Blue Evening

My restless blood now lies a-quiver,

      Knowing that always, exquisitely,

This April twilight on the river

      Stirs anguish in the heart of me.

For the fast world in that rare glimmer

      Puts on the witchery of a dream,

The straight grey buildings, richly dimmer,

      The fiery windows, and the stream

With willows leaning quietly over,

      The still ecstatic fading skies . . .

And all these, like a waiting lover,

      Murmur and gleam, lift lustrous eyes,

Drift close to me, and sideways bending

      Whisper delicious words.

                            But I

Stretch terrible hands, uncomprehending,

      Shaken with love; and laugh; and cry.

My agony made the willows quiver;

      I heard the knocking of my heart

Die loudly down the windless river,

      I heard the pale skies fall apart,

And the shrill stars' unmeaning laughter,

      And my voice with the vocal trees

Weeping. And Hatred followed after,

      Shrilling madly down the breeze.

In peace from the wild heart of clamour,

      A flower in moonlight, she was there,

Was rippling down white ways of glamour

      Quietly laid on wave and air.

Her passing left no leaf a-quiver.

      Pale flowers wreathed her white, white brows.

Her feet were silence on the river;

      And "Hush!" she said, between the boughs.

The Charm

In darkness the loud sea makes moan;

And earth is shaken, and all evils creep

About her ways.

                       Oh, now to know you sleep!

Out of the whirling blinding moil, alone,

Out of the slow grim fight,

One thought to wing -- - to you, asleep,

In some cool room that's open to the night

Lying half-forward, breathing quietly,

One white hand on the white

Unrumpled sheet, and the ever-moving hair

Quiet and still at length! . . .

Your magic and your beauty and your strength,

Like hills at noon or sunlight on a tree,

Sleeping prevail in earth and air.

In the sweet gloom above the brown and white

Night benedictions hover; and the winds of night

Move gently round the room, and watch you there.

And through the dreadful hours

The trees and waters and the hills have kept

The sacred vigil while you slept,

And lay a way of dew and flowers

Where your feet, your morning feet, shall tread.

And still the darkness ebbs about your bed.

Quiet, and strange, and loving-kind, you sleep.

And holy joy about the earth is shed;

And holiness upon the deep.

Finding

From the candles and dumb shadows,

      And the house where love had died,

I stole to the vast moonlight

      And the whispering life outside.

But I found no lips of comfort,

      No home in the moon's light

(I, little and lone and frightened

      In the unfriendly night),

And no meaning in the voices. . . .

      Far over the lands and through

The dark, beyond the ocean,

      I willed to think of you!

For I knew, had you been with me

      I'd have known the words of night,

Found peace of heart, gone gladly

      In comfort of that light.

Oh! the wind with soft beguiling

      Would have stolen my thought away;

And the night, subtly smiling,

      Came by the silver way;

And the moon came down and danced to me,

      And her robe was white and flying;

And trees bent their heads to me

      Mysteriously crying;

And dead voices wept around me;

      And dead soft fingers thrilled;

And the little gods whispered. . . .

                                          But ever

      Desperately I willed;

Till all grew soft and far

      And silent . . .

                         And suddenly

I found you white and radiant,

      Sleeping quietly,

Far out through the tides of darkness.

      And I there in that great light

Was alone no more, nor fearful;

      For there, in the homely night,

Was no thought else that mattered,

      And nothing else was true,

But the white fire of moonlight,

      And a white dream of you.

Song

"Oh! Love," they said, "is King of Kings,

      And Triumph is his crown.

Earth fades in flame before his wings,

      And Sun and Moon bow down." -- -

But that, I knew, would never do;

      And Heaven is all too high.

So whenever I meet a Queen, I said,

      I will not catch her eye.

"Oh! Love," they said, and "Love," they said,

      "The gift of Love is this;

A crown of thorns about thy head,

      And vinegar to thy kiss!" -- -

But Tragedy is not for me;

      And I'm content to be gay.

So whenever I spied a Tragic Lady,

      I went another way.

And so I never feared to see

      You wander down the street,

Or come across the fields to me

      On ordinary feet.

For what they'd never told me of,

      And what I never knew;

It was that all the time, my love,

      Love would be merely you.

The Voice

Safe in the magic of my woods

      I lay, and watched the dying light.

Faint in the pale high solitudes,

      And washed with rain and veiled by night,

Silver and blue and green were showing.

      And the dark woods grew darker still;

And birds were hushed; and peace was growing;

      And quietness crept up the hill;

      And no wind was blowing

And I knew

That this was the hour of knowing,

And the night and the woods and you

Were one together, and I should find

Soon in the silence the hidden key

Of all that had hurt and puzzled me -- -

Why you were you, and the night was kind,

And the woods were part of the heart of me.

And there I waited breathlessly,

Alone; and slowly the holy three,

The three that I loved, together grew

One, in the hour of knowing,

Night, and the woods, and you -- ---

And suddenly

There was an uproar in my woods,

The noise of a fool in mock distress,

Crashing and laughing and blindly going,

Of ignorant feet and a swishing dress,

And a Voice profaning the solitudes.

The spell was broken, the key denied me

And at length your flat clear voice beside me

Mouthed cheerful clear flat platitudes.

You came and quacked beside me in the wood.

You said, "The view from here is very good!"

You said, "It's nice to be alone a bit!"

And, "How the days are drawing out!" you said.

You said, "The sunset's pretty, isn't it?"

                * * * * *

By God! I wish -- - I wish that you were dead!

Dining-Room Tea

When you were there, and you, and you,

Happiness crowned the night; I too,

Laughing and looking, one of all,

I watched the quivering lamplight fall

On plate and flowers and pouring tea

And cup and cloth; and they and we

Flung all the dancing moments by

With jest and glitter. Lip and eye

Flashed on the glory, shone and cried,

Improvident, unmemoried;

And fitfully and like a flame

The light of laughter went and came.

Proud in their careless transience moved

The changing faces that I loved.

Till suddenly, and otherwhence,

I looked upon your innocence.

For lifted clear and still and strange

From the dark woven flow of change

Under a vast and starless sky

I saw the immortal moment lie.

One instant I, an instant, knew

As God knows all. And it and you

I, above Time, oh, blind! could see

In witless immortality.

I saw the marble cup; the tea,

Hung on the air, an amber stream;

I saw the fire's unglittering gleam,

The painted flame, the frozen smoke.

No more the flooding lamplight broke

On flying eyes and lips and hair;

But lay, but slept unbroken there,

On stiller flesh, and body breathless,

And lips and laughter stayed and deathless,

And words on which no silence grew.

Light was more alive than you.

For suddenly, and otherwhence,

I looked on your magnificence.

I saw the stillness and the light,

And you, august, immortal, white,

Holy and strange; and every glint

Posture and jest and thought and tint

Freed from the mask of transiency,

Triumphant in eternity,

Immote, immortal.

                       Dazed at length

Human eyes grew, mortal strength

Wearied; and Time began to creep.

Change closed about me like a sleep.

Light glinted on the eyes I loved.

The cup was filled. The bodies moved.

The drifting petal came to ground.

The laughter chimed its perfect round.

The broken syllable was ended.

And I, so certain and so friended,

How could I cloud, or how distress,

The heaven of your unconsciousness?

Or shake at Time's sufficient spell,

Stammering of lights unutterable?

The eternal holiness of you,

The timeless end, you never knew,

The peace that lay, the light that shone.

You never knew that I had gone

A million miles away, and stayed

A million years. The laughter played

Unbroken round me; and the jest

Flashed on. And we that knew the best

Down wonderful hours grew happier yet.

I sang at heart, and talked, and eat,

And lived from laugh to laugh, I too,

When you were there, and you, and you.

The Goddess in the Wood

In a flowered dell the Lady Venus stood,

      Amazed with sorrow. Down the morning one

      Far golden horn in the gold of trees and sun

Rang out; and held; and died. . . . She thought the wood

Grew quieter. Wing, and leaf, and pool of light

      Forgot to dance. Dumb lay the unfalling stream;

      Life one eternal instant rose in dream

Clear out of time, poised on a golden height. . . .

Till a swift terror broke the abrupt hour.

The gold waves purled amidst the green above her;

      And a bird sang. With one sharp-taken breath,

By sunlit branches and unshaken flower,

The immortal limbs flashed to the human lover,

      And the immortal eyes to look on death.

A Channel Passage

The damned ship lurched and slithered. Quiet and quick

      My cold gorge rose; the long sea rolled; I knew

I must think hard of something, or be sick;

      And could think hard of only one thing -- - you!

You, you alone could hold my fancy ever!

      And with you memories come, sharp pain, and dole.

Now there's a choice -- - heartache or tortured liver!

      A sea-sick body, or a you-sick soul!

Do I forget you? Retchings twist and tie me,

      Old meat, good meals, brown gobbets, up I throw.

Do I remember? Acrid return and slimy,

      The sobs and slobber of a last years woe.

And still the sick ship rolls. 'Tis hard, I tell ye,

To choose 'twixt love and nausea, heart and belly.

Victory

All night the ways of Heaven were desolate,

      Long roads across a gleaming empty sky.

      Outcast and doomed and driven, you and I,

Alone, serene beyond all love or hate,

Terror or triumph, were content to wait,

      We, silent and all-knowing. Suddenly

      Swept through the heaven low-crouching from on high,

One horseman, downward to the earth's low gate.

Oh, perfect from the ultimate height of living,

      Lightly we turned, through wet woods blossom-hung,

Into the open. Down the supernal roads,

      With plumes a-tossing, purple flags far flung,

Rank upon rank, unbridled, unforgiving,

      Thundered the black battalions of the Gods.

Day and Night

Through my heart's palace Thoughts unnumbered throng;

      And there, most quiet and, as a child, most wise,

High-throned you sit, and gracious. All day long

      Great Hopes gold-armoured, jester Fantasies,

      And pilgrim Dreams, and little beggar Sighs,

Bow to your benediction, go their way.

      And the grave jewelled courtier Memories

Worship and love and tend you, all the day.

But when I sleep, and all my thoughts go straying,

      When the high session of the day is ended,

And darkness comes; then, with the waning light,

      By lilied maidens on your way attended,

Proud from the wonted throne, superbly swaying,

      You, like a queen, pass out into the night.

Experiments

Choriambics -- I

Ah! not now, when desire burns, and the wind calls, and the suns of spring

Light-foot dance in the woods, whisper of life, woo me to wayfaring;

Ah! not now should you come, now when the road beckons, and good friends call,

Where are songs to be sung, fights to be fought, yea! and the best of all,

Love, on myriad lips fairer than yours, kisses you could not give! . . .

Dearest, why should I mourn, whimper, and whine, I that have yet to live?

Sorrow will I forget, tears for the best, love on the lips of you,

Now, when dawn in the blood wakes, and the sun laughs up the eastern blue;

I'll forget and be glad!

                     Only at length, dear, when the great day ends,

When love dies with the last light, and the last song has been sung, and friends

All are perished, and gloom strides on the heaven: then, as alone I lie,

'Mid Death's gathering winds, frightened and dumb, sick for the past, may I

Feel you suddenly there, cool at my brow; then may I hear the peace

Of your voice at the last, whispering love, calling, ere all can cease

In the silence of death; then may I see dimly, and know, a space,

Bending over me, last light in the dark, once, as of old, your face.

Choriambics -- II

Here the flame that was ash, shrine that was void, lost in the haunted wood,

I have tended and loved, year upon year, I in the solitude

Waiting, quiet and glad-eyed in the dark, knowing that once a gleam

Glowed and went through the wood. Still I abode strong in a golden dream,

Unrecaptured.

                                          For I, I that had faith, knew that a face would glance

One day, white in the dim woods, and a voice call, and a radiance

Fill the grove, and the fire suddenly leap . . . and, in the heart of it,

End of labouring, you! Therefore I kept ready the altar, lit

The flame, burning apart.

                                 Face of my dreams vainly in vision white

Gleaming down to me, lo! hopeless I rise now. For about midnight

Whispers grew through the wood suddenly, strange cries in the boughs above

Grated, cries like a laugh. Silent and black then through the sacred grove

Great birds flew, as a dream, troubling the leaves, passing at length.

                                          I knew

Long expected and long loved, that afar, God of the dim wood, you

Somewhere lay, as a child sleeping, a child suddenly reft from mirth,

White and wonderful yet, white in your youth, stretched upon foreign earth,

God, immortal and dead!

                            Therefore I go; never to rest, or win

Peace, and worship of you more, and the dumb wood and the shrine therein.