/■ THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES The Dark Wind The Dark Wind BY W. J. TURNER "The mind of the people is like mud, From which arise strange and beautiful things" NEW YORK E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 68 1 FIFTH AVENUE Copyright, 1920 By E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America ! TO SIEGFRIED SASSOON "LfBRASTC CONTENTS PAGE The Dark Wind I Romance 2 Spain 4 Ecstasy n In the Caves of Auvergne 13 Shipwreck 16 The Ape 18 The Search of the Nightingale 20 India 26 The Hunter 27 Talking with Soldiers 29 Marah 31 The Sky-Sent Death 33 Aeroplanes 37 Song: The Far-off Princess 40 Magic 41 Hollyhocks 44 Uber Allen Gipfeln 47 Clapham Common 49 Vll PAGB Sea-Madness 56 I am a Hunter 58 The Music of a Tree 59 Haystacks 60 The Shepherd Goes to War 62 A Ritual Dance 69 Song 75 The Robber 76 Kent in War 78 Death's Men 81 Sunflowers 83 Recollecting a Visit 85 Music 86 Epithalamium for a Modern Wedding 87 Soldiers in a Small Camp 90 Song 92 Silence 93 Soldiers 95 Illusion 98 Peace 99 Harp, Flute and Viol IOI Solitude 104 Mirage 106 On the Roof of the World 107 On Persian Hills 108 viii PAGB Petunia 109 The Forest Bird 113 Maidens 115 Clerks on Holiday 118 The Princess 124 Death 126 Love — A Dream 133 The Pompadour in Art 136 A Madonna in Westminster 140 A Last Love Poem 146 Le Sacre du Printemps 150 Fantasy 153 The Dark Wind The Dark Wind A DARK Wind drifts about the world, The sea flower-patterned flows ; Blows earth's green blaze, footprintless there The Wind transparent goes. Yet dark is that Wind, dark as the sky Arched over fields of snow; Dark the Feet that fret the blue wave Where white magnolias blow. Romance When I was but thirteen or so I went into a golden land, Chimborazo, Cotopaxi Took me by the hand. My father died, my brother too, They passed like fleeting dreams, I stood where Popocatapetl In the sunlight gleams. I dimly heard the master's voice And boys far-off at play, Chimborazo, Cotopaxi Had stolen me away. I walked in a great golden dream The town streets, to and fro — Shining Popocatapetl Gleamed with his cap of snow. I walked home with a gold dark boy And never a word I'd say, Chimborazo, Cotopaxi Had taken my speech away: I gazed entranced upon his face Fairer than any flower — O shining Popocatapetl, It was thy magic hour: The houses, people, traffic seemed Thin fading dreams by day, Chimborazo, Cotopaxi, They had stolen my soul away! Spain Morning The orange glooms in the half-dawn, The white walls are pale glimmering dreams, Trees haunt them, stream-still, dim-illumed With round gold fruit on green boughs borne. Mist-pearl the Guadalquivir lies Shimmering, dropt from the pale heaven; Star-drunken, a god-ecstatic fool Mumbling divine, night-dwindling cries. Passionately the dim Dawn fills With purple heaps of shadows : Trees, Their vapour-sleep about their knees, Dream gem-still on the luminous hills. Green fires jewel-blazed mid milk-white walls Bloom from the pale transparent air; The sunlight flickers on their spires, The night's dark mirage-tower falls. 4 On a glittering plain Far away, A bony horse with an armoured knight Labours; his squire behind Toils and sweats with his ass. A solitary Tree, A gesture in the sunlight Mournful but determined, A song in the dark Without gaiety, A shadow in the white dust! It is their hope, It is mirrored in their souls, In the soul of the bony horse, In the soul of the ass. Under the Tree lies the squire, His mouth is open, and his soul Flutters over empty wineskins : The knight leans against the trunk, The horse and the ass are as still As fallen branches. Noon-Siesta The lattices are shut, The house is dark and still. . . . The soul can wander up and down And work its own will, Phantom after phantom chase, Glide from dream to dream, Quiet as the shadow of a hill In a slow stream. Kings, Princesses, Warriors stark, All in dream array, Of glittering lances, banners bright On a great highway, On the highway lit by no Sun or Stars or Moon Through curtained chambers wind their way Like a bright tune — 6 Like a tune with many places Empty, soundless, dark; There broods the Dove, moored in those places The Spirit's ancient ark On the waters faintly shining High and mournful with black walls Gleams a ghost, a phantom vessel Ere the next note falls. In this stream, in this procession, Toledo, Saragossa, names Of Castile and of Aragon heap dream- fitful flames, Arks of human life their dark Towers Gloomy in the blazing sunlight. Piercing with blood-tortured thoughts A sky serene and bright. Many centuries have passed Since the Knight and the Squire lay dreaming, The one of Toledo, Saragossa, Princesses and Giants, 7 The other of wineskins ; But they are still wandering in Spain, You may see them any day Under a tree. Evening And when night comes they will sing serenades Under the open windows, The lattices will not be shut, The Moon will wander through the houses: Spain herself with the voices of the past in her soul Will sit in the shadows, And kiss the petals of roses, And drop them warm to her lovers below. With the low thrumming of guitars, With the gold throbbing of stars, With the purple heaving of the seas, With the glimmer of fading white walls She drops her dusky hair over my soul; O Spain, I am soul-drunken with thee, 8 I am intoxicated with the scent of thy garments, I am a river delirious under the Moon In whose bosom forests and stars and maidens And innumerable worlds are singing. With the low thrumming of guitars, With white arms hanging from the lattices From clouds of dim hair indistinguishable from the night The souls of the serenaders are drunken, Their voices murmur heavily like beetles Wandering in a blur of flowers : Spain is glimmering in those white arms. The flowers float up in the dim darkness, The shadows fill with her hair; She has escaped into the palpitating night Leaving a heap of scented garments — In her dark room weeps the moonlight. ***** The night is empty, emptier is the day, That secret loveliness has passed away; The sun is burning and the houses lie Bare and untidy to the airless sky, The sea is glass, a smooth and glittering pane, The flies sleep in the dust. This is Spain. 10 Ecstasy I SAW a frieze on whitest marble drawn Of boys who sought for shells along the shore, Their white feet shedding pallor in the sea, The shallow sea, the spring-time sea of green That faintly creamed against the cold, smooth pebbles. The air was thin, their limbs were delicate, The wind had graven their small eager hands To feel the forests and the dark nights of Asia Behind the purple bloom on the horizon, Where sails would float and slowly melt away. Their naked, pure and grave, unbroken silence Filled the soft air as gleaming limpid water Fills a spring sky those days when rain is lying In shattered bright pools on the wind-dried roads, And their sweet bodies were wind-purified. One held a shell unto his shell-like ear, And there was music carven in his face, ii His eyes half-closed, his lips just breaking open To catch the lulling, mazy, coralline roar Of numberless caverns filled with singing seas. And all of them were hearkening as to singing Of far-off voices thin and delicate, Voices too fine for any mortal wind To blow into the whorls of mortal ears — And yet those sounds flowed from their grave, sweet faces. And as I looked I heard that delicate music, And I became as grave, as calm, as still As those carved boys. I stood upon that shore, I felt the cool sea dream around my feet, My eyes were staring at the far horizon: And the wind came and purified my limbs, And the stars came and set within my eyes, And snowy clouds rested upon my shoulders, And the blue sky shimmered deep within me, And I sang like a carven pipe of music. 12 In the Caves of Auvergne He carved the red deer and the bull .Upon the smooth cave rock, Returned from war, with belly full, And scarred with many a knock, He carved the red deer and the bull Upon the smooth cave rock. The stars flew by the cave's wide door, The cloud's wild trumpets blew, Trees rose in wild dreams from the floor, Flowers with dream faces grew Up to the sky, and softly hung Golden and white and blue. The woman ground her heap of corn, Her heart a guarded fire; The wind played in his trembling soul Like a hand upon a lyre, The wind drew faintly on the stone Symbols of his desire: 13 The red deer of the forests dark, Whose antlers cut the sky, That vanishes into the mirk And like a dream flits by, And by an arrow slain at last Is but the wind's dark body. The bull that stands in marshy lakes As motionless and still As a dark rock jutting from a plain Without a tree or hill, The bull that is the sign of life, Its sombre, phallic will. And from the dead, white eyes of them The wind springs up anew, It blows upon the trembling heart, And bull and deer renew Their flitting life in that dim past Which that dead Hunter drew. H I sit beside him in the night, And, fingering his red stone, I chase through endless forests dark Seeking that thing unknown, That which is not red deer or bull, But which by them was shown. By those stiff shapes in which he drew His soul's exalted cry, When flying down the forest dark He slew and knew not why, When he was filled with song, and strength Flowed to him from the sky. The wind blows from red deer and bull, The clouds wild trumpets blare, Trees rise in wild dreams from the earth, Flowers with dream-faces stare — O Hunter, your own shadow stands Within your forest lair. 15 Shipwreck I HEARD a voice crying In the wilderness of night; I saw great branches swaying, Black boughs afloat on white Intangible, thin light. The light it never curdled Into lips of foam, Shook no green, shivering tresses To drown seamen's caresses — • The dark Ship staggering home. There came no rolling breakers, No tall waves roaring high ; But it was peaceful, peaceful, And it was empty, empty; An Albatross was I. An Albatross was I, There was no sea nor sky, 16 No dark Ship plunging, plunging, No dead men drifting by Beneath that piercing cry: But all was clear and silent, Moon-empty round that thing, That grey wind-glimmering wing Drifting 17 The Ape The trees dream all night on the tops of the hills, The ghostly water a dark hollow fills, Its long white shadow falling through the trees Where the Ape squats silent, his hands on his knees. The white shadow shines in that small dim mind ; The Moon travels there; the star-hordes wind With pin-head lamps through the dark, dark blue Where faint, cloud-like thoughts collect and pursue. The scent of the forest, the rippling streams, The butterflies flitting through the shaking tree-dreams; The twittering of birds and the dead, putrefying In the pale morning sky, a lion cub crying . . M I see and I hear, I awake in the night, And the Asian forests are dark in my sight, With slow bright patches in the drifting gloom Where Stars, Sun and Moon soundlessly bloom. 18 The Sun hangs low, a great dim flower, A bloom without stalk, and hour by hour The sharp cries of birds and the shrieks of the slain Are tearing the quiet with bright gashes of pain. And that flower bleeds out, wildly staining the sky; And the lions roar to see the day-flower die — They roar together on the tops of the hills While with little pale blossoms the dark sky fills. In the gloom under heaven, clasping my knees — That long white shadow still falling through the trees, The lions roaring their music in my brain — Alone on that boulder I am sitting once again. 19 The Search for the Nightingale (To S. S.) BESIDE a stony, shallow stream I sat In a deep gully underneath a hill. I watched the water trickle down dark moss And shake the tiny boughs of maidenhair, And billow on the bodies of cold stone. And sculptured clear Upon the shoulder of that aerial peak Stood trees, the fragile skeletons of light, High in a bubble blown Of visionary stone. Under the azurine transparent arch The hill, the rocks, the trees Were still and dreamless as the printed wood Black on the snowy page. It was the song of some diviner bird Than this still country knew, The words were twigs of burnt and blackened trees 20 From which there trilled a voice, Shadowy and faint, as though it were the song The water carolled as it flowed along. Lifting my head, I gazed upon the world, Carved in the breathless heat as in a gem, And watched the parroquets green-feathered fly Through crystal vacancy, and perch in trees That glittered in a thin, blue, haze-like dream, And the voice faded, though the water dinned Against the stones its dimming memory. And I ached then To hear that song burst out upon that scene, Startling an earth where it had never been. And then I came unto an older world. The woods were damp, the sun Shone in a watery mist, and soon was gone ; The trees were thick with leaves, heavy and old, The sky was grey, and blue, and like the sea Rolling with mists and shadowy veils of foam. 21 I heard the roaring of an ancient wind Among the elms and in the tattered pines; Lighting pale hollows in the cloud-dark sky, A ghostly ship, the Moon, flew scudding by. "O is it here," I cried, "that bird that sings So that the traveller in his frenzy weeps?" It was the autumn of the year, and leaves Fell with a dizzying moan, and all the trees Roared like the sea at my small impotent voice. And if that bird was there it did not sing, And I knew not its haunts, or where it went, But carven stood and raved! In that old wood that dripped upon my face Upturned below, pale in its passionate chase. And years went by, and I grew slowly cold: I had forgotten what I once had sought. There are no passions that do not grow dim, And like a fire imagination sinks Into the ashes of the mind's cold grate. 22 And if I dreamed, I dreamed of that far land, That coast of pearl upon a summer sea, Whose frail trees in unruffled amber sleep, Gaudy with jewelled birds, whose feathers spray Bright founts of colour through the tranquil day. The hill, the gully, and the stony stream I had not thought on when this spring I sat In a strange room with candles guttering down Into the flickering silence. From the Moon Among the trees still-wreathed upon the sky There came the sudden twittering of a ghost. And I stept out from darkness, and I saw The great pale sky immense, transparent, filled With boughs and mountains and wide-shining lakes Where stillness, crying in a thin voice, breaks. It was the voice of that imagined bird. I saw the gully and that ancient hill, The water trickling down from Paradise Shaking the tiny boughs of maidenhair. 23 There sat the dreaming boy. And O! I wept to see that scene again, To read the black print on that snowy page, I wept, and all was still. No shadow came into that sun-steeped glen, No sound of earth, no voice of living men. Was it a dream or was it that in me A god awoke and gazing on his dream Saw that dream rise and gaze into its soul, Finding, Narcissus-like, its image there: A Song, a transitory Shape on water blown, Descending down the bright cascades of time, The shadowiest-flowering, ripple-woven bloom As ghostly as still waters' unseen foam That lies upon the air, as that song lay Within my heart on one far summer day? Carved in the azure air white peacocks fly, Their fanning wings stir not the crystal trees, Bright parrots fade through dimming turquoise days, 24 And music scrolls its lightning calm and bright On the pale sky where thunder cannot come. Into that world no ship has ever sailed, No seaman gazing with hand-shaded eyes Has ever seen its shore whiten the waves. But to that land the Nightingale has flown, Leaving bright treasure on this calm air blown. 25 India They hunt, the velvet tigers in the jungle, The spotted jungle full of shapeless patches — Sometimes they're leaves, sometimes they're hanging flowers, Sometimes they're hot gold patches of the sun: They hunt, the velvet tigers in the jungle! What do they hunt by glimmering pools of water, By the round silver Moon, the Pool of Heaven: In the striped grass, amid the barkless trees — The Stars scattered like eyes of beasts above them! What do they hunt, their hot breath scorching insects, Insects that blunder blindly in the way, Vividly fluttering — they also are hunting, Are glittering with a tiny ecstasy! The grass is flaming and the trees are growing, The very mud is gurgling in the pools, Green toads are watching, crimson parrots flying, Two pairs of eyes meet one another glowing — They hunt, the velvet tigers in the jungle. 26 The Hunter "But there was one land he dared not enter" BEYOND the blue, the purple seas, Beyond the thin horizon's line, Beyond Antilla, Hebrides, Jamaica, Cuba, Carribbees, There lies the land of Yucatan. The land, the land of Yucatan, The low coast breaking into foam, The dim hills where my thoughts shall roam, The forests of my boyhood's home, The splendid dream of Yucatan! I met thee first long, long ago Turning a printed page, and I Stared at a world I did not know And felt my blood like fire flow At that strange name of Yucatan. 27 those sweet, far-off Austral days When life had a diviner glow, When hot suns whipped my blood to know Things all unseen, then I could go Into thy heart, O Yucatan! 1 have forgotten what I saw, I have forgotten what I knew, And many lands I've set sail for To find that marvellous spell of yore, Never to set foot on thy shore, O haunting land of Yucatan! But sailing I have passed thee by, And leaning on the white ship's rail Watched thy dim hills till mystery Wrapped thy far stillness close to me, And I have breathed " 'Tis Yucatan!" " 'Tis Yucatan, 'tis Yucatan!" The ship is sailing far away, The coast recedes, the dim hills fade, A bubble-winding track we've made, And thou'rt a Dream, O Yucatan! 28 Talking with Soldiers The mind of the people is like mud, From which arise strange and beautiful things, But mud is none the less mud, Though it bear orchids and prophesying Kings, Dreams, trees, and water's bright babblings. It has found form and colour and light, The cold glimmer of the ice-wrapped Poles; It has called a far-off glow Arcturus, And some pale weeds, lilies of the valley. It has imagined Virgil, Helen and Cassandra; The sack of Troy, and the weeping for Hector — ■ Rearing stark up 'mid all this beauty In the thick dull neck of Ajax. There is a dark Pine in Lapland, And the great figured Horn of the Reindeer Moving soundlessly across the snow, Is its twin-brother, double-dreamed, In the mind of a far-off people. 29 It is strange that a little mud Should echo with sounds, syllables and letters, Should rise up and call a mountain Popocatapetl, And a green-leafed wood Oleander. These are the ghosts of invisible things; There is no Lapland, no Helen and no Hector; And the Reindeer is a darkening of the brain; And Oleander is but Oleander. Mary Magdalena and the vine Lachrymae Christi Were like ghosts up the ghost of Vesuvius, As I sat and drank wine with the soldiers, As I sat in the Inn on the mountain, Watching the shadows in my mind. The mind of the people is like mud : Where are the imperishable things, The ghosts that flicker in the brain — Silent women, orchids and prophesying Kings, Dreams, trees, and water's bright babblings! 30 MaraK Blue and golden was her robe of mosaic, Blue and golden the tips of her shoes, The blurred wall gathered crystal lilies round her, Green lilies, lilies of dimmed water: There was no white, no milk-white touch about her s All was lucent, was green and blue and gold. There is no white about the name of Mary, Mary that is Marah — that is bitter, Mary that sounds like running water Tinkling like a host of muted bells In cavities of tinkling-atomed limestone Where, in a round clear drop of water, Hang the tiny voices, the voices of the atoms, Singing of stalactites, of the loveliness of Mary. Mary it is they dream of in the darkness of the grotto, Mary is the vision and the song inaudible Where grow the Stalactites And the dimmer Stalagmites; 3i It cannot be seen that they are growing, In the darkness there is no glint or glitter, Only the loveliness of Mary, The conception and the bones of Mary. 32 The Sky-Sent Death *'A German aeroplane flew over Greek territory, dropping a bomb which killed a shepherd." Sitting on a stone a Shepherd, Stone and Shepherd sleeping, Under the high blue Attic sky; Along the green monotony Grey sheep creeping, creeping. Deep down on the hill and valley, At the bottom of the sunshine, Like great Ships in clearest water, Water holding anchored Shadows, Water without wave or ripple, Sunshine deep and clear and heavy, Sunshine like a booming bell Made of purest golden metal, White Ships heavy in the sky Sleep with anchored shadow. 33 Pipe a song in that still air, And the song would be of crystal Snapped in silence, or a bronze vase Smooth and graceful, curved and shining. Tell an old tale or a history; It would seem a slow Procession Full of gestures: limbs and torso White and rounded in the sunlight. Sitting on a stone a Shepherd, Stone and Shepherd sleeping. Like a fragment of old marble Dug up from the hillside shadow. In the sunshine deep and soundless Came a faint metallic humming; In the sunshine clear and heavy Came a speck, a speck of shadow — Shepherd, lift your head and listen, Listen to that humming Shadow! 34 Sitting on a stone a Shepherd, Stone and Shepherd sleeping, In a sleep dreamless as water, Water in a white glass beaker, Clear, pellucid, without shadow/ Underneath a sky-blue crystal Sees his grey sheep creeping. In the sunshine clear and heavy Shadow-fled a dark hand downward: In the sunshine deep and soundless Burst a star-dropt thing of thunder — Smoked the burnt blue air's torn veiling Drooping softly round the hillside. Boomed the silence in returning To the crater in the hillside, To the red earth fresh and bleeding, To the mangled heap remaining: Far away that humming Shadow Vanished in the azure distance. 35 Sitting on a stone no Shepherd, Stone and Shepherd sleeping, But across the hill and valley Grey sheep creeping, creeping, Standing carven on the sky-line, Scattering in the open distance, Free, in no man's keeping. 36 Aeroplanes Iron birds floating in the sky Prey remorselessly On the tiny obscure dot That is some great city, Below, men-insects rend and tear, Women wring hands of pity. I have flown a hundred miles Over the blurred plain, Dropping devastation and death, Blotting men's nerves with pain — Their miserable cries were tiny as insects' Calling their God in vain. The sound of their oaths and lamentations Could not even reach up to me, The clouds were at peace, no tribulation Disturbed the sky-harmony, Only my buzzing clanged And my heart beat dreadfully. 37 I laughed as I silently tossed blind Death Down on that insect people, Dreadful it was in the peaceful sky To murder that insect people, And never to hear a sound or cry, Or a bell toll in a steeple. I laughed when my last bloody bomb had gone, I shrieked high up in a cloud, I wanted to fly in the face of their God And spit my disdain aloud, T ripped through the terrified whistling air And burst through the earth's damp shroud. Ah! it was blue there, wide and clear. Dancing alive in the sun, And millions of bright sweet cymbals rang Praising the deeds I had done, And millions of angels cheering stood Deep-columned around the Sun. 3« And then I stood erect and cheered, Ay! shouted into the sky, I rilled the vast semicircle round, There was only the Sun and I, The round, red, glittering, blazing Sun And a fluttering human fly. 39 Song: The Far-Off Princess A LITTLE silkworm is spinning A robe for a far-off Princess, A foaming wave of yellow 'Mid the wood's green nakedness: It is her hair it is spinning As fine as a morning mist That washes the pale gold sunshine From mountains of amethyst. The far-off Princess she is lying With only a greenwood dress, By the side of a fallen Fountain, The Fountain of All-when-ness : It is deep in the greenwood forest, It is close by a greenwood tree, Far-off gleam the amethyst mountains And the amethystine sea. 40 Magic I LOVE a still conservatory That's full of giant, breathless palms, Azaleas, clematis and vines, Whose quietness great Trees becalms, Filling the air with foliage, A curved and dreamy statuary. I like to hear a cold, pure rill Of water trickling low, afar, With sudden little jerks and purls Into a tank or stoneware jar, The song of a tiny sleeping bird Held like a shadow in its trill. I love the mossy quietness That grows upon the great stone flags, The dark tree-ferns, the stag horn ferns, The prehistoric, antlered stags That carven stand and stare among The silent, ferny wilderness. 41 And are they birds or souls that flit Among the trees so silently, And are they fish or ghosts that haunt The still pools of the rockery? For I am but a sculptured rock As in that magic place I sit! Still as a great jewel is the air With boughs and leaves smooth-carved in it, And rocks and trees and giant ferns And blooms with inner radiance lit, And naked water like a nymph That dances tireless, slim and bare. I watch a white Nyanza float Upon a green, untroubled pool, A fairyland Ophelia, she Has cast herself in water cool, And lies while fairy cymbals ring Drowned in her fairy castle moat. 42 The goldfish sings a winding song Below her pale and waxen face, The water-nymph is dancing by, Lifting smooth arms with mournful grace, A stainless white dream she floats on While fairies beat a fairy gong. Silent the Cattleyas blaze And thin red orchid shapes of Death Peer savagely with twisted lips Sucking an eerie phantom breath With that bright, spotted, fever'd lust That watches lonely travellers craze. Gigantic mauve and hairy leaves Hang like obliterated faces Full of dim unattained expression, Such as haunts virgin forest places When Silence leaps among the trees And the echoing heart deceives. 43 Hollyhocks (The hollyhock is the holy mallow, brought by Crusaders from the Holy Land.) I LIE in bed and count the stars Through a window in the wall, They are far away and small, Lilliputian, folk-tale stars. Where I am, it is quite still, O and it is far and far Where those dreaming stars are, Out beyond the window-sill. But the garden warm with rain Blows into my hollow room, Great boughs slip dew-loads of gloom. To sparkle jubilant again. Trees and shrubs and plants and flowers Drink the glimmering spirit-rain, Sing unto the stars that wane Through the wet, delirious hours; 44 Roses red, star-drunken reel Over trim white garden paths, White roses in the trellis laths Glowing bosoms half reveal ; Naiad-blue, frail, dancing bells Ring a jingle-jingle rhyme Faint upon the edge of thyme, And the proud, plump lily swells. Iris like a goddess bold Purple drapes her beauty so That her magic men may know — From her still pool rising cold; Scarlet Salvias swoon and drift, Heavy with their maddening bloom, Silver sanctuaries of gloom Their heads the dew-sheathed peonies lift. These drunken Pagans sing all night, All but an enchanted row 45 Of hollyhocks that grow and grow By the house-wall out of sight. Not a sound or note they make, But they're growing, growing fast, Skyward they are marching, past Pinks and foxgloves in their wake. Pilgrim soldiers, you I fear In the midnight deep and still, As you mount the dark blue hill Of the steep sky shining clear: Your marching is an aweful hymn In the garden of delight, In the mad delirious night, Giant and lonely Cherubim! When the Sun comes you shall show Great white wings and nimbus gold, And your glory we'll behold From the garden far below. 46 Uber Allen Gipfeln WHAT lies beyond ! The Moon Hangs blood-red in the valley, Where below, the swift black waters flow, Roaring their unrest to the soundless snow, Turning their heads to snap their spuming fangs Like wolves that howl as from a wood they go. And there She overhangs — So round, so red, so low. Shall I, too, bare my teeth at thee, O Moon, Now I have climbed so high And these white Peaks are silent? By and by Perhaps they'll speak, or is this all they say, This empty stare while the pale frozen sky Sucks out thy colour until small and grey Thy wan corpse faintly moves throughout the day? Hast thou not lured me here with thy cold light, Washing the mountains with a waveless flood, Intangible, without a line or bubble, 47 But yet alive, filling the straining sight With a strange brightness, filling the empty night With a great splendour! Pour out thy ebbing blood Into my soul else thou escape and die, My ardour lost, and thou a frost-wraith white. My arms close fast on nothing. Thou dost grow Paler and yet more pale. The white Peaks gleam, Shining like icy Ghosts across the snow As thou removest high, removest high, High out of reach, of thought, of hope — a Dream That called me up the valley to those peaks, To fade elusively into the sky. 48 Clapham Common (or "The Cap of Liberty") SEE the cock on one leg standing, With his diamond eye Underneath his red cap hanging Sidewards jauntily, See him strut, and pause surveying Life monarchically. What is it his eye discovers, What horizon fills That round gaze so bright, so burnished, What communication thrills All the fiery red and blackness Blooming on his quills? Not a tiger, not a lion, Not an eastern potentate, Not a prophet out of Zion, Not a western magnate Gazed with such an agate vision Outward upon fate! 49 Watch him slowly put his foot down: Such deliberation, The like of it was never found In councils of a nation — No emperor had such a mien At his coronation. Broods he there on ancient glory By the holy river, When he perched among the tree-tops, And the silver shiver Of the moonlight, falling, stirred that Jewelled bird aquiver? Beadily the Moon reflected That round staring eye, Watching all the forest murder — ■ Spotted tigers drifting by, Hooded serpents, elephants Sharpening curves of ivory. * 5° Dim and wonderful that forest In the moonlight melody, All its dream leaf-cymbals ringing As in whitest ecstasy Glides the river, a moon-spirit Through the forest shadowy. Perched up high within the branches. Black as night without a star, Red as pools of blood in moonlight, Silent as great flowers are, Dreamed the violent, clanging sun-birds Lustrous and bizarre. Still he hears the glimmering river Bubbling from the Moon, And the insane, glittering forest Shrieks like a baboon, Dancing in a ring of white flowers In the sky aswoon: 5 1 The white, the dim, tranced flowers of heaven Naked, houri-pale they drift, In the forest sleep their shadows, Ghosts of gold the tigers lift Their great heads by the cool moonbeam Running through the forest swift. Lilies, lilies, dreams of lilies, Spectral orchids faint and dim, Globular bright fruits hang ghostly From his round eye's reddened rim, In that tiny glittering circle Stars and Moon and Forest swim. Gone is all that pageant beauty, Gone the forest's lyric song, The Hosannas of the lotus, Trumpetings of mammoths strong, And the crying of the tigers The dense banks of the Moon along! 52 Gone the panting, silent madness Of love hunting magical, Gone the soft and dreamy singing Of still boughs fantastical, Gone the slim white running rivers In the gloom monastical! Gone the spirits dark and chattering Flitting through the countless trees, Trooping slim, grotesque and agile Hand in hand in companies; Gone the distant, mournful tom-tom Of some village mysteries! Now a poor bedraggled prisoner With a proud and scornful mien, Living on a far-off memory, Magnificence he ne'er has seen, Two things only still remaining Of the glory that has been: 53 The Moon that climbs o'er miles of houses White and pitiful, Floods the narrow green with splendour: He stands sorrowful, Lonely in the hollow circle Of that vision wonderful. Slowly in the east arises Like a Dream the ancient Sun, From within him bubbles upward That loud hymn which once begun Made blood-bright the dusky forest, Golden all its rivers run. Now the battled blood- red ruin, Now the clouds of agony, All earth's chanting, all earth's dying Flame in that red eye, Underneath its scarlet hanging Cap of liberty. 54 And he chants forgotten splendours, Chants of glory come again, All the Mountains round him singing, Ringing cymbals Sky and Plain Blaring to omnipotent tyrants Their omnipotent disdain. 55 Sea-Madness The glimmering voice of the sea Is caught in the shadowed land, A bird netted; mournfully It flutters in vain to be free, It is fluttering hopelessly Along the edge of sand. The silver shells of the sea Agape and hollow roar, Devils cast up by the sea, Blinking and silvery In a moon-white ecstasy They lie and bellow and roar: They roar at the glimmering Moon, They roar for ever afraid Of the hollow empty world Where they have been suddenly hurled Out of the full peace furled In the dim sea where they were laid. 56 And the Stranger that walks by the sea, Watching the bright waves curled With songs of sweet ecstasy, With harping and minstrelsy, With clouds riding silently Will wander out of the world: Alone the Moon will hover Above the glimmering shore, His soul will be hollowed under To a conch dinned thin with thunder, And his body lying asunder W T here the silver shells roar: His body silvered over By the Moon and the flowing tide, And his hair with sea-weed streaming, And the whites of his eye-balls gleaming, And a smooth sea sleepily dreaming, Lapping against his side. 57 I Am a Hunter I AM a hunter after wayward words That I may press them into service meet For their rare beauty. I would have them greet My lady proudly, flashing like white swords Drawn in the dark of silence. Also I seek Among the shadows of the syllables, Among sweet ringing vowels, that spell of spells Which gravely said will bring unto her cheek The crimson heart's blood. Even, O dumb night, Do I desire to capture thy deep sounds, Those that in darkness wander, long, black hounds Chasing the stars their quarry, dead to sight, With baying dead to keenest mortal ears, Softer than voices stilled or the quiet splash of tears. 58 The Music of a Tree ONCE, walking home, I passed beneath a Tree, It filled the air like dark stone statuary, It was so quiet and still, Its thick green leaves a hill Of strange and faint earth-branching melody: Over a wall it hung its leaf-starred wood. And as I lonely there beneath it stood, In that sky-hollow street Where rang no human feet, Sweet music flowed and filled me with its flood; And all my weariness then fell away, The houses were more lovely than by day; The Moon and that old Tree Sang there; and secretly, With throbbing heart, tip-toe I stole away. 59 Haystacks Winding across a highland on a wild October day, By small and yellow haystacks the road crept humbly on, Blue herds of dark-maned stallions tossed madly in the sky, And raced across the blots of woods and fields of wind- quiet stone. Purple and gold and violet greys and gleaming shades unknown Leaped up and flashed and faded out within the mar- velling soul That, creeping on the narrow road, passed brooding, squat and still Those small dim stacks as dreams heaped up by men in bitter toil : 60 As dreams heaped up, as memoried hills, as generations gone Into the ground, and here arisen as quiet as hills of stone; But linked along the roads they built to catch each hu- man sound That quavering in the cold wind-light is sinking to its doom. And still the dark blue stallions race and toss white flakes of foam, And still the dark fields lie as quiet as wind-forsaken stone, And still along that humble road the silent soul plods on, And still the small dim stacks lie there, the dreams of men unknown. 61 The Shepherd Goes to War WHEN Dawn drew near and tree or hill Stood slowly bright, and clear and still, It lit the Shepherd, a dark rock Amid his wide, grey, tumbling flock; He stands as stand great ancient trees When streams leap loud about their knees; And he moves slow and tranquilly As clouds across a peaceful sky. There is no voice for him to hear, Save from men coming once a year Beyond that haze-blue mountain bar, Where the eastern cities are. In still repose his features sleep, He grows to look like his own sheep; And priestlike at each dawn he stands, An ancient blessing on those lands. The days, the years, half life slips by Under that bright Australian sky: 62 The gum trees are a rustling dream Upon the sunshine's golden stream: The whip-bird and the cockatoo, They are the cries of dream-birds too, And more unearthly and unreal Grows Kookaburra's mocking peal. Still magic is the country round, Dead branches strew the snake-bright ground : In luminous transparency Quivers each thin-leaved, blue-green tree; There is an ecstasy of light, And silence is as lightning bright: The carthflower, air, a still, blue blaze Springs from earth's pot those rainless days. The Shepherd sees as in a glass The flitting lyre-birds soundless pass, The trees in sunlight standing deep, A world in an enchanted sleep. 63 Nor ice, nor snow, nor rough winds come Unto him from his father's home, Old and remote in that grey sea Of cold, mist-haunted memory. But the men coming once a year Tell tales incredible to hear, Tales that sound legendary and dim, From long-dead camp fires brought to him. And brooding when the men have done, How fifty happy years are gone, Not knowing how, not knowing why, He turns towards the eastern sky; There, clasped with towns, meet land and sea, Thence sail the ships of destiny — They also sail those ships on high, Winged with deep purpose, through the sky: He gazed at that immenser sea, And those travelling worlds gleamed steadily; 64 Then, shouting faintly from a star, A voice called that old man to war. ****** The Shepherd reached the coast, — amazed On Sydney's crowded streets he gazed; On Circular Quay, with parted lips, He stared upon the thronging ships. He sailed across the summer sea, And fighting through Gallipoli, He often hungered and thirsted till Nought stirred in him save human will. To France from Suvla they were brought. Time faded from them as they fought And scratched and dug, with only the sky To stare at as they fall and die. Unhurt in victory's ebb and flow, He watched friends unreturning go; «5 Then on the Sbmme was hit, and lay At Denmark Hill for many a day. One of his countrywomen found Him there, and twice a week came round- But he spake little, and 'twould mostly be About their own far-off country: And in a silence 'twould appear Glittering with light and ghostly clear; And she secretly wondered it should seem So strange, so beautiful a dream. And Winter passed and Spring returned, His soul, reviving, homeward yearned; War was no more for him, he knew, Than that dim boom the East wind blew. And when she came to him one day, He said: "In a month I shall sail away; These cities and armies then shall seem More far, more faint than any dream: 66 "And I shall stand amid my sheep In that still light I shall sink deep; The shouting of nations clashed in war Shall not a leaf or feather jar; "But as the days pass I shall stand Lost between dream and dream; no land, No thing at all shall solid be — But cries of joy and mystery: "For I shall see behind my sheep Tall ships on death-pale oceans leap; Dark hulls with armed men's faces white Crowded beneath the stars' cold light. "And ships that gape and shudder down, And soft, bright bubbles of men that drown, And the same calm, watching Moon o'erhead My sheep and those wide-eyed drifting dead : "And the dim hordes of men that sigh Moon-tossed, sun-cracked, uneasily, 6 7 Shall move amid my sightless sheep When women long have ceased to weep; "And this vast city's terrible roar Shall be silent there as it was before; Though dark among the summer flowers Hang its streets, its steeples and its towers; "And faces that were torn from speech And in a dream the soul beseech, My comrades of a month or day, With me a little while shall stay. "And that still place shall be the cup Where this world's spirit gathered up Will be lifted silently Day by day unto the sky: "Until the brightness of the stars Is gone from me, and all the wars Of earth cannot refill my eyes Again with sheep and trees and skies." 68 A Ritual Dance I. The Dance In the black glitter of night the grey vapour forest Lies a dark Ghost in the water, motionless, dark; Like a corpse by the bank fallen, and hopelessly rotting Where the thin silver soul of the stars silently dances. The flowers are closed, the birds are carved on the trees, When out of the forest glide hundreds of spear-holding shadows; In smooth dark ivory bodies their eyeballs gleaming, Forming a gesturing circle beneath the Moon. The bright-eyed shadows, the tribe in ritual gathered, Are dancing and howling, the embryo soul of the na- tion : In loud drum-beating monotonous the tightly stretched skins Of oxen that stared at the stars are singing wild paeans : 69 Wild paeans for food that magically grew in the clear- ings When he that was slain was buried and is resurrected, And a green mist arose from the mud and shone in the Moon, A great delirium of faces, a new generation. The thin wafer Moon it is there, it is there in the sky, The hand-linked circle raise faces of mad exaltation — Dance, O you Hunters, leap madly upon the flung shields, Shoot arrows into the sky, thin moon-seeking needles : Now you shall have a harvest, a belly- full rapture, There shall be many fat women, full grown, and smoother than honey, Their limbs like ivory rounded, and firm as a berry, Their lips full of food, and their eyes mad with hunger for men! The heat of the earth arises, a faint love-mist Wan with over-desiring, and in the marshes 70 Blindly the mud stirs, clouding in the dark shining water, And troubling the still soft swarms of fallen stars. There is bright sweat upon the bodies of cattle, Great vials of life motionless in the moonlight, Breathing faint mists over the warm, damp ground; And the cry of a dancer rings through the shadowy forest. The tiger is seeking his mate, and his glassy eyes Are purple and shot with starlight in the grass shining, The fiery grass tortured out of the mud and writhing Under the sun, now shivering and pale in the Moon. The shadows are dancing, dancing, dancing, dancing, The grey vapour arms of the forest lie dreaming around them; The cold, shining moonlight falls from their bodies and faces, But caught in their eyes lies prisoned and faintly gleam- 7i And they return to their dwellings within the grey forest, Into their dark huts burying the moonlight with them, Burying the trees and the stars and the flowing river, And the glittering spears, and their dark, evocative ges- tures. II. Sleep Hollow the world in the moonlit hour when the birds are shadows small, Lost in the swarm of giant leaves and myriad branches tall; When vast thick boughs hang across the sky like solid limbs of night, Dug from still quarries of grey-black air by the pale transparent light, And the purple and golden blooms of the sun, each crimson and spotted flower, Are folded up, or have faded away, as that still intan- gible power 72 Floats out of the sky, falls shimmering down, a silver- shadowy bloom, On the spear-pointed forest a fragile crown, in the soul a soft, bright gloom; Hollow the world when the shadow of man lies prone and still on its floor, And the moonlight shut from his empty heart weeps softly against his door, And his terror and joy but a little dream in the corner of his house, And his voice dead in the darkness 'mid the twittering of a mouse. III. The Empty Forest Hollow the world! hollow the world! And its dancers shadow-grey; And the Moon a silver-shadowy bloom Fading and falling away; And the forest's grey vapour, and all the trees 73 Shadows against the sky; And the soul of man and his ecstasies A night-forgotten cry. Hollow the world! hollow the world I 74 Song The Sun has come, I know; But yesterday I stood Beside it in the wood — But O how pale, how softly it did glow! I stooped to warm my hands Before its rain-washed gold, But it was pebbly-cold, Startled to find itself in these dark lands! 75 The Robber The trees were taller than the night, And through my window square, Earth-stupefied, great oranges Drowsed in the leaf-carved air. Into that tree-top crowded dream A white arm stretched, and soon Those green-gold oranges were plucked, Were sucked pale by the Moon. And white and still that robber lay On the frail boughs asleep, Eating the solid substance through In silence clear and deep. Suddenly he went, and then The wood was dark as death: Come back, O robber; robber, come; These grey trees are but breath : 76 These grey trees are but breath, the Night Is a wind-filled, dream-filled Hall But on the mirror of the air The wood wreathed dark and tall. No movement and no sound there was Within that silent House, Behind a cloud the Robber laughed In a mad white carouse. 77 Kent in War The pebbly brook is cold to-night, Its water soft as air; A clear, cold, crystal-bodied wind Shadowless and bare; Leaping and running in this world Where dark-horned cattle stare: Where dark-horned cattle stare, hoof-firm On the dark pavement of the sky, And trees are mummies swathed in sleep, And small dark hills crowd wearily: Soft multitudes of snow-grey clouds Without a sound march by. Down at the bottom of the road I smell the woody damp Of that cold spirit in the grass, And leave my hill-top camp — Its long gun pointing in the sky — And take the Moon for lamp. 78 I stop beside the bright cold glint Of that thin spirit in the grass, So gay it is, so innocent! I watch its sparkling footsteps pass Lightly from smooth round stone to stone, Hid in the dew-hung grass. My lamp shines in the globes of dew, And leaps into that crystal wind Running along the shaken grass To each dark hole that it can find — The crystal wind, the Moon my lamp, Have vanished in a wood that's blind. High lies my small, my shadowy camp, Crowded about by small dark hills; With sudden small white flowers the sky Above the woods' dark greenness fills; And hosts of dark-browed, muttering trees In trance the white Moon stills. 79 I move among their tall grey forms, A thin moon-glimmering, wandering Ghost, Who takes his lantern through the world In search of life that he has lost, While watching by that long, lean gun Up on his small hill post. 80 Death's Men UNDER a grey October sky The little squads that drill Click arms and legs mechanically, Emptied of ragged will : Of ragged will that frets the sky, From crags jut ragged Pines; A wayward immortality, That flies from Death's trim lines. The men of Death stand trim and neat, Their faces stiff as stone, Click, clack, go four and twenty feet From twelve machines of bone. "Click, clack, left! right! form fours! incline!" The jack-box sergeant cries; For twelve erect and wooden dolls One clockwork doll replies. 81 And twelve souls wander mid 'still clouds In a land of snow-drooped trees, Faint, foaming streams fall in grey hills Like beards in old men's knees. Old men, old hills, old kings, their beards Cold stone-grey, still cascades Hung high above this shuddering earth Where the red blood sinks and fades. Then the quietness of all ancient things, Their round and full repose As balm upon twelve wandering souls Down from the grey sky flows. ****** The rooks from out the tall, gaunt trees In shrieking circles pass; Click, clack, click, clack go Death's trim men Across the Autumn grass. 82 Sunflowers In Erith's streets I saw them come, I saw them come; They stood against a villa wall, They were as strangers, mournful all, Far from their home; With dust blew down the dirty streets, The eager children's call. In Erith's streets where hovels lie, Close packed and trim They came, feeling the unseen sky, In that sad street where a child's bright cry Grows quickly dim And slatternly women sit and stare, And then go in and die. I saw their faces when they woke In Erith's streets; It was a wonder men could see 83 Those golden sons of misery In Erith's streets, In Erith's streets and marvel not At such a mystery! 84 Recollecting a Visit [To W. B. Yeats] It is most pitiful to watch men go In search of beauty with despairing eyes, And what it is they lack as this world lies Open before their gaze they do not know. These porcelain skies with billows of graven snow They paint on cold, thin cups, and draw from strings Voices of mourning winds and sense of wings. From woods rob sad-faced flowers and bid them grow Nearer their souls; ay, creep out in the night And steal the stars and the bright Moon from Heaven, And bring them home to decorate their dreams — My God! it is a strange and pitiful sight To see the treasury of a poet's room, And him alone there, shrouded in beauty's gloom! «* Music WHEN the last note is played and void the hall, I sometimes think that then music begins, Scattered on chairs lie horns and violins, The Harp droops silent, standing by the wall; On the live ear no sounds of music fall, The organ sleeps, coiled in its branching wood; But this deep soundlessness is music's food, This quiet is big with thunder: if I call, At once a thousand spirits rave and cry; Those instruments gape, quivering helplessly, With strangled voices vibrant and wild they lie; And I can hear in that great solitude Madness and grief, not the smooth harmony That presently, subdued, they'll sing to me. 86 Epithalamium for a Modern Wedding << We that so long have held each other dear, Join hands, Beloved; purposing to be One hand and life, one effort and career, One soul and self, into Eternity/' Can the lover share his soul, Or the mistress show her mind; Can the body beauty share, Or lust satisfaction find? Marriage is but keeping house, Sharing food and company, What has this to do with love Or the body's beauty? If love means affection, I Love old trees, hats, coats and things, Anything that's been with me In my daily sufferings. 87 That is how one loves a wife — There's a human interest too, And a pity for the days We so soon live through. What has this to do with love, The anguish and the sharp despair, The madness roving in the blood Because a girl or hill is fair? I have stared upon a dawn And trembled like a man in love; A man in love I was, and I Could not speak and could not move. I no longer seek to hold Beauty with enchanted eyes; 'Tis vain, for beauty dies, I know, I know beauty dies. 88 Ring the merry marriage bells, That most melancholy sound! When the bridegroom and the bride Go to find what none has found. All the old wives grimly there Pleased to see love's sudden end, Beauty's last wild wood-note blown, Death the solitary friend. Ay! Death sitting in the church, Busy getting breath anew, Tuning up the magic horn That the old lust blew. 89 Soldiers in a Small Camp There is a camp upon a rounded hill Where men do sleep more closely to the stars, And tree-like shapes stand at its entrances, Beside the small, dark, shadow-soldiery. Deep in the gloom of days of isolation, Withdrawn, high-up from the low, murmuring town, These shadows sit, drooping around their fires, Or move as winds dark-waving in a wood: Staring at cattle on a neighbouring hill They are oblivious as is stone or grass — The clouds passed voiceless over, and the sun Rose, and lit trees, and vanished utterly. Then in the awful beauty of the world, When stars are singing in dark ecstasy, Those ox-like soldiers sit collected round A thin, metallic echo of human song: 90 And click their feet and clap their hands in time, And wag their heads, and make the white ghost owl Flit from its branch — but still those tree-like shapes Stand like archangels dark-winged in the sky. And presently the soldiers cease to stir; The thin voice sinks, and all at once is dead; They lie down on their planks and hear the wind, And feel the darkness fumbling at their souls. They lie in rows as stiff as tombs or trees, Their eyeballs imageless, like marble still; And secretly they feel that roof and walls Are gone, and that they stare into the sky. It is so black, so black, so black, so black, Those black winged shapes have stretched across the world, Have swallowed up the stars, and if the sun Rises again, it will be black, black, BLACK. 9i Song Gently, sorrowfully sang the maid Sowing the ploughed field over, And her song was only: "Come! O my lover!" Strangely, strangely shone the light, Stilly wound the river: "Thy love is a dead man, He'll come back never." Sadly, sadly, passed the maid The fading dark hills over; Still her song far, far away said: "Come! O my lover!" 92 Silence It was bright day, and all the trees were still In the deep valley, and the dim Sun glowed; The clay in hard-baked fire along the hill Leapt through dark trunks to apples green and gold, Smooth, hard and cold, they shone like lamps of stone: They were bright bubbles bursting from the trees, Swollen and still among the dark green boughs; On their bright skins the shadows of the leaves Seemed the faint ghosts of summers long since gone, Faint ghosts of ghosts, the dreams of ghostly eyes. There was no sound between those breathless hills, Only the dim Sun hung there, nothing moved; The thronged, massed, crowded multitude of leaves Hung like dumb tongues that loll and gasp for air : The grass was thick and still between the trees. 93 There were big apples lying on the ground, Shining, quite still, as though they had been stunned By some great violent spirit stalking through, Leaving a deep and supernatural calm Round a dead beetle upturned in a furrow, A valley rilled with dark, quiet, leaf-thick trees, Loaded with green, cold, faintly shining suns; And in the sky a great dim burning disc! — Madness it is to watch these twisted trunks And to see nothing move and hear no sound! Let's make a noise, Hey! . . . Hey! . . . Hullo! Hullo! 94 Soldiers Trees struggling fiercely to the sky, and winds that leap and cry, Are soldiers of the spinning earth, and images of beauty, They are the songs of maddened clay, the wild delirious dreams, That clothed in khaki, storm a hill, and melt away in blood. Like rocks and crags, their limbs are torn from depths of outward calm, Let them embrace their agony, and weep and kiss their hands, And gaily seize what rapture lies in banners and in drums, For youth was meant to bleed and die, or sorrowfully grow old. 95 They are but common, anguished men, waked from an opiate dream To see the lightning flash of life, ere they sink down again. Securer from its misery, its beauty and its grief — They are like ancient songs that speak and then lie long unsung. It matters not what symbols are inscribed upon their van, They are the symbols and the songs. Gesticulating trees Thus stand upon the hills and rave towards the speech- less sky, But in the end sink feebly down and fade into the ground. And from the bodies of sweet girls as fair and white as flowers The soldiers rise to storm foul hills, in search of words and dreams, 9 6 And ebb away among the stones to feed the gleaming corn, That with their beauty shall arise and quiver in the wind! O you wise stones that lie and soak the beauteous blood of men, The loveliness of all earth's crops, the soft entreating eyes Of fawn-like girls, have you no tale, no sweet consoling hope To utter as we stand in pain, and gaze upon the dead? Exultantly you seem to stare, and wilder wave the trees, There is some joy in this fierce earth that echoes in my soul. Soldiers, arise! Stand up, you slain! stand up, the silence fills! The trumpet of immortal Death rings in the crumbling hills. 97 Illusion She stood like Spring before my Winter door, Paler than dawn, wind-swept and delicate; And her small hands, clasped like twin fragile shells, Were white as Spring skies faintly veined with blue. Years had she flown upon the moorland's edge, Graven upon some sleeping ploughland scene; And I with parted lips would stand and gaze, While clouds breathed huge still outlines in the sky: And she was not on moor or field or hill; Perhaps a plough was dark against the air; And night would come, and the pale blossoming moon Shining upon that carven, furrowed sea. Yet once she stood, thin, pale, a rain-clear dream, With skyey white arms at my Winter door; But when I rose the air was desolate, With thin tree-fingers frozen in the sky. 98 Peace In low chalk hills the great King's body lay, And bright streams fell, tinkling like polished tin, As though they carried off his armoury And spread it glinting through his wide domain. Old bearded soldiers sat and gazed dim-eyed At the strange brightness flowing under trees, And saw his sword flashing in ancient battles, And drank, and swore, and trembled helplessly. And bright-haired maidens dipped their cold white arms, And drew them glittering, colder, whiter still; The sky sparkled like the dead King's blue eye Upon the sentries that were dead as trees. His shining shield lay in an old grey town, And white swans sailed so still and dreamfully; They seemed the thoughts of those white, peaceful hills Mirrored that day within his glazing eyes. 99 And in the square the pale cool butter sold, Cropped from the daisies sprinkled on the downs, And old wives cried their wares, like queer day owls, Piercing the old men's sad and foolish dreams. And Time flowed on till all the realm forgot The great King lying in the low chalk hills; Only the busy water dripping through His hard white bones knew of him lying there. ioo Harp, Flute and Viol THE Harp was silent in the chamber Where there danced the wavering shadow, Shadow of the flute-player, Fitful as the fall of water I>reaming — Then the shadow of the viol Stole upon the people's faces, Played with fainter, fainter shadows Of the day beyond, the day of sky and street, Of illimitable airy shining, Walls and Pinnacles and Clouds Dreaming on the pavement. ****** No wind but only light reflected On the ivory walls and ceiling, And the globes of porphyry Silently and softly shining, And the shadow-fountain flute, 101 Rippling, murmuring and lolling There amid white, dreamy faces — ****** Gazing on the scenery Of the viol, In a land enchanted, weary, In a land of beauty disillusioned The Harp began. Its music was as is the song of jasmine Slender and faint among the dark of trees, Winding a stair From the dark earth towards the cold white stars. And whiter than the stars the arms of her That plucked the strings and gazed into her soul, Where all the trees of the round earth were clustered Whose Foliage, Heavy and calm leaf-hammered thunder, filled That silver mirror lying in the world! ****** io?. Gaze on into your soul, O Harp-player, Those trees that weep, Those flowers that twining hang Dream-faces vapour-crumbling in blind woods Are mirrored there, and in that land we gaze! O bright thy soul thou Moon of quicksilver! Lovely the falling shadow of the flute, Amid the viol's quiet scenery! 103 Solitude WHEN the sun is sunk and the woods wave Their dark boughs to the sky, And the sea leaps sullen and quiet, And the birds sit silently, Jewel-eyed and carved on the dream-like boughs, My heart beats restlessly. O in the quiet of the dove-grey sky Some holy land there may be, Where a man may ride in solitude, Yet not unhappily — But to ride through this shadow-crowded world, God! it is lonely! The singing, the laughter, men's clear eyes, Hollow as elfin bells, Slim girls, falling rain, friends drinking But air-linked syllables — They are more wandering than any voice Of cuckoo in hill-heaped dells. 104 And even this dove-grey sea and sky Is so quiet a mystery, That I feel it may suddenly fade away With its carved mountain imagery; And I close my eyes and it disappears, And chill it is and airy! And the shadows flock to my ears and touch In soft and populous cries, My heart is beleaguered in the dark; A crowd pushes close and sighs — Very still, wide-awake and watchful, The lonely sentinel dies. 105 Mirage Whose was the melody In the still wood? From a small bell it rang Close where I stood, Windlessly trembling Its bright blue hood. Blue in the green of leaves, Blue in the grass The dark sea flashes In memory's glass, In the still wood its foam White as I pass. Through the still trees it rolled Once long ago, Great sea-bells are tolling Hidden below, Ringing clear bells in summer, Muffled bells in snow. 106 On the Roof of the World On Chagola the air was full of butterflies, They fluttered down the valleys of bright blue; White they were, snow-tinted, soft as the soft sea-foam That far inland breaks in mysterious bloom : Invisibly, as Spring lapping dark hills, It breaks into a billow pale as snow; From Chagola there rolls a shadowy tide Of harebells, drops of brightly quivering blue. The sky it had not rained its azure down But hoarded still its deep soft purple air; A glacier shone, a cold, a cold white bride From some dark home of earth there raptly flown: O Chagola, Chagola, come! descend! Into the lowlands, the dark and windy plains Where my house is, my fireside and my home, My harbour and the net about my soul! 107 On Persian Hills On Persian hills the Moon lights shadowed roses Still as stone walls; their pale dream-swept faces Hang in soft clusters weary and dusty grey. A lattice lies wide open on those hills; Who looks upon that carven soundless scene — The Tree, the Peacock and the shining Moon? It is jet iark that small high window square; The shadowed roses dream, the Moon is still; Without a sound the Peacock now has flown. 108 Petunia When I have a daughter I shall name her Petunia: Petunia, Petunia I shall call her; In the rooms of my house she shall dance, her small face So bright that no sorrow'll befall her. From this dark pot of earth, from this sun-clouded hol- low Like a rainbow she'll spring and a blue sky shall follow, Green trees shall blow in and gay fountains of water Ripple the voice of earth's last fairest daughter. And I'll teach her the songs of Apollo. The songs of Apollo that white-armed maidens Sing in the soft dusks of summer, In the gardens of Zante the sea-girt, the yellow, Where the black and gold bees hum and clummer; Where the oranges glowing with sun-stolen fire Lie in heaps for the galleys of Phocos and Tyre; Where, orbed in clear water, languidly lying In green, shallow pools the mermaids, faint crying, To the Sun in the gold West quire. 109 In the green of their eyes, in the green of their tresses The forests of ocean are blowing, They glint with strange gleams of cold stone and of metal Through the veins of the blind earth flowing; Round those wavering, gold, orange-pyramids swim- ming.. The beading clear water their ivory breasts brimming, They sing, and faint-floating the songs they sing Through fields and cities and men's hearts ring, The glory of martial life dimming. From all small-mouthed shells on the shining wet sands A shadowy roar is fleeting, The roar of great oceans chained fast to the Moon From the shores of the dark world retreating: And the maids who to bright Aphrodite cry Hear naught but the ebb-tide faintly sigh Far-off in the dusk, see dark tresses drifting And the sudden-flashed gleam of white arms lifting Dim hands in the sable sky. no Warm earth-maids in groups with arms white as the stars On the edge of the solid world crying, Their faint shadows trembling in cold, salt pools Where the Moon at the bottom is lying, Cry out to the weeds on the bright sea rocking — The dark-bearded gods in their moon-ships rocking — On the beach their white bodies in moon-vapour limned Pale shadows on cliffs and on water dimmed, To the bloom of the sea-foam flocking. Aphrodite! Aphrodite! thou shalt touch and awake her, She shall gaze on her body in wonder, She shall bathe in thy foam, in her veins the great tide Of the world beat its shadowy thunder. All youth that, of old, lifted hands to the sky By thine altars shall awaken, shall rise and cry In her heart the song by all lovers begun — As the ghosts of all flowers rise each year to the sun From where their cold shapes lie. in And wrinkled and worn I shall gaze on her face And worship the God there sleeping, The ancient glory that flows up at dawn Out of earth's darkness leaping, I shall remember the beauty of water, Of stillness, of lilies; in the face of my daughter Youth's vanished loveliness I shall find; The frosts of Winter thy hand shall unbind, Petunia, Petunia, my daughter! The dark walls will crumble, the hills glow relighted, My spirit, that slumbering lover Shall stare at the sky and once more and forever The stars shall their beauty uncover. The trees that droop crowding to see their dark limbs When the dusk of that evening each clear image dims In the lake of my soul shall quiver and gleam, And depart — thou, too, Petunia — a Dream As the earth fades out to its rims. 112 The Forest Bird The loveliest things of earth are not Her lilies, waterfalls and trees, Or clouds that float like still white stone Carved upon azure seas, Or snow-bright orchids, scarlet-lipped, In the darkness of damp woods, In hush of shadowy leaves, Or the pale foam that lights the coast Of earth on moonless eves. The Moon is lovely and the sea's Bright shadow on the sand, The phantom vessel as it flies Out from a phantom land, And hung above the darkling earth Moored in a crystal sky, A fleet of phantom lights; These are but beauty's fading flags, Her perishable delights. "3 But in transparency of thought Out of the branched, dark-foliaged word Shimmers a strange, soft-flitting light Shy as a forest bird. It is most lovely, and it sings Strange songs to sense unknown, Dim songs of earthly doom, Of an immortal happiness In the soul's deepening gloom. 114 Maidens THERE is a hunger in their small white limbs, It is the beauty of the world they seek; They shall have children gazing on great stars That melt within their bodies. They shall speak Of rivers, woods and oceans of the world Babbling soft words of love on that man's lips Who from their nakedness all safety strips. Naked, defenceless in a wild ravening world, Clamouring to rape their beauty ere they die, They clasp frail hands, fashioned so delicately That men go mad to see bared beauty lie On the dark cloths of earth like trees and streams That are a dark, bright budding ecstasy, Souls in the calm deep air upleaping free. And I have fled from them by night and day, From dark trees bending high against the Moon, From streams that shone like spirits seeking flesh To clothe their bright desires. At summer's noon "5 Bewitched by spirit-babblings I have stolen To watch one leap among the ferns and grass A naked soul, shining and clear as glass. And these white nymphs of human progeny Ache for the darkness soft against their flesh; Their pale limbs in their secret chambers gleam And make with stars and streams a glimmering mesh Of bright enchantment. Slowly sinks the world Beneath the spell of beauty naked lies Earth's tortured spirit spread against the skies. All grief and joy and fear of bright-edged swords And fountains of red blood among quiet stars Leap in their flesh, as in snow countries fires Glimmer among pale hills; the trees' dark bars Stark black with death fret the ethereal flame Dug from the bowels of earth. The dusty lanes Ache for the kiss of gentle-greeting rains. 116 Soft as rain falling should their lovers come And touch their hands and gaze into their eyes That will not see the Moon stand round and still, Nor the white Owl motionless as it flies; For this is love, a hollow shining dream Of crystal trees, and faces cold and small That do not sigh, or kiss, or speak at all. 117 Clerks on Holiday The long black trains are stealing from the city one by one; Packed tight in corridors they stand, their holidays begun; Tall, white-faced creatures blinking in the dead un- natural light, Phantoms on to their eyeballs leaping out of the flying night — Trees, lamps, stars, gusts of rain, all jumping in the brain. They rattle through the evening air, hats, sticks and luggage, all Unreal as clowns upon their way to some small country hall; Their dumb, high, mournful faces dead as flowers with moon- white eyes, When the soft humanising sun has sunk in chilly skies, And vaguely a thin wind frets the trees' dark silhou- ettes. 118 By midnight they are driving down a narrow country road, The thick trees watch on either side the horse and his dark load; The trees come close about the horse, they seem to talk together, The moon is floating in the sky, light as a white owl's feather; Quiet jut the village roofs amid the clanging hoofs. They enter the low farmhouse like men moving in a dream, Who see great stars beyond a room, and in the candle- gleam, They stand beside the window, and their blood's spring- reddened tides Look up in that black world to where, soundless, a frail moon rides In a thin vapour sea of hill and rock and tree. 119 They know not why they gaze upon the moon with troubled blood, They tremble, for their brains are bright with its trans- parent flood; Slowly they walk in dark-wreathed woods, like men fast bound with spells; To where the faint immortal cry of travelling water dwells, Whose cuckoo voice outsings the noise of mortal things. The voice of water falling down from leaf and fern and stone, The voice of hidden water on a pilgrimage unknown, The tiny voice that calls shut up in miles of solid rock, As if within this world's stone walls some other world should knock, And press unhurrying by with a strange unhuman cry. All day they stare among the trees that stand beside the pools, Hour-long only a leaf will fall, and on mossed boulder stools 1 20 They sit and feel the drip of time so infinitely slow, There is no motion in their minds, nowhere for time to flow; And fronwhat inner gaze fade years and months and days. The leaves are rustling overhead as they sit bowed and still, A crooked line of restless ants climbs up a little hill, A thrush with head cocked on one side is showing one bright eye, And sunlight mottling all the ground in silence flickers by- Deep-sunken in a dream trunks of men and forest seem. The sunlight plays upon their hair and flits from place to place; The sunlight stirs within their bones and gilds each pallid face 121 Bending to falling water and the scent of the coming rose; And blooming softly in the wood the spring wing- footed goes; Like flowers strangely bright their faces are alight. And thrush and robin, birch and oak, the hot sun's dancing rays Work their strong magic in the brain, dumb-still they sit and gaze; And beauty blinds them as they hear spring winds sea- hollowing blow; Into a far and passionate land with wild starved looks they go; Return! no land can give the life you fain would live. Return, return unto your desks, and mount your office stools! None shall remain within this quiet that broods 'round forest pools; 122 The sun will shine on when you re gone, still will the waters fall, And other faces in the wood shall answer its faint call, Shall wander through hot noons followed by slow- paced moons. And sitting deep within the sun I watched them die away, I watched their bodies fade like clouds upon a sum- mer's day, I watched the green boughs waving as in their graves they lie, Their small white faces crumbling as they stare into the sky: And O! the sky was bright with an ecstasy of light! i i 123 The Princess The stone-grey roses by the' desert's rim Are soft-edged shadows on the moonlit* sand, Grey are the broken walls of Khangavar That haunt of nightingales, whose voices are Fountains that bubble in the dream-soft Moon. Shall the Gazelles with moonbeam pale bright feet Entering the vanished gardens sniff the air — Some scent may linger of that ancient time, Musician's song, or poet's passionate rhyme, The Princess dead, still wandering love-sick there. A Princess pale and cold as mountain snow, In cool, dark chambers sheltered from the sun, With long dark lashes and small delicate hands: To kiss her mouth men sighed in many lands Until in shifting sand they buried her. 124 And the Gazelles shall flit by in the Moon And never shake the frail Tree's lightest leaves, And moonlight roses perfume the pale Dawn Until the scarlet life from her lips drawn Gathers its shattered beauty in the sky. 125 Death When I am dead, a few poor souls shall grieve As I grieved for my brother long ago. Scarce did my eyes grow dim, I had forgotten him; I was far-off hearing the spring winds blow. And many summers burned When though still reeling with my eyes aflame, I heard that faded name Whispered one Spring amid the hurrying world From which, years gone, he turned. I looked up at my window and I saw The trees, thin spectres sucked forth by the moon. The air was very still Above a distant hill; It was the hour of night's full silver noon. "O art thou there, my brother?" my soul cried; And all the pale stars down bright rivers wept, As my heart sadly crept About the empty hills, bathed in that light That lapped him when he died. 126 Ah, it was cold, so cold, do I not know How dead my heart on that remembered day? Clear in a far-away place I see his delicate face Just as he called me from my solitary play, Giving into my hand a tiny tree — We planted it in the dark blossomless ground Gravely without a sound ; Then back I went, and left him standing by His birthday gift to me. In that far land perchance it quietly grows Drinking the rain, making a pleasant shade; Birds in its branches fly Out of the fathomless sky Where worlds of circling light arise and fade. Blindly it quivers in the bright flood of day, Or drowned in multitudinous shouts of rain Glooms o'er the dark-yeiled plain — Buried below, the ghost that's in his bones Dreams in the sodden clay. 127 And while he faded, drunk with beauty's eyes, I kissed bright girls, and laughed deep in dumb trees That stared fixt in the air Like madmen in despair, Gaped up from earth with the escaping breeze, I saw earth's exaltation slowly creep Out of their myriad sky-embracing veins. I laughed along the lanes, Meeting Death riding in from the hollow seas Through black-wreathed woods asleep. I laughed, I swaggered on the cold, hard ground — Through the grey air trembled a falling wave — "Thou'rt pale, O Death!" I cried, Mocking him in my pride; And, passing, I dreamed not of that lonely grave, But of leaf maidens whose pale moon-like hands Above the tree-foam waved in the icy air, Sweeping with shining hair Through the green-tinted sky, one moment fled Out of immortal lands. 128 One windless Autumn the Moon came out In a white sea of cloud, a field of snow; In darkness shaped of trees I sank upon my knees, And watched her shining from the small wood below — Faintly Death flickered in an owl's far cry — We floated, soundless, in the great gulf of space, Her light upon my face — Immortal, shining, in that dark wood I knelt, And knew I could not die. And knew I could not die — O Death, didst thou Heed my vainglory, standing pale by thy dead? There is a spirit who grieves Amid earth's dying leaves; Was't thou that wept beside my brother's bed? For I did never mourn nor heed at all Him passing on his temporal elmwood bier. I never shed a tear: The drooping sky spread grey-winged through my soul While stones and earth did fall. 129 That sound rings down the years — I hear it yet. All earthly life's a winding funeral; And though I never wept, But into the dark coach stept, Dreaming by night to answer the blood's sweet call. She who stood there high-breasted with small wise lips, And gave me wine to drink and bread to eat, Has not more steadfast feet, But fades from my arms as fade from mariners' eyes The sea's most beauteous ships. The trees and hills of earth were once as close As my own brother: they are becoming dreams And shadows in my eyes ; More dimly lies Guaya deep in my soul, the coast line gleams Faintly along the darkling crystalline seas. Glimmering and lovely still, 'twill one day go; The surging dark will flow Over my hopes and joys, and blot out all The hills and skies and trees. 130 I shall look up one night, and see the Moon For the last time shining above the hills. And thou, silent, wilt ride Over the dark hillside — 'Twill be perchance the time of daffodils — "How come those bright immortals in the woods? Their joy being young, didst thou not drag them all Into dark graves ere Fall?" Life's last flash leaping through me as I go To thy deep solitudes? There is a figure with a down-turned torch Carved on a pillar in an olden time. A calm and lovely boy Who comes not to destroy, But to lead age back to its golden prime. Thus did an antique sculptor draw thee, Death, With smooth and beauteous brow, and faint sweet smile, Not haggard, gaunt and vile, And thou perhaps art thus, to whom men may Unvexed, give up their breath. 131 But in my soul thou sittest like a dream Among earth's mountains by her dim-coloured seas. A wild unearthly Shape In thy dark glimmering cape, Piping a tune of wavering melodies. Thou sittest, ay, thou sittest at the feast Of my brief life, among earth's bright-wreathed flowers, Staining the dancing hours With sombre gleams, until, abrupt, thou risest, And all, at once, is ceased. 132 Love — A Dream In a deep mountain lake there sailed a swan, Far, far away from any human soul; And daily swam with her a speckled trout, Who only left her when deep thunder rolled — Sinking far down where that swan could not dive, So that she tasted bitterest pangs of love And drooped upon the water like to die. And when that trout came near with the blue sky She brightened over the water like a sail Set for the harbour after a winter gale. No solitary ship sailing a land-locked sea With her own shadow, and no lonely cloud In water moored, abandoned by the wind, To substance and to spirit cloven, seemed So deeply one as that strange pair I dreamed, Among the mountains woven in my mind. . . . Morning and evening her song filled the hills, The shepherds in the lowlands heard her cry — 133 Sitting like stones amid their scattered sheep — And stood and gazed into the distant air. The mountains sunk under grey woods of sleep, In spring would wake, and shake a million leaves, Flashing gold signals to the speechless sky, Stirring uneasily in their mould-deep beds Until the fickle fires crept away And Autumn found them cloudier than before, Breathed on the shining lake a phantom shore. . . * And years went by, and never dimmed their love; Her plumage shone as bright as winter snow, And her bright image when the high stars gleamed Still followed that frail shape that moved below, Which could not cry, nor utter words of love, But silent at her feet did ever move. There came no herald crying "Dream no more!" But the Night flew with large and glittering eyes, Brushing its purple wings through the dark pines, And when the day gleamed on the mirrored hills, No shadow flitted through the water's ghosts; i34 For it had passed to some close-shuttered realm, Some country fainter and more dim than theirs. But on the lake a thing of fading snow Glimmered away from that sky-covered world Of air-drawn rock and hill and breathing wood, Trembling, it stretched its snowy wings to rise, Flashing bright shapes upon the calm, blue air, Then drooped, and dimly sailed down those bright skies, Sailed slowly on, in the cold voiceless hills, Singing aloud until the lake did cry With quivering mouth up at the empty sky, And darkness soft as dew came dropping down. . . . Into deep silence climbed the Hunter's Moon. 135 The Pompadour in Art* Wouldst thou go back to that white nakedness Among the dark trees glinting in the sun, Their feet white marble where the cool brooks run, Their frail, light fingers flushed with happiness? A white dream in the hot day's breathlessness Wouldst thou enfold in thy hot, lustful arms? Or wouldst thou have no traffic with these charms, Dost then indeed love primitive ugliness? "To Nature" is thy cry, "abandon all Voluptuous ornament and toilet tricks!" Back to the healthy days before the Fall, When mother Eve her food-foul fingers licks, And recks not of her heavy shapelessness, Her dirty nails, her dark skin's hairiness? Because thou knowest well that Grecian dream Of white Fauns in a wood, and slender girls, Frail, laughing lilies shaking their bright curls Among the trees, is an unnatural dream; * Vide an article in "The Times Literary Supplement" of gth August, 1917. 136 The soft white skin which has so bright a gleam, Those slender limbs and delicate manicured hands, Have they not been desired in ancient lands — A part of that strange lure, that mystical beam Of beauty, which on many a drab old tower At sunset casts a fairy artifice, Lending rough bricks a sudden magic power So that dead clay becomes beauty's device, For coquetry in clothes and hair and hands Is the quick spirit loosening matter's bands! As for myself, proudly I confess I love not matter lumped and unadorned, Five feet of flesh is but a cow unhorned If the quick spirit show not in the dress; Blushes are roses in a wilderness, And pencilled eyebrows are the soul's delight; The Moon is not more, lovely in the night Than are white shoulders in a shadowy dress : And in silk stockings frailly gleam white limbs 137 Like candles drawing painted butterflies; And dressed hair gives the soul an earthless flower That shines into our eager, seeking eyes — For now she speaks and moves beyond all dreams A Focus where some wild world radiance streams. The flesh has no expression in the mind Unless it be shot through with subtle thought. An honest wife is all too easily bought, A ten-stone animal that's deaf and blind, Who dresses plainly, plainly cooks, is kind — And knows her husband's income to a nought; Wears calico, flat shoes, is heard to snort At vice, but knows not virtue or mankind; A cow, a bitch, a sense-dulled lump of clay Were virtuous as she, for art as ripe; And in her sense's flesh-dimmed, feeble ray Her husband is a thing who smokes a pipe — Such is the wife, das Weib, die deutsche Frau, Formed to stir clay, but only with the plough. 138 But Beauty is more delicate than the wind, Trackless and as intangible as light; It cannot be pinned down for common sight; Like violets in a wood it haunts us blind, Though scentless trees are mirrored in our mind. A girl's dress is a lovely wood, a night Of flowing clouds and shattered, shaken light; An arabesque of dust to dust resigned, With cloud and wood and star, and her bright love; And in these rags, and in the dust of worlds Beauty departed lies as lies the dove In a few feathers bleaching in the sun — As the form crumbles so the spirit wanes, And we'll not find it more for all our pains. 139 A Madonna in Westminster A GIRL before him knelt in silent prayer, A stylish hat poised on her red-brown hair Caught up behind in quite the latest mode By a coquettish comb, so that it showed The warm smooth neck in shadow softly lit By light reflected from the collar round it — Pure dazzling linen, turned Medici-wise Rigid and high to please fantastic eyes. There, as she knelt in arching dark cloth shoes And silken stockings, the dim hanging air Curtained her round, incense proceeded from her As if she were a holy shrine: he trembled; All the vast arches glimmered shadow- wise; Vague, insubstantial shone the gleaming stone; Life streamed in from the encircling universe And gathered in great waves that softly swept Through the dim aisles, up and down the nave, Thundering softly like a myriad horse A myriad horse that scour a mystic plain 140 In muffled dreams at dawn. His soul bent down And kissed her feet; then he saw her rise, Sit for a moment, deftly try her hair, Take out a glass — content that she was fair Escaping from each movement, each svelt line Of arm and fingers. Ay, the world sat there, The ancient world, the modern, very wise, Sat in that mighty church, and subtly drew Its subtle fingers o'er the chords of life, Drew melody from all the carven stones That played like harps about her, From the great heavy arches languor drew, And glitter from the jewels of her that stood Within the blue and gold mosaicked niche Above the altar, drew from those great domes A murmur as of droves of doves descending, Whirl upon whirl, a cloud of fluttering feet Filling invisibly the empty chairs. ***** 141 His soul rose up, and very swiftly swept Through the dim nave, up and down the aisles Like a great eagle filled with harmony Of earth and sky and lifting in its rhythm The little streams, the hum of rustling trees, The tinkling waterfalls, the march of clouds The soundless ripples wrinkling flat-faced lakes Expressionlessly set in shadowy rims, The blue and hollow laughter of the sky, The swift green flash of the rotating earth And the mad tumbling waters of the sea, Crystalline green and shattered, splintered white, All, all caught up in one throb of life. And he beheld her soft, firm moulded arm Closely ensheathed adjust a truant curl From the warm profile, then their eyes did meet, And her blood quickened so that once again She took her mirror and with conscious poise Of head and shoulders told him that she knew How fair she was, and how his blood was stirred Just at the sight of her disdainful fingers. 142 Then she arose, passed to the centre aisle, And genuflected; he watched her walk away, Proud and self-conscious of her exceeding beauty. He followed her to the porch and saw her step Into a waiting car; her dark eyes glowed To feel his admiration, though she showed No sign she saw him, save to loose her fur Back from her slender, warm and delicate throat. She drove away, and all was faded then, The swift car dwindled and at once was gone; The street was empty, little heaps of rubbish Sat vanishing by the side of the empty gutters — Dry, incoherent, dwindling back to space In unobservant silence. Was it a Dream That some few streets away the roaring traffic Of living millions streamed incessantly? No, he could hear its hum, remote and dim, Just like flies buzzing in that empty street, Buzzing against the doors and the closed windows. Not one door opened, no one ever came 143 Out of those buildings, those high blocks of flats Of yellow bricks and dark bricks and cement. He was alone, watching the dry dust dwindle, Watching the crumbling shell of life departed, Life that had gone and left the hollow sunshine, The dust-heaps and the row of blistered doors. Still he stood there and all was quiet about him. Remote, O how remote, the long street seemed! His heart stirred in him, and a scrap of paper Whirled in a corner, turning helplessly: He felt as if thrust in some fourth dimension, As if he'd accidentally uplifted A back-cloth corner of the world's set stage, And looking behind the scenes had found no bustle, No throng and tumult, no directing hand, Only a little scrap of whirling paper, And he himself, intense, and breathing hard, Fixed, listening to his own heart's palpitation. 144 It was a moment only, one brief moment, And then there glided, rumbling heavily, A Dream from the other world, a Pickford van, A coalescence of strange creaks and noises That drew across his mind; the Driver sat, A limp bent figure with an open mouth, A two-days' beard, and grime-ringed vacant eyes, Suspended o'er a ragged, ambling horse, Rocked to the music of the jingling harness; While the wheels turning with a different motion And the straps flapping, and the swaying Driver All gave the semblance of a Dream, that faded — Round the next corner — all was still again. 145 A Last Love Poem MANY poems have I written unto thee, good and bad, And many more have I not uttered, For the words came not. Ay, those feeble little words That leap so easily from the lips of the speaker And fall dead upon the ground, they came not: For they were fearful of the burden of my thought, And my passion shrivelled them up as leaves in a hot fire. My thoughts were like lightning playing upon the hills, They hovered about thy beauty as lightning upon the sea; Pale, cold is thy beauty, aloof from the warm arms of the earth, Sparkling like a robe of jewels laid for the ghostly moon; No one shall joy of thee, only the black headlands be- hold thee, Staring like blind men in the night, haunted by the lapping waves 146 For thy movements are like waves and all waters, Mocking and stirring the senses even to where the soul dwelleth, Withdrawn to forgotten recesses, forgotten of thee and the waters, Careless of all thy cold beauty, hearing the wind's soft voices, And the warmth of the old earth breathing. If in the cold dead darkness thine eyes should open and seek me, If in the dead white moonlight thou shouldst stir and awaken, If in all thy pale beauty thou shouldst stretch warm arms forth to meet me, I would turn once again and love thee, forgetting the wind's soft voices I would rise'from the warm earth's bosom, shake the dust from my feet and take thee, Envelop thee as in a garment and bury my face in thy hair, 147 And kiss the blood to thy cheeks, and to thine eyes and ears, Till it danced through thy body like music: I would grip thy pale little hands, hurting them ever so slowly Until thy lips parted beseeching, then would I kiss them silent. O thou soul of the world, words have I not for music, But a wild and flaming spirit that hunts like an out- lawed robber Building pillars of smoke in the lonely deserts of night, Seeking a vision of beauty, a haunting far-off vision That came; to him once as he rode with the kisses of dawn on his forehead. And sudden and swift without warning the sea stretched shining before him, Not dead but awake and living, caressing the sleeping earth With a thousand tender touches — the earth all uncon- scious and sleeping: Pale was the sea as thou art, a web of shadowed opal, 148 Soft and mysterious, quivering, with countless meshes of light, But alive with a soft exulting, a warm and passionate greeting As I stepped down and possessed thee, Aphrodite! my long, long loved one! And felt thy soft, timid embraces as in my wild pas- sion I kissed thee, And kissed thee until thou wert silent and breathed in my arms like a child. And the world stopped still, and the Morning, In her golden chariot waiting, stood at the Eastern Portal. 149 Le Sacre du Printemps Spring trembles on the hills and though the earth Is grey and dark with silence and dim rains, Long bands of red and yellow ochre lie Like corybants enswathed in vivid sashes Under the soil that's fragrant with their presence. The Winter window-stoled grey and white, Leans across hill and valley pensively Weeping to leave those quiet sober plains Where gentle melancholy drapes her robes In cloud and dripping wood. She is not mute, But all her soul is gentle; reverie In tracts of cool, rain-washed, reflected light Is more delectable to her than songs Of any passion. When, dismayed, she hears That note of longing bubbling to the sky Shiv'ring she turns, retires with decent train And leaves the earth all breathless, panting hard. Quickened with such mad trembling ecstasy Those corybants arise, yellow and red, 150 And shake their vivid sashes o'er the land; The world holds breath a moment; then they dance, Dance madly, whirling millions springing up Tossing slim heads, their naked beauty bare Intoxicating the blue laughing sky To foam imagination — Cumuli, Cloud-white creations frothed in empty space, So insubstantial, of such dream-like weight That if they moved they'd vanish. Then Desire That sucks a wraith-like beauty visible From nothingness, and out of ordure vile Summons bright Forms to press against the wind Their all-too-fleeting Symmetry, Wakes in the heart of men and scatters seeds Of poignant loveliness so sweet, so rare That springing up in some far-distant time The world will dance in sharper ecstasy, Flowers will be taller, cities hang like blooms Upon the breast of earth, and men and women Like Gods in dazzling beauty, arm in arm, 151 White flesh to white flesh, bathe in sapphire seas And rapturously hunt the spirit's jewel, Green gleam of mariners that beckons far More beautiful than purple-furrowed oceans Or emerald isles — but hidden in their eyes So that they never find its dwelling-place Or cry Eureka! resting on their oars. 52 Fantasy Silence! A great crowd sits and waits, Tier upon tier in circles strangely mute; The air hangs limp and almost visible, Pregnant with power unuttered : A Stick is waving silently . . . Three trembling jewels fell shining midst our thoughts Leaving a glitter from another world: Then three more fell, and then the throbbing air Awoke and sang, and stretched its rope-like throat And beat and beat against that domed roof: Dark wings shot out and struck to bear it up, The place was full of multitudinous striving; I was tossed hither, thither in uneasy effort As in a cloud of dreams; but suddenly Our prison burst, and to the lidless sky We raced and raced until the soft soft blue 153 Tore at our shoulders, ripped our aching flesh, Laid bare our soul to burn, catch fire and blaze, Exultingly suck in the azure air And fill the spacy nothingness of heaven With the distract, disruptive power of passion; Till little wisps of clouds did madly pluck Themselves in fragments, jangling stars did dance, And a whole firmament of glass and metal Cracked up and shivered, jarring wayside stones And vitreous spangles hid in loam and clay; Till gently glittering, trembling up and down, We shook together, filled a mobile lake With soft and shimmering waters — Flash! We smoothly lie Unruffled to the calm and breathless sky Where nothing sails: No Cloud, no Ship, no Bird Only a thought comes winging — keen and gay, A thought that will not stay To be remembered or even known 154 When it hath passed its way. It sings itself so joyously in space Bubbling like spirit water, frail and thin, Which eager hands may seek in vain to trace, Close, holding nothing in. Nothing, just nothing — O something escapes, Something has vanished, shut wings up like a lark, And fallen in the dust, And left a gap Where strings are faintly stirred. Where strings are stirring faint and rhythmically Like the slow beat of oars that wider sweep And wider still, and though no ship there be Yet we set sail — the currents eddy round And close above our heads. Drowned! Drowned! Engulfed in consciousness so vast and free We move like swaying forms within the sea, Or we are like the sea that flows through all Anemones, transparent flowers, tall *S5 And waving daughters, crowding thick tip-toe Upon a rock to see the Nautilus go Into the dim translucent worlds that wane With shadows, to light up again With a pale glow that travels — O so far! We follow, follow, follow, hunt the gleam That radiates the world, that bathes our arms, Slips round our bodies, glints within our eyes, And then withdraws — Fades! Fades! Fades! And without movement dies. I can still hear the beating of the oars, I can still hear the stirring of the strings, I can see the rhythmic swaying tide, And the pale anemones, And the Nautilus, And the Green Gleam, Who wanders there where your tall daughters stare And lifts their eyelids, spreads their streaming hair To ripple with the unwrinkled waving light 156 That runs like green blood through all plants and flowers, Or glows opaquely in some fish's side Like a dense jewel floating by? — I ask but no one answers; all is still; For they are no man's daughters, no one knows How they wait ever, standing tip-toe there While all the world through their frail bodies flows, Ebbs from their finger-tips — Swells — and Sways, Hanging upon their lips, and rocks them all In rooted motion — Sea-urchins, sea-farers, in among the sea-sunflowers, In among the ox-rays, the trepang and the colander: The polyps spread their fringe of arms, the drunken alga? reel around Far from the dipping guillemot — O they fade and fade And there is but a web of woven streams Where images are blurred; dim rain-drops fall, Dim, shuddering drops of white and violet light. I hear the thunder call; 157 It swells, it comes, And trampling feet come with it — O beware! These halls of quietness are not long to hold Their weeping daughters, pale, inviolate; The Wind's tumultuous feet are at the gate, They come, they come, to break your tender stems, To wound your swaying mouths and trample down Your bleeding bodies, tear your coral veins And stain the purple bottom of the sea With shrieking patterns. What ecstatic pains Uplift you now and bring that vanished gleam Flickering like June lightning? Louder grow Those multitudinous feet! O blindly gape, Strain forth your bodies' ichor, lean to them Who come to pluck you with invisible hands; So shall you flower, and the last flying gleam Shall kiss your scattered blossoms. The whole sea moves, its waters tumbling down In green and purple columns drown my sight; I catch a glimpse of wan and fleeting forms 158 Tossing a handful of dishevelled jewels, Of glittering bubbles — then thick masses dim, In semicircles ranged, opaque and dark, Emerge, and with a muffled tap of drum Move arms, show teeth, nod heads and look like men. 159 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY Los Angeles This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. NOV 15 8 ID URL N C ' fiEC'D LD-URi; FEB 9 1$83 Form L9-257n-8,'46(9852)444 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY AA 000 381 647 PR 6039 3 1 58 00800 0688