1905-1908

Second Best

Here in the dark, O heart;

Alone with the enduring Earth, and Night,

And Silence, and the warm strange smell of clover;

Clear-visioned, though it break you; far apart

From the dead best, the dear and old delight;

Throw down your dreams of immortality,

O faithful, O foolish lover!

Here's peace for you, and surety; here the one

Wisdom -- - the truth! -- - "All day the good glad sun

Showers love and labour on you, wine and song;

The greenwood laughs, the wind blows, all day long

Till night." And night ends all things.

                            Then shall be

No lamp relumed in heaven, no voices crying,

Or changing lights, or dreams and forms that hover!

(And, heart, for all your sighing,

That gladness and those tears are over, over. . . .)

And has the truth brought no new hope at all,

Heart, that you're weeping yet for Paradise?

Do they still whisper, the old weary cries?

"'Mid youth and song, feasting and carnival,

Through laughter, through the roses, as of old

Comes Death, on shadowy and relentless feet,

Death, unappeasable by prayer or gold;

Death is the end, the end!"

Proud, then, clear-eyed and laughing, go to greet

Death as a friend!

Exile of immortality, strongly wise,

Strain through the dark with undesirous eyes

To what may lie beyond it. Sets your star,

O heart, for ever! Yet, behind the night,

Waits for the great unborn, somewhere afar,

Some white tremendous daybreak. And the light,

Returning, shall give back the golden hours,

Ocean a windless level, Earth a lawn

Spacious and full of sunlit dancing-places,

And laughter, and music, and, among the flowers,

The gay child-hearts of men, and the child-faces

O heart, in the great dawn!

Day That I Have Loved

Tenderly, day that I have loved, I close your eyes,

      And smooth your quiet brow, and fold your thin dead hands.

The grey veils of the half-light deepen; colour dies.

      I bear you, a light burden, to the shrouded sands,

Where lies your waiting boat, by wreaths of the sea's making

      Mist-garlanded, with all grey weeds of the water crowned.

There you'll be laid, past fear of sleep or hope of waking;

      And over the unmoving sea, without a sound,

Faint hands will row you outward, out beyond our sight,

      Us with stretched arms and empty eyes on the far-gleaming

And marble sand. . . .

                 Beyond the shifting cold twilight,

      Further than laughter goes, or tears, further than dreaming,

There'll be no port, no dawn-lit islands! But the drear

      Waste darkening, and, at length, flame ultimate on the deep.

Oh, the last fire -- - and you, unkissed, unfriended there!

      Oh, the lone way's red ending, and we not there to weep!

(We found you pale and quiet, and strangely crowned with flowers,

      Lovely and secret as a child. You came with us,

Came happily, hand in hand with the young dancing hours,

      High on the downs at dawn!) Void now and tenebrous,

The grey sands curve before me. . . .

                 From the inland meadows,

      Fragrant of June and clover, floats the dark, and fills

The hollow sea's dead face with little creeping shadows,

      And the white silence brims the hollow of the hills.

Close in the nest is folded every weary wing,

      Hushed all the joyful voices; and we, who held you dear,

Eastward we turn and homeward, alone, remembering . . .

      Day that I loved, day that I loved, the Night is here!

Sleeping Out: Full Moon

They sleep within. . . .

I cower to the earth, I waking, I only.

High and cold thou dreamest, O queen, high-dreaming and lonely.

We have slept too long, who can hardly win

The white one flame, and the night-long crying;

The viewless passers; the world's low sighing

With desire, with yearning,

To the fire unburning,

To the heatless fire, to the flameless ecstasy! . . .

Helpless I lie.

And around me the feet of thy watchers tread.

There is a rumour and a radiance of wings above my head,

An intolerable radiance of wings. . . .

All the earth grows fire,

White lips of desire

Brushing cool on the forehead, croon slumbrous things.

Earth fades; and the air is thrilled with ways,

Dewy paths full of comfort. And radiant bands,

The gracious presence of friendly hands,

Help the blind one, the glad one, who stumbles and strays,

Stretching wavering hands, up, up, through the praise

Of a myriad silver trumpets, through cries,

To all glory, to all gladness, to the infinite height,

To the gracious, the unmoving, the mother eyes,

And the laughter, and the lips, of light.

In Examination

Lo! from quiet skies

In through the window my Lord the Sun!

And my eyes

Were dazzled and drunk with the misty gold,

The golden glory that drowned and crowned me

Eddied and swayed through the room . . .

                            Around me,

To left and to right,

Hunched figures and old,

Dull blear-eyed scribbling fools, grew fair,

Ringed round and haloed with holy light.

Flame lit on their hair,

And their burning eyes grew young and wise,

Each as a God, or King of kings,

White-robed and bright

(Still scribbling all);

And a full tumultuous murmur of wings

Grew through the hall;

And I knew the white undying Fire,

And, through open portals,

Gyre on gyre,

Archangels and angels, adoring, bowing,

And a Face unshaded . . .

Till the light faded;

And they were but fools again, fools unknowing,

Still scribbling, blear-eyed and stolid immortals.

Pine-Trees and the Sky: Evening

I'd watched the sorrow of the evening sky,

And smelt the sea, and earth, and the warm clover,

And heard the waves, and the seagull's mocking cry.

And in them all was only the old cry,

That song they always sing -- - "The best is over!

You may remember now, and think, and sigh,

O silly lover!"

And I was tired and sick that all was over,

And because I,

For all my thinking, never could recover

One moment of the good hours that were over.

And I was sorry and sick, and wished to die.

Then from the sad west turning wearily,

I saw the pines against the white north sky,

Very beautiful, and still, and bending over

Their sharp black heads against a quiet sky.

And there was peace in them; and I

Was happy, and forgot to play the lover,

And laughed, and did no longer wish to die;

Being glad of you, O pine-trees and the sky!

Wagner

Creeps in half wanton, half asleep,

      One with a fat wide hairless face.

He likes love-music that is cheap;

      Likes women in a crowded place;

And wants to hear the noise they're making.

His heavy eyelids droop half-over,

      Great pouches swing beneath his eyes.

He listens, thinks himself the lover,

      Heaves from his stomach wheezy sighs;

He likes to feel his heart's a-breaking.

The music swells. His gross legs quiver.

      His little lips are bright with slime.

The music swells. The women shiver.

      And all the while, in perfect time,

His pendulous stomach hangs a-shaking.

The Vision of the Archangels

Slowly up silent peaks, the white edge of the world,

      Trod four archangels, clear against the unheeding sky,

Bearing, with quiet even steps, and great wings furled,

      A little dingy coffin; where a child must lie,

It was so tiny. (Yet, you had fancied, God could never

      Have bidden a child turn from the spring and the sunlight,

And shut him in that lonely shell, to drop for ever

      Into the emptiness and silence, into the night. . . .)

They then from the sheer summit cast, and watched it fall,

      Through unknown glooms, that frail black coffin -- - and therein

      God's little pitiful Body lying, worn and thin,

And curled up like some crumpled, lonely flower-petal -- -

Till it was no more visible; then turned again

With sorrowful quiet faces downward to the plain.

Seaside

Swiftly out from the friendly lilt of the band,

      The crowd's good laughter, the loved eyes of men,

      I am drawn nightward; I must turn again

Where, down beyond the low untrodden strand,

There curves and glimmers outward to the unknown

      The old unquiet ocean. All the shade

Is rife with magic and movement. I stray alone

      Here on the edge of silence, half afraid,

Waiting a sign. In the deep heart of me

The sullen waters swell towards the moon,

And all my tides set seaward.

                            From inland

Leaps a gay fragment of some mocking tune,

That tinkles and laughs and fades along the sand,

And dies between the seawall and the sea.

On the Death of Smet-Smet, the Hippopotamus-Goddess

She was wrinkled and huge and hideous? She was our Mother.

She was lustful and lewd? -- - but a God; we had none other.

In the day She was hidden and dumb, but at nightfall moaned in the shade;

We shuddered and gave Her Her will in the darkness; we were afraid.

              She sent us pain,

                   And we bowed before Her;

              She smiled again

                   And bade us adore Her.

              She solaced our woe

                   And soothed our sighing;

              And what shall we do

                   Now God is dying?

She was hungry and ate our children; -- - how should we stay Her?

She took our young men and our maidens; -- - ours to obey Her.

We were loathed and mocked and reviled of all nations; that was our pride.

She fed us, protected us, loved us, and killed us; now She has died.

              She was so strong;

                   But death is stronger.

              She ruled us long;

                   But Time is longer.

              She solaced our woe

                   And soothed our sighing;

              And what shall we do

                   Now God is dying?