Chapter V: Part II: The Wakers (1)

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?