The Song of the Pilgrims

                (Halted around the fire by night, after moon-set,

                they sing this beneath the trees.)

What light of unremembered skies

Hast thou relumed within our eyes,

Thou whom we seek, whom we shall find? . . .

A certain odour on the wind,

Thy hidden face beyond the west,

These things have called us; on a quest

Older than any road we trod,

More endless than desire. . . .

                            Far God,

Sigh with thy cruel voice, that fills

The soul with longing for dim hills

And faint horizons! For there come

Grey moments of the antient dumb

Sickness of travel, when no song

Can cheer us; but the way seems long;

And one remembers. . . .

                            Ah! the beat

Of weary unreturning feet,

And songs of pilgrims unreturning! . . .

The fires we left are always burning

On the old shrines of home. Our kin

Have built them temples, and therein

Pray to the Gods we know; and dwell

In little houses lovable,

Being happy (we remember how!)

And peaceful even to death. . . .

                                   O Thou,

God of all long desirous roaming,

Our hearts are sick of fruitless homing,

And crying after lost desire.

Hearten us onward! as with fire

Consuming dreams of other bliss.

The best Thou givest, giving this

Sufficient thing -- - to travel still

Over the plain, beyond the hill,

Unhesitating through the shade,

Amid the silence unafraid,

Till, at some sudden turn, one sees

Against the black and muttering trees

Thine altar, wonderfully white,

Among the Forests of the Night.

The Song of the Beasts

Come away! Come away!

Ye are sober and dull through the common day,

But now it is night!

It is shameful night, and God is asleep!

(Have you not felt the quick fires that creep

Through the hungry flesh, and the lust of delight,

And hot secrets of dreams that day cannot say?).

           The house is dumb;

The night calls out to you. Come, ah, come!

Down the dim stairs, through the creaking door,

Naked, crawling on hands and feet

-- It is meet! it is meet!

Ye are men no longer, but less and more,

Beast and God. . . . Down the lampless street,

By little black ways, and secret places,

In the darkness and mire,

Faint laughter around, and evil faces

By the star-glint seen -- - ah! follow with us!

For the darkness whispers a blind desire,

And the fingers of night are amorous.

Keep close as we speed,

Though mad whispers woo you, and hot hands cling,

And the touch and the smell of bare flesh sting,

Soft flank by your flank, and side brushing side -- -

To-night never heed!

Unswerving and silent follow with me,

Till the city ends sheer,

And the crook'd lanes open wide,

Out of the voices of night,

Beyond lust and fear,

To the level waters of moonlight,

To the level waters, quiet and clear,

To the black unresting plains of the calling sea.

Failure

Because God put His adamantine fate

      Between my sullen heart and its desire,

I swore that I would burst the Iron Gate,

      Rise up, and curse Him on His throne of fire.

Earth shuddered at my crown of blasphemy,

      But Love was as a flame about my feet;

      Proud up the Golden Stair I strode; and beat

Thrice on the Gate, and entered with a cry -- -

All the great courts were quiet in the sun,

      And full of vacant echoes: moss had grown

Over the glassy pavement, and begun

      To creep within the dusty council-halls.

An idle wind blew round an empty throne

      And stirred the heavy curtains on the walls.

Ante Aram

Before thy shrine I kneel, an unknown worshipper,

      Chanting strange hymns to thee and sorrowful litanies,

Incense of dirges, prayers that are as holy myrrh.

Ah, goddess, on thy throne of tears and faint low sighs,

      Weary at last to theeward come the feet that err,

And empty hearts grown tired of the world's vanities.

How fair this cool deep silence to a wanderer

      Deaf with the roar of winds along the open skies!

Sweet, after sting and bitter kiss of sea-water,

The pale Lethean wine within thy chalices!

      I come before thee, I, too tired wanderer,

To heed the horror of the shrine, the distant cries,

And evil whispers in the gloom, or the swift whirr

      Of terrible wings -- - I, least of all thy votaries,

With a faint hope to see the scented darkness stir,

And, parting, frame within its quiet mysteries

      One face, with lips than autumn-lilies tenderer,

And voice more sweet than the far plaint of viols is,

      Or the soft moan of any grey-eyed lute-player.

Dawn

Opposite me two Germans snore and sweat.

      Through sullen swirling gloom we jolt and roar.

We have been here for ever: even yet

      A dim watch tells two hours, two æons, more.

The windows are tight-shut and slimy-wet

      With a night's foetor. There are two hours more;

Two hours to dawn and Milan; two hours yet.

Opposite me two Germans sweat and snore. . . .

One of them wakes, and spits, and sleeps again.

      The darkness shivers. A wan light through the rain

Strikes on our faces, drawn and white. Somewhere

      A new day sprawls; and, inside, the foul air

Is chill, and damp, and fouler than before. . . .

Opposite me two Germans sweat and snore.

The Call

Out of the nothingness of sleep,

      The slow dreams of Eternity,

There was a thunder on the deep:

      I came, because you called to me.

I broke the Night's primeval bars,

      I dared the old abysmal curse,

And flashed through ranks of frightened stars

      Suddenly on the universe!

The eternal silences were broken;

      Hell became Heaven as I passed. -- -

What shall I give you as a token,

      A sign that we have met, at last?

I'll break and forge the stars anew,

      Shatter the heavens with a song;

Immortal in my love for you,

      Because I love you, very strong.

Your mouth shall mock the old and wise,

      Your laugh shall fill the world with flame,

I'll write upon the shrinking skies

      The scarlet splendour of your name,

Till Heaven cracks, and Hell thereunder

      Dies in her ultimate mad fire,

And darkness falls, with scornful thunder,

      On dreams of men and men's desire.

Then only in the empty spaces,

      Death, walking very silently,

Shall fear the glory of our faces

      Through all the dark infinity.

So, clothed about with perfect love,

      The eternal end shall find us one,

Alone above the Night, above

      The dust of the dead gods, alone.

The Wayfarers

Is it the hour? We leave this resting-place

      Made fair by one another for a while.

Now, for a god-speed, one last mad embrace;

      The long road then, unlit by your faint smile.

Ah! the long road! and you so far away!

Oh, I'll remember! but . . . each crawling day

Will pale a little your scarlet lips, each mile

      Dull the dear pain of your remembered face.

. . . Do you think there's a far border town, somewhere,

      The desert's edge, last of the lands we know,

           Some gaunt eventual limit of our light,

      In which I'll find you waiting; and we'll go

Together, hand in hand again, out there,

           Into the waste we know not, into the night?

The Beginning

Some day I shall rise and leave my friends

And seek you again through the world's far ends,

You whom I found so fair

(Touch of your hands and smell of your hair!),

My only god in the days that were.

My eager feet shall find you again,

Though the sullen years and the mark of pain

Have changed you wholly; for I shall know

(How could I forget having loved you so?),

In the sad half-light of evening,

The face that was all my sunrising.

So then at the ends of the earth I'll stand

And hold you fiercely by either hand,

And seeing your age and ashen hair

I'll curse the thing that once you were,

Because it is changed and pale and old

(Lips that were scarlet, hair that was gold!),

And I loved you before you were old and wise,

When the flame of youth was strong in your eyes,

-- And my heart is sick with memories.

1908-1911

Sonnet: "Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire"

Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire

      Of watching you; and swing me suddenly

Into the shade and loneliness and mire

      Of the last land! There, waiting patiently,

One day, I think, I'll feel a cool wind blowing,

      See a slow light across the Stygian tide,

And hear the Dead about me stir, unknowing,

      And tremble. And I shall know that you have died,

And watch you, a broad-browed and smiling dream,

      Pass, light as ever, through the lightless host,

Quietly ponder, start, and sway, and gleam -- -

      Most individual and bewildering ghost! -- -

And turn, and toss your brown delightful head

Amusedly, among the ancient Dead.

Sonnet: "I said I splendidly loved you; it's not true"

I said I splendidly loved you; it's not true.

      Such long swift tides stir not a land-locked sea.

On gods or fools the high risk falls -- - on you -- -

      The clean clear bitter-sweet that's not for me.

Love soars from earth to ecstasies unwist.

      Love is flung Lucifer-like from Heaven to Hell.

But -- - there are wanderers in the middle mist,

      Who cry for shadows, clutch, and cannot tell

Whether they love at all, or, loving, whom:

      An old song's lady, a fool in fancy dress,

Or phantoms, or their own face on the gloom;

      For love of Love, or from heart's loneliness.

Pleasure's not theirs, nor pain. They doubt, and sigh,

      And do not love at all. Of these am I.

Success

I think if you had loved me when I wanted;

      If I'd looked up one day, and seen your eyes,

And found my wild sick blasphemous prayer granted,

      And your brown face, that's full of pity and wise,

Flushed suddenly; the white godhead in new fear

      Intolerably so struggling, and so shamed;

Most holy and far, if you'd come all too near,

      If earth had seen Earth's lordliest wild limbs tamed,

Shaken, and trapped, and shivering, for my touch -- -

      Myself should I have slain? or that foul you?

But this the strange gods, who had given so much,

      To have seen and known you, this they might not do.

One last shame's spared me, one black word's unspoken;

      And I'm alone; and you have not awoken.

Dust

When the white flame in us is gone,

      And we that lost the world's delight

Stiffen in darkness, left alone

      To crumble in our separate night;

When your swift hair is quiet in death,

      And through the lips corruption thrust

Has stilled the labour of my breath -- -

      When we are dust, when we are dust! -- -

Not dead, not undesirous yet,

      Still sentient, still unsatisfied,

We'll ride the air, and shine, and flit,

      Around the places where we died,

And dance as dust before the sun,

      And light of foot, and unconfined,

Hurry from road to road, and run

      About the errands of the wind.

And every mote, on earth or air,

      Will speed and gleam, down later days,

And like a secret pilgrim fare

      By eager and invisible ways,

Nor ever rest, nor ever lie,

      Till, beyond thinking, out of view,

One mote of all the dust that's I

      Shall meet one atom that was you.

Then in some garden hushed from wind,

      Warm in a sunset's afterglow,

The lovers in the flowers will find

      A sweet and strange unquiet grow

Upon the peace; and, past desiring,

      So high a beauty in the air,

And such a light, and such a quiring,

      And such a radiant ecstasy there,

They'll know not if it's fire, or dew,

      Or out of earth, or in the height,

Singing, or flame, or scent, or hue,

      Or two that pass, in light, to light,

Out of the garden, higher, higher. . . .

      But in that instant they shall learn

The shattering ecstasy of our fire,

      And the weak passionless hearts will burn

And faint in that amazing glow,

      Until the darkness close above;

And they will know -- - poor fools, they'll know! -- -

      One moment, what it is to love.

Kindliness

When love has changed to kindliness -- -

Oh, love, our hungry lips, that press

So tight that Time's an old god's dream

Nodding in heaven, and whisper stuff

Seven million years were not enough

To think on after, make it seem

Less than the breath of children playing,

A blasphemy scarce worth the saying,

A sorry jest, "When love has grown

To kindliness -- - to kindliness!" . . .

And yet -- - the best that either's known

Will change, and wither, and be less,

At last, than comfort, or its own

Remembrance. And when some caress

Tendered in habit (once a flame

All heaven sang out to) wakes the shame

Unworded, in the steady eyes

We'll have, -- - that day, what shall we do?

Being so noble, kill the two

Who've reached their second-best? Being wise,

Break cleanly off, and get away.

Follow down other windier skies

New lures, alone? Or shall we stay,

Since this is all we've known, content

In the lean twilight of such day,

And not remember, not lament?

That time when all is over, and

Hand never flinches, brushing hand;

And blood lies quiet, for all you're near;

And it's but spoken words we hear,

Where trumpets sang; when the mere skies

Are stranger and nobler than your eyes;

And flesh is flesh, was flame before;

And infinite hungers leap no more

In the chance swaying of your dress;

And love has changed to kindliness.

Mummia

As those of old drank mummia

      To fire their limbs of lead,

Making dead kings from Africa

      Stand pandar to their bed;

Drunk on the dead, and medicined

      With spiced imperial dust,

In a short night they reeled to find

      Ten centuries of lust.

So I, from paint, stone, tale, and rhyme,

      Stuffed love's infinity,

And sucked all lovers of all time

      To rarify ecstasy.

Helen's the hair shuts out from me

      Verona's livid skies;

Gypsy the lips I press; and see

      Two Antonys in your eyes.

The unheard invisible lovely dead

      Lie with us in this place,

And ghostly hands above my head

      Close face to straining face;

Their blood is wine along our limbs;

      Their whispering voices wreathe

Savage forgotten drowsy hymns

      Under the names we breathe;

Woven from their tomb, and one with it,

      The night wherein we press;

Their thousand pitchy pyres have lit

      Your flaming nakedness.

For the uttermost years have cried and clung

      To kiss your mouth to mine;

And hair long dust was caught, was flung,

      Hand shaken to hand divine,

And Life has fired, and Death not shaded,

      All Time's uncounted bliss,

And the height o' the world has flamed and faded,

      Love, that our love be this!

The Fish

In a cool curving world he lies

And ripples with dark ecstasies.

The kind luxurious lapse and steal

Shapes all his universe to feel

And know and be; the clinging stream

Closes his memory, glooms his dream,

Who lips the roots o' the shore, and glides

Superb on unreturning tides.

Those silent waters weave for him

A fluctuant mutable world and dim,

Where wavering masses bulge and gape

Mysterious, and shape to shape

Dies momently through whorl and hollow,

And form and line and solid follow

Solid and line and form to dream

Fantastic down the eternal stream;

An obscure world, a shifting world,

Bulbous, or pulled to thin, or curled,

Or serpentine, or driving arrows,

Or serene slidings, or March narrows.

There slipping wave and shore are one,

And weed and mud. No ray of sun,

But glow to glow fades down the deep

(As dream to unknown dream in sleep);

Shaken translucency illumes

The hyaline of drifting glooms;

The strange soft-handed depth subdues

Drowned colour there, but black to hues,

As death to living, decomposes -- -

Red darkness of the heart of roses,

Blue brilliant from dead starless skies,

And gold that lies behind the eyes,

The unknown unnameable sightless white

That is the essential flame of night,

Lustreless purple, hooded green,

The myriad hues that lie between

Darkness and darkness! . . .

                            And all's one.

Gentle, embracing, quiet, dun,

The world he rests in, world he knows,

Perpetual curving. Only -- - grows

An eddy in that ordered falling,

A knowledge from the gloom, a calling

Weed in the wave, gleam in the mud -- -

The dark fire leaps along his blood;

Dateless and deathless, blind and still,

The intricate impulse works its will;

His woven world drops back; and he,

Sans providence, sans memory,

Unconscious and directly driven,

Fades to some dank sufficient heaven.

O world of lips, O world of laughter,

Where hope is fleet and thought flies after,

Of lights in the clear night, of cries

That drift along the wave and rise

Thin to the glittering stars above,

You know the hands, the eyes of love!

The strife of limbs, the sightless clinging,

The infinite distance, and the singing

Blown by the wind, a flame of sound,

The gleam, the flowers, and vast around

The horizon, and the heights above -- -

You know the sigh, the song of love!

But there the night is close, and there

Darkness is cold and strange and bare;

And the secret deeps are whisperless;

And rhythm is all deliciousness;

And joy is in the throbbing tide,

Whose intricate fingers beat and glide

In felt bewildering harmonies

Of trembling touch; and music is

The exquisite knocking of the blood.

Space is no more, under the mud;

His bliss is older than the sun.

Silent and straight the waters run.

The lights, the cries, the willows dim,

And the dark tide are one with him.

Thoughts on the Shape of the Human Body

How can we find? how can we rest? how can

We, being gods, win joy, or peace, being man?

We, the gaunt zanies of a witless Fate,

Who love the unloving and lover hate,

Forget the moment ere the moment slips,

Kiss with blind lips that seek beyond the lips,

Who want, and know not what we want, and cry

With crooked mouths for Heaven, and throw it by.

Love's for completeness! No perfection grows

'Twixt leg, and arm, elbow, and ear, and nose,

And joint, and socket; but unsatisfied

Sprawling desires, shapeless, perverse, denied.

Finger with finger wreathes; we love, and gape,

Fantastic shape to mazed fantastic shape,

Straggling, irregular, perplexed, embossed,

Grotesquely twined, extravagantly lost

By crescive paths and strange protuberant ways

From sanity and from wholeness and from grace.

How can love triumph, how can solace be,

Where fever turns toward fever, knee toward knee?

Could we but fill to harmony, and dwell

Simple as our thought and as perfectible,

Rise disentangled from humanity

Strange whole and new into simplicity,

Grow to a radiant round love, and bear

Unfluctuant passion for some perfect sphere,

Love moon to moon unquestioning, and be

Like the star Lunisequa, steadfastly

Following the round clear orb of her delight,

Patiently ever, through the eternal night!