-sped, he hasteneth on, That anxious traveller... I was that man--in a dream: And each world's night in vain I patient wait on sleep to unveil Those vivid hills again. Would that they three could know How yet burns on in me Love--from one lost in Paradise-- For their grave courtesy. ALEXANDER It was the Great Alexander, Capped with a golden helm, Sate in the ages, in his floating ship, In a dead calm. Voices of sea-maids singing Wandered across the deep: The sailors labouring on their oars Rowed, as in sleep. All the high pomp of Asia, Charmed by that siren lay, Out of their weary and dreaming minds, Faded away. Like a bold boy sate their Captain, His glamour withered and gone, In the souls of his brooding mariners, While the song pined on. Time, like a falling dew, Life, like the scene of a dream, Laid between slumber and slumber, Only did seem.... O Alexander, then, In all us mortals too, Wax thou not bold--too bold On the wave dark-blue! Come the calm, infinite night, Who then will hear Aught save the singing Of the sea-maids clear? THE REAWAKENING Green in light are the hills, and a calm wind flowing Filleth the void with a flood of the fragrance of Spring; Wings in this mansion of life are coming and going, Voices of unseen loveliness carol and sing. Coloured with buds of delight the boughs are swaying, Beauty walks in the woods, and wherever she rove Flowers from wintry sleep, her enchantment obeying, Stir in the deep of her dream, reawaken to love. Oh, now begone sullen care--this light is my seeing; I am the palace, and mine are its windows and walls; Daybreak is come, and life from the darkness of being Springs, like a child from the womb, when the lonely one calls. THE VACANT DAY As I did walk in meadows green I heard the summer noon resound With call of myriad things unseen That leapt and crept upon the ground. High overhead the windless air Throbbed with the homesick coursing cry Of swallows that did everywhere Wake echo in the sky. Beside me, too, clear waters coursed Which willow branches, lapsing low, Breaking their crystal gliding forced To sing as they did flow. I listened; and my heart was dumb With praise no language could express; Longing in vain for him to come Who had breathed such blessedness. On this fair world, wherein we pass So chequered and so brief a stay; And yearned in spirit to learn, alas, What kept him still away. THE FLIGHT How do the days press on, and lay Their fallen locks at evening down, Whileas the stars in darkness play And moonbeams weave a crown-- A crown of flower-like light in heaven, Where in the hollow arch of space Morn's mistress dreams, and the Pleiads seven Stand watch about her place. Stand watch--O days no number keep Of hours when this dark clay is blind. When the world's clocks are dumb in sleep 'Tis then I seek my kind. THE TWO HOUSES In the strange city of Life Two houses I know well: One wherein Silence a garden hath, And one where Dark doth dwell. Roof unto roof they stand, Shadowing the dizzied street, Where Vanity flaunts her gilded booths In the noontide glare and heat. Green-graped upon their walls An ancient hoary vine Hath clustered their carven, lichenous stones With tendril serpentine. And ever and anon, Dazed in that clamorous throng, I thirst for the soundless fount that stills Those orchards mute of song. Knock, knock, nor knock in vain: Heart all thy secrets tell Where Silence a fast-sealed garden hath, Where Dark doth dwell. FOR ALL THE GRIEF For all the grief I have given with words May now a few clear flowers blow, In the dust, and the heat, and the silence of birds, Where the lonely go. For the thing unsaid that heart asked of me Be a dark, cool water calling--calling To the footsore, benighted, solitary, When the shadows are falling. O, be beauty for all my blindness, A moon in the air where the weary wend, And dews burdened with loving-kindness In the dark of the end. THE SCRIBE What lovely things Thy hand hath made: The smooth-plumed bird In its emerald shade, The seed of the grass, The speck of stone Which the wayfaring ant Stirs--and hastes on! Though I should sit By some tarn in thy hills, Using its ink As the spirit wills To write of Earth's wonders, Its live, willed things, Flit would the ages On soundless wings Ere unto Z My pen drew nigh; Leviathan told, And the honey-fly: And still would remain My wit to try-- My worn reeds broken, The dark tarn dry, All words forgotten-- Thou, Lord, and I. FARE WELL When I lie where shades of darkness Shall no more assail mine eyes, Nor the rain make lamentation When the wind sighs; How will fare the world whose wonder Was the very proof of me? Memory fades, must the remembered Perishing be? Oh, when this my dust surrenders Hand, foot, lip, to dust again, May these loved and loving faces Please other men! May the rusting harvest hedgerow Still the Traveller's Joy entwine, And as happy children gather Posies once mine. Look thy last on all things lovely, Every hour. Let no night Seal thy sense in deathly slumber Till to delight Thou have paid thy utmost blessing; Since that all things thou wouldst praise Beauty took from those who loved them In other days. Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOTLEY AND OTHER POEMS *** 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-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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