Flight

Voices out of the shade that cried,

      And long noon in the hot calm places,

And children's play by the wayside,

      And country eyes, and quiet faces -- -

      All these were round my steady paces.

Those that I could have loved went by me;

      Cool gardened homes slept in the sun;

I heard the whisper of water nigh me,

      Saw hands that beckoned, shone, were gone

      In the green and gold. And I went on.

For if my echoing footfall slept,

      Soon a far whispering there'd be

Of a little lonely wind that crept

      From tree to tree, and distantly

      Followed me, followed me. . . .

But the blue vaporous end of day

      Brought peace, and pursuit baffled quite,

Where between pine-woods dipped the way.

      I turned, slipped in and out of sight.

      I trod as quiet as the night.

The pine-boles kept perpetual hush;

      And in the boughs wind never swirled.

I found a flowering lowly bush,

      And bowed, slid in, and sighed and curled,

      Hidden at rest from all the world.

Safe! I was safe, and glad, I knew!

      Yet -- - with cold heart and cold wet brows

I lay. And the dark fell. . . . There grew

      Meward a sound of shaken boughs;

      And ceased, above my intricate house;

And silence, silence, silence found me. . . .

      I felt the unfaltering movement creep

Among the leaves. They shed around me

      Calm clouds of scent, that I did weep;

      And stroked my face. I fell asleep.

The Hill

Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill,

      Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.

      You said, "Through glory and ecstasy we pass;

Wind, sun, and earth remain, the birds sing still,

When we are old, are old. . . ." "And when we die

      All's over that is ours; and life burns on

Through other lovers, other lips," said I,

-- "Heart of my heart, our heaven is now, is won!"

"We are Earth's best, that learnt her lesson here.

      Life is our cry. We have kept the faith!" we said;

      "We shall go down with unreluctant tread

Rose-crowned into the darkness!" . . . Proud we were,

And laughed, that had such brave true things to say.

-- And then you suddenly cried, and turned away.

The One Before the Last

I dreamt I was in love again

      With the One Before the Last,

And smiled to greet the pleasant pain

      Of that innocent young past.

But I jumped to feel how sharp had been

      The pain when it did live,

How the faded dreams of Nineteen-ten

      Were Hell in Nineteen-five.

The boy's woe was as keen and clear,

      The boy's love just as true,

And the One Before the Last, my dear,

      Hurt quite as much as you.

                * * * * *

Sickly I pondered how the lover

      Wrongs the unanswering tomb,

And sentimentalizes over

      What earned a better doom.

Gently he tombs the poor dim last time,

      Strews pinkish dust above,

And sighs, "The dear dead boyish pastime!

      But this -- - ah, God! -- - is Love!"

-- Better oblivion hide dead true loves,

      Better the night enfold,

Than men, to eke the praise of new loves,

      Should lie about the old!

                * * * * *

Oh! bitter thoughts I had in plenty.

      But here's the worst of it -- -

I shall forget, in Nineteen-twenty,

      You ever hurt abit!

The Jolly Company

The stars, a jolly company,

      I envied, straying late and lonely;

And cried upon their revelry:

      "O white companionship! You only

In love, in faith unbroken dwell,

Friends radiant and inseparable!"

Light-heart and glad they seemed to me

      And merry comrades (even so

God out of heaven may laugh to see

      The happy crowds; and never know

That in his lone obscure distress

Each walketh in a wilderness).

But I, remembering, pitied well

      And loved them, who, with lonely light,

In empty infinite spaces dwell,

      Disconsolate. For, all the night,

I heard the thin gnat-voices cry,

Star to faint star, across the sky.

The Life Beyond

He wakes, who never thought to wake again,

      Who held the end was Death. He opens eyes

Slowly, to one long livid oozing plain

      Closed down by the strange eyeless heavens. He lies;

      And waits; and once in timeless sick surmise

Through the dead air heaves up an unknown hand,

Like a dry branch. No life is in that land,

      Himself not lives, but is a thing that cries;

An unmeaning point upon the mud; a speck

      Of moveless horror; an Immortal One

Cleansed of the world, sentient and dead; a fly

      Fast-stuck in grey sweat on a corpse's neck.

I thought when love for you died, I should die.

It's dead. Alone, most strangely, I live on.

Lines Written in the Belief That the Ancient Roman Festival of the Dead Was Called Ambarvalia

Swings the way still by hollow and hill,

      And all the world's a song;

"She's far," it sings me, "but fair," it rings me,

      "Quiet," it laughs, "and strong!"

Oh! spite of the miles and years between us,

      Spite of your chosen part,

I do remember; and I go

      With laughter in my heart.

So above the little folk that know not,

      Out of the white hill-town,

High up I clamber; and I remember;

      And watch the day go down.

Gold is my heart, and the world's golden,

      And one peak tipped with light;

And the air lies still about the hill

      With the first fear of night;

Till mystery down the soundless valley

      Thunders, and dark is here;

And the wind blows, and the light goes,

      And the night is full of fear,

And I know, one night, on some far height,

      In the tongue I never knew,

I yet shall hear the tidings clear

      From them that were friends of you.

They'll call the news from hill to hill,

      Dark and uncomforted,

Earth and sky and the winds; and I

      Shall know that you are dead.

I shall not hear your trentals,

      Nor eat your arval bread;

For the kin of you will surely do

      Their duty by the dead.

Their little dull greasy eyes will water;

      They'll paw you, and gulp afresh.

They'll sniffle and weep, and their thoughts will creep

      Like flies on the cold flesh.

They will put pence on your grey eyes,

      Bind up your fallen chin,

And lay you straight, the fools that loved you

      Because they were your kin.

They will praise all the bad about you,

      And hush the good away,

And wonder how they'll do without you,

      And then they'll go away.

But quieter than one sleeping,

      And stranger than of old,

You will not stir for weeping,

      You will not mind the cold;

But through the night the lips will laugh not,

      The hands will be in place,

And at length the hair be lying still

      About the quiet face.

With snuffle and sniff and handkerchief,

      And dim and decorous mirth,

With ham and sherry, they'll meet to bury

      The lordliest lass of earth.

The little dead hearts will tramp ungrieving

      Behind lone-riding you,

The heart so high, the heart so living,

      Heart that they never knew.

I shall not hear your trentals,

      Nor eat your arval bread,

Nor with smug breath tell lies of death

      To the unanswering dead.

With snuffle and sniff and handkerchief,

      The folk who loved you not

Will bury you, and go wondering

      Back home. And you will rot.

But laughing and half-way up to heaven,

      With wind and hill and star,

I yet shall keep, before I sleep,

      Your Ambarvalia.

Dead Men's Love

There was a damned successful Poet;

      There was a Woman like the Sun.

And they were dead. They did not know it.

      They did not know their time was done.

           They did not know his hymns

           Were silence; and her limbs,

           That had served Love so well,

           Dust, and a filthy smell.

And so one day, as ever of old,

      Hands out, they hurried, knee to knee;

On fire to cling and kiss and hold

      And, in the other's eyes, to see

           Each his own tiny face,

           And in that long embrace

           Feel lip and breast grow warm

           To breast and lip and arm.

So knee to knee they sped again,

      And laugh to laugh they ran, I'm told,

Across the streets of Hell . . .

                                          And then

      They suddenly felt the wind blow cold,

           And knew, so closely pressed,

           Chill air on lip and breast,

           And, with a sick surprise,

           The emptiness of eyes.

Town and Country

Here, where love's stuff is body, arm and side

      Are stabbing-sweet 'gainst chair and lamp and wall.

In every touch more intimate meanings hide;

      And flaming brains are the white heart of all.

Here, million pulses to one centre beat:

      Closed in by men's vast friendliness, alone,

Two can be drunk with solitude, and meet

      On the sheer point where sense with knowing's one.

Here the green-purple clanging royal night,

      And the straight lines and silent walls of town,

And roar, and glare, and dust, and myriad white

      Undying passers, pinnacle and crown

Intensest heavens between close-lying faces

      By the lamp's airless fierce ecstatic fire;

And we've found love in little hidden places,

      Under great shades, between the mist and mire.

Stay! though the woods are quiet, and you've heard

      Night creep along the hedges. Never go

Where tangled foliage shrouds the crying bird,

      And the remote winds sigh, and waters flow!

Lest -- - as our words fall dumb on windless noons,

      Or hearts grow hushed and solitary, beneath

Unheeding stars and unfamiliar moons,

      Or boughs bend over, close and quiet as death, -- -

Unconscious and unpassionate and still,

      Cloud-like we lean and stare as bright leaves stare,

And gradually along the stranger hill

      Our unwalled loves thin out on vacuous air,

And suddenly there's no meaning in our kiss,

      And your lit upward face grows, where we lie,

Lonelier and dreadfuller than sunlight is,

      And dumb and mad and eyeless like the sky.

Paralysis

For moveless limbs no pity I crave,

      That never were swift! Still all I prize,

Laughter and thought and friends, I have;

      No fool to heave luxurious sighs

For the woods and hills that I never knew.

The more excellent way's yet mine! And you

Flower-laden come to the clean white cell,

      And we talk as ever -- - am I not the same?

With our hearts we love, immutable,

      You without pity, I without shame.

We talk as of old; as of old you go

Out under the sky, and laughing, I know,

Flit through the streets, your heart all me;

      Till you gain the world beyond the town.

Then -- - I fade from your heart, quietly;

      And your fleet steps quicken. The strong down

Smiles you welcome there; the woods that love you

Close lovely and conquering arms above you.

O ever-moving, O lithe and free!

      Fast in my linen prison I press

On impassable bars, or emptily

      Laugh in my great loneliness.

And still in the white neat bed I strive

Most impotently against that gyve;

Being less now than a thought, even,

To you alone with your hills and heaven.

Menelaus and Helen

Hot through Troy's ruin Menelaus broke

      To Priam's palace, sword in hand, to sate

      On that adulterous whore a ten years' hate

And a king's honour. Through red death, and smoke,

And cries, and then by quieter ways he strode,

      Till the still innermost chamber fronted him.

      He swung his sword, and crashed into the dim

Luxurious bower, flaming like a god.

High sat white Helen, lonely and serene.

      He had not remembered that she was so fair,

And that her neck curved down in such a way;

And he felt tired. He flung the sword away,

      And kissed her feet, and knelt before her there,

The perfect Knight before the perfect Queen.

So far the poet. How should he behold

      That journey home, the long connubial years?

      He does not tell you how white Helen bears

Child on legitimate child, becomes a scold,

Haggard with virtue. Menelaus bold

      Waxed garrulous, and sacked a hundred Troys

      'Twixt noon and supper. And her golden voice

Got shrill as he grew deafer. And both were old.

Often he wonders why on earth he went

      Troyward, or why poor Paris ever came.

Oft she weeps, gummy-eyed and impotent;

      Her dry shanks twitch at Paris' mumbled name.

So Menelaus nagged; and Helen cried;

And Paris slept on by Scamander side.

Libido

How should I know? The enormous wheels of will

      Drove me cold-eyed on tired and sleepless feet.

Night was void arms and you a phantom still,

      And day your far light swaying down the street.

As never fool for love, I starved for you;

      My throat was dry and my eyes hot to see.

Your mouth so lying was most heaven in view,

      And your remembered smell most agony.

Love wakens love! I felt your hot wrist shiver

      And suddenly the mad victory I planned

Flashed real, in your burning bending head. . . .

My conqueror's blood was cool as a deep river

      In shadow; and my heart beneath your hand

Quieter than a dead man on a bed.

Jealousy

When I see you, who were so wise and cool,

Gazing with silly sickness on that fool

You've given your love to, your adoring hands

Touch his so intimately that each understands,

I know, most hidden things; and when I know

Your holiest dreams yield to the stupid bow

Of his red lips, and that the empty grace

Of those strong legs and arms, that rosy face,

Has beaten your heart to such a flame of love,

That you have given him every touch and move,

Wrinkle and secret of you, all your life,

-- Oh! then I know I'm waiting, lover-wife,

For the great time when love is at a close,

And all its fruit's to watch the thickening nose

And sweaty neck and dulling face and eye,

That are yours, and you, most surely, till you die!

Day after day you'll sit with him and note

The greasier tie, the dingy wrinkling coat;

As prettiness turns to pomp, and strength to fat,

And love, love, love to habit!

                            And after that,

When all that's fine in man is at an end,

And you, that loved young life and clean, must tend

A foul sick fumbling dribbling body and old,

When his rare lips hang flabby and can't hold

Slobber, and you're enduring that worst thing,

Senility's queasy furtive love-making,

And searching those dear eyes for human meaning,

Propping the bald and helpless head, and cleaning

A scrap that life's flung by, and love's forgotten, -- -

Then you'll be tired; and passion dead and rotten;

And he'll be dirty, dirty!

                            O lithe and free

And lightfoot, that the poor heart cries to see,

That's how I'll see your man and you! -- -

                                          But you

-- Oh, when that time comes, you'll be dirty too!