Chapter III

The moon lies back and reddens.
In the valley, a corncrake calls
Monotonously,
With a piteous, unalterable plaint, that deadens
My confident activity:
With a hoarse, insistent request that falls
Unweariedly, unweariedly,
Asking something more of me,
Yet more of me!

REMINDER

Do you remember How night after night swept level and low Overhead, at home, and had not one star, Nor one narrow gate for the moon to go Forth to her field of November.

And you remember, How towards the north a red blot on the sky Burns like a blotch of anxiety Over the forges, and small flames ply Like ghosts the shadow of the ember.

Those were the days When it was awful autumn to me, When only there glowed on the dark of the sky The red reflection of her agony, My beloved smelting down in the blaze

Of death--my dearest
Love who had borne, and was now leaving me.
And I at the foot of her cross did suffer
My own gethsemane.

So I came to you, And twice, after great kisses, I saw The rim of the moon divinely rise And strive to detach herself from the raw Blackened edge of the skies.

Strive to escape; With her whiteness revealing my sunken world Tall and loftily shadowed. But the moon Never magnolia-like unfurled Her white, her lamp-like shape.

For you told me no, And bade me not to ask for the dour Communion, offering--"a better thing." So I lay on your breast for an obscure hour Feeling your fingers go

Like a rhythmic breeze Over my hair, and tracing my brows, Till I knew you not from a little wind: --I wonder now if God allows Us only one moment his keys.

If only then You could have unlocked the moon on the night, And I baptized myself in the light Of your love; we both have entered then the white Pure passion, and never again.

I wonder if only You had taken me then, how different Life would have been: should I have spent Myself in waste, and you have bent Your pride, through being lonely?

BEI HENNEF

The little river twittering in the twilight, The wan, wondering look of the pale sky, This is almost bliss.

And everything shut up and gone to sleep, All the troubles and anxieties and pain Gone under the twilight.

Only the twilight now, and the soft "Sh!" of the river
That will last for ever.

And at last I know my love for you is here, I can see it all, it is whole like the twilight, It is large, so large, I could not see it before Because of the little lights and flickers and interruptions, Troubles, anxieties and pains.

You are the call and I am the answer,
You are the wish, and I the fulfilment,
You are the night, and I the day.
What else--it is perfect enough,
It is perfectly complete,
You and I,
What more----?
Strange, how we suffer in spite of this!

LIGHTNING

I felt the lurch and halt of her heart Next my breast, where my own heart was beating; And I laughed to feel it plunge and bound, And strange in my blood-swept ears was the sound Of the words I kept repeating, Repeating with tightened arms, and the hot blood's blindfold art.

Her breath flew warm against my neck, Warm as a flame in the close night air; And the sense of her clinging flesh was sweet Where her arms and my neck's blood-surge could meet. Holding her thus, did I care That the black night hid her from me, blotted out every speck?

I leaned me forward to find her lips, And claim her utterly in a kiss, When the lightning flew across her face, And I saw her for the flaring space Of a second, afraid of the clips Of my arms, inert with dread, wilted in fear of my kiss.

A moment, like a wavering spark, Her face lay there before my breast, Pale love lost in a snow of fear, And guarded by a glittering tear, And lips apart with dumb cries; A moment, and she was taken again in the merciful dark.

I heard the thunder, and felt the rain, And my arms fell loose, and I was dumb. Almost I hated her, she was so good, Hated myself, and the place, and my blood, Which burned with rage, as I bade her come Home, away home, ere the lightning floated forth again.

SONG-DAY IN AUTUMN

When the autumn roses Are heavy with dew, Before the mist discloses The leaf's brown hue, You would, among the laughing hills Of yesterday Walk innocent in the daffodils, Coiffing up your auburn hair In a puritan fillet, a chaste white snare To catch and keep me with you there So far away.

When from the autumn roses Trickles the dew, When the blue mist uncloses And the sun looks through, You from those startled hills Come away, Out of the withering daffodils; Thoughtful, and half afraid, Plaiting a heavy, auburn braid And coiling it round the wise brows of a maid Who was scared in her play.

When in the autumn roses Creeps a bee, And a trembling flower encloses His ecstasy, You from your lonely walk Turn away, And leaning to me like a flower on its stalk, Wait among the beeches For your late bee who beseeches To creep through your loosened hair till he reaches, Your heart of dismay.

AWARE

Slowly the moon is rising out of the ruddy haze, Divesting herself of her golden shift, and so Emerging white and exquisite; and I in amaze See in the sky before me, a woman I did not know I loved, but there she goes and her beauty hurts my heart; I follow her down the night, begging her not to depart.

A PANG OF REMINISCENCE

High and smaller goes the moon, she is small and very far from me, Wistful and candid, watching me wistfully, and I see Trembling blue in her pallor a tear that surely I have seen before, A tear which I had hoped that even hell held not again in store.

A WHITE BLOSSOM

A tiny moon as white and small as a single jasmine flower Leans all alone above my window, on night's wintry bower, Liquid as lime-tree blossom, soft as brilliant water or rain She shines, the one white love of my youth, which all sin cannot stain.

RED MOON-RISE

The train in running across the weald has fallen into a steadier stroke So even, it beats like silence, and sky and earth in one unbroke Embrace of darkness lie around, and crushed between them all the loose And littered lettering of leaves and hills and houses closed, and we can use The open book of landscape no more, for the covers of darkness have shut upon Its written pages, and sky and earth and all between are closed in one.

And we are smothered between the darkness, we close our eyes and say "Hush!" we try To escape in sleep the terror of this immense deep darkness, and we lie Wrapped up for sleep. And then, dear God, from out of the twofold darkness, red As if from the womb the moon arises, as if the twin-walled darkness had bled In one great spasm of birth and given us this new, red moon-rise Which lies on the knees of the darkness bloody, and makes us hide our eyes.

The train beats frantic in haste, and struggles away From this ruddy terror of birth that has slid down From out of the loins of night to flame our way With fear; but God, I am glad, so glad that I drown My terror with joy of confirmation, for now Lies God all red before me, and I am glad, As the Magi were when they saw the rosy brow Of the Infant bless their constant folly which had Brought them thither to God: for now I know That the Womb is a great red passion whence rises all The shapeliness that decks us here-below: Yea like the fire that boils within this ball Of earth, and quickens all herself with flowers, God burns within the stiffened clay of us; And every flash of thought that we and ours Send up to heaven, and every movement, does Fly like a spark from this God-fire of passion; And pain of birth, and joy of the begetting, And sweat of labour, and the meanest fashion Of fretting or of gladness, but the jetting Of a trail of the great fire against the sky Where we can see it, a jet from the innermost fire: And even in the watery shells that lie Alive within the cozy under-mire, A grain of this same fire I can descry.

And then within the screaming birds that fly Across the lightning when the storm leaps higher; And then the swirling, flaming folk that try To come like fire-flames at their fierce desire, They are as earth's dread, spurting flames that ply Awhile and gush forth death and then expire. And though it be love's wet blue eyes that cry To hot love to relinquish its desire, Still in their depths I see the same red spark As rose to-night upon us from the dark.

RETURN

Now I am come again, you who have so desired My coming, why do you look away from me? Why does your cheek burn against me--have I inspired Such anger as sets your mouth unwontedly?

Ah, here I sit while you break the music beneath Your bow; for broken it is, and hurting to hear: Cease then from music--does anguish of absence bequeath Me only aloofness when I would draw near?

THE APPEAL

You, Helen, who see the stars As mistletoe berries burning in a black tree, You surely, seeing I am a bowl of kisses, Should put your mouth to mine and drink of me.

Helen, you let my kisses steam Wasteful into the night's black nostrils; drink Me up I pray; oh you who are Night's Bacchante, How can you from my bowl of kisses shrink!

REPULSED

The last, silk-floating thought has gone from the dandelion stem, And the flesh of the stalk holds up for nothing a blank diadem.

The night's flood-winds have lifted my last desire from me, And my hollow flesh stands up in the night abandonedly.

As I stand on this hill, with the whitening cave of the city beyond, Helen, I am despoiled of my pride, and my soul turns fond:

Overhead the nightly heavens like an open, immense eye, Like a cat's distended pupil sparkles with sudden stars, As with thoughts that flash and crackle in uncouth malignancy They glitter at me, and I fear the fierce snapping of night's thought-stars.

Beyond me, up the darkness, goes the gush of the lights of two towns, As the breath which rushes upwards from the nostrils of an immense Life crouched across the globe, ready, if need be, to pounce Across the space upon heaven's high hostile eminence.

All round me, but far away, the night's twin consciousness roars With sounds that endlessly swell and sink like the storm of thought in the brain, Lifting and falling like slow breaths taken, pulsing like oars Immense that beat the blood of the night down its vein.

The night is immense and awful, Helen, and I am insect small In the fur of this hill, clung on to the fur of shaggy, black heather. A palpitant speck in the fur of the night, and afraid of all, Seeing the world and the sky like creatures hostile together.

And I in the fur of the world, and you a pale fleck from the sky, How we hate each other to-night, hate, you and I, As the world of activity hates the dream that goes on on high, As a man hates the dreaming woman he loves, but who will not reply.

DREAM-CONFUSED

Is that the moon At the window so big and red? No one in the room, No one near the bed----?

Listen, her shoon Palpitating down the stair? --Or a beat of wings at the window there?

A moment ago She kissed me warm on the mouth, The very moon in the south Is warm with a bloody glow, The moon from far abysses Signalling those two kisses.

And now the moon Goes slowly out of the west, And slowly back in my breast My kisses are sinking, soon To leave me at rest.

COROT

The trees rise tall and taller, lifted On a subtle rush of cool grey flame That issuing out of the dawn has sifted The spirit from each leaf's frame.

For the trailing, leisurely rapture of life Drifts dimly forward, easily hidden By bright leaves uttered aloud, and strife Of shapes in the grey mist chidden.

The grey, phosphorescent, pellucid advance Of the luminous purpose of God, shines out Where the lofty trees athwart stream chance To shake flakes of its shadow about.

The subtle, steady rush of the whole Grey foam-mist of advancing God, As He silently sweeps to His somewhere, his goal, Is heard in the grass of the sod.

Is heard in the windless whisper of leaves In the silent labours of men in the fields, In the downward dropping of flimsy sheaves Of cloud the rain skies yield.

In the tapping haste of a fallen leaf, In the flapping of red-roof smoke, and the small Foot-stepping tap of men beneath These trees so huge and tall.

For what can all sharp-rimmed substance but catch In a backward ripple, God's purpose, reveal For a moment His mighty direction, snatch A spark beneath His wheel.

Since God sweeps onward dim and vast, Creating the channelled vein of Man And Leaf for His passage, His shadow is cast On all for us to scan.

Ah listen, for Silence is not lonely: Imitate the magnificent trees That speak no word of their rapture, but only Breathe largely the luminous breeze.

MORNING WORK

A gang of labourers on the piled wet timber That shines blood-red beside the railway siding Seem to be making out of the blue of the morning Something faery and fine, the shuttles sliding,

The red-gold spools of their hands and faces shuttling Hither and thither across the morn's crystalline frame Of blue: trolls at the cave of ringing cerulean mining, And laughing with work, living their work like a game.

TRANSFORMATIONS

I

=The Town=

Oh you stiff shapes, swift transformation seethes About you: only last night you were A Sodom smouldering in the dense, soiled air; To-day a thicket of sunshine with blue smoke-wreaths.

To-morrow swimming in evening's vague, dim vapour Like a weeded city in shadow under the sea, Beneath an ocean of shimmering light you will be: Then a group of toadstools waiting the moon's white taper.

And when I awake in the morning, after rain, To find the new houses a cluster of lilies glittering In scarlet, alive with the birds' bright twittering, I'll say your bond of ugliness is vain.

II

=The Earth=

Oh Earth, you spinning clod of earth, And then you lamp, you lemon-coloured beauty; Oh Earth, you rotten apple rolling downward, Then brilliant Earth, from the burr of night in beauty As a jewel-brown horse-chestnut newly issued:-- You are all these, and strange, it is my duty To take you all, sordid or radiant tissued.