Chapter II: Book I: A Miscellany

I - LA MARE DES FEES

The leaves rain down upon the forest pond, An elfin tarn green-shadowed in the fern; Nine yews ensomber the wet bank, beyond The autumn branches of the beeches burn With yellow flame and red amid the green, And patches of the darkening sky between.

This is an ancient country; in this wood The Druids raised their sacrificial stones; Here the vast timeless silences still brood Though the cold wind's October monotones Fan the enchanted senses with the dread Of holiness long-past and beauty dead.

How far beyond this glade the day-world turns Upon its pivot of reward and chance; Farther than the first star that palely burns Over the forest's meditative trance. First star of evening, last star of day, The one grows clear, the other dies away.

Will they come back who once beneath these trees Invoked their long-forgotten gods with tears, Who heard the sob of the same twilight breeze Blow down the vistas of remembered years, Beside the tarn's black waters where they stood Close to their god, far from the multitude?

I watch, but they are long ago departed, Far as the world of day, or as the star; The forest loved her priests, and tranquil-hearted They stole away in dim procession, far Down the unechoing aisles, beyond recalling; The moss grows on the stones, the leaves are falling.

In vain I listen for their hissing speech, And seek white holy hands upon the air, They told their worship to the yew and beech, And left them with the secret, trembling there, Nor shall they come at midnight nor at dawn; The gods are dead; the votaries are gone.

A form floats toward me down the corridor Of mighty trees, half-visioned through the haze, And stands beside me on that empty shore; So rest we there, and wonderingly gaze. By the dead water, under the deep boughs, My Love and I renew our ancient vows.

MORET-SUR-LOING, 1918

II - PROTHALAMION

The faded turquoise of the sky Darkens into ocean green Flecked palely where the stars will rise. A single bough between The spacious colour and your half-closed eyes Hangs out its hazy traceries. Still, like a drowsy god you lie, My fair unbidden guest, Your white hands crossed beneath your head, Your lips curved strangely mute with peace, Your hair moved lightly by the breeze. A glow is shed Warm on your face from the last rays that push From the dying sun into the green vault of the west.

This is your bridal night; the golden bush Is heavy with the fruits that you will taste, Full ripened in desire. You who have hoarded youth, this is your hour of waste, Your hour of squandering and drunkenness, Of wine-dashed lips and generous caress, Of brows thorn-crowned and bodies crucified,-- O bid me to the feast.

Tomorrow when the hills are washed with fire, Your door ajar against the flashing East,-- O fling it wide.

PARIS, 1919

III - MONTMARTRE

A rocky hill above the town, Grey as the soul of silence, Except where two white strutting domes Stand aloof and frown On the huddled homes Of world-wept love and pain,-- They do not heed that tall disdain, But sleep, grey, under the stars and the rain.

A woman, young, but old in love, Carried her child across the square; Her face was a dim drifting flame To which her pyre of hair Was a column of golden smoke.

Her eyes half told the secrets of Gay sins that no regret defiled; There her heart broke In the little question between her eyes. Hearing the trees in the square she smiled, And sang to the child.

So passed by in the narrow street That climbs the steep rock over the town, Love and the west wind in the stars; The wind and the sound of those lagging feet

Died like forgotten tears. I waited till the stars went down, And I wrote these lines on a cloud to greet The dawn on the crystal stairs.

PARIS, 1919

IV - A LETTER

Dear boy, what can this stranger mean to you,
Blown to your country by unbridled chance?
That he should drink the morn's first cup of dew
Fresh from the spring, and quicken that grave glance
Wherein as rising tides on hazy shores
Rise the new flames and colours of romance?

Ah, wise and young, the world shall use your youth
And fling you shorn of beauty to despair,
The sum of all that fascinating truth
That you have gleaned, hands tangled in brown hair,
Eyes straining into contemplative fires,--
This truth shall not seem truth when trees are bare.

The hunger of the soul, the watcher left
To brood the nearness of his own decay,
Dully remarking the slow shameless theft
Of the old holiness from day to day,
How youth grows tarnished, wisdom changes false,--
Till one bends near to steal your life away.

Yet who am I to turn aside the hand Outstretched so friendly and so humbly proud, Heaped up with beauty from the sunrise land Of hearts adventurous and heads unbowed? Only, look not at me with changing eyes When we must separate amid the crowd.

TOURS, 1918

V - ESTHER DANCING

Speak not nor stir. Here music is alive, Woven from those swift fingers, strong and light, Marching across those singing hands, or shed Slowly, like echoes down the muffled night, Or beautifully translated, note by note, Some fainter voice, rhapsodic and remote, Or shaken out in melodies that dive Clear into fathoms of profounder things, Then suddenly again on rising wings, Burst into sun and hover overhead.

Incarnate music flashing into form Fled from the vineyards of melodious Greece, Feet that have flown before the gathering storm Or glanced in gardens of the Golden Fleece, Face atune to all the songs that mass Their gusts of passion on the sunlit grass, Image of lyric hope and veiled despair, Like them, thou shalt unutterably pass Into the silence and the shadowed air.

POMFRET, 1919

VI - HUNTERS

A vase red-wrought in Athens long ago.... The hunter and his gay companion ride Through the young fields of life; on every side Frail and fantastic the tall lilies grow. Her head thrown back, her eyes afraid and wide, Flies like a phantom the grey spectral doe, Her light feet scarcely bend the grass below, Gloriously flying into eventide.

Ahead there lies the shadow, then the dark, And safety in the thick forestial night, But nearer still she hears the bloodhounds bark, And horses panting in impetuous flight, And hunters without pity for the slain, Halloing shrilly over the windy plain.

Sombre become the skies, the winds of fall Sing dangerously through the hissing grass; Sunlight and clouds in slow procession pass Over the tress, then comes an interval Of utter calm, the air is a morass Of humid breathlessness. A dreadful call Rings suddenly from the onrushing squall, And the storm closes in a whirling mass.

And still the doe eludes the raging hounds, And still the youths press onward toward the woods, Though the world shudders with diluvian sounds And the rain streams in undulating floods. Sharp lightning splits the sky; the doe is gone. O follow! follow! if it be till dawn.

The hunted flees, the boyish hunters follow Into the forest's dripping everglades, The wind goes wailing through the swaying shades, And violent rain gushes in every hollow. The doe runs free, triumphantly evades Those straining eyes; the ghastly shadows swallow Her flying form; the frightened horses wallow Deep in the mire. Then the last daylight fades.

O Youths, turn back! the year is getting late, And autumn has no pity for the slain. Twining like serpents, the lean arms of fate Grope toward you through the blackness and the rain, Then Death, and the obliterating snow.... A vase, red-wrought in Athens long ago.

Tours, 1918

VII - A WRECK

Survivor of an unknown past, On this wild shore cast By the sad desolate tides; In a warm harbour long ago They waited you, and waited long, And guessed and feared at last, But could not know. Now in a language strange the waves make song, And the flood surges round your broken sides, And the ebb leaves you to the burning sun. But when the voyage of my life is done, And my soul puts forth no more, Then may I sleep Beneath the fathoms of the tideless deep, And not be cast deserted on some dark alien shore.

Cape Cod, 1916

VIII - GRAVE STONES IN A FRONT YARD

Lest the swift world forget their names and pass Unthinking, they have set this cold dead slate Above their slumbers in the living grass To warn all comers of impending fate;

Where friends made merry once at their behest, Where young feet strolled about the shady lawn, They welcome none but one unfailing guest, And all the revellers but Death are gone.

Edgartown, 1916

IX - VIGIL

This is the hour when all substantial foes Are exorcised and taunt the soul no more; Now thinner grows the veil between the shore Of vaster worlds and our calm garden close. Through the small exit of the open door We pass, and seem to feel the eyes of those We knew upon us; almost we suppose The advent of the face we tremble for.

O that through this profound serenity Might sound the answer to the heart's deep cry; If all those gracious presences might see That, though we hurt them once, they shall not die Until we also wither, we who keep Vigil on these sweet meadows where they sleep.

Pomfret, 1919

X - WHEN THE DOOR WAS OPEN

Lonely as music from afar, Hung the new moon and one white star, Above the poplars black and tall That sentineled the garden wall; Four black poplars beyond the wall, Two on each side of the garden gate, In silhouette against the wide Pale sky of the late eventide. Close was the garden and serene. The leaning reeds in quiet state About the pool, merged in the green Of misty leaves and hanging vines. The fireflies spun their silver lines Across the deeper atmosphere, And through the silence came the clear Persistent tuning of the frogs From dank recesses of the bogs.

Beyond the garden I could see The glimmer of uncertain meadows, Framed by the open doorway, wreathing Sarabands of ghostly shadows, Slowly turning, slowly breathing, Largely and unhastily,-- But the garden held its breath.

Peace as profound as death, if death Be visited by stealthy dreams; A vagrant note from soundless themes That ring the comet-paths of space, Seemed vibrant in the windless air That trembled with its presence there. Out beyond the nameless place Where neither fields nor clouds exist, Grey from the background of the mist, I saw three vague forms drawing near. My sense recoiled acute with fear; I could not stir. As from a cage I watched that spectral dim cortege Moving inexorable and slow Against the ashen afterglow. Now caught the moon their robes in white, Now strode they sable through the night, Across the grass they came and grew Whiter, statelier, as they drew Beneath the shadow of the wall; Then one by one the three stepped through The garden door, and stood a while Beside the pool, their image spread Sombre, and menacing, and tall. Sombre as Priam's dreadful daughter, Menacing as a murderer's smile, Tall as the fingers of the dead, Stood they beside the quiet water.

The moon went out in a golden blur, And the small stars followed after her, But when the fireflies cleft the air I saw those three forms standing there, Until the night cooled, and the trees Shook in the strong hands of the breeze, And then I heard their footsteps press The muffled grass beyond the door, And so went forth for ever more, My three Fates to the wilderness.

Pomfret, 1919

XI - THE MAKER RESTS

I have worked too long and my hands are tired, Said the maker; From the earliest dawn unto deepest nightfall Have I laboured.

From the earliest dawn before any spirit Stirred from sleeping, When no single note from the frozen forest Wakened music,

Unto nightfall and the new moon rising When the silence From the valleys rose in a faint blue spiral, Have I laboured.

I created dawn and the new moon rising Out of silence; I have worked too long and my hands are tired, Said the maker.

I shall fold my hands; I shall rest till sunrise, Said the maker; In the shade of hills and the calm of starlight Shall I slumber.

O my night is sweet with a distant music! I shall hear The responding waves and the wind's slight murmur While I slumber.

O my night is fair with amazing colour! I shall dream Of the blue-white stars and the glimmering forest While I slumber.

O my night is rich with unfolding flowers! I shall breathe All the scattered smells of the field and garden While I slumber...

I will rise, O Night, I will make new beauty, Said the maker, I will make more songs, more stars, more flowers, Said the Lord.

Cambridge, 1920

XII - THE PILGRIMAGE

Beside a deep and mossy well In the dark starless night I lay; And dropping water like a bell, Like a bell ringing far away, Struck liquid notes in monotone,-- An echo of a distant bell Tolling the knell of yesterday. Deep down beneath the mossy ground The liquid notes in monotone Kept dropping, dropping endlessly, And as I listened, over me Crept like a mist a filmy spell; My spirit's waving wings were bound, And dreams came that were not my own. Half-sleeping, half-awake, I heard The drowsy chirp of a forest bird, And the wind came up and the grasses stirred And the curtaining woods that cluster round That resonantly-echoing well Shook all their leaves with silver sound Like voices murmuring in a shell. Was it the past that lived again In that nocturnal murmuring, Waking a hidden voice to sing Deep in my heart of other times Whose memory long entombed had lain Covered with all the dust of the years?... Falling in splashing tears The wet notes drop in liquid chimes, And the white fingers of the breeze Gather a song from the melodious trees....

There is a hand whiter than pearl That plucks a lute's monotonous strings; O starlight phantom of a girl What lyric soul around thee sings, And what divine companionship Taught that entwining music to thy fingers, And that unearthly music to thy lips? She pauses, and the echo lingers Hovering like wings upon the air. I see more clearly now, her hair Ripples like a black water-fall About the pallor of her face. She sits beside a mossy well Amid some dim marmoreal place, Some fragrant Moorish hall Set all about with arabesques of stone And intricate mosaics of gem and shell. She sings again, she plays a monotone, Perpetual rhythm like a far-off bell, And someone dances, in a dancing river The white ecstatic limbs flutter and quiver Against the shadow. In the odorous flowers That grow about the well, still forms are lying, A group of statues, an eternal throng, Watching the dance and listening to the song; So shall they lie, innumerable hours, Silent and motionless for ever. The wind comes up, the flowers shiver, The dancer vanishes, the songs are dying; Night sickens into day. The wind comes up and blows the dust away....

Between two clouds a sullen flame Expands, and lo, the crescent moon Rides like a warrior through the sky. Thus long ago the warning came When midnight towns lay all in swoon, That the great gods were coming nigh To crush the rebellious earth. Now beneath the crescent moon No spirits stir, no wind makes mirth, Only a rhythmic monotone Of waters dropping in a well....

But who is this so broken with distress That steals like mist into my loneliness? Why art thou weeping there, disconsolate child? Thy tears fall like the waters of a well, And drip in silver notes upon the sands. What is thy sorrow? Ah, what man can tell The shapeless fancies that unwelcome dwell Within thy brain, the spectres, dark and wild That haunt the spirit of a child? Mayhap thou weepest for the embattled lands, The bloody ruin of decaying realms That a war overwhelms And buries deep in the dust of history? He raises his wet eyes and looks at me, His boyish face full of a yearning, An ancient pain, As of a ghost long dead who yearns to live again, And answers, "In myself, thy thoughts returning To other times shall slumber in the past, And be a child again, and die at last In the protecting arms of our great Mother Who bore us both, O well-beloved brother. Thou in thy sorry dreams, I in my childish grief, Thy heart in tears, mine eyes amazed with tears, Thy sorrow rich with the repining years, My sorrow frail as childhood, and as brief." Who art thou, haunting boy, nocturnal elf? "I am the Dead; the Dead that was thyself." Then falls a darkness on that starless shore. Afar I hear the closing of a door....

I see on a sharp hill above the Styx, The bruised Christ upon his crucifix, And racked in anguish on his either side Hang Buddha and Mohammed crucified. Their heavy blood falls in a monotone Like deep well-water dropping on a stone. None moves, none breaks the silence; on those roods Eternal suffering triumphant broods. Prometheus from his cliff of wild unrest Mocks them and draws the vulture to his breast. Each year upon a darker Calvary Are hung the pallid victims of the tree, And none will watch with them, for none can see As I once saw, unending agony, Save where Prometheus from his dizzy place Regards those sufferers with scornful face, And his loud laughter rings through empty Space....

I can see nothing now, and only hear Through the thick atmosphere A deep perpetual well, that sad and slow, Intones the knell of ages long ago, And ages that no man can tell or know, Whose shadows roll before them on the sky, Black with forebodings of futurity.

Sweet sounds through midnight, liquid interlude, Voice of the lonely souls that yearn and brood, Voice of the unseen Life, the unsubdued, What wonder that He draweth nigh to taste Of your cool waters. Hail thou nameless One, Fair stranger from a realm beyond the Sun, Knowing that thou art God I do not fear,-- Speak to me, raise me from my life's long dream. "The whole night through thou liest here Beside the well that waters Lethe's stream, And still thou dost not drink; O Man make haste; Ere long the dawn will pour adown the waste, And show thee, reft from the embrace of night, The barren world, barren of revelry. Happy art thou, O Man, happily free, Who wilt never see A thousand ages shed their life and light As petals fall at eventide. Thou shalt not see the radiant stars subside Into the frozen ocean of the Vast, Nor see thy world absorbed at last Into a nothingness, an airless void, Nor see the thoughts that Man has glorified Swept from the world, and with the world destroyed. This have I seen a thousand times repeated, Unhappy as I am, unhappy God! As many times as thou hast greeted The rising sun against the broad And tranquil clouds, so many times have I Greeted the dawn of a new Universe, And seen the molten stars rehearse The lives and passions of the stars gone by. When worlds are growing old, and there draw nigh The shadows that shall cover them for ever, (Shadows like these which doom your ancient sky) Then to the well that feeds the sacred river I come, and as the liquid music drips Far in the ground, I plunge my lips Deep in forgetfulness, and wash away All the stains of the old griefs and joys, That with His lips as smiling as a boy's, God may rejoice in His created day." He stoops and drinks; a moment the cool bell Pauses its ringing in the well: A mist flies up against the dawn; the young winds weep; Is it too late? I too would drink, drink deep, But weariness is on me and I sleep.

Cambridge, 1915

XIII - EPILOGUE

Dawn has come. Faint hazes quiver with the faltering light; Some airy skein draws in the shadows from The broken forest where the war has passed, The Forest Terrible, the grey despair, The forest broken in the withering blight Of the lean years,--the blight, the years, have passed, Leaving a solitary watcher there, Silence at last.

She watches by the dead, Her deep white shadow overspreads their faces. Here in the outland places, She watches by the dead.

How many dawns have driven her afar With the loosed thunder of tempestuous wrong! Today she will remain.

Silence familiar to the morning star, Standing, her finger to her lips, Hushing the battle-cry, the victor's song, Standing inviolate above the slain.

The fugitive sunlight slips Over the fragment of a cloud, And the sky opens wide, Behold the dawn!

Where is the nightmare now? the angry-browed? The lowering imminence--the bloody eyed? Fled, as the threat of midnight, fled away, Gone, after four dark timeless ages, gone. Hail the day!

Silence, robed in the morning's golden fleece, Folding the world's torn wings to stillness, giving Peace to the dead, and to the living, Peace.

Tours, 1918

XIV - THERMOPYLAE

Men lied to them and so they went to die. Some fell, unknowing that they were deceived, And some escaped, and bitterly bereaved, Beheld the truth they loved shrink to a lie. And those there were that never had believed, But from afar had read the gathering sky, And darkly wrapt in that dread prophecy, Died trusting that their truth might be retrieved.

It matters not. For life deals thus with Man; To die alone deceived or with the mass, Or disillusioned to complete his span. Thermopylae or Golgotha, all one, The young dead legions in the narrow pass; The stark black cross against the setting sun.

Pomfret, 1919