Chapter III: Book II: Days and Seasons

I

Winds blowing over the white-capped bay, Winds wet with the eager breath of spray, Warm and sweet from the oceans we have dreamed of; From gardens of Cathay.

The empty factory windows, row on row, Warm sullenly beneath the afterglow, Burn topaz out of dust and dim the flare Of the street-lamps below.

In the smoky park the dingy plane-trees stir, Green branches in the twilight fade and blur; A lonely girl walks slowly through the square And the wind speaks to her.

Speaks of the sunset scattered on the sea, And the spring blowing northward radiantly; Flaming in lightning from cyclonic dark, Dreams of delights to be.

Tomorrow there will be orchards filled with fruit, And song of meadow lark and song of flute; Far from the city there are lover's fields, Lips eloquent and mute.

Warm are the winds out of the ebbing day, Blowing the ships and the spring into the bay, I smell the cherry blossoms falling gaily In gardens of Cathay.

Paris, 1919

II

Like children on a sunny shore
The rhododendrons thrive
Which never any spring before
Have been so much alive.

Each metal bough benignly lit
With yellow candle flames;
The tree is holy, hallow it
With sacramental names.

Paris, 1919

III

Against my wall the summer weaves Profundities of dusky leaves, And many-petaled stars full-blown In constellated whiteness sown; I contemplate with lazy eyes My small estate in Paradise, And very comforting to me Is this familiarity.

Paris, 1919

IV

Into the trembling air, Calm on the sunset mist, Sweetness of gardens where The yellow slave boy kissed The Sultan's daughter....

Shadow of tumbled hair Shadow of hanging vine Fountains of gold that twine In singing water.

A secret I have heard From the scarlet beak of the bird That sings at the close of day, Fills me with cold unrest Under the open doors of the fiery west.

"O heart of clay, O lips of dust, O blue-shadowed wisteria vine; Youth falls away As petals must Beneath the drooping leaves in the day's decline."

Paris, 1919

V

In gardens when the sun is set, The air is heavy with the wet Faint smell of leaves, and dark incense Of peach-blossom and violet.

There is no lurking foe to fear, Only the friendly ghosts are here Of lazy youth and dozing age, Who sat and mellowed year by year,

Until they merged with all the rest Beneath the overhanging west, And took their sleep with tranquil hearts Safe in our Mother's mighty breast.

If there be any sound, 'tis sweet, The hidden rush of eager feet Where robins flutter in the dust, Or perch upon the garden-seat,

And little voices that are known To those who contemplate alone The busy universe that moves In gardens rank and overgrown.

Here in the garden we are one, The golden dust, the setting sun, The languid leaves, the birds and I,-- Small bubbles on oblivion.

Tours, 1918

VI

Now the white dove has found her mate,
And the rainbow breaks into stars;
And the cattle lunge through the mossy gate
As the old man lowers the bars.

Westerly wind with a rainy smell,
Eaves that drip in the mud;
And the pain of the tender miracle
Stabbing the languid blood.

Over the long, wet meadow-land,
Beyond the deep sunset,
There is a hand that pressed your hand,
And eyes that shall not forget.

Now the West is the door of wrath,
Now 'tis a burnt-out coal;
Petals fall on the orchard path;
Darkness falls on the soul.

Washington, 1918

VII

When voices sink in twilight silences, Like swimmers in a sea of quietude, And faint farewells re-echo from the hill; When the last thrush his sleepy vesper says, And the lost threnody of the whip-poor-will Gropes through the gathering shadows in the wood;

Then in the paths where dusk fades into grey, And sighing shapes stir that I never see, I follow still a quest of old despair To find at last,--ah, but I cannot say, Except that I have known a face somewhere, And loved in times beyond all memory.

O soulless face! white flash in solitude, Forgotten phantom of a moonless night, Shall I kiss thy sad mouth once again, or wait Drowned beneath fathoms of a tideless mood Until the stars flee through the western gate Driven in shivering fear before the light?

Cambridge, 1916

VIII

When noon is blazing on the town, The fields are loud with droning flies, The people pull their curtains down, And all the houses shut their eyes.

The palm leaf drops from your mother's hand And she dozes there in a darkened room, Outside there is silence on the land, And only poppies dare to bloom.

Open the door and steal away Through grain and briar shoulder high, There are secrets hid in the heart of day, In the hush and slumber of July.

Your face will burn a fiery red, Your feet will drag through dusty flame, Your brain turn molten in your head, And you will wish you never came.

O never mind, go on, go on,-- There is a brook where willows lean; To weave deep caverns from the sun,

And there the grass grows cool and green. And there is one as cool as grass, Lying beneath the willow tree, Counting the dragon flies that pass, And talking to the humble bee.

She has not stirred since morning came, She does not know how in the town The earth shakes dizzily with flame, And all the curtains are drawn down.

Sit down beside her; she can tell The strangest secrets you would hear, And cool as water in a well, Her words flow down upon your ear....

She speaks no more, but in your hair Her fingers soft as lullabies Fold up your senses unaware, Into a poppy paradise.

And when you wake, the evening mist Is rising up to float the hill, And you will say, "The mouth I kissed, The voice I heard...a dream...but still

"The grass is matted where she lay, I feel her fingers in my hair"... But your lamp is bright across the way, And your mother knits in the rocking chair.

Paris, 1919

IX

The trees have never seemed so green Since I remember, As in these groves and gardens of September, And yet already comes the chill That bodes the world's last garden ill, And in the shadow I have seen A spectre,--even thine, O Vandal, O November.

The wind leaps up with sudden screams In gusts of chaff. Two boys with blowing hair listen and laugh. We hear the same wind, they and I, Under the dark autumnal sky; It blows strange music through their dreams. Keenly it blows through mine, Singing their epitaph.

Tours, 1918

X

The green canal is mottled with falling leaves, Yellow leaves, fluttering silently; A whirling gust ripples the woods, and heaves The stricken branches with a sigh, Then all is still again. Unmoving, the green waterway receives Ghosts of the dying forest to its breast; Loneliness...quiet...not a wing has stirred In the cold glades; no fish has leaped away From the heavy waters; not a drop of rain Distils from the pervading mist. Sluggishly out of the west A grey canal-boat glides, half-seen, unheard; The sweating horses on the towpath sway Backward and forward in a rhythmic strain; It passes by, a dream within a dream, Down the dark corridor of leaning boughs, Down the long waterways of endless fall. A shiver stirs the woods; a fitful gleam Of sun gilds the sky's overhanging brows; Then shadowy silence, and the yellow stream Of dead leaves dropping to the green canal.

Moret-sur-Loing, 1918

XI

They who have gone down the hill are far away; From the still valleys I can hear them call; Their distant laughter faintly floats Through the unmoving air and back to me. I am alone with the declining day And the declining forest where the notes Of all the happy minstrelsy, Birds and leaf-music and the rest, Sink separately in the hush of fall. The sun and clouds conflicting in the west Swirl into smoky light together and fade Under the unbroken shadow; Under the shadowed peace that is the night; Under the night's great quietude of shade. The sheep below me in the meadow Seem drifting on the haze, serene and white, Pale pastured dreams, unearthly herds that roam Where the dead reign and phantoms make their home. They also pass, even as the clear ring Of the sad Angelus through the vales echoing.

Montigny, 1918

XII

Where two roads meet amid the wood, There stands a white sepulchral rood, Beneath whose shadow, wayfarers Would pause to offer up their prayers. There is no house for miles around, No sound of beast, no human sound, Only the trees like sombre dreams From whose bare boughs the water drips; And the pale memory of death. The haze hangs heavy without breath, It hangs so heavy that it seems To hold a silent finger to its lips.

In after years the spectral cross Will be quite overgrown with moss, And wayfarers will go their way Nor stop to meditate and pray. The spring will nest in all the trees Unblighted by the memories Of autumn and the god of pain. The leaves will whisper in the sun, Life will crown death with snowy flowers, Long hence...but now the autumn lowers, The sky breaks into gusts of rain, Turn thee to sleep, the day is nearly done.

Forest of Fontainebleau, 1918

XIII

The boy is late tonight binding his sheaves, The twilight of these autumn eyes Falls early now and chill. The murky sun has set An hour ago behind the overhanging hill. Great piles of fallen leaves Smoulder in every street And through the columned smoke a scarlet jet Of flame darts out and disappears.

The boy leans motionless upon his staff, With all the sorrows of his fifteen years Gazing out of his eyes into the fall, A memory ineffable and sweet Half tinged with voiceless passion, half Plaintive with sad imaginings that drift Like echoes of far-off autumnal bells. He starts up with a laugh, Binds up the last gaunt sheaf and turns away; Out of the dusk an inarticulate call Rings keen across the solemn Berkshire woods, And then the answer. Impotent farewells That eager voices lift Into the hush of the receding day; Full soon the silence surges in again, Peaceful, inevitable, deep as death.

The boy has lingered late in the grey fields, Knowing the first strange happiness of pain, And the low voices of October moods. Now comes the night, the meadow yields Unto the sky a damp and pungent breath; The quiet air of the New England town Seems confident that everyone is home Safe by his fire. The frosty stars look down Near, near above the kind familiar trees In whose dry branches roam The gentle spirits of the darkling breeze. Deep in its caverned heart the forest sings Of mysteries unknown and vanished lore; Old wisdom; dead desire; Dreams of the past, of immemorial springs.... The wind is rising cold from the river: close the door.

Tours, 1918

XIV

O lovely shepherd Corydon, how far Thou wanderest from thine Ionian hills; Now the first star Rains pallid tears where the lost lands are, And the red sunset fills The cleft horizon with a flaming wine.

The grave significance of falling leaves Soon shall make desolate thy singing heart, When the cold wind grieves, And the cold dews rot the standing sheaves,-- Return, O Thou that art The hope of spring in these lost lands of mine.

Chalons-sur-Marne, 1917

XV

O little shepherd boy, what sobs are those That shake your slender shoulders, what despair Has run her fingers through your rumpled hair, And laid you prone beneath a weight of woes? The trees upon the hill will soon be bare, A yellow blight is on the garden close, But you, you need not mourn the vanished rose, For many springs will find you just as fair.

Weep not for summer, she is past all weeping, Fear not the winter, she in turn will pass, And with the spring love waits for you, perchance, When, with the morn, faint wings stir from their sleeping, And the first petals scatter on the grass, Under the orchards and the vines of France.

Recicourt, 1917

XVI

The dull-eyed girl in bronze implores Apollo
To warm these dying satyrs and to raise
Their withered wreaths that rot in every hollow
Or smoulder redly in the pungent haze.
The shining reapers, gone these many days,
Have left their fields disconsolate and sear,
Like bony sand uncovered to the gaze,
In this, the ebb-tide of the year.

My wisest comrade turns into a swallow
And flashes southward as the thickets blaze
In awful splendour; I, who cannot follow,
Confront the skies' unmitigated greys.
The cynic faun whom I have known betrays
A dangerous mood at night, and seems austere
Beneath the autumn noon's distempered rays,
In this, the ebb-tide of the year.

Ice quenches all reflection in the shallow
Lagoon whose trampled margin still displays
Upheaval where the centaurs used to wallow;
And where my favourite unicorns would graze,
A few wild ducks scream lamentable lays
Of shrill derision desperate with fear,
Bleak note on note, phrase on discordant phrase,
In this, the ebb-tide of the year.

Poor girl, how soon our garden world decays,
Our metals tarnish, our loves disappear;
Dull-eyed we haunt these unfrequented ways,
In this, the ebb-tide of the year.

Cambridge, 1920

XVII

The winter night is hard as glass; The frozen stars hang stilly down; I sit inside while people pass From the dead-hearted town.

The tavern hearth is deep and wide, The flames caress my glowing skin; The icicles hang cold outside, But I sit warm within.

The faces pass in blurring white Outside the frosted window, lifting Eyes against my cheerful night, From their night of dreadful drifting.

Sharp breaths blow fast in a smoky gale, Rags wander through the dull lamp light; O my veins run gold with Christmas ale, And the tavern fire is bright.

The midnight sky is clear as glass, The stars hang frozen on the town, I watch the dying people pass, And I wrap me warm in my gown.

Brussels, 1919

XVIII

Chords, tremendous chords,
Over the stricken plain,
The night is calling her ancient lords
Back to their own again.

Vast, unhappy song,
From incalculable space,
Calling the heavy-browed, the strong,
Out of their resting-place.

Far from the lighted town,
Over the snow and ice,
Their dreadful feet go up and down
Seeking a sacrifice.

And can you find a way
Where They will not come after?
The vast chords hesitate and sway
Into a sudden laughter.

Sheffield, 1917

XIX

I have known the lure of cities and the bright gleam of golden things, Spires, towers, bridges, rivers, and the crowd that flows as a river, Lights in the midnight streets under the rain, and the stings Of joys that make the spirit reel and shiver.

But I see bleak moors and marshes and sparse grasses, And frozen stalks against the snow; Dead forests, ragged pines and dark morasses Under the shadows of the mountains where no men go. The crags untenanted and spacious cry aloud as clear As the drear cry of a lost eagle over uncharted lands, No thought that man has ever framed in words is spoken here, And the language of the wind, no man understands.

Only the sifting wind through the grasses, and the hissing sleet, And the shadow of the changeless rocks over the frozen wold, Only the cold, And the fierce night striding down with silent feet.

Chambery, 1918

XX

We wove a fillet for thy head, And from a flaming lyre Struck a song that shall not die Until the echoing stars be dead, Until the world's last word be said, Until on tattered wings we fly Upward and expire.

And calm with night thou watchest till Long after we are gone, Not knowing how we worshipped thee; Serene, unfathomably still, Gazing to the western hill Where pales the moon's hushed mystery, White in the white dawn.

Cambridge, 1915