Chapter I: Front Matter

VERSES

=THE GARDEN OF KAMA=; and other Love Lyrics from India. Arranged in
Verse by +Laurence Hope+. Square 8vo, 5_s._ net.

=STARS OF THE DESERT.= By +Laurence Hope+. Square 8vo, price 5_s._ net.

_Uniform with the above (shortly)_

=LAST POEMS.= By +Laurence Hope+.

+London+: WILLIAM HEINEMANN.

VERSES

BY

VIOLET JACOB

(MRS. ARTHUR JACOB)

AUTHOR OF ‘THE SHEEP-STEALERS,’ ‘THE INTERLOPER’

LONDON

WILLIAM HEINEMANN

1905

_All rights reserved._

TO

THE IDEAL CRITIC

I have to thank the Editors of the _Westminster Gazette_, _The English Illustrated Magazine_, and _Country Life_ for permission to reprint some of the following poems.--V. J.

CONTENTS

PAGE To H. M. C. 1 Half-way 2 White Magic 4 Serenade 5 The Shadow 6 The Mill-house 8 ‘I sleep but my Heart waketh’ 13 An Immortelle 14 The Two Queens 15 The Lost Track 16 At a Brookside 18 Revenant 18 To Aurelia, with a Pearl Necklace 19 Beyond the Walls 20 ‘Come on, come up, ye rovers’ 22 An Echo 24 A Young Moon 26 The Soul 27 The Ballad of Hakon 29 Ignis Fatuus 33 The Little Nightjar 34 Possession 36 Airlie Kirk 38 The Flute player 39 In Lower Egypt 42 Winter and Spring 44 A Tryst 45 The Call 47 Time and Space 49 A Translation 50 Glamour 52 Lenore in the Oliveyards 54 New Year’s Eve 55 Three Poems for Children-- I. The Lilacs 57 II. Dreams 58 III. The Snow Witch 61 The Valley of the Kings 62 The Lowland Ploughman 65 Late February 67 From a Train-window 68 Poems of India-- I. In a Mango-tope 70 II. Night in the Plains 73 III. The Resting-place 75 IV. Evening in the Opium Fields 77 V. ‘God is great’ 78 VI. A Mahommedan Graveyard 81 VII. Cherry-Blossom at Dagshai 83 VIII. ‘With Military Honours’ 85 IX. The Distant Temple 87

TO H. M. C.

A silence falls on us to-day,
Our lips are closed, we do not speak,
But, in each other’s eyes we seek
And find the thing that each would say.

So deep it lies, a rock set fast,
Washed hard by life, by love, by tears,
Beneath the floods of time and years
Built up and rooted in the past.

And sometimes, when the tide is low,
A voice comes up the Northern sea;
Across the sands to you and me
It calls from lands left long ago.

By marshes lying dim and wide,
Through wet, grey sea-fogs, creeping on,
Back from that youth for ever gone
It comes to us across the tide.

How shall we speak? What words can say
The thing for which no words are known,
That calls to us from places lone
Through past, through present, through to-day?

❦

HALF-WAY

The world is not the dream of living gold
We dreamed when we were young;
Then, all the glory that the west could hold
Burned, fold on fold,
A molten veil across its portals flung
Behind whose shade the years lay sleeping still,
Like tales untold;
But now, beyond the beeches bare and chill,
Beyond the woods set far upon the hill,
The clouds are cold.

And life is not the journey that we planned
As we set out with morn;
We said, ‘We will rest here and view the land,
Or take our stand
Upon these hills and see the ripening corn,
Or step aside along the mere to mark
The wild-fowl band;’
But now, we know we must tread swift and stark,
If we would cross the desert ere the dark
Creeps on the sand.

And death is not the dim and distant shade
So far against the sky;
The half-seen trap for others waiting laid,
While we, arrayed
In pride and plume of youth, go sweeping by.
We thought to meet him with a spirit braced
By conquests made;
But now, we know, when half the road is traced,
Our hope is but to reach him undisgraced
And unafraid.

❦

WHITE MAGIC

I saw the moon come out and stand last night
Above the plains of cloud,
Like a lone chief, who, at his tented door,
Looks down upon the forest’s silent floor
From a far battlement upon the height,
And drops his mantle proud
Into the swimming vapours of the light.

O watcher on the planet-woven steep
Whose shining feet are set
Above the haunted glamour of the skies!
Draw me, a slave, with thy compelling eyes,
While the slow hours in soundless circle creep,
Out through the world, while yet
The world’s heart heaves beneath the veil of sleep.

O pale-faced chief! The earth and heaven are still
And thou and I awake;
I come, with outstretched arms and spirit bound,
Forth through the scattered graves where, lying sound,
The dead are sown by field and fold and hill
And mist-entangled brake;
O pale chief! Draw me up into the height,
Into the swimming light.

❦

SERENADE

O roses, clustering on the sunny wall
In fragrant groups of white and red together,
Bend down, bend down your branches, one and all,
Beneath the fair June sky and glowing weather;
And say to her, I send her
A message tender.

And thou, convolvulus, upon the gate,
With pale white bells and trails of light leaves swinging,
Tell her my love for her is strong as fate,
For ever true and like thy tendrils clinging;
And kiss her, soft and shy,
As she goes by.

O jessamine, in wreaths of scented stars
Across the balconies and stonework meeting,
Climb up and enter at her window-bars
And bear among your buds my loving greeting;
Then whisper, sweet and slow,
‘He waits below.’

❦

THE SHADOW

What soul has swept your branches, cypress-tree,
That you should point so high;
That you, whose root among the graves may be,
Look ever to the sky?

Dark warden of the long-untended tomb
Seen o’er some mouldering wall,
Or set where fountained gardens are abloom
And roses blush and fall.

Scarcely the wind is voiceful as it sways
Your column, dusk, austere;
Scarcely the evening breeze that round you plays
Brings music to the ear.

Your earth-bound foot mortality retains
Imprisoned in the sod,
Your earth-freed spirit to that ether strains
Which is the breath of God.

The light o’er southern vineyards dying down
Smiles on the landscape still,
And lays the lengthening shadow of your crown
On many a Tuscan hill.

And, nearer home, where memory’s deathless sun
Enwraps some tear-sown mound,
Your shade, at day’s decline, O silent one,
Slants eastward on the ground.

By tomb or pleasance, convent-girdled height,
In countries far or near,
You bear a message from eternal light
To us whose souls are here.

O silent witness! dark where yonder sky
In saffron splendour burns,
’Tis but the shadow that on earth must lie,
The substance heavenward turns.

❦

THE MILL-HOUSE

Beneath the drawbridge is the moat,
On broadened leaves the lilies float,
The white bud bursts its oozy coat.

Up from the fields of ripened corn
There comes the sound of voices borne
From where the stooks stand newly shorn.

Above her head the banner flies,
A dragon blue with banded eyes,
Grey in the sun the towers rise.

Within, the knights sit in a row,
And ladies, with their hands of snow;
The golden cup goes to and fro.

She heeds nor feast, nor song, nor wine,
She only sees the weapons shine
Upon the plains of Palestine.

She only hears the trumpets bray
Their summons through the Eastern day,
The tramp of horses far away.

Her heart sees all the far-off scene,
And, with her heart, she hears the green
Wild roll of waters in between.

The light from the horizon’s rim
Strikes, like the wings of seraphim,
Upon the fountain’s circled brim.

A shadow lies before her face,
Sir Hugh has risen and left his place:
“Elayne, the seasons march apace;

Lo, patience is a good knight’s stay,
Yet comes the time when men may say
‘Who waits too long will lose the day.’

The dial by the swinging vane
Marks how the long hours wax and wane--
’Tis time the priest were brought, Elayne.

Yon knight who fights in Palestine,
What is his love compared with mine?
I will load your hair with jewels fine,

You shall lie on silk, you shall sit, a queen,
In costly raiment blue and green
With golden roses wrought in between.”

To where the crazy mill-house stands
He has borne her with his iron hands,
Her hair hangs down in russet bands;

He has shorn a long tress of her hair
And bound her feet so slim and fair,
He has borne her out on the mill-house stair.

“Elayne, Elayne, you are young to die,
There is none to hear should you call or cry,
Shall the water have you or shall I?”

She makes no sound; beneath the ledge
An eddy swirls among the sedge,
He takes a step to the stairs’ edge.

The mill-race, roaring far beneath,
Seems like the sound of gloating death,
She looks down and she holds her breath.

“Elayne, what think you? Which is best?”
Against the black heart in his breast
She keeps her pale face closely prest.

The mill-race, winding mile on mile,
Sounds like an angry voice the while;
He cannot see her drawn lips smile.

Like some slim beast, some snake or stoat,
She meets her teeth upon his throat,
Her fingers grasp his leathern coat.

On the top step they swing and sway,
His breath comes short, his face is grey,
The waters close with a splash of spray.

The mill-race runs till it nears the moat,
What thing does the water raise and float?
--A drowned dead man with a mark on his throat.

❦

‘I SLEEP BUT MY HEART WAKETH’

Here in the winding coil of waterways,
Apart among the trees, where no feet pass,
And little woodland rabbits on the grass
Sit lightly cropping through the Autumn days,
The troubling world, with all its weary moods,
Is far away outside the circling woods.

A golden rain of leaf is on the beech
And red and gold the maze of branches glow
To drop their wealth upon the grass below,
As golden silence falls on golden speech;
In long, wet flats, wherein the heron feeds,
A golden sky is mirrored through the reeds.

No voices come to still that other voice
Which breathes along the labyrinth of trees
To tell the tired soul to dwell at ease
Among the best-loved visions of its choice:
‘Sleep in these groves,’ it says, ‘by spirits trod,
While thine heart waketh to the sound of God.’

❦

AN IMMORTELLE

There is a secret garden where I dwell
Hedged round about with thorn and Judas-tree,
Barred in with iron like a prison cell
And known to none but me.

Black rocks encircle it; the nightshade wreath
Twines in the bush its leaden-purple spray
And the rank hellebore, with poisoned breath,
Sighs on the air all day.

I loved it not, yet I was wont to go
To gaze my fill and all my plants compare,
To taste the bitter herbs that thrive and grow,
Spreading a carpet there.

* * * * *

But now, ’tis years, since, in that sorry place,
I swung the wicket; for, all gloriously,
A wingèd figure came with radiant face
And bore away the key.

And still--I have a little poison-flower
I gathered there; and, though I would forget,
I take it out in some friend-haunted hour
To find it living yet.

❦

THE TWO QUEENS

A man went down the path of life,
And, where the vines were thick and green
And grapes hung waiting for the knife,
There smiled to him a queen.
Love lit the eyes beneath her brow,
His lips met hers a moment’s span;
He said, ‘My heart is glad, for now
I know I am a man.’

And, further on, among the corn,
Another queen whose eyes made dim
The very glory of the morn,
Held out her hand to him.
There was no time for speech or vow,
He kissed it, kneeling on the sod,
He said, ‘My soul is high, for now
I feel I am a god.’

❦

THE LOST TRACK

When you have passed, and earth, grown dim behind you,
Lies far upon the outworn verge of time,
When my hand, searching, shall no longer find you
In any clime;

If I but dream your step, by hill or hollow,
Has left some echo falling on the wind,
I will arise and gird myself and follow
Though I be blind.

Or if, clear-sighted, I may but discover
That, in the dew at dawn, your footsteps lie,
Where, through long fields, the whistling of the plover
Comes like a sigh;

And, if they lead me down to Death’s black river,
And, by the rocks, I hear the whirlpools spin,
Though heart and soul may faint and body quiver
I will wade in.

O heart! beyond the tumult of the crossing,
If there should be no sign, nor any trace,
Only strange winds upon the grasses tossing
And the wide space,

Only eternity, with worlds to wander,
A soul among the unknown souls of men,
And, O my heart, no voice, no footstep yonder,
What then? What then?

❦

AT A BROOKSIDE

A running melody is in the noon
Of grass-bound rivulet and tangled showers,
Of sunlight, glancing through the cuckoo-flowers
To mingle golden ripples with the tune;
In the wide light my senses seem to swoon,
Drugged by the monotone of rhythmic hours
And voice of spring-fed watercourse that dowers
This winding meadow-land with music’s boon.

Caught in a shimmering net of sight and sound,
And drawn, I know not whither, yet aware
Am I of some soft touch, and, blown around
My face, the plenitude of waving hair--
Nay, let me lie and dream this wondrous thing;
My hand, one moment, held the hand of Spring!

❦

REVENANT

In the dark hours I woke and heard the trees
That tossed and buffeted before the blast,
Straining and sighing while the gale went past;
And, as a scourge whose wrath might none appease,
The raindrops smote the pane and ran in seas,
Gurgling against the frame; now thick and fast,
And now like pebbles at the window cast
By some lost spirit that could find no ease.

And from the blackness of the dripping night
I turned me, weary of its sodden gloom,
Smiling to see the glow within the room
And the red embers on the hearth alight;
Then sudden ceased, and bowed my head again,
Thinking of that one gravestone in the rain.

❦

TO AURELIA, WITH A PEARL NECKLACE

Aurelia, think not to refuse
Or scorn my gift, although
These jewels must their lustre lose
Upon thy neck of snow.

But, if thine eyes should glance aside
And deign to mark their shine,
Deem them as emblems of the pride
That fills this heart of mine.

And if, for mine unworthy sake,
The pearls neglected be,
Still keep them; and the bauble make
Into a rosary.

And when, perchance, desiring grace,
In prayer thy spirit pleads,
String thou thy kisses in their place
And I will tell the beads.

❦

BEYOND THE WALLS

The firelight plays since dusk began
To gather in the room,
Beyond the pane the daylight’s span
Grows to the evening gloom;
But my heart is out with the gipsy man
In his lair among the broom.

Beside the farm both barn and stack
Dark in the steading rise,
Up in the loaning green, the track
Along the firwood lies,
Where the gipsy sits with his brows of black,
And the black light in his eyes.

He marks the swift owl skim the trees
When twilight turns to grey,
He hears the whisper up the leas
Before the coming day,
And the secret hours of the world he sees
And the soul of night at play.

His ceiling is the drooping bough,
The fir-trees’ ragged limb,
When from the hills the western sough
Sings o’er the lowlands dim;
And the polestar, hanging above the Plough,
Is the lantern-flame for him.

O weary roof and crowding wall
That bar the scented air!
O chain and key whose ceaseless thrall
Lies on a world of care,
There are no bolts shot in the firwood tall
But the joy of life is there!

O to be out when spring has drest
The green moss for a bed,
To roam by plain and wooded crest
Till the rose-hips turn to red;
And to lay me down for the last long rest,
With the great sky overhead!

❦

‘COME ON, COME UP, YE ROVERS’

Come on, come up, ye rovers
Whose ships at anchor ride,
The west wind stirs the clovers,
And O! the world is wide:
So, up with your chains as the sun goes down
And out upon the tide!

There drives on the Atlantic
The torn scud of the rain,
And lines of foam leap frantic
Against the coast of Spain,
Where the air is full of the souls of men
Who sailed the Spanish Main.

Where Rocca’s light is burning
On plunging miles of sea,
Eastward and eastward turning,
By Crete and Tripoli,
There is a spirit abroad in the wind
That cries aloud to me.

The coast drops low behind you,
The gull swoops round the spars;
Shall small men’s limits bind you
Whose milestones are the stars?
Whose signposts stand where Orion swings
Above earth’s locks and bars?

Come up, ye sons of morning,
This world was built for you!
Far off, Heaven’s light’s adorning
The lands where dreams come true;
And the Angel that sits at the Gates of the East
Shall open and let you through.

❦

AN ECHO

When all the world is young and apple-bloom
Is rose and white upon the orchard tree,
When all the threads of Spring’s ethereal loom
Weave a green garment for her phantasy;
That voice of youth and growth and vanished years
Comes through all time, in floating cadence, still,
Through mists of life and long-forgotten tears,
The cuckoo calling faintly from the hill.

The hidden streams in many a marshy place
Their chains of little standing pools unfold,
Like silver mirrors for Spring’s wanton face
Tossed at her feet and framed in marigold.
Hark to her footsteps down the sloping fields
Dancing in measure to the music shrill,
That, from its budding depth, the coppice yields,
The cuckoo calling faintly from the hill.

O Youth, O Time, O Change--O haunting note!
When from our life we shed mortality,
When all our joys and passions are remote,
All that the ear could hear or eye could see;
Haply, across the gulf where Time lies bound,
Some shadow of a voice may reach us still,
Like that long echo from enchanted ground,
The cuckoo calling faintly from the hill.

❦

A YOUNG MOON

A crescent hung above the trees,
A sweep of fading sky;
A parting shiver in the breeze,
And day lies down to die.

A silver curve above the murk
Where weary cities slave
And heart and hand are seamed with work
Whose goal is but the grave.

Within the young moon’s slender arm
The old moon’s shadow lies,
That wraith whose evanescent charm
Melts back to Paradise.

O’er one, o’er all, the wonder swings;
A gleam sad eyes may see;
A lamp that flies on hidden wings
To light my love and me;

A vigil-taper, lone, apart,
High above field and town
O’er many a spot where some poor heart
Has laid its burden down.

❦

THE SOUL

I laid a rose upon my loved one’s bier
Beside her quiet face;
A red rose, scented with the fadeless year
When Love’s eyes met us in the noonday clear
In a fair place.

I set it very softly down to lie
Amid her heavy hair;
And then, methought, the Soul that hovered by
Looked towards me through the dimness with a sigh
As I stood there.

I laid my empty world upon the pyre,
Beside her open hand;
A world that life had stocked with youth and fire,
Fortune and fame and wealth and world’s desire,
And strength to stand.

She knew each aim, fulfilled or unfulfilled,
That ever had been mine;
And then, methought, the Soul above her willed
Towards me through the dusk, a whisper stilled,
Whisper or sign?

I laid my heart upon my loved one’s breast,
Beside her silent heart;
Sorrow and vigil shared, the worst, the best,
All, all it held she knew who lay at rest,
Till we did part.

Ah me! it seemed as if her pale lips shook
With pity as she lay,
As though she wore that unforgotten look;
And then, methought, the Soul came down and took
My heart away.

❦

THE BALLAD OF HAKON

Across the stretching reed-beds
The dusk and twilight flee,
And thick the sea-fog covers
The roaring Northern Sea.

O Hakon, grey-eyed Hakon
With tawny yellow hair,
Why are you standing all alone?
Why are you waiting there?

Across the stretching reed-beds,
Amid the falling light,
Comes tripping fair maid Mettelil
Among the bents to-night.

‘O Mettelil, you have tarried,
The dark is drawing on,
Were you with young Herr Axel
This long long hour that’s gone?

I watched him by the reed-beds,
I saw him pause and wait,
Till twilight came I looked for you--
O Mettelil, it is late!

Goodbye, goodbye, Maid Mettelil,
The raven cries o’erhead,
A stormy wind rolls in from sea,
Mettelil, my heart is dead!’

* * * * *

Across the roaring ocean
The plunging war-ships go,
And Hakon, armed to battle,
Sails out to meet the foe.

Where’er the press is thickest,
Upon the prow he stands;
Around him fly the arrows
Shot by the foeman’s hands.

The air is wild with shrieking
Of those that fight and drown.
The blows fall thick round Hakon
But none can strike him down.

‘O Death that I am seeking,
Why com’st thou not to me?
I would my heart lay cold and still
Beneath the rolling sea!’

At home sits fair Maid Mettelil,
The tears are in her eyes,
And, ere a month is come and gone,
In kirkyard ground she lies.

And sadly home comes Hakon,
Weary his face has grown,
All through the night he wanders
Beside the kirkyard lone.

‘Mettelil, the leaves are falling,
The north wind whistles free,
The chill mist wraps me in its shroud,
Come back, come back to me!’

Between the glimmering headstones,
Beneath the branches black,
A form comes quickly gliding
And stands at Hakon’s back.

‘Turn round, turn round now, Hakon,
And hold me to your breast
And touch my cold lips once with yours,
For then my soul can rest.’

She wound her white arms round him,
She touched his tawny hair,
‘O Hakon, hold me faster,
My grave is opening there!’

He held her close and closer,
Lower he bent his head--
An icy wind swept o’er his heart,
One kiss, and he was dead.

❦

IGNIS FATUUS

‘Little Goblin at the fire,
Have you found the Heart’s Desire?
Have you seen it in your flitting by night or by noon?’
‘O it may be in the swell
Of the mist-wreath up the fell,
Or the long clouds trailing at the tail o’ the moon.’

‘Little Goblin in the cold,
Have you seen it on the wold,
Where the winds with flying voices run free as they rave?’
‘O it may be in the sigh
Of a time that is gone by
Or the long grass growing by the brink o’ the grave.’

‘Little Goblin in the trees,
Looking down the darkening leas,
Have you seen no golden country where the heart finds rest?’
‘O, it may be where the night
Comes to quench the flaming light,
In the far lands lying through the fire o’ the west.’

❦

THE LITTLE NIGHTJAR

When the moon is on the wall
And her shadow on the door,
When darkness on the orchard lies like sea upon the shore,
The apple-boughs are silver with the silence swimming through,
With the halo of the dew;
Hark! what little shrieking nightjar ever gave so soft a call
When the moon is on the wall?

When the moon is on the wall
There’s a sound among the trees;
O master on the settle, with the sheep dog at your knees,
At the little nightjar’s voice does he stir to wake and growl?
Does the hooting of the owl
Make him prick his ears and quiver, make his hackles rise and fall
When the moon is on the wall?

When the moon is on the wall
And the fire has sunk and died,
The maid sits still to listen for the lad that lurks outside--
Good master, dozing o’er your pipe, how fast is slumber’s thrall
When the moon is on the wall!

* * * * *

O! but ’tis strange how shadows move that lay so still, so still,
And stranger yet how close they draw before the night grows chill,
And the little nightjar shrieks no more from out the elm-tree tall,
And the moon has left the wall.

❦

POSSESSION

She has laid her snare
And her eyes hold midnight’s sign,
Like pools in a moonless land
Lit up by the stars that shine;
With her burning hair
She has bound you, strand by strand,
She holds your heart in her hand,
But your soul is mine.

She has set her feet
In a path where roses blow,
She plays with your heart, the sea
Plays thus with its dead below,
And the game is sweet;
But your soul is here with me,
O Man; it is yours and free--
But it cannot go.

We shall stand, we two,
And her lips shall hold the sum
Of notes in a syren’s tone,
But mine shall be closed and dumb;
And, the whole day through,
Shall her eyes allure your own,
But I will stand like a stone
And your soul shall come.

❦

AIRLIE KIRK

A little spot of tangled ground
Set in the folding hill,
From curlew-haunted braes the sound
Of flitting voices shrill;
The high October sky unrolled
Above the plough-land’s crest,
Rank mallows by the hearthstone cold
With the field-mouse for guest;
Gudeman, it is long since the fire went out
And time that we went to rest.

The naked rafters overhead
Stand up like withered hands;
I mind me when the roof-tree spread
Where now the burdock stands.
The threshold’s deep between the whin
And fast in briers twined;
Where little feet ran out and in
The track is hard to find;
Gudeman, it is long since we closed the door
And left what it held behind.

Down in the strath the kirk is set
Upon the running burn;
It’s many roads we’ve trod, and yet
It’s here we must return.
Old lights along the fields are laid,
Old shadows lie as deep,
But new eyes watch them as they fade
Among the grazing sheep,
And it’s time we went down to Airlie kirk
And laid ourselves down to sleep.

❦

THE FLUTE PLAYER

In the window’s shade ere the dusk has spread
Over plain and hill,
And the tulip-flowers in the garden-bed
Have a glory still;

When the world of toil and the world of ease
Are alike at rest;
I can hear him play in the belt of trees
Where the fields slope west.

And the notes run high and the notes run low
In a rambling stream;
Like an old voice calling from long ago,
A dream of a dream.

His eyes are afire with the secret light
Of a land unknown,
And the tree-stems echo his footsteps’ flight
Upon moss and stone.

There is no more staying nor rest for me
When his flute is heard,
It is out, out, out to the melody
Without sign or word.

The lamps may be lit in the shuttered room
And the door be fast,
Or a long day faint with a summer’s bloom
On the hedges cast;

Let the path be winding in crowded ways
Or in woods profound,
It is all forgotten when once he plays
And I hear the sound.

Though foot may ache and though heart may fail
And the brain grow numb,
It is follow, follow the flying trail
Till the flute is dumb.

For life was a breath of the early spring,
When at first he came,
And, now that the harvest is ripening,
It is still the same;

And it well may be when the last dusk falls
On my little day,
When the last sun colours the crumbling walls
Of the house of clay;

I shall hear him playing beyond the hill
Where the fields slope west,
And follow him on till his steps are still
And the flute at rest.

❦

IN LOWER EGYPT

Above the ancient waters of the Nile
The mists of earth and dusk of heaven meet,
Where, slow along the bank, the camel-file
Moves, like a passing dream, on velvet feet;
And, as the choral voices of a dream,
The night sounds play their chant upon the stream.

The crane stands silent; all the fields exhale
A band of fertile damp along the shore;
The same moon, red and low behind the veil,
That lit Old Egypt, lights for me once more
The mirage of a kingdom that has been,
And, through the mist, the shadow of a queen.

Rise up, O Royal Egypt, from the dusk
With all the weight of tresses on thine head
Heavy with golden nets and faint with musk,
Girt with the lotus from the river-bed,
And eyes that once, with their devouring fire,
Lit for men’s hearts a sacrificial pyre.

O Serpent, by a serpent slain at last!
Come through the vapourous fields with garments trailed,
Embroidered with the lotus-leaf, made fast
With gems; with green and Tyrian purple veiled;
Turn but thy face, that I may see and know
The witchcraft throned in Egypt long ago.

There is a sound of flute and wavering reed,
The measured throb of falling oars that beat,
A tall prow swimming noiseless through the weed,
The shifting glimmer of a silken sheet;
And, from the dim luxuriance drawn nigh,
The feet of Royal Egypt passing by.

And now, her foot is set upon the barge,
The flutes play up, the fans ply to and fro,
The ripples, dying at the river-marge,
Curl, as the prow swings out upon the flow,
And its retreating music and its state
Leave, once again, the dusk inviolate:

Only, across the tillage lying low,
There comes the creak of well-wheels working late.

❦

WINTER AND SPRING

O wet green winter grass,
Sodden and chill with rain,
There are some footsteps that will never pass
Along the fields again.

O fresh blue air of Spring,
When lights lie long upon the slope,
There are two eyes to which you cannot bring
Your lights of youth and hope.

O white syringa-tree,
Year in, year out, below your feet
There is one heart to all eternity
That will not stir nor beat.

❦

A TRYST

Here, where our two ways part,
That, for a little time, ran side by side,
That now must turn and turning must divide,
Look, look and see how straight through Eden’s heart,
Unbarred, unbroken, lay the double track;
The dark has fallen and the sun has set,
The world lies round us, limitless, and yet
I will come back.

Across the plain of life
There stretches this enchanted forest’s band,
Haunted of crying voices, stirred and fanned,
Swept through by airs whose breath, I know, is rife
In that far bourn wherein no man may lack
His sure fulfilment; look on leaf and flower--
In the dim dawn of some unnumbered hour
I will come back.

So meet me here: good-bye;
The light that lies on all this golden time
Shall burn on the horizon and shall climb
Like some vast city’s glow into the sky,
Unquenched by darkness or the cloudy wrack;
In flesh or spirit--which, it matters not,
--Remembered or unlooked for or forgot--
I will come back.

❦

THE CALL

The stars above the apple boughs,
Like distant gazers, stand aloof,
Watching the white walls of the house,
Watching the room below the roof.

There is the night-hush over all
Beneath the crescent hanging low,
And, through the dark, there comes a call
From hidden lips whose voice I know.

And every root and stem and leaf,
Sends out its scented breath to me;
The fox is waiting like a thief,
The bird is watching from the tree.

And, in the room below the thatch,
While the white house in sleep is drowned,
Up to the open window-latch
There come strange whispers from the ground.

* * * * *

I will arise and steal upon the stair,
Where the tall clock counts up Time’s gathered hoard
Telling its numbers to the empty air,
My naked feet upon the creaking board.
Out, out across the threshold I will go
Into the night, the sighing, luring night,
And all the eyes above, around, below,
Like lamps upon my path shall peer and glow
Till thorn and thicket are alive with light.

I will lie down upon my mother Earth,
Heart to her heart and soul upon her soul,
Until the sounds that in the night have birth
Above my head their harmonies unroll;
And over me the little pattering feet
Shall come and go; and every bush and tree
Shall send from out its shades a cloudy fleet
Of flitting wings whose softly-thronging beat
Shall neither stay nor turn because of me.

❦

TIME AND SPACE

‘How far, O friend, are you and I apart
While all these wastes of sea between us roll?’
‘So far, that now, the beating of your heart
Has merged into the flutter of your soul.’

‘How far, my dear, has your hand gone from mine
In these long days and months since they have met?’
‘So far that memory has forgot to pine,
Believing that its touch is present yet.’

‘And O! how far, when night has fallen between,
Shall we be set in all the years untold?’
‘So near that you, when trouble’s blast is keen,
Shall feel my shade between you and the cold.’

❦

A TRANSLATION

(FROM THE GERMAN)

1

In the valley with moonlight streaming,
In depths of the forest free,
An old and forgotten dreaming
Is weaving its spell round me.

2

Dim columns, ghostlike and lonely,
Range darkly on yonder mound,
To the bat and the owlet only
Familiar trysting ground.

3

From the rocks come memories ringing,
The west wind whispers and calls,
And towers of gold are springing
From ruin and crumbling walls.

4

In a haze, through cloudland blowing,
Is wafted the old love--dead;
She draws me towards her, glowing
With radiance of youth that’s fled.

5

Like bliss from a far past carried
Comes softly her whispered vow;
And what in the years lay buried
Stands living before me now.

6

Then, soft as it came, the vision
Is gone; from the forest space,
Where we kissed in the woods Elysian
Has faded her vanished face.

7

The golden dreamland of wonder
Has fled on the passing wind,
The desolate walls up yonder
Are all that remain behind.

8

And, under the branches sweeping,
I walk in the dawn alone,
For day on the hills is creeping
And the glory of dreams has flown.

❦

GLAMOUR

It seems as though Spring’s light and waving leaves
Were part of youth alone;
As though the shadows, dancing by the eaves
In shifting web on wall and window thrown,
Forgot how nature weaves.

Still throbs the chorus of the birds content,
Still, clouded with the may,
Cream-white, the hedges trail their load of scent,
Winding along the border of the way,
The same, yet different.

It seems as though the pear-tree’s bridal veil
Had lost its fluttered lace;
The butterflies that dart their splendour frail
Through sun and blossom in their endless chase
On duller pinions sail.

What joy has faded out from field and tree?
What glamour from the air?
Are not the cowslips grouped as cunningly,
Whispering together like young maidens fair
To wait the errant bee?

All, all the hues that Springtime ever wore
Return as fair again;
The ribes hangs its tassels as of yore,
Pungent and sweet beneath the dropping rain
At every cottage door.

But what is lost? Nay, naught from nature’s flow
Of magic infinite;
Unchanged the earth, the skies of long ago--
Yet, once we saw them through the morning light
And now the sun is low.

❦

LENORE IN THE OLIVEYARDS

(FOR MUSIC)

When, stooping from the walls of Heaven, the night
Lets down on earth her star-bespangled hair,
And all the pavement of the winding stair
Is grey beneath a waning crescent’s light,
Look down upon the planted olive-trees,
A maze of twisted stem and silver leaf;
This is the message sighing on the breeze
‘Joy sails on flying wings and youth is brief.’

(HE SINGS)

‘Come down, come down, the little Loves are peeping
Between the stems and shadows on the grass
And all the prying eyes of earth are sleeping,
The sands are running in the hour-glass;

The red anemone a crown shall weave you,
Be-jewelled with the dew and spiked with flame,
And all the little waiting Loves receive you
Beneath the branches whispering your name.

Come down, Lenore; the cock will soon be crowing,
The noisy birds awake that now are dumb;
Can new hours match the moments that are going?
Who knows? Not you nor I, Lenore. Come.’

❦

NEW YEAR’S EVE

Go far from me, ye brood
Of little Hates and Sins who thus intrude,
Hide with the perished leaf below the mould;
The Old Year’s shade is dim--
A touch, no more, upon the round world’s rim--
And all the sky a-glitter in the cold.

Stand closer, Faith and Truth
And the long Patience that outlasts its youth,
The hour is at the change; and, drawing near,
There is a footstep’s sound,
A measured fall upon the iron ground,
And the earth, spell-bound, waits the coming year.

Come from your graves, O Lost!
And stand, this once, beside me in the frost
And turn, once more, your eyes upon my own;
Leave, for the past’s old sake,
Some look, some comrade’s sign for me to take,
That, in the tossings of the time unknown,
I may not be alone.

❦

THREE POEMS FOR CHILDREN

I. THE LILACS

The fields and garden-borders
Are bright because of spring,
The clouds of guelder roses
Are out and blossoming;
And close beside the gateway,
Tall, upon either hand,
Their green robes shot with sunlight,
Like queens, the Lilacs stand.

And one is crowned with purple,
And one is crowned with white;
Look! where the wind is passing
They bow to left and right,
And trails of scent they scatter
As royal gifts to all,
To every creature dwelling
Within the garden-wall.

O queen in plumes of purple!
Throw me a breath of joy,
You are all grand and glorious
And I a little boy;
But ask the lovely lady
With white plumes in her hair
To scent my heart with sweetness,
To make it pure and fair.

❦